Adopt Valhalla or other C&H as the basic PvP form and set up some Official servers

[demonized 20]

the editor is there for a reason, are you suggesting that BIS should spend time redoing whats already been done for you to get to pay for that same thing that currently is free for all publics???

And them funding a server just seems like a hole in the wallet to me, when there are thousands of servers already maintained by publics.

Any new player can simply click on multiplayer and join any of the numerous public servers and get right into it.

Most of those that play or start playing arma do it for the coop not the PvP.

[gossamersolid 155]

the editor is there for a reason, are you suggesting that BIS should spend time redoing whats already been done for you to get to pay for that same thing that currently is free for all publics???

And them funding a server just seems like a hole in the wallet to me, when there are thousands of servers already maintained by publics.

Any new player can simply click on multiplayer and join any of the numerous public servers and get right into it.

Most of those that play or start playing arma do it for the coop not the PvP.

This guy has got it right.

What's the famous saying again? "Don't re-invent the wheel"?

[nkenny 1051]

Back to my original point again, if you don't want your code used by the community or even looked at by the community and want it be to unified in your own community, then why are you bothering to release it.

Obscuring your codeworks is just a design choice like everything else. Personally I'm a great believer in Open Source development, but wishing to preserve a unique gameplay package-- and continiously maintaining and developing it-- is just a valid choice as anything else.

To get back on track. Alongside many of you I do not believe BIS needs to maintain a server base. I DO believe that creating more example missions variants (or even officially supporting) some of the more popular public mission types-- and presenting these as part of a package is a good move.

-k

[Defunkt 431]

Making the effort to rename variables and files into an unreadable mess is a questionable and highly arrogant practice, there's no way around it. It is and should be condemned. The makers of Valhalla learned their scripting by looking at other missions and using other people's scripts. There would be no Valhalla if everyone was such a douche prior to it.

I would ask how wanting to protect your endeavours from being ripped-off and renamed is arrogant but the real point is that it doesn't matter why they do it. The point is that it's not for anyone to dictate what, when, how much or in what form they should contribute their work, it's a contribution and should be respected as such, the game is better for having it.

I must live a sleepy, naive corner of the world or this is another case of checking your values and decency at the door when entering the Internet. Where I live if somebody helps you with a job or shares something of theirs you take care to express gratitude, you don't bag them for not doing the whole job for you or not giving you the shirt off their back to boot.

Yesterday I saw somebody running down the Project Reality team because they wouldn't be allowing their assets to be used in other mods, this coming from somebody who has never released so much as an editor made mission. It kind've disgusted me and really made me wonder how this sense of entitlement got so thoroughly entrenched. People would never behave like this in their real-life personal or work relationships, it's grasping and greedy and self-serving. Permit people to give what they're happy to give and respect them for it, lots don't give at all.

[celery 8]

I would ask how wanting to protect your endeavours from being ripped-off and renamed is arrogant but the real point is that it doesn't matter why they do it. The point is that it's not for anyone to dictate what, when, how much or in what form they should contribute their work, it's a contribution and should be respected as such, the game is better for having it.

You are totally right. Nobody can dictate how much of their code the makers of Valhalla reveal. The practice is, however, being condemned. See the difference?

I must live a sleepy, naive corner of the world or this is another case of checking your values and decency at the door when entering the Internet. Where I live if somebody helps you with a job or shares something of theirs you take care to express gratitude, you don't bag them for not doing the whole job for you or not giving you the shirt off their back to boot.

As long as we're in the world of analogies, obscuring mission code falls into the category of getting a "how the fuck does that concern you, dickhead?" when you ask your helper how he did it. Except that in Valhalla's case, not giving the information takes active and elaborate effort, which is why it's a that much douchier thing to do.

Yesterday I saw somebody running down the Project Reality team because they wouldn't be allowing their assets to be used in other mods, this coming from somebody who has never released so much as an editor made mission. It kind've disgusted me and really made me wonder how this sense of entitlement got so thoroughly entrenched. People would never behave like this in their real-life personal or work relationships, it's grasping and greedy and self-serving. Permit people to give what they're happy to give and respect them for it, lots don't give at all.

