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CiA Petition Letter to BIS and DnA's Response

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Comrades in Arms have arranged a community petition letter to BIS, that expressed grave concerns about Arma 3's development, with an emphasis about the loss of realism. The petition was signed by 67 people who came to know about it by PMs and word of mouth (until now, it was never published as a post on the forums). The letter was available as a Google document, and it was edited and commented on by many individuals of the community, not only from CiA. It was sent to BIS on August 5, 2013. Today, we have received DnA's response. With his permission, and for the sake of constructive discussion and criticism, we are presenting in public the petition letter and DnA's response. We wish to thank BIS for taking the time to respond to our petition. Below you may find the petition letter that was sent, following by DnA's response letter.

Letter to Bohemia Interactive



**Note that the letter was sent to BIS on August 5, 2013, with 67 signatures

For the biggest part of the past decade, a single game series dominated all our PC gaming lives - the series that began with Operation Flashpoint and currently culminates in the latest installment, Arma 3. All of us who signed this letter are long-time enthusiasts, most of us bought the supporter edition because we love the game and we love the company behind it. It is safe to say that to us, no other series, and most of all, no other company comes close in the way it connects to its customers and fanbase.

For all of us, Arma 3 came as a pleasant surprise when it was first announced in 2011, and indeed not only did it look fantastic, it also promised to be the best game so far in the series. One of the most overlooked things but certainly done right in Arma 3 is the general polish of the presentation. This starts with simple things like the menus and layout of the GUI and game shell, and extends to things like reloading weapons, getting in and out of vehicles, and the general look and feel of the game. This is definitely the right way to go.

But now, in 2013, there are some concerns among the long-time fans of the series that are bothering us, in fact, bothering us enough to write this letter.

We do understand the need and desire to reach out to a bigger audience. Obviously, a lot of people did consider Arma 2 to be too “hardcore†and therefore shunned the game.

However, there are still a few recent developments that make us worry about the future of the game, and those are mainly about the loss of realism. There are three major areas that we feel are being simplified beyond what is necessary to make the game more accessible. Some of these things can be “corrected†with mods, but some cannot, and we generally feel that the vanilla game should include these features, as the follow-up to the “most realistic military simulatorâ€. We will detail these areas below.

Movement

To say it clearly, movement was definitely an area in Arma 2 that needed improvement, and for the most part, we agree that the changes in Arma 3 are for the better. However, along the way some of the required features were lost, most notably inertia. Sprinting and stopping is basically instantaneous, with no transition whatsoever. This is independent of the loadout (see below), and independent of the weapon used. The lack of proper weapon collision in buildings also adds to this. The major impact this has on gameplay is that for one thing it makes loadout irrelevant, since movement is not seriously hampered by the amount and bulkiness of stuff carried. On the other hand, it also makes rifle sizes irrelevant; an SMG or sniper rifle’s only difference is fire frequency/ and magazine size. As a matter of fact, it makes the LMG the preferred CQB weapon, which is neither realistic, nor authentic. Picking a short weapon like an SMG only has disadvantages, nothing else.

Loadout

In close connection to the above, we do feel that the amount of stuff a soldier is able to carry is simply too much.The weight of a Titan launcher for example is around 13 kilograms, and this extrapolates to a maximum carry capacity of roughly 153 kilograms of weight. This is a weight that no human being is able to carry and yet, even sprinting with this load is still possible (albeit shortly). In reality, 60 kg is considered a heavy load for an infantry soldier, according to an Army study. This isn’t even taking the volume of the items into account, for example the Titan’s rockets are each roughly one meter long and have a diameter of roughly the same size as the launcher (estimates 40 centimeters) and weighs around 10 kilo per shot. It is very well possible to carry 5 missiles for a total of 50 kilograms (without launcher which comes at an extra 13 kilograms). All of this plus a rifle, pistol, magazines and other stuff gets the soldier to about 66% of his carrying capacity (verified with “load player†scripting command).

Extending the boundaries of reality is ok, but we feel that the fact a soldier in Arma 3 can carry a load that is twice as much than any reasonable load breaks the immersion, the balance of the game, and is harmful to the Arma legacy.

