Why is this game not more popular?

[Star Four One 10]

No, thanks. That implies simplifying the game to the extreme, i don't know about you, but i don't want that at all. I want that Arma remains as "Combat Simulator" as it is today. If Arma goes to the consoles (or console style game A.K.A. "DUuuuuuUUMB!") it will be its end. At least for me.

Riiight... because OPF:Elite was dumbed down. :rolleyes:

S41

[flattermann 12]

That is my point. if BIS get world wide famous like other past companies like epic etc, i feel BIS would do exactly what 9/10 known developers do and just chase the dollers mate.

i too dont want that to happen but the fact is that any indie dev that becomes big, ends up chasing the dollers being greedy and forgetting where they came from.

Its ok to chase the doller but so long as you dont forget the customers who made you who you are today.

Right! Yet i suppose BIS is not that poor moneywise, one of the many reasons for us to be able to play the most awesome game on the planet is VBS1 (and 2). Why are they going to release a chopper simulation? Either they've already made one for whomever or are about doing so.

I'm not looking at ArmA2 as a side product or so, however I doubt "some indie developer" would have the resources to create the most incredible game ever and even guarantee continuous support. I just hope that BIS will manage to keep their foot in the military's door for many years to come, thus being able to remain "indie" and continue polishing and adding content to ArmA2.

What makes me sad is that ArmA2 is such a monster when it comes to hardware requirements that not many people in the Czech Republic and surrounding countries in Central and Western Europe are able to actually play that game. A good part of OFP players were and are Czech, Slovak, Polish, Hungarian, Croatian... The great majority in these countries just don't earn enough to buy computers that cost 1000$ and more just to play one single game... And even if they are, and used to play OFP, they probably have a family now.

Edited April 4, 2011 by Flattermann

[cartier90 0]

The reason this game is not more popular is indicative of the entire entertainment world out there. Auto tuned artists - popcorn throwaway Harry bollocks ? And COD 'head shot' esque games and the associated mega bucks they ALL bring.

In other words - the middle ground PAYS ! - offend no one - appeal to the indifferent , the casual ...the pick up and play crowd and you will reap riches . Political party ? - do what the Tories do ...appeal to middle ground.

Take a look at the ' golden age' the 80s 90s - Music film and video games - real ...real innovation , risks taken , legends made - the formula for success is now out there and I'm afraid it's trying to get your mother to do stepups sponsored by Nintendo - the hardcore don't stand a chance ; )

[sgtfishmen 10]

1) Lack of creativity. BIS are unable to find a way to set themselves apart. They do nothing excellently. There isn't one single element that excites new players. Rather than go all out on detail - gameplay detail, not texture detail, they try to walk a middle ground. See recent attempts to speed up animations. Something community members have never demanded en masse. Who are they trying to appeal to? Chasing COD by making the movement "friendlier" is uninspired decision making.

As an example. Remember the pre-release hype around S.T.A.L.K.E.R's sleep system and dynamic free roaming gameplay. Ignore that this never came to fruition. Players were excited about these sorts of features. BIS's engine is perfectly suited to this sort of detailed oriented gameplay. We saw some of that in the Resistance campaign, stockpiling weapons between missions. Do BIS develop features like this? They attempt it by lazily scripting it in eg conversation system..broken and gone now. Do they make real engine changes? No. Again, no attempt to creatively set themselves apart.

2) Technical hitches, the game has a rep for being buggy and slow. BIS heavily rely on scripting and don't seem to be willing to commit to actual changes on the engine side. They use scripted modules rather than written in engine changes, modules which are finicky and slow and lead to bugs.

Why has the mission editor remained exactly the same for 10 years? Sure it works, but does it excite anyone? No.

3) Uninspiring singleplayer. This is the first thing new players focus on. Forget that what keeps the core audience for the game coming back is the mission editor and the modding community. New players don't care about that. Can anyone remember the Resistance Campaign and how good it was? Since then it's been generic military with zero character.

4) "Armed Assault" is a poor name, sounds bargain bin. The first game was poorly marketed as being a follow up to Flashpoint, a title the majority of long term PC players know. Many still don't know about ArmA though. Again this comes back to lack of creativity.

I know it sounds harsh.. There's an undercurrent of mediocrity. Which is an incredible shame since these titles are clearly an established franchise that they're willing to continue developing. As a business, but not in any real meaningful passionate way.

Edited April 5, 2011 by sgtfishmen

[Macadam Cow 1]

the hardcore don't stand a chance ; )

I wouldn't say that. Thrusmaster recently released its High Tech joystick, the Warthog. Costing about €350 it's clearly aimed at hardcore simmers.

So ok, flight sim have always been somehow popular, I mean in the "flight video game world" simulation are "the norm", which is not true with the FPS genre.

But I think the different DLC's released by BIS prove the ArmA formula is working and generates enough incomes.

