ArmA online not that popular??

[Sleepdoc]

When i first started playing at TG, i had the sense that ArmA online was going to grow into a monster. That does not appear to be the case.

Last night, i wanted to do some heavy armor play and decided to find another server to do it on. I mean, we are talking a Saturday night here.

It appears that there are only about 5 or 6 heavily populated server. The large rest of them are just 2 people, 3 people etc. I swear i didn't even see 100 poeple online last night.

I guess I'm just surprised. I expected to see a game like ArmA grow into an online bohemoth. I guess games like BF2 and COD2 get the real numbers .... we are the niche ... what a shame.

[TheBigC]

Sleepdoc,

You have to remember that it is summer time, traditionally the slowest time for online gaming. Most of the games do not pick back up until the beginning of September. The demographics of an ArmA player is usually a bit older, so once the kids get back into school, people will have more time to game at night.

[Sleepdoc]

I hope your right C. But my gut tells me seeing a 1,000 players online at one time is unlikey..... seasonal spikes not withstanding ...

[tHa_KhAn]

You also have to remember that this game is not for typical gamers. It is a sim and most enjoyable when organized. IMHO, it is a terrible pub game. It would be incredibly annoying to pub at this game with COOP or TvT's. Many TvT's play just like battlefield and at that point battlefield has more action. The type of game as more to do with it than anything. Also take into account there is much gaming outside of the US in this game so the times will come into factor as well.

[=Sarc=]

I will only play ArmA online. However, I don't game that much online as I used to 5 years ago. I used to be on here 6 hours a day way back when Ghost Recon was popular. Now, I'm usually busy with other things. I imagine others have the same problem.

It might get better once the summer season wears off but you are right about ArmA being a niche game. OFP was never as popular as Ghost Recon here even though I thought it to be the superior game. The good thing is ArmA has been a long time coming and a lot of interest was built up to the point of release.

Don't worry, ArmA is still in its infancy at TG. As time passes, it'll grow larger and larger. When you look at BF2, it's been running at TG for a long time and does cater to a larger market. ArmA needs more time to build a following. It's a bit tougher to bring in new players since it's a niche market and the choice to use TS over in-game VOIP makes a bit more difficult to meet new players. Plus, the Ghost Recon franchise isn't a competitor anymore since it's more arcadey now.

[Gogeta]

How is it possible to grow into a bohwheemuth in less than a year ??? With the drag this game does to a computer... it will grow im sure of it. Itll just take time for people to catch up when prices drop on upgrades n such.

[Switch]

When arma is no longer a 50 dollar beta test I'm sure more people will turn onto it. Hopefully the next few patches will fix some performance issues that make it too uncomfortable for people coming over from butter smooth FPS like PR... er battle field for you vanilla fools.

Also the delayed gratification aspect of this relatively slow game really detracts from its #'s.... Thats ok though, if the servers were flooded we'd have to change the PW daily to fend off asshats. I'd like to see some organic growth ... maybe 20 or 30 more TG regulars to get on board.

[jex]

Battlefield series is for run and gunners. More serious gamers played it because they didn't have anything better. AA comes along but the majority of gamers won't follow because, it would seem, most people don't like to team up and work together - they would rather do their own thing than be part of something.

I don't expect Arma will see numbers anywhere near those of BF series but I hope it does grow, but only with team orientted players.

[jex]

Originally Posted by Gogeta

How is it possible to grow into a bohwheemuth in less than a year ??? With the drag this game does to a computer... it will grow im sure of it. Itll just take time for people to catch up when prices drop on upgrades n such.

LOL i'm running this on a P4 2.0ghz, 1gb ram and a 128mb ati 9500 pro. I have to turn all the graphics off/very low and I just about get playable frame rates. I suspect I have one of the oldest machines playing this game - higher spec machines should be able to run it, it just depends on whether you want eye candy over frame rates.

[ANGELofDEATH]

I use Gamemonitor alot to check how many are playing BF2/PoE and now ArmA.
http://www.game-monitor.com/search.php?game=arma&pg=1
right now there are just over 800 players.. yesterday afternoon I saw there were over a 1000.. mind you this is world wide.

As shown in this AAR.. http://www.tacticalgamer.com/armed-a...rkers-cas.html
It is possible to have Air, Armor and infantry all working well together.. Last night also went to beautifully I cant go into all the great things that happened with CAS and armor working with the grunts on the ground. The only downside was there was not enough people to run two full squads and all the other support at the same time.

Sleep... I too go pubbin to find a more challenging armor expierence(Berzerk Ortego, OMG), but it should not be this way... The EVO mission is made for joint ops, and should be played that way. This continued arguing about EVO CAS/armor or IO, is what is driving even the most devoted TG members from TG ArmA. Which is sad.

[tHa_KhAn]

Originally Posted by jex

LOL i'm running this on a P4 2.0ghz, 1gb ram and a 128mb ati 9500 pro. I have to turn all the graphics off/very low and I just about get playable frame rates. I suspect I have one of the oldest machines playing this game - higher spec machines should be able to run it, it just depends on whether you want eye candy over frame rates.

Yes and no Jex. I get about 20-30 frames whether I have it on low or high settings because of my resolution for my monitor. I have 4200X2 2GB ram and 512 1900XT. I could probably get much better frames with a lower resolution, but it really looks crappy. I can get 40-60 FPS in the more open desert areas though. Gogeta and Switch did hit on the fact that if you are not involved in a community, you probably would be very frustrated with a buggy game like this only less so if you ahve high end hardware. Remember, many early adopters had 8800 cards that had all kinds of special issues with this game. So the people most likely to have the hardware for this actually couldn't play it.

[miyamoto]

The 8800s still seem pretty buggy to me. Textures flickering, sometimes not loading at all.

[TheBigC]

Originally Posted by miyamoto

The 8800s still seem pretty buggy to me. Textures flickering, sometimes not loading at all.

Roll back your drivers. I had the same issue with my 8800s until I rolled back. Part of it was SLI, but even when I turned ot off I would still get flickering after a while.

[Uranium - 235]

On a Qx6700 and single 8800GTX you can play the game with full settings, 10k visibility, and 4x AA with an average of 30FPS, perfectly playable

The game looks pretty good too being able to see that far.

[ednos]

Summer is the kicker for me. I work sixty hours in a week, and sometimes I don't have time to sit down and play a game for hours. Armed Assault is *much* more fun when you play it for hours. Also, I expect to have a machine that will run it at more than 15FPS on the lowest settings sometime in October.