Why ARMA Engine?

[kiwi_laurel 24]

Honestly, what was the reasoning behind choosing to base this game off the ARMA engine?

I know that's where it began from the mod, but for the standalone, I thought it would have been a much better idea to start fresh? Rather then trying to work from something that seems so broken to begin with...

I mean, you can't polish a turd...

[DemonGroover 8836]

So what engine do you suggest assuming it does what the Virtual Reality engine can do?

 

Map size, object count, view distance, and no loading screens. Oh, and an MMO.

 

Really, i'd like to know.

Edited January 21, 2014 by DemonGroover

[minime1000 78]

I agree the engine is really clunky and bad but making a new one from scratch ain't that easy. Licensing another engine also costs a lot of money.

 

e: dayz is hardly an mmo. 100 players is not massive online.

Edited January 21, 2014 by myshl0ng

[Mos1ey 6301]

RV engine has it's issues but it's also the best engine for the job in many respects...

[kiwi_laurel 24]

It is a lot of work, but would of thought it would have been better to start fresh...

Build their own engine to do the job.

This game will never reach the masses purely because it will never be that polished, there issues in it that are engine based... and while we may learn to deal with them, newcomers will simply laugh and toss it aside as a half ass beta.

Edited January 21, 2014 by kiwi_laurel

[DemonGroover 8836]

And we would then be waiting 2 more years for the alpha.

[terminal_boy 860]

It is their own engine...

[blacklabel79 949]

lets port it to unreal 3 ( hides in a bush )

[Khad (DayZ) 293]

What should simulate our weapons, all the damage and this giant environement as good as the RV? 

Frostbite? lol

Creation Engine? 

 

Btw... do you know how much money it takes to buy an engine?

[Zedicologist 162]

Even though the arma engine has it problems.  I couldnt think of any other engine that could do dayz as well as RV. 

[ZedsDeadBaby 2287]

If they had started "fresh" Alpha would have been 2015 at the earliest. Beta maybe 2017.

 

Using the ARMA engine saved them at least 2-3 years of development time.

 

[kiwi_laurel 24]

Making one that actually worked properly would have been much more beneficial in the long run...

[ZedsDeadBaby 2287]

Making one that actually worked properly would have been much more beneficial in the long run...

 

No, not really. Fixing the issues with the current engine will take months. Creating a new one from scratch would have taken years.

[minime1000 78]

Cryengine 2 or 3 could do it but that also costs a fortune. There are mmos running on the very first cryengine already.

[Mos1ey 6301]

Making one that actually worked properly would have been much more beneficial in the long run...

 

Please do tell us how the engine does not work correctly...

[Xarg 6]

Could you add something constructive, like actually defining what "works properly" even means in the context you're using it in, instead of just repeating the same valueless statement over and over?

[dickflip 15]

 Yea, the clunkiness of the engine turns a surprising amount of people off. But the smoothness of the character movements and animations now have slightly improved that.

 

 However full judgment on whether the devs have managed to un-robotify the engine will be passed once more updates are released and vehicles come into play.

[djporternz 644]

Cryengine 2 or 3 could do it but that also costs a fortune. There are mmos running on the very first cryengine already.

Cryengine max heightmap for map is 4096 x 4096, just over 4 km x 4 km at a 1 metre scale.

 

Technically the limitation is 256 km2 (8km * 32 units) but you're quite likely to find the engine unstable if you try it. You're looking at over half a gig of storage just for an empty level. The engine can do it, it's just not practical.

 

Start adding assets and computational requirements and you're going to need some serious expenditure on hardware. Going by the specs in the 'Can I run DayZ' thread, that means most people here would not be able to run it.

 

And for {CORE}BlackLabel: Unreal 3 has a max map size of around 7 square miles.

Edited January 21, 2014 by DJPorterNZ

[TheUnknownDane 23]

Tbh.. The Arma engine works fine. It just needs adjustments and fine polishing, which already is being done.

Content is being added, animations are being refined, and the overall performance - both server and client side is being progressed as time goes.

 

Rome wasn't built in a day guys. Give it time.

I have faith in the dev team. Considering what the Alpha is now, I'm really looking forward to following/playing the next years of development.

:beans:

[kiwi_laurel 24]

The clunkiness, the lag for changing guns etc etc, zombies running through walls, the hand to hand combat, these are all things that have been there from the get go in ARMA.

Shit, even ARMA 3 ain't that great.

It just seems this game is severely limited by the engine.

 

[terminal_boy 860]

Of course, the Devs could off-load CPU tasks to the server by running a headless client, but then you're looking at servers having to be way more powerful.

[Awruk 216]

Here's why: BI was smart enough to allow heavy modding of their engine thus they got Dean and his DayZ. After that it was obvious they are just naturally going to stick with their own engine. It may be shitty but BI has people who know this engine like a back of their hand so there would be no point in starting from scratch.

[minime1000 78]

Cryengine max heightmap for map is 4096 x 4096, just over 4 km x 4 km at a 1 metre scale.

 

Technically the limitation is 256 km2 (8km * 32 units) but you're quite likely to find the engine unstable if you try it. You're looking at over half a gig of storage just for an empty level. The engine can do it, it's just not practical.

 

Start adding assets and computational requirements and you're going to need some serious expenditure on hardware. Going by the specs in the 'Can I run DayZ' thread, that means most people here would not be able to run it.

 

And for {CORE}BlackLabel: Unreal 3 has a max map size of around 7 square miles.

So when you license an engine you cannot modify it to fit your game?

 

Biggest gripe for me are the hugely unintuitive first person controls. ARMA3 is a lot better but at times I still feel like controlling a tank and "why the hell do I have motor response problems suddenly"

Edited January 21, 2014 by myshl0ng

[Atomizer 53]

The main points have already been covered, so instead I am going to delve a little bit deeper, first, the points that have been covered:

 

BI already own the RV engine, and the developers are already familiar with the engine, using another engine means shelling out a lot of money, and then spending a lot of development time re purposing the engine for DayZ, which they have been doing with RV, however, with a different engine they would need to learn it, and make much more drastic changes to the core to get things even close to what we have now, so not only would it take longer, and potentially have more issues(due to the teams inexperience with the engine), it would also cost magnitudes more then working with $0 licensing and without the extra development time on top of what they have already spent on reworking RV.

 

Creating a new engine from scratch might have $0 licensing fees, but as mentioned, would take years to get close to what we have now, with more issues, and likely more staff being required from the get go, not to mention without having an engine to work on from the start, art assets and the map, not to mention the gameplay mechanics, cannot really be put into play until the engine is fairly solid, which means waiting on the engine to be done before the majority of the other staff would even have jobs to do, and I am pretty sure BI will not pay people to sit around doing nothing.

 

As for the clunkiness of the engine, that is an issue that can be addressed, believe it or not, not saying it wont remain in some way, "clunky", however, if you compare ArmA2 to ArmA3, ArmA3 itself is less clunky then ArmA2, in fact, a part from the inventory, I would even go so far as to say it is less clunky then DayZ currently, even with the way you can switch weapons in DayZ while moving.

I mean, a lot of the clunkiness from the mod no longer exists, and I imagine it is only going to become smoother, while remaining with it's more realistic approach(ie, it won't become as smooth as the arcadey counter-strike/cod/bf games).

[Irenicus (DayZ) 289]

So what engine do you suggest assuming it does what the Virtual Reality engine can do?

 

Map size, object count, view distance, and no loading screens. Oh, and an MMO.

 

Really, i'd like to know.

No loading screens? I guess you mean once in-game. Because otherwise...have you actually fired up the game recently. It takes forever to load even on fast machines.