SA - Will the MMO concept use dumbed down arma engine?

[JackWalsh 29]

When I started to play DayZ, and at the same time got the chance to play arma 2, because that was needed to play dayz, I saw how much I liked Arma 2, because of the realism you won't find in many other games.

With that I mean that in Arma you have specs of the weapons, with travel time of the bullet, the damage, the accuracy, etc. Then you have the natural clumsiness of the body, and also the great environments, the sky with stars on which you can navigate, and lot's and lot's more. I think it's one of the main reasons why I like DayZ so much.

After seeing some video's and interviews with Dean Hall from E3, and the whole new MMO architecture, I'm kinda worried about something. Will they use a complete dumbed down version of the Arma engine for the stand alone? In other words, will they sacrifice that whole realism in weapons/environment for the new architecture, and only use code what they think is needed for this game?

Edited June 15, 2013 by JackWalsh

[methr1k2dop3 323]

Interesting.

I will follow this thread.

I hope they keep some of those realistic aspects Arma2 had.

hopefully someone can elaborate.

[p4triot 207]

In fact they enhancing the experience with the Arma 2.5 engine. I don't think they will refuse any of those features.

[bfisher 561]

Didn't he say the environment is actually more detailed? I'm sure the weapons will be realistic enough. The damage is already for shit in the mod. ie IRL you can't take a dozen hits from a Makarov pistol or 5 or 6 hits from an 5.56mm or 7.62mm assault rifle.

[Cap'n (DayZ) 1827]

Nope, its actually getting better. The overhaul will work wonders, and we'll all be thankful.

[sausagekingofchicago 4711]

If they fuck up the guns, they fuck up the game.

[JackWalsh 29]

I was worried, because of a few things.

- I heard in the interview that Dean Hall preferred the term authenticity over realism.

- I heard there are no sniper rifles in the SA. Is that because the SA is using a dumbed down version of the arma realism of weapons, and therefore they only want to use pistols and simple assault rifles for now?

- from what I understand from the video's (but maybe I am wrong), they removed a lot of arma code, and only used what they found necessary for the SA (enough to create a certain authenticity, instead of realism?)

I hope I am wrong, and making wrong assumptions, but if they sacrifice the realism, that arma has, for the MMO concept, then for me DayZ loses it's identity.

Edited June 15, 2013 by JackWalsh

[JackWalsh 29]

Nope, its actually getting better. The overhaul will work wonders, and we'll all be thankful.

I certainly hope you are right.

[JackWalsh 29]

If they fuck up the guns, they fuck up the game.

That's why i found it weird they did not put any sniper rifles in the game. Perhaps in the SA there is no travel time, angle, etc. perhaps it's just point and shoot. And if the crosshair matches the target, even when it moves (and perhaps even at longer distance) you will hit it.

Edited June 15, 2013 by JackWalsh

[methr1k2dop3 323]

I was worried, because of a few things.

- I heard there are no sniper rifles in the SA.

Where did you hear this?

and why would you worry about it?

not to turn this into another pointless sniper thread.

Edited June 15, 2013 by methr1k2dop3

[Cap'n (DayZ) 1827]

I certainly hope you are right.

I'm always right. Just ask anyone who's famous here, I'm a voice of wisdom.

[applejaxc 2500]

I can tell the OP doesn't know very much about games.

The MMO architecture affects how the clients and server interact. How scripts are run, player movement gets tracked, et cetera. Core game mechanics are NOT affected by this.

[IkaikaKekai 1957]

I was worried, because of a few things.

- I heard in the interview that Dean Hall preferred the term authenticity over realism.

- I heard there are no sniper rifles in the SA. Is that because the SA is using a dumbed down version of the arma realism of weapons, and therefore they only want to use pistols and simple assault rifles for now?

- from what I understand from the video's (but maybe I am wrong), they removed a lot of arma code, and only used what they found necessary for the SA (enough to create a certain authenticity, instead of realism?)

