ARMA 3

[LundB]

People are complaining about the story in an ARMA game now? Codex, never change.

 

[Cowboy Moment]

Should hire Morgan and Watts like CryTek did. That shit was hilarious.

 

[Carrion]

People are complaining about the story in an ARMA game now? Codex, never change.

The original Cold War setting in OFP was pretty cool. After that it's been just shit.

 

[Indranys]

People are complaining about the story in an ARMA game now? Codex, never change.

Because retarded shit is retarded.
I don't ask them to pull Planescape Torment, I just think every game with story need to make their story at least believable for the players, not like this fanfiction grade mess.

OFP has a good backstory, and the previous ArmA games are OK, I don't see why they can't make similar decent story for ArmA 3, instead they decide to buff a developing 3rd world nation with uber modern weapons and sick gears like optical/stealth camouflage and shit then name it New Persian Empire, than make it invades a small bankrupt nation (Greece) for an alternative energy they could easily get by trades, diplomatic agreements, or other peaceful means. But they choose the most expensive and counterproductive decision by wage war against NATO and lost billions of dollars with no certainty to win the war.

They could easily mimic historical events like previous games or use grey morality factions similar to Front Mission series, instead they went lazy with this derpy good vs. evil approach.
BIS chose this shitty fantasy story just because it's cool, safe, and politically correct to shoot Iranian in the head nowadays.

Even in a game like this where story is least important and insignificant, the devs still need to make a believable one IMO, or they risk to disturb the players immersion and suspension of disbelief stuff.

 

[LundB]

As long as the guns, vehicles, etc. work like they should, I don't see story being the thing that ruins everyone's immersion.

People are complaining about the story in an ARMA game now? Codex, never change.

The original Cold War setting in OFP was pretty cool. After that it's been just shit.

The story in Quake 3 is shit too. Does anyone give a fuck?

 

[Konjad]

As long as the guns, vehicles, etc. work like they should, I don't see story being the thing that ruins everyone's immersion.

People are complaining about the story in an ARMA game now? Codex, never change.

The original Cold War setting in OFP was pretty cool. After that it's been just shit.

The story in Quake 3 is shit too. Does anyone give a fuck?

Does Quake 3 try to mimic real-life, as in ie. game world is realistic one?

What about ArmA3?

Quake 3 is fictional over-the-top game with everything absurd, so unrealistic story fits it well.

Arma3 tries to be semi-realistic and more-or-less seem believable in its gameplay, so also realistic story should be implemented.

Shitty story is by no means deal breaker, but it would really help the overall satisfaction with the game of the crowd that is its target audience. Planescape Torment is a great game, but it has terrible combat. Don't you think it would gain from a better combat, even if the game already is a great experience?

 

[potatojohn]

DayZ alpha leaked, PCGamer says

While this very well could be DayZ Standalone, which is in closed alpha testing, the YouTube commenters are probably correct in guessing that it’s an older build. The reworked inventory system looks to still be in a nascent stage, and some of the character animations look awfully stiff. Knots describes the build as “terribly optimized”—it’s likely this wasn’t intended for eyes outside of the initial testing team.

Someone's never played a BIS game before

 

[Random]

Anyone here in ShackTac? I'm just wondering how hard it is to get in.

 

[MetalCraze]

ShackTac are not hardcore enough. Crosshairs, grass off, respawn = not REEL MEN

UO is better

Because retarded shit is retarded.
I don't ask them to pull Planescape Torment, I just think every game with story need to make their story at least believable for the players, not like this fanfiction grade mess.

Oh come on. Even shitty ArmA2 campaign actually has a decent, believable plot.

instead they decide to buff a developing 3rd world nation with uber modern weapons and sick gears like optical/stealth camouflage and shit then name it New Persian Empire, than make it invades a small bankrupt nation (Greece) for an alternative energy they could easily get by trades, diplomatic agreements, or other peaceful means. But they choose the most expensive and counterproductive decision by wage war against NATO and lost billions of dollars with no certainty to win the war.

