Please tell us something about yourself.

My name is Marek Spanel, I am the CEO of Bohemia Interactive and was project lead for Operation Flashpoint, and am now the project lead for Operation Flashpoint's sequel now called ArmA.

=== Why did you chose to develop ArmA (Combat Operations in North America and Armed Assault in Europe)?===

It's quite a long story but the simple answer is that ArmA has grown on its own. After Operation Flashpoint we spent almost two years supporting the game (which was extremely successful and sold over 2 million copies worldwide) and then also converting it for the Xbox (which was our hard-earned console experience for so many reasons). We also established a military grade training program based on our technology to put on the market and had the chance to learn from making a few mistakes during this process. After that we saw the vigor of a great and active online community and felt that we had very good new technology to deliver to it. We felt that it was a good time to release something new again. The relationship with our previous publishing partner ended in 2005 and we had to go through the interesting experience of being a fully independent developer trying to get their game published worldwide by multiple partners. ArmA is the direct result of our new experiences as an independent. It has led to the rise of an association helping us selling our games together with some other independent game developers
Idea Games and direct online distribution house, Sprocket Idea. And because of them we have the ability to sell directly to gamers anywhere in the world for first time in our ten year history.

=== To what section of gamers was ArmA intended for? Hardcore gamers or even the casual ones? ===

ArmA is primarily intended for hard core gamers, especially hard core gamers that enjoyed its predecessor, Operation Flashpoint. For casual gamers, it's probably best to try out ArmA from the demo version first. They wouldn't be able to explore the full game but they would be able to sample how different the ArmA experience is to any average FPS (First Person Shooter) they may have played. There's one thing that seems to confuse many gamers and game journalists: you can't really know what ArmA is about without digging deeper into it. ArmA is a very complex and open simulation especially when you start enjoying the built in mission editor. There are many ways to look at ArmA and many ways to play it: an action game, a helicopter simulation, scenario editing tool, or powerful scripting language.

=== Even though in March the 1.05 ArmA patch version was released, there still are some issues with the current version. Issues like difficulty of controlling the helicopters without a joystick, the veteran and cadet difficulty modes which have a high difficulty scale if we are to judge the combative ability of enemy troops are still a problem. How do you intend to solve this problems? ===

We made few more improvements in helicopter flight model after patch 1.05 but I would say those are kind of minor. We are quite happy with state of the flight mechanics - I myself play with mouse keyboard only and I have great fun flying helicopters in ArmA. Though the flight controls are harder to operate than in Operation Flashpoint this difficulty makes the game much more realistic and rewarding.

Not sure what problems with enemies you mean exactly, we always try to make them as good as the players are. If you can kill any of these enemies with one shot from a distance of 200 meters easily, count that they could do the same to you.

=== Another issue is the target acquisition and engaging by the A.I. squad members which without the constant attention and coordination from the player is giving him a hard time. Is this a feature of the game or aproblem?===

AI is a very complex issue, especially in game as big as ArmA. The AI in our game is capable doing a lot of different things and even has the ability to use any of the vehicles within play. They coordinate their efforts via radio, use of their virtual eyes, ears and brains to simulate real player behavior. Usually, any AI related problem needs to be isolated. There's no "general" problem in ArmA's AI and it's hard to answer any such general question about it.


=== When will you think that the next release of a patch will take place to fix some of this issues?===

A new update for ArmA to version 1.08 is coming very soon. This update will improve various aspects of the game and it will also create a unified online environment for all gamers worldwide with different editions of the game to meet and play.


=== ArmA appeared some five, six years after Operation FlashPoint did. This is quite a while but excusable for a small and independent company like Bohemia Interactive. The visual improvements are there to satisfy the military rigor but the gaming community was expecting a little more after so much developing. What will future reserve us? Are we gonna see a more
flamboyant foreign company graphic engine (like Unreal 3) or a revamped personal graphical engine in the next Bohemia title?===

With full respect to Unreal 3 or any other leading engines, the ArmA engine is very special in many respects and we couldn't base it on any other 3rd party engine without making major design changes to limit the game in terms of scope and realism (which would make for a very different game of course). As we don't plan to change our direction of games from large simulated environments unique to most of existing games, it's unlikely we would migrate to a licensed engine anytime in the foreseeable future.


=== What could you tell us about the work in progress title that Bohemia Interactive will try to entertain us on the next year?===

There's nothing I could tell you at this stage. We're busy working on ArmA and some exciting new things but we're not ready to talk about them just yet.


=== How did the loss of Operation Flashpoint intellectual property to Codemasters affect your future plans?===

The situation with Codemasters was a difficult situation for both parties. But in the end, we found a way to continue--they keep the name Operation Flashpoint, we keep all other IP in the Operation Flashpoint game, and we're free to develop and sell any our future productions. For us, freedom and independence were always the most important aspects in our game development and as we enjoy it now more than ever, we're happy how it all turned out.


=== It is interesting to know that your company was approached by military institutions of countries from around the word, since we know Operation Flashpoint was voted as the best military simulation game.===

Yes, we were approached in 2001 and as a result, a special military training program VBS1 started with US Marine Corps being the first sponsors and adopters of the program. Somehow in parallel, another training program based on Operation Flashpoint was created under the name DARWARS Ambush! and used by the US Army as well. Our newest training system just launched under the name VBS2 and is being delivered to the US Marine Corps and Australian Defense Forces. The latest country to sign on to the VBS program has been the UK, which we have an enterprise-wide license to the UK MOD from last week. There are many things happening in the area of military simulation based on our technology: Loadmaster VR simulation or Lasershot system integration are really showing some other ways of using VBS in connection with custom made hardware.

=== Do you want to add something in the end?===

If you want to know more about ArmA, please visit www.armedassault.com . There's much more content and possibilities in the game than you may thing after reading some of the reviews so this is the best starting point.