stakex

Exactly what capabilities does RV have that you have never seen in another engine? None, I would imagine. Sure there might not be another engine that has everything the RV engine does, but thats because there really are no other companies making games that are exactly like the ArmA series. No two engines have the same functionality, as most engines are built for a specific purpose. There are certainly engines that have a lot more, and far more advanced, functionality... but they might not be good at making open world war games. On the flip side if you tried to use the RV engine to make a game like BF3, it would never work. With that said, I'm sure if a company was going to start making an ArmA style game right now... they would certainly not decide to go with the RV engine (lets pretend BIS would license it to them for the sake of conversation). It simply lacks a lot of basic features one would expect in a modern engine... like physics that aren't from the 1990's. Not true, at least sort of not true. The last two Red Faction games have done fully dynamic destruction in MP and it synced up pretty good. While it might not have been fully to the scale of ArmA, it DID work and was far beyond what I would call "basic destruction", which makes your statement false. Besides, its not required that the client track every single debris object perfectly synced as you point out. You could simply have the client be told when/where/how much damage is done to the building and let the client run the simulation for the debris. While each client might see a slightly different outcome for each piece of debris, the main thing is that the actual dynamic damage to the building would be the same for everyone. The only drawback would be that the debris would be simple eye candy... but thats still 100 times better then the pre-build building damage models the game currently uses. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- The bottom line on this issue is not about what BIS can or can't actually do... its about what they WANT to do. They blew a lot of smoke up peoples ass's when they removed their dynamic destruction system from ArmA2. They gave excuses like AI reacting to the damage, and poor content pipeline... issues other developers have solved just fine. There are performance and MP questions of course, but with effort those problems could be solved. Its not that BIS can't do it, its that they can get away without doing it. Its the same reason dynamic destruction has not made its way to games like COD. Could it be done? Sure... but why bother when its not a deal breaker for most people? Its one feature that would take a lot of time and effort to pull off, and BIS just does not have the will to do it. I can't say I blame them totally, but it is a shame that a feature that could be really cool will never see the light of day.

Grand Theft Auto 3 had better car physics.... so I really fail to see the hype here. Sure its a great improvement from ArmA2, but ArmA2's car physics were strait out of the 1990's. In fact I would go as far as to say the one major drawback this series has always had was the horribly bad physics. Its great to see that might change in ArmA3, but its a couple games over due.

Heh, not like this thread is filled with them or anything. I'm not going to totally defend the guys at Euclideon, and who knows if they will ever come close to doing what they promise. However, I do know one thing for sure: No one who has posted in this thread, knows exactly what Euclideon is doing or is capable of. People do in fact come up with new ideas from time to time, and its more then possible they have actually made an advancement that makes what they claim possible. Admittedly, the reason no one knows if its BS or not is because they have been suspiciously quiet, and often dodgy with the specifics on their work. Its possible thats because its all smoke and mirrors (or an outright scam)... but its also possible thats just how they want to handle the media. One other thing is for sure: They did in fact receive $2 million in funding from the Australian Federal Government last year. Australia sure as hell would not have given out such a grant for a company to toy around with 20 year old technology. They obviously liked what they saw. Another thing that I keep thinking of is when OnLive first revealed itself. A whole lot of people said they were full of shit, and could never come close to what they promised. Turned out, they actually did come pretty damn close... and shut a lot of people up in the process. So who knows, perhaps Euclideon will end up shutting most of you guys up. Only time will tell.

A lot of people doubted we would see an ArmA3. Hell it was even hinted by BIS that there would be no ArmA3... yet here were are. There will be an ArmA4, trust me.... what else would BIS possibly do? Well its not so much that the technology development is stagnant... its that there is little demand for faster PC hardware. Now adays, almost every PC game is just a port of a console game. As everyone knows, the current consoles are six years old... so that means most PC games now adays were built to run on six year old hardware. Sure you can use higher resolution textures, higher draw distances, and DX11 on those ported games bumping up their hardware requirement... but the game is still built for old hardware. This leads to a lack of demand right now for faster, more powerful hardware. Thats where games like ArmA are punished. Being only a PC game its not limited to the six year old console hardware... but since there are so few other PC exclusives, the demand for faster hardware is simply not there. There is in fact some really powerful PC hardware out there... but the lack of demand has kept the price fairly high. Once the next generation of consoles come out, expect to see a giant boost to PC capability, and a rapid drop in the price of extreme high end hardware.... possibly making hundreds of more players in a game like ArmA possible.

