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ARMA 2 was announced, and now you probably want to learn more about it.
Compared to ARMA, we're concentrating on the following improvements for ARMA 2:
- Campaign with RPG elements, and with a story combined with dynamic events
- Improved AI, especially in Close Quarter Battles
- AI using taunts and hand signals for coordination and increased immersion
- Much more realistic terrain, based closely on real world data
- Optimizations for dual/multi core systems
- Console and PC release
And as usual, there are some changes which are perhaps not that important, but we still hope they will help to make ARMA 2 a more enjoyable game.
- Increased facial detail
- Increased vegetation detail
- Ambient animals
- Improved building destruction (we will return to this in some future blog)
Improved AI, especially in Close Quarter Battles
I guess most of you have already watched closely the AI video which was available at Tiscali after GC. I have seen a lot of positive reactions to that (and some nitpicking as well) Given the video was taken from a very early build, I am confident that what will be delivered in the game will be even more impressive than what you have already seen. The best part of it is that the system is fully dynamic - no AI scripting or player commanding required.
Campaign with RPG elements
The main single player mode will cast the player in the role of a USMC deep reconnaissance team commander. This small team of specialists, acts as a prolonged and highly specialized arm of the central command, taking part in a large peace-making operation “Harvest Red”. As the story unfolds, the player takes advantage of resource management and role playing elements which help him progress through the deep combat simulation. Communication with non combatants and members of factions present in the area are essential for success. The player can also switch to any member of the squad to get full detailed control at any time during the gameplay.
AI using taunts and hand signals
We are going to sell you junk.... well, not really, but to some extent we really do, but do not be afraid, it will be recycled junk. There is a lot of real work done to make AI smarter and more human like. One part of this work is somehow special, though. While identifying weak areas of our AI, we came across one which is very interesting - our AI does a lot of things which are smart, but very hard to notice. What we are trying to do now is to "sell it" - to make sure AI communicates more about what it thinks, using taunts, hand signals, or other animations. While this will not make the AI any smarter, it should make it look better, more life like, increasing the immersion.
Realistic Terrain
Charnarus is a fictional post soviet country. The map is based on real landscape in the Northern part of the Czech Republic and it covers about 100 square kilometers of terrain: from coastal industrial areas with a large port, to deep pine forests and mountain villages. The environment is designed in the Autumn time to give it a special atmosphere. See the Landscape Almost Real article for more information about our approach to the creation of a realistic game map.
Dual core / multi core optimizations
The advent of multiple cores means a real challenge for any developer. We identify this as one of the main possible areas to achieve a higher frame rate in our engine but we also know this is not going to be a walk in the park.
The switch to dual / multi core technology is a very big change, hardly comparable to anything computers have gone through during the last ten years. While some parallel technologies were already developed even some 30 years ago, it never became part of mainstream practice and the whole development chain is completely unprepared for it (including programmers education). Still, we are confident ArmA 2 will be able to bring significant improvement in this area. We are aiming for a mix of fine-grained and coarse-grained parallelism, similar to the way most other game developers seem to do. What we would like to see is better frame rate, smarter AI, and more units, however it is too soon to be able to really promise anything in this respect until the technology is implemented and well tested.
Console Release
There are various possible ways to look at a console release of ARMA 2: some hard core PC gamers don't like it much and are worried it may dumb down the game somehow. Others are happy to be able to look forward playing such a complex combat simulation on consoles.
Anyway, for Bohemia Interactive it is the only logical step. PC gaming is declining overall, especially (but not only) in North America. The PC platform suffers because of many severe compatibility and stability problems and the transition to Windows Vista does not help the platform in this regard over the short term. The good thing is that we are already experienced with consoles after our long struggle with Operation Flashpoint Elite for Xbox . We already know what we like and dislike regarding the development (and playing) of a combat simulation game on console, and with this hard earned knowledge we feel in the case of ARMA 2 this multiplatform approach is not only a commercially viable move but it also helps the game to be better on both platforms. All we want is to make it a more accessible and streamlined game than the current ARMA is. For that we do not need and do not want to remove anything that made Operation Flashpoint and ARMA so immersive and our focus on realism in the sense of open simulated game world will remain unchanged.
To be continued
Thank you for reading. We will share more details about each of the ARMA 2 features briefly covered in this blog in some of the next blog posts by ourselves or by other members of BI dev team.
Čtenáři napsali 25 komentářů. No.25 PS3?
I used to play flashpoint lot's and in the last few years I haven't really used my pc for games.
I never played ARMA but have heard 2 is hitting the ps3, If true that's awesome.
Do you think you could have keyboard & mouse as a control optio, because using the sticks won't be fun with this.
You could ask Sony if they could make special ARMA 2 keyboard & mouse combination that's packaged with the game.
Also could you included the editor and mod support, which worked well with UT3.
