Kwazydog

Agitatsii, to answer you question, NO, we did not add any form of copy protection to the patch. Its hard to tell from your reply above what your on about, but it sounds like you may own the CDV version of CMBB as they do use copy protection in order to protect the CD's. If thats the case, please feel free to take it up with them as it is their policy to use such measuers. Dan [ June 07, 2003, 05:37 AM: Message edited by: KwazyDog ]

Sfm, none of the mods that are included are actually installed in the BMP directory. They may look similar (hehe, I did make both version of the grass for instance) but they are definately different We decided to include mods in a different directory so people could install them as they wish depending on their tastes and VRAM capacity. Dan

Todd, if you already own CMBB then the good news is that you already own 99% of the graphics included with the retail version of CMBO. All you need to do is some renumbering and you will have a game that looks almost exactly the same as the game installed off of the CD. Unfortunately we cant offer them as a download for two reasons. Firstly, and most importantly, is the size. All up the size of these files would be 100's of MB. Offer a file of this size which could potentially be downloaded by thousands of poeple would not only slow down our servers dramatically but also cost thousands and thousands of dollars in data transfer. Secondly, we would be offering all of our hard work free for download not only to our customers, but also to anyone whom wishes to use it for their purposes whilst having to pay for them to download it. We dont mind people using our graphics in mods for other games (though we do request that people ask our permission) but we do wish them to own a copy of the game, which isnt too much to ask I think. So for the reasons above (and others) we unfortunately cannot offer the graphics for download. If this changes you choice of purchasing CMAK I am sorry to hear that, but unfortunately there is nothing we can do under the circumstances. Dan [ June 05, 2003, 10:32 PM: Message edited by: KwazyDog ]

Actually CD space isnt such an important issue here as VRAM usage would be. As it was CMBB really needed a 32-64mb card to see its textures in their true resolutions (and with mods you probably want a 128mb ) so adding in twice the amount of upper hull and turret textures would really increase VRAM usage. Dont worry though guys, we will be modelling a lot more than this in the rewrite For now, just turn on labels to see which tanks are knocked out or abandoned... Dan

Markshot, Ill pass the idea onto the guys. The the scenarios should be a reasonable size so I guess it might be easy enough Dan

Ermmm, and how is selling our product on the shelf for a discount price, making is available to thousands of customers whom have never even heard of the game before 'crappy', guymuru? How have we harmed you to the point where youd jump on our forums and call us unethical and geedy without even researching the facts? By the same logic we are greedy charging anything for our game in the first place...I guess we should have made it freeware? Dan PS : As John suggested above, we have indeed structured our business to move away from the standard industry practices. This is why CMBO wasnt on the shevles when it was first released. Just look at some of the wargames rushed out on the shelves recently to see what happens when you sign such deals. We designed the product how we wished to and introduced it to the market when we were ready to. [ June 02, 2003, 10:34 PM: Message edited by: KwazyDog ]

Oh joy... Guymuru, if you own CMBB, you already own 99% of the graqphical updates which you will find in the special addition of CMBO. Added to that is a seperate directory in which we have included some mods from the mod guys for people to add as they wish. The interface hasnt changed at all, so Im not sure where you got that idea from... Before you call us greedy, unethical and pathetic, it would indeed be nice if you could do us the consideration of making sure that facts you are basing those statements on are correct. Dan [ June 02, 2003, 06:49 PM: Message edited by: KwazyDog ]

Vader, best wishes to you and I hope you wife makes a quick recovery. Having been through a similar experience in the not so distant past, I know that it times like these that remind you about the important things in life. We look forward to seeing you back when the time is right. Dan

I would like to add best wishes from all of us here at Battlefront. I hope goes well and that he has a quick recovery from his current situation. Dan

Guys, thanks for all of the support! Vedder...interesting idea, Ill have to run that past the guys though Im not sure it would fit on the shelf, hehe. Aragorn, that unfortunately isnt possible as it would take months of work to take CMBB's enhancements back into CMBO. Id like to see this too actually, as I really enjoy the Western Front, but I think that maybe you may be missing the point here. All we are doing is releasing CMBO onto the US retail maket at a budget price....the same as has been done with older Quake or Unreal releases or for instance. There is nothing all that strange about that, and no hidden agendas. Dan [ April 24, 2003, 02:01 AM: Message edited by: KwazyDog ]

Li, Id like to respond and discuss why you feel the way you do, but as with your previous posts you fail to tell us what your point or reasoning actually is. It makes we wonder what the motivation of your posts really are. CMBO has no new coding, this has been stated, and is being offered at a considerably discounted price because it is an older product. The work that went into it was enough to bring it up closer to a graphical and audio standed of CMBB, thats it. People out there can try our demo, read the reviews and make up their being if they want to buy it...we are not holding guns to their heads as you seem to think we are. If we released CMBB into reatil with those new features you mentioned then yes, I could understand people being concerned. The fact of the matter is that this wont happen as this is not something we would do to our fans. If we did add code changes then guess what, it would be a free download for all. We are simply adding to an ongoing process of getting CM to as many fans out there as possible. MrNoobie, dont worry, we wont be adding such things We would love to add all of CMBB's tweaks and offer it as a free download, but unfortuantely this would take months of work. Once we revisit the western front though, expect a lot more! Dan [ April 23, 2003, 10:51 PM: Message edited by: KwazyDog ]

Li, err, Im not really sure what your problem is here as you havnt made a clear argument other than it 'irks' you...fair enough as evenone is entitled to their own descision, but its not a solid foundation for a argument against our descisions. This move has of course been taken to reach more customers. This is what we have done across Europe where CMBO was EXTREMELY well recieved with no great outcry that the game 'sucked'...so why shouldnt we take the extra step and place it on the shelves in the US. If you were making such comments before we placed CMBO on the shelves in Europe I guess you may have a point to make, but all we are doing is taking another step in an ongoing process. There is no great conspiricy here, which is what you seem to be looking for. Its your right to feel CMBO is a flawed game, but as far we, thousands of customers and dozens of great magazine reviews are concerned, it aint. These new customers we are reaching out too can base their descisions on these reviews plus our demo...we arent pulling the wool over anyones eyes and we arent violating our ethics. BadgerDog, thanks for the support, it all really does make a difference ! I hope you do find some new enjoyment in CMBO. I know Ive been enjoying playing it again, hehe. Solo...I honestly have no idea if or when CMAK may be on the shelves, I mainly came in here to answer a couple of questions about textures, hehe. Dan

x13th, as I mentioned, chances are you already own 95% of these 'new' CMBO graphics. Guys to be totally honest if youve got CMBO and modded it, chances are that your happier with it than you would be with this new version of CMBO anyways, as everyone has their own mods and styles that they like. You arent missing out on anything, but if you really want your CMBO to look like this new version, all you need to do it to renumber and copy some sounds from CMBB to CMBO...thats about it, hehe. Our only goal here was to bring CMBO up to a similar standard as CMBB, not to totally retexture the game as that would have taken months and that time is certainly better spent on the new engine me thinks. Dan PS : Hehe, yeah Im on a roll...Ive just had a coffee! [ April 23, 2003, 07:16 PM: Message edited by: KwazyDog ]

x13th, Im not sure what price CMBB will be when it hits the shelves, thats not my department. Im not saying it will be a budget release and CMBO was. In all honesty, I dont know Just in case it hasnt been mentioned anywhere guys...if you own CMBB you already have 95% of the enhanced sound and graphics available in this new version of CMBO as we used these textures for the most part. Other than those, all of the included mods are avialable for download from the net. The only completely new graphics are about 4 new small buildings I did. Chances are I can upload these to one of the mod sites, if you guys really would like them. To be honest, youll probably just mod them anyways Dan [ April 23, 2003, 07:00 PM: Message edited by: KwazyDog ]

