Dragon Rising has been released

[walker 0]

Hi all

CM's idea was to copy BIS's OFP, and its true Successors the ArmA series on the back of the OFP name, with out paying the developer for the project. I posted on the ArmA forums for some time warning potential buyers that CM's DR was fundamentally broken.

The key failure was in choice of engine.

Any engine based on a rag doll type physics while attempting OFP ArmA entity counts will never be able to be played over the Internet until we have Quantum Pair, or Quantum tunneling broadband. Real life physics and and speed of light make this so.

No one at CM did the math.

Not surprising really as this article made clear CM was a brand management company not a developer, so fundamentally at board level they have not got anyone able to do the math.

http://kotaku.com/5427863/they-worked-on-the-game-you-played-but-didnt-get-credit

CM's idea is to own the the brands and whore them out like a stable of prostitutes. The problem for CM is that now they have given their core brand the marketing equivalent of AIDS.

I think CM's epitaph should act as a strong reminder to all other publishers; "Don't whore the brand!"

http://community.codemasters.com/forum/operation-flashpoint-dragon-rising-off-topic-1179/399448-will-you-buy-codemasters-title-future.html

Kind Regards walker

Edited December 17, 2009 by walker

[Richey79 10]

Helios:

"Hi all,

I hate to be the bearer of bad news so close to xmas, but I'm afraid I've just got word that the PC DLC/Patch has failed it's internal testing due to the team finding a Class 1 bug. As you can probably tell from the "Class 1" part, this is something that needs to be fixed before we can release, and as a result it is now looking that the 2nd PC/DLC and patch will unfortunately not be releasing this year which was our original intention. It will instead be coming some time in the New Year.

It's never nice passing on bad news such as this, but I thought that you all would prefer to know sooner rather than later."

Hopefully, that'll be the death of it...

Makes you wonder just how few coders are working on this 'magic patch'.

[Zipper5 74]

Lol, that's just the excuse they're putting out there rather than saying they've shelved it. I don't think we'll ever see this second patch. I hope we don't, actually. Perhaps it will finally put DR to sleep.

It's very unfortunate that this had to happen to the OFP name. :(

Edit: Ok, lmfao, Codemasters really are just blocking out the criticism they're receiving. First patch had a few crappy maps, looks like the second one will be exactly the same. Man alive, this is just fun to watch.

http://community.codemasters.com/forum/operation-flashpoint-dragon-rising-game-pc-113/401302-17-12-new-screenshot-upcoming-dlc-pack-2-a.html

I wonder if colored smoke is some new awesome feature that's going to be introduced.

Edited December 17, 2009 by Zipper5

[vasmkd 12]

Helios:

"Hi all,

I hate to be the bearer of bad news so close to xmas, but I'm afraid I've just got word that the PC DLC/Patch has failed it's internal testing due to the team finding a Class 1 bug. As you can probably tell from the "Class 1" part, this is something that needs to be fixed before we can release, and as a result it is now looking that the 2nd PC/DLC and patch will unfortunately not be releasing this year which was our original intention. It will instead be coming some time in the New Year.

It's never nice passing on bad news such as this, but I thought that you all would prefer to know sooner rather than later."

Hopefully, that'll be the death of it...

Makes you wonder just how few coders are working on this 'magic patch'.

hahahaha

Stuffupmasters are good at things like this.

---------- Post added at 03:42 AM ---------- Previous post was at 03:38 AM ----------

http://community.codemasters.com/forum/operation-flashpoint-dragon-rising-off-topic-1179/399448-will-you-buy-codemasters-title-future.html

A poll... speaks a thousand words?

I'm definitely not buying another Codemasters product myself.

Edit: Oh, and this one too:

http://community.codemasters.com/forum/operation-flashpoint-dragon-rising-game-pc-113/401067-everyone-please-respond.html

I swear that TemplarGFX guy has been bought out by Codemasters. I love the poll results, though.

He came on the BIS forums pretending he was getting into ARMA2 http://forums.bistudio.com/showthread.php?t=90454&highlight=TemplarGFX&page=4

and then all the sudden says he is putting it on the shelf. Funny thing was he put a pic up with some wacky looking dude with a dvd hard copy to say he was using legit software when he said he purchased it through steam b4 that.http://forums.bistudio.com/showthread.php?p=1491310#post1491310

Sounds like a very nice gentleman :rolleyes:

Just look at the crappy photoshop job of the pic with probably his real face in it

Stuffupmasters probably payed him to try put ppl off ARMA2

Edited December 17, 2009 by vasmkd

[Richey79 10]

Very quickly after Templar was on here asking lots of questions about the Arma 2 editor and expressing interest in the modding community, he suddenly did a volte-face and started saying the same things Polaris had previously. He hinted coyly that 'CM have it covered... trust me, they're not going to abandon this game, I've seen the evidence, but I've signed an Non-Disclosure Agreement.'

