Tenga: Will the engine have any advanced physics? Will it be something from BIS itself or some other already commercially available engine line Physx or Havok?
Paul: The engine will incorporate its own physics technology, it won't be using a commercial physics engine.

Tenga: Something every OFP Hardcore fan is wondering, will the floating crosshair be left in the game? We have seen the static one in the videos so far. Will there be an opetion to switch it to a floating one?
Paul: The player will be able to choose the type of crosshair system they prefer.

Tenga: What is BIS focusing more on this time around, Singleplayer or Multiplayer?
Paul: It's a fairly even split down the middle. A lot of the core infrastructure and technology of ArmA's multiplayer was designed and optimised during the development of our Xbox title Operation Flashpoint: Elite so the intensive and feature laden multiplayer that ArmA has to offer took less working time than it may appear when considering how much of an upgrade and improvement it is from Operation Flashpoint.


Tenga: Has the net code been improved? In OFP you could have hundreds of players playing, even tough it did create much lag and desync. Will there be a limit on the number of players this time?
Paul: Yep it certainly has, as mentioned previously a lot of the improvements were put in place as we developed our Xbox game so for ArmA it's a case of refining and enhancing and such. Final numbers for multiplayer will not be available until the game is massively played online but conservative estimates for ArmA is between 50 to 100 players, with more AI present in the same mission.

Tenga: How does the BIS CTI (Capture The Island) differentiate from the community-made CTIs already available for Operation Flashpoint.
Paul: Our CTI will trim a little of the fat away from the core principle of CTI and present it in a leaner, trimmer way to make the concept a little more approachable to the general populous.

Tenga: The animations we are currently seeing on the screenshots the final product or will they be worked on some more?
Paul: We're constantly adding and refining all aspects of the game and will continue to do so until the gold master code is prised from our gnarled fingers!

Tenga: Is the walking-in-vehicles even a planned feature? Will we be able to shoot from them even if we are fixed in them? (I.E. Drive-by shooting, using your weapon to shoot out of the vehicle, etc.)
Paul: These are not planned features for ArmA.

Tenga: How does BIS acquire technical data for the stuff they're making?
Paul: We get it from a number of places, some we find ourselves usually as a result of random surfing or looking around specific websites, some we receive from community members or people in the public and some we receive directly from military contacts we've made over the years. Some we acquire from shadowy underworld figures during covert missions involving lots of hanging upside from light fittings in dark narrow corridors as well as other ninja type deadly skills.




Tenga: From screenshots we have seen stuff that belongs to different branches of the US Armed Forces, how is that explained?
Paul: In war there's no time to colour coordinate the wardrobe ;)
Military fanatics amongst our designers still tried to keep it realistic and gave some explanation to that, so there's no big nonsense in the way that these branches may appear in the game.

Tenga: Will the be aircraft in this game, or have you removed them due to the scale of the islands. Has the flight model for helicopters and aircraft been improved?
Paul: Yes there will be aircraft of one sort or another for all sides in the conflict. The flight model has been worked on quite a lot and is quite semi-realistic, whilst still retaining an element of easy controllability. The improved flight model also allows for greater precision of control which opens up greater variety in aerial manoeuvrability.

Tenga: How many of the buildings on the island be enterable? Will it be possible to make very large urban areas?
Paul: It will be possible to enter a number of the buildings on the island. Yes it will be possible to make large urban areas.

Tenga: Will the action menu be back (if it is, how is it improved?) or is there a different system? How about command menu? Will it be more fluent. Will we be able to communicate with hand signals?
Paul: The action menu is back but has been significantly refined and tuned to allow for simplicity of use whilst retaining complexity of choice. You have more prominent usage of the most important actions and the flow of actions is much better in the menu itself. The same is valid for the commanding system. The most obvious change is that the commanding menus can also be controlled via mouse wheel same as the action menus. There are no hand signals implemented in ArmA.

Tenga: Will William Porter be a main character of the Armed Assault storyline? How did you come up with the idea of starting the blog, whos idea was it?
Paul: In ArmA there are really no main characters, there are some important characters but primarily the focus is on the general anonymity of warfare. One could argue that the island of Sahrani is the only main "character" in ArmA.

Tenga: How long will the main campaign be?
Paul: Counting campaign missions the campaign will be something like 21 missions, this includes main missions and sub-missions. As the campaign is still WIP that number is subject to change. For actual game time the main campaign might average at around 20 hours, obviously the numerous single missions as well as multiplayer significantly enhance the lifespan of the game, not the mention the 48 billion gigabytes of addons that will no doubt be made available by our hard working and talented community.

