Randy

Nice, how old is the build of the game in the trailer? A fair few models look dated compared to the rest. The way the troops exit the helicopters is pretty weird too and I hope that they are redoing all the animations.

Well no, Im simply stating the glaringly obvious fact that an elite soldier is going to shoot better and have a highly noticeable level of fitness compared to a recruit. No skill or stat advancement neccessary. As sure as a jeep should not be identical to a tank, a special forces man should not be identical to a recruit. Difference in equipment is not enough to set them apart.

I'm quite convinced of the claims they make myself for 2 reasons: If they lied about the the armor withstanding multiple ap assault rifle impacts at muzzle velocity and the wearer surviving, they'd be destroyed by lawsuits, mauled by competitors for this flaw. And the second thing, if several people in the military are willing to critisize their own heirachy in review of dragonskin (a dangerous thing to do) in praise of this armor, then it lends weight to their argument. Enough of that, I sound like a marketer, but it stands on its own merits. Either way, if your hit by a bullet whilst wearing body armor, your chances are pretty good, the human body doesn't want to die as it is. Anyone remember that footage of the US soldier being hit in the chest by the sniper in Iraq? It knocked him backwards, he immediately got up and ran behind the Humvee for cover. That was simply standard issue armor with a ceramic plate insert I think, by no means the best protection available.

Tried the skill slider? It changes the shooting accuracy and advanced tactics, not sure about the fitness Eh? I mean that if you play a mission as a 'special forces' unit, you should automatically be able to run further, faster and shoot better. It doesn't make any sense in OFP that a guy fresh out of boot camp is identical to a spec ops man, except for attire and equipment.

Not entirely true, Dragonskin body armor withstands multiple muzzle velocity AP assault rifle hits with minimum trauma to the wearer. If ARMA is in a modern setting, body armor could play a huge role. Think about it, its often one bullet that hits you and kills you in OFP, while the others zoom past, nevertheless, mission failed. Body armor improves your chances drastically. 50% body coverage? That cuts your chances of death and injury in half, if the enemy actually manage to hit you. More often than not a soldier will aim for centre mass, in fact thats how they're all trained, all over the world. Therefore you could quiet safely apply these chance statistics. In summary: Half the lives of your men who would otherwise be dead would be saved if wearing good armor. Body armor is to be taken very seriously, if realism is to be catered for.

There would be absolutely no problem with playing as special forces with heightened abilities in Armed Assault. If you think that being special forces automatically means flitting through shadows and exterminating a whole base with just your knife, then you'd be wrong. In reality it's more along the lines of parachuting into enemy territory and destroying a scud missle launcher. Or parachuting into the surf and swimming ashore under cover of darkness to 'paint' a site for airstrike. An SAS or Delta Force soldier, is just a soldier with broad training to a very high standard, and missions to take advantage of these skills. It's completely possible that playing certain missions of special forces would work great in Armed Assault. Things like fitness, shooting accuracy and advanced tactics could set regular soldiers apart from special forces. As for 'everyone would go special forces in multiplayer if they were included'. Just think about that for a moment. A lot of people would have an Abrams tank included in their kit in multiplayer wouldnt they, if they could? The multiplayer missions arn't going to be like counterstrike, there will be limitations due to balancing. Just as you might not be able to go as a killing machine special forces soldier in a multiplayer mission, you probably can't use that stealth bomber equiped with tactical nukes this time.

I really don't see why it shouldn't be in the game. Hell apart from your weapon, it'd be the most vital thing you could have.

The first thing Im gonna do when i get this game is buy a waterproof rubber keyboard. Because its gonna get real wet, Ill probably simultaneously soil all my underwear at once. So yes, I'll never touch OFP again when i get this game.

Server crashing is no problem, a world save can be performed periodically, say every 30 minutes depending on the stability of the server. This system is of course used in Ultima Online. I really like this idea. I also thought that join in progress and thus persistent multiplayer worlds was already confirmed by the developers? Speaking of a constant dynamic mission, I can imagine some things that could be included to make it ever changing and interesting. World/local events for example. An admin could trigger an invasion from one side of the island, or a militia group rampaging across and slaying villagers. All the players who are messing about at the various military bases, sitting in pubs in towns etc would get a message describing to go to base for mission details and co-ordinates on where it is taking place. Random rebel camps could spawn deep in the unexplored forests and deserts, players could get 'rebel forcasts' at base, a map that highlights rebel activity over the past day. You could then band together with some buddies and do some glory seeking, sometimes getting cash and equipment loot from the naughty hording rebel camps and hideouts. The players who participate and finish the objectives get a pay bonus that they can use to purchase equipment/vehicles. 'Caravan' runs could also happen constantly, players signing up to escort a convoy through rebel held territory, earning cash on the side. Casinos and clubbing could be included just for fun. Cash could also be used to buy train tickets, bus tickets and boat tickets to get around or you could just catch a lift in a friends fancy sports car he saved up for through a few days of playing. Wanted posters of criminals could spring up about towns, with the last known location of the offender and the offered reward. They would be hunted down by players and npcs making a life of crime pretty dangerous. Animal hunting could also take place, shooting dear and small furry animals and selling their pelts, lugging their bodies on your jeep to sell to the nearest butcher. Even trophy hunting competitions, hunting down a notoriously huge buck for the tourneyment prize. I can see it all now, and I can see it all being very possible with relatively little modification required.

