Jump to content
Sign in to follow this  
DnA

December 2012 status update

Recommended Posts

@Jerryhopper: I think most if not all of us feel very strong about the jailed dev's false incarceration and speaking for myself I won't care if they told us "Guys, the whole project is on hold until this gets resolved" -whether that be 1 or 5 years. I'd also agree that it would be nice to be 'in the loop' a little with even just occasional tech blogs on physx, ragdoll or really anything. I think that would help keep the community spirit strong as we all know and care deeply about the Greece situation and I really pray this gets resolved like yesterday so they can go home to their families.

If Arma 3 got cancelled I would also completely understand -I think we're all just eager to know one way or the other.

I also feel this way, I think we all just want to know whats up. Questions like is working being done on the game or are you holding it off tell this fiasco is dealt with? and is has dev time been moved primarily to dayz?

Any ways I hope these questions and more get answered at the end of the year.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites
@Sethos there are like 4-6 people working on DayZ

Perhaps they are redoing (again) some aspects of the game even though it is highly unlikely, the game should be in an advanced stage of development.

That many people may be working on DayZ directly, but it's on the ArmA III engine. So without the engine the game dosen't exist thus resources being poured into getting DayZ done.

We've been left in the dark for 6 months Dallas so don't try to defend them. There should have been a real update even if it's just a paragraph on what they're working on.

On a side note: I'm not personally familiar with greek law, but it may not have anything about a speedy trial in it. They're not in America.

Edited by SGTIce

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

I have a feeling that there might be a deal on the table to take a so called island off the game.... Just a guess though...

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Worst case scenario would be that this goes the way of the battle for fallujah game: being completely tanked and blowing up the company. I really hope that´s not the case, though.

Any major changes now would be very troublesome, and all the work put into the things that would need to be scrapped for political pressure would be in vain. Nobody would care about a movie about this being made. New york never complained about being blown up in pretty much every disaster movie ever.

I have a bad feeling about this, but I also hope that it´ll all turn out for the better in the end.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Agree that its business sense to push dayz into standalone, while it still has momentum. Also agree that it’s a good idea not to inflame an already delicate matter concerning Greece.

The comment regards Arma 2 having lots of life left in it still, is also correct imo, in-fact possibly years of life.

Yes it would have been nice to get some word on other aspects of the game, other than the location and storyline, but there you go.:)

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites
That many people may be working on DayZ directly, but it's on the ArmA III engine. So without the engine the game dosen't exist thus resources being poured into getting DayZ done.

Eh? DayZ is not running on the ARMA 3 engine. It's the ARMA 2 engine.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites
Eh? DayZ is not running on the ARMA 3 engine. It's the ARMA 2 engine.

actually it's not ARMA 2/ OA engine either,

it's TOH engine with updates (tidbits) taken from other projects and new features so in the end it become own engine ...

anyway A3 is worked on, these who seen the E3 and GC builds know it's working and playable ...

we aren't keeping you in darkness ... when there are information worth to share then we release them them

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites
we aren't keeping you in darkness ... when there are information worth to share then we release them them

See it from the perspective of a couple of famished fanboys that read a headline on facebook stating a new SITREP on ARMA 3. When I clicked myself to the actual news item (not so easy when you are exited) I was looking for a "read more" link which wasn't there. That was dreadfully disappointing considering the long time we've been waiting for some news. It's not that I wouldn't be able to understand why you don't want to disclose anything right now... it's just so damn hard to wait for news. I don't know how anyone else feels, but I for one am like crazy looking forward to ARMA 3.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites
We've been left in the dark for 6 months Dallas so don't try to defend them. There should have been a real update even if it's just a paragraph on what they're working on.

Releasing information about Limnos, which Ivan and Martin have been detained and accused of collecting for Turkey, is the absolutely worst thing BI can do. Thank god for all the DayZ sales, which hopefully allow BI to survive this huge crisis and without being forced to chose between provoking the Greek authorities further and risk going bankrupt.