Li, in response to that cynical person, Id probably respond... 1 - There is a huge amount of work that is going into CMAK. Hundreds of vehicles need to be modelled and textured, as well as the terrain and buildings. This is no small job, as any of the moders out there will tell you. Coding is being done, including many changes from multiturreted tanks to dust. Scenarios need to be created and all of this needs to be tested. Yes, its using the same engine but we feel that it will be more than worth its price, *especially* considering its reduced over previous versions. That being said, we arent holding a gun to anyones head forcing them to buy. 2 - Yes, we are enhancing CMBO in order to sell it off the shelves, *but* dont forget that it is going to be sold at a considerable reduced price. We realise its not our most recent product, and as such arent selling at a new release price. 3 - Yes, but many people, especially those that are purchasing off the shelves, dont even know Russia and Germany were at war, hehe. To not offer CMBO which includes some of the most well know battles in history would be a silly move for us indeed. If they like CMBO, then they will purchase CMBB later in the year. I do appreciate the comments Li and I actually do understand where you are coming from, but Im just not too sure that they are all that fair once you consider this somewhat from the perspectives Ive mentioned above A combo box isnt something that would work for many reasons, not the least including that CMBB is currently our most recent product, and to offer it as a bundle would bring the shelf price up to a point where the average customer wouldnt even pick it up to see what it is. And yes Doghouse, this is a business descision to make money. I dont know what else to tell you, hehe, we are a business and to stay that way we need to make money . If we attempted to stay in buisness without making money, we would be a charity, and one that wouldnt be around for long, either. To be fair though, we arent out to rip anyone off here. We are simply selling one of our older product at a reduced price, like just about every other games company out there does at some point. People can choose to buy or not based on the dozens of reviews out there for CMBO, there is no decseption here. Most people are happy to be able to pick up older titles at a great price which they have missed in the past. Dan [ April 23, 2003, 06:48 PM: Message edited by: KwazyDog ]

Redwolf, Id suggest sending Matt one or two samples from 1.03, so we can see just what is being discussed here. Dan

We would love to be able to guys, but as the size all up of these conversions is in the 100's of MB's, we cant offer them as a seperate download. To be honest though we dont mind if purchasers of the newer boxed version wishes to share some of these textures with current CMBO owners as they see fit. Youve got to remember though that it did take us several weeks work to update CMBO...its not like we waved a magic wand and it was done. We arent asking you to rush out and purchase another copy of CMBO, but we do hope you will understand that we cant offer all this hard work as a free download whilst having to pay for 1000's of MB of data transfer Dan [ April 22, 2003, 10:22 PM: Message edited by: KwazyDog ]

Colin, just in case you didnt notice Martins comments, CMAK being worked on at the same time and CMX2's development, so there will be no delay in the new engine becuase of this. Unfortunately we cannot change the direction taken with the newer Mac operating systems though, that is out of our control. Dan

Hehe, well if CMBB is any indicator the last thing Ill have time to do are the voices guys. We will be sure to let you know if we need extra help in this department though Dan

We arent quite ready for an update yet guys, but expect one sooner rather than later Dan

We've already looked into this briefly and adding support for it isnt a simple process, so it would probably be at the expense of other features. On the surface it sounds like a good idea, but I beleive that discreet wants cash from you if you make your game GMAX ready. We will look into it futher when the time is right, but if that is the case its a no go. Dan [ March 09, 2003, 11:33 PM: Message edited by: KwazyDog ]

Just for the record guys, no camoed Russian vehicles were included with CMBB becuase it was extremely rare. In fact, its use pretty much ended in late '42 to early '43. When used, it was only used by certain units on certain fronts, and was used as much for unit identification as for its camouflaging properties. Dan [ March 06, 2003, 02:41 AM: Message edited by: KwazyDog ]

Its an abstraction, but its becuase in reality your tank is completing a series of fast forward and backward movements in order to turn that would make it next to impossible to take aim and fire. Dan [ March 04, 2003, 08:19 PM: Message edited by: KwazyDog ]

Pud, to be honest there is no bug here for us to ignore. Youve got to remember that if someone see's a tank commander in game who looks like he missed a spot shaving they shout bug, so its not easy to answer all of these questions and keep working. Ive run it past Charles and what Jon said above has summed up his reply pretty well. Generally to accomplish what you are trying too I place a few waypoints in a small arc for my vehicles if I wish them turn which still retaining some control over their behaviour. You will find that two or three well placed hunt commands will order a tank to take a wider arc than normal, but it will continue to hunt for enemy tanks during this turn as it wont need to use a rotate command for very long at all to complete its order. Also, remember that in CM a tank rotating is actually somewhat of an abstratcion, as most WW2 tanks cant pivot on the spot and need to drive backwards and forward to complete the turn. Dan [ March 04, 2003, 08:02 PM: Message edited by: KwazyDog ]

Just moving to the General forum. Two great games in their time though Dan