dslyecxi

Thanks. I suppose it depends on what ungratefulness you're referring to. I do believe, and I think it would be naive not to, that there are certainly people in the community who are simply ungrateful for anything that BIS does for them. They have their vision of what the next ArmA patch will be, and if it doesn't live up to their ridiculous standards, they'll try to burn BIS at the stake. My group is testing VOIP. I asked to talk about VOIP with the community as well as mention some other aspects of 1.09 as a form of news, to give some update on the progress of 1.09. While many people have been appreciative of that, others have not, and the amount of bullshit (and let's not mince words here) that has taken place in this thread is amazing. I'm grateful the mod team is being active in dealing with it, and keeping the thread mostly within the realm of what I made it to discuss.

Oh well! We obviously have different opinions about what should be a priority insofar as bug fixing goes. ArmA VOIP was buggy in 1.08 and prior, it's been addressed in 1.09, and that's commonly referred to as "bug fixing" (something which people like to ask for but then monday morning quarterback the decisions of BIS at every opportunity). TS2 does not do what ArmA VOIP does. Simple as that. Why don't you reserve your complaints for the actual release? I've already said in very clear terms that I did not and would not post the changelog. Do you think that VOIP is the only thing that 1.09 has in it?

I can only assume that people who don't like the VOIP and think TS accomplishes the same thing simply have not read the description of how the VOIP works and cannot visualize what is happening in the videos. Oh well. I guess some people will just have to use it themselves before it'll sink in. It's not hype - VOIP changes the way you communicate in the game. TS still has a place if you have a large playercount and set organization (ie: ShackTac), but VOIP adds a number of features and a level of integration that will NEVER be possible in TS2, ever, and which acts as a great complement to TS2 in large-scale situations and a total replacement for it in smaller-scale situations. But hey, doubt it if you want. Doesn't hurt me any, VOIP's already in there.

We run ArmA with VOIP on as well as our normal TS server. I haven't noticed any performance difference yet. VOIP uses peer-to-peer networking when possible, which helps to cut down on any strain. The real test will be when we get a full 50-60 ShackTac people onto the server once 1.09 goes live or beta or whatever the plan is. If it can handle that (which I am optimistic it will), we'll be golden.

I guess you missed the part where I didn't post the full changelog, eh? Funny how you can comment about "Bugs being fixed" when the VOIP was broken because of (gasp! bugs. Also funny how you can imply that bugs aren't getting fixed when you don't even know what bugs HAVE been fixed.

You can set the quality on a scale of 1-10. We have ours set to 7. I don't believe that it's a linear improvement, either - each quality level has a different set of benefits/tradeoffs. It's the Speex codec, there's a list that can be found that describes the different levels. It sounds good to me. Much better than before they added the option to set your own codec quality. I don't think it will be outright "blocked", but it may be muffled a bit. Probably not enough to be an inconvenience, though. (which is good, of course)

You can see it in the videos. VOIP works pretty reliably now. There are a few people who are having issues with it, but that's what the testing is all about. We've seen it improve significantly since we started focusing our efforts on it. It has been a very responsive aspect of the testing. There may be some bugs in it that require a larger userbase to discover (ie, maybe a public beta like that 1.08), but even with them it's working very nicely right now. Talking over a "radio" channel (side, group, vehicle) has an associated "Direct Speaking" effect. The audible radius is maybe 1/3rd as big as when using the dedicated "Direct Speaking" channel, which makes sense - the person is talking into a radio, quieter, so they can't be heard for as far. You don't "set" yourself to a radio channel. You will hear everything as it relateds to you (ie: people in your group over the group channel, your side on the side channel, your vehicle on the vehicle channel), and the "Who's Speaking" indicator will color-code the player names based on what channel they're talking over. I don't think this would work very well. If you look at the example organization ShackTac will be using, you will see that forcing people to choose which channel they listen to would result in some very fractured and difficult-to-use comms. The current system appears to work very well from our testing. No problem. It's posts like these that are why I even bother. edit: It's probably not far off, but I can't claim to know anything concrete about a possible release date. It wouldn't be my place to hypothesize about a date range, either. I hope you understand.

Yeah, I know. It's unfortunate. I would post here a lot more often if it weren't for that fact. Currently there is no mute option, aside from just disabling VOIP on the server. They add things daily, though, so maybe we'll be able to get this in there. I believe so. I have an ATI card myself, though.

