Thank you again

[TexasToast]

+1

Thanks for coming back to the Mac!!!

[Sixxkiller]

Steve is hardly grumpy. I think MikeyD and I have gone off worse on people than Steve.

But honestly if Steve went to your house and started telling you how crappy you decorated and that your wife was not up to par, how would you react? Well sports fans, this is Steve's house, we are only guests here.

[Franko]

Well, I have been wargaming since 1975, from sandtables and paper mache terrain with 1/72 models, 1/300 models, Panzer Blitz, Panzer Leader, SL, ASL, Apple 2, Amiga, CMBO/BB/AK...

CMBN is the best WW2 tactical sim/game experience there is or has been.

Here, here. I agree.

[Doug Williams]

CMx1 didn't do it for me because of the graphics and the 3-man squad. I never got past the Demo.

You missed a lot of good gaming, my friend. Until about two months ago, CMx1 was the best WW2 tactical computer game system available. I still like it better than CMBN in some ways (no desire to go into them here), but not enough to go back. As for the graphics, CMBB and CMAK looked good out of the box. CMBO was rather plain, but once properly modded, it looked like an entirely different game. But that's all ancient history now.

[Schlosskirche]

I'm hooked for life. Thank you Battlefront.

[dieseltaylor]

Steve is hardly grumpy. I think MikeyD and I have gone off worse on people than Steve.

But honestly if Steve went to your house and started telling you how crappy you decorated and that your wife was not up to par, how would you react? Well sports fans, this is Steve's house, we are only guests here.

Of course I feel exactly the same way when I think to complain about a fault in anything I buy. They did their best.

Actually on reflection Sixxkiller I am not sure the analogy works as I am not sure what $65 gets from my wife ...... and actually whether she has been advertising for that matter.

[Hiram Sedai]

Steve is hardly grumpy. I think MikeyD and I have gone off worse on people than Steve.

But honestly if Steve went to your house and started telling you how crappy you decorated and that your wife was not up to par, how would you react? Well sports fans, this is Steve's house, we are only guests here.

We know its a privilege, not a right to opine sometimes. This time, I paid 70 dollars for the right to sit on his front porch.

We live in the shadow of his mercy. I don't think I would charge Steve 70 dollars to visit my house though.

[Chops]

My compliments to the chef(s). What BFC has done from a technical perspective is absolutely amazing. I have enjoyed all of their CM games and will continue to do so.

[sburke]

As for "limited" breadth of units, it's a matter of not giving away work for free. Units and TO&E takes an enormous effort to create. That means enormous costs. Since we cater to a niche market that means we have to balance what we put in with what we can sell. Putting another million Dollars into CM:BN would make it a "better" game, for sure, but we would then have a million less to put into future CM games because I doubt we could sell any more CM:BNs than we are selling now. We would rather not have to think of the business side of things when we make creative decisions, but not doing that means Battlefront going out of business. Which isn't in anybody's interests.

Battlefront's goal is to be sustainably, and reasonably, profitable. We've done that quite well over the past 12 years and increased our staff over time. Slow and steady growth is the only way to ensure we don't go extinct like so many other game developers have.

Steve

Heck I'd pay more if it meant you could staff and produce faster. Then again I am a few years from retirement yet so hopefully when I hit that point I can sit back with a whole family of CM2 games for WW2...and then feel frustrated as CM3 is just out with a virtual helmet you wear for a fully 3D world and I have to wait for the modules on that. Then we will have odor grogs telling us what the exhaust fumes from the Panther D should smell like versus the Tiger.

You realize of course that retiring is not in the cards for you guys.

But seriously back to the OP, thanks. Warts, blemishes and all, it is the best money I have ever spent on a wargame.

[mjkerner]

Then again I am a few years from retirement yet so hopefully when I hit that point I can sit back with a whole family of CM2 games for WW2...

I'm almost exactly 2 years away from retirement myself, sburke, and that's exactly what I'm thinking, too. About the time I retire, the Eastern Front should be close by then....

[Battlefront.com]

We've been working steadily on speeding up our output, but in a way that doesn't put us at risk of over extending ourselves. Over extension generally means going out of business for game developers. So far we have done:

1. Partnered with third parties (in particular Webwing's group) for content development

2. Increased our staff

3. Got the game engine to a very mature state

We have some other things in the works that will help out too.

However, the most important thing to improve the speed of releases is that we now have both arid and temperate environments, both WW2 and modern timeframes. If you look at the 7 year development time put into CMx2 I'd say about half of that was either environment or time period specific work. Along with the basic engine coding, this is work that doesn't need to be duplicated again. Thankfully, too, as it was pretty grueling work

Steve

[womble]

We've been working steadily on speeding up our output, but in a way that doesn't put us at risk of over extending ourselves. Over extension generally means going out of business for game developers. So far we have done:

1. Partnered with third parties (in particular Webwing's group) for content development

2. Increased our staff

3. Got the game engine to a very mature state

We have some other things in the works that will help out too.

However, the most important thing to improve the speed of releases is that we now have both arid and temperate environments, both WW2 and modern timeframes. If you look at the 7 year development time put into CMx2 I'd say about half of that was either environment or time period specific work. Along with the basic engine coding, this is work that doesn't need to be duplicated again. Thankfully, too, as it was pretty grueling work

Steve

Have you ensured the succession? Don't want you guys "doing a Jordan" on us and dying before the work's done, unless you leave enough notes and well-enough-trained heirs...

[Erwin]

Yes, what precautions is BF taking vs an EMP burst?

[dieseltaylor]

Webwing is a former member of the Imperial Guard, a multi-ethnic group of super-powered alien beings who act as enforcers of the laws of the Shi'ar Empire. ...

Yikes! .... err...

[StellarRat]

Have you ensured the succession? Don't want you guys "doing a Jordan" on us and dying before the work's done, unless you leave enough notes and well-enough-trained heirs...

I knew that guy would bite the dust before he finished that damned series. I spent a whole year reading all those giant flipping tomes (which got progressively larger) only to have him kick the bucket before the ending! I remember telling my coworker, "He doesn't look too healthy. I bet he dies before we get the last book."

[StellarRat]

What Lee said...is almost exactly my experience, except I can add S&T's (or was it SPI's?) Blitzkrieg from 1972, and it is the best WW2 sim/game experience for my money.

Wasn't Blitzkrieg an Avalon Hill game?

[StellarRat]

CMBN ranks way up there in my rankings. XCOM, Oblivion, Civ, DW, IL2 and the CM games have got a lot of play.

[mjkerner]

StellarRat, thanks, you're right, it was AH and you jogged a related pleasant memory. I snatched up AH's PanzerBlitz when I first saw it on the shelf of a department store, of all places, because my brothers and I had alot of fun with Blitzkrieg, not the least because it was my first WWII-type boardgame and I thought the company did a good job with it; that started a long and happy association with AH. But I had a boatload of SPI /S&T titles, too.