There are a few problems with ARMA mutiplayer:
1) a totally fragmented community base. There are probably great games being played 24/7 but how would you find them? If you cant make it easier for people to find populated servers offering good gameplay then you are wasting your asset.
2) there is no quality control of servers, nor is there any real way of telling what the gameplay experience will be like when you log on (assuming you have all the right patches)
3) There is missing functionality that is required for really good (PVP) gameplay - this is what the Reality Mod developers have tried to address in BF ARMA2
It is absolute nonsense that ARMA III is too much of a "hardcore sim" to provide good and serious PVP gameplay. It is also untrue that there there are only 2 markets, the "hardcore" and the "arcade". People fall into these categories because developers have yet to figure out, a) how large the middle market is, and b) how to adapt a game for it.
Why should people have to make a choice between tedious arcade shooters like BF3, or ARMA, which essentially has NO MP experience availiable for people who dont want to mess with all the clans, servers, mods, ect?
My wish? for ARMA3 to run OFFICIAL online PVP servers with the kind of gameplay Reality Mod tries to provide. If BIS streamed its customers into Reality Mod servers, or somthing of their own that is similar, that would be FANTASTIC.
Troutish
---------- Post added at 18:25 ---------- Previous post was at 18:09 ----------
The huge ARMA game map presents a major challenge for MP – but its not insurmountable. You can see from the problems in Reality Mod Arma that if the server numbers get low, and if vehicle run out too soon, people become strung out all over the map. This ruins gameplay, people log off, and the problem gets worse.
Controlling player density is the biggest factor (IMHO) in determining the quality of gameplay. It is closely related to the spawn system, the capture/ objective system, and the tools that help squads stick together.
I think the solution for MP ARMA would be to create smaller borders within the game map (ie: zones you cannot leave without punishment), and then open up adjacent zones when the objectives are met. These could be 2x2 Km zones for example, or even larger in non-urban, low cover map areas. With this sort of system it could take many hours, or even days of gameplay to fight across the entire map. There would be no “map fatigueâ€, but at the same time the playerbase would not get fragmented.
If the map zones were easily scaleable BIS could even experiment with different sizes according to what works best for certain terrain areas, player numbers, or equipment types.
Again, this type of gameplay should be limited to either BIS servers or BIS audited ones to ensure quality control and maximum player concentration.
