Arma 3 - Creator DLC Discussion

[bludski 4420]

3 minutes ago, EO said:

 

Of course there has been no official word on whether this will be the case, but based on a tweet from @bludski, GM will be a requirement for Vidda....but then again bludski does enjoy spreading false rumours and misinformation. 

 

you know me too well my dude!

Also I think we informed our boy candle on discord a while ago 😉

[chrisb 196]

Makes me chuckle a little.. I'm all for paid mods etc, we've all discussed it many times over the years. I would imagine many of these modders going into the paid for dlc are some of those that said it would destroy Arma and the modding community.

Seems time change.

 

My view however is still the same, paid content is a good idea and a way to keep the series going. But I said that years ago, when most said it would be the end of Arma, if it ever happened.

😉

[lex__1 422]

Break the community on the release of DLC, bravo guys. I'm just wondering how long you thought about this decision or didn't you think at all?
Do I buy this DLC and continue to play with those guys who have not bought a DLC, or spit in their direction and play with the DLC?
Did the releases of previous DLCs cause community division problems.

[NikkoJT 58]

The turn away from the original Arma 3 DLC model is disappointing. When you guys first announced it for third-party DLC, I knew and said it was going to be unfun. And here it is, being unfun.

 

I dunno, BI. Having this kind of heavy restriction on the DLC is going to make it a massive pain in the ass to use. What were you thinking? 

[magnetar 78]

I will state here what I posted on discord channel as well. I do not have a problem with paid DLC, but the way it is being handled. As it is done, one will not be able to join a server that is using assets from a community DLC and this is a terrible idea in my opinion. It will force communities to either enforce it or not and if it is not enforced, most of the members won't even consider buying it because they won't be able to play with it. Of course I cannot generalise, but it is the case of the communities I am in contact with. In addition to the split caused by the DLC, it is even aggrevated when third party mods start using assets from said paid DLCs.

 

Releasing a low quality alternative of such assets would be in my opinion beneficial and vehicles/weapons could even be locked to non-owners (or even briefly allowed as handled previously) which at the end of the day will result in a wider audience and possibly widen the market: communities (even maybe including Altis Life) would not have to forbid the use of the DLC since entry to the server will be allowed.

 

This is an important aspect if the concept of a platform is the point to emphasize in Arma, otherwise we end up with something in between that is not good for anybody: communities (split between owners and non-owners) and DLC creators (possible lower sales due to forbidding the use of DLC assets)

[Arcurus 4]

In so far as the Creator DLC is concerned, what was the cause that led to a change in how they would be handled?

 

By this I mean that in older DLCs there was equipment that could be used even if you didn't own the DLC.  The exclusion of course being single-player missions, driving/piloting vehicles, and accessing terrains.  In the Creator DLC this won't be the case.

 

What is the reasoning behind this change in DLC strategy?

[lexx 1331]

The reason is that not every player wants to download every creators DLC. That was discussed already in the third party DLC announcement thread.

[Dedmen 2588]

12 hours ago, brightcandle said:

In terms of the assets that this paid mod contains will there be any difference in the usual EULA and terms and conditions of use? Are we free to use them to make our own missions and mods using the assets?

I don't see any reason to change it.Also the Authors of GM already announced retexturing templates and proxy packs for terrain makers. So I'd take that as a definite no,yes to your questions.

 

12 hours ago, brightcandle said:

In terms of the assets that this paid mod contains will there be any difference in the usual EULA and terms and conditions of use? Are we free to use them to make our own missions and mods using the assets?

I don't see any reason to change it.

Also the Authors of GM already announced retexturing templates and proxy packs for terrain makers. So I'd take that as a definite no,yes to your questions.

 

1 hour ago, magnetar said:

It will force communities to either enforce it or not

Not even just not enforcing. But straight enforcing to not use at all.
Either all in, or all out. Nothing in between which has been the case with all prior DLC's (except tanoa terrain)

And I think most communities will try to be inclusive and not tell their players "awww, you have no money? well bad luck for you" and instead opt out of the DLC and all mods that depend on it.

Which DOES certainly create a split in the community. From now on we'll have mods that require Creator DLC, and mods that don't. With a wall inbetween.

 

1 hour ago, lexx said:

The reason is that not every player wants to download every creators DLC.

I don't see any problem with keeping it optional download. But also going the same route as with old DLCs.

 

 

[brightcandle 114]

The model being used here means that even those excited about this and buying it likely won't get to play the content within their existing communities and that is a real shame. I think that will limit the sales quite a bit.

 

I notice that the Steam storefront page for the paid DLC makes no mention of the very different model under which this is being released and I think that needs to change before they start taking money for it since it is such a different proposition. They have a lot of communicating of the specifics to do before this is release ready and not a lot of time to do it or more than likely they are going to see refund requests when players work out this one is nothing like the prior DLCs with no warning.

