Development Blog & Reveals

[HorbeySpector 164]

I will let these catastrophically bad news slide if we get the Alpha TODAY! :mad:

That seems like a reasonable deal to me. :D

Anyway, I prefer ArmA 3 through Steam over no ArmA 3 at all this year.

[Ezcoo 47]

So Steam or no Steam, I guess by definition you have issues with playing online games in general, right? Such a shitty internet connection affects any type of online play, with or without Steam? :) Sorry to hear your internet issues. It's annoying, especially when 99% of the world assumes everyone has high speed internet. But like I said, it's probably impossible for you to play anything online without getting disconnects or mayor lag.

Thanks for the sympathy :) I can play fine in MP in every game that I've tried (+2500 hours Arma in MP), I had some issues before though but managed to fix them by tweaking my router settings. Steam is so far the only service that has been really problematic, I keep loosing connection all the time.

[Guess Who 10]

A few weeks ago I was unable to install the Army of Czech republic DLC because my key could not be verified due to a technical issue at the cd-key master server (I bought it especially for a joint operation that evening, so in fact I was forced to use the Lite version :( ). Sent an e-mail to the Sprocket support and one (or two?) days later they fixed the issue with the cd-key masterserver (or at least the cd-key verification system, whatever it was). I believe all the other DLC's have to be "activated" as well during install when you enter the serial. I had to do this a few weeks ago when reinstalling Arma, the ACR DLC caused issues, so maybe it is only required for ACR. I'm not so sure that I'm totally wrong :) But I don't think I'm fully right either :P

If you bought the digital version this may be right. For retail versions, at least the german version, you never needed any online activation.

Is BIS is planning to release a non Steam version later on BIS store once everything is clear ?

Seems not.

We had the steam discussion and the shitstorm thing as well as a vote over at the egesoft forums when they announced the decision to go steam exclusive. There were way more votes than around here but the outcome was still 2 to 1 against. In the end that made not a bit of a difference. So in that sense BI has finally arrived at mainstream level.

[NeMeSiS 11]

Seems not.

Which i dont really understand.. :(

[valnwt 11]

Could people who don't like these news please say something more than "this sux, i leave now", why is this so bad?

[alex6511 1]

Just curious, those who have problems with steam when was the last time you actually used it? While this may not be true for all, a lot of the issues you guys are bringing up are old issues and have been vastly improved over time. Please give it another chance before you spout your steam hate. I used to have problems with steam, but every single one has been fixed in either a patch, or by steam support within a day of me putting In a ticket.

Again, this is not true for all, but if you have a steady internet connection you will probably have 0 problems on steam. If you do not have a static internet connection, then you may notice that there has been major improvements to the offline mode.

Sorry about spelling, written from my tablet.

[paecmaker 23]

About steam, I have no real problems with steam. Almost all pc games today that are not EA or Ubisoft(that got origin and Uplay) are via steam so no big change there.

The only problem I have is that Im forced to download patches even when I dont want to(bad internet connection) which means I cant play the game for several hours while that downloads. And judging from Armas past Im sure there will be a number of patches soon after release.

However all in all I have no problem with this, steam is a good platform and Ive had no real problems with it.

[Guess Who 10]

Could people who don't like these news please say something more than "this sux, i leave now", why is this so bad?

No need to, cause all that has been said over and over and over again. Here and elsewhere ...

[metalcraze 290]

I'd be more than happy to fix it, but I can't. There is only one (1) connection available here, it's from the worst ISP in the country, and can offer only 0,9 / 0,1 Mbit/s connection that is very unstable and is suffering from multiple issues, like high packetloss.

I'd understand it if the minority of people that had as bad connection as I do would be the only ones that suffered from connection issues, but like I said, according to my observations it's up to 40 %! And I haven't still haven't found or got response, why would the connection to Steam be needed when you're in game. Why to have such stupid thing making the game unplayable for many people if there is absolutely no benefit from it?

The problem with Steam is that it's not your connection that is the problem. It's that Steam servers not being able to handle the load.

Especially during the european evening servers tend to go down. And one may say "duhh well ok they do that for 5-10 seconds it's almost unnoticeable!"

And hey that's true if you are just sitting in a steam chat or playing a game online that doesn't have steamworks for multiplayer. And yeah it's not as annoying in some deathmatch shooter where you can just reconnect almost immediately.

But when playing some strategy game like DoW2 Retrib where you obviously can't just continue once you are out it's uber annoying. Like especially during sales (which happen more often and often now) you are playing, you are winning and then suddenly steamworks goes like "hey waidaminute you lost connection to steam servers you are a filthy pirate now!" and you are kicked out of the game. And you watch that grey icon saying you are offline and yet your internet connection is fine, you can even access steam store and buy games there. And then the connection is back. Too late.

