morgus

God damn, probably you all here know about this game, but for me - it is the best achievable graphics and mood in games: http://www.gamespot.com/pc/action/stalker/screens.html?page=336 http://www.gamespot.com/pc/action/stalker/screens.html?page=337 http://www.gamespot.com/pc/action/stalker/screens.html?page=331 If THE SAME graphics would be used in OFP, I would be happy. Now we need to pray that BIS will be as close in mood/realism as these screens from stalker.

I am affraid that nice idea with grass that bends and leaves trails by broken bushes etc is now rather too hard even for nowadays hardware. Imagine mplayer game and then amount of info needed to be sent to every player on the map. I'd stay with better explosions/particles/grass and better reflecting water. Some animals from time to time, and wind blow that makes trees/grass swaying. Some realism like adjustable sniper scope and weapon jamming. Even wound and damage detection was okay in OFP1 and is in my opinion enough. You are shot in leg, you cant walk etc. Maybe in choppers there is no difference when you shot the tail rotor or bottom of chopper. When tail rotor shoot, chopper should spin, and give an opportuninty for a better pilot to land somehow. But things like water diving or giving other soldier a pack of cigarettes are in my opinion not as needed in war game as these above. There should be some barreers, because soon we will want to take broken boots from soldier's feet because they stink (default by "alt+b"), and to be able to smash simulated mosquito on the neck (default by "alt+s") Not with that technology yet. The worst thing is that probably people from BIS are not reading these suggestions at all.

About the video realism. Thing that is most important are photo-textures in my opinion. Bf1942 or Bf:V mostly got hand made textures, as I suppose, and it somehow in hard to explain way makes game too cartoonish, to colourful what takes the mood. OFP landscape and it's palette is great and realistic, for some that lives in california or southern italy it probably is too washed out, but bohemia are from czech, I am from Poland and I assure you these "Twin Peaks" grey pallete is set perfectly in OFP. I hope it will not be more colorful in OFP2. It is not so hard to make great landscapes in game, graphicans just need to still keep as close to photographs. Other thing is grass, after playing some in BF:Vietnam I must say that it is a new level in computer graphics and makes everything much more realistic, not only as small cosmetic change. In other post I also wrote that polygon count is the less important thing in games, polygon count does not make game better, but somehow game developers think that it actually is. There is many other things much more important than polygon count that takes most of CPU/GPU power. Hard shine surfaces would be nice, imagine the moment when you incidentally spotted the enemy sniper because of short sunny flash reflected from his scope. I think it is thing not too hard to include (cars in Gta Vice City got this kind of flickering reflection/flare while driving against the sun direction).

Actually I'd accept the polygon count from OFP1 because it was enough to have great impressions during the fight, and I would spend the rest of processor potential on things like better particle simulation, physics wind, grass, AI and sound. I think that new ultra-polygoned monsters from DOOM 3 are not more scary than less polygon monsters from Quake 1. Polygons/smoothness of surface is not so important, really. Much more important is way the posture is moving, ragdolls from max payne 2 are almost perfect. By the way - there is still no game where you cannot fight with long gun like m21 (or minigun in more hardcore games) in small rooms - I mean in every game the long barrel never hits the wall or pole or chair or even other soldier. It is funny standing with 1m long gun face to face with wall that is 20cm far.

Ice fire - It is not so hard to judge wind speed and simulate it. For example - more or less good thing to judge is an angle of swinging flag, or swinging small tree. There is even a specified mathematical solution to get more or less wind speed basing on the angle mentioned above. In real life there is very seldom situation where no wind at all is present. AI snipers colud also be affected by wind as it is for example in RPG games. You just need to count the probability and randomize as throwing the dice. Probability is set by some factors like distance and wind speed. It is possible to make almost totally realistic behavior of AI in this way. I don't think wind is any programistic problem for people from bohemia.

Sorry, some of my suggestions do already exist on forum. Damn, I am not so genial.

(sorry for my English, it is not my native language) I've looked briefly at other topics with suggestions about new things in ofp and the only thing that scares me are posts like "bullet time" and other arcade things. In more arcade fps people got bf1942 and now bf:vietnam and I guess there is no need for another such a game. Some say that realism affects 'playability' of the game, but we know that there is lot of players that the extremal 'boring' realism is the most playful thing. The others choose bf1942 and so on. From things that i guess are not too complicated from scripting point of view I'd suggest some things that would make flashpoint 2 much better in category of realism. - sniping scope adjustment possibility (I mean distance and wind correction). Could be used mouse scrolls f.e. because of its 'clicking' as in most of real scopes. Wind/temperature affection on a bullet. It would be ultra-realism but it would prevent from choosing snipers by newbies. Sniper would be really marksman shooter. - the grass - it is included in BF:Vietnam and it is very important from tactical point of view. As same as trees/leaves moving while the wind blows. It was a minor in OFP that everything except humans and vehicles was static. - more smoke and ground particles - it is much smoke in ofp, but while shooting from RPG in real there should be a lot more. As same as after artillery attack. Very very large amount of ground and smoke that is present for a long time after... - sun almost does not blind in OFP, but in real attacking the hill against the sun is nothing pleasant probably. - rare weapons jams/not blowing grenades. - radio problems. - importance of artillery. - some animals from time to time... It is not so hard to see a deer in forest or birds on the trees even during the war... There were a game "Seal Team" from 386 era and we got there some insects and birds etc. - Even better sound enviroment - echo in empty streets of larger town or mountains, shivering leaves noise, wind blows not only at high altitudes, screams, commands and so on. Sorry for my attention for details, but I just can not see OFP in arcade way. I see this game as the new standard of tactical games. Graphic is not AS important as we think - I hope programmers will not forget about other things than a visual engine.