Snake726

I believe Steppenwulf is correct to mention the paid pre-order variable. Waiting after making a transaction is different in kind to waiting with no transaction having occurred. You've entered into a contract in the former - for instance, if Battlefront never produced the game you paid for, you'd have a problem that you obviously would not have if you had not paid. Which is probably why they did feel the need to state a release window, since they have taken pre-orders which were debited transactions. Frankly I think the "and look where it's gotten them" is what in fact makes BF look bad, not the question. Because I can point to multiple developers of the same size making the same type of game for the same audience that do not have paid pre-orders, but do keep their audiences better informed: what it gets them is appreciative, friendly customers, who are happy to wait (again, because they haven't yet spent any money, and so the developer had no obligation - updates at that point are perceived as good will).

I suppose I am not clear on why the mission statement carries so much weight - it is much easier to say that the role they serve in practice reflects the definitive nature of the Corps, not the so-called mission statement. For instance, talking about the paper tactics of an infantry company in WW2 is one thing, and talking about what they actually did in practice is usually quite different. I meant to call out a larger absurdity actually - imagine a nation doesn't want to encounter the Marines? Well, stay away from any beaches and they'll never show up. I mean, it's not like the Marines landed on islands in the Pacific, cleared the beaches, and then the Army landed troops - in fact the Army landed 6 times the number of troops amphibiously than the Marines did in the Pacific. The Marines continued to fight on the islands once the beaches were assaulted, and the Army assaulted the beaches before they participated in clearing the islands. This would lead me to say: the mission statement is incorrect, and does not describe what the Marines in fact do, not the other way around - given, especially, that the Marines existed prior to said mission statement, and behaved quite differently. But that's not the case given the majority of combat use. From between July 13th and September 16 in 1944, 101st Airborne was assigned targets constantly but had to stand down because that objective had already been taken by the infantry. This squares up with the pre-D-Day notes from Max Hasting about Eisenhower's desire to commit the airborne just about anywhere - in fact, I will argue, it is exactly because they were so expensive and specialized that it was necessary to drop them whenever possible, regardless of mission requirements: they had to show that the program was worth it. And when there wasn't a need for further drops, and the Army needed assistance on the ground, the paras simply remained on the ground - that was, after all, where they were supposed to go: the ground. And we can note that American paras in WW2 did not spend most of their time dropping out of planes onto targets, but rather performing the role of regular infantry. Obviously this became the norm in the German and Russian military as well: dropping out of planes was too risky, and it was easier, safer, and more effective, to use the paras as especially competent infantry. Granted the American paras re-deployed a few times, where the regular infantry obviously did not. It may be different now that America is not fighting conventional wars very often, and when it does, does so against largely incompetent nations - but I am arguing that if we go by combat deployments, and so include WW2, paratroopers, like Marines, spent more time operating for extended periods as regular infantry than they did performing their specialized task. It's no wonder, since the whole point of assaulting a beach or dropping out of a plane is to, afterward, destroy the enemy. You don't drop out of a plane and then give the Army a call to come and pick you up (unless it's Market Garden ;)) So from my view, the Marines are very much fulfilling their mission - as an overseas expeditionary unit that is deployed by the Navy, much like how the British conceived of their Marines. They are a rapid deployment force and, given their readiness and training, it seems, used just like the Army during extended periods of modern insurgency warfare.

Sorry, couldn't locate the general thread - short answer though: No, units are not described down to the man - rather it will be like "C/3: Infantry Platoon HQ" and you can see how many men are in there currently etc.

Well that makes sense, doesn't it? If there is no opposed beach landing - then you don't have to hold back the Marines until the enemy fortifies the coast. If you can just land troops, then the next 99% of their deployment will be fighting, often in urban terrain. It's like saying "Hey, why is the Airborne fighting in that city - their job is to land in fields!" The British used their Marines like this for centuries - the primary thing was that they were mobile by sea, but they weren't restricted to amphibious assaults. In fact, it's always the case that after an amphibious assault...there will be the rest of the mission. I don't think it is the intent to clear a beach with the Marines, and then send in the Army. The Marines are expected to continue working.