Medical System

One aspect of the Arma series was always giving the player the feeling that he is part of a team; be it his fire team, his squad, or his platoon in a large-scale engagement, the focus has always been on “cog in the machineâ€, as opposed to other games that make the player a one-man army of regenerating health. Squadmates in single player are as irrelevant as they are in multiplayer (Battlefield 3’s class system is a notable exception). For Arma 2 and earlier games, this has always been different. The medical system is a good example of this.

In Arma 2, with the First Aid modules in place, a single shot could incapacitate a player, putting him in agony state and rely on a medic to get him up. Players that lay wounded in the field could be saved by their teammates, being either dragged or carried to safety. It makes teamwork essential, and gives a strong “we made it†feeling when the wounded comrade was saved. As a matter of fact, there have been cases where people were convinced to try Arma because of this specific feature, because it make Arma different to other games.

In Arma 3, however, this has moved to a point where a medic is no longer strictly required. You can heal yourself with a first aid kit, and since each enemy carries at least one and your load capacity is so high, it is easy to stock up on these. Getting shot becomes an inconvenience.

We’re not trying to advocate a system like ACE with morphine and bandages and CPR, but we feel that getting shot has too little impact and that a system in module form, like that in Arma 2, is very much a requirement.

Summary

In general, our fear is that with going away from realism too far, the game experience will become too generic. A lot of the changes outlined above, especially the loadout and medical system, encourage lone-wolf playstyles over teamwork. An AT soldier becomes autonomous since he can carry a large load of ammunition (in fact the default loadout of the AT soldier already carries more missiles than the BTR-K APC). The average player can heal himself back to 80%, where the effect of his injuries are hardly noticeable (going prone and/or holding your breath will eliminate most of the effect). It also has the effect of unbalancing the game, making soldier roles relatively irrelevant since everyone can muster enough capacity to carry a long-range rifle, AT or AA weapon, and enough first aid kits to keep himself in the game.

While changes like that might be convenient for new players, the fact that nothing can override these settings (like a server-side setting to limit loadouts, or a mission maker’s tool to add a proper medical system) is a severe loss to players that have stayed with the series in spite of all past shortcomings for exactly these aspects.

It is true that with modding it is possible to modify at least some of these aspects. However, this is not a universal solution. For one thing, experience shows that very few mission makers will change the way that vanilla content works through scripts. Secondly, some aspects like the inertia during movement cannot be modded at all.

What we would like to see is that some of these things get tweaked towards a more realistic experience, or at least the option is given (in the form of server side settings, and editor modules). Just to mention another example, the red circle on the map makes any sort of mission that requires map-reading skills or other navigational skills (like, for example, the Sam Nichols escape mission in the original Flashpoint) more or less moot, and there is no possibility to turn this circle off (it should be a server-side setting).

The fact that a single soldier can carry so much is also imbalancing, especially in TvT games: A single soldier with an AT launcher and enough missiles plus a long range sniper rifle is basically a one-man army. Harder to detect than an IFV, and as powerful against armor as the IFV while being much harder to detect. In fact, this makes IFVs practically useless (who would want to take an IFV into battle ? A single soldier is more dangerous!)

We feel it safe to say that especially the coop-oriented gameplay is one of the very commonly played styles. Granted, a lot of players do enjoy their Wasteland servers, and we can see how the changes benefit those demographic. However, we do feel that if a game is called Arma, it should stay as true to its roots as possible, and this means realism up to a certain degree. There is always going to be the tradeoff between fun and work (we do not propose physical punishment for getting shot, or having to stop playing for six months; we do not propose to have biological urges in the game) but we feel that the current tradeoff is too much geared towards the Wasteland/Domination/Hop-on play style at a pretty high cost to the Coop style.

We don’t think that fixing the above issues will have any noticeable effect over sales or accessibility to the game for new players. On the contrary, we believe that these features will be attractive to new players. We wish that BIS will find a way to keep both the casual and the serious gamers pleased.

