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

[haleks 8204]

Hi there,

I read most of the comments with interest; there's one thing however, that nobody talked about.

Who says "paid content", also says "guarantee". But how does that apply to mods? Does "guarantee" mean that the user is buying something that is working at the time, or should he expect the mod to be updated along with Arma3 as long as possible?

Will there be a re-funding if the client is not satisfied? How do we ensure that ill-willed people don't take advantage of the situation and just runs away with the money after some time?

What about mod packs relying on "free to share, no money" licensed mods? Will those disappear in favor of "user-made DLCs"?

In an informal environment such as modding, I think that monetisation will bring more problems than solutions... Besides, people rarely donate money, what makes us think they are ready to buy mods? Especially today when everyone is so fed up with the DLC system plaguing pretty much all video games?

EDIT : Actually, Tonci expressed my concerns better than I did ^^

^this

@kju

I have read your post but I stand by my concerns. If Mods are paid for your fans suddenly become your rightfully demanding customers. Bis changes something and Mods have to be fixed to work with that. Can you imagine the shitstorm if a mod author simply doesn´t have the time or motivation to work on that for a week or two? That will happen!

Will there be People who make a Mod to get some quick cash and then abandon it? There will be!

Will there be people who steal assets from other mods, or even other games, to make a quick buck? There will be!

What if Addonmakers decide to split up their mods to sell them separatelly so that they can make more money? That will happen!

Will Addon makers still share their stuff with each other? No they won´t!

Those are more than enough reasons to condemn this idea.

[nodunit 397]

I love how people throw around the "port a2 stuff" like that's a matter of repacking it or something. SMD_Sahrani_A2 is a "port" of A1 content... does that mean it didn't take 100's-1000's of man hours?

Does it not add 20+ newly opened buildings meticulously placed down? Hell forget us... I guess CWR2 is just a "port" job huh?? lol. WTF.

I know its not a simple matter of pulling a file from one folder and setting it into another with a rainbow explosion as everything works in perfect unison, but just because you spend a lot of time working on it doesn't mean it suddenly becomes yours.

I know it sounds harsh but content creators are the ones that push themselves and I know this after spending three years on a single addon, yes it is wonderful that they bring that content but in the end if it burns them out they have nobody to blame but themselves...I say this as someone who worked three years intermitently on a single project that was both my greatest desire and my worst nightmare.

IWhat are you doing RIGHT NOW, and on top of it, we get to sit here having spent 100's if not 1000's of dollars AND hours on these projects, and get crapped on by indignant fossils that are stuck in the 90's.

Working on custom models of Mi-26, Jeep YJ, M1A1/A2, Mi-28, MH-47E and atop that I'm also unwrapping and texturing them myself to better my skillset on them...I'm well aware of how much time these projects can eat up

And I am well aware that it is my choice of 'wasting' those hours.

You talk about it being like kickstarter, which is totally insane, it's not like people are going to post pictures of their ideas and get funded.... this is paying for content that already exists in the store. If you sell crap, or TRY to sell crap, ALL veteran Arma players will see it a mile away (and if it goes like I think it will they'll be able to try it or even use/dl it for free from the forums/AH/PWS)... and new people will learn fast that they have to be careful about what they buy in the store...

I compared it to kickstarter in the context of donations in the WIP phase, not in a storebought phase, and I'd like to believe in an honest free market but all I can say is look up "Area 51 simulations" and then compare what they have to things such as DCS..hell their apache cockpit it blatantly ripped form Arma 2 and yet people still buy it even after being shown proof that "this was stolen", so pardon me if I'm skeptical.

Now if somehow the content only worked through steam or the BI store where it could be monitored then..yeah okay I guess worrying about it would be silly.

As far as information sharing, again I think this is an overly pessimistic view...

Sure it is, I'm not going to deny that its a very negative view but nobody else seems to want to be the devils advocate.

The server stuff I won't comment on because we're comparing two different things, its the whole books to movies idea.

