CSLA for A2:CO (with campaign '89)

[EMSI 960]

@petr213:

Campaign contains 3 different stories. Through which story will player continue is on himself (decisions during executing of assigned tasks, different advances through the missions etc.).

Except to these 3 different stories, there is a few "side" missions which are available again according to the actions performed by the player.

This means, you are able to play this campaign at least by the 6-times.

As soon as the final patch for the campaign and for whole Mod under the A2:CO will be released, we will publish also a detailed "walkthrough" for the campaign.

Cheers,

EMSI

[EMSI 960]

Latest version of CSLA Mod for Arma 2: Combined Operations has been officially released.

This release closes another chapter of our work.

We will no more come back to this version of Mod, because we found that the interest of the community for an CSLA Mod has decreased significantly.

Also, this led us to the fact that for the final edition of Mod, we canceled planned second campaign and additional vehicles for AFMC and FIA (various versions of M113, LAV-25, BTR-50, ...).

Anyway, in this final release, you will find an improved MP COOP mission Protectors in version with CSLA playable slots.

This mission includes several new playable slots available for partisan units FIA - if players will occupy these slots, they can significantly and actively mess up the tasks for "normal" CSLA players.

Info about this version of the MP mission is also linked to another novelty - a completely new characters of FIA guerrillas.

They have a new fatigues (pattern is called MLOK) and they are also available to carry any type of backpacks, which doesn't allow the original game.

This latest version of the Mod is completely full package of addons and other additional stuff (reference guides and manuals), so you don't need to apply any patch - just run the installer which will take care of overwriting of old PBO files.

As in previous release of Mod, was published also a huge campaign '89, the updated version is also included in this last release.

We did there a lot of corrections and adjustments, so we hope that you will return to the campaign again and try it "survive" it again, but for example with another end of the story.

If you will be in any kind of troubles in a campaign, you may look into the installation directory of Mod and there you may find a very detailed campaign flowchart, which clearly shows the flow of missions.

As an additional bonus to the latest edition of Mod, you may also find (in the installation directory) a small ZIP archive, which contains various versions of DVD cover.

And what will happens with CSLA Mod in Arma 3?

Given the minimal interest/community support for our work, we consider to do a radical solution - we will do all Mods only for our private purposes and our own pleasure - as we are already doing now.

But who knows ... maybe something will change in the meantime :)

Download links:

http://www.moddb.com/mods/csla/downloads/sla-for-arma2combined-operations-ver-226

https://mega.co.nz/#!wJAFgDZI!dHYODMLYdSEI5hBLT0lnx0X2EWh6v5pO11KYgt5D8yA

http://uloz.to/xYDDktiQ/csla-a2co-ver226-setup-exe

https://webshare.cz/#/group/4jc1rI471j/

https://webshare.cz/#/file/3yr3X63Em6/csla-a2co-ver226-setup-exe

https://docs.google.com/file/d/0B0ZKyCUTt3QZWEhETkVURXNDdWM/edit

[onfire 12]

Sad news...but I salute you for your outstanding mod. Always great pleasure to play it!

[tom3kb 15]

Thanks for the update and its a sad news about the rest.

Ps. Small question about 2nd episode of the campaign. You guys had only idea or maybe you made some missions. If you made some missions maybe you could release them as SP mission pack?

Big thx to the whole team for all the work they did.

@down

I also was thinking i will wait for some big mods like CSLA and CWR2 for A3 and i will have something nice to play. ;)

But there will be no CWR probably no CSLA, so i must stay with A2.

Edited May 2, 2014 by tom3kb

[Kaxii 11]

Nooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo! I was so looking forward to CSLA for Arma 3 :( Thank you for the update anyway

[Guest]

I was sorry to read about the decission your team made but knowing how much time and effort the entire CSLA Team has put into this mod all the time I can fully understand it. Thanks for all your excellent work!

New release frontpaged on the Armaholic homepage.

Czechoslovak Peoples Army (CSLA) v2.26



Arma 2

==============================

We have also "connected" these pages to your account (EMSI) on Armaholic.

