Why is this game not more popular?

[celery 8]

Why would anyone want to look at a screen with half of the previous frame still showing?

[Zipper5 74]

Go to your ATI or nVidia control panel and force vsync off in the profile related to Arma 2/OA's exe.

[wamingo 1]

The main thing that makes this game feel "sluggish"/"cluncky" is how animations work. Many animations are either too slow or just uninterruptible so once they start they have to play through.

I'm convinced that no greater, straight-forward, single upgrade could be made to arma than to make the appropriate animations interruptable/blendable.

It might seem like a small thing, but quality is found in the details.

When we were given reload while moving, people cheered.

And people will cheer again, I think, when given stance-to-stance-change interruption and stance-to-movement blending, to name a few.

The PVP crowd might be especially appreciative.

Now, it probably won't quadrouble the number of players! But whatever might achieve that, probably won't be straight forward.

[ahmedjbh 0]

movement is clunky, no rag doll. To many different versions and modes.

Sometimes I just want to play for 10mins online, there needs to be a way for me to do that without waiting 10 mins for a chopper or trecking etc. Instant action mode etc.

[NoRailgunner 0]

Why are shooters like CoD / BF series popular?

Mainstream/casual players do prefer simple stories/instant action and like to fight mostly for their own killstats and achievements/extras. Many of those players are pretty lost if they cant rush or have to think about their next steps. How many coop missions do have a good story and how many pvp missions are plausible?

Isnt it more that mainstream/casual players feel better if they can see or predict what happen next and can be respawned within close range?

[Leopardi 0]

Gnat;1726140']Vsync ?!

Right ..... the world doesnt play this game because of Vsync being forced on ..... sure.

yeah on most displays vsync makes a world of difference (cant aim at all, laaaaaggy input, very disconnected from the game character), and it makes the fps very very jerky unless runnin super high end.

[Gunter Severloh 4052]

I just want to play for 10mins online, there needs to be a way for me to do that without waiting 10 mins for a chopper or trecking etc. Instant action mode etc.

open up the editor and slap some squads down and have at it, i almost prefer it over MP, but MP is fun too.

[CCWashout 10]

I posted a question in the noobs thread on this in case I was missing soemthing that could already be solved, but its kind of related to why I think this awesome game/sim is not more popular:

The basic movement controls need some work to maybe lower simulated fidelity, but make the experience more accessible to transitioning FPS players, namely:

Remove the "stepping" motion which makes fine position adjustment in CQB's and when behind cover difficult and non-instinctive.

Reverse the walk/run default keystrokes - I don't want to be lurching sideways from cover when all I need is a little six inch shuffle to get a line of sight on the enemy.

Make the transition from standing to crouch to prone faster when static - you can drop to your knee in RL very quickly and especially if equipped with knee pads and certainly faster than the arthritic pace currently implemented.

Oh and yes marketing needs to be invested in if the budget permits - I stumbled across this title accidently, which to my mind means the message is not getting "out there".

That may all sound a bit negative but IMHO there's a ton of positive features that mean if the items above could be resolved there would be a much greater audience willing to deshackle themselves from the "stuck in a 300 yard box" FPS experience every other title offers.

[SASrecon 0]

I'm convinced that no greater, straight-forward, single upgrade could be made to arma than to make the appropriate animations interruptable/blendable.

It might seem like a small thing, but quality is found in the details.

When we were given reload while moving, people cheered.

And people will cheer again, I think, when given stance-to-stance-change interruption and stance-to-movement blending, to name a few.

The PVP crowd might be especially appreciative.

Now, it probably won't quadrouble the number of players! But whatever might achieve that, probably won't be straight forward.

The animations are already blended, check this video I made when the feature was first introduced in an ARMA 2 beta patch:

bL5NeQ8dQsA

See how the death animation is playing while he reloads?

(I put god-mode on for myself to prove this)

[kylania 568]

movement is clunky, no rag doll. To many different versions and modes.

Sometimes I just want to play for 10mins online, there needs to be a way for me to do that without waiting 10 mins for a chopper or trecking etc. Instant action mode etc.

ArmA is simply not the military simulator for that. Also, rag doll is silly/completely unrealistic. :) A game like CounterStrike or BF2 might be more what you're looking for.

To be honest I can't really think of any game that's suited for 10 minutes of play other than puzzle games maybe?

[galzohar 31]

World of Tanks is 15-minute round time limit and usually ends in about 3 minutes ;)

My record in minesweeper on expert is about 60 seconds.

And I'm sure there are more ;0

[celery 8]

Also, rag doll is silly/completely unrealistic. :)

Do you mean to say that IRL we die with pre-recorded animations? You can program a ragdoll effect to be as realistic or unrealistic as you want.

[mr burns 132]

Do you mean to say that IRL we die with pre-recorded animations? You can program a ragdoll effect to be as realistic or unrealistic as you want.

For a very realistic ragdoll w/o bodys flying through the air or falling over in the wrong direction or looking totally spastic while collapsing you´d need some very good bullet ballistics first. And simulation of biomass, nervous system ... so no, i don´t agree. Without a deep anatomical base Ragdoll will always be what it is, a puppeteers wet dream.

And then there´s more important things than ultra realistic dying pixels :D

PS: Gotta admit i like Mount & Blade's ragdoll alot!

[wamingo 1]

The animations are already blended

The one You mentioned probably shouldn't be though, heh!

You are right that many animations are indeed blended wonderfully, but some remain, and some of them are major culprits in the clunkiness of control and some in silly looks.

here's some I've found:

- Stance-Changes before movement and dying.

eg Crouch->Stand and vice versa force you to wait for eons for the animations to finish.

- Secondary weapon switch makes you unable to move.

- Pistol switch makes you unable to move and isn't interrupted by death.

