Zombie_Mod

Much experience in project management? Well as it so happens I used to run a software dev team in the NHS, using DSDM principles, I still use MOSCOW rules nowadays etc... amongst other things, you can ask if you like. But you think what you want to think, mate. Do you work as a project manager? If not, then don't crow about anything you know squat about! Remove core elements of the game to make it faster? Who's talking about core elements? Core elements is driving and shooting, the crux of the game. They don't work. Non core elements - were you allowed to play as a duck or cow in Arma1? Did you get an assault course in Arma1? I don't remember them there. Did you get a dynamic mission generator in Arma1? As for "uninformed bitching" I PAID for the f**king thing so if I want to bitch about it I will, alright? I don't need some gimp telling me to STFU just because he doesn't like his beloved game taking a panelling. I'm telling it how it is, if you don't like it kiss my hairy Scottish arse! Too many fanbois on here defending this game, it's time we knew what bugs are next up for fixing!

You do not wait until the end of the development cycle to test everything though! That's a common misconception. When you develop software there's a process called unit testing where developers test their own code before moving to the next piece of work - that's par for the course in any software dev job. I wonder what the AI driving developer was thinking?!! He should have gone to specsavers!!! ;-) There's also weekly/fortnightly builds and peer reviews of code, play-testing and so on, alpha (internal) builds on a 3 monthly cycle ... plenty of continuous QA before the final release to test. You can make excuses for BIS all you like but - nah, there isn't any. Especially since Flashpoint was released 8 years ago and IMHO Flashpoint Resistance 1.96 is in better shape (and more fun, may I add) than what we currently have. Publisher blamed first, what next? Faulty electrical wiring? Poltergeists? Regarding movies, I don't know about how movie studios work so I can't comment. I don't hear of Lions Gate Studios or Paramount pictures having fanbois defending their work religiously though.

Yes, I reported this error to dev-heaven and there's a video attached to the issue report. It's nothing to do with lag, I wasn't playing multiplayer at the time. It's either a deliberate feature to aid pathfinding, or it's a bug. I suspect the latter. The same issue manifests itself in OFP as well. I remember building a massive zombie mission in one of the forts overlooking a town, the zombies just ran through the fort walls completely ruining the mission. As the zombies were mostly civilian models with slightly changed config.cpp files, you can imagine how pissed off I was.

I love how people are blaming the publisher here... oh aye, it's the publisher's fault the game's a bugged mess eh? No, it's not the publisher's fault - it's the developers/project manager for not prioritising their work properly. If the release date is known in advance and it's too short for you, then you cut your cloth accordingly. BIS could easily have taken some parts of Arma2 out and given us something smaller, yet more functional. I would have been quite happy to never have had the "armory" section of Arma2 if that meant that the AI could drive and shoot properly. Tbh, throwing chickens over assault courses to save "my precious life" isn't what I bought the game for 2 months ago. I also would have been quite happy for this so-called "uber-campaign" to have been made smaller also. Time to take your rose-tinted glasses off and stop blaming the publisher. You know your deadline, you deliver what you can in it. And if you fail to deliver then your project manager takes the heat, not the dev team, who usually bust their arse working 11 hour shifts up to release day. And yes, I am speaking from experience, albeit not from a games industry perspective. Edit: 2 months I've had this game and the CD's gathering dust already! I keep checking for patches in vain... and as for the editor, well ... not changed much in 8 years :)

Ah, but if the land is procedurally generated, then it should stay the same during your session - if you fly 100 miles North West and then 100 miles South East, you should return to an area you kind of recognise. I wonder if the infinite area is the same for all players though, with the same random seed used to generate the landscape... all hills same height, all rivers going same direction... if it was, wonder if you could "populate" the area via scripting? BTW, I think "Elite" was the first game that used procedural algorithms to generate entire galaxies and regions...

Actually I reckon it would be a good idea if, you flew out of the so-called "play area" and entered a realm where anything could happen, for example said zombies, killer cows or chickens etc - or even going into random buildings decorated with pictures from "My Pictures" folder lol... that would creep me out!!!

