would you still buy any BI product ?

[Macser 776]

Why do you think you're so important and entitled?

Is he not allowed to make a choice or express an opinion contrary to yours?

Assuming it's to do with what you suggest,it's his information and his money.

[nettrucker 142]

. . .

What's with the Steam hatred? And why? Because you perceive it as a monopoly in online gaming? Maybe Steam follows you, collects your info, uses it for marketing purposes (like Facebook)?

Why do you think you're so important and entitled?

I know Steam topic has been discussed to death, but I'd like to hear a reasoning beyond my comprehension. Filled with logic and a convincing rationale.

Steam is an amazing platform and it provides developers with many statistics to make further decisions based on actual trust-able data collected. Steam lets devs set up their games for sale with less budget issues. No more necessity for boxed versions in stores to get popular instantly.

I don't hate Steam I just don't use it. I don't agree with their liscence agreement that's it. I could care less about Steam. I supported BI over the years as best as I could. ArmA 3 to me is an old turd in a new shiny box. It still suffers from things dating back from OFP times I guess.

I don't think of myself as important nor am I entitled. I don't agree with BIS going steam exclusive and I stopped supporting them it's as simple as that.

The community is growing even if there are some oldtimers who dropped out. Life goes on. No regrets whatsoever.

And thanks for acknoleding my right to chose to not support them anymore. They don't need me as a customer there are plenty new players around which will support BIS in the future. So there's no point in argueing over it.

No pun intended

cheers

[nuxil 2]

I don't hate Steam I just don't use it. I don't agree with their liscence agreement that's it. I could care less about Steam. I supported BI over the years as best as I could. ArmA 3 to me is an old turd in a new shiny box. It still suffers from things dating back from OFP times I guess.

I don't think of myself as important nor am I entitled. I don't agree with BIS going steam exclusive and I stopped supporting them it's as simple as that.

The community is growing even if there are some oldtimers who dropped out. Life goes on. No regrets whatsoever.

And thanks for acknoleding my right to chose to not support them anymore. They don't need me as a customer there are plenty new players around which will support BIS in the future. So there's no point in argueing over it.

No pun intended

cheers

well said. as i would have written it myself :)

[chrisb 196]

I have bought more, I re-bought the whole series again on Steam, plus some other BI titles that I also re-bought TOM & TOH/Hinds. Really only because I swapped pc's and it seemed easier. Plus I like supporting BI, even though I also like moaning at them at the same time. ;)

But regards any new games they may release, yes, if it was to be back on track with the series. But of course that is not going to happen really, because my 'back on track' would be A2CO evolved. The next will likely be further forward in time, to include this new vertical type gaming idea, running up walls or whatnot. That just wouldn't interest me, not for this genre.

If a new open world mil/sim type game was to appear on the market (maybe coming next year), and it proved to be a great game, then I would probably walk away from this series. But really that's unlikely to happen, A2CO has so much going on still, even though I have played thousands upon thousands of hours, it still feels quite fresh to me. There are many terrains, that I still have not seen 60% of in detail, so there are many years of interest left in it just with that.

A3, not really for me, players say "well you can use this mod and everything is almost playable from A2CO". Well that's not really the case, many terrains just won't work properly. Plus the resources A2CO has, via mod/addons, is quite exceptional, many of which wouldn't work either, not properly anyway, in A3.

Yes I would buy more from them, but at the same time, it would be for the game, whichever game that was, I would be buying and not the support I would be giving. Whereas I have bought titles from them simply to support BI as a dev, titles I haven't really played much ie TOM, TOH & Hinds, also the terrible CC, lets not talk about that.

