Why is this game not more popular?

[simio7331 10]

1. its not available to consoles

2. BI doesn't have the capacity to blow thousands in advertisement like companies such as EA and Ubisoft

3. the average person needs to be instantly gratified with headshots and explosions the moment they join a game like in quake 3 arena

4. the planets aren't aligned

[bangtail 0]

As is the notion that you've somehow got the thread all wrong and have decided that it's about why you think everyone's opinion is irrelevant. I note that while you like to hilariously pretend to ignore these posts, you are compelled to answer them every time. Just take on board the thread's topic, and allow people their opinions without feeling the compulsion to explain to them how irrelevant their opinion is to you.

If I feel that comparing a current game's performance to a 5 year old game's performance is irrelevant, I'll stand by that assessment. You most assuredly don't dictate my point of view to me :)

I am not compelled to answer you at all as I find your arguments vapid and your attitude puerile and confrontational. That is why I had asked you, on two separate occasions, to let it go. Polite requests which you ignored in the pursuit of an absolutely pointless confrontation.

When two people cannot agree, they simply move on as opposed to butting heads and turning the debate into a slagging match.

Before you try to imply that I answered you after putting you on ignore, I had not actually added you to the ignore list as I was replying to richiespeed. I will be adding you now and I can unequivocally guarantee you that you will not receive any more responses from me :p

Good day

Edited February 8, 2010 by BangTail

[NoRailgunner 0]

BangTail your ignorant attitude underlines your skills to read, to think and to communicate. Are you trying to dictate that your opinion is the only right one?

Probably you think that all reported issues & bugs are wrong and BIS should not improve or develop their own work? "See no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil"

[bangtail 0]

BangTail your ignorant attitude underlines your skills to read, to think and to communicate. Are you trying to dictate that your opinion is the only right one?

Probably you think that all reported issues & bugs are wrong and BIS should not improve or develop their own work? See no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil"

When did I ever say that? You were doing that in your previous post, not me.

The game is not perfect and there are plenty of legitimate complaints (I don't really have any of my own but I do genuinely sympathize and try to help those with problems when I can).

I referred to ONE opinion that I didn't agree with.

Edited February 8, 2010 by BangTail

[cri74 10]

Humm.... reading through the thread reminds me... and i totally agree with this guy.. thats why i love it others may hate it

Well son, let me tell you all about it...

I went out to buy a game once. It was called Operation Flashpoint. Some fellow told me it was good and I was in between games at the time... So I bought it. I played Operation Flashpoint for years. I played so much I had dreams about Nogova. Soviets screaming "Vodka" haunted my nightmares. And then I played Armed Assault. My Sahrani years! An era of darkness and evil. A week ago I just finished playing Arma 2 and I have come so far as to know the truth.

Arma is not a "game". It's a TRIAL son! It's your own personal final judgment! Can you take it? Can you deal with being unable to reload without walking? Can you dare to live in a world where a 2ft fence is harder to climb than the highest mountain? How about jumping tanks, squadmates with a deathwish, universe destroying graphical glitches, clipping in buildings, dying because you pressed reload by mistake while operating a belt fed machine gun in the middle of a firefight, buying a new graphics card with every version of the game, losing your save game and reverting to the wrong mission, using add ons that make your textures disappear but you don't know which ones because you have thousands of the damn things lying around, activating FADE by mistake, dealing with missions that never end and end mission triggers that defy your will?

Oh no, this is anything but a "game", boy. It's a relationship. With a harsh unforgiving mistress. A high maintenance, sadistic, self centered bitch that thinks she can do everything.

But you gotta love her... Cause she can give you what you want man. She will give it you hard and you're gonna come back for more! Don't kid yourself. You are here because you are one of us!

Now go back there and play the shit out of this game, y'hear? Try again and again. She'll cave in...

Hehe.. the game is a trial and its part of the charm i guess :)

Edited February 8, 2010 by cri74

[bangtail 0]

4. the planets aren't aligned

I Lol'd

---------- Post added at 10:42 AM ---------- Previous post was at 10:41 AM ----------

Hehe.. the game is a trial and its part of the charm :)

/QFT

Couldn't have said it better myself.

[Guest]

BIS should not improve or develop their own work?

I am not picking a bone with you anything, but just on that one line, I think maybe its a little unfair to say that about BIS. They are constantly working and developing flat out.

When someone sais "Oh no, the weapons are not realistic", BIS don't just ignore it. But you have to understand they have much bigger problems to deal with. Not just with developing the game, but all sorts of internal stuff too.

Of course there is much more to a game than just the game itself, but people are putting so much pressure on BIS its a no win situation.

Some people, (Not referring to a single person on this thread), just complain without thinking about it. Of course it is very good to express your opinion and try and help the game grow, but some people do it in a very unconstructive manner.

