Is a few weekends worth of work worth half a million Euro?

[IndeedPete 1038]

I thought that much. Yet it raises hopes for the future. And to be fair, without Arma I probably wouldn't have any interest in modding. I have an IT background but before I discovered the mission editor nearly a decade ago I was more for just playing games instead of messing around with them. Maybe I'll take on another game in the future, maybe I'll stick with Arma, or maybe I'll lose the interest in modding some day. Are there any real alternatives?

[bad benson 1733]

well. it depends on what you want to do. if you want to do what you see mostly on armaholic (units, weapons, vehicles, missions) that is mostly adding to the military base game and if you like arma as a game a lot then you're good.

but if you just want to make cool stuff and are into making games then you should look into unreal engine 4. it's kind of mind blowing what it can do compared to unreal engine 3. and with its new blueprint system, prototyping is now as easy as it is in unity.

i'm not sure if it was the dayZ hype or the general enlargement of game worlds over the years but now finally, after already having fun with udk in the past but having felt limited in terms of size, it really supports large worlds. much more so than unity. i did some tests with unity and you can feel that there's a lot of work invovled to make it work on a bigger scale and still look good and run well.

i just started looking into UE4 recently but even AI developement seems very nice (node based like the editor script language "blueprint"). so you can make your own behaviour trees and stuff. but to me the best parts are the mentioned world size and draw distance and also the fact that you get full access to the source and core coding is now done in c++. anyways. that's kinda off-topic. i just can recommend anyone, who is more ambitious than what modding clunky and limited arma can do, to look into UE4. the pricing is pretty amazing too. kind of an indie dev's wet dream :D

[IndeedPete 1038]

I wouldn't go that far to try and become an indie dev. I'm still pretty addicted to Arma and haven't reached any borders regarding modding yet. I've been asked to join a group of indie devs before but I resigned, I just don't think I'm advanced enough to get into actual game development. And I don't think I have the time anyways with being occupied full-time. Would love to mess around just for fun with an engine like UE4 though. I might take a look, I also read the prices are next to nothing.^^

[bad benson 1733]

I wouldn't go that far to try and become an indie dev. I'm still pretty addicted to Arma and haven't reached any borders regarding modding yet. I've been asked to join a group of indie devs before but I resigned, I just don't think I'm advanced enough to get into actual game development. And I don't think I have the time anyways with being occupied full-time. Would love to mess around just for fun with an engine like UE4 though. I might take a look, I also read the prices are next to nothing.^^

yea the beauty of it is though that it comes with several templates like a basic shooter (and many others) with netcode and stuff. so it actually comes down to modding rather than "from scratch", if you are like me and just want a solid sandbox. in that case it's like modding the base of an FPS inlcuding full source and without all the stuff you don't need. it even has basic AI. i personally am just playing around too though. same as i did in arma. just without limits that make no sense :p

[IndeedPete 1038]

These are some strong arguments and I'm certainly thrilled to try. Will see if I have time in the near future, it's not like UE4 is running away. But it's good to know my sandbox favourite might get some competition, could speed up "Arma as a platform". :)

[chortles 263]

arma doesn't have outstanding mod support. it just is one fo the few games that has it at all these days.

Which is still quite the big deal depending on the perspective... heck, didn't Creative Assembly go out of their way to prevent another DarthMod?

[.kju 3239]

That's a way too low standard to compare to in the first place.

In addition if Arma would not allow modding/creating custom content, it would be dead fairly quickly. So the point is moot.

[stankura 10]

I clocked about 800 hours before I broke my right hand and was unable to work on anything for 3 months.

It's easy to get that Steam timer up, though. Usually you are spending most of the time in the mission editor, and I wouldn't be surprised if the game is counting the time outside of the game with alt+tab as well. Right now I am at approx 1004 hours.

Edited February 27, 2015 by stankura

[inlesco 233]

;2887019']That's a way too low standard to compare to in the first place.

In addition if Arma would not allow modding/creating custom content' date=' it would be dead fairly quickly. So the point is moot.[/quote']

Yep. Just by looking at the popularity of AiA or RHS makes this a 110% truth.

[Jackal326 1158]

I clocked about 800 hours before I broke my right hand and was unable to work on anything for 3 months.

It's easy to get that Steam timer up, though. Usually you are spending most of the time in the mission editor, and I wouldn't be surprised if the game is counting the time outside of the game with alt+tab as well. Right now I am at approx 1004 hours.

