Operation Flashpoint 2 officially announced

http://www.gamesradar.com/pc/operation-flashpoint-2-dragon-rising/preview/operation-flashpoint-2-dragon-rising/a-2008071111322259048/g-20070419115621991051

Gamesradar.com/pc article from the US PC Gamer, gave it a read, I think there was a couple of changes from the UK article, so here it is. Of note are the paragraphs on the last page indicating large-scale coop, realism, dual-through-octo cores supported, and a hint at extensive modding tools. Sounds like Codies is fully intent on making a solid sequel in the OFP franchise.

For those who didn't see it:

http://xbox360.ign.com/dor....08.html

So which side called in Artillery on their own men the US or the Chinese?

I do like the new logo and how they changed the Soviet sickle thing into the Chinese dragon that looked cool. Trailer wasn't too bad either. Still want to see gameplay though.

so you think the US intensionally call in artillery to blow their own ass up? way to go for yet another blue on blue report in CNN

After watching it a bit more and thinking about it, the only think so far I can say is that the athmosphere seems to look good, even setting aside the rendered effects and animations, the models themselves are quite good, the vegetation does not look too bad. And previous game's rendered of the same kind of engine were rather close to what they ended up to be in game.

So there's good chance the models will be good.

Now, does that make a good game? Not at all

And apart from that, and wishfull thinking and answering from the devs in a few interviews (frankly, when asked if there will be a mission editor in a OFP sequel, what do you think they would answer? Ofc they say "yes"!, we know nothing of importance.

View distance? That's one of my only real concerns when watching the vid, artworks, and current instance of the engine as seen in GRID (even though is is not exactly the same used in OFP2) : after a rather short distance, all hills and terrain are without any vegetation and feature. Only textured geometry. Worrying.

AI? No vid or demo or specifics yet

Vehicle handling?

Damage model? If I start from GRID engine, let's say we can have some faith here, at least for vehicles Though they'll need to work on real weapon damage, quite different from crash, mud and things like that

Scalability? How many soldiers on the battlefield, how many players in MP?

Flight model?

Ballistics?

Editor, capabilities compared to OFP?

Modding, how open is the engine?

MP handling? Of course, I expect JiP, things like that...

These points are what will make the game. Not how pretty it will be and what will be the awesome campaign's story. Unless they target only people that want to play a campaign and ditch the game altogether

And so far, we have no answer or any hint about these points. "AI will be incredible", "pretty good", etc... is not an answer, and that's currently all we are reading in interviews

Yet, if you compare this to some official ArmA videos that were out before the game you should see that it's pretty much the same style. Only better and more realistic.

Dudes, you are reading way too much into it, just a CGI teaser to get some hype going. If you applied such scrutiny to ArmA, you would run out of digital ink before you were done listing all its faults.

Wait, what? The CGI is super realistic? You dont say... It'll be nice to see all the "fancy" animations (they didnt strike me as that good) actually make it into the engine. 99.9% of the time all you ever see are the standard run, bunnyhop and crouch/prone anims anyway...

ArmA and OFP are pretty damn arcadeyish on easy settings too. What do you think about that?

Back to games... Indeed, we already know what ArmA2 will be like because it's gonna be almost exactly the same as ArmA, most of its age-old shitty design and bugs included.

Sure you're not having any double standards here?

Also, way to promote your own double standards dissing BI and asskissing CM

I´d say it´s best to keep it with the old OFP - forum saying:

"Patience is a virtue"

Right now everything is possible. Total hit, total desaster or something in between. At this point it´s fishing in the dark by all who participate in this debate about a game that has never been screened live.

Well we all know that (at least I do :-)) but its part of the charme if you ask me gearing up for the release of a game.

And if you ask me I`m interested in reading peoples views on games I am interested in.

As I understand Codemasters is on E3 and OFP2 is listed as one of the games so I hope for some new info soon.

Wait, what? The CGI is super realistic?