We thank you very much for taking the time to read this and we look forward to playing Arma 3 and to continue nurturing this great community.

With appreciation,

Undersigned and Comrades in Arms*

*Note that Comrades in Arms have initiated the letter, but it has been written and signed by many other members of the BI community, who have received it

Undersigned - Personal info removed

followed by BI forums account names and email addresses

(a total of 67 signatures were collected)

DnA's response letter





Dear members of the Comrades in Arms community,

My apologies for not responding to your letter sooner. Thank you for bringing your thoughts to us in this honest, open, constructive and civilized format. As the Project Lead for Arma 3 I hope to address some of your concerns. Please note that I will try to express my views as I believe them to be shared by our team, but they are essentially my own.

Firstly, I would like to point out that our wishes to streamline the presentation and other elements of the user experience, such as the installation process, were not driven by business motivations. We felt that a lot of these rough edges were simply not necessary, and standing in the way of enjoyment. There exists no driving force within or above our team which would have us make design decisions just to cater to more players - or to become less ‘hardcore’. Several decisions in the last year have had to be made on the basis of resources, deadlines and actually getting a game released. We sincerely believe the early access program has filtered a lot of stability and performance issues that would have otherwise been with us on release. Are we there yet? No, there are still issues in these categories and we continue to address them.

Secondly, it cannot be denied that Arma 3 has been a project that suffered big setbacks. We have also made some mistakes when it comes to enthusiastically showing off proof-of-concept content, ideas and plans. Suffice it to say that many elements of the game are not how we envisioned them at first. As a player of the resulting game, this is not something you should have to care about. However, without knowing this, it becomes hard for me to explain how Arma 3 came to be. Even though as a business, it is not always possible to share every factor that’s part of the decision-making process, a post-mortem analysis is something we’re keen on - when the time is right. With some of the crazy things that happened, it could pretty much be a feature-length film by now! Nonetheless, we are extremely proud of Arma 3, we believe it’s already a solid platform, and we will continue to improve it for years.

Of course it is also possible that those involved with Arma 3 now, have a different vision of what the game should be, than those involved over the past decade. There is no definitive balance between authenticity, realism and fun that suits every person. For most of us in the team, we don’t want to make a true (procedure) simulator; Arma is still a game to us. A sim-game, but a game. Don’t get me wrong; we have no wishes to move away from attempting to simulate many elements of the game, because only through simulation can we achieve more dynamic, open and free virtual worlds. But it has to be useful and appropriate. That said, we always try to keep it possible for mods to put forward their own vision. We do realize that in most cases the vanilla core game will dominate the playerbase.

Unfortunately, our ambitions have set a precedent with Arma 2, we could not match with Arma 3 on release. It’s something we might have anticipated better. The amount of content then was the result of many more years of development, content coming from a few canceled internal projects, and several years of post-release additions. The company also changed over the past years. People left, people joined, and we employed different methodologies, information systems and distribution technologies. Most of this was necessary and for the better, but it has had its effects on the project.

In terms of systems, a lot of Arma 2 relied on scripting and modules (e.g. the First-Aid systems you refer to). This also meant they were much less robust and caused performance, security and reliability issues. We no longer wanted to have our core gameplay mechanics heavily scripted, but rather deal with it in the engine directly (f.e. drones). In the end, this benefits the many environments the systems need to operate in, and which a lot of scripted systems don’t cater for well: singleplayer, Team Switch, multiplayer, Join-In-Progress, Dedicated Servers, on-foot gameplay, vehicular gameplay, underwater gameplay, etc. To my knowledge, no non-scripted technologies or features have been removed from Real Virtuality and our approach has been to keep script and configuration hooks in place for mods.

Interestingly, the sections of the game which you highlight, are precisely those which were problem-cases during development. We originally set out to bring them forward in big ways (e.g. combat medicine). But we failed to finish some of these systems, deadlines and resources caught up with us, and we had to dial down the ambitions for the initial release. For our team, the September 12th release did not mean we could rest, as one normally would. We are still working terribly hard on tweaking, fixing, balancing and gathering everyone’s wishes for future plans. Some of the specific issues you highlight have actually already been worked on since your letter was sent, and work on them is still on-going.

