Lt Bull

Any game which isn't a computer game is a multiplayer game only by definition. It seems only with the advent of computers, people have come to think the heart of gaming is now the contest between the human player and the CPU opponent, as if the CPU opponent is some kind of super "man against machine" challenge. When we play against a CPU opponent, we try to convince ourselves that the CPU opponent is thinking like a human player. Surely if that's what we are trying to do shouldn't we just play a human player? Yes, releasing a multiplayer only computer game is not the norm, however there are an increasingly growing number of games that are. In fact one of the most (if not the most) popular PC games around is a multiplayer only game. I doubt it would be the game it is to people who play it if the game designers were tasked with the burden of having to code a CPU opponent for it just so people could play the game as single player. They would either still be coding the CPU opponent or would of had to dumb down and simplify the rich complex layers of game features to a level that would make it easier for them to code a CPU opponent. I wonder how many game developers that feel compelled to design a game with a CPU opponent have there own "expectations" for how good a CPU opoonent they think they can design for their game? Do they think, "I have a great idea for a game but I will have to simplify it because it would be too hard to code a CPU opponent in this form"? Do they think, "If I can't code a sufficiently competent CPU opponent for my concept of game I will abandon this otherwise fun game project?" It would be a pity if they do comprimise the game features to make the task of coding a CPU opponent easier but still end up delivering a crappy CPU oppoonent anyways. I am sure MANY games fall ino thtis category. I think a game like CMC would fall into this category. I think ther are many examples where a computer game has been released, where the CPU opponent just blows, but the games appeal was saved by it's facility to play multiplayer to a point where the multiplayer aspect of the game now has become the focus of the game. Had the game developer known this would end up being the case, it is interesting to ask just how differently the game could have been designed if the game WAS made just a multiplayer game. And this is what I think is of concerned with what might be going on with CMC. HTS have probably got some great game concept ideas they want to included in CMC but when faced with the burden of coding a CPU opponent, they find themselves ommitted many of these great features for the sake of making it easier for them to code a CPU opponent, completely robbing multiplayer gamers of the opportunity to enjoy these great ideas. But, as they are not experts at CPU opponent design, they not only end up delivereing a dumbded down version of their original game concept, but one that has a crappy CPU oponent any ways. Single player gamers will whinge about both the crappy CPU opponent and the lack of game depth/complexity, while the multiplayer gamers who couldn't give a toss about no stupid CPU opponent will wonder if comprimising the game developement/design/complexity for the sake of coding a CPU opponent was a worthwhile exercise in the first place, as they can easily see how much better the game could have been if it had a bunch of other features if the game focus WAS primarily multiplayer. Yes I too agree "some kind" of CPU opponent is good in a game so people can at least "familairise" themselves with the game, but I would be very disappointed if a game design/concept was comprimised in any way simply because the game would have otherwise been "too hard to code a CPU opponent for". This is what I mean by the "burden of coding a CPU opponent".

Coming up with a good game concept (what i think CMC is) and coding a CPU opponent to play it are two completely different and vastly independant issues faced by computer game developers. As I have said elsewhere, I really do think that HTS have underestimated the challenge of coding a CPU opponent for CMC. No ammount of money (short of employing a specialist AI programmer with the right skills) will give them anymore than what they probably already have developed as far as a CPU opponent for CMC goes, which I think is not very much at all as programming AI for a game like CMC is a VERY steep hill to climb especially for rookie game developers with no previous AI design experience. I am sure there are a significant number of people who would, faced with a) seeing the CMC project die off completely or be released WITHOUT any multiplayer capability but just with a truley woeful CPU opponent for single player and seeing CMC released as a multiplayer game only with all the bells and whistles, providing an EXCELLENT basis for playing meta campaigns, would happily prefer over a).

Many things made CMx1 games special. The ability to conduct intelligent tactical battles on large maps with battaliion sized numbers of units certainly is one of those special things, something which is ABSOLUTELY IMPOSSIBLE with traditional RTS games. It is a fact that RTS games have an intrinsic limitation on the number of individual units that can be intelligently controlled simutaneously by a player. This is what lumps CMSF in with every other RTS game made. CMx1 with it's WeGo system has no such limitations making the possibilities for battle/map scale virtually endless (well as far as human vs human play, coding an CPU opponent to handle large maps/units on the other hand is a COMPLETELY different story). So on this point, I think you are way off the mark. I generally agree that this is one of the things that made CMx1 special. WeGo is great for a number of reasons, but I don't see how it is any less fun against a CPU opponent or how it is "a bit artificial in a tactical level computer game as you're forced to wait 60s before reacting to anything". That is half the fun, being able to predict and plan ahead then watching helplessly as the action unfolds. As I have said, CMx1 Wego just like American Football. You kind of play the part of the head coach calling the plays, but also of the collective mindset of the whole team between the plays, as you can micro-manage and plan each players move as much as you like. Once the play has been designed, you just sit back and watch your players execute and hope that their own intelligence (TacAI) helps them improvise where needed. BeauCoupDinkyDau, thanks for posting that quote from the CMBB manual.