Sounds like your a typical American (I'm American too just FYI) that needs to be told hes doing a good job all the time. Thats all Achievements in games are, a constant "Wow, your so amazing!" factor that pleases people with low self worth. I don't know about you, but I don't need a game to tell me when I do good, or I achieve something. Anyway, what you describe sounds like a single player game. Its obvious MP is not your thing, and never will be... which kinda makes me wonder why your even commenting on an MP based thread. There is simply no way (especially in ArmA) for every single MP battle you play in to be connected. One mission might be a simple TDM, another might be a massive CTI battle, and yet another might be some custom RPG mission that has nothing to do with war what so ever. How do you expect all of those missions could be connected to the same "war", with the same purpose? Its not possible in ArmA with the wide variety of user made missions (which is actually what makes PC games different then console games... user made content, and freedom). To that end, its not really possible in ANY game thats not an MMO, like WW2 Online. In COD and Battlefield you just go from one map to another playing some version of TDM. There is absolutely no connection or carry over from one mission to the next. Yeah, sure those games let you unlock things and amass rewards/medals/achievements but that does not make every battle you fight connected. So really your asking for a game that pretty much does not exist, aside from the ONE massive world FPSMMO war game I mentioned before. In the end, ArmA is a semi-realistic combat simulator... its not Sim Soldier. Its combat environment is what is meant to be more realistic then most other games, not its "soldier experience". As for your other comment: Have you ever even played FPS's? The VAST VAST VAST majority of Ranks/Rewards/Achievements in games are extremely easy to get. In COD for example you can unlock everything on a character in a day your two... Id call that pretty easy to be honest. It has nothing to do with it being "hard", it has to do with them not fitting into the ArmA series. Hell, ArmA has by far the toughest combat of any FPS I've ever played... so I'm sure the community has no problem with the game being hard. Its just that with the very wide variety of missions, and the fact that most missions people play are user made (if you can earn Ranks/Rewards on user made missions, people would simply exploit that and make missions intended to grind with ease)... theres just no room for Ranks/Rewards. It seems like you want a game thats nothing like ArmA. You see realism and you want the game to be both a combat simulator, and military career builder... which its not, and its clear the majority of the community doesn't want it that way.

Not a chance in hell... Not saying Call of Duty is so great or anything (first one was, but the rest all just the same as the first), but RV3 is CLEARLY not intended for use in a COD style game. All the features that make the RV engine great, would be all but wasted on a corridor shooter, and all the features required to make a smooth corridor shooter are MIA in the RV3 engine. What makes COD fun to play, and likely so popular, is that its very smooth and solid feeling. ArmA2 on the other hand is one of the least smooth, and clunkiest commercial shooters your ever likely to see released. It works fine in a wide open environment... but a tight, "corridor" style environment from COD? It would be horrible. Everything has a place in life... and the RV3 engine's place is making games like ArmA2.

Heres the problem with such statements: You assume everyone who plays ArmA2 is a hardcore player who is going to spend a decent amount of time memorizing all the comands and learning how to command units... however, what about casual players? What about new players who could very well be put off by the cumbersom, antiquated, and not to mention poorly explained command system in ArmA2? People seem to forget not everyone plays as much as they do, or is dedicated enough to learn a system thats as big a mess as the current ArmA2 command system. It might be nice and easy to say "Oh well, then they can go play *insert generic shooter here*!"... but without new customers there are no more BIS games to play. So the more user friendly the games, the more popular they will be and the more chance that BIS will keep making ArmA games. Thus, I think the command system is one of the areas BIS should put a good deal of effort into. Right now it has a very un-polished feel to it, and while old time OFP players will view it as an improvement, new players will think its a mess. I'm not so sure a radial menu would be the best way to go about fixing it, tho I don't think it would be impossible to pull off. People seem to over estimate just how complex the command system really is, or don't realize just how much can be done with a small radial menu if its designed right. With that said, a simpler solution would also work. Personally I think a slightly streamlined, far better organized, better presented, and better explained system would requier less work and accomplish the same goal. At the very least the overall presentation and explination needs to be better to make the game a touch easier for new players to get into.

