Arma 3 - Pre-E3 Livestream Hangouts

[St. Jimmy 272]

Has there been any clarification or mention on the 3D scopes they showed off on the live streams and latest Alpha build? The fact that the outside peripheral is zoomed-in along with the scopes themselves is a bit odd. Will it be fixed/adjusted?

And yes, I'm aware of what was mentioned in the SITREP #00014...

I can't decipher if they are keeping it as is because of the outweighed benefit or moving forward to fixing it as development continues (which would I assume would be the case)?

If you're hoping for real PiP 3D scopes I can say that very likely won't happen because PiP takes so much resources. These are million times better than the old hole-in-the-box scopes and this is the least that community have wanted.

[Buckster 10]

did I hear correctly in the live stream "no tanks" in the beta ? or was he not talking about tanks as in vehicles ?

normally a beta is near to the complete game but in "beta" to test for bugs ? Alpha I would expect to be cut down and work in progress

[nikiforos 450]

No tanks, no Altis in BETA :(

[benjamin1 10]

did I hear correctly in the live stream "no tanks" in the beta ? or was he not talking about tanks as in vehicles ?

normally a beta is near to the complete game but in "beta" to test for bugs ? Alpha I would expect to be cut down and work in progress

They said 'no tracked vehicles' which includes of course the MBT main battle tanks, beta is of course the final stage before full release, so maybe they come in the second half of the beta. who knows :D

[da12thMonkey 1943]

I can't decipher if they are keeping it as is because of the outweighed benefit or moving forward to fixing it as development continues (which would I assume would be the case)?

They'll keep it as is, because the using PiP to render different parts of the scene at different zoom levels has proven to be too performance-hungry. They said long ago that PiP scopes weren't feasible for Arma 3, long before even the Alpha was out; which is why we ended up with the traditional blacked-out scope shrouds in the Alpha. Yet people keep harping on about it as though the idea has never occurred to BIS before.

However, throughout the Alpha, feedback expressed by the community both here on the forums and the feedback tracker has suggested that we'd be happy with them doing scopes this new way instead of the black shroud, if they can't achieve the ideal of RO-style PiP scopes. The 'Design Mastery' M4 addon for Arma 2 that use this same method for 3D scopes have proven fairly popular because of this feature, and it's been a generally accepted method in other game titles such as BF3 and those soldier games that codemasters made (FPDR) - Reason enough for BIS to adopt this method instead of the black shroud.

Personally I'm not a fan of it due to certain technical limitations: Like you can still see the front ironsight post through the optics if a weapon has fixed ironsights (IRL the sight post is far too close to the objective lens to be focussed, so it'd appear as a transparent smudge at most), and it'll be inconsistent with NV and TI scopes in the game because they will probably still use the black shroud method. However, I do think it was the smart thing for BIS to do given the feedback expressed during the Alpha.

Edited June 8, 2013 by da12thMonkey

[Buckster 10]

They said 'no tracked vehicles' which includes of course the MBT main battle tanks, beta is of course the final stage before full release, so maybe they come in the second half of the beta. who knows :D

cheers

I'm a huge Arma fan and I bought the Alpha on day one - don't get me wrong - just with current proposed Beta features - it doesn't sound like a real beta to me :(

more an 'Appetiser' - its not like the content isn't there - we can see it being played ...

[nikiforos 450]

Well ,IMO, it would be better if Altis was in the BETA so we could find bugs and things that can be improved. If the game is released without the community "testing" of Altis, I'm afraid that it would take long time to iron out bugs.

I don't think this is the right path but it's just my opinion.

[zatoichi 10]

Thanks for the stream guys, much appreciated.

[NeuroFunker 11]

Well ,IMO, it would be better if Altis was in the BETA so we could find bugs and things that can be improved. If the game is released without the community "testing" of Altis, I'm afraid that it would take long time to iron out bugs.

I don't think this is the right path but it's just my opinion.

but the devs said, they will release altist later for dev branch.

[nikiforos 450]

Ok if that's the case I'm happy . I missed that :cool:.

[bad benson 1733]

Well ,IMO, it would be better if Altis was in the BETA so we could find bugs and things that can be improved. If the game is released without the community "testing" of Altis, I'm afraid that it would take long time to iron out bugs.

i would agree but i think it's just more exciting to get a huge package at full release. while it's true that we could find a lot of misplaced stuff on the map, i think it's not the same as with general bugs. the terrain artists can easily find broken stuff by looking at areas while working on them.

so while i'm happy i could get my hands on the game early, i really like that there's still big stuff left unreleased to make the full release not feel like another patch. besides, they mentioned that they might put altis into the dev build in late beta.

about the stream: i liked what i saw but it also felt a bit vague and like they tried to kill time sometimes. what i would've really liked would've been some indepth insight on mission content and what they will aim for with the campaign. the show cases are ok but they are also not very fleshed out in terms of atmosphere. i hope to see some detailed guerilla operations in the future with some more aspects than just "clear that area".

my only suggestion for the 3d scopes is trying to make the inside of the scope brighter and the outside darker. i like the slight darkening from the edges but i think in general the outside area should be darker than the inside area to put more focus on the actual aiming area. here's a simple mockup from another thread.

http://i.cubeupload.com/guBFMR.jpg

[benjamin1 10]

cheers

I'm a huge Arma fan and I bought the Alpha on day one - don't get me wrong - just with current proposed Beta features - it doesn't sound like a real beta to me :(

more an 'Appetiser' - its not like the content isn't there - we can see it being played ...

