Development Blog & Reveals

[the.d 0]

I don't know to be honest, I suppose it could be removed just like any other copy protection. Some games on Steam don't require Steam to run.

It was explicitly stated that ArmA3 would need Steam to run, after all it is their DRM. Are there any examples of games on Steam that had a patch release that would "unbind" the game from the Steam platform? That'd be interesting!

I moved my Skyrim installation from the Steam drive to another drive before Steam implemented the secondary Steam libraries. All you have to do is a directoy junction. No big deal, really.

Nice, I didn't know that. I'll look into it, thanks!

Well you can make a backup. Yes, it will require Steam to run.

My OFP/ArmA/ArmA2 backups won't and I'd have loved to include ArmA3 in that "collection".

Then, basically, all that bothers you is that Arma 3 will be using DRM. And please, let's not go into this elitist club stuff again, that attitude is certainly regrettable.

Why does opposing a (permanent) DRM equal elitism? I would like to actually "own" a copy of the game. But even with regular DRM I wouldn't be bothered as much as having to launch the platform every single time. I really dislike it.

I do, of course, understand the decision from an economic point of view. BIS needs money and fast and this is the way to go.

[arkblade 1]

Where does it say you HAVE TO USE STEAM WORKSHOP for mods? If you don't want to use it, go download them from the source and install them as you wish. Steam Workshop is a feature of SteamWorks, it is not a requirement.

Why are there so many people complaining about Steam who have obviously no clue how it even works.

yes, it's a not requirement. if you hate that, you don't use that.

but it's only you.

if some mod author is using only workshop?

so, we need to have very superiority mod handling system in ARMA3.

[celery 8]

This is indeed a sad day for consumer options and rights.

[Smurf 12]

^^ + DLC with no cockpits and with new action Figure Ramirez

And Iran shouldn't be a playable faction from the start.

why so pessimistic, bruh?

The trend right now is to be against wharever is happening, isn't it?

If it is, then I'm not with it so...wait....ahm...

[Maxzy 12]

Well, you finally did it. You killed my favorite game for me. And for all others like me, who have a shitty 20 kB/sec 0.10$ per MB satellite internet. This news sucks ass.

[NeMeSiS 11]

What saddens me is that we had this whole steamworks or not discussion a while ago already and 2/3rds stated that they are against it, but the general conclusion was 'BI would never force something upon us, it would be optional or not in at all'.

I am not mad, just disappointed..

[NeuroFunker 11]

Well, you finally did it. You killed my favorite game for me. And for all others like me, who have a shitty 20 kB/sec 0.10$ per MB satellite internet. This news sucks ass.

and u have not dvd pc store in ur city?

[AlexVestin 24]

Well, you finally did it. You killed my favorite game for me. And for all others like me, who have a shitty 20 kB/sec 0.10$ per MB satellite internet. This news sucks ass.

How was this related to steam?

Your internet will suck ass even if ArmA3 is on a dvd :p

You do not have to download the game through steam. Just validate it.

[jefferspang 2]

LOL... well, the default is that you want your game up-to-date. So for the few times I would like to keep my game NOT up-to-date, I take this. And since you know now how to do it, you don't need to google it anymore.

Come on, you're overdoing it. Just because something offers comfort doesn't mean the users is retarded. I personally like the comfort of a toilet indoors, an outhouse in this kind of weather would be killer :)

Again THAT'S not my point, I think the fact that I found out how to disable auto update from you of all places show how user unfriendly Steam is. If you want Steam, fine I don't care but don't drag the rest of us into what you perceive as the perfect game platform because; and this may surprise you but believe it or not, everyone's opinion differs. What's wrong with what ArmA II's distribution is at the moment where both Steamers and non-Steamers are happy?

Yeah, because comparing manual updating to an outhouse isn't reductio ad absurdum (or "overdoing it" as you say so). :rolleyes:

[noubernou 77]

I have used Steam since pretty much the first month it was available and I have had very few issues with it, none of them that were directly attributable to Steam itself. I think this is a good idea moving forward.

Also, they never stated they wouldn't have a boxed copy available either, its just that it would contain an installation DVD and then you'd auth with Steam and update through Steam. Not a big deal, especially since it will work in offline mode as well.

Basically the people freaking out over this are being entirely reactionary with little actual reasoning behind their freakits.

[Masharra 10]

" It will be possible to run Steam in Offline mode, and still play the game (with the exception of online services obviously, including multiplayer itself)."

Coop. Will I need to be logged into steam for that? Im guessing yes? So I cant play coop with the gf when aT&T decides that we dont need internet for the night?

"Will I be able to buy a boxed copy of Arma 3?

