Loving and loathing ARMA. Re-installing again...

[Valken 622]

This is not a troubleshooting topic. I'm beyond that now...

 

In sheer frustration with Steam updates, I had to uninstall it to have it "patch" correctly. Lo and behold I forgot to rename/backup my Steam Workshop Downloads folder and poof, over 400 GB appeared "free" on my SSD! Cry, LOL, Cry, LOL... not sure which is better.

 

Game reinstalled on SSD, done.

SWS content reinstalling --- 7.5 GB so far in 3 hours, with 228.6 GB to go. I guess it pruned out all the duplicate versions.

 

Just sharing how much I love and loathe ARMA Steam at the same time... Its more love and glad I have one more day of full on office slave work so hope this will finish by the time I get home AFTER work, TOMORROW.... 

 

Share your experiences and lets laugh it off ARMAholics! :D

[Rich_R 1087]

Steam is definitely a love hate relationship.

 

I love always having my games as close as a download away. We could fill the forum with stories about scratched CD's or discs that would stop working and of course lets not even talk about the effort to find and keep track of sites that offered patches!

 

If you have the patience and an internet provider to deal with the huge downloads, Steam seems to be the best way to go, but it doesn't stop it from being painful to watch that download bar creep along for the larger games. Even worse, have the wife complain I'm hogging all the bandwidth!

 

Oddly enough, I'm still a fans of armaholic for my mods, probably from spending years in gaming groups where matching mod versions was paramount.

 

But Valken, sounds like we're similar in having the SSD pretty much for Arma. That my friend, is whats referred to as an addiction :)

[R0adki11 3949]

Personally i will not be changing over to using steam for Mods etc. I started BIS Games with OFP and much prefer the manual setup and installation. :)

[CaptainAzimuth 714]

Steam is the biggest downfall to the Arma series. Steam actually creates problems that literally no other game in the world has (steam ticket check kicks from servers), and it's actually cancer.

[Rich_R 1087]

9 minutes ago, darksidesixofficial said:

Steam is the biggest downfall to the Arma series. Steam actually creates problems that literally no other game in the world has (steam ticket check kicks from servers), and it's actually cancer.

 

I'm not sure if you've ever been in an Arma group, but I can't tell you the number of times when someone not patching to the latest update (in the Arma 2 days) would bring the session to a screeching halt while everyone waited!

 

As for the mods, let the Luddite's unite!

 

 

[gossamersolid 155]

31 minutes ago, darksidesixofficial said:

Steam is the biggest downfall to the Arma series. Steam actually creates problems that literally no other game in the world has (steam ticket check kicks from servers), and it's actually cancer.

 

No it's not.

 

It's probably the best thing to happen to the series. More exposure and easier mod installation/updates for a vast majority of the playerbase.

 

It's actually viable to run a public server with required mods now because the launcher + workshop allow people to easily join. Before it was a complete headache.

[beno_83au 1369]

1 hour ago, R0adki11 said:

I started BIS Games with OFP and much prefer the manual setup and installation. :)

 

Agreed, it took me sooooo long to give up on editing shortcuts to run the mods i wanted, instead of relying on a launcher. 

[CaptainAzimuth 714]

I'd love Steam of they would just fix their issues with Arma. Then I would give it as much praise. Until than it's a pain in the neck, because now, with my large group, we have members who can connect to the server fine, but permanently get kicked 1-5 minutes into playing to random file checks. It's got to the point they've contacted both steam, and Bohemia, and still kind get a fix. Meanwhile all the other members can connect just fine. Others cant, so it's not the server, or the mission, or Arma, as theyve done complete fresh starts of Arma, the mods, and their PC all to no avail. It's just steam. And theres no fix for it. Its just random. Ive had it before too on other servers, and it's random, unpredictable and impossible to fix, apparently.

[lexx 1364]

Have 0 issues with ArmA and Steam since ever.

 

Also I love how I never have to keep track of mods by myself anymore. Especially for games like arma, where the generic user is running a batzillion of different mods. Having to check them manually for updates all the time, then finding working download links, then hoping the downspeed is good enough, etc... no thanks. These times are over.

 

If a mod doesn't sit on the workshop, I usually don't even bother with it anymore.

[R0adki11 3949]

On 31/03/2017 at 8:21 AM, lexx said:

 

If a mod doesn't sit on the workshop, I usually don't even bother with it anymore.

Well i suspect your missing on quite a few good mods. 

[lexx 1364]

Sure, I am also missing out on the work required to keep them updated. Especially if I haven't played A3 in a while and basically have to check out every single mod for changes.

[gossamersolid 155]

On 4/2/2017 at 7:36 AM, lexx said:

Sure, I am also missing out on the work required to keep them updated. Especially if I haven't played A3 in a while and basically have to check out every single mod for changes.

 

Yeah I agree with you here.

It's unfortunate to miss out on some good mods out there, but the process of keeping them all manually up-to-date just isn't worth the effort anymore. Either it's because my attitude towards it has changed as the years have went on and/or workshop has made me lazy.

 

Also as I've pointed out before, if you ever want to play with other people, workshop is simply the easiest route. I had way too many headaches getting people to unzip a folder the arma root and add a parameter to the shortcut or use a launcher. It's amazing how difficult this process was for people (because, it really isn't difficult).

[EDcase 87]

Coming from OFP, I also used to use the manual method and hated the idea of being forced to use Steam.

 

...but I've had no problems (so far) and along with the launcher it has made ARMA easier to configure and start up.

 

So I'm a convert to Steam and Launcher.

 

...but there are still things in ARMA that bug me: (tickets on bugtracker are ignored)

AI spotting through tree foliage and grass.

Aiming deadzone broken when switching between scope modes.