I can sorta understand that, but personally I think to delay overall progress that everyone (not just modders and mod users) would enjoy, so that modder stay motivated would be a mistake. Not to mention in a business world BIS would likely never hold back a game for the sake of allowing the mod community to work on a previous one... it would be a waste of money. As for what I would want to see with DLC... well, Id rather not see any DLC to be honest. ArmA2 and AO were a good step up from ArmA1... but there is still a ton of issues with the core engine and a lot of things that could be added. Id rather see full blow expansions or even sequels that advance the game as a whole, and don't just add some new eye candy... because lets face it, thats all most DLC ever is. If I download a pack of British soldiers to use in AO... Im still just playing AO with different units and the gameplay has had zero added to it. Not to mention I can get the experience of new units/campaigns/missions/islands from the mod community with near the same quality and don't need to shell out $7-10 for it. So I personally would like to see BIS stick to doing sequels and full expansions that work on the core game and fix/add things the mod community cannot do... something I really don't see happening with small DLC. As a brief side note: Im also against DLC in a heavily modded game as a matter of principle. Any units that BIS wish to sell to the community (the British pack for example) can be damn near copied by the modders and released for free. This is a problem that has been faced by other companies in the past. Infinity Ward for example... when they talked about selling a map pack for COD4 the PC mapping community simply said they would copy the maps and release them for free. This forced IW to eventually give the map pack out for free... but IW learned from that mistake and simply removed mod support. Now the community has no choice but to buy their maps packs if they want new maps. So the point is, if a developer is intent on releasing DLC the biggest threat to sales are quite possibly their own modding community. Now do I really think BIS would yank mod support from future games if their ArmA2 DLC fails, or is copied by the community? No, I don't think they would. However, Id still rather not find out what happens should BIS try the DLC rout and it tanks really bad for them... becasue in the end, money/profit is king and anything is possible.

Hello, I have a quick question about unit placement. What is the best way to place units that are part of a group, but don't return to formation as soon as the mission starts? Its been since OFP days that Ive made missions and I thought setting their special field to none is how I use to do it... but they just return to formation right away, which is not desirable. Not sure if thats new with ArmA2 or Im just remembering incorrectly... but any help would be awesome. Thanks in advance.

Personally I'm in the "Nothing against paid DLC" camp for the most part so long as its actually content that was developed post release, and isn't just some DLC bandwagon money grab. Things like holding back content at a games launch and releasing it a few weeks later (Horse Armor anyone?), or digging up old maps, giving them a once over, and packing them together and selling them for $15 just doesn't fly with me. Nor does adding two weapons, a vehicle, and a couple maps the player could have made and charging $15 for them (Far Cry 2 I'm looking in you're direction). Those kind of thing, coupled with charging extremely high prices for DLC such as the map packs from COD:MW2 are the things I think companies need to avoid doing... and players REALLY need to stop paying for. Give a mouse a cookie..... When it comes to BIS and the ArmA2 series of games.... I see issues for DLC. The first and foremost is the modding community. The modding community is never a bad thing obviously but with the communities ability to churn out pretty much any content it wants, BIS will have a hard time being able to sell new maps, campaigns, and missions with the current ArmA2/OA content since the community could do the same thing with the games tools. Any new content will have to add to the game in some way (and not re-use maps/models/units), and even making a paid DLC of something such as, a British unit pack for example, will be difficult because the community has the ability to do the exact same thing... for free. BIS will also have to be careful porting things from VBS and charging for them. By such I don't really mean game features, but more so units... because packing up some units they have laying around and charging for them isn't a good idea. So at the end of the day BIS is gonna have little choice but to add paid DLC that actually adds features to the game/engine itself, or adds a crap ton of new content to be worth actually paying for. The other big issue BIS is gonna run up against is the simple fact that PC gamers do not like paying for DLC... especially for PC only games. The PC community is use to reciving free content, and only likes to pay for expansion sized DLC. This is changing a bit, but mostly PC gamers accept it in games that are cross platform and understand its hard for a developer to charge on group of players and not another... very very few PC only games mess with any sort of larger DLC because it just doesn't work well. We'll have to see what BIS has up its sleve and see how well they pull it off. My biggest fear of all this tho, is that this is the start of the end for the BIS modding community. Why? Well just look what I listed as the biggest hurdle BIS has to jump for its DLC... competition with the community. Several other game developers have realized modding is bad for DLC sales, and have since terminated mod support so they can release simpler, less robust DLC. COD:MW2 is a great example... IW just couldn't figure out how to charge for the MW1 map pack on the PC (mappers thretened to simply copy the maps and relese them for free), so they just canned mapping tools the next time around so there was no competition. Less development, AND more money coming in, it was really win win for them. If DLC really works out well for BIS... I would not be totally shocked to see them lessen, or completely drop mod support for future games. I know many will say "No way, not BIS!"... and while I would love to believe that myself, at the end of the day its all about the all mighty dollar, and a modding community generally means less dollars. I well could be wrong about this, but with the way the gaming industry is going... anything is possible.

