Rock, Paper, Shotgun

“But Craig”, you’re probably saying to your monitor. “I totes remember insects casting shadows in Arma 2. Like seriously.” To that I say: “That’s cool. Let’s talk.”

This was supposed to be a post about the wonders of Arma 3′s new screenshot mode, splendidly named the Splendid Camera. It still is. Splendid Camera, I shall always call it by its full name, is one of those additions that shows you how deeply into the community’s den that Bohemia are willing to burrow to make people happy. In this case it’s a function that’s specifically designed to allow players to fly around the game, slow time, remove the HUD, and even change exposure and focus settings, just so they can take nice screenshots. That is how I discovered that both Arma 2 and Arma 3 had insects that cast shadows.
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Hello, readers. I am alone in the RPS forbidden chatroom of mystery, which means that I am in charge of RPS until someone comes and takes it away from me. They actually forgot I was here and took Good Friday off without telling me! I am just a freelancer. So today we’ll have none of the usual nonsense that passes for RPS posts these days. News? Schmews! Faetures? I can’t even spell the word. GDC? I just checked and it doesn’t mean “Gloriously Decadent Chips”, so I don’t know why John and Jim are there. My autonomy means I get to do stuff like this. ArmA 3′s creative director pointed me towards a lovely ArmA 2 mod. An inquisitive six year-old’s first ArmA 2 addon. In the middle of all the horribly detailed war bastards that are usually built for the game, the wee boy made a table. Being a huge sap, I asked for more screenshots and details. They are EXCLUSIVE and below.
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The scenario: you have the Arma 3 Alpha and you’ve exhausted the stock missions the game comes with. You’re also rubbish with the editor, and you don’t live with someone Arma Arm Armasson, who can show you what to do with it. Don’t worry. There’s no such person, so you’re not missing out on his sage wisdom. And Arma 3 is pretty easy to have fun with. Here’s what people have been up to
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There are quite a few communities bustling away in the General Sociability forum, and some of those have produced of videos of their antics. I’ve embedded just a few of those below. There are many more, and I am sure others still I haven’t seen.

Are you doing video stuff with the RPS community? Link your work/play in the comments!
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One of my absolute favourite things is that there are various RPS communities. Seriously, it blows my mind. People have become proper friends with other people because this website exists. That makes me very happy. One such community is the hardcore gathering who get together to play ARMA 2, FOLK ARPS. And as I’d hope for anything spawned of our name, they’re an open, welcoming and friendly community, who encourage anyone interested in playing to join in. They’ve compiled a 10 minute video to show their antics in 2012.

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Update: a post from developer Dean “Rocket” Hall explains more.

I don’t know whether to growl or sigh so I guess I’ll just groan, or maybe even grigh. Jim’s new favourite playground and horrorshow, DayZ, was the victim of a security breach, carrying the risk that the game’s servers could become a botnet. Thankfully the person responsible has been identified, a statement has been released and legal action is being pursued. The official advice is as follows:

…if you are a user who has downloaded the .exe called dayz_auto_updater.exe from the US Mirror…scan against viruses and read the description by ThreatExpert on where to locate this if your Virus detector does not pick it up.

Additionally, server hosts who supplied RDP details to the DayZ team are also compromised and “need to thoroughly scan their server for the same type of processes and to change their servers RDP details and to NOT ever give the RDP details out to anyone *Including DayZ* from now on”. More below.

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Day Z has a bit of a problem. I realise that by writing about it that I might make people realise that it’s possible, and therefore make the issue worse, but hey, I am sure Rocket is aware and will want to fix it. In the meantime, I had to laugh…
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“The civil war in Bystrica is at its end. But it’s not the end of fear for the people. War criminals like Colonel Miyovic still terrorize the country with their militia looting and murdering civilians. Forces of the Czech Republic Army are sent to restore order.” Go Czech army! Also this: “15 new missions in the singleplayer campaign, scenarios and procedural template gameplay modes” and “two new summer-season terrains: Bystrica and Bukovina.” One of those is the lovely green environment pictured above. £8 pre-order pricetag on this, it’s turning up in Q3 of this year. One for a, uh, limited audience, perhaps.