dreday

Yep, I have a 4890; you kind of have to play around with the settings; but at this point the game is looking very good and playing very well - most things are maxed out except for the object detail, terrain detail, and the fill rate (refer to MadDogX's excellent post for more info). Although I would imagine that a 4870 would run almost as well and it is significantly cheaper... Peace, DreDay

Sad, but true. I wouldn't say terrible, but it is pretty bad. What get's to me is that there is absolutely nothing realistic about this whole "Man, to the left, far away" lingo - that is definitely not how the professional soldiers give out the target reference. I really don't get why this feature was introduced in the first place. Another thing that annoys me about the command system is that the AI is seemingly uncontrollable when they go into their CQB mode. This happens when they are in Danger or Stealth mode - they will run around, crouch, scan multiple directions, yell “Covering†(all of which are a definite improvement over OFP and ARMA)... Here is the problem though... they are not covering me; they are covering an arbitrary direction that they have chosen. Moreover, I cannot tell them that I covering them now; so this whole leap-fogging overwatch tactic completely loses its meaning. In the end I feel like a spectator rather than a squad leader. In my opinion, this very badly breaks up the immersion factor and quite frankly kills the fun factor for me as well. Having said that, I can definitely see that the developers had put a ton of effort into this game, and I am impressed with a lot of the things that I see in it. They definitely got more things right than wrong. ARMA 2 has a ton of potential! Hopefully these kinds of control and situational awareness issues could be worked out in the subsequent patches. Peace, DreDay

I don't know... they sound pretty objective to me; maybe even to a fault... To be fair, ARMA 2 is an extremely rough and overwhelming product. Hopefully they will come back to it in a few months when they are more familiar with it and more bugs have been fixed. Peace, DreDay

Unfortunately that is not something that they are very good at. They will go into a house if you would order them to go to a specific position, but that's about it. Peace, DreDay

Unfortunately AI is extremely difficult to modify/script... unless your name happens to be TonyRanger of course ;) Peace, DreDay

Fair enough. I will definitely give it a try when my download is finished. Update - I have finished the download and completed the temporary install (unpacking of the downloaded files). The set-up is now asking me of the CD Key, but I still haven't been e-mailed anything :( Oh well, nice try... I am sure that I will get the key either within a few hours or on Monday. Peace, DreDay

I agree. It would definitely be useful for modding. You could even place things like extra ammo for the crew served weapons (hint, hint ACE2) in there ;) Peace, DreDay

Oh I see now... Yep, I've noticed that as well. Although, personally I would have rather used those slots for extra grenades or other ammo. It looks like the "item" slots are different than either primary or secondary ammo slots, I wonder if they would accept ammo or just "items"... Peace, DreDay

Please explain this sentence. Peace, DreDay

Thanks for the advice, but I doubt that... I mean how would that work? You would have to be prompted for your e-mail upon running the SetUp.exe in order for this to happen. I am not too worried about this, I'll get it one way or the other; it's just that it would have been nice to have the game this weekend... My post was just meant to let others know that they are not the only ones without the key and that it does not always show up on the download page. Peace, DreDay

You guessed wrong. My download screen did not have the key. It just said (in German of course) that I would be e-mailed one within 8 hours. Quite a few others here seem to be in a same predicament. Hopefully their Sales Support operates on weekends. Peace, DreDay

I have re-read your original post and now I see that it was meant in a semi-sarcastic way. I totally see what you are saying now, good one! Peace, DreDay

Oh I didn't think that it was directed at me. I just thought that you might find it interesting since it was addressing pretty much the same point that you were speaking to. I guess we'll just have to wait and see. This is one of the few cases that I would very much like to be proven wrong on! There are very conflicting reports coming out about the AI. I find the one from STS_SolidSnake to be very encouraging, however there are plenty of others that are equaly discouraging. I have no doubt that "some" of the problems would be addressed. The "inactive AI" is obviously a bug and it would certainly be fixed. Is it realistic to expect significant improvements to the AI - in my opinion NO... but like I said, I would love to be proven wrong on this! Peace, DreDay

It's very simple. People seem to be discontent with the degree to which these new features/changes have been implemented. As a simple example, BIS have said that AI will be improved. It does appear to be improved. However, it also appears to be improved to a much lesser degree than a lot of the people were hoping. Hence the dissatisfaction of some players. I don't see why this would surprise you so much. Peace, DreDay

I you are talking about the FPS genre than you are definitely correct, if you are talking about the PC games as a whole - than you are way off... Peace, DreDay

Taconic, please re-read my post above. The issue is not the updates/support from BIS, which I agree have been excellent. The issue is their lack of emphasis on developing a strong AI. It's a matter of priorities; and based on what I have read about ARMA 2 so far, it still seems to be the case. They are the developers and they decide on what to focus on in their design/development cycle - fair enough; but I see no reason to hold a naive believe that this would somehow be fixed by a patch. Peace, DreDay

Quite frankly, I hear a lot of people say that and I am really curious where this attitude comes from... As a man of logic who is familiar with statistical forecasting, I just don't see how you can say that AI will all of the sudden get so much better when it has effectively been ignored by the developers for the past 8 years and multiple re-incarnations of this game. That is, unless you are relying on the law of averages ;) Peace, DreDay

We are in the same boat, whisper. My German is very poor as well. I was just going by on what I have read in the "German Release" "Micro AI" and "First Impressions" threads on this board, as well as Bert's thread in Tactical Gamer. My impression is that there are 3-4 die hard critics and about the same amount of "fan boys" while everyone else recognizes the potential of the game but also has alot of the gripes about the implementation. One thing that I will say though, is that the magazine articles do sound very sensationalist (at least the way that they were translated here). However, I don't see why they would have any hidden agenda. The game is developed by a Central European company and OFP had been the darling of the PC Gaming magazines when it first came out... Peace, DreDay

Please be more specific... Peace, DreDay

Well said! That's the exact break down of demographics that I see on these boards as well. The only thing that I'll add, is that many gamers everntually look for more sophisitication and become simers (while the opposite is quite rarely the case). Thus, the expectations of our community are much more sophisticated and "sim" oriented than they were when OFP had first come out... Peace, DreDay

I disagree. From what I have seen, the user reviews have been split 50/50 between the posetive and negative commennts. Everyone seems to agree the ARMA 2 has an excellent environment and performs quite well. However, there have been a lot of negative comments about the AI, weapons handling, physics, damage moddeling and such by the users. Sounds like the magazine reivewers are saying the same thing... Peace, DreDay

I for one, really appreciate mr. g-c taking his time to dig deeply into the engine and inform us of its limitations. I too was looking forward to the engine imporvements much more so than the scenery "beautification" :( Peace, DreDay

Just because I am disappointed in the AI does not mean that I'm surprised ;) Peace, DreDay

Unfortunately I have to agree. The scenery looks absolutely lovely, but the game play does not seem to have improved a whole lot. The AI's actions were very disappointing to say the least :( Hopefully there are some features (logic modules) that can be activated to improve on that (Dslyecxi has mentioned something to that effect). But based on just what I saw, you are dead on - "You want to immerse yourself in the battlefield action, but the horrendous AI simply would not give you that pleasure". Oh, and my hat's off to Bert as well! Thank you so much for sharing your early impressions and experiences with us. Peace, DreDay

Word!!! Everyone should be required to memorize this line before posting here. Peace, DreDay