Jackpine Savages' Home on the 'Net

I think we're talking about two very different audiences here. The tools needed by a developer looking to build a new game from scratch are very different from those needed by a player turned modder.

My professional developer background has been pretty limited. I started out learning what I needed to accomplish sysadmin tasks. When I fell into an architect's role, it evolved to include relatively simple data extraction and analysis tools. As such I don't feel qualified to address your concerns for the former audience. It could very well be that the Enfusion engine turns out to be a total dud as far as professional developers go.

The second and much larger audience, though... That is most definitely where I fit. The second audience will in general will start with limited development skills and just wants to have fun building something new. BI knows that this is their core audience and works tirelessly to meet its needs.

Want to plop down a few units and just have them bang away at each other? Have at it! (SovietWomble once joked about doing 100 tanks vs. 100 wooden chairs when he was learning the mission editor.)

Want to create an elaborate campaign with several missions for you and your buddies to play with minimal coding? I can personally attest that it's fairly easy to do.

Want to create a persistent long running mission for others to host? Lots to choose from in the Workshop.

Want to build a set of tools to make mission creation even easier for others? Go for it. Drongo's tools, Mad Cheese's MCC mods, CBA, and the CUP project all come to mind.

Want to build really good looking maps? The Workshop is filled with high quality maps so this is apparently reasonably easy to do for the artistically inclined.

Want to build new weapons? Vehicles? Create whole new armies? RHS Studios has been doing so since OpFlash days. Others out there include the CUP factions, the Hellenic Armed Forces Mod Navy, the Spanish FFAA...

Want to build a mod that is a complete repurposing of the game? How about Halo, Star Wars, or Warhammer 40k mods?

Or, how about creating a zombie mod that ends up influencing an existing genre? DayZ anyone? Just one guy wrote the original mod.

Or, how about launching a billion dollar gaming genre that starts out as a mod? Player Unknown's Battle Royale ring any bells? No? Ever heard of PUBG?

I'm a gamer who prefers milsims above other genres. I also really like games that provide a lot of flexibility for players and modders to experiment. This is and always has been BI's sweet spot. As long as BI follows through and releases an Arma 4 or something like it, I'm not sure I care whether the Enfusion engine ever gets licensed by other development companies.

I do think such a game will most likely be a hit with their core audience. If it is, I am confident BI will be there to support it for the long haul with tools that meet that audience's needs.

I mean, we're talking about a company with such a shitty design experience that I lost 2 hours because I couldn't change the font in the ingame dev console ... that's what I call being stuck in the 90s (not that other games haven't committed the same sins - just ufta)

I've told you before there's games 10yrs older that are still bigger & doing better (including modding) - so we won't go down that path again.

The win is going to be them correcting the mistake they made 8 years ago with making everyone rely on their shitty tools & instead allowing well established industry standards from 15 years ago to be included in their game in a few years.

Make no mistake - i doubt the quality of anything in terms of tooling they come out with will be even as good as unreal engine development was 4 years ago - just I'm excited that their next game will at least be update to date for games put out in 2005.  So there's a chance they are thinking about the future & won't commit the same mistakes allover again.

 

If any announcement could get me thinking that a dinosaur killer is on the way (see my response to you on the Enfusion video), it's the notion of a "strategic minority investment" from an outside party. Especially one from another country that won't understand the cultural imperatives that have driven BI from the very beginning.

I won't argue the quality of the modding tools available for Arma 3 when compared to other games that have been released since it came out. It came out eight years ago at this point. Frankly, I would be absolutely astonished if someone hadn't managed to develop better tools for a newer game engine.

That said, though, there are very, very few games that keep that sort of long term support from their original developer and publisher. BI is one such company that has always invested an inordinate amount of time and energy into making their games easy to mod and to supporting them for the long haul. They do it because they know that keeping modders happy and engaged is one of the, if not the most, important secret to their long term success as a game development company.

The fact that I can still find mission creation tools that are being actively developed today by modders to build missions this long after Arma 3's release speaks to the quality of BI's tools. The fact that multiple long time Youtubers can still find new mods to list in their personal Top 10 or Top 20 lists month after month also speaks to that quality. And obviously, the longevity and intense interest in the game after all this time.

That long term support has been self evident from the inclusion of the mission editor in the very first release of Operation Flashpoint and continues to this day.** Each game in the series saw both more tools being added and continuous development of those tools for years after its release. (e.g., the 3D Eden editor has been a godsend in oh, so many ways!) After 4 games*** following the same pattern for 20 years? Yeah, I think we can count on BI to be there supporting modders for the long haul.

So am I at all worried about BI providing quality long term support of an Arma 4 game released on the Enfusion engine? Frankly, I'm more worried about another dinosaur killer hitting us in the next 10 years. That's a more likely scenario.

**Note: I will concede that BI has missed out big time in assisting modders to monetize promising alternatives. Both DayZ, which boosted Arma 2 back on to the Top 5 sales charts 3 years after its release and PUBG's Battle Royale started out as Arma mods after all.

***Operation Flashpoint, Armed Assault (or ArmA), Arma 2, and Arma 3.

I'd put it at the bottom of the pack along with all the other titles that most people don't bother modding.  I'm not going to go all data scientist & adjust for percent of players in world (like half as many years ago) to compare etc ... just

I agree the range of what they can edit is cool, but is editing in it superior to other games - absolutely not.

Not why moding wise it's been such a flop compared to everything else.  I mean i've never measured the % of players who play versus the number of mod'ers - so I suppose you could theoretically go look that up & see if that's a win compared to other games?

QuoteI've heard over & over again they will support professional & free asset generators ... this would be a huge step in keeping making arma4 into a mainstream game amongst the hobby & professional mod world.

Of that I have no worries at all.  BI's support of the modding community is second to none and has been since the release of OpFlash.

My biggest disappointment:

The core of the engine is the C++ programming language with a scripting language called Enforce (an OOP scripting language that gamers may have already encountered, for example in DayZ). Shaders written in HLSL are used for rendering.

Kind of interesting if it's as good as they use in Unreal Engine:

Enfusion Workbench modules:
World Editor: this is where our virtual worlds are created.
Particle Editor: visual effects editor.
Animation Editor: editor for configuring character and object animations.
Script Editor: place for writing and debugging scripts in the Enforce language.
Audio Editor: editor for audio effects and music.
Behavior Editor: editor for defining the behavior of game-controlled characters (AI).
Procedural Animation Editor: editor for simpler, game-driven animations.
String Editor: editor for language localization.
Layout Editor: editor for creating game user interface
and others.

One other note:

I've heard over & over again they will support professional & free asset generators ... this would be a huge step in keeping making arma4 into a mainstream game amongst the hobby & professional mod world.

Looking good!

I'll post the working source & compiled pbo's for the event handlers to database tomorrow.