Pritzl

GRiN, I thought you said the crouching noise had been fixed? http://www.ghostrecon.net/forums/index.php...mp;#entry445615

Actually Sleepdoc, that's why I likened it to path-finding. In the latter, various areas of the map have different "weights" depending on how crossable the terrain there is. e.g. impassable terrain might have a value of 1, rough 0.2 and paved roads 0. Then when you calculate the 'edges' as per A* you take these weights into consideration and any path that reaches a value of 1 is not considered. With LoS, you could then use weights as a measure of how hard it would be for light (rather than a unit) to cross it. This doesn't take into consideration things like dark to light and vice-versa of course though it might be doable via a vector representation of the edge weights. In short, it's just a lot more complicated than many might think to do "right".

Congrats Wolfsong. This bodes very well for after-market support from GRiN in the shape of amazing hand-crafted missions.

LoS implementations are actually quite tricky. If you're familiar with pathfinding algorithms, then about the same order of processing is required except (a) it's in 3D, (b) the routine cannot be exited the minute a "good-enough" path is found. In other words, I can see it being quite the processor hog to do it "right". Imagine e.g. every AI on the map running a ray-trace algorithm throughout the 3D sphere around him, constantly! So, some shortcuts are taken. e.g. one interesting one for ray-tracing was to make it centre around the player rather than the AI. i.e. you track just the player's visibility to every point in his 3D sphere and if there's an AI within it, bam, you're spotted. Some of the approximations/short-cuts taken in GRAW1 were admittedly a bit too lenient for my tastes and I hope that at least some of them were curtailed for GRAW2.

Don't forget the Drone though. The lack of depth argument makes a lot of sense for the satellite view. Of course, I don't know if this was actually reasoned out by GRiN or if a simple gameplay decision was made; it would be too easy if you could see every bad guy on the map because you always have satellite cover available. In contrast, the drone can be controlled by the mission parameters.

Sound, unfortunately, is one of those things that usually only get recognized when they fall on their face. When that happens though you realize just how important they are. e.g. when was the last time you commented on how well salted a meal was? Never? I thought so. But what does unsalted food taste like? If anything, this type of commendation is a rarity with regard to sound and therefore doubly significant. And yes, I too concur, the sound is awesome!

Though I know nothing of how it's actually done, (if at all feasible at the present time) a likely approach would be calculating the differences between successive images to isolate movement. Then, subtract all known friendlies (via transponder perhaps?) and voila, bad guys with neon signs! i.e. the solution isn't that difficult. The trick is to get it working consistently on hardware you can dispatch to the battlefield. (as opposed to some giga-flop supercomputer) What reinforces this is how the diamonds function when picked up by the drone in-game. It works much better when the tangos are moving.

Don't worry SleepDoc, made the same mistake myself re: Stormin. As for TrackIR, it's simply a brilliant piece of hardware. Their catch-phrase, "get your head in the game" could not be more accurate. Not only does it physically translate your real head movements to virtual movements on screen, it really immerses you in the game and you really are "in the game". Last but not least, we've argued the finer details of being able to look behind you in fighter planes ad nauseum on the IL-2 forums. The consensus is, it's doable, provided: a) There's room for it: some cockpits are just too tight like the Bf109 and others have very restrictive straps. b) You're not pulling G's: any significant G-load will hinder movement in general but torso/head rotation esp. c) Your constitution allows for it: not everyone is built exactly the same, point in fact is contortionists. If these prerequisites are met, you should have no problem achieving up to 120°+ of head movement. (center of vision) Throw in eyeball rotation and peripheral vision and most humans should be able to "look" beyond 180° in fact. As far as the game is concerned, any reasonable limitation is fine. The key is to have the option at all. For an example of how to do it right, watch some IL-2 videos on you-tube or something and keep in mind that that sim was developed by a Russian engineer who's such a stickler for detail we've been stuck with a blind butcher bird for over 6 years now just because his schematics say that's how it was!

