Queen's Gambit, Rumor ? Options

[Rewan]

I was resting when Soldier (of ArmedAssaultFrance website) warned me about one news that he posted on their website...
Seems that 505 Games gived some infos to them about an extension for ArmedAssault: Queen's Gambit (An opening on chess game for incults ^^).

ArmedAssaultfrance team announce that there will be 2 new campaigns:
Rahmadi conflict and Royal Flush
And two new MP Missions:
Urban Raid (a coop) and Battle of Porto (a Capture&Hold)

Finally they've posted some picts... but they are over 100Kbs so only links to the topic (be aware: it's in french: here.

Last info: The release is planned for Q3 2007 and the extension will cost 24.99€ (For France, no info about others countries)

Let's pray and see

[D@V£]

I can't help but feel there's something wrong about this, seems a bit early to be considering expansions, doesn't it? Or is that just me...

But the pictures are there, and they do appear to be content that would not be possible with the current methods of Addon Creation and they don't look photoshopped... time will tell however.

[Elliot Carver]

lo folks,

Alot of talk on the BIForums of this compared to ofp:Res. Could it be possible that this is BI's way of getting the tools out to us? Make us buy them so to speak?
Also perhapse a first in a series of expansions including CWC's Coldwar Rearmed?

cheers
Carver

[Wittmann]

Last I heard CWC was to be free....however I find it interesting we are to buy an expansion which no doubt will be required for later patches. THis better be the RESISTANCE of ArmA and not a Red Hammer

[D@V£]

I like expansions, expansions are good! (well... most of the time...)

NOW! Time for mindless content speculation!
Do those guys look like PMCs? They do to me, and I can't help but notice that this Blackhawk seems to be crewed by RACS guys, perhaps we'll be seeing a larger force for the RACS? Tanks too maybe? And I can't really see it all that well, but is that guy in the background (the one with the cowboy hat) armed with an SR25?

I also couldn't help but notice that the technicals seem to have different schemes, it'll be interesting to see if there's just one unit or multiple ones. This also brings into question the possiblity of resistance forces too. Huzzah!

[BigglesTrevor]

one of the guys has a beird that looks real enough. maybe proper facial hair?

[Red Square Monkey]

Well the Blackhawk doesn't look that great, it's just some reskin... if they'd give it some other weapons that none of the other Blackhawks have (M60's on the side instead of the newer M134's) it would certainty look better.

[Cervo]

Doesn't sound really exciting so far!

[JdB]

I can imagine that paying for retextures, bugfixes, proper campaigns and quite possible engine features that should have been in ArmA in the first place does not sound exciting. I smell something foul, something EA-ish

[D@V£]

Sorry JbD! But the entire centre of rational thought in my brain exploded when I saw the Delta Force guys!

And beards... and you know that Delta Force and beards only means one thing.

Chuck Norris!


Ok, but seriously, we've seen more than just retextures, haven't we? If there's a new island, that's good. It's already looking a lot better than Red Hammer, isn't it?

And I'm pretty damn certain that BIS would never pull an EA on us.

Dammit! You made me say the E word!

[gruftschreck]

I'll quote a statement posted in german forums:

1.When will the extension appear?

ArmA: Queen's Gambit expansion is planed for the end of third quarter this year.

2. Will there be a new island?

Yes, there will be a new island calle Porto. It's not very large but it's really nice tropical style island and we put a lot of effort to make it really useful long term contribution to ArmA that we hope will be very popular. It can fit very well between Sahrani and Rahmadi.

3. Will there be new vehicles, if so which?

The addon brings very little on the vehicle side. Our plan is to have tools out ahead of the expansion pack and creating vehicles and weapons is something we feel the community will be very fast. While creating quality environment or larger campaigns is more difficult to achieve for hobbyist.

4. How much should the addon cost?

This will depend very much on local publishers and distributors but I would estimate the price will be somewhere around half of the price of the original game. Currently, there's distribution secured for 505 game territories and Eastern Europe and it's yet to be seen about distribution in German speaking countries and North America. But it's also very likely that the expansion will apear on sprocketidea.com as paid download.

5. Is the compatibility improved with the Addon to Vista?

The expansion pack and Windows Vista compatibility is not directly related. Vista is quite young platform and ArmA is very unusual and demanding game due to its nature (the engine dynamically allocates on
the go very large amount of data and reaches a lot of limits). Graphics card drivers are probably one of the main sources of problems in Vista OS but for now, Windows Vista is not officially supported platform for ArmA.

