DICE could harm ARMA series with mod tools

[Maplassie]

Erm, have you played the ACE mod? PR doesn't come anywhere close in terms of realism to Arma2, nevermind ACE.

I've got over 1000 hours on the Ace mod for arma 2 I love Milsim.

Secondly.

Erm, even if BF had modding tools it's nothing like Arma. There is a reason one is called a military sim and the other an FPS.

If fully featured mod tools were to be released for BF3, they could easily make something that rivals Arma, and make a DayZ mod on the BF3 engine better than what Arma could ever do. That is my point. You can change a game to anything if you have decent mod tools and time on your hands, barring engine limitations. Case in point is Project reality. They took Battlefield which is an Arcade FPS, and gave us the epic Project Reality mod, with all the engine limitations that BF2 has. Imagine what they could do with the BF3 engine.

[Clive Woofer]

I don't know. Part of the lure of DayZ is that it's built on a milsim. I have no doubt a DayZ-type mod for BF could be good, but can it rival ArmA DayZ? I highly doubt it.

[Lycanthrope]

I'm still patiently waiting for the standalone release of DayZ...

[Tsar]

I'm still patiently waiting for the standalone release of DayZ...

Makes the both of us.

[Clive Woofer]

Every devblog they release just makes it seem further and further away.

[Lycanthrope]

Every devblog they release just makes it seem further and further away.

Yeah... I have those feelings about Starbound right now too

[Grievous]

They're two entirely different genres and people play them for entirely different reasons. It's like saying that NFS will kill off Gran Turismo. It makes no sense.

I think many people are missing the point. Arma 2 can attribute much of its success to the Dayz mod. And much of the success of the Dayz mod wasn't because of Arma 2 gameplay but because Dayz was relatively unique. (It actually pissed me off because it wasn't exactly the smoothest of gaming experiences)

I know many people who would never have played Arma if it wasn't for the mod. Infact I've never played Arma, only Dayz. Now if Battlefield offered a mod similar to Dayz, I doubt I would have installed Arma or even have bothered with Dayz.

Battlefield is far more popular than arma (I'm not trying to say one is better or worse than the other), if Battlefield offered modding, I think far more people wouldn't bother with dayz because well they already have battlefield, and enjoy Battlefields type of gameplay more. And I'm sure it wouldn't be to long before someone made a similar mod.

[Clive Woofer]

Yeah, fair enough. I only got introduced to ArmA through the DayZ mod, but make no mistake, loads of people realised just how great the ArmA series was once they finally experienced it through the DayZ mod. Personally, I never even gave ArmA a look because the fact that it's a military sim put me off entirely, but I certainly can't go back to playing BF seriously after I've now experienced ArmA.

I don't want to get into an ArmA vs BF argument either, but I do feel Dean Hall's claims that BF with mod support can kill ArmA is entirely ridiculous. ArmA has always been a more niche game and it got by fine by catering to minority audiences. And the reason for that is definitely not because it had mod support and BF didn't. Personally I just find ArmA to be a lot more rewarding to play than BF, because it feels to me that BF rewards quick reflexes whereas ArmA rewards you for strategy, tactics, patience and outwitting your opponent. If I had to use the slow, measured and strategic tactics I employ in ArmA, in a match of BF, I'd get shot to ribbons.

In the end I guess all I'm saying is that Dean Hall is wrong in his assessment. BF with mods might take away parts of the ArmA community, but it won't take away the core ArmA fans. The game might never make as much money as BF, but it won't become unprofitable. It's pretty sad that a prominent developer such as him can misjudge the ArmA audience like that.