FinnN, I agree the vast majority of people won't buy a game that is 100% multiplayer, but commercial success does not need the vast majoirty of people buying your game. You must agree that MP gameplay (not only for PCs, but for your console games) is becoming increasingly more and more popularity and important to gaming with the advent of the internt/broadband. You only need to look at the heavy investment gone into creating a MP network for both the XBox and PS consoles to see this. MP gameplay is becoming more and more important in gaming and will continue to be so as more and more people get on the internet/get broadband etc. The potential of a "MP centric" game today is nothing like what it was when CMBO firt came out. The potential of MP only games to succeed will only increase with time. You suggest 20-30% of development costs if you eliminate the need to code a CPU opponent. Depending on the kind of game you may be making, this value could be much higher. As it happens, the kinds of games that appeal to and are of particular focus for discussion to the peope who loiter at these forums tend to be more complex, detailed and stratgeic/tactical than most other games out there. By their very nature these games present some fo the toughest challenegs to game developers as far as coding a competent CPU opponent. I recently rediscovered an old post of mine that i had forgotten I had written: Victory conditons: possibilities + the burden of coding a CPU opponent I discussed the "burden of coding a CPU opponent" and how it can prevent a game from featuring otherwise cool game features HUMANS woudl appreciate. I used the simple example of how "victory conditions" in agame that are easy for humans to deal with and rationalise might not ever make their way into a game simply becasue it woudl be just too hard to code a CPU opponent to deal with them . It is interesting to note however that many of the things I was suggesting that could be done as far as victory conditions go are in some ways visisble in CMSF. I also watched a very interesting video interview of the Studio Director from Creative Assemblies (makers of the Total War series), Mike Simpson, who was the inspiration behind the series and has been right there from the start . In a way, CMC is trying to be a game like the Total War series, in that you almost have two games in one, a tactical game layered and nestled within a strategic game. Even thugh the game concept has been around for many years now, when asked why there aren't too may games that have tried to emulate the success of the Total War game concept (the two games in one), he says the answer is simple: when "game developers take a look at the problem, they run away screaming" as it really is a steep hill to climb. Getting the men on the battlefield is easy he says, any good game developer could do it without too many problems. It is the "behind the scenes" stuff, in particular the AI, and then having to bring it all together in essentially two games, the campaign (strategic) and battle (tactical) games which are virtually standalone games in their own right. So most developers decide that for the ammount of effort to catch up, they could have produced two or three games and end up deciding it is not worth their time. Throughout the interview, I could not help but make comparisons to how Creative Assemlies managed, developed and grew their "game concept" and their vision going forward and how BFC have (or haven't depending on how you look at it). He states the biggest challenge in growing a game like the Total War series comes down to resources: having enough really good people with the right skills to implememnt all the stuff in their vision for what they want in the game. This certainly has not been an area in which BFC have indicated they have had any need to address as they still have one guy doing all the hard coding stuff. Was also intersting to hear his take on the future. He beleives they could keep making Total War series games forever as long as they keep managing to put something new and intersting in each time. Finding a new historical time period was not a problem. However if you keep producing the same game with different content he says, people will get bored with it and in the past that has killed off other game series of games. He says at CA they don't do that. They try to implement a good solid gameplay feature that is above and beyond anything that has come before into every release, even the add ons. The CMx1 series really didn't do that. He also talked about "evolutionary" changes (same engine but new features/enhancements)and "revolutionary" changes (throw out old engine, make a new one but keep all the stuff that worked). BFC seems to have thrown out a lot of the things that worked well in CMx1 when makign CMSF.

