Practical limit to the number of modules in a Family?

[Sequoia]

Just a hypothetical question. I don't know if I'll get an answer.   Is there a practical limit to the number of modules a base game could have? I was just curious if, for example,  it could make sense to expand CMFI and CMRT to earlier periods with modules rather than go with new base games? It would result in fewer Families needing support through patches and upgrades but there may be programmatic downsides as well. Maybe Steve is too busy to answer which could be a good thing as it means CMSF 2 sooner.

[sburke]

Proprietary and you aren't likely to get an answer.

[Sequoia]

Which wouldn't surprise me, and I'm fine with that. I thought it wouldn't hurt to ask though. Not that I want to take up much of Steve's time.

[IICptMillerII]

Don't remember where or when, but I recall Steve answering this once. If I remember correctly, he said something along the lines of CMBN being the max they can put into one game before it starts to be overloaded. It makes sense, seeing how much stuff has been crammed into CMBN. Though take this with a grain of salt as I may be misremembering. 

[Badger73]

Not a bad question in general and Battlefront will do what makes best business sense for them game by game.  But there are other places to look too.

Graviteam

• Tank Warfare Tunisia 1943 is a standalone game with 3 DLC's
• Mius Front is a standalone game with 5 DLC's
• Operation Star is a standalone game with 8 DLC's

Command Ops 2

• 1 base game with 8 additional modules and the 9th module (Bradley at Bay / Patton's Charge) has been "in the works" for almost 2 years.

I think it boils down to how robust the core game code holds up and how well the code can be managed to absorb permutations and variations.  Within a single code set, every change or add-on should require regression testing of everything else already in place.  At some point in time old code grows unsustainable and new code makes better sense.  Developers sustaining legacy stuff burn out.  Developers working on new stuff get excited.  As a consumer (user) I wouldn't even try to  hazard a guess.  (Kind of what @||CptMiller|| just said).

[sburke]

28 minutes ago, Sequoia said:

Which wouldn't surprise me, and I'm fine with that. I thought it wouldn't hurt to ask though. Not that I want to take up much of Steve's time.

true, but even if he was inclined to ask, I don't think the answer would be in number of modules, but rather content.  In doing modules generally speaking you have a couple items that drive content. 

ToE - how many formations do you need to create and what are the particulars you might have to do for them.

Weather - what effect does that have on terrain files and vehicle models

Region - creation of signs, building fronts, typical buildings etc

The decision to do CMFB versus keep extending CMBN one would think (and this is based purely on conjecture - I know no more than you on this) have to do partly on how much more they could keep adding to CMBN.  Snow terrain, ToE changes, new units etc.  Plus I would expect changes once they start doing German specific details for maps - buildings etc.  So in theory your answer lies somewhere in what is in CMBN and something short of what CMFB ends up consisting of.    For sheer number of Modules CMSF holds the title over CMBN, but I don't actually know content wise how it stands up.  I expect CMBN has more.

Then you have a whole other factor - managing when people don't buy all the modules and how does that affect content use.  That would seem to be more a business product management concern rather than a technical limitation.  That could end up actually being the more important part of the decision process. (for example how do you develop battlepacks if the actual content users own can vary too widely).

 

Edited June 16, 2018 by sburke

[Glubokii Boy]

IIRC BFC have mentioned before that modules will never include any GAME ENGINE improvements. Base-games will ! 

I guess that if BFC feels that they have time to spend on developing the gameengine further and give us some new features they might do so and release a new base-game to include those improvements...And charge the product accordingly.

If they on the other hand feel that there is no time for any significant game engine improvements in the near future they might instead decide on releasing a simular product with NO improvements and charge less for it...and caling that a module.

Releasing a game set in an entirely new geographical area at an entirely new timeframe though will most likely be a new BASEGAME by neccesety. The new Products will need to have atleast some 'connection' to the existing titles to be titled a module i'm guessing...