Nonono, sir. More realistic. And that was more of a joke really, even if it's true

Quote[/b] ]Also, way to promote your own double standards dissing BI and asskissing CM

Excuse moi, asskissing? Which asskissing might you be referring to? Maybe I should have more sympathy for the whole david and goliath thing but I don't. That doesn't mean I'm kissing anyone's ass. Much unlike some fans here who seem to be emotionally very invested in BIS and their games. Nothing wrong with that but it's not good in a discussion about OFP2 when most of your comments and arguments are so warped by it

I'm a bit skeptical about OFP2 too, especially the whole AI using real tactics part, but I don't see anything wrong in hoping* for it to be as good as they say

*Before anyone starts again with the "you should not hope anything so you won't be disappointed": Please... I'm probably spending a lot less time doing that than you are doing being actively pessimistic about it

... post modified for political correctness and to keep within bickering limits ...

I read a german report yesterday that was done by Petra Schmitz, who accompanied my Arma beta test for a german magazine before Arma was released.She´s an oldschool OFP fan and certainly no bunnyhop lover. They have been at the developement site of Dragon rising and from what she writes the WIP she has seen (read live OFP2 footage ingame) she was very much impressed by the AI, the gfx and the surrounding and the level of detail the realistic models, weapons and vehicles have. Sure it´s still wip but AI seeking cover, AI avoiding your line of fire and getting into cover to get itself into a good attacking position doesn´t sound to bad for me. This is far more than Arma or OFP ever provided and is the crucial part of a follow-up to OFP. If the AI is able to behave under the umbrella of military education and the human will to survive it will be a blast, no matter if the the gfx are supashiny.

I don´t get the "editor" - deal here in this thread aswell as it´s been stated from the beginning of the OFP 2 project that the editor will be a main part of the game as Codemasters have seen how much potential a game with a good editor has as the community keeps the product alive and lively over years if they receive sufficient editing ressources.

I´ve collected and summed up some of the things stated in the article :

- Campaign covering 6 days. 3 or 4 missions for each day.

Campaign will be fought from US perspective

- Environment completely destructable (trees, houses, etc where houses have different predefined stages of destruction) The buildings, structure, environment that has once been destroyed will remain destroyed throughout the campaign.

- dynamic weather is influencing ground and soil. If it rains the soil gets muddy and this is depicted on gear, vehicles and characters.

- halfway dynamic campaign with sidemissions affecting the campaign and enemy strength (btw the Arma sidemissions didn´t really have an effect on the main missions, unlike Resistance where the missions did have an effect.)

- Strategic view to command units

- Circle menu (like R6) to command troops in FPV

- AI behaviour patterns affected by terrain, movement, noise

- damage system: If you bleed you will bleed to death if you don´t get patched up. Blood will be slowly soaking through your uniform. Damage dependant on caliber and type of weapon you get shot at with; Limb system.

Personal words from the reviewer on the game:

She shivered when she had seen the AI in action as it seems to act almost lifelike, she shivered when she had seen the detailed models that even offer variants of certain vehicles to make it look and work authentic.

If you understand german you can read the preview here:

Petra Schmitz on Dragon Rising

Cheers

A full translation would be lovely, if possible, but thanks Balschoiw.

That sounds very promising, but I'd be hard-pressed to find a negative preview. The information, if taken as true, is a great step in the right direction. However, at this time, not all the bases have been covered, so to speak. Thanks so much, Balschoiw.

If anyone is prepared to do a full translation, it would be much appreciated

So, they already have some sort of presentable build where that stuff actually works, a year before scheduled release. That's quite reassuring. I'm sure some people will even pick that stuff apart to give it some crazy negative spin but really... It just keeps getting better and better by each drop of information that's out

As far as I understand the review, she didn't see anything of the AI. She just listend to the storys CM told. I won't judge if they're true of false, but every developer promises a genius AI and we all know what's comming out in the end...

If you understand german you can read the preview here:

Petra Schmitz on Dragon Rising

Quote[/b] ]..Anpassungen waren allerdings beispielsweise beim FGM-148-Raketenwerfer nötig. Da ist die Bedienoberfläche einfach langweilig und dazu schlecht eins zu eins in ein Spiel übertragbar

Are they on crack?

I´ve had the fun of my life with the javelin in AA:AO - assuming that that one is modelled more or less correct..

Thanks for the link anyway, was a good read.

At least im now certain that it will have a mission editor. Would have loved to see videos of the 2 small editor tests though.

Quote[/b] ]As far as I understand the review, she didn't see anything of the AI

"if AI works as demonstrated" in my book sounds like she has seen it in action and furthermore there is a developer report on a AI vs AI situation in woods that he describes, so I guess she´s seen it in action. If it is a real matter of concern I can call her for more details.

