A solution to the A2/BI content in A3 and your thoughts

[.kju 3245]

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Preface

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This thread is NOT about A3 content discussion.

Please use one of the existing threads for that!

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I'd like to propose an approach I feel the most feasible, doable and the best compromise I can see.

The purpose of this thread is to explain the idea and rally community support to get BI to agree too and get it started ASAP.

First off for multiple reasons it seems best to have BI stick to A3 content and future tech era.

They are to improve the current release assets and potentially expand it with more (via patches and a possible expansion).

However it is also a sensible desire to see A2/OA content in the A3 engine. You can read some arguments for doing this here.

So the big question is how to get this done - I want to suggest the way to achieve this in the following.

Development part

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By prior cooperation with BI and with All in Arma a good base is already established.

However to complete the first part there are still a few engine issues to be sorted out by BI (vote here).

The second part is to have BI supply the source models from A2 and OA to the community.

Either to the general public with a suitable license, or to accelerate and simplify the process

just to a selected group of modders for now that would join the effort (similar to CWR).

A couple of experienced, long time modders already have contacted me to help out in that regard due to the AiA project.

If you are interested and want to contribute, you are most welcome to contact me (PM/mail/Skype).

My role would be to coordinate the project, arrange the details with BI and help on the config and scripting side.

Distribution part

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Here the core idea is to distribute an CO lite as free DLC for A3 for everyone in Steam, next to AiA/A3 Rearmed.

People that already own A2/OA/CO could just load this along instead to get high quality textures and sounds.

Such is essentially to keep an unified base for multiplayer.

The A2/OA models updated by community, and other assets, would be another free DLC available in Steam.

Thus the whole integration, update and play experience would be easy and unified.

Financial part

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The CO lite version available for A3 would promote new players to get A2/OA/CO for the best experience.

This means additional income for BI from their previous products. This could be also shared one way or another

with the involved community modders to update the A2/OA content to A3 standards.

Conclusion

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So in summary the A3 team would continue to focus almost solely on A3 assets and engine improvements,

whereas a community team would take over the part to upgrade the A2/OA content.

By this cooperation BI could justify even more the investment required to sort out the few remaining engine issues.

As a result the way bigger content base would become available to A3 players

and that base would make it way easier for community modders bring over their work to A3.

Obviously the concept could be expanded to TKOH if BI decides to add the necessary engine support to A3.

Your thoughts?

Edited September 8, 2013 by .kju [PvPscene]

[sektor 2]

You have my axe, Q. This is great idea and i think it's a win win situation for Bohemia and players. I played All in Arma a bit, and with all the bugs it was great.

[metalcraze 290]

No we are expecting A3 to have at least 4 APCs and more than 2 turrets for them for starters. Or at least more than one fire and forget launcher.

As for Kju's suggestion

It's a good one overall but I'd rather not have it tied to the need to install A2/OA to get that content.

I'd want updated content with better textures and physics (better armor penetration, whatever else is possible) as a separate pack that I can just add to ArmA3.

The bridge between A2 and A3 is more of a bandaid than a solution

[Polygon 11]

This is a great initiative and I fully support its realization as a HUGE + for existing A3 content.

Speaking of A3 quality itself, this installment has more improvements than downsides which is surprisingly well and mostly minor details on realism and such.

I consider A3 a technical improvement for sure, but fundamentally, the gameplay is going the wrong way - however, this can be corrected after the release within time. Time is the essential component here.

Content-wise I'm not very pleased or disappointed - just neutral - simple. But copypasta really shows and this shouldn't be encouraged to be part of Arma4.

[3instein 10]

I think this is a good compromise for all the concerns that have been raised,and wish you the very best of luck.

Some peeps are not familiar,or want the future tech route and opening it up to play with cold war assets seems a no brainer from what a lot of folk seem to want.

Mick. :)

[[frl]myke 14]

Either to the general public with a suitable license, or to accelerate and simplify the process

just to a selected group of modders for now that would join the effort (similar to CWR).

If at all, then for everyone. Some people's preference might differ from other people (modders) preference. If everyone has access to the source files, tailored versoins can be possible.

[VanZant 48]

Is there somewhere to vote this?

[Phantom Six 25]

ARMA 3 at its current state, there's too much mirroring of factions and such etc. Guns functions same ways, vehicles are just reskin of one another, same with the static weapons. We can't call that too much content. There's no diversity. Where's the guerilla units too. The diversity of the kind of missions you can make is limited while in ARMA 2, there were more assets to toy around with. Taking a look at ARMA 2, if I want to make a guerilla mission ambushing high tech enemy convoy, I can do that while in ARMA 3, every faction has the same equipment anyways.

