The Community Branch - Serious Topic, Serious Idea, Serious Fun.

[CaptainAzimuth 714]

The Community Branch

This is an idea i had, and after watching Dyslexi's video about people complaining, and witnessing all the crazy back and fourth threads about loving/hating Bohemia and/or Arma 3, i thought it's time to throw down this idea so everyone can see, pitch in serious thoughts, and contributions that could actually be put into one, really big, really fun, really legendary, one of a kind, module. That module, is called The Community Branch.

Please take some time go through this Q&A going through your mind, as this idea is one of my biggest, and best idea's yet.

What is it?

The Community Branch is what it sounds like if you're familiar with the different Arma 3 branches. In steam you can switch between Dev Branch, and Stable. But, people want things that Bohemia Interactive doesn't have the manpower, or the time to make. Some (like me), are happy with what Bohemia Interactive are doing with the game so far. But think bigger now. Arma 3 is a master piece of potential. With really well put together mods, piled into one big mod, and accessible via. Branch selection, would mean that EVERYONE, can access this mode, which gives EVERYONE access to all the modded content that people want in a game.

But How Would This Work?

It would work, and it would be big. It would be something that, i don't think ANY other game company on earth could accomplish. Also, it wouldn't be done now. This would be something put through close to the End of Arma 3's dedicated support from the Dev's themselves when they are finally done with Arma 3.

What If We Have Star-ships Fighting Slingshots?

The way i envision this Community Branch, is first and foremost, the Factions will only be real life factions, weapons, and gear. All of this content must be Modern Gear from 2000's and up. No walking Robots with Mini-guns in the arms, or 4 rotor helicopters that look like Space machines designed in the 90's. Just real countries militaries from Around the world, all in desired areas. Russian Military, Canadian Military, Czech Military, Polish, France, United States, Great Britain, China, Iran, Sweden, Serbia, Hellenic, all of these countries and more, in One Branch, that EVERYONE can easily access, with all of their gear.

What If The Quality is 8 Bit?

With that, i'm hoping the Community can chime in. What i m hoping for is that everyone working on official military factions, can pitch in, modder's with the best quality work, can help those with lower quality models and textures, in order to bring it up to Arma 3 standards, and that could be something amazing. One big Community Project that in the end, everyone will benefit, including Bohemia Interactive.

Why Now? It'll Be Forgotten By The End Of Expansion

Well not quite. It can be worked on now, and by the time the end of the Expansion is here, we could have the mods in a state where we could possibly test a release client for the Community Build. It would be started, built up from now, starting at a steady pace, tested in the future when acceptable, polished to make sure that it looks good, all the textures and models are up to a well fitting look. Then released for the Community to have a go at it and try out all this content made by us, helped by BIS for one last big ending for such a great game. It would be kind of like a thank you to BIS, and extremely rewarding for both Community and Developers.

This Wont Work! It's Nonsense.

That is why it wouldn't work, because no one is willing to do it. But if the entire community, god willing, actually see's this idea for what it is, and even BIS, maybe it could happen. It could only benefit everyone. Everyone gets what they expected Arma 3 to be. An open Military Sandbox, but you get any faction world wide, that any modder makes. Want to throw a event with multiple countries? Do it on Community Build. Have 3 countries Vs. 3 countries, with their actual gear and vehicles at your disposal. A VBS dev once said that if you want something for your game, ask for it. We've been asking for it, but maybe we've been doing it in the wrong ways. What if we did it, in a way that keeps the Anvil off BIS's back. We help them by making the content, because they let us. All BIS has to do is take this compilation of mods, and put it into one neat Branch that everyone can easily access via. Steam. Or if for some reason steam doesn't work, why not the Arma 3 Launcher? This gets the hassle out of everyone downloading a million mods and running them, while some are out dated, some arn't it saves time, and space on the PC, and works well. This is my Idea. It is a big idea. Legendary One. I need you, the Community, the help me with this idea. Do you guys like it? Do you think this is big? Legendary possibly? BIS, what about you guys, after the Expansion, would you guys think this is something that could happen? Back to the community, would you like to be able to launch Arma 3 and play a game not knowing that you could be playing as the British one day, and the Ukrainians the next? The next day in a different game, your conducting a CAS role in a CF-118 of the Royal Canadian Air Force? The next your in a T-90 steam rolling enemies for the Russian Federation? This is the Idea. The Content you asked for, the content the Community made, the content that BIS game us the ability to create. The Community Branch.

