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Dinger!

True the graphics were...odd. And the acting was...off. But I think the main thing that limited it's popularity was the fact that it was a simulation.

Most people don't like when you get shot once and die, or when on shell takes out your tank...or you have to march 1km in real time to get to your objective.

So I think Codemasters is realizes this and will end up creating a dumbed down version of Operation Flashpoint - Flashpoint for the masses. More power to them. I'll stick to my obscure simulations.

Your point about machines being built for small gaming enviroments became very apparent to me a couple of weeks ago, when my cooworker had an uber machine in the office.

He was building a machine for a rather rich person who wanted the best possible gaming rig there was.

He went all out.. Athlon64 FX55/2GB CAS2 RAM/ SATA RAID/ and some $600 GeForce card. The entire machine came in at around $6000.00.

I was curious how it would handle OFP...particularly high viewdistances. I tested it with my little OFPMark mission, and it didn't do much better than the best machines from almost two years ago.

Ooh, I'd love to have a 32GHz machine... it would make my acoustic modelling here at work that much faster... I occasionally get run times measured in hours on a 3.2GHz P4, and when it's an iterative process, requiring manual tweaks between runs, it gets kinda tedious, not to mention time consuming! And I imagine there are plenty of other scientists / engineers / economists / mathematicians out there who'd appreciate a ten-fold increase in speed, for an affordable price.

Oh, yeah, and maybe then I'd be able to run Operation: Flashpoint (http://www.flashpoint1985.com/) at maximum detail settings, too! It brings my Athlon 3000XP & 9800pro to its knees when I crank up the detail (especially if you push view distance beyond about 2.5km)

...and other games that use Ogg Vorbis: Operation Flashpoint. This great game had support for Vorbis even before Vorbis 1.0 - music files from the game say Vendor: Xiphophorus libVorbis I 20010225 (1.0 beta 4)...

I've also been told that Serious Sam series use it (at least since The Second Encounter).

When I stop reading about "flashing textures" on 9700Pro in my favorite game I might give it a chance.

Operation Flashpoint Troubleshooting

If you think it's game's fault I quote: "I can confirm that ATi are working on this". The NVDIA drivers are simply much more mature. ATI always have been a headache for many ppl.

On a similar theme, the game Operation Flashpoint has a system they called "FADE", wherein a detected bootleg copy would lead to the player's weapons being much less effective. This is a brilliant strategy given how suggestive human beings are: Even for the times when a dupe is a 1:1 100% perfect copy, a less than skillful player will be sure that the real reason that they aren't hitting the enemy is because of FADE kicking in in the background.

... and yet Operation Flashpoint is an order of magnitude more "real" than run-n-gun mods like CounterStrike, yet is loads of fun, and popular enough to warrant several expansions.

By your argument, no one would be playing any flight simulator for entertainment.

Well, being that this is based on top of the Unreal engine, development was neither costly, nor lengthy. I have no doubt that it cost less than any one recruitment commercial on television.

As for training, no they will not be using this particular game for that. In fact, the US Army has been working with the people behind Operation Flashpoint to produce a better training tool than the version of Doom the Marines have used over the years.

The US Army's use of modified off-the-shelf games dates back to the 80's with a version of the original vector graphics game Battlezone modified for use as a battle tank simulator.

I applaud the Army for trying out creative marketting techniques, it's not as if the game will beam subliminal messages into your head, and with it being Unreal based, there's the possibility of it being modified for Linux use as well.

Hell, as long as the game is good, it will be as effective a positive mindshare tool as any saturday morning cartoon is at getting you to buy action figures.

You need operation flashpoint if you want to sit with three people in a tank, driver, gunner & commander. Or a jeep with a machine gun mount. Or a helicopter with pilot & gunner. It's great fun!

You really should take a look at
Operation Flashpoint

I haven't played the multiplayer yet, but it should be exactly what you mention in your point 1 and someway covers 3 too.
Extremely realistic damages (1 hit can kill you, 2 will), enourmous areas - each level is on one of three islands, which have several towns and can be travelled freely.
Yes, you can cross the whole island by feed, but it will take half an hour or so.
You will have to drive cars, planes, tanks etc, and can do that in the game at your will. Just enter a parking car (if you have the keys) and drive away.
Tanks need three people for using them optimally (commander, driver, cannon).
Mix in the multiplayer mode, and you are there.

To the extent that you feel comfortable discussing it (uh, and to the extent you feel comfortable downloading a 64M demo ;) how did the guys at Operation Flashpoint do?

The reason I ask is that for the past few years, I've been itching for an FPS game that does a reasonable simulation of the foot soldier's experience. I think these guys are close, but I have nothing to compare it against. (And as a civilian, I'm grateful to you .mil folks, past and present, for that lack of experience!)

All I know is that when I tried the demo, I had a wonderfully-intense feeling of "Oh crap, stick near the rest of the guys around my CO who look like they know where they're going, and try not to get shot in the process!", which seems to my untrained mind like a major step in the right direction over the Quake and Half-Life mod scene...

After they download Operation Flashpoint (that game, er tactical simulation, absolutely KICKS ASS by the way) off of gnutella I'm sure it helped out their simulations quite a bit and helped "reduce costs".

BTW: Don't pirate. If you like the game: buy it.

Online play is kinda buggy but definetly fun. The netcode is nothing like tribes2 or quake3 it definetly needs improvement but it hasn't even been released in the US yet. Most of the online servers are in the UK so i guess its not fair to judge yet. I don't play online that often but i would check the official forums. I think the game is amazing ive finished the single player campaigns and it is great fun. Definetly slower game play than your typical ctf but if you like sneaking around and taking out russians with an HK play it a little longer. The first missions are kinda boring but once u get in a little deeper and start driving tanks, choppers and the A10 it gets alot more fun.
Unfortunately im using a warez version cause it hasn't been released in Canada but as soon as i see it in the store i will pick it up!

You really believe delta-compression was invented with Q3, don't you? :-\

Sorry, but this is getting boring. Technically the engines are great, but... Wolfenstein, Doom, Doom 2, Quake, Quake 2, Quake 3/Quake 3:TA, "Return to Castle Wolfenstein", Doom 3, Quake 4... it's getting a little bit repetitive.

The Looking Glass people did it right with Thief. Red Storm built Rainbow Six around good gameplay, but a crap engine and the worst netcode I've experienced (well, that's a lie -- I'm not counting Operation Flashpoint since I consider it Beta). Couldn't ID take their tech to the tactical level?

I've been waiting for ID to whip up a real good CRPG using a state-of-the-art 3d-engine for some time now... I hope those people over at ID can enjoy games from some other genre than just straight action-FPS, or they'll fade away... I'm not seeing myself buying any of their FPS anyhow. <shrug>.

Ah well, guess we have Bioware and Gas Powered Games to refine and put out some great gameplay for us.

Chris Taylor and John Carmack teaming up, now that could be interesting. Or maybe Jane Jensen doing another Gabriel Knight using Carmack-o-tech. Anything BUT ANOTHER FPS!

I'm sure it'll will be popular with game developers. Ogg is already being used by Bohemia Interactive for Operation Flashpoint, for instance.