Faction feedback

[[Fr]WhiteMoon]

I'm involved in the FF work as the co-admin of the forum they use to work. So I have access to 100% of their job, and when I see their implication in the OGG development and how serious they look to what could fit in this faction, it's sounds like a bad joke transforming this to ARF. I still don't get the point and don't understand the need of such a surrealistic becoming. From my point of view, OGG fits better the quality and RL looking I always expected from PR as a player. This transformation is a loss for nothing to the mod. The PR Dev implication is a good thing an is necessary but I think you just over decide too much what it should become.

I'm also disappointed by the lack of communication in this transition, like the FF devs were evicted from any decision about this faction. This is absolutely not what I was expecting from a community.

And when I read it's because they can't lead 2 factions dev in one hand, even if it's real... COME ON GUYS ! Why would you be more interested in seeing FF coming out quickly as Canadian, Israelian forces and more were in development earlier ? Again it just looks like PR is interested by an opfor faction, so let's take the job already done and... do something more hollywood/EA Games like.

Yes yes yes, it's just a game like said before... a game named Project Reality, where you discover insurgents in Basrah. So what's following ARF ? Insurgents in London/Paris/Washington ? British using Famas ? lol ! Yes I exaggerate, but the point is, even if a british soldier even used a Famas as a military, it's not what PR shows. Now we'll soon have an unrealistic faction ?...

If some think MEC is an advance about game factions, it sounds racism to me. It's politically secured (you point noone and no country) but with MEC, arabians are only opfor, they're just the bad guys, and now we'll have the black bad guys, hu hu. But Chinese are just Chinese not the Asian Coalition to Dominate the World. And British are not the great britain coalition.

So again, WHAT'S THE POINT ? You devs want a balanced opfor black faction ? No need to blow up the OGG design plan, just tell them to change the details needed to get the balance and they will sort out a solution as realistic as possible. THIS WAY you can be sure it will

keeps quality at a top level.

From the beginning of ARF, the point of view of frenchs is like a paving stone in the water, it's splashing and making "plouf" but after a while the water is just like before. It's a pitty when as far as I know the FF devs are the best advisers about Africa's conflicts around here (even if they are not the only).

My words are very hard in this message but PR is for me THE game and I only can be sincere about what I care. You did a great job leading PR to what it is today. And I like your job because it's going as far as possible in reality to remain a playable and enjoyable game. Sometimes PR Devs took decisions I didn't agree with, but after a while I discovered that are some good IG improvments. Also PR always took place in a near future so, in a way, everything is possible.

But there is no need a black faction to be so surrealistic. I strongly think you should reconsider the work that has to be done here and take advantage of the large knowledge of the FF Devs. France - England wars are over IRL. Let's work together as far as it can leads.

Masaq']«Hollywood jackasses who insist on spending seriously huge amounts of money to make films that even my cat won't watch. And he'll happily sit in the bathroom and watch me shit.»

Ok I over exaggerate again 'just a joke

[AfterDune]

WhiteMoon;1114383']...text...

Hold your horses, my friend . I think we're all on the same page.

Edit: you're not even on the FF developer team, chill the f out!


I've talked to the FF lead and advised him to chat with Mainerror and Nosferatu to solve some misunderstandings. I believe everyone's on the same page, so no need to get all wound up about... nothing.

[Tsinapah]

That is marvellous, that analysis resumes almost my concieving !

So Good Luck for this project !

[Foehrunner]

The problem is only: realistic geopolitcal faction or racial faction (like this uncredible MEC...)
I mean, if only we had one african citizen and one kazakstan citizen, they would be hurt to see what we did of there culture and countries, while we made all the european countries!
Come on guys, are you so crazy that you think Africa and Midde Orient are each 1 country?

It would be nicer to develop in the time Touareg (North) , Rebel (East/West) , Afrikaneers (South)! Or simply one skin for each map (desert: north, jungle: west/east: jungle and south: savana!) I mean, Algerie are arabic, south africa are afrikaneers and the rest is black people!

