Michael Dorosh
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Posts posted by Michael Dorosh
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If it's anything like 90% of the CMX1 campaigns, there will be several weeks of squabbling over rules regarding engineering assets, road movement rates, corps order of battle, simultaneous with an overbearing effort to get the battle area mapped out accompanied by threats and broken promises. If the game reaches critical mass you might play one or two engagements before the GMs realize the task of updating Excel spreadsheets doesn't appeal to most of the players who refuse to give timely reports on what they're doing and the entire effort collapses before it really starts.Originally posted by nathan S.J.:hell yea, but how you planning to do this?
And then there's this:
http://the-battle-of-lauben-campaign.foren-city.de/
Which is working out pretty well, even if I am late in reporting my status to my superiors...or returning a turn.
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If you're suggesting people post replies to threads without reading the posts in them first, I disagree with your advice.Originally posted by C'Rogers:Which is irrelevant to the example in the first post.
But not irrelevant to the subject heading.
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That is what an "upgrade" is. If the new textures are better then old textures it is an "upgrade".Originally posted by tc237:</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />Originally posted by BeauCoupDinkyDau:
The graphics "upgrades" just look like some improved textures. Big whoop--CMx1 modders have been doing that for years.
What is your definition of a graphics upgrade? </font>
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Which is irrelevant to the example in the first post. We're talking about defensive AI behaviour, not command-based strategy. metalbrew is correct; the TacAI should reverse vehicles to retreat from obvious unbeatable threats.Originally posted by Moon:Issue a really small Cover Arc if you want to keep your units from engaging.
Martin
However, in the instance above, if the T-72 hasn't spotted the Stryker, is it an "unbeatable threat"? The joys of desigining a TacAI I suppose.
[ August 31, 2007, 11:48 AM: Message edited by: Michael Dorosh ]
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The difficulty of programming it is only part of the equation. Anybody here remember the debates about various SL/ASL rules way back in early CMBO development days? Dorosh, I know you were there for that. In particular I'm thinking about the ability to purposefully start a fire in that game and not in CMBO...Originally posted by Battlefront.com:PeterLorree86,
</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />I would rather just be told it is too complex or too time consuming to be worth coding, instead of being told the risk of track damage excludes it from the game.
In real life it is actually pretty easy to get something to burn, conditions depending of course. In some combat situations perhaps this might have been used, but 99.9% of the time in combat you'd never, ever see that. But if we allowed people to set fire, you'd see fires all over the place. This would then have an adverse effect on the reality of combat as it actually happened. </font>
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Would it be any less dangerous going through the front/back door where they are expecting you to come?Originally posted by Normal Dude:</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />Originally posted by Michael Dorosh:
Isn't driving into a wall kind of dangerous if you have no idea what is on the other side of the wall?
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Isn't driving into a wall kind of dangerous if you have no idea what is on the other side of the wall? Granting vehicles the ability to simply drive through obstacles would grant an already omniscient player an advantage that a real life commander may or may not have in actuality, even with advanced technology and intelligence gathering capabilities. I refer both to the possibility of anti-tank weapons on the other side of the wall, but also something as goofy as there being, like, a building or ditch on the other side that would simply bog the vehicle down.
Even if a driver has the latest satellite imagery - he can get lost in the downtown of a foreign city. The player will always know to avoid that drainage ditch behind the wall; in real life, a scared 19 year old driver may always not.
And as Steve mentions - how do you tell how thick a wall is just by looking at it for the first time?
I'm not saying to prohibit it, or include it, simply that like with any game design element, many factors come into play when considering reality vs. playability. There are ways of satisfying both.
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Just a word to the wise. Elmar doesn't provide "customer service". While he may have opinions just like all of us Moon, Madmatt, Kwazydog, rune, Steve and Charles set company policy and make official representations of that policy. The comments of the little fish should be taken with that in mind. Real issues vis a vis matter of policy are best discussed with BF.C in private if there is truly a large issue.Originally posted by Lurker765:But, Elmar, I guess we sort of had this type of discussion on one of the other threads when a new player had difficulty with setup zones and I guess our opinions of customer service differ.
