You know that you could easily hit Escape and look at the control options right? In fact, it would have taken far less time than raging about it here d00d.
I did, actually (in ArmA2). It still was pretty clunky. I got the hang of some stuff, but I'm still not all that impressed with it as a game. I'm hoping it's actually a good platform from which others build more fun gaming.
BIS is not a Game Developer and this is not their core business. Their first priority is creating Military Simulations used around the world in training Military. That's why there are so many controls and also a good reason why there not explained as you'd spend days in tutorials and complain about never playing the game.
This is an unrestricted Sandbox SIM for lack of a better word, not an FPS so there made completely different. I've yet to see that many sims actually explain the control structure prior to hopping into the game.
Ok, two thoughts on this.
First, I don't care that they develop super-intelligent robot killing machines for militaries and mad scientists across the world. They sold ME a game. And so far, at least in terms of the "straight out of the box" stuff, it's a pretty clunky game. If they sold me a military sim and said "Look, this is used by the USMC to teach things like tactics and command as part of OCS. If you want to pay us $20 to support development, you can have a civilian version of it. But don't think of it as a game. Think of it as a tool," that'd be one thing. But it's clearly sold as a game. You sell me a product, it should do what it says on the tin, no?
Second, sims that I've played offer a range of experiences. Some walk you through training with the interface in a more obvious, natural way. Others just give you the sim and let you look at a manual to figure stuff out. Back in the day when we used to get actual physical manuals and keyboard quick-guides, this wasn't a problem. Without manuals, though, you have to teach yourself using the control menu.
Related to this, I think, is the perception that for a game to be a sim, it has to have a byzantine interface. There have to be multiple keys and combinations of keys to make it truly "simmy." This is, quite frankly, a load of shit. With modern technology, games can be a LOT more seamless in terms of the control scheme. You can still hit people with a range of things to manage that make the game more realistic (e.g. real-world ballistics, environmental effects, avatar stamina, etc.), but that doesn't mean that the user's interface with the game itself has to be complex.
I mean, take IL-2. Admittedly, I haven't spent a ton of time playing it, but while it was difficult to get the hang of the controls in terms of getting my plane to do what I wanted it to do -- as well as learning the limits of the plane itself -- the interface itself was pretty straightforward. ArmA2 seems to be needlessly complex, like the stuff I've read about Derek Smart's Battlecruiser games -- loads of menus and commands, but to what end?
I'm still giving it a chance, recognizing that it takes time to learn this stuff, and hoping that as I work past the interface gremlins, I'll see a better game that lies beneath, but this has gotten me thinking about the decline of sim games, and attitudes about WHY sim games are complex, particularly when we're talking about infantry stuff.
I could understand it if, for example, the flight portion or armor portion of the game was highly complex to simulate the myriad controls you need to manage when using such equipment. But for infantry controls, there's just no reason to make it all that complex. Just because you have 108 keys on a keyboard doesn't mean you have to create a function for each of 'em.
As for why I'm spending my time writing this instead of opening menus to figure out controls, that's easy. (1) I'm busy downloading one of the add-on packs at the moment, and (2) it's Saturday, I'm chilling at home, and I'm procrastinating about doing the vacuuming.
