Joint Operations report from E3

[Trey]

Not terribly long, but it does state that the developers have fixed or will fix the goofy vehicle physics, and they have a seemingly reasonable solution for the "you're only obscured by foliage within 100 yards" problem.

Check it (http://www.tacticalgamer.com/) (scroll down kinda far)

Oh and if you like to actually use teamwork and tactics in online shooters, check out the site linked above as it might be your cup of tea. There are currently public Ghost Recon, Raven Shield, BF1942:Desert Combat, BF:V, Joint Ops, Natural Selection servers, as well as 4 private Ghost Recon servers and some other stuff. Oh and public Teamspeak for the games they host.

[Derek Meister]

On a down note; We also found out that there will be no mechanism to reload armed vehicles in the game. The map designer commented that the vehicles were more single use and "disposable" but didn't seem too happy with that scenario. He hinted at plans to make some sort of reloading depot or mobile armory in future patches, but it doesn't look like we will be getting that upon release.

That's exactly the kind of gameplay that I want to avoid. Basically, every thing I've seen so far puts this game pretty clearly in the "counterstrike-friendly" tactics-lite genre.

As for the website you linked, I really can't give a good reason for feeling so, but this just rubs me the wrong way:

Welcome to Tactical Gamer!


Tactical Gamer is the premiere online gaming community. Our members are current and former members of various nations ’Special Forces , Military , and Law Enforcement as well as professionals at all levels of experience in all walks of life. The Tactical Gamer community is focused on teamwork and tactical game-play in a mature , respectful environment.

[Trey]

Basically, every thing I've seen so far puts this game pretty clearly in the "counterstrike-friendly" tactics-lite genre.

I haven't played the demo so I can't speak with any authority, but from what I've been reading it sounds more like a Battlefield-type game on a really huge map, and with more of a tactical instead of arcade bias. Whenever I think counterstrike, the first things I think of are small maps and short, violent close-quarters battles.

As for the website you linked, I really can't give a good reason for feeling so, but this just rubs me the wrong way:

Welcome to Tactical Gamer!


Tactical Gamer is the premiere online gaming community. Our members are current and former members of various nations ?Special Forces , Military , and Law Enforcement as well as professionals at all levels of experience in all walks of life. The Tactical Gamer community is focused on teamwork and tactical game-play in a mature , respectful environment.
Yeah I think they are trying to appeal to military types because they perceive them as their target demographic. Personally I play there alot though, and I'm your typical programmer geek who's into shooters but not mindless battles. Today I'm playing a match with a NYC cop, a programmer in Arizona, a Canadian bank executive, and some others, vs. a schoolteacher, a HVAC technician, an Army Ranger trainer and others. The hard-core part of the gameplay comes from the fact that we pick a leader, try to plan stuff out, issue and follow orders in-game.

[Derek Meister]

I haven't played the demo so I can't speak with any authority, but from what I've been reading it sounds more like a Battlefield-type game on a really huge map, and with more of a tactical instead of arcade bias. Whenever I think counterstrike, the first things I think of are small maps and short, violent close-quarters battles.

With vehicles that are merely "disposable", helicopters that are flown like a car that just happens to have an "up" and "down" button and vehicles that do some incrediby wonky things in terms of world physics, Joint Operations is far more arcade-like than either of the Battlefield games.

[Beer]

Derek,
Did you ever get the beta up and running? You got your keycode right?

[Hump]

I haven't played the demo so I can't speak with any authority, but from what I've been reading it sounds more like a Battlefield-type game on a really huge map, and with more of a tactical instead of arcade bias. Whenever I think counterstrike, the first things I think of are small maps and short, violent close-quarters battles.

With vehicles that are merely "disposable", helicopters that are flown like a car that just happens to have an "up" and "down" button and vehicles that do some incrediby wonky things in terms of world physics, Joint Operations is far more arcade-like than either of the Battlefield games.

