Did arma 3 ever get warfare mode in mp?
Yay. :-)
Officially, I don’t think so. There are several user made missions, though.
A look at what’s coming:
Every now and then, I forget how pretty Arma is.
Everyone gets the a free aircraft carrier for Arma 3 as part of the free update.
It’s a static object, so it doesn’t move around the map, but you can use it in the editor, land and launch planes from it, and it has defensive systems.
Jets DLC out now.
Okay. The new aircraft are fine. I don’t really understand the urge to add more fixed-wing aircraft to this game, but whatever. They work. I don’t think they really add anything mechanically different to the game, but I guess there are people that wanted more modern jets. Shrug.
The Showcase mission is mediocre. You take off from the new aircraft carrier, fight some enemies, then land back on the flight deck. It’s just kind of bland and unexciting. The new flight deck crew NPCs have some neat animations.
Unlike the Helicopters or Marksmen DLC, Jets doesn’t come with new tutorial/virtual training missions. Which is odd because the free update does come with an overhauled sensor system, jets loadouts, and damage modelling. It would be nice to get a primer for that stuff.
What’s really irksome bit is that the new free aircraft carrier is kind of garbage. It’s as bare-bones as you can get. The only part that you can enter is a room just off the flight deck. None of the lifts work. There’s no vehicle storage. It’s about as interactive as a crate.
There a free mod, The USS Nimitz, that easily surpasses the new aircraft carrier in functionality. Why didn’t BI just pay that guy for his work and clean it up? That’s essentially what they did with the jets themselves.
Overall, I can’t recommend this DLC.
Yeah, other than trying to win in the Battlefield crowd, or something, I don’t see that there was any reason to add zoomies to ArmA3. Maybe some COIN aircraft like the Super Tucano or Pucara would have been more appropriate (if less sexy).
More jets is honestly the last thing this game needed.
Speaking as a fan of jet simulators, Arma is a terrible jet simulator. The problem in Falcon 4, DCS, et al. is “how can I model human vision, where a plane two miles away is not tremendously hard to spot, on this lower-resolution, tiny field-of-view monitor?” The problem in Arma is, “two miles away is way into the fog.”
Replying to my own post. I found something nifty to replace WLA, after all: Antistasi. Think a very scaled-down, but massively cleaned-up WLA. It’s built around MP, but handles solo well (I just launch the scenario as a local LAN server) since it scales its enemies to the number of humans on the server. Definitely a worthy effort that actively makes an attempt to work around ArmA’s open-world kludginess. Still, I recommend reading the mission’s entire Wiki first.
A while back I was doing the sniper training in the virtual sim thing, and did the first couple of tasks. Then up comes another task telling me to hit the targets 800m out, but there is no tower there. I must have spent 20 minutes or more before I realized I needed to go into settings and push out the distance for rendering.
Are the other DLCs worth the cost?
I picked up Apex for Tanoa and the rest of the goodies but I have no interest in the rest of the DLCf – particularly the jets.
looks interesting, downloading. my problem with WLA is how finicky and buggy it can be, so if scaling down solves that problem then im into it.
Definitely check it out. Some notes:
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If you’re playing on your local machine (no dedicated server), make sure you place the mission file in your MPMissions folder and launch it as a MP mission.
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Read the entire wiki on the site about how to play and how it works, and expect to read it a couple more times after you start playing. Antistasi is not super-complex, but like anything else built on Arma3 it demands that you do certain things in certain ways.
Fat sale on everything ArmA on Steam. DLCs now cost more like what they’re worth.
$12 for Apex - seems like that might be ok…
Altis Life is Dope Wars + Second Life + DayZ. Its the most in-character role-playing I have ever seen in an online game.
Its a very thorough RPG set inside of Arma 3’s super realistic Greek island. I am surprised to see I have spent 10 hours on it so far, and I am still intrigued and going back for more.
Altis (the name of the island) Life is essentially a civilian job economic simulation set inside of a complex military game. Civilians are the majority of the population of the 100-150 people on the server, and they go about life picking fruit, driving cars, mining ore, processing materials, crafting items, selling items on the marketplace, etc. Police are the next major faction, and they enforce the laws for example handing out speeding tickets, responding to criminal complaints and arresting people and putting them in jail.
Some civilians decide to organize themselves into gangs usually to do illegal things like sell, manufacture or distribute drugs. Illegal trucking (without a license or moving contraband), processing of contraband, and diving for illegal relics are also routine criminal activities. So is armed robbery, vehicle theft and breaking and entering.
The last of the four big factions are Rebels. They are at constant war with the police and attempt major stuff like robbing banks, stealing military vehicles and raiding prisons to release prisoners.
So far I have:
(Everyone starts with money and gets paid a “universal income” every few minutes)
Bought clothes and a backpack
Took my drivers test
Got my driving license
Went to the ATM and took out some cash
Bought a car (a 4x4 truck with a farm logo on the side)
Drove to the apple orchards and picked some fruit
Dove back and sold it to the Market
Ate a burger and drank some water
Parked my car and ran to the truck depot
Accepted a truck driving job
Drove a simple load 2km to the next stop and waited 30 secs while it unloaded
Drove back to the depot and got paid
Bought a repair kit, medical kit and a few useful items
Practiced using the repair kit on a vehicle that was damaged
Took my weapon license test and passed
Bought a gun license
Walked to the bus stop
Took the bus to a dangerous city (I started in a safe zone)
Walked to the gun shop
Tried to buy a gun
… and that is where it started to get more interesting. Up to that point I had passed probably 100-200 people over the course of 5-6 hours, all of whom were on voice and talking. Its the Internet so its not all perfect, but 25% of the people are asking questions and helping each other, 25% of the people were role-playing quite well especially police who stop people and ask a lot of questions, 25% of the people were silent, and 25% were being rude or annoying.
But there are rules, strict rules that get enforced. For example, in the dangerous city (because its held by Rebels) someone saw me on the street, whipped out an SMG, pointed it at me and said “This is a stick up. Do what I say or I will shoot you. That is a nice backpack, I want it. Give it to me”. I protested, but there was little I could do. He started to count down so I took it off and handed it to him. He also demanded my hat and glasses (he could see them) and asked for cash. I said I was broke (I had about $1,500 in my pocket and another $80k safely in the bank) and he ran off.
Its not fun to get robbed but it was 100% legit. He confronted me verbally, gave me a chance to follow instructions, and did not just kill me. I was unarmed walking in a dangerous neighborhood so maybe I deserved it. :-) If he killed me as an unarmed civilian he would have been banned.
I phoned up the police and reported it, but a single non-lethal, low-value robbery in a dangerous, rebel held city is not high on their to-do list. :-) There were 15 cops on the server at the time, and about 80 civilians. They do respond though: I saw cops arrest dozens of people so far, and seen high speed police chases, cars being impounded and towed, and restrained prisoners being hauled off to jail.
So… its essentially a role-playing wrapper around a pretty serious faction vs faction military shooter all dressed up with a intricate skill and morality system with a classic Dope Wars “make the drugs and sell them to make money” economic system.
Here are some other views. Its been out for years and gets better every month. There seem to be dozens of servers with hundreds of people on them, so its popular.