I'm for an official All in ArmA since if you can merge both ARMA 2 and 3 with a proper backwards compatible support, it would extend the lifespan of ARMA 3 much longer being able to use some ARMA 2 assets and not having to worry about remaking every single addons. For the time being, ARMA 3 has much lesser content than ARMA 2. It'd be nice to see the ARMA 2 first aid modules back again as well since the FAK system is pretty flawed rendering medics useless when you can pick up another FAK to fix up your legs if you were to lose them.

[[frl]myke 14]

Gentlemen, there are already threads where you can discuss if A3 has enough diversity or not. Please read the opening post again and stay on topic. If you can't, you will be banned from thread.

[mistyronin 1181]

;2493443']

So in summary the A3 team would continue to focus almost solely on A3 assets and engine improvements' date='

whereas a community team would take over the part to upgrade the A2/OA content.

By this cooperation BI could justify even more the investment required to sort out the few remaining engine issues.

As a result the way bigger content base would become available to A3 players

and that base would make it way easier for community modders bring over their work to A3.

Obviously the concept could be expanded to TKOH if BI decides to add the necessary engine support to A3.

[/quote']

Completely agree.

The best and most constructive suggestion to date. Will give hands free to BI to work in A3 new stuff, and the community will get tons of new toys to play (a lot of people was praying for modern stuff in A3).

Most of us already own A2/AO with all the DLCs, so BI won't lose money, so it's win-win situation.

NOTE: Maybe a poll in the post would help to gain support ( some people don't like to comment ).

[almanzo 144]

I would love to see this implemented! .kju's efforts so far has been great!

[Defunkt 431]

Have always thought BIS' decision to move to a futuristic setting made it vital that they also provided backward compatibility to the contemporary assets in A2/OA. .kju's done a great job getting A2-in-A3 working as well as it does (I wouldn't have credited it as possible just through configs) but there are issues only BIS can solve and they'd be insane not to especially as they wouldn't have to provide man-hours, only access to their source for a trusted community member or team. At this stage I really don't see how A3 can emulate the sales success of A2 without this.

[chortles 263]

Most of us already own A2/AO with all the DLCs, so BI won't lose money, so it's win-win situation.

Now you've got me thinking of Arma 2 and Operation Arrowhead as "DLC packs for Arma 3". :p

[clifdenhill 1]

I like and agree with your idea op. The modders could work on the all in arma content while bohemia focuses on the content they wanted to get in arma 3 from the beginning is how I understood your post. :thumbup:

[MavericK96 0]

+1 to OP, this is a great idea. Why not take advantage of content that already exists?

[mistyronin 1181]

Now you've got me thinking of Arma 2 and Operation Arrowhead as "DLC packs for Arma 3". :p

Well, to tell you the truth I wouldn't mind paying a few bucks, as long as they go to the community modders that would make it possible.

[NeuroFunker 11]

Jesus Christ, people expect A3 to have 100 vehicles and 200 weapons... BI is not an insanely huge company and the project had some big issues. Do you even understand that a 60€ game like COD has barely 10% of the content A3 offers? COD has no vehicles, small maps, barely any detail. Just because A3 is open world people expect it to have every little tiny detail that exists in real life:

-"BI please, why is the sun not in a correct position during the 2nd August in the editor. Broken game"

-"Why do we only have 4 APC's?! WTF BI? WORST COMPANY EVER"

-"AI can't properly load 1 launcher into a backpack. WTF are you doing BI?"

Do you guys even understand how much more detail BI has to put in this game compared to most AAA games on the market? What's the biggest thing COD devs have to worry about? Fish AI?! Give BI a break.

Btw. A3 is only 30€ right now.

exactly man! Like i said once: people never have enough. I bet, half of them whos bitching, already pre ordered the next CoD, cause they fell into marketing thing: this is a new game, everything is better, blah-blah etc. But it's the same cod, with few extras. Arma 3 is really a bit different game, then arma 2. And better nearly in every aspect. But someone stats to bitch, another joins the "bitching club", and then more and more people, fall into that "moand and bitching trap". BIS never should have lets all of us, play pre-final version. Or let only some of known community members to beta test.

People who are new here, just read what was with arma 2 release. How much conent it had, how many bugs, performance issues etc. Negative reviews and dissapointed people. Arma 3 is nowhere as bad as arma 2 was at release. Arma 2 was more like like arma 3 alpha or worse, in therms of bugs and performance issues. Plus, you had to pay for full price game, now you had a chance to pay 2x less, and take a part in alpha, and get final version for fucking free! But instead of paying BIS some respect, some of you become little whiny girls. Who never get enough!

So maybe take a pill and chill?

[mistyronin 1181]

People who are new here, just read what was with arma 2 release. How much conent it had, how many bugs, performance issues etc. Negative reviews and dissapointed people. Arma 3 is nowhere as bad as arma 2 was at release. Arma 2 was more like like arma 3 alpha or worse, in therms of bugs and performance issues. Plus, you had to pay for full price game, now you had a chance to pay 2x less, and take a part in alpha, and get final version for fucking free! But instead of paying BIS some respect, some of you become little whiny girls. Who never get enough!

