Will keeping the Dev Branch end up splitting the community ?

[rebb 10]

Since BIS has mentioned that they plan to keep the Dev Branch after release, which makes sense of course since it makes testing of changes easier, i wondered if it might have the unwanted side-effect of essentially splitting the game's community in two.

After all, Server Admins will have to commit servers to one or the other, or split them up if they have a pool of servers available.

Which branch will mission designers mainly use for testing / deploying new missions ? Will playing on Dev Branch mean you have much less servers to play and and much less players to play with ?

During Alpha / Beta i pretty much only stayed on the Dev Branch exclusively, also due to potentially having to redownload hundreds of MB for each branch switch.

What do you think ?

[clydefrog 3]

Since BIS has mentioned that they plan to keep the Dev Branch after release, which makes sense of course since it makes testing of changes easier, i wondered if it might have the unwanted side-effect of essentially splitting the game's community in two.

After all, Server Admins will have to commit servers to one or the other, or split them up if they have a pool of servers available.

Which branch will mission designers mainly use for testing / deploying new missions ? Will playing on Dev Branch mean you have much less servers to play and and much less players to play with ?

During Alpha / Beta i pretty much only stayed on the Dev Branch exclusively, also due to potentially having to redownload hundreds of MB for each branch switch.

What do you think ?

Mission designers would have to be mental to be using the development branch after the game is released, imo.

[mr_centipede 31]

If only they made it like ARMA 2 beta patch system, where the beta patch is a mod that can be enabled/disabled at any time. Since now BIS use steamworkshop, maybe BIS can now release their 'mod' for players to download, and they can update the mod via steam like any other mods on steamworkshop. Perhaps they can also test steamworkshop functionality while at it...

But I don't know the inner workings of steamworks/workshop, so it may not be feasible/possible.

[Deadfast 43]

You can set up two independent installations (one with, one without dev) using steamcmd.

[mr_centipede 31]

.. using steamcmd.

I'm sorry, but what? I'm new to steam just for ARMA, so I'm sorry for being lost here... ???

[el_muerko 0]

You can set up two independent installations (one with, one without dev) using steamcmd.

Explain please. This is definitely something people need to know about post launch.

[Sandy* 10]

Mission designers would have to be mental to be using the development branch after the game is released, imo.

It's not like the post-release dev builds are going to constantly offer us new content & features - I remember having no problems running regular missions in Arma 2 with beta patches. It'll mostly just be bug fixes and subtle changes under the hood.

[Artyom 10]

https://developer.valvesoftware.com/wiki/SteamCMD

[St. Jimmy 272]

https://developer.valvesoftware.com/wiki/SteamCMD

Does it need two completley different installs so it takes a lot of space?

[Deadfast 43]

Does it need two completley different installs so it takes a lot of space?

Yes. I'll post the batch files I use with it to update A3 this evening.

[kremator 1064]

I would reckon that everyone will switch to the stable branch for about a week to see just how many servers there are, then people like me will switch back to dev version as I love to see what is coming up! I used to keep beta branch on in A2OA all the time (hmmm still do!)

[OrLoK 20]

Hello there

I think having two installs will be a little excessive for most users.

I have stayed on the dev branch so far but after release will choose the version the majority of my favourite servers.

Mods will probably be the thing that will gets in the way for many.

Rgds

LoK

[Deadfast 43]

Yes. I'll post the batch files I use with it to update A3 this evening.

Dev branch:

D:\Games\SteamCMD\steamcmd +login YourSteamName YourPassword +force_install_dir D:\Games\arma3dev +app_update "107410 -beta development" validate +quit

Stable:

D:\Games\SteamCMD\steamcmd +login YourSteamName YourPassword +force_install_dir D:\Games\arma3 +app_update 107410 validate +quit

[Steakslim 1]

if their dev branch updates become anything like the old beta patching system, they'll be backwards compatible in mp until they advance too far (usually when close to next stable update).

[dale0404 5]

To answer the question directly in the title of this thread:

No it will not.

[sorophx 25]

I wonder if there's a possibility of having two exe files without having to install the game twice

[rebb 10]

To answer the question directly in the title of this thread:

No it will not.

Well, apparently you were right.

I haven't been playing for a while, only tried again today on my DevBranch install.

And the way it looks, it doesn't make any sense at all to stay on the Dev-Branch.

Practically nobody is playing there, there's way fewer servers and mission variety.

Opting out of it for good.

[rndmplyr 1]

Dev branch:

D:\Games\SteamCMD\steamcmd +login YourSteamName YourPassword +force_install_dir D:\Games\arma3dev +app_update "107410 -beta development" validate +quit

Stable:

steamcmd +login YourSteamName YourPassword +force_install_dir D:\Games\arma3 +app_update 107410 validate +quit

I had to modify these lines a bit, as the dev command did not change an installed stable version to dev branch, and likewise the stable command did not change to stable branch (might work if those are kept in different directories, but I wanted to change my second install from dev to stable and back). The quotation marks have to be around the whole command:

D:\Games\SteamCMD\steamcmd +login YourSteamName YourPassword +force_install_dir D:\Games\arma3dev "+app_update 107410 -beta development" validate +quit

and for switching back to stable an empty beta option was needed:

steamcmd +login YourSteamName YourPassword +force_install_dir D:\Games\arma3 "+app_update 107410 -beta" validate +quit

Edited August 17, 2014 by rndmplyr