There will be boxed copies in most regions. These may either be Steam Codes in a retail package, or also contain DVD data (speeding up installation). You will still have to run and update through Steam the first time."

BE careful with your boxed purchases! They may not contain a disk! Eitherway "You will still have to run and update through Steam the first time.""

Im presuming that means you wont be able to install and play vanilla if youre like me you will get the disk then go to bed as it downloads its updates, as your friends tease you about your 3rd world internet in a 1st world country.

[BOTA:16 0]

yes, it's a not requirement. if you hate that, you don't use that.

but it's only you.

if some mod author is using only workshop?

so, we need to have very superiority mod handling system in ARMA3.

If a modder only wishes to distribute through the Workshop, then that his/her choice. It's not the players choice on how a mod is distributed now.

[kylania 567]

Well, you finally did it. You killed my favorite game for me. And for all others like me, who have a shitty 20 kB/sec 0.10$ per MB satellite internet. This news sucks ass.

To be fair they said that you'll be able to get a DVD with install on it and a steam code to activate it.

Still depressing news though. Every install, gameplay, upgrade problem I've ever had with ArmA was with Steam. Sprocket downloads have always been great and timely.

[BOTA:16 0]

Again THAT'S not my point, I think the fact that I found out how to disable auto update from you of all places show how user unfriendly Steam is. If you want Steam, fine I don't care but don't drag the rest of us into what you perceive as the perfect game platform because; and this may surprise you but believe it or not, everyone's opinion differs. What's wrong with what ArmA II's distribution is at the moment where both Steamers and non-Steamers are happy?

Yeah, because comparing manual updating to an outhouse isn't reductio ad absurdum (or "overdoing it" as you say so). :rolleyes:

Steam asks you very specifically when you install a game if you want to "keep it up to date". Can't make it much easier than that.

Part of the reasoning of going with Steamworks is to not have multiple version of the game. This is stated very plainly and clearly in the blog post.

[Smurf 12]

Again THAT'S not my point, I think the fact that I found out how to disable auto update from you of all places show how user unfriendly Steam is.

Because mod installing and management in ARMA is and has been much more easy than that.

What's wrong with what ArmA II's distribution is at the moment where both Steamers and non-Steamers are happy?

Devs aren't happy.

_____

Copying all mod folders to a pen-drive or whatever and then pasting it to a A3's Steam folder after it was completly downloaded and updated with one click is too much? Having to be online to play online is such a madness (probably 2 executables now, one for SP and other for MP, like COD\WiC and so on...) ?

[the.d 0]

Again THAT'S not my point, I think the fact that I found out how to disable auto update from you of all places show how user unfriendly Steam is. If you want Steam, fine I don't care but don't drag the rest of us into what you perceive as the perfect game platform because; and this may surprise you but believe it or not, everyone's opinion differs. What's wrong with what ArmA II's distribution is at the moment where both Steamers and non-Steamers are happy?

Yeah, because comparing manual updating to an outhouse isn't reductio ad absurdum (or "overdoing it" as you say so). :rolleyes:

JeffersPang does have a point, Alwarren.

I don't mind a Steam version of ArmA3. I sincerely hope BIS makes millions of it, in fact. Get many new customers, no matter how invaluable they might be for an actual contribution to the game and its community. Please don't turn away the existing community, though. For this reason, I wish they would have a stand-alone version as an alternative, for those who like to have their truly own copy of the game that they can trim and maintain. Manually. When they feel like it. I actually do enjoy keeping my ArmA installation up to date myself - and I think I am not the only one that likes keeping track this way.

[trent 14]

I'm surprised people are focusing on the steam part and not the announcement that the project is so in trouble they had to take stock of what they had done. When was the last time a game with development problems turned out well?

[almanzo 144]

People seem to really have feelings connected to steam, the defence of steam seems to be quite religious from some people.

Myself is a heavy steam user. I have well over 150 titles on STEAM, and I am overall very satisfied with STEAM. however, I do have some concerns that I feel needs to be adressed.

First of all, it worries me that STEAM has become so large. That makes them powerful and influencial. Combine that with said licence agreements, and you might have a problem. Someone mentioned licence agreement deals with retail games. Yes, there are licences, but in most countries they are not legaly binding. If you buy a physical product, said product is bound by the consumer laws in said country. That is not true with digital goods. Steam has taken away alot of my rights as a costumer, namly reselling my games or lending them to friends and family. According to norwegian law, I am allowed to do this with my physical games. A Steam released physical copy makes this impossible, and it would be interesting to try it in a Norwegian court room.

I think people should pay more attention in general towards what happens to our rights as consumers in the digital era. Take Itunes as an example, they delete accounts of people who have died. People who have spent large amounts of money to build up a library of music can't pass it on after they die. I think that is outragious. The war against piracy have done nothing about piracy at all, the only thing it has done, is robb us legal consumers of rights.

