Thread: Revisit of hosting ArmA 2?

The main issues for de-hosting were, as I recall:

VOIP is spotty. It works, usually, but it's not of particularly high quality, and wrapping your head around the communication system in the game is cumbersome, at best.

There isn't a large community of support at TPG. Even when Blakeman and I tried hosting a completely-free try-the-demo night, no one came. Not a single non-admin showed up.

The multiplayer, really isn't. There is only one default "gamemode" for the multiplayer, and it is extremely boring, long-winded, and not suited to team-based multiplayer. There is a standard deathmatch mode, and what is essentially a campaign mode; however, the default does not support more than 16 human players, and the way that the squad system is set up in the game, all human players end up being squad leaders of AI squads. It is very circuitous and difficult to get human players together into one squad, and then the command structure (and who is able to issue orders) changes based on who is in the lead for points, not who is actually the squad leader.

As a follow-on to the above, there are very few high quality community-made scenarios and/or gamemodes available to play. Most of them are straight copies of original ArmA missions, and play out exactly the same way every single time.

ArmA 2 isn't a game, it's a simulator. There isn't any real default content provided. What is provided is a (cumbersome, impenetrable, arcane, cerebral) framework, and the tools to make basic content. The community is expected to create the game content, not the developers. Most of the content that can be created with just the tools in the game, isn't worth playing. Creating something better requires enormous investments of time, effort and money in other applications.

There are no admin tools, only a very basic RCON system. There is no external API for writing a 3rd party admin tool. The RCON system has a single master password that allows the logged-in admin to do everything, has no power level adjustments, and worst of all, only allows a single admin to be logged in at any time. Additional admins trying to log in will log the existing admin out.

There are no administration capabilities for the server. Changes to the server settings, or to the mission list require manual editing of configuration files and manual uploading of new mission files. This necessity means that the admin staff must have basically unfettered TCAdmin access to the server and its files (including full FTP access) in order to do anything.

Personally, I don't think much of this has changed since then, but have a look anyway.

Draco

sort of painful not having a revive system or the ability to deploy medic tents like in Domi...