Rammer4250, I think you have "objected" to what I have said in the wrong way and have confused what you think I am wrong about. Maybe you just quoted the wrong part of my post, becasue none of what you quoted me saying has any relevance to what I think you are trying to say. I think I know what you are trying to say: that a computer game without a CPU opponent will never sell, stating your own personal views on the matter as an example. But I never neccesarily said it WOULD (though I think it could if done correctly but that is besides the point here). The point I was making in that quote was that if it DID succeed (a hypothetical) then you COULD conclude the following: CONCLUSION: You have just proven that if people like "the game" within your computer game, they will buy it and play it (by finding opponents to play) REGARDLESS of whether it has a CPU opponent. Just playing your game is so good, they are prepared to "forgive you " for not releasing it with a CPU opponent. You have basically achieved in much less time and at much less cost (and therefore at much higher profit) what other CPU opponent-centric game developers aspire to do.

Hello Rammer, Thanks for your comments but I don't think any of what you said has any relevance in refuting my conclusions quoted above if people were to buy the game in basically the same numbers or more than other similar themed CPU opponent-centric release. What conclusions would you instead suggest if people were to buy the game in basically the same numbers or more than other similar themed CPU opponent-centric release?

Wooh wooh wooh up partner!! I feel like I am having words put in my mouth then having to deal with the fallout. I understand that there may be a difference of opinion but misunderstanding me is a different thing. Maybe I just need to be a bit even more pedantic about explaining things though I am sure I tried to spell it out before. Perhaps my use of the term "CMx1 concept" as opposed to just "CMx1" is the source of this apparent misundertanding and confusion. "CMx1" = the actual games (CMBO, CMBB, CMAK), their engines, the subject matter as historically coded/packaged/marketed/sold by BFC "CMx1 concept" = the fundamental concept behind the gameplay/game design that made up CMx1, and all it's possibilities, market and commercial potential, realised or unrealised, not limited to just the historical interperations of the game concept as commercially represented in CMBO, CMBB and CMAk as published by BFC (though they take credit for being the first to commercially explore/publish and define the concept). The concept doesn't belong to anyone, including BFC (except for the commercial use of the registered name "Combat Mission" I believe). I think something like Panzer Command might be considered a "CMx1 concept" kind of game, but I have no practical experience with it to be better informed (well the one that I did have left me unimpressed ). eg. In the same way that the main "concept" behind the game series Chessmaster is the game we know of as chess. The Chessmaster series is just one commercial package, INTERPRETATION or REPRESENATTION of the game concept we know of as chess. The game of chess does not BELONG to the guys who make Chessamster, and Chessmaster does not define all there is to know about the commercial viability/potential/possibilities of making a chess based computer game (though I believe they are one of the market leaders). Other companies are free to publish their own version/interprestaion of a computer chess game. Maybe they have better ideas on how to design better GUIs, or package and market the game within their own software engine to make it a better overall experience and game package than Chessmaster. So going back to the BFC quote, I hope it can be seen that I did not envisage or make reference to a fantasyland that includes a 7 year old CMx1 engine (as we know it), in any of my posts. Thanks for the encouragement. Again a misunderstanding of my term "CMx1 concept" seems to have led to the need for these comments. Yes CMx1 is dead, and so is BFC's interest in the concept of game it represented. I understand that. It is/was BFC's baby and their baby alone, loved by many (but not enough it seems), it lived only one life, the one BFC chose for it and then they killed it (for whatever reasons). It is almost as if BFC are annoyed that so many people turned up for the funeral and keep revisting the grave site talking to each other wondering what went wrong and what could have been and how great it would be if the soul of CMx1 (the game concept) could find a new home in a new fresh body and live again, bigger and better than it ever could in the one BFC gave it, rather than attend BFCs baptism of their newborn CMx2. Uhm... why? </font>

Very intereting Timskorn. You are exactly the kind of customer I would of expected to be otherwise interested in CMx1 but didn't buy any of the sequels for the reason you mentioned. Would you say you didn't buy the CM sequels was primarily becasue you were "sick" of the CMx1 concept (essentially WeGo gameplay) or was it for other reasons? Can you perhaps mention what were the top 3 or 5 things in your list of reasons for buying the CC sequel CC2?