But as I said, I own a butt load of games on STEAM. I like steam, due to fast download times, accesabilties and the ability to install games on all of my computers and even play them at the same time in off-line mode. Thats all fine and dandy.

Steam works however, worries me. ARMA is complex, and alot of players use several mods at a time, and at least for me, I use even several mod sets with six updater. The ease of being able to save and launch each preset is brilliant. Is this going to be just as easy with STEAMWORKS? I'd very much like to get an official reply to this, as it's a very important question.

The other main question I have, is simply that I wonder if we are still able to use third party mod distribution and launch tools such as six updater? It's a fucking brilliant system, even though it has some flaws. I'd hate to see it go, since STEAMWORKS doesn't provide such a complex functionality today.

The third thing is what this does with the community. Alot of the mod makers in our community are old timers. It seems alot of the old timers don't like steam. If we lose them, the loss is on us. Imagine no ACE mod for ARMA III. That would mean that alot of the original community would simply stick with ARMA II or dissappair completely. In turn, mayor financial loss for BIS.

The other question I have is regarding connectivity. Will people drop out of multiplayer games if STEAM looses connection? By reading the blog post, I am not reassured.

Then I hate being forced to launch the app, since it actually takes up quite a bit of memory. The steam overlay is also annoying as hell, especially if you forget to logg of the chat. I hate it when people talk to me while I play.

So, to sum it up... Using STEAM as a distribution method might not be such a bad idea. Having it steam only is also OK. What I am most concerned about is steamworks, and how it will affect the community. Like it or not, alot of people will have problems with it. It might impact you as well, even though you are in favor of the change. If people leave, it's not good for the rest of us. Is the core community goes out the door, it's very likely ARMA development might take a turn for the worse.

And I wan't to make it very clear. I am skeptical about steam works. It might work out fine, but It is a very bold move. If this means dumbing down the series, loosing alot of the modding community and giving STEAM more influence over BIS, then I'm out as well. It's been great for as long as it lasted, and that has been over 10 years for me.

[Alwarren 2765]

Why does opposing a (permanent) DRM equal elitism? I would like to actually "own" a copy of the game. But even with regular DRM I wouldn't be bothered as much as having to launch the platform every single time. I really dislike it.

I do, of course, understand the decision from an economic point of view. BIS needs money and fast and this is the way to go.

I was referring to the "it also makes the game more accessible to people with, shall we say, a tendentially shorter attention span".

Don't get me wrong. I dislike DRM as much as anybody else. I was very reluctant to use anything Origin has on offer because I don't trust them. I do use Steam for a long while now (I think since Half-Life 2 came out), and they have earned my trust. I am not excited about the fact that Arma 3 will be Steam exclusive, and I would have preferred a boxed copy like my other BIS games.

However, I do think that a lot of the anti-Steam criticism here is way over the top. It's not an always-on DRM like UPlay, it will not make modding impossible, it will not force you into a permanent internet connection. It's not perfect, but I prefer it over other DRM's, and I actually prefer it over having to keep a DVD in the drive (which would be if Arma 3 was on a disc). I do prefer the auto-update-feature over having to hunt down patches, especially if you have to reinstall. Some of the flaws mentioned are mentioned because of ignorance.

So bottom line, this isn't necessarily the best news ever, but hailing it as the end of the world is really a stretch.

[tonygrunt 10]

Steam needs an option to only inform you that an update exists and let you choose which game updates to install, like every other software does.

Having a 1400+ steam library, when too many game updates are published it might take 15min+ just to show me the steam gui.

When it happens, I have to use task manager to kill and restart steam till I get the gui to pause the updates one by one.

In case of ArmA3 I might have to get it an separate empty account just to have a quick start of steam.

[slatts 1978]

Can I just say...that KH2002 looks fabulous :D

[LordJarhead 1721]

The game's modding in terms of provided infrastructure is not what I am criticizing, is it? My main concerns are the permanent binding of ArmA3 to Steam and the fact that such a move not only drives away some potentially crucial community contributors (as you can see here and elsewhere around the forums), it also makes the game more accessible to people with, shall we say, a tendentially shorter attention span. I find all this regrettable.