[[Fr]WhiteMoon]

Edit: you're not even on the FF developer team, chill the f out!

I'm a player, isn't it enough ? No I'm not a Dev, even if I could join the group, cause I'm one of the guys who's work leaded to make FF possible and real. I only give a hand and some advices when I can and have the time, or think it's necessary, and have a few army's contacts and knowledge to help them a little more to improve their serious job. It's not enough in my mind to be part of the Dev group.

All I say here is my point of view about PR becoming as a player. My contribution to the community is well known on the french side but almost insignificant around here. Does it change anything about the pertinence of what I say ?

Another point is the size of PR mod. Give us 4Gb, or 10Gb of files if you think it necessary, as long as it helps you to provide such a quality mod. I don't care if the mod is now bigger than the game, as long as there are a large amount of maps, factions, gameplay. Of course, the difficulty is always to reach the right balance. This can be fulfilled by dialogue and it's sad we're using so hard messages here before getting an invitation to sort all this out on a chat. After all, all the work here starts from FF Devs' work aiming a contribution to a mod always more various and full of quality.

Edit : as one of the FF Devs says, "it's not just a question of FF Devs being colead of the Africa Faction, but everyone who knows about the african situation, just to exploit all the richness (I'm not sure how to traduct it) from Africa."
There is better to do than just gather weapons and general aspect of the whole continent to gather it in two faction without any reference.

[Nosferatu]

Any FF developer or anyone who worked on OGG should feel free to PM me about their suggestions that could help development - not six thousand words post full of angst, no no no. I don't have time to fondle someone's ego because some people for unknown reasons think it's damaged.

Instead of this you can save our time for actual development and PM me so we could solve things. When you're writing that your opijnions were ignored - that's ridiculous, ARF development just have started so I actually had not opportunity to ignore someone's opinion.

Once again: nobody treating you with disrespect, if you have something to offer - write to me or Mainerror and we will welcome you with open arms, we would have nice conversation just like the one I had with H162eRI. We are all open for help and suggestions, this is initial stage of development and it depens on you how it would turn out, and how you will be treated too by the way.

[[Fr]WhiteMoon]

I think your message will warm hearts

I'm sorry for bothering here around, I don't like that at all. I just had to say what was needed according to me. From OGG to ARF, we all french are upset of what it becomes without being consulted, as the FF Devs are the perfect consultants for the job.

You want a black opfor faction with conventionnal and revolutionnary teams, rather than sorting out "quickly" a name, background and design plan with a few persons, see what you can build with everyone about this, taking adavantage of all players' knowledge around here. You know what PR needs and some people has many solutions to offer you from their culture. Using it will offer the best to PR.

Everyone will read in your message the will of working together, so I have nothing to do around here anymore, cause I know this way "you'll all kick ***" doing this faction !

[Tannhauser]

The French knew about the lead change. It's hard enough to keep one faction on track, let alone two, so we (PR team and the French lead) decided it was better for it to have its own lead, to be sure it -just like the French- keeps quality at a top level. And because this faction got its own lead, we found it more appropriate if they also got their own subforum. Mind you, the French will keep developing it as well, albeit it under another lead and along with members of other community factions and/or the PR community.

Next time, don't make these "accusations", as you're obviously not in the know.

Didn't mean to ''accuse'' you or the community devs of anything, like WhiteMoon said, it seemed likely to be what had happened from what was posted here beforeso. I'm sorry if you felt I was accusing you, that is not the case believe me, I meant to raise a question that seemed much appropriate seeing how it was theirs initially.

Don't need to be agressive either, it was more of a question than an ''accusation'' as I didn't see any confirmation from the french devs.

[MMad]

Well, since feedback was asked for, here's my two cents, following this exchange:

MEC was an error made by Dice, not PR, don't do the same mistake. [...]

