lecholas

At 1:56 we can see Mi-17 gunner's hands detatched from the pk... At 2:00 we can see soldier getting out the Mi-17 that isn't confused after disembarking in the usual OFP/ArmA way (standing in place and rotating). He starts to move almost instantly. From 2:20 to 2:21 we can see a few sprinting soldiers which do not use the same animation (see in slow motion). I can see at least two different animations for sprinting. No more clone wars?

I've just (after reading this topic) switched from Shoot to PilfIus because the latter IMHO works better. Shoot doesn't have recognition of fluent talk so you have to speak your commands one after one, not in one sentence. You have to say: Squad. (wait for a second) Return to formation. With PiLfius you can say: 'Squad return to formation' in one sentence and the program should understand you. Also, I'm under an impression that PiLfius is more accurate in recognition than Shoot. Strange because AFAIK both use the same microsoft sound recognition engine.

I think they won't have a icon of face for every possible soldier only for Razor team. In case of nameless soldiers it will look like in Official declasified trailer at about <s>4:40</s> 4:02 (sorry for inconvenience) (you can see there a bar with a pilot and a gunner). I think those are just improved (I won't argue that they are better ) icons of the small soldiers we all know. (actually after watching the trailer again I'm begining to wonder if they really didn't find a way to dynamicly make those icons with the actual faces - they look like untextured models there; anyway I don't think it's so important). And the commanding menus would stay the same i think (i.e. will be improved too ). Interesting part is how will the commanding system work on the higher level. BIS showed us those screens long time ago and we haven't heard about it since then.

What I was saying is that it is next to impossible to make a realistic mission in ARMA. Because of (for example): - AI which will not take cover, use suppressive fire, care for its life - lack of micro cover due to terrain grid size that can't be too small without huge performance drop and due to performance drop when you place too many objects on a map (not to mention the troubles for AI which this would cause) Those are engine limitations (or limitations on a high level of design). It's not something that can be overcame easly in a mission. You should rather say: you can make a game that supports any size of mission you want yourself.

The disproportion in preparing for combat time and the itself combat time comes also from the fact that ARMA is great in simulating wandering around the environment, walking, driving a car etc. but it's not great in simulating the combat at all. AI can't take cover, can't use fixed positions (houses, sandbags etc.) and even if they could there isn't enough cover in most of the maps. Land is too flat. There are no ditches, bumps etc. You're allways on a plate. And trees, bushes and artifical objects are to scattered (due to game's performance issues). AI can't use suppressing fire. It all results in very short firefights ending with one side completely dead and the other one mostly dead (if it was AI vs AI) or only slightly dammaged (if it was players vs AI, eg. on 'realistic' coops). In real life a lot of firefights (especially the ones on a small scale) can end with no kills at all. Just ten minutes of returnig fire and withdawal. Did you see anything like this in ARMA? I really hope that Maruk told us truth saying in one of interviews that in ARMA 2 even very small firefights can take minutes (though we haven't seen any confirmation of this in any of the so far released videos). It all comes from the conception of the game: let's make the biggest world we can and then let's make the best combat simulator we can on such a big terrain. IMHO it should be the other way round: let's make the best combat simulation we can and then let's make the biggest terrain we can preserving this combat simulation.

To paraphrase one wise person: It's not about the graphics it's about how much heart and soul that gets put into a game..... Â We'll see.

LOL I've noticed the same. Maybe this is the way they're trying to keep the soul of the OFP:CWC.

