Arma 3 Zeus - Gameplay Reveal Livestream - Submit your questions!

[royaltyinexile 175]

The Arma 3 devteam welcomes you to their 'Zeus Gameplay Reveal' hangout, taking place on February 15, at 17:00 UTC.

Live from Bohemia Interactive's Prague studio, the session will be streamed on Arma 3's channel on Twitch.tv. The session is expected to last about an hour and a half.

Karel Moricky (Zeus Design Lead) and Filip Sadovský (Zeus Programmer), will be hosting the hangout, supported by Jay Crowe (Creative Director), Joris-Jan van 't Land (Project Lead), and Thomas Ryan (Senior Designer). They'll be joined by a whole host of other developers for a splendid MP showdown!

Based on our previous livestream experiences, we welcome you all to submit questions in this thread - some of which we'll try to answer during the livestream.

For general discussion, please use the general thread - we'd like to be able to select about 5-10 questions from this one!

Last but not least, be sure set yourself a reminder by enlisting for the official event on Arma 3’s Facebook page.

:cool:

Edited February 15, 2014 by RoyaltyinExile

[CrazyBaron 10]

It looks like Zeus is "admin" who makes and controls scenarios in real time but is there any plans for having more then one Zeus (one+ for each side and control only of his units) so we can have Arma 3 RTS?

[gonza 8]

Hello,

Is developers try MCC or VTS and take some ideas for zeus from this 2 projects ?

If not, I think you must try because there is greats ideas. (the shop of VTS is so good, squad swishing interface, teleport interface (on shop), unit interface (switch on AI light for example)...)

We play VTS (from letranger) on our server while Arma 3 alpha every night (30 to 50 players et 1 or 2 Game Masters for 3 Hours missions. turnover of 15 GM)

Questions :

There is a 2D interface ? (better to put checkpoints or select units from a long distance)

Take control on AI will be possible ?

There will be preloaded patrol movements ( 3 click to make a circle patrol for example) ? (circle patrol, stars, between 2 point or ramdom patrol...with radius)

Possibility to have more than one GM ?

GM can play with guys and sometime take the zeus to add something ?

New questions 15/02 :

How a player will be able to use zeus ? (zeus slot at the mission start, command line, must become admin...) ?

Zeus is like a mission or a mod ? is player could be zeus in a classic coop ?

Zeus will be modable ? (add buttons, combobox... add a script to fill building over a radius for example)

Possibility to save/load a Mission or part of it (save a building composition for example or some patrol movement to reproduce an other day )?

Edited February 15, 2014 by gonza

[theevancat 277]

I quite like the lighting strikes. Maybe there's a weather control element? A station to control? I know we've been thinking about that since at least the Second World War. What with the Nazis and their experiments.

[NeoArmageddon 958]

Question:

Will we be able to export the stuff we placed in Zeus as .sqm or even as Visitor3/4 template? Can Zeus replace bulldozer in terms of placing objects on community islands?

First I thought BIS is planning another CTI/SC/C&H mission. It's really nice to see that the "storm" is maybe the long wanted 3D-Editor with a gameplay component. There were already such addons and missions but it is especially to have this engineside. Good job so far. And I think we (the community) can build new great new things on top of Zeus (like the RPS someone mentioned, if it is not already integrated).

[doln 10]

Will we be able to use those snazzy 3D UI elements outside of Zeus?

Say for example I wanted that eye logo thingo attached to a unit/object in 3D space in a non-zeus scenario. Would I be able to do that?

Edited February 15, 2014 by Doln

[Alias001 10]

By the look of the video, the Zeus player also has a physical presence on the field. This raises several questions:

-Is that just for presentation purposes in this video or actually how it plays?

-What happens if they get shot while in the Zeus interface?

-Is there more than one Zeus player available per mission and if not what happens when Zeus dies?

-Is it possible for the Zeus player to NOT have a physical presence and simply be a game master?

-What's the yellow bar at the top? Is it a progress meter or something akin to a points value system like in Warhammer 40000 to keep the size of the forces under some measure of control?

-Am I correct in thinking that mods will be supported seamlessly? IE: If you open a menu to insert a car it'll show BIS made cars and modded ones with no need to do any additional work to make them Zeus compatible (Or Zeuspatible if you prefer)?

-Is there any chance that elements of Zeus will be integrated into the editor UI? Actual 3D editing would be a very welcome addition and cut down on a dramatic amount of time wasted in exact positioning of units.

[royaltyinexile 175]

I've cleaned up the thread a little - let's focus on questions here, I'm certain you've got many! :)

[Smurf 12]

Q: What we see in the livestream can be taken as confirmed this time? :rolleyes:

[enex 11]

Question:

How are you planning to develop/update Zeus as development continues focused on last

DLC campaign and contest that is coming up and other projects that are scheduled?

