Inferior to CMBB

[CarlWAW]

This statement I do not understand: since CMx1 there is a pretty good solution for the Player as God and Terrain FOW problem: Franko's True Combat Rules. Why do you not offer such a mode?

[sburke]

Yeah, if someone gifted me a big pile of money and forced me to spend it on something that isn't commercially viable, it would be co-op mode (what we call CoPlay). That was a part of the original CMx2 design back in 2004 or so and it's just not viable, unfortunately, without a patron. The US military looked interested in it for a while, then they did an about face and told all us low cost alternatives to pound sand.

CoPlay would dramatically change the Player as God problem. It would more realistically portray the command structure of a real battle, which all on its own would have a huge impact. However, it would allow for other fun things like not allowing a player to see the 3D map from anything but a unit's perspective (probably up to Camera 3 height). Anything above that requires a 2D map. That break from 3D to 2D would also take a bite out of the Player as God thing because there would be limited details about where your forces aren't, and that means lots of things such as hesitation and uncertainty. Then, of course, players would be required to follow someone else's overall plan and that means they can only micromanage within their small slice of the battle, not micromanage the whole battle.

And more, but unfortunately not going to happen unless someone funds it in one big lump sum. It's simply not commercially viable otherwise.

Steve

 

Just not enough pork in this barrel to get congressional backing eh?

[LukeFF]

This statement I do not understand: since CMx1 there is a pretty good solution for the Player as God and Terrain FOW problem: Franko's True Combat Rules. Why do you not offer such a mode?

 

Because not enough people care about such a thing?

[Battlefront.com]

Because not enough people care about such a thing?

Yup. The rules, as I remember them, introduced a lot of practical problems that only a few people felt like suffering through.

Note that the Player as God problem was also not eliminated by Franco's Rules, though it did hinder a small part of it by reducing the player's ability to willy-nilly examine the map.

Just not enough pork in this barrel to get congressional backing eh?

That and I don't own a $5000 suit and gold Rolex to make myself look important.

Steve

[Holien]

How about a kick starter? There might be enough who would want the SOW game play for WW2?

[Vanir Ausf B]

How about a kick starter?

To buy Steve a $5000 suit and gold Rolex? Sure, I'll pitch in.

[Holien]

 

I think there is a market for a different style of CM and a kick starter might be worth a try?

 

There are some good examples of various games companies been given the freedom to develop stuff directly for their players.

 

And we know Steve and the team has a good track record of delivering the goods...

[Battlefront.com]

We've thought of it, but we think the chances of raising the amount of money we'd need is pretty close to zero. We're talking about several hundred thousand Dollars. If we had a massive customer base then a portion of that might be large enough to kick in that sort of money. But we have a relatively small customer base (10s of thousands, not 100s of thousands or millions!) and therefore a portion of that isn't likely large enough to foot the bill. It certainly is a lot to ask of so few people.

Steve

[ChrisND]

We've thought of it, but we think the chances of raising the amount of money we'd need is pretty close to zero. We're talking about several hundred thousand Dollars. If we had a massive customer base then a portion of that might be large enough to kick in that sort of money. But we have a relatively small customer base (10s of thousands, not 100s of thousands or millions!) and therefore a portion of that isn't likely large enough to foot the bill. It certainly is a lot to ask of so few people.

Steve

 

To add: as I'd mentioned in a CMFI forum post some time ago, these things (like a Kickstarter campaign) are a significant time investment, even if we were using the money to hire other people to do it. That is time not being spent on other things that might potentially benefit more customers. With a team of our size, that's significant.

[Holien]

OK when I win the lottery I now have a project for it....

[CarlWAW]

Yup. The rules, as I remember them, introduced a lot of practical problems that only a few people felt like suffering through.

What practical problems do you think about? The practical problems with the locked view on units could be overcome, if movement within the action square(s) a unit is placed in, would be allowed.

The real problem with Franko's rules is the enormous self-control which is necessary to stick to the rules, when you are experiencing battlefield chaos which can immediately and always be overcome by moving around freely. Therefore it's simply not possible to play these rules H2H. Even playing them against the AI demands way too much self-discipline. But this mode gives an unprecedented intense experience.

For players who do not have the patience for PBEM and find the AI boring: this mode makes playing the AI challenging.

It is suited perfectly for people with not enough time, because even very tiny battles can become intense.

 

Note that the Player as God problem was also not eliminated by Franco's Rules, though it did hinder a small part of it by reducing the player's ability to willy-nilly examine the map.

