Bohemia Interactive intends to make Arma 3 and its modding tools available long before release.
Arma 3 is certainly sizing up to be one of Bohemia Interactive's most anticipated titles. The game features a fully explorable 270 square kilometer island, single and multiplayer missions, and the community tools behind the popular DayZ mod. Arma 3 will be launching in Q3 2013, but Bohemia would actually prefer to get content into player's hands as early as next week. Starting on March 5th, everyone who has pre-ordered the game on Steam will get immediate access to an alpha version of Arma 3 and its modding tools. If you prefer a try-before-you-buy option, Bohemia still has you covered: Just ask a friend who has purchased Arma 3 for an alpha of your own.
According to Bohemia, early Arma 3 buyers will have the ability to invite non-paying customers into a limited version of the alpha. The free version won't support the paid alpha's modding and multiplayer capabilities, but it will showcase four singleplayer missions on a 20 square kilometer island near the Altis coast. If you cannot find a friend that will invite you to the alpha, access codes will also be circulating across various social channels and media outlets. Arma 3's beta version will also become available for paying customers in Q2 2013.
"The Arma 3 Alpha is a big milestone in the project's development," says Arma 3 Co-Creative Director Jay Crowe. "Testing early and often puts us on the right track towards improving performance, stability and delivering on our goal of creating a robust final release. It's also a big opportunity to get the game in the hands of our passionate community, which enables them to start work on their own creations, tailored to the fourth generation of the Real Virtuality engine."
Arma 3's alpha launch is very well-timed, considering recent debates on the usefulness of game preorders. The games industry is being confronted with some hard questions about why preorders should be endorsed when the final quality of a game cannot be guaranteed. By offering customers immediate access to the alpha, and extending a free demo to their friends, Bohemia may have found a way to satisfy early purchasers and potential buyers alike. Being able to launch with a strong modding community at that point only sweetens the pot.
Arma 3's alpha will be available starting March 5th with any purchase of the Arma 3 Alpha pack or Arma 3 Digital Deluxe Edition. Bohemia will support its free version of the alpha until June 15, 2013.
AWesome. lets not hire testers, our players will bugtest our game for us, for free too. all we have to do ias ask them to pay for it, then bugtest it and only them we give them the game.
Ah, the days of actual quality assurance is gone like the wind....
I have a lot of love for Bohemia Interactive, ever since the first Operation Flashpoint game, which I absolutely adored to the point that I got pretty damned invested in creating Missions, Scripts, Addons, etc. etc.
It's odd, because normally I don't go in for Modding on games (A few Total War Mods aside).
Strazdas: AWesome. lets not hire testers, our players will bugtest our game for us, for free too. all we have to do ias ask them to pay for it, then bugtest it and only them we give them the game.
Ah, the days of actual quality assurance is gone like the wind....
This isn't EA we're talking about, their a smaller dev that has used what little internal testing they could and often ended up releasing a buggy game due to it. Their trying to solve the issue using what they can within their budget, honestly I think its a good idea to let the fans that'd get the game on day one anyway help with the testing.
Strazdas: AWesome. lets not hire testers, our players will bugtest our game for us, for free too. all we have to do ias ask them to pay for it, then bugtest it and only them we give them the game.
Ah, the days of actual quality assurance is gone like the wind....
This isn't EA we're talking about, their a smaller dev that has used what little internal testing they could and often ended up releasing a buggy game due to it. Their trying to solve the issue using what they can within their budget, honestly I think its a good idea to let the fans that'd get the game on day one anyway help with the testing.
Help with bughunting in beta? fine replace the quality assurance procedures for fanbase bugtesting? not fine requiring pre-order for alpha stage charity tester? not fine.
the thing to understand about BI is that they have an extensive and damn loyal modding community which is who the release and modding tools are entirely aimed at. it also lets you see if the game will run on your system, etc
Three, spend them wisely for you may one day have to rely on those whom(?) you invite. ;)
Well I know who will get 1 of them, so I have 2 spare. Hmm.... any victums errr... volunteers?
what are the specs for arma 3?
