Arma 3 Community Alpha - Announcement!

[NeuroFunker 11]

The Community Alpha is intended to be a public build of Arma 3, offering a limited subset of content and features, with the fundamental goal of improving Arma 3's full retail launch. - I think everyone should make a sig of it, so people wont spread rumors, like you will have to pre order arma 3, to get hands on arma 3 alpha...

[kylania 568]

so people wont spread rumors, like you will have to pre order arma 3, to get hands on arma 3 alpha...

Considering that it was BIS's lead developer that said that, you can understand our confusion. :)

[maddogx 13]

Considering that it was BIS's lead developer that said that, you can understand our confusion. :)

Didn't Lord Ivan say that? I think he's creative director, not lead developer.

In any case, he's probably not the one who's calling the shots in that regard.

[Psychomorph 1]

Considering that it was BIS's lead developer that said that, you can understand our confusion. :)

That might have been the plan then, but it seems they are in the process to change and adjust things. In short they probably don't know yet how things will be eventually.

The specifics of 1. Content 2. Schedule and 3. Availability are yet to presented clearly and concisely. :) The details in the first post are bits of information about which we're confident. Rogue details spawning from Gamescom are possible options and best guesses. :cool:

We've wanted to avoid committing to a plan without full confidence in the details. There was, confirmed at E3, an unfortunate delay, which pushed our plans to offer a public build back quite significantly. In the weeks directly preceding Gamescom, however, we've been able to make some decisions that bring us closer to that point.

I'm happy that - on a week to week basis - new people are still finding out about the Alpha, and I'm delighted to see players getting interested in being a part of our work to improve the stability of our game on launch, which remains the fundamental goal.

We really do want to present the details as clearly as possible and as quickly as we can. Until then, I'll take a broom to the first post and clean it up a little.

Best,

RiE

Thanks for the heads up.

[kylania 568]

Didn't Lord Ivan say that? I think he's creative director, not lead developer.

In any case, he's probably not the one who's calling the shots in that regard.

Nah, it was Gaia. But RiE's been in here saying they are still figuring out how the alpha will work and updated the first post here about that. So we'll see. Gonna pre-order anyway as soon as we can!

[purepassion 22]

I think everyone should make a sig of it, so people wont spread rumors, like you will have to pre order arma 3, to get hands on arma 3 alpha...

It is actually different ;)

Everyone can access the Community Alpha, report bugs, give feedback and become a part of said community by pre-ordering Arma 3. It will offer a scale of content comparable to the Gamescom presentation but new features and assets may be added further down the line to enter this kind of testing as well. Its main focus is gathering feedback, not only from the core community, testing performance on a wide variety of hardware and to see if prototype concepts work out.

All in all, it should be quite similar to the system from Carrier Command.

[Yett 10]

I hate steam bloatware but 15% is an excellent rate, especially as the remaining 85% goes to BIS whereas with hard copies it'd be divvied up between them, the distributor, publisher, etc.

Just so you know EA as developers take 65 - 70% :P

[chortles 263]

Everyone can access the Community Alpha, report bugs, give feedback and become a part of said community by pre-ordering Arma 3.

What matters is "can you access/download/play the community alpha, report bugs and give feedback" WITHOUT preordering ARMA 3...

[Mr. Charles 22]

Damn you BIS for giving me a 4€ coupon, now i have to preorder A3 at sprocket and get the alpha :nono:

[purepassion 22]

What matters is "can you access/download/play the community alpha, report bugs and give feedback" WITHOUT preordering ARMA 3...

The above information from me comes straight from both Lord Ivan and Zipper and even some more guys here. Where did you get it from?

Edited August 18, 2012 by PurePassion

[Mr. Charles 22]

Get what?

[purepassion 22]

hehe sorry mate your post ninja'ed mine ^^ I'll add the correct quote :)

[chortles 263]

The above information from me comes straight from both Lord Ivan and Zipper and even some more guys here. Where did you get it from?

I was concerned with "is it preorder-only"... since that's more likely to only 'the community' participating, instead of the 'people new to ARMA' that it seems BI had been specifically looking for to playtest the changes, your post cleared up nothing about this very pertinent question. Edited August 18, 2012 by Chortles

[manzilla 1]

Whatever the case will be I'm pumped for whatever they give and whenever it comes. I'm just grateful to see that BIS is still at it. I've loved this series since the early days of OFP.

