3 Commando Brigade

E3

I didn't really pay much attention to WatchDogs (wasn't really interested in the game), but The Division I was really excited for when it first demoed at E3 in 2012. The graphics were just glorious.

But alas, it was too good to be true. When you compare the 2013 E3 vs the 2015 one, you can clearly see the visual downgrade. I lost about 90% of my interest in the game after that - not because of the graphics specifically, but because I almost felt tricked/baited by Ubisoft. How can I support a company that continues to bait gamers into getting games, only to switch things around last minute.


To keep things fair, Ubisoft isn't the only game company with bad practices like this. EA is well known for releasing unfinished games and then charging its customers £££ for DLC that provide the full game (although EA have started to change recently, giving away free games/DLC). Not to mention all the micro transaction bullsh*t. Then there's Konami and the way it treated Hideo Kojima (the lead director of Metal Gear Solid). Also Activision has a bit of a reputation for releasing near clones of previous games year-after-year because they know people will keep buying them (*cough* Call of Duty *cough*).

That's why sometimes I look at Bohemia, and even though they have their flaws, at least they aren't like some of these other companies. Let's hope BI never sign a contract with a publisher.

DayZ aside, I still don't think BI's practices are anywhere near as bad as other companies.

BI has an excellent ethos on DLC - content is paid, features are free. In other words, with each DLC that's released, you only need to pay if you want to use the content (i.e. weapons, vehicles, stuff that we never use anyway), but all the features that come with the DLC (i.e. sling loading, advanced flight model, fatigue system, firing from vehicles, weapon resting, etc) are all free. With the exception of Apex, we can all still play online with each other even if we don't all have the same DLC. This wouldn't be possible in most other games.

BI have continued to work on and improve the game since release - we've gotten the sound overhaul, big AI improvements (although you're right, they still suck with vehicles), visual upgrade, 3D Editor, Zeus, virtual arsenal, a range of modding tools, continuous bugfixes/updates, etc all for free. Any other company would've just released the game, maybe release a few bug fixes at the start, then sit back and let the cash roll in.

Also you mentioned AI and trees with the new map. I'm pretty sure I read somewhere that they specifically addressed this issue and want to make sure the AI work well with trees.

Not saying BI are angels (far from it - there's still a lot that needs doing), but they're not bad either.

Also, you are over-looking the fact that BIS have freely released a lot of their past work as Open Source to their community, with permission to modify it. While it is true that RHS put in a lot of hours of work into their packs, a considerable amount of that work and content was based on those modified arma 2 models.

I'll respond from the perspective of a s/w developer and someone with knowledge of a lot of game engines and games companies.

The A3 engine, whilst it has many issues, is a phenomenal achievement.  There is no other engine that comes close to being able to simulate the size of our environments, at the level of fidelity we experience.  It you look at the front runners, Frostbite, Unreal or CryEngine they all stumble at a fraction of the environment we play in.  Couple that with the fact that the BI team is very small, relative to other studios.  eg. Destiny, took over 1000 man years to develop, and at its peak had 460 people working on it.  Also the A3 engine is open, in that we have API's, DLLs and scripts available to us to mod the heck out of it.

It does however have it's issue, but the engine is moving forward, with frequent free updates.  That's all you can really ask.

I'm not entirely convinced by their business model, as I'd actually like to give them more money, but there is no way to do this.  If you work out the value per hour for Arma relative to other games, its unbelievably cheap.  Personally I'm at around 2p her hour with Arma, compared to 20-50p per hour for most of my other games.

He enjoys the public gameplay, but has reservations about the private workings of the group. I've been in similar situations in the past, so I can entirely understand that.

Nof was hardly given the largest dose of diplomacy when lining up for his personality, but he doesn't mean any harm I've chatted with him about this and other things for ages, and while he's never the most delicate in these kind of things I think we can ALL appreciate how forums can distort discussions and quite quickly lead to s**t between people. Need I point at many of the examples from the last few months?

/Locking thread

Reason: Unlikely this thread is going to lead anywhere constructive.