Arma 3 Community Alpha - Announcement!

[LcGBrice 1]

Hello Bohemia Interactive, following the release of alpha version of arma 3, I present my community "Companions Gamers" we will follow you from the very first armed and we would help you in developing it, we will test the alpha in the slightest details and we will notify you about any inconsistencies or default so you can improve the final version.

The whole Companions Gamers community joins me in wishing you good luck in preparing this game probably will be the best year in 2013 and thank you for all the work you do for us because the whole community Arma is impatient.

cordially.

LcG community

I'm sorry for my bad english, I am French

[Psychomorph 1]

As said in the videos, you will be allowed to 'pre-order' the game (as they have done with Carrier Command). This will then allow you in to the Community Alpha. No pay = no alpha.

Thanks for the clarification. Where's the official BIS statement that you get the Alpha when pre-ordering in form of a text or post? And this video, where can I see it?

Edit: Ok, I see it now. http://forums.bistudio.com/showthread.php?138868-Community-Alpha-Requires-you-to-pre-order

Why can't people read a bit of the thread or use the damn search button.

ESPECIALLY if you have been on the forums since 2006... come on!

I don't have 3,598 posts. Also I read the first post including the links, nothing tells about pre-order, or is somewhere on page 16?

Edited August 17, 2012 by Psychomorph

[royaltyinexile 175]

Thanks for the clarification. Where's the official BIS statement that you get the Alpha when pre-ordering?

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

Edited August 17, 2012 by RoyaltyinExile

[Mack0438 1]

Nice! Looking forward to preorder the game.

I watched every video on gamestar.de about the game and I am really excited about it.

Greetings

[dukeuk76 10]

Man o man i am looking forward to the alpha. Definitively going to pre-order!!

[Yett 10]

Quick question. Can we pre-order on Steam and get the Alpha? Because I will only pre-order it / buy it from steam. I won't buy it direct.

[Angle 10]

Quick question. Can we pre-order on Steam and get the Alpha? Because I will only pre-order it / buy it from steam. I won't buy it direct.

I really hope not.

And thats just me being cynical about the ability to form critical thoughts by people that say "I only buy from Steam".

Its not nuclear endoscopy to buy from somewhere that is not Steam.

[SASrecon 0]

Quick question. Can we pre-order on Steam and get the Alpha? Because I will only pre-order it / buy it from steam. I won't buy it direct.

What's wrong with Sprocket?

[Yett 10]

What's wrong with Sprocket?

Im sure sprocket is amazing. Yet steam is what I use for pretty much all my games etc, I would rather keep to one game launcher / downloader then 2 different ones. If it is available on steam I will defiantly order it from there. It would be stupid not to :)

[dmarkwick 261]

Im sure sprocket is amazing. Yet steam is what I use for pretty much all my games etc, I would rather keep to one game launcher / downloader then 2 different ones. If it is available on steam I will defiantly order it from there. It would be stupid not to :)

There is no launcher/downloader from Sprocket. Only game :)

[Undeceived 392]

There is no launcher/downloader from Sprocket. Only game :)

Well, there is something like a downloader but it's not obligatory and I never use it - I go for the direct link. :D

[Yett 10]

There is no launcher/downloader from Sprocket. Only game :)

Sounds good! :) However I would still prefer to keep everything on Steam. I have £800 of Steam Games and I like to keep everything centralized. Anyway im sure sprocket is great but I don't want an argument of what is better im sure sprocket is better I just want to know if I will get the alpha through steam pre-order! :)

[Undeceived 392]

Sounds good! :) However I would still prefer to keep everything on Steam. I have £800 of Steam Games and I like to keep everything centralized. Anyway im sure sprocket is great but I don't want an argument of what is better im sure sprocket is better I just want to know if I will get the alpha through steam pre-order! :)

I understand your point of view - apart from Steam I also don't like to install other launchers like Origin or something like that. :D

The reason why people recommend Sprocket here (not sure if you knew it) is because a buy from there directly supports BIS.

And it's good because (as mentioned) you become only the game file and can install it as it was from a DVD.

About the Alpha through Steam... No idea if they release it there.

[Yett 10]

I understand your point of view - apart from Steam I also don't like to install other launchers like Origin or something like that. :D

The reason why people recommend Sprocket here (not sure if you knew it) is because a buy from there directly supports BIS.

And it's good because (as mentioned) you become only the game file and can install it as it was from a DVD.

About the Alpha through Steam... No idea if they release it there.

