343guiltyspark

absolute trash in my opinion. Not only do many of the designs for "future weapons" suck and are uninspired. The whole setting sucks. Arma 2 did it right. Woods and slavs thats all you need. ---------- Post added at 19:40 ---------- Previous post was at 19:35 ---------- the next game should be based on a ukraine like scenario where one strategic buffer country is being fought over by 2 world powers who never actually militarily intervene. But instead send mercs and prop up "protest" groups to create a civil war that the actual countrymen didnt want.

Right now we are still having to deal with a decrepit engine from the early 2000s. While it has been a incredibly good engine delivering great performance for years , its showing its age and incompatibility with new directions in computer hardware and internet technologies. We need a brand new engine designed from the ground up (IE not another modification of the operation flashpoint engine) to deliver the best arma experience possible. It needs to take advantage of multiple core CPU's , this just cant be "added" in an update and have it work. This is because the way the game code works is still based in early 2000s game developer logic when multicore CPU's didnt even exist yet. Now we have something like 12 core cpu's and the game is only using 1. This would be a massive task for bohemia. But if they honestly expect to push out anymore products on this engine it will only hurt them in the long term as computer hardware becomes more advanced and their engine gets bottlenecked when new features are stapled on. Arma 3 is a perfect example. We need an engine that makes these things its priorities -Optimization of current and future computing technologies throughout the engines code. -Maximum effort put into max view distances and object counts. -AI adaptation to using buildings and structures. What are some things you would like to see in a new engine for arma? Specifically as it relates to development and performance and less "features" like destructable buildings and such.

No A game engine is a book. A novel to be exact The modifications developers make to the engine not only have to replace existing parts of the book , they have to be contextually accurate to the narrative. Or else it doesnt work. After a certain point , the book has been cut up so much and replaced its original writing , it stops making sense. These manifest themselves in memory leaks , bottlenecks and poor performance. This is whats happening now. The engine is not making sense anymore because so much has been changed from its smoothly running original state (operation flashpoint). it will only get worse with time and more modifications. A new engine is needed immediately for this franchise to survive the next decade. If you think arma 3 was a "successful move" you must not have played arma 2 or OA that much. Because its a step back in most respects. And half of its content was concepts from mods of arma 2.

what if we stick with a limited POS engine that was written in 2000?

none of what you said actually changes the fact that the game needs a new engine. It also doesnt change the fact that publishers are not needed to make games anymore. also BIS has money

1. Investor capital 2. Kickstarter/early access capital its not rocket science. There would be no new games if money was the issue in creating new games and engines

thats the thing though. with a new engine designed knowing what BIS knows the community is capable of and even worse, desires. They can make it so anything could be possible where as the current engine is just barely able to add the simplest features. In otherwords , the ghetto rigging of this engine is not going to cut it anymore. We need bohemia to invest in the potentially insane future.

thats pretty sick looking. the background in the later battlefield games were pretty amazing , i always thought they were skyboxes lol. just goes to show how technologically crazy brand new engines are.

we discussed this yesterday

bro take one look at arma 2 server list. Its garbage filled with role playing and zombies. Nothing of serious value will be lost short of ace mod which content is mostly sounds and models. Its functions are easily replicated if the engine is modernized. Them creating a new engine will make modding easier. Them using modern language will make modding quicker. none of your arguments make any sense. The engine is old. the content you are able to add to these games is reaching its limit. With each new implementation this engine is straining under features it was never designed to have from the beginning. Re-writing from scratch with better language will solve more problems than you can imagine. will there be a long wait? sure. It could be 3-5 years.... Will it be worth it? definately. Imagine what arma would be like if you could max it out and have 256 player games. That type of stuff is possible if they re-write the engine correctly. Imagine an engine with for example built in terrain deformation / interactive foliage / fire propagation / electricity propagation / and even destructable buildings. All of this is possible for one reason , its a specific , purpose built engine. Not a universal engine like cryengine or unreal that has to adapt to many different genres and thus maxes out its graphical fidelity but limits its raw distance rendering and AI limits. By streamlining the engine from the start for a future of arma games , they can truely make some magic. but it will require full commitment from the devs and the skeptical community who love abuse.

getting rid of the engine does not = getting rid of the experience they have made working with it. It only enhances their ability to make an even better engine for the arma environment.An engine is more than just features , its the way the code is written. The way the code is written in arma 3 is using the same dated patterns of the early 2000s. This is why there are so many bottlenecks and needs for the devlopers to bend over backwards to add relatively simple features. Its because the devs have to find tricks and workarounds to the old code to get things to work. Things like PIP should not be a landmark feature of an FPS in 2014. As for kickstarter , i mispoke , they used early adoption , which is essentially the same exact thing.

