2017mod - full conversion mod

[kleutscher 48]

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2017Mod started out life as a mod of DayZMod called DayZ2017 and was created at the time by Shinkicker.

 

 

Shortly after the advent of Arma 3 it was decided that the time had come to move DayZ2017 onto the Arma 3 engine, losing the DayZ prefix due to the recent release of standalone DayZ.

 

The task of doing this was going to be mammoth, having to totally re-create the mod from the ground up.

At this point the mod started to take on a bit of a new life with lots of new gameplay concepts and ideas being woven into a new working formula, though some of these elements fell short of making it to the mod due to limitations in the Arma 3 engine.

 

Bohemia’s Arma 3 engine is a top of the line engine when it comes to military simulation, with the ability to have vast worlds in comparison to most other engines out there and Bohemia have always supported modding of their games, which are generally fully open to editing.

 

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However, modding on the Arma 3 engine is no small task.

From the perspective of game mechanics it requires intrinsic knowledge of the game engine, it’s very specific scripting language and multiplayer environment.

 

Creating assets for the game is also a very specific process, with an un-organic workflow which requires bucket loads of Arma specific knowledge.

 

When using the Arma 2 engine and DayZ2017 we had the option to stick with a patch-version of the game engine, with Arma 3 and Bohemia's move to Steam and automatic updates of the game the patching became mandatory.

 

With DayZ2017 using the Arma 2 engine and the patching process of the game it meant we could put a freeze on the modification of the game engine and stick to a specific engine version.  With Arma 3 and the move to Steam and automatic updates it has brought with it a whole new set of benefits and complications.  

 

While regular updates do bring new features and improve older ones it does occasionally completely break one of the game mechanics we had implemented and would force us to spend hours, days, weeks and in some cases months revising code or re-building a system from scratch.

 

In short this means that each update can mean anything from hours to days of work for us.

 

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Generally the Bamburgh map remained unaffected and the thousands of hours of development that went with it. We created hundreds of new and updated assets and structures.  From sewer lids to airports, multistory buildings, gravestones and many more, all helping us create a new and unique world.

 

Unfortunately when Bohemia pushed their new ‘Apex’ update it came along with a visual upgrade that completely broke the map.

We had spent hundreds of hours creating our new assets, rigging lighting configs and making new materials and we were about to be faced with having to re-visit all of this work.

 

It became very clear that the visual upgrade meant we would have to re-do a lot of that work that had been done to create 2017's world, essentially meaning that thousands of hours of development had been wiped out with one Arma 3 patch.

 

As you may appreciate the motivation within the team to continue working with the Arma 3 engine dipped dramatically at this point.

 

We spent weeks reconfiguring the lighting and trying to come up with work-arounds to try and recover our previous lighting configuration and it’s effects on the materials in an effort to get back the 2017Mod atmosphere we had been working with up until that point.

 

Unfortunately, as close as we came, we never came close enough to something that was acceptable to us and our vision for the mod.

 

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We contacted Bohemia many times to ask for documentation on the new lighting configuration and they promised us that it was being put together, in the meantime we made it public that that the mod would be put on hold temporarily.

 

Weeks and months passed by with no updates from Bohemia so we contacted them again and they told us they were waiting on it being translated from Czech, so again we waited for a further update... and we waited… and waited..

 

Finally, after another month we decided to contact Bohemia again, this time they told us that they were waiting on the documentation to be translated, so we waited hoping the translation wouldn't take long.

 

By this time we had been waiting a total of 3 months for documentation on a feature intrinsic to the game engine and atmosphere of Arma 3 and every world contained within it.   

 

One of our followers notified us that a Bohemia developer had tweeted regarding "Public Documentation about the Visual Upgrade" with a link to thier Wiki.

 

Excitedly we checked the wiki and upon reading the documentation, sat there stunned - almost numb.

 

We realised that all the parameters were very, very familiar.  

 

The "Public Documentation about the Visual Upgrade" contained information that was already known to us, had been for some considerable time and is already documented inside the Arma 3 Tools files.

 

In short the "Public Documentation about the Visual Upgrade" brought nothing new to the table.

 

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ANNOUNCEMENT:

 

The Bad News

 

We are halting development of 2017Mod for Arma 3.

 

 

We realise that some of you have been waiting on this project for years and that you will be disappointed by this announcement, but we can assure you that no-one is more disappointed than us.  

 

We have literally sunk years of our own free time into this project but there comes a point where you have to say “Enough is enough†cut your losses and move on.

 

 

The Future

 

We are in the process of contacting development groups we trust and talking to them about taking on the terrain as a going concern, we can not simply let this go, too much has gone into it up to now!