I have a great deal of respect for Redwolf and think he has done a great service for the community by attempting to bring issues to light and discuss them respectfully. I've been fortunate to experience patching and testing from both inside and outside perspectives; I can relate to frustrations felt (at the time) when lobbying for changes in a CMAK 1.04 patch which didn't materialize. Looking back, I can see more clearly now, years later, the reasons why that never in fact occurred, and hazy memory had obscured the fact that some issues I thought were never addressed by BF.C in fact clearly were, even if not to everyone's total satisfaction. I certainly wasn't happy at the time with the way the conversation went, and like Redwolf's thread, the discussion degraded to the point of insults, which was silly, since everyone had the same endstate in mind. I suspect Redwolf has the same general goal as anyone else on this forum does. Why it should descend into name-calling then is anyone's guess. I suppose ego is a tough thing to dial down through a keyboard and mouse.
Redwolf, I find the best advice in these situations is patience. I think at this point any further discussion will simply be labelled chest-beating - and ironically, that would refer also to the act of calling someone else a chest-beater. Rest assured your concerns have been noted; coming from a luminary such as yourself who has been with us so many years, I simply can't imagine them not being heard or taken seriously. That you took the time to post your concerns in such a detailed and dignified manner reflects well on the fanbase as a whole. I'd suggest waiting for the 1.03 patch and seeing if your concerns have been addressed - I know the effort will be appreciated, even if not tangibly, should you choose to do a comparison of findings at that time.
[ August 29, 2007, 02:08 PM: Message edited by: Michael Dorosh ]
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I did that a week ago. Just bumped it tonight.Originally posted by Battlefront.com:If you REALLY want to talk about how 1:1 could be made even better, then why not start a thread about that?
It might be a more appropriate venue, as you suggest.You keep talking about 1:1 representation, and maybe I am really talking about 1:1 modelling - which may very well be two different things.
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I added this to another discussion on special forces, but it seems germaine here.
They were discussing SF:
Nothing too elaborate; we already see some of this in the ability of Syrian spies and unconventionals to evade sighting, for instance. I can imagine western SpecOps units that receive similar stealth characteristics--not because they blend into the neighborhood, but because of, well, stealth. This would add some spice to the usual run of missions.quote:Originally posted by Martyr:</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr /> quote:Originally posted by flamingknives:
How would one model specops in a tactical wargame? People keep on calling for it but I don't see how it can realistically be accomplished.
It's not nearly as important as adding to the broader base of vehicles and national armies, however. </font>
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Nothing too elaborate; we already see some of this in the ability of Syrian spies and unconventionals to evade sighting, for instance. I can imagine western SpecOps units that receive similar stealth characteristics--not because they blend into the neighborhood, but because of, well, stealth. This would add some spice to the usual run of missions.Originally posted by Martyr:</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />Originally posted by flamingknives:
How would one model specops in a tactical wargame? People keep on calling for it but I don't see how it can realistically be accomplished.
It's not nearly as important as adding to the broader base of vehicles and national armies, however. </font>
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There is another saying... you can lead a horse to water, but you can't make him drinkOriginally posted by Battlefront.com:Dorosh,
</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />It's hard to blame the frustration at this point, Steve - like they say in Missouri - you gotta show me. I'm sure you will, but like you say - deeds, not words, eh?
If you choose to look at the glass as half full even when it is explained in detail, as you requested, why the glass is more than half full. It's a lot of wasted effort. I can continue to explain the benefits which others are having no problem seeing until I am blue in the face, yet it won't be good enough for you and some others. The only way to make you (and people like Dale) completely happy, or so it would appear, is to rerelease CMx1 with almost no changes. Since that is not going to happen, what is the point of going on and on and on about things that are NOT going to change?Steve </font>
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But the game is very good, and it is CM. I just don't feel that it is leagues "better than CMX1" from the perspective of a serious infantry company model. I do enjoy the game. I know it seems contradictory, but it's true. I think my enjoyment of CMX2 is far more visceral, though, than CMX1, which by nature was a little more cerebral. But that could be the subject matter, too - I mean, I didn't need to think twice about running a Stuart into the line of sight of a King Tiger; but the modern stuff I really don't have a feel for so the enjoyment may be a bit off. That's an individual thing. We all have our biases.Originally posted by Chelco:I understand and I agree. It would have been confusing then.