The golden age of simulation is clearly behind us but I feel like lately we've seen some sort of re-birth of the genre : the DCS serie (A-10C being considered as the true 1st DCS), ArmA, Cliff Of Dover and now the upcoming Take On Helicopters.

Honestly it's been a long the future hasn't been so bright for simmers :)

As a business, but not in any real meaningful passionate way.

Erh, I think it's exactly the other way around.

And I can tell you the mission editor turns me on every time I'm launching it ;)

Edited April 5, 2011 by Macadam Cow

[Tonci87 163]

3) Uninspiring singleplayer. This is the first thing new players focus on. Forget that what keeps the core audience for the game coming back is the mission editor and the modding community. New players don't care about that. Can anyone remember the Resistance Campaign and how good it was? Since then it's been generic military with zero character.

That is so true. We really need a good SP Campaign in the next Arma.

[maddogx 13]

That is so true. We really need a good SP Campaign in the next Arma.

That's one thing I can agree with.

And the fact I find most interesting is that the best campaign BIS ever made, the one that every OFP and ArmA player looks back on fondly is Resistance - the only BIS campaign where the player doesn't play as part of a big, technologically superior army, moving in to invade/liberate a country.

BIS, do yourselves a favor: stop following the lead of the CODs, MOHs and BFs of this day and age. It really doesn't take "Ooorah!" screaming grunts with IR scopes, silenced assault weapons and gunship support to make a good campaign.

[Zipper5 74]

I agree Resistance was their best, followed by Cold War Crisis of course. However, I have to admit - I really like Eagle Wing and Operation Crimson Lance, too. They're the best BIS campaigns since Resistance, in my eyes.

[Tonci87 163]

Well I personally think that the Harvest Red Campaign was quite good. It told a good Story, it had good characters, well the warfare Stuff in the last Mission ruined it a little bit, but it was a pretty good campaign. The OA campaign....Well there were some People and especially game magazines complaining that you always play as a force recon guy during Harvest Red, and that it was much cooler in the old OFP where you played as a grunt, SpecOps, Tank Commander, Pilot. BIS decided to let you play those roles in the OA campaign. They only forgott one little thing: The OA Campaign is waaaaay to short for this. You just don´t have enough time to identify with the characters. The Missionm design was fine, but it was quite a drawback storywise.

The PMC Campaign....well frankly I really don´t know what to say about it. The whole Thing didn´t really make sense to me. I was constantly wondering what´s going on here. The Missions were fun, but again the storytelling wasn´t really good until the end of the campaign where you had to make some decisions.

IMHO BIS should try make a new Resistance Campaign. Maybe some pre harvest Red Stuff with NAPA. They should focus on the things that made Resistance so great. Stockpiling Weapons (was included in PMC, but was totally unnecessary)

The need to keep your men alive. If your men died in Resistance they didn´t get replaced in the next mission.

A good Story!

I don´t mean some OOOrah lets steamroll that enemy Army like in OA (come on, T-34 and T-50 against Abrams? Where is the challenge?),

but some intense "Oh we are so f*** situations"

And a looong Campaign. By long I mean at least 20 Missions!

You really need time to tell a good story and to identify with the characters!

[Alwarren 2767]

That being said though, I use a 360 pad and mouse to play and between both of them I very rarely have to touch the keyboard either. Only for selecting units or message typing.

So the convenience is there also for those who wish to choose it.

No doubt about it, the control methods work IF you are using a 360 pad. Luckily, ArmA isn't a console port. I'm more concerned with those games that are console ports and employ the same limited controls to the PC version.

And, I am lucky to have found Operation Flashpoint somewhere in 2002 ;)

[Atkins 10]

Is the Badlands the Warfare mode mission in Harvest Red?

Other than that, I like the campaign.

[Tonci87 163]

The last two Missions were Warfare. Badlands was the first one. I actually enjoyed it. The Mission was nice because it portrayed a different aspect of how to play Arma. But when i saw that the last Mission was also Warfare on whole chernarus I was quite dissapointed.

[jonneymendoza 10]

What about peoples SP campaign mods? there brilliant

[smookie 11]

I guess not only the campaigns are the reason why armas are less popular than OFP (and in general). Flashpoint seemed much more accessible to a regular player, while in ArmA series you kinda need to have a bit of a hardcore simulation fan in yourself. This is due to the fact the game is less balanced towards an average, casual player (i guess OFP was quite in the middle between a proper simulation and a tactical first person shooter; it had it's unique game mechanics, one shot one kill scheme, enemy shooting from nowhere aspect etc. which was very compelling for those looking for more challenge; just like me) and reach outs more for a specific group of people (that would enjoy spending half of their afternoon under a one bush; i do have an impression this community the arma has is rather a closed one, and less consistent - this is what i make off by reading official forums recently. All the attitude of players towards newcomers or those who actually dare to complain and comparing them to COD kiddies is just ridiculous and has barely ever happened in OFP community). Not sure if thats very accurate but it is as if we compared OFP to football and ArmA2 to a less manly sport like cricket or whatever it is called - it's just not for everyone and for most people it provides no enterainment (who would watch a cricket game anyway? :P).

