ArmA 3 on Steamworks?

[antoineflemming 14]

What else would they (BIS) be eluding to with this "This resulted in some cool ideas, which are in progress of being implemented"?

So "cool ideas" automatically means "achievements", just because you want it to mean achievements?

For an "idea" of what such cool ideas could entail, look at this post (the results of the survey mentioned in the dev blog): http://forums.bistudio.com/showthread.php?142190-Arma-3-online-services-Survey&p=2252905&viewfull=1#post2252905

IF there are achievements, it'd probably only be for that firing range thing that was previewed at E3 2012.

[bugmenot 1]

How about this? http://forums.bistudio.com/showthread.php?119471-ArmA-3-on-Steamworks&p=2303165&viewfull=1#post2303165

[LordJarhead 1721]

No need to attack the content creators just because they are worried about their work being ripped and stolen.

Thanks. People should also think about this sometimes. Steam might brings some positive things, at least for some of us. But it also has some downsides as this one. How about we take a break from this and let BIS get done with their work and then we can see what all this is about. Before there are no real informations about it we might all should stay cool for now.

The point I am making is that I've been around here for the past 12 years to show whether I'm someone who habitually tells lies. I have never in that time told a lie to anyone on here and the fact that someone who's been around for only a very small fraction of the time I've been here accuses me of telling lies (without having the actual balls to outright say it) rather displeases me.

Wow, just sad.... really. That you have to defend yourself like this here.

LJ

[tonygrunt 10]

Not attacking addon makers. However, Steam Workshop doesn't steal content. Ripped content is on Garry's Mod, those guys over at Facepunch forums. Those guys steal content and have been doing so before Steam Workshop. That theft has nothing to do with Steam Workshop. Steam Workshop is just another medium on which they distribute it. That's been going on before ArmA3 became Steam-exclusive, so that doesn't change whether ArmA is Steam-exclusive or not.

BIS hasn't confirmed or denied anything, there's been no comment, so why should you automatically assume that Steam Workshop is being used? I understand concerns, I just don't think that it's warranted to only have these concerns in regards to Steam Workshop.

Not every steam user uses facepunch, but every of those users has access to the steam workshop. A plagiarized mod/addon/etc. on the steam workshop has greater risk to be massively exploited and its usage legitimized if who is responsible for the administration doesn't do his job.

[antoineflemming 14]

Thanks. People should also think about this sometimes. Steam might brings some positive things, at least for some of us. But it also has some downsides as this one. How about we take a break from this and let BIS get done with their work and then we can see what all this is about. Before there are no real informations about it we might all should stay cool for now.

Wow, just sad.... really. That you have to defend yourself like this here.

LJ

See, I'm not the only one. Now, what I wish would happen is that BIS would go ahead and release some clarification on this issue instead of waiting till (possibly) this Thursday to release info at one time.

---------- Post added at 14:03 ---------- Previous post was at 13:57 ----------

Not every steam user uses facepunch, but every of those users has access to the steam workshop. A plagiarized mod/addon/etc. on the steam workshop has greater risk to be massively exploited and its usage legitimized if who is responsible for the administration doesn't do his job.

ALL that Garry's Mod stuff is done and collaborated on at the Facepunch forums. And it's not just Steam that is responsible for plagiarized addons. This isn't something that is exclusive to Steam. If those guys were interested, they'd be doing that with ArmA2 content right now. What I'm saying is that this is something that can happen regardless of whether or not ArmA3 is Steam-exclusive. Because it's not just Steam-exclusive stuff that's stolen on there. It's anything they can rip from a game.

And here's another reason why it this stolen-content issue is independent of Steam-exclusiveness: Most of these stolen addons aren't turned around and released for the game from which they were stolen. It's always to get content out of one game and get it into another game. If ArmA 3 weren't Steam exclusive, and someone wanted and had the ability to steal something from the game, they'd still do that. In regards to addon security, nothing changes by ArmA 3 being Steam-exclusive.

[Shadow_Vit 1]

The things, of what I'm concern the most :

1) Are we will be able to manage the mods in a traditional way, like before ? Just to go to filehosting site (not to stram workshop), download it to harddrive, and than install it to the game, using modfolders ?

2) How single player will be done ? Are we will need to launch steam anyway for playing SP, or we will have an ability to run the game directly through the .exe file ?

I think, everybody here knows, that steam failure quite frequently, after occasionally game crashes, saying, that it needs to check it's cache integrity. Or, that it's "autonomous" mod is not so autonomous in reality ?

__________________________________

Speaking honestly, I'm pretty sad because of this... Of course, I have no choice, and will buy A3, but... is there any chance, that this implementation of new ArmA III ideology will be not so drammatically painful for traditional "medieval" users, like me, for example ?

_______________________________________

;2303152']Greed (money) is the route of all evil. We all know that the reason ArmA 3 is going steam exclusive is because all the zombies who bought ArmA II for DayZ purchased it through steam and not hard copy. No brainer' date=' case closed.[/quote']

Man, this is absolutely brilliant thought. I'm agreed with you for 100 %.

_________________________________________

Sorry for my bad English.

Edited February 25, 2013 by Shadow_Vit

[froggyluv 2136]

;2303152']Greed (money) is the route of all evil. We all know that the reason ArmA 3 is going steam exclusive is because all the zombies who bought ArmA II for DayZ purchased it through steam and not hard copy. No brainer' date=' case closed.[/quote']

I agree.

Bah! Communistic propaganda!

The point is, ladies and gentleman, that greed -- for lack of a better word -- is good. Greed is right. Greed works. Greed clarifies, cuts through, and captures the essence of the evolutionary spirit. Greed, in all of its forms -- greed for life, for money, for love, knowledge, high fidelty graphics, multithreading, high paying COD kiddies -- has marked the upward surge of mankind. And greed -- you mark my words -- will not only save Bohemia Interactive, but that other malfunctioning corporation called the world of PC gaming.

[EricM 0]

Bah! Communistic propaganda!

The point is, ladies and gentleman, that greed -- for lack of a better word -- is good. Greed is right. Greed works. Greed clarifies, cuts through, and captures the essence of the evolutionary spirit. Greed, in all of its forms -- greed for life, for money, for love, knowledge, high fidelty graphics, multithreading, high paying COD kiddies -- has marked the upward surge of mankind. And greed -- you mark my words -- will not only save Bohemia Interactive, but that other malfunctioning corporation called the world of PC gaming.

Adam Smith, is that you? Take off your dirty invisible hands off my wallet...

Anyway : Steam only ? Sad, but there's nothing we can do at this point. They just have to make the game even better to compensate I guess. It'd be a shame to be both steam exclusive AND buggy or feature limited etc....

[NoQuarter 0]

So "cool ideas" automatically means "achievements", just because you want it to mean achievements?

That's a reach...no obviously not automatically.

For an "idea" of what such cool ideas could entail, look at this post (the results of the survey mentioned in the dev blog): http://forums.bistudio.com/showthread.php?142190-Arma-3-online-services-Survey&p=2252905&viewfull=1#post2252905

IF there are achievements, it'd probably only be for that firing range thing that was previewed at E3 2012.

...suggestions regarding API, stats, achievements, milsim feeling and squads.

Think of achievements as short hand for social networking garbage, level ups, perks and all kinds of other cool features that the 16-25 yo crowd came up with and BIS chooses to implement ...and again, none of which adds to or actually enhances the game/gameplay.

[Iroquois Pliskin 0]

I like stats recording, this can be done with achievements as well (sort of). I like to know how many miles I walked, how many hours I played, how many hours I spent behind the wheel, how many hours I flew, etc. I just love those stats thingies!

Yep I'm the same, I would love to see full stat logging/tracking in all Arma games along with achievements, I want to know how many bullets I fired, how accurate my shooting is, which weapons I use the best, where I hit on the enemy, etc. etc. etc.

Very true, most sane people require some form of progress tracking, whether it is killboards, or "Achivement unlocked: Run 30 km on foot on Altis", or "Destroy 0/5 Enemy Mobile HQ in Warfare Multiplayer", or "Reach the speed of 950 km/h in an L-51" -- it is cool to have.

These can be tailored to ArmA III gameworld/mechanics, so that "Make 1000 Heatshots" wouldn't cut it -- ArmA has fertile soil for variety.

