axure

(Apologies if it's been said already. Can't read all 180 pages of the two "wishes and ideas" threads.) As I see it, these are some really basic things that were missing in Arma2, so I hope to see them in Arma3: 1) Hiding in grass: This is a widely recognized problem with Arma2 and there is a very easy solution that doesn't require rendering every grass leaf at a distance: Changing a character's texture to that of the grass. Suddenly, it will become pretty hard to spot him, which is precisely the point. 2) Moving within vehicles. If I'm in a Blackhawk, I should be able to move around and shoot from openings with my rifle. If I'm on a boat (or an inflatable), I should be able to lay down or kneel and shoot, and not be constrained to preassigned seats. 3) Seeing from vehicles: It's inexplicable to me that you can't see anything through the side windows of an MTVR. And that it wasn't fixed in subsequent releases (like OA). Also, I don't think real-life tank drivers are limited to just a tiny window in front of them. Aren't there periscopes or other devices, that would allow them to look around? I think there are. Please note, features 1 and 2 aren't really anything new in the genre. I would strongly suggest to BIS game designers to check out the ancient title "Joint Operations: Typhoon Rising". And I mean that with all seriousness, that was a really great multiplayer FPS. You could learn a thing or two. Good luck!

That team-kill news sounds really bad. (And it shows the wisdom of not doing Free for Combined Ops servers - at least initially.) But that just means BI must add more sophisticated policing features to servers ASAP to help admins deal with this mess. Like auto-ban after 2 or 3 TKs. Or allow for banning based not only on nick names or serial keys, but on IP addresses. Or disable friendly fire in the main base (in AAS mode) or in close proximity of factories/HQ in Warfare. Or allow admins to nominate certain trusted players as "moderators" with rights of kicking and banning. These are just some of the obvious ideas. EDIT: By the way, this TK debacle just underscores my larger point from the original post: the meaning of community. I wish I could point people interested in Arma to some place, like an "open clan", where they could get some introductory help, a safe environment and a way to organize into larger groups of strangers to play together. (As opposed to a regular clan, which is a closed community and where n00bs are frowned upon.) I think this is the way to go for more sophisticated (and demanding) multi-player games. (And thoughts on this topic haunt me for some months now, so maybe I should eventually write a blog post or sth with some more unsolicited smart-ass advice for game developers. ;))

Agreed, but it's not trivial either. It's not like you install TOR and you're ready to go. You'd need to set up a VPN or sth. And if someone really wants to cheat, they'll just buy a second copy of CO and there's no stopping them, no matter what you do.

Dwarden, thank you for your reply. However, I think the solution to the problem of the cheater going both sides is pretty simple, as I've presented. Allow one IP to join just one side. BTW, does anything prevent such cheats on A2:F right now? Finally, if someone is really desperate to cheat, they'll buy two copies of CO and ruin the game anyway. So, all in all, I don't see how letting A2:F onto CO servers makes much negative impact. And the positives are significant, in my opinion.

Dear BI, allow me to present some unsolicited advice from an avid fan. As you realize (I hope), while Arma2 is a great game, it's not the most popular one, for various reasons. At this stage of its life, it gains new users mainly through word of mouth spread on blogs, forums and between friends. Thus, your effort to gain some publicity and lower the barrier to entry by releasing Arma2:Free is truly laudable. But, in my opinion, you've made one significant miscalculation. You see, when I heard about Arma2:Free (and I own Arma2 & OA), I was very excited. I thought - awesome, I'll tell people on the military geeks forum that I frequent and convince a couple to join. I'll teach them how to play Arma2 (which might be a little intimidating to newcomers), we'll make a great team and have tons of fun. And I'll be able to convince a personal friend of mine, who is still on the fence. But then I thought - I better check A2:Free, before I get overexcited. So I installed it, went to MP and... lo and behold, I can't see any of the servers that I usually play. Actually, I see literally one highly populated server (dao-xr free pvp). I scratch my head and realize - right, this is Arma2 clean, while I'm used to Arma2+OA. But wait, how are all these newcomers going to join me in my cheerful adventures on those Warfare servers, if all that's really available is one AAS server? (Coop doesn't count, AI alone is not a worthy opponent.) So here is your problem: 90% of the Arma2 community has moved to OA/CO long time ago. So in effect you're creating two separate communities: the "old" community, who will stay in the Combined Ops world, and the new, smaller community of newbies trying their luck in Arma2:Free. I hope you can see the problem now? Arma2:Free would be much more powerful, if it allowed the old guard to bring the new blood to the game. And for two reasons: 1) Existing players are still a significant factor in spreading the word of mouth on line and among friends. Now that I see A2:Free is crippled in MP too, I'm not going to rush to tell everyone. 2) Existing players are essential to making sure that you actually keep newcomers in Arma2, because the experienced can teach and befriend them. Otherwise, in 70% of the cases, an A2:F newbie will come, try to play for two evenings, feel intimidated or unattached and leave for good. So my advice: Expand Arma2:Free to allow for participation in the Combined Operations community. Let everyone play on those servers. That's where 90% of the fun is taking place. Regards, Axure PS. An additional technical remark: A2:Free creates an additional risk of people using multiple Arma copies on multiple computers - and especially having one leg in Blue and one in Red, in order to learn about base & HQ location. Of course, at the same time you don't want to just ban multiple connections from same IP, because you'll be hurting gamers who live together or LAN party participants. So my suggestion: allow admins (and by default) to prevent connections from one IP to join both Red and Blue. PPS. If someone from BI reads this, please make sure it bubbles up the command chain. ;)

