Arma 3 Catch All

Beta trailer:

Trailer looks fantastic. Played some Wasteland with The_Wanderer the other night. It'd be great to get a small group together to play that!

I need to figure out the controls on this enough to be able to group up with people soon.

MannishBoy wrote:

I need to figure out the controls on this enough to be able to group up with people soon.

I already knew what i wanted changed from ARMA2 but there should be a tutorial that i recommend going through and while going through that pausing and changing your bindings as needed.

Stylez wrote:

Trailer looks fantastic. Played some Wasteland with The_Wanderer the other night. It'd be great to get a small group together to play that!

I'd love to do this. It's fun when your group takes a camp and holds it down against the rest of the server...

I'd be down for some wasteland. I'm not the strongest PVP player, but I think I could contribute. Something like, "Hey Druid, why don't you grab an ATV and head to the other side of the island to grab some supplies. While you're over there keep an eye out for some snipe."

There's a (new) brouhaha over at the Bohemia forums. Apparently, Arma 3 is going to release without a SP campaign.

Simple solution - don't call it a 'final release' until it's in there, although I can see problems with that if you're trying for a retail release.

This was a game that fascinated me, and I really wanted it to do well. Unfortunately, there was zero chance it would run on my laptop so I didn't buy into the Alpha.

Boy am I grateful now! Guess I'll see if there's a functional game in there when I get back to using a desktop again. It might be selling for $20 by then or have a GotY edition!

For me, personally, it doesn't really matter. I've put in over 170 hours into the game on Stratis alone (all SP and making missions in the editor). With the enormous Altis map coming plus whatever other showcases, scenarios, and content they've got planned for release, I'll have enough toys to play with.

From a business perspective, though, It seems like a bad move to me, simply because I think Arma 3 will get reviewed poorly with no campaign and there will be nerd rage from those who buy the game at full price not realizing there's no campaign.

If I had bought at the reduced Alpha price, playing in the editor and doing custom scenarios might have sufficed. I wouldn't pay full release price for that, though.

That's just me, and I'm not a FPS multi-player person. I rarely find the time for it and never get my money's worth out of MP. Nothing against those that do.

Multiplayer is the way i play 95% of the time. The other 5% is just passing time waiting on folks to show up or test hardware.

The % would be reversed if I was trying to MP. Mostly waiting or logging off and trying another night. But, again, that's just me.

Their campaigns are crap anyway (for the most part). It's the user made stuff which shines.

I could care less.

El-Producto wrote:

I could care less.

So apparently it bothers you somewhat.

Elycion wrote:
El-Producto wrote:

I could care less.

So apparently it bothers you somewhat. :P

Heh, I restrained myself on that.

El-Producto wrote:

Their campaigns are crap anyway (for the most part). It's the user made stuff which shines.

Definitely, I've played multiple single player campaigns in Arma2 that were better than any of the stuff that BI put out.

It seemed to me like some people in the linked thread are more concerned that this is just one of many features BI has changed or backed out on. I didn't read the whole thread and I haven't been following the development too closely, but I can understand people's concern if it shows a pattern of behavior.

It seems kind of weird to me that they wouldn't just extend the beta since they're already selling the game. It doesn't seem worth the potential bad press at "release".

syndicatedragon wrote:

It seemed to me like some people in the linked thread are more concerned that this is just one of many features BI has changed or backed out on. I didn't read the whole thread and I haven't been following the development too closely, but I can understand people's concern if it shows a pattern of behavior.

I don't think there has been pattern of cutting stuff. I imagine some things that were first announced in 2011 may have been cut, but that seems par for the course in game development. The thread is full of nerd rage and the usual hyperbole/misinformation that accompanies that kind of behaviour (people are already talking about refunds even though they've likely played hundreds of hours of a game they paid $32 for). There's supposed to be an official announcement this week about the potentially missing campaign, so I guess we'll find out more then.