Personally I'm disgusted by the general attitude that only heavy contributors to the community (more precisely: addon makers) are worthy enough to express opinions on that. If there's a sense of entitlement in play, it's on the side that wants to utilize protectionistic policies on content in a game where open source is the lifeline of creativity and evolution of its community, including the ones releasing the closed source content.

To sum up: I can't and won't prevent anyone from adopting a closed source policy in this community, but I do think it's arrogant and heavily against the community's principles and I will express my opinion about it. It has nothing to do with the content itself: I'm not pissing on the creator for making it.

Edited May 21, 2011 by Celery

[Defunkt 431]

As long as we're in the world of analogies, obscuring mission code falls into the category of getting a "how the fuck does that concern you, dickhead?" when you ask your helper how he did it. Except that in Valhalla's case, not giving the information takes active and elaborate effort, which is why it's a that much douchier thing to do.

And as long as we're projecting assumed motives and intentions on the makers of Valhalla without actually asking them what they are let me say that I imagine that if you were to ask them how they did something or other they'd be perfectly happy to explain. More likely it's wholesale copying and pasting or the creation and distribution of derivatives that they'd like to prevent.

Personally I'm disgusted by the general attitude that only heavy contributors to the community (more precisely: addon makers) are worthy enough to express opinions on that. If there's a sense of entitlement in play, it's on the side that wants to utilize protectionistic policies on content in a game where open source is the lifeline of creativity and evolution of its community, including the ones releasing the closed source content.

This makes no sense at all unless you're actually proposing that nobody should retain any rights to the fruits of their own labours. I guess you might be a card-carrying socialist in real life who genuinely believes that nationalising everything (starting with your own property) would lead us to utopia but it's been proven time and again nothing stifles industry and innovation more and nothing would kill modding quicker. Beyond a shadow of a doubt, there would be no Project Reality in ArmA at all, is this making things better?

[celery 8]

And as long as we're projecting assumed motives and intentions on the makers of Valhalla without actually asking them what they are let me say that I imagine that if you were to ask them how they did something or other they'd be perfectly happy to explain. More likely it's wholesale copying and pasting or the creation and distribution of derivatives that they'd like to prevent.

Perhaps WINSE and Roman are better people than I am, then, because I would not go out of my way to explain how my non-obscured missions work if someone asked. But since you imagine them to be such helpful chaps, can you imagine why they'd go out of their way to prevent everyone from understanding their scripts only to go out of their way to show them to anyone who asked?

People who breach the etiquette by claiming someone's work as theirs or deriving a mission in a way that hurts the original work or doesn't suit the maker can be pointed out and their version will be taken off of all self-respecting community sites with great certainty.

This makes no sense at all unless you're actually proposing that nobody should retain any rights to the fruits of their own labours. I guess you might be a card-carrying socialist in real life who genuinely believes that nationalising everything (starting with your own property) would lead us to utopia but it's been proven time and again nothing stifles industry and innovation more and nothing would kill modding quicker. Beyond a shadow of a doubt, there would be no Project Reality in ArmA at all, is this making things better?

Dude, are we still talking about Arma 2 modding here? It's almost as if you're making money out of this. If the content of what you are releasing for free is so valuable to you, then yes, it's better that you don't release it and instead make your own game that uses that content so you can actually realize that value.

I'm against intellectual theft, but such measures to prevent it are detrimental to the community. Please point out any mission or addon that has content stolen from another community member without it being removed from this forum and the community sites. There, I just proved the stupidity of content encryption.

[Defunkt 431]

Please point out any mission or addon that has content stolen from another community member without it being removed from this forum and the community sites. There, I just proved the stupidity of content encryption.

It's a mission, the derivative work will probably never be posted here just hosted on a server somewhere. I fail to see any remedy in your 'proof' or any reason a mission maker shouldn't take whatever steps are available to them to prevent such a thing if that is (for whatever reason) important to them.

I personally think it's pointless to try and claim ownership of code snippets, everybody learns and adapts based on what they've seen made by others. They can rarely be used in a differing context without significant revision and the very act of revising them will usually make them sufficiently different to satisfy the strictures of copyright. We'd probably also agree that it is flat-out mean-spirited given how we all learn to code. Whole missions which can take many months to develop, tweak and test are another matter entirely and it's a nonsense to insist that they should be laid bare just so somebody can try and lay claim to some trivial routine or other.

