FROM: Project Lead
TO: Arma 3 Users
INFO: "Support" MP livestream, Community videos
PRECEDENCE: Flash
SITUATION
Senior Designer Jiří Wainar and Creative Director Jay Crowe joined Associate Producer Matt Lightfoot for a livestream event last Friday. After an introduction about Helicopters DLC, they showcased the new "Support" multiplayer mode by playing a few rounds and crashing a lot of aircraft. While they were transporting troops and supplies around the battlefield, some of our other devs tried to answer questions in the chat. A question that popped up a few times was about when players can expect a new official terrain. The answer is: in the expansion, after Marksmen DLC. We have selected its geotype and a prototype of the terrain has been in production for some time. Since the setting is quite different than Altis and Stratis, and indeed very fresh, our artists have also begun creating the loads of new objects and buildings. We are not yet ready to reveal more specifics about the setting. The first details will be probably not be shared until some time into 2015. Visit our Twitch channel archive to view the stream in its entirety, or just go play the mode yourself, on our official servers for example.
INTELLIGENCE
To those not able to get their joystick analog thrust controls to respond how they like; take a look at this post by QA Specialist Ondřej Kužel. Using an admittedly counter-intuitive configuration, you should be able to get things under control. We're tracking the topic in this Feedback Tracker issue, and are investigating possible improvements.
The same Mr. Kužel has foolishly issued a personal Time Trials challenge to the world. Prove that you have beaten his times and get a free beer in Prague (no other expenses covered)!
We were collectively amazed by DCAL's machinima "Bring The Rain". What impressed us the most about this tribute to the United States Marine Corps, is the pain-staking effort that it must have taken to capture all these action scenes. Splendid job!
Another cool video is brought to you by routine contributor Andrew "Dslyecxi" Gluck: "The Transport Pilot - Art of Flight #8". He goes over every detail of flying troops into and out of an Area of Operations using helicopters. Planning, modes of flight, ingress, Landing Zone procedures, egress and a full Air Assault walkthrough are all shown in some 30 minutes of beautiful scenes.
OPERATIONS
We're aware of reports about a loss of performance on (dedicated) multiplayer servers between 1.32 and 1.34. Of course this is being looked at, though we are so far unable to reproduce similar circumstances. This could imply specific network conditions, but we don't have enough data to tell yet. More tests and being run in cooperation with affected server admins. We'll update you when we learn more.
LOGISTICS
You may have seen a small update to Arma 3 on Steam yesterday. This was not an update of the game itself, but the Steam common redistributables (the Visual C++ 2013 redist specifically). These are shared libraries that programmers use for common operations and functions across many games, including ours. This is also not a new concept, and Arma 3 had already been using the 2010 and 2012 redists. We are slowly phasing out these older versions and moving fully to the latest 2013 version.