No argument here, I am just saying, thats my opinion on things :)

Edited February 8, 2010 by Guest

[S-M 10]

I know a lot of people who tried the demo, it ran like crap, they figured the game was the same.................

[fantsu 10]

It ran like crap for me, didn't figure that the game would run like that.

Sadly it did. And still does.

:p

[NeMeSiS 11]

It ran like crap for me, didn't figure that the game would run like that.

Sadly it did. And still does.

:p

Which i find rather disturbing since we have the same CPU, you have more (And probably faster) RAM while a have a better videocard. (4870 512mb)

And i run the game at 20-25FPS in missions that have an avarage CPU load.

Settings dont really matter for me since im CPU bottlenecked, most are on high.

Sorry to rub it in, maybe its time for a clean format? ;)

[dmarkwick 261]

If I feel that comparing a current game's performance to a 5 year old game's performance is irrelevant, I'll stand by that assessment. You most assuredly don't dictate my point of view to me :)

I am not compelled to answer you at all as I find your points vapid and your attitude puerile and confrontational. That is why I had asked you, on two separate occasions, to let it go. Polite requests which you ignored in the pursuit of an absolutely pointless confrontation.

When two people cannot agree, they simply move on as opposed to banging their heads and turning the debate into a slagging match.

Before you try to imply that I answered you after putting you on ignore, I had not actually added you to the ignore list as I was replying to richiespeed. I will be adding you now and I can unequivocally guarantee you that you will not receive any more responses from me :p

Good day

Aaaaaaand another compulsive reply :D hilarious.

"Polite requests" in the form of me needing to simply drop the argument in favour of your continued pursuit of yelling everyone down despite the relevance to the topic? OK, I guess I can do that :)

[/win]

[Arma-2-Guru 55]

It's not popular because many gamers are narrow minded and don't like the idea of having to think while playing games, with ArmA II being a simulator most people would sack it off within a few minutes.

[bangtail 0]

It's not popular because many gamers are narrow minded and don't like the idea of having to think while playing games, with ArmA II being a simulator most people would sack it off within a few minutes.

Very true, it requires a significant investment of time but I have always found it to be very fulfilling if you are willing to put the time in :)

[Ace42 10]

Wrong :rolleyes:

It's not called "Tell me why the graphics are so bad" or "Why does a 5 year old game play well while ArmA 2 does not".

You better believe that nobody here really cares why anyone else DOESN'T play.

We know most (if not all) of the reasons.

Firstly, the topic is called quite simply "Why is this game not more popular?"

As the obvious answer to that is because "a lot of people aren't playing it"; and as no-one is in a position to speak for the entire video-gaming world at large; naturally people are going to speak from either their own personal experience, or else will be participating in idle speculation.

Secondly, you seem to miss the point with the comparison to BF2; yes the game is five years old, and in those five years have BIS managed to learn anything from the competition? No, what we have is a game that looks *TEN* years old (barely better than OFP), and handles worse than more recent titles to boot.

BF2 seemed a reasonable comparison because the two games share many similarities, and thus face the same technical challenges. Comparing Arma2 to the most recent FPSs would be unfair for two reasons: It's easier to make superficial run-and-gun scripted FPSs look pretty; and given how amateurish Arma2 looks such a comparison would totally derail this discussion with precisely the sort of recriminations you've been coming up with, rather than just respecting the fact that some people will have perfectly valid opinions that happen to differ from yours.

I certainly don't care for his reasons,

Oh, well in that case I shouldn't've bothered posting, if it doesn't meet your approval... And while I'm at it, I shouldn't bother playing either, because my game-experience is unimportant to you. In fact, let's invalidate the entire purpose of this thread; and negate all of BIS's revenue stream while we're at it, because the entire Arma2 phenomenon is solely constructed to satisfy YOUR personal preferences, right?

If you were a spokesman for BIS the we could dispense with the surgical analysis and look at the thing holistically: "The game isn't more popular because BIS don't care about what any potential customers think unless their opinions coincide with Bangtail's."

So, thirdly: The fact is that I invested enough time and money to actually buy and play the game, and I found these reasons to be suitable for me to do other things whilst waiting to patch it. Unless you can do a better job of addressing the actual points I've made, then it is not unreasonable to assume my reasons are identical to those of plenty of other people, and all those people in agreement with me represent a sizeable body of people not "populating" Arma2 servers or taking a more active part in the community.

As previously mentioned, simple, concise, on topic.

You really can't objectively argue the performance of games that are 5 years apart both graphically and technically. His comments in that respect are not relevant at all.

Of course you can. It is not unreasonable to expect a recent game that looks worse than an ageing predecessor to handle at least as well as it does. Or in Bangtail land does the term "progress" not apply to video game development?

I did ask you politely to let it go, but as with the other guy, this was obviously too much to ask.