I would also like to spin things around a little and draw some attention to what I consider to be big improvements, a few of which rather hardcore. The vast options and control over stances are undeniably more advanced than pretty much any other shooter out there. Under-the-hood improvements to ballistical simulation, explosives, material penetration and artillery munitions are in the game, but less visible. More options in inventory management, backpacks and accessories provide more tools during combat. The radio protocol is a massive step forwards in direct comparison with Arma 2’s. Our approach to a simulated Artificial Intelligence is always going to be hard to perfect - given that we want to refrain from cheating as much as possible. However, recent work on Close Quarter Combat really takes AI reactions forward. And besides gameplay, the video options have seen improvements in terms of e.g. often requested post-processing settings, a frame rate indicator and better auto-detection.

Big technologies like DirectX 11 and PhysX may sound like buzzwords, but they allow for a lot of growth in the next years - future-proofing the core. DX11 helps with lighting realism, enhanced dynamic lights, and offers optimization possibilities. Continued PhysX integration is going to unlock some awesome abilities for us and modders down the line.

My opinion on this may well be biased, but I truly believe that we are much closer to the Arma spirit you seek now than where the project was headed a year ago. Arma 3 then was focusing on a different and specific type of gameplay. It had many exciting ideas, but could not be executed, and to me it was less of a complete military sandbox. Perhaps at some point we can share details on how exactly those plans looked, and what changed.

We try to learn from our mistakes, grow as a team and better ourselves and the game in the process. Your constructive feedback gives us a good reality check (no pun intended), and we can certainly look at fine-tuning that balance between authenticity, realism and fun you spoke about.

We appreciate your unwavering support, and hope you will stick around to witness the Arma 3 platform mature. There are many great things to come!

Best regards,

Joris-Jan van ‘t Land

Project Lead, Arma 3

Bohemia Interactive

p.s. Thanks for the care package, which helped us through development!

Edited by Variable

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DnA's response letter





Boo freaking Hoo......Cry me a river, I'll concede the weight limitation, but nothing else. Oh and bye the way, I take objection to your use of "the long-time fans of the series" as your 67 do not comprise all of "The" long time fans of the series.

Edited by Placebo

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Boo freaking Hoo......Cry me a river, I'll concede the weight limitation, but nothing else. Oh and bye the way, I take objection to your use of "the long-time fans of the series" as your 67 do not comprise all of "The" long time fans of the series.

If you cannot make a constructive post about the topic, then leave. You don't need to waste a bunch of lines to paste quote the entire letter either but quote out what you want to address. There was no implication of ALL the fans, but a good majority of concerned individuals addressing their concerns. Do we not have the rights to speak out of our concerns in a civilized manner?

Edited by Phantom Six

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If I could I would put my signature under that community letter.

I really appreciate your honest response DnA and I hope that future development will be a lot smoother from now on.

One Day you really have to tell us what crazy things happened during the development.

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I'm just really impressed not only with the response, but that there WAS a response. Kudos to this company, for sure. I think they're still in a place we are actually game enthusiasts and not simply consumers.. (cough*..EA...cough*)

This company takes the high road... and admits that they made mistakes. In my mind, I couldn't feel better about any game knowing that this is an evolving product that they actually care about.

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Business Head says

servers reflect a massive change from this kind gameplay anyway so the changes would impact on not more than 20% of todays MP players and BIS must reflect it as a business and continue there current development process to make the Base playable for all before even attempt to appease some genre of gameplay

Heart

says release engine code for a2 Iteration and let the community really make this game sandbox ( i know bollocks but hey )

Reflected Head and Heart says

Release arma2 including expansion and TakeOn helicopter Mlods with New tools ( not textures so A2 TOH etc ownership is required ) and least community fill the gaps that Bis cannot whilst fixing the Engine Bugs and AI problems

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If you cannot make a constructive post about the topic, then leave. You don't need to waste a bunch of lines to paste quote the entire letter either but quote out what you want to address. There was no implication of ALL the fans, but a good majority of concerned individuals addressing their concerns. Do we not have the rights to speak out of our concerns in a civilized manner?