Seems that CM pulled him in and made him feel special - hell, they probably didn't even have to ask him to abandon his interest in Arma 2 after that. It's human nature that many people would be swayed by this.

The work he's done on producing missions to bring DR out of the gutter are actually better than any of the tat CM have put out. The fact that he could give any effort at all to the PC version probably explains this (since it appears CM's coders weren't allowed to).

It was, however, hilarious to see his posts in the DR editing forum after his return to the game, expressing exasperation at the EGO engine's limitations. He became really frustrated that, as soon as he started spawning more than a few entities into the world, the game would randomly crash. Why put all that work in with such an awful engine when one exists in which the programmers already sorted the problems you're currently wrestling with? One can only guess at the motivation, but it's nice to be a big fish in a small pond. Ego engine indeed.

[JdB 151]

Hopefully, that'll be the death of it...

Makes you wonder just how few coders are working on this 'magic patch'.

I know what that "Class 1" is. The installer was the only bit of code on the disc that actually worked, and filled the customer' hard drive with garbage :D

Instead, CM should bless the game development world with a new code that actually covers the status of their product, "Class 1 Defcon 5 Delta Red". That means something like: Game is not working, engine is badly chosen, and the gameplay is fatally flawed. Complete deletion of current files, burning of all hardware and reboot of the project with new, capable people required.

End result: Putting the same junk into another box, calling it OFP3 or "OFP - Bear Rising", and seeing everyone happily buying the same crap again, and being utterly (again) surprised by how bad the game is when (again) posting the same complaints on the CM forums as last time.

Yes, nothing about the game was worth giving a second look, they lied to me when told me it would be great in press releases, but I'm sure they won't lie to me next time ... :j: There's one thing more thick than a large game publisher, and that is it's customer base. As witnessed on that CM forum, plenty of people think this way.

[vasmkd 12]

Lol, that's just the excuse they're putting out there rather than saying they've shelved it. I don't think we'll ever see this second patch. I hope we don't, actually. Perhaps it will finally put DR to sleep.

It's very unfortunate that this had to happen to the OFP name. :(

Edit: Ok, lmfao, Codemasters really are just blocking out the criticism they're receiving. First patch had a few crappy maps, looks like the second one will be exactly the same. Man alive, this is just fun to watch.

http://community.codemasters.com/forum/operation-flashpoint-dragon-rising-game-pc-113/401302-17-12-new-screenshot-upcoming-dlc-pack-2-a.html

I wonder if colored smoke is some new awesome feature that's going to be introduced.

It's fun reading indeed when i can't play ARMA2 while at work pc.

The news is the perfect xmas present from CM to their community, as one would expect lol...if it does come out it will be nothing special but like you said it will not suprise me if it doesn't come out

Yeah i'll be waiting to see if coloured smoke is actually in

@Richey79

The big fish always runs out of oxygen when he gets too big for the tank...EGO Engine ;)

Edited December 17, 2009 by vasmkd

[Bulldogs 10]

The sad part is that this patch/dlc will probably still beat out the first (and only) PC patch for Red Faction : Guerilla

[myshaak 0]

I know what that "Class 1" is. The installer was the only bit of code on the disc that actually worked, and filled the customer' hard drive with garbage :D

Don't ever do that again, you're killing me! :D Got coffee all over my desk! :D

[Nazul 10]

If its true the development team has changed 2 or 3 times as Ive read then, I really feel sorry for the guys doing it now. It must be a mess of unworkable and unfinished code.

I know when Ive taken over jobs (construction) its an absolute mess. I hate it, it takes 3x as long do anything, because everything is unfinished. Its actually one of the golden rules in construction, dont finish a job for someone else, but you really have to charge 3x as much.

I see they have thrown the dogs a bone over on the forum, theyve released a... wait for it ...

A SCREENSHOT!!!!!!!

