Arma 3 (All Campaign Episodes released!)

https://fbcdn-sphotos-g-a.akamaihd.n...05238169_n.jpg

The pre-order for Arma 3 is up today on Steam exclusively. And is currently the #1 Selling item on the list.

There are 3 stages:

Stage	Period	Alpha	Digital Deluxe	Supporter
Alpha	March-June	$33	$50	$91
Beta	June-Launch	$46	$65	$91
Full Game	TBA	$59	$65	N/A

Each stage has its own pricing structure. The cheapest being for early adopters (alpha stage). The pricing for each respective edition is $32, $52, and $91. The Alpha stage will presumably end when the alpha ends and the Beta stage will begin with higher pricing (+€10) for all editions except the Supporter edition. It looks like there will be new bonuses or extras at the Beta stage (most likely beta access and beta invites). The supporter edition is also removed after the beta stage and the pricing goes up €10 for the base full version once more.

So to recap, each edition gets their own set of extras. Lite invites do not include mod support or MP access.

Alpha: Full Alpha, Full Beta, Full Game, 3 Alpha lite invites, and most likely 3 Beta lite invites.
Digital Deluxe: Everything from Alpha edition, soundtrack, high-res maps, tactical guide, and Arma: Cold War Assault.
Supporter: Everything from Alpha and Digital Deluxe, Arma X Collection, all Arma 3 DLC, forum badge, and your name in the credits.

Check arma3.com/buy for full comparison details. I went with just the Alpha edition because I only want the game at the cheapest price.

I've been playing it a bit today. It's amazing. Check out these intro to Arma 3 vids by Arma legend, Dslyecxi:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G8vrbzNYEwM
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yLIPW0oIvm8
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ORtngmW93xg

...I have to pay for an Alpha version of the game?

It's kinda like Minecraft, where you could get the Alpha (and Beta) for a price, but it was lower than the final, release price.

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Originally Posted by ODX

...I have to pay for an Alpha version of the game?

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No, the alpha and beta are free. You're paying for the finished game. The tradeoff is that it's not finished yet. But you can play it as they finish more and more features and it enters beta. Then you can play it some more when it's in beta. Then you can play it some more when it's finished.

Free...once you buy the game.

Which isn't free. I was hoping to try it out, you see, without having to pay anything.

I suggest waiting for a demo then; much like how Arma 2 (one of those finished game things) has one.

Alpha is free if you get invited. Not sure when the invite Alpha begins but it's not yet. I have 3 invites to it I may not use so I may give them out to people who want them.

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Originally Posted by EagerYoungSpaceCadet

It's kinda like Minecraft, where you could get the Alpha (and Beta) for a price, but it was lower than the final, release price.

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DayZ is following Minecraft exactly. Arma 3, however, is a little different. Not everything completed 100% is going to be added into the Alpha and Beta since I imagine that there are things they want exclusively in the release verion., but there will be some content updates for the beta and alpha.

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Originally Posted by Zeph

No, the alpha and beta are free (when you pre-order). You're paying for the finished game. The tradeoff is that it's not finished yet. But you can play it as they finish more and more features and it enters beta. Then you can play it some more when it's in beta. Then you can play it some more when it's finished.

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Fixed for people getting confused by Zeph's lack of context. Exactly correct, otherwise.

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Originally Posted by PenGuin1362

Alpha is free if you get invited. Not sure when the invite Alpha begins but it's not yet. I have 3 invites to it I may not use so I may give them out to people who want them.

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I also have the three lite invites, so that means between just us there's 6 to go around.

I never played Arma, but this looks pretty impressive.

A bud of mine really wants to play this game. If anyone's got a spare code, would you mind PMing me so I could relay it to him?

He'd be very thankful.

The Lite keys haven't been made available yet.

Ah, when people were talking about invites, I had assumed that the keys had already been distributed

Lite keys are available March 14th. Also if you liked Arma 2 then you'll probably love this, it's much more refined with some really cool new mechanics. Some shenanigans screenshots as per Arma:

Anyone have any experience with modding this game? Are there any docs available telling you what to do or how to do it?

From what I understand it's very similar to Arma 2 (if not the same?) I haven't personally done it but I bet if you look for documentation for Arma 2 you can get it to work with Arma 3. It does require a lot of scripting, simple things like respawning are controlled by scripts.

The script system is exactly the same as Arma 2 and there is tons of documentation on that, so it's easy to mod with the correct knowledge. It's a bit time consuming to work out some complex script functions, though. I doubt that would be a problem for this crowd, though. Check community websites like the BI forums and Armaholic for that kind of stuff.

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Originally Posted by PenGuin1362

From what I understand it's very similar to Arma 2 (if not the same?) I haven't personally done it but I bet if you look for documentation for Arma 2 you can get it to work with Arma 3. It does require a lot of scripting, simple things like respawning are controlled by scripts.

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Yeah, it's essentially the same as ArmA 2 with the exception of some new config bits concerning things like characters, weapons, etc. However, most of these new features are being documented on the BI wiki, so all is good: http://community.bistudio.com/wiki/C...rma_3:_Editing (for examples).

It's all fun in Stratis-land:

https://dl.dropbox.com/u/8632965/arma32.png
https://dl.dropbox.com/u/8632965/arma31.png

Wasteland is insanely fun on Stratis.

I enjoyed it, that pistol though....so worthless. Hoping to find some time to really dive into the modding for this game soon, want to make some custom content for it.

Alpha Lite invites are in. Check your Steam inventories. Now who wants an Alpha Lite invite?

I have some extra ones as well if anyone's interested.

I'll take one for a friend. As interested as I am with this game, I don't think I'll get time to play it, but I know he will.

Arma 3's main map versus maps of other games:



Source

Jesus Christ.

This lappy doesn't meet min spec. :(

Dual GTX 670's and an i5-3570k still struggle. The problem only occurs in shitty MP maps, though. For the most part it's playable on any mid-range quad-core CPU made in the last 5 years and an HD5750/GTX550Ti and up for resolutions below 1080p. For 1080p and larger you'll want something with a bit more juice like an HD7850/GTX660.

Oh and I forgot to mention that Altis releases on the dev branch today. The download was 2.5GB :D I'm going to be spending days exploring all that map.

Arma 3 looks like real life:

http://www.armaholic.com/datas/users/fa18__v151_1_4.jpg

But so does BF3/BF4/Crysis 1.

BF does when it isnt crashing.

Their assets are fairly weak (BF). Lighting carries that engine through and through. Also, WHERE'D YOU GET AN F-18? Was there an update I missed or just mod?

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Originally Posted by PenGuin1362

Their assets are fairly weak (BF). Lighting carries that engine through and through. Also, WHERE'D YOU GET AN F-18? Was there an update I missed or just mod?

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Pretty sure the pic came from someone on reddit.

Slightly late but that size comparison is pretty meaningless. Vast but undetailed and fast travel times versus smaller but packed full of content and designed to be traversed on foot.

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Originally Posted by PlasbianX

Pretty sure the pic came from someone on reddit.

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:(

There's only one plane in A3 right now and it's a piece of garbage. Also it's fugly as hell.

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Originally Posted by Btcc22

Slightly late but that size comparison is pretty meaningless. Vast but undetailed and fast travel times versus smaller but packed full of content and designed to be traversed on foot.

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Have you played the Arma 3 maps? They are very well detailed and meant to be traveled by foot. Arma's main focus as a series is on infantry combat. Vehicles are just in there to widen the scenarios.

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Originally Posted by PlasbianX

Pretty sure the pic came from someone on reddit.

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Nope. It came directly from the mod creators.

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Originally Posted by PenGuin1362

Their assets are fairly weak (BF). Lighting carries that engine through and through. Also, WHERE'D YOU GET AN F-18? Was there an update I missed or just mod?

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This and this equals sex.

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Originally Posted by Amit

Have you played the Arma 3 maps? They are very well detailed and meant to be traveled by foot. Arma's main focus as a series is on infantry combat. Vehicles are just in there to widen the scenarios.

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Right but the detail that is there still doesn't even compare to the likes of GTA and WoW (since it's on other comparison images).

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Originally Posted by Amit

This and this equals sex.

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My god. Thank you. I really need to learn the asset pipeline for this game

Arma 3 is so cinematic sometimes.

I must get this

The beauty of it is that I wasn't even playing the campaign or anything. I was just testing out an update of the camo pattern I'm working on in the editor and decided to play with the lighting to see how it looks in daylight shadows. I'll probably turn off depth of field next time so most of the scene isn't blurry. If there was more light on the soldier, then it would have been more clear that the focus was to be on him rather than the environment, but the shadows prevent that.

Developers should start doing things to make smooth the transition between the ground and the bottom of the tree...that hard seam is jarring.

Some people just know how to take proper screenshots:

Shame about the JPG compression though.

Came from Steam.