Arma 3 DLC - CONTACT

[Defunkt 431]

18 minutes ago, froggyluv said:

 

 Its called trajectory and where the focus (or lack) of has appeared to have been heading for some time. You cant blame people for doubting BI's long term intentions because BI has some sorta weird internal gag order on the long term plans of the series -darkness breeds spores, molds and fungi. For gods sake if they're all happily working on some new cutting edge engine that would finally realize some of the old mil-simmers long held dreams than shed a little light on it. Ever see Star Citizens long term plan roadmap available to the public -god knows if they will hold up but they have quarterly assessments of what areas of Combat/Ship AI/Infantry AI/Group Behaviours/Civilian Behavious etc mapped out for the next couple of years.

 

Might have something to do with the $200 million dollars the players fronted for development. Hardly something that can be held up as a norm.

 

Besides, on past results I have far more faith in BI to deliver. It used to be I'd load up SC once a year to see what progress had been made but I haven't bothered for a couple now, each time I'd be immediately confronted by clipping through models and the lurching vomit-inducing canned animations and exit immediately wondering; how is this shit NOT 100 times more important than yet another ship re-do?

[froggyluv 2136]

 

 Fair enough but if your not keeping your community in the loop AT ALL and then start releasing Go-KArts and Aliens into your Combined Armed Tac Sim with zero talk of actual military features for the future -theres a problem. At least Star C. is attempting all of these features and whether they fail spectacularly remains to be seen. But whens the last time BI gave us a little insight into Arma's future in terms of combat animations, military behaviours or AI...Ill be waiting

[Defunkt 431]

I dunno, I guess I just take tight-lipped as the industry standard approach, and given some of the wailing that goes on whatever BI does I don't blame them for following that.

 

Ultimately I'm still something of a fan-boi. They could never release another Arma and I'd still be grateful these crazy Czechs gave us something no other studio will likely ever even attempt.

 

 

[Tankbuster 1746]

Well said, @Defunkt

[lexx 1363]

48 minutes ago, froggyluv said:

But whens the last time BI gave us a little insight into Arma's future in terms of combat animations, military behaviours or AI...Ill be waiting

 

That's the communication issue that is being mentioned every single time for years now. Nobody knows anything - sometimes it is even questionable if BI knows what's going on. They don't talk about anything, they don't show anything, nothing happens until it is ready for release next day. Sure the arma 3 debacle back in the days was a bad influence, but using that as justification for not talking anymore at all... not a solution either.

 

 

Anyways. I'm tensed to play the First Contact campaign.

[stburr91 1004]

3 hours ago, Defunkt said:

 

Perhaps that's why all of BI's engine people are working on a new one? Do you actually want them taken off that to twiddle with the current 5-year old platform?

 

Meanwhile other non-engine developers are probably most usefully engaged in generating development funds by releasing a content pack for the current game. If you don't want that fine, don't buy it, but it's daft to equate that with a failure to improve the platform (which obviously BI is very actively engaged in doing right now).

 

Honestly it's like some of you have your dial so stuck on "Maximum Whinge" you can't even think the simplest of scenarios through.

 

Yes, but the flip side is that there are people that have their dial so stuck on "Maximum FanBoy" that they can't see that they are being charged for an expansion, and not even getting half an expansion worth of content. Couple that with the fact that there is not much actual new content, and if you already own DayZ, you are literally being charged for content you already own.

 

A quick comparison of the Apex, and Contact expansions.

 

Terrain

Apex:        All new structures

Contact:   Mostly re-used structures, including Arma 2/DayZ structures that look old, and dated

 

Weapons

Apex:       13 new weapons

Contact:  5 new weapons, mostly non-military

 

Vehicles

Apex:         10 new vehicles

Contact:    Only a small drone, and an Arma 2 ported tractor 

 

Game Engine Updates

Apex:         Too many to name

Contact:    None that we know of at this point

 

 

Comparing the two expansions really highlights just how little content there actually is in Contact, and much of that content is not even new. 

 

Contact is way overpriced compared to the previous expansion. 

 

 

1 hour ago, lexx said:

 

That's the communication issue that is being mentioned every single time for years now. Nobody knows anything - sometimes it is even questionable if BI knows what's going on. They don't talk about anything, they don't show anything, nothing happens until it is ready for release next day. Sure the arma 3 debacle back in the days was a bad influence, but using that as justification for not talking anymore at all... not a solution either.

 

 

Anyways. I'm tensed to play the First Contact campaign.

 

Frankly, if was glaringly obvious that the people working on Arma had no idea what was going on after Jay Crowe departed. There was absolutely no plan for Arma 3 post Jay Crowe, and no plan for delivering Arma 4. 

 

Things were so bad that they were not even capable of delivering a campaign (The Old Man Project). 

 

Hell Lexx, you created a campaign, and a terrain in 7 days. 