Yep, it's fun - units do have names, perhaps that video doesn't show that to be the case (if you select a unit and click on its info panel you can see its name, weapons and ammo, psychological state, and the organization it belongs to is highlighted). It's very much like a 2D Combat Mission fought in only Quick Battle that you define by selecting a portion of the overall Fulda Gap map to play a match in. Commands are issued before the game starts, and then afterwards new commands are affected by command delay etc. So if you have a bunch of Abrams tanks entrenched behind an obstacle with a field of fire over a large plain, but the enemy maneuvers on the other side of the map, it's a satisfying sort of sim-pain to struggle to get them re-deployed in time. I recently had a great game where I decided to play defense as a Finnish infantry battalion against a Soviet mechanized battalion, and fell back progressively from two small towns into a second line in a large forest, and then fell back to defend against their breakthrough into the wide open plain behind that forest. The AI managed to get a handful of APCs and their troops right up to my objective towns, and almost pushed my mild-mannered reservists tasked with being rear echelon out of their buildings.

I'm in the beta at the moment, and it's definitely progressed nicely since this video was taken - not sure about their policy on sharing beta content, so this old video was all I could find.

It's already in beta

This seems to apply to many state actors, if not Ukraine - the United States has engaged in plenty of literally illegal wars (Vietnam/Laos/Cambodia/America, where never legally at war; Bay of Pigs; Grenada; Iraq part 2 is legally contentious etc), and has killed plenty of reporters (if, often by accident, such as the Reuters reporters being killed by an Apache strike - but I'll note that the dead reporters probably wouldn't care to debate the exact intent). There are very few state actors which have clean hands. Ukraine in particular has the issue of nationalist partisans often having white supremacist Nazi sympathizers within their ranks, which makes the idea of a good/evil dichotomy between Ukraine and Russia even muddier.

Graham's "hierarchy of disagreement" is, well stupid - a great example of a software developer getting the bright idea that rhetoric exists (without, of course, reading Aristotle or the like - Graham independently discovered rhetoric!) The day I take the co-founder of Y-Combinator seriously will be the day I dump all my science and philosophy books into the trash, along with my brain, and get an MBA.

I'll re-post this then; this is how you communicate via updates and manage release expectations in a carbon-copy situation to a small, hardcore wargaming community concerning a game being developed largely in the free time of the creators: https://www.wargamedesignstudio.com/quick-links-to-all-blog-posts/ The team size is probably about the same, and notice how heartwarming it is to see comments like "Thanks for the update!" They are even in the same position - but the community there is not upset: "We have in the past said that it takes us between 18 months to two years to complete a title. With the two-year mark passed last December that is obviously not the case here. The main reason for the delay has been the additional work required in 2016 & 2017 to get both Wargame Design Studio up and running (just web and blogs take up significant time) as well as the Gold updates for Panzer Campaigns and the coming refresh of all the Civil War Battle titles. Throw in the Panzer Battles Demo and upgrade of both Normandy and Kursk to the new Wargame Design Studio standard and there has been a lot to distract us from North Africa. The good news is that we’re back focused on this title (and everything else) and the aim is to get the game out this year. That said, it will be done when it is done."

7 pages, hoo boy, the page count on this sucker is now officially almost as long as a children's flip book - do you think people will have to call Google and ask for a few more gigs in their Gmail inbox?

I suppose that I mean, what's more important - mowing the lawn, filing your taxes? Perhaps I don't sympathize too much with the plight of a game developer having to speak about being late, since for the past 4 months part of my own job has been getting on a call every two weeks to tell our licensor that our project is 2 months behind. I do admittedly wish I could just throw that Skype laptop out the window, but eh, that's my job. [edit - Although, maybe I should try telling them that it's "just a game", and that will get them off my back!]

Good to know my career in games and the work of BF is trivial

Yes, it does seem to me that you are saying this - that disagreeing is fundamentally wrong. That it is met with a sigh is infuriating. Doesn't like to get caught up...in running his own business? Yes, that is one of the issues - since community members help make the games, they - and, I hope you realize, at the moment, you - are acting in place of Steve as PR communication. And, as I pointed out, it is going poorly. Sigh all you want, you are not making any sales here. That's fine that you may disagree, but, in your own words, I would consider that opinion to be wrong. Interesting - who do you think buys Combat Mission games? Call of Duty fans? Bejeweled players? Farmville players? Company of Heroes players? None of these people have heard of this game. Please don't try to use the "it's just a game" BS; making games is my career, and playing them makes up part of my off-time. You can choose to not give a crap, and I can choose to in fact care. Although, given your ardent attempts to have the last word, I might chance it and say that I suspect you do care quite a bit.

That is a fair point Sgt, thanks for calling me out on that - I don't know the community well enough to know who assists on projects, who is a super-fan, and who might be both. That was, admittedly, a heated response prompted by sburke. I get the radio silence, I really do - I work in games and have been in interviews where people tell me how much they hate talking to their fans. Valve, for instance, has a lot of money - but no longer has anyone speak to their various communities. They prefer relative radio silence to engaging. Because it is exhausting, and some people are indeed irrational. At the same time, to some extent, BF is allowing these "dedicated fans" to speak for them in their stead. I feel like the only thing I can do is withhold spurious purchases until I get some indication that the team is alive. My wallet is the only mechanism I have to work with here. As I write this I have just gotten an update email from the John Tiller team about the status of their North Africa game, and some information on the creation of an OOB and map design for their Crete campaign. It is difficult to weigh the two options and choose to reward BF, and not John Tiller, when the Tiller team is being so diligent and professional.

To the point about customers complaining, does anyone else find it inherently fascinating that business in general often has this complexion: We survive only because of customers, yet their very presence is an exhausting weight that must be endured. They are both the sole reason for your existence, and, seemingly, a kind of existential burden. I have spent about $300.00 here. That's more than I've given AAA game developers in the last year. If I didn't find it so sweetly ironic I would find it incredibly sad that posts in the same vein as mine are read by Battlefront as attacks - or, as Burke suggests: whining. The people "whining" are, perhaps quite literally given the size of the community, the only people allowing you to contribute to making these games. I can tell you that the response from beta testers and the like have made me pause on a purchase of Red Thunder. It felt wrong for the moment to be so disappointed in the staff, and then hand them more money. If you're looking for an effect caused by your behaviour, there's a clue.

Gamers in relatively niche spaces can be tremendously forgiving. Take for instance NWI missing their release date for "Insurgency 2". They admitted they could not finish when they had claimed, gave the community a new date (end of the year), and extended their open beta until the new release window. Players largely responded with mild disappointment combined with a thumbs up and a thank you for all the hard work. Radio silence, on the other hand, is usually greeted with undo rage.

That's intentionally misleading. People are taking issue with no subsequent posts being made, not with the initial announcement, and not even with the date possibly slipping. My god - it is alarming to think that the message they might receive is to not post at all, rather than "post more than once".

Given the success of my latest CMBS game, I think the most essential part of urban combat is having a Stryker 105mm weapons platform behind you, and if you take any fire, take the building down

Usually the disagreement is the appearance of the Stg, even in earlier test iterations, in games which occur in 1942, such as Stalingrad. They just weren't weren't being tested there. Late war Berlin? The Ardennes? Sure - still not ubiquitous, but that's primarily where they were.

Speaking of VG "human wave" attacks, I have read that this is really a reported perception, not a tactic. That is, first-hand accounts sometimes report a "human wave" attack, but the argument is that what has in fact happened is that successive assault waves have become tangled up and clumped together due to poor planning and/or poor execution during an attack. We all know that a frontal attack involves, well, getting up and moving forward. But I haven't found a historian yet who cites anyone ordering human wave attacks - not even the Russians, whom I always had assumed had launched these sort of attacks, thanks to media representations of it. For instance, during the Normandy landings and in the Pacific you see some instances of individuals or small units charging unsuppressed machinegun positions, eliminating them, but being killed in the process. This is the sort of thing that happened to larger units. For instance, in Beevor's book Ardennes 44 he describes an American machinegun crew holding off an SS unit all day, noting that the Germans continually mounted charges straight ahead. This was not a "human wave", but a failure to locate and suppress the enemy base of fire before advancing - they were trying to get away with movement without the fire. Similarly, at Cassino, we can imagine what would have happened if the Commonwealth didn't have artillery support, and if the first wave was pinned down crossing open ground. Subsequent assault waves would pile up, and unit leaders would perhaps get men moving forward under fire to avoid remaining in the kill zone. So, a "human wave" attack is really nonsensical as a concept, something that commanders do not order - rather it is advancing under fire, with the perception that a "human wave" attack has occurred when the defenders are overrun or are able to defeat a large attack that wasn't properly supported.

I believe the primary reason that the Soviets centralized their artillery was because calculating different fires for different guns was an exponential problem - the Americans solved it over a decade and with the help of handheld radios and computer-assisted ballistics research, which provided American spotters with printed cards which assisted them in calling down fire. The Soviets likely could not have mimicked American doctrine, even if they had a radio for every man. That is, the Soviets figured that rather than calculate separate fires for X guns, they could divide those guns into groups and concentrate on the same coordinates. Artillery concentration on a large scale was achieved by all parties in the war - the Americans had a bigger hammer than most, it's just that they were the only ones with access to a scalpel as well.

Unity of Command 2 is not simple, or 2D - for the second game, two developers are creating an entire 3D engine, and then the game system, and then the content, on top. It's taken them about two years so far. Nothing simple about that. DCS is also not simple - each plane or helicopter is essentially a new, separate physics engine inside of the core game, taking at least a couple years to develop. The John Tiller games are probably the most similar to the current state of Battlefront development - neither team is currently developing a new engine, but rather are developing new content for their existing engines. Whether it is 2D or 3D does not matter in terms of content creation: both require map creation, OOB research, art assets, scenario creation, campaign creation etc. Again, some of these teams are literally two people. Battlefront can find the time if they wish to. You don't need to pay several salaries to write a blog post. If you don't know what you're working on, and so can't think about how to write an update post, then there are bigger problems at hand. Battlefront doesn't *need* to do anything - fans are just suggesting that the series might do well to keep up the appearance that the lights are on. This is why so many other very, very small studios in the same niche wargaming space are making an effort to do so. People are suggesting this as a positive addition, not a criticism to be ardently defended against - as if the Battlefront team needs every waking moment to work, and the rest to sleep - they don't even have time to eat, let alone write a blog post one every 6 months: such a thing will slow down development! [/s]

True, but there are plenty of examples of studios that are composed of very small teams providing community updates: Graviteam, John Tiller's teams, DCS and their contractors, and hey, the Unity of Command guys post blogs monthly - and their team is two people: https://unityofcommand.net/blog/ Again, not meant as criticism, but lots of people are doing it on a shoestring, nearly alone. VR Designs literally only has one developer (he makes the Decisive Campaigns series), and he provides design blogs as well: http://www.vrdesigns.net/?p=1829 Actually, speak of the devil, the John Tiller guys just posted their first video: http://www.wargamedesignstudio.com/2018/08/23/panzer-battles-north-africa-1941-youtube-video-1/

1. It's strange because it's not the case; as the OP mentioned, the Marine are in the process of trials to adopt the M27 IAR. In fact, they're wanting to use the same rifle in different configurations for riflemen and marksmen as well - much like the British model. (https://www.marinecorpstimes.com/news/your-marine-corps/2018/03/08/congress-grills-marines-over-m27/) The US Army has not followed suit not because they are concerned with the magazine capacity of the M27, but rather because it is chambered in 5.56 rather than 7.62, which brass believes will not solve for what they imagine to be a proliferation of body armour. (https://bearingarms.com/tom-k/2018/02/14/army-wont-follow-usmc-adopting-m27-iar/) One element to consider is that unless the report is factually incorrect, they make a good point if the 3-5 round burst technique employed by SAW gunners is in fact only delivering one bullet on target. If they are just factually wrong about this, or are lying, then you have a point - but there is no way to tell from this one study. 2. The solution seems not to necessarily be a new gadget, but the advocacy of delivering single rounds rather than bursts, at least at the ranges of modern combats. It may well have been that the MG42 did so well because it made a terrifying sound, not because it was terrible accurate past 300 yards. American infantrymen were, after some time in Normandy, advised to get up and bound forward when they ceased to hear the weapon firing - because it indicated that the gun was being reloaded. This indicates that many American infantrymen were effectively suppressed to some degree not even by close proximity to fire, but by knowing that they could be if they stood up. This is likely the suppression effect achieved by cyclic fire or sustained bursts, and may well serve as a counter-argument to the article. Those rounds may not have to hit accurately near the target to suppress them if it is the case that soldiers keep their heads down upon hearing close sustained fire. Likely this varies largely on training, with greener troops being more easily suppressed by proximity fire and the noise of sustained fire, and better trained soldiers ignoring proximity fire and noise as a metric. 3. Not if the Minimi is the SAW employed by a military. The US Army might have the M240 higher up the chain, but the M249 is the SAW employed - they don't have several different types of SAWs serving the same role. Many forces employ it, so it is a reasonable thing to advocate changing - and the article is likely advocating it because the Marines and the Army are actively looking to replace it, and so there is big money there. The article is not the odd man out in advocating this, it is what those services are requesting.