Tenga: What tools does BIS plan to release to the community? How long will the community have to wait for them after the release of the game?
Paul: Precise details of which tools will be released and when are still to be worked out, certainly we intend to ensure that significant documentation and support is available via the community wiki.

Tenga: What aspects of the ballistics will be improved?
Paul: The key areas of ballistics that we've worked on are bullet penetration and deflection, so that for example bullets will penetrate soft materials such as wood and will deflect and ricochet off hard materials such as metal and rock.

Tenga: Will there be a possibility of adding attachments to the weapons in the gear selection menu or ingame, or will the community still have to make weapons with attachments already in place.
Paul: Removable weapon attachments are not a feature planned for ArmA.

Tenga: Will the mission editor be modified? Any new features planned for it?
Paul: The core of the mission editor is unchanged for the most part, the primary elements of improvement regarding mission editing are in the areas of available commands as well as funky little features such as the possibility to add mission recorded footage into briefings as viewable video.

Tenga: We see that the AI remained more or less the same from the videos released. Will it be improved? What will be improved? Will they coordinate their attacks?
Paul: The videos released so far showed ArmA at a state where the enhanced AI was not yet implemented. The enhanced AI that we've worked on and plan to have implemented for ArmA's release incorporates a number of features with the aim of making AI more challenged and less predictable, elements such as having them move better, when safe they'll following routes that would be easier to navigate, such as well trodden tracks in the dirt, but when in danger they'll move in a more evasive manner incorporating leapfrogging whereby a group splits and takes turns to move forward whilst others provide cover for them. The AI also use cover much better, as in taking position to fire back from or even to seek cover to reload rather than standing out in the open when reloading. Also the AI will make use of indirect suppressive fire for situations that warrant it, such as being under attack but only having a rough idea of where they're under attack from.

Tenga: Will there be any Seventh songs in the game?
Paul: ArmA's complete musical score is composed by Ondrej Matejka.

Tenga: What is the planned release date? The community is getting random dates.
Paul: As the release of ArmA may vary in different territories it's hard to give a specific date. But everything is now coming along to have the game released in the last quarter of this year. Exact release date in every territory will be announced together with local distributors once it's final.

Tenga: Are there any speculations of the minimum requirements that will be required to run Armed Assault?
Paul: A couple of weeks ago we released preliminary system specs into our community wiki they are as follows:

Minimum Specification:

* CPU: 2 Ghz
* RAM: 512 MB
* Nvidia Geforce FX with 128 MB RAM & pixel shader 2.0, ATI Radeon 9500 with 128 MB of RAM & pixel shader 2.0
* Free HD Space: 3 GB (or more as needed for downloadable addons)
* Software: Windows XP or Windows 2000 and DirectX 9

Recommended Specification:

* CPU: 3 Ghz
* RAM: 1 GB
* Video Card: Nvidia 6800 and above or Ati x800 and above with at least 256 MB RAM
* Free HD Space: 3 GB (or more as needed for downloadable addons)
* Software: Windows XP and DirectX 9

Obviously at this stage they're subject to change and shouldn't be taken as gospel until read from the box itself.

Tenga: If BIS don't manage to get a publisher, are there any backup plans like online distribution?
Paul: We have plans for online distribution irrespective of the quest to sign to a "box in shops" publisher as many people have embraced the online distribution system and we would like to think we encourage freedom of choice as much as possible.

Tenga: How is IDEA assisting BIS? Are the other development teams that have membership in IDEA games exchanging technologies?
Jiri Rydl: The biggest IDEA games task is to free the hands of the developers, thus they can focus on development instead of boring but necessary paperwork, marketing and talking to publishers and distributors. There's technology exchange already happening between Idea Games members in some areas and it's up to the individual members how far they want to go with that.

Tenga: Is IDEA accepting other developers, or is it a closed group?
Jiri Rydl: We're already in touch with developers that aren't currently united under the IDEA games banner, for instance Centauri Production and Zima Software, we are open to negotiations with any other team including newcomers in the gaming industry.

Tenga: Will the VBS2 ever be released to the public?
Paul: At this moment in time it's quite improbable, VBS2 is intended for the handling of trained military personnel only.

Tenga: Last is the question that everyone in OFP Community wants to know the answer to. Who cuts Ondrej's hair? Or was it just a bad hair day after slaving at work?
Ondrej: My hair is cut by a professional hairdresser about 4 times a year. During that interview I was slightly behind schedule. For a lead programmer it's very important not to have his hair cut too much, as it could have detrimental effects on his mental capabilities. Einstein anyone? ;)

Tenga: Many thanks to Paul, Jiri and Ondrej for this in-depth inteview.