If you read the pre-story China is using Iran as their proxy to wage war on NATO. That's how Iran got all the tech in the first place. The "canonical ending" of shitty PMC DLC has you withholding information on China being behind events of PMC (providing arms and more advanced tech to Takistan to mess with US mission there) to not cause an international crisis which ironically leads to events of ArmA3.

That's pretty believable considering that all BIS games (incl. Take On Helicopters) share continuous alt history timeline and characters since 1985.

BIS chose this shitty fantasy story just because it's cool, safe, and politically correct to shoot Iranian in the head nowadays.

Yes and OFP with USSR and US fighting each other really happened.

 

[thesoup]

Arguing over arma's story.
What is this, Kotaku? Next thing you know someone writes that the patriarchy still reigns as women aren't on the front lines and sgt Cooper isn't a non-binary genderqueer person.
Fuck your immershun. Like skyway once said, the Arma series is basically a sdk with which the community does wonders. What Arma needs is the following:
1. Milporn meaning tanks, choppaz and other vehicles plus guns, guns, guns and even more guns

 

[Twinkle]

Except adding moar gunz and vehicles means squat given the primitive "I wunna be Battlefield too" gameplay alpha currently has.

 

[Konjad]

Arguing over arma's story.
What is this, Kotaku? Next thing you know someone writes that the patriarchy still reigns as women aren't on the front lines and sgt Cooper isn't a non-binary genderqueer person.
Fuck your immershun. Like skyway once said, the Arma series is basically a sdk with which the community does wonders. What Arma needs is the following:
1. Milporn meaning tanks, choppaz and other vehicles plus guns, guns, guns and even more guns

yeah, let's not discuss the quality of the games apart from their primary part, we don't want to see flaws in our favourite games.

 

[thesoup]

on both.

 

[CreamyBlood]

I really didn't know the story of Arma but now we have a summary. Still don't care. I played a good part of the Arma2 SP campaign but thought it was boring and sucked.

I did play through the SP Arrowhead but didn't pay much attention to the details. I realized it was the Americans vs the Takistanis but it's not like I cared, it was just a series of seven or so SP player missions, most of which I didn't care for but I can't stand SP Arma anyways.

I made a few small co-op missions and I think in the briefings I wrote it was always something like 'our forces' have to defend against 'the enemy'.

In one you play the Takistani's but it's still something like (actually let me look it up and I'll quote it).

The Evil Infidels have taken our Oil Refinery Plant at Sagram. We need to show them that they won't get our oil! Most wells are pumping to our refinery here in Rasman. Go forth and destroy at least four Oil Pumps that are near Sagram. That should send them a message! If Akblahlad permits,find safe haven in Zavarak at my sisters house.

So whatever, make up your own mission.

The next mission I'm making is with the Canadian models, except you're playing as the Iranians (I guess, didn't even realize they were called Iranians, I suppose I could make them Israelis or Australians or something). Anyways, you get to kill Canadians because I think they're a bunch of pussies with a superficial superiority complex.

So go make up your own story and larp away.

 

[MetalCraze]

Except adding moar gunz and vehicles means squat given the primitive "I wunna be Battlefield too" gameplay alpha currently has.

There's now a drama thread on BIForums since people found out that currently BIS made sure that comparable guns and vehicles of both sides effectively mirror each other.
That incl. GM6 Lynx and M320 sniper rifles even though they both have slightly different roles, in the game their behavior is exactly the same.

PMC DLC bros in charge of ArmA3, what can possibly go wrong?

 

[Indranys]

Oh come on. Even shitty ArmA2 campaign actually has a decent, believable plot.

That was my point is all about.
ArmA2 campaigns are a little bit boring but they're OK and at least believable, but ArmA3's story is ridiculous.

If you read the pre-story China is using Iran as their proxy to wage war on NATO. That's how Iran got all the tech in the first place. The "canonical ending" of shitty PMC DLC has you withholding information on China being behind events of PMC (providing arms and more advanced tech to Takistan to mess with US mission there) to not cause an international crisis which ironically leads to events of ArmA3.