BI's record speaks for itself, no need for me to defend them.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites
Releasing lots of gameplay videos and screenshots from Limnos, might not be the best way to get them home as fast as possible.
Forget Limnos, even Stratis may now be at risk... and all of the 2012 footage of Arma 3 was set on Stratis anyway!
I also wonder if the negative reviews of Carrier Commands AI pathing may of made BI want to spend some more time in this area..
Probably not unless said AI pathing was actually a "public playtest" for what was already implemented into the Arma 3 community alpha.
The absece of Ivan must have a devastating effect on the dev team. Totally understandable.
Not yet Ivan for his own sake, but also for being one of the creative directors (alongside Jay Crowe) behind the 2012 publicly-presented direction of Arma 3 development as "looking like a game actually made in the 21st century"...
@Joris, what was your position until now, what kind of work have you done, how experienced are you, what is your "vision" for A3? That is the stuff I would like to know now.
I've heard "ten year veteran" at BI, but I won't claim that especially when Joris himself may or may not weigh in -- all I'm concerned about is Joris' vision for A3 (read: it had better be "not getting in RiE's way" :P to me the release build had better be at minimum as good as the Gamescom build)
we aren't keeping you in darkness ... when there are information worth to share then we release them them
Let me try this -- if the actual reason for the delay is that development has actually been paused because of Ivan and Martin's situation and not just "because it turned out that we needed more work and time to get the community alpha ready than we'd planned for" then we'd rather that BI just say so, considering the sheer amount of sympathy for Ivan and Martin on these forums (see Dallas' message that "If it came down to trashcanning Limnos or getting Martin and Ivan home, it'd be an easy choice for me").

The delay into 2013 was seemingly well-known on the forums already, so the only real news here to me was Musil's departure (I wasn't aware of it before) and the change in project lead.

Dallas raises a good point re: DayZ sales for keeping BI's civilan gaming end going and buying BI time... last time a game didn't get pushed back for setting a proper foundation, we got the Arma 2 release, and in any case I've seen a lot of comments outside of the community that're approving of "more polish" as a reason to push back the game (i.e. "whatever it takes to make a good product, and they definitely have the cash to take their time now" at Escapist Magazine's comments or "We had the same thing with Far Cry 3… And boy did it paid off… IF the result is awesome, take the time you need, haha!").

Edited by Chortles

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

You guys who are upset wouldn't be upset if you'd just pushed ArmA 3 out of your minds when the Community Alpha was delayed twice. There was major lack of information well before this Limnos incident. When the marketing team failed to release the final videos from the E3 build (or was it the Gamescom build), that should have signaled that something was amiss, that the game, not just the Alpha, would be delayed to well into 2013, if not 2014. This whole situation is quite unfortunate. I suspect that this incident isn't the only thing causing this delay. Considering the late decision to include PhysX 3, the hints that there had been some roadblocks in the development of certain features, the multiple delays of information regarding the release date of the community alpha, the lack of promised E3/GC videos, the current, out-of-date state of the official website, and of course this Limnos situation, it was apparent that the Alpha wouldn't come soon and that the release of the game was far off. I wish that BIS had involved the community more. That they maybe had released an incremental alpha testing certain features (and btw, I don't agree that PhysX 3 is a necessary feature to include in the Community Alpha, as devs stated). But oh well. Didn't happen. So I figured months ago that there was no forseeable release of the Alpha, Beta, or game. ArmA2 is still here, and if you just want a new game, plenty have been released and are going to be released well before the Community Alpha comes out.

So for those who are upset with BIS, go find some other game to buy and spend your time on. Forget about ArmA3. Treat it as if it's been cancelled. Go on with your life... Then, if there's any news, it's always a good thing. Go from wanting new screens or videos to merely being satisfied that there's news at all. It let's you know that the game is in fact alive. And if there's news that the game is cancelled, well, at least you know the game was alive up to that point. Oh, and as many have said, IF the current Limnos situation is delaying the game, it's definitely much more important for these men to get released than for the game to be released. Although, it does concern me whenever a Project Lead leaves mid-way through development of a project. It suggests that there's a problem with development, the work environment, the direction of the studio, etc. That's just me though.

Edited by antoineflemming

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites
@Jerryhopper: I think most if not all of us feel very strong about the jailed dev's false incarceration and speaking for myself I won't care if they told us "Guys, the whole project is on hold until this gets resolved" -whether that be 1 or 5 years. I'd also agree that it would be nice to be 'in the loop' a little with even just occasional tech blogs on physx, ragdoll or really anything. I think that would help keep the community spirit strong as we all know and care deeply about the Greece situation and I really pray this gets resolved like yesterday so they can go home to their families.

If Arma 3 got cancelled I would also completely understand -I think we're all just eager to know one way or the other.

This.

we aren't keeping you in darkness ... when there are information worth to share then we release them them

Just on Groundbranch.com there was an update that didn't show much and was mainly explaining nitty gritty stuff about the game development and it almost sounded apolagetic like "sorry we had to give you this very boring update, please forgive us!" But I'm like fuck that, those small updates that TONS of devs write off as "Nothing" that would interest their fanbase in the SLIGHTEST are just the opposite, somtimes MORE exciting than the traditional well-produced soundbite about a feature that has made significant progress. I would LOVE to hear about how (ex.) Today we finally fixed an issue that resulted in our House models flickering transparently, and show a screenshot of a nice housemodel that takes LITERALLY 2 seconds to capture (not every screenie needs to be carefully fawned over, just take a damn picture of an area or model or something and RELEASE IT :)) We (scratch that MOST) of us will NEVER say OMG BIS STOP SHOWING US TINY IMPROVMENTS AND DEVELOPMENT INSIGHTS I want less info!!