So maybe take a pill and chill?

I don't get the point. A few community guys are saying that they are gonna work hard ( and for free ) to allow all the game owners to play with A2/AO updated content in A3. And you write that?

[NeuroFunker 11]

I don't get the point. A few community guys are saying that they are gonna work hard ( and for free ) to allow all the game owners to play with A2/AO updated content in A3. And you write that?

well, i've never said, i'm against it.

[J0K3R 5 93]

+1 to OP

[mistyronin 1181]

well, i've never said, i'm against it.

Then again, what's the point? This post is precisely to discuss about this brave kju solution, not to harass/attack other people.

[sektor 2]

...

So maybe take a pill and chill?

You need to chill, you are arguing issues from other topics, this one is about putting A2 stuff in A3, if you don't support it, tell us why.

[Fulcrum90 10]

Myke;2493575']If at all' date=' then for everyone. Some people's preference might differ from other people (modders) preference. If everyone has access to the source files, tailored versoins can be possible.[/quote']

Yeah.

By the way, I still dont understand how AiA exactly works....Its only one version right? So everyone who has AiA can play with other AiA users...?

[LODU 19]

Very interresting idea.

In the optical or BIS would agree to a modification of the contained (mlods) from A2 to A3, I think we should keep in mind the following points:

1 - The mlods of arma 2 are much more polygons, especially vehicles, as arma 3 (one realizes when a tank with poorly digested physx turned on the back: no unnecessary detail, there or that can not be seen, especially at what should secure the wheels to the body).

Purists will scream, but frankly, I think we do not spend all his time in game to evolve flush of grass, to see what's under the frame and then with a well thought out optimization , you can replay kursk full size ...

In other words, the hunt for polygons too was opened and optimization models A3 is much better made ​​than arma 2.

2 - Other features, such as "atlas" textures and better management of the transition from "lods" in addition to this wonderful athmosphere, reinforces the impression that the "devs" are base on performance optimization .

These two points make me say that the ArmA2 models, if available including (but also those of modders) should be treated with the same attention if we want to maintain this proportion between the gameplay and polycount.

Because if it is something that is quite long misunderstood by many modders, it is optimization models ...

Unfortunately, the game engine does not arma 3 coffee and household when asked.

It is fluid because, upstream, people, devs or modders have taken the time to make Degressive lods with rations by half between each lod, character models or vehicles which have been eradicated polygons that do nothing else but the heaviness, etc., etc..

Of course, other ways can a relief that, but it is not our responsibility.

All this to say (my two cents), it would be better to let a team well aware of these issues, to deal with these "details" can also be considered an interim solution, with models started with some but finished, "polished" with a final team.

This is a suggestion and I know she can raise copyright issues unless everyone means well.

[columdrum 11]

I Personally don't like the way AiA loads just all the A2/OA addons or none, i would like a more modular approach to it, just to rearrange the addons in a better way, something like "OA maps","OA units" ,.... that would allow for a better control and avoid loading some addons that just mess everything(EG: loading A2/OA UI.pbos messes a lot of classes, would be better to just create an A3 one that doesnt' mess with A3 but still keeps the needed for A2, if any are needed). If not separate addons(that can fuck up MP compatibility if people just loads some addons and not all), at least exclude those than are problematic config wise, i just don't trust so many config hijacking, but maybe that's just me

To do that, if as you say you get the permision from BI i would either create new pbos and distribute them( legal shit involved), copy some on the A2/OA addons into new folders in A3 dir( that would double the space required if you have both A2 and A3 installed) or a last approach would be create the new folders, BUT don't copy the files, just symlink them, that way you can have the pbos better organized( as i said separated by UNITS; maps or whatever).

So i will love the do the first option( do new pbos that doesn't need that much config workaround), the problem would be the distribution, i guess it would be possible distribute it as a DLC, and maybe ( dunno if that would be possible under steam) give this DLC for free to A2/OA owners and make a lite one for non owners( too keep MP compativility). I don't totally get if thats your intention, i just got confused on the "AiA/A3 Rearmed" statement(thats how you would call the new full DLC?), but i guess that was your proposition.

If that's not posible i would preffer the symlink approach than the current one.

Btw i am in, if the proyect needs help with anything

EDIT: i just rereaded the first post and i kindda think i missread it at first i got confused with the "AiA/A3 Rearmed", if thats the name you would give to the new DLC that includes all A2 content adapted to A3, just ignore the whole post because that's just what i would love to have and nothing against it. I just thought Kju was speaking about including the actual AiA as a DLC, thing that i wouldn't like at all( i don't have anything agains AiA, its a tremendous and great config work, it's just i don't trust arma to do so much config rewriting).

Edited September 7, 2013 by columdrum