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spamurai

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About spamurai

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  1. spamurai

    Visual Upgrade – Feedback

    I don't think this feels very much like an upgrade at all. My strong initial impression is that it makes Arma look dated. The world object textures all look flat, with a strong wallpaper effect. There is no "texture" to them. It looks like someone has simply wallpapered a picture of the object onto a flat surface... like older games would do that lacked proper rendering shaders for height and bump mapping (ie: Operation Flashpoint). This is especially pronounced in towns with dilapidated buildings, burned cars and otherwise old, neglected looking things. There are no shadows on objects, like under a concrete bridge until you approach them... it looks janky and out of place because there is no depth to the world. The contrast is way oversaturated on things, making artwork look fake and really accentuates that "dated" look to everything. I wish I had more pictures of the older visuals to compare with because the ones in 1.60 make me suspicious of how awkward Arma III looks now. I used to marvel at how good ArmA looks and how well it holds up, but now I'm wondering if it has always looked this bad and I just hadn't noticed until now. I think it's because the new visuals draw too much attention to the details that would go unnoticed and now I can't stop looking at them. Sad Schpam is Sad. You make me mournful of how old ArmA looks now :(
  2. spamurai

    SLI yes ore no :(

    I am suspicious of your result as you effectively seeing what amounts to no gain at all. Please don't interpret this the wrong way, But you did link the cards together with the SLI cable and then enabled SLI in the Nvidia control panel? I only ask because your benchmark appears as though only 1 card is actually doing the work. You should see an improvement with SLI. My SLI GTX670 was a marked improvement over a single GTX670
  3. If you are going to do "futuristic" then do it. I don't care if you have laser guns and mecha-walkers, you can do science-fiction without giving up on a realistic premise. I would be interested in that. However, it doesn't fool me when you dress-up a CH-47 helicopter with a "stealthy" geometry for the hull and call it a CH-67. It feels uncreative and kinda lazy. That said, you have a very "future soldier" aesthetic to one faction (CSAT), one conventionally modern (NATO) and then even cold war (AAF). This mixing of themes also doesn't help with the overall integrity of the atmosphere.
  4. Honestly, I can't say I'm a fan. The theme feels like it's trying too hard to give you the impression of being set in the future, but not far enough to actually be in the future. What really does it for me is that the major factions lack character. They are composed of a menagerie of pieces pulled together without a common thread between them, except that they are closely related to elements from today. Like someone went through JANES book of Future Vehicles and just picked out the cool looking ones... especially ones with "Stealthy" aesthetics. I don't want to be overly critical of the art direction. The art itself is all very well done, the best yet for ArmA. It's just the composition and theme is generic and rather awkward. I don't feel like the immersive factor has naturally evolved from the time frame of ArmA II into a believable extension of that period. There really isn't anything "cool"... like not a single vehicle that I am fond of and pick as a personal favorite like I could in ArmA I and ArmA II.
  5. spamurai

    Tanks...are you kidding me???

    BIS should just simplify the control scheme and let the Player drive the vehicle themselves from any crew position (as long as the vehicle has an AI driver). Do away with the clunky, unreliable and just outright annoying "remote command" type of control that generates more headache than it's worth. Who doesn't already seat-swap constantly anyways because you can't rely on the AI to do the right thing?
  6. spamurai

    Let's talk about tanks

    If we're getting a Sniper and a Helicopter DLC pack.... are we going to eventually see a Armor DLC pack?
  7. spamurai

    Boring Ragdoll System (1.24)

    Agreed. The system just flips a switch and deactivates the doll which collapses into a contorted pile of limbs. Feet glued to the ground, the doll often falls in the same predictable pattern. http://imagizer.imageshack.us/v2/1024x768q90/538/7e0ed9.jpg (187 kB) http://imagizer.imageshack.us/v2/1024x768q90/538/e1d827.jpg (227 kB) I might suggest generating a small amount of impulse to push the model to get the ragdoll motion started. Better still would be to blend a few frames of traditional animation to setup the doll before releasing it to the physics system.
  8. spamurai

    Patch 1.24 (Bootcamp Update) Feedback

    They need to visualize the amount of accumulated fatigue like they do in VR Training. Such as a HUD element that ranges from 0% to -%100 to indicate how impaired you are. If you make things ambiguous thinking it's more immersive... but the player can't figure it out, they'll start filling in the blanks of what they don't understand with assumptions... and more often than not they'll assume the worst, or take the more negative view of what they think is going on.
  9. spamurai

    Patch 1.24 (Bootcamp Update) Feedback

    The VR Training and Arsenal reinforces how unsatisfying the ragdoll animations are. Characters frequently ragdoll into an unnaturally contorted pile of limbs. The pattern the ragdoll takes is often predictable regardless of how the doll was shot. It's always as if someone glues their feet to the ground and then flips a switch that turns them off so they just go limp, and collapse into a pile. If you'll excuse the pun, it really deflates the impact of killing other characters.
  10. spamurai