In retrospective, what is confusing now is that you said the game was very good.
CM:SF does what it was intended to. And the changes have been very great - look at the editor, for example, and the graphics, and the artillery modelling. There are tons of other examples I could cite. For all that, it isn't the game I wanted it to be - and Steve knows that. He knows he wasn't going to please everyone with this, and I think that's why he's open minded enough to tolerate dissent on the forum; I hope my comments are seen as respectful even if I am not necessarily being constructive - though I do think this kind of discourse is good, even if it doesn't change anything.You mentioned something about "being sucked in by the gameplay" and CMSF being "classic CM", IIRC. Coming from an "old guard" CMer, your feedback got stuck in my memory.Anyway, all said with the best intentions. Pre-release excitement is one of the greatest things if a game comes out as good as CMSF. Let's say I agree with your pre-release posts and not with the more recent ones.
All the best,
I do think that CMX2 will evolve and hopefully more in tune with the things I want to see - if we're going to have 1:1 rep, let's have a reason for it and not just "under the hood" - but ultimately, I am certainly not the only customer. As it is, I stand by all my comments pre-release that CM:SF delivers on a lot of promises, and offers a lot of marked improvements over CMX1.
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Why would you have expected that anyone might have discussed underlying design issues in open forum before release? It seems to me that such a discussion would have been inappropriate and more than a little confusing, if for no other reason than no one had seen the game yet(!)Originally posted by Chelco:@ Dorosh: your posts back before release didn't reflect any type of the issues you are posting now.
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I'm covering all my bases.Originally posted by Petrus58:Michael - who said my comment was aimed at you? It wasn't in fact, perhaps you took offence too quickly?
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Are we (RT players) somehow Untermenschen, just because we prefer a different way of playing the same game, mainly to save (real) time?!?!?Originally posted by Rollstoy:</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />Originally posted by Michael Dorosh:
Do the RT players really care if this stuff ever gets in? Do they have a reason to?
Because this is the way it comes across. And I am a little bit tired of reading this.
The current state of the game has got nothing to do with RT, or WeGo, but with the design decisions/abstractions and with the amount of work that has still to be put into the game.
Best regards,
Thomm </font>
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It's funny to note that in the book, Steiner is in his mid-20s. Coburn was a good Steiner even if far too old for the original conception of the character (he really made it his own, though, so the age is a bit irrelevant), but Burton was completely mis-cast no matter how you look at it. Yikes.
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I would think that they would. Unless I'm mistaken, the more twitch they are, the more insistent they are that individuals on screen do cool things like toss grenades and kung-fu kick each other in close combat. That's what they've come to expect, after all, since they've seen it done already and for years, though of course on much smaller scales. </font>Originally posted by bitchen frizzy:</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />Originally posted by Michael Dorosh:
Do the RT players really care if this stuff ever gets in? Do they have a reason to?
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I'll pass on your concerns to the powers that be; thanks for your patience.Originally posted by runebearer:I found the problem: I'm italian and this bug occour setting the language.In english all is ok.
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None of this addresses the real issue; which in my opinion is that 1:1 representation, at present, simply doesn't do any more than heighten expectation of increased modelling of unit abilities/capabilities without actually explicitly modelling them.
So in order to get this 1:1 graphical capability in, the game has been stripped of other capabilities - WEGO TCP, random maps, etc. - but for what is apparently little gain.
This may simply be faulty perception, but I've mentioned this before - without any kind of detailed manual or Designer's Notes, for the "detail obsessed grog" CMX2 simply looks like "CM Lite".
Hence the frustration of the Old Guard. And as I've said before, all the good intentions in the world and reassurances by the developer won't change that. So at this point we are all talking in circles from our own well-meaning perspectives.
In short - if I'm going to see every soldier on the battlefield, I'll look forward to the day where they behave in realistic ways and I can get them to do realistic things with a minimum of fuss. Watching them fight to the death, but not engage in close combat, seems odd, as does watching them stack up to clear a house, but not have any stairwells or interior walls; watching them give buddy aid, but never seeing them surrender; watching them climb individually into vehicles and reload their weapons, but never throw grenades over top of a wall.
