judge&jury

Jesus guys, stop acting like children. If Spyder's really the fool you think he is, then no one will join his clan anyway. But you should at least give him a chance to toot his horn and gather a few like-minded fools. We don't need a bunch of vigilante ego-police hounding every 17 year old off the forums. In short, don't like his clan? Don't join it!

Now THAT was some news worth posting!! Â Not only do those pictures show some bug fixes (z-buffer grass bug now gone), but they also tell us how some BIS software is being developed. There it is. Â Why go through endless research into uniforms when marines can directly comment on your work? Â Why look up military tactics if commanders from some of the world's finest armed forces can give direct input (or even code it themselves)? Â I couldn't imagine any better source of information and direction than the very soldiers they're trying to simulate. Considering the privileged relationship they have with the military, I think BIS is in a good position to reorganise themselves as a company. Â The size and status of these VBS licenses means that government sales could become a major source of income, and thus of primary interest to BIS. Â If BIS were to focus on creating professional simulation engines like VBS using content and information provided by the military, they could capitalise on investment by spinning off games directed towards the public. Money for nothing and chicks for free, essentially. As I see it, the current BIS business model is disorganised and dated. Â They started out as a game developer with Operation Flashpoint and have tried to continue down this path with products like ArmA and OFP2 (game whatever-the-hell-you-wanna-call-it). Â Evidently, some projects lack direction or effective project management. Â These semi-games are then hacked into semi-optimal applications for the military, often with unsatisfying results. Â Few outside the industry are aware that BIS even provides services to government agencies. To me at least, their military simulation software seems to be a secondary concern, almost a hobby. Â Under this model, BIS has to compete with firms like EA (marketing masters if ever I've seen them) for the attention of gamers and publishers, and they are subject to the whimsical demands of the community (come on guys, knifes???). Â As many in the forum have observed, this can have an impact on the quality and direction of the simulator, ultimately turning BIS away from their corporate objective - to make awesome simulations. Â If BIS were to turn that relationship around and instead focus on military products, they would be guaranteed a stable source of capital and would be backed by some of the most important institutions on Earth (RTFA - there are even SPONSORSHIP deals for VBS2). Â Their engine development would be independent of the unrealistic demands of consumers, but would still be geared to run on low-end hardware. Â Now, I'm no developer, so the next paragraph may sound unrealistic to some. Â Capitalising on the professional software they built for the military, BIS would be in a prime position to modify it for the gaming market. Â In fact, they could have a team that is specifically dedicated to converting their military products into something consumers could play. Â Artillery too complicated for Joe Normal? Â Loadout system overwhelming? Â No gameplay structure? Â I imagine they could tailor-make each feature for the consumer market without too much modification. Â But they key difference here is the wide range of options available. Â Since this software was originally intended for military use, the possibilities would be literally limitless. Â They would have a strategic, technological and content edge on every single firm in the gaming industry, with no competition in sight. Â Also, if a feature was somehow missing, then it was probably unrealistic in the first place since the military doesn't want it. The end result, you ask? Â A better funded and more efficient BIS, high quality sims for our bravest, and the best games ever! Â Who wouldn't play something that the USMC of ADF had a hand in creating? Â I damn well know I would. Â You cannot compare VBS to AA either - while the former is a training tool, the latter is essentially a mobile recruiting station. Sorry for a long rant, I just got a bit excited about the prospects of VBS2. Â Oh, and another side effect of this plan? One step closer to world domination :P PS. Nice screens

God damn this thread is lame. There's no ArmA progress to speak of, and we're all turning into cannibals. The mods should trash this thread and start anew!

I don't understand why you think these simple voting systems are a bad thing, meyamoti. They provide information about what other people think, which can be very valuable for someone with time constraints. While this information is sometimes flawed (other people's preferences may be different from my own, votes may not be representative of the whole population, etc), some users will find it useful in getting the best information quickest. And as Espectro pointed out, those that don't find the information useful are also free to ignore it - there is literally no downside. Personally speaking, I found the voting system on AA.eu to be accurate and very helpful in finding the best quality pictures. The old shots of what must have been a souped up version of OFP:E sunk to the bottom, and the glorious choppers, tanks and frontline infantry floated to the top - just like it should be.

