I am a player of BI games from OFP CWC. Heres what I think.

[Tacti-Cool 10]

Thanks for the laugh OP. (Not sarcasm)

I really enjoyed the part about snakes opening doors.

Sad part is: They Do.

[Smurf 12]

Sad part is: They Do.

The saddest part is: they still do!

Since early Alpha.

Glad the fish ain't running around on land anymore :p

[jakerod 254]

If you need to legitimatize yourself with "I've been here from the beginning" then you're a twerp

Disagree. I use it to show that I've been around for all the bugged releases in the past 10 years and thus knew what to expect. The fact that I got even less than the little I was expecting based on my prior experience goes to show that this is the worst release yet (in my opinion). That being said I assume that there are good reasons for it turning out the way that it did. I only express my disappointment in the hopes that they will go "maybe in the future we shouldn't do things this way."

[hellfire257 3]

The amount of mistakes in the OP make me think that this is either a troll post or the author is just really dumb.

[chortles 263]

Not trolling here, but does it seem to be a bit odd that everyone here claims to have been playing the series since OFP? I would imagine that playing since then would invalidate many of the negative comments directed at Arma3 simply because you'd understand the game better and what it's trying to accomplish. You see the same thing with bands that become popular.. "I've been listening to them since the EP!"

The funny thing is when I read self-professed OFP-onward players have the opposite reaction just as what you describe:

I've played every iteration of this series since OFP, and this one just totally blows them out of the water. I'm actually having a ton of fun just jumping into random servers and working with a squad. For the others I had to wait for some good mods to come out before I even considered playing, but so far everything seems to be in decent shape.

The most shocking thing is that it actually runs acceptably (on super low settings) on my laptop with an onboard GPU. What the hell?

I have to say, this is the first BI game where they've really perfected the art direction - it looks like somewhere. Previous titles all the way back to OFP are distinctive (and even dramatic, Chernarus looked like a bleak, comic interpretation of semi-rural Eastern Europe) but Altis is the first island that feels completely authentic. Maybe Arrowhead started down this path but it's the first time since the OFP days that I've really wanted to explore the location.

Both of these were not on the BI forums but rather another message board's own Arma 3 thread.

+1 for that.

You have an in game direct channel with players and are barely using it.

Again, I think this whole "community outreach" thing is still new to them and 2012-2013 were about learning their way around these things... it's the only acceptable reason for the devs' penchant for awful memes like "U MARID BRO?" :p

[GottyPlays 10]

So by that logic (that BI does not listen to the community) what is the point of posting all these rant threads? Surely, just like the bug tracker, they are going to ignore them?

Aren't they?

And for the record: my butt is far from hurt, I'm posting at the moment loling my face off at how self-entitled most people in these threads are.

Just take a look in the mirror next time you lol for self entitled people...

[froggyluv 2130]

Just take a look in the mirror next time you lol for self entitled people...

Lol. Tit for Tat fail. Doesn't make any sense as DM isn't demanding anything.

[thesneak 0]

OK. I'm going to drop the sarcasm. The CEO did some PR work today. I call it damage control. DM insist he doesn't work for BI in any way. This nerd just goes around the forum campaigning damage control and ridiculing me for the fun of it. Well, to each his own. I wonder if BI is aware that he is making a fool of them by making the following claims in their name.

1) Future war was dropped to appease complaining community members."There WAS future, but all the spoiled little brats in the community complained about it, so it was cut. There you go, your future is gone because of people like you." So this is my punishment? More nerd speak. Where are all the forum threads complaining about future war conceopts? Where are all the BI PR showing of the concepts of future war to complain about? Liar. There really wasn't the uproar that we hear now is there.

2) It's only irrational butthurt that leads me to be disappointed in this game where I wasn't disappointed with all of the games past.

3) I'm not anybody to have an opinion of the new release of a game I have been waiting for 3 + years, but his opinion matters.

4) It's our fault for being "spoiled by Arma2" and I should just shut up and tell all my friends to buy the 60$ game that takes a new GPU to run, and forget Arma2.

5)That my statements that I won't pay any money to BI for DLC is "butthurt".

6)That "Since I only really played with my fellow BAS people, Zeus or the Tizzies I never really had any problems waiting for people to green up. No I spent more time waiting for the mission to end after I'd died." is supposed to justify belittling my experience with the community. Spoken like a true nerd.

