stakex

Actually "Game2" was also refered to as "Next Gen PC Game" long before was ever announced for console, and by then they were current gen consoles, not next gen... so your assumption there is incorrect. As for the bad textures... really to early to tell, tho I would highly doubt the ground in the release version of the game will look like that. In reality, it better not if ArmA2 is going to be a successful game. I truely hate to say it, but graphics sell games now adays. Look at GTA4, Halo 3, COD4, Madden 08... none of them were a step forward for their respective series. In fact, they were all just graphicly modified versions of their predasesors with almost no gameplay improvements, and they were all smash hits. Not to say ArmA2 needs great graphical improvements on the level with thoes games, but its graphics can't be too bad or its never going to sell enough to be a success.

Seems like quite a reasonable and useable feature... it wouldn't be bad to see something like this in ArmA2. Althought, if other players can see what you draw... Im sure we can all imagine some of the things that the less mature people in the community would draw.

Well, I would think it has quite a bit to do with the fact they released a ton of info for "Game2" three years ago, and since the game was given the name ArmA2 last year, we have learned that almost all of the really cool things we heard about it years ago, have gone missing. So hopefully BIS learned not to promis things that very well might not be in the game, as they did when they talked about the original Dynamic Destruction system like it was already finish... when in reality (so they say) it in fact was far from ready for game use. Then again, BIS has never really been huge on releaseing info... but they really should work on a bigger press push for ArmA2 if they actually want it to be successful. Quite a few sites, such as Gamespot don't even have an ArmA2 listing... and even the really old "Game2" shots are listed under OFP2 on some sites. So its going to be kinda hard for some people to find out about ArmA2... which is never good for sales.

Nice list Smellyjelly, most of your list is great (although not all are really "small" details)... of perticular intrest to me are: - Interior lighting. This is vital to be added to ArmA2 IMO as the cities in ArmA seem absolutly dead at night and more like ghost towns. This is especially true if the campaign does end up being an on-going persistent event. - Better vehicle damage system (really not small). The system used in ArmA and Ofp is simply very out dated. If the same system is used, then thats really a major black eye for the game in general. Game systems should advance over time, and if the devs can't come up with anything better then the same texture replacement of ArmA, then Im sorry but thats very poor in this day and age IMO. As Smelly pointed out, even something on the level of GTA3 would be ok, but a dynamic system would be better... DD buildings were a no go, but still no reason vehicles couldn't be DD. - Better detailed maps are also essential. The towns should feel like REAL towns, and be constructed as such. Not just buildings and roads grouped together with some fences and trees thrown in to make it seem like a town with no actual sense of real world planning. As you said there should be parking lots, alleys as well as shops, hospitals, police and fire stations, and any other buildings you would actually expect to find in a real world city or town. Thoes are the parts of your post Smelly that really stick out IMO, and now for my wish list of "small" features... - Improved cliping on weapons. Of course not ALL cliping can be fixed, but alot better job can be done then we saw with ArmA most noteably on the M203. - Better handling how character models react to explosions. I don't care if its just better animations, actual physics calculation, or a combo of both.... but something, anything to not have characters go flyinf like frisbee's when an explosion happens. - Actual animations for characters entering vehicles. Another area of the game that is very old and way over due for an update. Not really a small task, and its impact on gameplay is really small... but still, ArmA2 is a new game after all and better animations are needed. - Â Improved movement in tight spots, such as in buildings. In ArmA moving inside buildings or in any tight spot feels very clunky and its very hard to have any really good urban battles. I truely feel this is linked solely to the "true" 1st person perspective... Thats just a few, but there are tons of small things that can be done to make ArmA2 the best game possible. We'll just have to see what ends up happening in the end....