I think the real point of this argument lies in the difficulty of accurately simulating close quarters combat. Â While it cannot be denied that CQC has a (limited) role in the battlefield, the sheer variety and complexity of possible attacks makes it very hard to accurately capture the realism of fighting. Â Why slash and dash if I can jam a knife between my enemy's vertebrae? Â Why stab if I can throw? Â And why use a knife if I can fight like Chuck Norris? Â That is to say nothing of the difficulty of damage modeling - should I limp after taking a blow to the legs? Â There are simply too many contingencies to consider, and this ultimately makes CQC impossible to simulate. A comparison with vanilla flashpoint is quite instructive. Â The core of Flashpoint consists of projectile weapons - shooting, throwing, launching, dropping. Â All of these weapons can be modeled under a common framework for damage and physics, something that is very convenient from a programming perspective. Â Introducing CQC would increase the complexity of the simulation by many orders of magnitude for the simple reason that it would require us to divide entities into even smaller parts. Â Should I only take damage from an explosion if the air pressure or debris damages my internal organs? Â And how would that affect my battlefield functions? Â A new dimension would also have to be added for CQC attack types and effects: penetration, crushing, exhaustion, fracturing, maneuvering, etc, etc, etc. Â The list goes on and on. Â Such a system is obviously unreasonable given the current state of programming models and technology. Creating a limited model may not be a solution to the problem. Â Including only one aspect of CQC might introduce a bias that would harm the overall realism of the simulation, and thus the quality of the game. Â While knives are essential for survival in some battlefield situations, I think we all share a common disdain for CQC in counterstrike. Â It's just plain stupid and unrealistic to rip out your knife after you empty your magazine - that's simply not what they were meant for. Â Without a wide array of CQC attacks available, soldiers would be unable to respond appropriately to threats and might resort to the old trusty CS knife, thereby destroying the atmosphere BIS works so hard to create. In the end, unless you want a basic "stab" feature and the baggage that comes with it, then I'm afraid it's unlikely we'll be seeing accurate CQC any time in the near future. Â And unfortunately, that's mostly due to technological constraints, not personal preferences about CQC.

Right, now on with the show! Where are those new screenshots? What do you want to see in the next batch? Personally, I'm hankering for some night action!

Now that was a worthless reply. What sort of idiot do you think I am? Of course I realised that you were exagerrating, your point being that "levels" in Crysis are very small. What you should have understood from my reply, but instead chose to ignore to keep your pride intact, is that they aren't restrictingly small and are actually quite impressive considering the detail of the game. I'll be sure to pass all future posts through you. *EDIT* lets keep this thread on topic instead of fighting like children

Like many of you guys, I also appreciate that someone's finally considering something other than graphics. After all, that is the meat and potatoes of flashpoint. BIS probably puts most of their effort into improving the gameplay aspects of ArmA, and does so better than anyone else in the field. However, I really wish some forum members could also come to terms with reality - ArmA doesn't exactly look fantastic. This is a point that has been reiterated in nearly all previews of ArmA, even the positive ones. It may come as a shock to some of you, but some adults actually value graphics (myself included) and as such it is a reviewer's job to report on it. The author makes it clear that there is a tradeoff between graphics and scale, and that ArmA favours the latter. Statements like "1 metre by 1 metre battlefields in Crysis" are redundant for two reasons - Crysis won't have 1 square metre battlefields, and graphically speaking, ArmA does look weak. We need to stop pretending that the rest of the world doesn't know of this mysterious tradeoff, and start accepting that it exists in ArmA. Also, I don't see any magical transformation in the graphics of the latest set of screenshots. Sure, the smoke looks pretty, but that hardly puts it in another class of excellence. Could someone explain to me why the author, upon seeing the new shots, should start raving about the state-of-the-art graphics in ArmA?

I'm with GBee regarding the map. There are plenty of features shown on the satellite image and in-game pics that simply aren't on the BIS map. It would require someone with some pretty detailed inside information and damn good mapping talents (not to mention tools) to produce an image like that. I don't want to sound like a conspiracy theorist, but I believe there is a real island out there that was used as a blueprint for Sahrani. Does anyone remember the BIS in-house tool that could create entire islands from raw topographic data? Assuming BIS bought some detailed satellite information, they could easily make a few modifications and release a fake "Google maps" image. This data would also be the basis for Sahrani, which would explain the consistency between the satellite image and in-game screenshots. That may leave you scratching your head wondering what the upside is. Personally, I spent hours looking for that damned island, and even went to Wikipedia in search of a comprehensive list of small islands in the Atlantic (remember, the island could actually be anywhere). Quite an awesome marketting strategy, you could say.

