dmarkwick

I notice on the intro screen I can play either the main game or the "Liberty Island Episodes", which I think are the two expansions you mention yes? As I only bought the GTA4 game itself, I'm going to assume that if I click on Play for these episides I'll be taken to the Steam shop to buy it. Or, maybe I got lucky & really have those expansions :) I'll try it out this weekend.

OK so while I wait the extra 2 months for the GTA 5 release I bought & installed GTA 4 on Steam. Have to say, aside from the download time (I have crappy iNet) I didn't see much problem with it. I had to make a Games For Windows Live account but that was all. I didn't need to make the Rockstar Social account, and any other DRM was invisible to me. As my first GTA game, I am very impressed with it. I spent about an hour just walking about observing the environment. It's very immersive and *apparently* complex. I know it's all player-centric but it's very well done, the attention to details is amazing. But, I guess it's something Rockstar are known for right? I guess the other parts of the city need unlocking by playing the game, every time I tried to cross a large bridge I became a criminal and was shot :)

https://community.bistudio.com/wiki/showCinemaBorder The above command should allow you to disable the cinematic border. As for the crosshair, I know that "L" key will/should lose it, if you wish to lose it via script I'm not too sure. I know that in VBS you can use: "SwitchCameraCrosshair" setAction 1; to do it, try it out it may or may not work in ArmA. But in any case you should still have the "L" key method :)

I've had good results mapping the Buldozer [sic] controls to a controller and spawning a camera. More specifically, mapping my TrackIR rotational axis to camera rotation axis (Buldozer) and the camera translations to a HOTAS.

The rant threads get closed because they offer nothing new, and certainly nothing that is not catered to by existing threads. I might make the assumption that you (op) made this thread after your own rant thread was closed? And having seen other similar threads closed? I just read through them and they offered nothing new that wasn't catered for in other threads. They certainly didn't seem to be interested in much discussion. Take note also, that positive threads with no real purpose or point are also closed. And, as far as freedom of speech goes, the freedom here is defined and defended by the moderators, to the forum rules. There is no external definition that overrides it. :) Like others have said, rant threads are becoming tedious to the rest of us who wish to find out things or look for solutions to something. Threads with titles like "Flogging a dead horse" have their negative bias set even before reading a single thing, and even after having read it I personally didn't read a thing not already discussed comprehensively and more constructively elsewhere. My opinion, natch.

You might as well blame the concept of "early access" if you wish to find something else to "blame". I find the entire concept of blaming some other entity because of something you gladly (at the time) did nonsensical which is why I quotation-mark the word blame. Early access exists, and you took advantage of it, and ended up disappointed, end of. No crime, just an unfortunate outcome for you, plenty of other people have not been disappointed so you have to accept the notion that it's just your opinion. As for the amount of content ArmA 2 vs ArmA 3, the devs have said that ArmA 2 contained a highly unusual amount of content, really far too much for any one development cycle to replicate, but that it was the result of ArmA 2 using the assets of a previously failed game development.

I know people were talking in the last several posts about terrain size, but the topic is about the game engine, so I just made the point that simply having a great terrain rendering engine doesn't make it suitable for ArmA-style gameplay. The optimisations involved in spectacular terrain rendering are likely to affect the areas we currently enjoy as ArmA-specific. :) And you're probably right about passing off some AI cycles to other cores. But, I'm no programmer so I won't comment on how feasible or viable this is. ;)

It's not all about the rendering, the thing ArmA does that other engines (apparently) do not do is non player-centric gameplay. So that huge rendered terrain has to have groups of AI navigating it, seeing each other, engaging each other, using the terrain & objects appropriately, taking firing positions and using cover. All outside the regard of the player. When people talk about the things that the ArmA engine can do that other engines cannot do, this is the sort of thing that is meant. So in ArmA for example, two enemy groups can meet, engage, and move on and the player may never see any of it unless he moves there, then he will see the results of it, all played out without the player needing to be there. This is the unique quality of the engine, and the quality that we should never lose.

