Development Blog & Reveals

[Wiki 1558]

I've been a SP player rather than MP player (although I played MP with my teams), and I was disappointed in BIS Campaigns since ArmA 2.

I only liked the very first mission of Harvest Red (infiltrate the village and destroy the com stuff), then it just went fucked up (warfare in SP: seriously???).

Even OA + DLC campaigns were not outstanding (not to mention ACR which was catastrophic).

That's why I went into editing and made some SP missions and campaigns - just like I wanted.

Hopefully, many people liked them.

To me, the best campaigns in ArmA 2 are: 100 days by RCMW, Cobalt and Blood on the sand by Zipper5 and Operationnal Detachement Delta and SEAL Team DEVGRU by Sick1 (and of course CWR).

All I want is the same campaign quality (and length) as the CWC one (or like those I mentionned above).

Another thing is axed features or things made by the community that SHOULD and MUST be integrated to vanilla version of the game (like fastrooe, shooting from the side of the MH-X, etc...)

If modders CAN do it, why BIS doesnt work on if and integrate them into the game???

---------- Post added at 01:03 AM ---------- Previous post was at 01:00 AM ----------

Last thing to say about the campaign:

Please, make us play each role like in CWC (grunt, SF, pilot etc...) and please dont make a campaign in which the player is always the leader (or is the leader from mission 3 to the end).

[metalcraze 290]

people love underwater and physX but no one wants to trade stuff for it, that the game needs more.

I don't think anybody really cares about underwater. Gameplay-wise it's not well done. And everyone has exactly the same underwater gun and SDV.

PhysX itself is poorly implemented with a ton of potential for it wasted since cars have no gearboxes, surfaces make no difference (it's road or no road). Glass just falls down through the ground and disappears. Ragdoll looks like something from 10 years ago. And all that potential for wind that you can have with it. Possibly even hardware calculation of ballistics saving CPU power

[comp_uter15776 1]

Problem is, optimization is rather taboo. I mean, what is optimization? You ask 100 people and if you asked for specifics, they'd probably all return different ideas. That's because people still have ideas of what needs to be fixed, but class them as general gameplay enhancement or improvements... An example would be this threading/core use... sure, it comes under optimization, but so does stuff like animation fluidity (which imo we're not even seeing; I find it takes absolutely ages to get up with your gun pointing towards the enemy after being on the ground), so it's quite a broad aspect and as a result you can't exactly comment on optimization in general. It is continuous.

A friend of mine who is new to ArmA (owns A2 and A3 though), has remarked that even on a GT630 he gets about 20fps on ArmA 3 but for the same settings on ArmA 2, it's 10 or less.

[Tyl3r99 41]

i wouldnt ever bother guys... its not going to get us anywhere to be honest...

BI wont redeem thereselves for this..

---------- Post added at 00:42 ---------- Previous post was at 00:38 ----------

it will be interesting to see what this blog says next week....or will they delay that aswell? most likely.

there better be some sort of redemption

[bad benson 1733]

i wouldnt ever bother guys... its not going to get us anywhere to be honest...

BI wont redeem thereselves for this..

you make me sad :(

but i gave up too. i had a high threshold. wasn't enough.

[Alwarren 2767]

Great news, delighted

Even for apologists this is a bit over the top. "Great news" because a feature is not ready to be included in the final? Come on, at best this news is "meh", "bad" at worst. This will not add any new features, it will just delay one that should have been in the final release from the beginning.

[nodunit 397]

It's not all doom and gloom but without a doubt there are some dark days ahead for the developers, this is going to be a straw that breaks some of the camels backs...steel yourselves because you may not like what you read..a fanatical community can turn from adoring to rabid in a dime, yet they will not devour you as ferociously as the public.

That said..I do wonder what the reason is...surely it cannot be AI, if that were the case then why weren't AI worked on first and foremost? It wouldn't make ANY sense.

Edited August 3, 2013 by NodUnit

[zooloo75 834]

I hope another developer makes something like ArmA but with an engine that can handle it and a team that can actually code in features. Apparently that is something we will never see with BIS.

[Tyl3r99 41]

haha sorry mr benson, but who knows lets just wait for that blog next week :)

you make me sad :(

but i gave up too. i had a high threshold. wasn't enough.

[chortles 263]

Another thing is axed features or things made by the community that SHOULD and MUST be integrated to vanilla version of the game (like fastrooe, shooting from the side of the MH-X, etc...)

If modders CAN do it, why BIS doesnt work on if and integrate them into the game???

Wow, you completely missed the "discussion of axed features" thread, didn't you?

TL;DR: "those were de-prioritized -- you say 'MUST', the powers that be here disagree -- and the modders' workarounds are not solutions that we can use".

