GC 2008 Arma2 Press Coverage

[pogoman]

Moses from armabase.de get the first look on ArmA and also the press-kit which is handed out by BIS.
The Features seem to be the old ones but their are several new Screens:

http://www.armabase.de/page/content/images/ArmA2_Ingame-24thumb.jpg http://www.armabase.de/page/content/images/ArmA2_Ingame-20thumb.jpg http://www.armabase.de/page/content/images/ArmA2_RazorTeamthumb .jpghttp://armed-assault.de/screenshots/thumbnails/0/3775.jpg (http://armed-assault.de/screenshots/arma2_ingame-0_0_3775.jpg)<!-- END-OF-IDCODE --><!-- IDCODE[][image][3776] -->http://armed-assault.de/screenshots/thumbnails/0/3776.jpg (http://armed-assault.de/screenshots/arma2_ingame-1_0_3776.jpg)

So go on and download the new presskit and have a look on the new screens,
many new information is provided about campaign, the roles, vehicles and so on:
http://armed-assault.de/downloads/gc-08-pressekit.html#downl oad


Campaign features
Multiple endings
Non-linear freeform gameplay
Dynamic conversation with NPC‘s
Believable story plot based on actual geopolitical situation
Environment
225 km 2 of real world data
1 million 3D objects
350 kilometers of roads
50 cities and villages
Hilly rural landscape with rocky coastline
Living environment including civilian population and wild life

Game Gameplay
Team switch option
New easy to use commanding interface
New micro ai for team mates and enemies, now they use cover, hide and work better as a unit
Comprehensive simulation of suppressive fire
Razor Team with unique personalities
Now the Real Virtuality 3 - Engine:

• multicore Support
• DirectX 9 (Shader Model 3)
• "Parallax texture mapping"
• "Hemispherical lighting"
• Mikro KI (gestures, supressingfire, cm-precision)
• a dynamic built in conversationsystem

The island Chernarus:

• km2 of real world data
• 1 million 3D objects
• 350 kilometers of roads
• 50 cities and villages
• Hilly rural landscape with rocky coastline
• Living environment including civilian population and wild life

Trust me guys download the presskit. its got a loooot of cool stuff in it :D

(http://armed-assault.de/news/arma-2-pressekit.html)

[icehollowpoint]

"Comprehensive simulation of suppressive fire"

[SmOOvDoGG]

I wonder how modifyable will it be, as we well know Arma truly shines through its addons and mods

[ACC1]

"Comprehensive simulation of suppressive fire"

Pogo will be happy, "Oh I was just providing fire suppression.. of wait, I forgot that doesnt work in arma.."
lol

And yes it will be mod-able, would be an extremely bad move to change any of that.. Just make it a bit easier would be good.

[SmOOvDoGG]

Yeah easier is probably what im more talking about, I have also heard you cant change animations as well, unless im wrong

[Swordsman]

"modding" as in such things as new units / vehicles will be just as complicated as it is now I imagine - you still have to make them in a 3D modeller and then create textures etc.

Mission editing looks like it'll be fun though - 3D editor is being integrated to allow you more accurate placement of units :D

[icehollowpoint]

Pogo will be happy, "Oh I was just providing fire suppression.. of wait, I forgot that doesnt work in arma.."
lol

And yes it will be mod-able, would be an extremely bad move to change any of that.. Just make it a bit easier would be good.

Supression works heaps good in ArmA on human players, just not on AI unless you have one of the mods that adds AI reaction to suppressive fire.

[pogoman]

while i was talking about the ai, how do you mean it works heaps good on human players? if your underfire in arma you can return fire just as easily...

[ACC1]

while i was talking about the ai, how do you mean it works heaps good on human players? if your underfire in arma you can return fire just as easily...
agreeeed, if your shooting at me all that will happen is I hear the snap WHIIIZ and see smoke puffs near me, but it aint gonna stop me from clickin my trigger and BOOOM, sniper rifle shot between your eyes.

[S.O.P]

So, are there any real particulars to the new game? Any details been released other than a couple of lines of text?

[pogoman]

well theres a bit more info in the presskit, like ingame models of some of the vehicles and weapons which are gonna be in there, and apparently theres gonna be 50+ base vehicles and if you include all their variations then 120+, and about 40+ handheld weapons, with a further 80+ variations on those weapons.

