From the creators of Stratis Life: ArmA 3 Life

[Sellion 10]

Hey guys,

can i play the mod?

how to download it and where

Greetz

[hem 33]

Hello,

Since this topic isn't really being updated I guess I'll start doing it more :)

Progress on the mod is going well and into the right direction, our development team is now full steam ahead and everything is again going well.

I guess there isn't much I can say, but we how to release soon and member application are open so apply when you can!

There has been a lot of videos uploaded since the last update on the topic so here they are- https://www.youtube.com/user/arma3lifeofficial/videos

and the latest video...

Again we thank you for your support, if you have any question please ask them.

Website - http://arma3-life.com/

Thanks, Hem.

[Molotow 10]

Hey guys,

check the official Arma 3 Life Twitter - twitter.com/Arma3life

They updated some new cars + skins and effects =).

Join the community - the people are very cool :)

[Molotow 10]

There are new videos available! (btw iam no dev, just excited about this project)

Oil System, Paintball Script, New HUD

Some dancing moves

[eggbeast 3673]

if I want to join and play this mod, do I need to pay anything?

[eggbeast 3673]

the reason I ask is that your price-list below indicates we must pay $30 to access the mod in beta stage, which as far as I understand BIS' licensing of the game, is illegal. IF you include others' mods and code in this financial transaction, you are effectively charging for their work, which they themselves could not have allowed under the standard model licensing agreement from BIS.

PLEASE NOTE: You will receive the donator items when we launch; Please note that SOME donator rewards will not be immediately available upon launch but will be added in later.

$10-19: Bronze Tier Donator (You've got our backs!)
* 25 dollar boost on every paycheck in-game
+ The ability to change your ingame phone number once
+ Bronze donator rank on the forums
+ Access to the hidden donator forums, which will have sneak peeks and polls regarding game development.

20-29: Silver Tier Donator ( Ooooh, Shiny! )
* 50 dollar boost on every paycheck in-game
+ One free skillbook (Can be used once)
+ 2.5% XP boost on skills
+ PERKS FROM BRONZE (Excluding paycheck)

[b][u]$30-39[/u]: Gold Tier Donator[/b] ( Golden Hands! )
* 75 dollar boost on every paycheck in-game
* 1 free donator vehicle (Restrictions apply. No sport/air, non-tradeable.)
+ 3.5% XP boost on skills
[u][b]+ Access to the Closed BETA[/b][/u]
+ PERKS FROM SILVER (Excluding paycheck)

[u]$40-99[/u]: Platinum Tier Donator ( To infinite and Beyond! )
* 100 dollar boost on every paycheck in-game
[u]* 1 free donator vehicle (Restrictions apply. Non-tradeable.)[/u]
+ 5.0% extra experience on skills
+ PERKS FROM GOLD (Excluding paycheck)

$100 or More: $100+ Club Tier Donator

*A personal gift send by Caiden And/or Zannaza (Ingame)
*More to be announced
* Does not carry over to next tier as 'stackable value'
It is possible to upgrade your donation tiers.
example: If you were Silver tier already, and you do a $10 donation on top of that <Bronze> you become Gold tier! 

It also appears from the text above that you are allowing players access to vehicles based on donations received - this could be reasonably viewed as a commercial transaction.

and the defence of voluntary contribution appears to fall down in your donations page

Disclaimer:
Please read this entire section before you click on the Donate link that matches your payment type.
You acknowledge that the donation benefits can change before or after the release of the mod. (This may, or may not be in your benefit.)
You acknowledge that making a donation is final, and are non-refundable
[u]You acknowledge that performing a "chargeback" will result in your account being suspended[/u] until the issue is resolved
You acknowledge that the benefits received from donating are our token of appreciation and not a purchase you are making.

this line implies that the donation is in fact a fee to allow inclusion in using the mod, as non-payment of the voluntary donation would result in removal of a persons ability to participate or play with it.

going a little deeper,

Tisor explains

What I'm trying to say is that Arma 3 Life is not a payware mod, and won't be. No commercial use is done. A3L is not earning any money with this. All money goes to the servers.