This means in the future you will be able to maintain these pages yourself if you wish to do so. Once this new feature is ready we will contact you about it and explain how things work and what options you have.

When you have any questions already feel free to PM or email me!

** Note: since this is a project on which more people are working we will contact you in the future to discuss how you want this to be setup on Armaholic.

[jeza 5416]

Congrats to the team, top quality stuff as ever, many thanks chaps! Hope your new direction serves you guys well, will continue to support regardless thanks again.

[spooky lynx 73]

Thanks for update, guys. BTW, I've got some TO&E-like question: there are several types of CSLA trucks in the mod, so I wonder if there were any division in assigning different types of trucks to different army branches?

[Kommiekat 11]

Congrats!!

Downloading now.

I look forward to tom3kb to make SP packs and campaigns with this new update.

If you need missions, ask him. He'll do it!

[EMSI 960]

Thanks to all "few" for the support :D

We don't said that we will completely stop our activities with modding, but looking back (also to our small PR campaign: http://forums.bistudio.com/showthread.php?90067-CSLA-Studio-work-in-progress-thread/page56) there's no motivation to do any releases for the community.:confused:

The trend what we see, is that someone will do a pre-beta release of "stupid" retex or low valuable import from OFP-Arma1-Arma2 and then the hype and activity over this release is incomprehensible in compare to our releases - when we are always trying to do everything in a best way (models, mission, campaign, bonus stuff).

---------- Post added at 09:46 ---------- Previous post was at 09:43 ----------

Ps. Small question about 2nd episode of the campaign. You guys had only idea or maybe you made some missions. If you made some missions maybe you could release them as SP mission pack?

Some missions are already prepared in various states, but it's not enough to relase them to keep the TOP quality of CSLA Studio. Sorry.

---------- Post added at 09:51 ---------- Previous post was at 09:46 ----------

TTO&E-like question: there are several types of CSLA trucks in the mod, so I wonder if there were any division in assigning different types of trucks to different army branches?

No, there are no marking on trucks according to the divisions etc.

Different visible marking is only on the SpecOps - paratroopers, depth recon ...

[spooky lynx 73]

No, there are no marking on trucks according to the divisions etc.

Different visible marking is only on the SpecOps - paratroopers, depth recon ...

I suppose my words were not taken correctly:) I wonder if for example motor rifle troops used mostly V3S, or artillery use Tatra 815 8x8 or air force ground service use Tatra 6x6? In Soviet army trucks for troop carrying were Ural or Zil mostly, and KamAZ were used mostly for carrying ammo and other goods. Was the same in CSLA?

[NightIntruder 710]

That's sad what you have written EMSI, but fully understandable. All addons authors do their job not for "free", usually. The minimum is to gather positive feedback and acclaim. This is the "money" we expect to gather. Of course, the real money helps to keep our interest in making addons so I am encouraging you to donate someone works whenever their addons are payware-quality. And this is the case for sure. The other thing is to keep us motivated. There are several guys here, at the forum, who knows what does it mean, how it works and why it is worthy to do every now and then. Without such players support we will stay with poor quality addons or with no addons at all. Please, hit the "donate" button or write warm appreciation here as surely they deserved for this.

EMSI, amazing work, congrats to all dev team members for the release! :)

[EMSI 960]

I suppose my words were not taken correctly:) I wonder if for example motor rifle troops used mostly V3S, or artillery use Tatra 815 8x8 or air force ground service use Tatra 6x6? In Soviet army trucks for troop carrying were Ural or Zil mostly, and KamAZ were used mostly for carrying ammo and other goods. Was the same in CSLA?

As far as I know, not.

Let's say, PV3S was used in many versions across the CSLA and then comes a lot of variants of Tatra and also Ural and Zil trucks. Probably there wasn't any rule or prescription which types of trucks should be used by which type of brigade/division etc.

When I was in the army (Slovak Armed Forces) we had in the late '90 a lot of Tatra trucks and for example two PV3S which were used for daily duty and another very old Ural and Zil trucks were used to transport radar systems in case of any excercise - they were a standard part of radar site.

