Would you donate to a bounty to expedite fixing some major in-game issues via a Patch

[pd3 25]

I do get that BI is making their way through uncharted territory as it were, they won't know exactly what problems may come up throughout development. I would say as long as I don't feel I'm being taken advantage of, I would be willing to contribute to a pool to fund further development. Their products unlike most do have the potential of longevity, I still love Arma 2, but A3 is decent as well.

The reality is that this sort of work costs money, and if it results in a net positive for the product we've already committed to and there is a definite need, I wouldn't be averse.

Operation Arrowhead more or less manifests that idea and it improved Arma 2 substantially, sometimes however it's not about missing features, sometimes there are just design issues that could use working on or refining.

[devilslayersbane 28]

This I would actually be okay with. Instead of giving them money to do something (which might not actually get done), you'd tip the dev after they did it.

I know a lot of you are saying "We bought the game, why should we pay more," but some of us (like me) would be perfectly content dropping a few more bucks every so often to continuously support BI in their development. Remember, when you normally pay for a game, it's complete. No more plans are made. BI is going to continue developing Arma 3 until further notice, it could be a long time (it'll already be a long time until the expansion, and we don't even know what'll happen after that), and they're going to need some more revenue if they want to continue at this pace.

This isn't entirely true. In fact a lot of independent and AAA developers are taking more of a release-then-build focus. Notch and his team never had any intention of ceasing development of Minecraft. It's supposed to be a game that grows with the players. Look at what Bungie has done with Destiny, they're planning on supporting that game for 10 years! From a developer's standpoint, this makes a lot of sense. Your customers pay for the game KNOWING that it will be supported as time goes on. That gives you, as a developer, time to build on the base game that you released, adding content and fixes where needed, instead of making stupid mistakes trying to fix everything before release. And while Minecraft was only $20 when it was released, Destiny was and is a full $60.

However, I feel as if development cycles like this are beneficial to games as long as the developers and community communicate effectively.

The positives of this development cycle are

A) The community is more involved with the development

B) The developers aren't nearly as stressed trying to meet a deadline to have the game in a "Final" state.

C) The developers get much more feedback on their product

D) The developers can set a roadmap to follow along so that the community knows what's going on.

E) It holds the developers MORE accountable in the long-run as if they don't follow through on their promises, the community will leave the game and the developers will not make any more money.

F) This keeps reviews about actual gameplay mechanics and playability upon release

G) It encourages more transparency between the developers and their community

The drawbacks to this system are

A) The developers could try and make a cash grab (*cough* WarZ *cough*)

B) People who are used to a game being in a "Final" state upon release become disgruntled

C) Impatient people become disgruntled

D) Bugs that may have been hidden in one patch can become glaringly gamebreaking with a single patch

E) $60 dollars is a bit much when you're unclear on what you have planned

F) Community knowledge of the content to be released well before-hand is a must for the developers.

Overall, while it's not a perfect plan, it makes complete sense from a developer's standpoint. I'd say that after the marksman DLC is released, I'd like to see some talks about a 64-bit executable. I would like to see Bohemia be transparent about what exactly this would mean for the game. No, it's not a fix-all. 64-bit is not the duct-tape everyone wants it to be, but it's something that I feel bohemia should really consider. I would most likely donate for that kind of transparency, whether or not I got the answers I wanted.

That's another thing guys. We as a community need to realize that we're not going to always get a "Yes, this is possible". We have to be ready and willing to accept the fact that bohemia can say "no, we can't do that for arma 3". However, hopefully they can say they'll look into it for arma 4.

[stang725 10]

This all goes back to what is and what isn't possible with the current engine. No one outside of the core developers can intelligently talk about what can and can't happen for 64-bit, improved AI scaling, or any other issue that might prevent full utilization of 2014 PC hardware.

Hell, I would donate to a pool of money to just get a senior BI developer or manager pulled away for one day to host a solid Reddit session or some type of interactive blog where the core limitations of the current engine could be openly discussed with the community. Just tell me its not happening and to wait for Arma 4 OR a (high-end 14nm i7xxxx + DDR4 +......) Until people hear something definitive, they are just going to complain that they can get 100+ FPS on AAA games and 30fps on ARMA 3. Why would anyone not be a tad PO'd that their $2k+ gaming rig is not be able to play this game at a constant 60fps. I guess its a balance of features vs. FPS... is the current balance acceptable? Will the balance shift through better implementation of code over time or do I need to wait a couple years for 14nm to mature to buy my way out of the issue?

No matter what your opinion on the subject of bounties that started this thread, there is a very real reason that the FPS/Performance thread has 438k views and 3600 replies: http://forums.bistudio.com/showthread.php?147533-Low-CPU-utilization-amp-Low-FPS

[654wak654 25]

I'm willing to pay $41+ to not see on of the threads again. I'm sure lots of people are too.

[Maio 293]

Well... the poll has spoken. Now that we have a fair amount of both quantitative and qualitative data, this thread will be closed before it goes through a mid life crisis and turns into a wishlist thread.

However if you feel inclined to donate your cash towards a worthy cause, how about you support us hard working moderators and contribute to our retirement fund... :868:

Thank you!