[EO 11277]

Just a few random thoughts regarding the Contact DLC...(after many beers)

 

A usual there's plenty of hyperbole whenever BI try to do something a little different, maybe this should have been pitched as a CDLC as apposed to an official one, DnA has said he personally wanted to do something like this for years....

 

From what I read here and elsewhere over the last few days I think the more traditional milsim section of the community seem to think that every official DLC should be for them and them only, I mainly mean assets and campaigns, this is not a slur just an observation.

 

Personally, I buy every DLC that's released not only to support a great platform but to also enrich my own sandbox experience.

 

🍺🍺🍺

[stburr91 1004]

12 minutes ago, EO said:

Just a few random thoughts regarding the Contact DLC...(after many beers)

 

A usual there's plenty of hyperbole whenever BI try to do something a little different, maybe this should have been pitched as a CDLC as apposed to an official one, DnA has said he personally wanted to do something like this for years....

 

From what I read here and elsewhere over the last few days I think the more traditional milsim section of the community seem to think that every official DLC should be for them and them only, I mainly mean assets and campaigns, this is not a slur just an observation.

 

Personally, I buy every DLC that's released not only to support a great platform but to also enrich my own sandbox experience.

 

🍺🍺🍺

 

Maybe true, but I think we're all a little guilty of that, we all want content that appeals to us personally. 

 

While I would have never picked an aliens theme for Arma, truthfully, I don't doubt that the SP campaign with the aliens will likely be decent.

 

My problem with Contact is the lack of content for an expansion, and the decision to re-use structures from arma 2/Dayz to essentially create yet another Chernarus. 

 

For me personally $25 isn't a lot of money, and I would gladly pay that for an expansion, but Contact isn't really an expansion, it's just another DLC. I could easily just plunk down the money, and get some new content, but it's really the principal of getting what you paid for. 

[lexx 1363]

49 minutes ago, stburr91 said:

Yes, but the flip side is that there are people that have their dial so stuck on "Maximum FanBoy" that they can't see that they are being charged for an expansion, and not even getting half an expansion worth of content.

 

We couldn't even take a look at the campaign yet and you sound a bit as if amount of vehicles and weapons are the only thing that defines a price.

 

49 minutes ago, stburr91 said:

Frankly, if was glaringly obvious that the people working on Arma had no idea what was going on after Jay Crowe departed. There was absolutely no plan for Arma 3 post Jay Crowe, and no plan for delivering Arma 4. 

 

Actually we don't know this. None of us is sitting in their office, seeing what's going on. Also - not trying to be a party pooper - but we don't know how much influence Jay Crowe had in the bigger picture. We likely never find out either and not sure if it would make a difference to us in the end. If we're going that route, you could also say stuff like "everything went downhill since Karel Moricky went to Amsterdam" etc. -- pure gossip & speculation. The company is bigger than one or two people.

 

Quote

Hell Lexx, you created a campaign, and a terrain in 7 days.

 

Sure, but I'm pretty sure that if I had put a price tag on that, the reactions would have been FAR different... and not in my favor.

 

Besides, this project was a total exception with a bit of random and pure luck mixed in. To compare, I'm working on a campaign for over *one year* already and it's far from ready and not even close to the complexity and depth of what e.g. Laws of War was offering. I really can't compare any of my stuff to the works such as these.

[maxl30 81]

We have since A2 a fire station but still no fire truck, my opinion is we need a fire engine and not a tractor or both, then 25€ would be ok.

[stburr91 1004]

2 minutes ago, lexx said:

 

Man, we couldn't even take a look at the campaign yet, as if amount of vehicles and weapons are the only thing that defines a price.

 

Yes, I didn't compare the campaigns of the two expansions because we don't know what the Contact campaign will be yet.

 

However, it's a very safe bet to say that the campaigns will be quite similar in size, and in development time.   

 

Let's be honest here, to make up for the content difference, the Contact campaign would have to be a 30 part campaign, with a yet unseen level of production value, and storytelling.  

[lexx 1363]

Just now, stburr91 said:

Let's be honest here, to make up for the content difference, the Contact campaign would have to be a 30 part campaign, with a yet unseen level of production value, and storytelling.

 

I do not agree with this at all. Even a Laws of War sized campaign would do it for me, and if the same production value is applied, that's ok for me too.

[stburr91 1004]

Just now, lexx said:

 

I do not agree with this at all. Even a Laws of War sized campaign would do it for me, and if the same production value is applied, that's ok for me too.

 

Well, fair enough, we all have different interests, and exceptions for any new content. 

 

While I do enjoy a good SP campaign, I also expect new content, and a new terrain, in a unique/new setting, with all new structures for something priced as an expansion. 

 

It's all good man, I hope the campaign is as good, or better than you hope for, and that you enjoy playing it. 

 

 

[maxl30 81]

21 minutes ago, stburr91 said:

 

Well, fair enough, we all have different interests, and exceptions for any new content. 

 

While I do enjoy a good SP campaign, I also expect new content, and a new terrain, in a unique/new setting, with all new structures for something priced as an expansion. 

 

It's all good man, I hope the campaign is as good, or better than you hope for, and that you enjoy playing it. 

 

 

 

I hope we finaly get more content into Arma 3, how long we had to wait for a ambulance or police stuff (now apart womans wich would also nice in A3) ?

In A2 we had all this stuff still since release in the base game ...

[maxl30 81]

And i see the zamak on the pics for the LDF, please DEVs give us the tatra t810, you have no work with it and we have a new vehicle in A3.

And a army wich is a part of the NATO didnt use logistical important things from a potential enemy, lol.

[PuFu 4600]

6 hours ago, zukov said:

So for the russian soldier why not the Ratnik 3?

this shit is one of the worst jokes in the military industry, and if from the original ratnik program the russians were able to put down around 50% of what was initially advertise, this stuff is just as bad as the the ruskie robots:

 

[maxl30 81]

13 hours ago, PuFu said:

this shit is one of the worst jokes in the military industry, and if from the original ratnik program the russians were able to put down around 50% of what was initially advertise, this stuff is just as bad as the the ruskie robots:

 

The soviet mil industry was logical, the russian is pure ridiculous.

[snakeplissken 96]

I would be very grateful if some AK rifle accessories were added to this DLC that could be used on the AK rifles of the APEX expansion(AKM and AKS-74U).

 

A new muffler for AK rifles like PBS-04 or TGP-A-1 (the latter has on DayZ SA, since it used the houses of DayZ SA, well that could use the suppressor as well).

 

And for optics, you could add the red point KOBRA or RAKURS.

* It is very sad that you create a mission of infiltration with Russian soldiers without being able to use the weapons along with classic equipment (that suppressor of the own game of 1m ruins all immersion of the weapon)

So you have to download 3GB of a Mod just to use it on your mission.

** And still convince your colleague to download the Mod so they can join you.

[krzychuzokecia 718]

8 hours ago, Defunkt said:

Sounds to me like the opinions you're presenting as 'what the players want' are quite diverse and you're pretty much at odds with all of them. Forgive me if I'm not convinced by your claim to know what 'the players' want.

I'm just open to hear anyone's opinion, and take notice of them. Whether I agree with them, or not, is a secondary thing. Pretending that naysayers don't exist doesn't help anyone. However this Forum seems to have evolved into essentially an echo chamber, with all dissenting opinions being shuned. This thread is perfect example. There are people who are so emotionally invested in BIS and/or alien theme, that they will turn hostile against anyone who doesn't jump on the yesman bandwagon.

 

What seems funny is that people who are strictly opposed to the sci-fi theme are a minority, and not a vocal one. Most of the critique is focused on things like communication between devs and customers, BI company policy in general, and pricing policy regarding Contact DLC. Aliens are not a problem - problem is that Contact aliens are apparently (based on advertising materials) nothing more but a gimmick, designed to distract customers from the fact that this expansion is rather underdeveloped when compared to previous one (Apex) and Arma 3 smaller DLCs. Contact playable content is smaller than most of the focused DLCs (like Marksmen, Helicopters, Jets, Tanks, Laws of War), and most of it is derived from previous art. Platform updates (which IMHO are most important from gameplay perspective) are not to be found. Yet it is still priced almost equally to base game.

 

I wrote all of this several times here, but apart from few people voicing the same issues, nobody have yet tried to have an actual discussion about these issues. And at this moment I believe that nobody will. We'll see what will really happen on release day, but I'm not holding my thumbs for some miracle. I'm sure that what we see is what we get (just like it happened with every previous BI title), and well... What I see is disappointing and not worth the money.

[lexx 1363]

38 minutes ago, krzychuzokecia said:

I wrote all of this several times here, but apart from few people voicing the same issues, nobody have yet tried to have an actual discussion about these issues.

 

Eh, I'm certainly not a master of discussion, but what kind of "actual discussion" do you want? People agree and disagree and providing points pro and contra (spanning multiple threads at this point). For me that pretty much looks like a discussion. Unless ofc you want people to just agree with you... isn't much a discussion then either, tho.

[M. Glade 524]

I do believe the campaign will be longer in duration than LoW, they even said the gameplay is more like a quest and search instead of a static cookie cutter storyline.

 

17 hours ago, snakeplissken said:

I would be very grateful if some AK rifle accessories were added to this DLC that could be used on the AK rifles of the APEX expansion(AKM and AKS-74U).

 

A new muffler for AK rifles like PBS-04 or TGP-A-1 (the latter has on DayZ SA, since it used the houses of DayZ SA, well that could use the suppressor as well).

