Engioc

shift + numpad minus + "campaign" doesn't seem to do anything for me

I do backup my saves, but I shouldn't have to, why, well because if the reason they auto delete saved games is to force you in to taking more care and not being able to easily reload every time something goes wrong, well auto delete after the mission does nothing to stop this. During a mission as long as there is no crash then I can continually reload anyway. So exactly what is the point to deleting saved games when a mission is completed? As I said, is this some silly console port, because the current restrictions on saved games make it appear that way, we're limited with user saves and yet we have a HDD not some stupid memory card with limited save slots. Why am I unable to reload a save game from a previous mission simply because I've completed it and moved on to the next one, these restrictions make no sense because they don't force you to value life more, reload option is still there during a mission and can be used an infinite number of times if you screw up. The main reason I believe is because they were lazy and don't bother to let a player choose the filename for their saves, its just some generic name like usersave1-8 and so it needs to reuse these names each time. Significant number of games these days don't allow players to name the saved games themselves but usually this is because they are some shitty console port. ArmA2 isn't, so why have this restriction? Why is it so many developers these days fail to take full advantage of the benefits of PC's over consoles, even worse when its a PC only game like ArmA2.

For me by far one of THE worst aspects of ArmA2 is the crazy save where it automatically deletes all saves at the end of each mission even if you didn't really complete it successfully, forcing you to go back and replay the entire mission again. I understand them trying to give players a sense of value on life and not rushing in and getting yourself killed, but still it would be nice to keep saved games and stop this silly auto delete feature or change it so only on harder difficult settings it auto deletes. Also the fact is only allows for a limited number of user saves seems silly, I mean is this some crappy console port??? no its a PC game and I should be able to save as many times as I have HDD space for.

Actually I'd like to know that too, I had the same problem, every attempt so far I can only shoot down one.

I experienced similar problems to the original poster but also with the repair/rearm not working. First couple of times I seemed to get some problems with the artillery not firing too but on my last attempt it did work. As I said I had problems with the other teams driving like crazy as always and it seems ArmA2 still has a lot of path finding problems where units will seemingly driving around in circles or have no idea how to get from where they are to where you set their next waypoint, this is very noticeable when they get offroad or when there are buildings/objects close to the road. Example if you driving through a town and make a turn at an intersection they'll get stuck trying to get around the corner despite the fact its still road. I think AO has achieved a lot in fixing some of the problems of A2 vanilla but there still plenty of bugs with AI.

In the end I probably didn't need the rearm either but on first run through I did that simply because I had no idea how many units I'd find on the defensive line so I thought I'd make sure I had everything I could carry. Plus I did note on some of the runs through I've done then and since where the number of units I found along the defensive line seemed to change, sometimes just the 3 tanks was enough, other times I had to also take out units near the other two bunkers before the mission ended which obviously means more time and weapons. I guess the different experiences highlights how dynamic the battle field can be in ArmA which is one of the great things about this game, seems you can do the same mission many times over and get slightly different results.

Firing missiles at the AA guns, then using whatever you have left (or rearm) and clear the defensive line. Thats what your supposed to do....Objectives were: Take out the base you see at the start (sorry forget what that comes up as) Take out optional enemy convoy Clear enemy AA guns using ULB Clear defensive line RTB - Mission over with everything completed. Not sure exactly what you mean by taking convoy mission but if your saying you took out the convoy and then mission was over then you too have ended the mission early and missed most of the action in this mission. It's definitely the time limit that causes it to end. I've been through it a few more times since and hurried along and managed to get all objectives completed and RTB. It's a little annoying though because no time limit is specified in the briefing and there really seems to be no good reason to have the time limit apart from higher difficulty setting. I dont like having all missions with some silly time limit, sure on some where my actions determine what another group is doing then I can accept the time limit, for example when taking the mine while another group is taking the town. Also for a game like ArmA which is supposed to be about thinking rather than speed I find it annoying to be given unnecessary time limits. As one other poster said, when I did this mission I was going for safety/accuracy over speed. I took out the optional convoy, nailed the AA guns first shot and even took out the patrolling guards and their vehicles around the AA guns, went back to base to rearm/refuel before heading to the defensive line, had most of the defensive line cleared when the mission just suddenly ended, with no explanations as to why. Also both ULB were still working fine, I initially had troubles with the ULB because after I finished using it I'd send it back to base and kept wondering why it would then crash. Figured out that when I change my altitude the ULB was moving with me, if it was already at a lower altitude it would basically hit the ground but I'd get a message stating it was shot down, WRONG, it was at same location as rearm/refuel trucks so the message confused me for a while. I ended up having to take the ULB back to base and manually land it. There should be a way to hand back control of the ULB to base so they can take care of that for me. On a side note I read a post or two saying they didn't enjoy OA as much because majority of missions aren't infantry as in ArmA2 vanilla. I actually liked the change in OA and the fact almost all missions involved driving tanks/helis etc instead of foot infantry. Don't get me wrong I enjoyed the original ArmA2 and all the foot missions, but OA was a nice change and I think the right move from BI to offer something totally different and get people using all the different aspects of ArmA. I think ArmA is now a better game with all 3 campaigns (Harvets Red, EW, and OA) each offering something quite different. Although I had to redo this mission a few times I really enjoyed it so I didn't really mind having to redo, I'm sure I'll be replaying it many more times. Gotta say though in later missions the AI driving in OA still sucks, crazy driving, beyond even being drunk.

