Ota Vrtatko has sent us this statement from from Bohemia Interactive
Prague, 17th September 2012 Since last Sunday, when two Bohemia Interactive, a.s. employees, were arrested on the Greek island of Lemnos, much speculation about what happened has circulated online. It’s been rumoured that they entered restricted military areas or gathered photographic references of military bases in order to improve the visual fidelity of Arma 3, a PC game currently under development by our company. Far in advance of any formal charges - only hours after they were detained by the local police - many media outlets immediately suggested spying and, only one day later, specifically referenced Arma 3.
Having travelled there, and after meeting personally with them both, as well as their lawyer who is fully acquainted with the Greek authority’s investigation file in detail, we can assure you that these insinuations are completely false and without substance. These employees - our friends, Ivan Buchta and Martin Pezlar - visited the island as tourists. Their holiday was a product of their interest in the island, triggered by their work on Arma 3 over the past two years of development.
They took photographs and videos in public areas, as countless tourists arriving to enjoy the beauty and hospitality of Greece may well do. These included a short video as they drove through the main road passing around the international airport, where in one short part of the video off in the distance some hangars and other buildings of the complex can be seen. It's very likely that many tourists may have pictures similar to those taken by Ivan and Martin in their own family albums, without being aware that they put themselves or their families at risk.
We sincerely hope that the whole situation is no more than an unfortunate and deep misunderstanding. The in-game Limnos is close to completion, and it’s far from an identical replication of the real place. It was heavily modified to fit the game’s backstory, a purely fictional 2035 setting. It was rescaled to only 75% of the real island, and it does not attempt to display any real world military installations situated on the island of Lemnos.
To summarize the situation: They visited Lemnos on their holiday as tourists. They did not enter any military area. They did not take any pictures of any military objects to be used in Arma 3.
Martin and Ivan, currently being detained in Mytilene, relayed this message to their friends and family:
"The conditions are tough, but the people we meet treat us fairly and correctly. It is all a completely absurd misunderstanding that will certainly be quickly explained. We mainly think of you, our families; you have to stay calm and not to worry about us. We hope we will meet soon."
We apologize for any possible delay or lack of communication regarding this important matter. At present, all and every possible effort goes towards supporting Ivan and Martin, their families, and to getting the guys safely back home. Any form of support for our imprisoned colleagues and friends will be more than welcome.
Bohemia Interactive has released a update for Take On Helicopters called "Downtown". This update allows you to get ArmA II content to TKOH and it fixes a lot of issues. As with any patch, we’ve tried to target the most significant issues found by the community of pilots and ourselves. Also we were able to find a convenient way for people owning titles such as Arma 2, Arma 2: Operation Arrowhead, Arma 2: Combined Operations to get that content into TKOH, without needing to re-download, re-locate or re-purchase it.
With this update a free DLC called Take On Helicopters: Rearmed was released.
About the Rearmed initiative, Joris-Jan van ‘t Land says: “When we initially developed Take On Helicopters, its focus was on civilian flight. We still believe in this non-combat gameplay, but of course our studio’s origins lie in military gaming. By using some clever ways of merging installed products, without the player having to tweak manual settings, it is now possible to combine the two worlds. Take On Helicopters gets an incredible amount of new content, while many of the improvements are applied to it. I love flying a helicopter over Chernarus, bathed in improved lighting and covered by the beautiful clouds. Takistan is a more detailed part of South Asia and the ideal playground for combined arms desert operations.â€
Patch highlights:
-Take On Helicopters: Rearmed -Disappearing cockpit bug fixed -Stability and performance tweaks merged from Arma 2: Operation Arrowhead
blakeace has informed us about updated Blake's PRADAR (Player Radar) v1.2.02 release on the BI Forums.
... One of the things I found frustrating at times was my situational awareness, involving both my group members as well as my ability to interact with other groups effectively. The more visual clues that are available help reduce the critical communications channels to more important transmissions. Rather than the usual who's that or where are you etc. This was even more valuable to me when leading a group.
Knowing quickly where players are helps you to quickly issue orders more effectively. Espessially in time critical moments. Using mods that highlighted names helped, but generally required you to focus your cursor over them. That is if you have one visible. I like a minimal information display ideally, the more data presented constantly makes me feel more like a terminator visual interface than a basic grunt on the ground. Bright red names like neon signs really didn't help the immersion for me personally. ...
Version 1.2.02 - Changed: Compiled the main loop to help reduce the pausing. - Changed: Minor timing tweeks - Changed: Unit gathering command back to nearestobjects as I don't think that was making an impact. - Changed: Made the list width larger. - Added: Menu to turn all the PRADAR extras off. - Removed: Action to allow dots to stay on constantly. - Fixed: Where Icon labels displayed when player isn't the group leader. - Changed: Now lists will dim as per the dot brightness settings.
Ota Vrtatko from Bohemia Interactive has sent us this official statement from Marek Spanel, BI CEO .
