PMC ArmA 3 modding statement
Here goes the Statement, hehe
Time of writing this is Oct 2016 and I have basically not edited ArmA 3 at all, yes I did some alpha tools terrain builder testing for terrains and did release ArmA 3 - Vietnam: The Experience Preview back in May 1st 2013. Wow that seems like a long time ago already, I'm so late into the ArmA 3 bandwagon and I have lost my dancing bananas.
Now I have played some but because bis decided to ruin the game with 2035 iranian ant soldier fantasy data I have kept out playing much with lack of realistic addons. I did of course complete bis campaign to see how the persistent weaponPool and side missions worked, but other than that I've just played ArmA 2.
When CUP came around and I got my 4k computer upgrade, I have actually played some ArmA 3 this year, mostly NeoArmageddon's Escape mission (as it seems to be the only basic CUP mission available?). The new engine and features is slowly getting more familiar and nice, I do like the new inventory stuff, diving etc.
Anyways I am scared shitless that the steam tools are still a mess and that every ArmA 3 upgrade breaks all community made addons. I've been keeping close eye on discord ArmA 3 chat and actually just recently saw couple of mods/guys to quit modding because the editing situation / tools are such a crap now. Most notably was the terrain lighting visual upgrade stuff (which I know very little of) what everyone seems to hate, or its lack of documentation. I mean dudes are like real angry out there heh.
My greatest fear is that I quit ArmA 2 editing, uninstall the tools, jump into ArmA 3 editing with enthusiastic smile on my face only to later discover that ArmA 3 editing is useless effort due all the above etc stuff. I do not want to jump like stupid bunny back and forth between engines, I am totally happy to edit and play ArmA 2 for YEARS to come if I would have definite knowledge that its wasted effort to edit ArmA 3.
I really don't want to be negative but you just can't ignore everyone whining and complaining how terrible the editing situation is now. Of course people have been whining and complaining since OFP times so this is nothing new, but the amount of it is definitely something else now.
Also on personal PMC level there is the issue that our addons are very low quality polygon / texture wise (of course they are among the best technically and release wise etc), for example I really don't want to port VTE stuff into ArmA 3 because most of it dates back to OFP. With VTE ArmA 3 preview it was shown that nobody was interested of helping with modeling and texturing, hey what else is new.
I love to edit but there has to be limit at some point how far do you push OFP addons dating back to what, 2002 or so.
Also one quite specific issue is Synide's P3D Plugin for modo which has not been updated for ArmA 3 or newer modo (last one works on modo 701 and now latest is already v10.2), last I checked Synide is not around the forums so no idea if he is still even interested of updating his excellent plugin. So this means that 3d modeling, the little I can do is off the table or at least I have to find some other tool pipeline to get stuff from modo to Object Builder. Anyways this is very minor issue, but still is one piece in the stack of issues...
I absolutely love CUP and its insane amount of terrains. I'd love nothing more than to do missions and some PMC Fury alike campaign for CUP
Got to admit one thought was that I'd continue just mission making without any real addon modding, but this would be quite painful as I really do want to edit addons, not just missions.
Anyways I'm starting to ramble on.
I want to edit ArmA 3 but there are so many unknown factors that I am truly scared of how it all plays out... I will definitely finish up last round of ArmA 2 editing, then install ArmA 3 steam tools and start to investigate how all the tools, editing stuff etc looks like.
Stay tuned...