I'm looking for a rip-roaring mission with 100s of soldiers on screen, tanks, and a large squad to command taking it to the russkies. Any missions like that exist atm? If so, linkies please :D

My bad. Once again I rush a post :) http://dev-heaven.net/projects/show/cis I would have sworn the /cis shortcut worked before, oh well. The BIS team do use that site. And you share my sentiments regarding the bugs.

See, I like that idea in game where something might happen, it might not, and no 2 games are the same... I wish OFP: CWC had that kind of thing going on in its campaigns back then. The excellent campaign + side missions would have enhanced the classic.

Hmm. Bit surprised, I thought that would be the first type of game people would make with a mission editor! Albeit adding scripts, cut-scenes, a mission start/end etc. Oh well, any in development then?

I'll tell you where this happened - in one of the early missions, I can't remember its name, there is a Doctor being held hostage along with some "friendly" troops by a hut. The doctor is being guarded by 2 soldiers. I snuck up behind one of the soldiers and shot him - he didn't drop. He kept talking! And so did his mate! So I fired another 5 bullets and that dropped him alright. I tried to repeat the issue and capture it on FRAPS but could not, the soldier dropped with the first shot. I am wondering if OFP's collision detection doesn't execute every frame, but rather every N millisecs or so, hence the delayed dropping of the soldier? Makes sense, checking for 1000s of collisions every frame would choke a Cray supercomputer :D

I'm 37 next month. I don't feel old though :) Life gets better as you get older, it's true :) Back on topic - love OFP & OFP:R, don't like Arma2 much but as soon as I actually figure out XFire and get some online chums to play, I might change my mind. Hook or by crook, BIS are gonna fix this f**ker!!

Looking at the poll, the "bad" votes are overwhelming. I suspect the poll results are misleading though (and you guys KNOW I'm no BIS fanboy trying to sweep things under the carpet) - people are complaining about things that the patch did not address, and IMHO that's wrong. Did the patch fix what it said it would fix? If so then you should vote YES [i am satisfied] on the poll. If the patch made the game worse or broke something else, vote NO [i am not satisfied]. As I said before, you can't fix every bug listed on dev-heaven in a couple of weeks, patch development is an incremental process. In the software dev world, defects (we prefer to call them "issues") have to be prioritised, assigned and then fixed, then regression tested to ensure that the fix doesn't break anything else. That takes time and of course if you find new bugs they have to be entered on the issue list, prioritised, scheduled etc. Sorry for stating the obvious but there's some comments here about some things that aren't in the patch list, and I think there's some confusion. BTW, I will vote No, because now, some soldiers take 6 bullets before they drop!! :) I reckon if you are passionate about fixing Arma2 proper then you should go to http://dev-heaven.net/projects/show/cis and report your bugs ASAP. Fanboy or not, help get the game patched up so you can get your money's worth! Edit: sorry, by "Yes" I mean you are satisified and by "No" - you get the drift. Durr, I posted it without thinking.... lmao

Look, I didnt mind testing Arma2 1.02, and reporting defects to dev-heaven.net, but now I find I'm getting asked to "re-test" bugs I reported. No slight on kju or whatever, but come on to f**k!!!! This is a JOKE!!! Sorry BIS, but this is your test team's job! Are you going to pay me for my time testing for you? I'm cheap - £40 an hour (my lowest rate for software dev on contract in Scotland) I have the time to test, yeah, but why should I do it for you? Surely by reporting the bugs your testers should inputting them into your defect management system and be on the case, regression testing and checking they are fixed? And before you fanboys start getting on my case, I'll tell you what, if you think I'm unreasonable you take on all of ZOMBIEMOD's issues on dev-heaven and retest for 1.03 and report back. Then you'll see the effort required. Not much fun is it? Come on, put your money where your mouth is - test everything I reported. produce videos etc. ffs BIS, do not take the p**s out of me, sort yourselves out. Scott Edit: I want to make explicitly clear i'm not trying to cause aggro - but I'm thinking if dev-heaven is the issue list and BIS are using that, why am I being re-assigned issues I have proven to exist? Why is it me, an unpaid person, who is getting assigned "re-test" ? There's love for a product then there is being taken for a f**king ride! OFP, yes (bows) - Arma2? You know my thoughts.

