Moon Posted June 22, 2012 Share Posted June 22, 2012 Since the beginning of the Combat Mission, more than a dozen years ago, customers have asked for the ability to keep their favorite games up-to-date with improvements made for newer games. After years of careful planning we are happy to announce that Upgrades are soon to be a standard option for Combat Mission customers. In regular intervals, we will release a totally new standalone game which includes a host of major and minor improvements that go way beyond bug fixes and tweaks to existing features. What sorts of features are we talking about? Read up on the new features of Combat Mission: Fortress Italy to see what we're talking about, because all those features are now part of the CMx2 Game Engine Version 2.0 standard. A few months after the new game releases, owners of previous Combat Mission games can purchase Upgrades to add those features to CM products they already own. The delayed availability is necessary to ensure that our small team has enough time to ensure quality control (especially backwards compatibility) before releasing them. Each distinct "family" of Combat Mission games only needs one upgrade regardless of how many Modules are already owned. New Modules (not released yet when an upgrade is available) will use features only found in the latest version, so existing customers must Upgrade if they want to use new Modules. Upgrades are backwards compatible with all battles and campaigns, no matter who authored them or which units/terrain are used within them. Some Mods will work without modification, others may need to be updated to take advantage of game engine changes. Once an Upgrade is released those features become standard for all new customers. Existing customers can purchase the features as a stand alone Upgrade for the game of their choice. The previous version of each game will continue being sold for some time, at a discounted price (and can of course be upgraded later on if desired). The new Upgrade concept offers customers, new and old, a variety of new purchase options. Existing customers can buy an Upgrade for a previous CM family they own on its own, or bundled with a new Module at a discounted price. New customers can either purchase the current version game at full price or the previous version at a discount. As always, we will continue to release free patches to fix technical problems and improve the performance of existing features as needed. Upgrades are not paid patches, but come with major new features that offer new functionality and game play elements. Unfortunately, we can not offer Upgrades for CMx1 games, CM Shock Force and Afghanistan. Too much has changed with the basic code, artwork, and file formats to make this practical since their releases to make backwards compatibility viable. So, what does this mean in concrete terms for you right now, playing Combat Mission: Battle for Normandy and enviously gawking at the Combat Mission: Fortress Italy feature list? It means that once CMFI is out sometime in August, we'll work on an Upgrade 2.0 for CMBN. You will be able to buy this upgrade (the price is not yet determined), install it and voila, you will have Combat Mission: Battle for Normandy v2.0!!! The upgrade will automatically work for the base game and the Commonwealth module. The next module in the CM:BN family (more about this in the coming days) will already be featuring CMx2 v2.0, and will *require* that upgrade. Questions? 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Boche Posted June 22, 2012 Share Posted June 22, 2012 Why are you fantastic is the only question I have ! 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Steiner14 Posted June 22, 2012 Share Posted June 22, 2012 WOW! What a wonderful achievement in software design and maximization of revenue. Probably best for developers and customers. Congratulations to this achievement. From what i know, CMBN was NOT planned with that development strategy in mind. I'm wondering what made this incredible achievement possible? Fresh input from the second programmer? But how good is fresh input, if a finished product already exists? 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
futon river crossing Posted June 22, 2012 Share Posted June 22, 2012 Holy grail- well done BF!!! 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Broadsword56 Posted June 22, 2012 Share Posted June 22, 2012 Any change to system requirements with the upgrades -- or more specifically with CMFI? 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Moon Posted June 22, 2012 Author Share Posted June 22, 2012 The system requirements are already posted on the preorder page. In short, no changes. However, if your video card does not support shaders, they will be automatically turned off in the background. Phil can answer the more technical stuff about that when he's around, it seems a number of video drivers are broken these days. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ranger33 Posted June 22, 2012 Share Posted June 22, 2012 Excellent news! My only concern when looking at the feature list of CMFI (new acronyms, yay!) was how they would never make it into CMBN. This new system will be great, especially with all the new base games on the schedule. Too bad about CMSF and CMA but understandable. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