Thanks for reading No.24 A Tester's opinion (Not an ARMA2 tester)
I have been reading alot about ARMA2 lately ![[smiley=think]](http://www.bistudio.com/components/com_jreactions/custom/templates/balloon/smileys/smiley_think.gif) . A lot of people are looking forward to this game coming out, but what may cause people to turn away from it will be incompatibility to some platforms (Not everyone can afford a brand new computer or better parts. It will take time for them to buy those parts ![[smiley=tongue]](http://www.bistudio.com/components/com_jreactions/custom/templates/balloon/smileys/smiley_tongue.gif) ). Support for those people would go down very, very, very well. Yes people are looking forward to ARMA2 but some are scared that it will go the way OFP2 is going with a multiplayer limit of 32 (16vs16) which for some clans/tournaments is a huge turn off. Some clans can have huge amounts of people in battle's (I have seen some with 58 vs 54.... yeah not everyone turns up every week, but still...). If I have offended any of the BI team, I apologise. That wasn't my aim. No.23 my input if you care
I have reviewed the information about the release of the new game and have viewed and considered screenshots from the new game. i am a huge xbox 360 fan and this game being able to come out on this platform would be absolutly amazing. the only thing i would suggest to add, if you havent already, is a "movie making mode" or somthing close to that. i ove making game movies and having this mode where you can spawn vehicles get a flying camera mode and such. i know this has been done on pc but having this creator mode would make the game further amazing. There are many places this type of mode could take this game and sincerely, if i saw this in a game, i would buy it at first glance. i have discussed this with some fellow gamers and all opinions are the same. thank you if you took the time to read all this. No.22 webmaster
PLEASE release for the PS3. We really need a game of this caliber. Or I do anyway. . If you need beta testers for the PS3, sign me up! Battlefield: BC isn't going to cut it. No.21 My 2 cent expectation
Look man. I love tactical shooters, and this war sim is the gratest thing since OFP. They have a lot in common... Obviously.. ![[smiley=laugh]](http://www.bistudio.com/components/com_jreactions/custom/templates/balloon/smileys/smiley_laugh.gif) There is one thing ArmA2 could do without. That clunky unintuitive avatar control they both sport. I'm sure you've all cursed more than once during some CQB. It needs to be more responsive. When I am moving up to a corner, I want to feel like I am moving there. The way it is in ArmA, I feel like I am "driving" my avatar to the corner and he is a big ol fat 70's catallac with a flat tire. I feel like the weapon I am aiming has a 30 pound lead weight at the end of the barrel... Rather than the feeling of having it tucked snuggly into my shoulder as I scan down the sight. Anyone else feeling me? No.20 Editor
Hi
something I would really love to see is a great editor with the possibility to meassure distance, also it could be very nice to have when using the map function during a game. No.19 Missing the point?
AI using taunts and hand signals sounds about as interesting as watching a tree grow through its 40 year lifecycle in real-time. But I guess that along side the growth or fauna, is aimed at someone else other than myself. No.18 Please improve facial & body details!
As one of BIS fans, I'd like to point out what should be improved more and more in order to keep the ArmA platform on top of all others'.
Basically when playing the game, the first thing that would attract the player (whether the player is fan or first-time) are the facial & body details of the soldier which is the essence of the game since ArmA is a game of war between SOLDIERS. Such a game with great AI & rich stories but with a lack of details is not what each of us dreams of.
The ArmA series has seen a better improvement over Operation Flashpoint in terms of facial & body details but still, BIS needs to improve further more in that field in order to unleash a game with soldier details like in movies. No.17 The Modification Way
I am an avid fan ever since the first introduction of OFP to the world. It really changed the way gamming was played and developed and certainly lots of other developers have tried to imitate the features which made OFP such a success. I would like BI to carry on the tradition of making ArmA II a very modable game as well as mod friendly. We in the moding community try to bring different speres and theatres of war to life and I for one can tell you that even with the small flaws that ArmA has there is no better platform to do this in than in ArmA. We do this as a labour of love and thousands of gaming fans thank you for this. No mater what I will always be a fan and have spent hundreds of hours developing add-ons as a hobby.I thank you for developing what I personaly consider the best gaming platform ever. This is the part that I would like you guys to continue... to allow the rest of us out there to make and add to this beautiful game..... No.16 object destruction
Hi,
First off, thanks for OFP, spent uncountable hours with the game.
I am very sad to read the post about your solution to destructible buildings. The graphics look pretty bad as well. There must be a better way, come on guys!!!
Maybe it is possible to add this as a patch in a later version; e.g. prepare AI and other scripting to be updated in this manner later on?
Would be a shame, to have ARMA2 look so much like OFP. Blegh.
anyway, cheers to your (supposed) work on AI scripting. Great stuff...
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