7)"and now people have a big ole hissyfit when their ALL NEW (except the Buzzard) content doesn't match or exceed the content of the previous 3 games combined." Is a statement that justified 1 sucky not futuristic airplane (not even the Cessna). And magically makes the garbage 30 year old eruo weapons with the turrets swapped and moved something new. I wouldn't care, but there isn't a lot to choose from is there?

8) "And for the record: my butt is far from hurt, I'm posting at the moment loling my face off at how self-entitled most people in these threads are. unlike the rage that I can imagine most of you are posting with because A3 doesn't have your favorite M4 variant," So BI is in a charity service now? I don't know 60$ is fairly entitling and I didn't hear anyone say the game is shit because they don't have a specific rifle. You just cant polish this turd by belittling us. We know exactly why we love Arma, and why we have trouble with this release. I think your not good with the PVP stuff are you? Not much of a team player are you.

The nerd says :"As for "abysmal release" well, again, that's your opinion. And your opinion doesn't really matter. On the whole, the game is selling well."

That's really the heart of the matter isn't it.

I hope that isn't BIS stand but even if it is, soon enough they will see that open source squad control military sandbox isn't dark magic wizardry anymore and may find themselves in competition with their own fan base. It's not like literally thousands of them out class them in programming modeling and people skill. Not to mention knowledge of military sim.

I wonder what might happen say if CWR, I44 and benny could accomplish together.

When you consider what 144 was able to do in about a year and a half, with no budget, it makes me wonder what BIs excuse is. The fans who's "opinions don't matter" aren't your average shmucks. You don't know much about them do you?

Oh, and for the nerds who corrected me on everything

The AH9 "Pawnee" is supposed to be a future MH6. But MH6 variants have been way more futuristic since the 70s who's chain gun is invisible now. They chucked in the old one and gave it a "9"

The AH99 Blackfoot is a modeled Arma 2 Super Cobra that they used the same gun in both attack helicopters for both sides in A3. Same misses all around. All the same, only the names have changed.

Arma3 has a MLRS, that's a 40 year old T-72 chassis with a missile box mounted in the turret position. Not a future weapon.

Arma3 "Ghost hawk" is not stealth and flat plane steal was obsolete the minute the F117 hit production. Also it's not stealth again.

7.62x54 is SKS, AK is 7.62 x 39. Ammo now 70 years old. It's Nato because Europe cant afford .308 and the Soviets left it everywhere. The Ammo in Arma 3 is fantasy anyway but even worse is they only had the time to make 4 different ammos by tweaking the ranges.

Almost every (that's not many) tracked vehicle in Arma3 is antique East Euro, or a Bradley with no turret. The Tunguska is a old AA track on a old tank chassis. They didn't even dream up new weapons, they just took models of old weapons a swapped turrets. There isn't a "futuristic" thing about any of it.

If you ever been a mil sim junkie, then you can always bitch about Arma, Everything comes with the same gun sight, and the same weapons. If details are your thing, then I'm not your problem, Arma is. If your so critical with my lack of military expertise, I ask you for you opinion of BIs?

There are tons of people who Mod, Model, skin and tweak weapons on these forums, go ask them their opinion about how much work went into this game.

In my next episode, I'll Review todays press release By BIs CEO. Spoiler alert, I kind get the feeling like he told me to go fauq myself, I can't be sure, but it has that feeling.

Why didn't they just make "Take on zombies" and get it over with?

[David77 10]

I should just shut up and tell all my friends to buy the 60$ game that takes a new GPU to run, and forget Arma2.

While I can agree with alot of what you've said, if your friends could run Arma2 they can run Arma3. The game hardly makes use of even older GPUs. It's processor dependent. Older, Low-mid range, super cheap CPUs, such as an i5 2500 work just aswell, if not better than some higher end cpus for the game.

[Sniperwolf572 758]

Disagree. I use it to show that I've been around for all the bugged releases in the past 10 years and thus knew what to expect. The fact that I got even less than the little I was expecting based on my prior experience goes to show that this is the worst release yet (in my opinion). That being said I assume that there are good reasons for it turning out the way that it did. I only express my disappointment in the hopes that they will go "maybe in the future we shouldn't do things this way."

I'm with you on this one. While I won't call it the worst release, the things that have happened in the period since the Alpha released until today had certainly altered my views regarding the statements BI makes. Sure, this Alpha/Beta might have been a success for BI in regards to sales and the eyes that those sales generated, but with the appearance of threads like this daily, it doesn't seem at all that those who made it a success for BI are regarding it as such. Perspective is a bitch I suppose.