Lets put a bit of perspective on this.... Rockstars Grand Theft Auto 4 sold more copies in 24 hours (3.7 million), then BIS has sold of all its games combined over the last 10 years. Im sure Rockstar is very upset to hear you think they don't compare to BIS...... Now personally I spent far more time playing OFP/ArmA games then I have GTA games, and really didn't care for GTA4 that much. And of course BIS and Rockstar are two totally different studios, with totally different situations and goals. But to say Rockstar fails to compare to BIS? Thats just plain fanboy talk, ignoring the facts that Rockstar is one of the top game developers in the world... and most people have never heard of BIS. BIS is good at what they do (tho with little competition other then the absolutly terrible OFP2... theres not much competition in their target market)... and Rockstar is good at what they do. Leave it at that...

Another thing most haven't really mentioned is not only is ArmA2 not a run and gun game such as COD, but its also not just team deathmatch/deathmatch all the time either. Most of the servers pretty much run user made co-op missions... which are a blast, but deffinatly different then COD. Theres also a healthy amount of Warfare, which is a semi-PVP semi-CooP capture the island game with NPCs and real players going at it. Then there are capture the flag and deathmatch games as well... they just aren't the majority like in COD. ArmA2 is a good game, and far more flexable then COD. If you can accept that it doesn't play quite as smooth, close combat isn't great, and the fact that you actually have to think a bit when you play... you'll love it.

$400 to build a PC from scratch, that is capable of playing newer games well, is really pushing it to be totally honest... To make a PC that can play ArmA2 decent your looking at needing upwards of at least $600 to get off the ground, and have a bit of flexibility. While the processor and GPU are going to be the most expensive things you buy... you also need a motherboard, soundcard, power source, RAM, Hard drive, case, and if you don't already have them a keyboard and mouse. You will also likely need a copy of Windows if your truely starting from scratch. You can cut corners and go pretty cheap with some things, such as the case, but it still starts to add up by the end. Im not going to go into exactlly what to buy, but a quick 40 seconds on google found this like http://www.tomshardware.com/forum/271433-31-building-gaming-computer-wife. Have a read, and don't be afraid to hit up google and search something like "building a cheap gaming PC" or "building a 400 600 gaming PC". While you won't find many ArmA2 related articles (if any), if the computer can play most modern games well... it will deal with ArmA2 fine. Just make sure you go quad core, thats all.