I think this is a huge understatement. The experience of terrain FOW this mode creates is just incredible. How will it look like behind the ridge? Or the impact of bad weather on vision. Or the chaos, when an artillery barrage goes down and you can't escape it. Or the feeling for slopes, the importance of height. All that is missing with free movement and this mode brings it to life.

I would suggest you to choose a tiny platoon sized attack in thick fog, print the map overview and (and try to) stick to the rules from pre-setup to finish. You will be stunned about the level of realism and chaos your game is already able to model if the god's view is taken away and replaced with unit view. If you like realism, as developer you should give this mode a honest try before judging it.

Edited May 29, 2015 by CarlWAW

[Battlefront.com]

I didn't mean that Franco's Rules aren't a good thing for some people. I agree and we've even discussed implementing them along with a few other features. But the fact is that most people do not want to play the game that way and that has put the option further down the list compared to other things. Remember, if we try to make everybody happy we will wind up making nobody happy. That's just the way it goes.

Steve

[slysniper]

We've thought of it, but we think the chances of raising the amount of money we'd need is pretty close to zero. We're talking about several hundred thousand Dollars. If we had a massive customer base then a portion of that might be large enough to kick in that sort of money. But we have a relatively small customer base (10s of thousands, not 100s of thousands or millions!) and therefore a portion of that isn't likely large enough to foot the bill. It certainly is a lot to ask of so few people.

Steve

Is that all that is needed.

So if I give you 5 Million ( I assume I can have some say in how the next game is designed)

I had nothing better to do with the money anyway.

Man don't I wish, So the truth is, what can you do with $50 I can spare.

[MikeyD]

Heh heh, 'kickstarter'.  I remember all the press over the kickstarter funds raised for the 'Veronica Mars' movie based on the old TV show, which virtually nobody then went to see. 

 

People complaining about 'Borg Spotting' should be careful what they wish for. They may find themselves in the next patch unable to move the camera above level two. 

[womble]

Admittedly, it's a larger niche than "Xtreme Realism WW2 Sim", but Star Citizen (aiming to be the "Best Damn Space Sim Ever", headed by Chris Roberts of wing Commander/Freelancer fame) has raised more than $65million in "pledges" (which are actual cash stumped up, on the promise of "product" when the game goes live) alone; there are tales of investment capital, but no "studio funding" - Ser Roberts avoids that like the plague to retain creative control. Started on Kickstarter, and moved to handling their own pledges/goals when they exceeded their initial goals (a couple of mill), as I understand it. They claim in the hundreds of thousands of supporters; if the BFC supporter base is an order of magnitude smaller, it doesn't seem unreasonable to wonder whether there might not be enough folk out there willing to spring speculative moolah to get into the near or even low megabucks range. They run a special "subscriber" model as well, the contributions of which pay to support much of the fan-base outreach and publicity/engagement they produce.

 

And they don't even have a released game yet. Three or four years in from announcement.

 

Of course, spending that extra cash on production takes a lot of extra staff and management... and that's not what I gather Steve's particularly interested in bossing.

[Battlefront.com]

I'm sure a large chunk of the funding is investment capital in some, way, shape or form. Those people expect a return on their investment. With a game that has the potential to sell in the Billions, made by a guy with the credentials needed to make it, it's a pretty smart investment. For us? The potential is much smaller for a profit, not to mention a massive profit, on a game that wasn't significantly "dumbed down".

I'm not saying that we'll never try to raise money in this sort of way, just that we likely won't. Also remember that something like 20% is consumed by the crowd sourcing company (Kickstarter, Indegogo, etc.).

Personally, I think the better use of crowd sourcing for us is for much smaller projects that aren't as cost intensive and yet have a chance of appealing outside of CM's traditional fanbase. Still, this gets back to what Chris said. If we're pursuing an option like that, you better believe that current development will suffer because we simply can't do too many things at once.

Steve

[MikeyD]

I think Steve should rent a couple floors of a downtown Boston office tower, hire a staff of hundreds, then spend a couple years working on an overly ambitious mega-project. Go all "Curt Schilling' on us. 

[Battlefront.com]

Egads! I do not cherish the thought of that possible future for me, Battlefront, or frankly anybody!

Steve

[Melchior]

I think Steve should rent a couple floors of a downtown Boston office tower, hire a staff of hundreds, then spend a couple years working on an overly ambitious mega-project. Go all "Curt Schilling' "George Broussard" on us. 

Fixed that for you.

