Overall: utterly amazing and deliciously cool. Love the maps all in all, STUPID GAY LOVE the class adjustments (so well conceived). Love all the small details like no hit indicators, etc. Congratulations, you hairy geniuses. But I have to say, despite the well-thought-out and repsectable nods to reality, a lot of it plays just slow. Not just a different pace from vanilla, but simply not that enjoyable for me as a GAME (again, these are just my impressions). There are two things in that regard that seemed most relevant to that (and I'm sure these are obvious and have been much discussed, but hear me out):
1. I agree with some other posters about the long spawn times, most notably on the large maps. I get the rationale for it, and even support the rationale. But I have to say, well, erm, it's just not fun as is, on what amounts to pub servers (i.e., you're generally not rolling with your clan or even people who seem will to keep together). With the ordered flag caps, this becomes terriblely frustrating and dull with the spawn camping that happens (and b/c of the flag order, there seems to be more spawn camping in PR, not less). I know some here will simply say "die less", but I gotta tell you with bleed and no directional damage indicators (both of which I dig), that can be even harder than in vanilla. On the large maps, it's REALLY unfun when...
2. There are so few transport vehicles. I understand that this server-adjustable, but well it's no fun hoofing it a lot of the time (esp after having to wait 40 seconds to do so and getting sniped on the way and repeated the process all over again). At one point on Jabar Al Burj/East Beach there was like 8 jeeps just smoldering around the base and almost nothing else drivable on the map. I like the longer spawn times for armor, but transport availabilty would really help improve the pace without stepping on "realness" (in the real world, this is a factor of the Defense Budget and is causally related to a little thing called Federal Budget Deficit
??: ). Likewise, a transport chopper here or there would be nice. And yes, I know that this can be server-adjusted as can the spawn times, but I suggest the default mod settings should take this into account since everyone seems to be serving at stock settings.I know these are deliberate changes and the intent of you fine devs. But here is where I'm coming from. I feel they are the type of thing that will keep faily large numbers of interested people from sticking with the mod, which I assume is one of the main goals here: not just to make something finely crafted, but something that large numbers of people will come to and stay on to make for a nice on-going community.
You have to be aware that most people play BF2 for its fast pace, and indeed may want somethign deeper and less arcadey but still want to be in a fight most of the time. Why not make the default settings of such pace-oriented items more accessible to most players, who play it because it's a game and they want to have fun? Those who wanted to run a more "real" or tactical server could always adjust that stuff towards slower-paced settings. I know that there were MANY people talking in game chat when I've been playing who tought the same way; they, like me, came to check this out but seem that they might not stick with it because of it. And that's too bad
More people playing regularly = more games, more servers, and (cough) more recognition of all this fine work. But maybe the number of people doesn't matter to the Pr team. If not I salute you, but not sure I'll be playing it a whole lot.
Just my two cents. I'm sure I'll get flamed by many for this. Sorry it was sort of long-winded, but I didn't want to write a 3 line post that says "nerf spawn timers 1!1!!!1!"
other stuff:
- Why no kill spam? If it's a "reality" thing, how am I able to hear a guy all the way across a map ask for ammo? How in the real world would I always have a little minimap up where enemy icons pop up? It'd be really nice to see who killed what with what. I dunno, maybe that's just me.
- Could the which flag gets capped next be noted somehow in the map. I know the server messages spam it, but that doesn't seem like the best solution (not to mention that it generates craploads of spam).