I can't understand the proxy war argument too, if it's right then the Chinese and Russian are retarded. Why do they let their Iranian pet grows too powerful? Iran is not known for their willingness to be other nations ally, it's not a country they can control, and they still support it after Iran got Turkey, other new territories, and its desire for new alternative energy too?
They could give their "assistances" to more obedient countries, but they chose the wild card Iran instead.
And is the proxy war really necessary? Chinese and Russian have nothing to fear now, they're the superpowers now while the NATO countries are dying.
So the Chinese wants Greece but they let the Iranian invades and owns it and just control the whole things from the shadow? Isn't that too convoluted for a proper story?
AFAIK proxy war is normally used to support the rebels/insurgents to overthrow the hostile incumbent government so the new government can be controlled by the mastermind.
It's also used to assist a weaker obedient country to wage wars for the mastermind's cause.
But this BIS story is too shoddy for proper proxy war scenario, while the PMC campaign is believable enough for me.

Yes and OFP with USSR and US fighting each other really happened.

It's not, but it's belivable enough to be enjoyed as a proper backstory.

Like Konjad said, ArmA3 is looking great in gameplay perspective, but it will be much better and more enjoyable if the backstory is decent too, just like Planescape will be much better with decent combat.

 

[MetalCraze]

It's 2035. It's like 22 years into the future.
Did anyone think in 1968 that in 22 years USSR will be gone from the map?
22 years ago everybody was laughing at Chinese economy and look at it now.
It took Hitler less than 10 to move Germany from laughing stock a la Iran today to the most powerful and technologically advanced country in the world which required a zerg rush from multiple big countries to stop.

Real life history shows that 22 years is a shitton of time for things to go fucked up. So what's so ridiculous about A3's plot?

Why do they let their Iranian pet grows too powerful?

China was Soviet pet too, don't forget that.

US gave Iran a lot of Chinooks and Cobras too when they were friends back in the day. Both these choppers are still in active service in US and back then they were very much cutting edge.

Also ask that question to 1776 UK. Bet the King bro didn't think back in 1754 that Britain will have its ass handed to them by their own colony.

History, bro.

 

[Indranys]

It's 2035. It's like 22 years into the future.
Did anyone think in 1968 that in 22 years USSR will be gone from the map?
22 years ago everybody was laughing at Chinese economy and look at it now.
It took Hitler less than 10 to move Germany from laughing stock a la Iran today to the most powerful and technologically advanced country in the world which required a zerg rush from multiple big countries to stop.

Real life history shows that 22 years is a shitton of time for things to go fucked up. So what's so ridiculous about A3's plot?
China was Soviet pet too, don't forget that.
US gave Iran a lot of Chinooks and Cobras too when they were friends back in the day. Both these choppers are still in active service in US and back then they were very much cutting edge.
Also ask that question to 1776 UK. Bet the King bro didn't think back in 1754 that Britain will have its ass handed to them by their own colony.
History, bro.

Your argument is valid.
A decade can indeed change nations, but this change need a strong cause and the will of the people, commoners and the elites alike.
I already stated my opinion about Nazi, which could happen if the cause is extreme and strong enough, for example: their lost in World War I and got heavy sanctions from the winning side.
The Germans wanted changes, in all sectors from economy to their pride as a nation, and the Nazi used this opportunity nicely.

And what is the reason of Iranian revolution in ArmA3?
BIS explanation is weak, unclear, and absurd. BIS doesn't give us any proper explanations and shit about this issue.
They just tell us that Iranians (who majority is simple folks, live in rural areas and fond of their religious identity today) just somehow sick of their religious state, created a secular New Persian Empire, and instead of stabilizing and modernizing their economy and welfare as very first priorities (Is the new reign even stable with no oppositions from the old government?), the new government allied themselves with foreign countries with different ideology, and prioritized to invade neighboring countries like Turkey and the others with no known and clear motives.
Why did they invade these countries? Is it revenge? Or do they want new resource? BIS tell us none (They only explained about the Greece invasion AFAIK, and the reason is also ridiculous which I already explained in my past post).