It's so weird to see so many of Arma's Core audience so against BI or anyone else passionate about it succeeding. The level of bullying by the Arma audience has always been something I was amazed by... so many level headed, nice, open, drama free modders.... and then this insane frothy mouthed contingent of angry dogs who attack anything not in their pack...

I only stated possibilities that this could go sour. Do I stand by all of these views? Mmmm..some of them, I don't believe there is no hope in this system but I'm not overly sympathetic to people that want to drive themselves for thousands of hours on a project that they "Just want to share with people".

Added to spoilers because I don't want to use up much page space on my reply to block out these other great posts.

Edited July 3, 2014 by NodUnit

[roshnak 41]

I love how people throw around the "port a2 stuff" like that's a matter of repacking it or something. SMD_Sahrani_A2 is a "port" of A1 content... does that mean it didn't take 100's-1000's of man hours?

No, but it does mean you don't have the legal right to sell it.

Then those are not really custom units.

I agree, but I try to temper my sometimes harsh opinions on those matters on the basis that I've never released anything, myself.

And regardless of whether they comprise truly original custom content, they do add to the variety of content available for the game.

I must admit... These points give me pause as a mod maker- make of that what you will.

No matter how well intentioned mod making is, most of my friends have repeatedly pointed these facts out to me too...

I wouldn't worry too much about this, honestly. I don't know how much money the people renting servers are making in donations, but I think it's fair to say that no one is making a substantial amount of money on Arma videos or streaming. Maybe Dslyecxi, I guess. But then again, it's not like his early, unmodded Arma 3 videos got substantially less views than the full blown ACE Arma 2 videos. And even now, I doubt if people are watching his current Arma 3 videos and thinking to themselves, "I'm only watching this for the weapon resting script."

It's not like those guys wouldn't be making that money on those videos without custom content. Most of the people who are truly succesful in that realm are selling their personalities more than they are the content of the videos. And when they are making money, it's through partnerships with advertisers, not selling a product.

Of course, even knowing this might not really make anyone feel better about the situation.

Edited July 3, 2014 by roshnak

[.kju 3239]

Unfortunately hardly any response has been on the state of modding, complex projects, how to reduce the effort and make it more accessible.

Does the average player or even modder at times not have these interest or insights?

As said before, to me this seems to be central topic. Money for BI and modders would be just the means to improve that.

I am very doubtful that the MANW competition will have a considerable, especially long term, impact.

That said I am still curious to see how it turns out, but it doesn't address the heart of the issue.

What I also find weird is the notion of an ebay like solution, where anyone can just sell content, even when not his own.

This seems extremely unlikely to happen and if it were, would easily become a disaster when not very actively and strongly managed.

In any case I still hope people can give their personal insights to Valves' approaches - both from a content creator/seller and from a player/buyer perspective.

Here is some more resources from my further research:

Trading:

wiki.teamfortress.com/wiki/Mann_Co._Store

wiki.teamfortress.com/wiki/Trading

www.tf2outpost.com (one of the community built stores)

Buying:

Community Market FAQ

Buy and sell items with community members for steam wallet funds:

steamcommunity.com/market

www.teamfortress.com/workshop

store.teamfortress.com

www.dota2.com/workshop

www.dota2.com/store

News with more context:

www.ign.com: how to make a living selling virtual hats

www.extremetech.com: valves steam community market could change how we pay for and play video games

www.gamespot.com: valve launches steam market

www.pcgamer.com: interview valve on why theyre selling team fortress 2 items for real money

www.pcgamer.com: top tf2 item makers making 500k a year we cannot compete with our customers

www.pcgamer.com: valve loves content creators paid out 400k in the first week of 2014

www.pcgamer.com: valve explains how csgo became the second most played game on steam

www.pcgamer.com: counter strike global offensive weapon skin removed after dmca takedown notice

www.pcgamer.com: valve launches steam buy orders making it easier than ever to blow your money

reddit: valves cash cow ~ the steam community market

Edited July 6, 2014 by .kju [PvPscene]

[roshnak 41]

No one else has really addressed the "Valve approach," so I guess I'll just restate my concerns with it:

It works really well for them, but none of the games it's implemented in cost more than $20. Most of them are Free-To-Play. It seems like it would be difficult for customers to rationalize spending a bunch more money on assets for a game that they have already paid for at the highest price point in the industry.

