The Blue Bar Returns!

[Chops]

Many thanks, and much appreciation to the whole Battlefront Crew once again!

[Battlefront.com]

Scipio,

Steve, after reading your thread starter, I have to say that you completly missed your profession. You should better become a politician!

Some days I think politicians have an easier time pleasing people than we do Making decisions about what to spend time on is an extremely complex thing. Sometimes it's a no-brainer that we should do something right away (like fixing pathing), other times it's a no-brainer that we shouldn't do something at all (like going back to abstract CMx1 type units). Those are the minority, though. The literally thousands of suggestions that come our way fit somewhere inbetween. And no matter what, even the good ones have to stand in line and wait their turn. And "good ones" is always a matter of perception.

One of the unexpected consequences of making a game that is both RealTime and WeGo is that sometimes a feature request is more relevant for one method than another. What we've been trying to concentrate on are features that are equally applicable to both as our primary focus. That means things like fixing WeGo replay graphics glitches and a RT TCP/IP pause mechanism have to wait a while. Obviously there's a lot of second guessing as to why we do things in what order, but often times the answer is that one was a lot easier to code/test than another, not that it was more important. And that's very tough for customers to understand sometimes.

...and many years from now, when President Grammont has taken command, all real world wars will have been stopped, digitalized and played by PBEM only, of course under the lizens of CMx5!!! Muhahahaha...

Just like in Star Trek, complete with voluntarily showing up to the disintegration chamber!

CogNative,

Will the "Blue Bar" fix this occasional "Hotty Pants" style of play?

Since Hotseat is WeGo, the chances are that the answer is yes. The only possibility for it not improving things is there is some sort of problem specifically related to Hotseat. We aren't aware of any such problem os the chances are very good that whatever you saw will be cleaned up with v1.11.

Slug88,

Outstanding news!!! Thank you once again for proving why BTS is the best at what they do.

Thanks! We do try.

Steve

[vincere]

I never thought I'd be pleased to hear that a patch for a game has a blue crunching bar, but am so. nice work with the win win process.

[Steiner14]

Wow! The blue bar is back!

Can't wait to get my hands on the WWII title.

MikeyD's experience with the Blue Bar was not isolated. The ability to skip ahead for the first couple of turns (especially) is definitely one of those things which has a larger impact on the perception of gameplay than actual.

Steve, IMO you still underestimate the psychological aspect of such "trademark" related aspects a lot (you only see the rational aspects).

[CogNative]

Patch Me Up BFC! Thanks for the improvements and feedback Steve. As for politics. You may need a 2nd job to raise the money needed for President but I can get you a sweet Senate deal for a lot less.

[c3k]

Steve,

You guys care, you really care... <sniff, sniff>

Amazing job. I never had a horse in the blue bar race, one way or the other, but I can only applaud your re-examination of this issue and decision to change the game code in such a, ahem, "fundamental" <cough, cough> manner.

Because of this one decision, I just may consider buying your next game.

Regards,

Ken

[Battlefront.com]

Steiner14,

Steve, IMO you still underestimate the psychological aspect of such "trademark" related aspects a lot (you only see the rational aspects).

Not at all. We understand fully well that a gamer is very emotional and therefore doesn't always view the decisions we make as rationally as we do. But what's the alternative? For us to be driven by whatever emotional, not very rational, argument that comes our way? How could that possibly yield something good since agreement on rational things is hard enough to get, not to mention emotional ones? So we have our way of acting and you guys have your way of reacting. And you should be thankful that we don't view "trademark" aspects of games as untouchable, otherwise we'd be making games with 2D cutouts on cardboard playing maps with 6 sided dice

CogNative,

Patch Me Up BFC! Thanks for the improvements and feedback Steve. As for politics. You may need a 2nd job to raise the money needed for President but I can get you a sweet Senate deal for a lot less.

No offense to our Midwestern customers, but I don't want to live in Illinois

Steve

[Battlefront.com]

I meant to add that we're of course thrilled to put things into our games that people respond to positively in an emotional way. That's really what a game is all about IMHO. The trick is that no two gamers agree on what is important, so right there that means we have to make choices. Choices in turn have to be weighed against development realities, such as limited time and endless suggestions from customers. That inevitably means that sometimes customers are going to be disappointed, emotionally. That's reality. I know customers like this as much as rising taxes, but it is what it is

Steve

[Dietrich]

abstract CMx1 type units

Abstract? The units in CMBB and CMAK (which I've been playing for nearly four years now; I've only ever played the CMBO demo) never seemed abstract to me. In fact, they seemed very particular and well-modeled, even with ocassional variations in armament. =)

[Battlefront.com]

c3k,

Amazing job. I never had a horse in the blue bar race, one way or the other, but I can only applaud your re-examination of this issue and decision to change the game code in such a, ahem, "fundamental" <cough, cough> manner.

Well, the truth is that if the Slideshow Problem hadn't raised its ugly head, there would still be no Blue Bar. So the decision to put it back in was purely because it was the best technical solution. If there was a better one, that did not involve precomputing turns, we would have gone with that since we were looking only to fix a specific problem. The fact that the best solution to the Slideshow Problem happened to be implementing precomputed WeGo turns was a nice bonus for everybody. Normally unintended side effects are a bad thing, but not in this case!