In regards to content, while sure, it can be said "90% of the content is new models instead of recycling", I find that this time the problem is different, this time content isn't partly recycled from the previous titles, this time it's being recycled within itself, which is what I suppose makes it taste and appear so bad. It feels like the creativity and talent that went into most assets in the game ended up being diluted by such minor repetitive things. It's a bit like texture tiling effect, if the eye gets attracted towards the obviously repetitive bits within the texture, it simply looks bad.

Feedback tracker failed in my eyes for the Alpha/Beta, top voted issues since the FT tracker started are limbo tickets which will never happen but they'll never be closed because nobody wants to say "no". Besides BI QA using it to catch emergency issues, you're more likely to get a bug noticed by the people who matter by making a thread in the forum or posting in one of the megathreads. Suggesting any slightly involved change was either met with the ticket being a limbo ticket or outright fear of breaking other things or "yeah, that might take a long time to do". It's basically there to serve as a "low-hanging fruit" repository.

I still fully support the decision to go with Steam and I doubt I will ever switch back to stable as it's awesome to receive daily builds on the dev branch.

I'm cautiously hopeful that it will be used to it's full incredible potential.

I'm indifferent towards whatever setting they decided to use.

I'm incredibly impressed by the scale of Altis.

I love the music.

I love the radio protocol.

I love where the inventory went but they overlooked certain things.

I feel like the sound effects stalled out.

I love the "new control feeling" but once again, it stalled out due to the animation limitations and the way the old system rears it's head in certain places.

I dislike the limitations that results from the way animations are handled.

I'm surprised they haven't explored that further.

I love the new IK additions.

I dislike the interaction clumsiness and the complete reliance on the action menu.

I love the inclusion of PhysX configured vehicles and all the potential configuration options for such.

I dislike the way vehicles handle and still feel weightless.

I'm surprised by the lack of PhysX ropes.

I love the Steam Workshop integration for missions.

I'm disappointed at the stalemate that the entire Steam Workshop vs Modders is at.

It's surprising to see the opening a can of worms right after the release with the "monetizing addons thing". I'd love for the modders to get more monetary support for providing top-notch content but there are a lot of problems that will need full scale perpetual BI involvement if it is to happen. I'd rather see them supported monetarily in other ways. Especially with the currently unresolved issues in regards to the Steam Workshop and the general nature of the modding community. I feel like it's needlessly rocking the boat at this point.

The tolerance Alpha/Beta labels gave BI are now gone, there are no more excuses to be had. Now, once again, it's down to the modding community to hold the fort for a couple of years.

Edited September 13, 2013 by Sniperwolf572

[Primarch 10]

There is definitely damage control going on.

It's not good, that's not what anyone wants. People want performance, they don't care how hard it is for you. That's the business, either you get more efficient scheduling for your products or your product will perish.

-Someone- should just start rewriting -something- to a -some- more efficient format -now-. Taking risks is how you make mad money, not by indecision and holding out.

[mistyronin 1181]

OK. I'm going to drop the sarcasm. The CEO did some PR work today. I call it damage control. DM insist he doesn't work for BI in any way. This nerd just goes around the forum campaigning damage control and ridiculing me for the fun of it. Well, to each his own. I wonder if BI is aware that he is making a fool of them by making the following claims in their name.

Do you believe that mocking the BI team and DM it's gonna achieve anything?

I do think that instead of being rude, you should try to calmly write an educated post. Then the BI team may read it, maybe even pick some of your suggestions; improve the game and make it funnier for everyone.

BTW I'm quite happy with today's Marek statement, he has answered some doubts that I had.

Edited September 13, 2013 by MistyRonin

[dm 9]

1) Future war was dropped to appease complaining community members."There WAS future, but all the spoiled little brats in the community complained about it, so it was cut. There you go, your future is gone because of people like you." So this is my punishment? More nerd speak. Where are all the forum threads complaining about future war conceopts? Where are all the BI PR showing of the concepts of future war to complain about? Liar. There really wasn't the uproar that we hear now is there.

