The new ARMA 3 DLC system - debate

[chortles 263]

Let them put the minimum price at, let´s say 6€. And then you pay how much you think it´s worth.

These are mutually exclusive, and in the case of Humble Bundle the default is non-Steam, their minimum is for Steam keys, and I'm not sure what the heck could be treated as "what happens when you don't pay a minimum" in BI's case considering that BI specifically rejected texture/sound quality differences as a paywall.

The benefits are that BIS would indeed be forced to make DLCs attractive to buy (no more half assed stuff like ACR).

... and right there is why BI isn't adopting a "pay what you want" model.

How you go from Arma 2 to making Arma 3 and not even consider sorting out the AI is beyond me.

Answer: Arma 3 itself wasn't supposed to happen at first.

and a slightly less detailed but not as low as arma 2 dlc textures.

This -- or rather, any texture/detail quality difference -- was already rejected in the dev blog.

[Tonci87 163]

or have a sticker in the cockpit that says "arma 3 rental" and decal on the side of the heli but only for the non buying player visible not others, and a "rent a gun" on the gun ?

have an option to remove sticker and get a buy option ?

Hey I like the idea! A Texture overlay that only gets enabled when the person doesn´t own the DLC. Imagine something like a huge "Larkin Aviation Helicopter Rental" Logo on the helicopters if you didn´t buy them.

[dr death jm 117]

i clicked no but im not 100% on (no).

i feel donating is cool for DLC but at the same time I think if we as players suport DLC things , we will not see any cool updates or extra anything without having to pay for it , and as I see it the FAN base does more for arma3 in there coding and scripting than BIS does (in my eyes)... also Im apsulutly positive if DLC's (addons) were just updated to game and BIS asked for donations for blue cross Im positive they would reach a good goal of($$$$$). arma3 didnt give us much to go with from the get go, 1 island (now 2) lots of vehicals (1 sided for a while), 1 air plane (now 3 but 1 is a copy of other). so whats arma3's next step? ass a DLC of air planes for $3.99 DLC ... I dont belive im going to like this much In the way its being presented. and I just belive some thing should just be added to game we all paid a good sum of $$ for it and its not like going from a2 to a2/oa ... theres a bit of diffance...

but if im wrong im wrong, I just think A few years from now well all be a few $100 dollors broke investing into DLC's

[Belbo 461]

Hey I like the idea! A Texture overlay that only gets enabled when the person doesn´t own the DLC. Imagine something like a huge "Larkin Aviation Helicopter Rental" Logo on the helicopters if you didn´t buy them.

It's got to be uncomfortable not to own the DLC. That's a given. Without any incentive to actually spent money, people would probably not spend any money at all. But it should not be obstructing the way to experience the game. Textures might be a good idea, but they might not be motivating enough. Not being able to use the instruments on a helicopter or not being able to use the HUD on the other hand might be an option. Being able to use Karts, but have a speed limit of 80 would be an incentive to buy the DLC. Have the model of a bipod implemented, but not being able to use it unless you buy the DLC would be an incentive.

Why not go this way? Because let's be honest: A quality product will be bought, whether you force people to use it or not. But it won't be bought by all people. Growth is important and sales are of major interest.

A completely other possibility would be the marketing model that Epic will be deploying with the next Unreal game: Making all content free of charge and establish a market place for community modders, with a small fee going to BI's pocket. That could be done, although I can see that the community would have a hard time with a transitioning process...

[rübe 127]

I have to agree, this is a damn poor solution, ...

...if not right out obnoxious.

The in-game experience is sacred territory, don't you dare to bother me about real-life stuff while I'm trying to immerse and enjoy myself in there (e.g. with purchase decisions). Such shady tactics are fine(?) for facebook games, targeted at kids and their moms pocket. I expect better from BIS. :cool:

And mind you, I managed to get a copy of ArmA3 in the meantime and even purchased the DLC bundle already, yesterday or something... (unfortunately I have no time to play currentely, so I havent even started up Arma3 a single time yet, haha ... :rolleyes:) So thanks god, I will not personally be bothered by this crap. It still pisses me off like hell, and I really hope BIS is able to find a better solution than this. Granted, it's not easy. But this? This is not cool.

Just imagine some guy going online, after getting his copy of ArmA3, and is immediately greeted by such a friggin popup?! Ohhh, you wanna have fun? Too bad. First you need to buy this too, silly goon! If that would be my first experience with a game of BIS, I'd never touch any of them ever again.

The times we live in... :rolleyes:

[chrisb 196]

You forgot to add [irony] tags, right?

No tags required.

