Is Arma3 still the "Flagship"

[ruhtraeel]

I will be very dissapointed if ArmA 3 goes the direction of DayZ. DayZ is still an extension of ArmA's engine, and in my opinion, the engine with it's base features such as the 3D editor, should be of first priority. It would only make sense if you perfected the engine before you thought about a mod for it, so to avoid what happened to DayZ itself, where the mod was quite decent, but was marred by programming issues.

Hell, DayZ may have been created using the editor first. I strongly believe that the engine and it's features, and also the original game should be worked on first before DayZ, because when programming for the original game and the engine, both ArmA 3 and DayZ benefit. However, cutting time out of ArmA 3 and the engine features itself doesn't benefit ArmA 3; only DayZ.

[_michal]

With DayZ and Arma3 on the front burner it looks like Take On: Helicopters is already 'done'. We are waiting for a patch since May... Some fixes to Hinds DLC would be very welcome too...

[maturin]

*sigh*

Cue the preliminary panic and wide-eyed, insistent faces mouthing 'say it ain't so, BIS!'

Answer:
YES.

[Iroquois Pliskin]

As long as ArmA III delivers the same consistency as ArmA 2 did in terms of island and unit quality, then I don't see a problem. Of course, extended simulation could face the axe: realistic armour, projectile ballistics, jet physics and some other things.

Keep ragdoll physics in mind - this will be the biggest change to the series since time immemorial and if done right should overshadow (almost) any cons the game might have, as viewed through the prism of the sim community.

[Chortles]

Keep ragdoll physics in mind - this will be the biggest change to the series since time immemorial and if done right should overshadow (almost) any cons the game might have, as viewed through the prism of the sim community.

I'm still reminded of what RiE/Jay Crowe told PC Gamer about ragdoll physics in ARMA 3: "Welcome to the late Nineties!"

[Iroquois Pliskin]

I'm still reminded of what RiE/Jay Crowe told PC Gamer about ragdoll physics in ARMA 3: "Welcome to the late Nineties!"

Heh, but the lack of proper physics simulation had been somewhat "warranted" in OFP/ArmA's case due to the complexity of the systems involved. In any other game such clunky animation/kinematics would spell disaster, so they had to adopt it early on for the lack of features in other areas!

[Chortles]

In any other game such clunky animation/kinematics would spell disaster, so they had to adopt it early on for the lack of features in other areas!

I'm not surprised, especially when a common refrain from those for whom DayZ was their first-ever encounter with ARMA was "love the concept, but there's so much to dislike about the implementation." Obviously BI wasn't going to turn ARMA 3 into a zombie game, and what those first-timers fell in love with was the concept of "brutally hardcore gameplay" (if not quite in the vein of Dark Souls) done differently from merely turning down player characters' Health, but I'm of the belief that BI was still listening on that feedback of "so much to dislike about the implementation" and incorporated this feedback into ARMA 3 development and priorities.

[Iroquois Pliskin]

Shame on me, I had almost forgotten to mention underwater/sea warfare in addition to physics.

The OFP concept is bullet-proof - land, air and sea in a sandbox and it has found its users, to expand, though they do have to fine-tune it with eye candy and aesthetics to suit the... player of unrefined tastes, but at the same time not to degenerate any of its key features of simulation.

The next step from this concept would be quite a leap - procedural terrain, game world/space generation with the use of real-life textures, Newtonian physics among other things. There are several such engines already in development, though the majority of them would be most suited for space simulator games.

[Sniper Pilot]

Very Sad imho- But I guess Everyone has their price, and everyone sells out eventually.

[Chortles]

Very Sad imho- But I guess Everyone has their price, and everyone sells out eventually.

... so DayZ is COD4?