I see it as two problems: 1. Generally the perceived idea is that modding is done as it's own reward. IMO (and it is mine) if you don't do it for yourself you will not have sufficient motivation based on low donations. 2. If you wish to do it for money then an actual official way forward might be a better approach. Certainly someone like me would be hesitant to donate if I suspected that the entire project would disappear because I was in a minority. If someone was doing something I really wanted, and was fully determined to see it though regardless, but was vocally short of funds, it might be a different story. I might not donate a lot, but I might donate something in a month I have extra money. I've done this before, not often I admit, but I have done it. All IMO natch, and in the spirit of passing info :)

Throwing arbitrary large percentage numbers around from your imagination coupled with some sort of unwarranted accusation on an unconnected topic will not get you much in the way of respect around here. If your belief is that ONLY a complete rewrite is the answer, then simply say so.

It seems a little odd for a Steam-activated game to verify your PC. It kind of goes against a large advantage of Steam yes? i.e. I can have it on all my PCs.

Crikey, 65gB :butbut: I think that's bigger than my flight sim install with scenery addons & planes.

And why successful breeders invented the escape tunnel ;)

Haven't played much ED, most of my play has been just pootling around in SP, flying through planet rings etc. But, in the original Elite game there was a ship enhancement you could buy which was a docking computer, which freed you from the docking tyranny :)

I guess it's priorities. Personally I couldn't care less what a reload anim looks like.

Maybe, like Minecraft, it's best to find a hidey-hole before it gets dark & sit in it until it's daylight again?

CSAT. I find the voices to be better, even if I can't understand them :)

OK so I'll not nominate the obvious; OFP, ArmA etc. For me I guess it'd be similar to Mr Burns above: Morrowind. It opened my eyes to what FPS/RPG gameplay could (and should) be like. I never really got into RPGs as such, but the magic combo that Bethesda created really, really appealed to me. Shout out to Portal too. A perfectly formed game IMO, short, interesting, funny.

Napoleonic? (If it hasn't been done already). I recently saw the film Waterloo and was blown away by it. How I have missed this film for so long I have no idea. (Waterloo is available to watch on Youtube BTW, I highly recommend it.)

Mount & Blade for free: http://www.gog.com/

I had the opportunity to play this last night, my friend has a beta access wheras I only pre-purchased :) I was very happy with it, it seemed to be pretty slick, although I didn't see any combat I did make a point of heading toward the nearest planet that had an asteroid ring and I spent some time moving about inside it & blasting some asteroids. The main environment itself looked pretty much the same as the Space Engine demo (note: Space Engine NOT Space Engineers), which is a very good thing. The TrackIR & HOTAS combo worked pretty well, and I was able to find out how to do most things I needed to even without reading any manual (the pre-flight checklist you need to do before your first flight is a very good idea). Some of the cockpit symbology was immediately familiar, and control of the ship seemed intuitive. So I'm really looking forward to its release later this month :) been a while since I got lost in a game.

TrackIR and I'm there :) (TBH I was always going to be there anyway... :) this will be my first GTA game. REALLY looking forward to it.)

Dear sweet bleeding Jesus on the cross. Do we really need to keep hearing about how annoyed some people are that they want X extra content for free and not pay for it? They're not a requirement, they're extra assets. If you don't buy them you can still play the missions that do have them. You want it soooooo much - but you refuse to pay for it... words fail me :)

They're only selling addons to a game, same as plenty of other game companies. You don't need to prove a thing :) what you got is what you paid for. If you feel that BI should hand you the new assets developed since release then I guess that's just your view on what you believe you're entitled to. This new content represents extra-game assets, they're not required to play the (sp) game and as such are not a game requirement. Honestly guys, if you feel it's too expensive, just... don't buy it. It really is as simple as that.

It's not such a great embarrassment as you're (for some reason) trying to imply. I also thought it was a kind of sandbox type game. Why? I saw the map, and it seemed to be that it might have been the kind of gameplay we get in the underground sections of Fallout3. Linear shooters don't normally get maps.