What I said there, is exactly what I would like to see. BI have a market there, it may be smaller than mainstream obviously, but releasing mainstream style material for free (zeus :rolleyes:), then releasing rubbish (karts) that o.k. may just be to see how a system works out (doubt that), seems a little bit of a waste.

Great for mainstreamers, if thats really what they want to see, just not the type of thing the players I play the game with, or myself, want to see.

I'm thinking more wargaming, whereas many, if not the majority, would be delighted to get regular quality material, to add to a much larger gaming world. Sub, or to buy each month, whichever way they wanted to do it.

The series is wandering way off course now, for me, only my opinion, I see it being completely mainstream. But I understand why that is, from a business point of view, I would have done the same probably if it were my business, well I did do something similar in my prior business. It works well from a business point of view, to have something that sells easily to throw away gamers.

On the other hand, as I did in my own business, I kept the core people/customers I started with (I was in a completely different industry, but it works much the same), by still offering the original product, also whilst improving it continuously for its purpose, without corner cutting and quick money making ideas. In this case, simply appeal to both types of playing styles, is what I'm asking BI to do, that's all. Wasting time and manpower on releases like this, when things are yet to be finished, just seems, well ridiculous. Split the game, like I explained, it would pay them to do so and also keep players like myself very happy, release quality material monthly or whenever they have it, to those players that are willing to pay for it, at or around the price mentioned. There are many out there, away from this community here, that would be more than willing to pay for quality for their gaming/hobby.

As it is, the series for us, is slipping away, which is a great shame, because it has soo much to offer, other than this, well, nonsense. I see things that could be pushed forward, just being left behind i.e. 3d editor, AI (although I have that now), quality terrains, more of them smaller if need be, units, vehicles, aircraft etc, etc. All that play, cohesively with one another, no conflicting, as said, quality.

[chortles 263]

It's got to be uncomfortable not to own the DLC. That's a given. Without any incentive to actually spent money, people would probably not spend any money at all.

Unfortunately you're starting from this premise on a board with users who don't treat this as a given and take issue with DLC at all... just saying.

[Tonci87 163]

How exactly is Zeus Mainstream? I think it´s quite the contrary. And better to have a meaningless Kart DLC as a test ballon than something with real value.

[vegeta897 13]

The in-game experience is sacred territory, don't you dare to bother me about real-life stuff while I'm trying to immerse and enjoy myself in there (e.g. with purchase decisions).

In other words, you'd rather be able to enjoy the DLC without any notifications that you're using something you do not own, for free. Or, you'd rather the DLC not be accessible at all, so that nobody is able to preview them for themselves, and are forced to rely on pictures and video. Simple solution, do not use the things you don't own, and BIS won't ask you to buy it.

Just imagine some guy going online, after getting his copy of ArmA3, and is immediately greeted by such a friggin popup?!

Just imagine some guy going online, after getting his copy of ArmA3, and is immediately greeted with "you cannot join this server because you don't own this DLC."

I don't get how that's a better solution than at least letting the person try out the DLC that BIS wants him to buy, and see what it's like first hand, for himself. The nagging does not impede his ability to do so, it only makes sure he can't fully enjoy using it without owning it (which is what the problem with the Lite assets was).

Edited May 31, 2014 by vegeta897

[twisted 127]

i think the simplest DLC option is buy it if you want to play it. otherwise go without. Self entitlement in others is such a plague right now.

I also dont like the pop ups but then i wont have to worry about them. I dropped $24 bucks because Im happy to support the more advanced flight model as well as (very happy) to support the marksman dlc. Hope they really make it authentic. oops. back on topic..

Additionally, the humble bundle idea isnt good to me. Id take minimum and say well bis got a little money and i got a lot of content. i feel its fair for BIS to charge for DLC content that takes resources and time. the image of the popups in game i was surprised at. be better to have them in the beginning of the mission on the title screen, but i can imagine how much mission makers would like that. not an easy thing for BIS to solve, but i'm interested to see where they take it.

[chortles 263]

How exactly is Zeus Mainstream? I think it´s quite the contrary.

Without calling it niche, I'll suggest that even those who might call themselves 'milsimmers' have declared and demonstrated their own positive interest in the idea of Zeus, not just as a "3D Editor" (frankly speaking, it seems that some if not the majority of the "3D Editor" advocates would be satisfied with the ability to save to .sqm from the Zeus GUI, because that's how good the Zeus GUI is as an would-be 3D Editor GUI!) but, as the Zeus release livestream with the community demonstrated, Zeus can be used to prepare and administer a "wargaming" scenario with no modification necessary.

