denisv on 14/11/2009 at 12:51
I bought Arma 2 at the end of May. I've never played a mission that went smoothly. Always, always, always there's tons of bugs, graphical glitches, AI glitches, scripting glitches, pathfinding failures, bizarre performance patterns, etc.
I mean sure, Arma 2 is complex stuff, but I'm not talking about huge combined arms operations here. The simplest missions where I just drop in 2 squads in the editor and set waypoints tend to go wrong with alarming frequency.
It seems to me that Arma 2 has "significant defects" and "isn't fit for purpose". Patches haven't really fixed anything either. What does TTLG think? Are game developers obliged to deliver working products, or can they just release any old nonfunctioning piece of code since it's just "entertainment"?
Malleus on 14/11/2009 at 13:20
Just so you know: I'm a fan of anything BIS makes.:cool:
As for the topic, I guess you got unlucky. I bought it on release day, and I (amost) finished the campaign with the 1.02 version. I didn't encounter any game breaking problems, only on the last mission of the campaign, but that mission ran at like 8-10 fps so I didn't really have a chance of finishing it anyway.
As for developers releasing buggy games, I think the case of ArmA2 is kinda special, since it has no competition, at all. It's the only serious military game these days. I had problems with it too, but I rather have a good game with bugs than none at all.
I think that ArmA2 is a massive accomplishment, best military game in years, and one of the main reasons to be a PC gamer these days. :)
EvaUnit02 on 14/11/2009 at 13:21
The thing thay I hate most about ArmA 2 is the fanboys, elitist assholes who can't stomach any criticism of their sacred cow. "IT'S A MILITARY SIMULATOR. GO BACK TO CALL OF DUTY AND BATTLEFIELD" is a stock answer. That broken record is now akin to parody.
As for criticisms about severely broken SP campaign, they usually say "WHO CARES ABOUT THAT SINGLE PLAYER VANILLA CRAP? MULTIPLAYER AND MODS ARE WHERE IT'S AT." As if that will ever be a justifiable excuse.
As much they like to play that "IT'S A MILITARY SIMULATOR" card it's still a commercial game, an entertainment product - it isn't VBS. We're all of sudden supposed to hold this particular developer up to different standards, letting them get away with "murder"? I don't buy that. Lack of polish in regards to animations and like is fine, but shipping a rushed product, full of bugs and then not having the courtesy to fix it up in a timely manner? Yeah nah.
Finally the poor optimisation, "THE DRAW DISTANCE IS HUGE AND YOU CAN HAVE UP TO 1000 ENTITIES ON A MAP." The latter is an entirely theoretical one, no official campaign level will ever likely spam units like that, only user-made content.
The game's optimisation is a mess, full stop. Even on a Core 2 Duo E8500 + GTX275 + 4GB DDR2-1000, I would still get 20-25 fps on the demo, on medium settings. To be fair, I've yet to try the full game though, which I bought off Steam the other week (broken NIC = no internet = no Steam downloads).
Malleus on 14/11/2009 at 13:24
Quote Posted by EvaUnit02
The game's optimisation is a mess, full stop. Even on a Core 2 Duo E8500 + GTX275, I would still get 20-25 fps on the demo, on medium settings.
It's known that the game doesn't like GTX cards.* Otherwise it's well scalable. I played on a single core P4 Prescott 3,0GHz, x1950pro AGP card, and it gave an average 20 fps most of the time.
*EDIT: At least the early versions didn't. Don't know if patches fixed this.
Eldron on 14/11/2009 at 14:53
did they ever fix the mouse delay?
input should be top priority in the game loop of any fps.
denisv on 14/11/2009 at 15:05
Quote Posted by Malleus
It's known that the game doesn't like GTX cards.* Otherwise it's well scalable. I played on a single core P4 Prescott 3,0GHz, x1950pro AGP card, and it gave an average 20 fps most of the time.
!
I have a 3.5GHz quad core and ATI 4850 1GB and I got an average 20 fps. Less in the last mission.
I finished the campaign with the German vanilla, but I had to cheat-end the last two Warfare missions because the end triggers were broken (among many other things). The campaign was incredibly frustrating. There was maybe 5 hours of actual gameplay, but the game has so many bugs I spent something like 40 hours on it before I finished it. I only liked the brief interlude after the heli crash. It was night, we were following some power lines through enemy territory all alone while cracking jokes about Cooper's momma. Why couldn't the rest of the game be that atmospheric?
Malleus on 14/11/2009 at 15:24
Well I can only suggest you chew through the official troubleshooting forum, and see if there's a trick or something. Or maybe only
I got lucky with this game?
Anyway:
Quote Posted by denisv
There was maybe 5 hours of actual gameplay
Hyperbole.
Jason Moyer on 14/11/2009 at 15:30
BiS games are brilliant, but I always wait until the final patch before even attempting to play the campaigns. Whenever ArmA 3 is close to release, I'll probably pick up 2.
Anyway, if poor performance and scripting/AI glitches were something you didn't expect going in, you obviously never played OFP or ArmA at the time they were released. I'm fairly certain the computer that can play OFP with the Resistance addon at full detail is still theoretical.
CCCToad on 14/11/2009 at 15:32
The way I see it.
Having its primary goal as realism justifies things such as minimal HUD elements, getting killed in one shot, harder to drive vehicles, and more difficult to use weapons. Those things increase realism.
It doesn't justify bugs, choppy framerate difficulty to connect to online games, and other technical problems.
denisv on 14/11/2009 at 15:53
Quote Posted by Malleus
Hyperbole.
Huh?
ArmA 2 campaign:
- tiny night-ops mission
- tiny city assault mission mostly out of your hands
- medium "investigate 3 camps" mission
- medium freeform mission with some 5 or so tasks
- tiny "oh no, crap!" interlude where you pick a faction
- medium Warfare mission that's mostly an intro to HC/Warfare
- large Warfare mission that no computer can run
Surely that wouldn't take more than 5 hours if the game was optimized and bug-free?