However I would like to highlight that potentially commercial-scale income could be generated here.

Currently you have 99 players in your 2 80-man servers. 2 servers running on one dedi-box would cost in the region of $1200 a year. If you had charged only the players online last night (call it 100) each $30 to participate, then you would have charged a total of $3,000 for this. If you add another 2 80-man servers as this very popular mod grows, then you are likely to be making $2,000-$3,000 per box. I guess bandwidth costs are going to be a factor, especially as you are using TFR mod, which has a known bandwidth consumption issue, but the scale and nature of the donations menu does seem excessive and at-odds with the spirit of the arma community.

from Arma addon makers' rights website FAQ

Can I sell addons or a mod that I made?
Selling addons or mods is not allowed unless you have acquired a license from BIS that says otherwise. 
All the content that is sold must be yours or you must compensate all those that share ownership of (parts of) the content. 
If no license is given by BIS than no money may be made from an addon or mod in any way. 
[u]Restricting access to your addons unless a donation is made is not allowed either as BIS requires that all addons meant for anything other than personal use by the addonmaker must be made publicly available free of charge.[/u]

could someone from the mod team please clarify?

thanks

Edited October 13, 2014 by eggbeast

[mbaxter 10]

Eggbeast,

I was linked this forum post to respond to your request for someone to answer your inquires. We have been in contact with Bohemia and their awesome staff and were assisting them with complying to their most recent attempts to stop communities with profiting from their product with hosting mods and offering perks to players in exchange for real money. Our situation is different as were in the process of becoming a nonprofit and all our donations go back directly into our community but until the approval from Bohemia is given, we have removed any portions that conflict with their legal departments requests.

As to respond to your questions about having to donate to join our closed beta. You can be apart of our closed beta by simply applying to the EMS, Police Department or Sheriff Department. You simply just first need to be accepted into our community as a civilian and be a member for 2 weeks. Players were able to join previously if they met a certain level of donator level as we needed more bug testers but wasn't ready for a whole open beta approach and overrun our staff.

You requested information regarding special vehicles. The price you are paying for the porting of the vehicle by the modeler. In exchange for covering that cost, you receive a version of that car in your garage when public release. All other players in the game have the opportunity of owning that same vehicle by simply going to a car dealer associated with that manufacturer.

Can't comment on a players remarks regarding our mod that isn't part of leadership.

I would like to highlight some of the expenses we have that you raise concern of commercial scale levels. Were not Armatec with City Life or any other community that uses our communities donations to buy real life vehicles or pay their house payment with your donation. All donations are keep to ensure that our community members have a stable and secure environment to enjoy a game that is made for them by them through their input and ideas. Being that we have a large community requires large amounts of servers to be able to keep up with these type of numbers. So you can simply add the incoming donations but until you run those numbers against expenses of server hosting, domain name, email, Firewall Protection, DDOS protection, TeamSpeak Licensing and etc. That adds up pretty quickly.

Thank you for your inquiry and look forward to seeing you in our community.

Mike Baxter

Project Manager

Arma 3 Life

[eggbeast 3673]

hi Mike

Thanks very much for taking the time to explain things, and provide answers to my questions here.

Reading through your comments I have a few further questions, which I hop you won't mind me asking.

So as of yesterdays' A3Life website content, and experiences of a friend of mine who tried to participate (and raised his concerns with me), the community hosting this mod is charging a non-refundable mandatory donation of $30 to participate in the beta of the mod.

$30-39: Gold Tier Donator ( Golden Hands! )

* 1 free donator vehicle (Restrictions apply. No sport/air, non-tradeable.)

+ Access to the Closed BETA

I see you have today removed the access restriction clause from your website, but my friend was verbally encouraged during his interview to make the payment of $30, he came away with a strong feeling that if he did not make it, he would not pass the interview.

Q1 will you be refunding any donations derived from this condition?

Q2 What is the scale of income this clause has so far generated?