Well I don't think any figures were released, and probly won't be unless the game sells a million copies or some other milestone... which I personally find unlikely. I also personally think Zippy is over estimateing the financial success of ArmA2. Theres a lot of factors to look at to determine the likelyhood of sales for ArmA2. The good: 1.ArmA2 is pretty much the only mil-sim FPS released in the last couple years. Sure theres OFP: DR... but lets be fair, its more a CODish game. 2. ArmA2 has an amazing mod community. Thats a great selling point for a PC game. 3. Arma2 was better then ArmA1. ArmA1 is a great game now, perhaps even better then ArmA2 at this minut. But once ArmA2 is compleatly patched up, it will almost certainly be better then ArmA1. The Bad: 1. ArmA2 wasn't an amazing game. It was a good game, but BIS's engine is really starting to show its age, and many new features felt poorly implimented. 2. ArmA1 left a lot of people sour with BIS, especially people new to their games. While it was eventually patched, and the latest version of ArmA is a good game... its initial few months did not make BIS many new customers and likely turned a lot away from ArmA2 (not helped by ArmA2 being itself released way to early). Tho that are already fans of BIS know that they will make the game good with patches... but new comers are just going to be turned off. 3. ArmA2 was too close to ArmA1 was too close to OFP. This is the MAIN complaint I have heard about ArmA2 personally. Other then a decent graphics update... theres not a tone of difference in any of the three games. This isn't a big deal to most people on these board who are die hard OFP and BIS fans. But to the other 99.8% of the gaming market that actually is a big deal. Developers like Infinity Ward (COD), Bungie (Halo), and EA Sports can get away with repeatedly releasing the same basic game over and over again with minimal changes... but smaller, lesser known developers have always struggled doing so. Especially when there was 5-6 years between OFP and ArmA... and a couple more years for ArmA2. 4. Lot of competition. Theres a reason BIS is one of the few companies making die hard mil-sim games... true realisim is not as popular as run and gun COD style gameplay, RPGs, sports games, or even strat games. Its actually probly the least popular game style to be perfectly honest, which is why Codemasters balked with DR. I actually find this to be a sad thing... and wish there was more OFP style games. Unfortunatlly, thats just not what people want in general . With that said, this hasn't been an amazing year for video game releases, but its seen a fair share of high profile games. I hate to say it, but people are more likely to buy high profile games in other genres then ArmA2. 5. Lack of console release. I hate to say this. As a hard core PC gamer it KILLS me to admit this... but its simply a fact. No game is going to make serious money without a console release. The PC community is still quite large... if it wasn't you wouldn't even seen ports anymore. However PC only games don't get nearly the press, are hidden on small racks in game stores, and simply do not have the player base that console games do. Without a console release... I fail to see how this game would have been a major financial success. 6. Length of game development. OFP came out in 2001. ArmA1 didn't come out till late 2006/early 2007 and ArmA2 in 2009. Technically ArmA2, whic hwas originally "game2" was in development for years before ArmA came out... and the development time wasn't free. Then there was 2 and a half years between ArmA and ArmA2... more development time that is costing BIS. At the end of the day, all that cost hurts the overall profit. 7. Economy. We hear about this every night on the news so Im not going to add another hour onto the length of my post, but with limited financial spending this year... people are far less likely to buy a game from a virtual unknown developer, especially since looking up ArmA1 reviews does not do BIS/ArmA2 any favors. They are going to be frugal and spend money on sure bets from mainstream developers... or on games that are going to bomb, like Modern Warefare 2. 8. Lack of serious advertiseing. With all the above, this was just a huge mistake. Perhaps it was advertised in other parts of the world... but here in the US Ive never seen an ad for it, and never hear anyone mention it when talking about games. Getting the word out is half the battle... 9. System requierments. Again the PC community is far smaller then the console community. And not all PC gamers had a PC that could fully run ArmA2. That makes the target market that much smaller. Final Thoughts: Its easy to see that BIS has some hurdles in turning a major profit with ArmA2, or any game in the series to be honest. Die hard fans will have a hard time ever admitting that, and its something I personally think really sucks since again, BIS is pretty much the only maker of realistic mil-sims games. If they are not turning a big enough profit its hard to justify making more games. Tho its been said its kinda unlikely there will be an ArmA3, and that BIS is going on to bigger and better things post ArmA2, if ArmA2 was a blockbuster success that could have changed in a very quick hurry. Im sure much of what I said is open to dispute, but thats my two cents.

I personally think the future of OFP/ArmA style games from BIS depends on what happens with CC:GM. If it bombs, BIS will go back to what they know with military simulator games. Look at it this way. BIS is unknown to everyone but the hardcore mil-sim gamers, and is going to have a hard time breaking into the fantasy shooter market that is dominted by the likes of Bioshock and Fallout 3. CC:GM sounds like it might be cool, but as histroy has shown... people are carefull about buying games from un-known developers. Mix that with the fact anyone looking up BIS will quickly find that ArmA1 and ArmA2 could certainly been of higher quality at release... and thats going to make it hard for CC:GM to sell large numbers. If it does fail to sell well... BIS will really have no choice but go back to ArmA/mil-sim games. Even with the history of releaseing bug ridden games, mil-sim games from BIS will sell great because not only is the mil-sim community a bit more understanding, but there is zero competition. BIS pretty much has the market to themselves. Then there is also the fact that, as others have said, BIS has all this knowledge of working on mil-sim games from the last 10 years... and I really don't see them walking away from that, especially when its knowlage from a market with no competition. As for the original post... IF there is another military game from BIS, what would i expect? Personally I will not buy any such game unless it uses a new engine. The current engine is really starting to show its age with ArmA2 and is simply outdated. It served well for 10 years, and likely will still be fine for VBS for the forseeable future... but for a game, its just lacking and many of the new features in ArmA2 just felt tacked on and poorly implimented. ArmA2 would have been a far more amazing game if the whole engle was built from scratch with all the games features in mind. Its very understandable that BIS didn't do that of course, but if they make another military game, I personally think its a must.