If you actually play certain of FPS's, you learn that there is not nearly as much bunny hoping in most of them as alot of people here seem to believe. For example, I play COD4 for an hour or two a night on all sorts of diffrent servers, with hundreds of people... and I might come across a couple bunny hoppers here and there. So just because a game has the ability to jump, your not always going to be tons of BH's Mostly because jumping is done realisticly and restricted in COD4, so you can't jump several times in a row. Of course, if you play Counter Strikeor the BF games where jumping is alot more free, you can run into a ton of hoppers. But even then the actual amount of people who you run into that are BH's tends to be fairly small. So if ArmA2 had a restrictive jumping system based on weight.... things would be just fine. Bunny hoppers would be even less likely in a game like ArmA2 which is likely going to draw in a more mature gaming community... tho that might be quite diffrent when it comes to the console version. Again tho, as seems to be forgoten alot around here... ArmA2 is in fact a game, and not everything has to be 100% realistic. Besides, if Im a civilian in the game, I should be able to jump....... if I can't thats not very realistic.

One thing I learned from ArmA; Don't expect realism from BIS (other than gameplay ofc) Sad but true. Yea but is this really a "reaism" issue? Force Recon teams really did exist, and only recently dissapeared... so its not something BIS made up or anything like that, they are in fact REAL. They are just not used anymore... but as I said before, the conflict that takes place durring ArmA2 is not real either, but would you say that is a "realism" issue? Obviouslly the events in the world the game is set in took a diffrent path then the events of the real world... and situations dictated that the F35 needed to be rushed into use, and the FRT's were kept active a little longer. Its all just the GAMES (can't forget that word right there) story...

Actually an empty fuel tank is alot more dangerous than a full one. Yeah if you are going to weld a fuel tank, better fill it with water first as much as possible to make as much of the gas come out as possible! But it depends what kind of fuel there was. Gasoline, very flammable. Diesel, not even nearly as flammable as gasoline. Basically, the "heavier" the fuel, the less danger there is for a gas explosion. Well if you want to get really technical about it... gas itself does not explode, or burn very easily. Its the fuems that the gas emits that actually burn, and can also be very explosive in a confined space. Thats why, as dale0404 says, an empty tank is much much more dangerous then a full one because there are more fuems in an empty tank.

Come on guys, this is a really pointless complaint here IMO. Who the heck cares if they have an aircraft thats not actually in service at the time the game takes place, or the type of recon team you play no longer exists.... You know what, neither does the FICTIONAL conflict that takes place durring the GAME. Thats dosn't exist either... So obviouslly the game world is not the same as the real world, and in that world the F35 entered service two years early, the Force Recon team still exists, and the Ka-52 is in abundant supply. Im not saying attention to detail isn't very important... but it is a game after all, and the games units don't have to follow exactlly what happens to their real life counterparts. This type of attention to detail is much more important when it comes to the game engine and gameplay itself.

This really isn't a good place to ask this question as this is where fans of BIS games hang out... just like it would be bias to ask this question of the OFP2 boards. Either way tho, the above posts are correct... not enough info has come out about OFP2 to make any kind of guess at which will be better. OFP2 likely has a larger dev team, and a bigger bank roll... so the potential is there for the game to be very good. But of course bigger team and more money does not promis to deliver a btter game. Speaking in the hypothetical... if the games engine looks fairly close to some of the renders we have seen (which is very possible) then its graphics will likely be much better then ArmA2's. So beyond that its a matter of how the gameplay itself is... if its an open world style similar to ARmA2's then its got a chance to be better. If its more of a restricted style along the lines of COD... then the game will have no chance of coming close to ArmA2 no matter how good the engine is. So lets figure the gameplay is fairly close, and OFP2 does have better graphics.... then it comes down to a battle of engines. If OFP2 has better developed physics and an in general better game engine.... ArmA2 is dead in the water. We all know the ArmA engine is very buggy and this likely won't change much in ArmA2. So if OFP2 has a better, more polished engine, its probly going to win the battle of the two games. Thats all hypotheticle tho... we really need more info on both games before a definate awnser can be given.

Thats true, but people who plan to buy ArmA2 will still buy it no matter what OFP2 does, and vice versa. OFP2 is going to outsell ArmA2 no matter when BIS releases it because of the name... OFP was an award winning game that was very popular. ArmA is known as a really buggy game that was released 6 months too early, and wasn't much more then a rehash of a 5 year old game that has many of the same problems as OFP. You tell me which games sequal is going to sell better.

