Emberwolf

Probably not. It seems like every day on the server I play on we get at least one player who joins (any non-Warfare mission we run) and complains if there aren't any jets available. Some people seem so focused on vehicles that they'll refuse to play if they need to take an infantry role. A couple of guys I've seen join even said so themselves, and then proceed to waste a roster slot by going AFK to build up funds to buy a jet. I've also seen these guys shamelessly camp the bonus aircraft pad in Domi. In any case I can't seem to find the opportunity to operate a nice mixed squad with MG, corpsman, marksman, grenadier, etc... I always seem to need all AT guys near the start of the game and all AA guys near the end of the game.

I had this big writeup going on how insane some of these people are who try explain OFPDR's "superiority" over ArmA2, but it's just going over the same worn ground yet again. ArmA2 speaks for itself quite nicely with things such a the 1.05 patch and ACE. There's not much else left to say which can be said, since everybody involved has long since made up their minds on this matter. If someone can look at stuff like Richiespeed's videos, ACE mod, and the Armaholics download section (with stuff like Namalsk and the tons of available units), and then decide OFPDR is better, they're beyond any sort of help anyway. It's still pretty entertaining though, I have to admit. Or that missions are called "maps". Around here, the definition of a map is a little more accurate. Namalsk and Panthera are maps. The result of arranging a scenario on the same stock landmass that came with the game is not a map.

Commander view needs to occlude all units out of the player character's physical LOS, and should also play sounds that can be heard from the player's physical position only (instead of putting sound awareness at the camera). In fact, this should go for third-person mode as well. Each vehicle would have unique LOS cones coming from canopies/viewports/windshields and if you're driving along looking around your vehicle in third person, units would only become visible within those cones. This would be ideal as a difficulty switch if someone wanted the old behavior. I realize this would probably drag the CPU down and consequentially the framerate. Whether it's feasable or not, we can at least shut off third person capability right now as a perfectly functional solution. I sure as hell refuse to play any pvp missions with third-person enabled. This goes especially for Warfare, where proper tank combat turns into a game of who can spot the other player's units quicker by slewing their view some hundreds of meters above their tank and looking over two hills and a forest.

Yeah, EW had great sense of atmosphere and drama. These sorts of campaigns remind me of the personality of CWC and Resistance, and are so much more fun than generic military operations.

I'm guessing you were talking about Evolution. That mission is a very poor example of ArmA2's capabilities and general player behavior since a ranked game mode rewards kill-stealing and rambo playstyles with upgraded equipment and vehicles. Please don't judge ArmA2 from that. Concerning aircraft, the mission itself is usually over before a fraction of the players get any sort of access. There are missions which allow anybody to fly aircraft, or at least have pilot slots available to allow people to fly stuff right off the bat. Some missions are even aircraft-only. There's also the editor, which is actually quite easy to learn. Just drop yourself in and some empty aircraft at the airport, and some enemies a ways off in the map, and you can practice piloting anytime. I'd recommend training offline anyway, players dislike having assets and passengers at risk to someone whose first few flights were online.

I'm disappointed DCS: A10C isn't on that list (since Black Shark is on the simulation voting page, and thankfully winning). I voted for AO though.

I've never had problems with the actual game itself as a Steam version. Mods and betas run beautifully, even ACE2. I've put ~550 hours on A2 via Steam. However, there was a few days in a row where there was a backbone router issue regarding Steam, and I couldn't even log in or get Steam to start in any sort of offline mode, so I was locked out of playing ArmA2. This was a major issue for a substantial chunk of Steam users for several days a few months ago, not just a personal hardware problem. I wound up later purchasing the DVD version of ArmA2. In fact, I've begun purchasing the DVD/hardcopy versions of games I've already bought on Steam, because that's how disenchanted I've been with it after that experience. Oh, I'm fully aware of offline mode. However, days of heavy research, searches and the like could not come up with a functional solution for getting Steam to operate under any capacity offline or online while the router issue occurred. No thanks. I can take care of my property. In fact, I have original PC game boxes in mint condition from the late 80's onward, plus some of the earliest CD releases on discs which are still in perfect condition. Taking care of physical media is not brain surgery.