I note from your website you have 1,802 donors listed but no amounts yet. I guess if the minimum donation was a single one-off fee of $5and the max was say $30, then you would have raised between $10,000 and $54,000 so far.

You mention BIS efforts:

assisting them with complying to their most recent attempts to stop communities with profiting from their product with hosting mods and offering perks to players in exchange for real money.

yet the community website you represent currently has these (quite forcefully) written conditions as a precursor to participation and accessing the mod or certain vehicles.

Q3 Can you clarify how you plan to manage donations for vehicles/perks?

You requested information regarding special vehicles. The price you are paying for the porting of the vehicle by the modeler. In exchange for covering that cost, you receive a version of that car in your garage when public release.

Regarding standard BIS license agreement to use the game Arma 3, this charging for content is simply not permitted.

Q4 Do you have a special license in order to charge for content? If so I can think of many mods who would also be keen to explore this model, although I doubt it is legally feasible.

The expenses you detail are standard clan expenses, which, all-in for one dedi-box running two full instances of Arma 3, with TS, website, filehosting, etc should be no more than $1500 a year. you may pay extra SQL server licenses and bandwidth costs for your type of mod, so maybe incur costs $2000 a year. Surely you would then have a clan membership rule about donating, to play on your servers with say a server password or TS password as benefit. The restriction of playing the mod based on a donation is not permitted within Bohemias license. Currently this is what you have been advertising.

In terms of non-profit, I have experience of this world having been a managing director of 3 non-profit companies and understand there can be a lot of confusion, particularly in light of new business developments and the legal clauses in contracts.

normally, non-profit is taken to mean to have in your company objects a clause specifically restricting the distribution of profits (surplus of revenue minus cost) to purposes outside of your company objects. typically this restricts the distribution of profits to shareholders. now if your company has the object "to make eggbeast rich" then you can pay eggbeast a lot of money within this object, and still call yourself "non-profit." some companies do this, paying very high salaries to the directors, but no profits are distributed, so a claim of non-profit does not always mean what it seems to mean.

charitable objects

in the NGO business community in which i have worked for many years, this clause normally goes with published public-benefit objects like "improving the environment" or "helping child poverty" and many charities carry on trading businesses (like charity shops) which covenant their profit to the parent charity. inthat case no profit is paid to directors or owners of the shop chain, and all surplus is retained for use by the charity in pursuance of its published, public objects.

member benefit objects

in another class of non-profit company, like an industrial and provident society of England, or a workers co-operative (I have been a director of both) you can collect surpluses and use them to further the prosperity of the members of the company (as part of your published objects), so for example, a group of dairy farmers may form a milk co-op which bulks up their product and sells it to a supermarket and returns the profits to the members. this is a profit-distributing model, but as it does not aim to distribute profits outside of its members/objects, they often call themselves non-profit. as the intermediary organisation between the farmers and the supermarket does not itself collect and make profit for itself, or its directors.

incidentally, both of these activities (the charity shop and the farmers co-op are viewed in contract law as commercial activity. I have had many years' experience negotiating with HMRC over legal distinctions ion the services my companies have offered in the UK and EU and wider world (Qatar etc).

Q5 so given this, i was wondering what kind of legal business model you foresee which can take models made by people with a non-commercial, non-restrictive IP license, and place them in a game governed by a non-commercial, non-restrictive IP license agreement, and then charge mandatory fees to participate and have access to these models and this game, and collect surplus revenues with this company, and distribute them to individuals, or for the benefit of a specific community (and not therefore the public in general) which is NOT a commercial activity?

I would be very interested in understanding this model, asit would revolutionise the modding community of Arma. Some will think for the worse, others for the good, whichever outcome, I am interested in the facts.

also

Q6 will you be publishing your community model / objects?

Q7 will the mod when finished be free to download and host on other servers by other gaming clans?

Q8 which vehicles are you charging for privileged access to? are the authors receiving remuneration?

Q9 as i understand it, you are not currently incorporated as a company, so is it fair to assume that a private individual is receiving the donation income for the work you are publishing?

Thanks again for responding so well.