This is why I think current ArmA3 story is too convoluted and artificial.
Without proper lore and believable backstory, BIS' Iranian revolution to Secular New Persian Empire is as believable as North Korea's transformation to Holy Teutonic Order of New North Korea.

I'll retell my main gripes about ArmA3 story again:
1) New Secular Iranian superpower with ultra modern weaponry and gadgets as OPFOR, with no proper backstory to make the scenario at least believable.
2) ArmA3 is no longer mimicking history events, so they should make an interesting story or at least a believable one. Because it's a decline in quality if they don't. Everyone wants their favorite series to be better for each sequel right?
I think it's a shame that BIS give us this shitty good vs. evil scenario. What a wasted opportunity to improve the overall game quality! This decision will not only affect ArmA3, but also their next ArmA games (because it's hard to fix a shitty canon story).
3) Unpolished and uninteresting factions with no personality. They could make both oppositions morally gray with no defined good or evil, but we get this USA Fuck Yeah and its Righteous Allies vs. One of The Most Evil Hated Countries in The World (which isn't North Korea) instead.
I think BIS motive is pretty dickish: "Hey guys why should we work our asses to give Iranian their side of the story, proper explanations, humane traits and complex motives when it is cool nowadays to hate and shoot them in the face? The enemies of USA are always wrong, vile, and inhumane right guys?"

Man I need a nice, deep sleep right now.

 

[CreamyBlood]

I think you're over analyzing this. I doubt they've even made the campaign yet and from my experience with two of them they kind of suck anyways. In my opinion it's sort of a tech demo to show you what you can do with their sandbox.

Just make your own missions with Turkey and write whatever you want in the briefing. Most people don't read it anyways and just look at the objectives so use short sentences and only a few paragraphs. You can also make you're own cutscenes, cinematics and dialog if that kind of stuff interests you.

Here's a quick list of some of the models I looked up on armaholic:

Armed Forces of Bosnia and Herzegovina
Blackop/Swat Units
Brazilian Army and Air Force Infantry Units
Bundeswehr Infantrie Pack
China - People's Liberation Army Infantry
French Intervention Forces
IDF - Israeli Defense Forces Units
Italian Special Operation Forces

Sorry, no Turks but maybe you could ask someone to make some for you.

I've played hundreds of hours of Arma 2 as either the awesome good guys or the nasty, evil bad guys, killing the 'enemy'. I honestly couldn't tell you the difference between an Italian or a French guy at this moment and if I got in game playing either of them right now, I'd just examine my buddies and shoot anyone that didn't look like us.

I just don't understand why you're so worked up about the story in Arma as it's ultimately inconsequential to the game as far as I can tell. In fact I'd rather them spend time fixing bugs and making shit work like it's supposed to instead of wasting time on superfluous stories and campaigns that I suspect most die-hard players don't one whit about.

 

[potatojohn]

What's the point of making your own missions in ArmA? You already know OPFOR numbers, positions, scripts, etc. The only thing that's variable is getting aimbotted by the AI

It's like playing battleship against yourself

 

[Bluebottle]

What's the point of making your own missions in ArmA? You already know OPFOR numbers, positions, scripts, etc. The only thing that's variable is getting aimbotted by the AI

It's like playing battleship against yourself

Well you don't make missions just for yourself. The community I play(ed) ArmA2 with only ever played home done missions (with a shit ton of custom scripts and stuff that added certain gameplay features). The stock missions weren't really what we were interested in.

Also, most of the time the mission makers we had didn't have set positions for the opposing team. They'd generally use random placement, and squad generation scripts that would run on mission initialization. Additionally they would sometimes have random bases which may or may not be generated, and random positions of the objectives.

 

[Indranys]

I think you're over analyzing this.

You are right bro.
Maybe it's coming from my CRPG background that ridiculous story is annoying as hell.

I just don't understand why you're so worked up about the story in Arma as it's ultimately inconsequential to the game as far as I can tell.

