StrongHarm

I've come to the conclusion that putting hundreds of hours into a mission only to have it buried deep in the Workshop due to poor ratings mechanics is not worth it. I had a thumbs down due to the fact that 30mm is underpowered in Arma3. If more people could enjoy my missions it would be worth my time, but that's not going to happen with the idiocy that's occurring in the Workshop. I'm going to have to look for another creative outlet. Have fun, StrongHarm out.

the_Demongod.. that just makes too much damned sense. Well said. I'm going to link your post to a few BIS Devs. It's really a Steam issue so I'm not sure what can be done, but those guys can deliver when it comes down to the wire. It would be nice to see a mission with hundreds of hours of development like ECAS not get buried under missions like "Your Pizza Was Stolen By Enemy" (true story)...

Poll pretty conclusively shows that 3 of 4 people on the boards who responded play single player user made missions from the Steam Workshop. Also, the majority view is that dedicated server missions should be placed on armaholic or bi boards instead of the Workshop. It occurs to me that there's a variable that will cause a large statistical deviation: how much of the Arma3 user base frequents the BIS forums?.. It would seem that the people that take the time to be part of the forum community would also be the people most likely to participate in user made missions.. which further complicates the deviation. Results of question 'Why has there been an apparent decrease in WS UMM subscribers?': Inconclusive.

To put it into context my other mission of similar quality and type has over 30k subscribers. That's why I was wondering if there's been a shift in community numbers or interest... or if it's some other variable.

I've had uncommonly good luck in that area. As far as I know no one has published any of my stuff under a different name. I've had several people ask for permission to use some of my scripts, and I've always allowed them. My motivation is to create something that I'd want to play (clearly selfish reasons), then I share it out in hopes that other people will enjoy it as much as me. It's a shame that people would plagiarize missions, but hell, I guess that's a sign of the times and not a problem isolated to the Workshop. I wonder if Benny could get BIS or Valve to intercede. That's an interesting variable. Do you think that had to do with a significant decrease in subscribers on the workshop?

As a patriotic American and successful capitalist I can tell you that it's hard for someone like me to understand how living under a communist government could be desirable. As a practitioner of Baguazhang, patient of Chinese medicine, and admirer of Chinese literature, I imagine that your government can only evolve to become as great as your people and culture. Thanks for the interesting perspective.

Lao Fei Mao, that's very interesting. If you take pictures of bases in the U.S. you can get arrested. As a citizen of China, does it seem to you that Chinese citizens have more freedom than citizens of Western Countries? How does your media portray Western culture? Sorry for going off topic... I'm just very interested.

Thanks a bunch, rak. I was in during desert storm, so it's been a while, but I still remember my radio discipline. Some of the voices in ECAS are actual ground and air assets. They were taken from Red Flag recordings and from an A-10 gun cam vid. You're actually flying a re-enactment of the real mission. I think from the results of the pol that I'm going to have to shift to making MP/Coop missions.. I don't like the idea of swapping form for function, but hey, it seems to be what people want.

I've found that more people post comments than take the time to click the thumbs up.. which is interesting. My ECAS mission is full of really great comments, but when I first posted it there was a flood of 'thumbs downs'.. with no comments. I had a theory at the time that since the competition was starting up, someone thought it would be a good idea to suppress my mission in the workshop list so it wouldn't receive attention. Since then I haven't received a single thumbs down. I really don't want to accept that someone could be that petty, but I know it exists. I attribute some of the lack of subscribers to this, but at least it's up to 4 stars now (though verbal feedback indicates it should be a 6 heheh). To give an idea of the affect; Last Year's Mission: 31,812 Subscribers - 682 Ratings, 662 Positive/20 Negative (#6 Top Rated of All Time) This Year's Mission: 4,636 Subscribers - 131 Ratings, 127 Positive/4 Negative (#100+ / 4 Stars, rated just above mission 'Fly Like Superman') I don't care much about the ratings though.. as long as people can find my missions and enjoy them, it's worth my time to create them.

For the sake of comparison: Close Air Support (Day2) had over 20,000 subscribers last year in the same amount of time that.. Close Air Support (ECAS) accumulated only 5,000 subscribers this year. Of course, Day2 is a helo mission and ECAS is a fixed wing mission, but the written reviews for ECAS are the best I've received of any of my missions, yet it has the lowest amount of subscribers over a relative period of time. I'll buy that it may have something to do with Zeus.. that's a very good point.

If you're someone who has no interest in User Made Missions, can you share your thoughts on why? What are the frustrating or undesirable attributes you notice most frequently? I've noticed a very significant decrease in the amount of subscriptions in the missions I develop... though I think they're getting better.. Here's the latest comment on Close Air Support (ECAS) in the Workshop: Yet.. there are less than 5000 subscribers. Has the user base fallen away, is no one able to find the mission to play it, or is the expanded BIS content sufficient enough that there's no interest? I'm anxious to see discussion on the topic and poll results.

Give the AI drone a 'hold' waypoint. I have it set up well in my Close Air Support (ECAS) mission. There's some custom code in there that makes the drone go to a waypoint, then disables aspects of the AI so it's stable. I also set it up so you can toggle the drone term with a quick double spacebar. If you're looking for some example scripts for calibration of the drone against a computer terminal, that's in there as well. Enjoy.

I believe I've solved all of these problems with the custom action scripts I built into my Close Air Support (Day2) mission. This is also a good training tool for practicing pilot, gunner, or JTAC. The missions are all very dynamic, so I've flown it hundreds of times and I'm still enjoying it. Hope you enjoy it as much as I have. If you're interested in fixed wing CAS ops and training, my Close Air Support (ECAS) mission not only taxes situational awareness, communications, and gunning skills.. but also has a live fire range that can be a challenge. Be sure to stop by my custom rearming point to pick up some ordinance before going to the range, as the mission starts out guns only.

I had considered using a full 9-line, but didn't want to inundate the community. There was some debate about my missions being too realistic and involved. I chose to go with abbreviated 9-lines as a compromise. I may create a strike mission in the future with precision talk on though.. I'll just have to add a difficulty disclaimer I guess. ---------- Post added at 12:53 PM ---------- Previous post was at 12:51 PM ---------- A subscriber of this mission left an exceedingly kind note I wanted to share. Thank you! If you haven't tried this mission, and you like the flight component of Arma3, I hope you'll take the time to subscribe and enjoy it. If you think it is worthy of a thumbs up, please take the time to click the icon. This will help other people find the mission so they can enjoy it as well. Also, for Close Air Support (Day2)

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