Why is this game not more popular?

[spooky lynx 73]

"Why is this game not more popular?" Maybe because of devs' indifference to modmakers. Still there are no mlods of models for example -> no great variety of mods and addons which was in OFP.

[HyperU2 11]

"Why is this game not more popular?" Maybe because of devs' indifference to modmakers. Still there are no mlods of models for example -> no great variety of mods and addons which was in OFP.

Yeah, mods are what makes every game. Just look at ACE for CODMW.

[spooky lynx 73]

Yeah, mods are what makes every game. Just look at ACE for CODMW.

Mods are what makes such games as OFP. Don't you think there would be sold so many copies if there were no any addon or mod? Don't you think that there would be so many MP battles without any additional content just using vanilla units?:rolleyes: Without additional content such game-not-suitable-for-every-teenager like BF/CoD-style arcades can be used just for couple of evenings.

[HyperU2 11]

The games that are popular for the masses are vanilla.

[spooky lynx 73]

They are popular for some months. Then other one-evening games take their place. The only reason to stay popular for such games is their highes quality in all aspects. I can name only few such games. Other games that are/were popular for many years and gather large communities have additional content - Half-Life, OFP/ArmA, NFS series, Lock On, Il-2, MS flight simulators etc.

[Freeborne 10]

I can only guess that "retarded internet terms" are ones that are rare and not commonly known or used. Some people on the net do try to make up new words for the sake of it. You risk coming across as retarded for trying to use uncommon lingo, as if it makes you cooler that you know their meaning.

The games that are popular for the masses are vanilla, but if ACE2 and other islands were painlessly simply to acquire and use, do you think the masses wouldn't use them? Of course they would. How many of us, that have gone through the effort to download ACE2, sound mods, etc in the end have gone 'boring, I'm going back to vanilla!"????

If BIS want to make ArmA more popular during it's long life cycle, they need to make it easier for people to use mods. You shouldn't have to restart the game to load different mods. Better yet, you shouldn't have to select what mods you need, the mission/server should select them for you.

[galzohar 31]

Most of those games are vanilla because their developers don't want mod makers to make anything, as it would lengthen the game's life and thus reduce the number of people that will buy their next game the year after. It had really become less about making the game as good as possible and more about making as little as possible and make that little bit be done good so that people would be just happy enough about it to buy the next game but not happy enough to just keep playing the old one when the new one is out already.

[Placebo 29]

Moosed is no longer able to post here, please do not reply to his posts.

[Gen_Protection 10]

If BIS want to make ArmA more popular during it's long life cycle

Surely the fact that it has a long life cycle implies they are doing a reasonable job already? It won't have a long life cycle or so many repeat customers if they are so far off the mark? Perfect no but I guess they are doing something pretty right already to stick to the formula for releases they seem to use repeatedly?

Still buying after 8/9 years of OFP/Arma series, I doubt that would be the case if no mods.

I do wonder if the fact that mods prolong life for existing already paid out customers knocks on. Ok the initial longterm buyer has already splashed the cash, and won't pay out again until a new "extension" RES/ etc gets released, but think of this aspect... everytime a good mod comes out it gets plastered all over Youtube etc. I gotta assume this generates new sales even some considerable months or even years after the game went gold? I remember seeing OFP in a retail outlet some 3 years after going gold.. I assume it must still have been selling for them to continue stocking it? How many of us will for sure buy the next "installment"? I would guess an above average no of existing customers.

Maybe because of devs' indifference to modmakers

My personal opinion.... that's grossly unfair. Maybe everything we want or desire is not given, or not at the speed we would like, but heck there are priorities, bills to pay, the future to secure and look at how many mods there are and that are still in the pipeline... nuff said. Thats one heck of a lot of modders voting with their feet? Perfect no. Better than pretty much any other moddable game ( military sim/game) on the planet... You decide. No heated debate... just my view.

