Development Blog & Reveals

[metalcraze 290]

No. Just paying attention to an ArmA3 video showcasing Altis' biggest "town" Myrina from an airplane.

Don't trust me? Ask PCG

"Myrina, its largest city, is easily two or two and a half times the area of Chernogorsk (Arma 2’s largest city)"

Which is nothing like a city or "massive city" let alone 60 sq. km

Edited August 2, 2013 by metalcraze

[doln 10]

Altis has only small villages.

When in reality you shouldn't be able to even sprint at A3 speed in the former case to begin with and should be able to sprint for a lot lot longer in the latter.

And even then what difference does it make? In both cases you will continue to jog at the same speed, in both cases you will not suffer any fatigue effects apart from no sprint.

OK I may be wrong here. Perhaps I'm confusing this part with BF2 then where you definitely can't sprint forever

Go load yourself up as much as you can then try your darndest to sprint as hard as you can for about 20 metres. It's doable, it's just very tiring. And when you sprint while loaded up in Arma 3 it does certainly adversely effect your breathing and aim

---------- Post added at 17:12 ---------- Previous post was at 17:10 ----------

No arma game has had big cities. Chernogorsk wasn't very big and half of it was a factory. Armas gameplay doesn't really lend itself to big cities, its just 'cool'. And I know the video you're talking about, it doesn't really do Myrina justice. Go watch dslyecxi's latest video on the arma 3 youtube channel, he flies over (what I'm pretty sure is) Myrina for a few seconds, and it looks far more polished and dense than Chernogorsk. Or any arma city for that matter

Bohemia cut the railgun tank which I was quite looking forward to, but I'm not bleating for a refund over it. I'm very, very happy with Arma 3 as it is and will be upon release. You guys are making a mountain out of a molehill.

[Azzur33 1]

ArmA3 is a huge leap back compared. Or rather leap into another direction catering to an arcade shooter player first and foremost. If ArmA2 had some features that could've been called remotely realistic, ArmA3 has none.

Now you lost me again. Arma 2 (with OA) had some "remotely realistic" features that Arma 3 doesn't have?

What do you mean? There is a lot of new features in Arma 3.

What features do make it more arcade?

Being a realist is not defending BIS for misleading promises, lack of communication and releasing a game with a chunk of stuff missing that may or may not be added after release.

Misleading promises ...Let me think. They promised a campaign, which I personally don't care that much, at the release I guess. Delay was a bit of a surprise, but I do understand why the hard decision was made.

Many of the "promises" were made at very early stage, and many were more like "hopes". And there were reasons why some of the features had to go, or be delayed. They just didn't work at all, or not well enough, during development. Lets just not forget all those promises that were fulfilled.

If you accuse BI for a lack of communication, I wonder what you would think about the majority of game developers who do not communicate at all during developement.

And some patience is a good idea. The Campaign will come, the game developement Will continue after the release day. There Will be DLC's.

If not, you are entitled to be angry as hell, and I will join the bashers. I believe I don't have to, though.

That's enough of that and this subject. I'm off and have some beer and fun.

And wait for all the cool things to come.

Edited August 2, 2013 by Azzur33

[metalcraze 290]

Go load yourself up as much as you can then try your darndest to sprint as hard as you can for about 20 metres. It's doable, it's just very tiring. And when you sprint while loaded up in Arma 3 it does certainly adversely effect your breathing and aim

Except sprinting with 100 kgs (how is it even possible to walk normally with that?) and sprinting with 0 kg gives you exactly the same fatigue effects

Fatigue effects which do not affect the gameplay in any negative way. Breathing? Worse aim? Go prone or hit hold breath and negative effects are completely gone.

[elpresidente 1]

Altis has only small villages.

Since I don't have a detailed map of Altis I can't confirm or deny that. I guess we have to wait until release.

