Uziyahu--IDF

Yeah, that demo was mind-blowingly realistic. Made me feel just as clumsy as when I was in JRTC. And when they modded it to make it a night mission! The night-lighting was incredible!

No, no, really, I think the fault was mine. I should have had some kind of transitional word there. I'm really curious, now, whether the lighting dims at the very same time a cloud covers the sun. I don't tend to test out these sort of things, just enjoy them. Would it be fair to conclude that IF the lighting dims when a cloud covers the sun that it is casting a shadow, even if we can't see it move across the ground? The way it happens isn't abrupt, so in that sense I guess you could call it a "soft shadow". From what I've seen in games, though, real-time shadows can really bog a system down. Still, OFP:E does have some real-time shadows that OFP didn't have before. Like in that new M113 pic, where the barrel's shadow is on the top of the BMP hull. That wasn't in OFP before, was it?

Keep in mind that OFP:Elite has reported cloud shadows. Uziyahu-IDF, I believe, has reported it in his surprisingly low-bias review Edit:"Daylight strengthens and wanes as the sun plays hide-and-seek in the clouds above. (Yes, the clouds are not just a texture on the ceiling of a "Truman Show" sound stage.)" So keep dreaming the good dreams. I may need to reword that. You'll see the lighting strengthen and wane in an extremely convincing way when there are some clouds in the sky, and you'll know from personal experience that clouds cause this, but I haven't seen cloud shadows moving across the ground. (That would be REALLY cool! I wanted to point out in the review that there were actual cloud objects in the sky, not just a texture slapped on the ceiling of a skybox. The two statements, taken together, make it seem like the clouds cast shadows that you can see move across the ground. I'll have to actually look at the sun to see if the dimming light happens in exact unison with a cloud covering the sun. You'll see. It is very realistic and pleasing. Someone (was it Placebo?) said that the new lighting and environmental effects in OFP:E are meant to be so subtle as to be hard to notice when they have taken place. I agree with that, though sometimes this "nature" impresses you with naturally spectacular views, like the moon setting on the horizon, with its light reflecting in the waves of the ocean. Personally, if ArmA's lighting isn't as good as OFP:E's, I'm going to be a bit disappointed. I've grown dependent on it. If I could see OFP:E with even 2X FSAA or twice the resolution, I would be extremely happy. My "biased" review covers many of the game's real negatives and seeks to refute the host of baloney negatives that flabbergastingly biased reviews against the game put forth. I'll add more to the review as I think of it.

You can make graphics look really good when your maps are only 600 meters x 600 meters.

That's not far off from "SEAL Team" by Electronic Arts. Until OFP came along, it was the best tac-shooter around. SEAL Team @ Underdogs SEAL Team @ Abandonia Here's a fine example of PC OFP players not knowing what great improvements have been made in OFP:E. Not only can you put a helicopter on a Support waypoint, to be called in at will from the Command menu, but you can order your squad to Mount a friendly helicopter flying by and the helo will find the most appropriate place to land and pick you up, ON THE FLY. If you're IN the helicopter, you can order your squad to disembark and the pilot will find the most appropriate place to land and let you off ON THE FLY. As for swimming, here's some advice for those of you who want to test it out, especially to those who complain that they have to walk 2 kilometers in an OFP mission: 1) Write a note to your mother telling her how much you love her. 2) Buy a Woodland Camo BDU coat/shirt and trousers at a surplus store. 3) Put them on. 4) Jump in the deep end of an Olympic-sized swimming pool. 5) Try not to drown as you swim to the other end and back. 6) If you do find yourself drowning, you might want to say a prayer before you die. 7) If you live to tell the tale, try it again with combat boots! Keep adding items until you're a fully kitted soldier (never mind the mountain pack). 8) Go to a soldier who did an hour of PT every Monday, Wednesday and Friday and try to convince him that you swam back and forth across an Olympic-sized swimming pool with full gear. Let him know that you're not Spec-Ops, but only a normal infantryman or civilian. Savor every moment of the smirk that creeps across his face. We had to learn to make rope bridges just for crossing fast-moving STREAMS.

I'm sure maxqubit knows the difference between scripts in OFP and your typical FPS, but I'm also sure that most of the PC players of OFP:R don't know how powerful the new waypoints in OFP:E are. And I agree about the water in Joint Ops. It was tactically useful, thanks to the murkiness. You could come up for air, have an opponent race towards you in his boat, you'd dive back down, he would shoot into the water where you WERE, then you'd come back up for air in an unexpected place, rinse, repeat. I was able to play cat and mouse with a guy in a zodiac for so long that I managed to get to the beach from way out in the water. There was something about the look of the water from high up that made it look too uniform, though.