Rob

---------- Post added at 10:14 AM ---------- Previous post was at 09:42 AM ----------

I have just found this which explains that what you are doing is viewed by BIS as illegal. I will email placebo about it, so he can better manage the forward discussion.

---------- Post added at 11:10 AM ---------- Previous post was at 10:14 AM ----------

is there room for a sensible debate about paying towards mod content development / hosting - maybe stipulating an amount a mod team would like, or a mission developer would like, or a clan needs for its servers, for their time to produce something? and then publishing progress towards this.

I don't think it's at all allowed to be honest, and if so then fair enough. If i can help BIS with development of a legal/license model I'd be happy to work with their legal team on it without charge.

Edited October 14, 2014 by eggbeast

[Darkhorse 1-6 16]

Our situation is different as were in the process of becoming a nonprofit and all our donations go back directly into our community but until the approval from Bohemia is given, we have removed any portions that conflict with their legal departments requests.

No, no it's not. Your situation is the same as any one of the dozens of groups that have been caught doing this and shut down in the past.

I would like to highlight some of the expenses we have that you raise concern of commercial scale levels. Were not Armatec with City Life or any other community that uses our communities donations to buy real life vehicles or pay their house payment with your donation. All donations are keep to ensure that our community members have a stable and secure environment to enjoy a game that is made for them by them through their input and ideas. Being that we have a large community requires large amounts of servers to be able to keep up with these type of numbers. So you can simply add the incoming donations but until you run those numbers against expenses of server hosting, domain name, email, Firewall Protection, DDOS protection, TeamSpeak Licensing and etc. That adds up pretty quickly.

It's been a while since I played with the City Life community, but I distinctly recall donations being actual donations. You probably got some in-game perks, but you were actually donating to City Life and the group that ran it, not purchasing perks or individual weapons/vehicles/houses/etc. etc. With how popular City Life is, how good their admins are, the fact that they were actually making their own content instead of buying models/stealing models (I'm not saying that's the case with your group, it's just been the case with almost all others in the past) and considering how long they have been around, they have probably gotten a lot of money with donations. I doubt you have any proof that City Life is doing what you claim, but even if they were, their situation is legitimately different from yours, because it's actual donations not thinly veiled purchases, and because I'm fairly certain they keep track of where that money goes.

[mbaxter 10]

Eggbeast,

I apologize that your friend felt as if he needed to become a donator in order to be part of our community. Please have your friend contact me directly on teamspeak and be more than happy to explain and clear things up for him.

As to the nonprofit being formed, we explained to our attorney and gave them Bohemia's information and allow them to work out all that legality issues. I'm smart enough to know when to leave that to the professionals.

If you want to private message me and send me your personal email address, be more than glad to put you into contact with Bohemia that I'm working with.

Thanks,

Mike

---------- Post added at 21:38 ---------- Previous post was at 21:34 ----------

No, no it's not. Your situation is the same as any one of the dozens of groups that have been caught doing this and shut down in the past.

It's been a while since I played with the City Life community, but I distinctly recall donations being actual donations. You probably got some in-game perks, but you were actually donating to City Life and the group that ran it, not purchasing perks or individual weapons/vehicles/houses/etc. etc. With how popular City Life is, how good their admins are, the fact that they were actually making their own content instead of buying models/stealing models (I'm not saying that's the case with your group, it's just been the case with almost all others in the past) and considering how long they have been around, they have probably gotten a lot of money with donations. I doubt you have any proof that City Life is doing what you claim, but even if they were, their situation is legitimately different from yours, because it's actual donations not thinly veiled purchases, and because I'm fairly certain they keep track of where that money goes.

Darkhorse,

Thanks for your input and will leave it to our Attorney and allow them to work with Bohemia directly on what can be done and what is within our legal rights.

[eggbeast 3673]

Mike

It looks from correspondence I've seen today that there may be some changes in the works, so I'll hold fire on these questions until I receive some further info from BIS.

As I said before, I'm really keen to understand the model that can be used, I'm not a big fan of charging in game, but being able to cover costs for development is a different issue, and could really empower some modding groups.