Arma already costs $60. If addons were only to cost $3-5 a piece (and I suspect that they would be closer to $10), customers could rapidly approach the point where they are paying more than $100 for a video game. That's not a small sum of money.

I also don't think that articles like "Top TF2 Item Makers Making 500k A Year" and "Valve Launches Steam Buy Orders Making It Easier Than Ever To Blow Your Money" are necessarily great arguments in favor of such a system.

$500,000 a year is a crazy amount of money and it associates the idea of modding and money with greed. That is substantially more money (probably many times more) than what their counterparts, working for actual game studios, are making. And players don't want to hear about it being easy to blow their money. That's only good for the people who they are blowing their money on. Also, it could just be me but all of those PCGamer links are broken.

Finally, I'm curious how much you think just having better tools and documentation and making it easier to work on and create addons would help the situation.

[PuFu 4591]

;2723127']Unfortunately hardly any response has been on the state of modding' date=' complex projects, how to reduce the effort and make it more accessible.

Does the average player or even modder at times not have these interest or insights? [/quote']

About the entire state of modding in arma community or in general, for video games?

I think we all know and that the modding community is shrinking, for arma and in general, although in recent years some have given their playerbase the tools for it, even before the dayz commercial success.

For ArmA in general, at least from my own experience, most complex projects are either carried out by very self-motivated people (i cannot say what is the state of their general income), and it still takes a lot of time, mostly due to the fact that most things are not documented, and there is a lot of trial and error before you get it to behave as one wants, but there are other reasons such as setbacks, real-life priorities, lack of time and/or motivation. People coming and going, stopping and resuming is also another factor why there can be little set deadlines and so forth. In my mind, if this gets really serious with very strict rules, deadlines, tasks and alike, it better be paid, because it surely takes most of the fun out of it (needless to say what i do is primarily for my own selfish enjoyment).

I was honestly expecting for some sort of officially supported and updated plugins for the 3d work, allowing artists to use their own software to achieve the end-results with as little need of O2 as possible, while keeping the O2 for the ones that are familiar with it already. In my mind that would have made part of addon creation a lot more accessible to a wider range of people that could have moved and improved things without the steep learning curve for yet another software. And of course, a well written, comprehensive documentation (i still feel that current available wiki is fine, but some things are explained way too simplistic).

In my mind, especially since this is a very profitable hobby for BIS and only for BIS, the creators should be able to expand the existing virtual world, and improve upon it by being able to express said creativity rather than fight with the technical issues, limitations and unexplained things (the physx side of things for instance). yes, the samples are a step in the right direction, but from my own point of view, the number of issues with the current set of tools, with the P drive etc, requiring power users to switch to other community made tools such as mikeros is such a big fucking flop. You will never attract new creative persons into this world if things are not working out of the box. Hell, you will push away, out of frustration, even the few ones willing to spend time and give back so many things for free for this little community around A3.

@roshnak:

Just a few notes: TF2 has not always been free. The hat business was introduced before it was made into F2P.

Regarding freelance modder payment vs employee as a game developer, yes it is closer to 5 times more (http://www.gamecareerguide.com/features/1279/game_developer_salary_survey_.php?page=2), but then again, we are talking about exception, not the rule. Not everyone is pushing the half a million $ a year in addon revenue. There are a only handful of people.

Besides, you cannot compare them, because when you are an employee, you have health insurance, software costs etc covered by the employer, and once you are on your own, you need to take certain other "production" costs into consideration.