Surely you'd mean something like framerate issues. Lag commonly refers to bandwidth shortage in online games.

I frequent these forums a fair bit, but can't find something that'd satisfy me specifically, so here it goes. As far as I understand, BI are putting in not only graphical improvements and a massive island, but a whole bunch of things from VBS1. I'm not entirely clear on what is going to be in game 2 and what is going to be in ARMA. So is this new governing dynamic AI going to be in ARMA? Ambient fauna? What about that talk of AI with seagull flocks and the possibility of seeing them about the island? Any thoughts are more than welcome. Also, with the possibility of this stuff, who is just hankering to go hog shooting from a helicopter? Maybe firebomb herds of cattle, I know I sure as hell am. Whenever I played Flashpoint it always struck me how cool it would be if someone made a hunting mod, maybe some kind of manhunt or dangerous animal hunt.

Its a good idea. It all depends on BI and whether they want to answer anything I suppose.

True that, BI have some real vision. ARMA must be the only game I really care about now, Stalker may be released this decade and I'm not even going to buy Oblivion till I got a beasty PC. Additionally, some of my greatest gaming moments, almost all of them, have been whilst playing OFP. Another thought has occurred to me: if we can fill almost any role like in OFP, including highly cladestine special forces, I wonder if dogs will be included. After all, skulking through hedges in enemy territory and hearing the distant bark of dogs would be pretty terrifying, knowing that surely they'd be tracing your steps. You'd have to take immediate action and do some pretty desperate manuevers to get out of that one.

Sorry for the double post, but I gotta say, this community is by far one of the most mature I've seen in any online environment. It's just the kind of people OFP attracts I suppose. If you want to see the equivalent of Ragnarok on a previously good forum, check out the Elder Scrolls Oblivion forums, 2 or 3 useless threads a minute, I kid you not. About 6 months ago it was a pretty hospitable and reasonable environment.

Its very possible to achieve, so I can't see why they'd leave out so significant a feature. You'd be able to move a heap of stuff with a tank whether your towing a vehicle or carrying a squad on top and another on a piece of tin behind.

Thanks a heap for the reply, these articles are helpfull indeed. That tiny screenshot of water has lessened certain concerns I had considerably, and excited the hell out of me.

A demo and soon, would be great. To be honest, despite loving the hell out of Flashpoint I wasn't even aware of ARMA or Game 2 until a few months ago, so the apparent delay for early 2006 hasn't hurt me. That said, they must be pretty well along with development, so I'd at least like to see some indication of that to make me even more excited.

We know that today its possible to simulate the superficial physics of an umoving and limp human body in real time, this is known as ragdolling obviously, also in considerable numbers, the faster of the commercial physics engines can handle piles of ragdolls on relatively low end computers. However, ragdolling is considered by some as noticeably unrealistic and considered by many as 'not quiet right looking'. This comes from the fact that while the physical simulation of the ragdoll may be immaculate, factors such as weight, material type, drag, gravity considered: what is lacking is the simulation of the living character itself. This means the simulation of a basic muscle and nervous system, an extremely simple system relative to the real thing. This is already possible, pre-done or 'canned' animations are no longer neccessary as such technology I already alluded to, has been created. This system is known as Endorphin (www.naturalmotion.com). As far as I understand, characters in a game using endorphin will be animated on the fly, factors such as their weight, proportions and strength will determine whether they slip over or are able to for example catch a bowling ball without being crushed under its weight. Reflexive behaviours can be applied to a character, such as if they try to climb a steep hill and by chance lose their footing, they will tumble to the bottom realistically, the reflexive behaviours first being to swing their arms wildly to maintain balance, using the actual weight of their limbs to save themselves, protecting themselves as they tumble wildly. The idea of this thread anyway, is to try and get an idea of whether some innovative technology will be used in regards to physics and animation, rather than what is fast becoming the stock standard inclusion of basic ragdolls and rigid body object physics simulation. Personally I would like to see some kind of exciting new solution like the one I just described, these sorts of things have the potential to increase the gameplay possibilities 100 fold.

