Arma 3: Interview with Ivan Buchta, Creative Director of Bohemia Interactive

[Daniel 0]

So we've established that it's piss easy to disable AI and pick a small map with high frame rates. What do you mean by good characters? I assume by good animation you mean more fluid or more sensitive? Obviously everyone wants BIS to do their best to counter lag and warping.

[Big Dawg KS 6]

I don't understand what stops the guy from launching a PvP mission without AI and making/downloading the missions he wants which are in hundreds?

Why PvP players always seem to complain about "BIS cut stuff out of the game please" when nothing stops them from not using that stuff themselves?

Complaining is all they know... :j:

[onlyrazor 11]

i like Arma for the veichles, i'm fan for put the all types of realistic veichles on MP in right scenario. If you merge this, with a good characters with good animation you have a perfect game (IMHO)

BF3 is (hopefully) getting loads of quasi-realistic vehicles, various scenarios and a mainly PvP oriented multiplayer. From what you've said, it sounds like your kind of game.

[Big Dawg KS 6]

i like Arma for the veichles, i'm fan for put the all types of realistic veichles on MP in right scenario. If you merge this, with a good characters with good animation you have a perfect game (IMHO)

Rofl, and what makes you believe that gutting the rest of the game would be necessary? Good animations are sought by everyone, whether they play Coop or PvP.

But like others and myself have said, it looks like you are looking for a totally different game.

[zukov 490]

Well... BF seems to be in your alley. It has relatively large servers, the same range of vehicles as ArmA2 (Though less variants), and very smooth gameplay.

And i dont mean anything bad by it, i really enjoyed BF1942 when it came out and probably played it more often than OFP for a couple of years. I just dont see the need to push ArmA in that direction since we already have something that resembles what you want.

no "bf", in a long run, is repetitive in Arma i have the freedom to make the scenario that i want, with relistic crew (i have good time, only if i work in team)

I' don't want to push arma 3 in "arcade" direction but, if the game from day 1 isn't played on MP on Vanilla version, is very hard to renew interest for the players in a second period

[NeMeSiS 11]

no "bf", in a long run, is repetitive in Arma i have the freedom to make the scenario that i want, with relistic crew (i have good time, only if i work in team)

I' don't want to push arma 3 in "arcade" direction but, if the game from day 1 isn't played on MP on Vanilla version, is very hard to renew interest for the players in a second period

Well, what is played is mostly up to the players.. And its not like the default coop missions of ArmA2 were any good, and the campaign was pratically unplayable in MP. Only warfare was interesting but imo it didnt have the same feeling as CTI and barely touched it.

[tacticalnuggets 24]

I guess us "pvp whiners" or whatever stupid way you want to label us make up the majority of most fps games. If the arma series ever wants to get away from releasing tons of "expansions" to stay afloat they should probably start catering to that part of the community a little more.

Considering most of the complex developments in arma scripting come from us pvp coders, you can thank us for any shred of pvp you have in arma2. Scripting in a multithreaded and distributed environment is not easy. And when BIS does not do anything in the department of making it easier for people to join modded servers and reducing lag/improving netcode in a visible way, it makes us frustrated and more likely to voice our opinions.

If you dislike a portion of the arma2 community for no personal reason, and spit in our face, we will only voice our opinions more. The pvp experience in the arma series is like a raging river being stopped by a piece of cardboard. As the majority of the fps community makes up the rivers weight.

[CameronMcDonald 146]

PvP is perfectly playable in A2, hence why I keep magically turning up in 30 vs 30 PvP games each weekend. All the melodramatic BS flying around here is dramatically lowering my level of popcorn in storage.

[maturin 12]

If the arma series ever wants to get away from releasing tons of "expansions" to stay afloat they should probably start catering to that part of the community a little more.

The most successful (and exclusively PvP) online FPS' tend to release the most bullshit "expansions," if you didn't notice.

[tacticalnuggets 24]

The most successful (and exclusively PvP) online FPS' tend to release the most bullshit "expansions," if you didn't notice.

Meaningless point, all I said is BIS shouldn't have to release expansions to stay afloat. Those games release expansions because they can, its not even comparable. Those games do not have editors and as large modding communities to produce the new content. ArmA2 does, which is why I feel both sad and happy that modders release content that is more advanced than the official expansions. You cannot deny that our modding community is extremely good at what it does, and you therefor cannot deny that the expansions end up being kind of pointless in comparison.

