qwertz

Sorry, wrong. What makes you believe that has anything to do with CooP vs PvP? Most ppl on our server are on comms and play as a team - this is just an example, and its all up to the server admins to encourage the players to be on TS.

1) Respawn: There is and has been not a single succesfull PvP multiplayer game out there in the past 10 years that would require players to wait 5-15 minutes for a respawn. There's a really basic reason for that, whether we like it or not. 2) COOP: To each his own - realism in COOP stops for me the second I realize that the AI opponents have less than 1% the brains of an average real soldier (= player). Besides being hyper accurate shooters, there is nothing realistic or at least challenging in how AI behaves in this game (and any other game, this is not criticizing ArmA's AI in particular). Playing against AI is be the biggest realism killer by an order of magnitude, at least for me. Playing against AI is only "realistic" in Zombie games or similar imho.

+1 :cheers: qwertz

And because (nearly) everyone thinks like that, there's only few real PvP servers that are populated, which is a utter shame for this great game. I mean, shooting AI gets very old very fast. Have one guy on the server, and it takes 3 minutes and you have 2. From 2 to 3 is another 3 minutes. (...) After 20 minutes you have enough players to have a good PvP experience, and then it grows to 20+ quickly. One would think that's worth the investment in time. :cheers: qwertz

Awesome tool. Can I use this with other islands as well or is there any reason why that would not work ?

This is not a game (mode) problem but rather a server/community problem. You can't really force people to engage in teamplay on a public server (there a people that genuinely want to play on their own), you can only encourage them to join your Teamspeak (Mumble...) which then will lead to better teamplay. This takes time and effort, hoewever, it pays out - we have now between 50% and 100% of the players on Teamspeak on our pub server on Teamspeak at all times.

The AI is as good or bad as any AI. If you like to play against AI in other games, ArmA2 will certainly not completely disappoint you.

I experience the FPS drop with non-evergreen trees too. This is quite to be expected because they are very detailed objects compared to - lets say - a rock on the ground. However, I would vote to NOT change (i.e. dumb down) the tree details. Trees in ArmA 2 look fantastic and are one of the reason the game does not look like the usual XBox ported game. I am glad that BIS is one of the few companies left that produce for the PC as the main platform, not consoles, using the advanced capabilities and processing power of today's hardware. However, the flip side of this is that assumptions have to be made as there is a wide range of PC configurations out there. Now, many developers go for the lowest common denominator, while a few (including Crytec, and BIS) focus on scalability to max out today's and even tomorrow's processing capabilities. As frustrating as this might be for people that currently do not have high end systems, it makes the game look fresh even in a year or two from now, and grows with the advancement in hardware specs. Plus, it is scalable in the other direction as well - just turn down the details to match your hardware specs and/or use the PROPER mods. Summary: +1 for leaving the trees as detailed and beautiful as they are. :cheers: qwertz

No, it will not help. Instead, it is more likely to slow down your disk performance. qwertz