Did the forums change the how Moderators appear?

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Pin it and make it obligatory read.

Thanks both CiA&friends and Dna.

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I also agree with every single one of the points in the community letter. However, I'm not that surprised that Arma 3's release was the way it was given the unusual setbacks (developer jailing isn't that common, is it?) and BIS' response gives me renewed confidence that they're going to develop the game to a level that satisfies people disappointed with what the game currently offers. Also, you people should really learn that BIS releases tend to be rough one way or another. Anybody remember Arma 2 1.0?

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Anybody remember Arma 2 1.0?
RiE was pretty adamant that "yeah, that's what we're trying to be better than", no matter how much anyone may not like their approach to that.

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really kind to see DnA, to responce to this. Personally nothing new to me. Many things asked back there, have been answered/improved game wise etc. Already well known, BI studio were over ambitionist, promising lots of goodies, long before the game was close to the finish. And that imprisoning their collegies, also hurted bad at dev process, and i guess overall team moral.

All we know - bis is not going to abandon their new born baby, and raise a mature full grown, and clever man :)

P.s do really hope, this will chill some haters, BIS only again showed us, they do care about us, and listen to us. Making here battalies, about how "dumbed down" and unfinished the game is, over and over, won't help a yote! But creating and voting feedback tracker, mostlikely will help to improve the situation.

Cheers,

Neuro.

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Jeez back the fuck up, arma3 is great. Hate those people who start open letters because they dont like a feature and act as if they are freeing political prisoners. Also being in a clan does not mean shit, clans are a tiny fragment of the people that bought the game, so stop acting like the ambassadors of arma gamers.

Arma3 is great, and the new animation system alone is worth more than 20 arma2 vehicles. So dont even start with the "lack of content" shit because if you do you have no clue how much content there is in arma3, and believe it or not, arma3 has more content than arma2 + oa. Because content is more than just counting the units in the editor list

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Jeez back the fuck up, arma3 is great. Hate those people who start open letters because they dont like a feature and act as if they are freeing political prisoners. Also being in a clan does not mean shit, clans are a tiny fragment of the people that bought the game, so stop acting like the ambassadors of arma gamers.

Arma3 is great, and the new animation system alone is worth more than 20 arma2 vehicles. So dont even start with the "lack of content" shit because if you do you have no clue how much content there is in arma3, and believe it or not, arma3 has more content than arma2 + oa. Because content is more than just counting the units in the editor list

a bit harsh, but i agree partially. Sending a letter, signed by 67 people, representing whole community? Doesn't sound all to fair to me, maybe i wished to ask a few question in the latter/would dissagree with some questions? Maybe my comparison is wrong, but thats like electing a president, just by collecting 67 votes, from whole country.

Don't get me wrong thought, not being jealios or something, but imagine, if every small community or even single forum member, starts sending their letters to BIS, that won't be good.

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great letter from Comrades in Arms. I thought, well here's another moan fest but i was wrong - it was intelligently put and made important points. quite nice to read. and i agree 100% with those guys on all points mentioned.

Then there was DNA's letter which made BIS strategy clear and seemed to agree in principle but only hinted at promises ( wtf is it with people people making well thought out smart points here recently?makes me nervous. thank goodness for the second post in this thread, shows that dumb is still alive and ever lurking)

I look forward to the evolution of arma3 and i have just 4 words that i would add to the 1st post: bipods and weapon resting.

PS - i dont think anywhere here these guys are implying they represent the entire arma3 community.

Edited by twisted

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Well, at least we can see that DnA didn't waste time on answering until after post-release... thank gosh. :lol: I can't say that I'm surprised by DnA only making vague pseudo-promises, especially considering some of the allusion to 'prior overambitiousness and promises that shouldn't have been made coming back to bite us'.

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a bit harsh,

A "bit" harsh? a post full of swear words expressing what the open letter did as well - opinion. We're all entitled to it. I'm tired of people resorting to insults and swear words just because they have a different opinion.

