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Ok folks, Joint Operations is now out. They have finally come out with a game that is 99.9% MP friendly. This game was designed for MP and MP co-op. We all BEG and PLEAD for MP co-op around here, and it's here and now. I got my copy yesterday, and I have to say it is a freakin HOOT to play. I am really impressed with the game so far, a lot like BHD, but improved for MP. If anyone else gets this, let's hook up and play some MP coop. There will be an editor released soon for JO, hopefully it's user friendly enough for me to design some missions.

Here is a brief description about the maps and vehicles:

"Incorporating vast maps of up to 50 km sq, a full 24 hour day/night cycle and 29 different land, sea and air vehicles to control, Joint Operations represents a huge leap forward for multiplayer FPS games."

I can't wait to try this out with a group of WOF people.

P.S. If this game does well and we adopt to play it at WOF, how about a Joint Operations forum?

how is the realism? that has always been sorely lacking in Novalogic games...

health packs?
carry too many weapons?
bunny hopping?

the one thing they have done well is representation of large outdoor areas...

I have yet to see a health pack, but you can play as Medics that will be able to heal you.

The weapons the standard Rifleman carries are:
M-4 w/ scope
Pistol
AT4 (or Stinger, or Mortar) + rounds.
Grenades (Flash, Frag, Smoke, 3 of each)
Binos (Standard on all soldiers)
Night Vision (Standard on all soldiers)

Fight as a Rifleman, Engineer, Gunner, Medic or Sniper. There 7 different countries to choose from as well-- US, UK, France, Germany, Russia, Australia and Indonesia! (USMC, Delta, Seals, SAS, Spetz Natz, etc..)

You can jump in the game, but it's not exaggerated like in other online games. (UT Series, Quake series, etc..) To me it seems like the jumping is kept to a minimum. You can also run and dive into the water (Hit Jump and then Z to dive in).

Ah yes... Take a bullet and the medic comes over and you magically heal just like in a fantasy/magic game...

I have yet to see a soldier carry that much crap into a battle... You would be unable to run.

Ah well, what can ya do...??? Stick to RvS, GR, Red Orchestra, Infiltration and the like I guess...

I actually HAVE considered seeing if any folks would want to try Crimson Skies though...

IMHO, Crimson Skies is a bit of an exaggerated sim, based on wat I have seen, heard and read. Bit too much like Hollywood-evade the enemy, kill the bad guy, get the girl, etc.

Yep, the JO kit-list is a little extensive there, eh ?! Mind you in the heat of battle you could have your hands on all that kit within a period of maybe 30 secs given any one type of situation. But to be continually carrying it in a full-on battle situ is doubtful. And I say doubtful, because on many an occasion I have found myself towing as much if not more kit, within that type of hostile environment, simulated & realtime. The situ dictates sometimes due to manpower or lack of it, or tactical situation e.g. static / defensive and so on. But in general terms there is a team member charged with each responsibility - AT is one of those responsibilities - that is NOT to say that he alone can fire the weapon, but that he is charged with ensuring that it is correctly used, maintained & repaired. In a spec ops team you will always find a subject specialist and most of the time spec quals overlap within the team. One guy is the team medic, who may also overlap in demo, another guy who is demo specialist may overlap in languages, he in turn may overlap team medic and so on. This ensures that when a team member is lost in whatever way, there is usually someone there to continue. In the space shuttle they call it "system redundancy"!!!

Steel,

I read the manual for JO and you can limit which classes are available on the server so you could force there to be no medics ... that goes for kit items as well. Also, Softball was saying it's pretty easy to die - more like OFP than some other 10-hit FPSs.

I wouldn't be so quick to judge.

I judged based upon the info priovided...

Limiting sounds really good... I saved soime games for trade in, if you all give it a thumbs up I may go get it..

How do the limitations work??? Good for the realism at least I like?

i was looking more into the ability to limit weps - looks like you can make a setting so that a particular weapon is never available, always available to it's default soldier type or available only as a pickup at an in-game armory. In this last case, the soldier wouldn't spawn with a particular weapon, but could pick it up later. The first option would make the weapon unavailable - period.

You can make different soldier classes unavailable as well. I was reading more about the medic class. They have a time-limit to reach a fallen teammate (who has to call the medic over and give permission to be healed). If the teammate is wounded, he is healed. If he is dead, the medic's treatment allows him to respawn at the local-spawn-point instead of the original spawn point.