I apologize for not following proper forum etiquette by being snarky and unhelpful, but... Usually when a town seems like it should be capped, the side objective isn't completed. This can be found by going to settings in the action menu . The objective is explained in one of the text fields. Usually it involves blowing up a medic Vodnik, a warfare object (labeled as an HQ or factory), or blowing up one of those miniature grey radio towers. Sometimes the miniature radio tower spawns in some stupid locations, like in the middle of the forest.

I'm really looking forward to this. The videos look great so far. My favorite zombie gameplay was with the zombie addons for ArmA 1. Regular zombie games are fun and all, but they seem to enjoy employing severely unrealistic gunplay with the excuse that if zombies exist, nothing at all should be realistic. Screw that. The experience of fighting hundreds of zombies at once with ArmA+ACE was way more visceral than any dedicated zombie game I've tried so far. Some ACE2 features, like flashlights, should make it even better. :)

And this is the most depressing part of the entire situation. People think CM made OFP1 and that BIS is a separate entity entirely. Five minutes of research would be all it takes to find out that CM merely published OFP1 while BIS were the folks who actually created it. Meanwhile, the type of DR fans that would crap all over ArmA2 claim to have loved OFP1, which makes zero sense since ArmA2 is OFP1 in a different setting and with new features added in. So people are either lying about having played OFP1 entirely, or their memories of OFP1 are tainted by nostalgia when in reality they didn't enjoy it at all.

Steam recently introduced a total time stat for personal game lists, and it's telling me I've invested 495 hours in ArmA2 since I purchased it. I can believe it.

Yeah, this hobby is getting cheaper and cheaper every month while finding out game after game has gone into the toilet and isn't worth the time or money. Oh well, at least there's still plenty to do in ArmA2 and OpenFalcon.

I need all 10,000m if I'm setting up to snipe stuff with a tank. I don't know the technicalities of the graphics engine, but it's my experience that enemy units only draw out to ~2,300m with that view setting.

It certainly seems to. http://community.codemasters.com/forum/showthread.php?t=382949 The disc apparently ships with locked bonus missions which are unlocked via a code depending on which retailer you purchased the game from. It's very telling of a company like Codemasters to allocate resources to garbage like this while ignoring critical issues like the severely substandard presentation of the multiplayer features, such as a lack of joining in progress. I'm extremely thankful I followed my gut on not preordering this game. That unspent money is going toward Operation Arrowhead (which I was going to buy anyway, but I feel better about it now).

I don't really know what to say about this game. I've been looking forward to it for years, between when it was an epic drawing board concept even right up to recently when I knew it was an arcade shooter with an open world... but the info regarding the final iteration of the multiplayer left me speechless. No cd-keys/player ID, no dedicated servers, no join in progress, and no anti-cheat of any sort whatsoever. I can't even begin to justify purchasing this game for myself anymore. My reaction was to tuck the $40 away and log in to my favorite ArmA2 server for another full night play.

Hay Bales used to be completely invincible. Even an M1A2 with a good head of steam running down a mountain would just instantly slam to a halt while attempting to drive into one.

"Say, I'm going to take a break from firing SMAWS and my SAW while wearing a ghillie suit so I can jump into this T-90 and be fully proficient with it as an American! When I inevidably get FF'd by a guided missile fired on me by an ally flying a jet 2km away, I'll get to cuss him out, too! This is such an awesome military simulator!" "Later on, I think I'll run toward my allies while firing in their direction while using an enemy rifle, so I can cuss them out when they kill me!"

