So what’s the big deal about MP? Wonder how many simply play SP?

[BeerHunter 0]

Some of my defenses: :p

VOIP : Using VOIP is almost a necessity in games like ArmA2. What I was referring to regarding Team Speak etc. etc. is that I REALLY don't want to have yet another piece of software that's mickey moused to accommodate the game , especially when there are built in VON channels for communicating...which apparently work some of the time and doesn't work (performs CTD's) other times.

FOLLOWING ORDERS: Said that wasn't a problem. I was used to it. Just that I didn't want to get involved with a clan looking for team oriented game play and end up with all that silly "sir" , "salute" garbage. Clans and the time commitment simply aren't for me.

PING: I was told that ArmA2 online with pings >100 left you at a distinct disadvantage because of the bullet trajectories being calculated by the server. Even a 150 ms deviation can make a significant difference over long ranges. :confused: Anyone care to contradict that? Know in DoD and CS it made a significant difference.

As far as some of the specific servers mentioned in here , those I'm going to look into later--for sure!! I realize that the ultimate experience would be with a group of players playing ArmA2 as a sim rahter than a glorified version of DoD . My beef was it isn't easy to find them. :cool: and look..here they are.:p

[anessen 10]

Get a group of friends together, either on LAN or over the internet. If you're not using Arma's built in VoN, get Ventrilo or Teamspeak.

This is so much more fun than singleplayer and public multiplayer servers. Public servers on most games are crap compared to more organised set ups, even if its just a set of casual gamers who know each other. There are groups like ShackTac who take the game seriously, if that's what you want.

Another advantage of gaming with a group of friends is organising mods. Public servers often try to run the game vanilla or run a single popular mod or mission, because that is what most people have. If you have a smaller, more organised group, you can try out some of the more interesting things in multiplayer.

Finally, multiplayer gives you the social aspect of the game. Like, you get totally and completely owned by an unexpected tank or something and everyone's just going nuts down Ventrilo... or you pull off an awesome shot that saves your buddy's (virtual) life. Singleplayer can be fun but it is lonely.

[trickster1982 10]

Four...

Those that have more than an interesting time in the Editor. Some of which publish their works and many that do not.

I wish people would release more of their single player missions!I keep popping into the user missions section & looking but very few are released,however most of those ive downloaded have been excellent!im really enjoying ubiquitious's "a different kind of war" series of missions, as well as operation enable sky, search at war & sweep & strike.

Unfortunately I dont have the time or really the patience to learn the editor myself, ive had a few attempts at it but didnt really know what I was doing & i'd rather spend a couple of hours on an evening playing the game than trying to learn all the ins & outs of building missions

[mrcash2009 0]

So far as I did with Arma1 Ive simply gone head long into addons/mods and the editor playing SP .. especially with SLX installed :)

I need to get online as this is far more worthy linking up with a clan, but I dont have the time to commit to anything at the moment, so ive only ventures online 5 times maybe less, found it jerky and laggy and simply left it for now.

[wamingo 1]

PuG's

Pickup Group's; most commonly used in MMORPGs. Basically means a group that isn't formed by people you know; instead, it's formed up of random, possible noobs that will completely wreck whatever experience you are getting the group for.

- urban dictionary

But guess what, there's a whole forum section dedicated just to hookin up:http://forums.bistudio.com/forumdisplay.php?f=90

It takes a little effort but I reckon it's worth it.

Alternatively, try stalking. ;)

play as medic, people appreciate that. at least in coop.

[hamis 0]

I play SP only,no interest for MP.

[Alex72 1]

Im not playing in a team atm and have tried to go MP, but too many servers dont allow any addons wich makes it hard. Now i dont mean that admins should allow every addon out there, but that they try to keep up with what addons are released that enhance the game and have those legit to use. Im talking about for exmaple Piccoly's LandTex addon and soundmods. Those basic addons that doesnt change gameplay but make it a bit nicer to play.

Would love if those were ok to use on most servers, but reality is that most servers run totally vanilla, and that keeps me in the editor or with some friends. Maybe im just 1 guy, but thats 1 more that doesnt go pub because of that reason. I would be playing online all over constantly if the basic addons were ok to use. I have a hard time understanding why they arent ok to use tbh. It seems unlikely to me that people with servers would miss armaholic's news about these addons. Maybe people just dont want the hassle to read the addon info and add the keys. Dont know. But its their servers wich they pay hard earned cash for so who am i to say what they should and should'nt do. :)

Anyway thats my story.

[An Fiach 10]

Really? You are going to let the lack of mods on servers keep you from playing? It boggles the mind, simply because as you state, it doesn't affect gameplay. I would venture many players do not run many mods while playing online anyway. Another reason is that many addons have no keys/aren't signed.

Personally I am looking forward to ACE 2 though and playing servers that run it. Wish I had more time right now to play :)

To the OP, there are some groups out there that are willing to take on players not wishing to be a part of their "clan" or squad and give them access to their private servers. Might want to look into it.

