SITREP #00004

reported by Joris-Jan van 't Land on March 26, 2013

FROM: Project Lead
TO: Alpha Users
INFO: First big update and Community Focus
PRECEDENCE: Flash

SITUATION

Yesterday we deployed the first update on the default branch of both the Alpha and the Alpha Lite (same changes). Next to a set of miscellaneous fixes, tweaks and additions, it also included some work-in-progress shadow improvements. The main idea was to make them look more soft, hide artifacts and also optimize the shaders powering them a little. We've also learned new lessons from this first 'patch', which we'll incorporate into our processes for the next one. We do have to keep stressing that we are in Alpha, meaning even pre-Beta. This means some updates will be a step forward in various areas, and potentially a step back in certain others (temporarily we hope). It also causes a lot of maintenance for creators of custom content and server administrators. Please remain patient as updates propagate into everyone's game, their servers and the mods.

INTELLIGENCE

The 0.52 version unfortunately contained a particularly nasty crash in multiplayer, for which we have published a default branch hotfix.

Not all issues you may encounter are caused by the vanilla Alpha. Our own work is far from done, but please do take into account the potential downside of mods. If they become incompatible due to a game update, they may even cause the game not to start. First try to disable or remove mods and test again. Next, look for updates to such mods, or check with their creators about their status. This is a pitfall of being an open platform and having modding even during Alpha, but we firmly stand behind leaving it enabled throughout.

We've started to highlight cool community content via several channels. The main website has a Community Focus widget with several tabs that will be updated regularly. And on our social channels we'll occasionally link to useful websites, cool content, nice machinima and exciting mods. Let us know about nice content by Tweeting our official channel, using #Arma3, or promoting it in the forums.

It's almost time to let you know the specifics of the Supporter Edition and who made it into the credits for example. We feel we have a solution that is fair, given some of the troubles on release day. A special page with details and the opt-in functionality for those people will be made available soon. We again wish to thank everybody who is supporting us and Arma 3 development!

OPERATIONS

Your Player ID (visible in the profile settings) may have changed to be longer. This is not a bug. Please update your Squad's XML indexing if you use it for multiplayer.

Performance optimizations, anti-cheat solutions, Dedicated Server packages and tool releases are all in progress. They are big tasks and once we have specific deployment dates, we will share those.

LOGISTICS

The 0.52 update and all other updates are automatically downloaded via Steam if you did not manually disable that option. Sometimes restarting the Steam client helps to trigger the update, if it did not do so automatically.