In response to the ongoing espionage case against two Arma III developers, developer Bohemia Interactive today announced it has changed the name of the game's main island from Lemnos to Altis. Lemnos is the real-world name of the island on which Ivan Buchta and Martin Pezlar were arrested in September. 
The pair were detained for 129 days before being recently released on bail earlier this month. Bohemia has insisted Buchta and Pezlar were merely on vacation, though an upcoming trial will decide their fate. The two previously faced up to 20 years in jail if convicted, though it is not clear if this punishment is still on the table, should the pair be found guilty.
"In view of recent events, the team no longer feels passionate about using the previous name, 'Limnos', and hopes that the new identity, ‘Altis’, will help emphasize the fictional nature of the game," the company said in a statement. "A secondary, significantly smaller island in Arma III, ‘Stratis’ (approx. 20 km²), will keep its name."
Arma III project lead Joris-Jan van 't Land commented on the decision to change the name of the island, saying the island was never meant to be an exact copy of the real-world location.
"As part of the creative process, our virtual environments are often rooted in real-life locations and, during development, they evolve and grow along with our design," he said. "The resulting fictional environment is often close to its inspiration, but it's never exactly the same--nor would we want it to be. For us, 'Altis' echoes the Mediterranean heart of our island, but differentiates it from any undesired real-life connotations."
Arma III was originally pegged to launch in 2012, but was delayed in December to a release sometime later this year. In addition to Arma III, Bohemia Interactive is also working with designer Dean Hall on a standalone version of zombie shooter DayZ.
Discussion
Yes. Taking pictures of military facilities is a crime. It is espionage as akin to taking pictures of military aircraft/equipment on air shows, arms trade expos and what not. Hey, taking pictures of real military maneuvers in real theaters of war are also espionage!
Maybe planewatchers are also budding terrorists? Sitting out of airports with cameras, plotting, scheming, to get their shot! Quick, arrest them!
Probably the cost of the trial would not be worth any deterrent factor in the end. The Greeks and Czech are waiting for the issue to die a natural death really.
Guys...This is a military facility.
20 years .. ??? They got lucky they WERENT SHOT
My friend served the army, he said that he often had guard duties, off the most remote outpost of the base, with no infrastructure around but empty space, nothing of interest for the military to protect, and they STILL had orders to shoot anyone approaching after 3 verbal warnings and a warning shot.
When will the seperate demo come out, dose anyone know?
So that's cool, now I know that if I start up a country I can arrest people for no reason or sheer paranoia and then basically force them, assuming they are developers, to not use my arbitrary place names...Yeah, a new form of terrorism has been born.
The problem was not that they caught some plane hangars in their photos. Apparently, according to a friend that was serving his time there at the time, the photos were taken a few hours before a shecduled national anti-air drill. So anti-air assets were being moved around. It could have been a coincidence, but BIS also works on real military sims for goverments etc apart from videogames, so counterintelligence got suspicious.
Oh man, 20 years in jail!? I hope they don't get that much time.
The name Altis exists and it is a Greek olive oil company ( http://www.christosmarket.com/v/vspfiles/templates/Custom/images/images/altis-750-s.jpg )
Greece is lucky the Czechs aren't from the Balkans otherwise... this would have made international headlines.
Don't really see the point unless this was some contingent on their employees being released or it will help in their future dealings concerning those legal issues. If neither of those thins are true then it's sort of dumb to change the name for the simple fact that anyone who sort of follows the game has heard about this situation so everyone will know what the island originally was. All this does is make it a little more controversial and give people something else to talk about.
They bogusly throw me in jail and I'll piss fire on their whole little island in my game. :)
Thats just plain stupid. Everyone by now already knows what it really is. I say stand by your work.
I think "Imnoslay" would have been appropriate.