 

As for the 2017 team, we are moving our development onto Unreal Engine where we have full control over the codebase and its features.

 

We need to make it clear that we will not be moving 2017 onto this engine.

 

We are working on a completely new project.

Some of the concepts we visualised for 2017 may make it into the new project or they may not, only time will tell.

 

We’re so sorry we cannot deliver on 2017, but we will deliver on our next project and we would ask you all to watch this space until we can make our next announcement about how the future is expected to pan out.

 

Lastly we thank all of our loyal fans & followers for your support, enthusiasm and love.

 

Regards,

 

 

The 2017 Development Team:

 

DaringD,  Dscha,  JonseAO,  Karwin,  Liquid,  SchultzIT,  Uro

[video=youtube_share;iR2U1Gz4Uwk]

 

 

  

[schultzit 65]

Welcome to Bamburgh gentlemen!

 

@schultz_it

 

I'll use this post to keep you up-to-date with development as it goes on, so let's get started:

 

New Orkney

Pirates' Boat

A284 Road and motorway assets

[ob-andy 21]

Looking forward to it! Great work guys! Love watching your stream Schultz.

[cosmic10r 2331]

Sounds really cool. Looking forward to trying

[thec1aw 1]

been following this mod since it was announced, im dying to play it :( 

[schultzit 65]

Post #2 updated with some development pics!

[cleggy 297]

This looks very impressive!

 

As I live in the UK it makes me feel rather uncomfortable ... 

 

I'm away ta France at the earliest opportunity!

[stephsen 79]

very interesting ,cant wait to try it *thumbs up*

[Richie 330]

Looks awesome guys, so does Bamburgh.

 

P.S - Happy Birthday Schultz :D

[schultzit 65]

Looks awesome guys, so does Bamburgh.

 

P.S - Happy Birthday Schultz :D

thanks buddy !

[haleks 8212]

Hell yeah! \o/

[schultzit 65]

this week we'll be working on finishing the vehicle repair system, including all new 3d assets like this cute rim :)

[Richie 330]

That's a migty fine rim you have Schultz, the hole seems just the right size :lol:

[schultzit 65]

Vehicle parts

[mocmocmoc 1]

looking GREAT!!!!  :D

[schultzit 65]

looking GREAT!!!!  :D

wow... doc get on slack!!

[schultzit 65]

Small update:

 

RMNB Burcot Bay, including a fully enterable submarine pen model (wip)

Military installations and farms by Uro

 https://twitter.com/Urotsukidoj1/status/635580956997472256

[Ranwer135 308]

 

his week we'll be working on finishing the vehicle repair system, including all new 3d assets like this cute rim :)

 

Did you create the repair system or used someone else's? Just clarifying because my latest repair script was not intended for mods like this.

[schultzit 65]

I honestly have no idea about your repair system, never heard of it sorry.

All parts of our mod have been written from ground up.

 

Edit: if this is the script you're talking about, ours is a "tad" more complicated. Cheers!

[Ranwer135 308]

I honestly have no idea about your repair system, never heard of it sorry.

All parts of our mod have been written from ground up.

 

Edit: if this is the script you're talking about, ours is a "tad" more complicated. Cheers!

 

 

I'll take that as a compliment...but great mod, looking forward to it......  :)

 

 

 

 

Optimisation is everything when running lots of instances, with low delays. However, there is such thing as premature optimisation. Also, avoid excessive cleverness.

"Excessive cleverness is doing something in a really clever way when actually you could have done it in a much more straightforward but slightly less optimal manner. You've probably seen examples of people who construct amazing chains of macros (in C) or bizarre overloading patterns (in C++) which work fine but which you look at an go "wtf"? EC is a variation of premature-optimisation. It's also an act of hubris - programmers doing things because they want to show how clever they are rather than getting the job done." - sbsmac

 

https://community.bistudio.com/wiki/Code_Optimisation

 

Dunno why this article is against such scripts, Usually EC can be beneficial.

[schultzit 65]

didnt want to be harsh of course, just saying that the 2 scripts have completely different purposes, not that one is better than another since I didn't try yours

[schultzit 65]

Me and Uro working side by side on Bamburgh, tune in if you want!

http://multitwitch.tv/schultzit/urotsukidoj1

[Ranwer135 308]

Its all good, schultzit.  ;)

 

 

Looking forward to taking a break from running from zombies, to actually surviving in this mod.  :lol:

[schultzit 65]

Lickey Point old sea fortress

[Vansen 0]

Wow, this looks good. Cool stuff