Why doesn't make a generic army, with some differents flags who represent different part of Africa ? That could be a nicest idea. For example : France vs OGG, Brits vs South Africa, USA vs Somalia. The only thing who changes it's the flag and the name. Not the weapon, gears, vehicles.

It's Project Reality no ?

Now honestly why would we do that? If it's the same army (equipment) but only with different flags then where is the point? We'd have to make multiple skins boosting up the download sizes for something totally unnecessary.

Question: We already have Insurgents and Taliban factions in PR, and apparently Hamas on the way for the IDF to fight. Why make 3 separate (if very similar) factions when there could have been just a generic "Islamic insurgents" factions?

Answer: Because people care about realism, and want both the gameplay and backstory to be as realistic and believable as possible.

IMO, a pan-African army of the kind proposed here is totally unbelievable, even more so than the US invasion of the Chinese mainland in BF2. As someone said above, it's *more* weird than a pan-European faction would be. Totally ludicrous and throws all believability out the window for anyone who knows the least bit about Africa and its history and conflicts.

I personally think the FF devs had the right idea with the OGG approach: fictional *regional* military alliances of more-or-less unnamed neighboring countries is much easier to swallow. And if conflicts are needed in different parts of Africa, heck, go ahead and make a couple of different regional alliances with near-identical gear. A generic African Militia/Insurgents faction would also work all over the continent, similar to the existing factions. But that approach doesn't work as well for the conventional army version.

---

With this said: I'm really looking forward to playing in African environments with the new faction(s), regardless of what the design ends up being. Good luck with the development!

[MAINERROR]

My last public comment on this topic (I'm of course going to reply to everything else or not related to it).

This is a general point which is bothering me. If we add too much reality based politican and religious **** to the game it will suck just like RL does (and now please not even dare to tell me RL does not suck!).

We slowly create a hostile situation in a game which is meant to be fun too. We already have almost only bluerof factions (NATO members most of them). We have only PLA, MEC, Chechens, Taliban and Insurgents as opfor but almost the twice as much bluefor. I like the africa theme as it allows a wide variety of areas and gear to use creating a new opfor.

Having four different factions just because it would be politically more correct is so not relevant to me if it means to have four more factions instead of one (we already have too many factions IMO) which would also mean that we'd have have four times the files size. OFC one would not care about it that much but I have to keep in mind that PR should be accessible to everyone. We'd definitely lose players by having 10 GB downloads ...

You have to bare in mind that PR is meant to be a game with realistic combat elements. It is not meant to be a military simulation after all a player wants to have fun (that includes me too).

I hope you've understood my point and why I had to accept some compromises. This is my last statement regarding this topic.

[Foehrunner]

MAINERROR;1114768']My last public comment on this topic (I'm of course going to reply to everything else or not related to it).

This is a general point which is bothering me. If we add too much reality based politican and religious **** to the game it will suck just like RL does (and now please not even dare to tell me RL does not suck!).

We slowly create a hostile situation in a game which is meant to be fun too. We already have almost only bluerof factions (NATO members most of them). We have only PLA, MEC, Chechens, Taliban and Insurgents as opfor but almost the twice as much bluefor. I like the africa theme as it allows a wide variety of areas and gear to use creating a new opfor.

Having four different factions just because it would be politically more correct is so not relevant to me if it means to have four more factions instead of one (we already have too many factions IMO) which would also mean that we'd have have four times the files size. OFC one would not care about it that much but I have to keep in mind that PR should be accessible to everyone. We'd definitely lose players by having 10 GB downloads ...

You have to bare in mind that PR is meant to be a game with realistic combat elements. It is not meant to be a military simulation after all a player wants to have fun (that includes me too).

I hope you've understood my point and why I had to accept some compromises. This is my last statement regarding this topic.

I think this is too different views. We could speak about it years and years
Most important is to take decision by discussion!

