inlesco

Straight to the point: yes, this is just another thread discussing an integral part of Steam, the infamous Workshop. However, I'm covering the main issue in detail. There's a lot of mission / campaign makers that gladly post their creations over Steam WS, don't see a problem and are happy to receive additional feedback, ratings, etc. However, the type of users I'm talking right now are not the problem. The others are. I'll bullet-list my primary points. Some people love to abuse the rules and make a mess for more clicks / better ratings / more significant EGO boost / whatever other selfish reason. Take ' Campaign ' cat. sorted by ' top rated of all time ' - http://steamcommunity.com/workshop/browse/?appid=107410&requiredtags%5B0%5D=Campaign&actualsort=toprated&browsesort=toprated&p=1 You can see it's spammed all over the place by some (sorry for the expression) crappy missions that are in FRENCH (so much for localization...) and french only. Also, they're labeled as a 'Camp.', but they're all published separately. What the actual f***? These amateur missions take up too much space, stealing space from other creators who actually care about keeping things clean. A 'Camp.', as defined from OFP times (back in 2001, I guess), is a pack of missions, not a bunch of unrelated content. Why don't we get back to the old definition of a Campaign, eh? Open this mission: http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=287278550&searchtext= Compare its number of 'Total votes' (near the stars in the top right corner) to the number of 'Total visitors' or 'Current subscribers'. You see the disproportion? You begin to think that someone purposedly convinced people to vote at any cost, otherwise they won't get the promised cookie. If you browse the 'Camp.' cat. or SP / MP mission categories further, your eyes will begin to tear. Yes, I've played a bit of a detective. Perhaps some of this sounds hyperbole, but I couldn't help writing it all out. The situation is THAT absurd. Steam WS needs volunteer moderators or more strict rules enforced on mission publishing real bad. Thoughts?

Hey @Clayman ! Could you upload both of the missions somewhere? Maybe Google Drive, OneDrive or Dropbox? (These are probably the most reliable, unless the owner deletes the files himself.) The DL links on assaultmissionstudio.de are down, sadly.

@barccy thanks for reuploading these! I've just tried the addons and they're great! Awesome work @Marc13Bautista !

@Wiki Hello there! Perhaps you still have this campaign somewhere? I'm revisiting Arma 2 and OFP content lately.

Awesome campaign @Kalle M.! I've played through all of it recently and enjoyed it. Some missions were tougher, some were easier, but it was a great package of action, ease and all else combined, nonetheless.

@prototype1479 Hello! Are you still running this server and playing OFP? There's an awesome Discord community with some frequent players, in case you're interested.

I'd be surprised if BIS was not partnering with CDLC makers on expanding Reforger's scope!

Marvelous work, guys! Enjoyed your addons since the humble beginnings with OFP back in 2003.

Maybe releasing a separate Fallujah version with all buildings enterable could work? (As a separate Steam Workshop entry.) People with high-end modern PCs could try both and pick the one based on their gameplay experience. This'd also fit the mission makers - some of them make CQC scenarios, others - air / armor scenarios with lots of vehicular action.

@krim23 Go ahead! Much appreciated.

Hey @Stagler! Do you still have this campaign somewhere with all or some of the addons? I couldn't find the campaign on the armedassault.info FTP here.

What do you think of a petition to open-source OFP / Arma Cold War Assault code? I know it's been a hot topic throughout the years, but I'm happy to resurrect it here a little. I sometimes play the classic OFP myself and there's some really cool people still improving it, so that'd be a great help towards improving the classic title that started it all. Also - does anybody know if BIS ever made some kind of statement regarding this matter?

Does anybody still have this hosted somewhere or locally on your drive? OP's Dropbox link is dead. EDIT: apparently, Steam Workshop's link wasn't in the OP. Link for the mod: https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=610258115

Just wanted to chime in and thank you for this amazing commanding module. It should've been a part of the vanilla game. If sold as a DLC, I bet a lot of people would purchase it for a much smoother experience in SP.