[ericodapinco 10]

SP here... MP clans scared me a bit of cause of the time you need to invest.

Got a time-consuming girlfriend and a job where I have to travel a lot and friends that all play games on the playstation.

Maybe I give it another try soon... there must be people with the same problems that also want to play a good mp game from time to time without being devoted to a clan.

[Alex72 1]

Really? You are going to let the lack of mods on servers keep you from playing? It boggles the mind, simply because as you state, it doesn't affect gameplay. I would venture many players do not run many mods while playing online anyway. Another reason is that many addons have no keys/aren't signed.

Personally I am looking forward to ACE 2 though and playing servers that run it. Wish I had more time right now to play :)

To the OP, there are some groups out there that are willing to take on players not wishing to be a part of their "clan" or squad and give them access to their private servers. Might want to look into it.

Those im talking about are signed. Thats the reason i wrote what i wrote, and thats how i feel. Addons that enhance the looks/performance and sound/immersion, but NOT change gameplay as that i can understand becomes too much for servers and would require everyone to have them. The ones i talk about is only client sided that wont give anyone advantage, but enhance the game to the better.

And those addons i talk about does not slow down servers nor are they many, and they are well known so its not hard to let them run.

Like i said though. Their servers - their choice. I have no problem with that, but it keeps me from playing there. And yes me and my mates play with a lot of addons. We do what we can to get as close to ACE as its possible before its release. Thats how we did in ArmA1 as well. Ofcourse you use addons to get more immersion and gear etc. Who wouldnt? THAT boggles my mind - that so many play vanilla when just a few addons (signed and non-hogging) makes ARMA2 a lot better.

Ericodapinco:

There are many gaming groups that doesnt crave your full attention. They are happy when you show up, and are cool with it when you dont. ;) Search the forum under squads and social groups. Alt post in the squad forum and let people know your status. For example that you dont have time to join a clan/team, but that you want to play now and then. Im sure youll get a lot of gaming buddies.

Edited September 16, 2009 by Alex72

[r3volution 0]

SP For The Win! :D

I've owned Arma1 for years and now own Arma2 and have never felt the need to venture online. I'm not a big online/mp gaming person. LAN style Co-Op MP on the other hand is kick-ass, but I don't know anyone else who plays arma2 within a hundred km radius so that's pretty much out. This combined with my angry loner tendencies result in my spending about 75% of my time in the mission editor and 25% of my time tweaking other people's mods to use in the mission editor because I'm an anal retentive bastard. This results in a missions folder full of half-made cpu destroying sp missions that nobody else will ever play because (a) the hundred mod dependencies on edited custom mods and (b) because after all these years I'm still too lazy to learn how to use triggers and scripting properly enough to make the kind of mission I'd want to release... ;)

But hey... whatever makes you happy right?

[BeerHunter 0]

Somebody back there said SP was fine but it was ... "lonely".:cool:

Beg to differ.

I use a Voice Activation Program to issue commands so I'm actually speaking to the AI and ... they reply.

but then again...I guess if your best "in game" friends are virtual AI ....:o :p

:D

[ajsarge 10]

The one thing that I don't think that people find online is that good group of people who are serious about having fun. Plus, Arma2 is the only game I own where I actually got an Adrenalin High playing. And it was a simple case of fighting a single guy who had a sniper rifle. Not to mention all the other "THAT WAS AWESOME!!!11!oneone1!eleven!!!" moments that you run across.

I have yet to have one of those moments in SP.

However, I too always take a peek in the user missions section to see if there's anything that I might find interesting. Mostly the city battles really, and I haven't seen one for cherno beyond the SP mission included with the game. Maybe someone will make one with replayability sometime, and I'll get hooked on that for a whole week at least.

[Gunter Severloh 3948]

i play in the editor, and make missions for my unit, we only play coop together.

we play Red Orchestra and have our own server and thats about the only "public" mp i do.

played OFP since it came out and only in the editor, and tried mp like in 06 was cool, but the fun is making your own stuff, and coop with friends.

[dslyecxi 23]

The issue I have with servers like TG and ST is, like said, they require a lot of extra effort and time. I also dislike having to salute some kid who's never served in any real military. I did 3 years in the Army and it'll be a cold day in hell before I'm saluting some e-Captain in some clan who joined up a week before me, is 15 years old and wouldn't know tactics if it bit him on his ass.

Neither TG or Shack Tactical require you to "salute" anyone under any circumstances.

As far as time commitment goes, TG is very friendly in that regard - basically, they ask nothing of you aside from that you read their SOPs and become familiar with their rules, and then play whenever you want for however long you want with no other requirements (apart from not being a douchebag).

[tophe 68]

MP all the way... basically only play MP. For me that's the whole point of this game.

But we also have a very tight group of 4 people that have been playing almost every week since Flashpoint was released.

We're childhood friends so for us it's a social thing as well, since we live in different countries.