I've seen many people complain about the simplicity of the chopper controls in JO but most don't seem to grasp that they are there mainly for transport and deployment of troops/jeeps/buggies into heavily contested areas, not as a main combat vehicle a-la Desert Combat. At first this had put me off as well but after playing in the beta for a bit I began to notice that you didn't get a sizeable number of players camping the helicopters (ie; DC) thereby messing with your ability to cap bases with adequete numbers of players. They are viewed as tools rather than some novelty vehicle that can unbalance a good battle. While that in itself might not seem especially noteworthy in comparison to games like DC, JO closed beta is being tested by many members of the Novalogic fanbase who happen to be a lot of ex-military and overall more mature players (actually FAR more mature) than your average CS groupie so vehicles are used as they were intended by the dev team.

for instance, Squads will form and actually load up a vehicle transport chopper with several MG buggies with teams of 3 each and wait patiently while planning an attack during the flight to the contested area. I've honestly never seen anything like it (the cooperation) in many of the similar games I've played in the past several years.

RE: arcade-ish feel of the game. Jeeps and buggies, much like in Battlefield, just don't last that long in firefights. The 50 cal MGs are loud and powerful so anyone firing one off from the vehicle will be the first target taken out in a front line battle, hence the reason there isn't a big push o make them repairable/re-loadable. The only other thing that detracts from a more "realistic" play style is the movement speed of the troops. With the size of the maps in this game its almost a necessity plus it just makes for more exciting gameplay overall (IMO).

One thing I can say about being in the closed beta. Dont judge JO on the MP demo they released. Its really a much more refined experience at this point.

[Xemu]

I guess the real question is once it is out in the "wild" whether you will be able to see that level of co-operation. Damn would I love to play with a group that actually planned assaults...

[Derek Meister]

Derek,
Did you ever get the beta up and running? You got your keycode right?

Yeah, I got my keycode after two weeks of the beta signup eating my application.

Then I downloaded the latest beta and tried to play, but it kept locking me out of servers saying I needed to upgrade to the latest version, which I tried using both in-game update feature as well as the seperate update application you have, but in both cases the procedure would fail with an error stating there were "no files found on server". I eventually went to the forums and found a direct link to an update, downloaded it, ran it, only to have the game crash to the desktop as soon as the menu loaded.

Sent several bug reports in, didn't get even a confirmation of the report's receipt and gave up completely at that point.

[Derek Meister]

I've seen many people complain about the simplicity of the chopper controls in JO but most don't seem to grasp that they are there mainly for transport and deployment of troops/jeeps/buggies into heavily contested areas, not as a main combat vehicle a-la Desert Combat.

At that point, though, why even bother having them in the game except as a bullet point to sell gamers who think they'll be able to fly a real vehicle.

I mean, if the only purpose of a helicopter is to transport you over a large distance seperating bases, such as the ocean between them, then why not just forego them completely and just put the bases within running distance? Otherwise they're just more of a gimmick rather than an actual tactical combat tool.


JO closed beta is being tested by many members of the Novalogic fanbase who happen to be a lot of ex-military and overall more mature players (actually FAR more mature) than your average CS groupie so vehicles are used as they were intended by the dev team.

You really can't use the closed nature of the beta as an indication of how the eventual game experience will be. You can't taunt it as being more special than the average CS experience if once it's released, you're subject to the same public player base as any other game.

I've had an opportunity to play Battlefield Vietnam at a LAN with members of one of my old Army units, and it was an amazing exprience in well-coordinated tactical assaults that completely decimated the enemy. However, I can't really use that experience to tout how mature and great the multiplayer experience of the game is when we're talking about public servers.

[GuildBoss]

I guess the real question is once it is out in the "wild" whether you will be able to see that level of co-operation. Damn would I love to play with a group that actually planned assaults...

Just gotta find the right group.

I'm in a group that's been playing with Teamspeak and teamwork (mostly in America's Army) for about 2 years. We're a mature, casual, friendly, NON-CLAN! group of folks that just like to go shoot up bad guys and shoot the breeze (within reason) while doing it.

I say non-clan because we don't have membership requirements or tryouts or mandatory practices/meetings or any bloated ego bullshit. Just a bunch of gamers that like to take their fun to the next level and keep out all the a-holes.

I'd say we're very much like the QT3 Planetside group. That's how we started out anyway but we've grown and evolved and taken it to the next level with a website, forums, IRC channel, dedicated game servers, etc..

Okay, I'm rambling but if you're interested in checking us out, shoot me a PM and I'll give you the web address. :)

BTW, we're looking forward to JO.

[TheWombat]

I got into the beta but could never download the client. Every link Novalogic sent failed to work. Novaworld three times "forgot" my registration and would not accept any of the three different registrations I had/have there, and by now I've forgotten precisely what user name/password combos I've used for it. So pfft. :evil: