Commie

Spokesperson is right about the original campaign having a neat anti-US or rather a cynically realistic idea behind it, namely the critique of how the US has historically supported anyone against what it saw as threatening (usually communist) regimes, even if those they supported were even worse than the enemies! Often these same dictators the US backed ended up biting the hand that fed them anyway! I really liked how my impressions went from 'oh no, another US against the 'evil 'commienazis' plot again' to that neat twist at the end that was begging for an expansion from the SLA remnant side ala OFP Resistance. Shame that instead we get one bunch of Royalists against another in a plot far removed from what the original set up. Hell, I'd like to get together with you guys that would like to make a 'proper' continuation, for even though my mission making are negligible, I have considerable experience in writing compelling scenarios

I too am disappointed at the campaign here. You'd think that after slaughtering their own citizens and turning on their US allies, that the Queens Gambit expansion would have something of a continuation on this plot, but no, instead you end up actually helping the brutal Monarchy to impose its will on the North with the King himself labelled as the 'liberator'! What happened to the US? They just took it on the chin and left? And even the campaign mentions that the North are poor and disenfranchised, yet you still are cast in the role of a mercenary helping to oppress these people! Why couldn't it be a campaign from the 'David' point of view, instead of the 'Goliath'? OFP Resistance got it right against a brutal occupier, yet here you are still being on the side of who ultimately were 'bad guys' in the original ArmA campaign!

Ok, so up to 'Counterattack' where you have to get into the Strykers and take out Shilkas. The Stryker formation drives past the wrecked SLA vehicles and then they turn around and drive back to the start. Then they drive back past the vehicles again and turn around again. They never go to mission waypoint, just drive around! This just after I played one of the helo missions, crashed on takeoff, the objective got cancelled, and I got a 'mission complete' and then 'mission successful you destroyed all the armor' message! Seems the further you go into the campaign, the more rushed and buggy it is! Holy cow, the ammo dump guarding mission was a kind I would make myself the first time I ever used the editor in OFP!So amateurish!

I hate how unlike in OFP, there is very little interaction at times by you in the campaign. Missions seem to progress whether you are there or not. Take the Delores bridges mission for example: I get the flash message and blow the bridge. Blast a couple of T-72's, and get ready to join the ambush. Imagine my surprise when as I move towards the ambush area, I see that the other 2 bridges are still standing and I get the 'Retreat' icon to leave the mission area. Undeterred I keep going to the ambush area and see 2 BMP and one T-72 standing around. Eventually I nail them and go to the base on top of the hill, a few dozen US dead and some 4 trops standing around. They did the ambush without me and so all I needed to do was camp by the bridge and go home! Not only this but it went badly and I had no influence as even the cople minutes run from bridge to ambush point wasn't enough to get there in time. Another example is the mission where you take the TOW Humvees into action. As we move towards the objective, enemies blow away the Humvees, and kill all my squad except one. I jump out in time and go prone trying to get my bearings. You'd think such a disaster would end the mission but no! 10 seconds late I get the message that the Defence is successful and we can go forward! Now I know don't want to be hemmed into replaying a mission because of some arbitrary design that says I need 50% of my units intact to proceed etc. and the mission i described i had a fun time as a lone wolf sniper taking out the base then the tanks. But this isn't my point. I just remember that in OFP I could CHOOSE to stay behind and let others take the flak if a mission was hairy,and run for my life if they failed! Here often the decisions as to what engagement to take part in or hide from is often not in my hands and that blows.

Hello, while waiting for a less buggy version of ArmA, I fired up my OFP again and downloaded all the mods and campaigns I could find. The problem now is I don't know what mods work with others. I have ECP, Y2k3, and FFUR for the base to choose from but don't know if they will work with the Campaigns like CSLA II, FDF, Tonal etc. Does anyone recommend what they play with or has links to such information?

Thanks guys for the help! Maybe I'll now stop getting all the errors by piling some mods onto each other! Thanks again!