But in Pre-E3 livestream #2 they gave us an short glimpse (>2 secs) on an area that looked like it had massive cities + I remember reading in a PCGAMER magazin preview on ArmA 3 last September that the biggest city is about 2.5 bigger then Cherno (not quite sure, I'll try to find it)

Edit: You found it. But I still would say, that an city 2.5 times the size of Cherno is a "massive city" for a game.

In both cases you will continue to jog at the same speed, in both cases you will not suffer any fatigue effects apart from no sprint.

And apart from blurriness (which you can turn off) and incrased weapon sway. But I agree with you, that someone with heavier loadout sould jog slower overall.

OK I may be wrong here. Perhaps I'm confusing this part with BF2 then where you definitely can't sprint forever

It is BF2.

Edited August 2, 2013 by ElPresidente

[doln 10]

Except sprinting with 100 kgs (how is it even possible to walk normally with that?) and sprinting with 0 kg gives you exactly the same fatigue effects

Fatigue effects which do not affect the gameplay in any negative way. Breathing? Worse aim? Go prone or hit hold breath and negative effects are completely gone.

Yes because that's how it works in real life. Get a stick (or a real gun if you have one available to you), work up a sweat, a good, hard breathing one, then go prone and take aim. It will be relatively steady. Or, while standing with no fatigue, take aim. Then work up a sweat then, while standing, hold your breath. It will be more or less the same amount of sway/steadiness. You can't hold your breath forever in Arma 3 so it's fine.

And bohemia is overhauling the inventory system so that is a moot point

Edit: Because I am an overweight neckbeard with no life (lets just get those out of the way) I found some posts of yours relating to Arma 3 on another forum

Breaking news.

ArmA3 will not have campaign on release and possibly will not feature any tanks and planes too.

According to the developer the campaign is planned to be added "some time after release" (CCGM didn't get its MP patch 10 months after release and the promise was the same)

If this isn't a disaster of a game I don't know what is.

Yes none of the above is a joke.

It's genuinely ArmA: Colonial Marines level of fuck up

Once more for emphasis

If this isn't a disaster of a game I don't know what is.

It's genuinely ArmA: Colonial Marines level of fuck up

You're beyond help. If you genuinely hate the game (which is quite clearly the case), why complain about a minor delay in the campaign? If they had released the campaign now, it would have been of a lower quality, and you would complain about how the campaign was a buggy mess and how Arma 3 is the worst game ever made.

possibly will not feature any tanks and planes too.

This is simply not true.

Arma 3 is an excellent game with a few relatively minor issues (which is pretty standard in the arma series) and I feel sorry for you being unable to see that

One more for "I'm probably going to get banned for this post"

After DayZ success the original team moved on to make DayZ SA and the new team that was mostly last year modder hires came in their place and scrapped everything. And instead focused on catering to the lowest common denominator.

DayZ is being developed by about 4 people if I remember correctly. You really have a lot of misconceptions about a lot of things

Edited August 2, 2013 by Doln

[bullet purveyor 85]

...Why didn't they just cut the campaign in half (or even less!), and polish the first half to the max. Then, when you arrive at the last mission, you show a popup that the rest of the story will come shortly. I guess people will understand, download some community missions, and forget about the campaign completely. Problem solved!...

No point releasing half a campaign if the AI changes over the last months have rendered it unplayable.

[metalcraze 290]

Now you lost me again. Arma 2 (with OA) had some "remotely realistic" features that Arma 3 doesn't have?

What do you mean? There is a lot of new features in Arma 3.

What features do make it more arcade?

No weapon weight (you turn around just as fast with a .50 cal am sr as with a pistol). No inertia (you can instantly do 180 degree turns while sprinting thus dodging bullets). No blinding sun. One man army loadouts (when and if it will be fixed I will retract my point). Instaheal medkits. Instaheal medics. Ability to shoot while being healed by a medic (making it look like he just casts a spell lol). No bleeding out. No incapacitated state. Ability to sprint up and down even the steepest hill slopes. PvP balancing of weapons and vehicles making them mirror each other.

Granted some of the above needed improvement but instead they are simply gone.

