Zombie_Mod

My original thread..... sorry for posting a new one but I needed to vent..... BIS, why did you release a game so full of bugs? I mean the game is utterly unplayable, at least for me. I uninstalled and reinstalled the game. Got to a mission where I have to search weapons caches and sentry posts, about the 3rd or 4th in.... My pedal bike swerves all over the place at the lightest touch... I order my men to GET IN to a LAV and the vehicle next to it, they refuse for no reason. I ask them to MOVE TO one of the cache locations, they disembark from the LAV and start running there! Why??? I don't mind being killed in a game if its my fault but why am I having to fight the controls? This is just 1999 OFP 1.0 all over again. Why is it when I'm shot I *have* to roll onto my back? And what have you done to the control interface?? I have to press backspace now, then the F2,F3,F4 keys to select the team member, its different to what I had with Flashpoint and no better. Not that the AI listens right enough: I remember switching to a team member and then the group leader (who used to be me) orders another member to GET IN some HumVee!!! I never asked for that, why did it happen? Also, why does the priest guarding one of the weapons caches speak on a radio?? Didn't you fix all these bugs with ArmA 1? So, why are you letting them back in Arma 2? Guys this is just.... pathetic. And don't give me the "when XYZ patch comes out...." - I spent money to have a playable game, but right now I'm close to shouting at how I got fooled AGAIN. You did this with Flashpoint and Arma, releasing games that didn't work properly - thats why I never bothered with Arma (bouncing truck off a bridge, anyone? Can't see through grass, remember all that?) - but this is taking the mick!! I needed to rant, because if I didn't I'd go nuts. I spent 25 quid at Amazon for a half finished game. If any of the fanboys fancy having a go at me for speaking the truth come ahead, but I bite!!! Really disappointed. Edit: Looking at the thread I can see the Fanboys giving it "if you don't like it go back to Arma" to all that complained - they'd be the same sort who whined about Windows XP being full of bugs, but would you hear them saying "go back to Windows 98/ME"? Ha. And I won't go back to Arma because it was a bug-ridden mess at the start too, thats what put me off!

BIS, why did you release a game so full of bugs? I mean the game is utterly unplayable, at least for me. I uninstalled and reinstalled the game. Got to a mission where I have to search weapons caches and sentry posts, about the 3rd or 4th in.... My pedal bike swerves all over the place at the lightest touch... I order my men to GET IN to a LAV and the vehicle next to it, they refuse for no reason. I ask them to MOVE TO one of the cache locations, they disembark from the LAV and start running there! Why??? I don't mind being killed in a game if its my fault but why am I having to fight the controls? This is just 1999 OFP 1.0 all over again. Why is it when I'm shot I *have* to roll onto my back? And what have you done to the control interface?? I have to press backspace now, then the F2,F3,F4 keys to select the team member, its different to what I had with Flashpoint and no better. Not that the AI listens right enough: I remember switching to a team member and then the group leader (who used to be me) orders another member to GET IN some HumVee!!! I never asked for that, why did it happen? Also, why does the priest guarding one of the weapons caches speak on a radio?? :D Didn't you fix all these bugs with ArmA 1? So, why are you letting them back in Arma 2? Guys this is just.... pathetic. And don't give me the "when XYZ patch comes out...." - I spent money to have a playable game, but right now I'm close to shouting at how I got fooled AGAIN. You did this with Flashpoint and Arma, releasing games that didn't work properly - thats why I never bothered with Arma (bouncing truck off a bridge, anyone? Can't see through grass, remember all that?) - but this is taking the mick!! I needed to rant, because if I didn't I'd go nuts. I spent 25 quid at Amazon for a half finished game. If any of the fanboys fancy having a go at me for speaking the truth come ahead, but I bite!!! Really disappointed.

Nope. CD's in the drive, just patched to 1.02.