Source: IGN preview Source: BadAssGamer preview Both authors mention that they liked OFP:CWC and mention BIS are working on ARMA series. Both were worried by the fact that the sequel is being developed by a different studio than the original. And both say after seeing a demo of OFP:DR they're excited again. Really, I don't understand jumping and threading that OFP:DR movie. I myself wasn't impressed by any of the last movies (BIS' and CM's) but I liked CM's one a bit better. Why? Because it showed a bit of real gameplay (i.e. fighting - OFP:CWC and ARMA were great walking freely games but when at last you went up to fight it was almost a disaster; if you don't agree show me one good - official or not - mission simulating a defense) and IMHO it wasn't too bad. BIS' CDF trailer showed us some vehicles going here and there and from time to time shooting we don't know at who (i.e.: if it was scripted). Not that it was supposed to show us something else (it was the faction-showing trailer) but IMHO there is nothing to excite about. For now, we still have too few informations to judge both games. But I think it will end up as someone in this forum said. Both games will be nice in some respects and both will have some flaws. We'll be saying e.g.: I like Arma 2 better but at the X respect OFP:DR is much better. If only Arma 2 had this done as OFP:DR has it. And vice versa.

I wonder if real cows were used for motion capture in BIS' studios Looking nice.

I'm in Poland. (It's in Europe ). Workes here.

Hence their hypocrisy. Will I walk you through it again? No need. I just say that they are not free-market fundamentalists but hypocrites who change their positions always to the one that suits their needs. When there is a benefit for them in praising free market they do it and when there's benefit for them in turning for government's regulations they save their asses by doing so. So they're not 'free-market fundamentalists' but hypocrites (just like people about which I wrote in my previous post who say teachers should have higher sallarys and then avoid paying taxes for their sallarys). Do we agree on that?

I can't see a fallacy here. I can only see a sad truth. (I base my observations on my country but I assume it's more or less like that everywhere). 1. Many voters don't know and don't understand what are the 'public money' and what must be done to allow rising of teachers' sallarys etc. They don't realise that it means that they will pay higher taxes. I'm not sure how aware of that  people are in the USA but in post-communistic countries people often don't see any connection between their taxes and 'public money'. 2. Many people agree that the taxes should be higher to get better sallarys for teachers, nurses etc. but when it comes to THEM paying the taxes they do everything to find a gap in the law not to pay the taxes by themselves. Let the other pay it. I know a lot of people who register a one-person-company and buy a car, a laptop, a phone etc. just because you if you register it for your company you can lower your income by it's price and an amount of money you spend for keeping it running (fuel for car, bills for phone etc.), so you pay lower taxes. You think people buy only goods they need for their company? Of course not. They buy them for private use, for use of their kids and relatives. But as the goods are registered for a company they can pay lower taxes even if they use it only for private use. That's one most common way of legally avoiding taxes. There are many more (legal or not). And I haven't seen even one person not avoiding taxation and saying he's doing it gladly to rise teachers' or nurses' sallarys. 3. Many people don't know how high taxes they pay. Taxation do not only cover the income tax. There are a lot of other taxations. Modern states usually hide as much taxes as they can it prices of products. You have a VAT (in Poland it's 22% of almost EVERY product you buy), you have an excise (in Poland when you buy a litre of gasoline you pay about 1 PLN for the gasoline itself and 2,50 to 3,50 PLN for taxes), and many more. I don't know how high taxes you pay in the USA when you combine all those taxes (I assume it's above 50% like General Barron said) but I saw some calculations for Poland and it was above 70%. But the taxes are hidden. People don't realise they pay them (or even if they do they take it much more easily if the taxes are hidden in proucts' prices - it's just psychology) and that's why they don't 'gritt their teeth and hate every second of it'. I wonder if this was the case if the taxation system were not hidden at all. You would recive a sallary before taxation, you would buy a gasoline and all the other products without a tax and once a month you would have to go to an Internal Revenue Service office and give them half of your month's income. Hmm. I can see some difference in VOLUNTARLY dieing for something you belive in and giving away half of your money for something you don't belive in (e.g. ability of other persons to watch TV) forced by the law. But maybe I'm wrong. That only means that there is no free market. If there were free market they couldn't turn to government. They would just went bankrupt. And that wouldn't be a bad thing. That's how it should be at free market. Bad companies die and make a room for new ones. Keeping bad companies alive (from public money) is counter-productive. It's against free market so how can you call a person who wants subventions from a government a free-market fundamentalist?