Well to use an old Cliché..... "When its done". Anyway, as a quick glance at the official site will tell you... sometime in 2008. Tho with BIS's track record for on time game releases (or lack there of), Id give it 50/50 odds at best for a release in 2008... this is the same game that was suppose to come out in 2006 originally after all. Beyond that, there is no info about a release date.

Its too hard to get any sense of scale from the picture... that "road" looks really small when you compare it with the trees... so it might not be that far away at all, because if it is thoes are some huge trees in the distance. Tho the view distance in ArmA2 will probly be a little bit higher then ArmA1... tho we really don't need it any higher then ArmA1's max really. And the buildings aren't flater... in fact, there are no buildings in the picture. Thats just the ground texture from the satalite mask as gargantua pointed out. This is just an early screenshot, and the building models have not been added yet.

Good! Â Less whiners in the community is always a good thing. Â Every "whiner" is still soneone who bought the game tho... take away all of them, and you take away a very large portion of the community. As Victor pointed out... if ArmA2 dosn't sell well, the jigs up. So careful in wishing that large amounts of people don't buy the game.... Besides, you really can't call people who were mad at how bad ArmA1 was at release, whiners. People who complained about the game (at least in this situation) tended to be thoes with un-bias opinions, unlike some people on these boards who think BIS can do absolutly no wrong.

That sounds really awsome, and pretty much appears to be the dynamic campaign that "Game2" was suppose to have... that we haven't had any really solid info about since "Game2" became "ArmA2". If it turns out thats how the campaign will really work, and this isn't outdated info... then theres alot of hope for ArmA2.

Im not really sure the name matters all that much... if it was named something else, people would still look up the developer and would end up checking the reviews of ArmA eventually anyway. Its quite clear that one of the main reasons for ArmA1, aside from a money sink for BIS, was to get the ArmA name out there and build a new community around the new series, in preperation for the main BIS project, ArmA2. So any new, happy, customers BIS was able to bring in with ArmA will deffinatly help sales of ArmA2... tho Im sure ArmA chased off as many as it brought in. Personally I would worry less about the name of the game, and more about the game itself. BIS needs to make it a game worth buying for people who own ArmA... and not some half hearted "sequal to OFP" thats basiclly a modded ArmA1. Only time will tell

They have confirmed that they have scrapped the project only to start it over again. Remember OFP2 was talked about years ago. I think they got of to a bad start and re-started the project and was comfortable enough to go public with it in August last year. Remember they have already said they have the biggest team on this that they have had on ANY game, I have no doubt they will do their best. How do you think it will look if they cancel the game in which they have the biggest team as of yet in the companies history, only for that reason alone they will fight it to the door I believe. And as I have said before, for once we might see a whole bunch of information getting released not that far away from the actual release date. In my opinion that would be clever marketing and I am surprised even if it does not happen in this case that we don`t see more of it. Ask yourself what you would prefer : - Having alot of WIP, screens, some render etc and to be told release is about 18-20 months of. - Having in-game videos, screens etc released and to be told it is released in about 6 months. I would for sure prefer the latter. Remember OFP2 is NOT in my opinion that much dependent on a very solid PR campaign for the very reason that ARMA 2 at this moment is the only competitor, this genre is not riddled with titles that figth for the consumers $$. In order to capture new players, yes, but on the name alone you get alot for free. Believe me I really want to see some in-game stuff, and personally I think we will during the summer on the games convention (the one last year was in Leipzig, not sure if it is there this year as well, it was when the game was confirmed). I have high hopes for the title, only by looking on the renders, which they have said are target-shots shows that they go after the right atmosphere at least. We can already get visual hints on how the game might look, since GRID will use the same engine (EGO) as OFP2 will, only of course I expect the engine to be polished further towards the releae of OFP2. Well Ive been following OFP2 since it was a BIS project, and I never heard anything about the Codemaster team restarting the OFP2 project. Your likely confuseing the fact that ArmA2 was originally suppose to be OFP2 untill Codemaster and BIS split... at which point the official OFP2 project was, per say scrapped and restarted with an internal Codemasters team. But the rest of your post I agree 100%.... first of all Codemasters is NOT going to cancel OFP2. With its large dev team, and Codemasters obvious commitment to the project, the odds of the game being scrapped are virtually zero. When it comes to info... perhaps Codemasters learned lessons from watching BIS's media strategy? BIS went out in 2005 and told us about a great game that was suppose to be the true OFP sequal (game2), then turned around last year and basiclly told us they dropped everything that made Game2 sound great. BIS also is not very carefull when it comes to releaseing early videos and screenshots.... becuase while some people might understand they are WIP, your average gamer will just think the game is going to suck and keep on walking. These are things Im sure CM's want to avoid... I really think OFP2 is going to kill ArmA2 in sales. Not to say its going to be a better game, personally I have low expectations for both games... but CM's will likely have a much better media strategy, and thats what really sells games.