Help me out with the idea. Lets see if we can make the Idea, something more. What do you guys, The Community, and BIS, think?

Please keep it straight forward, please Stay ON TOPIC! Avoid walls of text, attempt to compress your thoughts.

Edited January 25, 2015 by DarkSideSixOfficial

[das attorney 858]

It's a nice idea, but I think it would be better to have a community branch for CUP rather than a super mod for the reasons below.

In my mind, it just seems easier to have set goal rather than have to have a committee or people who decide which mods should be admitted to it. (Maybe 4 different modellers may want their US stuff in the mod, and for their own reasons may be unwilling to split the content of their work with someone elses.

Also, think about the hosting on Steam, having an extra 10 or more armies might cost BIS extra $$$ as it sounds like it would be a 20Gb or so download .

What happens if someone later releases something "better" than something already in the community-branch pack? Does the models by modder A in the pack get removed and replaced by the new ones by modderB. Who gets to decide? "Cheers for your help buddy. There's the door." etc

Plus from legal standpoint, BIS are distributing the branch through steam so would be legally liable if any work in that pack is found to be "borrowed" from somewhere else (ie modders model of a tank uses textures from another game so it's not BIS ip to redistribute).

CUP project is all their own IP, so it would be a non-issue as long as they can wrangle out a suitable agreement with the CUP team.

That's my thoughts anyway.

[Sterlingarcherz101 15]

I'm tipsy. But i gather you want to make a mode similar to rc or Dev branch that download s a shit tonne of mods.

How is it decided which sound mods are used as people have preference, or both active.?

---------- Post added at 04:41 ---------- Previous post was at 04:41 ----------

Maybe I misunderstood again tipsy, but if I'm right it a goo idea. Make for one crazy mission.

[badluckburt 78]

Why would it need to be on a branch? The modding community doesn't have access to engine source code and if all those mods would be combined into one big mod, you'd just need a website or enough space on the Steam Workshop to give people access. That last thing BI might be able to help with but to expect to put up a separate branch is a bit too much to ask in my opinion.

A compilation mod (which is what you're suggesting if I understood correctly) is very hard to do.

[CaptainAzimuth 714]

It's a nice idea, but I think it would be better to have a community branch for CUP rather than a super mod for the reasons below.

In my mind, it just seems easier to have set goal rather than have to have a committee or people who decide which mods should be admitted to it. (Maybe 4 different modellers may want their US stuff in the mod, and for their own reasons may be unwilling to split the content of their work with someone elses.

Also, think about the hosting on Steam, having an extra 10 or more armies might cost BIS extra $$$ as it sounds like it would be a 20Gb or so download .

What happens if someone later releases something "better" than something already in the community-branch pack? Does the models by modder A in the pack get removed and replaced by the new ones by modderB. Who gets to decide? "Cheers for your help buddy. There's the door." etc

Plus from legal standpoint, BIS are distributing the branch through steam so would be legally liable if any work in that pack is found to be "borrowed" from somewhere else (ie modders model of a tank uses textures from another game so it's not BIS ip to redistribute).

CUP project is all their own IP, so it would be a non-issue as long as they can wrangle out a suitable agreement with the CUP team.

That's my thoughts anyway.

That's it, this is a set goal. It's to have modder's and community members put together a coalition of military units from all around the world to put into one Branch that everyone an access. In terms of hosting on steam, the only better option would be to host it on Arma 3's Launcher. This would mean a big mod, and not really a Branch that people could switch to, as they'd be getting a really big military mod. Though, maybe this could be a better option than hosting it through steam, allowing people to use what ever sound mod they wish. I havn't thought of how sound mods would work out yet, but it would probably work via. server keys.

