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Release The Game ___ Now


ddkk

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I too am ultra-sad about the tardiness of CMRT. It's April 1st in my timezone. I believe the reason for it not being released is despite the game itself being ready, not all scenarios are. Which is ironic because the first thing I want to do is create a scenario or two to experiment with triggers - I won't be playing any scenarios at first. Give it to me without scenarios, I don't care! Scenarios can come later...

My feelings exactly, Colllingwood. I know I probably get the scorn from long-timers on this forum, but BFC specifically said they always ship within 4-8 weeks, they had an excellent track record, and if there is a delay they will tell us about it. Well, they have done neither, and I based my preorder on those comments.

And there is absolutely no information to go on. I don't want them to take our impatience the wrong way, and button up and stop telling us anything at all. But, come on. They told us it would ship in March. It did not. Throw us a bone, here, please. We are paying customers, those who pre-ordered, and it would be nice to know what's going on.

I'm a nice guy, really, not an a-hole, I just am not a fan of this developer silence and disinterest in telling their customers what to expect.

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Really guys, take a deep breath. They actually just want to ensure that when it IS released it doesn't SUCK! Final playtesting to ensure the scenarios look like they at least been played ONCE and a bit more i crossing and t dotting is a good thing. Trust me, we want you guys to LOVE it, not HATE it when it comes out. Promise.

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I know they don't owe me anything, and I don't want to come across like I should be entitled to anything. But, tell us something. I'm sure it doesn't suck now. We've seen the Twitch streams. It looks awesome. Quick patches to fix late scenario tweaks is a common thing nowadays.

BFC will do what they want, but I wish they would give their fans just a bit. The way some are talking, it could be weeks, and to me that sucks much more than getting the game with a few small scenario tweaks that can be patched up with a teeny zip file.

That is all.

-=Jeff

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Guys, there's no half way of releasing a product. Either we release it complete or we don't. And sure, a handful of you wouldn't care, but I promise you that is not the case customer base wide. Therefore, we choose to release our products when they are DONE and not when they aren't. End of story.

We also have never, ever given release dates because of this. As soon as the game is DONE we upload it to our servers and open up orders. That's the way it has worked since we've offered download products and it's the way it will continue to work.

Part of the problem is these games have become monsters. The current state of Red Thunder is something like 3.6GB. It takes a couple of days to create a build and get it downloaded by the testers. Then it has to be tested and issues addressed. Therefore if there is one problem significant enough to cause a new build to be made, we're talking about the better part of a week. As we get closer to completion it gets better. We're at the better stage.

Complain as much as you want. That's what the forum is here for. But it won't change anything because the game will be released when it's ready to be released.

Steve

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Wow, this is a small world after all. You actually worked on the remake of that classic, cool! Yes, Dan Bunten became Dani Bunten. But he/she died in the late nineties by lungcancer. Sad story.

I met Dani Bunten (her) in the early 1990s. Cryton Masters is still one of my all time memory favorites, though it was one of his/her's (depending on timeframe) lesser known works. And I do seem to remember something about the smoking, but no what exactly.

Steve

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Would you like to do some WEGO TCP/IP games when CMRT comes out?

Cheers (for real)!

Sounds like we could start a 'Combat Mission Down Under' group. Sure, I'm interested although I hope you're not expecting quality opposition because I've only ever played around against the AI. :o

Yes, cheers!

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Yeah I'm a bit dissapointed as well. Given that Steve posted a week ago that it was "dotting I's and crossing T's", it seems odd that it is not out yet.

Ironically, one of our recently added testers just said today how for 12 years he's been on the outside and never understood how many things there are to fix/finish and how hard we work to fix/finish them. There's nothing like having completed a mega huge build and before it's even finished uploading one of the testers says "hey, I just noticed x is missing" even though it's been missing for 6 months and nobody mentioned it before. Fun stuff like that really gets in the way of a release :D

BTW, earlier in the process we can turn around a build to testers within half a day. It's only the end process when things slow down considerably. That's because at the end we always have to test the "master image" and not something cobbled together in dribs and drabs. Definitely sucks for those of us with bandwidth limits of slower connections. Like me! Today I had a build stop a few bytes from being finished after 6 hours of downloading. Ouch.

Steve

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Ironically, one of our recently added testers just said today how for 12 years he's been on the outside and never understood how many things there are to fix/finish and how hard we work to fix/finish them. There's nothing like having completed a mega huge build and before it's even finished uploading one of the testers says "hey, I just noticed x is missing" even though it's been missing for 6 months and nobody mentioned it before. Fun stuff like that really gets in the way of a release :D

BTW, earlier in the process we can turn around a build to testers within half a day. It's only the end process when things slow down considerably. That's because at the end we always have to test the "master image" and not something cobbled together in dribs and drabs. Definitely sucks for those of us with bandwidth limits of slower connections. Like me! Today I had a build stop a few bytes from being finished after 6 hours of downloading. Ouch.

Ouch, indeed. FTP isn't really meant for transferring massive files.

I've been looking very hard at Google Drive - for a use case like yours - and it covers all the requirements (for instance, you can grant access to files by "broadcasting" permissions through a Google Group, which can be private, indeed). Their plans are really cheap, their servers are really fast and reliable and their little desktop application works really well (you can just drop the file in the Drive folder in your machine, turn off the screen and go to bed).

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Ironically, one of our recently added testers just said today how for 12 years he's been on the outside and never understood how many things there are to fix/finish and how hard we work to fix/finish them. There's nothing like having completed a mega huge build and before it's even finished uploading one of the testers says "hey, I just noticed x is missing" even though it's been missing for 6 months and nobody mentioned it before. Fun stuff like that really gets in the way of a release :D

BTW, earlier in the process we can turn around a build to testers within half a day. It's only the end process when things slow down considerably. That's because at the end we always have to test the "master image" and not something cobbled together in dribs and drabs. Definitely sucks for those of us with bandwidth limits of slower connections. Like me! Today I had a build stop a few bytes from being finished after 6 hours of downloading. Ouch.

Steve

No worries here, Steve. When you said the other day that you were working on scenarios and campaigns, I automatically added 1-2 weeks and put the refresh monkey back in its cage til then. You guys are still on your normal schedule, as far as I can see.

Actually, I'm knee-deep in CMBN anyway, working on the Montebourg campaign. I'm just now getting back to where I was before my saves got zapped by the 2.0 upgrade (or a patch--can't remember). It redistributed my small arms and MGs willy-nilly amongst the infantry and MG teams. Yes--regular squads got MGs!).

I've held off on starting campaigns (I only play things once) "until the next patch/ugrade" so many times now, that I'm essentially starting everything fresh at 2.12. That's actually a good thing! I'm finally kicking the SP QB habit (ish)!

Question:

Will the 3.0 upgrade modify existing campaigns and scenarios? If so, I won't start any new campaigns before then.

Thanks and I am soooooooo looking forward to CMRT and the 3.0 upgrade for CMBN!

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At the risk of being unpopular I have to say I like it that they are taking their time getting scenarios right. Although I appreciate the great scenario tools they (BF) provide, scenario making is time consuming and I find it to be a lot of work, I would rather spend my limited recreational time playing these fine games.

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For the record, I played my first computer game in July, 1974. It was a little gem called Lord Baron, and it played on a mainframe accessed by—get this—a teletype. No graphics. You typed in answers to a set of questions and the computer crunched the turn. Then you played another turn until you got to the end of the game.

My second computer game came along two or three years later and was called Tank and was also played on a mainframe I think (not sure about that last part), but this time it had monitors and graphics and was controlled by joy stick and buttons. This was actually a pretty simplistic arcade type game where two players sit side by side, each with his own monitor and joystick. On the screen is a schematized terrain and two "tanks" (actually, since they didn't have turrets, they were more like assault guns), one controlled by each player. There was also a minefield. ISTR each tank had an unlimited supply of ammo but could only take a certain number of hits before it was destroyed.

Michael

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Emyr's is lying...the first "computer" game he ever played was rock, paper. It was so primitive he had to wait 25 years for someone to invent scissors...up until that point paper always ruled the day.

Mord.

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For the record, I played my first computer game in July, 1974. It was a little gem called Lord Baron, and it played on a mainframe accessed by—get this—a teletype. No graphics. You typed in answers to a set of questions and the computer crunched the turn. Then you played another turn until you got to the end of the game.

My second computer game came along two or three years later and was called Tank and was also played on a mainframe I think (not sure about that last part), but this time it had monitors and graphics and was controlled by joy stick and buttons. This was actually a pretty simplistic arcade type game where two players sit side by side, each with his own monitor and joystick. On the screen is a schematized terrain and two "tanks" (actually, since they didn't have turrets, they were more like assault guns), one controlled by each player. There was also a minefield. ISTR each tank had an unlimited supply of ammo but could only take a certain number of hits before it was destroyed.

Michael

Well that confirms it. You fit somewhere between the Cretaceous and Jurassic periods. Congrats old fart. ;)

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I don't know if this is an indication of anything, but the last time I heard from Steve he had plans to butcher a goat, and I don't think he meant it as a euphemism. Either he was planning to propitiate the god of wargames with an offering or he was planning a barbecue.

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BTW, earlier in the process we can turn around a build to testers within half a day. It's only the end process when things slow down considerably. That's because at the end we always have to test the "master image" and not something cobbled together in dribs and drabs. Definitely sucks for those of us with bandwidth limits of slower connections. Like me! Today I had a build stop a few bytes from being finished after 6 hours of downloading. Ouch.

Sorry if I state the obvious but have you considered using rsync for the process? Works for binary and only transfers the differences.

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