Is it me or are these forums quiet for an Alpha release?

[Jex 1]

Not seeing a lot of replies to posts that people are making, I would have thought there would be more considering. Also, a friend made a comment yesterday that he wasn't impressed with the information he could find about the game. I'd hate for Arma not to do as well as it could because of a lack of information or advertising. Are BIS putting out vids on youtube and attending game conventions or whatever?

[10t 12]

BIS don't seem to be pushing too hard. Most of their comms have been through arma3.com, their twitter feed, and Facebook (I guess - I haven't been looking there). They've been showcasing Dslyecxi's YouTubes on their channel too, but only a few and only occasionally. Most of the interweb chatter I've seen has been generated by other people and some of the Game Magazine websites.

When you say "Not seeing a lot of replies to posts...", do you mean from BIS themselves or that there's not much movement on the forums? If the latter, I guess it might be because of the stricter/more mature/better-refined/banhammer-happy (pick the descriptive phrase you prefer) moderation here. Duplicate threads are cleaned up and threads that have wandered into an unproductive abyss of off-topic ranting get closed. I personally reckon it pushes the quality:quantity ratio up. There's less flurry than I've seen in other boards and that can make it look a little stagnant sometimes.

If you're talking about replies from BIS, the BIS team respond to a few things on here but mostly only when they have something useful to add. And there's the feedback tracker, of course. AFAIK they took Arma3 to the last two (three?) E3s.

What sort of info is your friend after? There's a good chance it's out there, but it isn't being rammed down anyone's throat by a monstrous marketing machine. Many of the questions he has are likely answered here, on the Armaholic site, or in user/reviewer YouTube videos.

I'm not worried that there's insufficient advertising. It looks like there's already concern amongst the crustier veterans here that there's too much already and it'll "bring the CoD kiddies" in and, I dunno, Arma will turn into Tetris or something. My guess is that it'll grow slower than it would with a big campaign, and that will probably lead to "the right type of gamers" finding it - people interested in the genre and willing to put the effort into learning a new style of game. Because, face it, if someone's not willing to spend 15 minutes on DuckDuckGo or Google, they're probably not going to enjoy learning the bajillion different quirks to Arma anyway.

Edited March 28, 2013 by 10T

[SimonSays 1]

this is Arma & its an Alpha. if you compare the activity in the A3 forum and A2 forum you´l see that people allready are very active. the thing is, there´s not much content out yet and even for mission makers not that much to do. dont know what you expect...

[Jex 1]

BIS don't seem to be pushing too hard. Most of their comms have been through arma3.com, their twitter feed, and Facebook (I guess - I haven't been looking there). They've been showcasing Dylsecxi's YouTubes on their channel too, but only a few and only occasionally. Most of the interweb chatter I've seen has been generated by other people and some of the Game Magazine websites.

When you say "Not seeing a lot of replies to posts...", do you mean from BIS themselves or that there's not much movement on the forums? If the latter, I guess it might be because of the stricter/more mature/better-refined/banhammer-happy (pick the descriptive phrase you prefer) moderation here. Duplicate threads are cleaned up and threads that have wandered into an unproductive abyss of off-topic ranting get closed. I personally reckon it pushes the quality:quantity ratio up. There's less flurry than I've seen in other boards and that can make it look a little stagnant sometimes.

If you're talking about replies from BIS, the BIS team respond to a few things on here but mostly only when they have something useful to add. And there's the feedback tracker, of course. AFAIK they took Arma3 to the last two (three?) E3s.

What sort of info is your friend after? There's a good chance it's out there, but it isn't being rammed down anyone's throat by a monstrous marketing machine. Many of the questions he has are likely answered here, on the Armaholic site, or in user/reviewer YouTube videos.

I'm not worried that there's insufficient advertising. It looks like there's already concern amongst the crustier veterans here that there's too much already and it'll "bring the CoD kiddies" in and, I dunno, Arma will turn into Tetris or something. My guess is that it'll grow slower than it would with a big campaign, and that will probably lead to "the right type of gamers" finding it - people interested in the genre and willing to put the effort into learning a new style of game. Because, face it, if someone's not willing to spend 15 minutes on DuckDuckGo or Google, they're probably not going to enjoy learning the bajillion different quirks to Arma anyway.

