Why is this game not more popular?

[RedCanoe 10]

One problem is that ARMA2 is hard to categorize, and hard to explain, since it can be anything from a single player mil sim to a more conventional MP fps. The guys coming from a standard FPS, dip their toes in the water, see the learning curve ahead, think it's more a military RTS game and don't stick it out long enough to experience the great tactical gameplay offered in MP.

This quote hit home for me. I just ordered the game and should have it next week. I tried the demo quite a while ago and promptly uninstalled it (poor performance, seemed complicated, WTF with the voices).

I thought OFPDR was going to be the game I was looking for (ARMA II for a more casual player). Boy...what a waste of 50$.

I read the reviews of how buggy ARMA II was and how you could hardly run it on bleeding edge technology...no thanks.

In my desperation last week, I thought I would download the demo again and give it a try. I looked on these forums to see if the patches were helping and how the devs and community were interacting.

Well, I can't put the Demo down. And it's the bloody editor. I have seen people say "You don't buy it for the campaing, the editor is the game". That statement will turn anyone off. But holy #@#%! It's true. It's so easy to use (in it's basic form). Random...that's what I want. That's what every game lacks. Complete random. I have had more fun walking for 30 minutes with nothing happening than I have in other games. It's the not knowing. It's the dynamic element.

I can't for the life of me explain this game to my wife. The size, the things you can do, the way it all works. How do you convey that?

I can't wait until I have the full game. I'm not even interested in the campaign. I can't believe I'm not. I have already downloaded user campaigns and missions.

Also, I don't see mention of difficulty settings in much of the media. It's all "You will die, and you will die often". Not on the easy settings you won't. I didn't even know you can "save anywhere".

At the end of the day, I'm glad I waited until now. Now I'm ready. But it took a long time and I had to look hard to find if this was the game I've been looking for, for so long.

I think it is.

Cheers,

Rob

P.S. Casual for me = I have a 5 month old baby and only a few hours a day to game.

Edited March 13, 2010 by RedCanoe

[Flash Thunder 10]

Glad to hear that Canoe.

Im pretty sure its the same story for at least 80 percent of the others holding off on Arma 2.

I felt the same way that OFP DR was going to be superior due to the extreme hype for the game, but I went out and bought Arma 2 anyways in September seeing alot of videos on youtube showing off the selling points of the game,

The Editor I've spent 98% of my time on this game in this.

2% on user generated missions/PVP and Campaign

TRACKIR although I dont have one, but the feature of a first person body is something I want in every shooter game, lovely feature totally adds to the immersion in firefights.

The randomness as you put it, my missions surprise me all the time! Its incredible!

Bugs can be ignored most the time, thats where the reviews are just wrong they emphasize that the game will randomly crash every 5 minutes (although this does happen to a few people who knows why) most the bugs I run into our AI based, or just gameplay bugs.

If I could have 2 things totally improved in Arma 2 right now it would be the Artificial intelligence and Performance/optimization of the game.

I have a 9800GTX and I still can have problems playing the game on Chernarus. :(

Whoever you try to convince about buying this game because I did it a few times, tell them that it has a long learning curve you cant have attention defficit if you want to play this game, and tell them read up on Military tactics.

[Deadfast 43]

It's not so much the lack of servers as it is lack of players to play on them and mission makers to make mission for them and then again players to test said missions and give feedback about them so that they can be improved.

http://forums.bistudio.com/showthread.php?t=96505

[galzohar 31]

http://forums.bistudio.com/showthread.php?t=96505

I'll be happy when I see servers actually running those things with players, until then I'm still waiting... I hope they get more success than what devastation got.

[Bulldogs 10]

I just love that a thread about "why isn't this game more popular", is such a vastly popular thread

[Alex72 1]

I just love that a thread about "why isn't this game more popular", is such a vastly popular thread

LOL. Tells us it kind of is popular in'it. :D Just the pub gaming might not be so popular. PR might get the PvP going so thats good. And if one joins an established team where awesome games are held often - you wouldnt really see this "problem" since you would be playing and having an awesome time. All up to you.