I bought the game from Amazon, set it up, went skeet shooting on the decks of the aircraft carrier no problem. Amazingly, the HDR rendering made me seasick... :p Now, I shoot at bad guys point blank on the very first proper mission. Not only does every bullet miss (we are talking people 10ft away!) but they are not hurt. Not only that - they run right past me instead of killing me. If this is FADE then how in the Hell does it kick off on a PAID-FOR game?? Will uninstalling and reinstalling help? I don't want to unless completely necessary. I have patched to English ver 1.02. Scott

Post any scripting questions you have about the zombie mod HERE. Just some ground rules: 1) Zombie mod scripting questions only. I will ignore anything that is covered under general OFP, e.g. arrays, creating cameras etc. 2) Don't ask when a certain mod feature will be "done". We don't work to any timescales - Scott already works full time as a software engineer so sometimes can't be arsed 3) I hate Resident evil (the movie). Any mention of lickers, flickers, knickers etc will be ignored. Apart from that - ask anything! PS: this mod has nothing to do with the undead mod created by General Barron. FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS IMPORTANT NOTICE FOR SCRIPT UPGRADE RC3 - HOW TO MAKE THE AI ZOMBIES REACT FASTER AND WHAT WILL BE CHANGED IN RC4!!!! http://www.flashpoint1985.com/cgi-bin....y650940 1. Initialising global variables and zombie mod arrays - IMPORTANT http://www.flashpoint1985.com/cgi-bin....5;st=90 2. Zombies don't attack me/ what are SERVER gamelogics for? answers on this page 3. Why do zombies not attack player in MP? http://www.flashpoint1985.com/cgi-bin....y621945 4. How do I set the difficulty levels? http://www.flashpoint1985.com/cgi-bin....5;st=30 5. Why don't "bit" humans resurrect as zombies (and other resurrection issues) http://www.flashpoint1985.com/cgi-bin....y621945 6. How to make the zombies "speak" ? http://www.flashpoint1985.com/cgi-bin....5;st=30 7. Known bugs in script upgrade release candidate 1 Â http://www.flashpoint1985.com/cgi-bin....y644636 7. Event handlers in new zombie mod (THIS HAS BEEN UPDATED FOR SCRIPT UPGRADE RC2!) http://www.flashpoint1985.com/cgi-bin....5;st=45 8. Whats your web page? http://www.unifiedzombiemod.wz.cz 9. What's coming next? DONT ASK!!!!! Â

Mig and I would like to ask BIS to implement the STANDSTROKEFIST animation in the next ArmA patch, or if possible to give us the .RTM animation file and we'll implement it ourselves. I would like to make the ArmA zombie mod you see. What use are zombies if they cannot attack I've bought a new graphics card, upgraded my RAM to 2Gb and now the only bottleneck are your good selves. I unbin'd the config.cpp and saw the standstrokefist was missing. Can you help??? I hope you don't think that Mig or I are so self-important and up our own arses that we deserve special treatment, but we do know you are zombie fans Would everyone who wants the zombie mod for ArmA please sign here, hopefully this will hurry BIS up

Matt, are you 12 years old or something mate? I've been quite patient despite your petty grumbling and now I fear it's time to let rip. Despite the fact you're not a software engineer and have no clue how people develop software in the real world, or participate with their user base, you seem to feel able to tell those that DO know how to conduct themselves. If I thought this was a "STUPID" topic I wouldn't have started it. You're stupid for trying to bait me by insulting my intelligence. Who the Hell do you think you are? Tell me Matt, what have you done for Flashpoint, ever? It's a perfectly reasonable request and one that BIS don't seem to have acted on, but that's OK because that gives me an excuse not to waste my time with writing a new mod for arseholes like you. Hopefully intelligent people like MiG and General won't be dissuaded from creating addons for OFP just because you don't like the idea. Now GTFO of my thread!!!

Ha, there won't be any zombie mods from my hands, thats for sure. Some other poor sap will have to write one from scratch, because as far as I am concerned ArmA is a busted flush. I have completed it and uninstalled it. Utter waste of money.