You will find out oneday that you can´t type with your controller. No scripting, no real OFP. Period. As someone who types 60wpm, it is quite amazing that I never noticed that. Yes, we who play OFP:E (and I never stopped playing OFP:CWC/R, altogether, it's just that OFP:E is far more satisfying) are aware of the missing scripting capabilities, but we are also well-acquainted with the fact that the more we play OFP:E the less we miss them. Mission editors are slowly learning that what they wanted the A.I. to do was there all along, they just didn't know how to make it happen with what was offered. As Marek pointed out in an interview, it is far better to have a simplistic editor + dynamic A.I. = finished missions than complex editor + less-dynamic A.I. = unfinished missions. Sorry, but I was of that camp that would work 40 hours on a mission with a grandiose vision of what it should be, trying to incorporate every cool and fitting script and appropriate addon that I could find at OFPEC or OFP.Info, only to have the drive-wiping bug destroy my work in minutes. Anyway, OFP:E's graphics are breath-taking. A mere screenshot cannot capture them, because they are fluid and ever-changing. I hope that ArmA's are just like them, only higher-res. (I'd still like to see the yellow-blob explosions become a thing of the past, though.)

A console controller is nowhere near as efficient as a mouse/keyboard-combo in a fps-game. Period. Another PC gamer who thinks he knows so much. I, too, was a PC gaming loyalist until I saw how superior X-Box Live multiplayer is to the hassle-plagued multiplayer experience that most PC games are online. Have you played OFP:E? If not, shut it. It is COMPLETELY obvious that OFP's clunkiness in an urban environment is because of THE GAME when you play OTHER X-Box CQB titles that don't exhibit the SAME problems with the SAME controller. The same clunkiness that is in OFP:R in an urban environment is there in OFP:E in the same, all claims to the contrary aside. Get a clue, gentlemen! You think you're talking to an OFP n00b just because I started playing OFP on the X-Box? (In fact, the fact that I'm NOT an OFP n00b is why I'm enjoying a primo OFP MP experience on the X-Box while you're clunking away with yesterday's version.) I've been playing the game since the first PC demo and I remember the days when there were SIX screenshots of the upcoming title on the 'net. Bottom Line: OFP is great, but it's urban combat is CLUNKY for reasons having NOTHING to do with the controller. It always has been and nothing has changed, yet. (Well, except that now we have delayed fuse frags and leaning, which helps, but you never see anybody leaning in OFP:E...because the overall urban experience is still clunky.) Stop basing your opinions on OFP:E's controls on half-a55ed and Bravo-Sierra reviews and a few videos and actually give it a try, if you think you're such OFP hot shi'ite. Talk to me when you're higher than I am in the "Online Total" leaderboard. Even OFP:E's graphics are looking better than some of these ArmA screens, though obviously OFP:E's low-res can't compete with ArmA's high-res.

you don't actually think that a GI in full combat outfit can swim, do you? Mister, you're talking to someone that underwent "Water Indoctrination" in the United States Army, so don't presume to lecture ME about it, okay? Did I SAY what would submerge? And how do you expect to have quality UDT-type operations with what we've got now?

Heatseeker, you need to put some time into OFP:E before you go knocking the controls in OFP:E, which are suprisingly good. As for the water, in OFP:E you get what appears to be polygonal wave action that increases in amplitude(?) as the weather worsens. All it needs is a reflective quality at oblique angles, the ability to submerge without dying, and a murkiness that increases with depth.

The lighting in OFP:E is excellent, and that's what I'm seeing in this latest batch of screenshots, whether they are older or not. Those other new screenshots look more like old OFP and somewhat disappointing in the lighting department, compared to OFP:E. By the way, the water DOES have a see-through quality if you look into it from the right angle in the right lighting conditions. All it needs is a reflective quality at the right (oblique?) angles, since the see-through quality seems to work best when looking straight down into the water.

Then explain why it is still clunky in OFP:E, where all 3 of those areas you have mentioned have been improved. It's because the darn iron sight view is too zoomed in, the iron sight blocks too much of the view, and you have no peripheral vision.