More a lack of replies by members. The comment my friend made wasn't so much as he wanted to find something but more that it was hard to find info and really BIS should be doing a better job with their marketing.

It's an Alpha, I'd expect a lot of posts on suggestions to add things, making things better or more refined, feedback on gameplay, etc

Right now it feels like there's about 20 people active here but yeah, maybe it's early days.

[krazikilla 5]

Right now it feels like there's about 20 people active here but yeah, maybe it's early days.

You have a pretty bad feeling i must say.

Check the amount of people who voted on this poll which got opend 4 days ago.

http://forums.bistudio.com/showthread.php?151514-New-Helicopter-flight-model-by-HTR-dev

Check out the feedbacktracker for 10000000 of feedback.

It is NO USE to open a new topic for every feedback and each suggestion, it would only spam the forums - Though for some it is useful ofcourse.

[charliemilk 10]

I'm in these forums every day and its pretty busy here. I also play online multiplayer a lot and loads of people on. I also know 2 people that play EVE with me that bought ARMA III but have not installed or played it as it was only £19.99 (cheaper then final release I think) and they said they will not play it until beta is out. So possibly many people have the game but have not really got into it yet as waiting for future releases.

[AndrewsRG 22]

I am amazed at how few, in terms of community, have decided to support the alpha.

Our group changed on the date of release, once we started using the ALPHA we really couldn't look back. The saturation of Alpha Invites really took the exclusivity of the game away from the community. I just hope more players and "buzz" join us soon.

[EDcase 87]

Many people are reporting on the bug tracker. (I feel sorry for whoever has to go though that list)

Still so much work to do...

Its way too early to promote now. Normally this would be time for closed testing.

Better to wait until near release to give new players the full effect ;)

Edited March 28, 2013 by EDcase

[cifordayzserver 119]

Also keep in mind that LOTS of people are spending LOTS of time in the editor or creating content so they're not exactly focused on reading/posting on forums...

I think a lot of teams have hit the ground running for A3... others not, and then there are lots of people who just want to play and don't care about the forums or any of the other stuff...

[Fuse 1]

Forums were a lot busier when alpha first launched. At this point most people have voiced their initial concerns and have gone back to playing. There's still lots of people reading the posts, but most of topics have already been discussed at least 3 times so don't expect to see a lot of replies right now.

Us noobs have also gotten our feet under us and are happily engrossed in the editor. :)

[katipo66 94]

Don't worry, the forum has come alive since the Alpha and I believe it's gonna get a lot busier, good times.

[byrgesen 1]

Also remember two first two weeks was pretty much all about "HACKERS ARGH HELP ME AMG!!!" and "TONS OF OTHER BITCHING!!" hehe.

Basicly i think alot of peole have figured out this forum is NOT like most others, where trolls and "misplaced" posts dominate the entire forum. Theres an entirely different sense of community here tbh.

Plus the bug tracker will remove alot of the actualy fingerpointing and trolling from this forum, forcing people to post issues there and leaving this forum to "constructive" discussions :) That is also one of the possible reason for BI devs not posting alot here, they use the bug tracker more, as its specialized for the purpose.

Love how "clean" it looks compared to so many other foums out there and im all for keeping it that way heh.

[zapat 56]

Hell, not more activity please! :)

I spend like an hour each day reading stuff to be up-to date.

In A2 I only read the editing forums, hunting for good ideas (10 mins a day was enough), but here I need to read the general stuff too. :)

This makes my dynamic mission to progress slower. :) I haven't even played yet a minute for god's sake! :D

[Hartmann 10]

Most of the important stuff has been discussed, there's some small issues yet but we're mostly waiting for BIS to do their thing with current feedback.

[RuecanOnRails 10]

All I can say is, Welcome to a much more mature forum when compared to most other game forums.

We don't have the need to post every single thought that crosses our mind. I read through nearly all of the Arma 3 related threads but only post when I feel that I have something to add. As do a lot of other users, it's why you don't see many single sentence comments. It's a very nice change of pace.

I would much rather have actual well balanced discussions opposed to just a bunch of random spam from younger "gamers" talking about their experiences.

[Iroquois Pliskin 0]

Btw, http://www.youtube.com/user/Arma3official is up from 12k subs to 36.3k since March 5th.