Imagine that happening when you are playing some no-respawn ArmA mission for 3 hours and then Steam says "goodbye".

[Maio 293]

We had the steam discussion and the shitstorm thing as well as a vote over at the egesoft forums when they announced the decision to go steam exclusive. There were way more votes than around here but the outcome was still 2 to 1 against. In the end that made not a bit of a difference. So in that sense BI has finally arrived at mainstream level.

You mean at make a decision that would benefit the studio and new/old players in the long-run level ?

[PsychoPigeon 10]

Imagine that happening when you are playing some no-respawn ArmA mission for 3 hours and then Steam says "goodbye".

It just doesn't happen. Just because on the off chance it could happen therefore = bad. You people are idiots.

[Guess Who 10]

You mean at make a decision that would benefit the studio and new/old players in the long-run level ?

Well, it may benefit new players. I'm not to sure about old ones. I consider myself one of those and it sure as hell doesn't benefit me.

[alex6511 1]

The problem with Steam is that it's not your connection that is the problem. It's that Steam servers not being able to handle the load.

Especially during the european evening servers tend to go down. And one may say "duhh well ok they do that for 5-10 seconds it's almost unnoticeable!"

And hey that's true if you are just sitting in a steam chat or playing a game online that doesn't have steamworks for multiplayer. And yeah it's not as annoying in some deathmatch shooter where you can just reconnect almost immediately.

But when playing some strategy game like DoW2 Retrib where you obviously can't just continue once you are out it's uber annoying. Like especially during sales (which happen more often and often now) you are playing, you are winning and then suddenly steamworks goes like "hey waidaminute you lost connection to steam servers you are a filthy pirate now!" and you are kicked out of the game. And you watch that grey icon saying you are offline and yet your internet connection is fine, you can even access steam store and buy games there. And then the connection is back. Too late.

Imagine that happening when you are playing some no-respawn ArmA mission for 3 hours and then Steam says "goodbye".

I have never been disconnected from a game I was in when the steam servers crash, even on games like tf2 which are made by valve. It simply removes your ability to gather items until, your connection is restored, and it means you cannot find a new server.

[Alwarren 2767]

(Alpha would have been better)

My point exactly. I was a bit disappointed, although it was to be expected after RiE already made yesterday's statements on Twitter more relative. I would have expected something more than this, especially since it contains the dreaded announcement of an announcement ("As we stand on the verge of revealing our plans for Arma 3"). I didn't really expect the Alpha today, but at the very least some words on it, or more substantial information on the state of development.

For me, the Steam exclusivity isn't a big deal, so I can live with that, but the lack of anything else is a disappointment for me. For those that hate Steam (whether justified or no is not relevant, they do have their reasons to hate it), this must have been a major disappointment, and a really bitter pill to swallow (or should I say, Bitter Chill? Yeah I played Harvest Red)

I was hoping that all the hints and whispers recently would lead to a big bang reveal today, but it wasn't really more than a bit of a puff.

*sigh* back to the waiting game. I shouldn't read twitter feeds.

[rautapalli 10]

The problem with Steam is that it's not your connection that is the problem. It's that Steam servers not being able to handle the load.

Especially during the european evening servers tend to go down. And one may say "duhh well ok they do that for 5-10 seconds it's almost unnoticeable!"

And hey that's true if you are just sitting in a steam chat or playing a game online that doesn't have steamworks for multiplayer. And yeah it's not as annoying in some deathmatch shooter where you can just reconnect almost immediately.

But when playing some strategy game like DoW2 Retrib where you obviously can't just continue once you are out it's uber annoying. Like especially during sales (which happen more often and often now) you are playing, you are winning and then suddenly steamworks goes like "hey waidaminute you lost connection to steam servers you are a filthy pirate now!" and you are kicked out of the game. And you watch that grey icon saying you are offline and yet your internet connection is fine, you can even access steam store and buy games there. And then the connection is back. Too late.

Imagine that happening when you are playing some no-respawn ArmA mission for 3 hours and then Steam says "goodbye".

Everyone spewing this crap has no clue what they are talking about :). Steam going down would not kick you out from servers since they will still be the same dedi servers we have today. That only applies to games that use Steamworks for P2P multiplayer.

No need to, cause all that has been said over and over and over again. Here and elsewhere ...