[Nielsneo 10]

Glad to hear that Canoe.

Im pretty sure its the same story for at least 80 percent of the others holding off on Arma 2.

I felt the same way that OFP DR was going to be superior due to the extreme hype for the game, but I went out and bought Arma 2 anyways in September seeing alot of videos on youtube showing off the selling points of the game,

The Editor I've spent 98% of my time on this game in this.

2% on user generated missions/PVP and Campaign

TRACKIR although I dont have one, but the feature of a first person body is something I want in every shooter game, lovely feature totally adds to the immersion in firefights.

The randomness as you put it, my missions surprise me all the time! Its incredible!

Bugs can be ignored most the time, thats where the reviews are just wrong they emphasize that the game will randomly crash every 5 minutes (although this does happen to a few people who knows why) most the bugs I run into our AI based, or just gameplay bugs.

If I could have 2 things totally improved in Arma 2 right now it would be the Artificial intelligence and Performance/optimization of the game.

I have a 9800GTX and I still can have problems playing the game on Chernarus. :(

Hey Flash. Most games rely heavily on Graphicscards but ArmA 2 is much more dependent on CPU. I have a lesser GPU than you and i have no problems running A2 with good framerates because i have a good CPU.

I guess another reason why this game is not popular is because it is PC only wich unfortunately these days is a rare thing. A lot is focused on consoles and casual gaming today and because of that casual shooters like MW2, BFBC2, GRAW and dare i say it Dragon Failing get a lot more attention.:(

[Macadam Cow 1]

I can't for the life of me explain this game to my wife.

Oh lol, I tried...I'm single now...:p

And I totally agree with this :

That's what every game lacks. Complete random. I have had more fun walking for 30 minutes with nothing happening than I have in other games. It's the not knowing. It's the dynamic element.

And now I'm completely addicted to this game, really hard for me to play any other game more than 30 minutes without getting bored...

[madmark 0]

MY only problem with this and other Bi games is they cannot get the game to even out the odds when you go prone and see nothing and Ai still have Xray vision.

I like the realism in 1 shot and medic revive but not when I have spent ages getting to a fire fight or stealth position only to be taken out from something that has absolutaly no sight of me!

[Bulldogs 10]

It's to do with detection and prediction. It's a little too good.

When it was first released you could sneak around and the AI wouldn't see you, but they could hear you very well to the point that they'd hear the grass move at 100m. They dumbed it down to the point where AI wouldn't hear you when you ran up behind them, and they still don't know, but they have a bit better detection now.

The problem now is the supression area. If they hear you fire from a position or spot you moving in that position then they'll supress that position. Instead of it being a wide arc on the position they supress to a very close proximity so the chances of survival are extremely low. You can try to move away though and often they won't see you crawl off and will keep firing on your position, but that depends on the amount of grass/bushes and how close you are to the enemy.

[That guy 10]

Random...that's what I want. That's what every game lacks. Complete random. I have had more fun walking for 30 minutes with nothing happening than I have in other games. It's the not knowing. It's the dynamic element.

you did a good job of describing why this game can be some amazing :cool:

short, clean, precise

[Macadam Cow 1]

I would compare ArmA vs. Other games with Lego.

Yall know Lego, right ?

Well, for me, a game like CoD of BF is like a custom Lego. It has some really nice custom bricks allowing you to do one(and only one) really cool model, with a lot of eye candy stuff. It will look great and it will work great out of the box.

ArmA would be like a box of random bricks. Sure, with those you'll never get such a great result as with a custom box but on the other hand you're able to do anything you want, anything

It will requires a bit more work and more imagination, but once you handle the thing possibilities are endless

At the end of the day some will prefer a custom box some will prefer random bricks.

