Zipper5

Why not purchase OA on something other than Steam? If you need a digital copy then why not try Sprocket instead? Worked perfectly fine for me, downloaded it all it one night, and now I'm happily enjoying the awesomness. :cool:

Now that is what I call a memorial. /Salute

As if there wasn't enough lack of incentive for me to be playing Arma 2 online, another thing seems to have been added to that growing pile. I can accept the lack of teamwork on certain servers, the fact many require ACE, many don't allow beta patches, etc. But there's one thing that I cannot and will not accept - ping restrictions. It seems not only has BattlEye added the Client not responding kick, but now it gives server admins the ability to impose ping restrictions on their servers. I can accept ping restrictions for competitive, small scale games like DM, TDM, etc. But for large scale games, even if they are meant to be competitive or not, the way Arma 2's MP works and has always worked, there's going to be a lack of synchronization no matter if your ping is 0ms or 300ms. Arma 2 is not dependent on ping. I don't know why server admins think it is, but so long as it's not ridiculous like 500ms and above, you're good. What matters is the desync the player has. This is what will cause lag on the server, not his ping. That's how I've always experienced it. So, as it stands, I can't join most servers using BattlEye now because my ping is always too high for their standards. This is ridiculous. I would usually go to their websites and forums to write this, but since it seems to now apply to most servers out there, I'm posting it where hopefully most of them will be able to see. Take it off, please. I want to get back into Arma 2 MP, but with this bullshit that's going on, which I'm not necessarily sure is new, I am starting to lose complete interest in anything to do with MP in these games. It breaks my heart to think back to the glory days of playing multiple-hour-long CTIs in OFP on Everon, and to see how much it's gone downhill since then...

Just finished the campaign myself. :D

Well, I've had some more time with the game, and here are my first impressions. Let me start by saying that OA is abso-f*cking-lutely epic, and that it was worth ever penny and then some. I absolutely love it. Here are only some of the reasons why, I'm sure I'll find many more: Arma 2 integrates with it perfectly, changing to Combined Operations in the process. The campaign is quite varied and appropriately challenging, with a good story and some great cinematics/cutscenes. There's also no Warfare. The SP missions are also very good and a hell of a lot of fun. I'm also very impressed with how they did the training scenarios. The radio protocol is heavily improved, much more fluid, and units talk in whisper when set to Stealth mode. The faces and head models are very good, and although they've gone back to the way lip sync was in ArmA and OFP, it's a lot better than what it was like in Arma 2. FLIR. 'Nuff said really. It's awesome. UAVs. Again, 'nuff said. Flashlights are very cool at night, and I could see them making for some very atmospheric missions. Laser pointers also kick ass. Performance is great for me, and the game looks fantastic. SSAO adds a lot to the visual experience and hasn't had such a large FPS impact as I thought it would. The three maps are great, Zargabad is very impressive, and Desert is like the Desert Island of OA. Perfect for testing and using the Town Generator. The Town Generator Module is f*cking awesome. The new units all look great, but my favorites are still some of the US units. Some of them just look bad ass. The vehicles are also awesome, I love having my Bradley back. Also - SCUD Launchers. :D Incremental zoom and zeroing works exactly how it should, and is great. The new effects are very cool, such as, at times when the player becomes tired, the image starts to get wavy, as if from a heat wave. Very cool effect. The HALO function is much improved. I don't know if I'm just seeing things, but the medics seem a lot more responsive than they were in Arma 2. They've gotten to me a lot quicker than they used to, and are much more reliable. The sound track kicks ass. The conversation system is also much improved, and is much more fluid. The new radar system is great, and the counter measures have saved my ass many times. Again, I don't know if I'm just seeing things, but the AI seem to act a lot better in convoys and use the roads better. The mod management works great, though I do look forward to some improvements with it, namely being possibly able to download the mods without having to go searching for them. However, there are some, but only a few issues which nag at me: A couple of the voices are the same guy in different pitches, and they're that damned British voice actor doing the fake American accent. What happened to the Czech voices? I can understand the Germans not having German voices, but the UN CDF and the Czechs speak with American voices. Why couldn't the Czech voices from Arma 2 be used? Or why weren't more recorded for use in OA? Some of the units are missing blood textures on their bodies, but not their heads, arms or legs. Kinda disappointing again to see this affecting the UN CDF despite the CDF in Arma 2 having blood textures. The AI do still f*ck up occasionally, just like in Arma 2. The fluidity of the voices means that emotion was removed from them, so the calls for medics and stuff do sound a bit too calm given the apparent gravity of the situation. Though the HALO script is improved, it's still quite clunky. Fraps still does not work for me with OA, therefore I can't do any videos with it. FPS still drops down to 0 and stays at it. Those are my main issues, but they hardly detract much from the game, they're just a bit annoying. Overall I absolutely love OA. Did I say that already? :p I don't think anyone will be disappointed with so many improvements made just in a standalone expansion. It's almost enough to make it an entirely new game. I feel very refreshed with these games now, and I can see myself playing it for years. Expect some user-made content coming from me soon! :D