As an aside.. I happen to know that at least one user who was sh*t hot at scripting etc in OFP days became an employee. To me that says hey these guys are actively watching the mod community, and always have? I also notice that some mods eventually make their way into a subsequent retail release,, hmmm... Personal opinion, they just dont make a song and dance about it, they chose priorities, quietly watch what is popular, who is doing good stuff etc etc, and react... but maybe not in the timeframe that's obvious to us sometimes?

PS BIS (Do I get a lifetime free membership now? LOL) Ok I joke but that's my feeling on this (and yes I am not a modder) Apols for long post, you winding me up lol.. I go chill out now :)

Cheers

Gen

[spooky lynx 73]

My personal opinion.... that's grossly unfair. Maybe everything we want or desire is not given, or not at the speed we would like, but heck there are priorities, bills to pay, the future to secure and look at how many mods there are and that are still in the pipeline... nuff said. Thats one heck of a lot of modders voting with their feet? Perfect no. Better than pretty much any other moddable game ( military sim/game) on the planet... You decide. No heated debate... just my view.

Just compare the amount of user-made content for OFP and for Arma1 and Arma2. As I see, the situation is getting more sad. It looks like people loosing interest in modding, in using all abilities of A1 or A2 engine.:confused:

The same goes to SP... IMHO that's another reason of falling down popularity. There are no the same great atmosphere that was in OFP campaign. All I can say about A1 and especially A2 SP campaign - FAIL.:( You can say old OFP campaigns are available via mods... Yes, but new game needs new campaign, created with 100% use of new engine features. New campaign with old atmosphere of being a just another infantry soldier who took part in war. Maybe you will mention that a lot of community members still remember the names of CWC and Resistance characters. But can you tell the same about the characters of A1 and A2 campaigns? Will this campaigns have the same long life? I doubt in it.:rolleyes:

[Placebo 29]

Just compare the amount of user-made content for OFP and for Arma1 and Arma2.

You are comparing from an unbalanced perspective, PC market was way bigger 9 years ago and in fact was probably primary gaming market, number of PC gamers was way bigger 9 years ago, type of game people were interested in (due to what was made available to them) was much different 9 years ago, 9 years ago there were no next gen consoles with in and out twitch fest MP from games like MW/BF/BFBC and the like, for whatever reason those games now have way more popularity than Flashpoint ever did in its heyday, you say the blame lies with us and our apparent "indifference to modmakers", personally I think that's just about as ludicrous a statement as I've heard on here in the last 9 years but if that's your opinion I must respect it :) Personally I think the lack of mods/modders/modding is as much to do with the changing face of gaming, of gamers, of PC users as it is with anything else, don't get me wrong I'm not blind to our weaknesses as a developer but in this example I think throwing the blame at us is a little myopic ;)

[spooky lynx 73]

You are comparing from an unbalanced perspective, PC market was way bigger 9 years ago and in fact was probably primary gaming market, number of PC gamers was way bigger 9 years ago, type of game people were interested in (due to what was made available to them) was much different 9 years ago

Do you think the number of community members had been decreased with the release of A1 for one time, and with release of A2 for second time? I suppose, no. So, I think, most of people who liked OFP stay in the community. And all that OFP addons and mods were made for that amount of people. So I don't think that the interest of this series' fans is influenced by market changes much. Personally, I've been playing in OFP/Armas since 2002 and I don't have any serious interest in consoles or BF/CoD-style games. And there are lots of people who are the same as me. We prefer OFP/Armas than any other kind of shooter and we are the stable and large part of community. The market doesn't influence us, the main users of addons/mods.

[Placebo 29]

Do you think the number of community members had been decreased with the release of A1 for one time, and with release of A2 for second time?

Yes absolutely, I've been around since the days of the Flashpoint demo, there are 100s of people I remember from those days who dropped out over the intervening years, even before ArmA1 was released.

I've been playing in OFP/Armas since 2002 and I don't have any serious interest in consoles or BF/CoD-style games.

And I've been playing Flashpoint since April 2001 or whenever it was the demo was released and despite not being interested in BF/COD I would much rather be gaming on my 360 than my PC these days, and there are plenty like me, fortunately of course there are plenty that are more than happy to play on PC still, which is why we do what we do as a developer :)

Edited March 22, 2010 by Placebo

[Gen_Protection 10]

@Spooky.