[doln 10]

No weapon weight (you turn around just as fast with a .50 cal am sr as with a pistol). No inertia (you can instantly do 180 degree turns while sprinting thus dodging bullets). No blinding sun. One man army loadouts (when and if it will be fixed I will retract my point). Instaheal medkits. Instaheal medics. Ability to shoot while being healed by a medic (making it look like he just casts a spell lol). No bleeding out. No incapacitated state. Ability to sprint up and down even the steepest hill slopes. PvP balancing of weapons and vehicles making them mirror each other.

Granted some of the above needed improvement but instead they are simply gone.

Ability to sprint up and down even the steepest hill slopes.

This is simply not true. Are you high? Go into arma and sprint up a hill, you get forced into a walk (or a slow jog, its 3am I can't remember exactly. But you certainly can't sprint up steep slopes) Edit: I tested, you can sprint up some quite steep slopes but your stamina gets drained very very quickly, you can't sprint for more than a few seconds. I don't see a problem with this myself. The super steep slops though you either get pushed off or forced into a walk

No weapon weight (you turn around just as fast with a .50 cal am sr as with a pistol). No inertia (you can instantly do 180 degree turns while sprinting thus dodging bullets).

These are both attempts at removing the clunkiness which has plagued the arma series for almost a decade and in the grand scheme of a firefight have little to no effect on gameplay. And not only that, heavy weapons don't effect your turning as much as you'd think.

One man army loadouts

What exactly do you mean by this. Can carry a rocket launcher and a rifle at the same time? Absolutely nothing wrong with that. And while I think carrying an MG and a rocket launcher at the same time is silly, the machineguns in the game are very light in real life. And before you go 'you can carry a million rockets its dumb', you can only really do that when you drop eeeeeverything else in your inventory other than your rifle and a few mags.

Instaheal medkits. Instaheal medics.

Simply not true

Ability to shoot while being healed by a medic (making it look like he just casts a spell lol).

Would you rather you instantly had no choice over what was happening to your character without warning? This was obnoxious in arma 2 and again is part of the attempt to remove the clunkiness, something arma has sorely needed for a long time

No bleeding out. No incapacitated state.

Agree with this but there are squillions of mods that add this

PvP balancing of weapons and vehicles making them mirror each other.

This is only partially true and the devs are working on changing it (and have admitted this), for example the recent katiba tweaks

Edited August 2, 2013 by Doln

[Smurf 12]

Don't start it again here...

[BigBoss 10]

Get a room, you two ;)

[L3TUC3 32]

Can't say I'm pleased with the news about the delayed campaign. I figured that BIS would make this release the best one yet, but then again they do have a track record of rather sub-prime "final" builds.

[Seitan 8]

Failure. BIS :nono:

Why not just keep game in beta until the campaing is done. Or is it going to take like a year before it's done?

There's news about great campaing from like year 2011 and now this sad news. Big dissapointment.

[unknown03 2]

Considering I have already logged 94 hours into Arma 3, I would say that I have got my monies worth. However, no "campaign" at full release is disappointing.

In fact, as far as I know no actual release date has been confirmed for the full game, so announcing no campaign was completely unnecessary in the first place - unless it would take you into 2014.

[Masharra 10]

Considering I have already logged 94 hours into Arma 3, I would say that I have got my monies worth. However, no "campaign" at full release is disappointing.

In fact, as far as I know no actual release date has been confirmed for the full game, so announcing no campaign was completely unnecessary in the first place - unless it would take you into 2014.

Quarter three if they keep their "deadline". So July to September.

That being said I liked "D''s video. Def a good intro to Arma 3 heli flying.

Edited August 2, 2013 by Masharra

[irishviking 10]

This will probably anger some people, but I don't care, as long as Altis isn't delayed.