Yes, it is too much to let you have the last word when all you have to bring to the table is arrogant elitism without any shred of justification. Guess what, bangtail, your opinion isn't more important than mine or his, not in terms of sales, not in terms of the content of this thread. Jeez, get over yourself. Or, you know, just put everyone on ignore apart from people who think just like you so that you needn't have to actually justify your self-importance at all, that could work too...

If you are a high quality modder, or have developed a game in the past, feel free to try and give BIS some advice.

What if you've been a professional video-games journalist working in the national print media? Would that qualify me to give my opinion? I think BIS would probably prefer I keep my negative feelings towards the game constrained to this forum, and in the format of constructive criticism, than from publications that might influence buyers and thus their revenue stream.

I am not compelled to answer you at all as I find your arguments vapid and your attitude puerile and confrontational.

Funny, I found that to be a more accurate description of yourself, given that you've failed to address anything raised by the other posters, and have only demonstrated a supercilious attitude towards people not in complete agreement with you, irrespective of the substantive contents of their posts.

You don't care what people with dissenting opinions think? Fine, but why do you feel the need to tell them? Didn't mommy and daddy give you enough attention?

[sweep 10]

Why is it not more popular?

My view of the world would drastically change if it were more popular.

I would become very confused.

Because patient and highly intelligent people are hard to find.

What a wonderful game.

[Guest]

@Ace42, everybody has the right to an opinion, of course. No offense intended, I was not referring to you.

But by the way, just because you are a journalist, it does not make you any more important than anbody else. Your post comes across very stuck up, at least from my perspective.

You know what, scrap the above. All you do is troll about how bad arma 2 is, how dated it is, and how bad it looks. Arma 2 is by far the most beautiful game on the market, no game matches it. You aren't qualified to say anything, you have no idea how much work BIS put into their releases, and all you do is complain.

Sell the game and move on already.

Edited February 9, 2010 by Guest

[Ace42 10]

But by the way, just because you are a journalist, it does not make you any more important than anbody else.

I don't recall saying it did. My point was about Bangtail being an egotist, and that restricting your definition of people who are qualified to criticise to a very narrow minority will only skew the balance of opinions provided.

Your post comes across very stuck up, at least from my perspective.

I don't really care how it "comes across". I didn't write it to make people feel good about themselves, I wrote it to list a serious number of key flaws in the game which would deter people from playing. The tone with which I did it is somewhat irrelevant.

You know what, scrap the above. All you do is troll about how bad arma 2 is, how dated it is, and how bad it looks.

Actually no, that's not "all" I do, I covered a number of other issues. However, listing *positive* aspects of the game would hardly be illuminating on why it ISN'T popular, would it?

Arma 2 is by far the most beautiful game on the market, no game matches it.

Unfortunately, you are very much mistaken. Even with all the graphics set on max, and ignoring the fact that the game then plays like a slideshow, it looks pretty mediocre. Do I need to take some screenshots of random games and draw little circles on them to illustrate the deficiencies in the Arma2 rendering? It won't take me five seconds to load up Arma2 and alt-printscreen a picture of the muzzle-flash of the AKs and compare the hideous "yellow blob" with the fully animated muzzle "star" of the M16 in a battlefield game, for example, but is that necessary? What about comparing the cockpits of some of the birds? I suspect that no matter how many screenies I took contrasting various video effects and texture-filtering tricks that you'd not deviate from your opinion.

You aren't qualified to say anything, you have no idea how much work BIS put into their releases, and all you do is complain.

I didn't realise that "time spent" was the metric with which we evaluated the quality of a product. And, to quote Mark Thomas, "Don't be shit and they won't shout..." If the game ran smoothly, half my complaints would be moot.

I'm sorry if I insulted your lover; but if you don't like my objectivity, feel free to ignore me instead of bad-mouthing me.

Sell the game and move on already.

As I got it on pre-order, and it is currently living in bargain bins, I suspect the depreciation in value would make that an unattractive proposition; and it would hardly help the game be "more popular" if the only advice the community can give is "sell it, buy something better."

Isn't that a lot like admitting that the game is only attractive to the minority of people who place brand-loyalty before functionality?

[tacticalnuggets 24]

I'm not sure if people truly understand the reasons for why I say its paramount to provide such an interface in multiplayer. This was some posts back.

I even got the annoying, "you can get a mod" response; luckily I didn't get the even more annoying "mod it yourself response".

The reasons are simple to understand if you break down the average reasons for multiplayer. People like to interact with other people, through the game. Whats the problem with arma2s multiplayer? Its too minimal. There is no chat in the lobby, no party organizing, and no mod access and listing. This is extremely needed in such a complex game. Half the servers online require some form of mod, so people are automaticaly discouraged here. Sure, they do have the ability to explore the internet on port 80, but do they want to spend time doing that? Or how about the hours required just to join a clan or tournament? There is a reason in simple FPS's for 95% of the players not belonging to a clan of some sort, its usually not because they are not skilled, but because they dont want to spend that much time just to get into one.

