EricM

Pricetage apart, the ipad is good for media consumption (magazines, books, casual surfing and mails...) but you cannot really create anything serious with this. On the other hand Asus slate EP121 can run photoshop, zbrush... you name it...

"ipad mini" Good one... I want one already !

Nice vistas... how much of it is actually usable, I wonder... but this might actually be fun...

I think they have a nice lighting, skybox, viewdistance, very fluid fps... and they nailed arrowhead buildings almost perfectly...

That's certainly the worst of both worlds...

Voted "I'm not sure". I'm ok with digital download (though an option to have a backup disk sent at a cost would be ideal) and I like the idea of autopatching, but I dislike Steam intrusive software, and the idea that in a couple of year's time I may not be able to play with this for whatever reason. I bought all my recent Arma Games through Sprocket and was happy about the fact that I knew the money would go to the right people, and that I have no other strings attached. I understand that business wise, Steam is THE place to be for PC gaming nowadays, and that physical retail is on the way of the dodo, so that I'll keep getting Arma even as a Steam Only game, but that's clearly my least favoured option.

Nimitz doesn't really make sense. There's a whole ecosystem around the carrier and a a whole new gameplay based on this. Swapping model won't do the trick. What about the bots, the hovercrafts, the tanks, the bases... even the islands aren't based on real life locations. I think you're looking at the wrong game.

Well it seems that not only do they have a dynamic weather system, but also a Dynamic Time system, and that it's stuck on "Valve Time"...

Imho, piracy did kill the disc industry and PC gaming alike, very much like it killed the Atari ST before... It's so easy to find cracked software on PC it's not even funny. Button makers and VHS didn't have to face the internet. It changed everything. Obnoxious DRM isn't the answer either, as it makes buying the real deal more complicated than getting the bootleg, but nonetheless, piracy is the root of the evil. While it's technically possible on consoles too, the whole process is much more complicated than two clicks. You have to mod the hardware, void your warranty etc... The market is different too. One-time online activation is fine for me. That's what I have with photoshop, my 3D software, even Arma. I hope Cliffs of Dover will be as fun, fluid and good looking as WOP, but with a mission editor and the massive scale a real flight deserves.

Sorry but this UBI-hatred thing is stupid... It's the product that counts, not the publisher. They already take the risk to publish it (as they did with the original) on a niche market. And apart from their obnoxious DRM system (sad but blame the pirates first !), they have published and produced some really good games (Assassin's Creed is an artistic masterpiece). Damn, Rise of Flight system is even worse ! If anything, they're not better or worse than EA, Activision, THQ, Codemasters, you name it... Not getting it because it's UBI will only make it even harder for people like Maddox games to sell any other simulators. Judge on the content, not the cover.

The fact that they published the original and 1946 doesn't count ?

Strangely enough, Wings of Prey (the console spin off which is supposed to use some of the same graphical code) seems to look better in some instances... Maybe it's just some eyecandy (time of day, shaders, post-fx), but for instance the ground textures look weird in some shots of this trailer... On the other hand, the cockpits are nothing short of spectacular and the map does seem huge and well detailled. The grass and trees also seem very nice for a plane simulator. At last, though, being that there doesn't seem to be an eastern front at all and no russian planes, it doesn't really make sense anymore to call it IL-2... (apart from the obvious marketing ploy).

Any update on when the new site is going to be up or when we can have any other news regarding the project ?

I would strongly disagree here : 1) Game Artists (modelers, textures...) cannot "polish" the engine, only coders can. In the meantime, if they want to justify their pay and eat, they need to produce something worthy to be sold. They do not take time from polishing the rest of the game. 2) BIS does not earn money on bugfixes. So they have to sell new content to finance the bugfixing, which they do. New DLCs also serve as promotional event for the press to talk about Arma 2 and thus raise awareness about the product. More customers = more money = more support = more polish. 3) Few community content has the quality and consistency of BIS content (models, textures, configs, music, custom voices, missions, terrains...) so any good new asset is welcome. It's not mutually exclusive. 4) Official BIS content can be used in any mission and online with the certainty of not being an entry barrier, thanks to the Lite versions. 5) New BIS additionnal content is also the basis to new abilities (engineers, artillery systems, video playback, ULB...)

There's the painting in Zargabad's mansion...

Keep Low is indeed Copy my Stance and should be renamed accordingly.

Quality models are usually very expensive on Turbosquid, probably way too much for a non-profit use. On a commercial project I can swallow the pill and recoup it on whatever I bill the client, but for a free mod, it's not usually worth it. Then most of it is very highpoly with subpar topology and/or textures (there's almost always a catch), so you really have to work a lot to make this usable in a real-time engine. The best you could do with this is maybe use it as a 3D blueprint, to rebuild your mesh around that, in which case I don't think you would infringe any copyright if there are actually no original polygons or textures used and it's based on a real-life design (if you copy an original design, it's another story). Stalker, Counterstrike and FS planes have the advantage of being already meant for RT engines. From my little experience, if you know how to model in a 3D package, it's not really worth the cash investment and converstion work for a free mod.

this would be probably more suitable for a Carrier Command on crack, but it's worth a look too...

CWC was a much longer campaign with lots of very original missions at that time... And you had the famous quote from Barbara Bush : "War is not nice"...

That bunker is lovely

I voted African plain (like Duala Deluxe), but a Winter map is always a winner and don't forget a good "Chinese" map with plenty of typical architecture, vegetation (and PLA units at the corner...).

What kind of PC GAMER breaks his thumbs playing an FPS with mouse and keyboard, unless it's a copy/paste from another console Press Release ? Given the lack of flyable stuff in RR, I can't even give them the benefits of doubt thinking he plugged an xbox controller on his PC to drive/fly...

Agreed... The map seems backward, even though the region is fictional.

I think the BIS dev said their original OFP sold more than that on PC alone. I don't think he mentionned figures for Arma 2 though. For the record, it's mentionned on Idea webpage that Arma 1 sold around 400.000 units.

You should have stopped when OFP elite came out then... because they already did make a console game... and you see, this didn't impacted the PC gameplay at all.