[.kju 3241]

Please point out any mission or addon that has content stolen from another community member without it being removed from this forum and the community sites.

This mentioned mission in this very thread is the example.

@ Defunkt

One advice: better do your research before defending the case.

---------- Post added at 06:31 AM ---------- Previous post was at 06:29 AM ----------

@ Walker

You may want to get this thread closed and reopen it without a mention of Valhalla (or any other mission even).

[Defunkt 431]

One advice: better do your research before defending the case.

Thought I was defending a point rather than any particular case but if I should infer that a certain mission was pinched then (without wanting to treat that as anything more than hearsay) all the more reason for supporting IP owners protecting their work however they might. Not doing so was presumably no defence at all and removing a mission from one site or another won't undo what's already done. It goes on, a lot, just look at the never-ending shitfights surrounding various RP missions.

[.kju 3241]

You cannot protect your IP if it isn't yours.

Trying to obscure or "protect" code helps nothing trying to prevent theft.

Only action by the author and community can.

Most time it works, some times it doesn't.

Here it seems the popularity of the mission made people not care.

The authors did care but gave up due to the lack of support.

Edited May 21, 2011 by .kju [PvPscene]

[Kochleffel 10]

The Valhalla developer obscured the code for only one reason:

if someone takes the conzept and does changes which are not planned and it falls back on him.

the Missions are over an Month final state and have no obscured code its comented code and a "used mods.txt" was alway´s included

and i asked each modder Personally if its allowed to use his code....

here u can take a look inside of it if u want.

http://fs.dao.nu/ check the missions shortcut.

and if there is a question about the stolen overtaken whatever question.

this was discussed with BI today and should be solved. i hope Dwarden will reply to this.

[walker 0]

Hi all

As the question of opening the Code to view has been answered by Kochleffel I no longer see it as an issue.

All I can say is that as a Game Form the C&H style that Valhalla and Berzerk represent is the most popular in PvP form in ArmA.

You could argue that this is down to how well the DAO servers are run as the DAO CTI is also very popular but once again I point out that CTI is a Capture and Hold game form.

It is the Freedom to play across the whole terrain with whatever strategy you devise using tactics, techniques and procedures as you wish that is the reason for the popularity of the C&H game form.

It is what makes the RV engine so superior to the shoe box corridor shooters which are plainly too artificial.

Once again I suggest that this game form is included with some official BIS servers in order to give those new to the ArmA community a PvP direction that will inculcate the values of the ArmA community in to the next generation of ArmA players.

Having BIS run some MP would also give BIS better feedback on the server code and config settings and allow it to give recomendations on those settings for the communmities servers. It would provide a testing ground for new ideas as well.

Kind Regards walker

Edited June 27, 2011 by walker

[metalcraze 290]

Once again I suggest that this game form is included with some official BIS servers in order to give those new to the ArmA community a PvP direction that will inculcate the values of the ArmA community in to the next generation of ArmA players.

I don't think the horrors of public PvP gaming should grow into the "next generation" of ArmA players.

[walker 0]

I don't think the horrors of public PvP gaming should grow into the "next generation" of ArmA players.

Hi metalcraze

We all started somewhere. Many of us came from the Unreal, Quake, BF crowd; heck there may even be some of us who played COD on occasions :o , it is only by playing in this environment that we became better.

Excluding everyone else forever is not an option. We still have the private community servers which are the backbone of the ArmA community wher we can take refuge from the numpties for a while but we should not turn our backs on those new to ArmA.

Any sensible community runs both a locked private server for their dedicated players and an open public server as a recruiting tool. In fact most of the big public servers are that. It allows the comunity to suss out the numpties for the ban lists and to pick out the bright ones for new recruits as well as serving the wider community with well run high quality servers.

The only thing I would say is that there is is need for more community admins. I know it is a task, particularly when t5he numpties turn up and should never be considered as a gaming time but it is bread cast on the waters. I comes back to us as a community as more players and better players with a sense of honour because some of us are acting as roll models.

Kind Regards walker

Edited June 27, 2011 by walker

[metalcraze 290]

My point is that if BIS will promote only public PvP it won't do any good.

The game is very counter-intuitive to any casual PvP gaming by design and public PvP is the smallest part of the whole AA MP scene.