[rübe 127]

Just imagine some guy going online, after getting his copy of ArmA3, and is immediately greeted with "you cannot join this server because you don't own this DLC."

I'm not yet in-game in that case. That's the lobby, and yes, that's much less infuriating (if at all), if you ask me. You see a list of servers, some are green, others red. Some popup on mouseover (or whatever) will explain you why that is and what you need to do, to be able to join... pretty standard and fully transparent - in the best case there is simply a filter, and by default on, so that a new user only sees "green" servers. It's not like expansions (or DLC) would be anything new...

But once playing the game, this has to stop.

Maybe this seems not important, or arbitrary to you, to me it is important. I don't want to play some chess to be bothered that there exists some new figure that can teleport - wanna buy it? only 2 dollary!!, no! If I want teleport-chess I buy teleport-chess to begin with. Stop bothering me already.

IMHO what makes this all worse is the size of expansions.. well, they're not even that anymore. It's "DLC" in small and ever smaller packages. Hence the resulting chaos.

This just sucks. But if it's the only way to make decent money these days... so be it.

As said, I fully understand that there probably is no optimal solution to this clusterfuck of what a single game consists of nowadays. But developers need to find solutions that don't screw with their audience. And just to be perfectly clear: I'd rather have no "free" DLC that is just there to remind me that I could buy that too. No thanks. I know what I've bought, that's what I'm going to play with. Leave me alone already, I wanna have some fun here. *grrrr

Am I too old (or rather grumpy) for this, or what?

8(

[Tonci87 163]

So let´s go back to the idea with the texture overlays on DLC vehicles, what do you guys think of it? Helicopters with "Larkin Aviation Helicopter Rental" Logos on them? Weapons with "Vrana Corp Rent-a-gun" Stickers?

[Rydygier 1302]

IMO there should be no any DLCs, no matter, what system. Only patches to fix, what is broken and to improve, what may be improved, and then, after everyting is fixed and imporoved in 100%, very few but big, paid, optional (no obligatory download) expansions (like OA) to add new content, each with own portion of subsequent patches. But it isn't a big concern to me. Just a bit annoying, so I must download burning my monthly net traffic limit some Karts, I do not care a bit, to get in the same package also portion of important game fixes. These things should be separated, and any new content optional, never integrated with fixing patches, never as autoupdate. Just never liked this new DLC philosophy, so popular last years. Prefer to get all at once, not in the many micro portions, each paid separatelly.

[vegeta897 13]

I'm not yet in-game in that case. That's the lobby, and yes, that's much less infuriating (if at all), if you ask me. You see a list of servers, some are green, others red. Some popup on mouseover (or whatever) will explain you why that is and what you need to do, to be able to join... pretty standard and fully transparent - in the best case there is simply a filter, and by default on, so that a new user only sees "green" servers. It's not like expansions (or DLC) would be anything new...

And what if you want to play with your friends? Too bad, they're on a server that has DLC assets. You don't even have to use the DLC assets to play on the server, yet you're for the idea that the player should not be allowed on the server full stop. That is far, far worse. Restrict the content itself, not the entire server. "Hey guys, I don't have to fly that new helicopter to play with you, but BIS says I can't even join your server because I might be caught looking at that new heli." Come on, this is clearly a step down in UX.

Maybe this seems not important, or arbitrary to you, to me it is important. I don't want to play some chess to be bothered that there exists some new figure that can teleport - wanna buy it? only 2 dollary!!, no! If I want teleport-chess I buy teleport-chess to begin with. Stop bothering me already.

Sorry, that's a poor analogy. First of all, teleporting chess pieces? As if the DLC is some kind of pay to win crap that is going to give you massive advantages over other players. That's not the kind of crap BIS adds to their games, paid or not. And I reiterate, you are not bothered about the "new chess piece" unless you actually try to use it. You will never be bothered about it if you never use it.

As said, I fully understand that there probably is no optimal solution to this clusterfuck of what a single game consists of nowadays. But developers need to find solutions that don't screw with their audience. And just to be perfectly clear: I'd rather have no "free" DLC that is just there to remind me that I could buy that too. No thanks. I know what I've bought, that's what I'm going to play with. Leave me alone already, I wanna have some fun here. *grrrr

Listen, I get what you're saying, but I honestly think you're making it out to be worse than it actually is. The DLC is not just there to remind you to buy it. It's to let people try it for themselves. Arma is a game about experiencing things for yourself, after all. Watch a mission being played on Youtube and you see one out of thousands of ways to play it. The beauty of Arma is in doing it yourself. So let's carry over that beauty into the concept of trying DLC before you plunk down $20. If you are not interested at all in content you do not own, you can simply enjoy its presence on the battlefield while others enjoy it, and never be nagged about it at all just by not using it, as if it were not in the game.

