Well I just got back from a friend's place and he had it running and I can tell you guys that ArmA 2 is quite amazing. I watched for a couple hours. No it's not perfect, but its a hell of a lot better than ArmA 1, in my opinion. For example, when running and changing stance between crouch and upright, you don't stop but instead do what a real soldier would do which is keep moving with a smooth transition. That's just a small example.

The AI, while definitely not like real people online, does seem to play better. Switching between RPG and a rifle seems faster and more natural now too. Reloading is quicker which I think is good.

There's a lot to talk about. The game seems like a big improvement. The scenery and terrain is much more believable and natural feeling. Walking down a dirt road towards a village, the road felt natural in how it fit into the hillside.

I suspect that BiS is going to patch A2 much quicker, but we'll have to see what happens of course. Yes that's a very important issue, I agree.

I think A2 is a big step in the right direction. I'm excited for the game and community. It's looking like the best hardcore PC FPS for 2009.

It's great BIS was expanding into console market which was very evident in the design.

I'm pretty sure ArmA didn't come out for consoles. ArmA2 might be ported to 360 but that's still up in the air. PC is definitely the lead SKU in any case and as such, I highly doubt consoles had any impact on its design.

Nice justification. Sounds like you don't want to play the game in the first place.

I was being a realist. You want "justification"? Fine, I'll oblige:

I followed the OFP previews for the year or so prior (when it was Flashpoint 1985: Status Quo and we saw the LST in damn near every screenshot which blew our minds). I purchased the Euro release from GoGamer (think they were CompuExpert back then) when it first went up for sale. I waded through the upgrades and patches until it was 'stable' (far longer than the U.S. release purchasers had to). But it had weapons, vehicles and map perks which I thought was novel for the new era of "release, then patch" bullshit. Reward me for being a patient customer instead of making me regret your company's mistakes. I bought Red Hammer. I bought Resistance. I remained among the community and played heavily for years. I loved the core of the game enough to overlook the flaws. Graphics didn't make a damn to me at the time and I thought OFP's graphics represented well. I wanted the game to succeed on all points.

Admittedly, I purchased Arma with high hopes and was ultimately unimpressed due to the problems, patches and design issues/decisions through the entire experience. It's great BIS was expanding into console market which was very evident in the design. More power to them on making money, I can dig it. But the presentation felt that they focused heavily on eyecandy to keep up with the market and let their old mistakes go unchecked. It felt rushed all over the place, especially in mission design. Maybe they fell victim to feature creep and deadlines? I don't know. I still stomached it and still saw the diamond in the rough they are having a problem freeing.

Am I looking forward to repeating the same tired ol' hump through the mud after 8 years of it? No, I am not. And as a paying customer who has supported them and recommended their products to friends and fellow vets over the past 8 years, I think I have a sound justification for my opinion. Do I want to play the game? Hell yeah. Do I want to put up with shoddy code, mission design and dying support? Shit no. I will be monitoring reviews, word of mouth and player ratings. Maybe it's old age setting in, but my patience for bullshit is growing thin. And I will continue to vote with my wallet (purchases for myself, my kids and gifts to others).

Fair enough, SJ. I don't blame you.

Maybe once the realized it fixed what they wanted to fix without causing more problems, there was no need for a "real" patch.

There is a huge need for them to finish the patch. Half of the community is split between patches. Some people will only play a final patch and play on the extremely buggy 1.14. They have also not released the 1.16 dedicated linux server file so that is also probably why the majority of servers are still the last official patch.

I am not buying Arma2 for a very long time. I am going to wait several years until they have finally got the game working properly and I have a super computer fast enough to run it. I am tired of being an unpaid beta tester for BIS.

1.16 is only a beta patch for Arma1 and they still haven't finished it.

The vast majority of my technical issues were cleared up by the beta patch. Maybe once the realized it fixed what they wanted to fix without causing more problems, there was no need for a "real" patch.

Issue is not the developers/programmers they are good. Problem is that the game really needs 6 more months to be truly polished and finished. Game is rushed thats all.

I have no problems with a beta exclusive to pre-orders. But they pretend you're getting the finished product.

Well, if you look at it, it's a indie developer with just 30 employees or something, making a highly ambitious, complicated game. It's fair to say you should have a different set of expectations compared to say a valve release (loads of staff, mountains of cash and resources to share over multiple projects).

I was a big fan of OFP, despite epic bugs, because fundamentally the game was amazingly good and ambitious. New territory is uncharted so you can't expect the smoothest ride. That their games are STILL very poorly coded is less forgivable, they should have good funding this time around and the territory isn't so new.

And ok, $50 is $50 and you should have a certain expectation of what you get for that. I think they should spend a bit more on programmers and QA, and reign in their ambition so that they are attempting something achievable. They'd probably make more money anyway since as it stands so many people wait until it hits the bargain bin, on the basis that not only does that save money but they'll be getting into the game while it's at a almost-reasonable standard. Patching is great and everything but it's irrelevant if you're done with the game by then. Same goes for some other devs, my friend is a huge fan of Total War games but makes an effort to completely ignore the game for a year before even checking to see what state it's in.

