Why is this game not more popular?

[dmarkwick 261]

This game could be bestseller if BIS would postpone the release a few month later.

Bad reviews are responsible for low acceptance by players. Only devoted fans of OFP and Arma bought the game despite the bad reviews including me.

If they´d release it in state of 1.05 patch we could have a game of the year.

This is perhaps true and most pertinent to the topic of the thread. How many times have people here bemoaned that new users did not "do enough research" to find out what they were getting?

I'm guessing that the potential new users who DID do a little digging came up against the rather lukewarm reviews of the release product and simply decided not to buy. And who would blame them, who wants to buy a several-months-old game that got poor reviews when it came out?

[TRexian 0]

That may be part and parcel of the way the official addons are developed.

With A1, Queen's Gambit was a huge addon that reflected a wonderful gaming experience. By then, most of the worst bugs had been sorted out.

With A2, I expect the same from Operation Arrowhead. It'll get alot of media attention, and they can market a very good product.

[Herbal Influence 10]

I just wrote it in another thread but it's so true, I can't help to type it here again. :o

Just imagine for a second BIS investing the same amount (of money and marketing specialists) into the promotion of this game the big ones do (Microsoft, Intel, Misleader Codemaster, Electronic Arts etc.).

In my opinion the result would be: Market leadership within a year.

In a world where everyone in the financially developed countries can buy what he wants marketing is the key to "success" in the market.

But they can't and they won't and it's ok. :)

Edited February 17, 2010 by Herbal Influence

[Whiskey_Tango 10]

Everyone talks about big money marketing comparing to MS, EA, etc... If BIS had the money to advertise like that they would have a much larger dev team as well. That in turn would lead to a polished release without alot of the bugs that turn potential customers away.

At the same time its a double edged sword, big bucks on developing and marketing leads to needing big profits and honestly i cant see enough customers out there to warrant it. Steep learning curve and a slow pace turns alot of gamers away and games end up getting dumbed down either through greedy investors or just plain needing to sell more to cover the expenses.

[76 0]

With A2, I expect the same from Operation Arrowhead. It'll get alot of media attention, and they can market a very good product.

+1

Maybe with DR being an Epic Fail, no more support and thousands walking away from not only DR but the crap developer as well (way to kill a legend CodeApprentices)

We may/may not see an increase of A2 players... would be nice if we did :)

[Guest]

If Arma 2 ever became COD style mainstream I would be so disapointed. The best thing about Arma 2 for me is the small, generally polite and amazing coomunity. As things stand everything is nice and snug, BIS seem really happy working on the product and staying close to its community, and in General everyone knows everyone.

Now imagine if BIS became super COD mainstream. Thousands, hundreds of thousands of kiddies and rude players spamming the forums, no real community contact with the dev's, because lets face it, how does a dev team give a few million players what they want? At least with a small group of us, BIS always makes everyone happy.

And then imagine BIS having to cope with the extra demands of being meainstream. Would they WANT to be that big? Maybe the would, but imo, if I was the mind behind BIS, I would much prefer being that nice little company, which satisfies ALOT of people.

Plus, BIS sell all their stuff to the military, so they can't be financially too bad.

(I hope so anyway, with all the global crisis I have no idea at all)

[cri74 10]

True true, but as allways "cash is king" and rules us all. Happily Bohemia allso got VBS2 that generates some fiscal results i imagine :) The armies of the world are not the ones pirating downloads. Another good reason to bring ideas from arma2 to vbs and from vbs to arma2

[dmarkwick 261]

That may be part and parcel of the way the official addons are developed.

With A1, Queen's Gambit was a huge addon that reflected a wonderful gaming experience. By then, most of the worst bugs had been sorted out.

With A2, I expect the same from Operation Arrowhead. It'll get alot of media attention, and they can market a very good product.

Actually, yeah. That might work out VERY nicely for BIS, it's sort of an "Operation Flashpointy" name, and the devs can cash in on the hopes of all the disappointed.

Although, it'll be a fine line to walk, seeing as the Operation Flashpoint name has been somewhat sullied.

[tacticalnuggets 24]

Wow, people still thinking that realism is the problem. That most people dont like the game because its realistic. Then the other group that thinks it needs its own massive advertisement campaign, which makes a little more sense then the realism group.

Come on people, its obvious. People get on the game, cant figure out what to do, jump on multiplayer like most people trying to get used to the game. Then they find that they cant join half the servers, no party organizing, dont know that the hell is going on, no chat to help them before they join a server. Before you know it, most people quit before they even play the game. Simple as that...

Then, even if they get into a game, there all alone, no friends and they have no choice but to play like a individual rambo man. Reason being, no party organizing system and no multiplayer section chat.

