ThruYerStErNuM

Heh now I know who parker is, I remember doing this http://ww2ec.3dactionplanet.gamespy.com/e107_fi....s_s.jpg thinking reduced gamma might darken the ground (which looked too bright), but the HDR made the sky and buildings a little too bright after that.

My overall impression was that Idea Games has a lot of experience with publishers and knows what they want and how to present the pretty package, not focusing on gameplay. However, after spending many hours playing many many games on the show floor, and attending quite a few workshops/conferences, it sounds like publishers are beginning to genuinely want the edge in creativitiy. Haden Blackman (Lucasarts project lead) in his opening statement in "Trends in Game Making and Publishing" admitted the new focus has to be on open, dynamic simulations. He said one of the biggest challenges for him has been transforming his team from the old mindsets to be a team that does many of the things this forum constantly bashes big publishers for not doing. IMHO, signing with EA or Microsoft would be the best possible outcome for BIS. No one is adapting to the market more then the biggest publishers, they have the brightest magagement. Their reputations are justified, but they adapt like none other. I didnt say that to IDEA of course, and they did not discuss any specific publishers with me, so I still have no idea what could happen. But if BIS goes under over this kind of thing, the publishers arent to blame. My camera batteries died at the last minute while they were packing up friday, dangit, but my other E3 pics are on waskosky.com/blog

Sorry, I meant the framerate. Draw distance has always been measured in meters I think, so I got to see a few frames at that 10km distance Possibly one of the reasons a demo is inconvenient. There is obviously enough meat ready for demonstration, the game loading screen said the game is 75% complete, and the island certainly looks complete, but if they were going to limit it in any way, how could they limit it more then %50 without taking something out of the island that you might see in a mission? Its kind of like the island has to be almost entirely there for the demonstration to faithfully preserve the experience. Then again, I do remember some awesome tank battles on the barren valley of Chapoi in the first demo...

OK guys, you all talk too much  so much to read through, even about the one preview, I'm not as motivated to read speculation knowing stuff first hand, now I know how Placebo feels. ALL Well I'm back from spending a goood deal of time with Idea games, I think they might be sick of me by now, Jiri called me "too educated" (Although I will be back tomorrow, I'm growing on them dont worry ) I've heard probably most of what they've had to say across the press interviews, I've spent probably 3 hours total around them (Jiri and Robert) in the last 3 days, talking mostly about Armed Assault and Idea Games. I did play Armed Assault btw, did not play Alpha Prime (did not know much about Alpha Prime until today) Screens wont do justice, but I did notice some UK online guy setting up a video camera in that tiny cubicle, expect nice media very soon. So many things I could say about the game, but heres a list of some of the coolest things I did not know before E3... 1. THERE IS NO MP PLAYER LIMIT. How many people can join is only limited by bandwidth and hardware. 2. You can gain the ability in the single player campaign to switch mid game from man to man, when I watched Robert show this off he had a list of 3, soldier, sniper, apc gunner. 3. The campaign progresses based on the missions you choose from. The mission selection is limited, but you atleast have the option to play based on what kind of player you are. 4. THE VIEWDISTANCE MAX IS 10000m 5. When at 10000m view distance the framerate was like OFP at 5000m viewdistance, but with no stutters from loading terrain (meaning the OFP: Elite streaming technology is working beautifully) 6. ALL NEW GOOD ANIMATIONS (from what I saw) some were still missing, but the ones I saw were a huge improvement (even reloading) 7. Expected release date from the mouth of Jiri was "Q3 2006" (and it sounded like if they couldn't get an international publisher, they would seriously consider digital distribution, meaning we would be able to play this year regardless) I am withholding all criticisms and concerns till after tomorrow Â

Hello all . I have a lot to say, but I have about 10 hours worth of c++ homework to do now, and Kentia hall opens again in less then 14 hours, and I want be over at Idea games again at that time. Â (click for original image from my crappy camera on these next 3) Only members of Idea Games were present at E3. No one from Bohemia Interactive came because they have offloaded this responsibility onto Idea (so BIS can keep working on their games this week instead of dealing with the press and people like me) You'll be getting lots more info soon I expect, so I'll just sum it all up quick now: Armed Assault kicks ass, no publisher yet but maybe soon

The configuration program is fully tested and working for environment management, and with a couple more features I think it could be released as a useful tool for anyone needing to configure missions through lists of information in scripts. I think I'll release a few new objects, the new scripts and a partial configuration system next weekend. But the majority of my older objects need much more work, so I may even pass them over to Berghoff or someone else working on foliage. Right now I've honestly taken on more projects then I can manage, and I'll be very busy untill March. Most intrestingly, I'm working on team of 4 (taking over from 12 others) to finish a game framework for educators to make adventure games, all online. Teachers can make games a little like the BIS Fairy Tale demo except much more simplistic and with multiplayer teamwork. EDIT: still want to finish more... maybe the 19th...