In regards to CUP, sure, this idea needs a really strong group to back it up, and CUP is doing something that could be of use to this project. Even the name, Community Upgrade Project would sound relly good, hand iin hand with Community Branch.

---------- Post added at 16:44 ---------- Previous post was at 16:43 ----------

I'm tipsy. But i gather you want to make a mode similar to rc or Dev branch that download s a shit tonne of mods.

How is it decided which sound mods are used as people have preference, or both active.?

---------- Post added at 04:41 ---------- Previous post was at 04:41 ----------

Maybe I misunderstood again tipsy, but if I'm right it a goo idea. Make for one crazy mission.

It is a bit of a crazy idea, but sometimes the craziest things amount to the best things anyone has ever done. IF the community is as crazy as this idea, it would be legendary.

---------- Post added at 16:48 ---------- Previous post was at 16:44 ----------

Why would it need to be on a branch? The modding community doesn't have access to engine source code and if all those mods would be combined into one big mod, you'd just need a website or enough space on the Steam Workshop to give people access. That last thing BI might be able to help with but to expect to put up a separate branch is a bit too much to ask in my opinion.

A compilation mod (which is what you're suggesting if I understood correctly) is very hard to do.

Hard to do, but not impossible. We still have a good 2-3 years? In that amount of time, this big mod can be created, cleaned up, polished to one standard, and then allow a way to distribute the mod, could be either done by part of mod release on a website everyone goes to, or it even be advertised by BIS themselves, and perhaps they could create a website for it, or release on theirs as the most ambitious community project ever to be had in ever.

[Jackal326 1181]

The thing is, quality is subjective and not everyone "likes" every addon. Some people I know love some addons that depict, say for example UK Special Forces - some people hate that particular addon by 'Author X' and use another one made by 'Author Y'; a third group hate both and use one by 'Author Z'. This is without going into sounds as someone mentioned above. Many people I know love JSRS and wouldn't play without it. Others love 'Speed of Sound Pure'. Some people I know prefer stock game sounds (the weirdos!). Again, who decides which this "super duper mod" will use? What you are essentially sacrificing is the modular nature in favour of a unified approach that will succeed in trying to please everyone with everything and eventually pleasing no-one with a 40GB download.

If your answer to the above rhetorical question about who decides what goes in is "We'll have a vote" then you'll definitely please some people with some of the content, but not everyone with all of it. Just leave addon makers to make what they want and release it how they want. That way people can pick and choose what mods/addons/sounds/textures they want and don't end up having GB after GB of unwanted content.

That said, if its an optional "Branch" I can just stick with the "norm" and avoid this idea like the plague it will probably (not) become.

Edited January 25, 2015 by Jackal326

[CaptainAzimuth 714]

The thing is, quality is subjective and not everyone "likes" every addon. Some people I know love some addons that depict, say for example UK Special Forces - some people hate that particular addon by 'Author X' and use another one made by 'Author Y'; a third group hate both and use one by 'Author Z'. This is without going into sounds as someone mentioned above. Many people I know love JSRS and wouldn't play without it. Others love 'Speed of Sound Pure'. Some people I know prefer stock game sounds (the weirdos!). Again, who decides which this "super duper mod" will use? What you are essentially sacrificing is the modular nature in favour of a unified approach that will succeed in trying to please everyone with everything and eventually pleasing no-one with a 4GB download.

If your answer to the above rhetorical question about who decides what goes in is "We'll have a vote" then you'll definitely please some people with some of the content, but not everyone with all of it. Just leave addon makers to make what they want and release it how they want. That way people can pick and choose what mods/addons/sounds/textures they want and don't end up having GB after GB of unwanted content.

That said, if its an optional "Branch" I can just stick with the "norm" and avoid this idea like the plague it will probably (not) become.

I see what you mean here. I was hoping for Arma 3 quality to be reached via. Modders helping each other during a process of making this, but in terms of sound, i was hoping that everyone could use their own sounds, because that's possible with server keys. So, CBA would be aloud, and any sound mod would be aloud, meaning that someone could be using the SOS and CBA, while someone else is using JSRS and CBA. And if no one wants a sound mod, well, they can just use the mod as it is with the sounds that originally come with the weapons. But that last part you mentioned is an ok iea s well. IT would mean that there would still be all this content in one branch, from various modder's who would not have pitched in to help each other, but separately put their mods in one pack with varying content. It would still in my opinion be awesome, but some things would obviously have different qualities. It would still be ok though.