[HyperU2 11]

Most people don't want to die just because they got shot once.

[tacticalnuggets 24]

Most people don't want to die just because they got shot once.

True, but you generally dont in arma 2. So i'm sorry about your baseless argument.

You generally get shot once and your accuracy sucks, got blood on you.

Next shot you cant walk, or getting shot in the legs once simply makes you unable to walk right away.

Or, getting shot in the right places kills you right away, which is actually in arcade fps's somtimes as well.

I assume you were trying to say that people dont like to die fast?

If thats what you ment, again, your argument fails because games modes have been made to support quick respawning and close action.

Are you sure you want to stick with this one sentence?

[HyperU2 11]

I meant to add it probably has something to do with not being able to bunny hop.

[tacticalnuggets 24]

I meant to add it probably has something to do with not being able to bunny hop.

Are you being sarcastic? I cant tell, i'm on a forum.

[HyperU2 11]

Well you have all the other answers, you figure it out.

[tacticalnuggets 24]

Well you have all the other answers, you figure it out.

Give me a break, i'm just trying to help people understand the problem. I'm sick of all these people in there bubble thinking this game is only for them.

Hopefully, BIS will take my advice and add these additional features to the game. If I was the leader of BIS I would do these things because I KNOW I could make more money if I did this. I would KNOW that it is a valuable investment of my money. And everybody here would benefit from it, the new players, and the old ones. Then all the isolationists can lock themselves in their own clans and servers. Because there is definitely a mod for that, lol. Definitely...

[Pulverizer 1]

But perhaps it looks like ass because your apparently crappy PC can't run the game that well, Pulverizer. I currently run it on almost maxed-out settings with a GTX 280, an E8400 3.00GHz and 2GB of RAM. Oh, and Windows XP Professional SP3. That's not really that top-of-the-range by today's standards, is it? I'd say it's somewhere between mid-range and the top.

Yeah it looks really bad because I don't like playing with a choppy frame rate, so I have to dial everything way down. Other games are constructed to run smooth and look nice even on low settings. Arma2 on low looks like LEGO soldiers in cartoon land and still somehow manages to slow down below playable fps in various circumstances (city combat etc).

I'd really like to know what kinds of missions you can play with that machine with everything maxed, and at what frame rates, because my machine isn't much worse (win7 32b, core 2 q9550, 4GB, gtx275).

[Guest]

Yeah it looks really bad because I don't like playing with a choppy frame rate, so I have to dial everything way down. Other games are constructed to run smooth and look nice even on low settings. Arma2 on low looks like LEGO soldiers in cartoon land and still somehow manages to slow down below playable fps in various circumstances (city combat etc).

I'd really like to know what kinds of missions you can play with that machine with everything maxed, and at what frame rates, because my machine isn't much worse (win7 32b, core 2 q9550, 4GB, gtx275).

Windows 7.

Well, most people have no issues with it actually, but for me that would sum it up. And the quad probably doesn't help.

For my personal experience, and from what people have told me in the forums, the best way to run Arma 2 is this:

Quad core or Dual core, all that matters is individual speed. So yeah, if you have a quad at 4ghz, and dual at 3ghz, the quad will run arma 2 faster. But if you have a dual at 4ghz, and a quad at 3ghz, the dual will be faster.

(Obviously that doesn't take into acount other things, but it's a general summary, apparently the game only uses 2 cores. I can't confirm that, is it's what I was told on these very forums.)

Video memory. The more the merrier, I run 512mb and it clearly shows. Upgrading to a newer card with 1GB would yield significant imporvements. In your case, I assume you have 1GB memory, the 275 should do fine in Arma 2.

And then RAM. It's all about uber high numbers from what I hear. Apparently if you have about 12GB of RAM, you can load the game onto some ramdisk software and the game will run uber epicly smooth, as all textures are instantly loaded. Can't confirm, never done it.

And then...

Hard drive! This, for most people, is probably more important than RAM, CPU, or GPU. If you have a crappy hard drive, no matter what you do, the game will be choppy, on all settings. So you really should invest your money on the best hard drive you can get, it is the difference between nice and smooth, and, well, not nice and not smooth!

I hope that short post can help you diagnose your problems, because my system is lesser than both of yours, and I rape the hell out of Arma 2! Not maxed, but I have all on high except for textures. The game looks beautiful to me even on medium, so I have no issues.

:)

[cri74 10]

win7 32b, core 2 q9550, 4GB, gtx275

Better than my comp. I got Q6600|GTS8800-640|4gb RAM|W7 64

I mostly go norm on all settings and i like to play at around 4000 viewdistance.