6. If a player gets patch without addon furthermore?

This expansion is completely unrelated to patches.

7. Will appear with the addon of the linux to server, or before?

This addon is also completely unrelated to linux server which I hope is now very close beta stage.

8. When do the editing tools with the addon, or come earlier?

As mentioned before, tools time is very near (I know, finally, but we were overloaded by other work, esp. patch 1.08 was extremely big and demanding task for us), there's no relation to the expansion pack either.

9. Is what planned with regard to the disconnection of the copy protection?

It would be great move for us as a developer and also for users from technical and compatibility standpoint. But first, we need to convince all local publishers and distributors that it's good move for the game overall. I personally wish the time we can remove it comes as soon as possible but sometimes these things are complicated in business terms and it is hard to predicted how and when it will be possible. I can assure all users suffering with compatibility problems in the game or patches that my frustration is equal or even bigger than theirs. It's a true nightmare to spend countless hours working on a patch and see that some users than can't even run it properly due to newly introduced incompatibility of copyprotection wrapper we have to apply over the game engine.

10. How does it look with cheat protection, still what comes there?

First step is now in version 1.08 with addon signatures. There's more we plan to do on this side but I don't want to be any more specific.

original context here: http://forum.german-gamers-club.eu/showthread.php?t=5133

[Old Bear]

gruftschreck : you can add that this statement on German ArmA Forums was an

INTERVIEW about ArmA and Queen`s Gambit with Marek Spanel

[Old Bear]

Read on Shacknews

European publisher 505 Games has announced the first expansion pack for Bohemia Interactive's realistic combat simulator ArmA: Armed Assault, released in the US as ArmA: Combat Operations.

Titled ArmA: Queen's Gambit and co-developed by Black Element Software, the expansion will add two new story-centric campaigns--Rahmadi Conflict, billed as, "the true conclusion to the original ArmA story" and Royal Flush, set 18 months after the original campaign--as well as two new multiplayer missions--the 40-player Battle of Porto and Urban Assault, a co-op mission maximized for only 6 players.

Queen's Gambit will also bring with it the final 1.08 patch, which will add new weapons, vehicles, characters, gun dealers, a resource management feature, technical tweaks, and the ability for North American players to fight alongside the rest of the international ArmA community.

I will underline 3 items :
1° ... co-developed by Black Element Software , BI needs help to finish the job, they have found some.
2° "the true conclusion to the original ArmA story", after William Porter's Blog and despite a nice intro, ArmA original campaign was disappointing, BI knew that as they had finished the game in a hurry, at last, we are going to have our campaign.
3° ... the final 1.08 patch well, I don't understand what that mean

[Elliot Carver]

lo folks,

Well finaly ... word on tools ... can only be weeks away ^^

"gun dealers, a resource management feature" - Sounds like their using some sort of money feature or stores? ArmA does come with a whole load of shop fronts. The resource management sounds interesting. I hope its referring to the bigger logistical movement of resource ie: move chopper A from place 1 to place 2, it will take X amount of time and be there when you arrive to provide support and extract. lol i dunno....just speculation.
1 question. If they are planning to remove the copy protection why did they include it in the first place? Be honest...how many of you had problems because fade killed your first install? I know I did. Tried running it on 2 computers in MP and both installs died. Just doesnt make sence causing us all the problem of fade when your gunna remove it later anyway. That and you'd avoid the scandle of crooks selling false CD keys off the evil torrent and Cracks. my 2 cents

edit: something else id like to add is that where did BIFrance come from? They kept this well hidden - i hadnt heard of them, i might be slow lol. Are there other BIcenters around and what are they working on? theres a throught ^^

Cheers
Carver

[D@V£]

They sound kinda similar to BIA, which adds to the confusing, because I'm sure Bohemia isn't in France or Australia!

[Lt. Earth Apple]

Personaly, it's sounds for me what a AmrA Addons has to have: new possiblities
what I found most interesting ist the possibility to acces to a Weapon"store?" and the Mercenary/guerilla "style"

[Marxist]

that´s some good news , here comes partisan warfare!

[Rewan]

... the final 1.08 patch well, I don't understand what that mean

It's for whom doesn't have Internet, the extension will install the patch 1.08 on ArmA
(We can understand that there will be no patch until QG release, or they will not announce that !)

[Old Bear]

Ok, son, you are probably right. No Internet, it never enter my head, for Internet is like Camembert or Baguette : universal

[Rewan]

*Dig up ! Dig up !*