PR:ARMA 2 - Highlights Reel #3

[UK_Force]

After a quick read through the large post there Sekra, I can answer a few of them now for you pal.

Also please bear in mind, this Mod was not done on a whim, it was thought out for over a year before I put the team together to start work, so we had process's in place already.

However these things are not of interest to the Public, as its PR Business if you like and how we work as a team.

Anyway a few things:


1. We have small 4km x 4km maps in production already for our Skirmish mode, these will be highly detailed, created by deanosbeano, they have now gone over to a new member of the team who is a "professional" external environments designer working on them as we speak. (This allows for good old PR infantry battles).

20km maps will come into their own still however, and also bear in mind with "objectives" its quite easy to channel the gameplay on different missions as required.
If the objective where centre/bottom left, then that map is where the play would be, and if guys wondered of elsewhere - then they are clearly not working as a team anyway, and the game would be pointless.

So really its now down to the size of the Map, but more how our Mission Designers put it together.

2. We have many, many new concepts that have not been seen in A2 or BF2 before, these are what they are "concepts" that are not ready to be discussed with the public yet, some of which are truely "jaw dropping".

3. In regards to the gamemodes ......... I can assure you they play like PR. When our testing team say "It feels like PR now", then we are getting it right I would say.

4. Bear in mind it is not just the ArmA2 Dev guys that are working on this. There are at least 10 of our BF2 Devs working on it aswell, in between jobs. Even the testers are a good mix of BF2 and ArmA2 guys, so we get both sides of the feedback we need.


Now a working relationship has been created I speak quite regular with Bohemia Interactive (Lead Developer, and Community Manager), about our Multiplay work, providing advice and vice versa. I recently released a working document to them of our intentions and design plans for PR MP, of which they will provide feedback and advice.

So as you can see we are working with them, which aint a bad thing - lets be fair.

[CCCode]

Simply amazing stuff

[Sekra]

As I read my post again I do apologize if it has a more hostile tone than I intended (probably roots back to my experiences in the A2 community ops: You know how it is back there..). And your team providing feedback also was mentioned in the skype chat that Dwarden started about improving the MP of A2 (nothing specific, just that you had provided them with a document about it). With everything they seem to be planning to improve it I believe a lot of the obstacles about MP with A2 engine will be overcome soon and it will open up a whole new world of playing Arma online.

[Urbanxfx]

The long awaited wait was soooo worth it. Its going to be awesome!

[Scheintot887]

Hope this PR:A2 Mod have enough people for a good PvP experience.
Enough from the PR Community AND the A2 Community. Otherwise the Mod is already dead, and that is a sad point because PR "need" a Engine like this.

1 Server with 40 People is not enough. Hope its the same like PR:Bf2.

[mlacix]

Great job!

[UK_Force]

As I read my post again I do apologize if it has a more hostile tone than I intended (probably roots back to my experiences in the A2 community ops: You know how it is back there..). And your team providing feedback also was mentioned in the skype chat that Dwarden started about improving the MP of A2 (nothing specific, just that you had provided them with a document about it). With everything they seem to be planning to improve it I believe a lot of the obstacles about MP with A2 engine will be overcome soon and it will open up a whole new world of playing Arma online.

No need to apologise pal, it was a good post, hence I was happy to answer it.

Indeed, its good to know that BI have also mentioned our involvement, and the fact we intend to work together on the MP of ArmA2.

Anyway I hope managed to answer most of your points in there mate.


.

[ryan d ale]

Hmm it seems like there's a lot more scepticism among the community who hasn't had the experience of being a tester and I'm going to make it bigger...

As previously stated by other posters, I'm also concerned about player limit and map size (I'll leave optimisation out of it because of what has been said).

What further hampers these areas are some of the crucial game play dynamics (imo).

Counter Insurgency and Insurgents not knowing where the caches are! To me, this implies the team will split up into even smaller numbers and further away from each other than in PR and have even less people to communicate information. Blufor will have all the glory?

Return of RPs?

The magical reinforcements from nowhere that were taken out of BF PR (thankfully).

Anymore details about these subject areas?

My impressions are that these are in game and so the information should be available to share.

Thanks.

[Burton]

- Rally points in PRAA should not and must not be thought of as the same system in BF2 R. They work very differently.

- The FOB will not lag, it's not part of the mission it's built into the map. It's something I was concerned about and have tested it with 150 bots walking around it and performance/fps wasn't affected.

- Insurgents WILL know all cache locations, but they WONT know which one the Bluefor knows about.

[ZephyrDark]

- Insurgents WILL know all cache locations, but they WONT know which one the Bluefor knows about.

So in other words insurgents will also have to observe the BLUFOR troop movements to figure out if they're headed towards a cache location. Hmm... will prove interesting. My question is, will all of the caches be revealed from the start for the insurgents or will it be like PR:BF2 and theres a limited amount of caches on the map at once?

[UK_Force]

Burton;1453609']-
- The FOB will not lag, it's not part of the mission it's built into the map. It's something I was concerned about and have tested it with 150 bots walking around it and performance/fps wasn't affected.

Cheers Burton, as I said previously but with the detail - please don't "assume" knowledge, our concepts are logically thought out as you can see.

[Sindrio]

Damn good job there PR! I have bought a new PC and Arma 2 CO so im combat ready!
Love the gun sounds! The vanilla was... what should i call it? Weak? Iv'e felt that the gunfire didn't have that kick it gives my ears when i fire a weapon!
Again: Great work!

[xatu miller]

Out of pure curiosity. Hows the communication with BI comparing to the guys from bf2(dice?i forgot).

[AfterDune]

Communications with EA/DICE... I don't think that's even possible for mod teams .

[Mellanbror]

Strongly thinking about taking a permanent vaccation from work and start playing PR full time
It looks and seems amazing!
Thank you for your work =)

[Tim270]

Wow that looks so much better than vanilla arma.

One thing I did love about the series was the logistics though, putting ammo in vehicles that you will need later, loading planes up with cargo.

Man, I would love just to play the as the aircrew on a Merlin, loading ammo, dropping troops off etc!

The dynamics of the game-mode sound really tactical as well. Cant wait to play this if I ever get around to getting a better pc. (Not a dig, just a old pc).

[tatne]

This makes me wanna buy Arma2 right now!

[Claymore]

I like how the videos are done, very proffesional and informative. The concept you have for the gameplay seems to be very good and the new content is of top notch quality. Thank you!!

With the new counter insurgency gamemode all it takes is one teamswitcher or one person just giving the cache locations in a private mumble or where ever to the other team to ruin the whole round.

Yes, that might be a problem. Perhaps some workaround could be implemented like you get the idea where the weapon cache might be from the map but the marker will cover like a 200x200 m square. If you are within this square as an insurgent, you will be able to see the exact location (as a hud marker maybe?) but otherwise you won't. I'm not sure if this is possible in A2 but it would be an endless pity if the insurgency was ruined by teamswitchers.

As for the map size, I'm not entirely sure what to think about the size. 4x4km maps help to concentrate the fun but we have one mod for that already - BF2 R. So I'm not against experimenting with large maps and have a great confidence in the betatesting team. It's probably full of A2 and BF2 R vets and as long as there is enought of them available for some large team battles, gameplay flaws such as an empty battlefield shall not be missed. That's probably why the spawning on a rallypoint has been reintroduced.

[TheAssProtectors.Nr1]

Seriously, this looks soooo good. That gameplay video was awesome! Excellent job, guys!

Now, will someone play buy me a new computer?!