I had the same thing happen 3 times now all at different points, once while destroying the AA with ULB, once while refueling/rearm/repair at FOB, and once while taking out targets along their defensive line. Its as if there is a time limit but it says nothing about it in the briefing before the mission.

Hi everyone, been a member here for a while but not posted till now. I do enjoy ArmA II, great game but after having struggled through the Campaigns (both Harvest Red and EW) due to so many annoying bugs (even with the latest and greatest patches). So many restarts sometimes because I did something wrong, but more often than not it was due to some stupid action mistake by my team, a building, unit, or things which just wouldn't work as described in manuals, here on forums etc. Just wondering if any of these will ever get fixed, some of the most annoying issues: Build a heli and it appears on a spot right on a building making it impossible to take off without being destroyed, or sometimes appearing and immediately being destroyed because of the stupid location it appears in. (noticed this bug many times during Dogs of War). Again during Dogs of War noticed how many times it would tell me to take a town but the messages often seemed confused as the town that was announced (spoken) was sometimes different to what was written, or it would end up being the next town to take rather than the current town. Whole system seemed really confused. Dogs of War again, I had two T72 tanks, one for me and two standard crew, and the other for the rest of Razor team. They would follow along as I drove around but man they are so slow and so many times have to stop and wait for them to catch up, seeing them having accidents on even the slightest curve in road. Where did these guys learn to drive, they are hopeless. Whats more they sometimes fire in my direction, attempt to drive over me, and then during Dogs of War while taking the main base my own crew would refuse to fire despite there being no damage and a full load (reloaded) weapons. Times my team got killed and/or stuck on buildings, walls, other objects, heli landed on them. Telling one of your team to kill enemy unit and then have them stand there doing nothing (and yes they are in danger mode, yes I tried telling them to crouch, go prone, nothing worked). Events that dont happen but I seem people on here and in walkthroughs talking about that never seem to happen for me (maybe its the walkthrough but so many people seem to get these events and I dont). Fast Travel I used a few times during Dogs of War, again number of times when we arrived at destination to have both tanks land on each other and crash and bounce around for a few seconds was annoying. During mission I think was called Razor Team and you have use of Maddicks? heli to help you get around, he would sometimes try to land on buildings, in among trees where there wasn't enough room, or some other stupid spot and end up crashing the heli, and usually he didn't actually try landing on the specific spot I asked, just somewhere near it. That guy shouldn't be flying a heli cause he has no idea how to land one. Again noticed during Dogs of War (but on other missions too), the number of times it does an autosave, then seconds later does another one. There seems to be no rhyme of reason to when it decides to autosave or not autosave. I'm the driver in a tank, I turn off the engine, then without touching keyboard or mouse, suddenly the engines come back on again, why?? In both walkthroughs I've read they say you can refuel and reload weapons at any town once its taken, but there seemed to be many towns where I was unable to get my tank reloaded with weapons, and I could never get tank 2 to refuel or reload weapons unless I got out of mine, got in the second one and did it myself. I would get out of mine and try to direct them to reload but they never did. The same thing was true even without tanks, just normal Razor team on foot, I would tell them to rearm, they'd run around a bit, sometimes never stop and run off in to the distance, sometimes they'd actually go to the building I directed them to, stand there a few seconds then stop, but then still claim to be low of ammo. Well that is just a quick list right off the top of my head without really sitting down and thinking about it, sure if I did think a little longer my list would also be longer. Don't get me wrong, I really enjoyed this game but so far I would have to say its a game I love and hate (plenty of swearing and cursing going on as I play because of the number of restarts/reloads due to bugs). So much potential, but so many bugs. Will these bugs ever get fixed? Will the expansion pack fix these bugs? (I know the expansion is standalone but I read on some sites that it would be possible to add game engine/improvements to the original ArmA II if you have it), but will it fix these bugs?

I guess this post is not totally on topic, but I have just been on the Ubi forums for AC2 and discovered Patrice has left and worse still they have plans to mass produce games on a yearly basis like Activision CoD style. BI, please never do this, even if you do one day become one of the big rich companies. If Ubi follow through with their plans I will probably no longer be a fan, I hate mass produced games. So now I say BI, thanks for being one of the smarter developers and taking the time to make good, well thought out games, instead of mass produced games with little improvement in each installment (I'm thinking cheap ass titles like NFS, CoD, EA sports). Overproduction is a bad idea. Anyway sorry if I broke any rules or I posted something in the wrong place or inappropriate for BI forums.