I've got a lot of faith in BIS. They're relatively small and they still listen to the community. They've tried to put a lot of polish into this game and it shows. But the game is crazy ambitious -- just like all of the Arma games -- and there are still weird engine and AI bugs that have been in the series for the last 12 years. At the same time, the devs keep patching their games well after release -- they don't just abandon them -- and with Steam Workshop integration, grabbing community content will be easier than ever.

TL;DR: Arma 3 will have legs and people will be playing it for a long time because of dev and community support.

Here's the official blog post.

Basically, they changed direction, had to scrap two years of work, the Greek incident happened, and the campaign isn't ready. It will be released in three episodes ("Survive", "Adapt", and "Win") after release.

Given the fantastic work they've done with the engine, BIS will get a lot of slack from me.

Here's the latest no-so-live stream they did. It's just over an hour long and shows you some of the release content (tanks, jet, UAVs/UGVs, showcases, firing drills) as well as a closer look at some of Altis, the huge new island map.

Finally been playing around with this. Primarily just learning to fly helicopters. Need to find some good basic helicopter missions to learn with besides the showcase.

MannishBoy wrote:

Finally been playing around with this. Primarily just learning to fly helicopters. Need to find some good basic helicopter missions to learn with besides the showcase.

I would just open up the editor, plop yourself down as a heli and fly around. If you want some targets, throw down some unarmed vehicles to shoot at. I also found that changing the default K/M controls helped a lot. I'll have to look up what I changed.

ebarstad wrote:
MannishBoy wrote:

Finally been playing around with this. Primarily just learning to fly helicopters. Need to find some good basic helicopter missions to learn with besides the showcase.

I would just open up the editor, plop yourself down as a heli and fly around.

Already did that. Have a helicopter setup saved with several different helicopters at the airport, with a quad by my spawn point so I can get to any of them in the line quickly.

If you want some targets, throw down some unarmed vehicles to shoot at. I also found that changing the default K/M controls helped a lot. I'll have to look up what I changed.

I was thinking about setting some routes for them to drive in a loop or something to create some moving targets as well.

But I still think I'll see what I can find to download.

MannishBoy wrote:
ebarstad wrote:
MannishBoy wrote:

Finally been playing around with this. Primarily just learning to fly helicopters. Need to find some good basic helicopter missions to learn with besides the showcase.

I would just open up the editor, plop yourself down as a heli and fly around.

Already did that. Have a helicopter setup saved with several different helicopters at the airport, with a quad by my spawn point so I can get to any of them in the line quickly.

If you want some targets, throw down some unarmed vehicles to shoot at. I also found that changing the default K/M controls helped a lot. I'll have to look up what I changed.

I was thinking about setting some routes for them to drive in a loop or something to create some moving targets as well.

But I still think I'll see what I can find to download.

Here are a couple I played during Alpha:

Ground Attack

Close Air Support - Day 1

The second one is quite good. There's a video for it:

The last Stable Beta patch before release on Sep 12 dropped today. SPOTREP.

ebarstad wrote:

The last Stable Beta patch before release on Sep 12 dropped today. SPOTREP.

woot!

■Sound suppressors are now more effective on greater range (shot is not possible to hear beyond 200 meters)
(this has been annoying to me)

They talk about zeroing for the SDAR. Does that mean it's also fixed for the other guns? I've not been able to get it to work.

Super stoked about the Steam Workshop integration, I hope the big modmakers embrace it.

El-Producto wrote:

Super stoked about the Steam Workshop integration, I hope the big modmakers embrace it.

I'm not sure if mod support is coming to the A3 Workshop. I know BIS has worked with Valve to change their Workshop licence agreement and that they would like to get A3 mod support into Steam, but the mod-makers may not go for it. It would be pretty convenient, though.

I've found Play with Six to be a decent mod manager and launcher in the meantime.

Altis is out on the dev branch today. 2.1GB download.