So, with the medics, it's a little bit of a tradeoff. I remember all those no-fun OFP missions where you have either no respawns or respawn a mile from the objective. In either case, it's not much fun to watch from the sea-gull spot or to spend an hour just covering terrain on foot since all the vehicles have already moved out.

So, based on my understanding, medics might have a useful role in the Advance and Secure (just like UT04 Onslaught) gametypes. Maybe less useful on coop missions.

More Joint Ops: Typhoon Rising info:

1) in the adversarial-type games (including the UT04-Onslaught-like mode), there are NO bots to fill out the teams. This is a bit of a bummer. This is the game-mode JO was built around. It doesn't seem realistic that we'd ever have 10-20 folks online together - ever.

2) It has a true objective-based, MP Co-op mode - against AI. There are several included maps/missions for this game type. Also, there is a "promised" Mission EDitor (MED) that will allow editing of missions a la OFP or GR. If my understanding is correct, we won't have to download enormous maps/missions like RVS but will be able to create or download small mission-files like GR/OFP. Truly a better experience than having to wait for near-professional map releases from mod teams like RVS.

IMO, this game would provide a similar experience to Flashpoint or Ghost Recon in the sense we could play cooperatively against ai in the included missions and any of us could create new missions. Also, it's pretty easy to die (you can't get hit more than once or twice).

Using the game in the MP-coop mode would make the medic useless (which could be a good thing) and the restrictions on classes and kits allow the host to make the game is realistic as any other - I mean, GR defaulted to having a radar (which we turned off as a server option)!

Visually, the game is very nice looking. Anyone familiar with the DF BHD game would find it very familiar. It's definitely better looking than GR or OFP. The jungles are pretty thick. Lots of trees, grass, etc to hide in - you may not see the enemy until you are very close. The AI is pretty accurate with their fire, but if you are accurate, you can drop them with a shot or two - no unloading a magazine to get a kill. As an added bonus, there's drivable vehicles similar to OFP (helos, jeeps, buggies, amphibs, etc -- no tanks.)

Unfortunately, you can't join by IP - the server browser is built-in to the game, so it's a lot like UT. You can password protect it of course.

So far, I like it except for the limitation of having no bots in the Adversarial modes. I give it a thumbs-up.

Why would the medic NOT be useful in coop mode???

i certainly hope it does not make one join Gamespy???

No, there's no gamespy.

In co-op mode, you respawn at the beginning. I don't believe there are any "intermediate" spawn points. I suppose the medic could still restore health to a merely wounded soldier, but the benifit of preventing a way-off respawn wouldn't be there. Plus - I have yet to be shot and merely wounded - I always die quickly

-B

I've been trying the training missions - there are 10-15 of them that train you in each of the special wep types. These training missions are very tough to successfully complete. The stinger missiles are very tough to kill helos with (in my experience). It's awesome to watch the sniper rounds actually arc over some of the long distances. Hiding in muddy canals is really cool too. the weeds and grass make sneaking around fun.

O.K. - I picked it up yesterday... I doubt I will be ready to play tonight, not sure if I will have time (got to get business books updated), but maybe later in the week (the 1st or after).

All things considered I may pick this one up. Initially I was a "yes", then I later decided "no," now I'm drifting back towards "yes."
A big part of that is that so many of you have it now that the coop mode will be worthwhile.

Okay given the amount of control we appear to have over the game - I may be up for this one too. Will let you know in due course.

I heard you guys played Joint Ops this weekend? Is it good? If it is, I'll buy my copy this week.

Got mine installed and patched, now I have to run it and set it up!

I think we had a good time. Someone remarked that it reminded them of GR ... I would mostly concur with that. It was refreshingly lag-free and I don't think there were any "technical difficulties." The medic class can cut down on all the running from the respawn point to get back to the action.

Steel thought it was a little "easy" and less than realistic - I have to say I would agree that I shouldn't have been able to jump off a first-floor balcony fully loaded without injury.

As to the "easy" part. I was looking and there doesn't appear to be a difficulty setting, per se ... One solution would be to limit the classes or weapons of the player team. Another is to remove the friendly labels. Also, there's options to turn off tracers and other settings like that that could be used to make it more difficult.

I think once the editor is released (soon hopefully) we can create missions that have no "rearm" locations so that we have to use the weps we spawn with. Also, i think it's only a matter of time before some resourceful person ports the BHD maps into JO ...

I thought I read the editor did come out with one of the 2 previous patches? Unless they were wrong...

Nope - not here yet. I originally hear "one month after release" ...