dpolwarth

Hi guys, I have the same problem under WinXP. I have since installed the game on Vista64 and found that the problem does not occur with the latest drivers on that operating system. I use a dual-boot system, so this does seem to narrow it down to the WinXP drivers. Incidentally, the game runs very nicely under Vista64 with no really noticable difference to WinXP. That's not much help if you currently have WinXP I know, but it might persuade you to upgrade to Windows7 when it comes out (its based on Vista).

Game frozen several times now. Tried to include the bug report files with this report but it will not let me post files. ---------- Post added at 02:12 PM ---------- Previous post was at 02:11 PM ---------- You can't find the files because you need to switch on hidden files and folders in the view menu first.

This is a dumb question, but why are people given roles in the multiplayer game? I entered the game once assigned a pilot's role, but I can't fly. I rearmed at the gear station, but ever since then I've wondered why people are given these roles. Is it to speed up getting into the game? Are we supposed to stick to our roles? I've rarely been able to alter my assigned role as I like to play on heavily populated servers. If someone would give me a basic explanation on the significance of roles I would appreciate it. Thanks, Dan

I don't know. I wasn't aware you got instantly banned on that server for just one teamkill. Are you sure it wasn't something more?

To be fair, I should declare I am something of a troll on this site. But I can't really have people say that the Multiplayer on Arma2 is awful. It is far, far better than the single-player campaign, and shows a lot of potential. I have fun on it, and given that I'm a fag-paper's width away from being banned on this forum, that's saying something. I'm certainly not the kind of person who wants to shoot down people making genuine criticism, but I can't agree that multiplayer is broken. AI is hard to get right. If BI bring a patch in the next few weeks that deals with the super-human enemies then I think we can safely say the multiplayer aspect of this game is fine. Better than fine - its excellent. I am aware that there is a problem with it, but multiplayer Arma2 is far better than most first-person twitch shooters. Its true that far too many people are happy to put up with shoddy work. But in this case I'm not going to condemn BI for the work they've done. In fact, I'm inclined to praise them on their multiplayer code.

It does end, but in a way you don't think it will. If you go to the town where you are supposed to meet up with the guys whose names begin with 'M' (but I can't remember the rest of them) the mission will not end. Nothing happens in that town. There are a few baddies camped out, but thats it. What will happen is a message should appear telling you at 5 O'clock that the time is up to leave and you must decide who you want to pitch in with. I went into the town after receiving this message to look for contacts, killed the bad guys, and nothing happened. So i stole the bad guys APC and drove all the way to the farm that was pinpointed on the map. The mission ends automatically at that point. Unless I'm thinking about completely the wrong mission ...

You know, the more time I spend on these forums, the more a question pops into my mind: Who is the bigger cunt? BIS for releasing this joke? Or me for buying it?

Finished this mission at last. Its nasty. It is oh, so nasty. It is a deeply, deeply unpleasant experience and I will never, never go through the horror of that again. I think if I ever lose my savegames this game is going straight in the bin. Awful. Shocking. Nasty. Bastard, bastard, bastard.

I think you make some valid points. I don't understand why people seem to be attacking you. I also noticed the incorrect pronunciation. I feel that the voice acting in the game is mixed - Cooper is excellent (though clearly not black.) Some of the voice actors are very poor. I think the production of the voice acting is poor - there should always be a producer on hand when this stuff is recorded to let the voice actors know how things should be pronounced and what context a sentence is said in. It seems there was no dialogue producer for this game which led to the voice actors being in the dark. This leads to mistakes like you have mentioned. I also feel that there is poor immersion in this game, despite the huge effort BI have made to make the game real in terms of combat. I don't feel you deserved to be attacked for making what I feel to be serious and worthwhile points. While its true this game has many bugs that need fixing, that does not mean that immersion must suffer also. Simply adding a voice producer would have solved much of the problems that occur in the dialogue. As for the sound of bullets, I have never been on a battlefield so won't comment.

Where do Bohemia interactive hail from? Eastern Europe? Probably not too many black people over there to do voice acting. And the ones that are spend a lot of time dodging lynching squads. Eastern Europe is not exactly known for its inclusive, open-minded social norms. If you want proof, look at what happens when a football team with black players visits.

