OFPEC

OFPEC is a key website providing information on editing for the series of revolutionary "battlefield simulation" games developed by Bohemia Interactive, based in the Czech Republic. OFPEC was originally an acronym that stood for Operation Flashpoint (i.e. OFP) Editing Center, but with the introduction of ArmA (Armed Assault) by the same developers, the acronym is no longer used. The site's motto (or slogan), has always been:

"By the Community, For the Community"

The series of games by Bohemia Interactive that OFPEC currently does (or will) provide editing support for, include:

:* Operation Flashpoint: Cold War Crisis (first in series, release 2001, for PC)

:* Operation Flashpoint: Resistance (official expansion, release 2002, for PC)

:* Operation Flashpoint: Elite (release 2005, for Xbox)

:* ARMA: Armed Assault (global releases 2006/7, for PC)

:* ARMA: Combat Operations (USA release 2007, for PC)

:* ARMA: Queen's Gambit (global expansion release 2007, for PC)

:* ARMA2 (under development, expected 2008, for PC)

History of OFPEC

OFPEC traces its history back to the Editing Center, an editing resource compiled by LustyPooh. At the time Operation Flashpoint editing was for the most part unsupported by Bohemia Interactive Studios. As part of his pioneering work LustyPooh wrote the first unofficial OFP Command Reference and several editing tutorials, some of which still survive and are used by today's editors.

The website soon became defunct but a well known user named Tigershark preserved the material and used it to launch the next incarnation of OFPEC in 2001. Tigershark envisioned a site which catered to all the different editing passions in OFP. With this vision in mind the editing depots were born and the fans flocked to OFPEC.

During the Summer of 2002, OFPEC was on a commercial host which went bust and a lot of the resources were nearly lost. The site was down for a couple of months and there was a total rewrite of the code by SnYpir. OFPEC was then re-launched in the Autumn on HuBBa's server. Wolfsbane was Site Admin at the time but started to drift away in the Winter.

In early 2003 snYpir, who had been Editors Depot Admin, took over the Site Admin position. He had always made it clear that his stint was going to be a short one, and he devoted a huge amount of energy in the 3 months or so that he was in charge. This was the point at which OFPEC went from being just another OFP editing site to being the premier editing site. SnYpir quit as he had always planned to and Noon and Sefe took over. At that time all the editing depots worked and OFPEC was humming along nicely.

Two years later OFPEC was in dire need of a rebuild - the site was nearly dead. The Recruitment and Addons Depots didn't work at all, the Editors Depot was moribund and there were no properly active moderators. The only depots which actually operated at all were the Editors Depot and the Missions Depot. Artak and Macguba kept each other going as they were slowly Overwhelmed by unfixed bugs.

Sefe quietly stepped down, and Noon kept going as de facto solo lead admin until eventually real life got in the way and Noon decided to leave OFPEC in the caring hands of Sui, who was brought out of semi-retirement to take over and run the site.

Then, at the beginning of 2006 both of Hubba's hard drives exploded, crippling the site. Luckily the database in which all of the posts were stored had been backed up, but the editing resources and the custom code upon which the site relied were utterly lost. It was perhaps OFPEC's darkest hour.

The decision was then made to move away from the customized forum and integrated depots to something more off the shelf like the Mambo/SMF combination you see today. Ktotte installed the new software, bedges offered his web design skills to give the site a new face, and gradually the site began to breathe again. However, life and job commitments began creeping up on Sui and he felt unable to devote the time required to get OFPEC back to full strength. In the Autumn of 2006, he stepped down.

Bedges and Planck stepped up and rallied the remaining staff, and began work in earnest to bring OFPEC back up to the standard it once enjoyed in time for The Release of ArmA. The site was moved to a commercial host, the Editors Depot was reopened, and OFPEC was enlivened with new staff and fresh IDeaS, ensuring that the site continued to support the Community as it always has.

More recently, macguba has become the latest site administrator and the site continues its revival (following the major site crash).

Without a dedicated staff of volunteers and contributors, without a Community with questions, comments and donations, OFPEC would not continue to exist.

  • OFPEC (website home page)