[celoush 45]

From the other side, I dont see much difference between this DLC and something like Iron Front: Liberation 1944.

[Dedmen 2588]

Forwarding my solution to this from Arma discord.

 

 

Make a low quality/restricted version of the DLC.

If you don't own it, you get abominable texture quality and maybe also only lower-LOD models.

Cut out the Campaign, cut out the new german voices and just use existing english ones instead. Make it as bad as you can while still being playable.

Also keep the watermarking like in past DLC's, and not being able to drive vehicles and use guns.

But you can still play even if you don't have the money, you'll just have a bad experience.

Keep the optional download, doesn't have to be in the basegame. Having to download it doesn't really hurt anyone.

 

That way communities can use the DLC in their missions because they won't have to exclude anyone.

And there would still be more than big enough incentive to buy the DLC to play with high quality graphics.

Players who don't have the money, can still play with their groups even if everything looks like garbage, but that doesn't hurt gameplay much.

Players who have the money can buy it to get high fidelity graphics.

 

I don't see any problems with my idea.

But the way it currently is aimed to be done is just garbage.

[jonpas 289]

Fully agreed with what @magnetar wrote, so I won't repeat that.

 

@Dedmen's idea is great and would solve issues of splitting completely! But we can't really expect that, as even Apex has the Terrain locked away. So what I would propose is free download with usage constraints like Jets or Tanks DLC. Terrain can still be separate if it must be.

 

Either way, any solution would be great, BI, you have been saying for years you don't want to split community with DLCs... this is exactly what this is going to do. Whatever the reason, you set the terms and I hope this will be solved by release or soon after.

[Folau 5]

As much as I want to use this DLC I don't think I will be able to in my community, regardless of my hype. Due to the proposed distribution method my main server I do dev work for will likely be reluctant to add something that creates a have/have not divide. The admins most likely won't want to totally exclude players from the server who don't have this, regardless of whether the mission in progress actually uses it or not (i.e. different to just missing Tanoa missions).

 

Were this to be a similar model as Apex I would be throwing myself at new content. As is, I doubt I will be getting involved unless *everyone else* I play with does, which is a huge shame.

[lex__1 422]

5 hours ago, Dedmen said:

Which DOES certainly create a split in the community. From now on we'll have mods that require Creator DLC, and mods that don't. With a wall inbetween.

1. What makes the Creator DLC different from the Mods that the community likes to use? I understood everything about the quality that does not solve the existing problems in the game. But I didn’t understand at all about the remuneration of the Creator DLC participants, the selection of which took place without taking into account the wishes of the community. How much will it be claimed by the community?
2. Restrict the sharing of owners / non owners Creator DLC. What is the main point of such a decision? Content Creator DLC is not supposed to be used in conjunction with the content of other DLC, they can not put the general game opposition, or something else?
3. In terms of marketing. Owners of previous DLC aroused interest in the players to buy DLC, being in a joint game process. The content of the previous DLCs was and remains in full view of everyone; this increases the chance of a decision to buy a DLC and does not separate the players playing on the same server. New circumstance can reduce the estimated profit?
4. Each Mods server evaluates the wishes of its players about which Mods to integrate on the server. Any restriction or problems in Mods always caused a failure to use it on the server. Let me remind you that most servers with Mods find their fans and not many servers can provide a platform for everyone to play on the server. What is the chance for those who bought Creator DLC not to be left alone with Creator DLC, or to play on several overpopulated servers?

[BadHabitz 235]

No reason to pay for this unless my entire unit does as well, which honestly isn't going to happen. No reason to pay for mods I cant use in my unit's missions. A shame. Even as a purchaser of the Supporter Edition I've spent a ton of money on Arma 3 and it's DLC as gifts to friends and comrades. If this pay model extends to the rest of the future paid mods it's going to be a sad future for what's left of this great community. 

[WA Lancer 93]

I can not wait to get GM's dlc. But the way BI is handling it is pretty disappointing to be honest, and I'm in agreement with most people here. I just don't see my self being able to play the content with the community I play arma with. We literally can not force people to pay for a dlc just to play on our server. I don't understand why BI can't just do a free opt in download so the people who don't own the content can join servers and be harassed by the classic watermarks if they are using the DLC content they don't own.

[-ben- 499]

8 hours ago, Dedmen said:

 

I don't see any problem with keeping it optional download. But also going the same route as with old DLCs.

 

 

Correct me if i am wrong,(which is very possible :D) but those two statements are mutually exclusive are they not? With Apex, if you don't own the DLC you can't use the terrain and have "more difficulty" using the other content. But the data still exists on your hard drive. You still have the pbos on your machine, otherwise how else would you be able to see the guns that your buddies are using in a mission on other terrains where you are allowed into the mission despite not owning the content.