So the everything BIS will get out of this is people complaining that they need weapon locks and grenade indicators on a daily basis, not weekly.

I know this may sound harsh but it's true - people who come to play public PvP come there exactly for that - run and gun. Which is not what this game is about.

The average new PC gamer today is not a new PC gamer of 10 years ago when PC games were varied and more open-minded in design. Todays PC gamer grew up on neverending clones of consolish Gears of War and CoD and he'd rather see ArmA changed to those instead of trying to adapt, survive and win.

As evidenced by the stream of "don't want to learn/plz dumb it down" threads.

[5LEvEN 11]

My point is that if BIS will promote only public PvP it won't do any good.

The game is very counter-intuitive to any casual PvP gaming by design and public PvP is the smallest part of the whole AA MP scene.

So the everything BIS will get out of this is people complaining that they need weapon locks and grenade indicators on a daily basis, not weekly.

I know this may sound harsh but it's true - people who come to play public PvP come there exactly for that - run and gun. Which is not what this game is about.

The average new PC gamer today is not a new PC gamer of 10 years ago when PC games were varied and more open-minded in design. Todays PC gamer grew up on neverending clones of consolish Gears of War and CoD and he'd rather see ArmA changed to those instead of trying to adapt, survive and win.

As evidenced by the stream of "don't want to learn/plz dumb it down" threads.

True....

Its up to the older generations to teach the young ones about variety in PC gaming. :blues:

[mant3z 1]

I am amazed how far your dreams go guys...

I'm quite sure that you wont see Valhalla, Berzerk etc included on vanilla ArmA]|[

If so, we can expect some new game modes or ideas because devs said something about PvP support, what exactly this mean nobody know.

Stop dreaming guys, we know how it is... look back how things were over 10 years.

Did BIS ever made a mission which was played all the time? Nope!

Mission makers always made new one better of changed those made by BIS in to masterpieces like Warfare by Beny. Or wait... Beny was only inspired he did it from the begining ;)... no no, mission makers did it first for OFP 1 then BIS made it... and then Beny made it even better :P

BIS will never beat mission makers.

Our comunity is just simply the best. :D

[Dwarden 1125]

we support any good MP missions ours or community made ... of any style

that's difference between casual games and our ... imagination is the only limit here

(next to classified engine limits)

and i'm glad the dispuse was resolved after i talked to the parties involved

and whole community may benefit from such decisions ...

let's concenrate how make the game more fun for more players ...

[mant3z 1]

O really... any examples? <curious and nothing more>

[dmarkwick 261]

Hi metalcraze

We all started somewhere. Many of us came from the Unreal, Quake, BF crowd; heck there may even be some of us who played COD on occasions :o , it is only by playing in this environment that we became better.

Excluding everyone else forever is not an option. We still have the private community servers which are the backbone of the ArmA community wher we can take refuge from the numpties for a while but we should not turn our backs on those new to ArmA.

Any sensible community runs both a locked private server for their dedicated players and an open public server as a recruiting tool. In fact most of the big public servers are that. It allows the comunity to suss out the numpties for the ban lists and to pick out the bright ones for new recruits as well as serving the wider community with well run high quality servers.

The only thing I would say is that there is is need for more community admins. I know it is a task, particularly when t5he numpties turn up and should never be considered as a gaming time but it is bread cast on the waters. I comes back to us as a community as more players and better players with a sense of honour because some of us are acting as roll models.

Kind Regards walker

I think Walker that your general idea has merit :)

[ziiip 1]

O really... any examples? <curious and nothing more>

Warfare is a shining example.

[mant3z 1]

Warfare? Which one?

One was made by bis... the forgoten one... and we have Beny edition... and this one is made from the begining, isn't it?

[maddogx 13]

Warfare? Which one?

One was made by bis... the forgoten one...

Yup, that one. They got the guy who made CTI in OFP to make an official version for ArmA, back in the day. I think it was introduced in ArmA 1.08.

[mr_centipede 31]

I think in the lobby section there should be a [NO MOD/ADDON] filter. If it;s already there, please forgive me. I've not stepped into MP lobby for quite a while, because mod scares me off. It's not that I dont know how to install mod, it's just that < fill in the blank as I cant quite find the word for it :D >