Webwing

In the game, and in real life too I suppose, the CV9035 is very powerful. However in the missions I played even the old YPR-PRI can be very effective. It all depends on the combination of forces that you are given and the task you need to accomplish. The Panzergrenadier platoon, for instance is a very powerful unit. The Milan, mounted on the Marders, gives great AT capabilities to the platoon without having to dismount. And of course the dismounts are very well armed too. In this context the Marders are excellent. -

That´s the one! Notice that there are several AI plans made by the designer on each mission and that are chosen at random by the system each time you play. What that means is that if you play it again the enemy will not do the same as before or even be in the same place. Could be easier, could be harder. It adds a lot of replay value to the campaign and it´s not boring to play the missions several times. Well, it was in the script for the campaign. We had very clear goals for each mission. What location, what difficulty and what kind of scenario. Hopefully it was fun! -

Designing scenarios is tricky. Designing campaigns a big challenge. While testing you get conflicting feedback. It ends too early to one player, it´s not enough time for the other. Too easy for one, impossible to win for the other. We are facing this exact issue right now with the final testing in NATO. Thank god PT is a master at this and has a lot of patience and experience. For standalone scenarios it´s easy to fix it to your own style. Just open it in the editor and extend the time, change the hour of the day, make the enemy weaker or whatever else you like! -

It does. 15% casualties from what I remember. I would need to check with Jon though, to be sure. The whole campaign is 18 missions long. At mission 9 there is a fork and you can go one way or the other. 4 unique missions one way and 4 unique missions the other way. Maybe previously you were kicked out at this point? If so and you played one variant then there is still the other variant for you to play! If it is the HELA Counterattack, mission 08, then this is the one I did! Pretty tough yes. Defensive scenarios are very hard to design and make them interesting and challenging without the player feeling just like a powerless spectator. It could be. There are many variables at play. Crew also gets tired and stuff like that. -

I would need to check. I was closely involved with the UK campaign, obviously, but not with the other 2 so I can´t remember the exact number of missions. Not to mention my memory is crap. We do try to keep the campaigns about the same length though. Specially provide roughly the same amount of content with every product. This is a bit different for NATO though since we have 3 different campaigns. In total they are almost twice what you get in the UK campaign. However the individual campaigns, for each country, are smaller. I´m glad to hear that. Means things are as they should be! Yep! That´s not my experience at all. I even ran a few tests before release where I had a Warrior targeting a BMP. It did it many times to be sure what the average result would be. I didn´t take more than a few rounds to get the target blowing. Well, they are more exposed in the Jackal than they would be in a Humvee with upgrades, that´s for sure! -

phil, Congratulations! Did you keep track of how you did in each battle? I´d be interested to know. Also any comments and feedback. -

Not really new, but yes, somehow new. Around the time of the British forces module. -

"In Search of a Ghost" is an 8 scenario, infantry-based campaign I did for the base game a couple of years ago. Check link: http://www.battlefront.com/community/showthread.php?t=73126&highlight=Ghost The latest version is 1.3 There was also Crossroads. A 3 mission campaign. 90% Infantry. http://www.battlefront.com/community/showthread.php?t=82323&highlight=Crossroads I´m not sure how they play these days after so many patches. They might be pretty unbalanced. They are free though, so worth a try. I didn´t have the time to upload this to the repository yet. You can grab them here though: http://www.sendspace.com/file/pkl00w and Crossroads here: http://www.sendspace.com/file/gu1hpx -

Yep. There is something planned for this week. -

Today I went to the supermarket before the Brazilian match with Ivory Cost and saw people everywhere with the vuvuzelas! That´s scary. I sure hope this "thing" is forbidden for the next World Cup. If this is a South African tradition I sure hope it stays there. Shock, horror… the vuvuzela goes global! And what the hell is going on with the referees! This match today was another very bad performance of the referees. Either they throw cards like crazy or they forget all about it. The game started very violent from both sides but the referee did nothing. Not a single yellow card. Minutes after the match started a Brazilian player clearly hit Drogbar´s injured arm on purpose. That´s unacceptable and he should have been given a red card. But nothing happened and the game became a sequence of violent events. Only when things were becoming totally out of control the referee decided to start with the cards. Kaka totally lost control and got a red card. The game could have been a lot better if the referee had shown some authority right from the start and we could have watched a much better game and saved some injuries to the players. Then there was the Brazilian second goal in which Fabiano clearly used the arm to control the ball. The referee did nothing. It was a difficult one to call depending on the angle he watched it from though. But from the replay there was no doubt. At the end of the game a reporter asked Fabiano if this was his version of the "hand of god"! He laughed and said it was totally involuntary and that nonetheless it was probably the most beautiful goal he scored in his career. It was a great sequence leading up to goal but it will always be remembered like a dodgy goal, and rightly so. At least it didn´t change the result of the match.