YankeeDog Posted June 22, 2012 Share Posted June 22, 2012 The only bad thing about this is that now I'm tempted to stop playing any new CMBN scenarios, so that I can experience them for the first time with all of the engine upgrades when it comes out. But I really doubt I'll keep to that. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mord Posted June 22, 2012 Share Posted June 22, 2012 Why are you fantastic is the only question I have ! LOL...That was funny. I was thinking nearly the same thing. I am so overwhelmed by everything I just read I actually stopped and wondered if I had died. This is a DREAM come true! AMAZING...truly amazing. Mord. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Doug Williams Posted June 22, 2012 Share Posted June 22, 2012 Paying for the upgrades does not bother me at all, as long as the price is reasonable. Thank you for giving us this option. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AstroCat Posted June 22, 2012 Share Posted June 22, 2012 I am interesting in learning more about the graphic's engine upgrades. Specifically, lighting and shadowing rendering and overall performance. These are some areas I thought the CMx2 engine really struggled in. Thanks and congrats on the upcoming releases! 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
permanent666 Posted June 22, 2012 Share Posted June 22, 2012 screenshot 8: is this guy peeking around the corner? 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TheGreatRadish Posted June 22, 2012 Share Posted June 22, 2012 - Pausable RealTime option. A player can request a Pause and, if the other player agrees, the game is Paused until both players request an end to it. Pauses can be "Playable" (Commands can be issued/modified), "Viewable" (navigation is allowed, but no Commands issued/modified), or "Locked" (no navigation, no Commands issued/modified). The different pause types reflect the different reasons for requesting a pause. Hugely significant for the LAN game my friend and I play in a frequent basis. Excellent news! 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
para Posted June 22, 2012 Share Posted June 22, 2012 screenshot 8: is this guy peeking around the corner? nah, i would say he is just stood at the corner. Would of been good if he was though. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
para Posted June 22, 2012 Share Posted June 22, 2012 Hugely significant for the LAN game my friend and I play in a frequent basis. Excellent news! Agreed, this is extremely good news 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bartokomus Posted June 22, 2012 Share Posted June 22, 2012 this is incredibly exciting and most welcome news! 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Javaslinger Posted June 22, 2012 Share Posted June 22, 2012 Once upgraded I assume you will be able to mix units, maps and terrain from both CMBN and CMFI in quick battles and in creating battles/campaigns? 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ithikial_AU Posted June 22, 2012 Share Posted June 22, 2012 Woohoo! Thankyou Battlefront! 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
womble Posted June 22, 2012 Share Posted June 22, 2012 Once upgraded I assume you will be able to mix units, maps and terrain from both CMBN and CMFI in quick battles and in creating battles/campaigns? And (so long as you keep up with the upgrades) will this make CMBN/Bulge/45 content compatible with EF content, so we can run hypothetical East-v-West battles? 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Agua Posted June 22, 2012 Share Posted June 22, 2012 - Pausable RealTime option. A player can request a Pause and, if the other player agrees, the game is Paused until both players request an end to it. Pauses can be "Playable" (Commands can be issued/modified), "Viewable" (navigation is allowed, but no Commands issued/modified), or "Locked" (no navigation, no Commands issued/modified). The different pause types reflect the different reasons for requesting a pause. FANTASTIC! Haven't played a single H2H game in CMBN because I loathe PBEM. For a guy who played TCP/IP constantly with CMx1, making regular gaming friends in the process, this is HUGE! Thanks BFC. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pak40 Posted June 22, 2012 Share Posted June 22, 2012 I think I just peed my pants. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ranger33 Posted June 22, 2012 Share Posted June 22, 2012 Once upgraded I assume you will be able to mix units, maps and terrain from both CMBN and CMFI in quick battles and in creating battles/campaigns? Was wondering this as well. If all the games are running on the same engine version, whats to stop taking the next step and combining them all together? Maybe we will see something like that in a few years. At the very least it would very nice to have some kind of launcher that lets you switch between games without needing to exit back to the desktop. At this rate I will have a dozen icons on my desktop before long. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
nachinus Posted June 22, 2012 Share Posted June 22, 2012 I'm very excited about the upgrades! And I love the setting chosen for the new CM iteration! Brilliant news!! 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Field Marshal Blücher Posted June 22, 2012 Share Posted June 22, 2012 Once upgraded I assume you will be able to mix units, maps and terrain from both CMBN and CMFI in quick battles and in creating battles/campaigns? [related stuff to this quote] Don't take this as an official response (since it's not, and I'm not really sure I'm right;)), but my guess is that this won't work since they'll be different game families. Maybe you could re-skin units and models from one game to work in a different game, but I doubt you'll be able to actually use TO&E from, say, East Front with CMBN. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SwampYankee Posted June 22, 2012 Share Posted June 22, 2012 If player A purchases the upgrade for CMBN & CF, but player B does not, will they still be able to play by email together? In other words will the save game be compatible between the two versions? I plan to buy it as I am an avid fan. Some of the guys I have talked into buying the base game and remain lukewarm about it may not. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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