Hello. So I just switched from a cracked version to a newly purchased ArmA 2:OA to fully enjoy this great mod. Unfortunately, all I see is how incredibly horrible, unfair and boring it has become. First of all, if you are a new player and have no friends playing this mod, you shouldn't even bother. You start off as weak as a newborn baby and don't even have an ability to address every player on the server seeking assistance. Next, you quickly find yourself finding an unbelievable amount of parts for vehicles you've never encountered and tons of ammo for weapons you don't have. In fact getting a gun is nearly impossible right now. When I first picked up the newest (1.7.1.4 I believe) version of this mod I started playing very carefully, trying to be as aware of the surroundings as possible. The sad truth is - the mod is not polished enough to be as unforgiving as it is to the beginner. The character tends to stand up at random in certain cases (like crawling on slopes or over obstacles) and there is no way right now to enter a building without exposing yourself at least briefly, which is enough to mess up entirely. More than that, at times enemies become aggressive for no apparent reason when you are proned at a moderate distance from them. And since you don't have a gun, all you can do is run, which doesn't help considering enemies have the same running speed as you do and running attracts more. So in such cases you either have to accept your death or disconnect. Previously Makarov was there to compensate for such cases: you still don't run into villages like a mad man shooting everything that moves, but it was at least enough to escape when the situation gets out of control. Just out of curiosity I tried running around major cities checking every place that is likely to contain a weapon for half an hour and still found nothing. Maybe they've been looted, but that still doesn't change the fact that unless you have some sort of way to defend yourself, you are constantly swinging between being dead and being as good as dead. In any case, it is now impossible to start off playing this mod right now for a completely new player. Going for realism in video games is the worst possible decision in most of the cases. Yes, maybe in DayZ scenario I would spend three hours crawling around in the dirt for a can of Pepsi. And maybe survival rates would be around one to ten thousand. All I know is that it was more fun to play before than it is now. I hope my opinion will be treated as constructive criticism rather than baseless complaint. I wish this project all the best and am excited to see where it is headed.