I absolutely love HexenKessel, it's a shame that the people who play it on the all seeing eye are arseholes with cliques Great stuff

They dont, hell, a few posts above we are discussing a problem where the AI doesnt see enemies untill they are right in front of them They do have psychic powers in some cases, try the "destroy convoy" single mission and then see if you can hide from the trailing BMP without running away too far. It's a bug reported on the official list (by someone other than I) and confirmed by multiple sources. As for the AI not seeing enemies in front of them, well Vegas and CoH don't have that problem You think I really WANT to slate ArmA? I sat waiting for this game for months like everyone else. However, unlike my main antagonists on this thread though, I KNOW it's a substandard product WORSE than OFP:R in the most important ways, like AI and physics. I didn't see trucks do somersaults and flip back onto bridges in Res.... (there's a video on this forum of that happening.) I'm going to be blunt, compared to other arcade games, and ArmA is one, it is a dud. BIS are lucky to have fans like you who will stick with them thick and thin. Me? life's too short to wait for patches every month.

There is no fog of war in arma. The COH AI has a much smaller scanning field and much less to worry about then arma's ai. Only things BIS needs to improve imho is the spotting performance and the aggression, AI needs to see much better, shoot much more (aim much worse!, use covering/suppressive fire and then they'll be fine (although this covering/suppressive fire business might be harder to code then one would imagine - i mean somethings that are obvious descisions for a human are complex algorithms that involve many considerations like distance, angle, the attention one is being payed to and other things). I just want the AI to start shooting at me when i'm a mile away and i'll be happy. This coupled with accurate roundpenetration values would make the game exciting (for me, but i'm crazy). I miss OFP's Super AI setting where everyone started shooting like nuts. So let me get this right, based on a training video you found on the net, you are defending ArmA's troops not taking cover and acting like idiots? I know if I was under fire I'd run behind something - anything - to shield me from the bullets, "penetration values" or not. Anyway back to R6 vegas, your troops go where they are commanded to go, same as in OFP. They sit in one place, what do you want them to do, run out and get blown to bits??? And it was me who brought up Company of Heroes. Obviously I am the only one who sees the parallels between CoH and ArmA - are you saying that both game engines are radically different? As I stated before they both use pathfinding, they both use 3d movement, they both use attack/ defend logic, and THEY BOTH HAVE 3RD PERSON VIEW. CoH may be "unrealistic" but it's a game, as is ArmA. Are you saying ArmA is realistic then??? Oh yes finally the fog of war in CoH is based on what your troops can and cannot see. Fair enough to me. Unlike ArmA, the troops do not have psychic powers and don't know where the enemy are

Sorry ofpforum but I got my waypoints mixed up. I apologise. But I still don't think ArmA does any flanking or tactical movement. Whats the point in arguing forever? All I'm asking is that you put a squad in the editor and then have it fight another squad. No towns, no rocks etc etc. I bet they sit still, or just plain run. Nothing smart, for sure.

Of course the maps are made differently, the games were developed by different teams! CoH is the first RTS game I've played where a group of soldiers counts as a single unit, and even then you can split the group up, by telling them to mount MGs etc. I really don't see whats so different between the 2 genres, action-wise, apart from the aforementioned fact that you don't have granular control over individual squad members in COH. Pathfinding from A to B in both games takes place on 3D terrain. Garrisoning houses in both games is done rather better by one engine (clue: not ArmA) and flanking, retreat, cover etc is done brilliantly by one engine (clue: not ArmA) You trying to tell me, because one game is viewed top down, and one is viewed from 3rd person, that the rendering of graphics is different, that pathfinding is different, and that the action of unit A attacking B is different? Remember, CoH can be viewed in 3rd person too... it aint tile based game. Bollocks AI moving into buildings involves no pathfinding. Compare the insides of their buildings. COH has nothing. Line of sight has to be done in a different way, not simply by distance. Can you hide in a building in COH and have enemies walk past without seeing you? There are alot of things COH doesn't have to worry about, mostly because there is no player controlled character. Can you sneak up on enemies through bushes in COH? If I'm wrong about anything in COH, keep in mind my limited experience in the game - no more than 1 or 2 hours in the demo. Can you sneak up on enemies in ArmA? Check the WIKI, the enemy has got Xray vision in the bug list Also OFPForum I noticed you changed the mission you posted, changing a waypoint from SAFE to GUARD....

