What is the future of this franchise?

[kot1k 13]

Srsly, guiz, just can't understand what are you talking about. In russian sector of internet we have at least 2 mass pvp servers, which opened on fridays and saturdays for more than 300 players (ACE mod, no respawn, carefull planning of every mission), and a couple of "classical" pvp servers which are opened 24/7 with domination/evolution and repawn. There is also Rolling thunder and dyslexi's community events, not to mention numerous clan pvp and friendly coop games. You want to play nonstop for days with random people - then choose Battlefield franchise.

[tacticalnuggets 24]

They will hand development over to the forum mods, and they will lock all the "pointless" content.

[St. Jimmy 272]

This really might be the future if those kids will buy Arma 3 also.

[Flash Thunder 10]

Teh future is teh cloud.

[On_Sabbatical 11]

Maybe DayZ brought some joy to BIS studios and helped to fix many things on the game,but for me as Warfare player,i have seen everyone going towards this mod and leaving warfare servers behind which screwed completely fun for me ... this is the bad part about this mod,it stole fun from a huge part of community and gave it to newcomers :)

[Tonci87 163]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?f&v=skxbvza-fsw#!

this really might be the future if those kids will buy arma 3 also.

lool?!

[tacticalnuggets 24]

Honestly, the problem with dayz is it has no end game and it shows when people just rage off for a week. The high player count is the only thing that keeps the damn game going and hackers are in WAY too high numbers right now. There needs to be some kind of tvt aspect naturally built in, like collecting weapons and gear for your team to respawn once you get it and then eventually defeating the other persons base, so zombies are still relevant most of the game.

[PuFu 4600]

again, what does dayz have to do with this particular francise, especially since it's going standalone? There's a zombie trend going on for a few years now, i feel BI monetizing it is a good business call. Those are not mutually exclusive

[max power 21]

You can voice your opinion of DayZ on the DayZ forums, please.

[tacticalnuggets 24]

You can voice your opinion of DayZ on the DayZ forums, please.

Dayz was originally a mod for the ARMA series. Oh? And still is.

[PuFu 4600]

Dayz was originally a mod for the ARMA series. Oh? And still is.

with focus on the was part indeed. in case you missed it, this is a3 forum

[Kamov 1]

I hope ArmA 4 turns out like BF3 or something. Would be cool!

[HorbeySpector 164]

I hope ArmA 4 turns out like BF3 or something. Would be cool!

Euhh, you must be trolling..? : /

[tacticalnuggets 24]

with focus on the was part indeed. in case you missed it, this is a3 forum

There is nothing impossible about re-integration with A3 in order to create a "dayz wars" kind of scenario. Too much focus on "proper threads and forum subsections" is redundant in the long run of this franchise.

[[frl]myke 14]

@tacticalnuggets

For the last time: this is the ArmA 3 forums. No DayZ talk allowed in here. Clear enough?

[Alwarren 2767]

I am quite sure most coop players will upgrade to ARMA III once it is out, so at least on that front I don't really see much of an issue. Coop is rarely jump-in-and-play style, so it will continue to be mostly for clans.

PvP I guess will depend on the handling of Arma 3. I know from a few people that usually play games like CoD or Battlefield that they got scared away from ARMA because of the handling. I am not a proponent of CoD style rollerskating, but some annoyances of the ARMA controls could be vastly improved, and with the recent success on Steam of the ARMA franchise (for whatever reason, even if it was for a certain mod), the series has seen some new interest from people outside the community.

I do think ARMA III has a good chance of seeing some new players in the future. Most people that I talk to get tired of CoD in its 100th incarnation. It's unfortunate that A3 was delayed so much, it could have benefited from the momentum that the DayZ influx of players had brought in (note to mods: I hope that reference is allowed), also because it looks so gorgeous, and most of what people complain about is the handling of player characters and the rather, should we say, unintuitive user interface.

[lightspeed_aust 681]

Most people that I talk to get tired of CoD in its 100th incarnation.