[.kju 3245]

Damn - sad to hear :( CSLA was always one of my favorite mods as campaign lover. :)

I am interested to hear how you come to the conclusion there is little interest in your work?

Regardless of that porting a mod of such scale to A3 is a huge effort - especially with limited docu, lacking tools and broken backwards compatibility.

I still hope BI will realize this one day.. in any case all the best to your future endeavors and your families will be happy to see you more again now. :o

[CameronMcDonald 146]

What do you mean by:

minimal interest/community support for our work

?

I'd have thought that this is more of a side effect of releasing for A2, given that A3 is the main effort at this time.

Hell, the CSLA team should submit for A3 in the MANW competition and see exactly how "minimal" community interest is then!

Thanks for the release - always been a huge fan of CSLA.

[EMSI 960]

;2680691']I am interested to hear how you come to the conclusion there is little interest in your work?

Few reasons were described upwards. Another few very truly words were written by the NightIntruder.

PS: after 3 years of donation we had 30€ on our account ... what a support :D

This will not cover any of our surveys which we are doing few times a year for collecting of all very detailed data for all models from our Mod.

Anyway' date=' it doesn't matter - we are doing this for own pleasure ...

Another example: counter for download of Mod (in ver.2.25) hits number 3160 ... and the reactions (positive/neagtive) in the oficial thread? ... maybe 15-20? ... mostly from 2-3 people

Yet another example: once the A2:CO Mod has been released, we opened SP/MP mission competition.

Number of entries after 6 months? ... 2 missions ... :D (anyway, they are included in Mod as we promised)

The prizes for the winners were paid from our own pockets - we planned to support the community with caps, t-shirts etc. ... who else did this (from the Mod/Addon makers)?

---------- Post added at 12:10 ---------- Previous post was at 12:05 ----------

Hell, the CSLA team should submit for A3 in the MANW competition and see exactly how "minimal" community interest is then!

We were thinking about this, but after the hype over the (I don't want to say these words :)) much worse addons ... it's food for thought.

Do you remember if CSLA Mod has been nominated in the past for any Community Awards?

Edited May 2, 2014 by EMSI

[.kju 3245]

Thanks for the answer and your thoughts EMSI!

Let me make it clear that I am not to question your observations nor your conclusions.

Or try to change those - I am just interested in other people's perspectives.

Most mods or armies are to a larger degree nation specific - many people seem to care most about their own homeland or the big names (US, Russia, China for the most part).

So I would say most mods for smaller nations have always been struggling to different degree to get the attention of the "masses".

In addition at least from my pvp background my impression would be that the CZ scene was suffering a lot with A1 and A2, after being very strong in OFP days.

The same is true for others, but some areas managed to stay more healthy and recovered better with OA and now A3.

In addition there has been big shifts through the last ten years. OFP was still very story focused - many excellent campaigns and SP missions.

While other areas of the game have also suffered a lot, one sadly has to recognize the player base has shifted a lot over the last few years.

With DayZ and its mods, Wasteland, Life mods and probably few others, the (MP) player base would be quite small by now.

Playable content has always been where most addons and mods have been struggling a lot. For the most part only one or very few managed to be

supported by mission designers to a larger degree. In my view also a big strategical faulty by most modders - to support dynamic missions,

current popular game modes and easy missions with decent replay value should be a must for every bigger mod at least.

One suggestion that worked fairly well is to team up with MP (PvP) tournaments as a big mod, if one is willing and able to adjust also to their needs to some degree. Rather large and very active player base being mostly very open to give feedback.

You and your team certainly have done the extra mile / a lot to involve the community and the reactions have been disappointing.

I think some of the above related to that, but I have no real good ideas why it didn't work better for you besides those.

Well asking the players might be a way to get some ideas or insights?

In general I think it is also a strategic fault that the big mods don't cooperate to have their mods work well together.

I understand the reasons very well myself - doing modding already takes a lot of time and for the most part one is mainly or most interested in ones own work.

