maruk

I do not know. Maybe it is not ideal, but compared to very popular kickstarter campaigns I feel we treat our users much better: there all you get is words for your money. We provide you with a lot of information from very advanced version of the game and also fully playable alpha. Yes, it is a way to collect money and feedback which was even more important than money, but is it cynical? I for one did hope the dev team would interact with the users much more directly but that still does not make the program a failure in any sense. Also, all contributors will get finished game with reasonable discount, I am not sure why out of sudden this is a bad thing for anybody. That said, I am also not happy that the team did not take more active and agile approach and I am trying to understand it and hopefully improve.

To summarize: * you have decided to support us and pay 20 to 40 Euro depending on your level of commitment / interest in Steam version * after playing alpha of the game delivered as promissed for few weeks you feel you are entitled to get a refund

The exe 1.62.95248 should be the final exe for the patch. We said this before but we tried to fix some critical issues, mostly crashes. The upcoming 1.62 update is considered feature complete. ACR Lite is going to be released as optional free download and will not be included in the update due to compatibility problems (ACR requires both Arma 2 and Arma 2 Operation Arrowhead).

Because it is very difficult, I do know about any feasible way how to restore the game to previous state, unless you keep a backup or are prepared to do full reinstall. And it is really not worth the hassle, if you can not for some reason use RC just don't and stick with the beta instead. And honestly, I fail to see any debacle here. It is a complex update to very complex game. We need support of our users to be able to pull it through, without public RCs we would not be able to provide updates the way we do. Betas and RCs are for users prepared to help even if it means discomfort. We really appreciate it but also understand it is not for everyone.

You need to have legitimate install 1.60 to be able to upgrade to 1.62. It is as simple as this. It is already extremely complex process to handle and we are always absolutely clear how Release Candidates work. There is not easy way for us to handle it differently in the existing system so you either can live with it (the easiest way is to simply create full backup of the Arma 2 OA install folder somewhere else...) or not. If not yous simply should skip RCs and wait until the final patches and maybe use betas that are more flexible alongside the stable game. We of course appreciate help of our users with finalizing the updates and without release candidates this would not be really possible for us to release further updates to the game that is as moddable and open as this. Few notes: * we had to raise the version number to 1.62 as there are several low level incompatibilities between some 1.61 builds that lead into CTD to clients and servers * we had to remove the ACR lite content from the patch as some of it requires Arma 2 present and there is atm no robust way of handling the dependencies. Instead, we are going to release ACR Lite as full free optional DLC to allow all our users to be at the same compatible level without enforcing purchase of DLC pack We certainly hope this 1.62 is the final patch iteration and we have no intention opening it again unless a serious regression is found.

Well, obviously in something that seems to be an unfortunate human error RC2 does not contain the ACR Lite changes. So unfortunately, we are going to need to make RC3 and try to sort this out finally.

I do not think you are correct. Maybe you did not apply RC2 on fresh 1.60 but on RC1 instead? I believe some data do not patch correctly in such situation. RC2 should improve the following data: - ACR Lite data to not longer replace models of vanilla ACR OA - tutorial missions bugs

With 1.60 final update nearly completed, we are interested in hearing your impressions. I understand it may be long time for you when you really have played on 1.59 but please try to remember these dark days and compare with current shape of the game. We would like to to promote 1.60 update outside this forum section and outside our forums and it would be really useful to be able to quote some of the impressions from the field that I am hoping to collect here. To summarize the most important improvements: * multiplayer is much smoother, no more warping * the same in single player on distant units * AI is improved, especially (but not only) in combat * aircraft simulation received some new care * Arma 2 campaign received some special treatment to get rid of some really annoying bugs * handling of the official expansions and product combinations is unified in way that allows much easier operation for all distributions (including Steam) and also allow to benefit more from the build in expansions manager This topic is really intended for positive impressions. Not because we do not want to find ways to further polish the game but because we technically can not do much more for 1.60 anymore now.