- Binocular switch - same as Pistol switch.

- Lower/raise weapon - same as Stance-Changes.

I actually wrote these down a while ago as I wanted to start a suggestion or CIT-topic for a long time. But felt like I needed a more complete list.

[johncage 30]

For a very realistic ragdoll w/o bodys flying through the air or falling over in the wrong direction or looking totally spastic while collapsing you´d need some very good bullet ballistics first. And simulation of biomass, nervous system ... so no, i don´t agree. Without a deep anatomical base Ragdoll will always be what it is, a puppeteers wet dream.

And then there´s more important things than ultra realistic dying pixels :D

PS: Gotta admit i like Mount & Blade's ragdoll alot!

none of that is actually required. you just need very simple parameters for directional force on the skeleton. it could be completely arbitrary and it'd still look a heck of a lot better than non-rag dolled corpses that fly horizontally into the air as if flash frozen.

i understand the limitatios perfectly, so this is not a support for ragdoll, just saying you're over complicating its application. why would you even bother to model the nervous system when you can simulate it without the excess computing power? that's what games are rooted in, simulations, not actual calculations. if everything needed to be calculated you'd need a quantum computer.

i've also seen good animation/rag doll hybrids in a recent gamecon presentation on red orchestra 2. people keel over realistically, if a person was leaning against a wall, he'll slump over it. it's all about tweaking the parameters to give the animations the correct look. games like counter strike source just never bothered with this and you can tell when people come out with physics mod that absolutely look realistic.

[dmarkwick 261]

I'm in general favour of using ragdoll, however it does introduce some problems to be solved. Firstly, I'm in favour because it adds some visual diversity to the battlefield, it's pretty easy to recognise dead bodies after you've played a while due to the limited animated poses. Although not exactly a gamebreaker it does mean I can easily identify actual dead bodies, ragdoll might mean I'm not sure, and I'd need to put a few rounds into it just in case. (SLX does a good job of doing this also BTW by "resurrecting" apparently dead bodies).

However it is a mostly single-player enhancement due to obvious synching problems. Maybe a reasonable halfway solution would be a synched torso across the network but with limbs being ragdoll to give variance across machines without breaking the synch.

That way bodies will still be in the same place for everyone but will also look different for everyone.

[Encrypted_God 10]

ArmA is simply not the military simulator for that. Also, rag doll is silly/completely unrealistic. :) A game like CounterStrike or BF2 might be more what you're looking for.

To be honest I can't really think of any game that's suited for 10 minutes of play other than puzzle games maybe?

I Completely agree with you

[johncage 30]

see, things like "rag doll is completely unrealistic" just smacks of sour grapes to me.

[TovarishMimino 10]

Not sure if this was mentioned, but maybe there should be lots of promos with free DLs handed out in order to increase the player base and spread the word via mouth.

I definitely think that more players playing more different kinds of maps and modes would greatly increase the online quality of the game.

[Michael Withstand 10]

Free British DLC :rolleyes:

[chortles 263]

More importantly, the game must WORK -- yes, bug-free truly may be impossible, but the reputation of bug-ridden has persisted throughout the ARMA series, and to be blunt, adhering to the "old" vehicle system (even if it was to ensure compatibility with Operation Flashpoint addons) may have been the wrong choice for BIS to take. It also takes a helluva lot more buttons than most players would be used to "needing," and obstacles to getting casuals to give the game a serious try should be minimized.

Hint: This game not being more popular is NOT always "everyone else's" fault.

Oh, and as a rebuttal to whoever it was that claimed long ago that casual fans are put off by the "fidelity" thing... coming from a player of MAG (a PS3 online-only FPS infamous for its "256 player" Domination mode), there is a way to do "big and quite open world" right, without the other factors that put "casuals" off of ARMA.

Edited August 26, 2010 by Chortles

[dmarkwick 261]

Hint: This game not being more popular is NOT always "everyone else's" fault.

Steady on there pal, people are just throwing reasons around, among which is the notion that other people simply might not like it :)

Oh, and as a rebuttal to whoever it was that claimed long ago that casual fans are put off by the "fidelity" thing... coming from a player of MAG (a PS3 online-only FPS infamous for its "256 player" Domination mode), there is a way to do "big and quite open world" right, without the other factors that put "casuals" off of ARMA.

Clearly you have not grasped what I meant by fidelity. Simply having lots of people on a large map is not what I wrote.

[Zipper5 74]

Hint: This game not being more popular is NOT always "everyone else's" fault.

No, but most of the time it is, because the modern gaming industry has groomed its consumers to be lazy.

Oh, and as a rebuttal to whoever it was that claimed long ago that casual fans are put off by the "fidelity" thing... coming from a player of MAG (a PS3 online-only FPS infamous for its "256 player" Domination mode), there is a way to do "big and quite open world" right, without the other factors that put "casuals" off of ARMA.

MAG was done horribly wrong. It's boring, and rarely do you find that many people playing at once. If you do, the lag is likely to be ridiculous (I found one once with 244 players). Plus, it too was fairly bugged. MAG was quite the poor example to use there.

[FRidh 0]

my reason for not playing this game anymore is that I am disappointed in the quality/fun of the matches/missions played online. In my opinion there is not much diversity, at least, not compared to OFP.

[galzohar 31]

Public servers will run missions made for public players, and since there aren't a lot of public players (at least not ones with time and knowledge needed) there aren't a lot that are actually making missions for them, hence the lack of diversity. If you played offline by yourself you'd probably have even less diversity.

I wish there were more people actually caring about making stuff for public play (but hey, at least PR are working on something), but to be honest the actual players and/or server admins aren't very encouraging. It's very hard to get a new mission out there on the servers, no matter how good it is, as admins will run what people know and know that works, rather than constantly try new stuff that may or may not work.