Well, if they'll use the Q and E keys for leaning, that'll make things easier. In mentioning SWAT4, I was talking about the overall experience, the way you move through the environment, the weapons simulation. Obviously the iron sight and scope views of the Lockdown PC demo would be preferable to a mere crosshair. Right now, you're far too zoomed in with the MP5 iron sight. Add to that the fact that when you move it is like you have your boots encased in cement and the final result is clunky. You don't get magnification when you look through iron sights (though I think that you might with the smallest of peep sights, either that or it is an optical illusion). The novel "Rainbow Six" mentioned that a man's head should fit just within the front sight hoop of an MP5 at a certain range, with the front sight post falling on the guy's "no-reflex zone". The zoom should correspond to that, whatever it was, and it shouldn't change when going in or out of iron sight mode. Yes, you're right, you can still pwn A.I., but you can't do so in a natural way. Go play some Rogue Spear to see what I mean. One thing that gets me about urban combat from windows and balconies in most tactical shooters is that you can't lean out over a window sill to get a bead on targets below. Yes, keep OFP's free-aim. I certainly don't want a return to conical reticule expansion.

Actually, when you're in iron sights mode with an MP5 the view is too zoomed in, you have almost NO peripheral vision, and the iron sights are larger than life. Zoomed in that much, you're required to pick up your mouse to scroll enough to swing left or right. No, it's no good. Go play some paintball and see why. It should feel like SWAT4 or any number of the other realistic CQB titles out there. I don't even switch to iron sight view in buildings and towns in OFP. It's a good way to die. Thus, the MP5 sight, ideal for CQB, is rendered a hindrance rather than a help. Yes, built-up environments should be meat-grinders, but not because you can't get your avatar to do what you want. The plain fact of the matter is that if you're well-trained, you CAN quickly swing your weapon and get headshots. What happens to me in paintball is that if I swing too quickly right or left, I spin myself right off my feet. (It's the damnedest thing.) The Infiltration mod forum once talked about how you should lose your balance or fall down if you turn too quickly. On the X-Box they will design games so that the controller sensitivity is dictated by the environment. If you're pointed down a corridor you don't need as much sensitivity as when you're in the middle of an arena. I don't see why they couldn't tighten-up the "hot box" when the player entered a town or building.

Everybody knows that the CQB aspect of this game, which is very important when you have enterable buildings, needs a lot of work, Heatseeker. I honestly don't know why you are always so against improving those parts of the game that the community's general concensus says needs to be improved. The clunkiness of indoor navigation is even more apparent in OFP:E, where you can barely get through a doorway, sometimes. I deal with it, but it doesn't need to be that way.

By "looking at" I mean what your cross-hairs are pointed at. In OFP:E I don't believe you have that "hot-box" someone mentioned, where the cross-hairs move but the body does not. Like I said, it seems to be only in some views. I believe it is in the iron-sights view, for example. The blur has never been a problem in all of the many hours of playing OFP:E. In fact, I'd say that you rarely ever notice it. It seems to be most noticeable in screenshots.

Blur in the BMP picture looks like the same depth of field blur seen in OFP:E. As I said, what you're looking directly at is most in focus in some views in OFP:E. Destructible buildings is a feature in Soldner and in World War II Online (which has a map much more massive than OFP ever attempted), so I don't want to hear the Bravo Sierra arguments put forth by supposed OFP experts about what a hit it will be to performance. We're dealing with 3 Ghz systems as common-place, these days. ("Company of Heroes" is going to offer an insane level of ability to progressively destroy buildings.) In the old days (pre-public demo for OFP:CWC), you could come to conclusions based on the screenshots B.I. released. Is it the same post-Codemasters? I dunno. Multiple guns would not break the campaigns. OFP's A.I. is far too dynamic for that. The dynamic A.I. would break the campaigns long before an additional gunner position would. The commander's mgun is mostly useful for scraping sappers off of your tank, and I don't recall many sapper missions. Did B.I. say in some official statement or in some preview that there would be multiple gun positions in ArmA? If they did, I would put my trust in that, and not in a screenshot. As for multiple gun positions requiring some radical engine change, what do you think mid-game joining/join-in-progress requires? The community bitched at B.I. for JIP for ages, but was repeatedly told that it was nigh-impossible to patch into the old engine. ArmA is supposed to be a new engine from the ground up. No, they're not going to throw out code that works. They'll reuse it, so it'll look like the same game in some ways. Anyone who has been in a Blackhawk in BF2 knows WHY multiple gunner positions is a necessary thing. You can barely get a pilot player to turn the doorway towards the enemy in flight, much less get him to land so that you can bring your only gun to bear on the ground troops. We all know that no matter how much we ask for some things, at the end of the day B.I. does what they want. (Beretta 92 with a 10-shot mag?) We've seen this more than once. Most of us are still satisfied, even though the little flaws still annoy us. I hope they code in multiple gun positions, destructible buildings, moving within vehicles, and missile-launching wheeled vehicles. B.I. coded OFP for upwards-scalability, so we hope that they will add features that might be better handled by tomorrow's systems. You guys need to join us in Operation Flashpoint: Elite and heave great sighs of inner-peace when you gaze upon the Rainbow sometimes seen in the game. Except for occasionally having my avatar "possessed" by another player online, I garner immense satisfaction from playing this very polished version of OFP.

