Why is this game not more popular?

[Iroquois Pliskin 0]

The game is not popular because it doesn't capture the attention of the teen.

War is not glamorous, never was, never will be; in the future war is going to be about unmanned vehicles & total control of the battlefield - but that is not glamour either, it's precision.

Armed Assault 1 was really good, I liked the pace, it was 1.5 times slower than it is now: you couldn't reload while running, less cover on the battlefield, and so forth. When I direct people online in coops I acknowledge the fact it that people want to get to shootin' as soon as possible.

The most important thing I can say to you is that when I see a M2 Bradley 2KM out when I'm in an APC or on foot, or even an AKM in the hands of some rebel I am scared, because 1 second later, 1 hit - you are dead. (applies to Warfare BE CTI mode most of the time)

The other games do not have substance, depth - take away the respawn and they are empty.

[tacticalnuggets 24]

What else am I supposed to say? All he has been doing since he joined these forums is trolling about how bad the game is. No matter what I answer he always responds with "BIS made a crap game, it should be this that and the other"...

Why do people act so hypocritical? Fine, express your opinions on how bad you think the game is. But if you don't know how to do better yourself, don't start telling people how THEY can do it better. Especially not an established profesional games developer.

Opinions are fine!

Demands are not! Unless you can do better yourself, you have no right to tell other people how to do things.

I give up posting in this thread. Either way, we all lose, we are all arguing on the internet, and we are all about as contructive as a wooden plank.

Everybody just wants a cheap shot at everybody else, to make themselves look smart I guess. We all fall into this category, don't deny it.

Richie.

LOL! Name one thing that I have said that relates to how bad the gameplay is. GO AHEAD! Your not reading my posts, nor are you actually arguing with me. Your just monologging about how the game isn't popular because its too realistic and its not BIS fault, when I have provided examples that contradict that. Sure, not everybody will dig this game. But I 100% believe that a substantial amount of people will begin playing this game if BIS takes care of the problems I have outlined.

Just think about it. Try, simply try to understand the dynamics of new players joining into the game. Its not about the symptoms, its about the disease. Every time a person is turned away, he will not recommend this game. People have made plenty of SUPER arcadish missions and modes of play, yet people are not flocking, are they?

All I ask people do is show some support for the ideas I have outlined. BIS will not care if it is I alone who promotes these ideas.

[jctrnacty 10]

My opinion why its not more popular:

Still looks like ofp , graphics arent that good looking on medium computers or its just not playable.

Motion blur , it just sucks , you cant see worth beans as you swing to meet a threat!

Mouse lag , when you do swing its not very fluid since the delay causes over movement. it can be adjusted down but it's still there.

I didnt play arma because i was burnt out on ofp and thought this would be an upgrade , i really dont see it though.

not sure if this is safe to say here but if this game looked like dr and had its fluid movement i think it would be much more popular.

My 2 cents!

Well this game doesn´t look like OFP, no way. The graphics is very nice on very high but demanding.

Your problem is slow computer. If you want nice graphics and without mouse lag you have two choices, minimum setting or powefull computer. Todays best choice is i720 and 5870 with ssd.

Yeah i know its a lot of money to play a game for 40 bucks but it´s just like with FSX, this game is older than arma 2 but today still hard to get smooth on highest setting. With this rig you´ll get a smooth play in arma 2.

Please don´t compare the graphics in DR to arma 2 it´s uncomparable. In DR you can have only max 64 units at once, in arma 2 you can have thousands, in DR you have limited area, in arma 2 you have whole map. In DR you have visibility to 2-3 miles, in arma 2 you have 10 km.

Of course arma has weak spots , i see it in character models, animations, sometimes in physics and boring SP campaign, other aspects for me are perfect.

just my 2 cents.

[Deadfast 43]

Still looks like ofp , graphics arent that good looking on medium computers or its just not playable.

I love this.

Anyone who says this has obviously not played OFP for a long time. Even on lowest settings your hand doesn't look like a a black smear ;)

[Zipper5 74]

I made this quite a while ago now:

Yeah, no difference. :rolleyes:

[Bulldogs 10]

My opinion why its not more popular:

Still looks like ofp , graphics arent that good looking on medium computers or its just not playable.

Try setting your fillrate to 100% (resolution and 3d resolution same size)

Set everything else to medium, put AF on Very high, turn AA off, turn video memory to high, or very high, or default, and set texture to high. Disable Post Processing (looks better on very high but hard to see targets at a very long range, and lower end computers suffer from the blurry vision while moving)

Also make sure you try all this without any mods on as mods lower fps a little to a lot depending on the mods.

Motion blur , it just sucks , you cant see worth beans as you swing to meet a threat!

Disable Post Processing.

Mouse lag , when you do swing its not very fluid since the delay causes over movement. it can be adjusted down but it's still there.

