schurem
1901
Ooh latest patch finally made the game run smooth on my box, and did away with the weird LOD popping for the vegetation. sweet! Bought PMC on principle, but i havent played any of it yet.
Yep, there have been 10 official updates, counting from Arma 2 release to Arma 2 OA, and between those updates, more than 100 (!) unofficial ones, in the form of beta patches. A good post-release support, with feeback from the user users of the beta version in theforum and wiki/online tracker for bugs and suggestions, and their own wiki.
The game lacked polish, but it’s nice to see someone using really the power of internet communities.
MOVE THE MOUSE WHEEL? Really? How did they possibly ever think anyone would figure that out? It is never taught to you through a tutorial or ever explained. No other game has ever used this convention. Seriously, what were they thinking?
Maybe it’s because they were using middle mouse button in their games for years? And I don’t really remember having any issues with it back when I started with Arma 2 last year but I can’t remember if it was mentioned in the tutorial back then.
It also runs like complete garbage on my high end system (2.66 quad core, 5770, win7 64, 4 gig RAM).
Hehe, dude, you should stop calling your system high end, it really isn’t anymore. :) Also remember that this game is extremely CPU hungry and your CPU is about 4 years old. For what it’s worth though, I didn’t have to bring it down to normal/low on my 3.0 dual core + 5850, although everyone’s “decent fps” is different. Try playing with your options more maybe, IIRC one the most important things is to bring your view distance down to ~3 km and simplify the shadows.
Actually, depending on your vid card, you may want to crank shadows to the highest level. My understanding is perversely lower level shadow settings have higher CPU load and lower GPU load, which isn’t what you want with Arma…
I can’t really fault him for this complaint. Back when I orginally got ArmA 2, I got hung up on the first mission because of the same issue. At one point in the scenario, you’re supposed to set charges on the antenna of the enemy comms post. Damned if I didn’t spend ten minutes clicking on everything in the area, pressing every keyboard button, and cursing the game before I stumbled on the wheel solution. Becasue “set charge” is not a normal command, I assumed that it would be a contextual “use” command. It’s hard to handwave the UI issues in this game.
It’s certainly a pain in the ass to have everything done through the action menu, particularly when you’re trying to interact with objects that have screwy detection boxes (freaking iron gate doors,) but people who just assume what the controls are in this kind of a game and don’t rtfm have no right to complain. They are at fault for not rtfm.
I did read the manual. As I said, nothing prepared me for the fact that a command that gets used in a very specific situation (plant explosive charge) would show up in the action menu that normally lists standard commands. Better yet, why not have the default command be dynamic?
It’s seems pretty straight forward to me.
As to why no one-button use key for default actions, there are plenty of times when there could be two or more conflicting ‘default’ actions.
No. You’re not understanding me.
I approach the spot where I’m supposed to plant the charge in the scenario. Nothing else can happen there. I can’t mount or dismount the antenna (at least I wouldn’t want to try). I can’t unload, reload, take apart, paint, hide behind, communicate, or jump on the antenna. There is literally no other action to take here. Why wouldn’t it be a contextual command that just pops up? (I know CoD is less than realistic, but the one thing they get right is that one-time actions are set on dynamic commands - like planting a goddamn charge in a campaign mission!) And for the love of all that’s sensible, why after bringing up the action list would I ever think I need to scroll down a list of commands that have nothing to do with the antenna to get to the one command that does work in that one instance? Why wouldn’t the command pop right up?
This isn’t a huge issue, but it’s indicative of the kind of obtuse crap this game throws at you.
Maybe what should have happened is that action menu option should have popped-up in context yeah, but still, if you read the manual, then what else did you think it was? There’s no other way of interacting with stuff.
I think I figured this out after an hour or two with the game. The action key was probably doing some context command instead of bringing up the menu, so I tried the mousewheel.
I remember thinking it was odd, but European game design stupidity just flows past me like a gentle breeze** these days.
** breeze may be irradiated
flyinj
1912
The i5 750 quad core 2.67 processor I have was released last year…
So… apparently after spending some time setting up a linux server for ArmA2, I’ve found I can’t host the single-player campaign for myself and three friends without a lot of work… can someone recommend some comparable free coop missions?
I approach the spot where I’m supposed to plant the charge in the scenario. Nothing else can happen there. I can’t mount or dismount the antenna (at least I wouldn’t want to try). I can’t unload, reload, take apart, paint, hide behind, communicate, or jump on the antenna. There is literally no other action to take here.
>DISMOUNT ANTENNA
You can’t do that.
>RELOAD ANTENA
I don’t see a antena here.
>PAINT ANTENNA.
You can’t do that.
>HELP
Go play Black Ops.
A full campaign for multiplayer? I don’t know one of the top of my head. Mulitplayer adds some complications to creating cut-scenes and storylines, plus I’m not sure how much better a user made campaign would work on a dedicated server as opposed to the original ones.
But this is a simulation. The campaign is built on top of the simulation. There are hundrends of things in the campaign where it shows, like the lack of scripts in the AI behaviour, in allies, enemies, vehicles, etc.
If you want to destroy something, you may do it with various options, one of them to put nearby a satchel charge and detonate it. The game won’t do it for you with a single press button, it’s you who have to go there, search an good place for the charge, use an inventory item, go far away, and then detonate it. And it isn’t a one time action like in CoD, you can use the satchel charges whenever you want, wherever you want, against infantry, vehicles or buildings, with remote detonation or timed detonation.
It’s like in Deus Ex, maybe one option to do a mission is to open a metal secure door with an explosive mine, but the game won’t show “press E to plant explosive mine” when you are nearby. It’s you who have to use by yourself the mine.
Another example, Thief. In one place in the campaign, maybe the main object to steal is behind a door. There isn’t a key for the door, or windows to enter from another direction, it’s just the door. The only single action the player can do is to go there, and lockpick the door. They can’t destroy it, or choose to not to get the object inside the room, as it is the main goal. But still, the designers chose to still use the standard way of interacting with the world. Through use of the player inventory, initiated by himself.
Tim_N
1917
How do I find the free private military campaign? It’s not showing up on the campaign list for me.
Do you have Operation Arrowhead and installed the latest patch?
I’m sorry. I’m an idiot and can’t read. You were just asking for missions.
Here’s a large pack of missions, most I like. Well made for co-op.
Sander’s Takistan Coop Pack
Play Takistan North (or Takistan South) by Bon. It’s a blast. :)
