Correct, but it is promised. The main reason they are delaying it is because of all the AI tweaks they are doing. Designing something as complex as the campaign would end up being a never ending revision task. So their decision was to wait until the AI is sufficiently stable as to make the campaign design effective and efficient. This then begs the question, why wasn't AI sorted out earlier? They have admitted that as a mistake.
And you are just defending their decision, I'm not attacking it. I'm stating the obvious truth; no single-player campaign will deduct from any potential score and public image of the game. The majority doesn't care about their tweaking or issues with AI, they care about content.
We've only seen a few of the scenarios so far. The rest are for final release. I can't see how you can critique something you've not actually seen/experienced yet.
Considering that I know BIS and have played all their game on release, they have extremely few scenarios and rely on the community to create them. I'll bet you anything you will see minimal additions.
Who releases major mods/missions when the game is in a state of flux? So far there are plenty of good mods and missions and it's known that many of the "heavy hitters" are already working on updating their Arma2 mods/missions.
I wasn't asking for major mods to be out by now. I'm stating that without all the other content, the only thing the game has is mods and they aren't being properly developed yet either. So you basically have very little content.
So far I've spent many hours playing the SP scenarios released on Steamworks. It's been a seamless process and also been fun to give direct feedback to the mission designers and see them tweak the missions in response. Much more efficient than having to hunt down relevant forum topics, etc.
Yeah and so have I, there's so much straight up dogsh*t on Steamworks - Even the five star rated stuff is something slapped together in 15 minutes and is full of bugs. Me and my friend were trying out a bunch of stuff and were shaking our heads in disbelief over the amount of bugs and lack of effort. This is the kinda stuff an unknowing public have to get into, a series that is already know by the gaming majority as 'buggy and janky' - Their initial dose of content is going to be that rubbish?
How is this different from the metric ton of rubbish you need to sort through from Armaholic? Both Armaholic and Steamworks have rating systems, so knowing what's good or not is just the same. The advantage of Streamworks is it's much easier to get the missions in the first place.
And where did I claim the current system to be any better? They just made it easier to access and publish rubbish. You now also have big guys like JSRS who has said and demanded that none of his content will be released on Steam workshop.
There is a learning curve, but a few of Jester's tutorial Youtube videos had me making really fun town sweep missions. An editor is part of the selling point for the game. Getting people to use it is a desired outcome for BIS.
Yes, a part of. Releasing a content starved game where everything has to be manually acquired or built does not equal a great public reception. Games have been burned for less.
I'm not writing posts based on my views, because I've played the game since Operation Flashpoint and I know exactly what I'm getting into. I actually step back and take a look at the game from the 'other side' of the fence, people that haven't played ArmA games to exhaustion or know they ins and out of the game like you and i.
BIS is trying to get noticed by the bigger public, they are just aren't catering for the core group any longer - They are trying to shed themselves of the "janky / buggy" image they have, they are trying to build a proper retail experience which won't happen if you release without a campaign and rely on rubbish user content to keep afloat. Every single person outside of the community I talk to had no idea why they would release the game without the campaign.
They can't just take the "Oh let the community create" approach from day one if they want to go that route. They need to serve up some meaty content and THEN all the gravy is in the community content.