oh and for something more hectic and random try this ‘Battlefield’ mod:
Battlefield 3 -It’s my oil-
it’s new and a little buggy but still fun.
edit: Takistan Force
BTW, looking at the BI forums i found a pair of releases i am interested, maybe some of you will also like it.
Someone has released a classic OFP missions pack http://forums.bistudio.com/showthread.php?t=110923
And bardosy has released another campaign (he usually does simple but engaging and well balanced infantry campaigns)
flyinj
1923
How about this:
When you’re pointing at an object that is usable, an icon appears. You press the middle mouse button (like you do any time you want to bring up the action menu normally), and a list pops up of available actions. Instead scrolling the mouse wheel to bring up the menu, which no other game in existence uses to bring up a context menu.
Problem solved.
Really want a sale on OA . . .
You just missed the Steam sale.
The actual system is:
1-You aim to an usable object, and the contextual action related to the object already appears so you can press the middle mouse to use it. Which is fast and easy.
2-If there isn’t any object with a contextual action, which is most of the time, middle mouse open the action menu, with actions usually related to your inventory. Again, fast and easy, it makes sense.
3-It’s only when you are near an usable object but don’t want to use that object but another one (i.e.: you are near a car but don’t want to mount in the car, but put a satchel from your inventory or use the uav controls in the trunk of the car) when the system established in point 1 and 2 fails and you have to open the action menu without using the already selected entry, scrolling.
The funny thing is that all this mess is provoked because Bis tried to improve the interface introducing the point 1, which is new. Before you always used the action menu, which was a bit clunky, but then you never had the problem in point 3.
The same with the new contextual fast order system, because it exists on top of the traditional complex order system, so the complexity of having to learn the two of them is bigger.
In the end, i don’t see any difference. In both cases, you would open a menu with a press of a key/button. Does anyone really cares if that button is Y instead of X? /Shrug.
In fact, most of the time i use the scroll instead of the middle mouse, even if i am in case 2.
No, not really, because an antenna or truck or whatever doesn’t exist solely to be the target of a satchel charge in a sandbox game of this kind. You can’t assign a specific mission action to a generic object. Now what could have happened is that the trigger in that area should have caused the “place satchel charge” action to pop-up as the default context action. However that is something that would never happen in a non-campaign environment, and doesn’t help you learn how the game works. It doesn’t fix your confusion with interaction and might lead you to think the satchel charge can only be placed in specific areas. If it’s not this specific instance, you’d run into problems with some other situation, maybe one more complex, like having to search a dead body and pick up documents at the same location. While the interface in ArmA2 certainly deserves a lot of bitching and moaning, your attempt at a simplistic fix is still broken.
The object in question literally has no other function but to be blown up with a placed satchel charge. It’s a static piece of scenery otherwise.
But isn’t better the actual system? I prefer to have to plant the satchel by myself, it is more realistic that way. The knowledge that is not a planned script, that i am really putting an explosive, choosing a place, crouching in the ground, taking the charge from my gear, and setting up, that if i put it maybe too far away it won’t damage the the antenna… i don’t know, but it makes me feel more immersed.
Right, it’s job is to be a static object, it’s not usable. Can’t make every antenna in the world ask for a satchel charge.
And again, even though it’s not a smooth system, at least this way you learn it. If you rig something that could only possibly happen in a tutorial or campaign, then it doesn’t help you understand the game. If you’re going to skip the manual, then you’re going to have some learning pains. Better to get it over with early.
Darn, just fired up the game tonight and I still get massive artifacting after a few minutes. I was hoping it would fix itself after a bunch of patches and ATI driver revisions over the last year. I guess it must be my 5850 video card, but I’ve never had a problem in other games.
I’ll have to test some more things when I get a chance. (omg pc gaming sux!)
Check the gpu temperature, check if it also happens with graphic settings in low detail.
Last time I played the main game (and the free mini campaign with the chopper) it ran fine on my 5850. So it’s just you :)
I know. I think last time I checked the GPU temperature and it was fine, but I’ll try it again. I’m also going to reinstall from scratch. I don’t have any mods running, but who knows.
Post a screenshot, if you can.
My (and my friend’s) 5850 works with Arma 2 too, I just tested it on Friday.
The object in question literally has no other function but to be blown up with a placed satchel charge. It’s a static piece of scenery otherwise.
But that antenna is not the only place you could set your satchel on (unlike in other games, where explosives go strictly into the pre-scripted “slots”). You could put it on the ground beside the antenna, on a truck, whatever. Plus, with mods, you could set something else on that antenna, like a sticky bomb or something. Hence the need for a generic system “when you need to interact with any object in a game, you point at it and use the mouse wheel to scroll through available actions”. When you face a tank, for example, there may be 5 different actions available.
You guys are really going all out to justify the terribad interface.
I was justifying the lack of one button use. I wasn’t trying to sell the action menu as implemented in ArmA as good interface, but the alternative you guys have been offering is even more broken.
I won’t say the Arma 2 interface is good, but i will say doing a good interface for a game so complex isn’t easy. Example: the order system. A friend of mine complained about the order system, about how it could have been done better with an XYZ implementation. My anwer: “Well, your implementation would break down under the little fact of the number of possible commands, more than 60. This isn’t a slightly more realistic CoD, or a more open Ghost Recon”.
Here you have infantry controls, sea, land (wheel based and track based) and air vehicles (with different seats/roles), full featured command system to control with different grades of accuracy from 2 to 30 soldiers and from visual scope to beyond visual range, high command mode, and an entire host of features in every part of the sytem. From lights and turning off the engine in a car, to the different sights to use in a weapon, to the four different ways of giving a move order to the driver from the commander seat of a tank, to zeroing weapons, using scopes, night vision, flir vision, flares, lights, or lasers, to rolling into the ground, or looking at different directions with your head without having to change your movement direction (i hate to play a lot in Arma 2, then change to another game, i miss so much that features), to compress time, or just use binocoulars, a compass or look at your watch.
I don’t think anyone could make a simple, cohesive, intuitive and easy interface/controls combo system for all that, together.