Let's watch this space.

Rob

[mbaxter 10]

Mike

It looks from correspondence I've seen today that there may be some changes in the works, so I'll hold fire on these questions until I receive some further info from BIS.

As I said before, I'm really keen to understand the model that can be used, I'm not a big fan of charging in game, but being able to cover costs for development is a different issue, and could really empower some modding groups.

Let's watch this space.

Rob

Totally agree with you and if you have any questions, please feel free to send me an email on here.

- Mike

[takus 10]

mbaxter,

Could you please update your Arma 3: Life mod's website to clearly show that a $30 "Donation" is required to play. I've spent 2 hours writing up a detailed 450 word required application, 4 days to get it approved and an additional 4 hours in team-speak. While all in the end being told by you personally Mike Baxter that I would need to spend $30 "Donation" to enter. I understand that previously you had this message written before entering the process which deterred many would be applicants from the endless hours of processing. I'm not sure why you took down the message while still continuing the same, unsavory practices as you were before. Could someone shine some light onto this subject as why this happened? I have no issue paying $30, but going through that process made me very bitter towards your operation.

Thank you,

Takus

[mbaxter 10]

mbaxter,

Could you please update your Arma 3: Life mod's website to clearly show that a $30 "Donation" is required to play. I've spent 2 hours writing up a detailed 450 word required application, 4 days to get it approved and an additional 4 hours in team-speak. While all in the end being told by you personally Mike Baxter that I would need to spend $30 "Donation" to enter. I understand that previously you had this message written before entering the process which deterred many would be applicants from the endless hours of processing. I'm not sure why you took down the message while still continuing the same, unsavory practices as you were before. Could someone shine some light onto this subject as why this happened? I have no issue paying $30, but going through that process made me very bitter towards your operation.

Thank you,

Takus

Takus,

Not sure what your actually talking about but as we clearly can see that you are just wanting to come on here and flame than ask questions as I can tell you since we changed our rules to comply with Bohemia that you and I have not had any discussions to where I told you needed to pay to play our mod. So I will be very clear as it appears some need it spelled out for them.

YOU DO NOT NEED TO PAY TO BE A MEMBER OF A3L

1) Fill out Civilian Application

2) Complete Teamspeak Interview

3) Wait two weeks and interact on forums as a civilian

4) Apply to EMS, PD or SO (Sheriffs)

5) If accepted your into Beta

Prior there was the ability to pay $30.00 and be a gold donator or higher and get access to our beta testing. That was been removed to meet compliance with Bohemia Interactive.

If you have additional questions or concerns, you can always find me on Teamspeak to discuss or forums.

[takus 10]

This is for any future applicants that are reading this post.

Just to clarify, since your wording is very misleading. If you decide to pay a fee and have completed the application process you can play immediately as a civilian. If you do not pay the fee, you will have to complete the application process then wait an additional 2 weeks and apply for an alternative other than civilian.

Correct?

[mbaxter 10]

This is for any future applicants that are reading this post.

Just to clarify, since your wording is very misleading. If you decide to pay a fee and have completed the application process you can play immediately as a civilian. If you do not pay the fee, you will have to complete the application process then wait an additional 2 weeks and apply for an alternative other than civilian.

Correct?

Takus,

Sorry for the delayed response as been busy with work. I'm not sure how you find it misleading so I will try and explain further.

You can NOT donate $30.00 and immediately get access to closed beta as previously.

[gutiarhero814 2]

Takus,

Sorry for the delayed response as been busy with work. I'm not sure how you find it misleading so I will try and explain further.

You can NOT donate $30.00 and immediately get access to closed beta as previously.

well I have been accepted a long time ago and have received no information on how to get playing. Arma 3 Life Username: Greg Fredette

[mbaxter 10]

well I have been accepted a long time ago and have received no information on how to get playing. Arma 3 Life Username: Greg Fredette

Please login to Teampseak at ts3.arma3-life.com and speak with an admin or support. They should be able to assist you on obtaining your account information.

