Jump to content
Bohemia Interactive Forums

almanzo

Member
 View Profile  See their activity

  • Content Count

    548

  • Joined

  • Last visited

  • Medals

  • Medals

Posts posted by almanzo

  3. Posted

    For the life of me I'm unable to figure out whats wrong. But for some stupid reason, I am unable to delete map markers in game or units placed in the 3d editor btw. The delete key doesn't register at all.
     

     

    I have a suspicion that it might have something to do with the fact that I have a norwegian keyboard, but I don't know. Any help would be appriciated.

     

  4. Posted

    I like it. But it wasn't something we were desperate for in the vanilla game.

    I completely disagree, back when OFP was released, the ingame editor was by far the most important feature of the entire game and that comes from someone who didn't care about mods or user generated content at all back then, and who played the hell out of the campaign. Mods and mission making was just a fun curiousity for me back then. However, the editor is what gave the game continuity, it was the main feature allowing a huge community to grow being a source for new and improved content.

    At the time, the editor was innovative and very powerful. It allowed players to create new content for the game in a way few other games had provided before. It gave the rise to the coop scene, and I am pretty sure it at least contributed to creating the modding scene. Without the editor, the game would have died quickly. It has remained a very important tool for renewing the series, and among modding, it has kept the community alive. However, while the game has evolved massively since the time of OFP, the editor has remained pretty much the same. The 2d editor has been pretty outdated for quite a while, the demand for a 3D editor has been around since at least the launch of ARMA II. 3den as an editor has made the lives of veteran mission makers alot easier, and it has made it a lot easier for new mission makers and designers to begin making missions. Besides the 3D functionality, being able to edit text files from within the editor itself has made it so much easier to do mission making, it's pretty damned revolutionary.

    3den is allmost as innovative as the original 2d editor was back in the day, and I think it is a crucial tool for the continuation of the series. While I agree that there is a lot to be desired on the AI front, no matter how good the AI is, if there isn't a continous stream of new scenarios and missions to play. No matter how clever the AI is, the same missions stops being fun after a while.

     

  6. Posted

    Was there changes made to mid and longrange textures in this update? 

    To be honest, I was a bit unsure myself. But I've played the game loads before the update, and I havent noticed this before now. I mean, Altis looks amazing from above now, it really doess. The fact that I haven't noticed before kind of tells me that it must have been this update.

  7. Posted

    "Mainly get bad feedback for my work. That's interesting. To be honest I never tested the vanilla sounds for my self and never wanted to compare my work to it. And I never will ... Ever."

    LJ

    I think there is two things you are missing here LJ: First of all, even though there is some negative feedback here, I'm pretty sure it's meant well. Everybody appriciates what you are doing with JSRS, so don't let it get to you. It's up to you to decide if you agree with the criticism you recieve or not, and if you'd want to follow through with it. While some people might feel entitled to your work, the majority doesn't, and they realize that this is something you do as a hobby.

    That being said; I think you can take a huge deal of credits for the 3den update and the quality of it yourself. If I where you, I'd see it as an achievement beyond everything else. When JSRS was released for ARMA II, it blew all of us out of the water, and it showed us how games can sound if passion is put into it. The first release of JSRS blew my mind, I had never experienced a sound scape as good before, and to this day, very few games comes even close to providing a sound scape as rich as that.

    And there is no question in my mind that the sound engine changes are a direct result of yours and other sound modders work throughout the years. You've been pioneering alot of features that others have picked up on and made their own interpretations of. Now BIS feels forced up into a corner, after being outclassed for years by you and other sound modders.

    So yeah, thank you for your tremendous effort. I haven't gotten around to test the last version yet, but I hope you won't be demotivated by a few negative comments. Especially considering how quickly you where able to release the new version.

     

    • Like 7

  8. Posted

    I would like to take this opportunity, for someone who have complained alot in the past, to congratulate BIS on a job well done with the latest patch.
     

     

    Midrange and longrange textures on Altis looks much better, the new sound engine is miles ahead of the old one and I also would like to say that I'm liking 3den alot so far!

     

    • Like 9

  10. Posted

    Having a 5-pack or even 10-pack option for Apex at a discounted price may be a good idea.

    That's not a bad idea for communities with people on the fence. I've bought all of the DLC up until now, but since not everyone has them I never get to play with them ever. Apex does seem a bit more likely for my community to adopt, but something like this could make it more feasable.

