Mine would be around 25.

well, we'll see how it is when it comes out. I still don't plan on building a new PC until Windows 7 is out...so 6 more months or so.

/me rubs his hands together in anticipation

Don't forget I 'have' to run it at 1650*1050 to get my screen's native resolution, so I might actually do even worse. But yeah, it's supposed to be a beast graphically speaking. We'll all be playing on 'low' settings I'm sure. Except Satis and his new pc in 6 months.

I'm hearing more and more about this game and the general consensus is that the game is massive in its ambition and atmosphere, but that it's also buggy with sometimes retarded and/or cheating AI.

So I might put off buying it for a while guys, at least until I see more reviews. Knowing the creators of OF they will keep releasing patches to balance things in months to come, so might be prudent to wait a bit...

Maybe when it finally comes out I'll just reinstall Clear Sky and see how it's coming. Stupid buggy games. Is it that hard to QA stuff?

bought it.

installing it right now.

Okay, the game is suffering from artefacting problems, which makes it unplayable right now. Maybe some kind of patch will fix it. Ive posted the bug to the official forums so ill see what they say. Not really pissed off about it.

Anyway, i couldnt really get into the game much, but i did spend some time dicking around with graphics.

This is probably the first thing youll want to play with before getting stuck in. I've got it on normal settings (1280 x 1024) and it seems to play fine. at around 22-25 fps. The main thing to be aware of is the Fillrate Optimizer slider. I dont know what it does, but you basically want it on max. If you have it any lower, the graphics will run quicker, but they will look really shite (blurred as if youre short sighted).

havent played any proper battles, so im ineterested to see if the frame rate will drop.

the map doesnt look very impressively large. infact it gives me the impression its smalled than arma / opflash.

im interested in getting stuck into some SP missions and coop missions though

so word around the forum is that you just have to wait for patches.

seems like the graphics slowness may be related to the bad code, rather than the resourse whoreiness.

although, it cam as somewhat of a revelation, but some games like these have a different development methodology to others. They basically release them prematurely and use the community feedback to fix bugs. Apparently testing costs alot and takes alot of time, especially with complex games.

Meh, all debatable of course.

the would be the 'Microsoft' style of coding and development. BTW, releasing a buggy product is never a good idea and isn't any kind of official methodology. People do it anyway, but no business manager will ever admit to doing it on purpose.

/me works for a company with a large software development team.

Yeah, I don't really see that as an excusable flaw either. Not something that I would let my entire purchasing policy hinge on (I mean, I bought a lot of Bethesda games in my time and they're notorious for their bugginess on release), but still. SOME acceptable QA would be cool.

With games like Arma 2 I get the impression, judging by reviews and testimonies of players, that the first version of the game is really a bèta release. Especially the German first version, which was even lacking the game's MP facilities (wow).

I guess that's one of the main strentghts of PC gaming though. You can sell a game that is by all means unfinished on release, because your gamers know that they'll be helped in a few weeks time through patches and DLC anyway. And the game will still be the same price (those first few weeks after release I mean) if you buy it later, so it doesn't really matter when you buy it.

But from a customer satisfaction game, it's a shitty policy. You might pull it off on a game aiming for a hardcore crowd like Arma 2, but other games with more 'casual' gamers for target will see a lot of people carrying their copy back in. They don't care if the bugs will get fixed later on, they probably don't even know about the whole patching process, so they just give up on the game.

btw, I got the demo a bit ago. You can grab it via Steam. Here's some impressions.

1. The voice acting is HORRIBLE.
2. The dialog is HORRIBLE.
3. Lip syncing apparently means that the character's jaws flap around violently when he's 'talking'. There's no sync in the lip syncing.

Moving on... the AI is odd. On one hand, the single-player normal mission plays different every time you play it (at least mildly). I've gotten pwnt by the bad guys many, many times. On the other hand, noone ever comes to heal me, even though they're supposed to. I've also beaten the scenario a time or two without being very far into the map, presumably because a friendly APC that shows up further ahead got activated and pwnt the rest of the baddies for me.

I played some of hte training missions (snooze fests that typically aren't all that educational) and was able to get my soldiers to run me over in their hummer. I didn't die, either, which I think makes it worse. It just kinda threw me to the side even though they were hauling ass. It wouldn't been nice if they'd at least tried not to hit their commanding officer. The training missions can be ridiculous... it seems like triggers don't go off, or something.

So...anyway... ultimately it's not worth the money. Poor voice acting and dialog will make the story a chore, I'm sure. At least partially broken AI will make playing the game annoying, especially as a squad leader or higher. On the other hand, there's a great deal of potential, including commanding a virtual army. Maybe in 6 months it'll be decent. Personally, I think I'll be waiting to see what OFP2 has to offer.

yeah, gotta agree 100% with you there. The voice acting and general cinematics are exceptionally bad. Typically, you can forgive games such as Men Of War for really crappy cinematics, but ArmA 2 brings it to whole new level.

I think there is a basic lack of artistic ability with the development crew. Take this example... The first mission in the campaign is a covert ops, 4 man night mission. I mean, wtf!? Talk about being thrown in the deep end with the paedophiles! Could I not have been eased into the game with some daytime patrol mission?!?!?

It's jam packed full of bugs. It simply doesn't work. I can't play it even though I want to.

The MoW cinematics actually do their job pretty well, apart from being graphically horrid.

And man, from what you guys describe it sure does sounds like a good idea to wait out the game a bit. lol @ Satis being run over by his own soldiers. Probably the AI taking revenge for all that FF in L4D.

It's interesting though, what I hear and read on other sites (not gaming review sites) is a story of horrible bugs on the one hand, and an incredibly deep war experience on the other. Apparently the game only gets going after the first few missions.

But whatever, we'll see that once it's on sale on steam and the bugs are gone I guess.