My apologies, I guess I wasn't clear enough. While BIS has given many interviews, and I commend them for that, they rarely give any new information. Sure, it's great to hear about the design philosophy of the BIS team, and that they're creating "games for life", but to be honest we've heard it all before. Take the new Lituanian interview, for instance. The only new piece of information in that interview was that they're improving the AI, something we essentially knew already (did anyone actually figure out what "FSM based modular AI system" means?). There are plenty of genuine concerns about the game that have simply gone unanswered. Do they plan to improve the vehicle system? How about the physics? These fundamental questions may only require simple answers about some ideas they want to implement. Unfortunately, since we don't know what to expect in Armed Assault, some of us are beginning to question why we cheered it along in the first place. Sure, BIS created an awesome first title, but then again most hollywood sequels suck. Last time I checked, X Y and Z were still pretty important. I also understand that BIS, for business related, strategic or technical reasons, may not wish to answer questions at this time. Making promises you can't keep, I'm sure, can be a fatal mistake in such a community-orriented industry. Also, given the problems they're having with publishers, I suppose it's difficult for them to commit to a certain development timeframe. But the unfortunate result of this veil of secrecy is a restless, curious and speculative community. You can't have your cake and eat it too, it seems. That says nothing about the effect that locking has on community discussion. Several weeks ago, someone posted a thread about creating a Vietnam mod, which was promptly locked because the mods simply thought it was "lame". I couldn't possibly think of a more harmful way to moderate such a creative community. I wouldn't really know since I'm not a mod maker, but I guess they need a lot of time to discuss the ideas and themes of their mods. After all, what else should we do while waiting for the release? Perhaps this calls for a mod forum for Armed Assault. Another quick glance at the "Anybody else see this" thread reveals that we're not to mention the surprise and Armed Assault in the same breath. If indeed this is the case, then I apologise to the mods for my earlier post. Regarding Flashnews and mod releases, it's possible that you're right. Besides, I was never really expecting much from this surprise. Peoples' expectations are getting blown out of proportion, what with all the recent speculation. We need to keep it cool, and hope that BIS will be a little more open with us in the future

I don't think this surprise is a free release of OFP. Aside from the murky legal issues involved, the way BIS has handled the surprise tends to hint towards something else. Why, for instance, would BIS change the FlashNews release from Friday to Monday if they were merely uploading software? I imagine that packaging up some 5 year old software and a few patches wouldn't require an extra weekend of work due to unforseen difficulties. Instead, I believe that it must be something that required some creative design or technical input from the staff, like a mod wiki, a new promo video, or perhaps even a demo. This would be consistent with the shift in dates, since it is possible to discover a critical bug or flaw close to release. What the surprise is, however, is anyone's guess. Until now, BIS has set neither a fixed release date or even a publisher for Armed Assault, and the status of Game 2/3/whatever is unclear. We have no confirmed final feature list and very little media or information to work with, so any predictions at this stage are unlikely to be anything more than mere guesses. Finally, all of this assumes the surprise is actually related to Armed Assault, which itself is doubtful. To be honest, I'm getting sick of the information stranglehold too. BIS seldom makes any statements about its products, and its only public face is our local sheriff, Placebo. It must be frightening for newcomers to come here, see the multitude of locked threads and find next to no facts. In short, we need to stop making wild speculations, and BIS needs to start releasing more info. Monday's FlashNews would be a good place to start.

After playing your campaign from start to finish in two days, I must say that I am no less than stunned at the quality of the missions and attention to detail put into the gameplay. To be honest, I didn't think the Opflash engine was capable of such complex environments, scripting and smooth gameplay. This is a real feather in your cap King Nothing - you pushed the boundaries of a four year old engine to the max and delivered a gameplay style completely different to the original Flashpoint campaign (casualty limits - pure genius!!. Well done, old chap! I did however encounter some bugs while playing some of the missions. For instance, my soldiers had quite a lot of difficulty moving through crowded areas like dense jungle (squares of forest with very tall trees) or urban sprawl, and I usually had to stick to the main roads in order to get them to go anywhere. This probably has more to do with the tonal island than your missions, but I thought it was worth mentioning nonetheless. I also had several problems in the second last mission. Firstly, I found that the government armour did not attack the city hall when ordered, leaving my small squad of three Rangers to clear out a huge number of rebels. They just sort of hung around the back, not doing anything at all. The second problem is related to the first, in that my Rangers got totally slaughtered when I approached the city hall. In the mission briefing it says that only one casualty is allowed, but by the end of the mission at least two of my guys died without any message about too many casualties. I then proceeded to the next mission and kicked rebel ass! Again, not really a problem (only one casualty? what were you thinking?!? :P), but something worth mentioning. And finally, last but not least, the grammar of the briefings needs to be polished up a little. It's no where near as bad as some of the campaigns/missions I've seen out there, but I did feel it detracted from the very polished overall image. Again, I'd like to offer my thanks and congratulations for creating such a kick ass campaign!