Of course I can appreciate that there are a lot of gamers that didn't find BFC's CMx1 offerings worthy of their time/$. The ones I have come across would say something along the lines of it's boring (when does the action start?), I don't have enough time (to sit there and plan), I have to think too much, why isn't it RT (like CC), the graphics could be better. If we were talking about food, they were looking for something quick n' tasty, familiar, easy to eat, something they could chow down while standing up...basically fast food. As we know, CMx1 is more like something a little bit more exotic than the ordinary, can take a while to cook and would require you to take the time to sit down, enjoy and savour, morsel by morsel. It is just a different experience. In this respect, CMx1 would never probably attract the "fast food" crowd or gamer, but it should appeal to gamers who are disposed to investing a bit more time and tactical/strategic thought into their gaming. Certainly there are many other games that demand this from the player as well. Many empire building games, or games with lots of things to control and do, games that engage the mind more than say motor skills (speed/accuracy at using computer hardware/software). This certainly is one of the major boxes that first need to be checked in the gamers profile before moving on. At this point, it still represents quite a large portion fo the potential gamer market. Having established this, things get a little more specific and particular. At this stage here the look and feel of the game will start to be a factor, the art, the graphics (even if it is suprficial) and the GUI -> does the software easily allow the player to interact and feel comforatble with the mechanics of the game without detratcting from the fun? At the same time does the game (including demo) efficiently and effectively do a good job of introducing and highlighting the BEST aspects of the game and teaching the player how to play? Some game companies specifically put in a lot of effort into demos/turorials/walk through videos (the kind of marketing that I think BFC have neglected) to ensure ANYONE who engages the demo/video etc is sure to come away knowing how to play the game and what the "fun" in the game is. All these kind of aspects really have NOTHING to do with the actual concept behind the game you WANT them to play and enjoy. It is very easy to appreciate just how influential these kind of "non-game concept" factors can be in determinig whether a potential gamer ends up liking or not liking the experience of playing game. The following extreme example will hopefully drive home my point. Just consider a realtively successful game that many of you should be familiar with, Rome Total War for example. The developers invested quite a bit of time/$/resources from it's overall budget in to it's marketability. Now I will ask you to consider a bunch of hypothetical changes to that game which WILL NOT do anything to affect or alter the the game concept itself, but will affect the way the game is presented, percieved, communicated and engaged by the player. Most of these things I would consider to fall under the category of "marketing factors" more or less, and are really just cosmetic in most cases. 1) The resolution stays the same but the color palete is now only made up of just enough colours to achieve the game design intention eg. to distinguish different units, terrain on the map etc. Think mono colored units/objects where possible. 2) The aspect of the game engine relating to graphics/animation is replaced by one that reduces the resolution and detail of the 3D models used in the game to a point where they functionally communcate what is neccesary to the player for them to play the game, albeit in a much less graphically realistic way. It is in fact almost indistinguishable visually from the one used in an earlier Total War release 5-6 yeras ago. 3) All font used in the game is now also rationalised to one style and is not of the kind one would consider ergonomically legible (think some overly fancy/curly style that is not familiar). 4) All keyboard commands related to the game are now randomly shuffled but still allow a player to functionally use them (though they may not be associated with keys that follow any logical or even intuitive order) 5) The frame rate of the game is reduced to just at or below "playable", making investment in a higher end graphics card no better for playing this game then the cheapest model available. 6) All music and sounds is now midi based and mono, in some cases it is removed if it has no functional gameplay purpose. 7) All graphic art not functionally part of or necessary to the gameplay (eg. box art, title art, menu art, manual art, in game texture maps of objects) is replaced with mono coloured backgrounds. If graphical differnetiation is requied for gameplay purposes, it is replaced with child-like abstract fingerpainting where possible. Think a DOS looking mouse driven GUI ingame. 8) The game manual is fully complete and contains ALL the text, info and images of the original but is now formatted in and printed from Notepad in B&W. Anything within the game which may of "assisted" or "eductaed" the player on how to play the game, has now been removed from within he game and instead incorporated and explained within the manual. 9) There are no ingame tutorials, narrative help or tool tips that would otherwise repeat anything that one might be able to learn about find by RTFM. 10) The demo is simply a time based version of the full game, in that a player would not even know it was a demo if they were playing it. It does nothing more to sell the game to a player than what the full game would, other than being free to downlaod. Functionally, the game concept/mechanics itself has NOT been changed. The rules of the game have not changed. The tactics to play and win the game still apply and have not been changed. It is essentially the SAME playable game in every respect. Except for one "minor' thing....the way it was presented/marketed. The very presentation of the game alone would probably ensure that a vast majority of it's current customers would not even bother much past their first few minutes/seconds of viewing the game/demo/screenshots etc. So regardless of how good or bad your game concept was, people aren't even going to bother trying to learn it, and you would never really going to know exactly why. In fact, if you are OBLIVIOUS to the influence of those factors, you might primarily attribute the commercial failure of your game to some aspect of the game mechanic like "We should have included a "Move to contact" command" or "We should have incldued the "Trevesian Light Horse" cavalry unit" or "The Carthagina Elephants are too powerful", or "The game should have been Wego instead of RTS", or even "Maybe people aren't that interested in the Roman theatre of operations". You may of actually had a GEM of a game concept but you simply failed to market it correctly. These are the very "game concept" type of reasons for the commerical demise of the CMx1 franchise that I hear coming from BFC and others elsewhere in this thread and forum. And this is why when I heard BFC's main focus of change from CMx1 to CMx2 was NOT to address these "marketing" type of issues that most likely affected sales of CM in the past, but to instead focus on trying to play around with and "sexying up" the "game concept" by introducing RT as their main focus, 1:1 representation and eliminating things likes abstraction and a lot of other core things found in CMx1 , that I began to question fundamental basis of what BFC were trying to achieve with CMSF. NOTE: Ultimately, a game WILL be judged on the depth, scope and challenge provided by the game concept itself, if the player ever gets that far of course. This is where I believe CMx1 stumbled. Even though I thought for a niche wargame company, BFC did better than most wargame companies, I don't think they did quite enough to make people see past those kind of "marketing factors" I listed above to really have a chance to feel comfortable enjoying the GEM of a game concept that made up CMx1. I am certain that there was a large (critical?) chunk of the market that would otherwise have appreciated the CMx1 but could not/did not because either they got the wrong impression of for what it was about by the way it may of been presented/marketed to them by BFC . I know that only the hardest of hardcore "I don't care about graphics" (war)gamers could see past that list of 10 changes I listed and still be able to see and appreciate the game concept/mechanics for what it is, and this is exactly the market traditional wargame companies seem to (want to?) cater for. I don't know if it is just a desire to just focus on "the game concept" too much or an inability to know how to communicate/relate with the general market or if they just ignore that side of selling games. Many traditional wargame companies seem to rely on and deicate too much of their budget/resources to the "game concept" as their main selling point. "We just care about great gameplay. Graphics, art and the sort are secondary to us." All very well, but you will scare off a large part of the market before they even get to see that great "game gameplay" if you don't assign the right balance of marketing $/resources to it. I thought BFC were going to re-address that imbalance with CMx2, but to me, with the way things are with CMSF, they seem to have missed the mark again. I think BFC chose to instead focus on reinventing the wheel with CMx2 (unlearning and breaking a lot of what wasn't broken in CMx1) rather than ensuring they didn't scare customers off like I have described above. Perhaps their investment in transforming CM into a graphical 1:1 representation of tactical combat (basically addressing points 1) and 2) in my list) and RT style gameplay was seen as the one missing element that would magically address all the marketing deficiencies of CMx1. Looks like they have created a whole new bunch of problems for themselves, while leaving a whole bunch of others unaddressed and weakening their game concept at the same time. Not the step forward I was expecting. The move to primarily bring the scope and scale of CM back to the company level and below is probably my biggest issue with CMx2. This goes hand in hand with the move towards 1:1 graphical representation of as much as possible and toward RT-centric style gameplay (which by definition limits the scope and scale of what is possible) as being the mode of play primarily supported and encouraged by BTS. I personally liked the scalability/flexibility/choice that CMx1 gave the scenario designer/player to create the range and scope of battles. It seems that many features that worked in CMx1 WeGO are missing from CMSF Wego because they would otherwise be considered excessive/un-neccessary/innapriopriate when considering CMSF RT style gameplay, as the CMSF WeGo and RT user-interface and command set are IDENTICAL!! This is KEY when considering how RT has affected Wego gameplay in CMx2. eg. What hapopned to all those unit commands we could issue in CMx1? I am almost certain we will never see them again because they would be inappropriate/distracting/impractical when considering their implications on RT gameplay. [ August 20, 2007, 06:59 AM: Message edited by: Lt Bull ]

