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ChrisND

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  1. Just a heads up guys that Final Blitzkrieg last week entered into what we call "Final Candidate". That means that the game is done and almost ready: we're just making installers, doing final checks and making sure that the game won't cause your monitor to violently explode (I let the testers check for that one in particular).

    When it's ready, we release. Final Candidate typically lasts from 2-3 weeks, depending on whether any problems are found. (and as mentioned it entered FC last week)

  2. Reposted from another thread:

    The webpage you guys saw was something that Steve was working on, and wasn't supposed to be visible. He's done some crash course learning on how to get products into the old website (starting with the Battle Pack), because we are going to put CMFB up for pre-orders very soon on the old website. It would be up this weekend, but Steve needs to travel over the weekend. So it is looking like early next week.

  3. The webpage you guys saw was something that Steve was working on, and wasn't supposed to be visible. He's done some crash course learning on how to get products into the old website (starting with the Battle Pack), because we are going to put CMFB up for pre-orders very soon on the old website. It would be up this weekend, but Steve needs to travel over the weekend. So it is looking like early next week.

  4. Status on the website / CMFB haven't changed since the last update: we are still in the process of completing them. Your indication that the game is close to release is when it goes up for pre-orders.

    Jon Sowden's Battle Pack for CMBN, however, has been given a stealth release earlier today. We'll officially announce it after Steve works through some problems with hacking the old website/store to properly house the Battle Pack, but it is available for sale now.

  5. Well I guess the cat's out of the bag...

    That page is in progress and isn't supposed to be visible yet, and I'm going to ask why it is.

    However, yes the Battle Pack is going to be released very soon, any day now. it will be released on the old store for now. It was actually supposed to go live today, but a last minute bug was found and that needs to be quashed first.

  6. A very good question.  I haven't reread the manual in a long time (and I'm on the road with apparently an empty Black Sea folder?!?), but one of the original drafts had combat starting in the Fall and stalling out for Winter, then finishing in the Summer explicitly to cover multiple seasons.  The storyline was that there simply wasn't enough forces in theater to do more than arrest the Russian advance into Ukraine, then minimal fighting in the winter, and finally a big finale in the Summer.  Very unrealistic for a bunch of reasons, but as you say sometimes story has to come first!

    If we didn't wind up with the story this way, don't worry about it holding back the game expansion.  At the very worst we can tell people it's an alternative start season.  Since we are talking about something that hasn't happened (and hopefully never will!!!) alternative futures aren't really a big problem.

    Steve

     

    The original storyline (as my hazy memory recollects) had the conflict starting in winter and then moving into spring or summer. All sorts of problems with that as you can imagine, and that was pointed out in detail by the beta testers and advisers in the early stages. Besides the overly long timeline for the conflict, it also put fighting in some really crap seasons (spring in that area?)

     

    Personally however, like Steve I don't see that being an issue at all when it comes down to representing different seasons, specifically winter. I'm not going to expand the official storyline all the way to December, but why not just include a Pack or something similar that has an alternate winter setting? Seems fine to me, after all this is a fictional setting.

     

  7. I can imagine that new website would be a challenge-and-a-half to complete. We CM players tend to forget BFC doesn't just sell CM products. There's lots of other games to account for. I expect everything in their inventory from "Empire of Steel" to "Strategic Command" will need its own sections up and running, not just CMFB. Yeh, that sounds like a major undertaking.

    Yep, 15ish years worth of stuff to move over. It's a PITA and I've got the relatively light duties for it!

  8. I've got a quick update for you guys on the release of Final Blitzkrieg (and also the battle pack).

    We are currently in the process of transitioning to a new website and a new webstore, both of which will be much more modern, flexible, and user friendly than our current one. Final Blitzkrieg and the CMBN Battle Pack must launch along with the new website. This was originally planned as happening in late January. However, it is becoming clear that the website will not be ready by then. Our main effort right now is to as soon as possible get the contents of the old website moved over to the new website, and shake out the last of the issues with the new webstore.

    Once the site and store are done and we're confident that things are working as they should, we can begin preorders for CMFB and release the CMBN Battle Pack. Our timeline for that happening is "ASAP" (think weeks, not months). In the meantime though, CMFB now has more polish time: the game has already gotten a few more scenarios to ship with than it would have otherwise!

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