I suspect this is also why the quality of campaigns as we, the veterans, perceive them has dropped down (in terms of enjoyability) since OFP. Flashpoint wasn't so strict about realism and therefore could develop much more colourful story because it didn't really have to stick to the values BI imposed on themselves. Or maybe we just get old? :) Or maybe, should there be one, ArmA3 should go back to it's previous roots? :)

Edited April 7, 2011 by Smookie

[Atkins 10]

Is it because...

- poor marketing.

- AI in many multi player games?

- Lack of dedicated servers for online PvP games?

At least the last 2 are true in my opinion.

It was disappointing to see that there isnt hardly any PvP action going on and rest of the MP-scene is co-op missions with bunch of players, all with sniper rifles shooting bots from 800 meters.

[jblackrupert 14]

It would help if there weren't a billion single team Domination servers.

How people spend weeks, months, years shooting AI day in and day out is beyond me.

[djczing 10]

And how people think everybody should be like them is beyond me :)

[jblackrupert 14]

Fish in a barrel are a bigger challenge then Arma AI.

[Xerxes-17 10]

Also considering that Insurgency is a far superior mode for Players vs Ai.

[Westsailor 10]

Lack of Marketing & advertising has got to have a lot to do with it.

I've been an old time high fidelity sim nut and a big fan for 1st person shooters for decades (Airwarrior/WarBirds, counterstrike, etc.) and I just heard about ArmA (etc) today! And that was by accident when reading some comments about Operation Flashpoint Red River. Arma 2 was mentioned in passing and I decided to check it out.

Had it not been for basically stumbling across it I probably would never have seen it in the '1st tier' game reporting sites.

I'm downloading the demo now :)

[katipo66 94]

I started playing online recently/finally... The only thing that appealed to me was Benny warfare, and there's usually only one server and it's usually full, everything else is empty or locked, not interested in coop.

Also everyone warps!? Like 2-3 metres... Obviously this is known about but looks bad.

I'm gonna check out pvp scene as that appeals to me more.

Edited April 21, 2011 by Katipo66

[LeftSkidLow 1]

I started playing BIS games before OFP was released in the states. I've never given 2 shits about any of the campaigns nor have any of my friends who play. The furthest into a campaign I've played is the original OFP demo mission.

Most people today are buying shooting/war games for the multiplayer experience ie. BF1942, BF2, BFV, BFBC2, DoD, COD and all it's shitclones, blablabla. I think BIS are just still learning how they want to structure the online experience for ArmA for dynamic long lasting missions. It wasn't that long ago they were only shipping their games with static coop missions. It's been mostly up to the mission makers in the past to keep the online community alive until recently with the BIS Warefare maps.

You have to remember also, while domination gets old very fast, it's a lot better than the original evolution missions and the original evolution missions were a huge jump from linear coop missions. For those of you that never played OFP, we used to not even be able to join in a game progress. We've come pretty far with the online play since OFP, I think insurgency is the next best thing, especially when you have some OPFOR nonAI players. If project reality is successful in ArmA, I think they will bring along the much needed structure and interfaces to appeal to more players.

[noubernou 77]

I started playing online recently/finally... The only thing that appealed to me was Benny warfare, and there's usually only one server and it's usually full, everything else is empty or locked, not interested in coop.

Also everyone warps!? Like 2-3 metres... Obviously this is known about but looks bad.

I'm gonna check out pvp scene as that appeals to me more.

Do not pub in this game. Pubbing will give you bar none the worst possible experience in ArmA2 game play!

Find a decent community like United Operations or Tactical Gamer and start playing there. You wont find Warfare or Insurgency or Domi, but you will find dozens of custom made missions, large coop and TvT events (80+ players) and staff and community members that are knowledgeable and friendly.

Also you will see less warping. Mission makers are usually more competent in communities and do not totally destroy performance of missions like you see in most custom domi pub servers.

In short, do not pub!

[Freeborne 10]

I started playing online recently/finally... The only thing that appealed to me was Benny warfare, and there's usually only one server and it's usually full, everything else is empty or locked, not interested in coop.

There's not a whole lot to choose from in Au/NZ. NouberNou's advice would be good, if you happy playing with 250ms ping on those servers.

Check out AusArmA if you haven't already. Lots of info on other groups/clans/servers. NZArmA is also a NZ dedicated gaming clan with own server and forums and have just come back online.

Also try some Insurgency. More PvP in that if you choose OPFOR, compared to Warfare.

[Cookieeater 10]

The game just is too slow paced and unforgiving. That's why it's not more popular.