Sending a letter, signed by 67 people, representing whole community?

We did never claim to represent the whole community. That is the point of signing something. You put your name under it and say "here's MY opinion". That's the nice part about opinion. Everybody has one. Everybody is entitled to one. You too. So are we.

Don't get me wrong thought, not being jealios or something, but imagine, if every small community or even single forum member, starts sending their letters to BIS, that won't be good.

It's called "Freedom of Speech". And it was signed by 67 people. It was written by a group of people that are concerned about the direction the game is taking. There is nothing wrong with it, at least we tried to argue our case instead of using "fuck" all over the place.

Edited by Alwarren

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Thanks for your response DnA, hopefully with you at the helm, the future of ARMA is bright!

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First of all, many thanks to DnA for addressing the letter and taking the time to write such a lengthy reply.

a bit harsh, but i agree partially. Sending a letter, signed by 67 people, representing whole community?

No one represented the whole community. It was representing the 67 signers of the letter. Nothing more, nothing less. Stop interpreting things that aren't there.

This letter was no attempt to change anything. It was not claiming to speak for anyone except those that signed it. it was not meant to cause any reaction. It was JUST MEANT TO VOICE conern. OUR concern. Which might not be yours. You might not agree to the letter. Fine, more power to you. But as I said, it never claimed to be speaking for the community, just for those signed.

Don't get me wrong thought, not being jealios or something, but imagine, if ever community or even sungle forum members, starts sending their letters to BIS, that won't be good.

That's why it wasn't sent by single persons, but by a lot of people.

Deal with it. I can't imagine what was wrong with it.

So dont even start with the "lack of content" shit because if you do you have no clue how much content there is in arma3,

That's why the letter doesn't even start with the "lack of content" shit. Actually, it doesn't say anything about content.

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Well, at least we can see that DnA didn't waste time on answering until after post-release... thank gosh. :lol: I can't say that I'm surprised by DnA only making vague pseudo-promises, especially considering some of the allusion to 'prior overambitiousness and promises that shouldn't have been made coming back to bite us'.

More like this indeed.

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Amen guys! I would gladly sign that petition! Thank you DnA for response, it was great to read. Although personally i am bit disappointed with the release, i have to say that BIS has great developers who feel simply honest but bounded by harsh reality(for example: lack of programmers and time :P). I wish you guys that your plans will come true for your and mine sake :). I will try to support you although i am short on money :p.

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If I could I would put my signature under that community letter.

I really appreciate your honest response DnA and I hope that future development will be a lot smoother from now on.

One Day you really have to tell us what crazy things happened during the development.

^+1 to this

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a bit harsh, but i agree partially. Sending a letter, signed by 67 people, representing whole community?

Where does it say "the whole community"? People signed this letter with their real names, mind you, so why are you making things up?

Doesn't sound all to fair to me, maybe i wished to ask a few question in the latter/would dissagree with some questions?

Has anyone stopped you from writing your own letter? This was not aimed to represent you in any way, so why the hell do you feel entitled to "ask questions" or "disagree"? What the hell is this nonsense? People that had disagreed with the content simply chose not to sign it. Are you signing every single petition in the world and ask your input to be put in?

Maybe my comparison is wrong, but thats like electing a president, just by collecting 67 votes, from whole country.

This is the most amazing comment I read in the BIF.

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P.s do really hope, this will chill some haters, BIS only again showed us, they do care about us, and listen to us.

I think that it is a common misconception that some people have about criticism.

Criticism is not hate. You criticize something (especially constructive) if you care about it. Otherwise, you wouldn't.

I criticize a lot. I don't hate Arma 3. I have 270 hours on it, more than most other titles I have on Steam. I intent to do missions for it now that it stopped being a moving target with ever-morphing class names.

However, I think it is actually pretty normal to point out things that you think could be better. This letter was just meant to point those things out.

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Thanks to DnA for an answer. But still leaves me wondering WHAT exactly is their take on realism vs authenticity vc fun. Would like to hear more about the direction of development. Not promises but design goals to consider the game "finished".

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