Bottom line: Unless LITERALLY NO WORK has happened since Gamescom there is absolutly new WIP stuff to show! Also, we still have not seen nearly all that there was done at GC anyways! So no excuses about not showing us a little bit of what you have at the moment! Game/alpha/beta can be released if/whenever you like, but showing stuff you already have done via tiny blog posts and 1 or 2 pics to help keep spirits up just a little would be really wonderful. We need something positive to focus on, here on these forums :)

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

ArmA 3 development went to hell after two of their best developers went to prison, and I dont think it helped ArmA 3 in anyway by taking on another huge project like DayZ.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites
btw, I don't agree that PhysX 3 is a necessary feature to include in the Community Alpha, as devs stated).
If I recall, the issue was a matter of "why include PhysX 2 if we already know that we're definitely going to toss it out?" and Jay's assertion of so many aspects that are dependent on and can affect one another (possibly leading to bugs or program instability) and losing one can force revisions of other elements. To quote the former project lead:
Were it not for the real-world situations I would have guessed that the delay was partially because of internal debate over which new aspects to throw into the community alpha for playtesting. I remember the devs at Gamescom who said that a bunch of stuff that had yet to be changed from Arma 2 such as user interface elements (i.e. the action menu) were having replacements prototyped, and you might have the desire to test them thoroughly for how bug-free/stable (read: "won't cause a CTD") they are before actually presenting them to players to test "are these usable/more intuitive/whatever" so that they don't have to toss them for being unable to fix them, especially after the things get "I really like this feature when it works" feedback!
Although, it does concern me whenever a Project Lead leaves mid-way through development of a project. It suggests that there's a problem with development, the work environment, the direction of the studio, etc. That's just me though.
The reassurances about the DayZ standalone not impeding Arma 3 development (by taking away resources or by using RV4 and thus making RV4 "serve two masters" -- two divergent masters at that) aside, I already remember the complaints on this forum when Dan Musil was interviewed by GameStar.de and he reported that not only had "stealing enemy uniforms" become restricted to using same-faction outfits because "such generality would bring some very complex issues with AI and multiplayer rules", but also the Arma 3 devs had also not made progress on other things that a bunch of Arma hardcores were looking for, i.e. ("Unfortunately, there's no progress on this. Staying the same so far." on AI still seeing through grass) and that ambitions had had to be dialed back due to "missing resources"... all of these are direct quotes from the one I quoted and linked above.

I didn't mind those because what was being publicly revealed and spoken about by devs such as Jay Crowe, Ivan, Gaia, Celery, Smookie, Vespa and so on -- that is, where progress was visible -- was serving my priorities. :D But even assuming that Maruk was allowing work on Arma 3 and the community alpha to continue instead of secretly suspending it, and of course allowing for the forced absence of a creative director and a "map" designer, and before that all the newcomers to the dev team, the previous project lead was not able to bring them to a point where the disparate elements had been integrated with each other enough to be deemed ready to playtest as a community alpha before the end of 2012 nor (if he actually left in October) to a point where they could be "handed off" to the new project lead and still make an "end of 2012" release window for the community alpha.

(To mods: This was NOT an attempt to impugn the character of the former project lead.)

I notice that a bunch of outlets picking up this story didn't mention (as Musil did) all the new devs who'd come aboard and who thus had to be integrated and "brought up to speed"... though at least in their reader comment sections there's plenty of "if this delay results in a better release than Arma 2 then go for it" sentiment outside of the Arma community, which is a hopeful sign for Arma's reputation!

:yay:

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Thanks for the update :) it is not unexpected or unreasonable. Of course the priority should be the well-being of the company, so I'm happy that seems to be happening.

I'm surprised at some of the comments on here practically demanding more screenshots & game information. There are two major developers locked away who are responsible for a large part of this development, and it would be crass of the company to release screenshots, videos, gameplay information etc as though their plight is minimal. BIS's first commitment is to those guys, their wellbeing, and the wellbeing of their families, not some gamers who cannot wait.