    Female character models

    It has nothing to do with the debate surrounding the social/political implications of female soldiers. Or it shouldn't, despite what certain opposition to the proposal keep dwelling on. It's much more practical then that. It takes time, effort and most importantly money to create the extra assets needed to add a female avatar. Since the asset isn't needed for any of the BIS generated content of ArmA... it isn't likely to generate any increased revenue. However, if it did exist, it wouldn't mean that it would have to be included in any of the story driven campaigns or user created scenario's. It would mean that modders would finally have what they need to create new content that involved a female avatar. Which the community has been asking for... since the very beginning. For arguments sake, if BIS wanted to create a complete female alternate avatar for the game that was fully interchangeable with the current male options, They would need, - A new avatar model - A duplicate set of motion capture animations to rig the model. Proportioned to the new female scale - A new voice pattern and vocabulary library. - A duplicate set of accessory props to fit the new female scale (vests, uniforms, plate carriers, packs ect). - A set of new game functions so the code can differentiate between the models when and where needed (?) There is only 1 male reference model in ArmA and everything is constructed to fit his dimensions. Creating a female model would involve duplicating everything and refitting it to match differences between the two genders. The community has asked for this for a long time, but it involves the expenditure of resources that, so far, Bohemia apparently can't justify as the return on the investment of manpower and money isn't likely to generate revenue. Which is sad... because ArmA survives and thrives on the generated content of it's users more then anything else and it seems very shortsighted to intentionally handicap potential possibilities for new content based on a needlessly restrictive convention for what ArmA "should be" or "should not be".
  11. spamurai

    A storm is coming (Arma 3 Zeus DLC)

    With all due respect.... I think ArmA could do planetside better, than planetside does planetside. With the exception of the MMO aspect of course.
  12. The key here for me is that if we have a "Mod" made by a community member which significantly attracts public traffic into playing ArmA 3, then it would make sense if that modder profits a little bit by that mod. If people are buying ArmA 3 just to play this specific mod, then BIS is benefiting from it financially and therefore, so should the modder. However, let's be honest here... there are no mods currently associated with "ArmA" that attract a noteworthy amount of attention from gamers. Even our most well know mods within the community like ACE Mod, do not have the gravity to significantly influence people into playing more ArmA in a meaningful way. For example; There are many existing ArmA players who consider ACE mod to be synonymous with ArmA, but this does not impact sales of ArmA 3. An example of a mod that did have a significant impact on not only the total sales of ArmA, but the volume of positive attention brought to ArmA, was Dean Hall's DayZ. For years prior to 2012, I could not motivate people to buy and try ArmA, for any reason. No screenshot, no youtube clip, not my droning on about of how awesome it is or my desperate begging to come play it. Nothing. Then in 2012, everyone I know is suddenly banging down my door asking me "What is ArmA?", "What is this DayZ and how do I get it working?". More people are buying ArmA 2 in 2012, then at any point since it's release. Suddenly this 2 year old game is #1 on the Steam Chart and everywhere you look, people and media are talking about the game. It's hard to find good examples of ArmA-play on Youtube.... but there are no shortage of Day-Z "Let's Play" videos now. However, now that we've shipped off Dean Hall to make Day-Z a separate game, so goes all that attention. I mention that ArmA 3 is released and everyone asks "will it have Day-Z?". When I tell them no, they go back to being indifferent towards ArmA and ask "When is Day-Z going to be available?" This sort of phenomenom is not exclusive to ArmA. It happens in many games, where a mod becomes a better selling point then the parent game it's based on. Half Life had Counterstrike, Battlefield 1942 had Desert Combat and so on; and so forth. We need another "DayZ" to replace the hole left by Dean Hall's departure.
  13. You know... there is some logic to this statement. Since ArmA appears to be increasingly dependent on it's modding community to actually furnish content that provides a reason to play the game at all. Especially now, more then ever with ArmA 3. Giving incentives to possibly attract triple-A modders into coming to ArmA and building badly needed attractions to play ArmA seems smart in this case. However... Look at what you are essentially saying... Buy ArmA for 60$ and then you buy additional content to make ArmA worthwhile? Honestly, ArmA 3 is way too expensive to be attractive to anyone who isn't hardcore into ArmA as is... and most of us already bought the game when it was Alpha-cheap... so who do you think is going to be motivated to try ArmA at a full industry (cliche) price of $60? And then pay more money on top for End-User addon's? You would be killing the accessibility of ArmA to potential gamers. Now if you want to talk about cutting ArmA's price tag down severely to like $30 and then you pay $5 for the mod you want to play... maybe then it would be come workable. Even then it still isn't palatable. This idea isn't headed in the right direction for ArmA in general.
  14. So let me get this straight... ArmA 3 is now a $60 game, with no Singleplayer campaign, very little content at all out side of some sample missions in fact, including MP... and now BIS suggests making it into a platform for others to sell me stuff? I thought I was a "Supporter" of a Triple-A MilSim game... not an Indy-Dev Kit for hobby game designers.
  15. Gamespy is defunct. It was my understanding that the "powered by GameSpy" browser was to be replaced with a new one. Possibly a Steam enabled one, with improvements and new features. But... that may have changed by now.
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