Really hard to get any sense on how stealth based the game will be at this point... You and your 5 man squade could very well be fighting along side hundreds of other soldiers each mission. Or, if the campaign is still open and dynamic... having a 5 man team might just make things alot easier to get around and such.

I actually had a friend in the Marine Corp who was an infantry man, recently get home from Iraq... and his unit had trained useing VBS before they deployed. So its not just some officers sitting in a secluded room somewhere toying with it. So right there your whole point is wrong. He also said the training they recieved from useing VBS was very useful, and invaluable... Now, what I want to know is how can you make all these statements about VBS/VBS2 (all computer simulated training for that matter), just because YOU personally have never used it? And since you have never used it, how can you make any serious judgement on how useful it is or not? Sounds like nothing more then a fear of technology, or a fear of change to me.

This is sorta along the lines of most of my posts lately... ArmA2 APPEARS to be nothing more then a better looking ArmA (which was basiclly a better looking OFP), with a few new vehicles, and a new map with minimal added content, or features, and possibly a better single player experiecne (which can't really be confirmed becuase the devs haven't said anything about it really and the info we DO have is confusing at best). From the ArmA2 Website.... "Arma 2 is based on the latest generation technology, offering large–scale game world, authentic and extremely detailed modern units, weapons, vehicles and enviroments, challenging single player and vast array of multiplayer options." ....I mean come on, you can use that statement to advertise Flashpoint if you think about it. What the community really wants to hear, is about NEW features. Not ones we all know are going to be in the game. What happened to everything else we heard about when ArmA2 was still Game2? Have EVERYTHING Game2 been removed and replaced with yet another limited improvement game? We already know the three campagins were removed and replaced with one in a totally diffrent area, DD was removed, apparently destruction of vehicles has been removed also (tho not confirmed), weapons models are the same as ArmA (not a big issue really), animations still look terrible, and the games trees look great but the buildings look like they are right out of Flashpoint (quality wise). How much of this, and other community concerns are because the games in an early build, and how much is because thats just how it is? And then theres still other questions that have not been awnsered... like is the totally dynamic campaign we heard about for Game2, still included? Or has it, the cornerstone of the original Game2 info, also been removed and replaced with another linier scripted campagin? If it has been removed, then really ArmA2 has nothing to do with the "Game2" we heard about 3 years ago because everything that made "Game2" sound so good would be missing in ArmA2. These are the things that the community blogs should be about (and if you read the end of the building destruction blog, were suppose to be)... not two blogs on how the trees are coming along.

Jumping really should be added to the game... but it should be controlled by a weight system. If your a soldier carrying a full load, you shouldn't be able to jump any more then someone in real life would be able to. If your a civ, carrying nothing at all... you should be free to jump with perhaps restrictions like CoD where you can't make a full jump right after you just jumped... and you don't run as fast for a few steps after a jump, making you an easy target. The ability to climb over certain objects owuld be good too, but i still fail to see why a well designed jumping system would be such a bad thing. It is possible to have jumping in a game, and have no bunny hopping.