[ACC1]

Basically to much stuff to name.. lol.. Its gonna be good!

[Rhodesy_77]

well considering its not due for release till next year then now.

[pogoman]

well aparently Peter games is releasing it in the last quater of 2008. although that will be a foreign version there'll probably be a mediocre translation tool for it (there was for the first arma).

[Captain_Wolf]

agreeeed, if your shooting at me all that will happen is I hear the snap WHIIIZ and see smoke puffs near me, but it aint gonna stop me from clickin my trigger and BOOOM, sniper rifle shot between your eyes.
If you are a sniper of course you don't have to worry about suppressing fire as you will be out of the enemies effective range most of the time. Snipers only really have to watch out for counter snipers.

However if you are a proper infantryman in a proper fight against proper suppression fire it does work very well, if you stay down you live and are suppressed, if you get up to return fire you will most probably die before you can find the enemy that is firing at you as he obviously knows where you are and is normally just waiting for you to get up so he has a larger target area.

[Rhodesy_77]

http://www.armaholic.com/index.php?m=single&id=3701

here are some more screens. its lookin bloody nice

[pogoman]

that looks goddamn awesome! i hope they make the ai civilians and wildlife act believable in dangerous situations. none of that ambling around the battlefield like they do in arma. something amusing to note is that in the first few pics of the airfield, u can tell they've used the same ground texture and possibly hanger statics as in arma1 lol. i dont mind if they recycle stuff tho, just gives them more time to spend on other stuff :)

[Rhodesy_77]

yter true, and i can pretty much say that alot of those pics are staged with the use of stand still animations, as alot of them are in arma (like in some of the custom screen shots with the kick ass animations)

[Swordsman]

true, but regardless of whether or not they're static animations, the graphics are what they are :)

very interested to see how ArmA 2 develops, not very interested in how OFP2 will go - looks like a bit of run and gun all over again.

[S.O.P]

well theres a bit more info in the presskit, like ingame models of some of the vehicles and weapons which are gonna be in there, and apparently theres gonna be 50+ base vehicles and if you include all their variations then 120+, and about 40+ handheld weapons, with a further 80+ variations on those weapons.
Cheers. Other than models, is there anything concrete on the engine, scaling, destructible terrain, game modes, that sort of thing?

[Captain_Wolf]

Cheers. Other than models, is there anything concrete on the engine, scaling, destructible terrain, game modes, that sort of thing?
Every object in ArmA is destructible ATM so I assume that will carry over, though I hope they make a more dynamic damage system where parts of a building or object can be damaged/destroyed while leaving the rest intact.

As for game modes considdering that it is so modable I would say any game mode is possible hell there is jail break, cops and robbers (SL), even a PR gamemode for the current version of ArmA. As for the engine and the scale the first post is pretty informative.

[pogoman]

Well apparently theres also:
Resource management
RPG elements
Lifelike combat simulation= bullet ballistic & deflection, material penetration, etc (tho arma1 had this).

however theres not much info about gamemodes yet, and im not sure howfar the destructible terrain goes. the destructible buildings aspect has been updated, as in you can blow a hole in a building and hide in it/breach it etc. basically buildings have multiple damaged states.
im not sure about the terrain tho, in arma1 if an explosion went off on the ground there'd be a 2D crater, but no actual hole. not sure if they'll add actual holes in arma2 tho, nothings been said as of yet.

it looks like they've cut back the number of players for multiplayer, as they say 50+ whereas in arma its essentially limitless, however arma's netcode aint that great so i'm hoping they've refined it and designed it with more realistic objectives in mind, as arma1 barely ever benefits from its ability to have massive servers due to stability issues.

[S.O.P]

The first post reads marketing.

Just like the first version of ArmA was supposed to be the end all, it released as quite a buggy mess.

I'm trying to filter through the hype here.

[pogoman]

yeah im sure they've learned from their mistakes, plus arma2 is really just arma1 with more goodies and arma1 is essentially pretty stable now (except for on my machine, why must arma multiplayer hate me!!! :(), so they've had a long time to fix what they broke.

