FP : DR - News & Discussion

[bangtail 0]

Have you noticed that any reviewer who posts anything negative about OPFDR is slated as unprofessional and a COD fanboy... I mean, they have practically denounced every single online and print preview of the game as absolute garbage. Its just... Amazing ignorance.

The DR team are very unprofessional judging by the way they behave towards anyone who isn't 100% awestruck by their game.

They'd better get ready for some rough road ahead because when people find out that DR has absolutely nothing in common with OFP (with the exception of the name), the doo doo is going to hit the Fan.

Eth

[sanctuary 19]

- Physics of the vehicles are "inappropriate" or "unsuitable" (an example: A vehicle drives over a stone, flys meters high, turns over, explodes, everyone's dead [eehm... Where do I know that from?? ])

Considering that the OFP DR game engine is originally a racing engine, i find that vehicle physics screwup absolutely awesome.

[whisper 0]

Review from a french site : http://www.nofrag.com/2009/sep/17/32374/ (they have a habit of being rather tough in their review).

To summarize a bit :

Only SP campaign tested for 1 hour.

- To be able to have large view distance, CM made compromises, textures, objects, shadows, models are not very detailed, but you can push the option to the max and still have a fluid game (Note by me : big plus there!)

- The main graphical issue is strangely smtg found in ArmA : they introduced adaptative eye aperture depending on lighting conditions, and it ends up with constantly changing and irrealistic colors

- but worst of all is gameplay-wise : ennemy see and shoot through vegetation (Note by me : is the praised "hardcore difficulty and realism" just coming from this?). A complaint we know very well in A2, isn't it? :) It makes you start the same mission over and over before completing it just because you know ennemy positions by heart (position which, btw, never change). Lack of lean and over-sensible strafing doesn't help the case.

- The other issues pale out compared to AI seeing through vegetation : badly placed checkpoints, very low body awareness (well, they talk about "completely missing body awareness"), 200 to 300 ms mouselag, many missing animations (I'm beginning to wonder if the guy wasn't playing ArmA2 v1.00.... ;) )

Edited September 18, 2009 by whisper

[ProfTournesol 956]

I know some guys in Prague who must take some beers ATM :cheers:

[Scrub 0]

Just a housekeeping note:

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So bullets in OFPDR are affected by wind? That would be pretty awesome.

http://community.codemasters.com/forum/showpost.php?p=5390530&postcount=33

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Prevent the spread.

[hoot 0]

[...] the doo doo is going to hit the Fan.Eth

Point! There is a difference between telling the world in bashing-style, like many german game mags did, what Arma2 is missing of or what it makes bad engine-wise, and to prove one could code a game at this scale much better. I guess the german game mags will follow a steep learning curve over the next few weeks that hopefully lead them to also include gamedev mechanics in their future ratings. They need to differ casual-console-ports from games developed for the most flexible and therefore most hard to code platform: the PC (often pronounced as dead)

OFP2 just failed by [console]design, sadly.

[bangtail 0]

Point! There is a difference between telling the world in bashing-style, like many german game mags did, what Arma2 is missing of or what it makes bad engine-wise, and to prove one could code a game at this scale much better. I guess the german game mags will follow a steep learning curve over the next few weeks that hopefully lead them to also include gamedev mechanics in their future ratings. They need to differ casual-console-ports from games developed for the most flexible and therefore most hard to code platform: the PC (often pronounced as dead)

OFP2 just failed by [console]design, sadly.

Exactly - Too many people just blindly believe that because it has the OFP name it will have the OFP "game". Codemasters have milked that cow so hard that she's in the barn resting and the vet says she won't be up for months.

DR has nothing to do with OFP.

Eth

[kavoven 4]

Isn't it interesting that OFP2 and ArmA2 both have problems with AI driving along a road? Seems like thats a pretty hard job for the coders...:confused:

(I really would appreciate an explanation by BIS :) )

[Skyline On Fire 10]

I just wish Bohemia had their kid of marketing budget, and still had the OPF name, it will sell quite a few copies based on the name alone. People need to realize the game they are looking for in OPFDR has already been made, ARMA2.

[4 IN 1 0]

Have you noticed that any reviewer who posts anything negative about OPFDR is slated as unprofessional and a COD fanboy... I mean, they have practically denounced every single online and print preview of the game as absolute garbage. Its just... Amazing ignorance.

well to be fair ARMA2 suffered the same problem at first as no one trust the reviewer about the size of the bug list in german release, but as times goes by we have to accept there really have something wrong in the engine(shame, really) and get on with help fixing them, for that we own the reviewer an apology; but then when you look at what OFP:DR with CM big money behind it turns up to be, I am still be amazed that BI managed to put it up into shape

[hoot 0]

The 'funny' thing is, that CM does not have build an AI that handles the size, and stuff Arma2's AI does and offers in scale, but dashes against the same problems in AI handling on a lesser scale. So now, dear GameStar.de, PCGames.de & PCAction, lets judge AI of <insert gamename here> vs BI's AI again, shall we?

[4 IN 1 0]

dont start on it, as we all know BI's AI is still unfinish and needed a lot of improvements

on the other hand, with all those video from CM, i still cant quite get a feeling that there is a lots of action going on, which in most ARMA2 video i have and know that there is a lot of action around you in game

[jblackrupert 14]

- Combat situations are excellent and tenseful - one can be "pinned down" (supressing fire)

Has anyone seen a video of the player actually needing to take cover at all?

