Update: PR: ARMA 3 Development Update

[epoch]

Hi everyone

Back in 2011 we had an idea that became PR:ARMA 2. We gathered together a great team of developers and eventually released a few iterations of a mod that we do believe was really good fun.

However, from the technical point of view PR:ARMA 2 was a bit of a mess - two separate systems from the era of ARMA 1 held together by duct tape. The original idea was to have 100 players on a server. On the day of the launch we did get 100 players on the server, the only problem was that the server reported 0 "FPS", or simulation cycles per second if you will. Now, the networking in ARMA is infamous on its own but the scripts did not do it any favour. The amount of traffic being broadcast from the various scripts was staggering, with the zone capture system being probably the worst offender - every time somebody was capturing a zone the server and all the connected clients would be updated with the capture status of all the zones in the mission. Approximately every 0.1 seconds.

Another major issue was that as the mission went on timed events became delayed. The more people on the server the worse the delay. I remember once playing a mission where a helicopter which was supposed to respawn every 20 minutes had respawned nearly an hour later.

With all of this in mind and with ARMA 3 on the horizon Deadfast and I made the decision to start PR:ARMA 3 from scratch. We weren't naive to think that we could create something that would completely replace PR:ARMA 2 feature-wise. We wanted to start small and create a stable foundation to build upon: infantry-only missions, advance and secure game mode, squad system, kits, rally points. This would then be incrementally built upon.

And we got 99% of it done! The problem is that the past year we've been working on the last 1%. This is not an unknown phenomenon in software development. By the time you get this far it's nothing but a grind.

The ARMA side of PR never really had that many people, and this goes double for people with SQF skills (ARMA's proprietary scripting language). I think the most we ever had at once were 4. This is because there are very few people with the necessary skills to develop for ARMA.

As we slowly reached completion the work started becoming less and less fun. Instead of implementing features we had to focus on bugfixing in order to bring it to a releasable state. Unfortunately as anyone in software development can tell you bugfixing is very time-consuming, especially in such a complex environment as a multiplayer game.

Some time ago we announced that, due to "real life" challenges we planned to suspend development of PR:ARMA for the time being.

Since we don't want all of our work to go to waste we have decided to publicly release the source code under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International Public License, thus allowing it to live on. You can find it here on Github.

If you have any questions regarding the code we will stick around the PR:ARMA 3 section to hopefully be able to answer them.

Credits need to go to all of the past and present developers and volunteers who have contributed to getting Project Reality: ARMA 3 as far as it did:

• epoch - for his leadership, encouragement and imaginative use of dev hacks
• Deadfast - for being an SQF wizard, and somehow managing to install Redmine, twice!
• James2464 - for contributing missions, ideas, code and that photo
• wormeaten - for contributing missions and ideas
• Cp - for his tireless testing and comic relief
• BearBison and the RIP team for their enthusiasm and support during testing from the very beginning of PR: ARMA.
• shay_gman - for contributing code
• caterpillar - for contributing the Boots on Kavala mission
• igno2k - for contributing the Forest Chop Down mission
• IcyFury - for contributing the Morningstar and Sidewinder missions
• mayr - for contributing the Payroll mission
• Seraph - for contributing the Wrath of Zaros mission
• Steeps - for contributing the Pyrgos Capital mission

In addition we would like to thank those involved with the earlier PR:ARMA 2 project:

• UK_Force
• Dr.Eyeball
• DeanosBeano
• Minimalaco
• Robster

and everyone else who contributed to the mod

Finally we would also like to thank the community who have supported us throughout the project.

Its a shame this project couldn't be completed

[[R-DEV]​Senshi]

I certainly understand your reasoning. Not only is it true for any software project (the last 10% require 90% of the work), but ArmA in particular is incredibly well at surprising you with a lot of horrible interrelated bugs and issues. That, combined with a so-so documentation and continuous, surprising heavy changes to the engine by Bohemia makes it extremely frustrating, as you have to revisit your code every time...

Kudos for trying though, would have been awesome!
Special kudos for deciding to publish the source under a very open license. Maybe someone else will pick up the torch, and be able to give us the non-crazy-redneck-milsim PR:ArmA3 we all want .

[Antol]

PR:ArmA 2 gave me some good memories and this announcement is very sad but i understand motivation behind it. I think that you guys did a good decision. Better now than later with such a move.
And all your work is not wasted which is good.

Thank you devs for these exciting rounds over 0.1 and 0.15 with PR:ArmA 2 and overall work in such a hard place like the Real Virtuality 3/4 engines.

[Fabio Chavez]

You should have released this at least in a playable state before you abandon it and you should have been passing the torch long before in the first place. First cling to the brand and then drop it like this, unworthy of pr, thx work the work anyway (coding and mapping).

Cant you at least offer some media like ui screenshots or a little video so people get a better idea of what they are dealing with? What cap/gameplay mechanics are in place, aas?

[Scubbo]

good call, gotta keep the project fun or what's the point

[Roque_THE_GAMER]

to be honest i wasn't expecting anything else from arma 3 PR even if it was launched were the tacBF did almost everything we need, but i also stopped played arma 3 in general because of hes net code and how laze the dev of arma 3 they are to do something, that make me not buy the next arma game until they actually make a netcode that works.

[Dwarden]

Originally Posted by Roque_THE_GAMER

to be honest i wasn't expecting anything else from arma 3 PR even if it was launched were the tacBF did almost everything we need, but i also stopped played arma 3 in general because of hes net code and how laze the dev of arma 3 they are to do something, that make me not buy the next arma game until they actually make a netcode that works.

I'm amazed by your words
as one of the 'laze dev of arma 3' who runs 100-150 player Arma 3 test servers
as one who constantly works on improving multiplayer, servers and creative community life
also considering the stuff done on per request for PR: Arma in A2: OA times ...

your words shows you have no idea about us listening and cooperating with creative community

[Cossack]

Originally Posted by Roque_THE_GAMER

to be honest i wasn't expecting anything else from arma 3 PR even if it was launched were the tacBF did almost everything we need, but i also stopped played arma 3 in general because of hes net code and how laze the dev of arma 3 they are to do something, that make me not buy the next arma game until they actually make a netcode that works.

I had my part of lag fest. These guys actually tried to do something about it, not just create something with ducktape and here.

[Fabio Chavez]

The one and only thing i was anticipating -however naively- was the synergy that would develop between a nice lean and optimized pvp mission by deadfast and dwardens performance testservers.
Too bad the code was dropped before at least make it instant playable...
Now its like "heres unfinished code that was so ugly to finish that we dont want it anymore even after 2 years of development..." Who would want to pick that up in ur opinion?