This will not add any new features, it will just delay one that should have been in the final release from the beginning.

I don't recall "any new features" ever being claimed from the article, PurePassion's take on it or DnA's message as reasons for the campaign's delay.

That said..I do wonder what the reason is...surely it cannot be AI, if that were the case then why weren't AI worked on first and foremost? It wouldn't make ANY sense.

Why can't it be AI? As you said, "if that were the case then why weren't AI worked on first and foremost?"

I'm going to say that based on what I've since learned about BI and the AI... it may well be that it took them this long to get as far as they did. :eek:

[boredgunner 1]

No campaign on release? WTF???!!!

It doesn't really affect me, but it's puzzling. After all these delays, more content has been removed than what has been added. How does that work?

- No campaign

- No armory

- No more disguise system

- No 3D editor

So it will have less content than ArmA 2? Okay, they added some stances and a stance modifier, improved the zeroing system, streamlined UI for the editor, improved optimization slightly. Small improvements and additions. AI still sucks. Come on... lol.

[minimalaco 30]

You gotta love these apologists. They've learned about ArmA3 only a few months ago from reading a bunch of articles about Wasteland and now they teach us about how half the game is missing is not an issue.

This says a lot really about how terrible the campaign will be even if it's released some day. If the developer is so incompetent to even finish the game in 3 years after cutting out a lot of stuff that would otherwise need polishing (and thus logically saving time) - the developer is incompetent to deliver a quality campaign too.

What happened to you Bohemia? I'm serious. How did you go from a studio that developed complex shooters not only for reflexes but for the brain to being exact opposite of that?

unfortunately, that's the word "incompetent"...

[TFM_Callas 1]

The over-reaction on this page is reaching ridiculous.

[Tyl3r99 41]

The over-reaction on this page is reaching ridiculous.

how long have you played the arma series venom?

if you have played it since OFP you will understand

[chortles 263]

... because OFP was a fluke? :lol:

[giorgygr 61]

I hope another developer makes something like ArmA but with an engine that can handle it and a team that can actually code in features. Apparently that is something we will never see with BIS.

While i m not a programmer..i still think common sense applies..

The engine is homemade by BI.

You can tweak an engine to do whatever you want.(*even mimic biological organisms in some point)

Sorry but..i cannot understand the word "restrictions"

The word you looking for i m afraid is: "by choice"

Maybe if ArmA would have a price of 100/200e ..then i think the guys would have dedicate an even larger team

but most of us got ArmA3 really cheap..

*I would have gladly support BI buying a more expensive version-but these are really harsh times for me

Edited August 3, 2013 by GiorgyGR

[zooloo75 834]

While i m not a programmer..i still think common sense applies..

The engine is homemade by BI.

You can tweak an engine to do whatever you want.(*even mimic biological organisms in some point)

Sorry but..i cannot understand the word "restrictions"

The word you looking for i m afraid is: "by choice"

Maybe if ArmA would have a price of 100/200e ..then i think the guys would have dedicate an even larger team

but most of us got ArmA3 really cheap..

*I would have gladly support BI buying a more expensive version-but these are really harsh times for me

What are you rambling about? The engine hardly utilizes our hardware. No matter how much hardware advances, this engine will only use a small portion of it.

[froggyluv 2135]

The over-reaction on this page is reaching ridiculous.

how long have you played the arma series venom?

if you have played it since OFP you will understand

I'm inclined to agree with Venom. The level of vitriol without even hearing BIS out is more on the verge of Dev bashing than voicing concern or disappointment. The fact is there is no other Development team with a wonder engine working on anything remotely like this genre -for a reason. It's an over ambitious, beautiful mess. But at least they try to knock out patches daily with both bug fixes as well as actually implementing ideas straight from the community right into the game -sometimes within days. Who else does that? You guys are so disappointed here with the $30 Alpha - ever try VBS2? Not to trash it as it's finally decent with the lastest patch but you would have had an absolute uproar paying that kind of money for some jaw-dropping bugs and just terrible AI. You won't see any Dev responses to complaints there and generally people don't complain despite the 10x price tag of Arma3 because there is an air of GTFO if you don't like it.

A little perspective please....

[chortles 263]

More like "GTFO if you're not a mil/LE/organizational customer" amirite...

Seriously though, this long passed the threshold of dev bashing maybe twenty pages ago. And yeah, as you said: "The fact is there is no other Development team with a wonder engine working on anything remotely like this genre -for a reason. It's an over ambitious, beautiful mess."

Then again, somehow I believe that Arma and "hilarious overambitiousness that would never be tolerated at another dev studio because of the sheer amount of rolling back and retractions that would inevitably result" go hand in hand...