Yeah, the upsides have been said over and over again here and elsewhere too. The upsides overpower the downsides by such a huge number that it is irrelevant :)

Edited February 21, 2013 by Rautapalli

[Sniperwolf572 758]

Which i dont really understand.. :(

It's simple, they have started using Steam as more than just a content delivery platform, they plan to integrate some of it's features into their application. That means that a non-steam version would have to be a separate version that would have to be supported specifically, which is a bit what they are doing at the moment (not exactly as all versions are fully featured, but close enough as they describe in the blog).

But it doesn't even boil down to that, it's apparent that they plan to use Steam in a more complete manner.

For example here are a couple of potential major bonuses over how things currently work, so it's not all grim news:

- Beta patches being released via Steams opt-in system. This means that it's not necessary to manually download the patch from their site and install it. Opt into the beta branch and you're up to date on betas at all time. If you want to go back to stable, you change a dropdown field and you're set.

- Older versions can still be supported through the opt-in system. The current stable version of a game is 1.37, and to downpatch to 1.35 would traditionally mean uninstalling, installing and then patching up to your required version. With Steam, this can be made possible through the opt-in system as described above. Change a dropdown to say 1.35 and Steam downgrades your game to 1.35. While this is not the intended use of the opt-in system (mostly for beta builds), I've seen multiple developers do this.

EDIT:

To illustrate how easy it is.

Edited February 21, 2013 by Sniperwolf572

[Praelium 0]

About steam, I have no real problems with steam. Almost all pc games today that are not EA or Ubisoft(that got origin and Uplay) are via steam so no big change there.

The only problem I have is that Im forced to download patches even when I dont want to(bad internet connection) which means I cant play the game for several hours while that downloads. And judging from Armas past Im sure there will be a number of patches soon after release.

However all in all I have no problem with this, steam is a good platform and Ive had no real problems with it.

Actually, if I recall correctly, the user has been able to disable automatic patches for quite a while. I'm not sure how the process works then, though. Maybe you would be notified that a patch is available and then asked for permission to download it, which you can do at night or while you're away because Steam is fully automatic. This is an improvement over normal patches that sometimes require the user to click "Next", manually restart the computer, or insert the DVD before continuing.

[stupidwhitekid75 11]

I guess my biggest question is sort of a weird one...does anyone know if its possible to run ArmA games in windowed mode, and change the size of said window, through Steam?

I have tried with several games including Iron Front Liberation with little to no luck in being able to do so. Either windowed mode is unsupported or Steam pre-defines a size for the window and typically it is way too small to be very usable, plus it is locked at a corner of the screen and you can't move it around. Window mode is really nice for ArmA games because you can very easily have editing information from the net side by side with the window (much more useful than alt-tabbing imo), not only that but I've noticed decent performance gains giving me the chance of setting higher level graphics when running the game in windowed mode.

I am really not the happiest about the choice to use Steam...I think I read in the blog that without it ArmA 3 would not be able to be released this year and I can't help but wanting to say that I WOULD BE OKAY WITH THAT! I would rather have everything working just the way I'd like than make questionable choices to speed up the release. I guess that as long as windowed mode is supported in the same way it has been with ArmA 1 and 2+OA then I will live and probably get used to it.

[slatts 1978]

As we stand on the verge of revealing our plans for Arma 3, there is one big topic we'd like to get out there first

@Alex and Alwarren ;)

[jibemorel 10]

this must have been a major disappointment, and a really bitter pill to swallow

You would see my face right now you would understand that your sentence is an understatement. Twenty five year of PC gaming to see this happening. Oh God please help me.

[[frl]myke 14]

May i remind everyone to watch your language? Infractions were already handed out and i remind everyone to maybe wait a few minutes to calm down before posting. Else this thread will be locked.

Thank you.

[Alwarren 2767]

@Alex and Alwarren ;)

All I am saying is I wish they had released the stuff on the same day. I don't think there is any more coming today, so yeah, even if it comes out tomorrow,it's still announcing an announcement.

Don't get me wrong. I love BIS, I love ARMA 3, that's why this is an issue for me.

[alex6511 1]

@Alex and Alwarren ;)

I'm sorry but how does this have anything to do with what I said? Am I missing something? I read the release, just like i hope everyone else has.

[instagoat 133]

The butthurt over this is unbelievable.

Steam exclusive doesn´t mean you can only buy it on steam. It means that you will need Steam to install the game. It will be available in stores, on disc, from sprocket (providing a steam instead of sprocket key. At least I would expect this.), and you weren´t allowed to share the game previously before if you bought it on disc. Read the sales agreements, with the disc you are only granted a license to your install, you may not share or publically display the game.

Technically, reselling the game or sharing it is against the contract of purchase. So, technically, nothing changes.

[blashyrk 1]

Someone made a remark that BIS becoming a "more mainstream" developer.

I hope that doesn't mean that there will be rechargeable health in Arma's next installment.