[chortles 263]

So let´s go back to the idea with the texture overlays on DLC vehicles, what do you guys think of it? Helicopters with "Larkin Aviation Helicopter Rental" Logos on them? Weapons with "Vrana Corp Rent-a-gun" Stickers?

How is that substantively different from the "low res" texture solution that BI already rejected, especially when the reasoning was specifically BI's disinterest in maintaining more than one set of data besides dev branch? (Same motive behind Steamworks, by the way, as poorly as that was received here.)

I ask this since I consider it a different argument from BI's reason for "why not Lite", which they presumably already considered before rejecting.

IMO there should be no any DLCs, no matter, what system.

The Rubicon was long crossed; the ship has long sailed; the horse already grew up, had children, and passed on after it fled the barn... heck, this thread's premise treats DLC for Arma 3 as a given anyway.

That, and OA was not an optional expansion -- it was a separate game/quasi-sequel that happened to support backwards compatibility with the prior game (Arma 2), but which BI threw in the majority of their post-release work into, to the point that a dev revealed that only OA would get continued server browser support (via Steam) instead of IP connect like Arma 2-by-itself and all prior games. (Apparently server browser support isn't being extended to non-Steam versions of OA either... although the retail key may be redeemed for a Steam key.)

[Rydygier 1302]

Names. Thing is, in the effect OA optionally expanded A2 into A2 CO, thus - optional expansion. MP aspect doesn't concern me a bit, I'm giving my voice from SP-only positions. Not important. Point is, I preffered old ways. These times will never return? Most probable, agree. But technically there was no any Rubicon crossed. BI people may create and try to sell their software in any way, they like, now and in the future.

[Vigil Vindex 64]

My wallet is the rubicon, and it gets crossed far too often in my opinion. I too also prefer the old style expansion packs where you felt like you really got a good deal because they had so much content. Now we get every little thing atomised and micro-transaction'd.

[chortles 263]

Then by your standards and Bad Benson's further down this page, BI was crossing the Rubicon as far back as OA, even before Arma 3 was publicly revealed.

@ Rydygier: While I do agree re: the idea that "OA optionally expanded A2 into A2 CO", my premise is that I see it the other way around -- A2 was what became the optional expansion.

Edited May 31, 2014 by Chortles

[vegeta897 13]

We're still getting an expansion pack. And these DLC are not "microtransactions". $16 is not micro in any sense of the word. It's less than a full expansion, but so is the content. If you think the price to content ratio is unfair, that's an entirely other discussion. The Karts DLC is a one-off, it's not a sign of more one-vehicle DLC to come for a couple bucks each. It's cheap because it's more or less a test of the new DLC model, and it obviously should not cost very much considering it's not much content.

Besides, if the content to price ratios are assumed to be fair (and BIS is not a greedy company, we can all agree) then this actually gives more power to the consumer.

Say an expansion was released instead of all the DLC that contained everything. X amount of content for Y price. That means if you want anything in that expansion, you have to buy the whole thing. Or you can split it up, X/3 content for Y/3 price. Then people can buy only what they want. Your wallet only gets crossed as much as you want to cross it. You are not forced to shell out additional money for things you don't want. Enough people are complaining about the existence of go-karts in Arma. Imagine the upset if they were included in the expansion, and the logical conclusion would be "I'm paying for go-karts in a military sim, and have no choice because they are not sold separately from this all-in-one expansion."

[Vigil Vindex 64]

@Chortles: I agree that due to the technicalities of how OA was distributed it may not be considered an expansion, but at the time it felt like one.

[Makarn 10]

People stop saying that things like fire from vehicles, and Hopefully a possible Resting Weapon features are going to be paid, because they said that features are Free! (and that has to be obvious because the bipods and things like that will most surely be attachments)

The Content is the only thing that you have to pay for! and if you don't use it, the pop-ups won't bother you!

I'm not defending nor accepting the new system just saying something that many people seems to have miss for not reading the Devblog.

Edited May 31, 2014 by Makarn

[VanZant 48]

No tags required.

What I said there, is exactly what I would like to see. BI have a market there, it may be smaller than mainstream obviously, but releasing mainstream style material for free (zeus :rolleyes:), then releasing rubbish (karts) that o.k. may just be to see how a system works out (doubt that), seems a little bit of a waste.

Great for mainstreamers, if thats really what they want to see, just not the type of thing the players I play the game with, or myself, want to see.