Heres a vidd of me flying around the island on 10 000 viewdistance an post procsessing on at server (aka not in editor or anything)

CAA1 Sahrani works a bit better than Chernarus FPS whise

Edited February 18, 2010 by cri74

[An Fiach 10]

Give me a break, i'm just trying to help people understand the problem. I'm sick of all these people in there bubble thinking this game is only for them.

Hopefully, BIS will take my advice and add these additional features to the game. If I was the leader of BIS I would do these things because I KNOW I could make more money if I did this. I would KNOW that it is a valuable investment of my money. And everybody here would benefit from it, the new players, and the old ones. Then all the isolationists can lock themselves in their own clans and servers. Because there is definitely a mod for that, lol. Definitely...

Those features are nice (and needed), but not the problem. People that can't get along without them are generally not intelligent enough or simply too lazy to play this game anyway.

The mod situation is indeed an issue. Normally games are around for a long time and still not all of the big servers are running mods. Not so with ArmA 2. It's all about mods so right out of the box you are going to have to work out what mods you need. Still, if you can't be bothered to read the forums and understand this it tends to go right back to my original statement.

[Whiskey_Tango 10]

If Arma 2 ever became COD style mainstream I would be so disapointed. The best thing about Arma 2 for me is the small, generally polite and amazing coomunity. As things stand everything is nice and snug, BIS seem really happy working on the product and staying close to its community, and in General everyone knows everyone.

Now imagine if BIS became super COD mainstream. Thousands, hundreds of thousands of kiddies and rude players spamming the forums, no real community contact with the dev's, because lets face it, how does a dev team give a few million players what they want? At least with a small group of us, BIS always makes everyone happy.

And then imagine BIS having to cope with the extra demands of being meainstream. Would they WANT to be that big? Maybe the would, but imo, if I was the mind behind BIS, I would much prefer being that nice little company, which satisfies ALOT of people.

Plus, BIS sell all their stuff to the military, so they can't be financially too bad.

(I hope so anyway, with all the global crisis I have no idea at all)

my thoughts exactly, the people that should be playing this game are playing it :D

[Pulverizer 1]

...

I guess I might give Arma2 a go in Win XP but I can't really be arsed to setup a dual boot permanently just for one game. My hard drive for games is WD VelociRaptor, so I doubt that's the main problem. But A2 hardware tips isn't the topic of the thread so I guess we've discussed enough about that. It's good to hear not everyone has performance issues, I was thinking people just got used to them and accepted them as a necessary evil.

It'll probably be better in OA with all that desert. Or, it's just gonna be worse with even larger cities.

[An Fiach 10]

my thoughts exactly, the people that should be playing this game are playing it :D

Well, that's a bit far to go. A lot of people who would enjoy it either walked away from it during the failure of a release or they watched it happen and never looked back.

[Guest]

I think alot of the attitude here is quite elitist. Why would any person not be "intelligent" enough for Arma 2? What makes us so special?

I have plenty of friends who people would consider as "low IQ", but although they may not be school nerds, I have had some of the most in depth and amazing conversations with them.

Most of these so called "idiots" who play call of duty don't actually know games like Arma 2 exist. Given the effort, many "idiot" players would actually be very good at Arma 2.

There is nothing that makes us more elite than anybody else, we just play a different type of game. One of the factors not helping Arma 2's new player list, is this elitist attitude.

I was playing operation flashpoint when I was 11!!! Nobody called me a retard kiddy who had no idea how to play games!

[cri74 10]

your one of very few Richie :) It's not everyday you see someone your age even able to write coherrent posts in forums

[Guest]

Thanks mate :)

Even now the years have passed on, there are many many members here who are my age or younger, you can see from the Arma 2 age thread.

I know alot of young players will turn up here, and say something like:

"yo wassup guys so i need a new pc but nt shury wht 2 get cuz i like playin all ighets but i only have lyk i dunno 300 dollars lolz."

There is nothing particularly wrong with these people, they are just young and no doubt will change alot over the years. I remember when I was on forums and I was about 13, I look back at those posts and think how stupid I sounded lol.

(I probably still do now xD)

One thing which will surprise many members, is they will have a convo with someone about how mature and intelligent you have to be to play Arma 2, and then find out the guy they were talking too was only 14 years old, and in fact, very intelligent.

So yes, like all places we will always find imature people. Doesn't mean they are stupid, it just means they have a different perception on things than the majority of people here. If you take the time to set the best example you can, alot of young players will mature quickly and learn the roots.

I think the first forum I ever joined I made some silly imature thread, but because the guys around me didn't just expell me, I learned quickly to change my attitude, at least when online.

Of course, I still go out with my mates and act like a typical 16 year old lad would, but hey, life's fun :D