I'd agree with this - Arma interest fanbase is growth by slow burn.

A lot of young players like the twitchy run n gun games and I must say I enjoy them too at times to play with my son for a bit of fun. But he is way twitchier then this 40 year old and kicks my ass most of the time.

But over time, like me after I got sick of playing MP for the 1000th game, I found something new in the slower pace of COOP with no respawns. Life ingame suddenly had meaning, errors had dire consequences (wait 30-40 minutes for the mission you f*ed up in to end and watch the rest carry on with out you before you get another opportunity in the next mission).

They will come slowly over time and once they arrive they will never leave because they will finally understand what realistic FPS means.

[metalcraze 290]

Most people that I talk to get tired of CoD in its 100th incarnation.

Ever growing CoD sales say otherwise

[instagoat 133]

Ever growing CoD sales say otherwise

New people. More and more people are getting into gaming, ever younger crowds in greater numbers too. I would say that about half, maybe even more, people at gamescom for example were under 18.

And the problem right now is that there are not really standards for what makes or doesn´t make a good computer game. I can have endless discussions with my friends about what makes a good one, and come to no conclusion. With movies, it´s easier, but if you look at the history of the moving picture, it took almost 60 years for the motion picture to define its genres and degrees of quality and artistry. Games right now are way too tightly wound up in trying to be movies and not games, while on the indie side games are often either too artsy or too gamey (if there can be such a thing). It is a very young entertainment genre, and it´s still developing.

Right now, we´re in the golden hollywood age where people buy everything that looks great, goes with the Zeitgeist and has a lot of explosions in it, apparently. Sooner or later everybody will have seen and played this, and then we´ll start to see some change as people get bored and either move off to do other things, or start to go into more fringe type of games.

Of course, the technology is still imperfect too. The average insect has more brainpower than an individual soldier in Arma. And most computers still can´t keep up with the complexity of the AI, especially with lots of Units and AI mods running. Ditto for pretty much every other complex calculation the game has to do.

I think Arma is here to stay, because it simply tries to be a game, not a movie, offers diverse challenges, can be expanded at will and is malleable to the point where you can fashion completely new games from it as you please. Nevermind the possibillities the mission editor offers as far as replayabillity goes. It´s a gold concept, it just needs to be made tasty enough for people to actually try and stick with it.

[shuaijan 1]

New people. More and more people are getting into gaming, ever younger crowds in greater numbers too. I would say that about half, maybe even more, people at gamescom for example were under 18.

And the problem right now is that there are not really standards for what makes or doesn´t make a good computer game. I can have endless discussions with my friends about what makes a good one, and come to no conclusion. With movies, it´s easier, but if you look at the history of the moving picture, it took almost 60 years for the motion picture to define its genres and degrees of quality and artistry. Games right now are way too tightly wound up in trying to be movies and not games, while on the indie side games are often either too artsy or too gamey (if there can be such a thing). It is a very young entertainment genre, and it´s still developing.

Right now, we´re in the golden hollywood age where people buy everything that looks great, goes with the Zeitgeist and has a lot of explosions in it, apparently. Sooner or later everybody will have seen and played this, and then we´ll start to see some change as people get bored and either move off to do other things, or start to go into more fringe type of games.

Of course, the technology is still imperfect too. The average insect has more brainpower than an individual soldier in Arma. And most computers still can´t keep up with the complexity of the AI, especially with lots of Units and AI mods running. Ditto for pretty much every other complex calculation the game has to do.

I think Arma is here to stay, because it simply tries to be a game, not a movie, offers diverse challenges, can be expanded at will and is malleable to the point where you can fashion completely new games from it as you please. Nevermind the possibillities the mission editor offers as far as replayabillity goes. It´s a gold concept, it just needs to be made tasty enough for people to actually try and stick with it.

I completely agree with that, times will change, good games (like Arma) will prevail.

[chrisb 196]

Bright, is the answer I would have for the thread question, well I certainly hope so..