Do the RT players really care if this stuff ever gets in? Do they have a reason to?
Right now, the gains have been "under the hood" stuff, and physical appearance. The modelling (including TacAI but also the 1:1 rep points I mentioned, among others) seems to be an area that still needs to be developed. That's all fair enough, but once that does catch up - as we hope the intention is - then perhaps the CMX1 fans will be more satisfied that we have a worthy successor.
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Panzer Command: Operation Winter Storm by Matrix is a WEGO 3D tactical game set on the Eastern Front; it was released last year. You can still get the demo on line. The first sequel based on the fighting at Kharkov comes out soon.Originally posted by shafty:WEGO I have only played with CM (anyone else other than BF ever produced WEGO? either way I have not found any).
I didn't like it much; bought the full game and think I deleted it accidentally after forgetting I bought the download only version. I still have the demo. It is not as flexible as CM - you can't design maps, but you can mod all the unit values if you wish as well as the skins, naturally. You can make your own scenarios, and it looks like they are putting out a random scenario generator now - but you have to use the maps that come with the game, which is still not a great draw.
The game play is a bit different - 40 second turns, and a "reaction phase". Some called it a CM-clone, but with CMX1 gone the way of the dodo, I suppose that is no longer true?
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Very true. The people reacting most vocally against the changes made in the core engine tend to gloss over the benefits those changes bring with it. One way to do that is to view CMx1 as some sort of perfect balance of things and therefore any change can only be negative. Remind them how unrealistic the terrain was, how limiting the options were in the Editor, etc. and the discussion generally moves onto something else because it's hard to argue against an informed comparison instead of an emotional one.Originally posted by Battlefront.com:Bartleby
</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />While gamers aren't stupid, as a group we often look at forms instead of content (see what I said about anecdotal?). Even if 1 to 1 leads to less realistic outcomes at times, the alternative is seen as worse.
The 1:1 thread Dorosh started up is a perfect example. Sure, there are abstractions in the current system, but they pale in comparison to CMx1. So people concerned about abstractions can argue that CMx2 is inferior, but in doing so they can't also argue that they care about realism. It would be like someone arguing that they prefer women/men for relationships who are intelligent and considerate, yet every one they hook up with is some brainless bimbo/jerk who has nothing more than great boobs/pecks. At some point the difference between words and actions has to be pointed out
Steve </font>
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The "problem" is also rooted in how long it takes to build replacement aircraft and train aircrew. You can't crank out a fighter plane in a week from start to finish the way you could in 1944, and you wouldn't have a talent pool of thousands of prospective pilots flocking to the colours, as also occurred in the big one.Originally posted by Bradley Dick:Red air is funny.
I remember reading that modern air conflicts cannot be sustained over long periods of time. You either gain air superiority very quickly, or your planes are blown up where they're parked.
WWII style battles for the sky, from what I've heard, just can't happen anymore. It's too fast paced and deadly.
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Which version of the game are you running?
If you choose to look at the glass as half full even when it is explained in detail, as you requested, why the glass is more than half full. It's a lot of wasted effort. I can continue to explain the benefits which others are having no problem seeing until I am blue in the face, yet it won't be good enough for you and some others. The only way to make you (and people like Dale) completely happy, or so it would appear, is to rerelease CMx1 with almost no changes. Since that is not going to happen, what is the point of going on and on and on about things that are NOT going to change?
Would this be fun? (Campaign for CMSF)
in Combat Mission Shock Force 1
Posted
What you might like to try that I haven't seen done before is have all participants fight their battles vs. the AI. That would mean no waiting for PBEMs, and phases could be completed in days, not weeks or even months. The only bad part of that is you couldn't prevent FOW reveals at the end of games, but it might allow more time for detailed friendly-side staff planning, resource sharing, etc. and just more teamwork in general, plus keeping people more involved. The quicker you play games through, the less likely people are to lose interest. Also less of a need for "GMs" and you get more direct participation from everyone. You would still probably want a skeleton OPFOR staff to plot out grand strategy for the enemy.
The only downfall is that enemy AI now needs to be scripted, so creating battles would be labour intensive - far moreso than in CMX1.