Steam takes 15% I believe from the developers. So raise the prise of Arma 3 on Steam by 15% to cover the cost of Steam. I would be happy to pay the extra 15% to support Valve and then Bohemia gets the same amount of money as if I bought it from Sprocket. :)

[kylania 567]

Sounds good! :) However I would still prefer to keep everything on Steam. I have £800 of Steam Games and I like to keep everything centralized. Anyway im sure sprocket is great but I don't want an argument of what is better im sure sprocket is better I just want to know if I will get the alpha through steam pre-order! :)

Be aware that every patch for Steam has been delayed by some amount of time, sometimes days. Also due to where Steam keeps it's files using mods is not always an easy experience. Even with launchers it can get confusing or difficult. Also if your Steam is installed in the default Program Files location you'll sometimes run into permissions problems. Then there's always the chance that Steam's network, or yours, will go down and suddenly you can't play at all. (Sure there's the offline mode, but do you run in that 24/7?)

Steam is great for some games, but not something that you need to interact with as much as ArmA. I've bought BIS games on Steam, DVD and directly from Sprocket and by far the best method has been from Sprocket. Instant patches, serial keys and download links always available on the website, effortless standalone install.

[SASrecon 0]

Sounds good! :) However I would still prefer to keep everything on Steam. I have £800 of Steam Games

I don't want to derail this thread too far off-topic but that's a silly reason, what if one day the whole of steam goes down, you'll have lost all your games simply because you didn't want to open your mind a bit, I think it's possible to still use steam in-game interface with most games by simply adding them to the steam library, that's basically the same as owning the game on steam...

Steam takes 15% I believe from the developers. So raise the prise of Arma 3 on Steam by 15% to cover the cost of Steam. I would be happy to pay the extra 15% to support Valve and then Bohemia gets the same amount of money as if I bought it from Sprocket. :)

Oh and fyi the price would be 117.6% the sprocket price in that case not 115% (sorry for being a grumpy bastard I'm just ocd like that). [/OT]

From BIS' perspective, they would want an 'as clean' release as possible, no point releasing something where the bugs are already known, releasing something for example on sprocket would give them more control whereas steam would introduce more errors which are beyond their control, obviously they would have to sort out steam-compatibility etc. before the official release but I for one sure do hope there isn't the option to pre-order on steam as it has always been with Arma.

[musicrab 10]

Re. steam. Its sad that what basically is a purchase+delivery mechanism can affect some peoples buying habits. If Yett's idea of instructing Valve to charge X% more than BIS/sprocket is easy to implement (bet it isn't) then that's a good idea.

---------- Post added at 04:38 PM ---------- Previous post was at 04:31 PM ----------

Oh and fyi the price would be 117.6% the sprocket price in that case not 115% (sorry for being a grumpy bastard I'm just ocd like that). [/OT]

I got my calculator out too :-) (100*100 / (100-15)) if you're asking.

[Sniperwolf572 758]

There's a Steam thread in offtopic section if you want to discuss it, let's keep this ontopic.

[jhoson14 10]

I want physical copy as my ArmA2 and OA.

[kremator 1064]

Steam takes 15% I believe from the developers.

At least Dick Turpin had the decency to wear a mask !

[Mr Butlertron 10]

At least Dick Turpin had the decency to wear a mask !

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.

[grandstack 1]

Be aware that every patch for Steam has been delayed by some amount of time, sometimes days. Also due to where Steam keeps it's files using mods is not always an easy experience. Even with launchers it can get confusing or difficult. Also if your Steam is installed in the default Program Files location you'll sometimes run into permissions problems. Then there's always the chance that Steam's network, or yours, will go down and suddenly you can't play at all. (Sure there's the offline mode, but do you run in that 24/7?)

Steam is great for some games, but not something that you need to interact with as much as ArmA. I've bought BIS games on Steam, DVD and directly from Sprocket and by far the best method has been from Sprocket. Instant patches, serial keys and download links always available on the website, effortless standalone install.

Going a bit off topic here but you're pulling this shit right out of your ass.

[MavericK96 0]

Yeah, I've never had any major issues with ArmA 2 and Steam.

I'll buy ACR on Steam because I have CO + DLCs on there already. But I wouldn't feel too bad about getting ArmA 3 via Sprocket. In some ways I would prefer Steam, but being that ArmA 3 isn't a Steamworks title, it's not a big deal.

[Sniperwolf572 758]

Once again, if Steam ever becomes relevant to the ArmA3 Community Alpha, you will have my permission to discuss it here. Until then you can discuss and rant about it in the Steam thread in the Offtopic section. If you keep on at it, I'll start banning people from this thread.

Edited August 17, 2012 by Sniperwolf572

[BobbyArmalike 1]

Great great great....my pleasant anticipation isn't measurable...geniální!!! http://forums.bistudio.com/oldsmileys/yay.gif