[Alwarren 2767]

Ever growing CoD sales say otherwise

That's also crowd dynamics. "All my friends buy CODBLOPS2, so I buy it too since I want to play with them". And as InstaGoat said, the number of actual gamers is growing.

Also, CODBLOPS is a console game as well, and they can't play ARMA ;)

[NoRailgunner 0]

Some see a hopless end, while others see an endless hope... Guess it would have been tenfold better with a little bit more competition in this milgaming market/area.

[lightspeed_aust 681]

Again I say slow burn. Ppl who play cods get bored of the game over time.

[chortles 263]

PvP I guess will depend on the handling of Arma 3. I know from a few people that usually play games like CoD or Battlefield that they got scared away from ARMA because of the handling. I am not a proponent of CoD style rollerskating, but some annoyances of the ARMA controls could be vastly improved, and with the recent success on Steam of the ARMA franchise (for whatever reason, even if it was for a certain mod), the series has seen some new interest from people outside the community.

I do think ARMA III has a good chance of seeing some new players in the future. Most people that I talk to get tired of CoD in its 100th incarnation. It's unfortunate that A3 was delayed so much, it could have benefited from the momentum that the DayZ influx of players had brought in (note to mods: I hope that reference is allowed), also because it looks so gorgeous, and most of what people complain about is the handling of player characters and the rather, should we say, unintuitive user interface.

The bit about "tired of CoD in its 100th incarnation" is absolutely sound; as someone who followed BF3 marketing, that BF3 didn't set itself apart as much from COD as ARMA would does not invalidate the fact that there was a real discontent with CoD and BF3 was marketed to fill that discontent... and frankly, I'm not sure that there were a lot of people whose first intended post-CoD alternative was Arma, because if they were getting into CoD for its own sake before growing discontented, then they probably weren't looking for milsim anyway.

Heck, the fact that ARMA will always have a popularity ceiling because of the emphasis on milsim -- and no, that's not the fault of non-fans -- is not a good excuse to allow annoyances of ARMA to fester and remain, much less to fall in love with them or develop a blind spot to them... unfortunately, that popularity ceiling is almost certainly why there isn't competitive pressure to "push" Arma to be better. :( Thankfully, changes to user controls and interface are appearing to have been made, even if only in hopes of scoring money from people who think that a certain spin-off will end up getting a RV4 port... c'mon BI, tease that eventual port (think VBS2 2.0) you know you want suckers' money... it's not cheating if you're not outright lying! :D

But over time, like me after I got sick of playing MP for the 1000th game, I found something new in the slower pace of COOP with no respawns. Life ingame suddenly had meaning, errors had dire consequences (wait 30-40 minutes for the mission you f*ed up in to end and watch the rest carry on with out you before you get another opportunity in the next mission).

Whereas this gets the exact opposite reaction out of me -- "30-40 minute cooldown? I'm off to play something else!"

MAG had my preferred "middle" path: it had battlefield revives but actual respawns were tied to an ongoing timer, so that well-timed kills or squad wipes could make a noticeable strategic difference.

I think Arma is here to stay, because it simply tries to be a game, not a movie, offers diverse challenges, can be expanded at will and is malleable to the point where you can fashion completely new games from it as you please. Nevermind the possibillities the mission editor offers as far as replayabillity goes. It´s a gold concept, it just needs to be made tasty enough for people to actually try and stick with it.

Unfortunately "being made tasty enough" is historically Arma's worst suit, and one might even call it a case of "riding on the concept's coattails". :p Thankfully the BI of 2012 has done an on-the-surface wonderful job of changing the direction thereof, hopefully the community alpha reveals that that change is under-the-hood as well.

That's also crowd dynamics. "All my friends buy CODBLOPS2, so I buy it too since I want to play with them". And as InstaGoat said, the number of actual gamers is growing.

The thing is, this is a perfectly valid reason for them to pick COD, and frankly I even use crowd dynamics when people ask me what console to get -- "if you're interested in playing online, then get whatever the friends that you want to play with have (or will have)".