     

  11. Posted

     

    • Tweaked: Adjusted the magnitude of weapon sway levels; increased stability in rested and deployed states to provide more benefit for active reduction of weapon sway and reward tactical gameplay

    I don't like that. Why would BI "reward/punish" how we play the game? Is it an effort in balancing the game for us on official servers? A reward for tactical gameplay should be the positive result of a planned and good executed maneuver, regardless of weapon sway. The weapon sway should give us an authentic RL feeling immersing us into the game, not used as some kind of mean to control/balance us. Wtf....

     

    Reward in this context means that due to the nature of the game, it will be more effective to lie down or take a knee before fireing, just like a game like Battlefield rewards aim and reaction time more than ARMA does. It's not reward as a prize or as an intended pat on the back of tactical players, it's just that by trying to make the game mimic real life restraints on weapon handling, it enforces ARMAs preference for a tactical approach over a run'n'gun. That being said, wether or not the current sway misses the mark or not in that regard is a different question... But as a game, it really does make sense that BIS tries to tailor ARMA to reward tactical gameplay. It's an indirect result of the focus on realism.

    • Like 1

  13. Posted

    Isn't morale already being computed? 

    So just have it so that the lower the morale, the more likely they are to flee in the face of great numbers within a given distance from them. 

    As for whether two guys with a heavy MG should engage or not, you could set the numbers different for different squad types. An MG squad won't retreat unless it's overwhelmed by "x" number. 

     

    I'm way oversimplifying it but I don't see where it'd have to be much more resource intensive. 

    From my understanding of the new suppression mechanics, this is indeed the case. I can see that it's difficult to keep the AI from engaging in disadvantegous situations, but to have them flee should be much easier to do. It's a simple "if the force of enemies present is greater than 1,5 times, then flee" or something like that.

  14. Posted

    Hi all!

    The topic title says it all, and I am going at this from personal experience and thus is kind of unaware of how ARMA threats this on a technical level. However, I think that in regards of the AI, this is the most crucial point to improve on. The AI can do incredible things, and have super human capabilities in some circumstances... but when it comes to making out wether or not it is wize to engage, retreat or surrender they are usually terrible.

    Two lone infantry in the middle of a field spot an entire enemy squad popping up behind a building that hasn't noticed them yet? Open fire! This kind of sums it up for me. I get that it's difficult to have them make huge tactical assessments about how to best apply their forces. They don't talk that much (if at all?) across groups (unless mods) and so forth. This makes them predictable and booring, to be honest. Now, I haven't had much experience with the new coverfire system yet, haven't played the game much lately and thus I am not sure if it's been included or not. And while it is a step in the right direction, the system could be used both on a lead level and a individual level to determln wether or not to retreat entirely or not. Maybe even flee.


    It would also be real nice if the AI could hold fire and wait for a better opportunity, manouver or in general try to stay out of sight while working towards an advantageous situation before engaging, but I guess that's wishful thinking.

    • Like 1

  15. Posted

    @almanzo And of course understanding of your target market's claimed thought processes is highly valuable as a publisher, though I emphasize claimed since one could wonder how much said players are just saying in public whatever they think the cool kids are supposed to say... still, I'd be extremely interested if you were ever to translate your thesis and make it publicly available. :)

    Well, my thesis covered more than the perspectives of players and end users, I covered quite a wide variety of topics and interviewed both "casual" and "hard core" players, mod authors and an employee at BI. It's 80 pages long, so I doubt I'll ever translate it, however... If I get accepted into a doctorate program some time in the future, I would like to pick up where I left of and improve on the parts that I've found to be lacking. It would be foolish to write a project like that in Norwegian, as it limits the audience significantly. People who are interested in reading academic texts on the topic of video games is fairly limited in a population of 6 million people :P

    That being said, the main focus was discussing potential ethical concerns regarding modding, how modders themselves described their motivations for actually spending so much time making mods, how important mods and user generated content was for both "groups" of players. I ended up ditching the casual/hard core dicotome in favor of organized vs. casual (using a term more resembling laid back in norwegian, but yeah), since the term "casual" heavily implies a less dedicated and time consuming relationship with games. At least with my informants, it was often the other way around. The structured and organized play that the clan members play during sessions is a lot less "available" and thus requires more preperation than casual play, but casual players was just as into the game and often spent more time than the organized players.

