ArmA2 development policy

[JdB 151]

would you switch over if you saw it was technically better...?

or is this love for ofp-arma stronger in terms of loyalty than a better game that would leave no room for complaints?

Without a doubt: yes.

BIS did a good job on OFP, and failed (innitially anyway) on ArmA, so I'm pretty neutral towards BIS (or any gamedeveloper for that matter).

In the world of consumers, loyalty is rare.

[Törni 0]

In the world of consumers it is amazing that someone still makes editable games. While most game companies turn out "use it and lose it" kind of products with disposable one use content BIS has released a relatively open product that allows users to add and alter content.

[Guest]

Primarily, as someone working on a large scale project for Arma, my concern is that Arma is really not a whole lot more than a funding campaign for "game 2" (Arma 2), and by the time my project is released, game 2 will come to be shortly thereof, and due to the rumors Arma 2 may only support .Sqf form scripts, this will render my mission project useless for this new platform..

Its ironic to me that Arma was released in a very buggy state, and although continues to be nicely "pieced" back together, that Arma 2 release news is here when Arma itself is not even finished in all truth, heck it hasnt even been out all that long...

Id love to see a new platform as well, but Ive heard rumors that the new Arma 2 platform wont even support .sqs files, if thats the case my project personally will remain in Arma, even if my release occurs 6 months after Arma 2 comes out, I, alike many, am not a programmer, and do well with the huge flexability and simplicity behind the .sqs form, if everything is to change to .sqf in Arma 2, honestly my missions and mods will go no farther than Arma 1.

Im just being honest, I know the Bis team has gone to huge lengths to continue the saga of their great games which are hugely editable by people who dont even know a whole lot about coding, but if Arma 2 ends up requiring the .sqf form only, I have no desire personally to even attempt to try to convert my *very* complex and lengthy scripts to .sqf, heck some are so complex .sqf may not even support them. Worse off, great missions like Mike Melvins CTI are written in .sqs form, and unless people are willing to spend many months even *attempting* to somehow convert all that code to .sqf , these missions will remain in Ofp/Arma 1 as well.

These are just my thoughts considering rumors Ive heard, I do wish there was more "positive" evidence that Arma 2 will be just as flexable as Arma 1, but this is not what I am hearing...

[Mtn. Goat 0]

"Do not build your community around a game...build your game around a community"

Thats impossible, we dont have any modding 'standards' because we cant agree on even the simplest things. And alot of people have a weird perspective on things and very unrealistic expectations. I think that eventually they would be dragged down by the community it wanted to please.

Hell the majority of humanity is retarded anyway and shouldnt be allowed to make even any decision.

I agree with you ofpforum, but a good alternative would actually be closed questions (in other words, rather than you saying anything you want, you have to vote on a few questions).

Chris

[funnyguy1 0]

Why the ArmA feature requests section of the bugtracker is still active? Wouldn't it be more logical to create ArmA2 feature requests and expectations while it's still under development, then merge it with the existing wishlist , and democratically vote what's important?

Not taking under consideration what impact will it have on ArmA2's development, it'll be a nice and organised way of throwing every suggestions in one place.

[Baff1 0]

How many games developments have I seen where the developers talk a big fight about building a game for their community?

They end up promising everything to everyone and delivering nothing.

Developers should stick to what they know. Make the best game they can with the tools skills and code that they have. Only they are in a good position to know what they can pull off or not.

Neither do I think a democracy is a good way to run a business. There needs to be a boss. A leader and decision maker. Not a concensus where each and every minor detail is up for negotiation and re-negotiation, but a well oiled, disciplined machine.

[max power 21]

"Do not build your community around a game...build your game around a community"

This is the most retarded thing I've ever heard. This is why the majority Hollywood movies suck monkeyballs. I think it is appropriate to be open to suggestions but I think that letting a group of crooning 13 year olds run your business is a grave mistake.

I don't think that they are really doing what they are advertizing, either. I think they are looking for a cheap source of ideas, but I don't think that everyone has a say in how the game pans out.

The long and the short of it is that I think that they are using this more as a marketing thing than an actual development process. They may be using some ideas from the community, as BIS does, but clever advertizers are able to implant the idea that you thought of/want/need something when actually you had very little involvement before they mentioned it.

[shinRaiden 0]

OFP was highly unique in that it had a ready-made, experienced, and mature community essentially handed to it at launch, that then went on to work wonders. That is not the same community that we have now, and it is vital to be cognizant of the differences, and the impact that those differences have on the future directions of the product.

[-duke- 0]

Personally what I'd like to see is more input from the big brains within this community on ArmA II (and we all know who they are). There are a number of extremely talented people here who I honestly believe actually can show the devs a thing or two when it comes to playability. I honestly believe community input can help alleviate some of the tunnel vision that occurs when a small team focuses on a small number of issues.

I also wish this were the case in regards to the patching process because the members here have their ear to the ground and a much clearer picture than anything in the wiki IMHO.

[mr burns 131]

That is not the same community that we have now..

As much as i respect you for your posts that i never can really follow due to your excessive use of uber-english, i´ve got to disagree.

The community is still young despite it´s partial age. Things have changed, people come and go. But ArmA is still 1 year young. afair OFP had reached 1.46 by that age and in terms of released addons it felt a little bit worse than it does now with ArmA.

We, the ones who love the gameplay, can only hope that a pretty unique success storie continues.

PS: Hey Duke, nice to see ya! Merry xmas

[tomcat_ 0]

one thing that sometimes us, happy players, forget is that a game is built in order to make money for the developer and the whole chain down the trade and pay the salaries of the developers plus allow them future growth and/or sustainability.

Hence there must be the right business model and that model is very simple and it's copies of the game that are sold.

Now you are always design a product or a game in order to target certain number of population that you expect to buy your product.

So back to the "dilema", it really depends how big is your community. If you think that your community is big enough to buy half or one million copies then you design the game to go with that. If you want to appeal to 1000-2000 people then you design the game to suit these people but then you live with the consequences.

Another bit of marketing information that is not known to any of us, is how many of the customers/players that bought this game the community and mainly these forums represent. If we represent 10-20% then someone has to think what the rest of the people would want. These forums have 50,000 registered members for all the games, and below you can see the copies sold according to BIS. So the vast majority of the people that bought both games have not expressed an opinion....

I'm pretty sure that BIS have done their analysis as to why OFP sold around 2m copies and Arma just 300,000 copies and they will be adjusting their next product (Arma2) accordingly.