[icehollowpoint]

What people don't seemed to realise is how we are the ones who begged them to HURRY UP and release a sequel to OFP, so being the great guys they are, they do so prematurely and then we have the nerve to go an complain about how it's imperfect. Can anyone spot what is wrong there? Had people not bitched and whined about not having a sequel NOW NOW NOW, they wouldve had more time to iron out the bugs.

[S.O.P]

I hardly think that forum whinging has any bearing on the release schedule of any game.

Money might, but the words of a few people amount to very little. Look at all the people complaining about BF2 patches...did EA/DICE fix any of the glaring issues? No, they stuck to their guns and did nothing. :D

[Swordsman]

BI is different to EA though, as they will actually listen to what is suggested by the community and take it on board. Key word being "listen" :P

But as ice said, we can't really complain about the state of ArmA, as it was released earlier than they expected to (due to public demand to so speak). Personally I love the fact that an independant studio released such a great game, and that it was their first release out on their own :)

[pogoman]

http://www.armedassault.inf o/
new 20 min video of arma2. its in german and theres a bit of talking at the start, but he plays around on it for most of the time. looks like arma with better graphics and sexy guns basically. they didnt show any groundbreaking stuff with the ai or anything tho, they still looked a little aimless in combat lol.

[Gu^n3r]

those words do not sound like there talkin bout games 0.o

[pogoman]

if u go here: http://www.arma-rpg.com/news-general-talk/arma2-presskit-released-new-screens-and-awesome-pdfs-t2679.0.html
it says above the screens:
Pictures by Maruk on his E6750/8800GT-512MB/2GB Machine:
http://www.arma-rpg.com/files/arma2screens/uh1a.png (http://www.arma-rpg.com/files/arma2screens/uh1a.png)

http://www.arma-rpg.com/files/arma2screens/uh1b.png (http://www.arma-rpg.com/files/arma2screens/uh1b.png)
which is exactly the same as my machine :D
so looks like i wont need to upgrade and those pics look fricken sweet :D
(altho ofp2 still looks better :P)

[ACC1]

ofp2 is for candy eyes to look good, arma is for playing realistic military game!! yeahhhaahh :)

[pogoman]

how awesome does the fog look. instead of the mountains just fading out due to VD it actually looks like theres fog there instead, a much better way of doing it than just having a wall of haze like b4 :)

[Gu^n3r]

sexy.

[S.O.P]

If ArmA 2 wants to go the extreme simulation route, I'm hoping OFP2 goes the in-between.

Oh, and screenshots don't really indicate how well your computer will do. He could of been flying at 2 fps, for all you know. The article doesn't really say.

Agreed on the fog.


Edit: http://www.arma-rpg.com/news-general-talk/arma2-presskit-released-new-screens-and-awesome-pdfs-t2679.0.html;msg3142 7#msg31427

This post doesn't bode well for OFP2. 2 Assault rifles and 13 magazines on one person.

[pogoman]

argh. i was hoping ofp2 would capture the atmosphere of COD4 while still being reaslitic, which is why it looked so cool (u gotta admit, COD4 was like a hollywood movie :D). it seems u cant have it both ways though :(

[Swordsman]

If you go for the "feel" of COD4 in anything you'll lose the realism. :P

COD4 shouldn't even be mentioned in the same sentence, nay the same paragraph, as the word realism! lol

[Psyrus]

argh. i was hoping ofp2 would capture the atmosphere of COD4 while still being reaslitic, which is why it looked so cool (u gotta admit, COD4 was like a hollywood movie :D). it seems u cant have it both ways though :(

Meh I'm sure with a bit of work you could do a reality mini-mod to remove the "ghey" features like dual M249s :)

[S.O.P]

Don't forget the shoulder-mounted Moonraker Lasers too.

[ACC1]

http://www.vimeo.com/1581577

In game footage.. its in german, but you get a good look in game. And at the mission editor screen, not use to/dont like the bright colours on the bars/buttons lol but Id say it will change from that.

[pogoman]

http://www.vimeo.com/1581577

In game footage.. its in german, but you get a good look in game. And at the mission editor screen, not use to/dont like the bright colours on the bars/buttons lol but Id say it will change from that.

repost :P

[ACC1]

repost :P

Go away zombie! Get off my leg.. lol

I hadnt seen it before.. Im not hanging all over it/ looking for it but stumbled on it last night after that other video an it looks ok. He shot a pig!

