Operation Flashpoint 2

[Cerebrus]

Dunno if any of you all played the original OFP but the sequel is coming out in early 2009 and there's finally some concrete info on it. This one's actually being made by the publisher in-house of the original game (codemasters) while the original dev team is making their own, Armed Assault 2.

I was pretty skeptical since normally changing dev teams is a really bad idea with realistic shooter type games but it looks like Codies is going all out with this.

Basically if you never played OFP it was a 2001 super realistic squad shooter set in a huge outdoor environment... I've still yet to play anything like it. You had unlimited freedom of choice as to where to go etc... to accomplish missions except unlike Oblivion the combat was exceptional. None of this corridor bull**** ala CoD. And battles were BIG.

Well that's my blurb here's an E3 vid of the game:

CGI trailer (but uses in-game models for the soldiers and vehicles):

And an article from PC gamer UK:

http://files.filefront.com/OFP2+Scanspdf/;10876323;/fileinfo.html

And lastly a German article translated:

Quote:

Operation Flashpoint 2: Dragon Rising

In the early days, everything you need to slay a dragon was a prince and a sword. Today you need helos, tanks and lots of soldiers.

-----

We’re rolling our eyes. What did Clive Lindop just say?

Codemaster’s senior designer, a walking library on military, recognizes our disbelief and shrugs his shoulders, just to say we understood him correctly:

A few weeks earlier, the US Army decided to change the pattern of their uniforms and Codemasters adapted them in the game right away, too.

We’re in a gigantic barn, accompanied by a french and english colleague, near Southam in United Kingdoms’s Warwickshire, which is also known as »Shakespeare Country« to tourists. In former times the Darling’s barn (the Darling family founded Codemasters) was filled with cows and tractors, nowadays it’s used to house dozends of computers on two levels. The huge network is used to create a virtual war even William Shakespear himself couldn’t have imagined. It is here where Operation Flashpoint: Dragon Rising, Codemaster’s biggest project ever, is forged.

The justification for war: resources

Actually, calling Operation Flashpoint 2 a shooter with tactical elements isn’t right.

It’s going to be more: a complex and realisitc military simulation, based on a fictive conflict, that doesn’t seem ficitive at all. Codemasters decided to leave the well known battlefields and concepts of enemy behind and moves it’s game far to the east, right into the northern pacific.

This is where Sachalin is located, a russian island which is used to produce oil and natural gasoline since 1996. Most companys on the island come from the U.S. or Japan, however the russian Gazprom is also present on Sachalin. Some time ago, Russia signed an agreement with China, which said that Gazprom should supply China with natural gas, however Russia hasn’t allowed to complete the pipeline. They say the pipeline may bring ecologial damage to the island, but experts say, Gazprom is just interested in using the resources itself.

And that’s how it really happened.

Codemasters made minor changed to this story and moved the oil and natural gas resources to the island of Skira, which they placed right between the southern end of Sachalin and the russian continent. Skira is part ficitve, part real. For one, it really exists, however it's not named Skira. The developers sighted hundreds of satellite pictures and finally decided for the 220 square km; sized Aleutian Islands. »We found the exact thing we were looking for: sabulous beaches, green hills, sparse cliffs, lots of forrest, swampland, rivers, streams and a real vulcano on the eastern part of the island«, said Lead Designer Mike Smith.

Your enemy: a dragon

The developers placed a small US consulate right on this rural, sparsely populated idyll, as well as a handful of soldiers to guarantee the safety of the U.S. surveyors and their families.

And then Codemasters makes the chinese dragon rise: the people's liberation army (PLA) raids the valuable island and forces the american’s to escape. Soon after the US government receives a call for help from the Russians: Moscow requests military support to fight of the overwhelming PLA forces. The US goverment then sends out the USS Iwo Jima, an assault ship carrying amphibious vehicles and vertical take-off aircrats.

This is when the campaign starts. The campaign itself is divided into 6 days, and each day is made of three to four missions. In the second mission (»Blinding the Dragon«) you’re a grunt arriving on Skira at night. Your objectives are to destroy the chinese anti-air and anti-ship positions to allow more troops to land on the island and move forward to the airport, which is a high priority target.

Permanent collateral damage

Airports, factorys, towns, barns, trees, forrests – everything on Skira is supposed to be fully destructible. If a PLA squad is entrechned in a factory it’s very useful to call in an airstrike and blow the factory into pieces, just so you can engage them much easier.

Mike Smith demostrated the different destruction models used for a bunch of houses.