[roshnak 41]

@roshnak:

Just a few notes: TF2 has not always been free. The hat business was introduced before it was made into F2P.

Regarding freelance modder payment vs employee as a game developer, yes it is closer to 5 times more (http://www.gamecareerguide.com/features/1279/game_developer_salary_survey_.php?page=2), but then again, we are talking about exception, not the rule. Not everyone is pushing the half a million $ a year in addon revenue. There are a only handful of people.

Besides, you cannot compare them, because when you are an employee, you have health insurance, software costs etc covered by the employer, and once you are on your own, you need to take certain other "production" costs into consideration.

Yeah I was including TF2 in the $20 category, because that's what around what it cost to buy it on release. And that's if you bought it standalone. It was closer to $12 if you got it as part of the Orange Box (which was $50 and included HL2, Episodes 1 and 2, TF2, and Portal).

Even disregarding benefits, $500,000 puts you in the top 1% of earners in the United States (obviously it's actually a more complicated than that, but I think it's a decent way to get an idea of how much money that is). Although, you're right, it's largely irrelevant since cases like that are an extreme circumstance. I was just saying that maybe linking that particular article isn't the best way to make the argument that we should have paid third party content in Arma, since very few people are going to see that number and not immediately get a bad taste in their mouths.

Edited July 5, 2014 by roshnak

[cifordayzserver 119]

;2723127']Unfortunately hardly any response has been on the state of modding' date=' complex projects, how to reduce the effort and make it more accessible.

Does the average player or even modder at times not have these interest or insights? [/quote']

I had a conversation with a friend of my brothers who owns a gaming company.. The topic was my shock at the lack of automated production in the BI tools. I did not (and still don't) understand how or why there isn't automated stringtable creation, automatic config generation, batch processing or editing tools etc etc...

His response was "If we are going to do something more than once, we automate it."

Now, I'm not saying that BI doesn't also do this, but leaving the onus on each individual modder or group to come up with their own methodology or suite of tools to accomplish batch editing is astounding to me. In my time working on a few mods, I had to build multiple dynamic spreadsheets in order to more easily modify and edit configs and stringtables. One of the other guys we worked with made a python script that would auto generate model variants based on texture variants. For something like a soda can model with dozens of variant textures, this can mean the difference between 1-6 HOURS of creating models manually, or 6 seconds of a batch script running.

Mikero's tools are obviously a ENORMOUS time saver (especially for projects like ours that work off BI base assets that all need to be renamed and moved)

But as Pufu says, there simply is no drop and go development suite. One of the best illustrations of this is Shinkickers guide to modding in arma on OpenDayZ.net which is a 4 part tutorial... The first THREE parts, are just getting the tools, and development environment setup for arma.

And that's ONE area of modding, but they all have the same level of complexity and complication. Creating a terrain.. Bushlurker's "intro to terrain creation" is a 48 page guide to a 13 page guide on how to START working on terrains in Arma... If that doesn't scream "inaccessible" I don't know what does... same goes for SQF...

I have looked a bit at the modding for Take On Mars, and that seems to be better designed from the ground up, but I haven't had the time/interest to actually install it and the tools. Every indication would lead me to believe that this is the direction that Arma is headed for (a blend of RV and Enforce like DayZ is doing)

For any modders' who haven't seen this you should check it out:

[.kju 3239]

@ roshnak

Let's be very clear - I am NOT suggesting that Valve's overall approach fits to Arma.

What I am interested in is Valve's experience, lessons learnt and the content creators' as well as players' perspective to learn what elements could work for Arma.

Like indicated in the initial post I think there must be always the free, lite, version available (when there is a paid) (for many reasons).

And it probably needs to be limited to some content one way or another, or in other words not every content should be sellable.

The selection process would bring in also various downsides, unfair elements and additional work, but I can't see it working otherwise.

As I don't promote a specific agenda, I think people should have access to all information to be able to get a more complete picture before making a judgement. Obviously Valve, with their american capitalist background, use the 500k as a promotion tool.