Hold the ALT key in CoH and you can view it any way you like. It's not 2D. So there you go, both use 3D engines but one is doing things well

Its an RTS, its not comparable. (and it would suck for a FPS, those squads always stick to eachother) How do you mean an RTS? It's an RTS with FPS elements, you can take 3rd person view if required. Besides the only difference between an RTS of this nature and an FPS is 3rd person control of an individual unit. I could say a Company of Heroes type game could be done in ArmA using the Chain of Command engine?? So, given the blurred lines between the 2 genres, esp 2 games released around the same time, the AI of the enemy should be available for comparison, correct? Both AI in FPS and RTS are programmed to attack the enemy. COH AI is doing it a damn sight better. No, for instance: The maps are made completely different and the pathfinding for it is far from comparable, and in an RTS you control a big amount of soldiers, squads count as 1 unit+behave that way, while in an FPS every unit is 1 unit, and should behave like 1 unit (in ArmA/OFP it should behave as 1 unit as part of a squad, etc). I cant really explain it properly, but ive the feeling that you are trying to force me into saying something i dont want to (please reread my post above, i updated it quite a bit ) Of course the maps are made differently, the games were developed by different teams! CoH is the first RTS game I've played where a group of soldiers counts as a single unit, and even then you can split the group up, by telling them to mount MGs etc. I really don't see whats so different between the 2 genres, action-wise, apart from the aforementioned fact that you don't have granular control over individual squad members in COH. Pathfinding from A to B in both games takes place on 3D terrain. Garrisoning houses in both games is done rather better by one engine (clue: not ArmA) and flanking, retreat, cover etc is done brilliantly by one engine (clue: not ArmA) You trying to tell me, because one game is viewed top down, and one is viewed from 3rd person, that the rendering of graphics has to be different, that pathfinding has to be different, and that the action of unit A attacking B has to be different? Remember, CoH can be viewed in 3rd person too... it aint tile based game. The only thing different between the 2 genres is the "camera" point. CoH has Ai that can traverse 3D terrain AND find cover, ArmA does not. Strykers on bridges, anyone? Bollocks

ofpforum, that mission.sqm you gave me has only one waypoint, combat mode "SAFE". Given that, in your video, the BLUFOR are walking towards the town in a WEDGE formation, and diving down in COMBAT MODE, yet they can't see the enemy yet, how are they doing this? By magic? Have you been editing the mission.sqm? I smell bull

Its an RTS, its not comparable. (and it would suck for a FPS, those squads always stick to eachother) How do you mean an RTS? It's an RTS with FPS elements, you can take 3rd person view if required. Besides the only difference between an RTS of this nature and an FPS is 3rd person control of an individual unit. I could say a Company of Heroes type game could be done in ArmA using the Chain of Command engine?? So, given the blurred lines between the 2 genres, esp 2 games released around the same time, the AI of the enemy should be available for comparison, correct? Both AI in FPS and RTS are programmed to attack the enemy. COH AI is doing it a damn sight better.