The amazing thing about OFP:E is that we have been able to make awesome missions without a single script, init or otherwise.

I thought vertical view distance went up to the sky-box. That's one of the things that has annoyed me about most 3-d tac-shooters I've seen: the fog works to obscure the details on mountains but doesn't obscure the skybox, AT ALL. What you wind up with is fog on a distant mountain and a clear sky to the left and right of the mountain where you can see the sky-box. Fog should obscure the sky-box, too! (Fog usually has a max height, but we're not talking about fog with max height... though it would be nice to. I like ground-hugging fog.) You guys who can't wait until ArmA's release date REALLY need to buy an X-Box and OFP:E. The A.I. improvements are considerable. Enemy A.I. grabs its own ammo when it runs out and there is some nearby, Guard waypoints put a unit on hold to respond ACROSS THE MAP to a automatically-generated combat support request from a friendly unit, and Support waypoints put Medical/Fuel/Ammo/Repair units on hold to respond to a automatically or manually-generated radio call from allied units (though medic soldiers seem to do some of this on their own). Machinegun fire ricochets in a believable way (though the tracer still looks like a laser beam) and the ricochets can KILL. I don't see too much evidence of OFP:E's excellent lighting in these ArmA screenshots, but the lighting in OFP:E is AMAZING, making a big difference to the gameplay. A Noonday sun beating down in the Summer-time makes you want to squint your eyes, making it hard to see very far. The phase of the moon effects how much the landscape is lit up. The atmosphere in OFP:E BLOWS AWAY OFP:R. Switch from OFP:E to OFP:R and the latter seems like a DEAD world. I am often amazed just wondering whether the seagulls flying through a valley (and not hitting its walls or trees! are an animation or actual A.I. If they're an animation, I can't tell, and if they are A.I., how does the X-Box CPU handle all of those calculations? Then the darn bugs start buzzing around you! The working tides determine how much land is under water and the wave action increases as the weather becomes more adverse. Place a waypoint on a building and the A.I. navigates through the building on its own. No mess, no fuss. Vehicle damage modelling is very satisfying. Open up on a speeding UAZ and it might start doing donuts (driver slumped on the wheel or steering damaged or tires flattened?), get hit while flying an Apache and you may have to press your stick all of the way to the left and dip your nose all of the way forward just to fly in a somewhat straight line or maybe your HUD will go out. Ever have a hair-raising experience just trying to limp an Apache back to base and land it after a mission? If ArmA's bigger view-distance and unit-handling capabilities were given to OFP:E's engine (with mid-game joining/join-in-progress!!! I would be an extremely happy camper. Ack! What am I doing here? I should be playing OFP:E!

Some good movies for ideas: "Heaven Knows, Mr. Allison" (A Marine and a Nun and Enemy Japanese) "PT-109" (John F. Kennedy's PT boat crew gets ship-wrecked.) "Six Days and Seven Nights" (Harrison Ford and Anne Hesche...Pirates) ...and for T.V. shows, let's not forget "Gilligan's Island". You might have a crashed plane with marijuana in it, like in "Romancing the Stone", with Michael Douglas and Kathleen Turner. Maybe have a few bales wash up on the island from a pirate ship that got boarded by the Coast Guard. Need some islanders to come along in a boat. There was a Central American or South American mod that had some good civilian models to use for that. And don't forget dream women or family that appear when he starts hallucinating.

Does it look like objects that aren't the center of focus go out of focus? In OFP:E, in some views, only what you're looking directly at will be in total focus. After seeing the gameplay improvements in OFP:E, I have complete faith that we'll see major engine improvements in ArmA.

Man, I get a headache or eyestrain just thinking about the stress of scanning for targets in that environment!

You can easily carry 3 or 4 Laws in an ALICE pack. Reloading of the LAWs was meant to simulate that. It would probably take a little more time to employ a second LAW than it does to reload one in OFP, but whether they animate a reloading or a dumping and employing of a second one, the only thing that matters is how much time it takes. Whether grabbing rockets for the LAW or grabbing additional launchers, it doesn't make that much difference in game terms.

It's called Sara(h?), so I think it may represent Israel.

Standardization, however, is good.