So we're all in the same mindset. We play hard core team play but with lots of room for silly stuff.

It wouldn't be the same for me if I didn't have my friends to share the experience with.

[zoog 18]

It's a matter of finding the right servers/people. I simply can't play SP anymore because the tedious command menu's and not so trustworthy AI team mates. I'd rather have real people next to me who can actually assess a situation like a human and understand what to do.

I hope you find the right place because the game really shines in the coop department.

[cjsoques 0]

I never play MP, maybe once a week I try it out but it never clicks with me at all and there is nothing fun about it...singleplayer with the editor is where I've been 99% of my time in ARMA2

[Baff1 0]

Single Player or LAN co-ops for me. I think I've played about 5 online games since Operation Flashpoint launched.

This game doesn't really tick many PvP boxes for me personally.

I do play MP games online, but not this particular one.

[Tennouheika 10]

Whenever I try to play MP I feel like I'm running around with no idea where to go, and when I finally do get to some action I die from some random enemy a mile away.

I have more fun playing in the editor and creating scenarios (Note: Scenarios I've created are too awful to share with the community)

[code-red 0]

I play 80% of the time MP and i play only on public servers.

Warfare is my game and the XR servers are briliant for that, plenty of team play.

The new servers running warfare be are pretty good to,i gues the warfare crowd is slightly growing, nice one ;)

Some times Evolution and if you find the right server the teamplay can be great.

No teamtalk just typing.

[Inkompetent 0]

I try to play singleplayer. I download several awesome-looking SP missions, realize that they *are* good, but don't play more than 10 minutes before I get a breakdown, start crying, wish I was playing it with other people, and subsequently rework the mission to an MP one in the editor. I simply can't play singeplayer anymore.

It's completely impossible to perform any kind of good tactics or nice maneuvers within a proportionally acceptable timeframe with the rodent-brained AI screwing every attempt of doing so.

However I got to agree that most public servers are abyssmal. If you enter a server with 30 people on it you find that only 3 of them are willing or able to perform communications at a post-baby level.

[=jps=sgtrock 4]

I've been gaming online for about 15 years. By far, the best times online that I've had playing any game have been on well administered clan servers. They always have a raft of disciplined admins who keep the riffraff off, booting any griefer who shows up before he can cause much trouble. Sample a few of the clan servers that have low pings to you. There's bound to be one or two that have a friendly bunch to play with.

That said though, for the casual gamer I can't recommend the TG servers highly enough. I've never had anything but a great experience playing on them.

[BeerHunter 0]

It's completely impossible to perform any kind of good tactics or nice maneuvers within a proportionally acceptable timeframe with the rodent-brained AI screwing every attempt of doing so.

Beg to differ here.

The scenario I'm playing right now involves capturing an air field and I had the AI holding fire and creeping up on the facility in a line formation. I heard a lot of "target in sight" , "target acquired" etc. but not a shot until I released them with "Open Fire". The enemies went down and we suffered no casualties.

Further in , I didn't notice one hiding and only heard the snaps of his bullets. Shortly I heard a couple of shots and "got that ****".

Would be nice if you COULD actually play online with that degree of co-operation and tactics but rarely can you. TG's and ShackTac would be the only two I can think of off hand but if you're going to play online you have to adjust your schedule to accommodate them (can't just hop on a 2AM..no one there) and you have to be willing to invest a fair amount of time. Can't just play for 15 - 20 minutes then leave 'cause there's something good on TV then come back 1/2 hr later. Not a problem in SP.

I'm actually surprised at the number of posters who are SP only.

Don't get me wrong about online gaming. Loads of fun with DoD:S , CS , COD etc. etc. but IMO I think ArmA2 is best suited as SP with a bit of online to appease those that insist every game has to have online capabilities or its worthless.

BTW Inkompetent - don't forget that IRL to prep for and set up an assault can take hours of prep time and maneuvering into position. If you're in a rush to move in and get the action going you might be playing the wrong game or the right game the wrong way. You're liable to find on TG's server about a 10-15 minute briefing then more time being transported to the conflict area before you even spot an enemy , let alone being released to engage.:o

Can't praise TG high enough for quality game play as I used to play PR over there and was a supporting member for a couple of years. I'm sure though there are other servers out there that try to maintain high quality game play as well.

Edited September 18, 2009 by BeerHunter

[evilnate 0]

Most of the people are saying the same things, and it's been the same for as long as I can remember playing ofp.

People want to get something going and play organized instead of running around looking for what to do. I remember being a part of razor squad (the people who developed ECS), and they had a massive selection of single objective, user created coop missions. They edited the mission names to have the mission list naming convention perfect. If I had a server and time, I would try to make something that was similar to that. Also, the goal wasn't to try and appease the larger community with missions like domination and evolution - the goal was to find people who just wanted to have simple, cooperative, organized games.

Tactical Gamer is the only arma 2 server that i've seen so far that is close to what i'm trying to describe.