Just throwing this out there out of interest.

I have no figures just a gut sorta feeling, so what do you reckon? Is it possible that OFP had so many mods/addons/modders because it had such a long life, so they accumulated over a lot more years than arma2 has been around? I am wondering if comparing long OFP with much shorter arma2 availability maybe distorts reasonable comparison of quantity of mods/modders etc.... shrug. I really don't know answer to this myself just wondering out loud?

Another possible reason? I throw this out for your opinion... As modders have accumulated more knowledge/skills etc through what has gone before, is it plausible that now mods tend to be much more complicated and so more time consuming to make. Do you think quality is overall higher than OPF days? Maybe if less mods now ( and I wonder about this) its because much bigger/more technical? Just a thought again thinking out loud.

I sometimes think maybe Arma1 a bit of a blip in the BIS norm numbers wise, kind of a 1.5 version (ish) rather than a 2 version, I wonder if this reduced interest/numbers/mods... again personal opinion based on feeling rather than facts.(and maybe a bit unfair on good old BIS)

As an aside I gave up on Arma1 early simply because of the number of script kiddies trashing MP games with tedious regularity, ceased to be fun especially when this just went on and on, strange mentality.

@Placebo. I sometimes wonder if the twitchfest type games will eventually wear thin as so many of similar ilk churned out it just has to become monotonous sooner or later (and in my view short game life and actually pretty expensive too). Man if it all goes console I will have to admit defeat and finally realise I must be getting too old for this gamin lark :) I look at consoles and think of my daughter (still at school) playing. Mashing those horrible gizmo button thingies with all those buttons in places I never remember what the heck they do and where they are lol. As for flying with one... pure blasphemy lol, just not cricket :) Darn I AM starting to be a Dinosaur.

I get saddened when I go to major retail chain and see shrinking size of PC games being retailed, space now devoted to consoles/games/ blasted nintendos/ where colour matters? whats that all about lol I mean what the heck does the colour matter... sheesh strange priorities, mobile phones and laptop bags.. man thats downhill all the way (:

Hey I need my next mobile phone to be pink says my wife... ER hello if its at your ear how do you know what colour it is I say lol. OH and what the heck is wrong with your current phone... Wot it doesn't have many games... hello its a phone lol people ring you on it..It works perfectly Thats why its called a phone and it even does texts, heck you dont even understand how to do all the other stuff on the one you have. Er yeh but it's not pink she says..... thats it I am old ggrrhh... now I just have to practice being grumpy :)

Gen :D

Edited March 23, 2010 by Gen_Protection

[Phleep 0]

I recall from the OFP days that it took a very long time for all the mod tools to become available. Before that the best mods you got were Gimbal's camoflagued Cessna (grenades incl.) and a bizzare huey made by altering another model's vectors.

Arma 2 has more features and higher textures so will take more effort to make quality modifications that don't look out of place with the default units. More time and effort required inevitably mean less people reach completion.

[Placebo 29]

@Placebo. I sometimes wonder if the twitchfest type games will eventually wear thin as so many of similar ilk churned out it just has to become monotonous sooner or later (and in my view short game life and actually pretty expensive too).

As an employee of a developer of non-twitchfest type games I would certainly hope they would wear thin at some point, certainly not looking that way yet though, all I can hope for is a console version of ArmA2/3/4 some day so we can all retire to some nice tropical island somewhere ;)

[spooky lynx 73]

@Spooky.

Just throwing this out there out of interest.

I have no figures just a gut sorta feeling, so what do you reckon? Is it possible that OFP had so many mods/addons/modders because it had such a long life, so they accumulated over a lot more years than arma2 has been around? I am wondering if comparing long OFP with much shorter arma2 availability maybe distorts reasonable comparison of quantity of mods/modders etc.... shrug. I really don't know answer to this myself just wondering out loud?