If ARMA is going to be uniformly realistic in most aspects of modern warfare, then the ability to realistically interact with bodies of water, depending on equipment, is essential. For example, when running for your life trying to evade enemies, as is often the case in OFP, its possible that you'd run into a body of water. Realistically you'd swim across it, naturally dumping equipment that'd make this impossible, as getting to safety is the main priority. So I don't see why this shouldn't be possible in game, there have been many occasions when I've been a straggler in OFP, having to avoid water like it was acid when in reality I should be able to make smart tactical use of it. An amphibious aspect to ARMA would add greatly I think, amphibious assaults as special forces for example would become possible. General outdoorsmanship (is that even a word) would be reflected with a much greater effect and navigational decisions based on terrain would get vastly more interesting.

Alright, can't seem to find another topic on this so here I go. Forgive me if I've missed any obvious bits of information. From reading the press release, pc gamer article (in the flesh/paper, ie. I have the magazine) and looking at the screenshots, I've formed an opinion on the setting. It looks as if the new island is in parts a rather hot climate judging by the palm trees (they're of a tropical type) and the terrain I see in the screenshots I assume to be of the new island, looks pretty dry. However other screenshots show a temperate looking climate (maybe the foothills of a mountainous area) that dont seem to be from Everon, it was said that the new island has great variation and size so it could include many environments. The point of this thread is to try and get a better idea of what to expect from the Arma, from other forum members who probably know more than me. So I put this question to you all: What real world location do you think reflects the new island in ArmA most closely (Cuba maybe, certain greek islands, a country bordering the Aegian Sea perhaps) and We know that the new campaign features a despotic regime from the north of this island attacking the free south, what real world regime do you think this fictional one is modeled on/ most closely reflected by, are we to expect rampaging russians, a naughty african warlord or some rogue chinese general? (I know its a 'Korea like situation, but this could mean anything from a landmine belt, to the fact that the island is predominantly asian). At the very least, just consider this a thread asking you, the forum members for your informed opinions on what we might see.

Near my town in the southwest of Western Australia there is a relatively tiny clump of about 2 or 3 mountains, they're not very tall, it'd take a few hours maximum to stroll to the top. Yet there is still a noticeable difference in vegetation on opposite sides due to various factors. The watershedding properties of the mountain are one, most likely coupled with a small rainshadow effect, with its opposite counterpart effect of trapping moisture on the lush side. Even hills and mountains as a wind break can cause significant variation in terrain in a relatively small area, an within tens of square kilometres in size.

A lot of big ifs. Improved graphics are essential, poor visuals can severly detract from atmosphere and appeal on many levels, even to the 'hardcore' as much of a pretentious term as it is. The big question mark however, is upon developers who sacrafice essential gameplay elements, for the simple reason that they want to create an instantly consumable product, that appeals to the widest possible audience. BIS still seems to be driven by its thankfully ambitious design goals of a realistic simulator and so these central elements of realism and playability have equal if not more weighting than graphical elements. But just remember, graphical realism is essential too.

Blending animation with ragdolling is possible, thus solving all the problems associated with a person being convincingly alive, then suddenly dead and floppy. Also, freezing the ragdoll physics on a body, or any physics for that matter after 3 seconds or so, isn't wise. You end up with some very wierd, impossible poses and positions for items and bodies, Doom 3 suffered from this.

I think the boxing in of an area of the larger maps is a reasonalble compromise, if the detail of the cities is up to stratch, which I believe it is. The main issue with Operation Flashpoint is, or at least was (cant find any servers in Australia last time I checked) that the multiplayer wasn't streamlined enough in terms of interface and ease of use. Don't get me wrong, I love the thoughtful pace of the multiplayer and the mad scrambling through shrubs for my life aspect, but I think it just needed a little more optimisation in terms of fun. A few of the missions were good, like the desert ambush, maybe some more game types would be cool too, like a co-op type mode where players keep respawning in enemy held territory and have to reach a sequence of supply drop points as special forces and ultimately escape.

Ragdolling is definetely a step in the right direction, it just varies in quality between games, even those using the same physics middleware engine, such as Half Life 2 and Tribes Vengeance. I just want the best for the next gen game, especially in terms of physical realism, as I've said before, the means to do this exist today.