• Goodbye, Arma!

    Eichi

    91 comments · 53092 views

    Dear players,

    I would like to inform all of you that my time with Arma modding has come to an end. I feel that it is just fair to make a public statement to counter all the false rumors and urban myths that are around these days. You simply deserve that. However, I cannot speak for my friends Grim and Vishpala here, but I think they feel the same.

    There are many reasons why I am stepping back now. Where do I begin?

    Exile has been my first game modification ever and I have spent all my love into it for more than one and a half year exclusively. I simply need something else now. This is like eating pasta for more than a year. Pasta sure is great, but I think we all agree that after that long time, you will want to eat something else. 

    I also just became a father this year and this little gnome needs my love more than everything else now. I have spent weeks of my private vacation time before his birth to finish version 1.0.0 and I simply do not have the time for that anymore. This truly is a life changer, but unfortunately, that is not it: Just hours after releasing the 1.0.2 update, I have suffered a stroke and ended up in the hospital. And the first message I have received in hospital: "Hey, your website was hacked and now shows swastikas!". Great. Thank you, I guess. Doctors say I might work and sit too much. I think I do. I work in another country and travel quite a lot. And sitting for about ten hours a day is definitely too much. I have also been working on Exile while sitting at the airports waiting for planes. To quote one of my favorite movies here: "I am too old for this shit!" (For you wondering, it is Lethal Weapon). I will now invest time in what really matters: Eichi Level 1.

    I am a developer by heart and it will always be my hobby. I will continue developing games in the little free time that I have left after my job and family, but it will not be related to Arma modding. I am simply too tired of restarting Arma over and over again just to tune a value in a config. I also cannot look at questionable error messages like "Error Type Number, Not a Number, Expected Number, Number" anymore. And as stated above, I simply do not have the time anymore to mess with things. I also remember that I once had a problem where infantry could walk through opened gates, but vehicles could not drive through. It took me three (god-damn) days to figure out something that was not documented to solve it. It just feels too unprofessional.

    On top of that, these days it is less frustrating (and sometimes easier) to create a new game from scratch than to modify an existing platform. Many mods are moving away from Arma as they have grown up, leaving little behind. Battle Royale turns into Battlegrounds, Altis Life turns into Identity, Breaking Point into a stand-alone and the talented 2017 guys have announced to do something with the Unreal Engine, too. The list continues. Modding is just too limited and failing to make your dreams come true is just frustrating in the long run. I am not teasing you (am I?), but the Unreal Engine is teasing me. But no, I am not planning to do an Exile stand-alone in case you ask. There is something else in my mind.

    We also never know what the next Arma update includes. The long awaited 2017 Mod , my favorite map called Taunus and even Namalsk were screwed by Arma updates and ended up in the trash bin. So it can turn out that months or even years of work turn into a big waste of time by the decisions of a third party you cannot influence. Some of you might remember my t-shirt saying "And then Arma updated". I have it for a reason. Bohemia Interactive seems to consider Arma 3 "done" and will deploy stabilization updates only. Let us hope the best for that. Maybe the shrubberies will be less lethal and walls might stop you from walking through them. 

    In case an update goes wild and breaks things again, I am willing to invest time to solve arising issues, but I will surely need help here. I have experienced update problems that took weeks to solve. Some updates went without problems, but we never know. If you would like to help out on making Exile compatible with upcoming Arma versions or maybe even continue developing it, feel free to get in touch with us. I suggest that we arrange a meeting in Teamspeak (ts.exile.majormittens.co.uk) and discuss the details. Maybe already this weekend? It would be great to talk to everybody again!

    I will keep this forum, the XM8 app and all backend servers alive, so in the end, nothing will really change. It will just stay in the current state. Everyone who needs my support with developing a Community is King project will get my support. I will be there if you need me.

    Overall, I believe that Exile is a great project. I have met amazing people and it was much more successful than I ever would have expected. Some of you may remember the first Wordpress website we have had. Yepp, see how bad we were prepared for the storm. You completely rekt our servers :)

    From the bottom of my heart; Thank you! You rock!

    /Eichi


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    +1 on basically everything Eichi said.

