DonMigel

Proponent: I have been playing operation flashpoint ( mostly cti and coop ) for over roughly 8 years now. Started playing with a 32 mb video card and 700 mghz processor and am still playing it weekly today on my beast that I had to get for arma 2 and 3. I really adore the old days with the tournaments, mixed clan coop events etc. Needless to say when it started to die out, I started to look forward to more of that stuff when arma was announced. First of I found the new ArmA community somewhat appalling. It was a mix between new age gamers and realism fans. I thought myself to be a realism gamer but seeing how easy it is to kill with a little game know how or getting superior gear in arma and arma2, I can say I'm more of a hardcore gamer where it's hard to kill and harder to survive compared to hard to survive but easy to kill. Because hardcore business leads to communication and tactics, tension buildup, team building for clans and actual feeling to test that skill against other teams. With the all the old clans dead and faceless players I was surprised to see things like IC-ArmA(later known as charlie-foxtrot?) arise on occasion and happy to see old school player like madben ( aka benny ) to pickup his tools and make warfare somewhat playable with warfare be. However the community was either not communicating, reluctant to install mods, failing to do teamwork or so interested in realism that any form of interesting combat was gone, none these things were gonna last. The game was simply not exiting. Sometimes fun, a little nostalgic and realistic, yes, but not thrilling. After while I just disappeared more and more on the background like many of the other veterans, until I saw 5 dayz servers. Visited ya olde forum and saw a post on what it was by a clanmate who's name I couldn't even recognize. Things started to roll from then, my first death was a sniper shot after inspecting a dead body in the open field. I thought damn...I should have... That's the sensation that was missing. Even in warfare be whetever you move tactically or just rush it you are randomly gonna die by something that you couldn't have anticipated. And if you play coop you can just keep distance and shoot from afar. Now I had to take chances and knew when I was taking em just like back in the old days so suddenly there was something exiting again. Wasn't long before team speak starting pouring back with retired players, flashpoint legends and guys from others servers and games. This week I traveled to 3 other teamspeak servers and talked to different groups of people playing the same thing. Suddenly it feels like I am playing something alive and big, compared to the years of playing something small and dying :D. And even the new guys from other games are pushing themselves to communicate in order to get those beta patches and mods installed, not that I care that much where a player comes from, because you all feel like aliens to me and everyone is an alien to someone before you get to know em. I was about to give up hope for bis, not going to buy arma3 to waist my time playing a vague echo of the past glory and seeing another community die out already after first 6 months, so this came as a suprise to me. Even should the experience of "wow" end at certain point and dayz die out leaving behind a giant crater in the community, at least this more positive event could have been experienced.

Nothing, just gonna buy it since it's best in it's genre. Then gonna complain about how it's 2 easy and rage when some guy shoots me over 25 km with auto-lock missle. That last part could be what I am looking forward too :)