 

 

[ASL Veteran]

My guess would be theoretically you could have as many modules as you wanted to create.  The only caveat being that every module would have to fit within the target time frame and region for that game family.  You aren't going to get an 'early war module' slapped onto CMBN for example.  There would be way too much new artwork and TO&E related stuff to put into a module.  There may also be special situations where specific coding would be required (like one man turrets) and the majority of that kind of stuff is held in the base game and not the module.  For example, the commonwealth module has commonwealth soldiers in it, but who would they fight against?  Most of their opponents come from either the base game or other modules so if you created a module for early war French they would have nobody to fight against if you simply married it to CMBN.  The modules also have to interact with both each other and the base game and so a theoretical 'early war module' would have to interact with all the 1944 stuff.  Sure, the date ranges would be there and you wouldn't see the later war stuff if you hadn't selected that time frame, but the module would have to interact with them regardless so it wouldn't make a lot of sense to slap a module onto a base game where none of the artwork, vehicles, TO&E, and any special coding that might be required needs to interact.  It would be pointless to do that.  It makes much more sense to create a game 'family' where the things that are contained within that game 'family' are going to interact with each other and that's currently how it works. 

Edited June 16, 2018 by ASL Veteran

[Erwin]

Just curious...  Is is possible/practical for BF to produce base "models" that would work (say) CMFI of vehicles for (say N Africa 1940-42) that modders could flesh out with graphics so that we could use to play Afrika Korps without BF having to make an entire new game (to stop my constant nagging about it)?  

Edited June 16, 2018 by Erwin

[Sequoia]

Erwin, I would think possible, but I also cannot think of how that would make sense for them to take the time to do that over other priorities, as the number of possible folks using those mods would be quite a low percentage.

[Dynaman216]

Academic at best.  Technical the limit would be thousands, interface wise I have no idea.  The rate at which they can release Modules is almost certainly the only practical limit. 

[Erwin]

2 hours ago, Sequoia said:

Erwin, I would think possible, but I also cannot think of how that would make sense for them to take the time to do that over other priorities, as the number of possible folks using those mods would be quite a low percentage.

I can appreciate tech issues and resource commitments.  But, if you recall, that's what the mavens used to say about CMSF2 and why there was no market for it. 

Now that it's realized that there is big enuff a market for CMSF2, most of those folks should like CM:Afrika Korps.   

Am just trying to figure out a cheaper way for BF to make that possible for us DAK fans without going to the trouble of a fully developed game.

[ASL Veteran]

3 minutes ago, Erwin said:

I can appreciate tech issues and resource commitments.  But, if you recall, that's what the mavens used to say about CMSF2 and why there was no market for it. 

Now that it's realized that there is big enuff a market for CMSF2, most of those folks should like CM:Afrika Korps.   

Am just trying to figure out a cheaper way for BF to make that possible for us DAK fans without going to the trouble of a fully developed game.

Yeah, but CMSF2 doesn't introduce any new vehicle models since those were already done with the initial release.  There are probably some new textures and maybe some TO&E tweaks but other than the actual game code there isn't much else that needs to be added or altered.  Anything that involves a new vehicle with an associated new TO&E and artwork would probably be, from a non code perspective, more work than updating CMSF2.  Virtually none of the appropriate British or even American lend lease vehicles are already done for 1940 through 1942 and there would probably be many new Axis vehicles as well.

[Sequoia]

I think there could be a market for North Africa. What I'm saying is doing it as you suggest with no revenue in return strikes me as a non-starter.

[MikeyD]

There's a LOT happening in titles under the hood that make extreme region changes in modules difficult.
The game literally tracks when the sun & moon rises and sets each day of the year. Having your module jump from Tunisia to Leningrad in mid-winter is going to not work well. Not to mention the vastly different terrain types & foliage between the two locations. CMRT has birch trees, CMFB has pine tress and CMFI has olive trees. Expanding modules to regions that require new foliage is a bridge too far. If its going to be THAT different you might as well spilt it into another title.

The coming CMRT module might be pushing the limits for modules. The added all-season terrain, the multiple regional building types, the whitewash vehicle textures. The artwork gets doubled and then redoubled again. CMFI does something similar with mid-war vehicle camou changes and infantry uniform changes. I think CMFI TO&E changes are even more extreme than in CMRT. I doubt Steve would want to tackle another CMFI.

 

Edited June 17, 2018 by MikeyD