Just my personal thanks/applause...

[ladlon]

I know this has been said to death (and rightfully so), but I wanted to take a moment and express my own thanks and 'applause' to both the Arma2 team and all the makers of the mods I am currently using.

Arma2 is really an incredible piece of work on its own, not only in the incredible feat that it accomplishes (for the most part!)... controlling what truly is chaos! The open world and complexity of the various elements boggles the mind, as far as how many things (that are normally taken for granted) have to be considered and coded... yet the team really managed it.

The AI has been criticized by some, but personally, I've been impressed, for the most part. Sure, you get some WTF moments, but considering the complexity of the world and all the things each unit has to interact with (convincingly), it's amazing that it accomplishes so much already.

The sim is incredible value, too... Even to this day, I 'discover' new parts of the sim I haven't explored yet. Just as an infantry simulator alone, it's impressive, but throw in the huge variety of vehicals (air, land, water), and it's even more impressive. Granted, it's not (for example) a full flight sim... but what IS there is immersive and entertaining. Flying a copter around the vast world alone is quite an experience... and I still remember my surprise and the 'wow' factor with each new vehical I discovered... 'What? You can fly an A-10?! Huh?! You can fly that BIG plane sitting there, too!?!'

And then there's the Armoury, and how that even throws mini-missions at you... and lets you try even civilian vehicals, if you feel so inclined.... and have a nice drive through the country (which is so beautifully rendered, it's actually worth it!)...giving you even more options... and the multiplayer... and so on.

Heck, it's also a rabbit simulator!

Then, of course, all the mods... making the experience even more incredible.

I've just installed a few, and played a session... complete with a TrackIR... and it's nothing short of stunning. The immersion is amazing... the tension, the battle around you... The people who immediately wrote Arma2 off as 'a boring lay in the grass' really didn't give it a chance. The amazing amount of wow moments are surprising, considering that this is not some pre-scripted piece of animation that the player walks through (...you know the games I'm talking about!).

So, ya, it's been said many times before... and arguably schmaltzy.... but I really want to applaud the Arma2 team and the modders. It's great to see a game of solid quality, value and depth.

...now, I'll get back to asking about issues people already asked about 100 times before, and other annoying posts.

Cheers!

[hungrytoheal]

G'day mate,
You can do all your thanking in this this thread.

And yeah, they really are nothing short of amazing! Just imagine how much fun I had as a 10 year old getting his hands all over the OFP editor!

[ladlon]

Cool, I'll copy my post over to that thread. Thanks!

[SteveJA360]

Just thought id add this here.

So i fanced a "quick" game (emphasis on quick) game on Arma last night. So i load up Proving grounds (Great map btw) put down myself and one AI with me, against a squad of russians as well as the ACE medic moduals.

I ended up playing for 2hours with a possible dozen deaths! I knew being outnumberd was going to be hard but the AI, just WOW!. Before i start il say im running some Mods cant remember all right now, i shall find out though.

Heres one example of what happened. I start on the most easterly bridge on the east of the map, and the enemy start east 500m form that bridge down the road. Me and my Ai squad mate move into the vally and come up the other side to assume a firing point. Once in position i fire at the exposed soldiers on the road, and suddenly the AI dash ethier side of the road very life like. Within seconds of me firing the first shots, both enemy machine gunners surpress my position from cover/concealment. Under way too much fire i pull back into the bottom of the vally and run south along the gully for ~150m at which point i go up onto the westen side.

This gives me a great view into the vally up to the bridge and average view to the east over the fields. so i wait for them to cross the vally and sure enough a few come into view by the bridge. Once they were on the gullys bottom we opened fire possilby hitting one. Suddenly "Whak Wack Wack" the ground around us lit up as soldiers who had broken away from the main formation fired from the easten fields. With only open fields behind me i dive back into the gully and run southward along the gully at full speed with the intention of out manuvering the enemys flanking forces and catching them in the open. so another 300m or so southward i pop my head out on the easten side of the gully and look for the flanking group.

While i wait, my AI man (now called Wilson), covered down the gully. Finaly about 100m north east i see movement and open fire to halt thier advance. 5 mins later with both me and the flanking force battling for supremecy of the firefight the second group (i guess predicatibly) began firing at us up the vally, leaving me astonished at how quickly the AI got a move on (none of this waiting around). Finaly i lose the easten fire fight and become pinned and therfore turned my guns on the gully group. At this point i know i have to pull back to avoid being surrounded but moving would mean we would have to break cover, so i started moved back 50 yards then fired untill Wilson caught up. As he ran back i saw him take a hit so, now attached to wilson, i throw some smoke to check he was ok. Unfortunatly he wasn't. Now on my own i just ran Southward hoping to find cover out of the gully before being over run, however the flanking AI (masterfully quick) were already on the edge of the gully by the time i ran and had a clear shot ending another attempt of victory.

The AI were Incredible,
Credits to the AI mods i had and BI

[ffur2007slx2_5]

It seems that I was doomed to meet BIS Simulation. I was deeply addicted to it since 2001 just because there are two terrible advantages in the sim from BIS: Realism and totally freedom!

[Herbal Influence]

Yeah, fascinated since 2001 - me too! And the very reason ... see my signature!

Complexity, freedom, immersion, open, human-like-AIs - with their human errors: stubborn and lazy sometimes ;-))

[ladlon]

I almost never tried Arma... I was always interested in it, but assumed it was too hard core for me. Not that I don't like hard core (quite the opposite, I love sims), but that I thought it was out of my league... that only skilled/knowledgable military type people would be able to comprehend and/or survive in it. So, I just admired it from afar.

But, one day, I noticed the demo for Arma1, and figured 'why not?'....

At first, it was obviously intimidating, overwhelming, and killed me fairly quick... as expected. But, after a bit of trial, I was somewhat in control, and certainly was impressed. So, I bought Arma2 (which came out a few months after I tried the Arma1 demo), and I absolutely love it. It's a sim I play very often, and keep coming back to. The amount of content and variety (campaign, instant random missions, armoury, multiplayer, etc... plus the variety in the vehicals, locales, etc) are just staggering for the regular price you pay. Unlike seemingly so many games out there these days, this one actually seems to want you to have fun and do whatever you want to do, however you want to do it, and just keeps giving and giving (rather than being the usual linear, confined, do-it-our-way-or-forget-it frustrating crap I'm seeing now). Plus, the support actually seems to care about the quality of their product, and addresses it even AFTER you have paid for it. Don't see much of that these days...

And it just keeps getting bigger and better... yet stays tight and solid quality.