»Buildings include multiple damage levels, making it possible to bomb them until only the foundation walls are still intact.« Like in Crysis, you will also be able to fully destroy trees.

Also, if you destroy something once, it won’t reappear magically on the next mission – it’ll be destroyed permanetly. So after the war is over, you’ll able to retrace your movement by following the ruins and destroyed forrests you left behind.

A dirty war

Operation Flashpoint does not only include day and night cycle but a dynamic weather system. That means, it’ll be raining sometimes. Rain means there’ll be mud. And mud means dirty vehicles. »The vehicles may arrive clean on the island, but that doesn’t mean they’ll stay that way. Dirt is going to be churn up by tank tracks, mud is going to splash onto the vehicles. Those of you who played Colin McRae: Dirt know what I’m talking about.«, said senior producer Brant Nicholas. Codemaster’s in-house Ego engine was first used in Codemaster’s last Rallye-Game and again in Race Driver: GRID. The cars, shiny at first, had scrachtes, dirt on them and didn’t shine anymore when the race was over.

Individual missions

The fighting will move forwards and backwards and the whole front is always on the move.«, Nicholas promises. We ask him if the campaign will be dynamic.

»No, or let’s rephrase that, partially. There’ll be sub missions, which, once completed, will make the mission easier. However, if the player fails to complete a sub mission, the mission itself will become more difficult.«. And that’s how we know it from it’s predecessor Operation Flashpoint.

Within the missions there’ll be mostly no scripts at all. The main objective will be clear at any time, but what happens between the mission's start and it’s end will be individual to every player[‘s action]. You most likely won’t change the big picture when you’re a simple grunt , but that’ll change as soon as you hop into a tank or helicopter.

Easier warfare

»Yep, the player can move away from his squad and have a little fact-finding tour, but this is going to be suicide. There’ll be plenty of PLA squads all over the island. Your chance to surive alone is equal to zero.«, said Nicholas when asked about the freedom of movement in the game. »And moving away when you’re the squadleader is even more dumb, as the success of your mission depends to 100% on your decisions.«

While it was a real pain in the back to commandeer in Operation Flashpoint, having to use dozends of menus just to give a simple order to a soldier, Operation Flashpoint 2 will have a few extras to make commandeering easier. Still, you will have the same commanding menu as in Operation Flashpoint 2, but on top of that you’ll also be supplied with a commander perspective like in Battlefield 2 which sould make things a lot easier. However, if you’re in the middle of the fight, you might also want to use the new commanding menu, which will be a lot like the one in Rainbow Six: Vegas. You’ll have a menu in the shape of a circle which can be used to quickly give simple orders to your soldiers. »And the good thing about that is that your soldiers won’t just move out and suicide when you tell them to advance. Thanks to our complex AI the soldiers will make use of the terrain and engage the enemy according to military tactics. «, said Clive Lindop.

Intelligent forces

»The AI uses multiple layers. It checks the terrain, notices noises and movements and also uses real military tactics. Fighting will always be unique and develope dynamically according to the player’s actions, his orders and the environment the fighting is taking place in.«

To point this out to the audience, Brant Nicholas told us a little story about a simple mission he played earlier. »Recently, when I experimented with the editor at 1 am, I picked a forrest area and placed a Marine and a PLA soldier on each side, telling them to advance into each other’s direction. Then I hopped right into the game beeing an US soldier myself and looked at what happened. As soon as both soldiers spotted each other, they tried to get into a good position to shoot without trying to become a target themselves. I wasn’t careful enough though and the PLA soldier killed me. I then replayed the same mission and tried surrounding the PLA soldier with my AI buddy. However, the PLA guy took a stand at a tree and tried not to get into the line of fire. The whole thing seemed almost real to me.«

Real gears of war

Realistic! Make it realistic! That seems to be the mantra the developers are praying every day.

And they try to stick with it wherever and whenever they can. »We did research on PLA’s military equipment for two years. Even though it is said that the Chinese have the biggest army in the world, there’s not much information about them at all. So we dug through a lot of archives, interviewed a lot of people, ... I think the whole research we committed on the PLA was worth it and now we should be pretty close to the real thing. « said Clive Lindop, commenting on Codemaster’s efforts to unravel the PLA and their equipment.

Codemasters made the same efforts when researching the U.S. equipment, but things were a lot easier for them – which resulted in an enormous love to details.

»This is the average Black Hawk. And this is the modified one with an electronic missile detection system.«, said Clive Lindop when presenting two render models of helos to us.

