ARMA3 came out today.

[ViperXX]

Should I buy it or pass?

 

[Sulaco]

Well..um...do you like the ArmA games?

Do you have any experience with ArmA II or Operation Flashpoint? Do you enjoy realistic military sims?

We have no idea what you like or what your expectations are.

 

[Father Torque]

is that the DayZ mod ?

 

[BrightCandle]

Compared to its predecessor its a decent step. The game has added a lot of obvious player features and graphical fidelity compared to Arma 2. There is less content but its of higher quality (guns, vehicles etc) and the new map is amazingly good. But I honestly think its a game best played inside of a community that makes missions and such. If you just play on a random multiplayer server your experience isn't going to be all that great unfortunately, its a game that needs a good deal of coop teamwork to be fun.

 

[dud]

What are the minimum requirements to run this game? I base all of my buying decisions on whether I have to upgrade to play it.

 

[Anteaus]

I'd pass for now. I preordered back during Alpha. The game has a ton of potential but compared to Arma II, Arma III is gimped content wise. Also I find the game actualy performs worse compared to earlier builds. Assuming they actually follow up with the promised content then I'd look at buying it then.

If you don't mind limiting yourself to showcase, custom maps, and multiplayer, then it's probably worth it. For me though it's the overall lack of vehicles and aircraft compared to Arma II that is keeping me from getting into it for now.

 

[ViperXX]

Well..um...do you like the ArmA games?

Do you have any experience with ArmA II or Operation Flashpoint? Do you enjoy realistic military sims?

We have no idea what you like or what your expectations are.

Yes I have the original Operation Flashpoint, the OFP sequel and ARMA2.

Is it worth my $60. Will I get my money's worth or will I be disappointed like I was with OFP2?

 

[BrightCandle]

Performance has notably improved for me in release, to the point where I think its better than at any point during Alpha and beta. Its one hell of a good looking game and you can see Kilometres which no other game does.

If you liked OFP2 and Arma2 then Arma 3 is a must buy. Find a nice community that runs some mods and makes content and you'll be in for a real treat. Much depends on course on how good they are at those activities but organised gameplay is better than random servers.

 

[Stringjam]

Performance has notably improved for me in release, to the point where I think its better than at any point during Alpha and beta. Its one hell of a good looking game and you can see Kilometres which no other game does.

That's good to hear. I've been playing on an off through the entire alpha / beta phases, and have struggled to get any sort of smoothness out of the MP side (which I understand may be largely server related).

Going to jump back in tonight to check it out.

I'm disappointed the SP campaign still isn't available. They made a really big deal about having a good SP experience this time around and I've been looking forward to it.

 

[Remobz]

Should I buy it or pass?

Pass

 

[Imp]

I eventually got Arma II when it went on sale with all the add-ons, but it reminded me of some irritating things that have been around since Operation Flashpoint over a decade ago.

 

[WiseUp216]

I don't know how they did it but they completely broke Arma 3.

I played regularly through the alpha and beta without a single problem. Now, I can't find any servers under 300 ping. My framerate dropped from 60-100 during the beta to 20-30 now.

I've tried to play a couple times this week and I've yet to spend more than 5 minutes in a game.

So pissed off! What the hell happened?

 

[BrightCandle]

Arma 3 has a bit of an odd engine when it comes to network updates. If the server FPS is low or your connection to the server is bad then it impacts your local frame rate. A lot of server admins for their public boxes run multiple servers on the same box and the overall performance is impacted and that destroys the client side FPS for everyione. But if your bandwidth/ping is also problematic you'll see similar problems. Some missions also have very poorly written scripts and these can really drag performance down and ruin the experience. In essence it often isn't something the developers got wrong its a problem with the mission and/or server or your connection to it.

The key to getting a good frame rate in multiplayer is choosing the right servers and the right missions. The A3 server can only run 60 players reliably and then only on a top spec processor. So you should definitely be choosing games smaller than that (we run 40 players despite having a 3570 in that box). Wasteland is especially problematic as are some of the other commonly played missions and you should look for real missions or unique communities instead of the generic missions run everywhere. Most of the generic missions actually don't run very well unfortunately and they don't promote team play, which is largely what makes Arma fun to begin with.

I think a lot of people that play Arma 3 get onto multiplayer and have a bad experience because they play domination/wasteland/evo and never realise these are only there on the public server because they require minimal administration. We are the same at Tier1Ops, we can't always be on the server so its runs our CPG mission when we aren't around. We set a tone of cooperation and leadership however so people who play on our server often organise their games but we prefer to run a real mission when we can.

You have to find that right server and community before you really get the full Arma experience, because its a sandbox of epic proportions so what people build in and around it is what defines how fun the game is. There are so many good mods already, we run 12 or so now along with a load of our own custom scripting and gear. I personally think that is where the best games are, with custom missions gear and scripting that brings together an authentic milsim like experience with a team trained in military tactics. Makes all the difference especially when its on a decent server.