I'm amazed at the Arma3 Beta !! - so many bugs were supposed to have been fixed in the Beta and yet here they still are. I get the feeling Bohemia is trying to rush the development so that they can launch before BF4 and COD Ghosts arrive and spoil the party. If this is true then only the critical/urgent issues will be addressed from now on.

Imo there are 3 basic issues which unless significantly improved will result in Arma 3 being a major disappointment and a failure at the box office. The first is general gameplay - based on the beta - Arma3 still feels very clunky and rough around the edges.

General gameplay and control system
Moving around in Arma3 whilst marginally better than Arma 2 still feels incredibly clunky and outdated. The myriad of command menus is still ridiculous and something left over from 10 years ago. Why can't the developers fix this? Other games manage to streamline this process and they aren't sims? If the aim is to mirror real combat scenarios as realistically as possible then interaction with the physical world needs to be smooth and intuitive and not reliant on numerous menus and key combinations to do the simplest of things. Example - if you walk up to a ladder you should not have to press a key to get onto the ladder. Likewise when you reach the top of the ladder you should not continue to climb an invisible ladder below your hand position. Another example is when you approach an object which can be stepped over (waist high or lower) you should not have to press a key to step over the obstacle. This indicates that the player action and environment are disconnected and the game engine needs a major overhaul to bring it inline with other engines out there.

Key bindings could be significantly simplified with toggle keys and the use of a cammo rose type of system for issuing quick instructions or commands. Note anything that streamlines and simplifies the command process will not detract from Arma's attempt to be a sim. In the real world a soldier doesn't have to waste lots of time wading through menus simply to indicate that he has spotted/tagged an enemy - for example.

Shooting - all weapons
I have fired a lot of weapons in the real world and the experience bears little to no comparison to Arma's attempt to replicate gun movement and recoil. The recoil effects in Arma3 are so ridiculous they are laughable. I think instead of gun movement being controlled by physics the developers use a simple randomizing routine to just force the gun to jump all over the place - like it's having a fit. Surely they could fix this - many other games manage to replicate weapon movement in such a way that it approximates reality whilst at the same time allowing a player to aim at a target and shoot without the gun barrel floating around in all directions. We want to have some fun. I know the Arma fanatics are probably frothing at the mouth right now but my comments are echoed by a lot of casual and serious Arma enthusiasts. I wouldn't be wasting my time writing this if I didn't want Arma3 to live up to our expectations. Remember Bohemia said Arma3 was going to be a much more refined and polished game. So far it looks like Arma3 will be a slightly better looking version of Arma2 with an underwater capability.

AI
The AI has not improved despite 1000's of complaints and tickets. Just some of the problems with AI:

• They can see through objects and buildings
• They have superhuman eye sight and can spot you miles away even at night
• They shoot with extreme accuracy (no recoil here!)
• They all behave the same and move the same way
• If one AI spots you they all immediately aware of your position
• They can walk through objects

Well that's my five cents worth - I don't hold out much hope that there issues will be fixed - most of them require major work on the game engine and this is after all the Beta - by now all the rough edges should have been removed. It's a real shame.