Another possible reason? I throw this out for your opinion... As modders have accumulated more knowledge/skills etc through what has gone before, is it plausible that now mods tend to be much more complicated and so more time consuming to make. Do you think quality is overall higher than OPF days? Maybe if less mods now ( and I wonder about this) its because much bigger/more technical? Just a thought again thinking out loud.

I shouldn't say that ArmA modding is much more complicated than OFP one. Because a lot of features that modders tried to add to OFP addons via scripting or by other ways now are standart features of the game engine. And you are right, there is a quite large amount of knowledge and skills of modelling, texturing and coding for OFP/ArmAs engines (still they have much common), so I suppose with all that knowledge people would spend less time for modding. BTW, good official modelling/scripting/texturing tutorials would help those who want to create some addons greatly. Together with sample ingame models that should come with tools. ArmA series become more and more like sandbox, because SP campaign and missions look like just some kind of demos for testing new game features. So the best way to gain more popularity - is to support modding in all aspects. Or to make excellent SP campaign (CWC was one of them):)

And some more about other "reason"... Bugs:mad: The OFP/ArmAs have common engines, so... I expect that every new version of engine should be better that previous in all ways. But... What am I seeing? Some old bugs and limitations are gone, some new ones appeared.:( One example: try to create a convoy of 5-6 truck and compare how will they drive in OFP, A1 and A2.

P.S. There's one thing that this games lost, but OFP had it. The voices and mimics. Now A2 soldiers look like beautiful dummies.:rolleyes:

[avibird 1 155]

As an employee of a developer of non-twitchfest type games I would certainly hope they would wear thin at some point, certainly not looking that way yet though, all I can hope for is a console version of ArmA2/3/4 some day so we can all retire to some nice tropical island somewhere ;)

Wow, If I had said that most of the members would have gave my crap and sent me hate e-mail for a week as well as the Moderator out of control MR. Wolle would have told me not to start talking about the console and to shut my piehole in a nice way:cool:lol

I think bohemia products are far superior in so many ways then all the other FPS but somethings need to change or the overall number of players will continue to decline and that is a fact.

[froggyluv 2136]

all I can hope for is a console version of ArmA 3/4 some day so we can all retire to some nice tropical island somewhere ;)

Make it happen....

....and I'll buy the bloody console!

[Nielsneo 10]

As an employee of a developer of non-twitchfest type games I would certainly hope they would wear thin at some point, certainly not looking that way yet though, all I can hope for is a console version of ArmA2/3/4 some day so we can all retire to some nice tropical island somewhere ;)

As long as it's PC first Placebo, i'll by you a coconut drink.:)

[Herbal Influence 10]

I am happy:

Most users ever online was 1,551, Mar 21 2010 at 15:36 !

[Pulverizer 1]

The Project Reality Arma2 news appeared on some popular site?

[Gen_Protection 10]

I was beaten to it by Nielsneo.....I was goin to buy first round of drinks on that Tropical island. Drinks are on me lads, but you gotta spend next 6 months showing me how to use the damn control pad thingy:)

Wow, If I had said that most of the members would have gave my crap and sent me hate e-mail for a week as well as the Moderator out of control MR. Wolle would have told me not to start talking about the console and to shut my piehole in a nice waylol

@ Avibird1....Man that made me laugh, great comment. Still chuckling as I type.

Gen

[t1337Dude 10]

Reasons for its lack of popularity.

- Poor optimization/Steep requirements

- Buggy singleplayer campaign (and buggy game)

- Poor marketing

- Small online community

- Difficult Controls

- Poor voice acting and distracting radio system.

- Extreme copy-protection. If a game can't be pirated and it isn't very popular on its own, the lack of piracy isn't going to help

[SteveJA 12]

.

- Extreme copy-protection. If a game can't be pirated and it isn't very popular on its own, the lack of piracy isn't going to help

Dunno about you but imo im glad that Arma2 has EX copy protection (i didnt know it did) it means people are actualy buying the games meaning BI have more money (hopfullly) to improve Arma 2 and go on creating great games.