Interesting. Apparently this upgrade come after 2008 though. So it will not be in the module. However a version of the GWagen with an FNMag and HMG, similar to this, is already in. -

I didn´t mention any specific date because we are still working on a lot of things at the same time and I´m not sure yet what will be done when. Beginning of next week should see some update in the NATO page comparing the 3 different IFVs. I´ll have some screens of Dutch soldiers up for sure. I need to check a few more things first though.

I´m not sure I understand what you mean by that. There are 24 different categories for the voices to be used. "Fire", "Casualty", "Target", are some of them. One of them is "chatter". There are more than a dozen different sound files in that category alone. You can also record dozens more if you want to. Add them to the appropriate sound folder and you will have them in game. --

The voice talents were all part of the beta team, and in my opinion did a fantastic job in the UK module. I was responsible for sorting things out so I was in close contact with them during the process. What they did was fantastic. You can´t imagine how much time and patience it takes to record it. Each one of them recorded hundreds of sentences. We ended up with more than 2 thousand files to edit and sort. We might have had better audio quality if we had used a professional studio, but as far as acting goes most of the recordings are excellent. I have seen (or heard) a lot of professional recordings done for other, high budget games at the time and they were not better than the ones we got. But this is an area where personal taste comes into play. Some people like borderline overacting and others something more "realistic". We got a good mix in there IMO. Some heavy shouts and some more controlled acting. Not to mention the variety in accents. For NATO, as I mentioned before, we will use US voices for the Canadian soldiers. However there will be unique files for the Canadians. What does that mean? It means you can record your own voices and mod it into the game. It will show up in the game as Canadians and will be different from the US soldiers. -

I think there is a bit of a misunderstanding here. It´s not really a problem with scenarios being compatible or not but with the way the engine has been planned to be developed. Modules add content. They also usually come at the same time as some big patches for the main game. However the patches only add fixes and some improvements but not new features. Which is not a problem IMO since the game is pretty solid by now. Actually I think it´s really great that there will still be improvements and fixes to the base game! Games, unlike modules, add new features, improvements and changes to the engine. They obviously also add new content since they are set in a different time and place. NATO is a module so don´t expect new features or a different setting. The base game for NATO is CM:SF. You need the main game to use the module. CM:Afghanistan is a new game so it will have some new features added on top of the new setting. It is a stand alone product. There might or might not be modules for this game. You cannot use CM:SF modules here since it is a different game. CM:Normandy is also a new game so it will have new features and improvements in the engine apart from being set in WW2. There will be modules for this game also. Then, there will be a new game, CM:SF2 which will incorporate the improvements and features in the engine, up until the moment of release, and it will be set in the near future. It will be a stand alone game which will then have it´s own modules. All this has been mention before, in several occasions, by Steve, by the way. I´m just repeating it here with my own words.

Yep. CMSF2 will be based in the CM:N game so it will have all the improvements found in that game. -

We will probably use the US voices BUT with files named for Canadians. This way players can mod them whichever way they want. Will be based on the CM:N game, with all the improvements in that game. -

Trying to predict any sort of timetable for the releases is a very risky business! However, the idea is to have WW2 game (and modules) being developed at the same as CM:SF2 (and modules). For instance, right now you have 3 different games being developed at the same time. CM:SF(NATO module), CM:N (Main game) and CM:A (Main game). -

Welcome MugHug! -

Wodin, I´m really happy to hear it! Thanks for posting your impressions. It was a lot of work for the whole team but also a huge pleasure to do the British Module. I´m sure everyone involved in it feels happy to read a post like yours. We all tried to make the UK module as British as possible and not to let anyone down in that respect. I think the module has that special feel to it. From the models, the art, sounds, the TO&E, the campaign and missions. I´m quite sure you will enjoy the NATO module as well. It has just SO MUCH cool stuff in it, it´s unbelievable. Plus there will be quite a few new additions for the red side this time!!! Of course these modules wouldn´t be worth much if they were not to be played on a platform like CM:SF. Like you said, the game is a classic! Which, by the way, will improve a lot more with CM:N. -

I need to check but I think there are at least 3 different rounds modeled. I don´t see why we can´t have different rounds for the AT weapons in NATO also. -

M113? You mean the YPR-765? That would be the YPR-765-PRAT variant. The YPR-765 PRAT were all replaced by Fennek AT by 2006. -

I can´t confirm or deny anything related to the Syrian side but I think most people will be pleased with what is being done. -

Hm, ok. But we are showing, in the NATO page, the AT weapons we are sure will make it in. And it looks pretty final to me. Vehicles however are not 100% decided, although this is only related to 1 vehicle and 2 variants. The rest is pretty much certain. As for the G82 (not G85) sniper rifle, it is included. --

What do you mean? Check it here: http://www.battlefront.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=blogcategory&id=258&Itemid=423 -