Last but not least - either the announcement of a new arma title or already out always has shifted quite fast the player base and attention to the newer title.

As such it is very unfortunate to release so late in the life cycle of Arma 2 (CO). Release often and early is my approach. No doubt also has downsides.

Donations don't work sadly from my own experience .. BI would have to establish a general framework and promotes it actively or allow kickstarter like funding campaigns.

Sadly most modders don't want to touch the subject and what sacrifices big modding projects mean in practice - I believe mostly as the community (at least in the BI forum) is very negative and demanding in this regard. They just expect large projects with very high quality work to magically become available.. while in reality a good deal of the most experienced long time modders actually do it for a living one way or another in a paid position/job or have given up at some point.

In any case if you feel like to learn more about that aspect or even share your perspective, check these two threads:

"Opening up Arma 3 to paid user-made content" - How?

Mods and ARMA 3 on the same level as FSX?

I hope I didn't get too off topic with it in your release thread here. :o

Edited May 2, 2014 by .kju [PvPscene]

[EMSI 960]

Thanks for your comments kju.

In most of them I agree with you (in team, we already discussed about similar themes) and some thoughts and ideas can be developed further, but it's for a long debate in another thread or PM (or sitting with a beer :p).

-------------------------------------------

Now let's go back to yesterday's release.

I hope no one lost the notice about the special bonus PDF document which contains the flowchart of our SP campaign '89.

So if you have an fancy to embark again the campaign, but with a different story, look into this little bonus.

PDF document is installed in the core directory (@CSLA) and its called CSLA_Campaign_89_flowChart_EN.pdf.

Feel free to ask us about any details.

[sv5000 127]

Thank you CSLA for all your hardwork over the years S!

[Kommiekat 11]

I hope no one lost the notice about the special bonus PDF document which contains the flowchart of our SP campaign '89.

Feel free to ask us about any details.

Hi, I understand your frustrations. As a mission maker, when you notice your mission has been downloaded 50 times or more but nothing much is mentioned in the release thread. You have to wonder if you're not wasting your time.

Modders and mission makers need feed back. We need to know the "good" and the "bad".

Anyways, with the PDF, does this relate to the missions that are LOCKED and how I can unlock them?

Cheers

[tom3kb 15]

You can play different some of the missions few times to start different "path" of campaign or... you can use cheat "campaign" in campaign menu. You will have all missions unlocked after this. ;)

[EMSI 960]

Anyways, with the PDF, does this relate to the missions that are LOCKED and how I can unlock them?

Unlock is preformed using various methods.

In Grozovy Pass, at the end of the pass (in village name?), player has to decide if he will continue in a mission with another task, or if he will finish the current mission.

According to this decision campain will continue with predefined story.

The situation in On the edge is different.

Close to the village at the coast, there is a little quarry where the player can find something what will completely change the story in campaign.

In other missions (like heli or plane) can follow a different mission, if the player is shot down.

[AZCoder 921]

I have always found this to be one of the most outstanding mods for A2, with all the units on 3 sides, the modeling, textures, new functionality, etc. When I started working on my current campaign (for about 18 months now), I chose this mod because I wanted an OPFOR that was not Russian, and CSLA mod really delivers. And yeah I'm still working on my campaign, had some long real life interruptions. Although the CSLA in my campaign are fictional and not specifically Czechoslovakians, I am attempting to exercise as many aspects of the mod as possible. Thanks for all the great work!

[tom3kb 15]

@up

Great news i was thinking that you abandoned this project. ;)

[EMSI 960]

I have always found this to be one of the most outstanding mods for A2, with all the units on 3 sides, the modeling, textures, new functionality, etc. When I started working on my current campaign (for about 18 months now), I chose this mod because I wanted an OPFOR that was not Russian, and CSLA mod really delivers. And yeah I'm still working on my campaign, had some long real life interruptions. Although the CSLA in my campaign are fictional and not specifically Czechoslovakians, I am attempting to exercise as many aspects of the mod as possible. Thanks for all the great work!

Nice to see someone who is planning to use our troops in "larger" project.