[Daniel 0]

BIS artists still need to be kept busy. Expansions are a great way of doing that, especially in the lull between Arma 2's release and Arma 3's production. They ought to be producing content for DLCs whenever things get quiet.

[tacticalnuggets 24]

PvP is perfectly playable in A2, hence why I keep magically turning up in 30 vs 30 PvP games each weekend. All the melodramatic BS flying around here is dramatically lowering my level of popcorn in storage.

Other games do that every day, every hour, every minute generally. Not everyone can play arma2 during the organized prime times. I load up arma2 MP, and I rarely find servers with playable ping with those numbers. TG and other groups organize events to keep it going. I have no problem with it and infact like organized pvp, but its not realistic to solely depend on that to drive all of pvp. There needs to be more systems in place IN GENERAL to fuel arma's mp or it will continue to struggle.

[maturin 12]

Meaningless point, all I said is BIS shouldn't have to release expansions to stay afloat. Those games release expansions because they can, its not even comparable.

A false dichotomy I don't feel like arguing with. And we don't have the data to back it up anyway.

Those games do not have editors and as large modding communities to produce the new content. ArmA2 does, which is why I feel both sad and happy that modders release content that is more advanced than the official expansions. You cannot deny that our modding community is extremely good at what it does, and you therefor cannot deny that the expansions end up being kind of pointless in comparison.

Bollocks. No modder was able to produce the FLIR in Operation Arrowhead, or a host of other vital engine upgrades. What modders did create beforehand tended to show up in ACE, and not everyone uses ACE, especially not many of the PvP players that some people like to pretend make up the silent majority of the fanbase. Mods used by some part of the community are absolutely no substitute for universal progress in the vanilla game engine. And I say this as the strongest possible proponent of modding.

[Steakslim 1]

Well what happened to all the AAS servers that used to have good amounts of people? The lack of pvp is just the lack of servers running the missions.

[metalcraze 290]

And here it continues...

What stops you from playing ArmA player versus player? What? Nothing.

If "catering to that part of the community" (which, as I take it, consists of CoD and BF players who mistakenly got into the wrong game - because usual PvP gamers just play the PvP for 10 years and don't talk BS) involves butchering and dumbing down the game then what about the (actually bigger) part of the community that wants to see the game more feature rich and have interesting missions with complex gameplay not just score frags?

Writing stupid stuff like cut out AI / do small maps is very very egotistical.

What if people constantly cried "disable the ability to join the opposing team"?

[Nicholas 5]

So, uhh, does any of this really have anything to do with the interview? :P

Maybe start a new thread with the topic of "Is PvP Vital to the ArmA Series?"

And thanks for the interview link, was some good reading.

[Steakslim 1]

Something mentioned in the interview that's rather conflicting with previous videos and discussions. Ivan said the engine is being built on DX11 with DX10 backwards compatibility.

Previously he and other devs were saying they were building it on DX10 and were only considering DX11 as a possibility. Was there a change from E3 that made them move straight to DX11? Or is it just a misunderstanding?

[Nicholas 5]

I read that too Steakslim, I believe it may be an error.

[tacticalnuggets 24]

And here it continues...

What stops you from playing ArmA player versus player? What? Nothing.

If "catering to that part of the community" (which, as I take it, consists of CoD and BF players who mistakenly got into the wrong game - because usual PvP gamers just play the PvP for 10 years and don't talk BS) involves butchering and dumbing down the game then what about the (actually bigger) part of the community that wants to see the game more feature rich and have interesting missions with complex gameplay not just score frags?

Writing stupid stuff like cut out AI / do small maps is very very egotistical.

What if people constantly cried "disable the ability to join the opposing team"?

And I said all those things? Yes, we want some catering. No, we are not all CoD and BF players. No, you do not have to butcher the game to provide a more robust system for scripting and handling lag. No, PVP is not all about frags. Moving away from AI to drive arma2's realism is not a bad thing. Nobody said scrap the AI. All I recommend is that people stop dreaming for the perfect AI because it will never happen.

You can take your hypocritical personal attacks and bigotry else where, thats not what i'm arguing about.

[metalcraze 290]

Clearly you haven't played OFP.

If you compare OFP and AA2 - the AI in AA2 took a big leap since then. Not mentioning that AI in AA2 is vastly superior to every single shooter available on the market.