ArmA II already had the Armoury - but it is rather clunky and doesn't "reward" you enough, since you're not really in a competitive/hostile environment. Imagine bomb diving in an L-51 from 8,000 m altitude and reaching that 950 km/h airspeed & getting the "achievement", while this jet's specs can only push around 900 km/h in level flight.

Edited February 25, 2013 by Iroquois Pliskin

[Smurf 12]

Think of achievements as short hand for social networking garbage, level ups, perks and all kinds of other cool features that the 16-25 yo crowd came up with and BIS chooses to implement ...and again, none of which adds to or actually enhances the game/gameplay.

[Dwarden 1125]

Since our community manager himself has described out concerns as "pathetic crap"

I never said that in SteamWorks thread, so I assume You mean Placebo's comment about the whine spam and nonsense urban myth driven spam

valid reasons, objections and issues are noted, evaluated and we will release some commentary / blog or similar to address that later

as Online distribution and community manager I can tell You that we will try to ensure majority or whole community stays with us even after this 'move'

[tonygrunt 10]

Dwarden, any comment about gamespy dropping support for older games? Will this ever affect the ArmA game series?

[Dwarden 1125]

atm. unknown, we may deal with that when it become problem ...

[Iroquois Pliskin 0]

I see where you're coming from (Steam be inevitable). The question now is, is it possible for BI to disable the SteamWorks feature but still use Steam as a platform?

Why would they dump efficiency for an unknown factor at an increased cost? You realise with Steamworks and Steam integration, if they muck up a patch, hundreds of thousands of players will get pissed off - all at the same time, so there's this natural incentive to bring quality each and every time.

If I was in charge, there wouldn't be any NO-CD key, or any more versions, that would have mismatching patches and errors upon errors on installation after this Steam integration, not 3 months, not a year after, because I honestly think they can't afford any stretching of resources at this point; Hell, we're lucky ArmA III is coming out at all, they could've dumped it, made DayZ a best-seller evaaar and continue working on the Military part of their business, which is VBS.

Edited February 25, 2013 by Iroquois Pliskin

[Tonci87 163]

Well sometimes Steam really sucks.

I just wanted to play Shogun 2 but steam told me that it has to convert the game files into a new more efficient format. This will take a few minutes.

Well, it just started to redownload the whole game @ 600KB/s

Ok, lets play something else.....I can´t klick on anything as long as this converting BS is running...FML

[nettrucker 142]

I never said that in SteamWorks thread, so I assume You mean Placebo's comment about the whine spam and nonsense urban myth driven spam

valid reasons, objections and issues are noted, evaluated and we will release some commentary / blog or similar to address that later

as Online distribution and community manager I can tell You that we will try to ensure majority or whole community stays with us even after this 'move'

Yes that was referring to Placebo sorry if I entitled him wrongly as community manager my bad.

[Dwarden 1125]

Yes that was referring to Placebo sorry if I entitled him wrongly as community manager my bad.

no, you correct he is community manager too;) more Senior one than me :)

[jefferspang 2]

Why would they dump efficiency for an unknown factor at an increased cost? You realise with Steamworks and Steam integration, if they muck up a patch, hundreds of thousands of players will get pissed off - all at the same time, so there's this natural incentive to bring quality each and every time.

If I was in charge, there wouldn't be any NO-CD key, or any more versions, that would have mismatching patches and errors upon errors on installation after this Steam integration, not 3 months, not a year after, because I honestly think they can't afford any stretching of resources at this point; Hell, we're lucky ArmA III is coming out at all, they could've dumped it, made DayZ a best-seller evaaar and continue working on the Military part of their business, which is VBS.

I should have been clearer, I meant Steam Workshop, not Steamworks.

What do you mean they can't stretch resources? Is BI filing on the verge of bankruptcy that they must push out their products ASAP? Yeah they can focus on DayZ... until the market becomes saturated and everyone drops out (lets be honest, the majority of DayZ's players are those pop-culture following sheeps who will latch something until the latest fad takes over), then Bohemia will know the real meaning of loyalty. I'm sorry but I couldn't take you seriously since you wrote that ArmA III could've been dumped, ArmA has been BI's flagship mass consumer product and it would be suicide to drop their signature product. I'm not implying that we're taking ArmA III for granted but come on, BI wouldn't drop ArmA just to make a statement towards us.