Does anyone else feel that the campaign is very anti-climactic? I don't mean the types of missions per se, but the whole idea of a tiny island state at war with the US! There is a feeling of inevitability about the outcome that makes for very little tension. The SLA attack is beaten off in a couple of days, then a week or so later the war is over. Unlike in OFP where in game time, even while in combat against just Guba's combined arms Army, took a long time and Guba remained dangerous till the end. After all, the US has unlimited resources and numbers to help out the South while the SLA is all alone and limited in resources. After a few missions, the campaign is just about the SLA trying to delay the inevitable. It's like Grenada invading some US interests in the Caribbean. They may have a day or two in the sun, as in the campaign the SLA has, after this though there can only be one winner. I know it's more like the real-life campaigns the US fights, but in a game, it makes for an apathetic feeling in the player. There isn't this feeling that you face an opponent that can pour in more and more units like you did in OFP or Red Hammer or Resistance and can have a chance of success. In fact it would make more sense to just make the game North vs South with only aid in the form of weapons from their respective backers in US and Russia/China. This would be a much fairer contest and would make more sense than having tiny Democratic Republic of Sahrani invading South Sahrani while the US troops are still there. I mean how would they expect to win?

Wrong Frederf, if that were so, then why do they tell YOU in briefings and orders to do this or that? They don't tell YOU unless they want YOU to do this! When I'm told to 'Board Stryker and head to (x) to destroy enemy armour' then I assume that command is asking ME to do this because there is nothing else available! Yet just as I jump into the Stryker the game tells me that targets are destroyed! It's nothing to do with 'being a lone private to save the day' as I'm in charge of a squad of infantry!

Don't like the cartoony explosions with bits of vehicle spiraling away in smoky 'arms' and a bright colourful explosion. All that effort just to then have ugly 2D fire on the vehicles. OFP was much better. When an RPG round hits, you get a flash, then a burst of black and grey smoke blown out. Sure the vehicle squashing bit and pathetic smoke after was poor, but the initial blast was very realistic. If you don't believe this, watch some Iraqi resistance videos where they hit vehicles with RPG's. The flash followed by the great puff of grey smoke is there exactly as in OFP. Hope realistic explosions are modelled back in by the great talent out there!

Some fine explosive effects there, hope the guys get onto ArmA indeed! To Ofpforum, I think you'll find after ArmA is patched up and things are progressing, the amount of posts by me will be a far smaller average. Many of these are campaign specific grieviances. I'll probably just have a few hundred posts at most in the end.

Point taken KaRRiLLioN. Me bad. I know, I have a huge list as everyone of screwed things, it's just that they've already been whined over! Explosion weirdness; though minor as it is a graphical taste; is a thing that really was noticeable for me and I was just making an observation in light of all the Iraq footage, that for me OFP explosions, or rather the initial hit of the weapon on an object seemed much more realistic.

I lost all my squad bar one as soon as we reached the waypoint we were told to go to initially. I hit the dirt and try to work out what to do next. Luckily the AI buddies cleared off the attackers and I get told to link up to the south. I climb the hill with my surviving lackey and we sneak around the T-72 and 2 BMP's. I did however manage to shoot a sniper and steal his Dragunov here. Then I parked on the hill outside the enemy base and sniped troops till I ran out of ammo, then looted the bodies of those enemies that had ran towards me. Got more sniper ammo, killed most of the remaining troops then went into the base. I shoot the 3 or 4 soldiers hiding there and heal then steal a T-72 and drive back to the hill pass and destroy the T-72 and BMP. The second BMP was dead for some reason. Finally I get the message to drive to the base and destroy it. Since it's already done, the light artillery attack is pointless. Even though the way I did the mission is contrary to how it should be done and unrealistic, the good thing is that at least in this case the Campaign allowed improvisation to succeed! Now if only they fixed the rest of turgid campaign!

I don't know, it just seems that the low-budged OFP was a labour of love even if I don't fancy being on the US side in games all the time while now being cashed up BIS have forgotted these things. Probably think that the community will make a million campaigns anyway. OFP had a 50 mission epic campaign, ArmA seems that it has less than half, with the auxillary missions! Tired how with every new release the amount of gameplay for your dollar decreases. ArmA can be saved by the community, but it's still unsavoury for BIS to stoop to the antics of '8hr' Valve or Sierra!