Many games already allow you to do these things and they are not even as complex as the arma/ofp series. So it should be a very seriouse thing on BIS mind for patches and expansions right now; how can we improve multiplayer accessibility and quality. If they figured this out it would bring a whole fresh new load of people to the milsim community.

To say that it would be a bad thing is just nonsense. Most of the people who say these things probably have no care whatsoever about the suffering most multiplayer people are going through with this game. I currently haven't played arma2 in weeks because there is simply nobody on and its too difficult to organize anything with such a archaic multiplayer system.

So this is my important message to you BIS. Bring light to the dark and empty multiplayer world of arma2, and you will be rewarded with many fresh players.

Edited February 9, 2010 by tacticalnuggets
better clarity

[Antigoon 10]

Ace42, you really like yourself ,don't you? I can imagine people avoiding you at parties because of your "excellent" conversational skills. Did I read the words "stuck up"? Pretty much sums it all up, imo.

[haroon 10]

In my opinion,ArmA 2 is good

I don't care whether its popular or not....

Its me who wants to play the game....

I won't feel anything if no one is playing it or huge people are playing it (I will neither feel sad nor happy)

The reason I love OFP/ArmA/ArmA 2 is that these games give the player the chance to edit and make missions/mods/addons...

Look at those mods for ArmA in Armaholics,like the Invasion 1944 D-Day

thoes mods change the whole gaming experience (even the interface,the loading screen for example)

So its like you get multiple gaming experience from a single game (if you play that Invasion 1944,you'll feel like you are playing a WW2 game)

On the other hand,most of the contents in either these three games can be edited (I once un-packed the Scripts.pbo in OFP and changed the script which runs the splashing screen at start up)

Each time I start the game,I heard my own voice saying "Welcome to Operation Flashpoint" and a message "Greetings Haroon"

All I want to say is these games are more interactive than any other games on the market..................................................................................

[Guest]

Ace42, as said above, you seem to think of yourself a little too highly.

Maybe Arma 2 runs like a slideshow for you, but I managed to run 1700AI units on my game, so no complaints here. Many other people have achieved such results on many different systems, and whilst Arma 2 is demanding, what the hell do you expect from a brand new and graphicaly advanced game?

Go have a look on youtube, go have a look in the screenshot thread, BIS did a superb job on graphics.

You may moan the engine is old, but that is a very, very hypocriticle thing to say. Other than the fact the Arma 2 engine is much more advanced than its predecessors, how many console games which are "perfect" still run on the Unreal Engine?

The internal combustion engine was invented a long, long, long time ago. But what do you know? It is still being used today, just like the Arma 2 engine. And like a car engine, Arma 2 has not stayed still, it has advanced greatly over time.

As placebo showed perfectly in another thread, people choose to ignore the problems of mainstream games, and then when they find a game like Arma 2 they start complaining about everything.

Now, I can't tell you where to go and where to post, but I can tell you that you half of what you are saying is pure fiction.

[Imperator[TFD] 444]

It is not unreasonable to expect a recent game that looks worse than an ageing predecessor to handle at least as well as it does.

Actually given that this engine is far far older than BF2 is I do think it's unreasonable. What I find even more amazing is how gorgeous BIS have managed to make Arma 2 using an engine that is almost a decade old.

[zoog 18]

I find it fascinating that people think that BF2 is better looking than ArmA2. Do a walk around the forest at dawn, take a good look at the nature, the trees, the bushes, the ground, the animals and listen to the birds. Or on a rainy mission, watch how a rainbow emerges when the sun is still shining. Look at the detailed tanks, vehicles and the player models. Look at the small lakes scattered around, beautiful clear water, rocks and vegetation on the bottom. The flora and fauna is alive.

If you play it on ~high settings with a reasonable viewdistance (5k+) and take an hour to just walk around the country side you will see the graphical beauty of the game. It might not be the most advanced graphics, but claiming that BF2 looks better, or that it looks like OFP from '99 is just, well, misinformed? But okay, as a disclaimer, beauty is subjective and everybody has it's own standards, so nobody has "the truth".

But if you actually take your time, IMO you can see that the ArmA2 world looks beautiful.

Edited February 9, 2010 by zoog

[noubernou 77]

Yea the game looks wonderful in my opinion.

Drop yourself in the editor with a motorbike and just spend an hour driving around... Its amazing.

The detail too, just the random little things you can find all over the place.

[Guest]

God guys! Stop saying the engine is old!

It is not!!! What about car engines? They are over 100 years old!!! But they have advanced and now are completely different, but at the same time they are still the same!!!

Just because it was born a long time ago, does not mean it is old! It has advanced hugely since operation flashpoint!

Arghhhh!!!

:D