[nodunit 397]

No weapon weight (you turn around just as fast with a .50 cal am sr as with a pistol). No inertia (you can instantly do 180 degree turns while sprinting thus dodging bullets). No blinding sun. One man army loadouts (when and if it will be fixed I will retract my point). Instaheal medkits. Instaheal medics. Ability to shoot while being healed by a medic (making it look like he just casts a spell lol). No bleeding out. No incapacitated state. Ability to sprint up and down even the steepest hill slopes. PvP balancing of weapons and vehicles making them mirror each other.

Granted some of the above needed improvement but instead they are simply gone.

The sun Arma 2 was over the top super nova though, true that in early stages arma 3 had no blinding sun but in recent dev builds it has become more glaring pending time of day.

I won't disagree with the overall handling..it does strike me as very odd that we saw vehicles many months before even alpha release yet only then did they start playing with them amongst other things.

[metalcraze 290]

The sun in ArmA1/2 was as such to represent the fact that you can't directly look at it. Right now the sun is harmless.

The whole tactical layer is gone from the game because of this.

[chortles 263]

I find those more problematic than the Campaign. And I would be disappointed if BI would provide the standing issues with "solutions" in the forms of rollbacks. The focus on the AI and the attention it is getting is fantastic, unfortunately there are more things that need to be solved, so getting the leading brainpower away from the campaign and into solving other, long standing issues is more pressing. Especially now that time is becoming a precious commodity.

Everyone calling for a release delay should look at this post, particularly the last line. Time's preciousness only increases when you've already got two strikes (in American baseball terms)...

[doln 10]

The entire tactical layer?

So flanking, taking cover, concealment, supressive fire etc are all made moot because the sun isn't a spotlight, righto.

If you're squinting your eyes and aren't looking directly at it the sun isn't really an issue in real life. I don't think I ever used the sun to any major advantage in Arma 2.

[Ulysses 10]

Well this is pretty disappointing news, I must admit I'm not sure why they can't delay though - what time pressures are they under (other than egg on the face more missing a release date).

[Masharra 10]

If you're squinting your eyes and aren't looking directly at it the sun isn't really an issue in real life. I don't think I ever used the sun to any major advantage in Arma 2.

You should have stopped at "the entire tactical layer" as I would have been inclined to agree with that issue unfortunately you kept going and screwed the advantage you had.

You missed out a MASSIVE tactical boon by not having implemented the sun and other weather related effects into your mission planning stages.

[chortles 263]

Well this is pretty disappointing news, I must admit I'm not sure why they can't delay though - what time pressures are they under (other than egg on the face more missing a release date).

That's a pretty big reason as-is when you consider that the whole Steamworks implementation was tied to that months before now.

[rundll.exe 12]

Sorry to reply off-topic, but:

If you're squinting your eyes and aren't looking directly at it the sun isn't really an issue in real life. I don't think I ever used the sun to any major advantage in Arma 2.

Then you're doing it wrong. While leading a coop in a day mission, you plan your approach with the sun in your back whenever possible. I even had to discard a otherwise perfectly fine plan, because of the low sun in our eyes.

It's a true shame that these features get removed because half of the players don't know it's supposed to be like that...

[bad benson 1733]

Well this is pretty disappointing news, I must admit I'm not sure why they can't delay though - what time pressures are they under (other than egg on the face more missing a release date).

exactly my thoughts.

i have to admit, as much as it hurts me to say, that i lost all faith in BI. this is like a kick in the nuts. what on earth is going on over there? no one in charge? no clear goals? why raise expectations and make a new game, if everything that is needed seems to be missing (a plan and resources)?

why the late realisation that the AI needs work after all those years of people pointing out the flaws and the fact that it is always the same? and now suddenly in beta you start working on it and now the campaign can't be in the actual full game release because it will probably be broken with the "new" AI.

wow! just wow. i rally hate to go into rant mode but even the people at BI themselves must know how out of line this is.

i'm starting to feel like i'm wasting my time modding for this game...really glad i was skeptical and bought early. knowing what i know now i'd never pay full price for this.

EDIT: to me the campaign was the ultimate excuse that other stuff can't be done. but now this excuse is gone. and the switch from "sim" to "sandbox" makes a whole lotta sense now...