Why don't you learn to search:

http://forums.bistudio.com/showthread.php?127417-Railguns-and-coilguns-could-a-BI-dev-clear-that-up

http://forums.bistudio.com/showthread.php?158545-Preference-of-Arma-2-equipment

http://forums.bistudio.com/showthread.php?120839-What-do-you-think-off-the-quot-future-quot-setting

http://forums.bistudio.com/showthread.php?159212-Poll-Rather-Modern-or-Futuristic

http://forums.bistudio.com/showthread.php?147982-OPFOR-too-Futuristic

http://forums.bistudio.com/showthread.php?119193-Am-I-the-only-one-who-disliked-the-futuristic-approach

http://forums.bistudio.com/showthread.php?163790-Is-This-a-Joke

http://forums.bistudio.com/showthread.php?132745-Is-Arma-3-authentic

That is from a 5 second search for "future"...

Oh wait, you're just one of those whiners, more interested in pushing your "sky is falling" attitude because you think it will get the game changed to be how you want it...

Not going to bother responding to the rest of that diatribe :)

[dayglow 2]

I'm a player of BIS games since 2001 and I think browsing this forum is depressing. Pointing out all the bad things is easy mode. If you really feel like sharing your opinions on this & that at least try to be constructive... And yeah, the lack of content is old news. You could try to enjoy the game anyway. I hope I dont appear a fanboy, but seriously.

I think the people that are enjoying the game are playing it instead of posting on the forum.

[ProfTournesol 956]

I think the people that are enjoying the game are playing it instead of posting on the forum.

Yes, and considering the amount of flaming and name calling posts, i think i'll stay away too until the grown ups are back.

[clydefrog 3]

While I can agree with alot of what you've said, if your friends could run Arma2 they can run Arma3. The game hardly makes use of even older GPUs. It's processor dependent. Older, Low-mid range, super cheap CPUs, such as an i5 2500 work just aswell, if not better than some higher end cpus for the game.

LOL @ an i5 2500 being low-mid range or super cheap

And also "The game hardly makes use of even older GPUs." is more bullshit, just because it relies a lot on the CPU doesn't mean a good graphics card won't make a massive difference to performance.

Edited September 13, 2013 by clydefrog

[windies 11]

@Sniperwolf, I have to pretty much agree with the spirit of your post. I honestly feel like this was the worst ArmA release to date, but I know it's for my own reasons. I know a lot of people share those same feelings, but I know that a lot of people don't. You hit the nail on the head with the content issue. It's not that it's recycled from past ArmA's it's that it's recycled from itself, and that causes everything to feel very homogenized and for all of the different factions to feel very homogenized. It's not so much that I mind that BMP-2 being reused in future iterations of ArmA. What I mind is that all my armor, vehicles, soldiers all look exactly the same and have little to no individuality or lack of individual aesthetics.

Everything else I pretty much agree with you on.

[ric 1]

I think the people that are enjoying the game are playing it instead of posting on the forum.

I don't mean to be rude but i don't think you are playing the game either that or you not playing MP. I was told last night that i was lucky to have 15 FPS because he was at 7-10....i am finally getting tired or spending 20 mins to get to target only to have my FPS tank and NO settings will bring it back up!

Yes, and considering the amount of flaming and name calling posts, i think i'll stay away too until the grown ups are back.

and were do you think those "grown ups" went? one of those "grown ups" just left and he was spending his time and money to host a 96 player server which is not cheap but he finally got tired of dealing with a very real problem with A3 which is the engine. A lot of the "grown ups" habe left because they know there is no "patch" for this ...its a major rewrite which will not happen for A3.

[wgaf 10]

So is there confirmation that BI is doing the right thing or what?

[dayglow 2]

I don't mean to be rude but i don't think you are playing the game either that or you not playing MP. I was told last night that i was lucky to have 15 FPS because he was at 7-10....i am finally getting tired or spending 20 mins to get to target only to have my FPS tank and NO settings will bring it back up!

Havent got together with the people I play co-op with. So far I'm getting better performance than I get with ArmaII

[ric 1]

So is there confirmation that BI is doing the right thing or what?

could you elaborate plz

[Die neunte Seele 10]

I have to agree with the initial post, am very disappointed myself and got the question "What are they thinking?!" for years now.

Never the less, it has to be mentioned that the gear system and Altis are very nice ideas / very well done.

[thesneak 0]

Just so I don't appear 1 sided. I will just list what I do like, what I don't like, and what my hopes are, and what I fear in a short as possible list so per chance someone who cares is listening.