 

So if 3rd Party DLC was to behave like official DLC, everyone would have to have the content installed regardless of if they have purchased it or not right? Which removes the ability for it to be 100% optional. I personally am not too fussed about that, but what happens when we get a future 3rd party DLC that is more niche in it's theme. Then you will have similar uproar about how people have upwards of 10GB of data for ArmA that they don't ever use or want.  I'm not sure there is a simple solution for us to have it both ways. 

 

In terms of the low res/quality versions of assets being distributed as the free versions, firstly it suffers from the last point about people being forced to load stuff they don't want. Secondly there is an PR/Optics point of view, compared to when BI did this for A2, the prevalence of games media has grown dramatically, it's not a good look for BI to be publishing content that is either super low poly or drastically low res textures in today's industry without the context of how their DLC policy works. Finally, there is also the fact that all of the work to actually make the free versions of everything will sit on the developers of the DLC it'self. Which is time they may not want to put it to essentially depreciate their own hard effort and work.

 

It's a complex problem, that i'm not sure there will be solution for that isn't going to leave a large proportion of players unhappy.  

[.kju 3239]

You can still have an optional download combined with a LITE approach, or content restrictions like A3 DLCs do.

[burn0ut7 12]

I was excited to see GM announced, but then my heart dropped when it was said that those who do not own it will not be able to participate with those who do own it. This will split the community I play at and will most likely make the DLC irrelevant in most cases. Not to mention the future DLCs, what if they adapt this same handling. I am very disappointment with BI selfish handling of these paid mods.

[Valken 621]

I play both SP and MP ARMA 3 a lot, more than ARMA2/CO and I think we will all be OK with the User DLC system.

 

It acts exactly like a mod, optional, and there will be enough servers to go around this time due to the maturity of ARMA 3 instead of splitting the A2/CO community like back then.

 

However, A2 had lite options, which is similar to the current official DLC options so that you can at least see, if not outright use, the assets in game. Except for APEX.

 

I believe this "lite" or ingame previews has generated more sales achieved than leave the DLC without a lite option. Seeing your squad mates use cool new gear in game and how it functions is a lot better than watching a video or static picture on the internet.

 

I hope there will be something AT LEAST like a free weekend to test drive it and let the community taste the potential of user DLCs.

 

Hey what do I know outside of my biz dev work bubble...

[Dedmen 2588]

6 hours ago, -ben- said:

So if 3rd Party DLC was to behave like official DLC, everyone would have to have the content installed regardless of if they have purchased it or not right? Which removes the ability for it to be 100% optional.

No and no.
If we had a free version then it would just act like a mod. If you don't use it, no need to load it. If you wanna use it or have other mods that depend on it, you gotta load it.

[-ben- 499]

10 hours ago, Dedmen said:

No and no.
If we had a free version then it would just act like a mod. If you don't use it, no need to load it. If you wanna use it or have other mods that depend on it, you gotta load it.

 

Fair enough. Been a lot of noise around this, didn't think of it being treated like a mod, if there was a free version. 

[markocro 66]

On 4/18/2019 at 11:01 AM, Dedmen said:

Keep the optional download, doesn't have to be in the basegame. Having to download it doesn't really hurt anyone.

 

That way communities can use the DLC in their missions because they won't have to exclude anyone.

And there would still be more than big enough incentive to buy the DLC to play with high quality graphics.

Players who don't have the money, can still play with their groups even if everything looks like garbage, but that doesn't hurt gameplay much.

 

Totally agree, please BIS change to this:

-Keep optional download of DLC, but use same DLC strategy as before, don't kick out players who didn't pay for creator dlc, so they can participate in game but cant use any assets only see it, and also cant join new terrain (same as tanoa)

-keeping same dlc strategy will surely boost sales

[lilwillie 47]

I can understand some frustrations people are having when they play on certain servers or with friends but considering how many people outright don't even go on MP games, and how many copies of Arma 3 have been sold. There will be a demand for this.

I guess I would tell people to talk with their groups, discuss adding it or not but I can't see how this is going to hurt the Arma franchise.

Personally I'll buy it, and have it on my server, but on just certain off nights.

[EO 11225]

Seems strange that while the DLC's will be available here on Bohemia Interactive's very own Store, the Creator DLC team are reminding everyone to wishlist it over on Steam. 

Remember, Valve will get a portion of each Creator DLC sale on Steam, whereas buying it here the revenue will be split 50/50 between BI and Creator DLC Developers.    

 

Edit:

Following on from my comments above, If I were to buy the DLC on Steam will BI absorb the portion given to Valve, in other words will Creator Developers still get 50% of the Steam sale as they would if the DLC was purchased here.