You could try an automated kick - if someone has shot more than x number of their team members their team can vote them off. They are told why the person has been flagged for kicking, and asked if they want them voted off. That way someone who is either trigger happy or a team killer gets to go without the need for admin intervention or a blind vote.

I take your point vshadow, but you seem to be suggesting that you can't have both. I think you can. To continue with the previous example: the woman goes off in a civilian car. The fighting hits a lull - the bad guys in town are vanquished, but the woman has done a runner. The player tells everyone to board a civilian vehicle nearby. The following dialogue ensues: Your sergeant turns round: "We can't catch her in an APC, its too slow. Which of you dumb fucks can drive that car?" [points to a civilian vehicle.] [first soldier] "Oh man, that's a manual gearbox. Fuck that." [another soldier] "I can drive it. My sister has one like that over in England that she lets me drive from time to time." [sergeant] "Well get in it fuckwit." Everyone bundles aboard, cue much crunching of gears and pisstaking as the driver tries to get it in gear. The whole dialogue is triggered by the player selecting a vehicle to drive in the context of the scripted mission. You see - immersion. By keeping missions small and tight you have a known context, and so you can carefully script your missions knowing the context the action will take place in. So you can have the best of both worlds with a little thought and planning.

I feel this mission is just a case of how the game designer's ambitions have exceeded the game engine. There was no need to make this mission so long and drawn out. It could have been broken up easily, or better still shortened, to make it less likely for faults to appear. The Arma2 game engine is competent, but its not great. A large mission like this is way too complex for it to cope with. Don't hold your breath for it to ever be working bug-free.

Thanks for the feedback guys. The thing is, I like this game. It may surprise you, but I don't bother posting criticisms on games I don't like. The suggestions I made were just off the top of my head, and I wouldn't expect all of them to be realised in any new campaign. The point was that while individual points can be overlooked, the overall effect of the game is confusing. Is it meant to be a military simulator? Then why not simulate military life? And if its not and is meant to appeal to 'dumb' players then why bother to make it realistic in combat? I should point out there is a huge thread on this forum complaining about how shot penetration of armoured vehicles does not represent real-life effects. While I totally understand how to some people that is important, in my mind it is not as important as telling an immersive story. Anything that makes me feel I'm just playing a sandbox computer game destroys any sense of immersion. Let me give you a practical example. Break down the missions in Manhattan. For example, you need to arrest a woman in a town. Intelligence agents have gathered that information and need a reasonable sized unit (at least a platoon) to act on it. You are part of that unit. Tell the story: where is your platoon to start with? Are they resting? If so, what are they discussing - politics, girls, weapons, complaining about blisters on their feet etc. Keep the dialogue close to real military jargon and humour. Then the sergeant comes over and berates them, tells them to get together because they have to act fast on fresh information. They jump in an APC ready to take off. But true to military life there's a problem and they have wait around for a while (the 'hurry up and wait' scenario.) Finally on the move, word has gotten out and and they're expected, and already people are trying to smuggle the woman out in a civilian car. Cue action ... Not difficult is it? In a word, 'immersion.' Its amazing how so many people seem to find this sort of thing unnecessary. They don't seem to understand the importance of telling a good story, and how it can make or break any sense of realism. Simple things like keeping dialogue accurate to current military humour and slang, following military procedure (and breaking it as you would in real life) are all parts of keeping a story moving and fluent. It is utterly missing in the campaign as it stands. Theres a vague, confused sense of wandering around in a Grand Theft Auto kind of way. Some of you feel that other things need fixing, and I agree there are a lot of bugs. But I also feel that there is no coherent story or thread to the missions, and this makes or breaks a game. Its the one thing that can't be fixed with a patch. Thanks anyway for your feedback.

The sound quality is very poor. I am using a pair of Adam A5 studio monitors and I can tell from the grainy, weak sound that some kind of digital compression was used (by compression I mean number-crunching, not dynamic compression.) There are also serious sonic artifacts throughout the game. Not all of the sound is bad - the bullet snapping is quite good. But overall it lacks punch, uses weak samples, and seems to have all the life compressed out of it. I don't know who designs the sound for you, but you really need to get another guy in. The good news is its a recession, so there will be plenty of talented people out of work right now.