Sorry but I'm not so sure of that, many times I can think of seeing smaller companies bought up because they had success with a new game, the big company comes along and tries to changes things in order to attract the wider audience they want, and often in doing so they destroy what had made it a success for the current group of fans. Example they would probably tone down the realism and add a little more arcade in an attempt to not scare people away with the sheer depth and scope of the current ArmA2. It's not exactly the easiest game for people to get in to, much steeper learning curve compared to games like CoD which as made for quick and easy pick up and play. As you said its a business and that is all the big guys care about....So they would lose the current fans, no big deal if you attract the masses of people like CoD does. I've seen it happen to so many of my favorite games from the past. My best example of that would be again to pick on Ubi: The Settlers used to be a GOD game, with Ubi and The Settlers 5 it became a RTS game, most people fail to see the difference, and while it may seem small to some, for me it totally changes the experience and made it look and play like just a newer version of Age of Empires (and thats not really a good thing in my book). With regards to R* and GTA, yes I totally agree, but atm I see them as one of the few, if not the ONLY, rich and smart developer around. They have a great track record for producing quality games that needed very little patching (apart from GTA4), worthwhile DLC, and continually make sensible smart choices about how to please their fans. They are not always 100% right, but far better than most. Its rare to find a company that has both money and the brains to use it. It's a shame BI are not in the same situation because so far they have shown they are smart and do care for their fans.

Well that is true although I do agree with comments BI is not likely to take the route, and my post wasn't meant to say they would, simply saying thanks BI for not being one of them. The only real worry would be if the bigger guys decide to buy out BI as already mentioned.

Ok, I'll remember that for next time.

Yes your quite right I should of checked or made sure I know what I already said, EW did have a few bugs but I'm happy to overlook those since it didn't happen very often. With the tanks I tried a number of different formations including column which I would of thought was the most appropriate but still they keep making the same mistakes and the formation I choose seems to make little difference. As for point 5, in parts of the campaign they do allow you to team switch, unfortunately in the final mission to capture lopotev and all the strong points they take it away, so no that's not an option. I did use that in earlier missions to get the team unstuck. Not sure why they removed that ability, my guess is to make it a more difficult mission. @andromedagalaxe Just to make it clear I'm not having a go at you with this post or the previous one, just answering the questions, and a bit of healthy debate. I'm more than happy to hear suggestions from people as to how to resolve the problems I experienced. @Takko 1. Fine What?? I have no idea what your talking about, whats fine?? 2. Does happen mostly on user generated maps. The possibilty on the official Chernarus is much lower. I'm playing the campaign, thats not a user generated map. It shipped with the game. 3. Make sure you run this game with no mods. I don't have or even know about the mods available for ArmA, I prefer to play my games in vanilla format since I see no reason why a game should need mods in order to work. 4. Fine. Again no idea what you really mean, what exactly is it thats fine?? 5. Your fault. Exactly what part of the bugs I've described are my fault? I use the options available to me in the game, and they don't work. How is it my fault that AI team members are unable to drive down a simple straight road, regardless of formation. So please explain how my actions cause this to happen? I'll also add its no wonder many people give up on ArmA when the best response you get from the community is, the part I like in the game works fine, so you should just play that part too and forget about the bugs, and its not worth BI's time to fix it. Very selfish attitude. Also again simply ignoring bugs doesn't help BI one tiny bit, ArmA shipped with many bugs, then ArmA2 again shipped with many of the same bugs, maybe if the community was a little more honest and reported bugs to BI ArmA2 would of had less bugs, but your all too busy making excuses and saying its all ok. I'm not the only one who experienced problems with this game. I never experienced any problems in terms of stability, not one single crash to desktop of lockups, game runs very smoothly even on 1920x1200 res and High settings for graphics so no problems there. Its fault lie in the game itself and its ability to make the right decision eg where to land a heli without crashing it. One hopes enough people will make a noise about the bugs (and report them through the available offical channels) OA, and ArmA 3 will not suffer from the same bugs because long term it will hurt BI. I've often talked about games like GTA and yes many other games also ship with bugs. One big difference I see between them is how well known the company and game are. Activision, R* and others who release very bug ridden games at least can fall back on a long track record and claim to have released at least one or more games that didn't have major bugs on release (ok your only as good as your last game), but gamers are more likely to forgive GTA4 for its bugs because the previous 3 GTAs didn't suffer from many bugs and had 1 patch at the most. Does BI have a reputation for releasing stable, bug free games, NO, so far its reputation is they make a great game but man its loaded with bugs. If BI continue to release games like this even many of the fans on here currently singing praise for BI will get tired of it and move on, wondering if BI can ever release a less buggy game. Reviews will continue on as they do now, turning new potential fans away and hurting BI financially, then what will happen to your beloved game?? I think they'll fold up and you wont have a realistic milsim to play and you'll be wishing they did take a little more time to fix up bugs before release and market it better so they could survive and keep on making great games. BI need to release at least one stable, fairly bug free game to show they are capable of doing it otherwise they will forever be known for bugs by the wider gaming community. I want BI to survive and I wont sit back and pretend the game doesn't have its fair share of problems that should be addressed. All games suffer from bugs and they get fixed with people letting the developers know what these bugs/flaws are.