[[Fr]WhiteMoon]

Thanks Mainerror, the situation is really clearest like that.
I just don't understand why original Devs of the faction weren't involved in finding the best compromises. Like Foe is saying, just discuss about it with people interested, there will be noone bothering and even if some disagree with final decision, they would have the opportunity to share what they believe in

[MAINERROR]

Well I could offer you a Xfire group chat on a weekend if you want. We meet up and talk about the faction. I can't promise what will be changed but you'll definitely have the opportunity to get heard.

This is not only directed to the FF modders but also to the public.

[[Fr]WhiteMoon]

I think this will really please the FF Devs. And I'm pretty sure they will then agree (or at least accept) final decisions, whatever it will be.

[Darkpowder]

Great idea to have an African Faction, however i think its a shame to have them as OPFOR.

There are great opportunities, inspired by current conflicts to have them:-

a: fighting a militia force, perhaps reflecting border disputes.
b: fighting "insurgents" in the style of Somalia
c: fighting conventional opfor such as china, in reflection of chinese territorial interests in africa.

Lets model them on the Ehiopian conventional forces, in the sense of a bluefor that is engaged against insurgency and other unconventional forces.

or are you set on the idea of opfor, i think there are more opportunities to see them as blufor, even though they are not using first-world technology.

[MAINERROR]

I have no problems with waiting for you. Post up the date of a weekend you will be able to make it and we're fine I think.

Great idea to have an African Faction, however i think its a shame to have them as OPFOR.

There are great opportunities, inspired by current conflicts to have them:-

a: fighting a militia force, perhaps reflecting border disputes.
b: fighting "insurgents" in the style of Somalia
c: fighting conventional opfor such as china, in reflection of chinese territorial interests in africa.

Lets model them on the Ehiopian conventional forces, in the sense of a bluefor that is engaged against insurgency and other unconventional forces.

or are you set on the idea of opfor, i think there are more opportunities to see them as blufor, even though they are not using first-world technology.

Like I stated on the page before. We have too many bluefor factions. Most people are mind-blocked with the idea to have an uber real political scenario which limits our faction constellations on the maps. We are in need of a good opfor faction.

[Raegron]

I think it's fine to have the AFR as OPFOR. Though I don't think we should keep thinking in blufor (good) and opfor (bad).

A thing about the faction name: "AFR" has "Africa" in the name, but doesn't represent a united Africa at all, as that wouldn't make sense. I think the reason why "Africa" is in the name, is because that way you can use the faction for any African country. The name can't be changed, so stays "AFR", but you can change the flags by making a reskin of it and include that through the map's clientarchives.con.

For example. the French can have ARF represent OGG and reskin whatever they want using their own objects_client.zip included through clienarchives.con. Faction xxxx can have ARF represent yyyy, etc, etc.

I think it's perfect! And if devs and whoever-wants-to-help talk about the whole thing, I think everybody will be happy with it .

[MMad]

I think it's fine to have the AFR as OPFOR. Though I don't think we should keep thinking in blufor (good) and opfor (bad).

I agree, there's still room to be creative with faction matchups in PR. Even though I understand it'd be a bit more work to set up, I don't see any reason there couldn't be MEC vs. PLA maps, MEC vs. Ins, US vs. Rus, Rus vs. PLA, UK vs. Militia, PLA vs. Ins... etc. Variety is good.

[[Fr]WhiteMoon]

Though I don't think we should keep thinking in blufor (good) and opfor (bad).

Since a large amount of players are from countries that are in blufor side in the game, the shortcut is easy. But in my opinion our countries are not so often the good guys lol. But I don't want to launch any political debate, it's just to say it's really relative with the point of view and I agree with you.

I don't know if it's easy for the game to consider an opfor faction on one map as a blufor faction on the other map... but regarding how alliances can vary, there could be variations like MMad is talking about.

When the FF asked themselves who they could fight, I said one ennemy could simply be England ! As France and England fought for centuries, now it's over it could continue ingame, just for fun. But that's just a funny idea in my mind, not something that would fit to public servers (but that would be very nice for matches between En-Fr players).