The Road Ahead

[Michael Emrys]

The way it looks though, one could spend upward of $250/year on this. I am all guessing on the prices but (2 families x $70, an upgrade $10, 2 modules x $30 and 2 packs at $20). Worth it for the sheer enjoyment but boy, my wife may want more furniture just to compensate.

I can understand how those living on tight budgets might have a problem with that. But you might try looking at it this way: Have you priced paper wargames lately? To get the same playing time/value, you might have to spend several times that amount.

Michael

[Steiner14]

My impression from the questions regarding interoperability and compatibility of releases is, that it is getting confusing for newbies and potential buyers. This will become even more confusing, after some time, when different modules and family games will have a different version status.

In our fast paced age, it is important, that potential customers are not confused.

I think an additional information, maybe included in the title, or a legend, that is almost self explanatory, could help.

i.e.:

CM:BN + CW (Commonwealth-module needs Normandy base).

CM:FI² (base game Fortress Italy with v2 features).

CM:BN³ + MG² (base game Normandy already available with v3 features, but the Market Garden-module has not yet been updated and still uses a v2 installation).

CM:EF³ (base game Eastern Front v3 features).

Also players, who have paused and come back, to give it a try again, should not be forgotten and not scared away from the diversity of options. They are also potentially new buyers, but not willing to invest lots of time to find out what has changed. "I think i have the commonwealth module for Normandy. No clue what version and what they did in the meantime."

CM Battle for Normandy latest status: CM:BN³ + CW² + MG³

Legend:

BN³ ...Base game Normandy with v3 features available.

CW² ...Module Commonwealth with v2 features available.

MG³ ...Module MG Market Garden with v3 features available.

[beatmasta]

Also it will be quite difficult to play the PBEM games and try to keep up with the different patches or upgrades. Basically you will need two version of each game and can delete the older version when all the pbem's with that version has finished.

But I don't care about that! I'm sure I will buy all the new Families/Titles/Upgrades/Mods/Packs or whatever will be available! Last few days have been quite awesome. I first read about the CMFI and was really happy that another base game will be out soon! Wasn't believing my eyes when I later read about the one year release plan!

[Placebo]

Boy, how does something so simple get so complicated. I must admit i am am happy to buying into the design model, as the standard for games now seems to be:

base module cheap but with add-ons, it adds up to more than a single full price game and shorter inital dev time to market.

But with so many base games coming out at $65 each this does become quite an expensive group of games. When the game engine is evolving not being re-written like CM1 to CMSF and CMSF to CM2 I am not sure fortress italy and Eastern front justify a full base game price tag.

[Steiner14]

Boy, how does something so simple get so complicated. I must admit i am am happy to buying into the design model, as the standard for games now seems to be:

base module cheap but with add-ons, it adds up to more than a single full price game and shorter inital dev time to market.

But with so many base games coming out at $65 each this does become quite an expensive group of games. When the game engine is evolving not being re-written like CM1 to CMSF and CMSF to CM2 I am not sure fortress italy and Eastern front justify a full base game price tag.

Come on, how much does a movie ticket for two hours Hollywood-bull**** or how much does a pizza or fastfood cost?

In a time where even unemployed people are getting fatter and fatter, because they are to lazy to cook, or where people don't even know, how much money they spend every week and month for unnecessary things, i find it extremely ridiculous, to complain about the handful of dollars for such a fine piece of software.

And before the poor whiners appear, here's a tip: Stop eating meat. Buy 10 kg of potatoes, rice, spaghetti, bread and butter and marmelade and eat that for only one week. Then you have the money for a whole family game saved. :mad:

[Placebo]

Come on, how much does a movie ticket for two hours Hollywood-bull**** or how much does a pizza or fastfood cost?

In a time where even unemployed people are getting fatter and fatter, because they are to lazy to cook, or where people don't even know, how much money they spend every week and month for unnecessary things, i find it extremely ridiculous, to complain about the handful of dollars for such a fine piece of software.

And before the poor whiners appear, here's a tip: Stop eating meat. Buy 10 kg of potatoes, rice, spaghetti, bread and butter and marmelade and eat that for only one week. Then you have the money for a whole family game saved. :mad:

Relevant - how?????

[Marc Anton]

Yes, this is the roadmap for the next 12 months. All of these are in active development already.

Sound nice so far but can we expect any multiplayer improvements like WEGO or 2vs2 RT etc. ?

greetings marc

[Mord]

When the game engine is evolving not being re-written like CM1 to CMSF and CMSF to CM2 I am not sure fortress italy and Eastern front justify a full base game price tag.

You are forgetting one part of that equation though. Look at the jump in features/additions from CMSF to CMBN. Quite a lot was added comparatively. Bridges, 3d water, tons of new animations, a new qb system, a new way of purchasing units, mortar teams, ammo bearers, just to name a few things off the top of my head. Also the titles come with a large amount of vehicles compared to the modules...there's around 40 vehicles per side in CMBN.

Now look at the jump between CMBN and CMFI...there's a good amount of awesome new content we all were asking for, and some we didn't even think of. I imagine the vehicle count will be around the same as CMBN and CMSF. So, it isn't just CMBN retextured. That justifies the the price we are used to paying for a main title.

Not only that but now we are gonna get these new features backward engineered into an already published game...and will for as long as they are publishing these games. How many companies have ever offered this? You are basically looking at playing CMFI three years from now with all updated features! Not waiting 10 years for them to remake it, like we had to wait with CMBO. No more feature envy. Even if you don't buy anything after CMFI and it's modules you'll be able to play it as if it was released yesterday, five years from now. That's well worth a 65 dollar hit to your wallet when you think about it.

Now look at CMA's cost vs CMSF. There wasn't a whole lot of new features and BFC priced it accordingly...actually lower than CMSF. I guess what you need to keep in mind is that new titles will have enough new features to make them more than just a module. Not trying to give you a hard time Placebo, just give you a different take on the pricing concept.

Mord.

[Canada Guy]

I did not mean to stir the pot and I definitely do not begrudge BF any money as they have been both responsive to their customers and keep adding to the game base to give us loads of fun. FI was totally unexpected and having the EFront so soon is great news and something for which I am willing to pay.

Hell, I probably owe them a few 100 quid just for all the fun and enjoyment I received from playing CMBB all those years. It probably worked out to pennies per hour.

I am a little worried about fragmentation but I am sure that once we get into the swing of things, everything will become clear. I was worried more about the mods and the PBEM. I have friends that I have tried to get to play this game, and I even bought them copies. they love the game but just cannot seem to commit. It will be doubly difficult to me to keep them all on the same version. We may just have to pick a theatre once every few months and ensure that everything is upgraded as needed.

The mods though, since I do not mod but just enjoy what is available, is something of a worry. Again, this may be out of proportion as I am sure that if I keep updated and the modding community tweaks their mods for upgrades all should be well.I hate those green weapons icons though. It drives me crazy but what do you expect out of a obsessive compulsive group such as we are.

Though I am still not convinced that a diet of potatoes for a week will work. ;-) I would then have to explain to the wife why this is happening. It is easier to wander the back alleys collecting cans in winter at -40C. Gets me ready for the EF Family of games.

[Michael Emrys]

In a time where even unemployed people are getting fatter and fatter...here's a tip: Stop eating meat. Buy 10 kg of potatoes, rice, spaghetti, bread and butter and marmelade and eat that for only one week.

That's a diet guaranteed to make one fatter and fatter alright. Not exactly a balanced diet nutritionally either. Is that what you eat?

Michael

[Mord]

The mods though, since I do not mod but just enjoy what is available, is something of a worry. Again, this may be out of proportion as I am sure that if I keep updated and the modding community tweaks their mods for upgrades all should be well.I hate those green weapons icons though. It drives me crazy but what do you expect out of a obsessive compulsive group such as we are.

