Arma 2 Engine - Reality and common sense questions

[kev070892@comcast.net 0]

There is so much to talk about with this mod's recent fame. I am not sure whether to glorify it for its ingenuity and brilliant concepts or scratch my head at the shear oversight players have put into the game.

Watch any DayZ introduction video and within the first minute the instructor will explain that DayZ is an immersion survival mod. They will explain that not only is the learning curve steep, but the game's mechanics are hard pressed to learn as well. Good, difficulty is almost the most important factor in video game’s success these days. It almost directly translates to a fun experience for skilled users who want a challenge.

Well, WarCraft: Orcs and Humans was challenging and rewards skillful players, but it didn’t quite give off the vibe that a game like StarCraft does today. The same goes for Arma 2. I've been watching live streams of DayZ for the past three days straight analyzing every detail (you can't put the focus in analyzing DayZ while actually playing it). It boils down to the Arma 2 engine; the DayZ mod can only do so much.

http://i.imgur.com/r8YC5.jpg

It only took a single Google search to confirm my suspicion. It's no secret that Arma 2 has been coined as the most realistic war-game on the market. And for $20, it's quite a rewarding experience. Games like Call of Duty or Diablo 3 for $59.99 generally feel as if they are deluding the experience for the user; cheapening the fun at the expense of the buyer.

DayZ, while giving players a fun environment, exploits the facts that the user is distracted by the goal of survival to worry enough about the immersion of the game:

HEALTH, STAMINA, FOOD, AND GENERAL NEEDS:

DayZ gave a solid effort for the needs other simulations shaved off on. Games like Left for Dead, Resident Evil, Dead Space, and Dead Island overlook the fact that the Zombies are not your first concern. DayZ’s Survival is imperative -- your character can break limbs, be infected, get hungry etc. First off, you're in a post-soviet area; you really think a T-shirt and a vest will keep you warm? Look at the wiki and it reads (http://community.bistudio.com/wiki/Chernarus) "Chernarus is a fictional post-Soviet country, accurately recreated from geographical data of real landscape". Temperatures would be FREEZING at night. You would NEED shelter, fire, food, water just to survive a single day. Look at the recent film (and book of course) The Hunger Games. While most competitors were killed by other competitors, dying from the environment was the primary concern. This is no different in DayZ. Players should need to find firewood and be FORCED to camp out during night time. Night should also be literally impossible to navigate in. In real life in an apocalyptic world, you would need to wait till dawn to navigate. As I said before, DayZ makes a good attempt, but does not nearly bring the satisfaction of an immersive survival game. The icons on the right side of your screen and the way to bring them to normal levels involve an IQ less than ten. Bandaging wounds and eating food is a simplistic and dumbed down system. The games' focus on combat leaves the experience of survival as wasted potential.

COMBAT, MOVEMENT, AND WEAPONS

The Arma 2 engine does a very good job at providing realistic scenarios but doesn't deliver when it comes to logical realism. Snipers shoot across fields bolt action at much higher rates than normal (have you ever tried pulling back the bolt of a high caliber sniper rifle?). Not only that, but they do it without spotters (good luck with calculating wind and trajectory of your bullet all while tracking a moving target by yourself). Let's take a quote from the popular movie Shooter when discussing a shot from a mile distance (done in Arma 2 with ease): "You know what it takes to make a shot at that range? Everything comes into play that far. Humidity elevation, temperature, winds, spin-drift. There's a 6-10 second flight time so you have to shoot it where the targets going to be. Even the coriolis effect, the spin of the earth comes into play". Arma 2's combat engine is a standardized joke compared to reality.

Take a look at this well done introduction and instructional video of DayZ: "http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a3op-Q1o5RI". Notice at 3:30 you see the speaker attempting to eliminate a moving target. While the aspect of patience is there (there is an INCREDIBLE amount of patience involved with real life snipers, you sometimes have to wait 10 minutes just for the shot to open up), the realism is comparable to someone bunny hopping in CS: Source getting a headshot no-scope from T-spawn to the double doors of Dust2. Watch in the video as his target moves as lightning speeds WHILE CROUCHED. Now -- I want you to crouch on the floor (yes get off your chair). Then, I want you to try and move from one end of the room to the other. If you've ever tried Airsoft or Paintball (real life wartime simulation), you will know what I am talking about. That speed of crouching is nigh-impossible. Not to mention, the sound of the shot would echo within a two mile radius AT LEAST. If the target in this video were to rise and sprint, aware of the snipers presence, he would have a less chance of getting shot than a quarter being thrown into a small cup from a 25 yard distance. The knockback of rifles, especially sniper rifles, would actually shake you (and can cause serious injury to less experienced users – which your character in DayZ IS) unless you have a pod attached to the ground. The stillness of the crosshairs is inhuman, and the accuracy of the bullet equates nothing to its real life counterpart.

Running, crouching, and prone positions are far too fast. Next, I want you to take a metal pole that weighs around 40 pounds and put it on your back via a sling. Then, get a gun holster on your waist and put a 16 pound weight in it. Try and switch between the pole on your back and the weight in your holster as fast as you can. In fact, I want you to just try and run with both of them on your body. It's not going to happen at any reasonable speed. Changing weapons alone should take six seconds at LEAST. Reloading ammunition should take up to thirty seconds depending on what gun you are using. What players call realism these days is a terrible misconception. And while I hope it is not true, I believe players have ascended beyond realism even being a factor in their games. It’s an unfortunate and cruel world where a video game that prides itself on realism and survival can't even make basic and accurate judgments for MOVEMENT. Let alone the physics behind shooting a real life weapon.

THE ZOMBIES

Every video game has their own take on how a zombie should behave or perform. Some games believe them to be mindless, wandering on their own accord. The debate has gone on for decades discussing if they are able to have sensory thoughts of smell or vision. The fictional concept has grown beyond this with the age of modern video games. Zombies now behave like heat seeking missiles in a body. Their AI programmed to eliminate the player -- and if unable, to increase speed, damage, and difficulty until that goal is achieved.

Watch TotalBiscuit's (

) video on DayZ and you will begin to understand. From the very beginning at 2:50, the Zombie AI appears to be very poor (those who have experience in-game can vouch as well). Notice how the Zombie comes behind TotalBiscuit and does damage to him. Arma 2's engine of a grey shading to indicate pain is by far the strangest adaptation there is to the concept of health. I thought I had seen it all with Diablo 3's "Low Health" screen ( http://hautegamer.com/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2012/04/d3.png ). Remember, a Zombie by regular standards was once a person. Now, have you ever been tackled by another person, either in sport or play? That kind of Zombie attack WOULD TAKE YOU DOWN TO THE GROUND WITH EASE. Force = MA (mass times acceleration). An average speed of a sprinting human (zombies are easily sprinting) is around 15 (6.7 meters per second) miles per hour. An average male weight would be around 80 (175lb) kilograms (in this day and age). That's 536 Newtons of force hitting you on impact. No one would be able to stand against that, let alone prevent a concussion. The Zombie should tackle you and begin eating you while your friend must get him off you.

Not to mention, take a look at the Zombie movement and how the guns are shot. Pay no attention to the cardboard hand holding the gun perfectly still as the Zombie approaches (very realistic) but notice how shots that should be on point don't actually hit their mark. Watch the video at 3:02 at the shot he takes at the Zombie with his pistol. Notice the Zombie teleport? You would think this is just latency -- it's not. Go to any video, any live stream, or play the game yourself and you will see just how crazy the AI and projectile system works.

The game is still in Alpha, but the decision to run it on the engine of Arma 2 was very poor. What blows my mind away is Arma 2 came out in 2009 but runs WORSE than Counter Strike: Source. How is this possible? Are we digressing in terms of logical shooters? I know the Call of Duty franchise fell after Call of Duty 3, but I thought at least Battlefield 3 was a step in the right direction. Imagine DayZ with a Battlefield 3 engine? Imagine DayZ with a Counter Strike engine. Hell, I bet the Skyrim engine could somehow run it better. At least in that game it stresses the importance of Stamina. Mind you, throughout this entire discussion, I haven’t even mentioned graphics. I’ve seen games on Dreamcast that match Arma 2 by graphical standards.

I am here and speak only to invoke the thoughts of others. I only seek the improvement of the gaming industry. Do not act like I am questioning your deity but more of that I am questioning your loyalty to a game that you may think too highly of.

[FrostDMG 398]

Yeah... I even recon the game would run better in CE2... I dont wanna say it but this is almost as bad as STALKER's engine... seriously not a fan of it...

[JeffersonAirplane 0]

I was actually reading intently until you described Resident Evil as a simulation game...

Why are you trying to compare the realism capabilities of the Arma2 game engine to the gameplay of a mod made with the engine?

Can you name an engine that would have been better suited to make this mod? Especially in the timeframe in which it was created? (Rocket has said he did most of the leg work of the mod to get it into a playable state in about 7-8 weeks)

[kev070892@comcast.net 0]

Resident evil is not a simulation game, nor did I ever say it was. The games I listed are the most current popular Zombies games. They are suffer from the same problem. If you believe survival is not a priority in Resident Evil, then by all means please let the Zombies attack you. Realism should be a factor in all games.

[JeffersonAirplane 0]

If this "game" doesn't have want you're looking for then play something else.

Your gripes are ridiculous.

[dayzsurvivors 155]

I find the game too immersive to let the nuances you listed bother me.

Yes the system is simple, water icon going red? Need to drink. But funnily enough life is that simple, do you feel thirsty? Then you should probably get a drink.... I don't think they need any more than that. And When you are plonked into a 225KM zombie and bandit warzone walking into a house and grabbing a bottle of water isn't always the easiest task. So a simple fix yes, Thirsty ---> Drink but not always easy to get that drink in the first place.

I would be supportive of increases in realism in regards to weapons you mentioned. Longer reloads, heavier weaponry giving more kick (at least for a while untill your character 'got used to it') and snipers being less accurate just because I think this type of stuff would be more encouraging to survive together instead of shoot each other. But it is not a problem with it how it is now.

The only thing that is a real issue atm is the warping zombies, but it is in alpha, and anyone who has played it for a few hours knows what to expect with them and how to best deal with them.

[kev070892@comcast.net 0]

@dayzsurvivors

You think the gun simulation is bad? Try movement. People are moving like rocket ships while holding tons of equipment and weaponry on them. Seriously, get off your computer chair and try running while holding a rifle. I guarantee you can't do it for long.

You see.. it's not even realism at this point. It's just common sense. You shouldn't be able to move quickly while crouched. You shouldn't be able to go from Prone to jumping in less than two seconds flat.

[Tabris07 159]

I believe that a game could have too much realism in it. If Arma put in the effort to make the game as realistic as humanly possible, I don't think the game would be as popular as it is now. It's a game. I'm well aware that I probably can't do any of this stuff in real life, so I like the fact that I can get on Arma and do it all.

[eegore 23]

"Forced" to camp out at night?

How many people do you really think are going to sit and watch a game campfire for 7 or more hours?

All this talk about realism then jumps straight to zombies.

[Sayl 13]

I came to Arma 2 for dayz, and I have to agree with everything he said but his conclusion. I don't think it would do any better on the other engines except for maybe one made with central servers. Arma 2 is horribly mod-able and the whole 50 man server thing is failing as with more servers the game is becoming a only the cheesy prosper. On one end of the spectrum you have the old guard who go for total immersion and want to have that sort of an experience, than the new guard who have figured out the meta game of server hopping for loot, exploiting the loot tables and only joining servers in perfect conditions, these players would only join a server in night time if they had NVG and other bona fide advantages, and of course the cheaters. I don't think anyone is happy with the situation right now, caused mostly in part by the fact that Arma 2 and the system to make this mod is just flawed at its core. However, the gun play in Arma 2 is far more sophisticated than any other shooter that I know of, including battlefield 3. Exhaustion, barrel movement from even the slightest of adjustments in position, each gun being sighted for a certain range create for a very sophisticated game. I have seen an AKM shoot 400 meters and make a kill by a skilled player utilizing sighting. I have also seen people making incredible pistol shots by making the adjustments needed, this is very rewarding however there is little reason to even shoot your gun as it is now with the zombies being able to be kited through buildings it really doesnt make any sense to shoot anyone. When the horror aspects of dayZ wear off, and the people who cheese the system and their cheating counterparts have wore out any sense of accomplishment with all their perfect gear and their disconnecting to avoid both zombies and players it boils down to a game only fun when both you and the person you are shooting at agree to the consequences.

[dayzsurvivors 155]

I think there is room for some more 'realistic' tweaks, but it sounds like what you are suggesting would suck a lot of the fun out of the game for a larger majority of its fan base. More than would enjoy it anyway.

We are not saying we have "A lifelike game" we are saying we have "The most realistic on the market". Untill they make a Life 2.0 game where you have to cut your nails and check your ballsack for lumps I am afraid you are going to have to make do with ArmA!

[Xeros612 0]

I've quoted the worst points you've brought up.

The icons on the right side of your screen and the way to bring them to normal levels involve an IQ less than ten. Bandaging wounds and eating food is a simplistic and dumbed down system. The games' focus on combat leaves the experience of survival as wasted potential.

And how do you expect it to work? Get hungry' date=' eat food. Get thirsty, drink a beverage. Get cold, get a heat pack or start a fire. Bleeding? Bandage the wound. Of course there may be room for needing a splint or "homemade cast" for lack of a better term for broken limbs rather than just jabbing yourself with morphine, but how complex can a survival system be?

Notice the Zombie teleport? You would think this is just latency -- it's not. Go to any video, any live stream, or play the game yourself and you will see just how crazy the AI and projectile system works.

Unless you've played the single player mod of the mod and it happens there, you can't really say it's not latency. Latency client-side, latency server-side, the fact that it's an alpha, all come into play. As for ballistics, I doubt they've changed from ARMA 2, and that's not exactly something to sneeze at. Sure, there's plenty of tweaking to do but that's what Alpha and Beta are for.

1. The game is still in Alpha, but the decision to run it on the engine of Arma 2 was very poor. What blows my mind away is Arma 2 came out in 2009 but runs WORSE than Counter Strike: Source. How is this possible?

2. Imagine DayZ with a Battlefield 3 engine?

3. Imagine DayZ with a Counter Strike engine.

4. Hell, I bet the Skyrim engine could somehow run it better. At least in that game it stresses the importance of Stamina.

5. Mind you, throughout this entire discussion, I haven’t even mentioned graphics. I’ve seen games on Dreamcast that match Arma 2 by graphical standards.

1. Your mind is blown by the fact that a game from 2009 doesn't run as well as a game from 2004? Is your mind also blown by the fact that Doom 3 didn't run as smoothly as Quake III? That Crysis didn't run as well as Far Cry? Next thing you'll tell me is DirectX 10 should have run faster than DirectX 9. Real Virtuality 3 isn't exactly the best optimised engine out there, but it should come as nothing more than a "no fucking shit" that the game doesn't run as quickly as something from five years prior.

2. Futile. Frostbite 2.0 is decent eye candy, but the ballistics are pure arcade and there's no modding support because that would make it harder to sell official map sets or that bullshit excuse the PR department made up.

3. DayZ on the Source engine.... nope. Sorry, but an engine from 2004, despite being updated, is probably not the best choice for something this far removed from everything Source has been used for. Has Source even been used to render one gigantic map as a single loaded entity?

4. Gamebryo is a crap engine for what it's used for already. How again would that be better suited for something like this?

5. Bullshit. That's literally impossible. Even minimum settings (which I have to use because I've nothing but a three year old laptop at the moment) look better than that.

[zeke (DayZ) 0]

I think the main point you're forgetting (and most people that make similar complaints) is that the game is in ALPHA stages.

There are going to be a crap load of kinks ironed out, bugs fixed and just general gameplay improvements with every single patch.

If they're really that big of an issue to you wait till the game is in at the very least the BETA stages.

[kev070892@comcast.net 0]

@Sayl

yes,yes,yes,yes,yes,YES!

This is exactly what I am talking about. Of course there are going to be moments when the system is rewarding, but how rewarding is it when you realize what you are doing is no more than a point and click. Wind resistance, wind direction, gravity, etc. They are all absent.

But you're right -- people have figured out the game, and now the true colors show. There will always be people to abuse the system, so you must create a system that cannot be abused. Do you know what a system that cannot be abused is? It's not your point and click system, that is for sure.

---

@Zeke

It's the engine of Arma 2, not very much the mod (though the mod does have its' fair share of problems. Read my post, I said the mod can only do so much to fix Arma's mistakes.

[zeke (DayZ) 0]

Yeah I agree but a few things like the AI complains should be able to be fixed in upcoming patches.

I was more just saying that a lot of people tend to forget that the mod is only in its ALPHA stages but still expect it to be perfect (Which wasn't directed at you)

[JeffersonAirplane 0]

If you think wind, gravity, and other factors don't come into play while shooting the various weapons in the game, you are flat out wrong.

Try a mod called "The Shooting Range" and turn on projectile cam.

Enjoy.

[dayzsurvivors 155]

You seemed to have missed '@Xeros612' with your responses OP.

[kev070892@comcast.net 0]

@Xeros

"And how do you expect it to work? Get hungry, eat food. Get thirsty, drink a beverage. Get cold, get a heat pack or start a fire. Bleeding? Bandage the wound. Of course there may be room for needing a splint or "homemade cast" for lack of a better term for broken limbs rather than just jabbing yourself with morphine, but how complex can a survival system be?"

Have you ever gotten shot before? I haven't, but on reddit I remember a post where the man said even a shot in the shoulder imobilized him completely. A shot from a high caliber sniper rifle? Even if it hit your wrist, your entire arm would be ripped from its socket. So, the game engine should track where you got shot, then you would need SOMEONE ELSE to stop the bleeding. Again, let me reference the movie Shooter. If you haven't seen it, it's a shame. He has to go to a convient store after being shot and get the following items: marinade needle, some salt, some sugar, couple bottles of water. THAT'S JUST TO STOP THE BLEEDING TEMPORARILY. Oh but in Arma 2, you can just bandage yourself! How simple of a system can it get? At least it's not like Call of Duty where you huff and puff your wounds away.

"Unless you've played the single player mod of the mod and it happens there, you can't really say it's not latency. Latency client-side, latency server-side, the fact that it's an alpha, all come into play. As for ballistics, I doubt they've changed from ARMA 2, and that's not exactly something to sneeze at. Sure, there's plenty of tweaking to do but that's what Alpha and Beta are for."

I saw that video. THAT, Is how sniping should be. End of story. If you shoot from that distance, that's what you need to do. If you can't do the math, you're going to have to get MUCH closer.

"Your mind is blown by the fact that a game from 2009 doesn't run as well as a game from 2004? Is your mind also blown by the fact that Doom 3 didn't run as smoothly as Quake III? That Crysis didn't run as well as Far Cry? Next thing you'll tell me is DirectX 10 should have run faster than DirectX 9. Real Virtuality 3 isn't exactly the best optimised engine out there, but it should come as nothing more than a "no fucking shit" that the game doesn't run as quickly as something from five years prior."

You know what game I want to bring up.

This one:

The game's called Far Cry 2 and it was released in 2008. It's graphics make Arma 2 look like it's from Atari. When you run through the grass, it brushes up against you as the sun radiates the most beautiful and real glow you have ever seen in a virtual world. When you drive, you turn the fucking wheel and you can't just see an overview of the car. You are in the front seat. Sometimes you don't see a ditch ahead, sometimes it will disable your car. Tough shit, you took that risk. It was unforgiving; if you spent too long out in the wild you would need medicine to clear your malaria from acting up. Bullets were outrageously hard to nail to their target from far range. On the highest difficulty, you died in two hits and barely regenerated life.

The game was so underrated that I almost lost hope for the gaming world. The game has since been forgetten, had little to no online capability, but gave me hope for the future of shooters.

"2. Futile. Frostbite 2.0 is decent eye candy, but the ballistics are pure arcade and there's no modding support because that would make it harder to sell official map sets or that bullshit excuse the PR department made up."

Uhhh... there is modding support if you have EA handle the game. They have the ability to change and add to the game's core features. It wouldn't be a mod anymore. It would be a different game on the same engine. By the way, eye candy is always a good thing.

"3. DayZ on the Source engine.... nope. Sorry, but an engine from 2004, despite being updated, is probably not the best choice for something this far removed from everything Source has been used for. Has Source even been used to render one gigantic map as a single loaded entity?"

Source was a bad example. I didn't stress it too much in my post.

"4. Gamebryo is a crap engine for what it's used for already. How again would that be better suited for something like this?"

Was a joke.

"5. Bullshit. That's literally impossible. Even minimum settings (which I have to use because I've nothing but a three year old laptop at the moment) look better than that."

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VgCMpRGMeXM

[icomrade 201]

If you think wind' date=' gravity, and other factors don't come into play while shooting the various weapons in the game, you are flat out wrong.

Try a mod called "The Shooting Range" and turn on projectile cam.

Enjoy.

[/quote']

Wind does not come into play in vanilla Arma 2 CO, you will need ACE for that.

[NinjaFate 0]

You would seriously hand something like this over to EA? You sir are a fool.

And that hydro thunder video, if that's what ArmA looks like to you then you need some god damn glasses boy.

I read through your post, and the entire thread, and it seems like you want a completely different game. So my suggestion for you is to go find a completely different game.

[Joka232 0]

Okey....sure its not as real...as the real world....BUT Dude what you described can be done but would be UN-FUN...people play games to have fun! not make soo dam real that they could have done it in real life..

what u said up there is all too real for any game that has been released the only one that would compare is a real world War. i doubt you want to play that and expect to get re spawned after being killed.

u make good points but worthless because the modders cant do anything to make it that real.

maybe sometime in the future a game will be released with your expectations of realism...but it cant be even then cause at the end of the day your using either a controller/keyboard and mouse/motion control to play that game...

YOUR Realistic game for war/zombie survival will never exist.. so the best thing anyone can do is play thier games and plau them for fun

[Private Poptarts 23]

He has some good points, such as carrying a huge load of equipment and being able to run for a couple of km's in one shot, jump to prone, back, then sprint a few km's more... yeah I admit I wouldn't be able to do that.

It is a game/mod after all, and I hate the constant bitching about "realism" here, you are right about that. And some might have a false sense of realism like you said, and I admit, I do too, to some extent :D Adding elements of "realism" (ugh I hate the word already) adds to the game challenge, and is good, though.

In my opinion ArmA engine is fine for this mod, I can't instantly think of a better one with such good mod support. Source engine maybe, but... how about no.

But if you people want a real realism for real real and survival/horror, try the "RL Somalia" engine. You can even feel the bullets and all you need to get started is a ride to get there and preferably a gun to go with. It's permadeath, too :). But you don't get to respawn unfortunately (unless you're Buddhist). But hey, realism all the way, right?

[TheBrassThief 3]

Im afraid youve fallen into the realism trap. Many people do. Its a bit of a paradox of gaming.

Games are meant to be fun.

Real life isnt that fun.

Lets be honest if you had a 100% realism eating with the fork by clicking and right clicking on the pasta and you had to take a dump every 12 hours it would be boring as fuck. You know why? Because in a real zombie apocalypse it would be utter shit. Youd hate it. Id hate it. You dont roleplay as "the savier of mankind" in other games to watch him eat pasta and use the bathroom. You play it to do the interesting things. The game with 100% realism would be boring. Because real life is boring. If real life was the goal why would we play the game at all? Real life is JUST outside? I could have spent 25 quid on paintball rather than Arma, or purchased a membership down at the shooting range. The game needs to offer an experience more accessable and fun than real life can offer to be worthy of my time at all. I play DayZ to get the survival experience WITHOUT spending 7 hours at night being cold, and WITHOUT having to eat pasta one mouthfull at a time and such. It cuts the boring corners to get to the FUN of surviving.

[Scones (DayZ) 0]

Text

This guy knows what he's talking about.

A game could always be more realistic but it dont necessary makes its better.

[Xeros612 0]

@Xeros

Have you ever gotten shot before? I haven't' date=' but on reddit I remember a post where the man said even a shot in the shoulder imobilized him completely. A shot from a high caliber sniper rifle? Even if it hit your wrist, your entire arm would be ripped from its socket. So, the game engine should track where you got shot, then you would need SOMEONE ELSE to stop the bleeding. Again, let me reference the movie Shooter. If you haven't seen it, it's a shame. He has to go to a convient store after being shot and get the following items: marinade needle, some salt, some sugar, couple bottles of water. THAT'S JUST TO STOP THE BLEEDING TEMPORARILY. Oh but in Arma 2, you can just bandage yourself! How simple of a system can it get? At least it's not like Call of Duty where you huff and puff your wounds away.

[/quote']

I hadn't considered that, to be honest. I'll have to play some vanilla ARMA and see if targets can even survive a high-calibre rifle shot at all. It might be a DayZ issue entirely, surviving such things with a bandage as the only needed healing item.

I saw that video. THAT, Is how sniping should be. End of story. If you shoot from that distance, that's what you need to do. If you can't do the math, you're going to have to get MUCH closer.

Definitely. It's probably for the best that I've never gotten better than the Enfield (shamefully don't have much time to play this between recording, editing, and rendering things for the youtubes), since I doubt I'd be able to calculate that kind of aiming!

You know what game I want to bring up.

The game's called Far Cry 2 and it was released in 2008. It's graphics make Arma 2 look like it's from Atari. When you run through the grass, it brushes up against you as the sun radiates the most beautiful and real glow you have ever seen in a virtual world. When you drive, you turn the fucking wheel and you can't just see an overview of the car. You are in the front seat. Sometimes you don't see a ditch ahead, sometimes it will disable your car. Tough shit, you took that risk. It was unforgiving; if you spent too long out in the wild you would need medicine to clear your malaria from acting up. Bullets were outrageously hard to nail to their target from far range. On the highest difficulty, you died in two hits and barely regenerated life.

The game was so underrated that I almost lost hope for the gaming world. The game has since been forgetten, had little to no online capability, but gave me hope for the future of shooters.

Pretty fun game, to be sure. But the thing is, Ubisoft is a much bigger company with much higher budgets, so they can afford to buff graphics and make their engines more efficient. BIS is an independent studio that makes simulators- a niche, rather than a popular, mainstream genre- so it makes sense that they'd be behind richer companies in engine efficiency and quality.

Uhhh... there is modding support if you have EA handle the game. They have the ability to change and add to the game's core features. It wouldn't be a mod anymore. It would be a different game on the same engine. By the way, eye candy is always a good thing.

Oh dear god no. The only company I'd want handling something like this less would be Activision-Blizzard. I like my DayZ without being a console port with online passes, overpriced DRM, arcade ballistics, regenerating health, and intrusive DRM, thank you.

Source was a bad example. I didn't stress it too much in my post.

Fair enough.

Was a joke.

Then consider my joke sensor broken!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VgCMpRGMeXM

Sorry, not doing it for me. Looks 2002-2003 console game at best to me, still using sprites for details even. ARMA2 on minimum settings is definitely still above that.

Additional point regarding stamina: I think the thing is, ARMA is built on playing as highly trained military soldiers sent on combat missions, not "random survivor dude n" given free reign of the entirety of Chernarus. Certainly might be something that can be tweaked in time for DayZ, though.... I'm pretty sure it's already been tweaked, in the way of increasing stamina. I've seen quite a number of ARMA 2 vanilla videos in which the players' aim is shaky after running for a while, while I haven't seen that happen in DayZ at all other than when the player needs painkillers.