We couldn’t tell any difference at all, but lead designer Lindop pointed at a small piece on the helicopter’s roof. »That’s the radar. « After having seen some of the vehicles, we’re beeing shown some of the 70 weapons that will be included in the final version of the game.

»We tried to not only make the weapons look different, but tried to e.g. have the sights as real as possible. However, we had to adjust the FGM-148. The control panel was simply boring and it wasn’t really possible to port it to the game 1:1.«, said Mike Smith, justifying the modification of the weapon. »Still, you have to assemble the launcher first. That’s going to be a pretty hard decision as it’ll take quite some time before it’s ready to shoot. And the time you’re using to do that might be all the enemy needs to kill you.«

To proof his statement, he showed the animation to us which shows a soldier assembling the launcher – and it’s really taking time.

Try to survice

Living or better surviving will be as difficult in Operation Flashpoint 2 as it was in it’s predecessor. »If you get shot and don’t get treated, you’ll bleed to death.«, said Brant Nicholas, showing us a soldier shot in the leg, with the blood slowly dyeing the soldier’s pants. »Depending on the caliber you’re getting shot at you might die immediatley, wherever the bullet hits you. To implement that, we will include limb dismemberment, so you might lose a leg or arm if you’re not beeing carefull enough. Most likely this isn’t going to be included in the German version.«. We didn’t expect anything else and asked Nicholas what kind of save system the game will use. »A part of the stress Operation Flashpoint put the player into was based on the fact that you could only save once per mission. On the other hand, it was also frustrating to a lot of people. If you’d saved too soon, you were screwed. Currently our team is not sure what system will be used, or if the saving options will be somewhat limited to keep the tension high.« We counter and say they should use the system which will guarantee having fun with the game. Brant Nicholas laughs and said that’s a good idea.

-----

Translation of Petra Schmitz's GameStar article on Operation Flahspoint 2: Dragon Rising.

The original article can be found here (German only)

If anyone here is even remotely interested in modern shooters THIS is the game to look out for. The team is apparentally commited to making fantastic AI and the anims and graphics look insane. The battlefield will be 220km2 (not counting the surrounding sea).

[howardb]

Yeah coincidentally we just discussed OF2 the other day. Just proves Google works I guess. Congratulations with your first post Cerebrus. Does your work pay good? Is it good work for students?

[Patrocles]

Cool! I hope this is as good as OFP! I didn't see it in the post, but iibc, isn't Bohemia Interactive, the design house for OFP and Armed Assault? iirc, someone here stated codemaster has the right to the title "Operation Flashpoint" so BI went on their own and made Armed Assault (which some folks have called OFP2 or OFP1.5! lol). Is Codemaster making this OFP2 game or did they hand it off to another design house?

[MeatEtr]

Welcome to the forums.

Yeah OFP certainly doesn't need any explaining around here, theres plenty of fans. OFP2 was also talked a bit about in the other thread called "games your waiting on". But this game certainly deserves its own thread.

I think the original devs(BI) of OFP new game Armed Assault was a little bit of a letdown. Still great fun though, but it seems more like a huge facelift with no real improvements. Don't get me wrong though I still like it. Afterall, the devs brought us the first game to feature iron sights and vehicle combat. Part of me thinks OFP should of been as huge as the BF1942 games.

[Moon]

Cerebrus, while you are not posting any direct commercial links, your post smells of paid advertising. There are people paid by marketing agencies to roam forums and post this stuff. I know, because such agencies approach us as well (and we deny). I may be wrong about this, and if I am I apologize. Since this is your first post here you will have plenty of time to prove that you are just another gamer.

Martin

[Guest Panzer Boxb]

The one things that really tones down my enthusiasm for both OFP2 and ArmA2 is the fact that both are supposed to be released on consoles. That alone indicates to me that the games will be very toned down from the "military simulator" level of OFP1/ArmA. Hopefully they can prove me wrong.

[thewood]

If you had to buy OFP 1 or ArmA 1, which would you buy and why?

[MeatEtr]

If you had to buy OFP 1 or ArmA 1, which would you buy and why?

IMO, if you got the system specs, go with ArmA. Reason being is not because it's necessarily better than OFP, it's just a major graphics update.

[thewood]

Thanks, thats what I thought.

[Secondbrooks]

Then again OFP presents you great campaign. OFP is quite much about singleplayer, while ArmA is multiplayer. I dont' think there are many who actually like the story and missions in ArmA's campaign. OFP still has one of best campaigns i've played and it definedly has best mods.