Most people don't know they can run any business until they try. Till then no harm in discussing. It's free (is any time really free though? ) and a great way to explore ideas and get other poeples views on things. Formal market research can be very expensive. It is obvious there is a difference of opinion here. I understand that this discussion is kind of like having people looking over BFC's shoulder as they work, going through their laundry basket looking for clues trying to help explain and understand for themselves what led to the abandonment of the truly innovative gaming concept/platform by it's creators, especially when much of it is second guessing the decisions that have been made by BFC right through CMx1 to CMSF. It would tick me off as well, but I wouldn't for one discourage it or simply write it off because I am the publisher and they are not. It's all academic now. The horse has bolted. Does it really matter? BTW I certainly am not trying to tell BTS how to run their business. It is too late for that. I think BFC/CMx1/CMx2 would make an excellent choice of focus for a case study to be discussed/researched in depth by students in a business/innovation/marketing course. I think BFC/CMx1 was a classic case of a small time company with limited resources and capital, that came up with an excellent innovative idea/concept for a game system, but found themsleves unable to fully commercially exploit, develop and enhance the concept beyond really their first attempt, ultimately ditching their innovation in favour of pursuing a more conservative product model. There are lots of "what if" questions worth discussing that certainly do help in putting things in perspective as far as determinig the potential commercial viability of a game system like CMx1 BEYOND the context and scope of resources, budget and business direction that BFC had at their disposal. First, marketing costs a ton of money just to get 5 minutes of attention. Money has to come from somewhere and it certainly doesn't come from wargamers. You guys are great people, but there aren't nearly enough of you. Ask yourself... how many wargame companies are out there now compared to 5 years ago and compared to 5 years before that?</font>