I hope I am wrong, and making wrong assumptions, but if they sacrifice the realism, that arma has, for the MMO concept, then for me DayZ loses it's identity.

Well if this was a 'realistic' game we wouldn't have zombies, we would only have guns that would be in Chenarus, which would mean pretty much only soviet guns. By Authentic he means that they guns will be real, and they 'could' be in the Chenarus area. Also that would go with gun attachments, for example, realistically you couldn't take a Picatiny rail (US) mounted scope and put it on a Russian style ring mount. Just wouldn't work, but hes going to simplfiy that so rather than having 100 scopes that would only work on exactly one gun.

You keep using the word 'dumbed down version' even though its 2.5. I hoenstly know very little about game engines, but I'm fairly certain that it's not dumbed down, stuff will just be handled more by the server than the player's computer. As far as I know the .50s will not be in Standalone, at least not for a while. They will have a few rifles which include the mosin nagat, and you will be able to attach scopes to them, so you have a sniper rifle.

They removed a lot of the Arma code because they didn't need it. It was explained fairly well in the video a few months back. Zombie AI doesn't need to know how to reload a gun, or flank a position, or drive a tank, so take out the AI reload, flanking, and driving scripts.

*EDIT*

Now that I think of it, most if not all of the 'useless code' was gutted from the Mod already.

Edited June 15, 2013 by BigMike

[Bubbajones 238]

Dean's references to architecture refer to client/server communication, control and reporting, not content or mechanics.

As big mike mentioned the gutted code removed was for aspects of dayz that were dead weight. Zombies in dayzmod are Arma2 npc soldiers with skins so their code is filled with military related mechanics that are not required.

[JackWalsh 29]

I can tell the OP doesn't know very much about games.

The MMO architecture affects how the clients and server interact. How scripts are run, player movement gets tracked, et cetera. Core game mechanics are NOT affected by this.

You probably meant that the OP (me) doesn't know much about game development, and you are right about that. I only wrote software for ERP and some linux console scripting. But I know quite a lot about games. (just like everyone that has been gaming for many years) I've been gaming since the 80's, starting on my pc-xt ;)

It was just that I was afraid that they would remove a lot of code (and therefore functionality/realism/mechanics) from arma to make a more simplified and easier to maintain/modify dayz client. And by removing the stuff that makes arma so cool, it wouldn't have the same experience as the dayz mod now.

and @ BigMike

Thanks for your answer clarifies a lot for me.

Edited June 15, 2013 by JackWalsh

[JackWalsh 29]

I'm always right. Just ask anyone who's famous here, I'm a voice of wisdom.

That's funny, you are always right, and I am always worried.

Edited June 15, 2013 by JackWalsh

[sausagekingofchicago 4711]

That's why i found it weird they did not put any sniper rifles in the game. Perhaps in the SA there is no travel time, angle, etc. perhaps it's just point and shoot. And if the crosshair matches the target, even when it moves (and perhaps even at longer distance) you will hit it.

I don't want to believe this is what they'd do and I figured sniper rifles were out because they were aiming for a more civy weapon based game. If they take the Arma engine and make point and click arcade guns I'd burn Cherno to the ground.

I'll wait and see though.

[Hetstaine 10852]

I believe Rocket uses the term authenticity over realism in the respect with what you can actually do (within a game engine/enviroment) and how it needs to be sometimes in a game, not as a referral to the dumbing down of anything like guns etc.

[dallas 5195]

I was worried, because of a few things.

- I heard in the interview that Dean Hall preferred the term authenticity over realism.

- I heard there are no sniper rifles in the SA. Is that because the SA is using a dumbed down version of the arma realism of weapons, and therefore they only want to use pistols and simple assault rifles for now?

- from what I understand from the video's (but maybe I am wrong), they removed a lot of arma code, and only used what they found necessary for the SA (enough to create a certain authenticity, instead of realism?)

I hope I am wrong, and making wrong assumptions, but if they sacrifice the realism, that arma has, for the MMO concept, then for me DayZ loses it's identity.