I don't think it'll be that big of a deal. It doesn't sound like it's gonna hit all areas of modded content. But you can rest assured most of us, as soon as a patch or module is released, explode the brz and look to see if anything has changed that might interfere with our stuff. We are a pretty conscientious bunch...and what we don't catch, players do. I wouldn't fret much...we'll take care of you guys. As anal as you guys are about your modded folders and collections...well, we are probably 100 times worse! To give you a quick idea, I probably did six thousand portraits before getting the portrait mods to a state I would release them. Then I updated them once and am updating them as we speak. Yeah, modders aren't OCD.

Mord.

[Steiner14]

That's a diet guaranteed to make one fatter and fatter alright. Not exactly a balanced diet nutritionally either. Is that what you eat?

Forget all the brainwashing from the medical-mafia and nutrition-industry. That's complete BS. There are roughly only two simple rules to stay in perfect shape:

1. Do not eat more than the body burns.

If you are practizing a modern way of life (sitting all day and no physical exertion), there is no diet that can compensate the wrong way of life! They tell you, but there isn't! The truth is, our body was not made for this comfortable way of life.

The only way to compensate and stay healthy: Give the body what he is made for with artificial movement (usually called "sports").

This implies, that you can eat what you want. You don't become fat from eating spaghetti! You become fat from too little movement and too little exertion.

2. Never go to bed with a full stomach (dinner at least 3-4 hours before goint to bed).

Event he hardest physical work all day long can't prevent beginnings of a paunch, if you go to bed with a full stomach.

[MikeyD]

I am a little worried about fragmentation

I may be entirely off base here, but I believe the 'community' (of which I have been a part for 1/6th of my life ) is only a fraction of the CM sales base. Most purchasers never post to the chat group, most don't download mods, most probably only play the game single player or among a small circle of friends. So the great unseen mass of CM players are already 'fragmented' from the community. Whatever happens to the message board community because of the expanding title range the rest of 'em will continue on unaffected.

[Battlefront.com]

Three primary points raised in the past three pages, so I'll answer them in a consolidated post:

1. Traditionally as games age they lose value to customers. The rate of the value loss is directly proportional to the game itself and the artificial mechanisms of how they are sold. For example, games that aren't very good or offer limited amount of play, released through retail, start losing value within a few weeks and quickly go down to about $0 worth. Deep, rich, games with literally never-ending play value (user made content) tend to hold their value much longer, especially if they are not in traditional retail markets where cutthroat decisions are made which have nothing to do with the quality of the game.

By adding new features to an existing game we are increasing it's net worth. Both in terms of how many man hours of our time is in that product and how much enjoyment a player will get form it vs. an older version. The way we look at it the Upgrades counter act the aging process.

To put it in numbers, a Base Game (depending on purchase option) might start out at $55. A year later it will still be $55, but with more features than it had a year ago. Two years later it will have even more features and yet retain the $55 price tag. For sure some customers will want to skip Upgrades and wait a couple of cycles to get more bang for the buck. The downside is that you aren't getting those features to use over time and therefore your return on investment (so to speak) is lower. Newer Modules will not be available either, if those are of interest. Plus, you're not going to save that much money, if any, since you'll have to repurchase and that will cost probably the equivalent of 2 Upgrades.

2. Modding isn't going to be radically affected by the strategy. It's pretty much the same as it has always been, with the exception that Upgrade 2.0 has a pretty big change to the graphics handling.

3. Value is always in the eye of the beholder. Some will spend a few hundred Dollars to purchase a new X-Box so they can play a single FPS game. Others purchase used paperbacks for $0.25 each and are happy with that for their entertainment. We can not tell people what their value system should be. All we can do is make stuff, price it according to our costs and needs, and hope you guys buy enough of it to make it worth doing more.