IMO Lemnos won't be dropped as a map, there's no real need. Only the terrain, vegetation & road layout is similar, town layouts are not, only positions. The island is not even to the same scale. There may be a rename, that might happen, but as all (I think) of BIS's islands have been based on real world locations I don't think this will stop, but obviously there is no need to risk more negative press from the Greek media regardless of opinions on these boards.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Well,we all knew what was going to happen after the Limnos incident.And the delay isn't that of a big surprise.The whole ''status update'' isn't something we didn't know it was coming.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites
I'm surprised at some of the comments on here practically demanding more screenshots & game information. There are two major developers locked away who are responsible for a large part of this development, and it would be crass of the company to release screenshots, videos, gameplay information etc as though their plight is minimal. BIS's first commitment is to those guys, their wellbeing, and the wellbeing of their families, not some gamers who cannot wait.
Are you surprised when one of them is self-describing as "famished fanboys" and citing the trickle of other devs such as those from Ground Branch? Though, there's also BI not saying outright "this silence is because of these major devs being locked away."

Mind you, this is separate from rocket who claims on Reddit that he holds off on standalone details lest The War Z devs rip off even more of his work, and the characterization on other sites that part of the delay is because of a need for more polish suggests development hiccups (in addition to Ivan/Martin's absence and the dev turnover) of a "we can't even implement this enough for a screenshot" nature... at this point all I "need" is for the infantry improvements shown off at Gamescom to remain intact, so if they have to go back to the drawing board for other stuff, so be it I say.

Shadder3D_S0ul's basically right -- again, to me the only thing I didn't know was coming was the change in project leads, but then again I mistakenly thought that it was Jay and Ivan who had been entirely in the driver's seat.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Maybe it's time to lock this thread since it seems that it turned into a bashing contest, complete with name calling and ridiculing.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites
Maybe it's time to lock this thread since it seems that it turned into a bashing contest, complete with name calling and ridiculing.
The real best reason would be because to quote one of those RPS comments, "Announcement of announcement ."

(I'm perfectly willing to believe a bunch of mundane reasons for why there haven't been subsequent screenshots, i.e. "all the post-Gamescom work has been under the hood so most of its visuals apply, and the UI stuff that people would notice, we're still debating internally over which to use in the community alpha".)

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Seems like to me, they are kinda like skipping the alpha stage. :\ Maybe working on a beta? I don't know, just kinda seems like now, with no newer "DETAILS" almost a year later that we may not even get a "alpha" till a few months to release. Yes, I know Ivan and Martin are imprisoned in Greece, don't bash on me for only thinking of the game and not the innocent devs who are creating the game, I really want them back in their own country where they belong, and out of this mess! Just saying, probably won't get a release till the Christmas season of 2013, think about it.

Thanks for all the hard work you do to make this forum/game/website worth while!

Shadow~

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

I can absolutely and honestly understand why people are frustrated about the lack of info/imagery - I'm frustrated too. I've been looking forward to this game for more than 18 months, so the sudden radio silence sucks, plain and simple. At this point, a single screenshot of a ripe fruit falling off a tree on Limnos (PhysX style) would be pure fucking extasy.

However, I don't also don't see how whining about it and stomping my feet in righteous indignation will solve anything. It's up to BIS to develop the game on their own schedule and to release info about it whenever they feel it is appropriate. They don't owe me shit, so I have no right to demand anything and neither do any of you. It sucks, but that's how it is.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Silence apart from announcement of announcement, community alpha nowhere on the horizon, E3 infantry video being more than 6 months late and ArmA3 project lead leaving aren't exactly reassuring events.

I just hope this isn't a sign of ArmA1-like trainwreck where everything went silent and then a completely redesigned (and subpar) game surfaced.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites
Thanks for the update :) it is not unexpected or unreasonable. Of course the priority should be the well-being of the company, so I'm happy that seems to be happening.

I'm surprised at some of the comments on here practically demanding more screenshots & game information. There are two major developers locked away who are responsible for a large part of this development, and it would be crass of the company to release screenshots, videos, gameplay information etc as though their plight is minimal. BIS's first commitment is to those guys, their wellbeing, and the wellbeing of their families, not some gamers who cannot wait.

IMO Lemnos won't be dropped as a map, there's no real need. Only the terrain, vegetation & road layout is similar, town layouts are not, only positions. The island is not even to the same scale. There may be a rename, that might happen, but as all (I think) of BIS's islands have been based on real world locations I don't think this will stop, but obviously there is no need to risk more negative press from the Greek media regardless of opinions on these boards.

You've forgotten that the shape of the island is definitely recognizable as Lemnos. It LOOKS like Lemnos. Wouldn't be surprised if they drop Limnos, or change the name and shape of the island, to avoid negative pressure from media or Greece itself. It wouldn't be the first time a dev has folded to pressure.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites
Guest
This topic is now closed to further replies.
Sign in to follow this  

×