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  Bohemia Interactive - 2014 Year In Review Videos    
Korneel van 't Land has informed us about Bohemia Interactive 2014 Year In Review video

As one of the most exciting years for our studio comes to a close, we’ve deployed a special dev blog in which various members of the Arma 3, Take On Mars, and DayZ development team recap the past (15th anniversary) year, take a brief look at the near future, and thank everyone for their incredible support!



  December 18th, 2014 - 17:57 By Old Bear   Comment (0)  

  SITREP #00087 Official    

On December 16, 2014, Joris-Jan van 't Land has reported a SITREP #00087 on the official Arma 3 web site.

FROM: Project Lead
TO: Arma 3 Users
INFO: 2014 recap, Winter break, Happy holidays!
PRECEDENCE: Flash

SITUATION


Welcome to the last Arma 3 SITuation REPort of 2014! After a turbulent release year in 2013, our team was excited to continue supporting the platform and game this year. Let's quickly run through the major developments: we started by completing the campaign with episodes "Adapt" and "Win". That also meant adding 2 fixed-wing CAS aircraft, the Tempest series of trucks and 2 Altis Points of Interest: the ghost hotel and the stadium. We then unleashed the divine powers of Zeus multiplayer, which we've since seen used in many communities and in ways beyond what we had envisioned ourselves.

Then things got a little crazy, with us taking the April Fools parody to an actual DLC: Karts. That first premium package allowed us to trial a new DLC strategy and also resulted in a sizable donation to the Czech Red Cross. Realizing the vanilla game did not yet welcome new Arma players as well as it could, our team released the Bootcamp Update, offering various learning experiences and the Virtual Reality environment. We then hit a couple of rough patches, literally, causing various multiplayer issues. Our attempts to optimize and stabilize the game did not always work out on a large-scale. We've since improved this situation, but there's still work to do in this area. The year drew to a satisfying close with the Helicopters DLC and accompanying platform update.

Given that we've not even discussed many other additions and improvements, like expanded Steam Workshop support, we're looking back at a great year for Arma 3. We'll now be taking a quick winter break, before diving into yet another year of support. Our thanks to all players, our community, mod makers, livestreamers, server administrators, forum / Feedback Tracker / Community Wiki moderators, business partners, and not least of all: everyone at Bohemia Interactive! We wish you happy holidays and a most splendid new year!

INTELLIGENCE


The Arma subreddit has received a nice face-lift, also providing some useful links to official and unofficial resources. You'll find a supportive community, interesting player stories, funny pictures and awesome videos. While this is not an official channel, we have more than a few devs roaming around there.

We have stopped supporting the 'contributor' feature of Steam Workshop for now. Contributed items have been removed from your lists of published items to minimize confusion (no actual items were removed of course). After speaking to Valve, it would appear this feature is not quite well supported and therefore not useful in its current form. If this changes in the future, we'll certainly react to any changes Steam rolls out.

As the time of writing there are a few days left to vote for your favorite Arma 3 mods in the ModDB annual top 100. Four mods made the cut this year, so head on over and show your support!

OPERATIONS

Some of our developers frequently appear in these reports. Others operate in the shadows and yet without them we could not develop the game. Let's shine a light on these people, starting with Mastering Lead Jan Kyncl. Mastering is a set of activities that results in the final, you guessed it, master of the game. This means ensuring the correct and complete data exists in the right place, that meta-data is accurately configured, that the collection of parts brought in by all departments works together as a whole, and many more tasks of this nature. Jan is also responsible for publishing every single change to Steam. Every update of every branch of every Arma 3 application on every day - quite a feat! Kudos to Jan and those who assist him for being the backbone of our team.

Bohemia Interactive will be closed for a winter break from Monday December 22 until Friday January 2 inclusive. That means our regular operations for Arma 3 will be paused for that duration. Dev-Branch updates will likely continue until this Thursday and resume when we get back. There will also not be another SITREP until we open back up.

LOGISTICS

Tools Commissar Julien Vida would like to remind modders that they can switch to the Arma 3 Tools Dev-Branch if they experience issues with the main branch suite. This version can help to address a few issues in Addon Builder and WAVtoWSS.