Steve

[Battlefront.com]

Dietrich,

Abstract? The units in CMBB and CMAK (which I've been playing for nearly four years now; I've only ever played the CMBO demo) never seemed abstract to me. In fact, they seemed very particular and well-modeled, even with ocassional variations in armament. =)

From a game mechanics standpoint, almost everything in CMx1 was highly abstracted while in CMx2 most things are directly simulated. The effects of this have been discussed many, many times in great detail already

Steve

[Sergei]

What Steve probably means with 'abstract' is the fuzzy "centered within a certain radius from the pinpoint location of the squad" or the box on top of box tanks. Those are abstract.

[Battlefront.com]

Yes, that and a lot of other things

Steve

[Dietrich]

I see. Thanks for the clarification, Steven, and Sergei too. Contrary to my seeming ignorance a moment ago, I do understand (in layman's terms) the difference between CMx1's simulation versus CMx2's. Pardon my not thinking about it long enough to realize that "abstract" basically means "not 1-to-1 simulation". =)

[hoolaman]

Cid250 wlll be so pleased you listened to him.

haha.

Unfortunately the AI calculations are exactly the same AI that would otherwise have been there.

Pretty cool, FastForwarding turns is awesome, it just FEELs like CM.

[SlapHappy]

I'll have to revisit WEGO again, as I have been playing real-time 90% of my time with CMSF. Despite my lack of experience playing the older BFC games, I did find the newer version of WEGO somewhat disconcerting. Even so, I do understand the differences between the two styles. I think I will probably enjoy the "blue-bar" or "classic" style more.

I find it interesting to speculate on how a game designer might implement WEGO in other fashions as well.

For instance, one minute intervals has been the de facto time span for BFC when implementing WEGO. But that seems to be a choice made based on what feels right as far as simulation control. One could certainly use 30 seconds or 15 seconds as standard time spans. Or you could allow for setting of the time span by game or by turn even. Or you could move entirely away from time based turn triggers and base it on events that occur during the game, like enemy contact.

Did BFC always plan to implement WEGO as we see it today (one-minute intervals)? Or did the design team arrive at this through trial and error during the development process?

[Sergei]

It's probably a "happy medium" kind of thing. One minute equals one turn is an easy equation for designers (and players!). Within one minute you get enough action, yet you, as a commander, still MIGHT have a chance to overturn a disaster in the making.

[MikeyD]

The better the AI gets (and it is getting better) the more comfortable I feel with that 1 min. WeGo timespan. Go back a year and 1 minute in the game could feel like a long long time

[SlapHappy]

Any behavioral improvements in close quarters combat? Especially inside buildings?

[Thomm]

Any behavioral improvements in close quarters combat? Especially inside buildings?

Soldiers now fire on the move inside buildings, too.

Best regards,

Thomm

[SlapHappy]

Great! That's another off my pet peeves list.

That one will change the whole complexion of the game, IMO.

[Kanonier Reichmann]

This is what Tanklord wrote approx. 3 months ago in a previous thread:

The difference from my point of view is that in RT you need to calculate and results in realtime and output it to the screen/player also in real time, whereas in a turnbased/pre calculated/blue bar engine you can pause the simulation when you get a peak in the workload and get arguably better results.

This statement turned out to be quite prophetic don't you think?

Regards

Jim R.

[Wrath of Dagon]

This is great, now I can pause and rewind during the first replay, instead of having to wait until the second replay. Should save a lot of time.

[Battlefront.com]

Dietrich,

Kein Problem

KR,

This is what Tanklord wrote approx. 3 months ago in a previous thread:

Oh, that discussion goes back even further, but the one with Tanklord was the most informed one.

This statement turned out to be quite prophetic don't you think?

Sorta Prophetic in the sense that at the time we weren't planning on doing precomputation because we didn't see a need for it, yet a few months later we did. Not prophetic in the sense that we just figured this out. This is a concept that's been around since the very beginning of computer gaming.

If you recall that discussion Tanklord, it mostly revolved around the practical benefits of having precomputed turns. Much of the brew-ha-ha when CM:SF was first released was the notion that the game was somehow harmed by not having precomputed turns. That wasn't the case then and really still isn't now. Well, unless you have a marginal system and are trying to play big battles in WeGo. Change any one of those variables and precomputing doesn't do a thing for the player other than offer WeGoers a chance to skip over replays.

As Hoolaman said on the previous page, there's nothing else different. The Blue Bar doesn't suddenly make the AI "smarter", increase the fidelity of LOS/LOF, etc. In order to do that Charles would have to program the AI, LOS/LOF, etc. to use those cycles. And that sort of coding means not coding other things, like better QBs, water, AT Guns, etc. Therefore, the Blue Bar's impact on the game is limited to what it does in v1.11. Specifically a performance improvement for lower end systems playing WeGo and a very welcomed skip movie feature for all WeGoers.

Steve

[SlapHappy]

This is great, now I can pause and rewind during the first replay, instead of having to wait until the second replay. Should save a lot of time.

Yeh, that was my biggest hangup regarding WEGO as it was originally implemented.