-Since the very first day of the DayZ mod, Rocket has emphasized that his aim is authenticity over realism, so rather than having the game be realistic, he wants to make it feel realistic. The difference is in the nuance, it doesn't matter how realistic your ballistic models are, if they break the immersion of the gameplay experience. So instead of perfectly mapping the human biology, DayZ has some simple needs mechanics that still creates an authentic psychological experience.

-Having half the players on a server running around with top of the line anti-material rifles and special forces's carbines is neither very realistic or authentic. I got the sense that survival would be turned up a notch in the standalone, which also meant you wouldn't be able to easily find sniper rifles, assault rifles and heavy machine guns scattered all over the countryside. Chernarus is not Texas or South Central, you probably wont find an AR variant or Tek-9 in every household or fire station.

-They removed a lot of code, because ArmA and DayZ wants to do two different things. ArmA wants to be a infantery/battlefield experience, while DayZ wants to be a zombie survival experience. This means that Rocket can go into the AI directory, highlight all the files and press delete, then he can replace the AI with zombie AI, instead of trying to script ArmA's infantery AI to stop zig-zagging and perform flanking maneuvers. ArmA is not only a game, it's also a platform and template for user content, it's mission editor and script injection makes it both great to mod, but also easy to abuse. By initially removing the user content aspect of ArmA and moving towards a mmo server structure, DayZ will attempt to run all the scripts on the host server trying to minimize hacking as much as possible.

[applejaxc 2500]

You probably meant that the OP (me) doesn't know much about game development, and you are right about that. I only wrote software for ERP and some linux console scripting. But I know quite a lot about games. (just like everyone that has been gaming for many years) I've been gaming since the 80's, starting on my pc-xt ;)

It was just that I was afraid that they would remove a lot of code (and therefore functionality/realism/mechanics) from arma to make a more simplified and easier to maintain/modify dayz client. And by removing the stuff that makes arma so cool, it wouldn't have the same experience as the dayz mod now.

and @ BigMike

Thanks for your answer clarifies a lot for me.

No. Changing script functionality would only affect code execution allowances; it wouldn't require anything being taken out.

[mintypie007 57]

-Since the very first day of the DayZ mod, Rocket has emphasized that his aim is authenticity over realism, so rather than having the game be realistic, he wants to make it feel realistic. The difference is in the nuance, it doesn't matter how realistic your ballistic models are, if they break the immersion of the gameplay experience. So instead of perfectly mapping the human biology, DayZ has some simple needs mechanics that still creates an authentic psychological experience.

-Having half the players on a server running around with top of the line anti-material rifles and special forces's carbines is neither very realistic or authentic. I got the sense that survival would be turned up a notch in the standalone, which also meant you wouldn't be able to easily find sniper rifles, assault rifles and heavy machine guns scattered all over the countryside. Chernarus is not Texas or South Central, you probably wont find an AR variant or Tek-9 in every household or fire station.

-They removed a lot of code, because ArmA and DayZ wants to do two different things. ArmA wants to be a infantery/battlefield experience, while DayZ wants to be a zombie survival experience. This means that Rocket can go into the AI directory, highlight all the files and press delete, then he can replace the AI with zombie AI, instead of trying to script ArmA's infantery AI to stop zig-zagging and perform flanking maneuvers. ArmA is not only a game, it's also a platform and template for user content, it's mission editor and script injection makes it both great to mod, but also easy to abuse. By initially removing the user content aspect of ArmA and moving towards a mmo server structure, DayZ will attempt to run all the scripts on the host server trying to minimize hacking as much as possible.

Interestingly, I would expect to find an ak in every household in Eastern Europe. The AK variants are very prevalent and to think that just people living in Texas have guns in incorrect. Through all the hostilities and due to the rural environment in Eastern Europe I think having AKs be common is "realistic". I hate that term so much, we are playing vidya. "Realism" is not always fun.

Edited June 15, 2013 by mintypie007