That number is of course not the measure to discuss the income - the average or more detailed statistics would be needed to have a sensible discussion on that.

Personally I think there need to be elements to avoid a focus on a few strong benefactors; as such I have already added some elements to balance that to my suggestions (like using the additional incoming to improve modding for everyone).

However if you look closely and are fair, the current situation in the gaming industry (while its changing recently) is structured exactly to what you criticize (investors benefit most, followed by publisher, to company owners and lastly the people who actually create the stuff - with community (promotion, distribution, content creation, etc) left out of completely).

At the same time if someone is very skilled, has made an outstanding product that many people like to buy (the one/few to very many relation of the internet/digital distribution is the crucial difference to many non IT jobs), he probably deserves that success.

After all it is the responsibility for the platform to establish the system, rules and money distribution.

Also I think you are generalizing people too much:

Even though you and me may not like it, and it depends on buyers's education and socialization, it is their choice after all to spend their money on the given item.

My response would be that probably there should be some form of transparency, like how many units sold and how much a given person has made in the current and past months. In other words give people more information to make an informed decision.

Reduced effort means modding can be a hobby to more people and remain a hobby to more people.

Even in Valve's system I doubt very much that doing this as a job is really a lucrative one for the vast majority (the high accessibility of the internet makes it very competitive and such drives income down on average) - probably most do it as they like doing it and without the downsides having to work inside a company (along the lines why people become freelancers).

So by no means it would be happy life with great income for many people; and if you read closely that wasn't my point in the first place.

The main discussion should be about modding, its situation, state and how to improve it.

I think its fair to say that one of the key reasons people buy arma, recommend other to buy and keep playing for a long time is the content created by the modding community.

So simplifying a bit: Would people still buy Arma 4 or drop it again quickly, if there were no community made content or considerable less (high quality/complex) content?

To me this is the mid and long term question this is all about.

PS: Links are fixed - thanks!

@ PuFu

Mainly about the state of modding in arma.

However good and deep insights from other games/engines with modding capabilities, especially those very successful, would be very worthy.

Many in this forum here seem to think the arma scene is the end of it all and the best out there - this is very narrow minded to say at least.

Thank you for your perspective and insights!

Edited July 6, 2014 by .kju [PvPscene]

[.kju 3239]

@ Rydygier

Good considerations. Thank you.

The short version I see is:

1. Make BI put considerable more emphasis and effort to improve modding
   
2. The only way I can see this to happen is for BI to benefit directly from modding
   
3. In return BI is reducing the effort for modding, making it more accessible, improving the documentation, tools, etc
   

@ Varanon

Most people don't pay if they don't have to. Which is rationale for a certain attitude.

However at the same time it is key to make it as easy as possible for those who want to and expose the users to the option - true for both donations and feedback.

@ SmokeDog

Thanks a lot for sharing your personal story!

There is more often a huge amount of effort behind projects than people realize - especially if one is starting fresh and has no IT background.

Of course tools matter immensely here; as you describe many people resort to buying with their own money better, but often expensive, 3rd party tools to save time.

At least the data import and export to the BI tools/pipeline/formats needs improvement or better yet official file format descriptions to allow community people write the data converters at least (thankfully a few individuals have done this for a long time - but it should not be necessary in the first place).

@ ChrisB

While I can see valid concerns that come with commercialization, I think many would be present and to a small degree are already all the time anyway.

However for the most part it would be up for BI to structure the system accordingly and police wrong doings.

On the personal level/in terms of cooperation/sharing I would argue actually against the notion of everyone becoming a mindless, greedy and selfish person; first off the long term modders or people doing such complex projects are to a very large extend exactly the contrary. They do share, cooperate and are very friendly people.

If you think about it, its quite logical after all - a negative character of that sort people paint at the wall is long gone under the conditions of arma modding.

