Far Cry 2

[Kolzig]

Oh hell, I really need to get back to Far Cry 2, I've spent the whole spring and summer doing other stuff...

[Podunk]

No, but the devs (Could it even have been Hocking himself?) said that it was something that they wish they'd gotten rid of.

I agree, I hated the whole respawn thing, it really got me screwed over several times.

Clint Hocking once posted that the respawn rate isn't some fixed interval, but rather is tied to the way the game world is streamed into memory. A cleared guard post stays clear until the player moves far enough away that the engine has to clear it from RAM to make room for another section of the map. The next time the engine reloads that guard post, it will be repopulated.

There are no parameters that can be accessed to change this. It is hard coded into the game engine. I don't understand enough about the nuts and bolts of the engine to know if it could be tweakable with mod tools, but it's a moot point since Ubi will never release FC2 mod tools.

[Thompson]

Clint Hocking once posted that the respawn rate isn't some fixed interval, but rather is tied to the way the game world is streamed into memory. A cleared guard post stays clear until the player moves far enough away that the engine has to clear it from RAM to make room for another section of the map. The next time the engine reloads that guard post, it will be repopulated.

There are no parameters that can be accessed to change this. It is hard coded into the game engine. I don't understand enough about the nuts and bolts of the engine to know if it could be tweakable with mod tools, but it's a moot point since Ubi will never release FC2 mod tools.

From an interview (CH = Clint Hocking):

SirSlaysALot: Why did you decide to include respawning enemies at all the guard posts?

CH: This issue was raised by one of the programming leads late in the development cycle, but my feeling at the time was that it was not an issue.

I knew it was happening, but the number of places in which it was noticeable was small. In fact, the number of places where you notice it is small - it is just that they almost all happen to be very close to safe houses that are frequently visited en route to and from major objectives, meaning that almost every player encounters these few places in almost every mission.

We didn't do anything intentionally to make it that way, but we also didn't do anything to fix it, and that was my fault because I misestimated the severity of the issue.

In hindsight, having read numerous reviews of the game, this issue seems to be the single largest problem with the game, and it is frustrating for a lot of the players.

It makes me a bit sad to think that this one slightly mishandled, moderately scoped technical design issue seems to have such a powerful influence on the overall perception of the game when I feel we did so many things well.

I guess that's the challenge of making hugely ambitious games - you're juggling a lot of plates and it's very hard to pull off the perfect finish.

[Podunk]

http://www.pentadact.com/index.php/2008-10-24-far-cry-2-impersonation-of-a-buddy#comment-37628

The guardposts thing - yeah, we're getting raked over the coals for that. Funny thing is, we did discuss it and unfortunately, while there are better theoretical solutions than repopulating them after unloading, none of them are terribly simple (in the time we had to react to the weakness). I decided it was better to have them repopulate rather than have the player be able to empty the world of gameplay too easily... I still think it is the better solution barring a really robust one that would have taken weeks we did not have. As much as I think it is the best possible solution, I admit I underestimated the response. Lesson learned.

To be clear, I'm not saying that the Far Cry 2 team couldn't have come to some alternate solution. I'm saying that the respawning is tied to the way the game engine handles memory, and there is nothing a user with no access to the source code can do to change that. There's no ini file to tweak, or mod to apply.

I'm not complaining about it, either. Far Cry 2 was one of my favorite games of the last five years, and I personally wasn't bothered by the respawning. I do feel that FC2 is uncommonly ripe for modding, if only Ubi would have released some mod tools.

[cheaphotels]

OK, so after the problems I had last time I finally got around to starting a new game last night. And this time, things went more smoothly.

I ran into exactly the same problem as I did last time, but solved the missing instruction to trigger meeting my buddy: you must buy a weapon in the gun shop before doing anything else. What I wasn't explicit about when I wrote before was that there were no new guns unlocked in the computer--just the guns I already had on me, plus the model of shotgun many of the NPCs had been toting in-game already.

But you must buy a gun nonetheless--you simply can't progress otherwise. Buy a gun and your buddy - plus a new mission contact - magically warp into the bar over the road and unlock the door for you.

Very considerate of them.

how i can buy gun

[Patters]

how i can buy gun

Please don't commit suicide in a cheap hotel.

[brkl]

Please do.

[syntheticgerbil]

There is probably no better location to commit suicide than a cheap hotel, really.

[Orv]

So I am approximately 1,000 years late to the party. (I once torrented FC2, but enjoyed it so much that I felt bad and uninstalled it after about 2 hours.)

So, just a few things from my first genuine three hours with the game;

- Experienced my first dawn, whilst trying to get onto the train car with the diamond box in Petroshoe, or whatever. Stunningly beautiful, from the sounds, to the slow lifting of the haze and fog. That said, I spent about 20 minutes for one diamond. I was not amused.

- This little number, which I'm quite proud of.

The circuitous route which arms dealer mission targets takes lead to me getting there just in time to restock my crossbow and molotov ammo and sacrifice my jeep and the car at the depot for a roadblock. Set the surrounding area on fire, chucked at grenade at the windscreen of the first escort and put a crossbow bolt into the windscreen of the arms truck. Delicious carnage.

- Fuck jeep patrols. Just fuck them. They've cost me more Jeep Wranglers than anything so far.

- My general solution to problems is to set everything on fire. Is this wrong?

[brkl]

Wrong? That's the solution to Far Cry 2. Set everything on fire.

[Patters]

Wrong? That's the solution to Far Cry 2. Set everything on fire.

Or a grenade rolling down a hill.