Nice discussions. After reading through it I have been able to better refine my views on this. - I am not suggesting that piracy was THE major reason why CMx1 "died". However I would not want to understate the influence it has on a small niche company like BFC and just how "plump and juicy a target" the CMx1 series was with regards to pirate exploitation. The fact that the game won the praise of so many but failed to register commercial success by way of actual sales just tells me that something somewhere is not what it seems. Piracy goes a long way to explaining that. I would bet that many of the poeple who DIDN'T buy CMx1 (graphics are crappy, I don't get this Wego so why isnt it real time, whats with showing just three guys when there are 12), but were otherwise interested in the concept of tactical/strategy wargames and waitied in the shadows for BFC to make a RTS/1:1 version of CM, represent a lot of the kind of player who I think would of robbed BFC of CMx1 sales (and subsequent knowledge of their market appeal) by pirating the game instead. - It looks like many of us are trying to offer our own opinions on what was THE major reason why the CMx1 franchise died the way it die. We must be careful not to assume that any ONE reason is even clearly THE most influential. There is absolutely no evidence presented to suggest that. Maybe there were three equally influential major factors? Certainly numerous factors played a part but certainly trying to identify the top three or so is worthy exercise (albeit academic). - I will offer you one of my top reasons for explaining the disappointing demise of the CMx1 concept as a commercially viable platform: BFC failed to adequately market, package and sell the fundamental gaming concept/system that was unique to CMx1 (mainly the WegO system) to a market that extended beyond your hardcore grogs into your more general "I like strategy games" kind of crowd, despite having developed and introduced to the market a new, unique, ground breaking and powerful gameplay system for potentially representing a whole range of tactical level combat engagements that surpassed the scope, scale, realism and detail of what any contemporary RT(S) or turn based game could or could ever hope to achieve or emulate. I believe they failed to positively introduce and showcase the benefits, possibilities and potential of the WeGO concept of gameplay to a market of gamers that had up till then only ever thought in terms of traditional turn based UGoIGo games (they generally suck) and RTS games (they are cool man). There is so much more you can do with a Wego system that is impossible to do with both IGoUGo and RT gameplay systems. I just don't think that BFC did enough to positively market the basic WeGo game concept enough in a way that would now see it as a genre and style of gameplay that is as enduring, well known and as a part of the gaming landscape market as what RTS and IGoUGo style of games are today. Had they succeeded in this respect, they would have NEVER have considered making CMx2 RT. If BTS were creativem innovative and admired for their game design, the same could not be said for their marketing skills. I am sure BFC KNEW that enduring commercial success and growth/development of the CMx1 style of game could not be based on milking the same hard core grog market with each new release, yet there is nothing in their marketing of CMx1 that suggests to me that they were targetting anything but this market, rather than the section of the market they are NOW determined to impress with CMSF, the brader "general strategy gamer" market. Rather than ensuring that any prospective new gamers firstly understood, were comfortable with and appreciated the whole inovative Wego gaming concept (the heart of the CMx1 system), they focussed on things like demonstrating just how more effective MGs were in CMBB as opposed to CMBO, or just how clever they now are at being able to represent barren, lifeless and bland desert landscapes and multi turreted tanks on a game engine already 6 years old. The CMBB and CMAK demos are evidence of that. I believe the critiscism that BFC don't naturally excell in designing intuitive, efficient and appealing GUIs or in professionally presenting and introducing their games to new prospective gamers is valid and relevant to this discussion of how I think BFC failed to effectively and adequately market the game. Again we can look at the CMx1 demos (Ignore the CMBO demo for the moment as it was the first "prototype" offering and just kind of meant to be for core grog gamers). A game demo should aim to educate and familiarise the player with the most fundamantal and exciting/fun aspects of the game in the shortest amount of time possible. The CMBB and CMAK demos did not and could not do this. It was like a movie producer, when asked to provide a short movie trailer featuring highlights and maybe a bit of narration to fill in the gaps to whet the appetite of film goers, instead just basically submits the whole movie and says "Just read this short brief and start watching it and you will know what it is about". In this world where you have a limited time to try and attract someones attention, that strategy just simply doesn't work. I know BFC's time and resources were limited, but they certainly don't make it a priority to make it easy for general gamers to learn, understand and familiarize them selves with what their games are about or even how to play them (the failure to include things like an in-game tutroial or mouse over tooltips for buttons in CMsF continues this legacy). It is worth the exercise to think just how much effort other game companies put into to both their demos and to their games to help players understand and learn the game with interactive tutorials, videos, helpful tips and the like. NONE of this occurred with CMx1. It would be a tragedy, as I believe ocurred with CMx1, to see a great concept/idea fail simply becaue you could not effectively market/communicate it to a market that didn't know any better If you now consider all the above and superimpose it on the fact that all this was all happeneing off the back of a game engine which basically remained unchanged for some 6 years, you can see just how tough BFC made it for themselves. Finally, despite what BFC say, I certainly believe BFC threw the baby out with the bath water when they abandodned the WeGo game system as the primary platform for CMx2. It was the one thing that represented innovative genius and set them appart from every other game company. I do not believe for a moment that the CM game/name inevitavble HAD to go down the RT route to make it commerically viable any more than I believe that the WeGo style of football that is American football will eventually be abandonded in favour of the more popular real time style of continuous play you see in rugby.

I'm not so sure about that, especially if you are talking about the less grogy/more casual gamer (probably more a RTS player) looking for a decent wargame to play, not sure on whether this weird/exotic WEGO syetem is for them and worth just yet spending any $ on. This is the VERY market that BFC was hoping would help grow their market base by buying the game if they had a chance. There was always one place where you could always buy CMx1 if you went looking for it on the internet. At the BFC website, but there you were sure to find a top dollar price that only your hardcore market would feel comfortable paying, and who wants to do that with someting new/novel/quirky that you might not even like? Plus you would then also have to wait a few weeks for it to be delivered? Was it worth the risk, $ and effort to a new and cautious potential buyer? So what do these potential buyers do? They go looking elsewhere for it, in retail stores. Do they find it on the shelf next to all the other popular games out there? Probably not, as BFC never had any retail market presence with CMBO to begin with and then struggled to get it when they finally decided to go down the retail market path with later CMx1 releases. Can't blame them now for not buying it or even going down the warez route if presented with the opportunity. Maybe many did eventually end buying it, but way later, when they happened to see it in a bargain bin. If you heard about the game and were heart set on owning it/trying it out, you might of even have tried to find it locally at a retail outlet and then just given up in vain and just gone down the warez route given the opportunity. Agree, but I am sure rate of sales and sale trends (info we don't have) provide a better understanding of the real picture. Sure the "time in market" factor may explain the sales figures across the CMx1 series but I don't think it fully explains the "significanty less" sales BFC refer to. I actually thought that CMBB and more so CMAK had more commercial exposure due to preceeding publicity generated from earlier releases and the retail distribution route BFC eventually took with the series. Even THAT is a bit ambitious of a presumption. You would HOPE that if anyone does really know the true demographics of CMx1 sales, then it you would hope is was BFC. I just know that this kind of information does not come easy.

Wow! This stuff really surprises me. Almost sounds like you are talking about CMSF! I think the depiction of bare plain desert terrain elevation in CMSF is probably WORSE than what we saw in CMAK. It is a pity the CMAK demo put you off. Personally, I think the CMAK demo (more specificaly the scenarios that came with it) may of actually done more harm than good in showcasing the game. I believe it missed on the opportunity to demostrate the versatility of the game itself to be adaptable to depict even NW European theatre OOBs and engagments. It's not really the point. You chose not to buy the game when it was originally released for the very price BFC was originally selling it for as a kind of as a kind of "protest" for the reasons you have mentioned. I thought people didn't buy CMAK (or CMx1 in general) because they wanted RT (well, thats what I am being told to believe).