Hard to say which will be everyones bucket of rice, as OFP/ArmA community has been torned quite bad to haters and lovers of ArmA. I've switched sides to haters.

[Cerebrus]

Cerebrus, while you are not posting any direct commercial links, your post smells of paid advertising. There are people paid by marketing agencies to roam forums and post this stuff. I know, because such agencies approach us as well (and we deny). I may be wrong about this, and if I am I apologize. Since this is your first post here you will have plenty of time to prove that you are just another gamer.

Martin

Err. alright. I was banned a while ago here (no idea why) under the name Nox, NoxSpartana, Icyscythe, or NoxSpartae (honestly can't remember)

Your post did make me laugh though .

To the dude asking about OFP1 vs. Arma1 go with Arma if you're mainly just interested in multiplayer (read: giant coop games). Its campaign is utter trash however. OFP's campaign (and its addon's) were glorious.

Then again I think a port is being worked on for the OFP campaign for Arma.

[Kineas]

ArmA was a huge disappointment for me. They sold it with the '128 player servers' slogan but I have never seen a server even with the capacity for more than 64 players.

Few people played it and mostly in coop mode, that is against bots. I stopped playing it after 2 weeks.

[Sekra]

Okay.. Just some clarifications.. ArmA was actually the half finished version of project codenamed "Game2" by BIS. Since they clashed with Codemasters about the project and ended up going on different paths, BIS had to get some money to finish the project named "Game2". So they released ArmA which even reported by BIS devs to be more like OFP 1.5 than OFP2. Also those of you who have played ArmAs earlier versions are not talking about the same game as ArmA is now. With the latest patches its actually quite playable. BIS is in many ways the same kind of company as Battlefront is, they wont let you down when it comes to customer support. And they really listen to what the community wants and needs.

Also there are now confirmations, that Game2 has been given a proper release name and to no surprise it will be called ArmA 2 and it also will be released quite soon(2009?). This "imminent" release of ArmA2 after ArmA (and it was known to anyone who has even slightly been following the BIS community that ArmA will not be the game developed as "Game2") has had the effect that many dont do their custom content for ArmA as they're waiting for ArmA2. Go ahead and look up ArmA 2 on the BIS website. That is the TRUE OFP2 imo.

As what comes to Flashpoint 2. Dont expect much from it. As you can see from the Flashpoint 2 website; "Coming in 2009 for major console platforms and PC". Those three words tell you all you need to know; "major console platforms". IMO every game that is designed to be released to console platforms also wont satisfy the needs of PC gamers like me. In average, any console games that get high reviews and score like 5/5 points would get 1/5 or 2/5 at max as PC games. Unless they plan to release two totally different games for PC and consoles you dont have to expect anything much from OFP2.

Remember, if you liked original OFP, Codemasters has the copyright only for the name, nothing else. OFP2 will be a totally different game than OFP, developed by a totally different team, who have no access to original OFP code (since BIS still owns that). For OFP fans, the ArmA series is for you now. Developed by the same team as OFP and using an improved OFP engine.

[Secondbrooks]

ArmA2 will be released atleast for Xbox 360

[Pak_43]

Okay.. IMO every game that is designed to be released to console platforms also wont satisfy the needs of PC gamers like me. In average, any console games that get high reviews and score like 5/5 points would get 1/5 or 2/5 at max as PC games.

But there aren't many PC gamers like you, that's why Battlefront is a niche publisher and EA is huge...

[MeatEtr]

It should also be noted that BI was behind the xbox port of OFP. So I'm sure that slowed the ArmA dev time. Heck the xbox port came out only 3 years ago.

[Cerebrus]

Okay.. Just some clarifications.. ArmA was actually the half finished version of project codenamed "Game2" by BIS. Since they clashed with Codemasters about the project and ended up going on different paths, BIS had to get some money to finish the project named "Game2". So they released ArmA which even reported by BIS devs to be more like OFP 1.5 than OFP2. Also those of you who have played ArmAs earlier versions are not talking about the same game as ArmA is now. With the latest patches its actually quite playable. BIS is in many ways the same kind of company as Battlefront is, they wont let you down when it comes to customer support. And they really listen to what the community wants and needs.

Also there are now confirmations, that Game2 has been given a proper release name and to no surprise it will be called ArmA 2 and it also will be released quite soon(2009?). This "imminent" release of ArmA2 after ArmA (and it was known to anyone who has even slightly been following the BIS community that ArmA will not be the game developed as "Game2") has had the effect that many dont do their custom content for ArmA as they're waiting for ArmA2. Go ahead and look up ArmA 2 on the BIS website. That is the TRUE OFP2 imo.

