How will the installed user base change?

[Tankbuster 1733]

This has been the subject of some discussion with my player friends in the last few weeks.

I wonder if many other users agree with me when I say that I expect the vast majority of servers will be combined, but I worry that many of the players coming on board now, and there's lots of them, are buying OA as a standalone.

As the content within OA is quite limited, there's no Kamov or T90 for example, experienced players and content producers will find OA a little rarefied and will use a combined install.

I hope that these new users are splashing out the extra couple of quid to buy the Combined Ops version. If they don't I fear they'll find themselves locked out of a lot of games.

[11aTony 0]

Well there is a lot of missions using either A2 or just OA. Not meny require both games for now (atleast most popular ones). So if mission does not need ArmA2 there is no problem. Its kind of the same thing as with mods/addons.

[cossack8559 10]

It don't really matter to be honest since in a couple of months every server will be running all kinds of mods. i'm just enjoying the early days of OA being able to join any sever i see. :)

[sniper pilot 36]

+1 to both 11aTony and Cossack8559

Its going to be split anyways. It always balances its self out in the long run. ArmA2 even with the mods and now OA still has a good handful of servers running vinilla A2, and Im sure OA wont be any different.

Besides, 9 times out of 10 anyone sticking to this game for any meaningful amount of time means that they will usualy shell out for any and all installments. If not then they will be happy with just that! :D

[11aTony 0]

Further more you can now see which mods servers are using in server browsing menu which makes everything a bit easier. :)

[Zipper5 74]

I would say that I'm thankful that OA would at least be worth the split, what with it's full-retail-game-but-not quality, unlike QG...

[mosh 0]

T

I wonder if many other users agree with me when I say that I expect the vast majority of servers will be combined, but I worry that many of the players coming on board now, and there's lots of them, are buying OA as a standalone.

I wonder the same thing. AO seems to have brought a lot of new people to MP. We can only hope they eventually buy Arma 2 and combine them (can you combine them backwards even).

But for now I, myself, would be happy playing just AO content until the shiny newness wears off in a few months. By then there will be 1000 different combinations of servers, addons, clients, betas, etc to choose from.