http://forums.bistudio.com/showthread.php?t=97816

I have seen quite a few posts here recently that are complaining about the lack of (public) PvP gameplay in the ArmA 2 community. Well, we already have a quite a nice group of players on the ArmAcalypse server that play pure PvP with no AI every evening and night (US time), but certainly welcome everyone looking for a good player-versus-player experience to join the server. We exclusively play Advance and Secure (AAS) - for those who don’t know AAS yet, it’s a quite accessible, yet tactical and sophisticated team based PvP style (check this thread for all details) that has its origins in Joint Operations, brought to ArmA by CoolBox-SBS, with credits to Kju, BCA_Cat_Toaster and many others. AAS just recently reached final status with its 1.0 version after more than two years of development and months of private and public testing. The essence of AAS is for two enemy teams to capture and control a number of zones (typically between 4 and 8 or more, depending upon mission), and the mission layouts and rulesets encourage team and objective focussed gameplay as opposed to 'kill point hunting', all without giving up any of the freedom that ArmA provides. Each mission typically plays for 45 minutes, unless one team captures all capture zones before the time runs out. We currently play over 70 missions on five islands (Chernarus, Utes, Panthera, Quesh-Kibrul and Namalsk), and thanks to a quite active group of mission makers around the world, a handful of new missions are being added every month or so. Most of us have jobs and/or family, so typically we don’t start before 8-9pm Eastern Time and play until late night. However, the server is hosted in New York which means quite nice pings to Europe (we even have regulars from Japan and Australia), so you can jump on with your buddies whenever you like. The server has a standard map cycle and allows voting for user admins when no resident admin is online. So, if you are looking for fun PvP gameplay, feel invited to hop onto the server. We also have team communication via Teamspeak 3. If you like AAS but want to play elswhere, there are a number of other servers in Europe and the US that play AAS frequently, and several tournaments (e.g. AGW) and leagues. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- UPDATE: Just wanted to add that while we still play all the Chernorus and Utes based missions, we have added 3 new islands and over 20 new missions to the server roster (Panthera 2, Quesh-Kibrul, Namalsk). In order to play these on ArmAcalypse, you need the following add-ons before you join: -Namalsk 1.0 -Namalsk 1.02 patch -Quesh-Kibrul 2.0 -Panthera2 2.6 -Little Birds 2.2 If you want to save yourself some time and make it simple, we have put all 5 required add-ons into a all-in-one pack (download, unzip, add target line - DONE). You can grab the ArmAcalypse pack here: Download the ArmAcalypse Map Pack ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- A few screenies of the islands we play: Panthera 2 Chernarus Quesh-Kibrul Utes Namalsk I have posted this in this section because ArmAcalypse is not a squad or fan page, but rather a "giving something back to the community" server project, and I believe it might help some people here who feel ArmA 2 does not cater to the PvP crowds. Cheers, qwertz

There are some team-based PvP (i.e. no AI, just human players with and against each other) modes out there that deliver what you describe. Have in mind that the coordination and teamwork in most cases is facilitated by being on team communications (i.e. Teamspeak, Mumble, Ventrillo). We play AAS on our public PvP server (see sig below) which is a team based PvP mode. It's basically what you are looking for - two teams battling for the capture and control of several objectives. More than 50% of the players are usually on Teamspeak and we do play tactical and coordinated. The server is populated every evening (US time). We have more than a handful Australians playing regularly on ArmAcalypse. If you have a good ping to Europe, check the BCA server , they have AAS gaming nights every week. Also, AAS is being played in the currently biggest (I believe) ArmA 2 PvP Tournament, Armed Global Warfare, which starts in a few week into its 3rd campaign and you can still sign up (don't worry, they welcome newcomers). For more info on AAS, you can also check out the AAS home page. Don't give up yet, for someone new to the (multiplayer part of the) game the sheer amount of different game modes might seem confusing, and it will take some time for you to find "your" favorite game mode. But it is absolutely worth it, and I would suggest you try a few. :cheers: qwertz

Sorry to say that, but your post is almost entirely incorrect.

Sattelite = terrible ping.

Seems like he has a corrupted install. AH1Z is a standard chopper that comes with the vanilla game. If the relevant pbo is corrupted, you get that message. Try re-installing, should solve the problem.

Just switch the AI off. Problem solved.

Just guessing - have you seen Namalsk yet ? Meter high grass :eek::

Look BangTail, this gets a little old now, and this discussion leads to nothing. I have done (and still do) a lot of methodical testing, got very clear results and formed my opinion based on that. If you have different results, thats fine. I have no interest in evangelizing you or anyone else and have no reason to hype SSDs. I just wanted to share my experience with the OP who asked a simple question. And no, I am not part of the secret SSD conspiracy to brainwash the masses :smile: . To each his own. :cool: Peace, qwertz

I just checked - both GDT Mod Grass and SAP clutter only seem to work on good ol' Chernarus and Utes. We are currently predominantly playing new worlds such as Panthera2, Namalsk (grass hell - lol) and Quesh-Kibrul....

"Is it worth my hard earned cash?" is a very individual and entirely different question versus "Does it deliver speed ?" ... Well, you can also buy 4 family vans for the price of one Porsche - thats 32 seats versus 2. That will not win you prices on the race track, though. :rolleyes: Lets just agree to disagree on this. :cheers: qwertz

I think the benefit of a SSD or (even better) RAMdrive for ArmA is only questionable once you factor in money. Whether the couple of hundred bucks are worth it for the improvement you'll see on load times and texture streaming is a rather individual decision I guess. The game certainly *works* without it.