11/09/2012
Hello,
We can confirm that two Bohemia Interactive employees, our colleagues and friends, were arrested during their holiday trip to Lemnos. They visited the island with the sole purpose of experiencing the island's beautiful surroundings.
Since its establishment in 1999, Bohemia Interactive has created games based only upon publicly available information. We always respect the law and we've never instructed anybody to violate the laws of any country. The same is true for Arma 3.
Currently, all our effort goes towards supporting the guys over there, as well as their friends and families affected by this difficult situation. We sincerely hope that this is an unfortunate misunderstanding of their passion as artists and creators of virtual worlds.
GreenBeret40 has released an updated Esbekistan Map v.1.1 on the BI Forums. This release contains only the esbekistan.pbo and its sign. Original Esbekistan Map v.1.0 is needed.
v1.1 FIXED : - Excesive tussock clutter - Some floating objects ADDED: - Ambient civilians module - Fuel depot's around the map - One big FOB and two more villages -added road too - Rocks trees stones - Things to discover...
Note : This release contains only the esbekistan.pbo and its sign. Original Esbekistan Map v.1.0 is needed. Replace previous released esbekistan.pbo and esbekistan.pbo.esbekistan.bisign by the new ones.
Armed Assault.info starts today a contest that requires your creativity. We want to change the banner of our website, and for this job we want you!
All you have to do is to create a banner of ArmAII and ArmAIII in the style of the separate game sections of our site (ca. 968x125 pixel). Please feel free!
The contest ends depending on participants in 2 weeks. We are looking forward to see your creative ideas and we hope you can give our website a nice, new, your style! (the community decides which banners should be in the final, the winner will be chosen by the AA.info-team)
Snake Man has informed us about updated PMC Rattler v1.9 island release on our Forums
PMC has released "PMC Rattler v1.9" for ArmA 2!
This is OFP port from the legendary PMC made 25km pure desert terrain. Terrain features include airbase, airstrip, several oilfields, army bases, harbors and war torn ruined cities.
New features are harbor objects aligned properly, roads added to bases and oil fields.
Blakeace has released an updated Blake's PINS (Pseudo Inertial Navigation System) and Bombing v1.03 addon on the BI Forums.
Version 1.03 - Minor changes to the rover terminal and have included the pbo by default. - Changed: Rover terminal FEED view now selected by toggling the zoomin key NUM+ by default. - Removed sound when viewing rover feed. - Added code to hopefully prevent the locked thermal view issue.
The Task Force 141-team has released some new information about their mod German Armed Forces:
GalComT posted a new update of the German Armed Forces on the Armaholic forums about the Biber AVLB. The bridge is fully functional so now they moved on to adding all details and texturing this beauty. Additionally GalComT revealed both the M109A3GA1 and the Fh70 155mm field howitzer are in the making!
GreenBeret40 has released his Esbekistan Map v.1.0 on the BI Forums. Esbekistan : real Sat image from border Pakistan -Afghanistan map 20x20 Kms.
Two airports with their respective bases both north and south The central base "Regimiento44" has training camp. Airfield zone for target practice exercises Four cities in the northwest of the map as in Southeast and the South Two main valleys located in the center of the map Two large lakes located in the northern part of the map Road network around the map 3 little FOBs in the north of map and central located Several villages around all the map. Things to discover...
Snake Man has informed us about PMC AGS Industrial v1.5 release on our Forums. PMC has released "PMC AGS Industrial v1.5" for ArmA 2!
This is AGS Industrial Pack addon from OFP, now ported to work in ArmA 2. These models can be used from mission editor, or placed in WRP terrains directly.
New feature is oilwell object new modeling parts (not just alpha channel anymore).
Dslyecxi has released a ShackTac BunnyHop by Macolik on Dslyecxi.com.
ShackTac BunnyHop, created by Macolik, allows you to do a running jump over obstacles. While jogging, simply press the key combination you already use for “Step Over†and you’ll activate the jump. This can be used to jump over fences, fallen trees, and various other impediments to movement.
If you want to see what it looks like and listen to me say the above text, check out this video!
Description: This is a project that took me more than a year to finish it. It is a huge strong project, more of this time was spent in testing and improving all the scripts.
Silent Rescue is may be the most complex mission you have ever seen. This mission have been built for 6 players. Players have roles to do: . Medic: Capable to heal colleagues and deploy a respawn tent. Can not carry sniper rifles. . Satellite operator: Capable to mark targets using the satellite camera. All other players will receive the information automatically. . Strategic bombing operator: Capable to send six targets to be destroyed by the harrier. . Ammo Soldier: Capable to create ammo for everyone. Can not carry sniper rifles. . Engineer (x2): Capable to attach stealth charges to the targets.