[A3_Melle 40]

Question:

Beside's ground forces will it also be able to assault air and submerged vehicles?

Send with Tapatalk.

[Kerc Kasha 102]

Q) Tell me about Rifleman (Shotgun)

[ibex1779 10]

Will Zeus have features such as placing a hostage, an IED or for example a high value target?

[XiviD 26]

Question: Will you be able to use "Zeus" to create Multiplayer/Coop scenarios and save them? Like a 3d-Editor? If this question gets picked please greet my fellow SWFL teammates. Good Job BI!

[simon1279 52]

will Zeus be similar to VBS real time editor ?

[sasha013 225]

will ZEUS be implemented in the editor? Will we finally be seeing a 3D editor, or is it ONLY a multiplayer addition?

[das attorney 858]

Will we be able to make compositions (like the scripts) for fast placing of more complex object arrangements?

EDIT: If so, could we put them in a cfgCompositions or similar in the description.ext for easy retrieval?

Like

class cfgCompositions
{
   class myComposition
   {
       {"MASH",{0,0,0},0,1,0},
       {"Land_GuardShed",{35.9503,29.7019,0},0,1,0,{}},
       {"ACamp",{-41.3973,-33.6524,0},0,1,0,{}}
   };
};

Edited February 14, 2014 by Das Attorney

[Niklas 1]

With Zeus being here, how likely is a working 3d Editor?

[kerodan 25]

Question:

Due to the fact that AI units can have a great impact on server performance, I would like to know if there will be any integration of a headless client for GM/Zeus spawned AI units? Will it be possible that GM spawned units are automatically generated on the headless client and not on the server (if HC is present of course ;)) ?

Really like the idea of Zeus, great work BIS!

[katipo66 94]

I havent really been following this surprisingly, so what is it? Is it COOP, PVP, TVT any of those.

-Are there set objectives and game master spawns what ever he wishes as obstacles or can the game master also provides objectives.

-Can the game master be voted out? The only issue I see is the game master can potentially have just to much power and make the game not enjoyable at all, I mean it looked as if he is able to block paths on the fly, spawn what ever he wants where ever he wants and has the ability to kill whomever he wishes (lightning strikes?) so the game mode will revolve around him and not players, is that not open for abuse?

-it seems lightning has a lot to do with this, can it only be played with stormy atmosphere?

Although it looks kinda gimmicky (from what very little I seen or know about) it's nice to see something new and interesting being introduced :)

[Tonci87 163]

Can the gamemater "jump" to another part of the map (eg. from Kavala to Pyros ) or must he fly there as a bird?

[vegeta897 13]

I havent really been following this surprisingly, so what is it? Is it COOP, PVP, TVT any of those.

All of the above. It's not a "game mode" per se, but rather a special way of playing both existing and new missions. As far as how one actually goes about doing that, we're still not sure. I think an editor module was mentioned, but I would love to be able to easily play any existing mission that I haven't created in this mode.

-Are there set objectives and game master spawns what ever he wishes as obstacles or can the game master also provides objectives.

One of the screenshots shows the game master creating an objective. The only "set" objectives would be ones that are or are not already part of the mission.

-Can the game master be voted out? The only issue I see is the game master can potentially have just to much power and make the game not enjoyable at all, I mean it looked as if he is able to block paths on the fly, spawn what ever he wants where ever he wants and has the ability to kill whomever he wishes (lightning strikes?) so the game mode will revolve around him and not players, is that not open for abuse?

This isn't something I can see being played by random pubs (well, not with good results anyway). The game master chosen should be responsible and understand the point of a game like Arma, and this game mode. It is absolutely not "zeus vs players", just like the GM in DnD isn't against the players. His job is to curate an experience. He can be cruel or generous of course, but the point is this isn't about Zeus trying to stop the players from completing objectives or surviving.

-it seems lightning has a lot to do with this, can it only be played with stormy atmosphere?

No, the lightning bolt is just a themed gimmick feature. Just a cinematic way of destroying a unit without having it vanish into thin air. The weather of the mission will certainly not be restricted to stormy.

[bigpickle 0]

No, the lightning bolt is just a themed gimmick feature. Just a cinematic way of destroying a unit without having it vanish into thin air.

Your joking right?

[papy.rabbit.08 0]

Relating to MP and FPS in this mod, what can you say about it? Can we expect as much FPS in this MP mod as in SP (as it is a mission created by you, devs, I guess it will be more optimised than many MP mod out there) ?

[twisted 128]

Making Real Time missions seems a great idea.

Are you going to include an After Action Review to be able to see what happened and share it communally?

With the focus on muliplayer, will you be making any other MP optimisations (not only to 'netcode' but to the actual game including refining infantry mechanics)

a true 3d editor seems much closer with the advent of Zeus. Be great to get it.