Quote[/b] ]As far as I understand the review, she didn't see anything of the AI

"if AI works as demonstrated" in my book sounds like she has seen it in action and furthermore there is a developer report on a AI vs AI situation in woods that he describes, so I guess she´s seen it in action. If it is a real matter of concern I can call her for more details.

If you have access to first-hand AI and gameplay information - yes please do provide!  

Ok, will try to contact her tomorrow.

From a google badly done translation, this article seems to confirm there is a mission editor.

That's a good point.

What good is a 'promise' in the business world?

Have you ever heard of STALKER?

Their main goal is to make money and if those features get in the way of that they will scrap them in a heartbeat. Regardless if they were promised or not.

A demo will show us if they have kept their 'promise'.

Considering it took 7 years to make STALKER I guess it was all for the money... and not the features... kinda like how EA makes their games in 4 months, only for the features and not the quick sale...

What good is a 'promise' in the business world?

Have you ever heard of STALKER?

Their main goal is to make money and if those features get in the way of that they will scrap them in a heartbeat. Regardless if they were promised or not.

A demo will show us if they have kept their 'promise'.

Considering it took 7 years to make STALKER I guess it was all for the money... and not the features... kinda like how EA makes their games in 4 months, only for the features and not the quick sale...

I was following STALKER from the very start.  They had very high hopes for the game, but in their development cycle, kept moving the bar and falling behind current technology.  They had a lot of features that didn't make it into the game.  Oh, I was quite angry when it was announced that the game would not be the open world survival game that it was going to be at the outset, but I don't think you're (Victor) capturing what went on in that studio.  The reason STALKER didn't meet its initial expectations was because the developers didn't have a very firm goal.. they changed the name of the project 3 times, and the scope a number of times... and the goals they did have were not attainable with the resources they did have.  After they got THQ, they were instructed to tone it down, as I'm sure THQ didn't want to fund them for another 5 years to get to where they had originally planned.  It is about making money, but in the case of STALKER, it certainly wasn't about making the most capital possible.  That ship sailed when they were doing up their design document a third time.

so the race is on, which side will win my heart?

the evilized Celestial Imperial Guard Vs almighty Globle Liberation Army (kind'a shit for me)

or the not-so-creative-coldwar-once-more EAST VS. WEST?

so the race is on, which side will win my heart?

the evilized Celestial Imperial Guard Vs almighty Globle Liberation Army (kind'a shit for me)

or the not-so-creative-coldwar-once-more EAST VS. WEST?

You can gaurantee that each game will have things in them that you will love and things in them that you will hate. One game will do one thing better whilst another thing the other game will do better.

The only problem is that none of the games will have everything you like in it. So wherever your heart lies in the end, you'll end up playing both at the beginning for those very reasons above. Just like so many other players, including me.

If someone could translate that entire german article by Petra I'd be exceedingly grateful

I understand that we want all intel we can gather, but believe me when i say: Balchoiw summarized the whole article quite well. It is always the same game, write ten sentences and formulate one single fact. In Germany we would say, it was written very ornate or flowery I've stopped translating this article because of that - sry...but perhaps others have translated it.

I understand that we want all intel we can gather, but believe me when i say: Balchoiw summarized the whole article quite well. It is always the same game, write ten sentences and formulate one single fact. In Germany we would say, it was written very ornate or flowery I've stopped translating this article because of that - sry...but perhaps others have translated it.

Exactly. There's much "blah blah.." in the article. The essential facts have been reported and it's not really worth the time to translate this quite long article.

The only problem is that none of the games will have everything you like in it.  So wherever your heart lies in the end, you'll end up playing both at the beginning for those very reasons above.  Just like so many other players, including me.

I think you're right, both games will do different things well and other things badly. Thing is, ArmA (and I assume Arma2) always had a limit as to what modders could do. Scripting opened it up to more people but the game's core was still a stack of limitations for the ambitious modder. You won't see a total-conversion mod for ArmA like you could for HL2 or similar.

If OFP2 is very modder-friendly (as they have said it will be in the past,) then things it doesn't do so well (such as perhaps watered-down realism in some cases) might be able to be modded-in.

Who knows, but for me addons and mini-mods have been a central part of my OFP and ArmA experiences, so the vanilla game doesn't mean all that much to me.