It also counts time spent using Buldozer with ObjectBuilder/WorldBuilder (Oxygen and Visitor to those of us that have been around a while :D). I think that accounts for about 1/3 of my "game time", with 1/3 being testing what I've created (read: banging my head against a wall wondering why its not working properly) and the final 1/3 being actually enjoying the game.

[IndeedPete 1038]

It also counts time spent using Buldozer with ObjectBuilder/WorldBuilder (Oxygen and Visitor to those of us that have been around a while :D). I think that accounts for about 1/3 of my "game time", with 1/3 being testing what I've created (read: banging my head against a wall wondering why its not working properly) and the final 1/3 being actually enjoying the game.

But I think that's booked under "Arma 3 Tools" and not Arma 3.^^

[pierremgi 4737]

It also counts time spent using Buldozer with ObjectBuilder/WorldBuilder (Oxygen and Visitor to those of us that have been around a while :D). I think that accounts for about 1/3 of my "game time", with 1/3 being testing what I've created (read: banging my head against a wall wondering why its not working properly) and the final 1/3 being actually enjoying the game.

Same for me! With the difference, I didn't take off with Terrain builder & Buldozer. Bugs apart, these tools have little docs & examples. I prefer fighting with Arma functions for which the result is more immediate.

[.kju 3239]

Interesting approach to promote indie devs to use their engine

Unreal Dev Grants will offer between $5,000 and $50,000 to projects utilising Unreal Engine 4, and the good news is that these grants are no-strings-attached. The recipient will keep all rights to their game, can spend the grant money however they wish, and publish it as they see fit. As long as there's a working prototype, anyone is eligible.

http://www.pcgamer.com/epic-games-is-giving-away-5-million-to-unreal-engine-4-projects/

More at: https://www.unrealengine.com/unrealdevgrants

Thoughts from people using a competitor

http://forum.unity3d.com/threads/epic-games-offers-up-5-million-in-unreal-dev-grants.299280/

[smokedog3para 365]

There was a release date, and BIS report this date to months later cause they want to see some entries happens that were normally disqualified by rules. It s not a secret, there is official mail about that.

ill clear this one up over 50 entries had trouble uploading content after entering, so we received an email from bis after the comp had stopped taking entries, they asked us to resubmit our work as they new it was a shit state and they had lost out on a lot of content, ill tell you my experience with manw i signed up and wanted to add all my stuff to the entry form as in logo video and such but in the time i made the vid and logo i went to re-login on the site and it would not let me back in it would not let me submit another entry which the rules did say you could enter as many as you wanted, so i thought bollocks to it and the previous updates to the tools and the lack of fixes to the tools and game broke all of the terrains.

Also the walls that we had made to be blown up got messed up so it kind of pissed me off and i have had a 6 month break from modding to take stock on even bothering to finish any of what has been broke as 4 years of hard work is broke 8 terrains in total plus hundreds of street furniture addons for the terrains.

There should of been a section for terrains, and to have had a lot more time to build them to factor the tools fiasco we have on a daily basis we only got told we could enter a terrain months after the comp was announced at first they were not to be entered put a lot of guys off.

[tachi 10]

I'm clocking in at 3006 hours in Arma, that's just 62.625 weekends, plus 2134 hours in the A3 tools for another 44.458 weekends.

Daaam, that's alot

[BL1P 35]

I find it confounding that a copy of the ACRE mod was passed as a finalist when ACRE wasn't. Very WTF for me ?

[bad benson 1733]

I find it confounding that a copy of the ACRE mod was passed as a finalist when ACRE wasn't. Very WTF for me ?

i thought i was the only one who felt that way..

oh and btw. on the unreal engine talk from before: https://www.unrealengine.com/blog/ue4-is-free

it's free now :D

[das attorney 857]

Yeah that is very weird.

Thanks for news on UE4 engine :)

[yourry 14]

And with 2 months to go almost half of the finalists have little to no more progress to show than they did when they first entered the competition (looking at you lost dragons and Reign of Jurassic)

The Reign Of Jurassic mod is still in development. The creation of the mod to start before the competition and continues thereafter.

We work at our own pace, the task is complex and time as to implement a dino in arma is all work that goes from the creation of the 3D model but also animation (very long) and even dozens of hours for the config ...

The proposed project already represents 1 year of weekly working ...