Instead it might even give people more room to exercise these and as mentioned, it should be looked into how the system could directly promote and reward that positive behavior.

@ NodUnit, Tonci87

As said before it is mainly down to the system and active policing to limit bad behavior - just like in the real world. (Negative) incentives matter.

Obviously a paid mod can only become something where you have full ownership/copyright or the 3rd party parts used allow you to by license or people's consent.

Fair point about code/script ownership - however we don't live in a bubble, do we? There is tons of rich debate and insights to be taken from "real" code/software patents law. Let's forget the utterly flawed and broken US situation. In the EU there is for the most part a very reasonable consensus.

To be more specific:

Config code is obviously not protected; for scripts what matters is the designed system and not certain lines of code.

That aside it is already true now that ownership and copyright matters. In legal terms you can't just take someone else's work and use (parts) in your own project. The major difference is that most people doing this in arma have not cared or actually want people to use their work.

In short programmers have a very different mindset than artists in general (ref: open source scene).

In the end it is back to the guidelines BI would set for the system.

@ Tonci87

If you want to sell something, then you to provide certain requirements - as mentioned before one could be having to maintain the item for a certain time period.

The change of situation would of course give BI a lot higher incentive not to break existing code/systems and do more intelligent/careful solutions.

That said for software, within certain low limits, what you buy is what you have to live with. Especially if you can try it beforehand, I see only limited reasonable demands to the author.

What you describe, aside from low levels, seems not be in sync with reality - in Valve's system, in the modding world, nor in the real world.

Again it is about the system and how it is run.

@ redarmy

You seem to be very new in the scene - my point is exactly that the system is "broken" (to some degree).

[smokedog3para 365]

Hi all i'm bringing up this thread again as i've been asked on numerous occasions to build terrains for people for cash and i know that would break the eulas for bis tools, so what i would like to offer to the community is a service for data collection of satellite images and making of masks and also the height maps, this is all done with non bitools so should not break any bis eulas as im not charging for the addon just the data I collect

Most guys give up at the first stage even just getting it in tb can be a nightmare so i would like to make the base terrain for free adding no objects roads and such and be paid for the data this then gives people the opportunity to just get placing objects and takes a major hassle away and could get us a hell of a lot more guys making terrains easily.

fees would be negotiated on how big and how detailed the data collected is and would be on a terrain by terrain basis.

I would like thoughts on what I intend to do, i've sent what i'm proposing to do to dwarden and I am waiting for a response from him\Bi

thanks all

[killzone_kid 1326]

So are we going anywhere with this? I'll gladly pay the price of another DLC for having All in Arma included with the main distribution.

[inlesco 233]

If RHS wins MANW (which I'm definitely sure of), their content could make a great official DLC. Surely, BIS has thought of this already, however, all content produced by modders is of questionable "use terms",

so getting permissions and stuff before actual release is a problem on its own.

Little donations on the side for hard-working modders would make them happy, no matter what people say, how much anti-capitalism they're ;)

[clawhammer 10]

I Want the vbs1 addon disc! They costed much, but the stuff in it was it worth. One disc full of new islands in altis quality, one disc with us army stuff, one disc with german stuff. High Quality. I like that.

[Jackal326 1158]

I Want the vbs1 addon disc! They costed much, but the stuff in it was it worth. One disc full of new islands in altis quality, one disc with us army stuff, one disc with german stuff. High Quality. I like that.

As a training program, yes. As a "game" not really. That is coming from someone that bought VBS1 and (at the time) all Addon discs.

[chrisb 196]

As a training program, yes. As a "game" not really. That is coming from someone that bought VBS1 and (at the time) all Addon discs.

Very true.

I have VBS2 the British forces addition. It is by no means a game, its a training help tool. Fascinating stuff, but stick with this series (Arma) for game-play, especially when modded.;)

[jakerod 254]

One disc full of new islands in altis quality

Coming from a guy who makes terrains for VBS, which terrain does VBS have at Altis quality? Sahrani and Takistan? You can already play those.