Starts with the 'bounding overwatch'. Best example of flanking is seen in the very last second (enemy soldier), and in 1:59 (RACS soldier, down right) (sorry, im using FRAPS so i have to restart the recording every 30 seconds, but i forgot the last time so you cant see the end) at 2:07 you see a soldier running towards the left side of the town, however instead of flanking he runs towards his squad leader (possibly to cover him?)) This is with AI skill on 0.85 (If you still think the soldiers are running everywhere 'accidentally' i can try making a film out in the open, its better to see that they are flanking, however they usually get shot down before getting 5 meters away from their squad ) EDIT: Forgot the link:linky The BLUFOR AI looked like it was following a waypoint. I can see nothing in that video that indicated even the slightest shred of "cover", unless of course walking through a hedge on a waypoint counts as that.... Put an enemy squad in the open, and get an M1A1 opening up on em. Have the M1A1 and enemy in the open, lets see what happens. I bet they will sit like budgies on a perch. Also give us the map coordinates so we can replicate your "findings", just in case you do a wee bit of scripting to "help" the AI on their way... No scripting, one move waypoint ("combat") for the RACs, one guard waypoint (no other options) (redfor group1), one dismissed waypoint ("safe") (redfor group2) Its on 'desert island' (forgot the real name, but the small island, not sahrani) Note that i never mentioned cover, you said 'flanking', i showed you flanking If you want i can send you the mission file And yes, i know what happens when i put an m1a1 in front of a squad without waypoints, thats what we have waypoints for: activating the AI we need. (we dont attack with a dismissed waypoint, and we dont defend with a move waypoint, pretty obvious, even though both examples can be done, it may not give the best effect) Oh right so now you say the AI don't withdraw and cover each other when they face a tank? But wait, you said earlier on they will cover each other, take cover, and tactically withdraw. Hmm thats interesting ofpforum.... Post a link to that mission please. Cheers

The demo is based off the 1.02 version of the game (named version 1.03 so they can't attempt to join in multiplayer I guess). And how is a 5 year old preview of DNF relative? The demo was released shortly after the 1.02 patch for ArmA. Why would the demo get completely redone AI? They act like what I've seen from the full game. And it doesn't change the fact that the R6V AI is not as amazing as you claim it to be. They don't hunt you down. Also for the 3rd time have you seen them in terrorist hunt mode? They suck there. I'm not bothered about terrorist hunt mode. The AI in the game suits me. I mentioned to you about company of heroes. That simulates battles on a large scale AND the AI is more than adequate, yet you are silent on that. Anyway why should they give the demo version 1.03? What happens when the 1.03 patch of ArmA comes out Nah it wasn't named 1.03 just for a demo mate, I am telling ya that is the latest build with bugs fixed, not the 1.02 we are all playing. "Why release a demo newer than the live version?" you ask. Pretty obvious given the recent crap reviews innit?!!!! 55% for a reason, matey

Starts with the 'bounding overwatch'. Best example of flanking is seen in the very last second (enemy soldier), and in 1:59 (RACS soldier, down right) (sorry, im using FRAPS so i have to restart the recording every 30 seconds, but i forgot the last time so you cant see the end) at 2:07 you see a soldier running towards the left side of the town, however instead of flanking he runs towards his squad leader (possibly to cover him?)) This is with AI skill on 0.85 (If you still think the soldiers are running everywhere 'accidentally' i can try making a film out in the open, its better to see that they are flanking, however they usually get shot down before getting 5 meters away from their squad ) EDIT: Forgot the link:linky The BLUFOR AI looked like it was following a waypoint. I can see nothing in that video that indicated even the slightest shred of "cover", unless of course walking through a hedge on a waypoint counts as that.... Put an enemy squad in the open, and get an M1A1 opening up on em. Have the M1A1 and enemy in the open, lets see what happens. I bet they will sit like budgies on a perch. Also give us the map coordinates so we can replicate your "findings", just in case you do a wee bit of scripting to "help" the AI on their way...

MadMatt, how can you talk about ArmA AI if you don't actually have the game??? WTF!!!!! Demo != full game mate. Jesus Christ I've been arguing all this time with some bloke who doesn't even have the game As for you ofpforum, show me this flanking in action. Get me a FRAPs video and I'll believe you. In fact show me any video that exhibits advanced AI, and I'll reply to you with a video of mine from the "Armored Fist" mission where the friendly soldiers get slaughtered in a minute. Not so smart there were they. There is the COOP mission, and OFP. I don't need ArmA to show me how basic the AI in Rainbow 6 Vegas is. I played OFP alot and used the mission editor so I know the behaviour. And I can see the differences in the demo. And why would the AI in the demo be different to the full game? Erm, because the demo was the one released most recently, and is the latest build of the ArmA engine that the rest of us don't have? I bet they tweaked that demo a lot before release... You'll be saying the e3 demo of duke nukem forever 5 years ago is the same as the game to be released, eh?