My only comments with regards to DLC is that I believe its often just a poor excuse for holding back content and I hate that. Having said that clearly BI have not held anything back as its a new idea for them. If your going to offer DLC make it worth while, pay attention to R* because I believe they offer worthwhile and reasonable amount of content in their DLC......also pay attention to companies like Ubisoft and their laughable attempts at DLC for Assassins Creed 2, it's so small and clearly they just held stuff back in AC2 so they could make people pay a bit extra. Ubisoft and other companies who jumped on the DLC band wagon, after R* started it with GTA4, are a joke and little more than a poor attempt to screw their customers a second or third time over. So make it worth while if you go with making some DLC.

I sincerely do hope in a way BI give ArmA a rest. They should absolutely be looking at expanding their list of games and give themselves a break from ArmA. It also means that when they do feel like continuing the ArmA series it will be a more significant improvement over the current version because tech will of moved on light years from where we are now, it also gives them plenty of time to come up with new ideas. I doubt they will completely stop making ArmA, its normal to take a break and do other titles. It's not a bad move in another way too, with ArmA2 they have done quite well and maybe they want to try and cash in a little on what fame they have built up and push a few more titles out. I think its a really sensible thing to do and no company can survive on one title alone. I know these days R* are one of the richer developers around, but remember R* were once a small dev team like BI and made an inspired move to 3D and haven't looked back. Even R* with GTA still put time in on other titles and their fame from GTA is helping to push their other games in the to spot light.

1. yes I do have the latest patch 1.05 as I said and I do have EW and its patch/hotfix 2. I was on the roads and their driving is still crap and they end up losing control on many corners or sometimes even on completely straight roads. Heck if you watch an AI controlled convoy you will see them making the same stupid driving errors and losing control for no good reason. 3. Not saying I was assigned the wrong town, just that the system itself seemed confused about which town, spoken message say Stary Sobar, while text says Novy Sobar, check the map and the marker for where you need to go will show the correct location so I kept following those and ignored what the messages said. I wasn't confused, the system was. Oh and I do realise that when the AI take a town that the task gets cancelled and I get sent somewhere else but again even taking that in to account the system gave conflicting messages about which town to take. Somtimes it would say NOvy Sobar, then seconds later Stary Sobar, but yet Novy Sobar hadn't been taken, Stary Sobar ended up being the next town after I went and took Novy Sobar. As I said ArmA itself appeared confused. This may be partly due to the number of restarts/reloads due to other errors/bugs because the more times I reloaded the worse this problem seemed to get. 4. I dont recall saying I had a problem with EW, I didn't experience many if any bugs in that one. Plays much better than Harvest Red, there may of been one or two times when scripts didn't run, when you finally get to friendly base the leader is supposed to give you a gun, a couple of times when I played through he didn't give it to me. Usually he tells you to come here and on the ground in front of him there is a gun and ammo to take. The two times he didn't it seemed to be because while he was talking to me in the house some enemy came up behind and he and the rest of his team were busy fighting but even once the fight was over they kept targeting more enemies while the leader started running off towards the next way point/location leaving me without a gun, and also leaving the rest of of his men behind. When we finally arrived at our next point (I managed to catch up to him) we were totally out gunned because all the rest of his team were still back near the house engaged in combat. The leader and I survived long enough that his team finished their fight and then started sending messages asking where we were, the AI sorted it out and they found us but we were close to dead by that time since I had no weapon so only the leader could shoot back. I have played EW many times I really enjoyed that more than Harvest Red so I am prepared to overlook the errors in that since out of a dozen or more plays its only screwed up twice. 5. Final mission when your taking Lopotev to the Russians, the fight breaks out and you order your men to go in danger mode and prone, then using the map ordering them to attack enemies that have been spotted. They then proceed to crawl around in one direction then another, with seemingly no idea where they want to go to try and attack as asked. They end up crawling around to the left side of the bridge (not on bridge, beside it) and get stuck in the small space between the bridge and the bunker/strong point next to it. Example two, while search the island for Lopotev, I had taken lopotev already but then decided to order my men to do a sweep of the hill up to the radio tower, once they arrive at the radio tower despite asking them a number of times to regroup or move to a spot closer to me they start telling me they cant. When I head up the hill they're somehow stuck under the tower and refuse to find their way back out. Reload and try again, same result so many times in the end I just went up the hill myself and did the job. Told the rest of the team to park their ass at the house. Once I also tried going up the tower, forgetting to tell my team to stop, stupidly they followed me up the tower, when I came back down some them came down,but two ended up stuck up the tower and no amount of orders could get them down, continually stating they cant move to the location I ask, even if it was right below the ladder or further away. @nettrucker (and a few others) I've never stated BI should be attempting to release games totally bug free, your right, its impossible. However games could and should be released with less bugs and make every attempt to ensure there are no major bugs as was the case with ArmA and many other games over the last few years. Also my point is not meant to excuse other developers for also creating bug ridden games. Its meant as a simple HONEST look at ArmA and being brave enough to not only state its good points but look at its bad points so they can be improved in the current version or the next. BI will do itself no good by continually releasing bug ridden games, others may get away with it, small unknowns like BI wont. If OA comes out with bugs (I'll buy it) but they cant afford to have yet more reviews telling people its a great game but don't buy it or at least hold off because of its bugs. Only with its fans being open and honest about a games good points and bad points will the developer and the game itself improve. Putting up messages that make excuses as to why its ok for even one aspect of a game being shit is a poor/bad/wrong way to help and support BI. Want this game series to continue, show your support by being honest about its good points and its flaws so these problems can be sorted before they end up released again. If they aren't told about the bugs then OA using the same basic engine risks having many of the same problems, and thats not good for BI. BI dont need your protection, they need your support, ideas, honesty so they can improve and so this game can reach its full potential and a much wider community, and that benefits BI and its current fans, think how much more exciting your MP games are with more players (bigger teams, bigger battles) involved. Your all right that MP is where the real fun can be with ArmA but its more so with more people, and you will only attract more players by making sure you dont have things that turn people away, bugs and poor reviews. You and I may forgive them and note how bad other developers are, but many wont.