[gulag 10]

I think they have worked hard:803: at that colored smoke, in fact I think this is „long awaited„:756: patch 2, with this they simply „turning the knife in the wound„. This is proof that Cornmaster loves his community:cc: , and takes care of it:throwup:

[AndresCL 10]

This almost makes me feel sorry for the pepole who bought that game. Almost

[Zipper5 74]

It really does look like "the big thing" is smoke, lol.

http://community.codemasters.com/forum/operation-flashpoint-dragon-rising-game-pc-113/401302-17-12-new-screenshot-upcoming-dlc-pack-2-a-3.html#post5938880

[bascule42 10]

It really does look like "the big thing" is smoke, lol.

http://community.codemasters.com/forum/operation-flashpoint-dragon-rising-game-pc-113/401302-17-12-new-screenshot-upcoming-dlc-pack-2-a-3.html#post5938880

An I thought the term "blowing smoke out of ones arse" was just a metaphor.

[Deadfast 43]

It really does look like "the big thing" is smoke, lol.

http://community.codemasters.com/forum/operation-flashpoint-dragon-rising-game-pc-113/401302-17-12-new-screenshot-upcoming-dlc-pack-2-a-3.html#post5938880

Uh, even the smoke from OFP looks better.

It doesn't even try to look 3 dimensional.

[4 IN 1 0]

they made it so that they looks like a smoke stream coming out from pipe, lol

[Whiskey_Tango 10]

i feel bad for the supporters......most of them are just console players that are sick of cod run and gun titles and are wanting something along the lines of arma...they also sold the title cheap on pc because they knew it wouldnt hang with pc games and would be dead on arrival....the game was a complete money scam from the ground up

[eble 3]

main highlight -

"OFP2 was a seriously broken project, with two or three restarts, and a very high turnover of staff," he reflects. "Looking through the credits list it was disturbing to see how many people had been left out, presumably because they either weren't part of the core team who finished it or had left the company before it shipped."

source -

http://kotaku.com/5427863/they-worked-on-the-game-you-played-but-didnt-get-credit

Imagine pouring months, even years of work into a project, and then being unable to put your name on it. Unfortunately, that's the reality for many video game developers – and there's not much they can do about it.

"I was working for Codemasters at a new studio of theirs, managing a team of programmers," explains one developer who wants to stay anonymous. "We were originally set up to work on new projects, but predictably ended up doing work on a game called Operation Flashpoint 2 (recently released) that was in death march."

This developer and his team of programmers spent months on the project – for some, it was three months, and for others up to six — before being reassigned to a new project. But another six months down the line, Operation Flashpoint 2 was again in need of extra hands, and this developer was pulled back onto the project – "dropping everything on the current project and bringing my team with me," he recalls.

The developer himself left Codemasters before Operation Flashpoint 2 shipped – and once it did, he was surprised to find no one from his team received credit on the game, despite the fact that by the project's end some of them had spent some 18 months working on it. There was "very little appreciation at the time or since," he says.

"OFP2 was a seriously broken project, with two or three restarts, and a very high turnover of staff," he reflects. "Looking through the credits list it was disturbing to see how many people had been left out, presumably because they either weren't part of the core team who finished it or had left the company before it shipped."

[uPDATE 12/17: Codemasters says its crediting is reserved for "Those that are with a team through the successful completion of a game, or those that completed their contribution to a specific element of a game," but notes it has a "Thanks to..." section for "those who may have not have been on the project at its completion but whose work the team felt contributed significantly to the final game."

The company also says it rectifies errors and accidental credit oversights with title updates to its games. Our anonymous developer says that to date his team is listed simply with a reference to their studio, without his or any other individual names included.]

But the frustrated developer's story is not unique, nor is there any one studio or publisher that bears the brunt of these kinds of complaints. It seems in this case, the lack of credit on the final project was something of a penalty for developers who left either the company or the struggling project mid-cycle – and the anonymous developer says this is an all-too common slight that often happens whether leaving the project was a staffer's choice or not.

And it gets more complex. Just as common as a studio's failure to assign credit is the use of game crediting as leverage – a way to get more work out of developers for less pay, or to force a designer with a particular specialty to stay on a project when there's another one at his studio on which he'd rather work. The fact that in most cases, credits aren't agreed on until a project's end means there's plenty of room for bargaining and bullying.

For example, rather than promote someone at the "Associate" level to "Lead," with the appropriate title and increase in salary, a studio may ask an employee to assume the workload and responsibilities of a Lead with either the implication or explicit promise of appearing in the credits that way.

These credit-based pseudo-promotions save money at studios – who get someone doing the work of, say, a Lead Producer while only paying for an Associate Producer – but it also can tangle the final product: Too much of this and it's easy to see how key roles in video game development are assumed by people who are overworked or even unqualified. It also causes long-term, wider-ranging damage: If your title and salary don't really matter because everyone's pushing for that credit, what does your job role really mean, and why aspire to further qualifications and real career growth?