Well, when BIS thinks that this step with Steam is a good one, who are we to disagree? Bohemia knows that the most important part of ArmA is modding. Without the mods, ArmA2 wouldn't have made it so far. Is it ACE or DayZ, MODS made the game popular as it now is. The problem is, that mods like DayZ brought a lot of new members to the community, members who played games like COD or Battlefield or other popular, casual FPS games. And yes, those might have a tendency of shorter attention or less patience as they need to have to play a real ArmA mission, but BIS might have seen the big potential in this kind of customer. I mean, this is the paying men right there. And giving them an easy to play shooter on a easy to use platform like steam might bring the needed coin to keep doing what they like to do. The smaller group, people like you and me, who like solid plastic DVD's, or just don't like steam, are not important so much. We payed for A2 and we will (maybe, not all of us) pay for A3 as well, but we are the minority I believe. I don't like being online in steam just to play a game (dont tell me offline status, if I wanna play MP I gotta be online) and I dont like being forced to update my games or I'm not able to play it (not all of us have the fastest Internet connection there is and can handle gig's of updates there will be OF COURSE) or having Steam redownload the whole game because of what ever got messed up (like my Skyrim needed to be redownloaded three time Oo).

And what I can say for now, the overall usage of Steam+ArmA2+Mods=Shit. Might be just me, because I read about errors and issues in my thread concerning steam versions a lot starting by "How to combine ArmA2 and Operation Arrowhead". This makes me wonder, what if ArmA is Steam only and installing mods will get us the real mess? I don't know if I, as the mod-maker I am, want to deal with all those questions each day (because people will ask, no matter what, no matter how many readme files you have or how good they are).

Dont get me wrong folks, if BIS want ArmA 3 to be steam exclusive, they'll have to work on the overall mod support, the functionality and the way how people have to handle mods, but I'm pretty sure that they know what they are doing, since they MUST know, that MODS are one, or maybe even THE most important part of ArmA. So they must work this out, make everything work nice and smooth.

After all, I just think this is one step to deal with the superior strength of casual games like BF3 and COD series. And DayZ showed how they get people to play their game. I mean, how many people just bought Arma to play DayZ? Going this way with Steam makes ArmA less unfamiliar and makes it far more public. That the minority of real hardcore player is maybe leaving or getting pissed, is a trivial problem compared to the income they could make with a more popular, maybe more casual ArmA 3.

And thats DAMN SAD! Well, that MY opinion, don't want to step anyone on his toes...

BIS should make a new dev blog saying that they are optin for health regen, unlock\anchievements based MP, no more MOD support and so on just to mess the whole thing up.

http://files.sharenator.com/TrollDadDanceBlackSS_Which_meme_are_you-s367x530-288564-580.png

Nah, not that, but one of the first DLC's might be a Zombie Survival Campaign :) Plus permanent FaceBook connection so you can share all the good kills and awesome moves you did, like a long chain combo... argh, wait... I mean, AFTER they ported ArmA3 from PS3/4 to PC... perhaps....

LJ

---------- Post added at 09:28 PM ---------- Previous post was at 09:27 PM ----------

steam needs an option to only inform you that an update exists and let you choose which game updates to install, like every other software does.

this!

Edited February 21, 2013 by LordJarhead

[the.d 0]

I was referring to the "it also makes the game more accessible to people with, shall we say, a tendentially shorter attention span".

Don't get me wrong. I dislike DRM as much as anybody else. I was very reluctant to use anything Origin has on offer because I don't trust them. I do use Steam for a long while now (I think since Half-Life 2 came out), and they have earned my trust. I am not excited about the fact that Arma 3 will be Steam exclusive, and I would have preferred a boxed copy like my other BIS games.

However, I do think that a lot of the anti-Steam criticism here is way over the top. It's not an always-on DRM like UPlay, it will not make modding impossible, it will not force you into a permanent internet connection. It's not perfect, but I prefer it over other DRM's, and I actually prefer it over having to keep a DVD in the drive (which would be if Arma 3 was on a disc). I do prefer the auto-update-feature over having to hunt down patches, especially if you have to reinstall. Some of the flaws mentioned are mentioned because of ignorance.

So bottom line, this isn't necessarily the best news ever, but hailing it as the end of the world is really a stretch.

I can only agree on this! I find Steam cumbersome and unnecessary but if it solves BIS (immediate) problems, then there's not much one can do. You won't hear me not bitching, though!

[Ezcoo 47]

I agree completely with aLmAnZo, nice post indeed. :)

Edit: If I understood right, constant connection between Steam and player is not required when you're in game. If that's right, it's fine for me, I can play then. :cool:

[T.S.C.Plage 0]

I do and will boycott Steam so I unfortunately I'll have to boycott ArmA III until you find an other solution to publish it. I'm actually very, very disappointed about this decision. I read the given reasons and only see empty phrases. I thought BIS was diffrent than all the other companies in the business but unfortunately that doesn't seems to be true anymore which partially was already proven with how things got handled in the last years and with some of the last releases. It's sad but you'll lose an loyal customer and fan that has supported you over 10 years now because of such an - excuse me - braindead decision.