To add: as I'd mentioned in a CMFI forum post some time ago, these things (like a Kickstarter campaign) are a significant time investment, even if we were using the money to hire other people to do it. That is time not being spent on other things that might potentially benefit more customers. With a team of our size, that's significant.

At least Kickstarter and Indiegogo have good intentions. I believe Steam downright swindles small developers.

[76mm]

...Star Citizen (aiming to be the "Best Damn Space Sim Ever", headed by Chris Roberts of wing Commander/Freelancer fame) has raised more than $65million in "pledges" (which are actual cash stumped up, on the promise of "product" when the game goes live)...

ahem, according to Wikipedia, Star Citizen funding is now up to $80 million.  I would hate to think that wargame nerds are more grudging in their support than space nerds.  Star Citizen is apparently also providing their pledge "system" to other companies.

 

Honestly, I think that some form of kickstarter-ish campaigns is part of the future of wargaming--it is becoming more and more difficult for a single guy sitting in his pajamas to develop a game which will succeed in the market--look at any number of stalled/failed projects at Matrix.  I could probably count on one hand the number of companies like Battlefront that is capable of and willing to put out a quality wargame, and sadly I expect that that number will shrink rather than grow.

[76mm]

I'm sure a large chunk of the funding is investment capital in some, way, shape or form. Those people expect a return on their investment

From what I've seen, this is not the case.  What they're doing is selling the ability to preview and comment and/influence the game as it develops, as well as selling "special edition" spaceships, such as "decommissioned" military space destroyers, etc.  The space nerds are lapping this stuff up, I read an article about one guy who had bought something like $10k worth of space ships.

 

You are right that there is some admin overhead/cost involved, and that is probably why Star Citizen, once they've raised a few million bucks, moved fundraising to their own site (as mentioned in a previous post, they are apparently licensing or providing this to other companies).

 

I'm guessing that one of the main problems with development at Battlefront is time rather than money, so I have been hoping for some time that you could use kickstarter-type projects for individual add-ons projects for which you could hire a free-lance programmer--for instance, I'd be willing to pay ALOT for the ability to be able to import/export unit data (to facilitate player-made campaign layers).  It seems like Charles wouldn't need to spend much time on projects like this, and the game could gradually be widened.  I'm sure it is much harder than I'm making it sound, but still...

Edited May 30, 2015 by 76mm

[sburke]

80 million from gamers? That don't sound right.  I expect Steve is on target for that one, sounds like some venture capital.  As to our community, for f**k's sake, they complain about a $5 upgrade and start griping before a game is even released that there isn't enough material to warrant the few dollars more that a base game costs over a module.  Some of this community is so tight, their a**es could make diamonds out of coal.

 

10K in spaceships?  WTF?  LOL who wants to put up 10K and get the only in game Maus? 

Edited May 30, 2015 by sburke

[76mm]

80 million from gamers? That don't sound right.  

But it is right--it is all player funded, although I'm sure that some of them are player-speculators hoping to buy the special goodies now and resell later for a profit.  Here are some links:

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Star_Citizen

http://venturebeat.com/2015/02/04/with-72m-raised-star-citizens-chris-roberts-has-become-a-crowdfunding-believer/

http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-1019-star-citizen-20141017-story.html#page=1

 

One of the articles in the links says that one of the game's "clans" (or whatever) has 26k members, and the game hasn't even launched yet!

 

And of course you're right that some of the members of our player community are rather tight--but there have also been plenty of players posting things like "I would definitely pay more for feature X, or feature Y...".  I've seen many players post that they'll buy whatever Battlefront puts out--but the pace is so slow--we're still waiting for a CMRT module after 18 months.

 

What if, for instance, Battlefront told us that they could have the Kursk module out in six months if they could hire (ala Kickstarter, etc.) a freelancer to build whatever 3D models they needed (or whatever their particular bottle-neck is)?  I'm in right now...

[76mm]

LOL who wants to put up 10K and get the only in game Maus? 

True, but BFC doesn't need $80 million.  Maybe you put in $50 towards a project which costs $100k and get a copy of the game and one of the Leaders named after you, you pick the a division's markings to be used in the game, etc. who knows?  

[AttorneyAtWar]

Squad is a rather niche game being developed by the old Project Reality developers, its only been 3 days and 1,700 backers and they already almost hit there first goal of 150,000$. I wouldn't underestimate peoples willingness to send money developers way if they are offering what they want.

 

I understand Steve's position though.

 

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/offworldindustries/squad/comments

Edited May 30, 2015 by Raptorx7