GBee

I sense another round of chinese whispers starting. What I've so far read suggests that animated destructable buildings *may* be in and even if they are that it won't be all buildings.

Err no. I read his full post before posting. He doesn't go on to contradict his statement from the first paragraph: I disagree that the lighting/shadowing effects etc make Crysis look more realistic than Arma. I think those effects, as used, make Crysis look worse. What makes Crysis look more realistic is the level of detail.

I've never held it either but no I would say you couldn't aim it like that AND be accurate, but it isn't being aimed incorrectly AFAIK. As we don't have the game yet we can't say that it IS accurate when fired from a kneeling or standing position. BIS might have modelled it so that you can't hit a barn at 10 feet when not lying down.

You're right that "level of detail" is more appropriate than "attention to detail". My point was not that Arma isn't detailed enough but rather that a better looking game can achieved by focusing on level of detail instead of graphic engine tricks. The level of detail also has an affect on gameplay where graphics doesn't. I'd gladly sacrifice some of the graphical touches to have more detail and I reckon many people would believe it looked better, not worse. Not that I'm criticising Arma or BIS, or asking them to make changes at this late stage. I'll be quite happy with the game in it's current state (even though I'll sob for a minute at the lack of rivers).

It's not 250 miles squared, it's 154 miles squared. Or 12.4 miles x 12.4 miles.

Am I the only one who thinks Arma looks more realistic, at least in lighting and finish, than Crysis? I'll grant that Crysis has amazing graphics, but in all the screenshots/videos I've seen everything has an unrealistic gloss/shine. The lighting is far too intense. The real world is more matt than gloss. Where Crysis does beat Arma is in the density and level of detail of objects. Whether it's vegetation, a building or just ground debris crysis has the details down and that's what you are really noticing not the lighting/textures etc Take for example forests. In one of the early Crysis videos it showed a jungle forest with fallen trees and branches in various states of decay, realistic undergrowth, climbers, leaves on the ground and saplings. OFP Forests and what little we've seen of Arma forests have little/none of those things. Buildings are a similar story, in Crysis there is a shack similar to the one we recently saw in the second TIR video. This shack looks like it is made of a thousand individual parts and would collapse if you blew hard enough, you see chicken wire, corrogated iron, planks of different widths, objects leaned up against it, all the different parts textured individually etc The Arma shack has none of this detail. Everyone who said graphics is not a priority is right. Level of detail is not a priority either but IMHO it should be a higher priority than graphics. It would do more to make Arma look realistic than any further tweaking of the graphics engine. Edit: As pointed out, level of detail is more correct than attention to detail.

Or how about "Oh no, we're surrounded!"

New today Edit: It's actually one of my favourites from the recent screenshots. I think that has a lot to do with the view and vegetation on display. Also a little sick of smoke screenshots already, so it's nice to see one where smoke/dust isn't the central focus.

400km (not kmË›) is ~250miles, which is where Placebo made the mistake 400x400km would be incredible. You could spend a year just exploring it all

Big publishers demand control over projects, which following the Codemasters problems is probably the last thing BIS want. If BIS can't retain full control over Arma they would probably turn down any offers from the big publishers. There is also a big trend away from PC games at the moment, the big publishers are abandoning the platform for consoles. They will generally only take on games which have the potential to be massive mainstream hits which they can then milk for more money by releasing endless expansions or sequels. Regardless of how many copies OFP sold, it just wasn't what you could call a mainstream hit or blockbuster. OFP sold over a million copies but Battlefield 1942 has sold at least 3.5 million copies and Battlefield 2 has sold 2.2 million in it's first year alone. Although Arma is trying to appeal more for the mainstream crowd, publishers will still factor OFPs relative success (or lack of it) into their decisions. Well if the game is good enough it will sell itself without huge marketing costs attached. Just look at the press and interest Arma has already attracted almost without any money having yet been spent on advertising.

No but that doesn't mean I don't want Arma. This is also the Armed Assault forum, so folks aren't going to be discussing Game 2 and how much they want it here.

I think all his sig is showing is that the sights aren't enabled and that it's not in the right orientation. Not that the hand positions are incorrect ... he would have labelled it that way otherwise.

See the thread New ArmA Scripting commands

*sigh* Isn't this the 3rd post of this issue in the last two/three days? More importantly Placebo restated that this will be fixed. Please read before posting

No need to apologise, it was just some friendly advice. Could maybe have been phrased better but it was late and I was on the right side of a few beers

24Gamer, you might want to reconsider your post. Simply put, you're making a fool of yourself.

I had noticed that. Couldn't decide if the sleeves were supposed to look like like they had slid up the arm or whether they were rolled up.

I'm going to make a shocking prediction, which may come as a suprise to some. I predict Arma will be delayed until they find a publisher! *gasp*

Why not?

I presume they would be banned under the Hague Convention (probably the Geneva Conventions too) which carries the following wording: "it is especially forbidden - To employ arms, projectiles, or material calculated to cause unnecessary suffering;" Without getting too graphic, saw tooth bayonets or any notched blades can snag on internal parts pulling them out of the body with the blade. Of course that doesn't mean much if the signatory nation decides to ignore it. The US for example decided that terrorists didn't count (and they call everyone a terrorist these days).

Well what would you do in real life? No-one other than a film character is stupid enough to go hand to hand when they have a gun.

Not quite. OFP:E just removed the internal view, you were either using the weapon sights/commander sights/driver periscope or turned out. You didn't get to see or look around the inside of the tank.

Most of the features promised for Vista were dropped, what remains is a Windows with features copied from OSX and Linux, Opera, Firefox etc. In reading reviews and summaries of the changes between XP and Vista I could find very little (if anything) which wasn't already available elsewhere. Edit: Cider is from the same company as Cedega which does the same job of emulation for linux. Hopefully the desire of publishers to make their games work on the mac will also benefit the linux gaming community. The linux community is certainly growing faster than the mac community.

My first reaction to the screenshot was that it showed nothing new or special. To some degree that is true but I realised that it does satisfy one of my earlier requests. Back in a discussion we had when one of the first city screenshots was released I commented how unrealistic it seemed that so many simple things that are common to every town/city were missing. Well some of those things have since been added or shown in newer screenshots. Football pitches were one of them (or any sports areas in general). So either BIS are listening or they share the same attention to detail. The actual ability to play football isn't that new. Although the interaction was sometimes difficult OFP:E included a sphere object which you could knock around, roll down slopes etc. It probably would have worked in OFP too but I don't recall anyone trying. BIS may or may not have improved this so that it is possible to play something football-like.

US tactics avoid friendly fire??? Reality would seem to suggest otherwise.