SYSTEM REQUIREMENTS
MINIMUM
OS Windows Vista SP2 Windows 7 SP1 PROCESSOR Intel Dual-Core 2.4 GHz AMD Dual-Core Athlon 2.5 GHz GRAPHICS NVIDIA GeForce 8800GT ATI Radeon HD 3830 Intel HD Graphics 4000 GPU MEMORY 512 MB DirectX® 10 RAM 2 GB HARD DRIVE 15 GB free space HARD DRIVE (ALPHA) 10 GB free space AUDIO DirectX® compatible on-board OTHER Internet connection and free Steam account to activate
RECOMMENDED
OS Windows Vista SP2 Windows 7 SP1 PROCESSOR Intel Core i5-2300 AMD Phenom II X4 940 GRAPHICS Nvidia GeForce GTS 560 AMD Radeon HD 7750 GPU MEMORY 1 GB DirectX® 11 RAM 4 GB HARD DRIVE 25 GB free space HARD DRIVE (ALPHA) 20 GB free space AUDIO DirectX® compatible soundcard OTHER Internet connection and free Steam account to activate
Not too steep but not too friendly. Ideally you would be looking at about 8 gigs of ram, a GTX 660TI/670, and an I7(or is it I5) 3770k.
Strazdas: AWesome. lets not hire testers, our players will bugtest our game for us, for free too. all we have to do ias ask them to pay for it, then bugtest it and only them we give them the game.
Ah, the days of actual quality assurance is gone like the wind....
This isn't EA we're talking about, their a smaller dev that has used what little internal testing they could and often ended up releasing a buggy game due to it. Their trying to solve the issue using what they can within their budget, honestly I think its a good idea to let the fans that'd get the game on day one anyway help with the testing.
Help with bughunting in beta? fine replace the quality assurance procedures for fanbase bugtesting? not fine requiring pre-order for alpha stage charity tester? not fine.
Quality Assurance and Public Testing are two different things, public testing is usually just a tiny phase of overall QA procedures.
Most games never have "open" public testing phases, so if a developer wants to charge for it, they should be able to.
Arma 3 Will Get a Free Alpha
Bohemia Interactive intends to make Arma 3 and its modding tools available long before release.
Arma 3 is certainly sizing up to be one of Bohemia Interactive's most anticipated titles. The game features a fully explorable 270 square kilometer island, single and multiplayer missions, and the community tools behind the popular DayZ mod. Arma 3 will be launching in Q3 2013, but Bohemia would actually prefer to get content into player's hands as early as next week. Starting on March 5th, everyone who has pre-ordered the game on Steam will get immediate access to an alpha version of Arma 3 and its modding tools. If you prefer a try-before-you-buy option, Bohemia still has you covered: Just ask a friend who has purchased Arma 3 for an alpha of your own.
According to Bohemia, early Arma 3 buyers will have the ability to invite non-paying customers into a limited version of the alpha. The free version won't support the paid alpha's modding and multiplayer capabilities, but it will showcase four singleplayer missions on a 20 square kilometer island near the Altis coast. If you cannot find a friend that will invite you to the alpha, access codes will also be circulating across various social channels and media outlets. Arma 3's beta version will also become available for paying customers in Q2 2013.
"The Arma 3 Alpha is a big milestone in the project's development," says Arma 3 Co-Creative Director Jay Crowe. "Testing early and often puts us on the right track towards improving performance, stability and delivering on our goal of creating a robust final release. It's also a big opportunity to get the game in the hands of our passionate community, which enables them to start work on their own creations, tailored to the fourth generation of the Real Virtuality engine."
Arma 3's alpha launch is very well-timed, considering recent debates on the usefulness of game preorders. The games industry is being confronted with some hard questions about why preorders should be endorsed when the final quality of a game cannot be guaranteed. By offering customers immediate access to the alpha, and extending a free demo to their friends, Bohemia may have found a way to satisfy early purchasers and potential buyers alike. Being able to launch with a strong modding community at that point only sweetens the pot.
Arma 3's alpha will be available starting March 5th with any purchase of the Arma 3 Alpha pack or Arma 3 Digital Deluxe Edition. Bohemia will support its free version of the alpha until June 15, 2013.
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