Hmm, I think I'll start from the end. You see, we have a totally different positions when it comes to telling what is the purpose of the government. You say it's making people happy. I say it's protecting justice. It's not about whining or not. It's about justice, principles and rights. Government should not care about whining of citizens but should care for making just laws. Even when it means that the most of the society will whine. E.g. Imagine you have a country of 100 people. Ten of them are very-very rich, the rest is very poor. You collect 20% of money of every citizen as taxes. It's obvious that the most of the 'public money' are from those ten rich people. Now, you could make a law that everyone has right to: education, health-care, own home, own digital tv etc. no matter what, even if he doesn't work. It is founded by the money of those 10 rich people (The government steps in and helps the 90 people with the costs as you would say). If you look at it from your point of view ('to make people happy' ) this solution is very good. The most of people (90 of them) would be happy because the get something for free. The minority would not be happy because they are forced to give some of their goods for free. But the overall (mean) 'happiness' in plus. The example is of course very simplified but I want to show the principles laying beneath our two ways of thinking about a government. That is alwayas the case when democracy (i.e. happines, acceptance or how you call it, of the majority) is the leading principle. Minority will always be hurt by majority (even when you make anti-discrimination laws) because government looks for the highest rate of happiness i.e. to make the majority of citizens happy (the middle-road as you call it). On the other hand, from my point of view there are no such things as right to free health care etc. no matter what the majority thinks about it. Everyone has a right to keep what he earned and that's all. It's a constant rule which can't be changed by anyone's whinig. So in the above example there would be 10 people happy and 90 unhappy, but - as I stated before - it's not about happiness; it's about justice and principles. And now to get from the high level of abstraction to the practical case. 1. I don't see having a working TV set in your house is a 'human right' which should be guaranteed by the state. I don't have a TV and I know a lot (and I mean: a lot) of people who don't have a TV by their own choice. 2. I don't see having a phone is a 'human right' that should be guaranteed by the state. 3. To sum the two above points. If you decide to live in a place where you can't have a TV or phone it's your call. If 'the shape of the terrain around your house' doesn't allow you to use a TV or a phone, you can move to a place where you would have them or you can stay and live without them. If I decided to build a house in Biebrza Swamps (one of the biggest swampy regions in Europe) would you say the 'government' has to spend 'public money' to provide me with a TV and a phone? Or would you say it's my decision to live without them or to pay some enormous ammounts of money to get them? And one more thing. How can you say the change was FORCED on you? You were faced with a decision problem but none of the choice was FORCED on you. No one threatened you with any sanctions if you decided not to use a TV anymore. If this was the case that you were forced to do something you could as well say that BIS will force a lot of people to buy a new PC when releasing ARMA 2 (persuming that it has higher system requirements than ARMA).

Yup, true. I don't understand it but my girlfriend looks at me in the most extraordinary way when I talk to my PC while wearing some red LEDs connected to my headset (I use FreeTrack with a modified bicycle lamp connected to my earphones) .

I agree that OFP/Arma interface is a bit clumsy. But when you use an external voice recognition program it works like charm. I use Shoot program with default Flashpoint's profile edited a bit for Arma. I don't have to look at my keyboard. I just speak to my microphone and my team do what I want them to do. I don't have to care if eject is in the not intuitive section because I don't have to look for it. I just say it. And I don't have to remember to much commands as I use multiple voice phrases bindings for one command. Eg. to order my men to 'Return to formation' I binded 'Fall in', 'On me', 'Fall back into formation', 'Return to formation', 'Follow me'. When I say any of those phrases I issue 'Return to formation' order. Of course mouse command menu could be nice but I'm really not sure if prefere a good mouse menu to the current clumsy keyboard menu plus voice recognition software. I can see four possibilities. One: make a fantastic mouse menu that can't be better and don't worry about if it can be used with voice recognition software. Two: make a good mouse menu but leave the old one as well for those who want to use voice recognition. Three: leave the basic idea of the current menus (I think this is going to happen) but improve it (and be sure to make it possible to be used with voice recognition software). Four: design totally new command system with taking voice recognition software into special consideration.