Now that Arma Reforger (completely new engine) has been launched on 2022 May, we shall wait and see, perhaps the golden OFP will be open source one day. Perhaps a little while after Arma 4 release. ~2025, the hopeful me thinks.

@froggyluv I understand that you're disappointed about this outcome as you have great passion for both the game and its AI. That's great and I truly admire that. I also have the passion for the game and its AI, but I want to be a realist here and stop pretending extreme and somewhat blind complaints can positively change anything here, especially at the current timeframe. How did you arrive to the conclusion that I have a degree? I understand you're disappointed by Arma 3 devs, but you know - you don't have to be an asshole to others because of that, unleashing your frustrations here on the forums. It's not necessary and it won't help anyone - nor you, nor the recipients of your disappointment. People make mistakes. Mistakes and mismanagements were possibly made. Now, it's probably too late to fix those mistakes for A3, but it might not be too late for Arma Reforger. Let's hope that's true. We're all humans, this can happen to anybody. The only thing you can learn is to understand your mistakes, accept them, value talent and motivation, give people a well-deserved break if they happen to be momentarily burnt-out, and move on together, as a team. I hope BIS is successfully doing that. I wish them the best as they've managed to keep the Arma / OFP milsim formula alive for decades. Such determination requires BALLS OF STEEL!

I'm speaking from my own experience in Software Engineering and Engineering Management. I understand the history of Arma's AI development (I've been following it since A3's release). The situation that I see currently could've been something similar to this (this is just my assumptions): It was decided to make AI R&D / rewrite a high priority task - that's OK. People started executing. The [unimaginable / unmeasurable] scope of a R&D task - for complex projects, unless you've done something before, know the ins and outs and the pain it takes to reach the [almost] "finish line", it's extremely likely that you will miss a selected deadline and will have to put delays. This is like a prescription in the world of Software Engineering (no matter if it's game dev, web dev or any other dev). The rewrite became too complex, touching and breaking too many parts (possibly in both official and community-made content). The breaking & touching parts were definitely extensively documented by the Software Engineers working at BIS and put in the drawer for future generations. ("for future generations" - this is, of course, a joke, but you get the idea; you stop a part of a project, you document things before you forget the little details, you save it somewhere safe and just move on to something else; I've done this myself numerous times and I can't say I've been proud of it, but it's a very useful and humbling experience allowing you to improve) Enfusion Engine started taking shape in ~2018 with the Enfusion Renderer developed to a production-ready level. This was the perfect time to make a decision on resource management - invest in Enfusion's core and dev tools or keep going with A3. I don't know what exact decisions were made by BI, but we can't blindly judge them like this for abandoning the AI. I've never said anything like this, you have simplified my thoughts to sort of fit your own narrative. But if you look from a business and future perspective, I hope you understand that an AI rewrite / improvements starting in ~2013 (until ~2018) is a "little bit" different undertaking than an AI rewrite in 2022 or 2023 and then spanning for 1-2 years minimum. Arma 3 is much older now, sadly, and BIS has developed Enfusion engine to a point it makes sense to invest into the future, and future only. If BIS did stick to OFP back in ~2002 (after the Resistance expansion) for 10+ without new projects and R&D efforts (just releasing expansions for OFPR 1.96), do you think they'd be here today as a flourishing studio with a cult following? It's very possible that the answer is no. Could you please define "reliably create"? What's the reliability criteria here? Also, keep in mind that people willing to work on Game AI full-time don't appear out of nowhere, waiting in queue to knock on your door. In many cases, these people have to be grow professionally during many years of hard work and study. Also, games industry, sadly, doesn't attract as much talent as it used to due to extreme difference in pay and bonuses for the same or even less demanding and stressful kind of work.