Well I admit I have no experience with CoD or MW, or infact any of the other FPS so I have no idea how bug ridden they are. My argument though is no less, simply because its ok for the likes of CoD or MW with their already established fan base doesn't mean its ok for BI with their relatively unknown name and game. I would have to say though its no surprise that those games also suffer from bugs, its sadly an increasing trend in PC gaming that games are released with serious bugs, and if I was to buy any of those games I'd be making the same complaint/suggestion on their forums. Games can be released with some bugs fine, nobody expects a bug free experience its just not possible, but surely they can do better than this. Its not that I don't know how to use or want to use the other features people keep mentioning in ArmA, but my argument is still that 100% of the game should work, not just parts of it. Also that the average gamer will turn away from a bug ridden, unknown title. When it comes to the latest over hyped craz game like CoD people seem to overlook the bugs, its unfair I admit, but thats how it is. ArmA wins for me and everyone else here because they are doing something really different in the FPS (or milsim if you prefer) genre but why not also be known for being one of the few devs that also cleans out the bugs before they start screwing us for money. Not so long ago I had a discussion with an ArmA fan on the AC2 boards at Ubi, and my argument (that time in support of Ubi in a way) was also based mostly on it being a business and I understand how and why they came out with their new online DRM (I dont support the DRM just understand how and why its there). My argument is the same now, stop looking and pointing at other developers and saying "but they do it and people still buy their games" and focus on how to improve ArmA. One way is to keep the bugs to a minimum, thus forcing reviewers to stop giving it such poor reviews, and in turn less gamers will be turned away based on those reviews. Then you make a bigger profit and a better game. Also dont under estimate word of mouth, it can work for you but right now it could be the killer for BI, each person that buys ArmA and ends up hating it for one reason or another then tells all his buddies not to buy it because he thought it was crap. He never tried MP or the editor, his initial experience was bad and he gave up before he tried those features, . I applaud BI for concentrating on gameplay instead of wasting money on generating hype but don't let it kill you because nobody knows your title exists. They need to advertise and they need to make sure people are saying good things about their games in mags and not saying its great BUT don't buy it because its bug ridden. What little coverage BI gets is negative. Heck even on the official ArmA 2 website on the side where they show a blurb from reviews include negative statements about the game and its bugs. So the team who put the website and advertising together couldn't find a review that was positive, the best they could find was one which said its a good game BUT..... That cant be good for BI and a long term future in game design/publishing. **Edit: also forgot to mention my problems with ArmA2 are not due to any lack of IT know how or PC game experience and in all my years of gaming I've only ever experience one game that was so totally broken I couldn't play after patching or finding my own workarounds. I mention this because I do put together my own PC's and always take care to make sure I meet minimum game specs, and to use well known established parts for compatibility and even when I was on boards reading posts about bugs in GTA4 and AC2 at that time I was one of the lucky ones and never experienced a single problem even at the time on a low end spec PC. I did however have sympathy for those who do experience problems as its never fun to install a game and find things don't work right. I don't and wont ever support/defend bugs in games, the number of serious bugs in games is partly to blame for killing PC gaming. For ArmA2 I did experience many bugs, as did others, and so did many of its reviewers, so just as with GTA4, AC2, CoD, and any other game you care to mention the bugs DO exist even if you personally didn't have any, and they still should be fixed if the dev team care about their fans, I believe BI is one of those companies who care so I hope ArmA2 will be patched.