Even worse, this is something of an under-the-table practice – with nothing to protect a developer whose studio might go back on its word for any number of reasons when it's time to write up the credits. That's happened more than once to pseudonymous developer and blogger Spitfire, who joined a project as a mid-level artist but had assumed a Lead role by the time the game shipped.

But the credits didn't reflect his additional responsibility – and when he asked for an explanation, "I was simply told that I wasn't really a Lead on the game. Mind you, there was no real reason not to give me proper credit. [Neither] my salary, bonuses, nor any other form of compensation were based on title. It was simply an intentional and painful slight."

Another time, at the same studio but on a different project, despite clear responsibilities as a Lead, Spitfire says, "my name was just thrown in with the rest of the artists in my discipline. Again, I went and pressed the issue, and I was told that it was too late... The manuals had already gone to print, and we were about to press a submission disk. No one would even answer whose fault it was for the lack of a proper credit… the complete lack of concern by everyone involved above me was a real shocker and actually hurt."

It's more than an issue of what label appears next to your name in the small print, adds Spitfire: "When you're working 80+ hours getting that baby to market, sacrificing time with your family, your personal life, loved ones, etc., just to ship the product, and then you don't get the right credit? It's beyond enraging. It literally shows that your employer doesn't care about you."

Stories like these are endless. A survey by the International Game Developers Association, the trade group that represents those who make games, conducted a survey that found 35 percent of respondents say they "don't ever" or "only sometimes" receive official credit for the work they've done.

But so fraught is the issue that it often goes uncontested. It's only the rare high-profile example that makes it into the realm of public controversy – Last year, Mythic Entertainment drew fire for its decision to credit only current staffers on Warhammer Online, and at the time sources told Shacknews that Mythic "made sure not to include anyone who was not in the office the day of the credit list creation."

The outcry in the developer community sparked a debate between Mythic and the IGDA, who called the lack of proper Warhammer credits "disrespectful." At issue was the most popular reason studios say they withhold credits: They're afraid developers will feel free to ditch a project whenever they like, if they don't have the incentive of crediting to make them stick around. Studios also claim that revealing a full list of their staffers exposes them to unsolicited recruiters and poachers, and they're afraid to lose people.

But the IGDA says that's just a cop-out: Chairperson Jennifer MacLean said in a statement on the Warhammer controversy that these reasons are "arbitrary, unfair and in some cases even vindictive... they simply don't hold up." The IGDA established a crediting standards committee in 2007, aiming first to evaluate the scope of the problem and then to develop a universal standard for roles, titles and the way individuals must be credited.

It has since published draft guidelines and a standards proposal in beta – but none of these are yet final, and few of the developers I spoke to for this article were aware of the status of these initiatives, speaking to the enormous challenge the issue poses.

But why does it matter to gamers whether a developer is listed at a game's end as "Lead" or "Manager""?

According to the developers we spoke to, it matters a lot: "By not crediting, we undermine the individual's contribution," says the anonymous former Codemasters employee. "Accordingly, these developers feel less emotional and creative involvement in future projects. This helps lead to big teams of disenfranchised people, and a corresponding reduction in the character, charm and personality of the finished game."

In other words, good games are made by invested, creative people. Yet another anonymous developer – notice a trend here? — says the lack of consistent crediting is "just another point towards the general feeling of 'it's the game industry - we shouldn't expect it to be a mature, professional place.' It affects how people behave at work, and how people behave at work affects what goes into the game (sometimes in surprising ways)."

It also helps ensure the game industry stays insular, rather than diversifying with talent from other disciplines, he says: "A talented, up-and-coming artist isn't going to want to choose the game industry, for example, if he knows he's going to get dicked around and disrespected."

So why don't more developers speak up? It's a vicious cycle, my sources say: People who feel less like individual contributors and more like interchangeable machinery cogs that their employer can swap around at any minute don't want to risk rocking the boat. Especially in today's economy, people are just happy to have a job in the industry of their choosing. So the culture of silence continues, and perpetuates the destructive idea that gaming is only a stepchild to more formalized media industries.

With the IGDA hard at work on standards, a solution may be on the horizon. In the meantime, remember: Video games are made by human beings, and whether you like their work or not, it's important for consumers, the final audience, to remember that— because those who employ them often don't.

[ Leigh Alexander is news director for Gamasutra, author of the Sexy Videogameland blog, and freelances reviews and criticism to a variety of outlets. Her monthly column at Kotaku deals with cultural issues surrounding games and gamers. She can be reached at leighalexander1 AT gmail DOT com.]