You assume so much with such arrogance, and yet when it comes down to it... you're simply wrong. Please stop going off topic. You really do not understand what you are asking for. Oh boy, a personal attack! ArmA VOIP does things that TS cannot do. I say this as someone who has damn near perfected TS communications for my group, a group which has 50+ player sessions on a regular basis with very solid organization and communication. ArmA VOIP adds an immense amount of comm enhancements to us, and when paired with TS, it's a fantastic combination. The videos show this off fine. I believe that most people who have actually taken the time to look at the two 20-30 minute videos can see that quite clearly. You seem to have an anti-BIS agenda, which I assume is why you so stubbornly refuse to acknowledge the benefits of the ArmA VOIP. But hey, whatever. Some people just love to complain. Please, though.. do it in a different thread.

Let me be clear here. I am not interested in debating various aspects of ArmA in this forum. My apologies if that's all you're hoping to get from this post. I posted to talk primarily about VOIP, which, yes, offers a significant gameplay improvement along with features that cannot be matched by Teamspeak. There is a very distinct element of this community (manifested mostly in this forum, but not so much in other forums about the game) that is unable to come to grips with what realistic expectations for the 1.09 patch are. You talk about revamping the entire armor modeling system, overhauling the entire animation system, and more - and you honestly think these suggestions are appropriate for ArmA v1.09? I cannot take anyone seriously who is making such statements. It shows a gross misunderstanding of game development & post-release support. Please, if you have an issue, take it to the "Disappointed with ArmA?" thread. I'd like to reserve this one for productive discussion based on the guidelines set forth in the original post.

The sound levels inside of vehicles are being tweaked to account for this, actually. We had trouble at first, but they keep tweaking it more and more in response to feedback about it.

This is just proof that you can't please everyone. I'll be nice and address your concerns. 1. I don't know what you consider to be "bad shadows/lighting", so I can't really cover that. 2. Texture loading is because I'm running FRAPS to record the video, and it tends to cause issues. It's not an innate aspect of ArmA for me, it only happens occasionally when recording with FRAPS for a long period of time 3. The "pimped" BMP is a script of ours that we're running in the mission, it's not a bug. It's happening because a person in the BMP is triggering the script repeatedly. 4. The "endboss" is a bug. Considering that you're looking at BETA TEST footage, the whole point is to discover things like that so they can be fixed. I guess you can look at it as the glass being half empty if you want, but that's a pretty sorry way to live your life. edit: Zooming in irons isn't really unrealistic, but I don't want to turn this thread into a discussion of that, so I'll simply say that I disagree with you. The animation transitions in a lot of cases have been smoothed out. I can't give details on them because I'm not sure exactly which ones have changed, but the general movement feels a bit smoother now.

I honestly don't know. If I had to guess, I would say that the AI are not influenced by your voice comms. I get the feeling that coding it to be that way would be pretty difficult, so I don't know if that's a reasonable thing to expect in ArmA.

The thing is, TS and ArmA VOIP complement each other very nicely. There is a distinct use for both of them, and they work fine together (from what we've seen). I can't imagine people playing 1.09 and not having a blast with the "Direct Speaking" VOIP in particular. It adds sooooo much to the gameplay.

We don't run a public forum at the present time. It's basically a members-only forum currently.

if you don´t plan to do so. Try reading a bit more carefully next time. The first paragraph of my post says, quoting: Perhaps I should be more clear. I will not discuss anything that isn't at least touched upon in my post. Is that better? Sorry for the confusion, I thought it was clear the way it was.

As I clearly stated in my main post, I am mainly interested in discussing VOIP and will not get into details on anything not covered directly in my post. Sorry. I know a lot of people have their own personal ArmA axes to grind, and I'm not interested in dealing with that. You may not agree with that, but at least you can respect my wishes and make an attempt at avoiding posting topics that you know I will not be discussing.

Can I get a mod to close this topic? It's for a good cause - I'll be making a new post in a bit (within an hour or so) that is much more detailed + has videos + opens things up for discussion.

That reticule is waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay too big.