Before I start just wanted to say I am big fan of this game/milsim. I've been playing games for a long time, I've never been much of a FPS fan (I hated all the older style eg DOOM running around endless tunnels that look the same as the last one I ran down) and in all my game buying choices I always look for games that go the extra mile for realism or in some way (at least in my opinion) really make a difference and bring something new to the genre. ArmA definitely does that. Also the story below really describes many of my more recent purchases over the last couple of years because I find myself being attracted to many lesser known games such as East India Company, Anno, Patrician/Port Royale, Call of Juarez, GTR Evo (although I think this one is a little better known than the rest). TDU is also another one but does have a pretty good following but I still believe NFS wins out in the fame and popularity stakes. Point to that blurb is that these days it does seem harder to find really good PC games and I come by many of them simply by chance, younger/newer gamers wont bother with all the research I'm prepared to do, and will be easily put off by bugs or poor reviews. Mr and Mrs average gamer don't have the IT skills or gaming experience many here might have and dont want to spend time fixing/patching bugs or finding ways around these bugs. They also wont take a chance like me, they'll just believe what the magazine said and spend their money on what ever seems popular at the time. Sadly these days many really good PC games like ArmA are often over shadowed by the one or two well known, Hollywood, over hyped, games. I like some of them such as GTA, AC, but the games like those two that do win and attract a large following do it with huge amounts of hype an BS a year or more before release, even if the end experience for many of these games (in my opinion) is a load of rubbish (btw: I dont mean GTA or AC are rubbish, great games), but the masses will love many of these games for no other reason than the magazine said so and/or its what everyone else is playing and talking about. I do often find myself being the odd one out when I hear others talking about games they play, they've never heard of the games I play and I cant stand most of the games they're talking about. Also when I hear the store speaker system blaring out advertising I hear so many of these games everyone else seems to play and love, but I dont hear anything about ArmA or most of the other games I mentioned. Example of that was in my current job working in HP, one of my colleges there saw my screen saver which is basically screenshots of games I play, he asked me if I played real games, my first response was what do you call a real game. His reply was not those (meaning my screen saver shots) and that I should be playing on an Xbox because PC's are old fashioned/dead and its nicer to play games in the lounge room on a TV. The conversation ended there and I didn't bother telling him my PC IS in the lounge room connected to a large screen TV via a port found on most video cards these days, sometimes the stupidity of console gamers does make me laugh, some grand idea that a console isn't just a dumbed down PC and somehow their console can do things my PC cant, I guess the dumbed down games are to cater to the dumb audience. If BI want to break in to that crowed and be one of the richer developers they need to sort out the bugs, no matter how you feel about ArmA and BI, in the end its a business and needs to attract new/larger fanbase in order to survive long term. So you can make as many excuses as you like about why its ok for SP to suck (because MP is great, has editor), the average gamer wont care and wont bother when they read the reviews on ArmA and many who get as far as buying it will give up in frustration because of its bugs and never experience the good side to the game. Also I've seen posts saying who cares it has a large enough following and we dont need the dumbos from other FPS, I just repeat my last argument why we need more players. Increase the fanbase and increase the profit, and then make an even better game using those profits. Nobody said in order to beat CoD you have to go arcade, fixing bugs and ability to find/buy will go far enough for now. ArmA can continue with realism and win because of it, fix its other more obvious problems first. Infact I'll give an example of why I would NEVER want to see BI change ArmA and go down the arcade route. I used to be a long time fan of the old Might and Magic series and Heroes of Might and Magic, but sadly 3DO put and end to it with their stupid ideas on making shitty spin offs, and changing the core RPG to something that resembled a FPS. All of this was in the name of making it like many of the more popular games at the time. An idea I've never understood, DOOM is popular so lets make our game like that so more people will buy it. Sounds dumb to me but I wont go on with that argument, but needless to say I dont support simply changing a game to look like all the rest in order to make it popular, games that offer something really different can win, The Sims anyone?? (very boring game but it sure made a mint for EA and they're still flogging it) ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Like many others I found ArmA just by chance, I actually saw the original ArmA on a shelf in my local EB, picked it up and read the cover quite a few times but never got around to buying it till it was gone. Amazing it ever got bought considering it was just 1 lone box, tucked away in the corner of the store, not even the cover facing out, just the spine mixed in the dozens of other budget games. Compare that to the the half dozen boxes I could see of games like CoD, BC etc. I went away and did plenty of research on ArmA and trying to compare it to the better know FPS games, biggest thing I got from most reviews was BUGs, but since I rarely pay attention to the opinions of reviewers I kept investigating because the blurb on the cover I read so many times excited me with the idea of taking control of any unit in game, the totally open ended world, etc. To be honest I did no research on CoD because I figured I already knew what that was about "Hollywood" or being the lone hero that saves the day, not a totally bad idea for a game but not what I was looking for. Then when I suddenly saw, again by chance, a lone box of ArmA II on the shelf I decided to buy it and really find out what it was like, VERY glad I took that chance, but thats exactly what is was, just a hunch that it might be the kind of FPS I could finally enjoy and maybe a little bit of my gaming experience helped out too, been playing games since 1982 and always been a little more choosy than most when I buy, although I do buy a lot of games. My point to all that is to show how easily I could of missed this game, I didn't find it because of any advertising, I knew nothing about it, and everyone else in the shop ignored it like so many other budget titles and it was just one little box. It's no wonder people dont buy this game, it's very difficult to find copies of it to buy, and if you were like me and know nothing about it and you start doing the research, well most gamers will give up when they start reading about all the bugs. Only the very few, and perhaps older, gamers bother to look a little harder and care more for realism than Hollywood flash. So to attract more gamers it goes back to my original reason for posting on the BI forums, BUGS. Out of the few who manage to find it, many will not buy based of poor reviews, and even though I know other games with just as many bugs get good reviews, it still doesn't help ArmA to be buggy and the reviews were honest because it DOES have bugs. The fact that other games also have bugs is really irrelevant to the success or failure of BI and ArmA. And please note I never said bugs are the only problem, clearly BI need to do some better marketing and get themselves more shelf space in stores, cant expect it to sell well if people dont even see it on the shelf. Added to this problem is the fact that the PC game shelf in most stores is forever shrinking to make more room for the consoles. ----------------------------------------- **Edit: One more note, I realise realistic sims have always attracted less gamers and I accept its more difficult to get people to play them. However I dont really believe its realism that kills these games. Right now the biggest reason I see is that almost all the games/sims I can think of are made by other small time developers the same as BI and therefore are unable to really market their games in the same way the bigger guys like Ubi, EA etc do. Also in the past it was down to difficulty example I am sure everyone is aware of the number of key combos you need to know to work a top flight sim such as Falcon 4.0 and so this also puts off many gamers. In recent times though some of these problems have solutions such as better/more specific controllers and thats not just restricted to flight sticks and wheels, you can buy keyboards you essentially build yourself, assigning keys to various functions of the game, and they look like a real Fighter control panel, even games like Trainz have a controller specifically made for driving your train. Thats probably still a little difficult for the average gamer not to mention price, but I can see these games making a come back once the technology gets easier and less expensive. These days there is less of an excuse for realism killing a game, and if customers are afraid of playing something as complicated as ArmA then I'd agree with comments that maybe BI should make a spin off (not change the current ArmA) with everything cut down and simplified to help ease more gamers in to it. It is possible to make two games, the current hardcore ArmA we know and love, and a second game catering for noobs with plenty of tutorials thrown in. I wouldn't buy a cut down version as I'm sure nobody here would, but it would help grow the community.

