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Thank you guys for the update - great work.

I didn't say it wasn't.

So how would that help me with playing through this campaign? I can point the finger, too, that it's his issue but that doesn't get me a working campaign. Plus, why would I want to spend hours moving around various addons to figure out what's crashing the game? (We're talking about ~150 .pbo-s - not all of them would be suspect but at least 15-20 would have to be checked in various combinations.) I already hardly have time to play, I'm not willing to spend my free time in trying to recreate an error scenario if there's an easier way (Notepad) to find the problem. Also, the issue happened in CBA. So first they'd have to determine that it's not their issue really, it just surfaces there. That'd take at least several days and it'd be a total waste of their time. Then a similar round with the author (if he's contactable and willing to fix.) At the end, I didn't fix the error but I tracked it down, hopefully cutting down the waiting time. If the author doesn't fix it in a reasonably short time (less than, say, 3 days), I'll fix it myself locally.

Case in point against encryption: http://forums.bistudio.com/showpost.php?p=1784593&postcount=86 I couldn't have found this problem without the ability to look into a campaign .pbo. The error message says it's a problem with CBA, but it's really not - CBA simply detects it as an error but the problem happens in the campaign logic. With encryption, this would take days for a set of people to debug (first the player to try to figure out what's wrong, then CBA people to learn it's not their error, then finally the campaign author to go through the code and fix it. If just one person along that chain doesn't care, it'd take ages at best to correct something like this. The only reason I found it was because I could look through 3 .pbo-s and finally stumble upon the parts that are wrong.

I just finished playing Grey Sky, it was a mostly good campaign - I'd suggest you finish it. By the end of mission 4, the character and the environment was noticably better than at the beginning and the story turned into more interesting. The big base should be definitely lightened - it's a massive slowdown with all the objects in a very small place - I think it'd be equally believable with some fewer people and fewer objects. The same goes for the fog - it was nice (actually had a freaky effect), but it was too much. Granted, my computer is only a dual core, but most other missions run fine. In mission 4, pls take away the pistols from the snipers, they get stuck when they use them. Thanks for making it, hope to see more of it. Edit: I also noticed that you overwrite nil in several places (for example: nil = [] execVM "scripts\plane.sqf"; This is a big no-no - you should never, under any circumstances assign a value to nil. The symbol nil represents an unset value - when you assign something to it, it may break the rest of the game and eventually may result in a crash.

Thank you for this - I'll try it out and let you know what I thought. I especially appreciate that it doesn't require extra addons.

Thanks for your missions, Zipper5, I enjoyed Scud Valley a lot. I'll try your newest one and let you know how it went.

I'd say ground vehicles are not so terrible - they're passable with a few quirks (that'd be nice if fixed.) I rarely fly choppers (and never planes) so I don't comment on those.

Arma 2's original storyline is pathetic, just ignore it. There are many great user-made campaigns/missions for it even for SP play. I have to say, I, too, love the "no hand-holding"aspect of Arma 1/2 - while I think there are a few annoying quirks with it, it's the single best game I ever played. It's also pretty much the only game that succeeded in capturing my attention in the past 5-6 years. I'm grateful to everyone who made/make it happen, BIS, addon/mission makers and all.

I agree with you that the potential result is not favorable to the community, however, it's only the addonmaker that has a choice in this matter. It is an erroneous belief that any encryption will protect the models. Admittedly very little, because of lack of time. I routinely have 10-12 hour work days, so I have very little time to even play the game. Whenever I do have time and see something interesting, I want to keep the ability to go "hmmm, how did he do that?" As I wrote several times already, I do not care about access to models in .pbo-s - I care only about configs and scripts for the most part. I wouldn't even be against some encryption on the models (not the .pbo!) but history shows that such encryption is nothing but a futile effort.

They made blanket statements and they called people thieves for insisting on the ability to look at pbo content. I kinda take that personally. I clearly stated that I don't care about that. I have no intention of stealing anyone's work but I do intend to use .pbo-s as a source of reference. BIS made it that way and their approach to the game is what keeps me here. (Plus the game itself, ofc.) If someone thinks that's a sign of disrespect, I can only recommend (not wish for!) withdrawal. They have a choice: accept how it is or not. I hope they'd accept it as is and make more content. If not, I guess I'd just have to live with that. I'm not arguing for a personal ability to look at any particular model (I mostly don't even care about those - I'm into missions/campaigns), but against the general approach and mindset full-scale locking would bring. Much appreciated. Agreed.

I'm not sure what you mean by this. I do not wish for them not to release more addons - in fact, I said so at the end of my post. I'd like them to release more stuff - they're talented and skilled addon makers and their addons would surely add value to this game. But I don't like to be called a thief by them (which they consistently and repeatedly did all over this thread) and I don't want the mentality that comes with locking the content. If they so closely want to guard something they'd release as free stuff for a game, they shouldn't do it in the first place. Less worry, less chance for theft. More peace of mind for everyone.

