spruxxx

Hey all, I'm a huge fan of Insurgency and Domination MP in Arma 2 (at least when everyone works together ;)) - just wondering if anyone can help with this. The only problem I have is persuading my gaming friends to take the time to give Arma 2 / OA a go as well. Time and learning curve issues on their part etc etc The perfect solution to let them acclimatise would be a multiplayer version of the Combat Scenario from SP - basically 1 hour mission with some variety, but simple to understand, and I can take the TL role and teach them how to play. And of course it's just good fun! First off, sorry I know nothing about editing, either with the Simple or Main Editor. Searched around and haven't found any custom MP missions using the ACM - can you point me to any that have already been made? Or am I being a fool and not realising the SP mission is easy to convert to MP? I'm more than willing to try and overcome my ignorance and try and make one myself if necessary - it is going to be straightforward to add MP capability, or are there reasons why it is difficult to do? I've found posts about adding ACM stuff to a SP mission, which is helpful, but it's the MP element that I have no clue about. Just achieving the first point, 4-6 MP players, will be fine to start with. I think the default is a 6 man KSK team, with you and five AI. Ideally I'd also fix a few bugs / gameplay issues to make it better. I believe I've seen most of these features in other custom or campaign missions somewhere, so I guess it must be do-able somehow. So, edits I'd like to the SP Scenario Combat mission: 1. Multiplayer up to 6 players, as mentioned I need a method to manage players who are killed - 2 obvious choices are either respawn on other players or the mission starting point, a la Insurgency, or alternatively a reinforcement request via the radio, which drops them nearby via a heli, as is currently the case for dead AI team members in the SP version. 2. Other nearby AI friendlies will locate and heal critically injured units (perhaps if all players are hurt) - and possibly by specifically calling for support from the radio. 3. Manual emergency radio request to call in heli / medics / backup to your position (if all players hurt or in trouble), much like a reinforcement request - eg 2 medics and 2 armed troops plus heli crew arrive. I have seen an option like this before in a custom SP mission. Another very good reason for this is that the evac heli after the 1 hour play time is often bugged and doesn't land - it goes off to fight other enemies nearby and if it doesn't get shot down in the process, then gets stuck in mid-air until it runs out of fuel. Very annoying if you survive for the hour...so a manual option to bring a heli in for evac would be great. 4. Option to customise team types and weapon loadouts in advance. I noticed that although you can play the scenario at night, the default weapons do not include any night scopes and you can't change them! At the moment the only option for Combat is that you can choose between the KSK and BAF (if you have BAF of course). Thanks in advance, any thoughts much appreciated. And happy Xmas to you all!!! Spud

The Arma series definitely needs to be more accessible, but in my opinion that's not a gameplay issue - the balance between game and sim is right as far as I'm concerned. The problem is that it's difficult for new players to discover it's strengths. To me this ranges from how to use the controls properly such as using the headlook and how to survive the gameworld (never clearly explained afaik in Arma 2, Arrowhead etc, you have to watch the developer tutorials!), to knowing what types of multiplayer are available and how they work - eg Domination and Insurgency are two of the most popular (and I think enjoyable) mp modes, and they're both imported, with no in-game explanation anywhere. Currently newcomers to Arma 2 MP will stumble across these by chance at best. And the sad reality is that many people who may try one of the series will give it a quick go, not realise what's good about it, think "this isn't fun compared to COD or whatever" and not come back to it. And that's underselling these games - if the series is to do well by attracting new players, and therefore survive, then this has to be addressed in future editions. Some interface updates would help - the MP screen should offer modes based on number of players / the length of time you want to play etc. So if there's four of you and you just want to play for an hour, there should be an option like 4 player Combat Patrol (currently buried in Arma 2's Single Player-only Create New Mission option). If you want to play for 3 hours with 30+ players then it should offer you Warfare / Domination / Insurgency. It should explain how to play each mode as well, so new players can get stuck in. The current MP screen with it's massive server list, no info, no favourites, and just a few filters, is unacceptably basic in this day and age. Having persisted with the series for a long time (and over time my favourite FPS series without doubt), as I'm sure you all have, adjustments like this would help new players to see why these games are so good. And more new players equals better results for BI and more longevity for the series. And that's what we all want!

excuse my ignorance but i'll avoid the technical stuff and concentrate on what i'd like to see in arma 3 gameplay...and it's worth pushing the boat out right? i got bored of the arcadey fps games a long time ago. i wanted more depth and more of a challenge and arma 2 fpr me is the best fps out there (i was hooked with the original operation flashpoint!)... i'd like to see a more fully integrated land / air / sea system and more mmo options. arma 2 leans that way but clearly the focus is on the ground forces (and understandably so). for a next gen version it would be great to see the addition of air squadrons equivalent to the ground troops. this may need even bigger maps to balance the gameplay etc, but again if and when arma 3 comes out the average hardware spec will be better too. add in dynamic, persistent, campaign maps and we could all be playing both sides in a long term war...! sorry if this is a poor reference (no idea how many people have even heard of this game), but the enemy engaged 1 and 2 series (flight sim, but like arma the emphasis was on fun, and it had non-playable ground troops in it) had an excellent dynamic campaign system. the friendly ai commander would constantly assess the current map situation, enemy strengths and weaknesses etc and generate appropriate missions all over the map. for example, let's say an enemy factory is the ultimate target in a particular enemy city -the ai would generate several related missions - air cap to eliminate enemy air presence, anti-sam strike to remove aa defences, and finally a direct factory assault to capture or destroy it (maybe with apaches and / or blackhawks carrying ground troops). As you can guess the success of each mission has a noticable effect on the other with persistent damage to the friendly and enemy forces - if those sam sites stay up, the troop carriers have a much harder time of doing their job. as the player you can jump into the nearest squadron at the nearest friendly airfield and take on whatever mission you wish, the ai will handle the rest. and that's just one factory, in one city, in a map the size of taiwan! so it's months of play if you want total victory on a particular map. it really was a full military campaign strategy, albeit with the focus on helicopter combat. but this game is old, there was limited mmo capability then - this had 8 or 16 players max. personally i only played this in single player. but imagine if dozens of arma players could sign up whenever they like to the pilot and ground rosters and take on all these ai generated missions (it's persistent remember, so you could play for a few hours, come back the next day, and the war is still rolling on)? we're now seeing the kind of horsepower that could deliver it, and the domination maps in arma 2 aren't a million miles off. and you could also have top down human commanders instead of the ai, analysing both the map and previous mission successes before assigning new missions to squads and squadrons. all of a sudden recon missions become doubly important, as you need to know precisely how successful the previous strike was etc etc ok that's enough! :) but i hope you get my drift - a much more mmo focused version of arma, but with a strong strategic element, over a long campaign on a persistent map...i live in hope ;)