I love this series, its been a great ride, well up until A3 that is ;), so I won't be getting off that ride anytime soon. I play other games more now than I did (it was always this series I played for years), so it is good that my disappointment with A3, got me back playing other titles from other devs (mostly indie). I enjoy the change, but I always come back to A2CO, always, its like a habit I just can't kick, well don't want to really.:p

Edited December 7, 2014 by ChrisB

[Rydygier 1309]

Sure, if interesting to me, I'll, if financially possible though (A3 wasn't, I would still not have it if not a generous gift from someone). Next Arma most probably will be interesting, no matter, what setting. Although I would preffer step back on the timeline, even serious, not pushing farther into the future, I'll accept nearly anything here. For me important are core/engine improvements and enhancing modding/scripting possibilities (so, for example, seems no real return to A2 for me). It's not so important, how maps or units will look, as long they look well done and convincing (so, for example, not like a bugmen). Because of that, what may reduce my enthusiasm towards the series is keeping not fixed ancient bugs, and instead pushing forward with new content (and new bugs) built on the old content with old bugs. I expect rather more "fix all the problems of current stuff before adding any new stuff" approach as the wiser IMO. In fact, the more I'm thinking about AI bugs and needed AI improvements, the clearer becomes to me, that most probably it's one of the cases, where evolution is not enough - revolution is necessary. I wonder, when same would be the truth for the whole RV engine.

such complaining bohemia has the smartest ai ive seen.

Thus, unlike AI in the most of the other games, worthy of complaining.

Edited December 7, 2014 by Rydygier

[Polygon 11]

For most devs, AI [R&D + programming is not worth the time and efforts. Pathfinding requires performance, smart terrains and buildings, etc. I respect BIS for taking this matter very seriously and with extreme detail.

Currently, games industry loves to set a challenge not above a noob's skills to make those kind of players feel satisfied after killing countless bots in yet another pointless firefight.

Entire rewarding system works a like museum shootout, unless you select the hardest difficulty mode which is not that hard anyway.

Personally, I'd prefer A4 with the same looks, but enhanced gameplay functionality and scale. Say: rivers, ponds, enhanced AI, easier editing, faster modding workflow, better overall performance, much more HQ and functional content, underground levels with proper lighting, advanced tree destruction, physx on buildings, etc.

There's too many to list. And everything requires efforts of engine or gameplay programmers which are the hardest to find and keep as the pay isn't staggering and most people work out of passion for the industry itself.

[jw custom 56]

Although I would preffer step back on the timeline, even serious, not pushing farther into the future

That would be instant buy for me, preferable Vietnam era.

[zorrobyte 30]

I would buy any BIS product if I were personally interested. It's virtually the last PC gaming company to allow/encourage mods.

[Pirate. 0]

BI Studio you guys are awesome for:

- making proper quality games/simulations since Flashpoint

- incredible support for those games

- adding incredible amounts of content for free (or hardly any money)

- actually fixing bugs every time you update

- loving your own games

many other software factories should use you as an example

those were my two cents. keep on rocking! :cool:

[Firehead146 10]

I will purchase BI games on several conditions:

1.) It didn't just come out.

BI games are great after being out for a few months. I've had nothing but problems when purchasing their games as soon as they get released. Buggy, and unpolished. I will say, however, that after being out for a few months I thoroughly enjoy playing. You can rarely ever get rid of a complex games issues, but I think BI does a decent job at this.

2.) If it goes on sale.

If I have had interest, and the price is right I have no problem picking it up. I bought ArmA3 for like 25USD. ArmA2 and all of its DLC I bought on sale. Also a great purchase.

3.) If a lot of my friends are playing it.

Basically, ArmA series games have always attracted my friends, who are mostly military guys. That has a huge influence on me. I would have never purchased ArmA3 if it weren't for my friends.

Those are pretty much my conditions for buying BI games. This list also partly goes out to just about every game, with the exception of #1 on my list.

[SAS_Raptor 30]

I'd buy Arma4 if it at least maintains the degree of realism of previous Arma titles, and does not turn into a BattleField or CoD clone. Imho some aspects of Arma3, like the instant-grenade-throwing, go into the wrong direction. I really hope BI doesn't follow the general trend of over-simplifying games for the new console/casual-gamer generation. There are already enough games available that can be played by 12 year olds. Whereas mature players looking for a fairly complex and realistic military game have no other option than Arma plus the right mods.

[darkvoidboy 10]

Yes.

1) I love the mod support.

2) The Arma series is unlike anything I've come across.

3) While admittedly I am a newer "convert" than a lot of other folks, the dev blogs and updates have been great so far.

[travhimself 10]

Yep, I would certainly buy more BI products in the future.