    One of my key arguments though, is that modders represents a very valuable role in the gaming industry because they are a source of new ideas and concepts. Where game companies are limited in what they can do due to the huge potential downfall of a fail, modders can experiment a lot more with new concepts and ideas. In short, modders are a source of innovators in the industry due to the fact that they can afford to take bigger risks. After that, it's a numbers game, but how game companies approach modders could have a huge impact on their success. In addition, I spend a huge portion discussing the ethical implications using mainly Lessig (Remix culture, positive towards user generated content) vs. Terranova who coined the term "Netslaves". Terranova predicted our current internet economy, where the end user is providing the "product" back in 2000. It's quite remarkable to read today, even though I don't share his point of view.

    http://web.mit.edu/schock/www/docs/18.2terranova.pdf

    But I'm not going to hijack this thread to elaborate on my findings. You are welcome to drop me a PM though.

     

    • Like 1

  16. Posted

    I wrote my master thesis in sociology on user generated content in ARMA, focusing on the influence of DayZ, so this was a really interesting thing to see for me. Quite a lot of the older research on modding has actually been conducted on OFP and ARMA modders previously, and this community does provide valuable insights into the role of modding in computer games in general, and it's financial role and so forth.

    Personally, I am not much of a fan of the magic circle though, but I won't go into a theoretical debate as of now. I'm going to take my time reading this, as I really do want to pursue a career in video game studies and would like to write my doctorate on the same subject as my master thesis. What I can say about the usefulness of such studies: culture in itself is a central part in human lives, and as such knowlege about cultural trends, cultural products and most importantly, how culture is made is of course useful. I relied heavily on a certain Lawrence Lessig and his book "Remix" in my thesis, where issues concerning copyright is at the heart of the analysis. In addition, DayZ is a very good example of what modding represents financially. Modders are able to take much bigger risks and innovate more than huge companies are able too. Knowlege like this is potentially very useful for game companies, for instance.

    Modders can afford to serve the interests of clicks and small groups in a way that bigger game companies aren't capable of. Sometimes, allowing modding might result in a huge pay off for companies, and DayZ is a decent example of this phenomenon, but games like Counter-Strike, Dota and Garry's mod is other examples of how modding has created alot of revenue for developers and publishers. There are ethical questions related to this as well, something this forum is a prime example of. 

    I wrote my thesis in norwegian though, so it's not really a point of sharing it here.

     

  17. Posted

    Hi!

    My "name" is aLmAnZo, I am 29 years old and I've played ARMA in communities since ARMA II came out in 2009. I have played in several communities since then, but due to a recent change towards more casual gameplay in my current community, I have decided to look elsewhere for my weekly fix.

     

    I'm looking for a EU-based group who preferably play on sundays. I also would like to play with a group that conducts trainings, follow standard operating procedures and who restricts gameplay to first person. Using a radio mod like Taskforce or ACRE is also a must, but other than that I'm quite open.

    I am first and foremost looking for a coop oriented group, but I wouldn't mind adverserials from time to time.

     

    Since I've played ARMA for so long, in communities that mostly stick to a framework that closely resembles the shacktac guide, I think of myself as somewhat competent as a rifleman and as a marksman, but I have avoided leading anything bigger than a fire team, since leading never have been my strong suit. I do know the basic tactics of fireteam manouvers pretty well though, so I think I can catch up to any adjustments your community has made to suit your style. In addition, I have experience with mechanized and tanks, in addition to flying helicopters both as a transport and CAS pilot.
     

     

    Edit: I am now a member of Charlie Foxtrot Operations. No need for further offers

     

  18. Posted

    I appologize if this does not apply to you at all... but just to make sure, do you periodically clean your computer physically to remove dust / replace old thermal paste? Verify CPU/GPU clock speeds / boost is functioning, ensure windows didn't revert any performance options you may have set?

     

    After a while I found that ArmA 3 was starting to run worse and worse. It turns out something about my GPU got bugged over many driver updates, and was stuck at 600 Mhz instead of boosting to 1250 Mhz. At another point, for some reason my 4.5 Ghz overclock was no longer taking affect. I had to reset my CMOS. In my case it wasn't ArmA, I just wasn't monitoring my system as close as I should have been. 

     

    I hope some of this is the case for you, because that means you can fix it! If not... then darn.

    No worries!

    I do struggle a bit with keeping the OC, it does indeed seem to drop slightly, from 3,8 to around 3,7. The weird thing is, Windows lists it as running at 3,7 while CPU-ID lists it running at 3,8. The graphics card works as it should though, and I doubt it's the cause, since graphics settings allmost do nothing for me. Variation is less than 5 frames between low and high settings.

     

    Besides, I haven't noticed any performance drop on my computer in any other area, nor other games. I'm playing MGS V at the moment, and despite having a somewhat old computer, am able to run it on high with allmost 60 fps! You can say alot about MGS V, but man is it well optimized!