Fans acting like wasps defending the nest are typical for any popular game (or application, for that matter).

Most people have given up and quite playing Arma1. They got tired waiting for BIS to get their act together.

I have not experienced any bugs since 1.16 + tons of mods.

1.16 is only a beta patch for Arma1 and they still haven't finished it. It has been 6 months since the last patch (before that it took over a year between patches). The last official patch is 1.14 and is absolutely horrible.

The BIS forums are filled with fanboys who attack anyone who dare complain. For instance I reported a massive bug with the 1.14 patch that caused my whole screen to fill with a single texture. The fanboys in the forum said it was Nvidias fault or it was my fault but it definitely wasn't BIS' fault. Funny enough now in the beta patch this texture bug is now fixed and I am running the exact same drivers.

This comment was edited on May 31, 2009, 04:56.

a demo right about now would be nice.

Yeah benchmarks seem off... People are playing the game at 1920x1200 HQ?!

Maybe they renamed the .exe to Crysis etc... to play at 1920x1200 HQ but those are some weird Benchmark results.

Waiting to see what the North American launch will be like before I decide to hold back on this one.

There probably will be a great game in ArmA II, it will just take 2 years to find it. And in 2 years I'll snap it right up. I bought the original ArmA the day it came out, and I have to say I regret it. It's great fun now and a lot more stable, but 2 years was a long time to wait for that when it should have come in the box.

Given the latest info on benchmarks and continued bugs, I'll avoid the launch. Wait until their paid beta (patch-fest) is over and pick it up for cheap. Here's to hoping they iron it out in the next 1-2 years (doubt they will by summer).

http://www.pcgameshardware.com/aid,685770/Armed-Assault-2-Graphics-card-benchmarks-and-visual-quality-compared/Practice/

They did something wrong for that test like maybe setting view distance to max. Hold out for more benchmark tests.

http://simhq.com/forum/ubbthreads.php/topics/2734152/Armed_Assault_2_Graphics_card_.html#Post2734246

This comment was edited on May 30, 2009, 21:52.

I agree with #20, that would be fine. It's the business of selling a badly broken version as a boxed retail product that gets people angry. If they were selling it online as (explicitly) an unfinished version, and people absolutely know that that is what they were buying, it would be okay, and the people who have no issues with buying a beta version would be covered. They should absolutely do that.

This comment was edited on May 30, 2009, 21:31.

Some more pics, these have the english language pack installed.

http://simhq.com/forum/ubbthreads.php/topics/2734315/Magnum_s_ArmA2_in_pictures_and.html#Post2734315

I have the hardware to run it and plan on picking it up when it's released, after looking at the lower spec "pixel doubling" image I could understand people with low-to-mid computer specs not being that jazzed about it.

This comment was edited on May 30, 2009, 21:09.

I have not experienced any bugs since 1.16

A quick reminder - just how long ago was the 1.16 patch released (which I would argue puts the game in a reasonably polished state) compared to when Arma1 hit the market in its beta-state?

Answer: Arma was launched in Nov 2006 (more widely May 2007), the 1.16 patch in April 2009. Thats 2 years for their title to end it's endless succession of bug fixes, performance tweaks and OS compatibility issues (woo, finally vista 64 bit support with >3GB RAM). The framerate performance from launch to now is practically double, stability improved a hundred fold, and hundres of glaring bugs quashed. It should have been more like this on release, I do not care for being an ongoing beta tester.

On one hand I am pleased to see a developer so committed to ongoing support like BIS, and so engaged with its playerbase (see their forums). But the fact is they just arent capable of pushing out a polished title at launch. ArmA was a repetition of OpFlashes patch cycle, launch problems and continual fix/breaking. Now we have ArmA2 which looks to be sharing the exact same fate.

The stories about the German release read like deja vu to ArmA's, and the CEO's comments on the last ArmA article were just plain embarrasing to read. I still never finished ArmA's single player campaign because it kept failing on me and suffering AI navigation issues. I find it sadly amusing that the new game has precisely the same problem.

Don't get me wrong, I have been an avid fan of Opflash, ArmA and their expansion packs. I have had countless enjoyment from coop games, mission editing, addon editing, running whacky games, running dedicated servers for the community and sunk probably hundreds of hours into it. However now faced with a choice of a 'fresh coding slate' with Codemasters and Flashpoint Dragon Rising, I am afraid I am turning my back on BIS. Everything about the videos and screenshots screams ArmA1.5. You can see the same game - and with it I can practically see all the quirky mission scripting errors and game glitches screaming back at me.

Sorry BIS, one time too many for me.

Does anyone know how much ArmA II is going to cost in North America? Is it boxed, download, what?

BiS has said N.A. release late June '09. I highly doubt it will be more than $50.

Perhaps the best way to accomplish a working game of this scope is to do what Mount and Blade did? Offer it in successive beta stages to people and require some online activation during that time, or not.

That way we can all help and the developers get a broader scope of what works and what doesn't. A game of this magnitude is going to be a bitch to test considering everything that it can do, or at least claims to do.

Does anyone know how much ArmA II is going to cost in North America? Is it boxed, download, what?