A3 scratches a bunch of different itches for me: infantry fighting, flight, horsing around with vehicles, world building, etc. Sure, there are plenty of issues that bother me -- performance being #1 -- but there's no other sandbox out there that even comes close (at least that I'm aware of).

[defused 10]

offcourse!!

[Dspan_000 10]

Coming from a person who owns every single ArmA game. Yes I would buy another BI Product. I know that the CPU bottle necking and the below average AI are a huge problem in the ArmA series. But the pros in my opinion far outweigh the cons. For example BI has been giving us some through and deep products such as ArmA2/OA. In ArmA 2/OA the FPS was still a problem but not as bad as ArmA3 due to the lower quality graphics. But me like other people bushed this issue to the side with the huge content the game gives us. Also the ArmA series had one of the biggest modding community game that almost every game has never seen before. For example in Arma2/OA you could turn a regular millitary simulator into a WW2/aliens/NAC/Africa/Europe/(Almost anyting you can amagine) simulator.But slowly we have seen the COD/BFing of ArmA. Please BI don't ruin my fav games!!! They are my babies!!!(Yes I would buy another BI product) :ok:

Edited March 29, 2015 by Dspan_000

[Zukuto 11]

I like ArmA3. I wont to play in this game all my free time. But optimization says me not to buy more BIS games. I have not bad PC with next stats:

Processor: AMD Phenom II X6 1045T Processor (6 CPUs), ~2.7GHz

Memory: 16384MB RAM

Card name: NVIDIA GeForce GTX 660 2GB

And this game works lower than others games. Look fps top-left corner. This was normal for Stratis wasteland with 50ppl on all my gametime what i played, usually 10-15. Altis 0-10.

[Manni-Gaming 11]

I would buy a BI product again, if it was clear that the games runs well and uses the actual potential of the system it's running on.

So many people having performence issues in this game - framedrops to half at the same time the GPU usage drops to almost zero and then: Full FPS again all of the sudden for the next 60 seconds.

[gambla 10]

I'd buy the next Arma only if:

- i can get a full version on DVD and not on crap Steam only

(e.g. things like forced updates breaking your save games)

- there's no online "always on" DRM

- the scenario is not based in the future

- things like fatigue / weapon sway can be switched off ingame - IF we go hardcore realism, then why can i fly planes, choppers and drive tanks ?

Edited April 16, 2015 by gambla

[call_911 10]

ArmA needs an engine overhaul, maybe in 10 yrs. The OFP ride died for me with ArmA3

[Mansor_man 10]

i say, bohemia products are much better-worse programmed than the other crap out there.. so lets choose whic one is the more worst crap. ;)

no we love THE MILSIM Game!!!

[major_barnes1987 33]

I will continue to buy Bohemia Interactive's products and will continue to support any way i can.I will buy ArmA games most likely,if there are more games to come because there's no other game like it out there.I used to play RTS games because i liked to buy units using resorces and think of strategies to beat the enemy.I liked modern military RTS mostly but i came to a point where i needed something more,something REAL.I needed to be in the battlefield see the action up close and still use strategies.That's where ArmA came in.I love the series and i see the bugs as some kind of extra challenge.

Thank you BI,all of you guys.You do what you like to do and you don't follow the stream that's why i like you,why i like your games.You could go to the other side,make a COD copy and get a lot of money but you didn't.You fight COD and Battlefield head on.It doesn't matter if you lose,you lose with your head looking up!I'm damn proud you!

[juanlo97 0]

no, because dayz standalone. In one moment when the put it on steam early access, they got a lot of money from people like me that liked the mod so much, and now they have almost abandoned the proyect. Dayz standandalone has been on development since it´s release on steam for almost two years and you can not see any major improvement (Having in mind the amount of money they got for 3M copies sold). I will not buy any BIS game. I know they are not going to return my money, but If I Could change my Dayz Standalone for an Arma 3 copy It would be better.

[your mother 0]

First of all, my forum name is my "in game" name. I am not here to spam or to make a post and get banned. I know a post in a thread such as this from a user with just 1 post would raise eyebrows. Rest assured this isn't the case. I am an adult, and this post has been well thought out before I actually clicked the button to register. I would like to add a disclaimer that I am not seeking a reply from the general public, nor do I expect one from BI. I'm merely speaking my mind here, and just wanted to vent. 

