''We give a lot of power to the players, and in that sense, invest some trust in them'': BIS on ArmA III, Mods, Maps and More

[News Portal]

Here at games.on.net, we're big fans of ArmA - so when we found Senior Developers Ivan Buchta and Jay Crowe wandering lost in our corridors, we immediately called them in for a chat. Read on for their thoughts on map size, mods, and what they think of DayZ, as well as revised minimum specs for [app=8252]ArmA III[/app].

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Read full article by Tim Colwill

[shlaimon]

Glad there was a DayZ question in there, im looking forward to arma3, never touched arma2 in my life except for the dayz mod.

[Nekosan]

In terms of the video options, too, we give a lot of power to the players, and - in that sense - invest some trust in them, also.

If they want to play with everything on very high – completely max it out – well, that's up to them. It’s a PC game. Naturally, it is up to us to optimise as much as we can; it’s not an excuse to do a half-assed job. Ultimately, though, it’s about giving players the choices. Our video settings provide the option to throttle things back to find a balance for how you want to play on your hardware.

I don't understand the point of this quote, are there now twice as many graphics settings that we can juggle? Because so far every game in the series has a pretty bold cut off point where playing with settings under that point makes the game look like it was made in msPaint, I've long thought that I would rather have less options and just have them all look reasonable and scale up with the level of settings (like most games).

A choice between playing a game that runs well and looks like **** and playing a game that looks awesome and runs like **** isn't really much of a choice at all, players who can't get decent looking graphics with a decent frame rate will just not play.

Also -1 for cutting the first bit off the quote and making it sound like it was to do with the whole game rofl, that was the only reason i opened the article.

[Rye64]

Im just glad i enjoyed playing Arma II before everybody jumped on the whole DayZ bandwagon.

[The_Vulcan]

Arma bought on release, so buggy couldn't complete campaign.
Arma2 bought on release, so buggy couldn't complete campaign.

By the time they patch it; I am long over bothering to play the campaign.

It's about time they work on those clunky animations.

I only hope climbing a ladder is fixed too.
I mean clicking on a menu to try and use a ladder... WTF ?
I would say that so 1980's but then I can't think of any other game where you have had to use a menu to climb a ladder.



Having said all that....

I have clocked more hours in ARMA's multilayer than any other game.
All thanks to the MODS that are out there.

I expect the single player campaign in ARMA3 on release will be buggy as hell and not worth playing.
So I might as well wait till its patched and in the bargain bin.

However, I'll still pay full retail for it on release just to support the developer.
Then sit back and wait for the modders to do their magic with it!

[DarkMellie]

The BI guys are all just so friendly and passionate. I've interviewed Jay a few times now, given his workload it's surprising how accessible he is.

Looking forward to underwater gameplay, I hope there's lots of rivers and lots of opportunities to use it online.

So looking forward to getting to know an entirely new game area.

ArmA 3 may very well be the last game i ever need to play.

[Tajin]

ArmA 3 may very well be the last game i ever need to play.

Yup... until ArmA4 comes out.

[phewcha]

Im just glad i enjoyed playing Arma II before everybody jumped on the whole DayZ bandwagon.

Wow. That's such a strange post. DayZ is a bandwagon? I just thought it was good.

I did try Arma 2 and just didnt enjoy the feel of the engine, felt way to clunky. I am praying Arma 3 fixes that overall clunkyness, cos DayZ on a brand spanker could kill everything else in life.

[Nekosan]

Arma bought on release, so buggy couldn't complete campaign.
Arma2 bought on release, so buggy couldn't complete campaign.

By the time they patch it; I am long over bothering to play the campaign.

It's about time they work on those clunky animations.

I only hope climbing a ladder is fixed too.
I mean clicking on a menu to try and use a ladder... WTF ?
I would say that so 1980's but then I can't think of any other game where you have had to use a menu to climb a ladder.

That's always been the problem with the series, it's just not polished in any way EVER. The same stupid bugs have persisted since the days of OFP and just never get fixed unless the community does it. There's easily the potential there to break into the mainstream and have a REALLY successful game... but things need to be smoothed out.

I'm not saying anything needs to be dumbed down at all, don't misunderstand, but silly little bugs need to be fixed before it's 3 years post-release and the clunky transitions between actions/animations just need to go, every game so far has felt like you're playing with a marionette rather than a person.

TBH i don't really care so much about new features or graphics, I just want a polished release that works and doesn't drive the community away.

[rapid101]

The animations have to be slow and realistic, not slick like a regular shooter. Although it would be nice if people actually TURNED the wheel in the cars. The menu is also the best way to handle all the context sensitive things present seeing as the spacebar is already taken with high command. It needs to feel like you're occupied during this time and can't just frantically get something out as this is NOT an arcade series.


After all, it is a modified VBS2 engine they're using and VBS2 is where the big bucks are (where the graphics are a lot worse to get smooth gameplay).

Graphics? Well seeing as the graphics are already made to 'max' settings then scaled down from there anyway it's not like you can ask them to make it worse mate, it'd be harder to make them worse. There also has to be a standard presented for fairness in regards to grass and tree count and quality too, not like modern warfare where grass just disappears at range and makes ghillie suits pointless (although here there is a 'hidden' layer where the heightmap is slightly above what you're on).

At any rate, the series is still fantastic and I much prefer the regular game than to DayZ the glorified deathmatch when I can be riding in a harrier ready to do a strafing run on some [insert generic terrorists].

[Nekosan]

The animations have to be slow and realistic, not slick like a regular shooter. Although it would be nice if people actually TURNED the wheel in the cars. The menu is also the best way to handle all the context sensitive things present seeing as the spacebar is already taken with high command. It needs to feel like you're occupied during this time and can't just frantically get something out as this is NOT an arcade series.

The problem is that you can do things faster in real life most of the time than you can in the game. The actions don't need to be sped up, they just need to flow together better rather than feeling so spastic all the time. The series also holds the distinction of having probably the worst inventory system of any game ever made and it has just never been fixed, it's always been rubbish and they've shown no inclination to even smooth the bugs out let alone implement a system that isn't ****.

[Joshsux]

Im just glad i enjoyed playing Arma II before everybody jumped on the whole DayZ bandwagon.

Agreed, And it's annoying seeing that guy above saying "Glad to see a dayz question"...... Wtf? why? DayZ is some little mod that got popular, It has nothing to do with Arma 3 at all... I am all for supporting mods, but I wish they had used that bit of time to talk about ARMA, and not that annoying Mod.

Yes, DAYZ is a bandwagon of sorts, Arma never really got much attention, You talk to people about it and they either say meh or yer it's ok, Now everyone knows about arma, But only for the dayz ****. talk to them about the campaign and a lot of them have no idea what your on about.

Either way, Awesome, thanks! can't wait for 3.

The problem is that you can do things faster in real life most of the time than you can in the game.

He's most likely talking about the fact if you shoot someone changing positions they die in a delay... If someone is going from crouching to standing, And you shoot them 10 times coming up they will stand there for 5 seconds then fall... Or if you just kill someone they sometimes freeze standing for ages before falling. there are a lot of slow stuff in Arma that will do good by having ragdoll etc.