In Silent Rescue you will need to rescue a hostage on one hand, on the other hand, you will need to find a satellite phone inside a building and hack it to stop the enemy reinforcements. Once you are detected the enemy can use reinforcements (Soldiers and helicopters with soldiers)
The AI in Silent rescue has been slightly tweaked. It is capable to: look randomly to any direction, move inside building, detect corpses, move with random paths, look through windows, and patrol at random areas… In addition most of the AI units in this mission have three random positions to spawn. Finally, once the enemy detects you all the AI will change its behaviour and they will move to safer positions.
phaeden has released his MCAGCC 29 Palms (Public Beta) terrain on the BI Forums.
I am happy to finally announce a BETA version of my MCAGCC 29 Palms terrain. ... This terrain is based on the Marine Corps Air Ground Combat Center base in California. I have been working on this terrain/buildings since 2007 ... Please, please, please, keep in mind that this is a BETA – I know it is not complete. There are still known issues with the terrain and the buildings (such as bushes on roads, an occasional telephone pole sticking through a building, the damage values and rates of building destruction (they currently just disappear from existence when destroyed) and the AI not taxiing properly at the main airfield.) Additionally, most of the buildings are not as complete as I would prefer. Some of the buildings are still very basic.
Please note that this is not a 1-to-1 direct translation of real world to game. There are differences. The overall “feel†is representative of the real base but I’ve taken creative license and added and removed some things to either improve gameplay or keep me from going insane. For example, I have created a lot of custom buildings but I have not created (or even attempted to create) every type of building found on the base or in the nearby civilian areas. You will also quickly note that the buildings are not the most detailed or prettiest buildings around. This was done intentionally to keep the poly count low so you can increase the number of buildings and the draw distance without a drop in frame rates. ... The island is generally comprised of several areas:
* towns and residential areas - about half of the developed areas are based on real locations and aligned with satellite imagery - the other half is fictional but also based on real town layouts - there is also a large “desert†residential area in the southwest area of the map based on real data * military training areas - includes realistic buildings and layouts (MOUT) - firing ranges * airfields (ranging from very large and well developed to simple, single strips) * mountains and hills * flat areas
Again, my overall goal is to provide players with a lot of space that can be used for combined arms combat. I am hopeful that with all the amazing mission makers and dedicated teams, people will be able to have some truly awesome experiences on the terrain. With the low poly buildings and incredible view distances, I am hoping that truly unique missions are even more possible than with most/many other islands available (there’s nothing like calling in CAS that is flying at 1 mile up that can see the same target you see).
If you’re interested in helping to finish up the buildings, please just let me know. Most needed are people to help finish the actual models. Secondary would be help with improving the textures. All help is appreciated.
GossamerSolid has released an updated Project CDF v 1.07 on the BI Forums. Arma2 : Combined Operations needed.
Project CDF is a mod that is aimed at extending the content available to the fictional Green Sea Region. It originally started as a small project to expand the Chernarus Defence Forces, but has blossomed into quite a large project which has greatly expanded content on the CDF side as well as the inclusion of a brand new faction: The People's Republic of South Zagoria.
Version 1.07
+ Fixed Steering Wheel for UAZ-451 + Fixed PCDF_CDF_Engineer_2011 - isEngineer changed to Engineer + Fixed 2S1 could incorrectly have passengers + Fixed PCDF_PRSZ_Militia_AT display name + Fixed Mig-29 Flare launch positions + Fixed Preprocessor failed on file pcdf_fixedwing\data\mig21\planedestruct_co.paa - error 7 (For real this time) + Fixed CDF Western troop's neck clothing + Fixed BMP-1 AT3 missile no longer moves back with cannon recoil on main gun + Changed Mig-29 Flight model + Changed faction classnames (PCDF_Chernarus, PCDF_PRSZ, PCDF_RU) + Changed RVMat for UAZ-451, T-64B/BV + Changed UAZ-451 to inherit sounds from UAZ instead of Lada + Changed BRDM2 crew to be regular soldiers + New Picture/Icon for Mig-29 + New Material textures for UAZ-451 + New Texture for CDF Western Office's hat + New Texture for CDF/PRSZ Mig-21 + New CDF Western Unarmed soldier model + Added Russian Federation to Opfor + Added Wreck model for Mig-29 + Added new Russian Infantry models + Added more PRSZ People's Militia models + Added PRSZ "Kinzhal" Police division + Added PRSZ Police BRDM-2, UAZ-451, Lada + Added Desert Camo CDF Troops (both Eastern and Western equipped) + Added BMP-1P, BMP-2 Series, 2S1, T-72M1, T-80BV/U, MIG-29 to Russia + Added Damaged/Destroyed Textures to UAZ-451, BMP-1/1P, T-64B/BV, T-72M1, T-80B/BV/U + Added Wound textures to CDF Western Troops + Added FN FNC Series (Thanks to AtomicTim/18th Pechotni Pluk Tactical Realism Unit) + Added Vilas' eastern weapons pack + Removed two lowest quality LODs on BMP-1/1P + Temporarily Removed 2S1 until I can get the artillery computer working properly
0%
Arma Tactics released for PC via Steam.
A new home of sorts for
Who's online?