 

And for optics, you could add the red point KOBRA or RAKURS.

* It is very sad that you create a mission of infiltration with Russian soldiers without being able to use the weapons along with classic equipment (that suppressor of the own game of 1m ruins all immersion of the weapon)

 

So you have to download 3GB of a Mod just to use it on your mission.

** And still convince your colleague to download the Mod so they can join you.

 

The Russians are rather quickly moving towards Western tech, the majority of Spetznaz are using EOTechs and a few knockoffs of US lbe. 

[x3kj 1247]

two things -

1) They did the "give away information" thing during early A3 development. And when several features had to be cut at the end (no resources, or just didnt work) people complained... And they took the lesson from it, that they won't announce anything anymore until its 'safe' - iirc they even said so in one of their roadmap posts.  Means that the current plans are all with a lot of insecurity and unknowns, so they will unlikely say anything far in advance.

2) Arma 3 was supposedly going to be much more futuristic at first ("Futura" was the name...), but then compromised on "future but not really". If you dont like aliens and futurism, i think having a DLC with optional aliens is the more preferable option 😛

 

On 5/26/2019 at 12:12 AM, krzychuzokecia said:

Pretending that naysayers don't exist doesn't help anyone. However this Forum seems to have evolved into essentially an echo chamber, with all dissenting opinions being shuned. This thread is perfect example. There are people who are so emotionally invested in BIS and/or alien theme, that they will turn hostile against anyone who doesn't jump on the yesman bandwagon.

Anyone liking or not liking the DLC wont change what's in the DLC. That was already decided several moons ago and is a done deal. So whats there to discuss? 

I dont mind alien theme (i prefer different look more, but whatever). I like mystery. I like eastern european maps.  No 'discussion' about that will change my mind. What i dont like is pink. And that is not up for discussion either 😛 If there is not much "dissenting opinion" on what is liked or not, then this simply means majority of active people in the forum like it...

 

On 5/25/2019 at 4:40 PM, froggyluv said:

Ever see Star Citizens long term plan roadmap available to the public -god knows if they will hold up but they have quarterly assessments of what areas of Combat/Ship AI/Infantry AI/Group Behaviours/Civilian Behavious etc mapped out for the next couple of years.

Please remember how long it took for CIG until they got a full roadmap like that. Their early stages where much much more cloudy. Also, on that roadmap are only things they already proved are working / are safe to say. None of the experimental stuff is mentioned in it.  In early game development there are too many unknowns to publically announce all the plans - because some may just not work out. I'm not saying information is not important, and i too want to know where the ship is sailing, if its going in the 'right' direction etc... but game development logistics (or product development in general) are not as easy as it seems sometimes.

 

[stburr91 1004]

5 hours ago, x3kj said:

Anyone liking or not liking the DLC wont change what's in the DLC. That was already decided several moons ago and is a done deal. So whats there to discuss? 

I dont mind alien theme (i prefer different look more, but whatever). I like mystery. I like eastern european maps.  No 'discussion' about that will change my mind. What i dont like is pink. And that is not up for discussion either 😛 If there is not much "dissenting opinion" on what is liked or not, then this simply means majority of active people in the forum like it...

 

 

 

 

The discussion is to state what people like, and what they don't, the hope is that this will help shape decisions by BI for future projects. 

 

I didn't make the posts about Contact that I did to whine about it, I made those posts in the hopes that BI doesn't put out a project like this in the future. 

 

 

[M. Glade 524]

12 minutes ago, stburr91 said:

 

The discussion is to state what people like, and what they don't, the hope is that this will help shape decisions by BI for future projects. 

 

I didn't make the posts about Contact that I did to whine about it, I made those posts in the hopes that BI doesn't put out a project like this in the future. 

 

And im certain they're listening, many of the reports and suggestions we've been vocal about have been implemented. I think the reason many of us have stuck around is because BI is a really awesome community oriented studio who I wish will stay in business for a very long time. 

 

So would it be beneficial for them to make ArmA 4 aliens? Highly doubtful of that. 

[stburr91 1004]

11 minutes ago, M. Glade said:

 

And im certain they're listening, many of the reports and suggestions we've been vocal about have been implemented. I think the reason many of us have stuck around is because BI is a really awesome community oriented studio who I wish will stay in business for a very long time. 

 

So would it be beneficial for them to make ArmA 4 aliens? Highly doubtful of that. 

 

My problem is less about aliens, although I don't care for the concept, but rather the noticeable lack of content in this expansion compared to the last one. 

 

It's important for everyone not to get hung up on the aliens, but focus on the larger issues.

 

One, that they chose a concept that they knew (they have admitted as much) would not be embraced by many in the community.

 

Two, that they chose to put out an "expansion" that is extremely light on content, and that has little actual new content.  

 

I agree with you that BI has been a community oriented studio, I hope that it will continue to be so in the future, we shall see.