I've got the "real" (paid) Arma2 and OA. It's really great in multiplayer. However, for the purpose of testing I've installed Arma2 Free. To my great surprise in MP I can't see any of the popular servers I'm usually seeing in Arma2/OA. I'm referring to all those great DAO.NU, Arma2.ru and other servers where there's always dozens of players in the afternoon and you can have great fun. In Arma2 Free there's literally one highly populated server and I can't see the others from the paid version at all. Is it beacuse Arma2 Free by design doesn't support those servers? If so, what's the point of giving people a "free" Arma2, if even the multiplayer is crippled and you can only play with other owners of Free - and not with the existing community?

I thought this would be very interesting to control an aircraft in Arma2 with a 3dconnexion input device. This was already touched upon in the past, but nothing came out of that thread. So I connected my SpaceTraveller and Arma2 actually recognized the device! However, when I entered the game, it started behaving weirdly. Basically, the game reacts as if certain permanent input was provided (in this case "forward" and "left"), which leads to uncontrolled motion immediatelly after starting a vehicle. It also seems to react to real input, although rather unpredictably and possibly only in one or two axes. I checked that it isn't a hardware problem and it isn't - it works OK in Google Earth. So how do I "reset" the input signal or fine tune the sensitivity of this input device in Arma2? The six sliders in Arma's Controller configuration don't seem to be helping at all. Assuming there's no way to make it work out of the box, how would I go about writing some kind of bridge between a 3dconnexion driver and Arma2 input mechanism? 3dconnexion provides SDKs for their devices, so I don't think there should be a problem from that side.

Yeah, I just noticed, thanks. Why doesn't it? It's silly.

I've just installed Arma 2 and patched it to 1.07. When I go to multiplayer, servers are displayed properly, mission files do download when required, and MP game lobby also works. However, when the actual game is just about to begin, I'm thrown back to the server list. I'm not seeing any error messages. I've set my router to keep my LAN address in DMZ and I've tried turning off the firewall and anti-virus.

Scrub, I'm not sure I even understand what you're trying to say. Arma2 is loaded with bugs, and some very basic ones - even three months after the release. Some of them (like the "mouse lag") actually prevent people from playing at all, even if their rigs fit in the minimal requirements (my case). But, as I said, this is no place for this discussion, there's plenty of other threads. BeerHunter, I admit I would probably be a crappy squad member - simply because I have little experience in combat cooperation (never been a clan member or anything). And besides, I don't spend much time playing computer games. That said, when I do play as a member of a larger team on-line (like in Crysis), I always join the loosing side, because I like to make a contribution and shift the balance. Joining with the winners is good for losers, because in the end someone else wins for you. So much for win-at-all-cost.

I agree with Fabrizio's assessment almost 100%. However, I will argue that in the end the only sensible form of play is players versus players. You can fight AI when you learn the game. You can fight AI to have some fun from the built-in scenarios (campaign). But in the end no AI compares to a real human opponent. That's true for virtually all games: you play against your computer (or in coop) to the point where you think you're a master of the universe, then you go on-line and you get your ass kicked so badly that you realize you've got to learn everything from the beginning. So my advice: ditch the AI, start fighting some real opponents. (That, of course, doesn't make up for all the most basic shortcomings that the game still has even three months after release. But there's another thread on the forums that discusses Bohemia's laziness and lack of respect for its customers.)

Since Macs are x86 nowadays and you can easily install Windows, the only question is graphics card. The 13'' MacBook Pro has a GF 9400M, which will almost certainly turn out to be too weak for Arma2 (although it runs some less demanding games, like UT3, just fine.) If you've got a bigger Mac with, say, a GF 9600GT, you should be able to run Arma2 in lo-med details. Yeah, sometimes our moderators fail the common sense test...

More videos! richiespeed13, preferably massive multiplayer pvp. :D

richiespeed13, no wonder, I check in every day just to see whether you've got a new vid. :D Which, I admit, is stupid. Which is why I'm subscribing your YouTube channel with RSS to save myself frequent visits. ;)

But small game companies should be the first in this realm! Precisely because they don't have the budgets for big promotion, this is ideally suited for them, like guerrilla warfare. A small, agile company that has a great product should totally conquer the social-networking / community world and show the way to other companies.But "great product" is precisely the problem. In the end, we shouldn't even be having this discussion. We all feel like this could be an awesome game, it certainly has all the programming and creative brainpower behind it. But it has been done sloppily. And even worse - it's still in this condition two months after premiere. We all want to love it, but w just can't. However, in case BIS comes to terms with its problems and wishes someone to help them build up their community efforts, I would like to recommend my humble self. :]