It seems to me that a lot of people are sort of clueless about what Arma is

[Thirdup 0]

Funny thread. "Elitists" ?

A chimp could open the editor, add a few units, and hit "preview".

"But we don't know how to code".....

WFT? If you typed a post here, you just demonstrated enough coding prowess to create a mission in ArmA.......

If all else fails, d/l a mission or simply join a MP game (the mission is stored on your system).

"OMG moving a file is *hard*"

(yeah, maybe on a Xbox it is)

The OP is dead on: ArmA presents limitless possibilities and way too many people who have tried the game, simply don't get it. Nothing "elitist" about it or the community.

/shakes head

Edited August 23, 2009 by Thirdup

[tsb247 0]

People are so used to having to ask a dev team to add something to a game. I always get a kick out of reading the "suggestions" forum. Almost every post/poll in there is something that can be done via a mod; currently being created as a mod; or already in the editor.

Very true, but there are people out there who simply prefer official content. I know I've had a mod or two that messed up my game files a bit, so I've been turned off to some of the mods out there.

I've got a TON of mods for OFP, but as far as the Arma games are concerned, I have had at least one mod that rendered my single player game unplayable. Some are ok with that, and for a while it did not bother me (MP kicks ass!), but I still enjoy content that is meant to fit with the original product.

Yeah... I must sound like a heathen. I love some of the mods out there... I've just always preferred official content.

EDIT: That's not to say I don't LOVE the editor and that I never use mods. ;)

Edited August 23, 2009 by tsb247
More to say...

[jw custom 56]

Very true, but there are people out there who simply prefer official content. I know I've had a mod or two that messed up my game files a bit, so I've been turned off to some of the mods out there.

I've got a TON of mods for OFP, but as far as the Arma games are concerned, I have had at least one mod that rendered my single player game unplayable. Some are ok with that, and for a while it did not bother me (MP kicks ass!), but I still enjoy content that is meant to fit with the original product.

Yeah... I must sound like a heathen. I love some of the mods out there... I've just always preferred official content.

EDIT: That's not to say I don't LOVE the editor and that I never use mods. ;)

NOBODY is saying that there shouldn't be a campaign or it's okay it doesn't work properly for all, but simply saying that many people are blind to what ArmA is, which is so much more than just the campaign.

[max power 21]

I do not enjoy making missions and therefore I have not even opened the mission editor. Does this mean I am a bad person?

[jw custom 56]

I do not enjoy making missions and therefore I have not even opened the mission editor. Does this mean I am a bad person?

Yes haven't you read the thread, it clearly states that none think the campaign should exist and those who don't use the editor may not download other peoples missions and should leave the forums :eek:

[My Fing ID 0]

I feel bad for anyone who bought this game for the campaign. I couldn't get through the second mission with the sniper and quit the campaign because of it, well that and the guy spelling out MOUT rather than just saying it. I just didn't want to piss myself off later. Anyways back to the sniper when I get a radio call saying 'hey kill this sniper' I expect little details like, oh, maybe the snipers location! I mean my god atleast give me a grid square! Then I get there. The guy who called me is in the middle of the road hiding behind an Abrams. Now I'm not 100%, but don't those TUSKs have phones in back for infantry? Even if not I'm sure he could use the radio and contact SOMEONE who can contact that tank. Why send 4 guys on the ground at a sniper when you have a big bad armored vehicle!

/rant

Anyways the editor is the entire reason to buy the game. It's not even that hard to set something up. I set up a little town (ovillia or something) with local forces and a Marine QRF. Basically there are 2 roads that go in town, both guarded by MG positions with checkpoints and militia with patrols that wander the outskirts of the city. I then use that set up and hit them with Russians, insurgents, or whatever I feel like. That scenario alone has kept me going for near a month. When I'm bored I'll deck out a new town or new location and use that instead. That's where this game shines, you can quickly toss together a scenario and play it out for either side. From there you can switch, add, remove, or whatever. Then there are all the user mods. I'm still hoping for some DPRK units and can't wait for the new Army units (come on BFVs!). Yeah though, if someone bought this thinking they just got the next CoD then sorry but you just bought a sandbox. Nothing against CoD, this game's just different.

[wamingo 1]

I do not enjoy making missions and therefore I have not even opened the mission editor. Does this mean I am a bad person?

I'm afraid so yes. ;)

I think everything that can be said has been said already.

Suffice it to say, the editor is not for everyone obviously - let alone modding.

But the game does rely on community content, at least in the long run, so if you don't do it yourself, you'll have to grab someone elses stuff. Good thing is there's lot of good stuff out there.

[icewindo 29]

It was similar for me... I used to play around with the editor, download every mission,campaign and mod I could find for OFP (30.3 GB now, though it was higher in the "best times").