Disable Post Processing (as above) set mouse smoothing to 0, and if you're using an nVidia card, through nVidia control panel force V-Sync off and set Max-prerendered frames to either 1,2 or 3 (lower should be less mouse lag). If you're using an ATI card, through Cat Control Center force V-Sync off.

I didnt play arma because i was burnt out on ofp and thought this would be an upgrade , i really dont see it though.

Look again, after the tweaks of course.

not sure if this is safe to say here but if this game looked like dr and had its fluid movement i think it would be much more popular.

I think almost anyone on both Arma and DR forums could tell you that DR is lacking in the graphics in comparison, but DR has a lot of heavy post processing to try hide that. As for movement, I guess it's all preference. The movement is more arcadey, which is good for those who prefer it, the animation and such is a little off putting personally. Feels robotic.

these are the things keeping me from really getting into this game.

ps i wouldnt even try online due to these limitations since it would just be an exercise in futility anyway.

After trying these tweaks, try online... it's a blast

My 2 cents!

Hope those tweaks and the info is worth your 2 cents :)

[cole 0]

if this game looked like dr and had its fluid movement i think it would be much more popular.

[Iroquois Pliskin 0]

Cole, exactly.

Such bullshit you read nowadays, the population expanded a lot since WW II; proportions of clueless idiots stayed the same, numbers have increased.

Or perhaps, we don't know the sender's age and he still has a chance to grow a brain & develop some logic.

[cole 0]

Cole, exactly.

Such bullshit you read nowadays, the population expanded a lot since WW II; proportions of clueless idiots stayed the same, numbers have increased.

Or perhaps, we don't know the sender's age and he still has a chance to grow a brain & develop some logic.

One day, I'll want your post to be on my gravestone.

[mic1402 10]

whats with people bashing arma 2's grathics? and saying they look like ofp or lego. they look great to me. arma 2's lighting is actually like what it looks like outside, unlike some i could name. (hint:DR) when you go outside does it look yellow brown and grey? NO!

[galzohar 31]

Well, I have to say in the promotion videos DR looks pretty damn good, but the actual game looks much worse than Arma 2. You can make your own conclusion regarding how they made those videos. Please don't talk about DR graphics unless you've actually seen the game itself, because the PR videos do not match the actual game in graphics quality.

[Macadam Cow 1]

LOL! You sure are funny. Its not the games fault for making it insanely difficult for new people to join a game, or organize a group, or figure out what to do. I guess it isn't the games fault either for using a system that assumes people will manually install mods and addons. Its not the games fault for having a backwards multiplayer system, its the customers responsibility to mod that to. LOL

I really don't understand such a comment.

When I first played OFP I was 13 or 14 and I had a really small gaming experience, I wasn't speaking english and I wasn't handling the internet like nowadays teenager. Sure it requires a bit of learning, but if I was able to do it at 13 I don't understand how 20 yo people couldn't do it now.

Those kind of post really pissed me off. ArmA isn't hard. You just have to use your brain and THINK like you would do in reality. In others FPS you just don't think, your playing with your reflex : running, shooting, running shooting,...and no, choosing between going on the left or an the right of a box is not what I call thinking.

Those guys are just sheeps wanting to play the same game again and again and again. The last thing they want is to try something different, just like what happens with music or movies. The whole globalisation thing is bringing the level down, any production now aims to be liked by as many people as possible.

It's not that ArmA is hard is just that a lot of people are formatted by genration of similar game. What's the difference between the handling of CoD, BF, Killzone,...? Nothing. It's exactly the same.

So don't blame BIS for making something different, blame you for not being able to adapt yourself.

[Neopas 10]

This is a very interesting thread,created in the proper time(just before OA release) about a serious issue for us, public server inhabitants,so not even a restraining court order can stop me from posting in this one :P

According to my experience someone who bought ARMA2 without having played Operation Flashpoint or Armed Assault ,right after finishing SP would jump to MP and think he could find servers running missions like the ones he has already played and practice on.That wasn`t the case always with this game .Where I live for example I got 2digit pings with only a handful of servers ALL of which are using user made missions and most of them with mods.I don`t have something against them ,they most certainly are a huge plus to the game and I enjoy them A LOT(now that I am familiar with them) I am just worried about the being "forced" to use them, from day one of online playing, effect on potencial new players .

Not everyone is very computer savvy,or likes messing a lot with his files and stuff ,even if he is playing games on the pc, and "ARMA is not for them" is not an answer that helps.I am one of them for one and now I love it.

I believe it would do wonders for the newcomers ,making much easier their "transition" to ArmA, if there were couple of servers up,running simple,silly a vet would say, wizzard type missions, or campaign coop missions, at least for few months after the games release.

There are some other issues(performance,good publicity) , however I decided to point this one as the most easily fixed, I may be wrong of course.