This is honestly a silly argument. Here is why. As far as game engines go , there are very few uniquely purposed game engines. Almost all of the proprietary engines are universal in function for various genres of games like unreal and cryengine. this means they are ALL AROUND engines. Where as the engine for arma is designed specifically for large enviroments with high fidelity. There is a reason there are no other engines to compete with the one we have now. There is no actual demand because BIS has always delivered everything the genre needs. BIS could make a giant leap in technology if they put time and money into it. So that question you asked about other engines would actually be answered by BIS making a new engine , not by strawmanning by saying nobody else has an engine like it.

lol what?---------- Post added at 18:11 ---------- Previous post was at 18:09 ---------- this is just my opinion but the setting of arma 3 is trash and updates to a game that has a lame setting/world is not something i care about. i would care very little waiting 4 years for a new engine and game. (as long as said game is more like arma 2 in setting and less like ghost recon advanced warfighter greek edition) As for funding there are more options then ever for funding. including kickstarter (which is how they funded arma 3).

Wat? So instead of facing the issue nobody wants to talk about (the age of the engine and its growing incompatability with new computer hardware and software engineering) we should just leave and play ubisoft games? How about this. The community realizes that a 3 year wait for anything new is a better solution than waiting a few months for UI updates and 1.5 years for arma 3.5. Remember. The engine is a foundational element. It will support potentially a decade or more of new games and content. Where as the engine we are using now has already exceeded its lifespan by a long shot. The experience BIS has had working with this engine and adapting it to work well for such a long time leaves them with a bank of knowledge that is incredibly useful for making a brand new , next gen engine for the future of military games. They will know exactly how to code the engine for better unseen developments in hardware and software. Where as with their current engine they are forced to work with what was made in the early 2000s before the concept of multiple core cpu's , hyperthreading , and multiple GPU's existed This current engine is not going to cut it anymore. You can keep trying to adapt it , but its always going to fall short. BIS has everything to gain by investing in their future , and everything to lose by releasing another community flop like arma 3. (sorry for those who enjoy it)

i dont have millions of dollars to pay a staff of software engineers. If i did i would

would it though? All the things they have learned from adapting the engine will be simple for them to implement into a new engine if they know what they need.

this is why im saying they need to re-write it completely from the ground up. there are tons of bottlenecks and that can only be fixed by designing the engine to take advantage of newer computer hardware. The AI stuff has to be done by BI , you cant just put arma on a different engine. You need to create a new one from the ground up specifically aiming for superb performance with massive object counts and view distances.

I was not being literal in my description , this was clearly evident in the first post i made. The core of the engine remains the same as it was in 2000 with modifications to make it work on newer pc's

you cannot identify differences in code by playing different games. Im sorry you dont understand what im talking about.

they are all the same exact thing http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Real_Virtuality_%28game_engine%29

its not a secret they have been rehashing the same engine for decades

The AI in this game is not much different from operation flashpoint. the game is designed to run with lots and lots of triggers and waypoints. the AI just react to being shot at.

You guys have everything backwards regarding map size. This game engine is the reason for performance issues. Dont lower standards for the game because the devs are incompetent in realizing they are still driving around a model T with fuel injection and satellite radio. It was written in its entirety before the concept of multiple core CPUs were around. Remember operation flashpoint? we are still playing on the exact same code with shortcuts and "additions" to make it work on newer computers. What bohemia needs to do is stop their content creation in entirety, and start work on a new engine from the ground up with future technology in mind. An engine that allows maximum performance and flexibility regarding adding content. There is no reason our modern rigs cannot be running a game like arma 3 at screaming FPS with hundreds of units. The problem is the skeletal framework on which the game is built is rotting from old age. Bohemia will keep dragging out the dead corpse of this engine until people stop buying their games. And arma 3's success to active player ratio is proof that the next game will NOT do well unless they 1up themselves with PR like they did with arma3. Start begging for a new engine. Not a 3rd party engine , not cryengine , not unreal. Bohemia needs to make a new engine from the ground up. No copy/pasting from VBS. Everything needs to go.