*gets in line* "Ahem, this is the GRiN appreciation line right?" "Yes" "Free copies of GRAW2 perhaps?!" "No" "Dang it!" *wanders off*

Why in the world would GRiN scrap an already existing weapon? If you don't like it, don't use it and, if it's unfair in MP, it will soon be disabled by server admins. Plus, since it's already made, it's not taking any development time away from something else so where's the problem.

Welcome to our world! Great! Do I get a house-warming gift? Options is the key, and reduces the risk of being "damned". Even the options can backfire in terms of the online game as I outlined in my example post: smaller and smaller niches of players playing different settings. Offline, there is also a risk, albeit a smaller one. With enough options a game can be made a cakewalk resulting in the inevitable dismissal by the hardcore crowd. Of course they conveniently forget that it is their choice to make it so or not.

Agreed 100%! A game might "facilitate" run-n-gun over more tactical gameplay on occasion but ultimately it's the player who has to make the choice. That's also why I love options. Every difficulty option under the sun can group like-minded players together and you don't get the inevitable realsim vs fun wars on the forums. Besides, now even the facilitation is a player choice. On the down side, multiple difficulty settings reduce the effective size of the community because it gets segmented into smaller and smaller niches. This apparent shrinking of the online game is tempered by a natural selection as the more popular difficulty gain dominance and the less popular ones go extinct but this takes quite some time. (a couple of years) By that time, unless the game is truly outstanding, most players have moved on or are thinking about it. I'd hate to be the poor fellow in charge of making these decisions knowing full well that I'm damned if I do, damned if I don't.

LMAO! Now that was funny! Hilarious even! The worst part is that I've been there, done that, albeit in another game genre. (flight sim) Oh, and the prep there took a couple of weeks as we devised ingress and egress flight plans, escort strategies and bombing profiles. Then a bunch of Leroys jump in and we have to chuck the whole plan out the window. Even our usually much better comms discipline went out the window thanks to a TS server crash. Talk about adding insult to injury! I thought he said, "At least I ain't chicken?" I would have liked to verify that in person had I been one of the other guys on that quest.

Having experienced in-game VoIP before, I must say it's not all it's cracked up to be. The problems are: 1. You can't expect a very high quality implementation given the budget constraints and the rest of the game elements. 2. Even when it's there, few people actually use it. They either find it too buggy and/or prefer to use a 3rd party program. 3. The fact that even when perfectly implemented, it is unavailable outside of the game rules it out for most squads. 4. Finally, those who do find it useful, will have trouble finding others to join them and leave their tried, tested and preferred alternatives. I'm not against the concept, I just think that boat has sailed. It's too late to wean people off TS and its counterparts. Instead, I think it's time game developers considered licensing and packaging TS (and its ilk) within their games.

From what I gather, the AK is only used by special ops guys when they expect minimal resistance but want to dispatch that resistance without alerting other nearby units. The very distinctive sound of the AK means that if the enemy is using them, they won't be able to tell that the firefight they're listening to isn't just a bunch of their own guys firing into the air after a rough night out. Within the confines of GRAW, it would be neat to have them, but short of that depth of enemy AI "reasoning" (not to mention it doesn't seem to be what the enemy is using anyway) it would be pointless. It's too inaccurate a weapon for most purposes and it's one strong point, virtual indestructibility, means nadda in a game where there are no gun-jams, etc... i.e., any effort put into modelling it would be wasted since I doubt anyone would use it beyond the first couple of evaluation runs.

Here's an example of a simple, and unintrusive method of implementing a stealth indicator. Basically, you double up on the threat indicator and use a second colour (yellow?) to indicate the direction of possible detection. The bottom line is, we are missing many cues that would be available to us irl due to the limitations of the interface. Threat indicators and stealth meters are vital to fill in the gaps left by these limitations.

Does it play ok with the mods off?

Thank the original poster, I'm just a messenger.