This is really very tough subject for really any developer to deal with, but more perticularly when it comes to BIS and the OFP/ArmA series. Releasing a demo before a games release can be great for a game in terms of advertising, as well as a good way to let fans help find bugs. But at the same time, there is also a huge risk when releasing a demo early. For example, look at the terribly bugged ArmA release. Sure, a year after it came out most of the bugs had been fixed, but when it first came out... well it was a pretty funny joke to make people pay for such an unfinished game. If there was a demo released early, alot of people would have never even bought the game and sales would have suffered. So, sure BIS could release a demo before the game comes out... but with their track record on game condition at release? Do you really think it would be a good idea in terms of sales and perhaps the surival of the series to do so? And also, the games not complex enough to need a very large testing base... ArmA2 very likely will be able to be tested just fine with 5-20 testers. When you think about it, OFP/ArmA/ and likely ArmA2 don't really have a whole lot that needs to be tested.... 5 people playing the game for a few hours can pretty much do and see most things. And when it comes to "fan requested features"..... after two games just like ArmA2, we don't need a demo to help suggest features.

Two points: 1 - That screen does not show the 3d craters 2 - That kind of terrain deformation will likely not stop a plane from taking off. The 3d craters, however, will. Well golly gee, deformable terrain has been request by the OFP community long before the VBS2 shots showing it came out. So just because the VBS2 DT was used as an example to prove that yes, while not really polished, it can be done with the engine.... that dosn't mean its a "oooo VBS2 has it, I want it" post. DT really isn't high on my personal want list... but since it can be done, it really should be. Yes, the VBS2 system has issues, and isn't really polished... but who says it has to be? Have you ever played OFP/ArmA??? Neither of them were very polished quite frankly, and its quite unlikely ArmA2 will be either. If the current VBS2 system was touched up a bit, and some of its bigger issues fixed... it would fit into ArmA2 quite well. On a side note, In my opinion... 3d craters would be the worst possible addition to the game. Not to say the 2d craters are good, but 3d craters would look terrible... worse then any possible glitches caused by a less then perfect DT system. If they are not going to bother with the BT for ArmA2, then just touch up the 2d crater system.

What ofpforum said. It would be nice if the devs would drop in on topics like this and help get the facts strait on things, like are the animations final, whats still to be added that we haven't seen in the screenshots, and just address basic concerns the community has had. And xnodunitx, the diffrence back then was the devs came out pretty much right away and said how thoes screens looked very diffrent from the actual state of the game. I still say if your expecting the same amount of improvement in the ArmA2 shots as we saw in thoes ArmA shots, your setting yourself up for a big dissapointment. The ArmA2 shots are in a far more polished state then the old WIP ArmA shots you were refering to, and are likely much more represenative of the final state of the game. Again tho its not really the graphics themselfs that are concering, as they aren't too bad (still gonna be a hard sell to the console community), its other things like character animation that are the real concern in the latest media.

The "not broke, don't fix" attitude is fine, but its thrown around an awful lot in these forums... the water really wasn't THAT good in ArmA to not warent at least an upgrade. In perspective the water was kinda low quality for even its time, and the waves were a joke... and that was a year and a half ago. It needs work, to at least make it semi-comparable to the current standard. This (and most of my posts) don't really represent my PERSONAL feelings on how the game should be. I could really care less how good the water and graphics are. Gameplay and game mechanics are alot more important as far as Im concerned. IMO the game could look like OFP, but things like adding a REAL physics engine should be top priority, not the current POS BIS jokingly calls a "physics" engine... even if that means turning the graphics down a notch. However, you do have to consider the games ArmA2 is going to be releases along side, and the games its graphics are going to be compared to.... Halo3, GTA4, Oblivion, Far Cry 2, Fallout 3, Fable 2, and the list goes on and on. Graphics wise, these games make ArmA and even the current ArmA2 screens, look very old, and outdated. So things like better looking water have to be at least a minor priority if ArmA2 has any chance of drawing in new players. Lets face it, ArmA has so many "small" graphical and gameplay issues that alot of people here say "Oh, thats not major... it dosn't need to be fixed", but they add up after a while. And people who are not already fans of the series are not going to buy and play a game that looks years older then all the other games out at the time, and is not nearly as polished. So while better graphics are not what I personally want, not fixing all these "minor" problems will cause ArmA2 to sell like a brick, and if that happens.... it well could be the end of the series, and perhaps game releases from BIS all together.

Well since ArmA2 is NOT ArmA... it should not have ArmA's water. Not saying it should be really high quality like Oblivion, Far Cry, or Crysis... but it should be improved apon over ArmA's water.