To me, the game looks very old w/o the grass, and imho no grass kills the immersion (low res green painted blocky concrete everywhere) - but I dont play against AI so I do not suffer the "AI cheating" problem that people report. But - some people do not seem to care about visuals, so yes it will improve your frame rate a bit and you might want to try it out if you have low FPS (although if you have performance problems I would always advise starting at the source which is insufficient hardware rather than dumbing down the game I paid money for - this is a little bit like buying the blue ray version of a movie just to have it run on 480p). :cheers: qwertz

Thanks for the appreciation I guess we are sitting a little between the standard chairs here - one being the coop crowd, one being the hardcore/killcount/competitive FPS fraction. The AAS game mode is fast, but not as fast as e.g DM. Sometimes you need to wait and not go for the kill so you can assemble a coordinated attack. Its not exclusively focusing on quick reaction, and kill scores are irrelevant. Still, for the coop player it might be too hectic and lacks detailed preparation. For the average FPS player on the other hand it might be too structured and slow/boring, and everything that does not help to do the kill (i.e. grass) is deemed unnecessary. Anyway, happy gaming everyone !

Hey galzohar, besides the"problem" not being very high on my list, I will certainly give it a try - thanks for sharing. Then best solution (if there is one needed) imho would simpy be to allow prone players to "raise their head" to look over the clutter. That would also be most realistic.

If (!) thats true, maybe the community should step down from their high horse and stop bashing other games and feeling so ridiculously "elite" about themselves. It is not a sign of "noobness" to appreciate sophisticated visuals. Ironically, even in that ArmA is not special, you have these discussions in many games - e.g there are still people being religious about playing Counter Strike 1.6 with details on low on a CRT, for the same reasons you are arguing here. Nothing wrong with that, just not my cup of tea. I love competitive game play, and have done so for the past 20 years, but that does not stop me from preferring to compete in a virtual environment that is visually as close as possible to reality. Of course you could argue now that the current grass system in ArmA is not perfectly realistic, everyone understands that. But it is orders of magnitude better than any other game out there, and I for one prefer it for many reasons over playing on green painted concrete which is not realistic either. If that makes me a graphic hoe, I can live with that. I don't think grass is a negative thing, thats why I am not trying to eliminate it, as that would make the game worse in my humble opinion. That's where we have a different opinion, which is fine. I also very much doubt it would improve the game play, it would just dumb it down. It would severely limit the ability to sneak up to a player or hide inside a cap zone. Mind you, we are talking about a style of PvP gameplay here that does not focus on 200m+ sniper skeet shooting. And allowing some players to switch it off individually would now introduce the unfairness that you initially were concerned about. Fun in game play very much comes from the feeling of achievement, which comes from creatively approaching and mastering the challenges a game creates. As long as I am aware of the challenges, it is fair. If I know that grass doesn't give me full concealment at distance, then I don't use it to give me full concealment at distance. Switching it off would just reduce the complexity of challenges I have to deal with (and looks shit :p). As Defunkt alrady pointed out, giving people the ability to be virtually invisible at distance (as you seem to expect from a "proper" grass system) would NOT improve many PvP game styles. But switching off the ability to find some limited concealment in CQC altogether would not help either. Because it improves gameplay enjoyability in our view, as said before. ArmA is many games, not one, and you can pick and choose what you like. I don't think that the slow pace coop-style gameplay has a minority problem in this community. You don't have to "always stand". You can kneel down, lean, and of course go prone. The latter is very helpful in many situations. Just don't expect that just because you are blocking your own view when choosing to lay down flat in thick grass, no one else can see you. As long as you have that in mind, there is no problem with going prone. No one disagrees with you that the grass is not perfect. But for me and many others it is better than no grass. And it is not unfair because everyone has to deal with it. But it does disencourage a specific kind of game play behavior that is usually not helpful for PvP. Celery, galhozar - I honestly appreciate your views and feedback, but I think we are at a point where there is no right or wrong, just different valid views that are catering different gaming styles or priorities. The great thing about ArmA is that it gives us the flexibility to choose. The reason I created this thread is to send a positive signal after all the discussions about PvP being dead. PvP is certainly a minority in ArmA, but far from being dead. ArmAcalypse is a server that specifically addresses to a niche in ArmA game play that some people (including myself) prefer over the predominant other (mostly coop-based) styles. Not everybody will like it, and that's ok. :cheers: qwertz