 

A friend introduced me to Arma II, maybe 2 years ago now? After seeing the game, and already a huge fan of military simulation FPS gaming, I finish my PC build.....and bought an Arma II package from Steam. I was hooked from the start. Being Arma II had been out for some time, the game was well developed and already had TONS of mods anyone could add to their servers. After playing a couple hundred hours, I found a gaming community that I have pretty much called "home" since. This community had multiple servers online from each variant of Arma II......from DayZ Overwatch to Wasteland to Epoch....you name it. I found my home in their Wasteland servers......between two different maps they had hosted. Within this community, I pushed my play time to over 1000 hours. I don't have my own stats, but I know that about 95% of my Multiplayer has been in their servers. 

 

At this point I will clarify that I played a few hundred hours of Wasteland with this community solely, and decided it was time to pay them back. I became a donator, and signed up to have a recurring payment withdrawn each month from my account. With my donation, I did receive a few perks.....which included some cash, a med kit, and a repair kit. I found this to be a nice perk for helping support and keep the servers alive. Not only did I support the community in which I played, and also got a perk for it.....I am also part of a community that has their own forum online. This forum has admins and moderators from around the globe, and usually there is someone on nearly 24hrs a day to help support the community. This support comes at NO fee. The forums include a help section, to help you get going initially with a gaming/PC problem......on up to an issue with a server. The support staff is always there, and always willing to take a listen and help out if possible. Not only that, but there are a few admins that specialize in the different styles of Arma II, and are constantly updating and modifying their game files to best suite their community they have built. 

 

I will also take into consideration that the community I call "home" isn't the only one like it. I am certain there are many more......of varying size. I am pretty sure the one I chose to call home is one of the larger in the communities also, it surely is known while talking to others out there. 

 

Now on to Arma III. After submitting myself for monthly donation, Arma III was released. Being it was still fairly new when I decided to pull the trigger (and wouldn't be on sale for a while), I purchased Arma III through Steam......at the $60 full price. I purchased this game along with 4 other friends. We had played Arma II for countless hours together, and decided we would all give III a go. Obviously, with everything being new.....there were lots of edges to be sanded, and we all knew it'd take some time. However, the development of Arma III seemed to be very slow. After a period of about 3 months, we played Arma III at least once or twice a week. With no new updates to fix problems such as spawning in randomly as a bird.......and no new vehicles, weapons, etc......we all pushed Arma 3 to the back. We will still sharp in Arma II though, so we just went back to our default. In turn, we ended up losing interest of 2 friends.....and that goes for Arma as a whole. With spending $60 on a game that didn't seem to be getting much development, I can hardly blame them. What a disappointment Arma III was.

 

A few more of us were getting burned out from Arma II at this point. Whether it was just the gameplay, the scripting hackers, or just the common and unavoidable Arma II issues that everyone has problems with......it came from several reasons. Out of nowhere it seemed, my gaming community decided to build an Arma III Wasteland server. I was pretty excited to say the least. After playing so much on their Arma II servers, NOW I really get to see what I expected from Arma III. As my community developed their Wasteland server, I played Arma III at least or twice a week. Getting a feel for the game, as well as seeing what changes were made. The first big surprise was logging in to Arma III and seeing a HUGE update. Things were finally moving along and being fixed. As time progressed, the Arma III Wasteland server in my community was just awesome. I was still a donator, so I received a few perks in-game as well.....some cash, a decent rifle, and an RPG (Alamut). With the amount of missions and customizable payouts as there were, it really wasn't hard for non-donors to get the cash to buy premium weapons or vehicles. The donators just got a little bit of a headstart, and that is depending on how often the non-donors played. Since you now had ATM's, you could deposit your money and it saved until you took it out. I had established a small group of players that would get in my communities A3W server......about 50/50 for donators vs non. About everyone I played with had at least $300,000 in their account. 