     

    What hell alre you talking about? Year ago i wasnt even able to play online due to lag and Low FPS now i have nice stable 30 FPS with occasional drop to about 25 and if i lover my settings i can even get around 50FPS in multiplayer. But i rather keep my settings higher because FPS is not that important for me as the wiev distance and bject quality is.

     

    I think most of the improvements that has arrived has been focused on MP, while SP actually has decreased, meaning that the gap between them has decreased significantly. So there are improvements, as far as I can see, but most of them are on the MP side. I have had a decline over the last year or two of at least 10 FPS, but then again, I used to play with a very small group up until recently that had a very well maintained modlist, low player count and optimized mission files, so I've never really had that terrible performance in MP uptil now... Lately though, there has been a noticable decrease, while I am pretty sure my results are about the same when playing TacBF (the only public MP I ever play).

     

  19. Posted

    What kind of monster do you think will be able to run ARMA with a high enough frame rate to make it feasable to use a Oculus? Have you had it working before? It sounds allmost impossible, given the frames people get from ARMA.

  20. Posted

    When you account for CPU clock speeds, my results seem to compare as expected against the I7 2500k results forteh posted (if he was running at 3850Mhz, he would get ~33 FPS compared to my 31 FPS,  and 2500k is approx 10% faster than 920/950 clock for clock)

     

    Some of it could be memory (my ram is triple channel 7-9-7-24-88-1T @ 875Mhz (1750MHz DDR), but otherwise I'd say something is wrong at your end sorry :(

    Maybe time for an SSD and fresh windows install?

    Thanks for your reply. I doubt it's due to my windows install, I recently reinstalled windows 7 and I have it on SSD. I'm running a very bare bones setup in terms of software installed right now, might be about 2 months since last reinstall? I did move ARMA to my SSD though, but it didn't help in terms of frames (as it shouldn't).

    But since you are replying in the first place, I could swear that I have lost about 10 frames over maybe the last year or so in ARMA. Has there been a performance drop over time on your part? Back in alpha, I had allmost better performance in ARMA III compared to ARMA II (albeit it was on Stratis of course).

     

  21. Posted

    FWIW, with YAAB on high graphics preset at 1920x1080 I get 31.5 FPS with my mildly OC I7 950 and GeForce GTX 970

     

    Full specs:

    • Windows 7 64bit Professional
    • Intel I7-950 (overclocked @ 3.85GHz)
    • Asus P6X58D Premium
    • 3x2048MB Mushkin Ridgeback 998826 (PC3-12800 6-8-6-24)
    • MSI Nvidia GeForce GTX970 4096Mb
    • Creative X-Fi XtremeGamer Fatality (PCI)
    • Samsung 500GB 850 EVO SSD 

     

    When comparing benchmarks for various CPUs, it may be worth using the lowest graphics settings available (including resolution), to reduce influence of the GPU and ensure it isn't a bottleneck.

    That is positively really weird, I have a very close CPU to you, the I7 920 oc'ed at 3,8ghz pulling around 24 frames. I do have a worse graphics card, however, I get allmost the same result with everything (except shadows) on low.

  23. Posted

    Using YAAB I get 20.2 on very high settings, 20.6 on high settings and a measly 24 on standard settings with very little variation.

     

    I swear that performance has dropped significantly since Beta for me, with small increments at the time. Seeing that my graphic settings has such a small impact, it suggests to me that it must be my CPU.

    My setup is an old I7 920 oc @ 3,8 ghz w/o hyper threading, 24 gb ram and a non-SSD and a Radeon 7970. I'm able to play most games decently, and at least much better than this. I recon I've lost at least 10 fps if not more since alpha. 

     

    Edit: Just wanted to mention that I recently tried playing the campaign over again, and had incredibly low fps all around, even dipping below 10 in certain scenes. I only played the first mission, and it's not particularly heavy compared to later missions where I struggled before as well.

    I also tried playing through "Deliverance", and had times where the game would just simply freeze for a significant amount of time.
     

     

    Tried the new Battlefront beta today, max settings with very strong performance in game (never mind that it completely froze my computer after every match though, maxing out CPU usage). I just can't believe how terrible ARMA has become, and this from someone who have defended BIS on performance for ages.

    Yes, ARMA does allow for further view distances and has more complex stuff to work on than arcade shooters... But this is terribly poor. They should be so glad they don't have a real competitor, because everyone would abandon ARMA in a split second if there was a real alternative...


     

×