The story here:

[Zipper5 74]

Bit old, but still no less pathetic.

[-RIP- Luhgnut 10]

main highlight -

source -

http://kotaku.com/5427863/they-worked-on-the-game-you-played-but-didnt-get-credit

You know, reading that and seeing how they screwed over their own staff, no wonder they have absolutely no remorse for screwing over their community base. Yeah, it was a pure hail mary money grab. Sion Lenton should be run out on the next train. Just watching his interviews with that cheeky, smug "Im the greatest" attitude, and then seeing this stuff, I feel actually bad for the customer base.

I will now and forever look on every box and credits for "Sion Lenton" and if it's any where on there, it won't make it onto my hard drive.

Here's what I find most amusing..... BIS, since OFP has been really working on one "game" we've just seen generations of it. "Carrier Command" one of my old serious Amiga and Atari ST favorites is coming out and can't wait to get my hands on it. - but I digress. They just keep moving forward, developing, no big flash, no huge budget, no massive marketing campaign. Just moving forward. That's success in my opinion. Not a game that sells a gajillion copies and then nose dives. I would take consistent development and support way above flash and grab.

---------- Post added at 01:07 AM ---------- Previous post was at 12:55 AM ----------

Uh, even the smoke from OFP looks better.

It doesn't even try to look 3 dimensional.

ooooo (everybody now) ooooo smooooke.... golly. Please guys hold me back, the very thought of having smoke in a war game on a modern console just blows my mind. We get ACE2 and they get...... smoke.......

ahhhhhhhhh

Edited December 19, 2009 by [RIP] Luhgnut

[Scrub 0]

Well, the smoke came first.. You just couldn't see it because of all the mirrors.:p

[Emberwolf 0]

ooooo (everybody now) ooooo smooooke.... golly. Please guys hold me back' date=' the very thought of having smoke in a war game on a modern console just blows my mind. We get ACE2 and they get...... smoke.......

ahhhhhhhhh[/quote']

We also get an AH-64D. With it's own campaign. For free.

Not only do we get an AH-64D, that same exact AH-64D is the one of the primary selling points for Operation Arrowhead.

I couldn't imagine CM ever making an entirely new vehicle with it's own campaign for OFPDR, let alone taking one from an upcoming expansion pack to give away free in a patch for the main game.

I've been a BIS fan since approximately ten minutes into the OFP:CWC pre-release demo and that hasn't changed to this day. :D

[instagoat 133]

Weh, from time to time I fire up the demo again, and it´s a disappointment in every instance.

The most iconic things I can think of, when thinking about DR is the gunwobble and the "how copy"-ing. Doesn´t quite compare to the mission in OFP:R where you ambush the convoy or spy on the russian officers.

And this new patch seems to be another catastrophe. Class 1 bugs literally the moment it was supposed to be released? Something is wrong there.

One can´t say they aren´t trying, though, I can really imagine them sitting around their table in their meeting, going like

"okay, what else can we do."

"Uh... we have a huge draw distance for smoke...?"

"Great! Let´s do a CTF-ish domination thingie but with smoke columns, and let´s do it at night!"

If that´s playing to the strength´s of the ego engine, I don´t know what else there is left for them to drag DR out of its ditch. A pity, and it gets sadder the longer you look at it. But it´s sort of like a trainwreck, I guess. You don´t want to look, but you can´t help but stare (which is probably also the reason why this thread is still going.).

Meanwhile, we get the afforementioned Campaign, Chopper, Bugfixes and Performance improvements.

And of course, Ablative Cow Armour:

(I hope this link is okay despite the size of the pic, so long as I´m not linking directly.)

[-RIP- Luhgnut 10]

We also get an AH-64D. With it's own campaign. For free.

Not only do we get an AH-64D, that same exact AH-64D is the one of the primary selling points for Operation Arrowhead.

I couldn't imagine CM ever making an entirely new vehicle with it's own campaign for OFPDR, let alone taking one from an upcoming expansion pack to give away free in a patch for the main game.

I've been a BIS fan since approximately ten minutes into the OFP:CWC pre-release demo and that hasn't changed to this day. :D

yeah after I posted that I remembered the AH-64D :) Glad you mentioned it. Also look at the beta release schedule BIS is on, sometimes 2-3 a day!

Not sure about you guys, but this is the first time I've seen non stop beta releases from any developer. And they all appear to be quality beta's for 1.05

[jw custom 56]

And of course, Ablative Cow Armour:

Nice armor, any chance for cow body armor? :D