[Rhodesy_77]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZPviguWivU4

you can reload while walking :D

[pogoman]

<object width="425" height="344">


<embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/hZblVD855jY&color1=11645361&color2=13619151&hl=de&fs=1" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowfullscreen="true" wmode="transparent" width="425" height="344"></object>Video of ai, nothing that exciting but looks like an improvement.

I visited BIS at the GC on Friday. And what I've seen in the more then six hours was anything then I expected. Even though it was an early version, it was running very stable on both PCs except the one or other CTD. Compared to ArmA this is something totally different while familiar at the same time, with different lightning effects depending on the weather situation and time of day. You literally can feel a rain coming in for example. You might say "We have that already" but it's still something different and hard to explain actually. Lightning comes from different sources like street lamps, vehicles or the light of the moon and stars.
A much better AI then what we have now, even though not completely done yet. I've seen fightings going on in the woods and each time I've seen the same scene the behaviour of the AI was different.
Here are some of the things I remember:

- Even more realistic tides and stars
- Village signs are in cyrillic
- Better animations then we have now
- Improved lightning, no more shining vehicles when sunlight falls on them
- More fractions on each side: USMC vs. Russia and also two local fractions on each side
- Very dense road network with a lot of dirt tracks going into the landscape. I played around with it for like an hour, driving and running around in Chernarus. I got lost several times, despite the dense road network
- No trains, the tracks are just to improve the scenery
- No rivers or streams but small lakes
- Most buildings are not be enterable, but almost each one is destroyable. If they get too much damage they collapse like in ArmA
- Very nice church with incredible details
- Many, many different vehicles, actually too many to remember but: Crossbike, Mountainbike, BMP-1, BMP-2 and BMP-3, T-90, Avenger HMMWV, Mi-24, Kamov, PV3S, Ural with ZU-23, Tunguska, LAV-25. The editor menus are full of different vehicles and these in different configurations
- The BMP-3 has 3 gunner positions (2x front MGs, 1x main gun), the Mi-17 has gunners in the side door, rear door and the front.
- M1 with loader position, without a loader the gunner must switch to loader position and reload, then switch back to fire
- Both F-35 and Osprey take off vertically, but not sure if the AI can too
- Aimpoint optics looking much better now
- Player can interact with all units when he is near them and AI starts to forget about things, example:
Some russian tanks passed a village before.
If you ask someone in the village about tanks in the area after two days, they might say: yes there were 4 tanks going through yesterday
If you ask them 2 weeks after they passed, they might say: Yes there might have been tanks but i can't remember
- Campaign can be played with up to 4 players. It's not limited to that but because in the campaign there are only 4 members in the force recon team.
- Womans and many other civilians, old and young ones which fit perfectly into the area
- Civilians randomly move around in villages. While i was walking around in a village suddenly some russian patrol was there while the area was clear as I started
- Animals: Dog, Rabbit, Boar, Sheep, wild pig and a few more
- Editor is the same one we know already but has now a debug console where you can do all kind of stuff like pausing the game and fly with the camera around
- The command interface is slightly different, like order your men in a vehicle is now: Select them -> 9 –> Complex command -> Get in vehicle
- The vehicles are extremely detailed, like moving instruments, retracting gear, electronics in the wheel well, scratches
- Wounded units roll on the ground in pain
- Wounded or dead units can be dragged or carried
- Dualcore support, one core is used for the Micro-AI

[Psyrus]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZPviguWivU4

you can reload while walking :D

Wow thank you.. FINALLY. During that Betty thing Sgt Trip and I were clearing the last city area and I came across 4 guys, killed three of them and the officer was left with his stupid pistol. I needed to reload so I was going to push "d" to go back behind cover. Clumsy finger hit "d-r" accidentally and so guess what, I get to stand there slowly reloading and polishing my knob while the officer slowly turns towards me, takes aim and fires, all while my guy stands there going "guh durrrrrrr Ioie goTta phinish tis weLoade".

[Rhodesy_77]

@pogo WOOO when could we inbed things?!?! plus nice vid lol does look better