 

Now we enter present day. BI pulls the plug on all communities who accept donations and give perks in return, basically giving the community the choice of removing donator perks....or be on the other end of legal action. BI announces the reasoning as "profiting" from the donations. I am sure some larger communities do indeed profit, but its surely marginal. Regardless of the donation intake, people can probably determine pretty quickly by the size of their community if their admins are above margin on the donations. Being I partake in a larger community, I am sure at times the margin has been above the cost. I don't mind, these guys are still spending their time off to develop the game for their community.....and to keep it running. Now the speculation is BI was afraid of losing Arma II players...because of donor perks in Arma III. 

 

From a gamer's standpoint.......I can understand BI is not getting any sort of royalties from the communities that are profiting. If there are some gaming communities that are profiting enough to pad their pockets, I can really understand BI's approach. At the same time, it seems that BI has more so shot itself in the foot. Your gaming communities are a solid foundation to your player base in all of your games. Each community has a unique player base.....and therefore a unique compilation of game mods and add-on's. These different characteristics are what attract players (like myself). Now with BI's newly enforced regulations regarding donations, these communities are starting to break down. My community has already consolidated several servers....after reducing the total number. Their Arma III Wasteland was constantly full (I believe a 64 slot, it was with Stratis map)....and in fact it was in a rating amongst the best rated BI servers online. Their A3W server is one of several that have been cut off. It is all I have played for the last ~400 gaming hours. Nothing I've found is remotely as fun, again knowing this is my opinion. Either way, the new regulations of BI have done a whole lot more than remove donator perks.......its killing the communities that support BI and thrive off of your own game development. As the donations come in less and less, more servers will be shut down.....ultimately killing communities. 

 

From some of the talk I have seen, there are talks with BI and some of these communities to restore donations to these communities.....and its a matter of agreeing on terms. I certainly hope this indeed is true, and something truly can be worked out with the communities and BI. I think its pretty obvious that the major core of your current Arma II player base aren't going anywhere soon......since III has been out for some time now. An agreement to terms would certainly not only help these communities, but also help Arma II survive. Meanwhile, I'll continue to search for another use for Arma III.....while the only thing I've found remotely fun is Battle Royale. I truly miss playing Arma III Wasteland in my community with my friends. 

 

Regards

 

 

 

[dav 22]

Not based on Arma 3's performance. I am done with the series after 2000 hours of A2 and A3. I just hate the performance stuttering and glitching. It feels smooth and you zoom or something and the frame drops. Arma 2 performed really badly. Really Arma 3 should have addressed the engine and it didn't. Its just no fun when fps are up and down.

Sent from my SM-G900F using Tapatalk

[PiZZADOX 47]

I think "your mother's" (classy) comments ring true for a lot of people.

 

The point that the current core of ArmA 2 is not going to be moving to ArmA 3 without some drastic changes that BI will most likely never make is a sound point. There are many, many communities in ArmA 2 that quite frankly state "Don't worry, we are never moving to ArmA 3." Of course this bodes well for me as I prefer 2, but from a company standpoint this is actually terrible. Having to even care about a past iteration of your IP is costly and prevents potential profit from DLC and expansions in ArmA 3. I wonder how much of an impact that has made on BI's strategy going forward, especially now that we know more "contemporary military content" is coming in the expansion. I think everything BI has done to affect ArmA 2 since the release of ArmA 3 has been to transtion players to ArmA 3.

 

About the donations and perks. Honestly, I don't think BI made a good decision here. They are being quite schizophrenic in their approach to their game. On the one hand their laud that their engine is a platform used by varied styles of communties for a plethora of enjoyable games. I completely agree! But on the other hand they have this iron fisted approach to the prime method of monetary support to the same communites using the platform for varied gamestyles... How could they think deriving communities of cash flow would be a way to encourage community growth? Now I am sure there was ton of abuse and monetary profit made through some communities, but I highly doubt that is something that wasn't researched by the gamers and donators in the past. There were plenty of communities that existed on donations with no perks before this, but the effect that this ruling has had is a decrease in the total amount of servers and players in the game. Was this the intended effect? Was BI looking for a cut, or simply to end a major percentage of these servers? Should BI go after realism units for their unofficial trend of giving higher online ranks to people who donate heavily?