FROM: Project Lead
TO: Arma 3 Users
INFO: Survive!, Altis updates
PRECEDENCE: Flash
SITUATION
Almost there! "Survive" will be officially released this Thursday, and will be automatically downloaded like a patch. Many people have already survived on devbranch and we have enjoyed reading the feedback! A few critical issues were found and squashed (e.g. crashing in the campaign menu having user-made campaigns installed). With the broader release looming, here's a couple of things to keep in mind:
- Play now or wait for all episodes? Consider what play style suits you the best. Don't mind waiting for the next episode before continuing? Or would you rather consume the whole narrative in one go?
- We recommend playing the campaign(s) on main branch. Devbranch is an experimental daily version that may cause the campaign to be work less well from one day to the next. More importantly - we cannot guarantee savegame compatibility when switching branches.
- Mods are fantastic, but we have no method of testing how all or indeed any of them affect the campaign. We would suggest to play the campaign(s) using vanilla Arma 3 for the intended experience.
- To be sure your locally installed data is not corrupted, please use the Steam client verification option. Non-SSD storage users may benefit from defragmentation.
- Please be considerate and use spoiler notifications when posting feedback. Your fellow survivors thank you!
Have fun surviving, while we carry on with the second episode: "Adapt", tools and other good stuff!
INTELLIGENCE
Owners of (Digital) Deluxe Editions beware: your OST in the Bonus-folder will be updated with 7 tracks from the "Survive" campaign episode (alongside the release itself).
Senior Designer Karel Mořický will attend a Czech Game Developer Session in Prague, held between 8 and 10 November. He's going to be speaking about Steam integration and working with the community. Several other team members are also set to attend the event.
It was probably clear to most people, but just to make sure: recent Tweets on our official accounts were snapshots from the "Survive" campaign intro video - and not real-life political statements.
OPERATIONS
In his recent Report In!, Martin Pezlar hinted at a few upcoming Altis updates. He has posted some more details in the forums so you can plan ahead when designing your own scenarios.
Slightly related: we are seeing questions about the object IDs which get updated every time we update the environments. We've opened a thread on the forums to ask you how you are using object IDs and how we may work together to not have to rely on them.
LOGISTICS
We recommend you avoid using the old campaign unlock cheat (in the campaign menu) for "Survive". It will unlock the list of scenarios, but progression will not work splendidly.