Will Arma 3 replace Arma 2?

[Flogger23m 2]

So we’re at Beta stage in Arma 3, of course this has nothing to do with the A2 forum, but has with this thread.

Arma 3 will not take over from Arma 2, I said a while back, not sure if it was on here or on another forum, that I suspected A2 will be for the connoisseurs of the series in the years ahead, whereas A3 for the new faster breed, I think that may be the case unless it progresses along in Beta at a pace of change, which I doubt..

Arma 3 looks better, but it just isn’t better where out and out warfare realism is wanted/needed, its moved towards the centre ground if the beta is anything to go by, therefore we have waved goodbye to the old arma format, a new era has begun.. IMHO..

Not a bad thing as A2 is already pretty honed as a game, the ai I use are exceptional and the overall performance is great, so is there a need to move over, well not really, although I will go over to see the new islands that are bound to appear, a3 is stunning with its lighting effects, sea & ambient feel. But is that enough, certainly not for me, its got to be about game-play and A2 is winning hands down at present, with no view for a change coming.

Arma 3 has only just started and A2 has lots of years behind it, I hear you shout. Thats true, but A3 has set its precedent and that was moving towards the centre ground i.e. mainstream, not fully, but almost, which could cause them problems later on down the road. The game seems to be in a grey area at present, it doesn’t look as good as BF3 from what I have seen of BF3, not got BF3 myself but on YT, its not as fast as BF3, almost frantic rate, again by what I see.

So where does it stand, like the series, I would say, on its own. But unlike the previous inc A2 which all had a cause, to bring intelligent, open world, do anything, warfare gaming to the pc. Instead its in-between and as said its finding the in-between players to go with it..

Its stuck between mainstream and the place it left behind..

So don't hang up A2 just yet..;)

I love the series, so I'm not really dissapointed. I have the best of both worlds, as do most if they want, go into A3 to see the sunsets, swim and generally look around, come back to A2 to play war..

Nothing much has changed gameplay wise from ArmA 2 to 3. ArmA 3 does bring aboard some improvements and fixes from a realism perspective (ex), belt feds take longer to reload than a rifle, scopes with peripheral vision, less unnatural stalls between movements and vehicles that don't slide across the ground). But the core gameplay, its pluses and minuses is still intact.

There is nothing more mainstream about ArmA 3 compared to 2, aside from the horrid fictional weapons and vehicles. What ArmA 3 needs is better and more seamless mod integration so we are not running countless mods attempting to bring authentic weapons and gear into the game.

[Guest]

i dont think workshop is not that bad, i am not a modder nor a mission/addon maker, but so far i haven't seen not even 1 bad thing, besides, Steampipe is the thing that forces addons to be used only in workshop, ArmA 3 will most likely not use steampipe, therefore, you can use addons with no workshop, and i am sure BIS will not be against that

[Varanon 892]

i dont think workshop is not that bad, i am not a modder nor a mission/addon maker, but so far i haven't seen not even 1 bad thing, besides, Steampipe is the thing that forces addons to be used only in workshop, ArmA 3 will most likely not use steampipe, therefore, you can use addons with no workshop, and i am sure BIS will not be against that

Workshop itself isn't bad from a user perspective, easy to use and all.

But the license is abysmal, basically you allow them to use your stuff in any way they see fit. If someone uploads his weapon models, they can use that in their own game, even sell it to you as a DLC. By all accounts, this did happen in the past with some Team Fortress 2 content.

I won't use it for my mission uploads as long as this license is in place.

[chortles 263]

BI has promised to talk to Valve about the relevant clause, but (of course) they didn't promise a revision/exemption, only that they'd try.

P.S. Arma 3 has already replaced Arma 2 for me.

[Joe98 90]

A disc release is planned although as a Steamworks game it's essentially a Steam installer on a disc with a Steam key voucher,

although it will save on bandwidth

especially with the delta patching.

Why will a disc save on bandwidth?

I have never used Steam and have slow internet here.

[chortles 263]

The disc is itself a Steam installer on a DVD with a product key; you activate the game on Steam with said product key, and you have the option to install from the disc or download/install entirely from the Internet. The answer to your question is that installing from the disc means that you would only need to download updates made after your DVD was made -- generally speaking, "if a patch came out after the disc was made".

[wika_woo 182]

I don't think ArmA 3 will replace ArmA II, imo, I think ArmA III is Completely different, ArmA II has many classic perks from the 1st ArmA. I still miss the original ArmA, But with ArmA II you get the best of both worlds with its graphics engine being updated massively imo.

With all the old ArmA Addons coming to ArmA II (conversions). I still play it today.. I wonder how the machinima side of things will bring to ArmA III looks kinda bleak to me, ArmA II machinima is still fun to make on ArmA II, I really hope they release a demo at least like they did with ArmA II Combined OPS.

With All related machinima issues for arma III worries me slightly, i just hope it doesnt let me down with poor AI movement to waypoints and triggers for animations. Just a pointer for machinima makers for me.

[mrcash2009 0]

P.S. Arma 3 has already replaced Arma 2 for me.

You have the full retail release of Arma3 already? :)

[zooloo75 833]

Workshop itself isn't bad from a user perspective, easy to use and all.