Well, I've almost finished the tool for importing configurations, with a few bugs to work out still. It allows you to browse for your mission you made with the abstract objects or trigger-region object groups, and import them into an sqf file that the script system knows how to read. The sqf file is just one array with lots of information in it, that way information is not read into global variables, but is only read with loadfile commands in the scripts so there is no need to save lots of configuration information in memory. (Which contributes to the savegame bug.) I've been working on this configuration system for awhile, and I have an array-browser in the tool that lets you navigate through the arrays in a formatted way, the formatting is done by an XML file (one per configuration type) that says what information to tag on to each element of the arrays. This way its easy to know what values to modify to change configs however you want them. Also, the new scripts work with ECPs island detection system, which is necessary to make it so that it will work in existing missions without changing or adding anything. Maybe someone could extract that system for me so I can use it in my own uwar mod folder? I'd prefer to commit to using ECP or FFUR though. I'd like to release a lot of older objects too, like some old vietnam objects, since I know I wont have time to finish the vietnam island I had planned 2 years ago. Hopefully a nice high-resolution ground object pack will encourage people to make quality configurations for islands, but I still need to work on getting p3ds organized and fix up some LODs. My schedule is getting worse and worse, so I may not have time to finish this stuff this week. I aim to have it done in January at whatever quality I can.

But how could BIS possibly make nearly as much money this way? This is only a small new European association that can not currently compare to the muscle of the modern mainstream publishers. They would need even more press attention then they got with Codemasters to make up for the lack of familiarity with the new name. I dont think we can conclude BIS will publish through IDEA. Â IDEA was "founded in November 2005", and the December press release for Arma states "Publisher: To be determined". I was very excited to see the news about this, but it will take a lot of good ideas and assistence to independent developers that goes beyond the role of a publisher, to attract significant international attention. For example, I just played Darwinia over steam, and I probably would have never heard of it otherwise. Could we trust BIS to have such a large part in self marketing, when just 3 weeks ago we had people spreading rumors on these forums that "Arma" was a myth, just because they were hearing so little? I think IDEA games would be best off making it possible for the mod community to publish content for Arma (small fees to start), since there seems to be much more manpower and enthusiasm in the mod communities than among fully independent developers. A community content management system would absolutely have to be kept closer to the developers side of things than that of a publisher who could screw it up. But I'm going off on a tangent, I think a thread about IDEA games belongs in BI General and kept separate from Arma discussion?

I had a busy school quarter I just finished, but for flashpoint, I've been working on an external mission configuration program for my dynamic mission and environment configuration system. I've been learning the .NET framework, windows forms, xml, and sql this quarter, so I've got a few unmentioned flashpoint projects lined up now. Since Arma didnt come, I guess there is still the need for grass updates, so I will try to have a new utility and script system done in January. I really havent been working on the grass since I released that latest screenshot, but I've decided I will release it for OFP1, probably as shorter grass objects now. When I finish my tools for creating (and importing) configurations for whole islands, with more efficient scripts, I will let everyone know so they can start working with them, hopefully to add other foliage too. I think it would be nice to finish one decent final grass addon for FFUR in ofp1 before we move on to Arma. I will update my website by early january.

"reworked physical simulation and collision detection" But I did enjoy, especially with fences, how you could put up the time accelleration and charge it head on while getting up and going prone and you save yourself some time by avoiding the travel to the gate. Maybe immersion is worth it though I believe I was once eaten by a building in Elite, but I escaped digestion after a minue or two.

I haven't been keeping up with this thread... but now I know why it was never locked, this stuff is hilarious!

I think its perfectly reasonable that not even BIS would know if the Q4 2005 date is still on. They are working on adding features to a near finished game, so each feature probably has its own internal deadline, any of which may see unexpected delays. We have no reason to need information if we're already hyped up for ArmA... but if they don't release information we have a chance to get back to our fickle enthusiasm for flashpoint 1 mods

... "..touché..." <pause> "...WTF LAGZORS!!11" i can already hear the outcries

My very first in-game test of some new grass textures...

Stop to ask for that ! It was asked about 5 times already ! It will occur extrem lags in missions ! STOP TO ASK THAT QUESTION ! Hmm, haven't been watching this thread... I actually have unreleased grass objects that can be used as forrest objects, which of course are much less dense and do not lag. If someone is willing to place the forrest grass objects on the islands that are released with this mod, they could contact me and get some objects to work with, and I could spend a little time improving them while they do the island work. But it is a lot of work to add grass to a map in all the appropriate places, I wouldn't have much time for that now, and I doubt that anyone else wants to delay FFUR anymore right?