Dear arma 3 devs, now that your friends are released from jail, start working on ARMA 3! and RELEASE A PLAYABLE DEMO OF IT! NOT JUST GAMEPLAY VIDEOS AND TRYING TO SHOW OFF YOUR ENGINE! AND DON'T KEEP PUSHING THE RELEASE DATES, AND FINALLY DO NOT GIVE US A BUGGY AND GLITCHED UP PRODUCT!!!
i say whatever, i bet the final product is not half as good as to justify the popularity it gained from all the news that were thrown in our general direction.
on the side, we are all ignorant and our opinions are not worth posting.
so much condensed foolishness and hate is not easy to find in most web places.
this whole "case" is very alarming as the greek authorities are acutally in charge of more than just a box of chocolates. Laws and stupidity such as this are in effect all over the world.
i am dissapointed a lot by Bohemia. changing the island's name is a clear admission of their guilt. They also could have helped the 2 developers with their statements, rather than the statement of the Czech president. On the other side i am overjoyed by the fact that the 2 developers are free now. They got on Lemnos on the orders of Bohemia most likeley, and they got off rather easy. The penalties are much harsher in these aituations(it could go to a martial court quite easily). So kudos to the Greek goverment who played this expertly, and bad words to Bohemia who made things worse for their employers, giving them no cover at all
I wonder what trouble they would get in if they just said it was in near future Turkey...
@Trahnyr012 based on the rumored specs, my current PC is far more powerful then the "next generation" not to mention we have steam, and hundreds of games that will never be on consoles. instead of being a tool, why don't you just play games on all platforms like a real gamer and not some biased IL-informed brat.
The best thing was they were taking photos of a pretty weak and uninteresting military base you can even see on google earth, yet the punishment was equal to stealing some sort of alien technology on an underground top secret research facility.
Can't wait to play this game so I can bomb the crap out of that army base.....then I'll take pictures of all the dead soliders.
Would be funny if they called it "NOT GREECE".
Arma 3 is feeling like a hot girl I met while on vacation.. I saw her for a brief time, but as far as I know I may never see her again. This waiting is killing me! I want my Arma 3 and I want my DayZ standalone.. MEOW!
They had the perfect opportunity to rename the island to Mypos and they blew it!
Hey, I kinda like this name better.
I always thought this whole ordeal for spying on military compounds was really silly given what is known. With the advent of programs like Google Earth, anyone can gather pretty intricate details of buildings and geography down to meter sized objects right from the comfort of one's own home. Hell, with GE you can look up in depth details on Groom Lake (aka Area 51). I guess we should go arrest Google for spying eh? =/
You have to admit they were stupid and naive if they thought they weren't going to be arrested.
@Suikogaiden Yea you are right, they weren't there to get ideas for their game they were spying on Greece. with all its wealth and high-end tech good on you for being so smart. glad to have smart ass people like you around.
PS. I like sarcasm.
Yeah my mate that was serving time over there as well told me the same thing.
@QQabitmoar suuuuuuuuure, "a friend"
@Kjranu Most Greeks that i know do not take threats lightly they are very passionate and extreme in their behavior. As for their governments they suck
@ghostwarrior79 stop whining dude
@Mega_Loser Huh? Have you not played arma II? It's the best military simulator out there and arma 3 looks a lot better
@Geogyf They aren't free at all though, they're only on bail, with an impending trial looming on the horizon. Here's hoping they don't throw the book at them in trial :( It is odd that Bohemia denies the two being there on business though, since co-workers very rarely go on vacations together... and that the vacation just happened to be on the same island that Bohemia is recreating for a game...
PS. What i mean is that the situation was very dire for the 2, for the Czech President to intervene, otherwise a simple ambassador would do.
So shame to Bohemia
@Ledah To be fair, you can see Area 51 on Google Earth, but you still arent allowed to go there and take pictures of it.
@archangel_600 Do not trust Google Earth !!!! The images of Groom Lake are fakeeeee
@Yuusha09 In developed countries, it's sorta the norm for pictures to be legal, as toshineon mentioned, so long as there's no trespassing. Most governments learned long ago to keep secrets where they can't be easily seen. Apparently Greece hasn't learned anything about espionage since the 1800s.