As what comes to Flashpoint 2. Dont expect much from it. As you can see from the Flashpoint 2 website; "Coming in 2009 for major console platforms and PC". Those three words tell you all you need to know; "major console platforms". IMO every game that is designed to be released to console platforms also wont satisfy the needs of PC gamers like me. In average, any console games that get high reviews and score like 5/5 points would get 1/5 or 2/5 at max as PC games. Unless they plan to release two totally different games for PC and consoles you dont have to expect anything much from OFP2.

Remember, if you liked original OFP, Codemasters has the copyright only for the name, nothing else. OFP2 will be a totally different game than OFP, developed by a totally different team, who have no access to original OFP code (since BIS still owns that). For OFP fans, the ArmA series is for you now. Developed by the same team as OFP and using an improved OFP engine.

If I'm a ad spammer working for Codies you're an ad spammer working for BIS.

Arma 2 is being released on consoles as well so there goes that argument out the window.

Codemasters has said repeatedly that it wants to please the fans of the original OFP as much as possible and is not dumbing the game down for consoles (the PC version will however have extra features, detail and higher multiplayer count). They even went as far as changing what helicopter was being used when people on the forums complained about it (they were putting in the blackhawk but someone pointed out that the marines wouldn't use that and so it was changed). They have stated many times they have poured tremendous resources into making the game as realistic as possible. Personally my money's on Codies. Arma was a joke.

Ballistics, bullet penetration, all kinds of crazy research spent on finding as much as possible about the PLA, etc.

There has yet to be a single whisper of "dumbing the game down".

You're just talking out of your ass I'm afraid. No offense.

I think Codies will pull it off if for no other reason then they have a far larger dev team and financial backing. It's their biggest project to date. Arma 2 is shaping up to be from what I've seen to be just another updated version of the same old ****ty engine. I swear to god if they don't fix the anims I'm done with BIS. I hope I'm wrong about Arma 2 but time will tell.

Regardless we have 2 realistic shooters in an open world setting to look forward to. Competition always benefits the consumer.

[luderbamsen]

I don't doubt that both studios want to pull this off. But I do doubt if they can. Sure, those who liked OFP will probably like both. I liked it too. I just couldn't look past certain gameplay issues that I don't think the new games will fix.

If I were to venture a guess, I'd say that OFP2 will probably appeal to multiplayer (team v. team) gamers, while ArmA2 will have the upper hand for single player and co-op. I'm a gamer of the latter type, but from what I've seen so far I doubt BIS will be able to overcome the admittedly massive hurdles in this area.

Oh, and that helicopter thing? No biggie, but Codies really should have known this themselves. The fact that the community had to point it out doesn't bode well IMO.

[Cerebrus]

New 10 page article scanned by a fan:

[commercial link removed]

If they have really gone to the extremes that the magazine claims it's going to be pretty damn amazing.

Especially comforting is the last part of the article (the interview) where a dev addresses the concerns over the multiplayer numbers.

[NoxSpartana]

Uh link?

[NoxSpartana]

FOUND

(just a dude's flickr site so no edit please )

http://www.flickr.com/photos/sir_polaris/

[Patrocles]

I don't doubt that both studios want to pull this off. But I do doubt if they can. Sure, those who liked OFP will probably like both. I liked it too. I just couldn't look past certain gameplay issues that I don't think the new games will fix.

If I were to venture a guess, I'd say that OFP2 will probably appeal to multiplayer (team v. team) gamers, while ArmA2 will have the upper hand for single player and co-op. I'm a gamer of the latter type, but from what I've seen so far I doubt BIS will be able to overcome the admittedly massive hurdles in this area.

Oh, and that helicopter thing? No biggie, but Codies really should have known this themselves. The fact that the community had to point it out doesn't bode well IMO.

well said! I'm looking forward to both games! I hope Codemaster doesn't make something lame for OFP2!

[MeatEtr]

They released a short in-game clip of Armed Assault 2. The interface appears to be reworked, at least a little bit. I think this is a good thing considering it was largely unchanged from OFP to AA.

Check it out here!

[Guest Panzer Boxb]

Streaming Trailer

The more I see the more it simply looks like another slightly reworked engine. This is a big disappointment to me but I hope that it is not that bad.

Now, if the OFP2 team would release some real in game video...

[Guest Guest]

deleted per user request