[Placebo 29]

Since our community manager himself has described out concerns as "pathetic crap" so what do you expect.

Missed that but thanks to Dwarden quoting it I see it now, the pathetic crap I was referring to was obviously (I thought!) the abusive comments to each side of the fence, the flamebaiting, name calling, silly image posting etc. etc. none of the questions/concerns raised in here when done so maturely (as 99% have been) are "pathetic crap", sorry I didn't elaborate on that but I thought it was pretty obvious at the time what I was referring to and why I was closing the thread temporarily.

[aradesh 10]

has this something to do with the decision?

http://www.gamestar.de/hardware/konsolen/sony-playstation-4/playstation_4,481,3009775.html

[Iroquois Pliskin 0]

I should have been clearer, I meant Steam Workshop, not Steamworks.

What do you mean they can't stretch resources? Is BI filing on the verge of bankruptcy that they must push out their products ASAP?

Are you privy to their balance sheet? I only know that ArmA II didn't sell "well" before DayZ, and I, myself, was a witness to lack of MP servers well into the game's lifespan, which had since disappeared, courtesy of DayZ.

Yeah they can focus on DayZ... until the market becomes saturated and everyone drops out (lets be honest, the majority of DayZ's players are those pop-culture following sheeps who will latch something until the latest fad takes over)

Trust me, a 225 km^2 map zombie game goes a long way in this world, since it is running on a unique engine.

then Bohemia will know the real meaning of loyalty.

Those whole 151 and a half persons, myself included? They will buy ArmA III regardless. Know why? Because it's the same game, as OFP, Armed Assault, ArmA II was - with a lot of polish on top.

I'm sorry but I couldn't take you seriously since you wrote that ArmA III could've been dumped, ArmA has been BI's flagship mass consumer product and it would be suicide to drop their signature product.

Again, show me the balance sheet and their expected sales number, under the condition* that ArmA III would be released just the same way as ArmA II had been - obscure retail, Sprocket & Steam, while featuring, more or less, the same multiplayer features. Without Steam integration, they wouldn't be able to retain enough people to call the game "Successful".

I'm not implying that we're taking ArmA III for granted but come on, BI wouldn't drop ArmA just to make a statement towards us.

Dude, what statement? It's business, nothing personal - if it was unprofitable to release ArmA III under the old conditions, then it was unprofitable - end of story. Be glad it's coming out at all.

Customer is always right in the way that said customer may walk out of the store, but if people start insulting the store owners and trashing their property -- Wee-ooo-wee-ooo, here comes the police.

*Don't forget what happened in September, along with renaming of Lemnos to Altis. (There's a good reason for that, albeit political one, which I won't discuss here)

---------- Post added at 21:43 ---------- Previous post was at 21:37 ----------

has this something to do with the decision?

http://www.gamestar.de/hardware/konsolen/sony-playstation-4/playstation_4,481,3009775.html

Summation/translation would be nice. But as stated in the other PS4 thread - ArmA III is PC Exclusive. :cc:

Edited February 25, 2013 by Iroquois Pliskin

[aradesh 10]

Sorry,

It's a list from sony with companys they have game/software related projects in work/planning for new playstaion 4.

[PuFu 4600]

Again, show me the balance sheet and their expected sales number, under the condition* that ArmA III would be released just the same way as ArmA II had been - obscure retail, Sprocket & Steam, while featuring, more or less, the same multiplayer features. Without Steam integration, they wouldn't be able to retain enough people to call the game "Successful".

Don't bother, some don't really understand how a business in the game industry needs to be run

[viper[cww] 14]

Sorry,

It's a list from sony with companys they have game/software related projects in work/planning for new playstaion 4.

No need to be sorry, most people can understand what a picture/list means, others have built in translators with browsers they use.

____

Since the PS4 uses pc hardware (basically a pc, hence no backward compatability with ps3 games) then it is quite possible some of the BIS titles will indeed be on it, CC & DayZ more then likely. Bit OT but yeah...

Edited February 25, 2013 by VIPER[CWW]