In ArmA this continued, and I also spent alot of time in (vanilla) MP. 2008 I tried modding some stuff, released my first addon but dumped modding soon after I lost my work through partioning a wrong HD :rolleyes: .

2009 I picked it up again, did some more complex projects and gained confidence. It's very fun to create things I didn't think I would be able to do. Also, to have a idea of what to put into game and see it ingame after the work, that's satisfaction :bounce3: .

[Jex =TE= 0]

The reality here is , that unless you're trying to build a campaign , it takes but a couple minutes to slap together a scenario that can keep you playing for hours.

Sorry but this is just plain nonsense. People who have never used the editor are not going to be able to put together a mission in a couple of minutes - a couple of hours more like since they need to learn how to use it first (which I'm sure most will not). Then comes the scripts - unless you're a coder good luck with that. They even took away the breifing.html and turned that into a script. GUI's were made years ago to make things quicker but the ME doesn't employ much of that. There could be a huge amount of improvement made to the ME to make it much more accessible so the OP's point is plain ninsense as well (as it wasn't marketed as a "mission editor with a few sample missions").

If it's a mission editor first, why does it suck so much? why haven't they improved it over everything else if all we are buying is a "mission editor"? Surely by now we'd have a lot more functionality to make it more accessible?

I'm sorry but to assume people can just jump in and start churning out missions is pure fantasy. Also how much fun you get out of playing your own missions has got nothing to do with everyone else. Personally I want to play missions made by other people because I don't want to know the specifics of the mission - I like to be surprised.

[Dallas 9]

Open editor, place a unit and press preview.

That's where I started.

[Alex72 1]

Sorry but this is just plain nonsense. People who have never used the editor are not going to be able to put together a mission in a couple of minutes - a couple of hours more like since they need to learn how to use it first (which I'm sure most will not).

Not true. You can in ARMA2 make a "mission" in 2 minutes that give you unlimited random missions coming in over the radio - that you can choose to do or not. Add the ACM module as well and there is random patrols all over.

This is explained and needs nothing more than placing an object and copy pasting a file (init.sqf for ACM). The SOM needs nothing more than placing it in the editor and synch it to the player - done.

Even 20 seconds is enough to keep you going for hours of fun.

[galzohar 31]

Sure it's easy to make a mission that's just throwing a few minutes in the editor, but that gets boring fast, and most people would probably even find that difficult. Making something that *really* will keep you busy is very difficult, both on the design level and on the actual editing/scripting part. Randomization is great, but is also very limited - randomize too much and you'll see enemies patrolling into killing fields or far from any relevant objective, see bunkers clipping with mountains or vehicles getting stuck. Randomize too little and you will have the same mission over and over, and the AI is just way too easy when you know his possible spawn positions and/or possible patrol route(s).

This was marketed as a game, and not as an editing/modding platform, and thus should at least include some playable content. The level of the content provided with the game is a joke, as is shown by the server list - NONE play an official mission. For most games (even those that allow great editing) the official missions are the main thing and the user-made content gets more and more popular as the official content gets boring. In Arma 2 the user-content is required to enjoy the game. This fact is losing the game a lot of players.

The grand majority of players don't even know these forums, armaholic or whatever even exist. They will not touch the editor except *maybe* making a "AI shooting range" mission (which is basically the only thing that is easy to make without reading community websites). Those people are the main income for BIS and the main people that populate the servers, and a lot of them actually aren't stupid, but simply want to play the game that they bought and not have to work in order to play (they have a job to fill that role).

I don't mind making cool content to play, but when the rest of the people get frustrated and quit, or worse, don't even buy the game in the firstplace, then I don't have anyone to play the stuff I make with, and other people also lose motivation for publishing content. And sometimes I just want to play something that I know had been tested to work perfectly fine - but there aren't a lot of missions at such a level.

Let's face it - games aren't meant to be played only by those that would actually work for being able to play.

[Dallas 9]

This was marketed as a game, and not as an editing/modding platform, and thus should at least include some playable content. The level of the content provided with the game is a joke, as is shown by the server list - NONE play an official mission.

You're wrong - The product, you bought, relies on user content. So unfortunately the joke's on you.

[frederf 0]

There's only two things you really need to have a good experience playing ArmA2:

1. A good mission

2. Good players

Both are extremely hard to come by. The official content Warfare, Domination, Evolution, etc are all very bad missions. They might be impressive from a technical standpoint but they completely miss the "sweet spot" of mission design. "1000s of troops in huge battles!" has to be absolutely the most damaging marketing slogan in ArmA's history. The game doesn't do 1000 soldiers to any satisfying degree. Firstly the friendly AI is not up to the task of playing any significant role in a battle which means that friendly forces are at most 60 players on a heavily populated server. This limits your enemy force to something near that.