The answer to the topic name is likely no. Here are a couple of reasons why it's not gonna happen, please note that I am completely indifferent with ArmA. I really liked OFP since the community was tight and there were lot of pvp competitions, but I can see the charm ArmA has and respect the choices of the developers in the way they picked for ArmA even if they don't favor a pvp enviroment. Reason no.1) Outdated MP server system While other games have things like adding and finding friends, clantag assigning, auto mod installers, favoring servers, server joining ques, hosting and joining ranked ladders of any sort. ArmA hasn't upgraded much at all since ofp and there is little word about overhauling this somewhat neglected side of the game. Reason no.2) Lack of consistent and solid gameplay Like you said most people need to create their own fun in this game, but they do get a lot of freedom to do so. This leads to personal taste differences reigning on each server. Even a simple mission can run on different parameters/ 3rd view settings/ visible cursors to the point that 2 rivaling servers make fun of the preferences of the other servers community, let alone join a competition toghether. But maybe they will support pvp based maps like Dayz in the future, I find it unlikely though and it's surely not the only reason to make pvp compete with other games. Reason no.3) No Ballance There is chance, with the freedom of creation that comes with the futuristic setting, that there is no favoritism between sides this time, when it comes to gear and vehicles. Still it's likely that the unbalance between unit types will remain and maybe increase if even more stronger futuristic weapons are introduced. Balance of unit types and vehicles has never been a priority for BIS Reason no.4) Maps not created for pvp The islands are also based on realistic settings and not made for tactical and strategical combat ( having bottlenecks, flanks, backsectors and what not ). Because of this the balance between line of sight ( using view distance and height difference ) will create a lack of combat flow compared to a game actually focusing on this. Again adding realism but not to a solid pvp experience. Reason no.5) Poor battle timing and impersonal combat In ofp you had a 10 minute drive or preparation before heading into a new zone or town, this made tension buildup and the action satisfying and personal. Still it was considered to hardcore for the majority of players In ArmA2 the distance and thus time to get somewhere is increased by 2 fold, the combat is trimmed down to some guy standing 6km locking you with a javelin in a fight that is over before you know what happened and since people prefer long time sandbox rpg type of pvp you are most likely not going to be able to do something the majority of the match anyway with your limited gear. Reason no.6) Hard to learn, easy to m ? ArmA is not a game for everyone, because the basics are hard. But once you cross a certain point you can simply beat everyone. With mastering I don't mean actual pvp skill, but more like tricks and game-know-hows to create comfort zones in which we can use the little skill we actually have to kill quite a lot and turn the tide. The more advanced the pvp mission is the more arsenal you have of sneaky shit to engage an enemy on unfair footing. Sometimes the game just looks like a soccer match where random people on both sides are allowed to carry hidden random weaponry, compared to all the other pvp shooters where bad skilled 1-trick pony's will also on occasion have to bite the dust. If you check those points with games such as COD or BF you'll see that they focus on everything to make the pvp experience better. They make maps to steer players in the right direction, they add vehicles and weapon classes balanced out on each other, they are easy to learn but hard to master, there is always action and the combat is personal, they try to make the experience as consistent as possible etc, interface is easy to use and they promote tournaments and competition. It's not weird that even older versions of these games have bigger communities than our current one ( including the dayz players :D ). I hope that the people reading this know now that it needs more than just a "PLEASE try" or a name just 1-2 things that need to change. And the bigger question should be with such an overhaul if it is even necessarily to compete with those games when you have unique product going?

Call me a conspiracist. Really its my only form of indentity, but isnt SOPA like a distraction thing? I mean its slow, right in our face and easy to get rid off. Its not like SOPA is a bunch of people, its a weapon represented by these bunch of people. And SOPA is so clear and over the top and has called up such a large number of combatants against it that it seems like its just a scheme. It could just be considered a first strike to see who jumps out of what hole and then have a bomber bomb those holes, a diversion for another attack or easing people as a opening to a less horrid bill. Everything is in place we have the internet people going RAHRAHRAH. So the crowd is definantly distracted. We think we have a clear enemy but really are just fighting symptons of a greater problem. And the moment this SOPA is gone and everyone is celebrating what stopping these guys to sneak past some bills with nasty fine print?

They can take ofp from my dead cold body :P

Token from the Gamespy forum Since from this message it looks like its unkown to them which games are no longer supported so I took liberty of messaging them that Operation Flashpoint Resistance version 1.96 also one the problems. Hopefully that will be enough for them to put the servers back so I can say OFP will never die :) edit: Thats a nice list I will update my ofpwatch for the moment 2 :)

Last couple of days I can only connect to the servers remotely. Is gamespy no longer supporting flashpoint? edit: Problem = we ( also other players ) see servers on ofpwatch, but we cant see em anymore in Flashpoint > mulitplayer > internet server list Sofar i spoken 20 people, only 2 people from those could see the servers. So i think something is bugging on the way but I can imagine with such small player base complaint will never reach. Any ideas thought whom i could contact?