I have played the campaign. It's 9 missions long, and each mission takes a pretty long time to complete. There's one thing that really nags at me and that's the fact that two of the main characters, the infantryman and the tanker, are both clearly voice by a British person putting on a horribly fake American accent. Really kills it some times. However there's a lot more positive about the game so far. I'll post a larger post with my full impressions soon.

Correct, and then you should get 7 other setup0x.bin files.

No. /thread

Still an hour left before Sprocket unlocks OA...

So long as the addon does not require the original Arma 2's content, yes, it will work.

Heh, no doubt. Each time I refresh it seems that a new thread has OA added onto the end of it's title. :p

All the forums and threads are being renamed now too. I can feel the anticipation building inside me. :D

Uh, I believe it's actually T minus 2 hours and 50 minutes. PacX was faster. Never mind, the time remaining should still be 2 hours and 40 minutes.

It's not connection issues, no one can connect to servers until they are unlocked tomorrow. I don't recall ever having connection issues when Arma 2 was first released? The server browser is mostly the same from what we've seen so far, with the main change being that there's now a window which displays what mods the server is running. It was always pretty damn user friendly.

jonney, you're once again asking questions that have been answered many times before. Sprocket has SecuROM DRM based on activations. Steam has the usual Steam DRM.

No British units and no Black Element units currently in OA. That's confirmed. Therefore it's more than likely that they'll be future DLC.

:D Alright then, it'll either be unlocked at 3:01PM or 4:01PM.

CEST I believe means Central European Summer Time, which is GMT +2. That means you take away 9 hours from midnight to get what time it will be in America, which will be 15:00. If it means Central European Standard Time, which is GMT +1, then it will be 16:00.

I'll be doing a "as-I-play-it" first impressions video with me commenting on it tonight when OA unlocks, showing the first launch, looking at any changes to the main menu, playing a few training missions and maybe even playing a bit of the campaign before I inevitably have to call it a night. Hopefully I'll start uploading them to my YouTube channel before I go to sleep. After that I'll be doing a campaign playthrough (until I get bored :p ) and then probably messing around with the new announced features, as well as any possible surprises. :eek:

The mountains are faked, like the distant hills in Chernarus.

When the impressions thread randomly turned into the place to discuss. :p

When I did it, I had to download the Sprocket client which then I selected a mirror from (US, EU or CZ) and it downloaded all the files (setup.exe, and 7 setup0x.bin files). Then it automatically ran the installer afterward. To activate it you have to try launching the game, but Sprocket keys won't work until 00:01 CEST tonight.

It unlocks at 00:01 CEST (Central European Summer Time) tonight. That's GMT +2. That is, unless it's Central European Standard Time, in which case that's GMT +1. I'm not sure, but it's one of them, lol.

It's very possible that total server costs are greater than plastic boxes and paper manuals costs. Retailers, I dunno. I'm just guessing here.

Hell yeah! :D FADE is the ultimate piracy deterrent.