[jakerod 254]

There's only two things you really need to have a good experience playing ArmA2:

1. A good mission

2. Good players

Both are extremely hard to come by. The official content Warfare, Domination, Evolution, etc are all very bad missions. They might be impressive from a technical standpoint but they completely miss the "sweet spot" of mission design. "1000s of troops in huge battles!" has to be absolutely the most damaging marketing slogan in ArmA's history. The game doesn't do 1000 soldiers to any satisfying degree. Firstly the friendly AI is not up to the task of playing any significant role in a battle which means that friendly forces are at most 60 players on a heavily populated server. This limits your enemy force to something near that.

I don't think Domination and Evolution are official content... I could be wrong though I haven't played MP really but I was always under the impression they were user made.

Nor do I ever recall reading the marketing slogan: "1000's of troops in huge battles!"

[LJF 0]

I think everyone makes valid points here, obviously the main part of ArmA2 is the editor (in terms of re-playability etc, or playing time for that matter 99.99% of my time is spent there). The only problem is that for the majority of people scripting is too difficult - I've only really made progress because I'm studying scripting at the moment. Of course you don't need to use scripting for simple missions but as soon as you take that next step from waypoints to scripts it goes from being doable by anyone to requiring quite a lot of knowledge. I still have no idea how to make a briefing or intro/outro sequences for example. Even with help from the community all of my missions have been private - I have not uploaded a single one.

That said, even without scripting you can have immense fun playing around in the editor, much more so than the campaign I would say, of which I've played 1 mission. Not only that but the editor is the best aspect of ArmA2. Like the OP said, if you're not using the editor you've missed something.

To me, the things that make ArmA2 so great are the following:

* Editor

* Armaholic.com

[kklownboy 43]

You didn't just buy a "game", you bought into a community. If that doesn't work for you then ask mom for 60$ more and buy another game. (Is this flame bait?) I can see i will never get bored with this game.

If it wasn't for ARMA2 i would be playing ARMA1, if it wasn't for UBI i would be playing GhostRecon3 (not some bs graw)

Edited August 24, 2009 by kklownboy

[nicolasete 10]

Then they bought the wrong game. It's like buying a word processor instead of a novel, then asking someone to write you a book.

Despite i dont fully agree with you, thats a really nice comparison ^^

[Rancmeat 10]

Wow, I started a thread and left town for a few days, and it turned into a real discussion. When I logged on to see 5 pages, I expected a flame-fest, but instead I see a good discussion.

I don't think any bad points have been made at all, but I do need to clarify.

I don't think anyone should feel they need to learn the editor to play. I hope this game never becomes the realm of the elitists only other than to keep it "real".

The point I was trying to make is that most of the things people are asking for, are by the nature of the game, user generated content. That doesn't mean they need to generate it, but they will need to know where to get it and how to utilize it.

I don't blame people for not understanding that either. I never read the box. I got it word-of-mouth off Steam, so I was getting exactly what I wanted. Someone reading the box might get the wrong idea. But it is what it is.

[frederf 0]

I made a goof in my post. Going back and adding words in carelessly made me say that Domination and Evolution are official content when of course they are user-made.

[ARM505 0]

It's all very well saying 'mods add anything required', but a) somebody has to make them, and properly too (ie we still can't really fire from vehicles without befuddling the AI commander), and b) this can make MP a bit of a nightmare, unless you can somehow end up with a comprehensive, all inclusive mod (a la ACE) that most people can accept (you'll NEVER get everyone to accept something completely)

[celery 8]

This was marketed as a game, and not as an editing/modding platform, and thus should at least include some playable content. The level of the content provided with the game is a joke, as is shown by the server list - NONE play an official mission.

You're wrong - The product, you bought, relies on user content. So unfortunately the joke's on you.

What kind of answer is that, how is he wrong? Where does it say that the game relies on user-made content?

[galzohar 31]

What kind of answer is that, how is he wrong? Where does it say that the game relies on user-made content?

Nowhere (other than by users complaining/flaming in these forums), which was exactly my point.

If user content was much easier to make so that people would release a lot more missions, this wouldn't be as much of a problem, but even then you'd have servers running the wrong missions and users having to pick the good ones themselves.

[Hermes 10]

And thats the beauty of it! This game can be anything you want it to be (to an extent and how much effort your willing to put into it)

LOL... this Game CAN'T cook.. now you!

And where the Hell was the Print "You pay 4 a Editor, not to play out of the Box a Game!"? :rolleyes:

[jw custom 56]

And where the Hell was the Print "You pay 4 a Editor, not to play out of the Box a Game!"? :rolleyes:

Funny so many people been playing online from day one when the game is "unplayable". And it's not a crime to go find out what it is your buying, if people would just spend a little time reading on the forums they might have noticed what this game is about! This applies not only to ArmA2!

OMFG i just bought sims 3, i thought it was a simulator simulator... omfg i feel ripped off :eek: