=VG= SemlerPDX
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Posts posted by =VG= SemlerPDX
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*On the MCC note: I am pushing to have a playable BETA up asap because the initial structure I have made is strictly Infantry oriented - as in, it's a Platoon - max 50 players (I wish we had that, lol) - 3 Squads, 3 Fire Teams in each, FT's have 4 members.
HMMWV Mounted (M2 only, not CROWS), and the FT roles start at a cool default mix (ex. FT1: FTL, MG, Asst. MG (ammo bearer and takes up MG if MG dies), Rifleman)
or AT FT example: (FTL, SMAAW Operator, Asst. SMAAW, Rifleman)
Rifleman is always newest member (noOb, or new to ACRE) and is the FTL's Battle Buddy. You get to choose your role pre-op, wanna change? Jump back to lobby w/your friends and nab another FT. Ezy Pzy.
If you haven't, this is the coolest guide to skim over or read thoroughly, and this particular page makes huge ACRE missions easy (we ACRE junkies should all at least read this one page, most of it that relates anyway):
Arma 2 Tactics, Techniques, and Procedures Guide by Dslyecxi
(I will add an Armor Platoon and Civs one day,
teaser img:
...but this playable BETA will make for great Inf. focused experiences we can all use to get on the same page, as dman suggested. okay - less talk, more code - back to work with me now. COMING SOON, I SWEAR!) -
Castor =VG= LAN_WROTE ...
Please note that I haven't joined the army yet and I have played arma for a year only so many of my comments might seem ignorant.
No worries, Castor, I am getting used to taking what you say with a grain of salt. !crazy
It's only natural that we will have differing opinions about one thing or another - let's be mindful of our different styles and when we bite each other's heads off, at least have the decency to bite above the nose, so they have a chance to reply again.
KEEP IT CONSTRUCTIVE - I myself will always welcome criticism if it has a constructive purpose (and it isn't presented offensively).
2 great points have come up.....OP Weapons, and Small Group Leadership.
OverPowered Weapons
While down to the Mission Designer, OP Weapons which have such high superiority can make the game "unfun" for the rest of the group, just like infantry fighting along side a Bradley may feel less danger, shoot less enemies, and have what they may consider a less than awesome video-warfighting experience in said round of gameplay.
The Persistent missions with repetitive attack styles are the worst for OP Weapons, in my opinion, because the only thing a group has to keep a fresh gameplay style on the next AO is to mix up how they attack - and I feel that OP Weapons, unless agreed upon globally for the assault, can detract from the others "desired difficulty and vulnerability in game".
I always feel "safer" when I have an overwatch team, perhaps with snipers or CSW all scoped and zeroed in, but not everyone wants a constant "safety bubble", and going through the motions as it were can be boring, and unentertaining..
Sometimes, we may want a particular kind of challenge, so, that means agreeing on or designing Ops and Missions that either favor them or that do not use them at all. (ahem, again, touting the USMC Platoon Ops (MCC))
@Murder - "yes i did do brackets inside of brackets.. bracketception" !rofl
Small Group Leadership:
Before any of this gets too far out of hand, I think we should all agree on a thing or two: That there will always be times when you will run into some of our regular Arma 2 battle buddies who don't really want to play a longer, structured, ROE and "request permission to fire" kind of match (at that particular moment). This will happen - dude, this is Arma - you could probably get some form of stress from this shit if you pushed yourself too hard and took things too seriously all the time.
Again, good thing we don't play that super-strict mil-sim style, beleive it or don't, but VG has the most awesome chill to it, and I'd never want to lose that. But as we get into using our Calandar for "all day" or "1 life to die" events, we also need our "Blow off the steam and go grab your favorite Arma toy" missions. Gotta respect when people are in a game like that, and have the personal tact and flexibility to either fall in with what the current group is into, or offer the opposite style yourself on one of our other servers.
Be grown up, be respectful - if your good buddy =VG= JoeAnyone is happy farting around with an A-10, with three random soldiers also farting around just consider offering an impromptu Event with ACRE and Platoon Structure, on a different server if they don't want to all stop, and if they don't want to join you, there will always be another day.
Never feel bad for saying, "I just want to play around in Arma 2 right now - I do want to play with Radios and Squads, just not at this time...." !gam
or my personal favorite, "Not tonite, honey - I have a headache"To Quote PITN a year ago - "you can have CAS monkeys, just keep them away from the AO - give them some mission somewhere else, that way they are in the air if needed, but not shooting all our Tangos..."
(or something to that effect - hell, it was a year ago)
I know it takes most the team to make a structured game work, but imagine if we had more numbers - more Arma players who hung around, there would be plenty for ACRE Platoon Games and we wouldn't suffer for not having, say, Gaz and Oni and Wooz who are (example) not wanting to do a group thing but fart around.
(again, MCC can do anything all at once...it may smooth out this very issue...)
Anyway, there will always be times when we all get together, seems more than once a week now. If it isn't happening - don't whine - fall in, be cool, be patient. Arma ain't goin anywhere - you'll get your fix before too long in any given week.
!cmdo -
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@Murderface - haha! nothin worse than a self-appointed leader when you're trying to play casual or have been for the game so far. Very True - if we're gonna play casual, we don't need self appointed leaders - and when we could use them, they should be chosen not forced on players. Like in Project Reality for BF2 - you choose your squad, can see it's leader before entering it.
Democracy in gaming groups seems to work fine with small numbers, on familiar missions or game modes, and non event style play - it becomes more like a "spec-ops" squad than an independant "rogue" team, where input should be encouraged from the members that make it up. -
Very good point, Terremer - there is a tendancy to get either a feeling of non-cooperation or anti-solidarity from players who just want to go off alone and try something, or from players who literally want to play alone (say, CAS) while online with an active group of players, even in non-event games.
When we use ACRE, we almost assume that everyone will be available on some radio, and cooperate directly in the team effort at hand. It's one thing to selfishly spam an AO that infantry players are planning to assault on foot, but to expect full "event" structure in a casual game is another thing entirely.
Again, not to keep touting about this MCC thing, but it can cater to EVERYONE at the same time - want to snipe with your buddies, but don't want to interfere with the Squads taking an AO? Fine - MCC can drop them somewhere different with a different mission without lagging up the server in any way for the other players.
Hell, maybe even the sniper mission preludes the Squad's next mission - things can work together even when the are functionally separate.
keep the discussion going, guys!
!2cool
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Castor =VG= LAN_WROTE ...
EDIT: anyways we should remove all these comments and give some suggestions, I dont think Dman meant this kind of conversation.
Good point - I have assembled all these great discussions to another thread, please keep up the input and discussion there:
LINK: Open Discussion - Teamplay, Leadership, Mission Variety, and COOP Gameplay in Arma 2
ON THIS TOPIC:
@dman - do it! I love them old school M113's and barely get to use them cuz we always rock the Stryker's or Bradley's as mech-infrantry. I'll make it to every one you make, schedule permitting!! If you need any access to the dedi, say for a test server to test things as they would be in multi-player, I can hook you up. We have like 2 dev test servers that stay off most times for just that purpose.
!2cool -
@Castor - Well, I can't see how this input would hurt dman's efforts to make missions that cater to our skill levels, and challenge us, too.
With any luck, this feedback will help us to interact better in his missions, and it's good to get this out now so that we are all on the same page.
@Castor/Calv/Gaz/Everyone - I am very interested in "mini-missions" because after years of playing, I am all too familiar with each and every sidemission that Domi could throw at us, and Insurgency, though always different in some ways, is also always the same in the same ways - which can make for repetitive gameplay and the dreaded "one or two RIGHT ways to accomplish the tasks".
When you simply throw a situation at gamers, then they get to react and act on their own decisions. I look forward to any such missions dman can make - and I will try to be there for every one of them.I've been busy with 'real life' this week, but at night, I keep working on my opus: USMC Platoon Ops (empowered by MCC)
I really think it will allow mission makers such as dman, Poffadder, Savage, Calv, Charry, myself, and any others, to instantly (and while in game) send groups out onto fresh, new missions at the push of a button (or three).
It's the framework and ease of user interface that is needed as a wraparound, and then you will be able to throw anything at them. I studied the ShakTac Platoon manual online, and the F2 Framework (st version) and saw why they did what they did, and made my framework very similar so one could play with us, and them, and say, UO, and structures are familiar. (law of 3: any leader only ever has 3 subordinates to command from PL to FTL)
-- One of the first things I wrote was a system that anyone can access to tell them what ACRE radios they should have, what channels they should be on, and a list of all active players, the role they are in, pre-made callsigns to use or not, and a channels list that shows every role's radio network.
As far as leading goes - good leaders are not born, they are made. Democracy has no place in a chain of command, and though we do not play "super strict" mil-sim, we can benefit from trusting each other, and letting go of the control - and handing it off to a trusted leader.
I personally have become confidant in my leading over the years, but I still love to be the grunt - I don't have to call the big shots, and just have to listen to, say, Poffadder, who tells me to take my Fire Team up a street, and secure a building while the rest of the Platoon moves up.
This is so easy for me, but when I have to be the guy giving out the orders, I never feel like I need to ask my members what they think will be the best move - if I did, I'd let them lead, and just be a grunt. A leader by definition has the situational awareness, or knows where to obtain it, before making a decision, and unless they needed input, a Leader should never feel so un-confident that they must ask their subordinates what the next move should be.
If you are a leader, act like one (even if you don't know what you are doin! This applies to life, too, kiddies and gents - Act like you know what your doing, even if you do not. Don't make mistakes as a result, but when you do, learn from them and do not reveal it to your subordinates. They must have a certain trust in you, do not diminish that by admitting fault all the time - save that for the debriefing.) -
CASTOR HAD NOTED:Castor =VG= LAN_WROTE ...
we usually get +10 players on arma but if we advertise a bit we could easily get +20.
personally I think m113 patrol is a good idea because we have no experience on it and its not that hightech so we get a bit more difficulty on it. I'd wish to see more OPFOR and UN missions and possibly German Armor missions, I've actually never played any UN missions, Defend, Ambush and missions where you gotta find something before its too late. Search and rescue missions are cool too!
complaining from here on forward so cover your eyes kids if you don't want to see.
It's a shame most of us aren't interested in toning their skills of teamplay, leadership, and their combat effectiveness, I'd really want to see us doing Events with other community's later on.
for example I've heard the sentence ''we don't need a leader because we are experienced ARMA players''.
1st of all we aren't, I've seen SO much better people out there that you wouldn't imagine, the ability to use some equipment doesn't make you an experienced player, the ability to use it together with a buttload of other assets like infantry and armor does. I mean C'mon we aren't even good at being Infantry! which is the most basic thing!
2nd of all a group is ALWAYS better with a leader, even with a bad one because for a multitude of reasons, like the fact that if there is no leader its basicly a democracy: everyone has their vote. ''well I guess we just sit down and vote here!'' <-- not literally but you get the fact that every decision takes longer. also no one is there to tell others to cease fire, take a formation, crouch, lay down etc.
but this all is only for anyone interested in serious fun, not just ''hey lets fly there and blow up some shit!''
Note here that I'm not thinking that I'm better than you, in fact I'm worse than most of you but I'm willing to learn.
TL;DR: frustration because people are not playing for serious fun.
GAZ REPLIED:Gaz =VG= LAN_WROTE ...
I'd like to point out here - I have had no problems leading a team like a democracy... Just for the fact that a lot of the lads are very experienced around here and when your desiding what to do next other people have seen diferent situations and have a multitude of idea's that could be used quickly and effectivly... if under fire. I personally find its better to have everyone shouting out the directions and leading an assault on a position than one person who has half arsed facts on it...
Im not sure what you mean by we are not experienced INF. For the most part we have been doing it for 2 years, and if you were in a squad with the lads that have done it for that long you would see the experience shine very bright...
Using armor and INF together dosent make you great at anything.. It just in a sence means you want to use other options to get the job done rather than brawling through with INF. Its not a statement to leadership or how good someone is - I Can tell you i see using inf to take on 50 guys would impress me more than using INF to kill 5 and a tank to blast everything else away.
I Find your statement about the Leader is kind of true, but voting can be better. In a combat sitaution a leader to call cover - Fire, throw frags - Drop smoke... That is a good call. But having a group that desides where to go next is a good idea in my opinion, thats how i lead my teams...
Now about the missions - I think 10-15 is our regular amount, maybe another quick whip up of the mision with an extra fire team incase we get more is a good idea...
Also maybe an op-for mision or two could be quite a fun consept...
And castor i also agree on doing events with other communities... Me and calv have discussed the consept of doing it with LAMBS some time.
CASTOR REPLIED:Castor =VG= LAN_WROTE ...
Gaz the thing is that when you have no leader for, lets say a group of 6, 1 of them usually takes WAY too much gear and will slow the team, 1 dude is the one who runs and guns and dies all the time and the rest of the guys are having a hard time deciding what to do when they're under heavy fire, which brings more casualties.
But to be honest I play like I'm on an event all the time, trying to everything organized and properly and with a level of professionalism.
In my mind the more you are able to cooperate with other assets the better, it doesn't matter how many we have against us and how many do we have. all that matters is that they die and we live, the less we lose the better.
of course this might take the fun part from the infantry but then you can just limit the assets before hand.
OH but now Im using this thread wrong :) sorry!
CALV REPLIED:Calv LAN_WROTE ...Castor =VG= LAN_WROTE ...
It's a shame most of us aren't interested in toning their skills of teamplay, leadership, and their combat effectiveness, I'd really want to see us doing Events with other community's later on.
for example I've heard the sentence ''we don't need a leader because we are experienced ARMA players''.
1st of all we aren't, I've seen SO much better people out there that you wouldn't imagine, the ability to use some equipment doesn't make you an experienced player, the ability to use it together with a buttload of other assets like infantry and armor does. I mean C'mon we aren't even good at being Infantry! which is the most basic thing!
2nd of all a group is ALWAYS better with a leader, even with a bad one because for a multitude of reasons, like the fact that if there is no leader its basicly a democracy: everyone has their vote. ''well I guess we just sit down and vote here!'' <-- not literally but you get the fact that every decision takes longer. also no one is there to tell others to cease fire, take a formation, crouch, lay down etc.
but this all is only for anyone interested in serious fun, not just ''hey lets fly there and blow up some shit!''
Note here that I'm not thinking that I'm better than you, in fact I'm worse than most of you but I'm willing to learn.
TL;DR: frustration because people are not playing for serious fun.
Sorry, but neither knowing how to use equipment OR knowing how to practice combined arms makes you an "experienced player". Experience is being able to read a situation and react accordingly, being able to think quickly and make decisions rather than blindly charging into areas or getting people killed as you stand around deciding.
Applying knowledge with a "buttload of other assets" is neither here nor there, if people can't work together as infantry then there is no point throwing additional assets into the mix. Not to mention that co-ordination between infantry and other assets is usually pretty minimal, as both parties need to focus on their own tasks, and its down to the overall commander to direct each party, not the units themselves.
I'd disagree, nothing gets people killed quicker than a bad leader. Someone needs to be in charge to make overall decisions, but it is not necessary to have someone constantly yelling and barking orders at everyone and basically micromanaging the entire team because that just leads to confusion, clogged comms and basically lowers everyone's ability to maintain a clear overview of the situation.
The best leaders rarely need to speak or give orders because they have trained the guys they're leading and trust them to adapt to the situation and adjust themselves without needing to have their hands held.
CASTOR REPLIED:Castor =VG= LAN_WROTE ...
Calv, I did forget the most important part yes, by ''buttload of assets'' I meant that you can basicly work with anything, and yes Infantry is an asset too (i think?)
and about the bad leader when you put it that way I agree, but going without one is pretty bad too.
GAZ REPLIED:Gaz =VG= LAN_WROTE ...
i Dont think you see it like we do, When we leave on domi. Like me, sparky and random usually go after side misions together. There is always a subconcious leader. Usually me or Random but we always clarify who it is. We just never really have to give out orders because we trust each other in knowing exactly what needs to be done.
CASTOR REPLIED:Castor =VG= LAN_WROTE ...
that is true, you guys play it like you know it already. which is way too repetitive for me, like you know there is going to be aprox. 1 brdm, 1 bmp and 1 t72 + 2 squads of infantry. you know how they set around the objective and you do almost every side mission in about the same pattern.
while I try not to think about it and do it outside the box, unfortunately no one wants to do it this way and want to carry silly weapons that we wont be using in proper Events, everything I do in ARMA is to make myself better at missions, trying to evolve and get better all the time, silly me I know :)
but I guess we can put the blame on DOMI for this.
EDIT: anyways we should remove all these comments and give some suggestions, I dont think Dman meant this kind of conversation.
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Way cool video! I know what it takes to get all the cuts and titles goin - you did an amazing job! Hope you're getting the hang of Sony Vegas - it does get easier, trust me.
Keep up the good work, bro!
!2coolA side note about monetization of BI Studios Intellectual Properties:
I noticed you have monetized your video - wanted to take this opportunity to tell everyone who makes Arma 2 videos:
BI Studios loves us! They have even prepared a license for us to use in YouTube that grants us the rights to make money off our fan videos that include copyrighted Arma 2 objects, images, menus, and even the awesome music by the composer(s) they bought the Arma 2 soundtrack from.
Normally, you'd have to "lie" to get past the license part in a monetized fan video - but with BI Studios, you just have to paste this bit into your YouTube vid's license area:
User Monetization of BI's games Audio and Video content(e.g. Youtube Partnership Program)
You copy the license quoted into your YouTube vid's license area, and you'll notice they want you to DL the PDF document, add your name, and info, and email it to David and Ota both, with the email subject title:
(example for murder's video:)
[Audio&Video Monetization]+Veterans Gaming ACE/ACRE Domination Teaser HD
eazy peazy - but if you want, I can go ahead and do this for anyone, as I submit one myself with each Arma 2 video I produce and then monetize. Just let me know, or do it yourself - no rush, they won't get "sue-y" on you, it's just what one is supposed to do to legally make money off them and their products.
!cheers -
It's not a helpful as you'd imagine - in shouting mode, you simply become louder, but gotta turn it back to normal or people will think you are closer to them than you are.
It's great for the pre-briefing huddle, when you are trying to talk to 3 other players, in separate groups of 4, you can lower yourselves to a whisper, and not disturb the other teams.
And since we play vs. AI, instead of humans, it is far less important to "be quite" on the battlefield. You can set off a bot to know your location, but who knows if they react same or different at your different volume levels - it may be straight across the board "enemy spotted" to them...
Cool new toy, tho! Again, just be sure to set it back to normal when done using it - can get confusing in the "shit".
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Those are some cool ideas, many of those have come up on the DayZ forums before, and some are implementations in the upcoming WarZ game - I'd like to see DayZ become more COOP, but with a PvP element.
If I were to try to improve on DayZ, the first thing I would do would be to remove scoped weapons and NVG or anything thermal or IR. And I'd add a very dangerous AI faction that is not aflicted with the 21st Century Plaque, and the ability to be captured by them and taken to "the island".
DayZ has proven to be almost impossible to play without safety in numbers, because of the PvP element, but the fat lady hasn't sung yet.... We have yet to see what DayZ will really be in the end, once it is a stand alone game.
!coffee
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Good info. I was wondering about this lot.
!cheers
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=VG= SemlerPDX reply #1 ...
1. - Are you your own net admin - (router/modem access)
2. - Have there been any changes since it began (NAT/SPI, etc)
3. - Can you set up direct port triggering/forwarding to your PC for TS3 Port 9987; Arma 2302; or any other requireds?
3. You pay good money - call those buggers up, and get a tech sent out to get your money's worth. They tend to get rather responsive when you say you are thinking of another provider... !spite
[Moderator Move from Chatbox to Forum] -
=VG= Terremer wrote ...
anyone know what would cause sudden high packet loss? ive been getting short d/c from games and ts3 for a few days now, and dota2 is showing like 59-90% packet loss and huge spots where i cant move at all. but my latency somehow stays pretty low
[Moderator Move from Chatbox to Forum] -
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NOOOOO!
Please, I have been working very hard on my mission - I need souls! I will be launching today, and it will be online all day tomorrow - would be excellent opportunity to try it out, and if everything is good, we could use it to make a Saturday Event mission - it's structure can hold and organize 33 players on ACRE with Constructable Retransmitt Towers to solve our range issues when we ar far from base.
Each playable position has a personalized notes section telling them their radio channels, and a list of the channels 1-6 , that are used and by whom. Also tells who is in which role, and is fully JIP compatible.
!wiz
http://www.veterans-gaming.com/vg-plugins/forum/forum_viewtopic.php?29340.0#post_29343
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FINALLY - What I have been up to most recently - USMC Platoon Ops
We geeks behind the scenes of VETERANS-GAMING pushing the big buttons have been following what I feel is a good, mostly speedy learning curve to assemble all the skills we need to make the VG Vision a reality, so we are prepared when we do go to get a new website and gamer networking format. I can literally link an Arma 2 mission to a persons personal profile on the website, so socially, his "characters" in RPG fashion, are visible to all, and trust me - the kids love them stats! Even if you are one who doesn't care for those pages of stats, there is too large of a fan base for it to not include such a system, were I to code this idea into a mission.MCC SANDBOX TEASER NOTICE:
I have spent the last 9 days straight,. over 16 hours a day, creating a mission framework to take advantage of this amazing MCC Sandbox mod by shay_gman. I've had oddly abundant energy for someone who's only stimulants are a pot of coffee in the morning. Not that sitting in front of the PC is very draining, but it's that it has felt like Christmas Eve and I'm a little kid again with this mission framework I am building. It is the culmination of a military game organization structure that I have been envisioning for exactly one year now, to utilize the open source easy creation that the Arma 2 engine, my very favorite military game, has available to make the video game I want to play. Not just someone elses idea, but my idea, our ideas.
So, I have been eating well, drinking water, and for some reason, still full of energy till the wee hours. 100 hours of production so far:
- Dynamic - "Lite" - Easy to Use - Easy to Play - Fun - Always Different (ALWAYS!) -
- "Group ACRE Use Made EZ" - Arma Tanks Can Drive Uphill (per Renainn a.k.a. Davestrike) -
- Unique to VG Clan - Amazing Artillery Module - Boxes and Easy Gear w/ Pre-Packed Backpack List -
- Full Military Platoon Role Simulation - Ability to Become "DayZ RPG Like" - Playable with Few or Many -
- 100 Percent Full Mission Control - Can Have Database Logging for Website PHP "Nifty's" -
- Could Do Something In Game and Imediately Change Something Here At Website - Ideas?
Secret: - SHH!!
Just kidding - it's just something I've been working on - no need to write home about it, but here in a post - meh...
Playable Civilian Side Fully Modeled: could play as evil or good, ied the shit out of some BLUFOR but weapons will not be issued at start, nor easily aquireable without playing and building up to it, like: can interact with ai civi bots, civi missions, fun fun things - all in a world populated by a platoon of 44 Marines attempting to take the country of Takistan back from the rebel army, secure an airfield, construct a base, and stage the liberation of the entire region. When done, focus will change to insurgents and cartel forces undermining the new government (say they try to stop elections, etc) - all sorts of scenarios like we see in movies, or hear about, we can make up and then deploy on at the drop of a hat to see if we can use our Arma skills to win the day.
But I have paused now, that I have what I feel will be a good initial BETA for us to start at, and can be running while I continue to implement new systems. My focus is on functions, not just things that can be done for sake of doing it - thats where the in game Mission Designer console comes in. But civs rock - playable civs rock, even though they add a small PvP element to an otherwise COOP game. Takistan is huge - I'm thinking a smaller number of players that the USMC's 44 playable slots. (btw, before I forget, BETA Test only has 33 playable slots - will change to 50 with 18 playable civs). I did my homeworks and I understand that a Marine Corps Platoon is 3 Squads, each with 3 fireteams, each with 4 team members, a Platoon Sergeant, Navy Corpsmen, RTO's, FAC's, the Platoon Commander himself, and his staff. I needed to make this playable, and not rank-upable but role capable, as in:
Fireteam Leader has 4 men under him. He leads the Fireteam as the Squad Leader dictates, to coordinate with Fireteam 2. He will become a better Squad Leader if he can handle 4 men, because he has been on the front, in the shit. He will be able to lead a Squad of 2 fire teams in a coop manner with other players using ACRE and able to handle the more radio and command oriented role. That will prepare him for trying to lead the whole Platoon as the Platoon Sergeant, because that role will coordinate FAC, 2 squads of 12 men each, and of course I threw in a Marine Scout Sniper role (and his spotter) for TortiaBoy, Beast, and all the others who needs their ghillie and 30 inch long barrels for maximum wargasm potential. ;)
Concepts I am Considering for a small Playable Civilian Side:
- Doesn't start with a weapon, open world design - ability to "die", can interact with most everything and every bot on the map
- Be a Civ: Join, get recruited to army, or get forced to join cartel or group insurgents, find a gun runner and buy one somehow? NO COPS! This is not a City Life RPG spinoff, and is only similar on surface. Shit, I've already typed out a freakin book, here.
How can I be brief without giving someone the wrong idea?
Just image if you could become paid informant for BLUFOR players, providing valuable intel for forces in area, or linking up with others to become a thorn in their side. They got the gear, the good stuff - but if you are sneaky, subversive, use your voice over ACRE and a bit of guile, and talk your way out of a confrontation, only to track and kill your prey?
HAHA! I'm sayin it now - we will lose Poffadder as our regular Platoon Commander to this civi side, it will be fun... lol
Again, starting like DayZ with no real gear, not even a pistol - anything you can imagine, I can make happen with the push of a few buttons while you and your friends are in game. I can even change day into night, and turn water into cold filtered, genuine draft beer.
!mental
This is just ONE of the very do-able ideas in my head that I can and will be implementing into my game, USMC Platoon Ops - featuring lag-free civilian populations and real live human civs, too - ROE does have a place in Arma, I will make it happen on a large population server, ours, within acceptable FPS server and client side. Just needs some "outside the box" idears to be thunk up.
The public will flock to fill spots, will wish they could reserve one, and will be back and forth to our website to check either cool unlocks, or social features, or shit, any other thing we can make that is cool, using Steam In Game Web Browser or just Alt-Tabbing out. I will make this happen!
I am so positive that the full "not-yet finished" game inside my head will be very cool that I am sending a callout to anyone who wants to contribute ideas, concepts or even supply creative works I can use for what I am sure will become then next most popular way to play Arma 2 with ACE and ACRE, and all the coolest things you are supposed to be able to do with those mods that we have barely scratched the surface of. Sucks when you look in a crate and see something cool, but have no way to use it, because the current mission is set in stone. NO MORE!FEATURING MCC SANDBOX BY SHAY_GMAN, I HEREBY PRESENT TO VETERANS-GAMING:
USMC Platoon Ops (BETA v0.2) by =VG= SemlerPDX
BETA TESTING TO BEGIN AS SOON AS I FINISH THIS ONE LITTLE THINGYMABOBBER(click photo for full size image - shown in photo: custom platoon menu - current is a squad/platoon leader's menu)
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All that being said, I am 99% done with the TrackIR Shooting Contest and it has been live on one of the test servers for a month while I've been trying to learn how to make a stand alone program that can pull the shooters scores, names, and one or two other things from the arma2oaserver.RPT file.
I did not succeed. I spent a week taking this C# (C-Sharp) tutorial program that Terremer hooked me up with and learned 2 things - C Sharp is a rather poor program for myself to learn as it so changes the concepts of how to code in C that it would ruin my goals of learning C and C++ with any proper learning curve.
Secondly, I learned that the time and learning curve can so delay progress, even though I am getting new tools in my coding toolbox, that I should give up.
Clearly, the most appropriate action is to outsource it to another member of our team to bring the score board/leaderboard of the shooting contest here to the website like with the DayZ and MSO leaderboard proof of concept tests.(Go test the TrackIR Shooting Contest - it knows if you've already seen the intro video, you won't have to watch it twice - and you don't need a group, it's not COOP - it's like a single player thing, so go log some test scores, dammit! Shoot to win! Try to beat your high score! TEST!
Then do it again in a day or two! password is in the ts3 channel descrip, and an ingame leaderboard will show you how you and everyone else did. Final mission will not allow restart, BETA Test, you will restart at the pistol lane, and can check the scoreboard.
PLEASE TEST! Ignore the crooked hescos, and lack of polish/flair and only report to me any control issues or teleport bugs, etc.
I only need data - I will check the RPT file after the weekend and collect my data.)
The TrackIR Contest BETA Test is up, and has been up. Please go run through it, try to get the best score you can get as if you would win an awesome TrackIR unit for winning. Give feedback, if you want, but really, I just need to check the logs after so many players have done it. It is designed to be autonomous, and funneled - The player enters the contest, sees an intro video of what the contest is, what to do, what can be won, and lets them know where to go to check their place in the leaderboard (here at website).
They will shoot a pistol, then fade out and fade into the rifle range with a rifle, after 30 shots, they are done - they get a "Thank you for participating!" message, and for the BETA, there is an in-game example of the leaderboard as I have only the ability to code an in game one, website will be up to SolarFlame, Terremer, Poffadder, or anyone else capable of doing so. I must focus on what I am good at - GO TEAM VG!
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Regarding the TrackIR Shooting Contest:
Sorry for saying I could do something, but I had more learnin to do to make a secure, organized, structured shooting contest that is fair, cannot be cheated in without obvious indicators in the score logging, and looks cool and is fun.
I'd like to extend a personal apology to BLuDKLoT and Seth at TrackIR for getting the gears working back in May, only to have contact drop off with no updates. I had so much more yet to learn, and should not have "bitten off" such a large chuck without respect for what it would entail. At all points, I ran into issue after issue, regarding use of coding sytax to score logging and variable corruption. I felt like only news I would have been able to report would have been inconclusive and inaccurate estimates of when such a thing would be working and completed.If you are still interested, I can make this happen. Humbly, -SemlerPDX(shown in photo: in-game leaderboard proof of concept, final is website only but I can't program one - HELP!)
Also, at no point did I toss this on the back burner and forget that I had committed to making this secure database logging contest system and fun shooting contest promotion. I am disabled, and cannot go off to a nice job and office, so this is my office. I am a perpetual student of object oriented programming, and specifically fluent with the Arma 2 game engine, and chose to dedicated myself to that engine (and the new version coming soon). I have spent an average of 10-15+ hours a day since May creating this wonderful contest system, which I am fully able to adapt to most anything inside the Arma engine, perhaps even that DayZ contest idea someone had - except I understand the concept of a target shooting board, but can't picture people competing for kill count without it being corrupted by cheaters. At least not yet - I continue to learn more and more every day, as my friends here can attest to - it's hard to drag me away from reading, learning, or writing awesome game systems and code that I want my game to have.
I do all this for a number of reasons:
1. I love gaming and playing games, and hated the days when all I could do was complain ("ARG! I died again from that stupid bug!" or "Dude, this game rocks, but if it only had.....")
2. I cannot just "play" games anymore - I'm too old for that. And I even have life's most perfect excuse, as it were, being disabled (if you don't know, my damn shoulders won't stay in socket. I gotta be super careful all the time). But hell, my daughter is nearly as old as some of our younger members. I needs money for her college, I love having time to be a dedicated father, happily report she's an 8th grader in 9th grade Algebra and loving it, and I dedicate all the rest of my time to the VETERANS-GAMING Core Vision. This is because I know now, more than when I was in my early to mid-20's, that hard work and dedication pay off if you stay true to your goals, and the industry we've chosen deals in BIG, BIG numbers with the added benifit of working at home, internationally conferencing instead of being slaved to some office building or jet-setting all over hell and back.
4. ...or are we on three? oh yea, 3. I have so much fun with all this - the game events, the socializing, the productive creation of amazing functional works that delight us all, the networking. Therefore, if there is a possible paycheck down the road, I have a sense of purpose - a goal, a dream, the VG Vision. I would like to thank BLuDKLoT, the founders of VG and all who came before me, from the very bottom of my heart for giving this purpose to me. The teamwork on the fields and behind the scenes is so unique and wonderful that it almost brings a tear to me 'eye. So, to conclude, creating and not just playing all the time (I swear I will get in game more - read below) fulfills and completes the top level of my Maslow Triangle heirarchy of needs. (or is that one food? I can't remember, I think I saw it on a cereal box about 20 years ago...)
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!wiz the force is strong with this one ...
...though the rabbit hole does indeed keep going deeper...and I am on to learning higher concepts of Arma 2 scripting.-Only for those interested, the bored, and those who need a long book to get sleepy-
A VG Arma Dev Projects Update *LONG* Blog (not required reading) regarding my status, the TrackIR Shooting Contest, and what that awesome USMC image is on the very last post:
Now that I am "done" with all the learning hoops I had to jump through to really understand in a practical way this code syntax, applications, and best practices of, I have found out, tested and have premade examples of:
- Amazing cut scenes; embeded pre-recoreded video in game (I watched "Clippy's Tactial Roll" video from within Arma - way cool), I can also control titles; dynamic notes; and then just recently I learned how to make dialog boxes (those things that pop up with words and a few buttons to click like Okay and Cancel - For example, ACRE Radios are a "dialog box" - an image with clickable buttons that pops up on your screen).
So, yes, I can for example make a game inside a game(Arma 2), say, Pong, on a TV you walk up to, even multiplayer (2 players max, duh) - just need to see the code for Pong and translate it into Arma 2 Scritping language, and build a simple dialog box from an image I'd request from one of you, say, a hand held video game looking device (with ambient non funcional buttons like dpad and functional buttons like Start and Select, or A and B, and a big black empty square where the screen would go for my additions. I don't need this, but it can be done easier that you'd imagine.
Pong is lame, just an example. I was thinking more along the lines of many training modules for weapons systems, vehicle systems and group/convoy deployment and formations, etc.
Using the score logging systems I wrote for the TrackIR Shooting Contest, I could do most anything like that. -
For "After Party", please see first page of this thread - we will be using standard ACE/ACRE, but with @mcc_sandbox mod as well.
You won't have to "turn off" MGB killhouses or MGB cinder city because I've allowed them, but won't be using them, in the after party (I just want to avoid confusion, so I've added them keys to the party, which is actually on a separate server than the one we will use for Savage's Event Mission)
Not trying to complicate things, and I'm on my first cup of coffee, so I hope this is all very simple and clear.
See you all at the event! !coffee
(@Savage - both; UPSMON AI in DAC Zones (point and click, up to 40!) - and btw, that guy who spawned things in wrong zone - common mistake, cuz have to "update" the menu GUI after choosing different faction to work with, if current selected zone is #18, after update, it will be 1 again. So, what I do, is I never place a Zone #1! Start at 2, then, worst case scenario, NOTHING spawns.)
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Wow - I didn't know that, about making a list so "unpopular" posts are not show on the main feed of my friends. Gonna set that up asap.
!cheers
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!cheers to all our donators!!
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Yes it does break forums - the embeded timer. We totally need a Zulu clock of our own here at the website. Solar is the only one I know who could write one for us in any short period of time. Very simple to him I bet, but would take one of us awhile just to learn the language.
Server side you say? I look forward to testing this! Already sold on DAC hook, line, and sinker - suppression would be the icing on the cake.
Also, found tip - set all non-combatants to this setSkill 0 for huge perfomance increase on server. Set your playable units to skill 0, too. Just remove all skill settings for anything that won't be firing at the players.
Oh, and you don't need to leave editor to change Mission.sqm or description.ext if you simply save changes, load blank mission, then re-load your mission. I was getting annoyed with having to reload arma ace with each edit - and didn't know one could do this.
!cheers
Open Discussion - Teamplay, Leadership, Mission Variety, and COOP Gameplay in Arma 2
in Arma II
Posted
I give up, you know that my english aint that good so I cannot communicate in the way I mean. still you insist raping my comments
@ Gaz I see you have something personal against me so just PM me and lets get it over with, other wise you could've seen through my post and understood the true meaning behind it (which I guess I cant tell without someone else correcting to me, thanks a gain Semler.)
Screw Gaz, *(well, not literally, of course), but I have something against you if you are going to take criticism and difference of opinions so personally.
Time to take some chill pills and remember that this is an OPEN discussion, we are going to have different opinions, and we need to be able to talk to each other about our differences - not to berate or feel berated by the comments and criticisms.
How else would I know that I had to take off the "Where's the Beef?" T-Shirt when I had been wearing it 5 years after it was old? We need our friends to mirror back at us our flaws at times, and have the maturity to accept it or take it in stride.
No one hates you, Castor. Stay off the defensive - keep on topic, guys.
(And please, everyone, continue to try not to be offensive, but be truthful with your opinions on this topic.)
And, Gaz - I have different opinions than you on one or two matters, but I wouldn't kick you to the curb. Same with anyone who posts in this discussion.
If you let any of this get to you on a personal level, I will point and laugh at you. !rofl
Be mature, and be respectful. Basic stuff here.
PITN and Castor brought up good points -
PITN is so right about this being a rather limited simulation - we can try all we want, but it does seem the closer we get to any kind of "realistic" large group ops, we find ourselve with the very real (and not so entertaining) aspects such as "dry, dull" ops that need to be done by someone, while the other group "goes in for the glory".
It's almost like we need a video game reward system for the dull, boring logistics roles if we were to continue on a route to a "full realistic op" scenario to be simulated.
Castor mentioned that... "also the problem is that we dont learn that much from our mistakes, look at our missions: we do it and then leave. where is the after action report? we did it last time with Calvs missions."
Well, I feel some learn differently than others. Some prefer a debriefing while others play so often that they are quite clear on what happened, what went well, what went wrong, and what should be done differently the next time for maximum fun/success.
Since they take up several minutes, or longer, of "non-playing" downtime, I feel this would be more important and should be followed more if we were, say, a competitive clan. As we are casual, but serious about having fun - I suggest we do debriefings when appropriate, like Events or Large ACRE Ops, but nothing to say we can't have a more relaxed debriefing here on the site, over the days following the event, using the forums.
I can understand how some people may not have time or desire to hang around for 15 minutes after a long, 2-4 hour gaming session with ACRE and tons of restraint and patience. Forum is best bet in that particular example, in my opinion.
5. I like commanders.
Me too.
But, I hate the "automated" commander that is the "Server" in most persistant missions. Rather have a real evolving world with changing front lines, and a human commander offering up some sick ops.
!butcher IF ANY OF YOU START SLINGING MUD AT EACH OTHER IN PM's AS A RESULT OF THIS THREAD, I WILL SEND A FLAMING BAG OF DOGSHIT TO YOUR DOORSTEP! KEEP IT COOL, GUYS! KEEP IT CONSTRUCTIVE AND ON TOPIC - DON'T MAKE ME TURN THIS CAR AROUND, CAUSE I WILL AND THEN NO ONE WILL GET TO GO TO WALLY WORLD!
"He who makes a beast of himself gets rid of the pain of being a man" - Huxley