[UkropyPrivyet 32]

The support of community should play a marginal role in the full process of the game and not viceversa.

You see, the problem with that is the way that Bohemia released ArmA III they intended for the community to be the full support. You can go back in their logs to the original release date and their official words on the subject were something along the lines of "The real life of this game is in the user-made content, and we feel that we have made a stable, suitable base for users to create content for." They pretty much admitted that all they did was release an engine with a half-baked game included. Hell, at this point I'd rather have my money go to some of the community members (Red Hammer Studios, for example) rather than to Bohemia, because at least if I were to pay 15 dollars for escalation I'd get a whole lot more than two helicopters.

[roshnak 41]

Hell, at this point I'd rather have my money go to some of the community members (Red Hammer Studios, for example) rather than to Bohemia, because at least if I were to pay 15 dollars for escalation I'd get a whole lot more than two helicopters.

Arma 3 (no DLC): Wy-55, CH-49, MI-38, PO-30, A/MH-9, AH-99, UH-80 (7 helicopters)

RHS Escalation: AH-64, CH-47, UH-60, Ka-52, Ka-60, Mi-24, Mi-8/M (7 helicopters)

Edited January 20, 2015 by roshnak

[Jackal326 1158]

Arma 3: Wy-55, CH-49, MI-38, PO-30, A/MH-9, AH-99, UH-80 (7 helicopters)

RHS: AH-64, CH-47, UH-60, Ka-52, Ka-60, Mi-24, Mi-8 (7 helicopters)

I'm pretty sure they both add tanks to. Just because FR4NCH3K's point was statstically inaccurate, doesn't make his point any less valid.

[Defunkt 431]

Arma 3 (no DLC): Wy-55, CH-49, MI-38, PO-30, A/MH-9, AH-99, UH-80 (7 helicopters)

RHS Escalation: AH-64, CH-47, UH-60, Ka-52, Ka-60, Mi-24, Mi-8/M (7 helicopters)

A3 Helicopters DLC ($15): CH-67. Mi-290 (2 helicopters)

[roshnak 41]

I'm pretty sure they both add tanks to. Just because FR4NCH3K's point was statstically inaccurate, doesn't make his point any less valid.

Well, his whole point is invalid. Art assets are not the only thing (or even the most important thing) that goes into a game. Just because the game only has one MBT for each faction doesn't mean the game is half-baked. I'm not saying there aren't content problems in Arma 3, because there are. There are re-used assets, and what I would consider to be gaps in the vehicle lineup (lack of HMMWV equivalents), but what game doesn't take shortcuts and re-use art assets? And it's not unreasonable to think that a military unit would deploy with MRAPS instead of HMMWVs.

It certainly doesn't seem fair to take a developer's statement acknowledging the role the modding community plays in the succes of the game as offloading of responsibility onto modders. Arma 3 has a full singleplayer campaign and a fairly robust and innovative multiplayer gamemode in the form of Zeus. The game has tons of problems, but it's not any more half-baked than Arma 2, Arma, or even OFP were.

edit:

A3 Helicopters DLC ($15): CH-67. Mi-290 (2 helicopters)

Fair enough, I didn't realize that he was referring to DLC.

On the other hand, that's only a valid point if you don't consider that the Helicopters DLC was essentially an optional purchase you could make to help finance the continued development of Arma 3 game features such as the AFM, slingloading, and firing from vehicles, which would be released for free to everyone.

Edited January 20, 2015 by roshnak

[UkropyPrivyet 32]

Arma 3 (no DLC): Wy-55, CH-49, MI-38, PO-30, A/MH-9, AH-99, UH-80 (7 helicopters)

RHS Escalation: AH-64, CH-47, UH-60, Ka-52, Ka-60, Mi-24, Mi-8/M (7 helicopters)

Yeah? I paid 20 dollars for ArmA III and got 7 helicopters, but if I didn't have to pay for RHS and got 7 helicopters, and on top of this even if I were to pay 15 dollars I would still have seven helicopters whereas the helicopters DLC for 15 bucks has two helicopters.