I already explained it in my past post.

Every game with story should at least make a believable story, even in ArmA games where the story is on the bottom of priority list.
If the story is a mess it could disturb ones immersion and suspension of disbelief thing, just like it happens to me.
BIS isn't mimicking real world events anymore so I can't cut them some slack anymore in story department.

Also there's no reason that BIS can't create passable story for ArmA3 in the same quality as previous ArmA games.
If they still want to keep this New Persian Empire bullshit they must fill the scenario with solid backstory, a little bit of lores, and more enough explanations about each factions just to make this tall tale believable enough for our brains.
If BIS can't spare much resource or just too lazy to integrate all these things to their campaign, they could post them on their sites or make some brief ingame slideshows or codex entries or something.
They don't need to use extensive cutscenes or expensive voice acting to tell these stuff, wall of texts with some pics will do.

But in the end all of these are just my personal preference and my humble opinions to make the game even better than the current state.
So disagreements are to be expected and totally cool.
And there's no better place to bitch about one personal taste than RPG Codex yes?

 

[CreamyBlood]

What's the point of making your own missions in ArmA? You already know OPFOR numbers, positions, scripts, etc. The only thing that's variable is getting aimbotted by the AI

It's like playing battleship against yourself

Well you don't make missions just for yourself. The community I play(ed) ArmA2 with only ever played home done missions (with a shit ton of custom scripts and stuff that added certain gameplay features). The stock missions weren't really what we were interested in.

Also, most of the time the mission makers we had didn't have set positions for the opposing team. They'd generally use random placement, and squad generation scripts that would run on mission initialization. Additionally they would sometimes have random bases which may or may not be generated, and random positions of the objectives.

Well, I suppose Arma is different things to different people. Some like story, some actually play it SP. One thing I've noticed when testing missions as I build them is that I get distracted. I load up the mission to test one thing for thirty seconds to make sure it works then move on but get absorbed in a firefight and end up playing for half an hour. Instead of working on the next part.

As bluebottle said there are various ways to change things. The basic editor stuff allows you to set a percent chance of an AI being there, or a radius in which he appears, plus there are tonnes of scripts to automate that for you.

But even if you try to meticulously craft something to play exactly as you want every time, it probably won't work. The AI has a mind of it's own which you can control to a fine degree but ultimately things will never play out quite the same. You might know where all the units are but it doesn't mean you'll be able to survive them.

Also a good mission is just challenging and fun. Some you can play many times, others aren't worth going through once. Some look great on paper but turn out to be boring. Just playing the same mission with different people or different amounts of people can change the experience.

But, whatever. I think it's the biggest sandbox ever made, others want a sci-fi story. Me, I'm going to crash and read some David Drake. That'll be my story for the night.

 

[MetalCraze]

News at 11

Dean Hall makes it clear which game is the real flagship for Bohemia and which game gets shafted

 

[Konjad]

Perfect

 

[Indranys]

He's the maker of that abomination mod DayZ isn't he?
Looks like a douchebag to me.

Suddenly I remember my last year experience when I met my otaku weaboo nerd hipster programmer loser friend.
He talked about the awesomeness of Battlefield3 for hours and he also told me he was testing DayZ alpha that time.
At last I said I'd rather play hentai VN shit than those games, then he secretly copied a VN to my FD between the software folders I asked.
It's a VN about a kawaii high school girl who makes her way to mingle, gossip, dine, flirt and fuck the other girls (and teachers) in prestigious catholic all girls boarding school for rich girls (and trannies).

Jesus Christ indeed.
Today I'm still holding my grudge against him and waiting for the right time to retaliate...
Hah I think I'm getting drunk, waiting for Confederations Cup Brazil vs Japan right now.
Good luck huehue people!

 

[MetalCraze]

I JUST BANNED KONY

HOLY FUCK

IT FELT GOOD

 

[WhiskeyWolf]

I JUST BANNED KONY

HOLY FUCK

IT FELT GOOD

Skyway on a power-trip.