But the license is abysmal, basically you allow them to use your stuff in any way they see fit. If someone uploads his weapon models, they can use that in their own game, even sell it to you as a DLC. By all accounts, this did happen in the past with some Team Fortress 2 content.

I won't use it for my mission uploads as long as this license is in place.

Wow, that licensing is BS... They should make that illegal to do IMO.

[nettrucker 142]

Wow, that licensing is BS... They should make that illegal to do IMO.

Couldn't agree more, but it seems to be a non issue to a lot of people.

BOT I know that A3 will replace A2 it's a natural transition. It happened from OFP to Armed Assault to ArmA2 and it's going now to ArmA3. Nearly everyone moves on a few remain behind. Maybe in case the final A3 turns out to be too much arcade and mainstream for some of the community members only in that case people will still play ArmA 2. There are a lot of complaints on the current beta stage. Well let's see how ArmA 3 turns out. It's too early to make any good judgement.

[mrcash2009 0]

So ... anyone reading this now Arma3 is officially out and still reading this and playing and sticking more with 2?

Seems a more relevant question and thread now its fully out. Im sticking with 2 for the forseable future myself for a number of reasons.

[chrisb 196]

I am staying with A2 for now. However I have been testing a new AI mod for A2/3 (not mine). The tests in A3 have been making a big difference to AI, really improving their movement skills, cover finding, correct use of stances, leaning from cover, all tactical decisions, team work & communication between separate teams also general technic etc.

AI is my biggest concern, it has to be really good, the AI mix I use in A2 is great, but it won't cross over to A3, so that's my worry at the moment, poor AI in A3, but it seems there may be a solution (fingers crossed). The medical side will be done via a mod/addon I feel sure, so I'm not too worried there, hate the super human self heal thing.

A2 is the better game at the moment for me, can't see it changing soon, but you never know. I am very much against A3 going down the mainstream route, but if it can be brought back to the more realistic side, via mod/addons, similar to modded A2, then I may look again at it.

Only really thinking this now, having done a solid 16hrs AI testing in A3 with this new mod over the last day or two, turned out really well.:D

[nettrucker 142]

Myself too . . . for my very own reasons. I didn't buy ArmA 3 . . . the steam announcement was the main reason but there are other reasons as well which are at least as important to me which I won't explain here in detail.

I was a former mindless fanboy . . . now I'm retired. I'm off the drug. :bounce3:

LOL I can understand the fanboys very well and why they are defending ArmA 3 and I'm pretty sure BIS gets their shit together and get things sorted. I loved BIS always for their long term support which will be no different for ArmA 3.

I started playing BIS games with the CWC release I'm not bragging here about that . . . I'm just saying that I attended every game release with a lot of other oldtimers which are still here today. I was lucky to discover this game shortly after it's release and man I got addicted. I played the first week straight 2 hours sleep in the average in a week. My friends asked me on Sunday If i was alright because I didn't look to good. LOL . . . mind you . . . after playing the shit out of the game for 1 week straight I bet my ass that no one would look too good. :cool:

What I observed, were the difficult game releases after the split from Codemaster which I definitely approved . . . I mean the split, due to Codemasters business attitude.

I mean the OFP releases were not without problems but with Armed Assault the situation worsened.

ArmA 2 was a complete disaster. Performance was a huge problem and the campaign was broken beyond repair.

Arrowhead release was a lot less problematic.

ArmA 3 seems to have a lot of problems but for different reasons. Altis might be a jewel and the lightning and movement have been improved but I see the same old problems popping up since OFP. Performance is always a major problem it seems that not much has changed in that regards. I see a lot of unhappy people on the forum and I don't regret for not having purchased ArmA 3. Yeah I know my loss!!!!! Is it really a loss?

Anyway I don't know the details what happened since they started working on ArmA 3 but something happened along the way which changed BIS business attitude. Yeah I know conspiracy theories . . .

Since a lot of community members are always arguing and bragging about BIS being a business, but meeting the set release deadline of ArmA 3 was a bad choice IMO. It should have been postponed. IF you are a professional developer I don't expect a release like ArmA 3. BIS has never, ever failed before, in delivering content in former game iterations, this time they did, as far as I could understand from reading the Arma 3 section. No campaign? well . . . I mostly do SP, not having a campaign is not excusable to me especially at release, What about new people to the game people who are not familiar with the editor? Not everyone is into MP which seems to suffer significant performance problems.

We all know about the Greek incident and I feel personally very sorry for Ivan and Martin but shit you can't just stop developing because 2 important members of your stuff are missing due to an unfortunate circumstance. I wished that would have never happened but it has.

Second what happened that made them throw away 2 years of development and start nearly from scratch. how many features got axed in the process? I remember the thread being quite long.

I had high hopes that BIS would get it right with ArmA 3 but they didn't IMO. I've always supported them as best as I could but this time it's not going to happen. Hey in the end I'm a paying customer to them . . . nothing else.

I always ignored all the negative aspects of BIS games until today but as I said I was a mindless fanboy myself maybe even worse than a lot of others. That's now a quite embarrassing thing to me to admit for being honest.