Well then why do I need to play the game at all then? The point of playing a game is to be a part of the action! I'll give another example. In the Airport Defend mission you get a radio message that the Royal Forces have been overrun and that I have to get into the Strykers and stop the SLA from breaking through. Before the Strykers leave the airport compound I get a message saying all enemies have been destroyed, mission accomplished! Now I don't know about you, but if I'm TOLD by the game to do something and it gets done 30 seconds later when I don't even have time to get my squad in the vehicle to take us there, I don't think that enhances my gameplay! But you're right about not even needing to play to succeed. In the Helo mission after this I crashed non-fatally on takeoff, and still was told that the mission was a success! Seems that to win the game one just needs to sit in a corner and wait. In OFP especially in the infantry battle missions I never got the sense that I was the reason we won. Often I would take a few shots then hunker down till the smoke cleared. It's ok you not having an impact on a battle, but not ok to be denied even a choice when in the briefing you are told to do this and that in the first place!

Ahh, didn't see that someone before me had the mad strykers bug! Posted a new topic, sorry bout that.

Was wondering if doing the auxillary missions makes a difference in the main ones. I try and do all the missions anyway, but have come across a situation early in game where I can only do one auxillary mission. So I wonder if my choice affect the level and types of enemies I face in the main missions? I see that the little + and - descriptions don't change, no matter if I do the missions or not, thought maybe it would update to tell you that rather than facing 2 armoured units, you will face one or something.

Karillol or Karrion or whatever your name is.... Having each explosion with three spiraly smoke arms with a ball of fire on the end is hardly realistic, and looks like crap. Giving my 2 cents worth on this doesn not mean I have problems with shoelaces, that's being pretty pathetic from you. In fact, I see you posted almost 1000 times, seems you need to get out more.

I was hoping for a good debriefing screen wih not just your kills, but total losses for both sides. Also would have liked this for the campaign, a progression from the OFP statistics screen which just had your kills and your squads losses featured. Was hoping to have breakdown of all I and the army as a whole achieved, something to aim to better when replaying. Instead we don't even get the modest campaign total tally we had in OFP. Don't know how hard it could be to mod a kill counter for each mission, hope it's possible.

Hey! I liked Red Hammer, at least until I switched sides(Bah!

I'm glad BIS didn't go for the exagerrated 'ragdoll' rubbish that every other game seems to try for. When will people realise that 'ragdoll' is not realistic in anything except making modelled units act like 'ragdolls' and not people? OFP had a great death animation, people had this fall especially when in motion that really gave a feeling of the finality and even banality of dying. People don't tend to fly in 'cool' poses, arms and legs flailing as in 'ragdoll' based games or roll over themselves on a slope downhill like in HL2, Far Cry, FEAR etc. Good that ArmA follows the OFP model, though more elaborate, though I notice that there seems to be more of a delay when you kill someone and when the animation kicks in. It's like a split second pause between getting shot and falling, not like in OFP.

Yes, there is a place for the Ragdoll effect I guess, just that in most games I've seen the bodies fly and contort in all sorts of weird ways. In FEAR many a time the bodies kind of sit on the ground and fold backwards or the bodies hang by the head through some stairs etc. or as in Far Cry where you shoot someone and he's still sliding down the hill after a time minutes later. I guess the problem for me is that weight and gravity don't have much impact as in reality. Throw a grenade into a room of dead bodies in Half Life or FEAR and watch the bodies fly around. Shoot a guy in the stomach and watch him fly backwards, arms and legs straight out in front. 'Heatseeker' is right: Ragdoll makes bodies look weightless! Having seen footage of sniper kills and grenade explosions against prone soldiers in Iraq, you really can see that people more often than not seem to just crumple to the ground, they don't fly all over the place as in most FPS games. Of course a few more animations based on where you hit a soldier and how he is moving would be ok, but to be honest, I had no trouble in OFP with repetitive death animations. I do however have a lot of problems with seeing bodies fly through the air in other FPS, no matter how many different ways they land! KillaALF is right and this is what I was getting at with the delay between getting shot and dying. In OFP it seemed instant, but depending on what the soldier is doing in ArmA, he can take a bit more time before he 'dies'. often I didn't know I had killed at first because of this.