Some of the key factors in lone-wolfing are based off of the game in question (in this case ArmA) not being high-fidelity enough in its simulation to give realistic downsides to such behavior. For instance, the following are very significant limitations on ArmA that can encourage the lone-wolf behavior or make it artificially more effective: 1. Poor stamina and general movement model results in infantry that are too mobile and too fast, with no significant penalties to counter-balance this. a. Slope of terrain plays little influence due to there being no significant stamina penalty for moving on sloped terrain b. Roughness of terrain does not come into play (ie: You can always sprint regardless of the type of ground you're moving over, movement speeds stay the same over all terrain) c. Player can move at a very rapid pace indefinitely d. Player's gear does not influence his movement speed or stamina e. The effects of stamina loss can be counteracted by 30 seconds of slow movement, regardless of how much exertion occurred prior. (There's more, but those are some of the key ones) 2. Unnaturally high weapon accuracy at any distance. Players in ArmA can fire much more accurately than an average combatant would be able to in a real-life situation. Stance plays much less of a part of shooting than it should (ie firing M249 from the shoulder, standing, with extremely high accuracy). Stamina and breathing play a very small role in-game compared to reality. 3. Low density of players in any given area (in the cited "10v10" scenario, you're looking at a limitless ability to flank due to no restrictions on movement and the inherent knowledge that all players have re: there being no enemy presence aside from the ten players whose positions they roughly know at the outset.) 4. Lack of significant microterrain (ie ditches, broken ground, small creeks, mounds, etc) 5. Shallow/basic damage modeling system a. Live/dead system with very little in between b. Very high lethality of most weapon systems at most ranges. Lots of "one shot" instant kills. c. No body armor simulation in any form. Helmets, soft armor vests, and hard armor inserts are not simulated *at all*. These are huge issues in modern combat. d. Little emphasis on wounding or treatment of wounds 6. Very little "suppression" modeling. Examples of suppression modeling can be seen in Red Orchestra (blurring screen from near misses), America's Army (IIRC - weapon accuracy degrades if under fire), and even in things like FDF Sound v1.3 (very sharp, loud, and accurate "supersonic bullet snaps"). 7. Average sound modeling. Lots of things are not nearly so loud as they should be, whereas other things are much louder than they should be, resulting in sound taking on an unusual aspect in gameplay. A person can sneak up on you at a good movement speed in a thick, dense forest without making much if any sound, for example. 8. High communication barriers. Some of these will be addressed in 1.09 (VOIP, which is amazing when you utilize the Direct Speaking channel), others are difficult to do in games (ie: visual signaling and such). It's much harder to communicate and coordinate effectively as a team in 1.08 ArmA due to the communication barriers that exist. This tends to lead to people taking the path of least resistance - ie, lone-wolfing, where they don't have to worry as much about communicating with their teammates. I could go on, but those are some of the things that can make lone-wolfing more successful than perhaps it should be. Much of the conversation in this thread seems to be oriented towards public play with random people, so I'm afraid I won't be able to comment on that. As far as ShackTac's gameplay is concerned, though, we generally find lone-wolfing to not be terribly effective so long as the scenario is set up in a generally realistic fashion.

...what? VOIP has bugs... they're fixing it... and you want them to instead focus on bug fixes? You may think TS is the end-all-be-all of gaming comms, but the in-game VOIP has features and potential that cannot be matched by TS no matter how much you wish it could be. From a sheer wrongness-per-sentence standpoint, your post is off the charts.

I would rather them take their time and do it right than rush it to appease the people who are going to be whining about it regardless.

The VOIP as of 1.08 is pretty much unusable due to various issues. 1.09 should be the patch where it comes of age, though. If they pull it off, that will probably be the single most significant aspect of the 1.09 patch. I'm really looking forward to seeing it finally become a viable communication option.

I have had a TrackClipPro since they were released. It sits on my headphones, which rest on a headphone rest that is attached to the side of my desk. The TrackClip is about 2-2.5 feet off of the ground because of this, with carpet underneath. I have had my headphones fall off of this rest for various reasons (cats hitting the cords, for one) probably 30-40 times, no exaggeration. The only thing that has ever happened to the TrackClip is that the three-LED prong has disconnected, or the arm has disconnected from the headphone clip. And by "disconnected" I mean that it has yielded without damaging the device. The TrackClipPro appears to be designed to yield before breaking, and putting it back together is as simple as snapping the piece back into place. Bear in mind that this is also sometimes with the full weight of Sennheiser HD-595s landing on top of the TrackClipPro after the fall. As said, this has happened at least 30-40 times, over the course of a year or more, in conditions similar to what you are saying. I find it hard to believe that I have never had a problem from this, yet you say that after a single time that it broke completely.

Hellfire - as mentioned previously, it's an engine limitation, not a design decision. ArmA2 will correct this, if the videos and info we have received so far has been accurate (and we have no reason to believe otherwise). For anyone who thinks you cannot reload an M-16 or a pistol on the move, please, let me know. I'd be happy to record some footage of just that to settle the debate once and for all.