The whole idea of this idea... is to create one place where people can get a mod with a lot more content, and play as the norm. This combat's people wanting mods to be taken by BIS and put into the game, solving those issues, as well as combating people downloading 30 separate mods, and everyone else trying to find the same mods to play with, whilst some simply won't search for 30 separate mods, it's too much work for them. One big one however, wouldn't be that big of a problem, as it can be installed over night if some's internet can't handle it in a bout a few hours or so, or however long.

[das attorney 858]

@ DSSO - It didn't look like a set goal to me - from your initial post:

Russian Military, Canadian Military, Czech Military, Polish, France, United States, Great Britain, China, Iran, Sweden, Serbia, Hellenic, all of these countries and more

"And more" sounds very undefined.

Plus how about the legal side? I note you didn't reply to that part of my post. As I mentioned, if delivered by BIS through Steam, it becomes a legal minefield.

[Jackal326 1181]

The whole idea of this idea... is to create one place where people can get a mod with a lot more content, and play as the norm.

So basically its PWS on STEAM?

This combat's people wanting mods to be taken by BIS and put into the game, solving those issues, as well as combating people downloading 30 separate mods, and everyone else trying to find the same mods to play with, whilst some simply won't search for 30 separate mods, it's too much work for them. One big one however, wouldn't be that big of a problem, as it can be installed over night if some's internet can't handle it in a bout a few hours or so, or however long.

The thing is, I've been a part of many squads/clans/groups (whatever you personally want to call them), and 99.9% of the time they're the only guys I play MP with. Each group had its own set of mods they'd use (usually required by the missions we'd play but some were listed as optional extras but still supported on the server such as sound mods, GUI changes etc). Once we'd downloaded the initial "30 separate mods" (the most separate mods we'd ever used was 15 or so for the exact reasons you listed above), all we had to do was keep them up-to-date via SixUpdater (in the ArmA2 days) and now PlayWithSix and away we went.

[DancZer 65]

It's a nice idea. But think it would be better if the BI buy contract and they update the old arma models(what they have) to A3 quality + interior and release it as a one big DLC after the expansion.

[evromalarkey 150]

It's unlikely that such a thing could happened. I read somewhere that BI is planning to expand the Steam Workshop functionality, so people can upload multiple pbos and large files. I don't think that they would bother with such branch, when they're focusing on Steam Workshop.

Another big problem would be / will be, that many authors don't want to publish their stuff on Steam in general. I personally prefer Play WithSIX, you can create the collection with all of the stuff you want. And here doesn't matter that many communities prefer different addons, they can choose what is best for them.

But yeah it's a nice idea and it would be nice if CUP or any other big mod would be available on Steam for general public :)

Edited January 25, 2015 by EvroMalarkey

[CaptainAzimuth 714]

@ DSSO - It didn't look like a set goal to me - from your initial post:

"And more" sounds very undefined.

Plus how about the legal side? I note you didn't reply to that part of my post. As I mentioned, if delivered by BIS through Steam, it becomes a legal minefield.

My response in regards to the legal minefield, was to use the Arm 3 Launcher.

In regards to no goal, to put it more simply, Every country in NATO (simply put, these nations have a military worth having in NATO), and any country outside of NATO with a big, or Medium sized military, as well as a few Terrorist factions. Essentially, it would be simply a military package for Arma 3, instead of there just being Arma 3's US Army with the name NATO, it would actually have, the Military of the US, the Military of said other countries, and so on. Just for the heck of it though, lets put a limit here. 8 NATO countries, 8 Opfor Countries, and 4 Indipendant or, "Neutral" countries. So far from what i've seen in the Addon section, we have Swedish Forces, Canadian Forces, Russian Forces, US forces, Czech forces, Chinese Forces, British Forces? French Forces, Hellenic Forces, Brazilian Forces, and so on, i can't check them all right now. But the idea is to take all these Modules that add whole real life factions, and put them into one branch, or since using steam wouldn't work to too well, than we could use something along the lines of the Arma 3 launcher.

