Customizing the Message of the Day on Your Arma 3 Server

Every Arma 3 community runs a little differently. Some lean heavy on milsim, others go full sandbox with custom vehicles and scripted scenarios, and most have at least a couple of rules they would rather not repeat in chat every hour. A Message of the Day (MOTD) handles that for you. It shows short messages in the corner of the screen as players join, looping through whatever you set. Welcome text, Discord links, server rules, or a heads up about the next event all fit there.

The good news: Arma 3 reads the MOTD straight from the server config, and your control panel keeps that file one click away.

Editing the MOTD lines

Stop the server before you change anything. Editing a running config either gets ignored or, worse, gets partially applied.

1. Open your control panel and stop your Arma 3 server.
2. From your panel sidebar, head into Config Files.
3. Open the Server Config file.

Scroll down until you reach the Message of the Day (MOTD) block. Each line you see there is a separate message that will rotate in game. Replace them with whatever you want players to read, then hit Save.

Start the server back up. Your new lines should be live the next time anyone connects.

Formatting rules that matter

The MOTD block looks simple, and that is exactly why it breaks so often. A single missing character can crash the server on boot, so it pays to be tidy:

• One message per line.
• Wrap each message in double quotation marks.
• Every line except the last needs a trailing comma.

If you ever lose track, glance at the syntax coloring. Quoted text should be highlighted (typically yellow). If a line is the wrong color, something is off.

Changing how often messages rotate

By default, Arma 3 cycles through MOTD lines every five seconds. That feels brisk for short greetings and far too fast for anything readable, so most admins tune it.

1. Return to the Server Config file.
2. Find the motdInterval entry.

Set the value to your preferred number of seconds. Sixty seconds is a comfortable middle ground if your messages are longer than a single sentence. Save the file and restart the server.

What it looks like in game

Once players join, the MOTD appears in the bottom left corner of the screen and rotates at the interval you picked. There is nothing else to enable on the client side, so every player gets the same sequence on every connect.

Troubleshooting

MOTD changes are not showing up. First check that the lines were actually saved by reopening the config file. If they reverted, edit them again and confirm you hit Save before closing the editor. A skipped restart is the other common culprit, since the server only reloads the config on boot.

Server crashes after saving the config. Almost always a formatting problem. Reopen the Server Config and inspect the MOTD block for a missing comma, an unclosed quotation mark, or a stray character outside the quotes. The syntax highlighting helps here: if the color of a string suddenly drops, the line above it is probably the one to fix. Once the file looks clean, save and restart again.

Related guides

• How to join an Arma 3 server
• How to change your Arma 3 server name
• Full Arma server guide index