Wrong, a great editor and MP don't mean its ok to be sloppy with SP. If you want to beat the CoDs of the world you need to create complete games, not just games where only part of it is great to play. It seems so many people on this board are blind to the problems or ArmA and are all upset about what they see as BI bashing, but thats not what its about. Its about realising this game has some bad points that should and could be addressed. Not simply stating that because it has one or two good features its an excuse to make the rest of it bad. CoD wins for more gamers because its a more polished product, personally I cant stand those games, but reality is bug ridden games dont sell well and many people want to be able to pick up and play without having to immediately begin creating their own maps because the ones that shipped with the game are so bad. I ask anyone here to honestly tell me its good when someone buys a game and immediately has to begin spending time creating their own content because although they just paid $70 AUD for the game its SP campaign is unplayable? is that a good experience?? If it had great SP, no editor and poor MP you'd all be jumping up and down to get it fixed, so why shouldn't SP be fixed when its the problem. People talk of realism in this game, yes its meant to be real but many things I see are very unrealistic even when thats how it was designed......example: I walk up to one of the enemy camps in town (Harvest Red) and kill the machine gun guy in front, I stay there and keep staring at the now empty machine gun nest and suddenly another man appears our of nowhere. Is that realism?? men materializing right before your eyes, NO I dont think so. I understand why they've done it, and I have no problem with more AI units being produced but maybe it would be better if it happened off screen?? Oh maybe thats too hard for the dumb AI and they'd get stuck trying to find their way back to the camp to retake it. Fix the dam AI then. Realism, the amount of time it takes to build units such as tanks and helis seems very quick. Again I understand why, nobody wants to be standing around forever waiting for stuff to be built, but maybe it should be longer and perhaps simply force players to plan ahead rather than build a T72 in 5 minutes. Now maybe in the field they can throw together a tank in quick time but I still doubt its as quick as in ArmA, even more so for more complex units such as aircraft. Maybe another way around this would be to allow us to call using radio for units, eg radio base and let them know we're on our way back and we need a T72 ready to go when we arrive. As part of that, why the heck do tanks, heli etc explode if they are sitting with nobody in them on friendly turf? I understand in real life some units do explode to prevent enemy from using it or stealing tech but I am sure they dont explode by themselves while on base. This feature does make it hard to build units ahead of time because when you arrive back you'll find its been destroyed. Now maybe a battle took place, but if you stand around long enough after building a new unit you will see it explode for no good reason. Realism, seeing a member of Razor team getting stuck on some object like a radio tower, bridge wall, or something else?? Ordering my team to get in a 4 door car, I jump in as driver and then one or members of the team state they cant get in simply because I jumped in the drivers seat he was going to take. How about having the smarts to just get in the next available seat. I didn't specifically say get in as driver I just said get in. Realism, watching a pilot land his heli on a house, tree or something else and explode because he didn't bother to land on the perfectly clear grass area a few meters behind the house. I honestly doubt that creating a map in the editor would solve these problems, as they dont seem like something controlled by any one map, but rather a problem with how the AI decides where it should or shouldn't land a heli, or how to drive a tank without sliding off road and stopping ever few minutes. The only thing which solves these kinds of problems is to eliminate AI from the game and have only humans. So essentially the game will remain broken until AI and SP are fixed. Sure MP is much better, real people always are, but mr average gamer buys a game that works close to 100% not just half a working game. This game will never reach its full potential and popularity while it remains such a bug ridden experience. Stop trying to protect them or get all upset when someone presents problems, stop making excuses as to why its ok for SP and AI to suck, just fix it and more people will buy and enjoy this game and it doesn't need to be at the expense of dumbing things down and going arcade. ArmA2 can remain exactly as it is and attract far more people if only it didn't have so many bugs and they didn't give reviewers a reason to complain.