Find more French unofficial translations of these REPorts via Elements Gaming. Most recently they've published translations for last week's SITREP and the latest OPREP



  December 16th, 2014 - 19:55 By Old Bear   Comment (0)  

  SITREP #00086 Official    

On December 9, 2014, Joris-Jan van 't Land has reported a SITREP #00086 on the official Arma 3 web site.

FROM: Project Lead
TO: Arma 3 Users
INFO: Internal Marksmen prototype, Update 1.36 released, REPception
PRECEDENCE:

SITUATION

As we enter the last month of the year, the team is focused on one more 2014 development milestone: the Marksmen DLC sandbox prototype. This means having a final plan for the exact assets and features that we'll finish during the first quarter of 2015. Said plan is backed up by internally playable prototypes. This could mean the first version of a new weapon's model, a scripted prototype of a gameplay feature, a proof-of-concept for a scenario, etc. The feasibility studies should wrap up soon and we'll have go / no-go moments for some of the tech. Having a solid sandbox foundation will later help the designers to use it effectively while developing playable content. We are trying hard to get some very cool stuff in the DLC and accompanying platform update, and it's looking splendid so far!

INTELLIGENCE

Did you miss the exact change log for update 1.36? Take a look at SPOTREP #00037! Perhaps you've noticed we delayed the release of the update by a day. In fact, this change of plans was so last-minute we had already begun to release the accompanying Arma 3 Tools update. The reason for the delay was the discovery (based on community reports) that one of the multiplayer server optimizations caused a potential instability. We had tested these multi-threading optimizations on special profiling servers for a few weeks with good results. Then we found a thread safety problem in a few freshly submitted crash reports. It was decided to take those optimizations out of 1.36 and continue to develop them via the special profiling branch. Certain other optimizations remained in tact, such as tweaks to the file system.

There are still 2 recurring crashes that we know about, but cannot solve at the moment. One is related to the PhysX libraries and we hope to address it by an update of the libraries in 2015. The other occurs also in our other games and we believe it to be connected to Steam. We are still working with Valve engineers to solve this one.

OPERATIONS

QA Specialist Ondrej Kužel performed a post-flight inspection of the Advanced Flight Model for rotary-wing aircraft, introduced in Helicopters DLC / platform update 1.34. His report follows an earlier look at the integration of third-party middleware RotorLib to support the AFM. It mainly looks back at what we believe was a very productive example of community collaboration. Be sure to expand the hidden bonus section dubbed "Oukej's Frequent Flyer Bonus Miles" for some tips and tricks!

LOGISTICS

Leading the way for update 1.36 was yet another iteration of the Arma 3 Tools suite (available in the Steam library for anyone - filter for "Tools"). The Tools Commissar himself, Julien Vida, does a good job of providing some context to the changes in his status report: changes to existing tools, a new tool and fresh samples. Considering those samples, the previously mentioned PSD source template for Taru liveries is available on the Tools Dev-Branch. An issue causing suspiciously long packing when using Addon Builder is being investigated.


  December 14th, 2014 - 18:48 By Old Bear   Comment (0)  

  Spotrep #00037 - Game Update: 1.36 Official    

On December 4, 2014 , Joris-Jan van 't Land has reported a SPOTREP #00037 on the official Arma 3 web site.

FROM: Project Lead
TO: Arma 3 Users
UNIT: Main Branch
ACTIVITY: Game Update: 1.36 (Vortex Ring State, Launcher local mods, Headless Client revamp, CMAA)
SIZE: ~1010 MB / ~611 MB
NOTE

  • Consider using the Steam client option to verify the integrity of the local game cache to avoid corrupted data after downloading this update.

  • Consider defragmenting your HDD after downloading large updates.

  • A Legacy Build Steam branch is available for advanced users. It contains the previous significant main branch version (1.34). It can be used to compare specific changes between major releases. The access code for this branch is: Arma3Legacy134

  • A Make Arma Not War Build branch is available for competitors and jury members. It will contain the 1.32 main branch version throughout the rest of the contest. The access code for this branch is: MakeArmaNotWar

  • You can find the servers in the Steam library (switch the filter to "Tools") - "Arma 3 Server" (based on your OS, it will download the Windows or Linux version)
    • Administrators can also use the command-line SteamCMD utility. The app ID is to be 233780.
    • Physics simulation powered by NVIDIA® PhysX™. NVIDIA® and PhysX™ are trademarks of NVIDIA Corporation and are used under license.