All I've ever seen is running and gunning in the wide open with enemy AI bullets

flying everywhere but in the direction of their target.

[hoot 0]

dont start on it, as we all know BI's AI is still unfinish and needed a lot of improvements

I never said anything else. Of course improvement is needed, but the topic AI is still in research worldwide so saying 'it needs improvements' is like 'thanks for pointing out the obivous'. I was just referring to the german game mags, telling how stupid BI's AI is. And in comparison to other games, the AI is relatively intelligent, as far as this can get applied to finite-state-machines. ;)

[Fudgeblood 10]

Has anyone seen a video of the player actually needing to take cover at all?

All I've ever seen is running and gunning in the wide open with enemy AI bullets

flying everywhere but in the direction of their target.

There was a video of the player using some rubble as cover, but I think he was just shooting targets :rolleyes:.

OFP: DR looks good (Possibly a day one purchase), but it does seem to be dumbed down heavily. :(

[EricM 0]

The game had ambition, but it has been going seriously backward lately for whatever reason (technical, financial...) : no editor on consoles, limited MP, bland outdoors, invisible barriers, no in/out animations, limited set of vehicles, no planes, indestructible trees - so I read...

I believe CM made some questionable design decisions at the beginning (racing game technology being probably one of them) and hurt a wall later down the road. With the game delayed over and over and going over budget, they probably decided to cut all the extra stuff and dumb it down to get it out as soon as possible to recoup whatever can still be saved.

Time will tell if I'm wrong or not...

That's a sad thing, we should not rejoy. There are few good tactical shooters, even fewer in large open outdoors... if Dragon Rising is a failure, there won't be many more in the future.

Let's hope BIS do well, because I don't see any other studios trying out such an endeavour in the near future...

Edited September 18, 2009 by EricM

[dunedain 48]

Typical, maybe they'll release a standalone expansion with everything was supposed to be in the initial game .. :D

[echo1 0]

Isn't it interesting that OFP2 and ArmA2 both have problems with AI driving along a road? Seems like thats a pretty hard job for the coders...:confused:

(I really would appreciate an explanation by BIS :) )

The AI has to be given some sort of predefined driving path for it to know where to go, otherwise it will just try to take the shortest journey which would inevitably involve driving into a house/forest/off a cliff. To the best of my knowledge, this is defined on the map. (This is why island replacement mods for OFP caused so many problems with old missions)

Problems then arise when their predefined paths become blocked themselves. It's impossible to program the best fix for every conceivable screw up, so you write some kind of general purpose algorithm that tries to adapt to every situation. Obviously there's a trade off here, with the end result being that the AI does some pretty retarded things to get around obstacles. Obviously you can try and try to improve it, but it's never going to be perfect.

Typical, maybe they'll release a standalone expansion with everything was supposed to be in the initial game .. :D

Sly :p

Edited September 18, 2009 by echo1

[Hans Ludwig 0]

The AI has to be given some sort of predefined driving path for it to know where to go, otherwise it will just try to take the shortest journey which would inevitably involve driving into a house/forest/off a cliff. To the best of my knowledge, this is defined on the map. (This is why island replacement mods for OFP caused so many problems with old missions)

Problems then arise when their predefined paths become blocked themselves. It's impossible to program the best fix for every conceivable screw up, so you write some kind of general purpose algorithm that tries to adapt to every situation. Obviously there's a trade off here, with the end result being that the AI does some pretty retarded things to get around obstacles. Obviously you can try and try to improve it, but it's never going to be perfect.

That's why I'm a firm believer that game studios should stop wasting their time on bots and spend more time on the PvP side of the game, which has be sorely lacking in most games the last few years.

[Flarmapoint 2 10]

From what ive seen, OFPDR is going to be a win! Lots of info being released now :)

What did you guys think of the 'Fog of war' and MP vids?

mp vid

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bxmAw6kdgEs

fog of war

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NdYXQDL5wWQ&feature=player_profilepage

Edited September 18, 2009 by Flarmapoint 2

[echo1 0]

"Our streaming technology is unsurpassed."

Sure thing mate, I have no doubts it's the best piece of software in existence designed to render a 4km^2 box :p

Even for all the problems, I am interested in playing this game. For how it will maintain my interest will be the question...

Edited September 18, 2009 by echo1

[Leopardi 0]

I hope there will be a demo. To see how much the consoles have downgraded the PC version.

[Takko 10]

I think that the fooliage looks plain ugly. I don't want to play through that.

[vasmkd 12]

I thought those vids look like modern warfare gameplay with fancier grass...but not fancier than arma 2's grass

The game looks ok if u want something between arma 2 and modern warfare

Not much vehicles available either. I looked at editor pics from Helios and u can only see 11 US vehicles/aircraft listed. ARMA2 has way more

[Pauldarrington 9]

Facebook, Game Fact of the Day: There is no hitpoint system for vehicles. Damage is determined based on armor, penetration and a probability matrix. This means that even if you fire 1 million bullets at a tank from a hand pistol the tank will still never be destroyed.

Either a swipe at arma2 or another made up fact