[eggbeast 3673]

Mike

re: "Prior there was the ability to pay $30.00 and be a gold donator or higher and get access to our beta testing."

This is what causes many of us concern. It would be effective abuse of BIS' license agreement for you to do this when hosting their game (and any of our content, e.g. Gnat's planes).

One would reasonably expect you guys to publicly refund any donations received through this practice in order to maintain compliance with the current license agreement. I have yet to receive any further clarification from BIS on changes to the license agreement. Maybe you could repair the damage in the meantime?

cheers

Rob

[mbaxter 10]

Mike

re: "Prior there was the ability to pay $30.00 and be a gold donator or higher and get access to our beta testing."

This is what causes many of us concern. It would be effective abuse of BIS' license agreement for you to do this when hosting their game (and any of our content, e.g. Gnat's planes).

One would reasonably expect you guys to publicly refund any donations received through this practice in order to maintain compliance with the current license agreement. I have yet to receive any further clarification from BIS on changes to the license agreement. Maybe you could repair the damage in the meantime?

cheers

Rob

Rob,

I appreciate your concerns but you don't work for Bohemia and we will let that be an issue between Bohemia and ourselves. Thanks for your concerns and have a great Monday sir.

Mike

[eggbeast 3673]

No but I am a representative of AMAR, http://amar.arma3.fr/ and hence taking this enquiry forward on their behalf, as some addon makers whose content you may have included in your charging structure have raised objections, and the overall effect on the modding community may be much bigger than you guys realise.

[Darkhorse 1-6 16]

Rob,

I appreciate your concerns but you don't work for Bohemia and we will let that be an issue between Bohemia and ourselves. Thanks for your concerns and have a great Monday sir.

Mike

Except it's not just an issue between Bohemia and yourselves. The primary issue is whether or not you're violating the EULA of the game, but the secondary issues are that you are using community content, addons made by 3rd parties, in this mission, and that you are apparently profiting enough to hire a lawyer to defend your right to keep doing so. Regardless of the decision Bohemia makes, you will then have to deal individually with each addonmaker, and seeing as the law is clearly on the side of the author, you'll end up having to either make all your content yourselves (cue ten minutes of laughter) or strip the community work out of your mission and rely on what little you have of your own, combined with vanilla.

[takus 10]

Mbaxter,

Just wanted to continue where we left off earlier.

Is an additional application process required to join if you do not donate?

Thanks,

Takus

[mbaxter 10]

Mbaxter,

Just wanted to continue where we left off earlier.

Is an additional application process required to join if you do not donate?

Thanks,

Takus

There is no additional application process when joining A3L than the civilian application. Once you complete the civ app and interview process your in. If you want to join EMS, PD or Sheriffs, you put in an application as if you would trying to get a job in real life.

Hope that helps man.

[Caiden 1]

Mike

re: "Prior there was the ability to pay $30.00 and be a gold donator or higher and get access to our beta testing."

This is what causes many of us concern. It would be effective abuse of BIS' license agreement for you to do this when hosting their game (and any of our content, e.g. Gnat's planes).

One would reasonably expect you guys to publicly refund any donations received through this practice in order to maintain compliance with the current license agreement. I have yet to receive any further clarification from BIS on changes to the license agreement. Maybe you could repair the damage in the meantime?

cheers

Rob

Hello Rob,

Gnat's plane('s) is not included in our modpack. All of the addons in the modpack have been made by us (or we have been given permission to use it for the ArmA 3 Life mod)

I can probably give you a list of more than 100 sites, if not thousands that break the BIS' license agreement in terms of giving out donation rewards, and it's happening on a large scale as well (I'm talking about some indie game companies that have setup 5/6 Altis Life servers and are actually profiting from it, even including a referral system). I think it would be wise to go after them rather than our mod which is not breaking any terms of the BIS license as we speak. We have no donation rewards, all donations are voluntarily and access to the mod can be given without a financial contribution (which is at our discretion via a whitelist request on our forums).

This is my statement and end of discussion regarding donations.

Caiden.