I'm thinking more wargaming, whereas many, if not the majority, would be delighted to get regular quality material, to add to a much larger gaming world. Sub, or to buy each month, whichever way they wanted to do it.

The series is wandering way off course now, for me, only my opinion, I see it being completely mainstream. But I understand why that is, from a business point of view, I would have done the same probably if it were my business, well I did do something similar in my prior business. It works well from a business point of view, to have something that sells easily to throw away gamers.

On the other hand, as I did in my own business, I kept the core people/customers I started with (I was in a completely different industry, but it works much the same), by still offering the original product, also whilst improving it continuously for its purpose, without corner cutting and quick money making ideas. In this case, simply appeal to both types of playing styles, is what I'm asking BI to do, that's all. Wasting time and manpower on releases like this, when things are yet to be finished, just seems, well ridiculous. Split the game, like I explained, it would pay them to do so and also keep players like myself very happy, release quality material monthly or whenever they have it, to those players that are willing to pay for it, at or around the price mentioned. There are many out there, away from this community here, that would be more than willing to pay for quality for their gaming/hobby.

As it is, the series for us, is slipping away, which is a great shame, because it has soo much to offer, other than this, well, nonsense. I see things that could be pushed forward, just being left behind i.e. 3d editor, AI (although I have that now), quality terrains, more of them smaller if need be, units, vehicles, aircraft etc, etc. All that play, cohesively with one another, no conflicting, as said, quality.

Now I see what's your point and to be honest I agree with all, as another player who likes the simulation side and quality content. And well, A3 is ... A3, with karts. Sadly for us this is a dead end for now, even if we want to pay for more serious content, an higher maturity market.

The only thing i want to add is that modding, campaigns, missions and such things should be also included on that elite/serious version, because not all people play MP. ;)

[bad benson 1733]

i generally think this gets blown up a bit much too and it will probably happen either way because that's how devs do things these days. look at dayZ. perfect example of this great early access thing that let's you play broken unfinsihed games. YAY!

but i think what you said here shows exactly my concern with popups and limited functionality.

The Content is the only thing that you have to pay for! and if you don't use it, the pop-ups won't bother you!

most of the DLCs in arma 2 were totally not interesting to me. now you say. "just don't use them". sure. i never intended to do so. i'm only interested in the game's functionality/gameplay. i don't get excited by new models.

here's the problem.

all the DLC stuff was quickly all over arma 2 MP. so i had no choice but use it. i was never bothered by low res textures because i simply didn't care about the stuff. so i wouldn't even be bothered by even uglier stuff. hell, make them white without any textures and delete the high res lods.

just don't mess with the MP environment. it's a bad idea. if you can't convince people to buy your DLCs without weird methods, how about not making them and releasing a full game instead that people want to pay full price for? i'm not a cheap ass eventhough i'm kinda poor. if i like something i will pay for it.

but i have to admit that i'm still happy that i didn't play full price for arma 3. not because i'm a dick or because i'm cheap but simply because that's how it works. this isn't communist russia. if you want people to buy your shit you better make it good or use amazing marketing to fool them into it. but don't try to annoy them into buying stuff with stuff like this. THAT is cheap.

BI is not a football club i buy all the merchandise from because i want to support them. if you want to go that way you should start a kickstarter for your products. at least i won't buy each single product just because ofp blew my mind. at least i stopped doing that after buying PMC ;)

[Tonci87 163]

How is that substantively different from the "low res" texture solution that BI already rejected, especially when the reasoning was specifically BI's disinterest in maintaining more than one set of data besides dev branch? (Same motive behind Steamworks, by the way, as poorly as that was received here.)

It is different in the sense that it is not as drastic as low res textures, wich some people really seem to dislike, while serving as an advertisement for the DLC.

And it is only one set of data. The texture Overlays are hidden if you own the DLC.

My Proposal is this:

-The Texture overlays as described, with references to Armaverse Companys, on the inside and on the outside.

-A Popup that informs you that the vehicel is DLC content and that you can remove the markings by buying when you get into the vehicle.

-The "Buy me" Icon on the right side of the screen while you are using the vehicle/asset.

-removal of functionality restrictions.

-removal of the fullscreen effect.

Pros:

-It is made very clear that the vehicle is part of a DLC.

-The markings and Logos on a military vehicle are together with the other things motivation enough to unlock the proper deca-free version while beeing less intrusive/immersion breaking than lite Textures.

-The content would be widespread in Community made missions.

Cons:

-Bis has to make the hidden textures and design logos wich really shouldn´t be a problem.

-?