You can say that again! That's why I prefer to call it plausible immersion rather than realism. You want enough realism to have the player immerse themselves in the character and storyline but not so much as to drain the fun out of the game. What's real funny of course is seeing some realism freaks on this board clamouring for quick-saves and ghost-switching. Really? When were either a realistic feature? We all have real lives that are plenty realistic as it is. When most of us play a video-game, the objective is to escape some of that reality. How far will vary by individual and that's where options come in. That's more than I had any hope for so it rocks! PS: the "no sense" comment was directed at the intent, as you correctly gathered, and gameplay considerations, not the animation. i.e. it made no sense that crouching offered very little advantages or that a crouched individual couldn't move in a different manner that allowed them to make less noise. (besides running crouched)

My GRAW-related upgrade only cost $600... Canadian! Plus, I'm waiting on a $50 rebate! I got an ASRock Dual-775 VSTA board so I got to keep my gig of DDR I RAM and could upgrade to a Core2Duo and a PCIe 7600GT card. Oh and did I mention GRAW actually came with the upgrade? Home-built, the only way to go!

Couldn't have said it better myself. I concur. What we are looking for is immersive plausibility. i.e. we want things in-game to make sense so that we aren't constantly reminded that this is just a game and can occasionally get totally immersed in playing the character. Incidentally, that's the other reason I don't like ghost-switching, it abruptly ends that immersion. It isn't, but offline, where ghost-switching would occur, there isn't any respawning per se. You have to reload from a save game that could be quite a ways back from the last position reached. Now, since ghost-switching would primarily be an offline only feature, it's even easier to allow people the option and I'm not a sadistic, self-centered ###### so as to deny others their fun just because I don't like it. Hence, my only objection is that ghost-switching must be added only after the friendly AI has been improved to the point where it is completely unnecessary. i.e., I don't want to feel tempted to use it because there are certain key actions that I can't get my ghosts to perform well. In essence, just as I don't wish to force others to play without ghost-switching, I don't want to be forced to play with it. It is a limitation but some of us actually want it as you can see. You do have a point though that the target audience is probably reduced but I would argue that needing to ghost switch because of poor AI would reduce the target audience even further.

I'm not kidding when I say that GRAW's AI impressed me. They've bailed me out on many an occasion and I find that when they do stupid things it's because I asked too much of them. So long as I place them strategically and outfit them properly they are quite formidable. There is certainly room for improvement of course, namely the addition of an ROE system, solving the occasional facing problems and dealing with MG nests and other fortified positions.

Like I said, I don't mind it... so long as the ghosts AI remains impressive and even improves so that those of us who don't want to micromanage each soldier can do so. [GR]'s AI left a very bad impression in that regard.

Probably well past the time for these suggestions, but fwiw, here they are: Movement: - It would be nice if some degree of minimal leaning was possible while prone. - Though improved in patch 1.35, low aiming while prone is still too limited. - It would be awesome if we could roll left or right while prone by double-clicking the appropriate lean button. - Please lower the tremendous clatter raised while moving in the crouched position. It makes no sense that it is louder than when prone. Weapons: - One extra slot could come in handy for extra ammo, different variety of grenades, C4, etc... - ACOG and/or sniper scope for assault rifles that have them irl. - Togglable "switch back to previous weapon after throwing a grenade" option would be helpful. - The general speed of switching weapons, esp. from or to the pistol, are a bit too slow. MP: - Clicking "Abort" should only take you one step back instead of all the way to the main menu. i.e. only back to the LAN/Internet server menu. - A VIP-hunt mode could be very interesting. One player is randomly designated as VIP and must be protected by the rest of his team. If he is killed, they lose the round. - Any chance team leaders can use the cross-com to issue orders to other human players? Perhaps the orders appear on the small tactical map? This could bridge the gap between in-game chat and full-fledged voice-comms. - Configurable size and position tac map would help these tired old eyes see a bit better.

Well, if GRiN are listening, this is one vote against ghost switching. Or at least a vote against friendly AI that necessitates it. I enjoy having the AI execute my plans; where's the tactics if I do it all myself?