    Too tired of dealing with invisible "backpack" objects colliding. While errors are flowing with:  

    "Error Type Number, Not a Number, Expected Number, Number" 

    Last couple of updates dealing with arma bugs not ours.
    All in all it was a fun ride. ;) thanks to all who supported this project. :)

    NOTE:
    when arma finally updates to 64bit(in a next decade) just shoot me a PM to update the extensions.

    Have fun all ;)

    Grim

     

    • Like 8

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    +1 for making it open source. anything else would be stupid at this point.

    EDIT: well.. who am i to judge that. thanks for your hard work until here!

    Edited by =TBM= BangL

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    Hey Man. I would like to thank you, for enabling me, my clan and the whole community hundreds of hours of Fun with ur Mod.
    Good luck with getting ur health back up again and i wish you nothing but the best with helping ur kid growing up.
    We really enjoyed playing ur Mod. I will donate some bucks later that month, to show you my respect man.

    Stay Real!

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    Juggling this and your family must of been hard work and so sorry to hear about your stroke.  Thanks for creating this and I am sure that there will be a ton of people looking to help progress things further.

    Good luck!

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    Eichi Level 1 :-D first Christmas for him soon :)

    Thanks for sharing your thoughts and I wish you a relaxing  time; I think those who have followed the Skype group knew this anyways and after all that happened this year it's the best choice you can make.

    Especially since the game "developers" (when you can call them that) decide to break the game more and more and don't listen or take fixes.. 

    and now you've got the PAPA job, for the rest of your life which is probably by far more important than this baby (Arma/Exile) 

    • Like 7

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    Eichi,

    Very Sad to see this post, but truly understand and respect your decision (Family/health comes first).

    Thank you so much for creating this mod, it gave me the opportunity to meet  a lot of great people ( just like yourself) and those who are still 

    playing exile with me today. I hope someone will step up to the plate and continue this project with similar ideas and creativity like the ones you and your team have. 

    Eichi / Vishpala / Grim and Mr. White ( who left some time ago)  Thank you so much and good luck to you all.

    -Hunter

     

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    A massive thank you for all the time and effort you've put into Exile, you and your team, Eichi.... you guys have really set the bar when in comes to modding.

    The support you guys gave to this mod showed us how it should be done, which lead to this place (this website) and the tone that followed. I've never seen such a helpful supporting community as Exile's has grown into. People come here with an issue and devs/admins/players alike will all bend over backwards to help one another, that's all because of the way you set this mod up and the support you gave to it, Eichi.

    Well done, enjoy fatherhood (embrace those moments) get the rest you need.

    all the best for the future and a big,big thank you.

     

    GGWOLF

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    All the best to you and your family Eichi, take it easy and get your health up to speed again, I back your decision, Arma is and will always be a shit platform to work on, and there is plenty of fish in the sea to catch and work on which is way better and easier. Exile taught me a lot of things about coding for Arma, if it wasn't for Exile well I wouldn't even have started building missions, scripts etc, and for that I am truly thankful to the entire team.

    I kind of already knew this was coming based on the Skype conversations, but it is what it is. ^_^

    Congratulations with Eichi level 1 as well, may your child be as awesome as you :rock:

    Best of luck to y'all! 

    I'll still be around doing my thing once in awhile, but some may also have noticed my activity here haven't been much either over the past few months due to a new job, business travels which rendered me incapable of spending any time for Exile. 

    Maybe we should start a donation for the very first Christmas present for baby Eichi :D

    • Like 3

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    Thanks for the time making this awesome mod, I hope you have a great time in parenthood and thanks for all the support you've given to the community!
    I hope whoever takes over if they do, you see them fit for the job and they carry on your legacy!

    Love you lots man! Farewell :D

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    " This is like eating pasta for more than a year. Pasta sure is great, but I think we all agree that after that long time, you will want to eat something else. "

    Except, every consecutive pasta you eat gets more stale, less tasty, and a lot less fulfilling; until you end up with a pile of shit that gives you nothing but tummy aches.

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    Thanks Eichi / Grim / Vish and the community for making this mod awesome !

    I totally understand you Eichi and I wish you the best for the future... Family, well being and health come first obviously !

    Even tho I understand I have to say I'm very sad that this is (probably) the end of this great project (at least by Eichi views) !

     

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