What I want to say is that BIS changed . . . the community is changing and for being honest I'm feeling more and more alienated with what is going on.

But that's just me.

Therefore yeah I'm sticking to ArmA 2. I had two choices

1st being forced to open a steam account to be able to play . . . . or

2nd not to purchase Arma3

I chose the ladder . . . yeah I know my loss. :D

[SPC.Spets 21]

Absolutely, Arma3 will be the main game soon or later. I remember playing Armed Assault a lot in Evolution, already have Arma2, but I can not play it because my old PC was like a toaster machine, and also because the game was so buggy and bad performance. Then when I upgraded my PC I just switch to Arma2 automatically. about that time the game was patched several times and worked decently. Same with Arma3, until they fix the performance and more addons comes out, etc. I will still playing Arma2

[aviatormoser 6]

Considering Arma 3 currently cannot do a tenth of the things I can do in Arma 2,

Arma 2 is still my weapon of choice. That can change once there is actually modern day content. Steam never has bothered me, so that's not a deal-breaker for me. The fact that Arma 3 has shipped in such a buggy and unfinished state has really made me angry with BI. With the past year of high sales because of DayZ, you would think BI could pour more money into resource development.

However, if they can manage to get the CO content up to date with the Arma 3 engine, then I would certainly be a happy man.

[nettrucker 142]

Well AIA is a community driven project by KJU. BI announced that they don't have the resources to do that, but they announced also that they will release all MLODS of the A2 models so it's up to the community to update the A2 models to A3 standards which will be a lot more difficult due Physics of vehicles and other new stuff which has been introduced with ArmA 3.

[spooky lynx 73]

So ... anyone reading this now Arma3 is officially out and still reading this and playing and sticking more with 2?

Seems a more relevant question and thread now its fully out. Im sticking with 2 for the forseable future myself for a number of reasons.

I still play Arma2CO and don't have any plans for buying 3rd part until decent number of additional content representing real militaries but not vanilla A3 bullcraep will be available (not just ports from previous titles but fully functional). Also Steam dependency is the huge reason not to bother with A3. The only reason for keeping Steam on my PC is Half-Life series. So at least now Arma2 with some mods and addons is my choice.

[Mirek 166]

I own Both A3 and A2 and playing only A2 i try A3 from time to time, but allways just end up pissed off as hell. The game is nowhere near any releasable state and releasing it was total bullshit from BI. I know that in few years it will be playable. But so far i regret the purchase.

Iam staying With Arma 2 and BI should have did the same and finished ARMA 2 before even thinking about A3 cause A2 still doesnt feel like finished game too.

[spooky lynx 73]

At least Arma2 content should be brought to OA standarts... Either by devs or by community after SDK release.

[b00tsy 28]

I really doubt that most modders would condone this activity. It constitutes modifying the original mod content and therefore violates any non-derivatives license. There are also other considerations like support. We ask you to obey licenses when you're a part of the forum so please make sure you check licenses before you start making forum discussions about altering works and such.

This comment can basically be ignored as soon the workshop supports mods. According to the workshop license anything you upload is free to the public to be used, altered and reuploaded by other people. That is now also the case with missions you upload, where you may have used custom sounds, video's, textures, etc. It is owned by the public as soon as you upload it on the workshop.

[nettrucker 142]

This comment can basically be ignored as soon the workshop supports mods. According to the workshop license anything you upload is free to the public to be used, altered and reuploaded by other people. That is now also the case with missions you upload, where you may have used custom sounds, video's, textures, etc. It is owned by the public as soon as you upload it on the workshop.

Well most of the folks here have no problems with that whatsoever. The license agreement of Valve is what has lead to my decision to not purchase Arma 3. They don't give a shit how much work is going into Mod - addon or mission development. Once it has been uploaded to SWS everything goes.

[Sexacutioner 0]

I think you can still find Operation Flashpoint servers, so no Arma 2 isn't going to "die" anytime soon.

[max power 21]

This comment can basically be ignored as soon the workshop supports mods. According to the workshop license anything you upload is free to the public to be used, altered and reuploaded by other people. That is now also the case with missions you upload, where you may have used custom sounds, video's, textures, etc. It is owned by the public as soon as you upload it on the workshop.

Fortunately, I think we've already debunked this in the workshop thread. I hope this mistaken idea isn't widespread because many users may be in for a shock if they act on it.

[OMAC 254]

It appears as if missions from Steam Workshop are downloaded dynamically into "memory" and not stored on disk*, and thus cannot be de-pbo'd and examined. Is this true? That is good for mission makers who don't want people messing with their missions. But if mission makers host their missions on Armaholic as well, then people can download the missions and learn from them.

* Edit: the downloaded SWS mission pbos are saved into your A3 profile, such as to "C:\Users\OMAC\Documents\Arma 3\Saved\steam\mission.altis"

Edited October 6, 2013 by OMAC

[b00tsy 28]

Fortunately, I think we've already debunked this in the workshop thread. I hope this mistaken idea isn't widespread because many users may be in for a shock if they act on it.

Well I haven't really followed the debate about that. I just read what is written in the user agreement of Steam workshop.