What I like:

-I love the new graphics that allow ambient lighting to be so useful. I was always very frustrated by prior Arma games that projected a light stream that only illuminated the circle that it was cast on. You were either blind by darkness, or blind by light. This 1 aspect is a game changer. I will be making many TDM maps that utilize flashlights on guns instead of night vision, for that creepy night fighting and tactical aspects.

-I love the usable water. It's been a long time coming for a game with so many Island maps. I have and will continue to play with the water insertion and shore egress scenarios. I'm a big fan of the SEAL type sneak up on your enemy fun.

-I really like the water behavior too. I have seen many people complain about object reaction to it, but I think they complain in vain. I know what a stretch it must have been to take essentially the same game engine and incorporate it. I can live without the waves. I noticed that wind and rain effects the swelling and rolling of the water.That plus the ambient lighting adds a ton of scenic realism to the game it never had before.

-I love the sea floor textures and even the fish. I imagine that soon various life missions will evolve where you can go fishing and actually pull a fish up. I know that it's client side environment, but the models are there, and so the models can be used.

-I like the size and layout of the city scapes. They have been getting better with each game, and now they layout looks very realistic and will provide lots of good urban warfare potential without all the lag and need for buggy user placed models.

-I like the foliage textures and ground textures of the Island. They didn't skimp on the different grasses, trees, ground clutter, bushes and ground depth. I also like the crater ability on the ground models (even though limited) is still cool. The environment is more effected than ever before.

-Some of the AI behaviors are better. Silenced weapons actually confuse them and so are useful. Smoke will make there tracking less accurate. Before these things were only useful in PVP, now they matter to the AI much better than before.

-Some of the AI combat behaviors are great. They are good at flanking you and cover firing for advancing. They will enter buildings and hunt you down. This was very limited even in OA, and seems much better now.

-I love that most buildings are enterable with interior doors as well. The glass windows in most everything are great too. This is something I didn't like about Arma2. All those pretty buildings, and almost none were enterable. OA corrected this to some degree, but still this is superior by far.

-The over all terrain is good. The areas like ports and airports make sense, and the road systems are wonderful. It was their intention to create a realistic Island and the have accomplished it. They have also provided for user created mod maps to be just as good. I feel like we may actually see maps like Fiji or Oahu.

-I like the change clothing ability coded into the game. This wasn't really possible before, and it even looks like the modders will be able to use their textures in ways that don't require addons to accomplish new skins.

-The Mission editor with the BIS functions, camera scripter and GUI editor

That is a partial list of what I really like, and I am not under any delusion that this didn't take a lot of work.

Here is what I hate, and most of these are because of what I love! When I had the things I did in Arma 2 I wished I had a few of the things above to make full use of them, and now, I have my wish list and nothing I can do with it;

-I hate the generic and limited vehicle availability. especially the one jet. This will kill the modders. Even if they had 4 models of Cessna to work with, they would have turned them into 4 different airplanes to use of any type. If there is only one plane with a class name, then there can only be 1 plane to mod. 3 available faction sides, and they only get 1 plane. It kills any sort of big warfare missions. It kills it for all you're flight junkies, and make no sense in any story based mission that involves the invasion of an Island. This is why I think they should have at least made 6 different class of even the same jet coded in. Then the modders could have bridged the gap. I get the feeling like the devs don't like planes that much, and so didn't care about them for us.

-I Hate the stealth helicopters that are not effected by anything. They show up on the radar dial, they are tracked and locked by all AA weapons regardless of range. It seems like a simple thing to deal with. Stealth helicopters aren't even possible that way either and flat plane stealth is obsolete, but I don't nerd over that, I nerd over a stealth helo that isn't stealth.

-No fast rope out of the helicopter. The user community scripted it long ago, but has to string light poles together so they don't "magically" float down. Couldn't you have spent a few minutes to model a black line 10m to the ground and incorporated the scripts that the users have written?

-No ships, and not enough boats to mod. What fun is being a navy swimmer, if I cant put a mine on a ship? What kind of Island warfare can we have if you don't even give them landing craft, or hover boats. Where is the stealth ships or even commercial ships. Couldn't you have used the shipwreck models unwrecked and put the same crew makers and motors from the 1 attack craft in them. I don't like saying that you could expect the modders to have made us a navy, because its a pain in the ass to gather all the mods in one place to have the war game they always provide for YOU. But they can't even bridge this gap.

-The same gun sight everywhere. That is one ugly big red cross. You mean to tell me there was a big problem swapping in A2 GUI drawings or even OFP tank sights and mixing and matching? Please. It would have been faster than making the one you have!