Three letters: A C R (lite) So maybe you can find some more surprises in the 1.61, who knows...

No repro == no bug == no fix. (not because we do not want to get it fixed but because without being able to replicate the bug is it not possible to fix it obviously).

Making your comments based on the settings from 94444 without actually testing the recent settings is really pointless (and as mentioned berfore eye accomodation is really the same as in 1.60 and simply is not part or related in technical or implementation aspects to this topic at all).

Are you sure this is related to the tone mapping changes at all? Are you able to provide clear repro case and test it in both 1.60 and latest beta (generalisation does not really work so you need to be specific)?

For reference, I am using cheap TN panel in my laptop as well as properly calibrated external IPS display. Generally, with wrong gamma things may look pretty strange and it is not easy for all users to set their gamma correctly (not talking about some users using very high gamma on purpose to see more during dark nights).

The reason to change tone mapping in Arma 2 is simple: the game is not using effeciently alrady limited dynamic range of graphics card / display. Check histogram and compare it with histogram from common photographs. The dynamic range in real world and what human eye can handle is extreme, no game or computer display comes even close to it. ---------- Post added at 17:01 ---------- Previous post was at 16:43 ---------- After some more testing I believe the main source of problems was the shift in brightness in the Reihnard equation (the second parameter). I tested setting it to 0 and tried all types of setttings and scenes. So after all my new proposal for default tone mapping in 1.61 is: What is improved in the latest beta with this settings over 1.60: * slightly reduced bloom * darker tones are more often present in the resulting image * display device dynamic range is used more effeciently * night visibility is slightly improved in very low light conditions

My current plan is to leave the new tone mapping scripting commands available to those interested and revert back to the state of 1.60 in this area. I personally do not like lack of contrast and significant lack of black in it but seems that many users do not mind it that much.

I am afraid there is no way to answer. Patch is always near and far and gets only released when is considered finished and not containing any regressions. It is certainly not a matter of days, but hopefully in few weeks we may see a final patch 1.61 (public release candidate is nearly certainly coming before the final release a week or so).

The team is extremely busy finishing the game towards the planned release in September. It is as simple as this. And yes,you are really correct it is necessary to focus on the Xbox version at present time the most. But we certainly want to focus on PC P&C program some more as soon as we can! Thank you for your support and feedback so far.

Please could you be more specific what you dislike about the night play? You feel it must be absolutely obvious from the screen but to me it is not. Stars?

Why you do not grab a screen from previous beta and the current beta and do not share it. There seem to so many people requesting this and as it is quite simple to make I guess this is to the community to contribute. Note that sole reason is to give scenes more contrast (so far majority of screenshots released has increased contrast outside of the game, this should make it less necessary).

There is not simple way to do this and even if there is, it is certainly not part of improved tone mapping.

The terrible effect is not so easy to fix in OA really. The topic title says exactly what the goal is here. Maybe part of the problem is that in A2 there is one universal aperture control for day and night. Just as an experiment you can easily lock the aperture to This way you probably get ground in a way you may like it more (but of course, in dark places or night you will not be able to see anything :) Filmic tone mapping is preset in the game to It is quite difficult to set filmic to be similar to what is in the game now but as it looks quite interesting some users may find it useful to give their missions or cut-scenes different color and feel.

Maybe because the other people from the community not getting this demo would certainly feel very pissed off?

I guess "full price" is getting quite relative in PC gaming. It launched for 29.90 Euro digitally, full price games seems to launch 39.90 Euro digitally, many 49.90 Euro and some "oh so great games" 59.90 Euro. That said, not being for recycling of a lot of assets from Arma 2, this game probably never could see light of the day as cost of making it all from scratch would be ways above what any publisher or developer could ever put into today's PC only title that is somewhat different, hard core in it nature.

http://blip.tv/gamerlivetv/e3-2012-exclusive-interview-with-dean-hall-carrier-command-6187569

We hope to be able to come up with smart combination of free and closed P&C Alpha of Arma 3.