Wow, this topic went way beyond surreal... DM, RKSL, Soul_Assassin, others, etc.: I value my ability to open a .pbo when I want much more than having some hypothetical models that could be released. I don't care whether you agree with this or not. I don't care whether you call this "theft", "illegal" or even "breach of contract". Reusing someone's work without permission is theft. Peeking at it (with or without permission) is not. You knew perfectly well when you started modding how the game and the community works. Having the ability to open (and even steal from) .pbo-s should come no surprise to you. BIS may not have officially supported peeking but it's been how it is since OFP, which you also know. The community and moderators handle theft issues that pop up well. No amount of further encryption will provide any more security than what's already available. Casual users may get temporarily hampered but professional thieves will not. I see no reason why the rest of the community should lose a valuable tool for your commercial interests. If you're in the model making business it's your responsibility and your problem to protect your work. Releasing a high-value 3D model as a free game addon seems reckless to say the least. Locking will invariably introduce problems with addons where the author left for an extended time/permanently, thieves releasing stolen stuff, etc. All this comes down to a single point: there's no need to have an option to lock. You already have the option to protect your valuable property: Do. Not. Release. Your. Addons. I don't mean to tell you off - I'd appreciate seeing new content from you - but if it comes with the price tag you wish to force on everyone then thanks, but no thanks.

Ah ok, it's different then. Just wanted to clarify that bit there. :)

[off] I'd flat out refuse all features that'd require any kind of live connection to a server in order for me to launch/run Arma. This is precisely the reason I don't buy anything from Steam and I never, ever will. Other than the game server that hosts the particular mission, any other live links that'd be required (as opposed to fully optional) I'd reject without any further consideration. I feel this is important enough to comment on - if any such requirement would ever be added to Arma, I'd immediately stop supporting BIS. [/off]

So I actually took the time to go through this thread. It's kinda hilarious how the people in this thread keep saying "All the examples/references one could need were already provided by BIS, no need to look at user-made pbo-s." These very same people in the above thread complain about such material not being available/complete/useful. Let me see if I can find the right word for that... I didn't specifically write names but I can if someone really thinks it's necessary. The only thing this proves to me is this very same group of people continued to enjoy the benefits of content being available for review from other users (with or without permission) but now they - for their own selfish reasons - wish to lock down the content from everyone else. Now, to give a bit of context, I'm a software engineer for 15 years now and I made some pretty complicated software in the past. I can tell that the docs on the BIKI are... lacking. I can see no one learning to create missions/mods only from those docs - especially, since I know how those docs used to be - nowadays they're hundred times better from how they used to be. I know I had to look through missions made by others to understand how things work in Arma - I used missions and sometimes even mods from all over the place, always from people whose work I highly regarded. I have a very hard time believing that someone could've learned this material strictly from that documentation when it wasn't even as good as it is now. I really don't care if models get encrypted, since I hardly ever download new models to begin with - me and my group only ever play missions that don't require any addons beyond a specific island, a few extra weapons, Arma 1 SF and the Tier 1 ops. I'm very much against locking entire .pbo-s since that basically makes accessing config/script code impossible. All I see the locking would do is generating a massive amount of PM-s for the source files when someone wants to tinker with something and in my experience in the past, such requests are simply ignored. I'd also like to know what the solution would be to people leaving the community with addons widely used. A locked addon couldn't be maintained anymore - CAA1, NWD, and a bunch of others are prime examples of this issue.

Seems like that pistol issue that's been affecting snipers since Arma 1 times - it'd be nice to see it gone. Every time I create a mission (however simple it may be) the first thing I do is remove all pistols from all AI.

Ha ha ha, I was totally thinking the same. :icon_lol:

Yeah, calling people thieves to their faces is a real polite way to argue your point. You've got real class there, just like Darkhorse 1-6. Good to have you around. It is the case, yes. Why is that a problem, again? 1. I asked several addon makers, several times, over various channels to make various changes to their mods. I mostly got arrogant refusals or the requests were simply ignored. In this case, I can just open said mod and make whatever changes I need for my own purposes. I simply gave up asking / recommending and only do so when I see outstanding work. 2. In many cases, missions may be somewhat intersting but terribly done. This is increasingly the case with A2 - old OFP missions were, in many cases, better implemented in my opinion. Having the ability to open the pbo and change things, I can correct problems that I have with these. I consider these uses, in addition to using the sources as learning material are perfectly normal in my view. Kju's work on the PROPER project comes to mind - I learned a lot from his work and guess what, I didn't rip any of it off. I don't see why I'd even need anyone's permission to change something that no one ever uses other than me - especially when the author doesn't even reply anymore. (Kju comes to mind again - would be interesting how CAA1 could be updated had the pbo-s been locked.) The modelers do have a choice: if they consider their models such high quality that they're too good for this community, they can simply decide not to release those models for the game. I'm sure they can then sell those models on Turbosquid for big bucks and absolutely no one can steal them from there. With that said, I greatly appreciate the work of those who - under the present conditions - still choose to create & release their models, scripts, missions, sounds, etc. They are the ones that keep this game going.

Good I didn't answer, I would've used a lot stronger language than you did.

Because they... work on bugs instead?

Sorry for a not-so-useful comment, but I find DM's message funny. :)

Are you saying you've never opened a single .pbo done by someone else to learn from it? If so, how did you learn creating configs? How did you learn scripting logic? Let's assume I read the license and I have every intention of following it. How does that help if the .pbo is locked (encrypted) and there's no way of opening it? That's exactly what you seem to be trying to do: make it harder for the average user (who wouldn't, in all likelyhood, steal it anyway) to learn from it.

The reason I don't is because I have one hand on the mouse all the time, so most Ctrl/Shift/Alt key combinations are fairly hard to enter.

In theory it may not be a bad idea but I'd like to see where you find a free group of 16 keys for this purpose. My keyboard is basically taken - almost all keys are assigned something. Once you start introducing Shift or Ctrl combinations, things get a lot more uncomfortable. Also, the nested menus will lose the connection with the letters assigned to them - 'F' for formation opens a submenu but in this submenu 'F' will be used for Compact Column. So the advantage you get is minimal at best.