---------- Post added at 20:37 ---------- Previous post was at 20:33 ----------

So basically its PWS on STEAM?

The thing is, I've been a part of many squads/clans/groups (whatever you personally want to call them), and 99.9% of the time they're the only guys I play MP with. Each group had its own set of mods they'd use (usually required by the missions we'd play but some were listed as optional extras but still supported on the server such as sound mods, GUI changes etc). Once we'd downloaded the initial "30 separate mods" (the most separate mods we'd ever used was 15 or so for the exact reasons you listed above), all we had to do was keep them up-to-date via SixUpdater (in the ArmA2 days) and now PlayWithSix and away we went.

Not quite PWS. I have PWS, but i don't know if it's just me, my lack of time, or what, but i find it very confusing to get a series of mods from PWS. I tried it once, i had to select, and de select a series of buttons and such, update the list, type in some kind of website code, and idk. It was over my head. So i haven't used PWS since, i may give it a try sometime again. But the idea is to not use third party launchers, but official Arma 3 means of doing it, so that BIS themselves can not only have access to it easily, but be able to contribute however BIS can with this project. It should be simple, and a matter of a few clicks to install, the only burden likely being the file size. But file sizes can ALWAYS be overcome.

---------- Post added at 20:41 ---------- Previous post was at 20:37 ----------

It's a nice idea. But think it would be better if the BI buy contract and they update the old arma models(what they have) to A3 quality + interior and release it as a one big DLC after the expansion.

I tried to avoid this as well, as that's been brought up, and all it brought was a cluster of conflicting arguments. Therefor, it would only make things more complex, as then people would argue payment, if BIS were publishing something under their core code, and what not, and yada yada. The point again, is for the content to be made, polished, put together well and to a quality standard by the Community, and for it to then be released in a way that BIS can advertise this great feat that was accomplished by it's Community, and for the community and everyone else to easily be able to access this whole module, in a matter of clicks. Easily, and without having to look in multiple places for different things.

[das attorney 858]

My response in regards to the legal minefield, was to use the Arm 3 Launcher.

Ah okay, so it's a mega mod pack, available through Steam workshop or wherever else. Not an actual branch, like Stable or Dev are.

[CaptainAzimuth 714]

Ah okay, so it's a mega mod pack, available through Steam workshop or wherever else. Not an actual branch, like Stable or Dev are.

Well after you mentioned there being a legal minefield, i wouldn't want to put BIS in that kind of position. They had their share during the Alpha stages when a dev was arrest. Unless BIS can chime in an offer some advice as i was hoping, than having it be a mega mod pack of the sorts, that is currently now, the next best solution. Though, a switchable branch would be amazing, unless BIS backs that idea, it's going to have to be a mega mod pack.

[Jackal326 1181]

An who is going to organise all this? I highly doubt BI will devote time and resources to such a project. Are you volunteering?

[chortles 263]

I highly doubt BI will devote time and resources to such a project.

Pretty much this, especially in light of how they've prioritized things over the past year and two-thirds since Arma 3 launched.

[CaptainAzimuth 714]

An who is going to organise all this? I highly doubt BI will devote time and resources to such a project. Are you volunteering?

This, i... Don't know. This is just my idea. The best i can even do in terms of modding, is re-texturing. That is it. I'm just a really good idea guy, but don't quite have the time to o dedicated modding. The idea was a way to help bring together the community. if it comes down to it, i could do retexture's by looking up existing gear, and making sure it's up to par in game as it is in real life. The only thing i have to show for that is the re-texture i did for Firewill's F-16.

[chortles 263]

accessible via. Branch selection

There's the fundamental problem with your idea, because "Branch selection" is all BI and Valve.

[CaptainAzimuth 714]

There's the fundamental problem with your idea, because "Branch selection" is all BI and Valve.