Edited March 17, 2010 by Macadam Cow

[jonneymendoza 10]

The mission editor is really basic and you have to have programing knowledge to make something half decent.

I am currently play BFBC2 and its great but is it better than arma 2? hell fucking no.

Arma is soo much better and realistic that i can spend hours playing an arma 2 mission but with bfbc2 i can only play maybe half an hour before realizing that game is just a run and gun camping fest.

its very fast paced bfbc2 but for me nothing beats walking around for 30mins constantly on guard looking out for enemies. for me, that is more fun then walking for 1min into a hotzone in bfbc2 and constantly shooting on guns that dont even have any recoil.

i wished bfbc2 was bigger just liek bf2.

for me, bf2 is better than bfbc2 but arma 2 is like bf2, but bigger, better and aimed at people who have a brain

[Defunkt 431]

Yall know Lego, right?

Great analogy.

[-Total- 0]

Someone told me that the release of BFBC2 was going to kill whatever player base ArmA2 had. I haven't been watching anyone else's server, but our server has been hopping 6 nights out of every week since the day BFBC2 was released.

[Bulldogs 10]

BFBC2 is a great game but it's just like every other game of it's genre in that it's a shooter. You jump on and play for minutes or hours, but you're not going to get a tactical mil-sim experience out of it. That's why there's nothing on the market that would draw the mil-sim crowd away from Arma 2 (except for that browser based mil-sim thingy, can't remember the name of it)

[Serg.k 10]

I've bought BFBC2 two days ago, played for 1hr in single and multuplayer and realized that the game is just a race and massacre in narow corridors. I'am going to uninstall it. As for me Flashpoint-Arma-Arma2 are the best military games.

[nettrucker 142]

Someone told me that the release of BFBC2 was going to kill whatever player base ArmA2 had. I haven't been watching anyone else's server, but our server has been hopping 6 nights out of every week since the day BFBC2 was released.

Hi Total

I disagree on that one. The OFP ArmA community survived for 8-9 long years and nothing is going to change that. The community is more active than ever, daily releases of outstanding stuff and also MP will not vanish BFBC2 is not going to change that.

Best regards:D

[galzohar 31]

All my friends who used to play Arma every other day are playing BFBC2 non-stop, but then again in 1-2 weeks they'll probably get tired of it which is why I'm not buying it.

[lugiahua 26]

Because 14 years old kids do not have patient to wait 30 mins for their friendly units move into positions and then launch a coordinated assault.

They would just charge right into crossfire and wiped like ants, then yelling "THE GAME SUX, I DIED!!!!!! !@@$#^#$%$$^$^"

[banenwn 10]

I know alot of people who quit playing simply because there high end system couldnt run the game decent.If the game was better optimized that would help the numbers also

[wamingo 1]

I know alot of people who quit playing simply because there high end system couldnt run the game decent.If the game was better optimized that would help the numbers also

I do wonder if OA will run better now that it's a desert-like landscape. -- ie not as many trees and stuff. Can only speculate of course.

[HyperU2 11]

Because 14 years old kids do not have patient to wait 30 mins for their friendly units move into positions and then launch a coordinated assault.

They would just charge right into crossfire and wiped like ants, then yelling "THE GAME SUX, I DIED!!!!!! !@@$#^#$%$$^$^"

That about sums it up.

[Bulldogs 10]

I always think about the optimisation of it, but in the end, and you may call me selfish for this, I don't want it more optimised.

Right now the game runs fantastic for me, but I run a fairly decent system, although not too great; q9300, 5850, 4gb of ram, but the game runs well on my setup and optimisation would require lowering the AI and settings and personally I wouldn't think it'd be as good if that happened.

[wamingo 1]

optimisation would require lowering the AI and settings and personally I wouldn't think it'd be as good if that happened.

That's not really optimization though, that's just dumbing down.

BIS said in the OA thread that their OA tree shader ran faster AND looked better. That's optimization.