Here`s another two cents...

[Placebo 28]

Far too much chest beating and bickering in here for my liking, if this cannot remain a topic for calm, rational discussion then you know what happens, shame as it seems to have started with good intentions.

[bummer 10]

Bulldogs , thanks for all the pointers. I will give them a go and see i f it makes a better experience for me

Nice pic of the difference there zip but im guessing this is not the view most are seeing just based on the youtube videos ive seen. I will reserve final judgement until ive given it some more tweaks.

I never said dr was a good game just that " i " like the way its rendered and the fluid movement. I hate the limited fov , no lean , no lookaround , and all the other bugs but visually, while not optimum it looks pretty good to me. Arma just has a clunky feel to the movement , i cant really explain what it is but its there. ( and yes i play DR too! )

I only posted in response to the question why the game wasnt more popular and although im good at pc tinkering if you have to jump through hoops just to get it to play decent many people will just shelve it and move on to something else.

looks like ive got a nickle in it now! :-)

[Bulldogs 10]

That's one of the big ones for many people. We talk about how tweaking everything is half the fun, but Arma 2 stresses the limits of current tech, so mid-range systems can't just jump in and expect it to run perfectly without playing around with a mass of video settings, and that puts a lot of people off.

Other complaints I notice from other forums are things like the pace of the game. For me and most others here the pace is perfect. It's all about moving slowly and cautiously, especially in missions where you have to travel a long distance to get into a firefight only to get shot and have to go all the way back. I deliberately disable any helpers for that because the longer you've been alive with no saves or anything, the more tense and heart pounding it gets.

Of course, there is little things that can help new comers with that. Things like save games (on normal mode you can save as much as you like during single-player missions), and of course there's a mass of missions there that drop you right in the middle of a firefight.

An often complaint I hear is "I started the campaign and I wasn't killing anything in the first 5 minutes so I un-installed" (seriously, I've actually seen this many times). I say "Other than the fact that the campaign starts with killing things for the first 5 minutes, Why didn't you try the scenarios?", and usually get a response of "Not worth trying".

When I see a response like that it usually automatically tells me they either have way too much money, didn't actually play the game, or they pirated it. Because no one spends $50 on a game, tries a small section of it for 5 minutes, then throws the game away.

But I'm going offtopic from my own post. The end result is that for those who just want to kill, the missions are there (both user and bas install) but I'm not sure if it could be any easier to point them out to new comes (singleplayer, scenario, kill things).

[An Fiach 10]

Bulldogs , thanks for all the pointers. I will give them a go and see i f it makes a better experience for me

Nice pic of the difference there zip but im guessing this is not the view most are seeing just based on the youtube videos ive seen. I will reserve final judgement until ive given it some more tweaks.

I never said dr was a good game just that " i " like the way its rendered and the fluid movement. I hate the limited fov , no lean , no lookaround , and all the other bugs but visually, while not optimum it looks pretty good to me. Arma just has a clunky feel to the movement , i cant really explain what it is but its there. ( and yes i play DR too! )

I only posted in response to the question why the game wasnt more popular and although im good at pc tinkering if you have to jump through hoops just to get it to play decent many people will just shelve it and move on to something else.

looks like ive got a nickle in it now! :-)

I'd like to know what you tube vids you have been watching, I have a crappy rig compared to most here it it still looks great. Not sure what you mean by clunky movement, perhaps you have the headbob on? Maybe it just feels smooth to me because I've played games that were much more stiff.

[galzohar 31]

People say it's clunky because it's based on animations, so if you just want to move a tiny step you have to start the whole running animation going and then stop, which looks and feels weird. Switching to walking every time you want to make a tiny step is not feasible - way too many key presses just to make a tiny correction to your position.

[An Fiach 10]

Why are you running by default?

[lapa 1]

I'd like to know what you tube vids you have been watching, I have a crappy rig compared to most here it it still looks great. Not sure what you mean by clunky movement, perhaps you have the headbob on? Maybe it just feels smooth to me because I've played games that were much more stiff.

I don't know what you qualify as a crappy rig, but I think it's fair to say that Arma2 requires a state-of-the-art PC which many people don't have as of yet. Few people would contest that. It is true that with the natural advancement of gaming hardware, more and more people (i.e. the average gamer) will soon start to have rigs that'll run the game.

For example, my brother has an approx. 2-year-old rig (still above the minimum requirements) and he has to play with pretty much all settings low. Those visuals do bear a similarity to those of OFP. Of course there are improvements, but it's nothing close to Zipper5's picture.

I recently spent 800€ to update my system to play Arma2, I installed the game yesterday and tomorrow I'll find out how the game runs. 800€ is a lot of money to pay and I won't still able to play the game with very high settings. Not many people, especially those who aren't familiar with the game series, will update their rig to play a game with as steep a learning curve and a lack of instant gratification. Just learning all the key commands is a daunting task for a newcomer.