Its no attack bulldogs, I hear you. I'm not trying to be a f.anny - despite the fact I think Arma2 is a breakfast I am trying to help out - but surely once evidence of the original defect is given their test team have enough to replicate it and fix it?? Why do I have replicate it again? I have uploaded video evidence once, come on BIS, get your testers on the case!! Just seeing all these "can you retest" questions in my email inbox, I'm thinking, "wait a mo, what are BIS doing here?" Like I said this is no dig against Kju or Guba etc!! I am a paying customer! BIs, you're asking me to test and re-test your broken software!!

Look, it was only 3 weeks since patch 1.02 came out. There's no way that even a fraction of the bugs raised on dev-heaven would have been addressed in a couple of weeks. We all know Arma2 was a buggy mess when it was released, but to expect the majority of gameplay "features" to be sorted is unreasonable. BTW I am not excusing BIS... I still say their project planning was crap and they are using the community as free beta testers.... more to follow

Playing the single mission "Bear Rising", I find I am completely lost. Why am I getting money for shooting bad guys? Why is it when I request units I am not acknowledged? If money is for spending on new units, how do I go about it? How will I know when I have enough? What do I do with the Mobile HQ? Why do I need to "lock it" ? How can I repair my tanks, there is a utility truck there but it doesn't seem to be capable of repair work. Why is this game so poorly documented? The manual doesn't even mention this game type. I haven't played this game type before - I told you, I gave ArmA 1 a miss completely - so if anyone can help out....

I don't work in BIS. How can I account for what their publisher says or did not say? I only deal with facts. The software is broken, and that is a fact. 1. The masturbation joke was when you said all developers had clawed hands... I implied it wasn't from typing, it was from playing with themselves ffs. A JOKE!! 2. The wildlife addons are not an intrinsic part of the game. You don't need animals to complete any mission in the campaign do you? Are you actually saying they are essentials for the game to run? Let me put it another way: BIS know the game is broken, the AI can't even drive - something from Arma1 days - yet they add something which most people don't care about. 3. Trade my copy in? Will I hell, I've spent too much time reporting bugs to give up on it now. I'm going to argue with every f**king fanboi I can and hammer some sense into their thick skulls. BIS need to be pressured into fixing bugs, not adding new features or content. Imagine this - if every game developer released broken games like this one, we'd have little games to play. Is that fact or not? If this game had no editor you'd be going nuts. Is that fact or not?

Are you trying to preach to me how software development works? This gets better. :rolleyes: It doesn't matter if implementation is automated or not, the fact of the matter is time was spent putting it in, and of course it will need tested as well. Everything added needs tested. Are you seriously saying BIS could not see the game was riddled with bugs while they were developing it? Welcome to my world: if I see a bug in my code and it's going to be a showstopper, I fix it or I assign someone else to do it for me. I don't leave it til the last week before release! Something is wrong with the development process. Do not heap the blame on the publisher, it takes 2 to tango. "The game world has a lot more credence now because the civilian population is more plausible" WTF!!! Plausible??? Come ON!!! The civs stand around for the most part, they don't really go anywhere or do anything but be scenery in the campaign. If they weren't there I wouldn't miss them. Who really cares if Chernarus hunters have rabbits to hunt? Arma2 is not about hunting Bugs Bunny. It is supposed to be a FPS game with squad tactics on a scale as massive as you want. The AI doesn't work and the campaign can't be completed without cheating. But oh yes, we have rabbits for hunters. I'm so happy, my £25 wasn't wasted!