IIRC roads are detected by nearestObjects. They are returned just as other classless objects in a following string: "object's id : object's p3d". If you knew all the roads' p3d names (I think asphalt roads for example are all named 'asfaltkaxyz.p3d, where xyz are different numbers for different road segments, dirt roads start with IIRC 'cestkaxyz' etc.) you could theoretically find all the roads. It's a raw workaround and it would probably consume a lot (I mean: A LOT! of computing power but if it's needed for one pass (not loop) maybe it could work. Anyway I'm not a scripting guru so don't tread my idea to hard .

IIRC in one of the first trailers of OFP there was something like: "Gastovsky, roger that.". So I think BIS considered using names of soldiers but for some reasons they dropped it. edit: I've found it. It's in OFP 'classified' trailer. It seams that a lot of commands that can be heard there are addressed to soldiers by their names (e.g. 'George, fall back into formation.', 'Thommas, attack soldier' ). We can also hear there excitement shouts (in the radio protocol) which reminds a bit Extended Voice Addon mod.

I've just noticed a funny thing. In the video at 1:53 either all the russians are left-handed or the fotage is mirrored.

Vehicles are driving the right side of road now. All together very nice. Beautiful environment.

No PC in existence would run the game smoothly if that was done I think it depends on how you do it. If you wanted to extend visibility of clutter grass you would indeed choke to death every PC. But look at VTE islands. They run quite smoothly and have grass that can be seen for kilometers. Even i OFP engine there were islands with nice grass - invasion 44's Oosterbeek map for example. I think it could be done (just like fields in Opteryx's Avghani map).

And it will get broader and broader. It's inevitable in democracy. Politics will promise more and more to specific groups (miners, nurses, teachers, homeless, those who can't afford their own cars/airplains/spaceships - I can see it in Poland and in whole Europe very clearly) to win their votes. No politics would take away any privilages from a specific group because they would loose their support (and support from a lot of sensible intelectualists who think nurses/miners/teacher/left-handed/homeless/minorities etc. can't be taken away their privilages because they're so special). That happens when the law is made with emotions not with reason. And no minorities will say 'we don't need those privilages' if they're offered them. It's because people are egoistic and very few think of the common good more than of their own good. Imagine that Obama recognizes the needs of one of American minorities - OFP/ARMA gamers and forces a law that General Barron has to convert his briliant Hand signals commanding engine from OFP to ARMA. Would you resist? I would have difficult time saying 'you don't have right to force General Barron' to do this

Good to see that there are still people who belive in freedom and responsibility. By the way amishes in US do not pay for social security and they can't use it. They think that their little community is enough insurance for them, they do not need the state. And it's written in the law. The do not have to pay for social security. So if amishes can be exempted from paying for social security (I'm not sure about the other taxes) why can't other people be? One other thing. In the most of the socialistic states there are poor, uneducated people without perspectives. Usualy a state (if it doesn't have rich natural resources) can't help them because help forced by the law (and non voluntary) is ineffective. So in most cases there a not that much difference in numbers and state of poor people between social and liberal countries. The only difference is that in one it is written in law that a state is obliged to provide people with help (which it is unable to provide) and in the other there is no such an obligation for the state. But for some reason it makes people more happy if there is a law; even ineffective; that describes their wishes. I wish that everybody were happy. So I can make a law that says that everybody has right to be happy (to be educated, to have a home, to be accepted, etc.). Would it be effective? No. Does it have any sense? No. Who cares? Noone.

Here'a a tip for undecided: Homo Sovieticus on Wiki Anyway, we'll see how Sweden looks like in 20 years

Ofcourse. Great game. But it's not in first person. And one-minute 'rounds' have disadvantages. Good to know. Thanks for info.

They look beautiful. Do you plan to use any custom damage system for tanks (like the one Liberation mod has)? From what I can tell those are original OFP's animations, am I right?