-The same colors on the same 10 variations of buildings. Look, I'm not asking for 200 different models of buildings. I saw where you stuck some together, and I like the ones you have, but the solution is simple. Simply swap out some colors with others on the same models. You could have colored some of the roofs puke brown the same color in your pallet as the brick building, some door frames orange, some of the outer wall could have been brown while some of the roofs blue, some of the doors orange and the walls blue and so on. It's a simple thing, but would have made all the difference especially from a distance.

-Passing off ancient vehicles as future ones by changing the name, swapping turrets and calling eastern block ones nato. That with the extremely limited number of vehicles as it is it really is obvious that it's a rush job. If this really is supposed to be a limited Mediterranean conflict, then you would see weapons like the F-16, F-18, A-10, AH64, Mig29, SU34, M24 and so on because The USA and Soviets sell those weapons to Europe when we deem them obsolete. The AK, RPG, FAL and Remington 800 will live forever. All these could have just been ported over to A3, the models were already good enough and no one would have complained. The Abrams can be modeled into about 6 different variants in no time as the Crusader and Leopard look almost the same. You already have the model. Now if it's about not using these because of future war, then what the hell happened? In the future we use a handful of Korean war era knock offs the Soviets tossed? You could have put a Gatling turret on top of an Abrams that shot down incoming missiles and and that would have been futuristic. Why not? Users fixed Gatling on Cessnas in OFP, and while silly was still fun.

-No bicycle. I know it's a little thing, but it's just one more thing that pisses me off.

-No incorporation of SIX updater into the main game menu server browser. I know he don't work for BI, but shit man, toss some of these people a bone will ya? Some of the projects created by your fan base is really making you look dumb, but what is worse is that you act like they don't exist. I tell you this for certain. It's because of the that I have and still buy Arma. That's the trufe If I was forced to only play Arma right out of the box, I wouldn't. It's not that good of a game. Why is BE Warfare so good? Because he uses about 6 different user created tools in his missions. The user created 3d editor, The user created GUI editor, The user created global variable recording scripts, the user unlocked object class names, the user created EASA scripts, and so on.

-Just 1 time I would like at least 1 building more that 2 floors that we can fight in. The half-life modders had no trouble with this 12 YEARS AGO! WTH is your problem? I know why we don't have them, because it's the same building with a new paint job isn't it? No more about how much work weren't into "new content" I'm not a fool and I'm not buying it. Next time give someone in the community a few bucks to model some buildings that work and save the plane ride to Greece. If all that trip rendered was an Island full of the same few buildings over and over again, only to be given a fictitious name and no content, then I say get Google maps topographical and make things easy on yourselves and not so lame for us. Should have saved the Greek vacation for after the release of the best Arma yet.

I'll break it off here but I could go on. I think you can figure out what I mean.

Now My fears. This is take from todays CEO PR.

-"The road to success has not been without struggle, however, with the most recent example being the detainment of two Bohemia Interactive employees on the Greek island of Lemnos. Fortunately, this year has been much more positive. The Arma 3 Alpha and Beta were welcomed by overwhelming support from players, and DayZ is shaping up to be a thrilling new experience."

To me this is where most of the problems are. This is the first reference to Dayz, and it's not the last. So much accommodation and back room dealing has been done over zombie sandbox, with hints and rumors that certain modders are trying to make scripting patentable and "protected" that it runs a chill up my spine. 2 things. 1. Zombies are tired, but leave it up to BI to be 10 years behind a trend. When you have a military sandbox, it's just shallow to spend all your time lining up unarmed zombies and mow them down with your 50 cal. So many mass BE bans were given out to protect this mission, but they didn't give 2 shits about Life missions, Warfares, or co-ops. only kill everyone wasteland and zombies. It so fun looking for water and getting shot from some hill side by someone for no reason at all. Nerdy, cliquey and lame. Falls short of this games potential and past fun but it seems someone in BI has a vested interest in this mission which isn't anywhere near as good as many missions and mods created by the community so far and barrows so much from the. Like I said before. Just make "Take on Zombies" and see how well it sells. Sure, there is room for everything, but the favoritism stinks.

It basically all started in 1997 as a home project I was working on with my brother Ondrej Spanel. After developing for Atari computers for years, we finally made the transition to what seemed to be a more mainstream platform: PC. Our goal was to create a 3D vehicle simulation game in an open world.

