ARMA 3

That's awesome.

Is anyone going to be playing tomorrow (Saturday) night? Haven't had time lately to get in a game.
 
I've always liked Dom a lot, so I'd be up for that. Also, I totally thought today was Friday for like half the day. Pleasant surprise, I have shorter work hours on Saturdays.
 
Okay, Domi was pretty awesome, even though we struggled a lot in the beginning before remembering we had to destroy the radio tower to cut off their reinforcements. We spent almost 3 hours and finally took our first and last target area. Would have gone on, with the bonus vehicle we earned from completing that objective, but people had to go.

It's a pretty fun mission despite all the missing assets from the alpha like armor and parachutes. A lot of mission functions do work though, like the mobile respawn with atv spawning and ammobox loading, vehicle lifting (with a camera even!) enemy artillery, outposts to capture, and a useful interface when you're dead and waiting to be revived or respawn. We even made use of Krynn's role as the engineer to fix an enemy vehicle and do some serious damage with it.

It was really great and it's only going to get better as more content arrives and the mission is updated. We had Viper, Raziaar, Krynn, and Badhat this session, and hope to have more next time.


Map view and rotating camera while dead

2926YT8.jpg


Viper 'nading a vehicle while one of us is near it, trying to drag another away for reviving

WlIDtqo.jpg


It's okay, they lived

SwOtvJX.jpg
 
Congratulations, you get the distinction of being my oh my god how did this even happen what is my life

GNeDbZ1.png
 
Had another good session with 6 people on Domination. Aside from a few bugs it's a really great mission, with gameplay that feels pretty balanced.
 
I'm almost literally glued to Dyslexci's channel. Some of their missions beat going to the cinema.
 
How does one literally glue themselves to a Youtube channel? Thumbs WAY DOWN for you, sir.
 
I said 'almost literally', I've just stopped short getting actual adhesive involved. If that changes though, you'll be the first to know.
 
Can someone give me a rundown of ARMA III compared to ARMA II?

Is the difference huge? Or is it just more polish?

Are the UI and controls more streamlined? How graphically demanding is this compared to the last game? Is there a better single player portion or is it still multiplayer dominant? Lastly, how is the scuba simulation?
 
Can someone give me a rundown of ARMA III compared to ARMA II?

Is the difference huge? Or is it just more polish?
The polish makes a huge difference.

Are the UI and controls more streamlined?
The UI is more streamlined, the controls are much better, though still have a ton of them.

How graphically demanding is this compared to the last game?
Pretty much seems like if you can play ARMAII on medium/high settings, you can play Arma III on medium/high settings. It is almost shocking how well optimized the game is.
Is there a better single player portion or is it still multiplayer dominant?
We haven't seen any significant SP in the alpha. There's a few "showcases" which are just one-off missions designed to, well, showcase certain aspects of the game. They're very well done though, and quite difficult.
Lastly, how is the scuba simulation?
Seemed pretty good to me. Not a super huge fan of it, but not because of any design issue. I know Vegeta and some of the others really like it.
 
For an alpha the game is pretty polished so far. As far as the controls go, they're miles better. Urban and close quarters combat is actually good now.

The new stance modifiers take some time to learn and get used to using, but they're indispensably useful. No more haggling with that awkward problem in the grass where prone is too low to see over the grass, and crouched is too high. You can also lean out from a rock while prone instead of doing a full roll. The stances also benefit urban combat greatly.

Underwater combat is a very different affair, and you'll either like it or not. As far as the implementation, the controls are still a bit clunky, though this may improve.

The SP offers about the same as Arma 2's, comparing to the MP component. The campaign in the full game is supposed to break new ground though, so it would be best to reserve SP judgement until the game's out.
 
The beta is available for testing if you switch to the dev branch in the alpha.