Consider this - building further on a flawed foundation, especially in software engineering, is a waste of time. Rewriting Arma 3 AI behavior creates more complex and possibly unsolvable problems: How do you ensure mission and addon backwards compatibility? Do you simply just render everything that came before unsuable? Since you will definitely not want to remake and re-QA all the official campaigns + missions on different difficulty levels (that takes weeks of QA effort), what are you options? Make a separate branch on Steam with the AI rewrite, so people can hop it and test, play around? Ok, but then - how do you make this public later on (releasing on main branch)? It's not possible without great long-term effort from multiple departments / teams. Breaking hundreds of community missions - how will that resonate within the community? I don't think it'll be positive, no matter what justifications you provide. Reusing the AI framework (adapted to Arma 3) for the future - Enfusion. Is that possible, to some degree of success? If not, then it's a great waste of extreme engineering and QA effort and probably not worth it. Complete AI rewrite and AI customization framework creation (with documentation, of course) should've happened at the start of life of Arma 3. Now, introducing it will be too destructive and a waste of engineers' time. I also would love to see AI evolve beyond its current limitations in pathfinding, decision making and other areas. But... We have to be realistic. Arma franchise shines in many amazing areas and is definitely the ultimate sandbox for a curious mind.

Don't be too surprised - since Arma Reforger is already public, it is currently a top priority for AI engineers because a new AI framework has to be built, tested and released to the public to keep Arma Reforger fresh and constantly improving as a sandbox. Forom the software engineering perspective, it does not make much sense to invest time of Senior or Lead AI Engineers / Architects into a 10-year old game because Enfusion Engine's AI modules need a lot of attention. Enfusion's AI is now where all the action is - it's the right opportunity to make things right from the start. Unless Enfusion's and Real Virtuality's AI parts are highly reusable. Does anybody have insights on this - on code or engineering effort reusability between the 2 engines, specifically? I'm thinking - it is best for BIS to probably make a framework for AI control and configuration now. And include that into Enfusion Workbench (official dev tools) as a visual AI behavior editor. Similar in concept to Unreal Engine's Blueprint -> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bY6Nl-OEhSo

Not saying that the mirrors are from 2023. It's just simple timestamp for anyone reading and not looking at the post's date. @dalber24 How many PDF snapshots do you have? Could you share them maybe? It'd be really helpful.

African Foliage v1.23 (latest version released by Berghoff) download links / mirrors (2023 January): - moddb.com -> https://www.moddb.com/games/arma-2/addons/african-foliage - armedassault.info FTP -> http://ftp.armedassault.info/armad/addons (search for "brg_africa")

Hey @Jackal326! Perhaps you still have this SJB SAS Pack somewhere? All the mirrors seem to be down, no idea where to search for it.

A new SP/MP coop missions pack, named WW4 Warfare, is in the works. Storyline: it's a fictional a bit of campaign style story, telling about the liberation of various islands. The main goal with this is to provide player an unique experience by feeling tense war or operational atmosphere. Of course, multiplayer combat and fun factor aspects are also important. Requirements: WW4 mod 2.5 OFPR 1.96 or CWA 1.99 My plan is to release bits of this missions pack to provide an opportunity to understand what it will be really about until first full version of all missions will be completed! Episode 1 DL: http://www.multiupload.com/OQ1C5FG2D0 Episode 4 DL: http://www.multiupload.com/SG7S9RPOA3 Episode 6 DL: http://www.multiupload.com/5PPQ7088TG Brief description of Ep. 6: Abrams platoon went into an unexpected minefield in the mountains and enemy managed to capture one of high-rank NATO officers. Your group, as a Resistance-side contracters, has been suggested to take care of this operation. Get your gear ready - you are about to start! Feedback, testing on a dedicated server, suggestions and other helpful constructive statements are very welcome. More to come soon!

This may be a little late (10+ years), but... thanks for improving the mission back then! I was recently revisiting the classic stuff I've been playing 10+ years ago and came across this! @tom34 Do you happen to have the mission files somewhere? reconclan.com is down and the domain is for sale currently. I've tried to reach you on Steam, but that's not possible due to the account being private. If you happen to see this somehow, add me on Steam (friend code: 1.2.5.7.1.6.9.1.3 (w/out the dots) or https://steamcommunity.com/id/k.a.n.c.1 (last URL part w/out the dots).

You're doing God's work, Icebreakr! Thank you for all the awesome efforts! I've been enjoying all of your islands and making missions for COOPs since Arma 2. A3 still going strong in the islands department!