Laws of War DLC: A Community Introspective

ArmA III has been around for a fair amount of time now and has expanded DLC offerings into interesting new directions.

Today’s focus is the new DLC: Laws of War

Laws of War is the latest of those offerings and was developed under the code name “Orange”, as it was referred to during the mod’s development cycle. More importantly however, Laws of War takes ArmA III in a rather markedly different direction than what was generally expected for a military simulator.

Unlike previous releases, the new release doesn’t focus on weapons, vehicles or Blufor, Opfor, and Independent factions but instead addresses humanitarian aid, a facet of conflict that is often forgotten.

An initial interpretation of this might be surprise given that this is remarkably different direction and the concept truly stands out in what it brings to the table.

For this newsletter we took a poll of TRC community members and opinions on the DLC itself are fairly divided. Some believe it to be overblown and “a waste of money” while others think it to be innovative and placing a “new twist on the mechanics of ArmA”. Both points have merit.

Laws of War’s asking price is $10.79 USD at the date this newsletter. This is a marked 10% discount from the retail price of $11.99 USD. As part of the ArmA III DLC Bundle 2, the total cost of all included DLC sits at $24.99 USD retail but is on sale until September 7th, for $19.99 USD. Polled community members agreed by a fair margin that, despite what Laws of War offers, the DLC is overpriced for what is given, taking possible man hours spent on the project into account. Two polled members opted to reserve their judgement until after the DLC is released while one stated that it was fully worth the price tag. Of those who believe it to be overpriced, one went so far as to call the DLC “Nothing but a cash grab”.

So are the DLC assets actually useful in various game modes? There’s a fair bit of disagreement over this issue.

Some see the new tools as interesting or useful in Zeus game modes and enjoy the prospect of adding more depth to their civilians and interaction with their respective player bases.

Reviews from LanceCplLiru and Luetin09 of Youtube fame have favorably reviewed the new in-game elements, though neither addressed the price tag. Skepticism may be par for the course here as both are popular among the Arma III player base. Others view it as unnecessary fluff with assets like mine dispensers and ambulances offering only marginal utility in most game modes. Of special concern for the TRC community is how this will impact our Exile server. Our Exile Sysop remarked “I will likely have to remove or prevent the use or existence of items like the apers mine dispensers”. This update may also offer a plethora of potential issues that often accompany free system updates and bring mod breaking consequences with them.

But is the DLC successful in offering something meaningful to the ARMA III community? The poll of our community, while limited, largely suggested that they would not recommend this DLC to a friend or at least not unless it was on sale. It doesn’t seem to be wildly popular based on our poll despite the potential for this new direction in the ARMA series. Whether sales numbers will reflect this is anyone’s guess but the future for humanitarian ideals in a military simulator doesn’t seem very bright.

Editor's Note: Personally I’m looking forward to the DLC. I’m not sure yet whether I can, or ever will be able to justify the price tag, or that the DLC will be legitimately good and useful, but hey, we’re all allowed to splurge a little occasionally. Regardless of my feelings of the DLC itself, the systems update that’s coming is affecting everyone that plays ArmA, so I feel it necessary myself to stay on top of what’s coming, both to educate myself and others.

Cheers, and watch your spacing,

TRC_DasPanzer

#LawsofWard #DLC #ARMAIII