On another front, it's good to see that a lot of you are still around after all these years. This community, man, therein lies the strength of these games. I'll be back once A3 hits for sure. Mission making FTW!(My favorite thing about these games)

<----- Post 5050 mang.

[looter 10]

It is actually different ;)

Everyone can access the Community Alpha, report bugs, give feedback and become a part of said community by pre-ordering Arma 3. It will offer a scale of content comparable to the Gamescom presentation but new features and assets may be added further down the line to enter this kind of testing as well. Its main focus is gathering feedback, not only from the core community, testing performance on a wide variety of hardware and to see if prototype concepts work out.

All in all, it should be quite similar to the system from Carrier Command.

Wait, so now we have to preorder arma 3 from sprocket to get into the community alpha like with Carrier Command?

[kremator 1065]

I really can't see it being a problem pre-ordering to get the alpha. Have done it for Carrier Command, Mechwarrior Online and Guildwars2. Why shouldn't BIS get an early revenue stream from real fans (and get the game tested at the same time)?

Money talks ladies and gentlemen, and I want BIS to TAKE MY MONEY NOW !!!!

[chortles 263]

real fans (and get the game tested at the same time)?

Again with this "real fan" lunacy :rolleyes:

Last I checked, ARMA 3 playtesting was specifically looking for people new to the series (and thus not inclined to pre-order)... the so-called "real fans" may just give commentary that doesn't serve that end or get hung up on their personal pet ideas instead of the more fundamental issues that 'new to ARMA' players would notice.

[Steakslim 1]

Last I checked, ARMA 3 playtesting was specifically looking for people new to the series.

And who said that?

[krazikilla 5]

And who said that?

im NEW!!

[chortles 263]

And who said that?

There was a solicit for focus group(s) for ARMA 3 playtesting that was still up as of the end of July back when I posted about it; the link is down now but at the time it cited "a small range of players of differing abilities – non-experienced and expert combat simulator players" which I took to mean 'new people' for the former, plus there's been interest outside of the community in the alpha and whether it'll be openly available or preorder only; I for one am definitely preferring openly available.

[rye1 21]

I wonder what this 'expert combat simulator' looks like....

Add a bandana, fake medals, big mouth and bigger ego and ta-da!

[Steakslim 1]

im NEW!!

Huh?

I was meaning which dev said that the community alpha was "specifically" meant to bring in new players. My understanding was it's purpose was to test and help identify and iron out issues with the available features in each iteration of the alpha supplied to the play testers.

Now personally I would have preferred the alpha to be free access rather than a pre-order requirement, but think of it this way, pre-orders can be cancelled if it bothers some people.

[rye1 21]

im NEW!!

Pfft, we're all new and "non-experienced" in Arma 3.

[Steakslim 1]

There was a solicit for focus group(s) for ARMA 3 playtesting that was still up as of the end of July back when I posted about it; the link is down now but at the time it cited "a small range of players of differing abilities – non-experienced and expert combat simulator players" which I took to mean 'new people' for the former, plus there's been interest outside of the community in the alpha and whether it'll be openly available or preorder only; I for one am definitely preferring openly available.

Ah, understood.

[chortles 263]

I wonder what this 'expert combat simulator' looks like....

<excised for the sake of readers' eyes>

Add a bandana, fake medals, big mouth and bigger ego and ta-da!

Speak up or else the so-called 'expert combat simulator(s)' will preorder so as to be the only one(s) giving feedback and driving ARMA 3 development! :eek: No wonder Celery said "I work on Arma 3 only to troll the community."

Ah, understood.

Attention paid to "how new players would take to ARMA 3" and an open alpha (someone mentioned that Buchta e-mailed him "available to everyone" earlier in this thread) would also be consistent with the creative direction that Jay's implicitly been promoting since E3, but in my view 'no preorder required' would be the best route for achieving this maximum amount of playtesting by non-community. As for why the non-community matters so much that I wish to push in this thread for their inclusion-without-having-to-preorder... Mondkalb explained that.