Well, his whole point is invalid. Art assets are not the only thing (or even the most important thing) that goes into a game. Just because the game only has one MBT for each faction doesn't mean the game is half-baked. I'm not saying there aren't content problems in Arma 3, because there are. There are re-used assets, and what I would consider to be gaps in the vehicle lineup (lack of HMMWV equivalents), but what game doesn't take shortcuts and re-use art assets? And it's not unreasonable to think that a military unit would deploy with MRAPS instead of HMMWVs.

It certainly doesn't seem fair to take a developer's statement acknowledging the role the modding community plays in the succes of the game as offloading of responsibility onto modders. Arma 3 has a full singleplayer campaign and a fairly robust and innovative multiplayer gamemode in the form of Zeus. The game has tons of problems, but it's not any more half-baked than Arma 2, Arma, or even OFP were.

edit:

Fair enough, I didn't realize that he was referring to DLC.

On the other hand, that's only a valid point if you don't consider that the Helicopters DLC was essentially an optional purchase you could make to help finance the continued development of Arma 3 game features such as the AFM, slingloading, and firing from vehicles, which would be released for free to everyone.

That's the thing though, they didn't acknowledge that the modding community plays a large role (it doesn't by the way, less than 10% of servers run any sort of mod,) they said that it WAS the most important part of the game. They literally released the game at a "stable point" and released almost no content (outside of the incredibly short campaigns) after it, virtually saying "yeah, we're done here, modders do the work."

As for talking about the DLC, yeah it's optional, but the thing is that the game has ALREADY been financed and we shouldn't have to pay extra to finance more features for the game when they should have been in the game in the first place. Every DLC that comes into this game (aside from complete expansion packs) should have been content that was included in the game, sans carts as well.

[Jona33 51]

That's the thing though, they didn't acknowledge that the modding community plays a large role (it doesn't by the way, less than 10% of servers run any sort of mod,) they said that it WAS the most important part of the game. They literally released the game at a "stable point" and released almost no content (outside of the incredibly short campaigns) after it, virtually saying "yeah, we're done here, modders do the work."

As for talking about the DLC, yeah it's optional, but the thing is that the game has ALREADY been financed and we shouldn't have to pay extra to finance more features for the game when they should have been in the game in the first place. Every DLC that comes into this game (aside from complete expansion packs) should have been content that was included in the game, sans carts as well.

A: The modding community obviously plays a large role, especially if you then include the mission building community within that. You claim 90% of servers run no mods, how many of those use BI provided game modes?

B: You have a 25 mission campaign (main missions that is). I don't know what the average playtime is, but Survive is fairly short (as in each mission is quite quick). That took the devs four and a half hours to play on a livestream and that included somebody who'd made the campaign himself. Adapt is obviously far longer (I'd guess at a minimum seven or eight hours) and Win is again quite short. All told that's at least ten hours of singleplayer content on a single play through. Adapt especially is also far more replayable given the more open nature of the missions. Plus an hour on the prologue campaign if you want to count that. Seems pretty solid to me.

C: You don't have to pay to get the features. The whole point is everyone gets the features for free regardless of whether or not they want to support the company. It's not like BI should simply give you extra content for free.

[roshnak 41]

Yeah? I paid 20 dollars for ArmA III and got 7 helicopters, but if I didn't have to pay for RHS and got 7 helicopters, and on top of this even if I were to pay 15 dollars I would still have seven helicopters whereas the helicopters DLC for 15 bucks has two helicopters.

Without a game to plug them into, the 7 helicopters you got for free from RHS would be pretty useless. It seems to me that you are primarily interested in art assets. Again, there is much more to a video game that how many or what kind of helicopters and cars you can drive.

they should have been in the game in the first place.

Why do you say that?