Yep. The contemporary games at the time were simple shooters and BF1942 (a great game with MANY SHIPS YOU COULD PILOT AND AIRCRAFT CARRIERS AND A SUB!) but OFP brought something new to the table. Massive maps with full terrain like forest and such, big squad based AI controls with scores of commands, many vehicles and open source mission creation and modding abilities. This created a user community that has sold this game for you. You should always strive to remember that the same guys who played the game then, play the game now and have put in way more time on it's creativity than you. Reject it, and you reject a gift. I quit buying BF after BF2 because they started going the way your going now. It has become expensive ass Mario war that always sells you half the game at twice the price. I just got 2 digital trading cards for Arma3 on stream! Anyone wanna buy them off me? I didn't think so. I could give schitt .5 either. Better pay attention to the indie model CEO man. Its about to overrun tour corperate ideals.

We started releasing our first content updates in the summer of 2001. We called those ‘add-ons’ at the time, but nowadays they would be referred to as DLCs. We always worked hard to support the modding community by releasing tools and sample content.

I don't know about that. I'm no modder, but I think that I have been using the tools I found on Armaholic a long time before, BIS never use because the user tools were already much better. Giving up the class names of objects was a little too little too late, and only meant that I had duplicates of everything in my user created 3d editor. Where are the object classes for everything in Arma3? I bet you'll sell them Via steam. I got bad feeling about this drop. Maybe someone else in the community would confirm this claim with more experience if I'm all wrong about this.

Originally, we were playing around with the idea of bringing the authenticity of the Arma series to a more sci-fi futuristic setting. This resulted in a couple of experiments, even along the lines of Arma meets aliens

This must be what DM was talking about when he said that the community pitched a bitch about "future war". So instead this is the "authenticity" we got stuck with?

And then, a widely reported event in the media has been the arrest of two Bohemia Interactive employees on the Greek island of Limnos on suspicion of espionage

This excuse will never get tired. So every house in Lemos has the same 5 buildings in it? All that trouble for that? All prep and no H.

We had always wanted to go for this approach, since we don’t believe it’s possible to properly test a game of this magnitude without involving our players. The rise and evolution of digital distribution has enabled us to do so. We tried to balance this new method for everyone: early adopters got the game at a much lower price, and we received their support and feedback before the game was officially released

Of course alpha release makes more sense than paying testers. The subtext here though is that you told them you were fine with no aircraft, no ships, no diversity in urban models, no changes in AI path finding over impossible terrain. Well, you tested it, it's your fault. Will they blame us for everything? You just can't get good help these DayZ is suppose.

Day 1 is now slightly less critical than before, because Arma 3 has already seen the Alpha and Beta releases, and we’ll continue to release content (such as the campaign episodes) in the coming months

Because we know you were all on pins and needles for the Arma 3 storyline just like all the other Arma releases. Everyone who knows anything about Arma knows that those awesome in depth stories are what makes BI games fly off the shelves. Don't worry, the content you want is coming. More zombies than you can shake a stick at too, don't you worry.

I really like the overall feel and polish - even though there are still many things I’d like to add later. We’ve had to make a few difficult decisions over the course of Arma 3’s development, but I’m confident this will serve as an excellent foundation for Arma’s evolution. It’s shortsighted and somehow unfair to compare Arma 3 with Arma 2, which has already been available for 4 years and has matured significantly after its initial release. I believe Arma 3 is much more solid at launch, and together with our creative user community, I think we can grow it into a much bigger and better game than we ever could with Arma 2.

So the Arma 2 game evolves and grows for 2 years? If by that you mean the users make good missions over the years, and tools to make good missions, and video about how to make good missions, and endless references and post and tips to help noobs make good missions then ya. If you mean that users make awesome mods, detailed vehicles, complete replacing of crappy sounds, new objects and buildings, maps and weapons, then ya. If by that you mean that the users continue to make people want to buy a 3 year old game full of bugs that have existed for 11 years because the Utube videos promote your product for free because people are interested in a war sandbox and how much fun we have than ya. If your talking about how you have provided fixes and content for free, then your sniffing stupid colored paint. We bought PMC and OA. Full price. The subtext here is "buy our product, we have an army of suckers who will make this game worth playing for free and we'll get the money via DLC and talk about how much work we put into all it NEW content".

Do you have a favorite type of gameplay in the diverse range of options Arma offers?