MadMatt, how can you talk about ArmA AI if you don't actually have the game??? WTF!!!!! Demo != full game mate. Jesus Christ I've been arguing all this time with some bloke who doesn't even have the game As for you ofpforum, show me this flanking in action. Get me a FRAPs video and I'll believe you. In fact show me any video that exhibits advanced AI, and I'll reply to you with a video of mine from the "Armored Fist" mission where the friendly soldiers get slaughtered in a minute. Not so smart there were they.

No im just an ordinary gamer, but if you are the developer of anything other than the zombie mod i expected you would understand what the diferences betwean real a.i. and scripted behaviours are. To understand the diference betwean a large scale WAR game taking place in a gigantic, diverse, open environment with almost 1 million objects and a simple corridor shooter with respawning bots around corners using level design tricks. Please let us know about what fantastic AAA productions using state of the art artificial inteligence you are involved with and i promiss to check them out... I understand that the a.i. is not perfect but unlike some claims here its not bad and i cant think of any other a.i. that would perform this well in a open, diverse and huge game like this. I do know the difference between real AI and scripted behaviour. Also, I mentioned the game Company of Heroes - explain how that game has such good AI and ArmA does not? The maps there are densely populated, it's squad based and yet 100% better than ArmA even on a Radeon 9700pro. What games am I working on with AAA? I dont work in games any more, the pay's lousy, and besides I'm a bit too old for that side of the industry - can you imagine a 34 year old working on Sonic the Hedgehog type stuff??? but like I said to MadMatt you can check out my previous work with Google. I wrote a streetfighter 2 clone 10 years ago, reworked the game BoulderDash (not bad for 64K on a PC), have rewritten the C64 game BRUCE LEE with smart AI, so I know the challenges. I can give you the source if you like...

No I'm not a developer . And what exactly do you develop? Knowing programming doesn't necessarily mean that you know alot about AI . And have you tried terrorist hunt mode in Vegas yet? I know I didn't find the AI very impressive there! Just because the AI doesn't do the exact same thing every time doesn't mean that paths are not pre-defined. They can have multiple paths to handle threats from different direction. For the kind of game it is, the AI in Vegas is good but nothing I havn't seen before. Have you ever opened up the mission editor of these kinds of games? I have and they are far from independent. You need paths and points defined as cover. Now how hard is it in ArmA? All you do there is give them a few waypoints and they look after themselves. They flank and tend to avoid open areas. They find their way to places without intervention from the mission editor. They can hunt you down no matter where you are. Erm, I used to write video games years back in ye olde assembler days..... its still available if you google... so I know how AI works, to an extent Oh yeah and I wrote the AI for the Zombie Mod.... (not much AI needed for brain dead humans, right enough, but still they have to prioritise targets, know when to attack) What scripts did you code for OFP??? You'll defend ArmA to the death won't you? You're inventing behaviour that doesn't exist in the game. The AI tend to avoid open areas, oh really? So, how come in the examples listed above the AI just sit there?? Finding your way from A to B over a map isn't difficult to write and the A* algorithm (or derivative from it) that does it is already familiar to many games developers, so whats so special there? Matt, I don't believe this magical ArmA AI you talk about. Why don't you place an AI squad without AT in a field next to a forest, start shooting at them with a tank, and lets see how many of them take cover in the forest, shall we? Ramp their skill up to max too.

Heatseeker and Madmatt, are you developers? Just interested. I am, have been for 20 years since C64 days. What's your background? I like to know who I am talking to