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!

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.

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?

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. ;)

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.

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.

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

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. :]

OK, so here are a couple of elaborate thoughts of mine about this: For starters, I think BIS is lead by a couple of people that really care about the game itself. They're not a big company that decided one day "OK, it's time to make another shooter and squeeze as much money out of as many people as possible". I have a sense there are people that are really passionate about this and are putting a lot of creativity and soul into this. On the other hand, BIS is clearly not a fully capable game company. As pointed out in earlier posts, their promotional effort seems very halfhearted. And their support seems really deficient. They totally ignore these forums, including some really important threads (like about the mouse lag and surely this one.) And we don't see technical problems being solved. I think the only big issue they took seriously was stupid AI behavior in certain scenarios. Honestly, it almost feels like they've released the game along with a handful of promo videos, felt that their job is done and went out for summer holidays, leaving just a few people to put out fires. So maybe in the end, it's a management issue? My suggestions for BIS: (as if anyone from the company were to actually read this thread) * Show to your users that you give a damn about them. If there are really painful and persistent issues (like the mouse lag problem), at least get someone from the programming team to post on the forums some explanation and an estimated time frame for fixing it. Yes - a programmer - to acknowledge that this is a technical problem and that you actually know what you're talking about, and not some kind of "We take all inputs very seriously, we'll look into it when we have time, blah blah blah". * Fix most obvious technical issues. If you knowingly decided to release and sell a somewhat faulty product, a beta version to be frank, you should have a big programming team that will jump on problems immediately as user complaints start flowing in. I know you can't solve every minute detail, but the game is on the market for two months already (!!!) and some of the most basic problems persist. It's as if you really wanted your product to fail. * If you don't have a huge marketing department, get some of your most avid fans to promote it for you - and reward the best! Richiespeed13 is a great example here. I already knew this game would be interesting, but it's his videos (especially those of 1000 AIs ;)) that really made me think: Wow, this is like real war! I want to be in this! Then, as I watched some other videos, some really interesting ideas started popping up in my head. But then, I tried the game and it turned out it runs like crap on my laptop, because of the mouse lag problem. So no videos, no promotion, I'm not even buying this game. To me it's so obvious: you take richiespeed13, me and two other guys from the web, we team up, come up with some really interesting vid scenarios, shoot the thing, edit it in After Effects or whatever, put on YouTube in HD and throw links on a gazillion of gaming forums. And that's just for starters. - How about building a small training community, where you have like 10 experienced Arma2 players that patiently walk through newcomers and teach them all the needed skills. (Maybe noone will want to do this for a longer time for free, but then, I could really use a new rig. ;)) And even organize small, temporary training clans, where people learn to cooperate, go through simple missions under a watchful eye of one advanced player. This way everyone would be pulled into the game and given attention, as opposed to a lone noob going on-line and immediately getting his ass kicked or just getting lost on the big battlefield. - How about doing a weekly Arma2 web video show, where coolest Arma2 user videos would be shown (authors sent T-shirts and stuff), coolest Arma2 mods, coolest missions and perhaps even some discussion of real conflicts and real war footage for inspiration and reference. - Many game/pc magazines have DVDs attached to them and they really have problems filling them with something interesting. So why not ask (pay?) them to put on such a disk a really cool video for kids to watch? The video should be relatively long (10mins of action) and high-quality (big, but it's on a disk) and present all the best aspects of Arma2. That is quality graphics, realism, but also things that lacked in Arma2 promo vids, like massive scale, especially in terms of player count. Show a piece of a big battle, where real players scream to each other in emotion while fighting the enemy. - How about multiplayer (pvp) campaigns that actually have consistent scenarios, plot continuity, and an objective umpire to direct an unfolding conflict? (Much like a game master in pen-and-paper RPG games.) And no, don't wait for the community to do it by themselves. If you organize it well and put a good umpire in place, this could yield something really interesting. And when the campaign ends, you release a video with the best and/or most crucial moments in the whole story for players to be proud of and have a nice souvenir. :) Jeeez, there are so many really interesting things you could do with this game. But no, you don't care about what people think, you won't take unnecessary risks, you just want to spend this summer peacefully, sipping your fine Czech beer and fantasizing about your next title...

Small UAVs are. I checked the facts just to be sure and it turns out Predators can be controlled locally. It's the really big ones (Global Hawks, Reapers) that are operated form US mainland. And in case of Reapers, indeed both Brits and Yanks control them from Creech AFB, Nevada. Still, I would bet most of the time Predators would be controlled from there too.

Guys, would you post some videos of humans on humans missions? Because fighting those AIs is not that big of a challenge. I know it's cool to go in coop, but there's nothing better than PvP.

You're asking in real life? Both Americans and British use also many smaller UAVs. But yes, the Brits also use Predators. BTW, they actually control them from the same base in the US as the Yanks do. (Yeah, there's just one base on Earth that is used to control those large UAVs, and it's located on US mainland. Commands and video feeds are relayed thru a sat link.)

The rig mentioned in the first post is totally sufficient for a smooth gameplay, any suggestion of OC'ing is misplaced. Add to that the fact that the game runs bad even on lowest settings and it's clear something is really wrong. The only question is: is there something weird going on with the machine? You can easily tell that by firing up another demanding game (like Crysis) and seeing how it will run on med-high settings. If the machine is all OK (and it probably is), it means it's Arma2 that is screwed up. Which wouldn't be surprisng, if you've followed the threads about mouse lag. Even the best rigs can have problems because the game is simply buggy and BIS simply refuses to even recognize the problem, not to mention fixing it. (The input lag problem has now accumulated 39 forum pages of user frustration and still there's not a word coming from BIS, which clearly shows you they don't give s#!t about us.)

mikael23, your machine is mostly okay, but the Nvidia GeForce 8600M GS is a very crappy card. It is by no means sufficient to run modern games in highest quality - and hardly sufficient to run Arma2 at all.

It doesn't matter how many votes the tracker has. Especially when it has such a crappy interface that I can't figure out (within reasonable time, ie. 10s) how do I vote. What matters is how many pages this issue has generated on this forums. And that number is 36 pages. If BIS ignores that - as it does - they do not deserve our money and we should wait for OFP2. In the mean time we ought to make sure that no-one buys this buggy game before testing the demo on one's computer.

Hardly anone here is aware of something like "community tracker". Also - this issue has been reported by so many people that there's really no excuse for BIS for not noticing it and not responding to the community. I would also like to remind everyone that this thread is merely a continuation of a bigger thread that has gathered 29 pages!!! http://forums.bistudio.com/showthread.php?t=74085&page=29 Now add to this the fact that some schmuck degraded this issue in the tracker from urgent to normal. I think BIS really doesn't give a damn.

OK, this is idiotic if even really fast PCs get the lag. And BIS keeps quiet. I say we invade the Czech Republic.

so we don't care about BIS - don't buy the game spread the word - don't buy Arma2