Well the only other way than, would have to be Arma 3 Launcher. That, or i guess it would have to be put on PWS (Play With Six) as One Module.

[chortles 263]

Well the only other way than, would have to be Arma 3 Launcher.

Meaning BI, then, and right back around to the original problem.

That, or i guess it would have to be put on PWS (Play With Six) as One Module.

Which means nothing to do with BI and therefore not actually a Community Branch.

[CaptainAzimuth 714]

Meaning BI, then, and right back around to the original problem.Which means nothing to do with BI and therefore not actually a Community Branch.

Hmmm... It would be really nice if BIS could chime in later down the road when their not so busy, as to how this could be done. Until then, however... Does anyone know if they can let the CUP team know of this, and maybe get some insight from other modder's to and see if anyone is willing to even think about putting something like this together. We will conclude the BIS part later down the road, but for now, it would be cool to actually hear from the modder's perspective.

[Jackal326 1181]

Another issue I've just thought of when someone asked me hypothetically if I'd donate any of my work (aside from the legal issues that would arise as stated previously that none of my work is entirely "mine" per se), is that it boils down to whether people would be willing to hand my work over to a larger project. You assume that the community would "band together" and everyone would donate their work. Whilst in theory that is fine and I'm sure some people would be happy to do so. I, and I'm sure many others, would not like to hand over control as it were of my/our work to another group. I can't imagine larger mod teams such as CSE/AGM or RHS (Disclaimer: I'm not a part of any of these mod teams named, I don't speak for them and am speaking hypothetically) wanting to just hand over their work to a project of this nature when they are constantly updating and building upon existing work.

[chortles 263]

@ Jackal326 : To say nothing of the fact that without BI buy-in -- which would fly in the face of their previous behavior in a way that even "omitted bipods for fifteen years" doesn't, so "how this could be done" would be moot -- the proposal is literally nothing more than the old "why can't we have a big 1980s-2010s mega-mod"".

[Sniperwolf572 758]

Another issue I've just thought of when someone asked me hypothetically if I'd donate any of my work (aside from the legal issues that would arise as stated previously that none of my work is entirely "mine" per se), is that it boils down to whether people would be willing to hand my work over to a larger project. You assume that the community would "band together" and everyone would donate their work. Whilst in theory that is fine and I'm sure some people would be happy to do so. I, and I'm sure many others, would not like to hand over control as it were of my/our work to another group. I can't imagine larger mod teams such as CSE/AGM or RHS (Disclaimer: I'm not a part of any of these mod teams named, I don't speak for them and am speaking hypothetically) wanting to just hand over their work to a project of this nature when they are constantly updating and building upon existing work.

The rabbit hole goes deeper, a lot of addons contain work of others, at times even outside our community, where the author has gained permission to use the content as a part of their mod.

... I'm just a really good idea guy ...

Oh boy.

A piece of general advice, don't label yourself as an "ideas guy".

Even the skills you listed have nothing to with what work of this magnitude would entail, as the content has already been created, it's mostly administrative/deployment/testing work. And what the idea guys usually miss, are the details which make the idea so much more complicated than sitting down and saying "Let's do this" and then looking around the room. In the end, this would be a massive effort to solve a singular problem to which the solution(s) already exist.

I see no reason why PlayWithSix's simple concept of "Create a mod preset" -> "Add mods to the preset" -> "Press Install" requires reinventing to a highly rigid Steam branch which would bloat out of proportions. Even the Steam Workshop itself has the ability to create public/private collections and moderate them, the only limitation there currently is that it's not very welcoming of bigger mods and certain other things which rub people the wrong way.

I don't even want to imagine how big of an performance impact would be just by the overhead created by loading in a massive fuckton of addons into the game.

[CaptainAzimuth 714]

So, from what I've got so far... It's a cool theory, just nit feasible in any way.

---------- Post added at 14:46 ---------- Previous post was at 14:42 ----------

In terms of ideas guy, not quite just the ideas guy, I've modeled for a completely different game, but I'd need to dedicate time to come anywhere close to Arma 3 standards. Also, the idea was simply put out there to see if it's possible at all, and from the looks of it... Not the best approach I suppose.