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A long delayed update


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First, apologies for taking so long to update you guys on where we're at.  We know that you guys care more about new stuff than anything else and so we have been totally devoted to making that happen. However, I'm acknowledging that a bit more balance in priorities was needed and we dropped the ball on communicating with you.

With that out of the way, time to give you an update on what's going on beyond what our testers have been able to say.

We've been working short staffed for the last year in particular.  At first we thought CMSF2 and CMFI Rome to Victory were far enough along that missing some hands would be OK.  It's clear to us that wasn't the best decision we've ever made!  The time to fix that isn't now, however we are currently working with someone to help speed things along through the final stages and a new full timer has been lined up for this Fall.

What really buggered things up is that both CMSF2 and CMFI Rome to Victory were both deceivingly simple in concept, but very difficult in execution.  Both games have been "nearly done" for most of this year, or so we thought.  In reality CMSF2 required about as much effort as a brand new Base Game (if not more) and Rome to Victory ran into seemingly endless TO&E oddities that needed to be addressed.  A couple of months ago we decided to put Rome to Victory on hold so we could focus on CMSF2.  Focusing on one complex project instead of two certainly was the right way to go.

The result of this strategy is CMSF2 being nearly ready for preorders!  I'm going to make a separate post about the options for you all.

As if we didn't have enough work on our plates already, there was another major project that we had to deal with... our website.  The existing website should have been replaced years ago, however we continually prioritized our time and resources on game development.  Which was fine, except that the need for a new website didn't magically go away.

Our new website will hopefully be live within a few weeks.  Total redo from top to bottom in all ways.  Your store accounts from the old website are going to be ported over so that there's no loss of order data.  We will have to shut down our current site (not this Forum though!) for a few days while all that data and the domain are transferred.  We will give you a heads up when that is about to happen.

There's more to say, therefore I'm going to post a few more announcements over the next few days.  And yes, some of those announcements will involve screenshot bones!

Thanks for hanging in there while we get our ducks back in a row.

Steve

 

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Thanks for the update Steve. We've been dying to hear for sure. Hopefully that full timer can start cranking out some IS3 and some M26 tanks :D

Also, the community website is perfect the way it is. Hopefully no major changes lined up for this. I hate change. Like Windows 10. Screw you Cortana

Edited by Artkin
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Apologies of course accepted. Thank you for the update. Can we still expect all three modules this year or is that too soon to say?

Personally I don't mind waiting another year, as long as we know what is happening. I've barely touched the surface of all the other games, so it's not like I'm running out of toys. Also time to finish my scenario for CMRT. :)

Edited by Aragorn2002
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Really appreciate this status report, Steve.

Fingers crossed that your two update threads won't be derailed this time by things like "Will it also have features X, Y, and Z?", "Why not!?", "Why should a patch or update cost so much?",  "Let me tell you how to run your business more effectively so you can get your products into our hands more quickly," etc., etc....

C'mon guys, we can do it!! Just say thanks for the update here and then go replay your favorite scenario or something to remind yourself how good these games are.

Edited by sttp
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Glad to finally produce an update for you!  I can't tell you how many times I thought "I need to update folks" and then the next thought was "but I'm going to be too busy over the next few days to answer questions.  OK, next week".  Rinse and repeat :(  Finally my thinking of updating you AND a window where I can be around to interact consistently came up.  Or, more accurately, I forced it to come up!

Mission creep... CMFI R2V (Rome to Victory) experienced it and unfortunately it happened while being developed concurrently with CMSF2, a game which was simply a lot more work to "port" than we anticipated. 

For R2V the heart of the new content comes from the forces which aren't the usual suspects.  On paper we thought the Commonwealth forces were all based on British TO&E with minor differences, so let's put in a lot of them!  The French were based on US TO&E with minor differences, so let's put them in as well!  The Waffen SS and Luftwaffe is just like what we have for CMBN, therefore not a problem to put them in either.  Piece of cake, right?  Sure, if you're talking about Grandma's famous Christmas fruitcake that is often used as a boat anchor or to keep a section of house roof from peeling back in a hurricane :)

What we found out with all of these forces is that the subtle differences from the established templates were far more varied and fundamental than we had initially thought.  In hindsight we should have built every single one of them up from scratch instead of starting with the templates and putting in exceptions.  The scratch method would certainly have taken a LOT of time (which is why we didn't do it that way), but in the end probably would have saved us some time on the calendar.

The good news is that R2V has the sort of subtly you guys expect from Combat Mission.  Instead of the South African formations being Brits with different accents, there's distinct differences in how they are structured and what equipment they use.  Same with the Indians, Brazilians, Poles, and absolutely with the French.  The German side of things is also more nuanced than you might think.  Which we think makes R2V one of the most interesting Modules we've made.  That is definitely a good thing!

Steve

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What a relief!

e:  In light of the R2V revelations, I'm guessing Co-Belligerents, RSI and a second-look at the Italian OOB in Sicily would be it's own module? 

What were the most surprising TOE notes? I think I read somewhere that the Commonwealth used Sherman 76s in Italy, which I don't recall them doing in North-West Europe.

Edited by DougPhresh
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12 minutes ago, Battlefront.com said:

Glad to finally produce an update for you!  I can't tell you how many times I thought "I need to update folks" and then the next thought was "but I'm going to be too busy over the next few days to answer questions.  OK, next week".  Rinse and repeat :(  Finally my thinking of updating you AND a window where I can be around to interact consistently came up.  Or, more accurately, I forced it to come up!

Mission creep... CMFI R2V (Rome to Victory) experienced it and unfortunately it happened while being developed concurrently with CMSF2, a game which was simply a lot more work to "port" than we anticipated. 

For R2V the heart of the new content comes from the forces which aren't the usual suspects.  On paper we thought the Commonwealth forces were all based on British TO&E with minor differences, so let's put in a lot of them!  The French were based on US TO&E with minor differences, so let's put them in as well!  The Waffen SS and Luftwaffe is just like what we have for CMBN, therefore not a problem to put them in either.  Piece of cake, right?  Sure, if you're talking about Grandma's famous Christmas fruitcake that is often used as a boat anchor or to keep a section of house roof from peeling back in a hurricane :)

What we found out with all of these forces is that the subtle differences from the established templates were far more varied and fundamental than we had initially thought.  In hindsight we should have built every single one of them up from scratch instead of starting with the templates and putting in exceptions.  The scratch method would certainly have taken a LOT of time (which is why we didn't do it that way), but in the end probably would have saved us some time on the calendar.

The good news is that R2V has the sort of subtly you guys expect from Combat Mission.  Instead of the South African formations being Brits with different accents, there's distinct differences in how they are structured and what equipment they used.  Same with the Indians, Brazilians, Poles, and absolutely with the French.  The German side of things is also more nuanced than you might think.  Which we think makes R2V one of the most interesting Modules we've made.  That is definitely a good thing!

Steve

Hahaha :) exactly my opinion of fruitcake :)

With all the extensive research done, have you ever considered producing a stand alone product database of all the forces? Might be of interest to people here, other grogs, historians, other game devs etc? 

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1 hour ago, Battlefront.com said:

 

The good news is that R2V has the sort of subtly you guys expect from Combat Mission.  Instead of the South African formations being Brits with different accents, there's distinct differences in how they are structured and what equipment they use.  Same with the Indians, Brazilians, Poles, and absolutely with the French.  The German side of things is also more nuanced than you might think.  Which we think makes R2V one of the most interesting Modules we've made. 

^^^This.  YES!!

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