Indfor units, transport trucks, the personal submarine thing, and several new awesome helicopters. Especially attack choppers.


ai1xr2l.jpg



**** me.

Also I can't get a good picture that illustrates how awesome this will be, but the submarine is going to be so ****ing cool for underwater night missions. It has this light you can turn on, and it makes everything atmospheric as ****. I'd love to have that thing roaming the dark seafloor, flanked by some divers. Also, from the other side of it, hearing and seeing the dark silhouettes of these things when they don't have their lights on is really creepy.
 
That is a ****ing beast of an attack chopper, damn. Assuming it's opfor? Looks a bit like a bulkier KA-50.
 
Yeah and it's not even just an attack chopper, it's got like 8 or more seats in the back. I think that's the first official chopper in the arma series to have a pilot+gunner+cargo.

Err wait, did the MI-24 have a gunner spot?

Edit: Yeah I forgot it did. Barely flew it in Arma 2.
 
I still have 3 alpha invite thingy's anyone can hmu if they want one.
 
I'm not sure if those work anymore, since the alpha is done. Is there even a lite version of the beta?
 
I've read somewhere that Alpha Lite expires once beta launches (and I assume it doesn't get replaced with Beta Lite).
 
So, this game is gorgeous at night, with the lighting effects.

Just played several rounds of Wookiee School with the gang in very dark nights, and it was awesomely fun. The ATV headlights look great and you can see them at a distance. We even made tactical use of them by parking an ATV pointed towards the target building, to illuminate it.

The highlight of the night was when I was inside the target building and got bombarded by so many frags that the building eventually partially and then soon afterwards fully collapsed while I was inside.
 
Sitting in a chopper while it's about to take off, the dust outside is the rotor-wash from the chopper, and a vehicle's headlights can be seen through it.


419B077659E9FBD8F9CB17A7E0A3E2A33E299703
 
Screen dump incoming! We just played a domination match on some public server, which is basically a cooperative free-for-all with dynamic objectives. The server was pretty great, people were reasonably well coordinated, a couple players spent the whole match just shuttling people back and forth in helis (every screen where I'm in a heli was piloted by one of two people over the span of a few hours).

torgBVs.jpg


A destroyed building glitched out so that anyone who entered it would bounce up and down repeatedly until they died.

3w9tRPk.jpg


okSJ4tr.jpg


fEFtbnW.jpg


blP4dLr.jpg


9EK6lBK.jpg


Some jerk crashed a little bird into the centre of town with everyone crowded around for pick-up.

xoAbQ26.jpg


u7FkP27.jpg


Look on the left of the image in the ocean. That light is from someone in a submersible.

E2N9eDT.jpg


iVHKMrG.jpg


0GiR08B.jpg


bxt9TfI.jpg
 
Is anybody using SSAO under graphics settings? I can't tell the difference between the two but my frame rate literally doubles with it off. I know what the effect is supposed to be, but wondered what other peoples experience was.
 
SSAO (Screen-Space Ambient Occlusion) is a method of simulating the shadows created when two objects are close to each other (the "ambient occlusion" part). It simulates the shadows you see in the corner of a room, for example. It's VERY computationally expensive, and the visual benefit isn't very eye-catching or important, though it does look nice in full scenes. It doesn't provide any tactical advantages the way realtime shadows might. You should keep it off unless you have a damn good PC, or if you don't mind the lower framerate.

Example:

IeQvr0C.jpg
 
Last night we did a small mission where we have to move through a town at night, and the fog is very dense. You can't see past like 15 meters, and it's really gorgeous and atmospheric with the new beta lighting and volumetric fog. You usually see the enemies' flashlights before you can see them, and other sources of light are actually useful for cutting through the fog a bit. That said, they should tweak the gun flashlights a bit so they're stronger, since even without fog they don't shine very far.
 
The effect of fog dissipating the higher you got was cooler than I thought it'd be too. Also rolling away completely when we destroyed the fog machine (yes, this was a thing in the mission).
 
I can't even figure out how to join a match the menus are so confusing.
anyone know any basic tutorials on how to join a game?
 
Back
Top