I am hooked on the good-old scenario editor: just placing a few units, randomly playing some short scenarios, or simply exploring the environment.

So the game suites him well, we can go to hell.

(Cold War Assault) was our PC debut, nothing felt impossible for us back then.

Now we have excuses to fall back on and a community to blame. Forget about the days when it was a self funded indie project labor of love that was revolutionary.

we took everything we could from ‘Game 2’ in terms of content, and adopted a more conservative approach to the technical side of things. The library of content present in Arma 2 is simply overwhelming, and in hindsight might not be commercially justifiable for a single game.

This statement is the most disgusting of all. In other words "we gave the community too much for the money we charged last time to save our company, and can't be expected to do that again. We should have charged more or given you less." AAARRGG. The CEO. That figures. I repeat, not a single cent for DLC, not ever, never. I won't be buying into Alpha or beta testing either. I will wait to see what comes out first, and if I am not utterly in love, I'll buy an indie game that's twice as awesome without all the bitterness of greed. Some smart kid somewhere is going to snap this away and do it for the love, and because of that, get the money too. I would name a few games I have bought from indies for good money, that are just fun replayable games, but I don't want to get banned for advertising for someone on this forum to justify shutting me up.

Hence now, with Arma 3, our focus is much more on quality over quantity

There are plenty of "quality games out there. With quantity too. Arma 2 was one such. Give it better light and usable water, and it trumps this game in a second, but guess what I was playing last night on the second night of Arma3s release? Arma2. It was quality gaming too. Shout out to Benny. Because of CTI Warfare I have played Arma for 8 years now and BE is still the champ. Too bad about A3 huh. They stuck you real good, but it's still the best thing on Altis or stratis, so you may save this game. I think someone should thank you. With money.

Furthermore, we want to be even more careful than in the past not to fracture the community with expansion and or DLCs. This means there should not be a dramatic split of the user base, something that we did have to enforce with release of Arma 2 Operation Arrowhead one year after the original Arma 2 came out

Oh brother. Did any of you complain that Arma2 and OA were cross compatible without mods? Who complained that OA came with even more vehicles, maps and objects? Anyone? They are still selling the game. full package versions now. The subtext is sickening here too, but I'll let you rip it up.

We see Arma 3 as a basis for many possible new ‘games’ made by us, as well as our users. In addition, we want to evolve the engine further, but this is something that takes time.

I dare you to update for free. I double dog dare you. Too bad for those who bought the box huh?

And, in general, how do you see the community’s role in the future of Arma 3, and what are you doing to support them?

I think the next big thing could be opening up Arma 3 to paid user-made content. It’s great to see talented mod-makers pulling off amazing missions, add-ons and mods as free content, but if we manage to find some incentive for the best mod-makers to develop more content, I think we can raise the bar even higher. I want to push this effort in two distinct ways, and I consider these as a priority for next year. We are going to announce more specific details in the coming months.

SHOW ME THE MONEY!!!

God knows this has been the cry of the community for ten years now right? Now BI is here to help. For a small percentage. God bless you for helping the little guy Merek God bless you sir.

Yes, there are. We see DLCs (both free and paid) as a great way to keep expanding the game even after its initial release. However, an official announcement will be made when we have everything clear.

If you repeat it, I'll repeat. Not 1 penny for DLC, not one, not ever, never. I wont mention names for the sake of ban prevention, but my options are not limited in the area of worthwhile things to put money in.

1: we are going to release the entire Arma 2 library to the community and allow them create any derivative work within Arma 3. More details will be announced very soon.

Hurry, quick before the community beats you to it!

Well, my fears are summed up in the CEOs attitude toward the future of gaming and Arma development. I suppose it's me that should adapt, and not BI, but it sounds like the open source sandbox just isn't as beloved as it once was, and the old school an make way for the new capitalism of DLC half a game for twice the price.

I get the feeling like someone didn't have enough control over the community and wasn't satisfied with making a better sandbox for us to play with.

My hopes are that He wakes up and realizes that the money sucking model is bunk and realizes Arma is Arma, not some DCS.

My suspicion is that Steam will boot offline anyone with a non approved PBO in the folder, you know, the kind that Merek didn't get a cut of.

Edited September 14, 2013 by thesneak

[Harbinger2456 10]

Well said sir, well said!

[chortles 263]

It's basically there to serve as a "low-hanging fruit" repository.

This is exactly what I think of the community request threads. :p