Full changelog and SPOTREP



  December 4th, 2014 - 18:21 By Old Bear   Comment (0)  

  SITREP #00085 Official    

On December 2, 2014, Joris-Jan van 't Land has reported a SITREP #00085 on the official Arma 3 web site.

FROM: Project Lead
TO: Arma 3 Users
INFO: Final 1.36 tests, Headless Clients, Workshop Mods
PRECEDENCE: Flash

SITUATION


We are three Release Candidates into update 1.36 testing and things are looking good. Our programmers are analyzing a few more crash reports, but we hope to be ready for main branch tomorrow (CET). You can join the final stages of testing by opting into the RC branch using access code Arma3Update136RC in the Steam client BETAS tab for Arma 3. This will effectively preload the update ahead of release, even though there may still be more iterations. Be aware that the majority of public servers will not be join-able until they update as well. If you spot a new issue in the RC, please submit it to the Feedback Tracker and clearly mark the version you encountered it in. Thanks!

INTELLIGENCE

Update 1.36 will bring big improvements to Headless Client technology after a solid period of Dev-Branch testing. The new implementation will ...

  • ... see HCs placed as virtual entities in the editor, and then having them automatically assigned to slots in the lobby.

  • ... make HCs only visible to admins.

  • ... support Linux servers.

  • ... not require additional Arma 3 licenses.

If you are already using this advanced scripting tech, please be aware you may need to update existing scenarios. The Community Wiki documentation has been updated to reflect this.

Some categories of the Make Arma Not War contest have been temporarily re-opened for submissions. Unfortunately a sizable number of contestants had not submitted their work properly. This was a tough decision for the MANW committee, but the contest's ultimate goal is to highlight quality content. Take a look at this news article to find out whether your entry is affected or not.

We've introduced a new command-line parameter for multiplayer server admins: -loadMissionToMemory. It should help servers which use a HDD, which restart the same scenario frequently, and which have a relatively small amount of scenarios in their cycle.

OPERATIONS

The next evolution of Workshop support is on the horizon! Valve has rolled out a new Steam SDK, which will allow for several big enhancements. There should no longer be an item size limit, and multiple files per item will be supported. These changes open to door for full mods. The roll-out of these changes will begin on Dev-Branch after 1.36's release, and happen in stages to ensure reliability across the branches. The designer in charge of Workshop-integration, Jirí Zlatohlávek, describes a few automated changes to existing and future items: "With the upcoming mods for Steam Workshop, we will change how files are stored on Workshop, allowing more files to be uploaded for both new and old items. This means the 'Addon' tag will effectively become irrelevant. We will be first updating files tagged with 'Addon' to also include tag 'Mod' to prepare to this change. When the new SDK is implemented, we will be removing the tag 'Addon' and keep only tag 'Mod'. This change should not require anything from you, but if you plan to publish any addons soon, we advise you to already include tag 'Mod' for your files to be visible in Launcher."

Virtual Arsenal caretaker Karel Morický, has incorporated a few nice additions for the mode. Selected weapons show various statistics such as Rate of Fire, effective range, impact and weight. Character equipment shows approximate armor levels, load and weight. No extra configuration is necessary, so community equipment will show these stats as well.

LOGISTICS

Senior Artist Oldrich Kríž has prepared a PSD template for the Huron's texture as part of the Arma 3 Tools update alongside 1.36. This should make it more comfortable to create your own liveries. We'd like to also provide this for the Taru at least.

User Interface designer Vladimír Hynek has added a feature to scenario selection screens that allows scenario designers to display relevant data. We will primarily use this to display the Challenge medal targets and your actual results. Perhaps you can imagine your own usage, so check out the updated documentation (look for overviewScript functionality)!



  December 2nd, 2014 - 19:07 By Old Bear   Comment (0)  



 
 
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