@Yuusha09 Maybe, another possibility is that laws are quite different from country to country. Taking photos of military installments isn't necessarily a crime if you don't trespass on to the military property. Photographs can be taken from a distance, after all.
@johnners2981 @Mega_Loser
to he honest, people buy arma 2 to play dayz. not me or you can translate sales into success for that sole reason. the fact that you like arma 2 crazily is very nice though and i'm happy for you.
@dragonlance1989 @archangel_600 They are not. They're just taken, when nothing is going on. Just like the sattelitte images of ALL military installations in the US, we only see what Public Affairs wants us to see. That is what the base looks like though. Just a bunch of hangars and a HUGE run way for Prototype Aircraft.
@parrot_of_adun @Yuusha09
i always see your multiple comments when i casually click the bohemia news for some general information. are you a bohemia shareholder?
@parrot_of_adun@Yuusha09The problem there is complex, greek islands are small in size, they are always threatened by neighboring Turkey so u have to have military installations there. But there are local residents there also u cant militarize all the islands nor ban tourists because its a source of revenue for the locals so the only thing u can do is ban photos of installations and military bases. Ppl have to remember that its a small country with small island its not like us where u can build your military bases in the middle of nowhere. The Arma guys plobably thought they could get away with a little research but the were caught. And to conclude its the law of the country if u break it u pay.
@Suikogaiden First of nice reply gotta give you props for that. Second of sure there has bin loads of trouble between Greece and Turkey and for Greece to be a lil paranoid is only to be expected. however I truly doubt they where crouching in any bushes, have you seen the island in question? looks pretty barren to me. also these guys are Tjechs, they are not part of the balkans. and many a people form all over the world come to Greece to video and photograph the region, truly according to you all tourists are in fact spies.
@GamerLegend10 @Mega_Loser @johnners2981
various sources from the search engine don't necessarily agree with you but i respect your personal opinion :\
@parrot_of_adun @Mega_Loser @johnners2981
nah, a simple internet search states otherwise.
@Mega_Loser @johnners2981 Arma II was already a successful and popular pc game before dayz
@Mega_Loser @johnners2981 Arma II had a recent resurgence in sales thanks to DayZ, but it's not exactly the main driving force behind their revenue. There's really no indication that most people bought this 4 year old game for a mod that's only existed for a few months.
@EliOli @Mega_Loser @johnners2981 The graphics are poor?
Is he playing the free arma version with the watered down graphics because I wouldn't call the graphics poor, especially not in the operation arrowhead expansion.
Dayz is great and all but I like the original arma II for it's sandbox world and realistic warfare.
There's not many games were you can jump in a jeep, tank or apache helicopter and roam about doing whatever you want.
@Mega_Loser @johnners2981
My son bought Arma 2 just to play the Day Z mod. He hasn't touched the regular game. To be honest, the graphics are so poor, it holds no interest for me.
@Suikogaiden lol no its not. Type in the search bar: Groom Lake, Lincoln Nevada. It will drop you right on top of it. Hell you can even image search it on Google and see all kinds of Google earth snapshots. Its worth it just to see the run way . Longest in the world built specifically for the SR-71
@Mega_Loser @parrot_of_adun @Yuusha09 Are you asking if I am *also* a Bohemia shareholder (not that anyone can own shares, it's a private company)? If you're always seeing me, then I'm likely here for the same reason you are, I just happen to comment on it.
@parrot_of_adun @christosmage @Yuusha09 You cant analyze it so easily. If u have been there (Limnos) you would have known how small the Greek island are. The bottom line is even if u think that the law is outdated or stupid it is still the law, they broke it. Imagine if something like a similar law was broken in the States this guys would never see the light of day.
@christosmage @parrot_of_adun @Yuusha09 Yes, and I'm not saying what happened was all Greece's legal system's fault. However, you don't need huge wastelands like Nevada to hide a military secret (walls and hangars and such go a long way). Part of the problem though, is that the Greek military wants to hide some things that no one really cares about (like building locations or foreign bought weapons and vehicles that everyone already knew about the moment they were sold to Greece).