As an Australian I would say there are several reasons why its not so popular with gamers here. - Lack of local servers, its not so easy getting good ping rates to servers overseas. Not impossible but it does make things harder. I am not fan of CoD but I do know of local servers making MP much easier. - I think poor marketing is a factor, most people I talk to have never heard of this game. Everyone knows CoD and other similar games, but nobody seems to know ArmA. - Major factor in my opinion would be bugs, if someone does know about ArmA but isn't sure to by that or CoD or other similar games they'll probably read reviews, and just about any review you read will talk about the major bugs in this game. I've read posts saying forget SP and just do MP but that doesn't necessarily suit everyone (as I said its harder in Australia anyway) and people still feel like they are only buying maybe half a game when SP doesn't work. You buy a whole game and expect all of it to work, not just one part. When people buy CoD they get a game that works SP and MP, if ArmA and BI want to compete they need to clean up the bugs more before release, its obvious. Read reviews and you will see why people who may be interested in ArmA get turned away. I realise BI is aiming high with what ArmA is all about but not everyone cares about that. Great graphics and great ideas on actual gameplay are wasted if people find it difficult to play either due to bugs or lack of MP servers in their area to play on. I believe in the future BI is on to a real winner with ArmA2 because its gameplay and realism is way beyond what any other games do or are even attempting to do. For now its seen by many people as a very bug ridden game and most will turn towards games like CoD with massive amounts of support, MP Servers, less bugs, and a seemingly endless new versions every 6 months and despite the fact it's gameplay is inferior to anyone who has given ArmA a try. CoD wins because it caters to the dumb masses and gives them a constant supply of new content, at a price of course, that's what people want. I know many people on this forum will stick up for BI and claim ArmA 2 to be the greatest game out but that doesn't really help BI address some genuine issues this game has. You can love ArmA and claim to of never experienced a problem but the wider community doesn't agree. Want this game to be as popular than games like CoD, then address its problems and stop pretending it doesn't have an. One note, to be honest I have no idea how stable/bug free CoD or other games are as I've never played any of them, never been in to FPS other than Outlaws, Call of Juarez, and now ArmA. What I do know is when I read a review on CoD they talk about how great it is, when I read a review on ArmA they say how great it is except it has so many bugs. My advice to anyone is to find the bugs, report and wine about them all you like but not because you hate BI and ArmA, but because you love it and want to see a great idea improve even more and succeed in beating games like CoD in the popularity stakes.

What is the tracker and how to I report bugs using it? I haven't reported them but only because I didn't know how/where to do it. Just to make it clear again, I did enjoy ArmA2 even with the bugs and I'll be buying OA expansion even if it doesn't fix the problems. Always happy to support a dev who's prepared to go the extra mile and create something really different to the average shooter (I know ArmA isn't exactly a FPS but you know what I mean). In fact I hate most FPS and prefer games in any genre that offer something really different to the norm, and ArmA definitely does. More than happy to report bugs in some official way and look forward to future, hopefully less buggy, releases from BI. My post really is meant as a constructive criticism not simply an attack on BI or ArmA, this game isn't perfect (like all games) an so I see there is still plenty of room for improvement from BI. After buying ArmA2 I managed to buy Arma Gold version and enjoyed that much more because while there was still a few bugs it was nothing too bad, but I gather that wasn't the case on release so it seems BI aren't terribly good and fixing bugs before release, lets hope that changes in the future, although bug ridden games seems the norm these days, GTAIV and AC2 spring to mind. **edit sorry scrap that question, I see in one of the earlier posts it has a link, I'll use that.

I'd love to buy a map too if its available.