That is true, it's only £25, but I had high hopes for the SP campaign and AI. ---------- Post added at 06:09 PM ---------- Previous post was at 06:04 PM ---------- You haven't, but I have. And I reported every single one to dev-heaven.net . There's 100s of bugs on there. Take a look. I didnt expect the first release to be bug-free, of course not, but I didnt expect it NOT TO WORK!!! I'm not the only person who can't complete the campaign without cheating because triggers don't fire or AI runs into a hail of bullets....

Why is it that everyone who says anything against Arma2 is insulted or ridiculed as a Call Of Duty lover?

I live in the world of software development my man. What world do you live in? Do these 3D models move themselves? Or does code have to be written to move them and make them interact? There has to be a project plan in place where the 3D model is scheduled to be included in the latest build, and code is added to make it "live", and thats why if you know you're not going to ship a working product on time you change the plan to drop the "nice to haves" like chickens and cows. But then you knew that, right? Right? Don't give me that crap that "you release in 6 weeks". If you tell the publisher you need a year to release the game, you need a year and the contract is agreed (working in the biz like I do, I know this) - they can't suddenly say, "oh guys, erm, that year? Make it 6 weeks from now". You can haggle over moving the product forward, but that means dropping content. Regarding claw hands, maybe the guys you know are just wankers? :D No claws here. ---------- Post added at 05:49 PM ---------- Previous post was at 05:41 PM ---------- The bigger the game is the more bugs it will have? Correct. That's why you have a TEST & REWORK cycle in your project plan, of an appropriate timescale to iron the showstoppers out. It's not like this game is a new concept for BIS and they didnt know what was required - BIS made OFP and Arma before, they should surely have an inkling of what effort it takes for a game like this - they are not jumping into the unknown. If your product gets complex, you factor in even more time for testing and rework (the PC name for "bug fixing") - you DON'T release something that is broken and expect the fans to bail you out.

Have to love the "even though this game is bugged to hell, you should still buy it and support the dev team" mantra being repeated here. You are encouraging mediocrity!! What happened to standards and expecting better? Why should people pay for something that they can't play right now? That is so very stupid. If BIS were to go bankrupt because their game was broken, who's fault would it be? Not mine, that's for sure. Oh yeah, we have a mission editor... well what if someone can't be arsed making their own missions, or doesn't have the technical ability? I've seen clever people struggle with using Word ffs! (GPs if you must know, lol) I read the following today on Eurogamer forums ( http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/arma-ii-review ) from Placebo himself: "If only life were that simple, unfortunately in the real world it's not down to us to decide when the game is released" That sentence says so very much: 1) You had a release date given to you by the publisher. Same as everyone else. 2) Your dev teams priorities are obviously very, very wrong if they're spending their time modelling chickens and cows, and not getting the core code working & tested before the KNOWN deadline. 3) You were struggling to meet the deadline so you let the game go out with bugs. Who signed off the game in this state? What pub does he drink in? :D I want a job with BIS.

Be nice for BIS to confirm what they are addressing in the next patch. We have a healthy list of issues on dev-heaven now, plenty to choose from. As I already said, I'm a professional software engineer who used to run a dev team (I ain't boasting btw, if I wanted to boast I'd say I had a Ferrari or something :) ) and before work began on fixing any showstoppers or adding feature requests I had to produce a prioritised list of issues to my project manager for approval, and a release date; so, IMHO it's not unfair to ask BIS what and when is coming out for the next patch. I'm quite happy to wait a few months for a patch - what else can I do? - if BIS will fix *some* major defects on dev-heaven (especially those voted as highest priority - so get voting, chaps, if you haven't done so already) - there's nothing worse for a programmer than being rushed by arsehole project managers or senior devs looking to make their bonus (this is not a dig at BIS' , I have no idea who their PM or TL is, or even if they have one) On the down side, I read that a lot of major bugs found in Arma2 were present in the first Arma.... meaning they were ignored first time round and probably will be this time.

Damn, I'll miss it today, I have work to complete for tomorrow. I'm really desperate to play now. Are you playing next Sunday or even during the week? Definitely put me down for next Sunday.