Saying that it still needs a lot of improvements.

Add to that that AI in AA2 is also much more competent and knows about teamwork more than 95% of players on public PvP servers and I don't see why BIS shouldn't focus on it anymore.

If you want PvP focused games there are a lot of PvP games on the market. There's even Dragon Rising that IIRC is what PvP players here want. I mean you get a big map and a movement is much more arcadey

ArmA focuses on many things that's why it still sells and has the monopoly on the side of the market that isn't about Battlefield and clones.

I mean I don't have a problem installing ACE mod to cater to my realism junkie needs. With PvP-oriented Project Reality being around the corner I don't see what's your problem really.

If ArmA will shift the balance it has now it will only hurt the game.

Edited July 3, 2011 by metalcraze

[tacticalnuggets 24]

Clearly you haven't played OFP.

If you compare OFP and AA2 - the AI in AA2 took a big leap since then. Not mentioning that AI in AA2 is vastly superior to every single shooter available on the market.

Saying that it still needs a lot of improvements.

Add to that that AI in AA2 is also much more competent and knows about teamwork more than 95% of players on public PvP servers and I don't see why BIS shouldn't focus on it anymore.

If you want PvP focused games there are a lot of PvP games on the market. There's even Dragon Rising that IIRC is what PvP players here want. I mean you get a big map and a movement is much more arcadey

ArmA focuses on many things that's why it still sells and has the monopoly on the side of the market that isn't about Battlefield and clones.

I mean I don't have a problem installing ACE mod to cater to my realism junkie needs. With PvP-oriented Project Reality being around the corner I don't see what's your problem really.

If ArmA will shift the balance it has now it will only hurt the game.

I have played ofp, and the AI have more pre-programmed capabilities, but basically have the same intelligence. The only other type of pre-programmed capabilities that we could give them are better road management, and building management. Otherwise they are still robots who lack any creativity a normal human has.

EDIT:

I want you to really think about this... What has BIS done that has catered towards PVP? Please tell me, because the only thing close is RTS warfare. Otherwise lobbies and JIP problems all point towards coop focus. TVT is really fun, but the game does not posses enough organizational capabilities for a casual player to participate in such events, thus you are forced to join realism groups and TG. No offense to them, as they are necessary.

Edited July 3, 2011 by tacticalnuggets

[no use for a name 0]

The coop and AI focus is still disappointing. To make AI behave like humans is an unreachable dream. Its borderline insane to think they can make combat realistic and unpredictable with robotic AI. The AI literally are robots, they behave to world stimulation using pre-programmed states. They are walking state machines. Other games, although far more unrealistic compared to the arma games, are light years ahead of BIS in this department and have multiplayer communities that thrive in human vs human. Its time to let go of coop as the main driving force of the game because it is too weak and predictable. It requires missions to continually be in development to keep uniqueness in the human experience, and that is far too inefficient compared to other dumbed down games.

Yeah, let go of two of some of the best features this game offers just because you don't use it...

effing brilliant!!

[Przemek_kondor 13]

And AI is the one of the best features?

Maybe it's most advanced AI in today games, but still it's stupid. Even if you run best scripts to manage their behavior they are weak or unnatural.

[Maio 293]

Something mentioned in the interview that's rather conflicting with previous videos and discussions. Ivan said the engine is being built on DX11 with DX10 backwards compatibility.

Previously he and other devs were saying they were building it on DX10 and were only considering DX11 as a possibility. Was there a change from E3 that made them move straight to DX11? Or is it just a misunderstanding?

Their goal was DX 11 , DX 10 was only a stepping stone, so to speak . One of the devs said it in a post .

[zukov 490]

I have played ofp, and the AI have more pre-programmed capabilities, but basically have the same intelligence. The only other type of pre-programmed capabilities that we could give them are better road management, and building management. Otherwise they are still robots who lack any creativity a normal human has.

EDIT:

I want you to really think about this... What has BIS done that has catered towards PVP? Please tell me, because the only thing close is RTS warfare. Otherwise lobbies and JIP problems all point towards coop focus. TVT is really fun, but the game does not posses enough organizational capabilities for a casual player to participate in such events, thus you are forced to join realism groups and TG. No offense to them, as they are necessary.

+50 tactical

but don't worry

main focus AI + Lemnos 400 km2 + dx10 and 11 + physx = NO MP competitive

the max that you will do is a holiday in Greece with some bots