[bad benson 1733]

It's an over ambitious, beautiful mess. But at least they try to knock out patches daily with both bug fixes as well as actually implementing ideas straight from the community right into the game -sometimes within days.

this isn't about those arma characteristics you describe. it's about what has changed since the first installment. i'm the last guy to just bash them and i agree that the campaign isn't even the point here. it just shows how badly organized/focused they seem to be. i honestly don't even care that much about the campaign but for me it was the only reason left to justify why there's more cutting than adding. let's be honest, physX and underwater haven't really changed much since alpha. hardly anything has.

you are also kinda sugar coating things. what are these community made features that got added? the stance indicator? are we supposed to celebrate that when everybody knows that mods are brought up mostly when it comes to anims and AI and other more important things than a little HUD element?

sure you could say these are overreactions but then you have to accept being guilty of an under-reaction caused by over-romanticizing.:p

[doln 10]

how long have you played the arma series venom?

if you have played it since OFP you will understand

I've played since OFP and I'm completely indifferent to this whole fiasco

boredgunner

- No campaign

- No armory

- No more disguise system

- No 3D editor

- But there will be a campaign, it's just going to be delayed a bit

- I'm 99% sure there will be an armoury, the ARMEX sign is in the game files, and it was a very popular mission in Arma 2, I can almost guarantee it will be in Arma 3

- Wearing another factions uniform is against the Geneva convention, which is why they took it out.

- I agree, I was really looking forward to this, but it's relatively minor. The editor is still pretty good

[Masharra 10]

I am sorta amused by the term dev bashing here biforums really. Looks at say cryptics forums when they screw up, looks at pretty much any ea game forum, and this is dev bashing?

Actually dev bashing I think is against the rules. I would urge people instead of ignoring it to report it. If you believe we are that bad maybe we need a break then.

Then again, somehow I believe that Arma and "hilarious overambitiousness that would never be tolerated at another dev studio because of the sheer amount of rolling back and retractions that would inevitably result" go hand in hand...

What is really amusing is other games do less than this and get slaughtered without a second thought. Also this not a slaughter. This is not a slaughter in any way shape or form.

Edited August 3, 2013 by Masharra

[progamer 14]

"So BIS removes all these feature and people tell them to delay things to add these feature and fix things. Then when they delay something everybody looses there minds!"

Did Arma 2 have an expansion pack and years of polish while we are still in beta? They said they would continue dev branch updates everyday like they did before after release. I doubt BIS expected even half the stuff on the feedback tracker before it was made, there are the major ones they would know, but hundreds they never though people wanted.

[Sneakers O'Toole 2]

I dont understand the mindset at BI.

They make supermassive humungous maps with huge draw distances that make AAA titles look like tiny specks, yet they try and squeeze it through a 32 bit single-core proc scheduling engine. They have beautifully textured and modelled vehicles and weapons, yet the near distance textures look like cat puke. and so on...

They have done some some sublime things with A3, but you can't go 5 mins without running face to face with some utterly pathetic aspects of it which are frankly inexcusable for a 2013 game, issues that date back through many years and iterations of the engine: It's kind of like having smoked salmon and dog snot on the same plate!

I don't know how A3 will turn out in the long run, but I hope for A4 someone at BI gets realistic and pragmatic and clearly defines for themselsves what they fully capable of delivering, then they need to deliver it. If they haven't got the resources, or they are unable to make a true multi-core 64bit engine that is as polished as the compettion then they need to make a smaller game.

[Poochie 10]

Hi all! The information about the campaign in this article is confirmed, but not complete. We had hoped to openly discuss this with you via a blog next week, so you would not have to rely on a secondary source. Please wait for our blog in which we explain our motivation and more details about these plans.

The only thing I will say now: there will be a campaign for Arma 3 soon after initial release, and it will be FREE for everyone who has the game.

Oh wow, you mean to say the thing we paid for will eventually be delivered to us? What a fucking steal! I think i'll inform everyone I know about what a killer offer this!

What is this, kickstarter? Arma3 will only be "released" when we actually get what was advertised initially, a single-player campaign along with everything else. From this post it appears you're going to ship half a game and pass it off as "released' when it in fact isn't. So why not just cut the crap and extend the beta until the game is actually done. Hell, since we're getting only half the game when it's "released" why not just give us Altis now? And frankly, boasting that not having to pay for the thing we initially put money down for is just laughable from a veteran developer. I would expect something like the first set of DLC to be free for all alpha/beta participants.

I've been playing BI games for over a decade and it's become clear that they don't seem to think much of their player base. Shame on me for falling for their snake oil yet again.