I tried the whole SMAW & DMR-as-a-machinegun thing like everybody else uses and it got old very quickly. While I might not be as "useful" to the team by playing an actual role that doesn't involve kitting several of every weapon class, I'm at least having more fun. Sometimes I'll take just an M16A2 out of spite. And hell, I recall many instances of saving teammates asses by actually hanging back as a sniper and keeping watch over allies from off to the flank instead of rushing in like an impatient CSS kiddie because I haven't killed anything for the past 11 seconds. Sniper is more fun knowing I NEED to displace to stay alive instead of knowing I can pull an M249 out of my ass at any time.

I can totally understand if the game is balanced so AA has to be a bit overpowered so that there's a solid reliance on ground forces to disable AA before the aircraft fly in. However, having absolutely zero warning of an incoming missile is about as rude and unwarranted as those loud screaming faces that appear at the end of some Youtube videos. You can be flying along the nape of the earth in a valley out of LOS of every known AA missile launching system, and yet with no warning you hear this really loud explosion that kills you instantly regardless. It's incredibly annoying. I tried out Domination in offline mode, and noticed there was missile warning that wasn't present in multiplayer. It made a heap of difference in my enjoyment of flying around, even though I was losing almost as many aircraft to AA missiles as before. Shock and surprise happens plenty in this game, but there's something about AA missiles instantly exploding your jet out of nowhere that seem far, far more obnoxious than a sneaky sniper in the woods or a sudden artillery attack as infantry. [Edit] Actually, Countermeasure programs would be more ideal, running a system that regularly spits out flares while over the target area (I've seen Hinds do this.)

Always love watching those ghillie-suited guys leading the charge while sprinting around like jackrabbits with SMAWs. Oh, and the only medic on the server flying around in a Harrier. But, such is pub life in ArmA2.

Another game mechanic working against roles is the scoreboard. There's some pressure for people to do tasks which gets them a kill count in certain missions when performing your duties by lasing targets or healing players gets you no credit, even if you were ultimately responsible for your team accomplishing their objectives. I experienced first hand that in the case of giving medics credit for healing, other players become spiteful by constantly running away or hitting respawn while they knew I was there, while I was healing them. Getting credit for non-combat roles just makes players spiteful and vindictive in extra ways. I saw someone go out of their way to satchel abandoned D30s in cleared towns in an unranked game of Domination. When I asked them why, they said it was for points. When I asked them what points mattered, I got no answer. What a wonderful waste of ordinance, soldier time, and bandwidth over farming an abstract, irrelevant number which adds absolutely nothing to the combat experience.

Always love watching guys in ghillie suits sprint head-first into an enemy-held town with a SMAW launcher on their back (often using the DMR as an assault rifle with the floating crosshairs). There's at least one popular mission (Evolution I think) which does something even worse than unrestricted weapons. It's a blanket restriction where everything unlocks for everybody as they gain rank. A machinegunner spawning in thinking "Yeah, gonna lay down some suppression for my teammates to move up" will be happy to know that they'll not only be doing it with an M16A4, but he won't actually have teammates because everybody will be lone wolfing and going into COD supersoldier mode to steal kills for rank. Oh, can't forget the lovely individuals who take the medic role strictly so THEY don't have to worry about being stuck crawling on the ground, and everybody else be damned.

This is an issue with any mission that involves any playable vehicle which isn't strictly limited to transport capabilities. A single tank, attack helicopter, or jet can nullify the effort of 20 infantry. Not that their existence isn't already a problem with the bickering, whining, rank farming, and teamkilling which typically occurs among allies over acquiring and using these. Some players seem perfectly okay with wasting bandwidth by camping the vehicle spawn or otherwise simply refusing to play if they can't use their favorite toy. I'd rather they grabbed a rifle and started playing the game with the rest of us, or they could just as well fuck off because we could certainly use the extra bandwidth and roster spots for more useful players. Public gameplay in general is garbage. People find ways to be insipid little dicks even in rare high quality missions on quiet little low population servers off someplace away from the Evolution/Domination cesspits.

It may be that whatever situational awareness bonus the crewman had from vehicle optics/equipment use may not be stopped as it should when they hop out. Those crewman may technically be running around with telescopic vision. :) Freaky.