[Orv]

Hehhehehehehehehe.

http://www.imfdb.org/index.php/Far_Cry_2

[ThunderPeel2001]

I just played Far-Cry 2... WOW. That's one intense and cool game. It's the first time the "non-talking lead character" has ever felt like me. It's also the first time the world didn't feel too enclosed or phoney... I didn't want to talk to the NPCs, I was in the middle of a scary, war torn, shit hole, filled with scary, war torn, psychopaths.

I wanted to keep my head down and just get the job done.

Wow. Intense game. Very cool, though. Makes me think of a really wonderfully expanded version of Hunter: A guy dropped into an open world with the mission to take out one enemy.

On another note: I'm play the Steam version on Window 7 x64 and I've not encountered any bugs (apart from random slow down) so far.

Edit: The biggest complaint (the respawn rates) have apparently never been fixed by any modders... despite the fact that "far cry 2 spawn mod" is a recognized term by Google (so a lot of people want it). Hard to believe hackers/crackers can get past state of the art copyright protection -- but nobody can fix the Far Cry 2 spawn rate.

[brkl]

Edit: The biggest complaint (the respawn rates) have apparently never been fixed by any modders... despite the fact that "far cry 2 spawn mod" is a recognized term by Google (so a lot of people want it). Hard to believe hackers/crackers can get past state of the art copyright protection -- but nobody can fix the Far Cry 2 spawn rate.

That's because there isn't a spawn rate. Whenever the game loads that section of the map into memory the enemies come with it.

[ThunderPeel2001]

That's because there isn't a spawn rate. Whenever the game loads that section of the map into memory the enemies come with it.

There still must be a way around it. Somehow... Reducing their number to zero, making them non-hostile, removing their weapons -- something.

[Erkki]

There still must be a way around it. Somehow... Reducing their number to zero, making them non-hostile, removing their weapons -- something.

Yeah, but it's not some single boolean switch or number to change. I have no idea how much logic cracks must work around, but I think this is more complicated.

[brkl]

There still must be a way around it. Somehow... Reducing their number to zero, making them non-hostile, removing their weapons -- something.

That doesn't sound like an improvement to me!

[Murdoc]

I know it was annoying, but the other quick improvement would make a very boring, empty world.

They did what they had to, their GDC talks are online somewhere, I remember listening to them; very interesting if your into technology and design of the game.

[ThunderPeel2001]

Clint Hocking:

"This issue was raised by one of the programming leads late in the development cycle, but my feeling at the time was that it was not an issue. I knew it was happening, but the number of places in which it was noticeable was small. In fact, the number of places where you notice it is small - it is just that they almost all happen to be very close to safe houses that are frequently visited en route to and from major objectives, meaning that almost every player encounters these few places in almost every mission. We didn't do anything intentionally to make it that way, but we also didn't do anything to fix it, and that is my fault because I misestimated the severity of the issue. In hindsight, having read numerous reviews of the game, this issue seems to be the single largest problem with the game, and it is frustrating for a lot of players. It makes me a bit sad to think that this one slightly mishandled, moderately scoped technical design issue seems to have such a powerful influence on the overall perception of the game when I feel we did so many things well. I guess that's the challenge of making hugely ambitious games - you're juggling a lot of plates and it's very hard to pull off a perfect finish."

[Murdoc]

Ah, awesome quote.

[Sno]

I haven't played Far Cry 2 in a long while, so maybe i'm misremembering some of the details...

I don't normally have a problem with respawning enemies, and it wasn't the exact problem i had with Far Cry 2 either. The problem i had with Far Cry 2 is how instantly aware and instantly hostile everybody is. It seems a little at odds with how believable and immersive that game wants to be, when just trying to get from point A to B results in jeeps flying at you out of the road side brush, enemies just chaotically throwing their lives away to ruin your day.

A solution, i think, would have been for them to somehow curb the uncanny supernatural awareness that the AI had regarding its surroundings, its ability to not only spot you through dense jungle but then also instantly recognize you as an enemy. It's like you were running around with a reflective jacket and a kick me sign on your back.

To be fair, this is a problem that seems to exist with most shooters touting stealth gameplay without explicitly being stealth games. (Including the Crytek games Far Cry 2 owes so much to.)

[Patters]

I've never had many problems with respawning enemies or omniscient enemies in fc2. I spent so much of the game swimming and so little in vehicles. Stealth is very viable if you play it right, killing isn't always needed either. Sliding is very useful in getting between bushes.

[Denial]

The jeeps crashing out of the jungle did seem odd - in the sense that it seemed counter-intuitive for people to drive right up to your jeep and put themselves right under your guns, where you can chew them up almost immediately. I wished the opponents were smarter, generally - they're good on cover and artificially good at sniping, but not great at flanking or suppression. Then again, if they were better at that then the repopulation of the guard posts would be yet more frustrating - whereas at least you can generally either barrel through, stopping later to gun down the guys chasing you in cars (who really seem to be short of a plan .

[Orv]

My most recent "fucking AI. . ." moment was thus;

I was doing an Arms Dealer mission, and they were at the south end of the map, where they circle in the desert near the bus station, safehouse and arms dealer, and I went to take them out. I crossbowed the gun-truck, which pissed off the escorts. I sniped the driver out of the escorting jeep, and the gunner got in the drivers seat and proceeded to attempt to run me over.

I waited until the opportune moment, shot the crossbow at the truck, and deftly stepped to the side as it catapulted hood-over-bumper at me, a la that orc at Minas Tirith. I was then promptly run over from behind.

Ah, Far Cry 2. . .

[a purple future]

i'd give my theoretical first-born for a mod that changes the checkpoint respawn rate to 24 in-game hours.