We fully understand many people will want something but won't buy it right away because of their budgets. That's fine because we can keep the game for sale indefinitely. We also are getting our costs down per release and that means we can afford to make things that will sell less than something we did last year or many years ago. In the end the end you guys will have more choices and we will probably be no worse off for it.

Steve

[Battlefront.com]

Oh, I did forget to comment on fragmentation. Yes, there will be some. It's unavoidable. However, the most active players are the ones who post here, play PBEM games, etc. The most active players are the ones most likely to find value in new features. Which means the community we're talking about is most likely going to fairly quickly migrate to the most current version of whatever they find themselves interested in playing.

More choices, however, won't fragment our community any more than it naturally already is. There are people that won't buy into Italy because they have no interest in it. When Shock Force 2 comes out I don't expect to see all the Normandy players talking about Abrams and T-90s. When Eastern Front 1 comes out I expect to still see some of the same posters in the EF Forums as I do in the Normandy ones, just as I expect to see some posters in Eastern Front I haven't seen active in 6 years. So on and so forth.

Steve

[Broadsword56]

So BFC won't get scared and halt further developments on other families/modules/packs if we CMBN fans don't all purchase CMFI and it isn't a smash seller?

Good news, because I need to save my $$$ for the CMBN upgrade to 2.0 and the next module for that family. Thanks for having confidence in your fanbase, and for taking a long-term view toward maintaining/imporving the value of your products.

[beatmasta]

As the road map has been laid and the future releases are now known would it be possible to have even even few screenshots of the coming stuff? If not from all at least from the module that was promised to be announced soon?

[beatmasta]

And this might be too much to ask at this point, but do you guys have done any decisions about adding Finnish forces to some of the many modules which will be out if the EF is going to have own base game for each year? You might not have decided which title/module it will be in, but I hope you have not already decided yet that they will not be in any title/module.

[Mord]

@Beastmasta... I can almost guarantee they'll be there and I don't have any clue what's going on. In my years on these boards the Finns seem to be a VERY popular nation to play in CM. I can't see them being left out.

Mord.

[Canada Guy]

I am sure that BF has spent much time thinking about this problem as well as numerous others. Definitely more than the 5 minutes that I have pondered what it will mean. Project management is hard just with one boss and numerous clients. I can only imagine what it is like with the whole forum asking you questions when we really have either not thought it out or just ask questions out of curiosity.After reading this, I think Fragmentation will not be a major issue for a majority as they will either stick with the game as is and play locally or they visit these boards and solutions will be found.

As Mord said, we are an OCD lot.

I am still wondering what the 3rd base game for this year will be unless Steve was referring to Bulge. Though I thought that this was to come after all of CMBN was finished in about a year. Other than CM:EF'44 and CMFI what could it be?

[beatmasta]

Mord, I hope you're right!

[Mord]

I am VERY confident they will be. Steve is an admitted East Front addict...along with many others here. I don't think he wants to sleep with one eye open the rest of his life. LOL.

[BDW]

Will v2.0 of the game engine include any updates to the artillery system? That is the only thing I think really needs improvement (so you don't have to start over every time you want to make a change while deciding what kind of fire mission you want)

[tdogg]

They've offered their thoughts on this many times actually. That thought has always consisted of "Nope, we're not crazy."

I guess it's out of the question for CMx2, but at some point I'd like to see it....maybe CMx3 where it could be done from the ground up.

The 2.0 upgrade is whats going to indirectly lead to me buying more modules. The improvement of game play and editor kinda make the modules seem less like cookie cutter releases....for me any way.

[Collingwood]

Goodness!

I hope noone will spin out of control with angst over "fragmentation" or upgrade agony.

Looking at this from the "glass half full" angle, at the moment we have a glass (or two) mostly full.

Now, BF have offered to pour us another three drinks during the next year.

You don't have to drink the extra ones! You can just nurse the drink you have and enjoy it. Or take one of the following drinks and pass on the others.

I think a lot of us though will be over there in the rowdy corner drinking as much as can be served up. Cheers (hic) !