[bummer 10]

hes running by default because thats the way the game ships. as lapa said keymapping and the numerous options are great but daunting to the newcomer to the game.

I looked at both games side by side and to be real honest they both have pluses and minuses. Dr is more photo realistic in its look but kind of bland in its colors. Arma2 is more colorful but lacks the realistic feel. I guess this is just my opinion but i have been playing both games and compared my visuals with press release photos of arma2 and i see the same as in game.

as far as movement its hard to explain clunky! Ive rid the motion blur and most of the mouse lag and play it on normal settings but the movment just doesnt feel fluid. I dont want a cod experience but the movement in cod is fluid as well as dr but i guess this is just one point in the game thats unchangeable.

I guess we just have to accept the fact this is a niche game and the hardcore players will love it and the casual gamer wont want to spend the time learning it. Hopefully bis can improve the graphics and movement at some point to match up but hey , its still a good game and im glad there still sticking wit the pc instead of the cm debacle!

[Whiskey_Tango 10]

Being that arma2 pushes current systems to their limits as gaming pc's progress as they always do there could be an increase in players due to newer pc's being higher spec'd and cheaper. Some people may not play it due to the fact that they dont have enough machine to push it and either dont want to upgrade yet or cant afford it. There are alot of gamers that like having a game either maxed out or near maxed out to play it, I was one of those people.

[An Fiach 10]

I don't know what you qualify as a crappy rig, but I think it's fair to say that Arma2 requires a state-of-the-art PC which many people don't have as of yet. Few people would contest that. It is true that with the natural advancement of gaming hardware, more and more people (i.e. the average gamer) will soon start to have rigs that'll run the game.

For example, my brother has an approx. 2-year-old rig (still above the minimum requirements) and he has to play with pretty much all settings low. Those visuals do bear a similarity to those of OFP. Of course there are improvements, but it's nothing close to Zipper5's picture.

I recently spent 800€ to update my system to play Arma2, I installed the game yesterday and tomorrow I'll find out how the game runs. 800€ is a lot of money to pay and I won't still able to play the game with very high settings. Not many people, especially those who aren't familiar with the game series, will update their rig to play a game with as steep a learning curve and a lack of instant gratification. Just learning all the key commands is a daunting task for a newcomer.

well I'm running a q6600 processor if that gives you any clue.

---------- Post added at 01:17 AM ---------- Previous post was at 01:14 AM ----------

hes running by default because thats the way the game ships. as lapa said keymapping and the numerous options are great but daunting to the newcomer to the game.

I looked at both games side by side and to be real honest they both have pluses and minuses. Dr is more photo realistic in its look but kind of bland in its colors. Arma2 is more colorful but lacks the realistic feel. I guess this is just my opinion but i have been playing both games and compared my visuals with press release photos of arma2 and i see the same as in game.

as far as movement its hard to explain clunky! Ive rid the motion blur and most of the mouse lag and play it on normal settings but the movment just doesnt feel fluid. I dont want a cod experience but the movement in cod is fluid as well as dr but i guess this is just one point in the game thats unchangeable.

I guess we just have to accept the fact this is a niche game and the hardcore players will love it and the casual gamer wont want to spend the time learning it. Hopefully bis can improve the graphics and movement at some point to match up but hey , its still a good game and im glad there still sticking wit the pc instead of the cm debacle!

He isn't a noob, he knows how to change it, a double tap on the key is not that much to ask to reverse the key states

[Rommel 2]

http://www.google.com/insights/search/#q=ARma2&cmpt=q

Sums up ArmA2 interest / time.

[Bulldogs 10]

Honest mistake there. by default the character jogs, then if you bring up the scope or hold the "walk" key the character slows to a walk, double tap the forward key (w by default) and the character runs or sprints.

As for the clunky movement, a lot of people aren't used to the movement. Basically most games work on a floating gun premise, in that when you turn or move the mouse the floating gun follows. You're basically just using the mouse to move the screen and the gun, while slightly more complex than my description here, is basically like something is painted onto the screen. It's a dis-jointed way to play but it works for arcade style.

Arma 2 uses a system in that when you move the mouse you are physically moving the gun through the arms/body of the soldier. This takes additional calculations into account (like weight) which makes it a bit more clunky.

It suffers from a major draw back, and that being that on a less than optimal frame rate the clunkyness or dragged movement becomes pronounced. On a high end rig there's a lot less of a problem, and personally with my current setup I find it very smooth, but with my second setup with older hardware I find it a little clunky and sometimes hard to aim when I crank the details up.

Lowering the details helps, and makes it a lot smoother, if you can live with the lower graphics, or just buy a better rig :)