Well yes and no, i think it's good that the Alpha and Beta have limited content in terms of development, obviously they strictly want us to test just a specific part of the game within a certain amount of time and close that chapter, without letting us focus (or distracting us as testers) on any other content that needs testing, and i guess the flow of bug reports would be gigantic for such a relative small team. And is instead now flowing in a more controlled way. It seems now we are entering Beta with a in my opinion a good working infantry or at least with a controllable amount of bugs, or doesn't require as much focus of us as alpha testers. I'm pretty sure some stuff will be added during the beta, like the pleasant surprise of the sniper package

[sgt_Savage2003 10]

Has anyone been able to find the "Strategic Map" module that is mentioned about 54 minutes into todays live stream?

Yea I went looking for it also, could not find anything. Did find a way to simulate a UAV on a laptop. Could it be in the dev build only.

But I thought this today's webcast was kinda boring and pointless. The "showcase" mission was way too short I know they where doing this live but would liked to have seen more out of it, But I Loved the Ghost hawk,Whis they could show off some more of the new gear and stuff. And WTF was with the SDV I know this is Beta but the SDV are not air tight so you must be on Air the hole time. So with my final thoughts, And i loved the Strategic Map, But even tho they said its in game already, its no where to be found.

But all be told thank you for the great work your team is doing Arma Is such a relief from the other very linear FPS.

[fully 1]

The night light looks so awesome with a little bit of fog, going to look and feel so good =)

Did I hear them right and say just one of the campaign missions is +100 hours?

[Maxzy 12]

This "Operation Livestream" - was it a sneak peak at how a campain will look like or what?

[purepassion 22]

The night light looks so awesome with a little bit of fog, going to look and feel so good =)

Did I hear them right and say just one of the campaign missions is +100 hours?

Haha nah that would be nonsense :D

Karel said if the campaign were to show all the interesting places of Altis, it would be longer than 100 hours

[james2464 176]

Shout out to Pettka for reading out questions and answers! Thank you, you did a splendid job!! :D

[Maj. Gastovski 7]

If you're hoping for real PiP 3D scopes I can say that very likely won't happen because PiP takes so much resources. These are million times better than the old hole-in-the-box scopes and this is the least that community have wanted.

They'll keep it as is, because the using PiP to render different parts of the scene at different zoom levels has proven to be too performance-hungry. They said long ago that PiP scopes weren't feasible for Arma 3, long before even the Alpha was out; which is why we ended up with the traditional blacked-out scope shrouds in the Alpha. Yet people keep harping on about it as though the idea has never occurred to BIS before.

However, throughout the Alpha, feedback expressed by the community both here on the forums and the feedback tracker has suggested that we'd be happy with them doing scopes this new way instead of the black shroud, if they can't achieve the ideal of RO-style PiP scopes. The 'Design Mastery' M4 addon for Arma 2 that use this same method for 3D scopes have proven fairly popular because of this feature, and it's been a generally accepted method in other game titles such as BF3 and those soldier games that codemasters made (FPDR) - Reason enough for BIS to adopt this method instead of the black shroud.

Personally I'm not a fan of it due to certain technical limitations: Like you can still see the front ironsight post through the optics if a weapon has fixed ironsights (IRL the sight post is far too close to the objective lens to be focussed, so it'd appear as a transparent smudge at most), and it'll be inconsistent with NV and TI scopes in the game because they will probably still use the black shroud method. However, I do think it was the smart thing for BIS to do given the feedback expressed during the Alpha.

That's why I edited my post after reading on that particular part of the feature shortly after I posted it. I wasn't expecting nor mentioned PiP to be utilized for iron sights (the first guy that replied to me implied it). I could already imagine the ramifications on performance. Yet being that I'm not a game developer I perhaps entertained the potential of having something akin to it (like a placebo work-around) in some degree - hence the curiosity.

What I expected though was at least some sort of filter to the peripheral sides, perhaps a subtle blur and/or saturated effect. That's what I meant about some further work since we've already accepted the benefits over the mild oddities. I like the 3D scope, it could be better but it's better than nothing. Though I'd like to see something applied to help balance it a bit to some degree, just my humble opinion.

[mr_centipede 31]

When they were flying in the Comanche and fired the gatling gun, I think the tracers light up the ground a bit. I think it's a nice feature, or did I misinterpret the scene?

[thdman1511 4]

I am looking forward to the beta, more so after the Hangout II. It was mentioned that we should expect some changes to classnames, It would be appreciated if these changes could be documented in the spotrep/sitrep or even in the forum, when beta comes out.

[nodunit 397]

When they were flying in the Comanche and fired the gatling gun, I think the tracers light up the ground a bit. I think it's a nice feature, or did I misinterpret the scene?

No you saw correctly, that wasn't the tracer though but the subsequent explosion.

[sgtsn1per 1]

where can i watch the live stream? I live in AUS and missed out

[chortles 263]

Go here; it starts at about 3:40.

[sgtsn1per 1]

thankyou

[bigpickle 0]

I dont like the radio, ppl basic radio protocol is dont shout on the comms or swear. Everything else looked awesome!