Sergei, do you (or anyone else) really need me to answer that for you in order for you to decide whether you should be taking what I am saying seriously or are you implying your own expertise in sales trends in computer games markets tells you that I am talking sh#t? If so, please do enlighten us (or anyone else who wishes to do so) with your own expertise on this topic and point out the error of my ways and line of thought, as I have yet to see how you have even contributed anything of value/worth to this discussion. :confused: [ August 16, 2007, 03:06 AM: Message edited by: Lt Bull ]

No one is forcing you to play desert battle with CMAK. Maybe you just haven't looked hard enough for the fanatstic NW Europe CMAK scenarios lovingly created by our great scenario design community or used the indispensible high contast terrain mods combined with grid overlays that make prevously homogeneous (unshaded!) pixel soups look like 3D landscapes you can read. Great for you. A shame for BFC and the CMx1 franchise. It should never have got to that. I really am curious to hear from people like yourself that seem to have bought CMBO/CMBB but waited for CMAK to go to the bargain bins beofre buying it. I just don't understand it. Was this some kind of protest? [ August 16, 2007, 03:22 AM: Message edited by: Lt Bull ]

Your observations below, yes, are obvious. I do not however believe they obviously explain why each successive CMx1 release SOLD significantly less than the last. Agree with this statement, and it only got better with each succesive release. Again, agree with this statement. Totally disagree with how you use your two statements to explain CMx1 sales trends. So if BFC released CMAK first, CMBB second and CMBO last (but with graphics/game features in CMBO and CMAK reveresed), then would we instead be commenting at just how much of a BOOMING market the CMx1 franchise is? Based on your reasoning as well, you must no doubt think that BFC have committed commercial suicide then by choosing a fantasy "USA in Syria" theme for CMSF if you think "theatre" interest is so important to selling CM. Again agree with the observation (that WW2 gamers might be more intrested in EF than NA), but totally disgree with how you use these blanket observations to explain sales of CMx1. I really have a hard time thinking what I am really missing out on if I were to buy CMAK over CMBO? I currently play most of my CMAK covering theatres which really are the domain of CMBO ie. NW Europe. For me CMAK is essentially also CMBO in thatre scope but with a few less exotic NW European units but with bonus desert and Mediteranean theatre OOBs and battle possibilities! How can it NOT be better than CMBO? I therefore fail to see how CMAK could be any less successful (desirable as a game a gamer woud want to own) than CMBB because: a) appart from the title, it still essentially lets me play WF/NW Europe Has heaps of new features that just make the gaming experience so much better. Yeah but this only applies to their core market that had already bought CMBO. Did the bulk of the potential market that seemed to have avoided buying CMAK do so on the grounds that they had already bought CMBO and felt that they weren't getting much more with CMAK? I doubt such a significant market "protest" ever took place. EDIT: At least one poster in this thread has stuck their hand up for not buying CMAK out of "protest". Most intersting. As far as the market which never heard of or bought CMBO (a market I know BFC was keen to tap), would THEY have instead bought CMBO instead of CMAK simply becasue the title suggested that CMBO was NW Europe exclusively? I can't really see why they would. EDIT: Was it the demo? Indeed. [ August 16, 2007, 04:01 AM: Message edited by: Lt Bull ]

So why do other game companies bother? Why do US car compaines bother with air bag protection for drivers when they know that if the driver is NOT wearing a seat belt (something many Americans don't do and even pride themsleves on not being legally enforced to do), the chance of the driver surviving an accident are drastically reduced any way? Should they just give up? It's not really the point. Ignoring the problem, doing nothing and putting your head in the sand achieves nothing. All things equal, smaller software companies like BFC hurt much more than larger ones with regards to software piracy.

You are quite correct. Ammendment has been made. I kind of post like BFC release games: lots of errors, bugs, mistakes but I do get around to finding and fixing them AFTER I release it, even if it means others first seeing how trashy my first effort can be

I believe that the "less grog" more mainstream market that BFC are aiming for with CMSF is more the type of market that would be more likely to pursue the piracy option in order to play the game. This in effect represents much of the same "market" they are now pursuing which DID NOT BUY but most surely DID PLAY CMx1 at some stage. I used the Madden and Total War franchises as an example. No sign of either of those titles going bust, even though they still both basically deliver the same gaming concept each time with a few enhancements here and there. Didn't CMx1 do that? So why did the CMx1 franchise go bust? NOTE: You CAN NOT gernerally play either of those titles online without owning your own unique product ID code. A interesting aside: I actually was discussing sports and gaming with a friend. I was saying how much I like American football then discussing the concept of WEGO vs RT play and it occurred to me that WEGO game play IS very much like the very concept behind coaching an NFL football team. Both teams go in a huddle to discuss their next play with direction from the coach (the planning phase) then take to the field and both teams execute their respective plans. What happens in each play is like what happens when CMx1 calculates the turn and the movie unfolds. It's all "hands free" and too late to change orders, you have committed and you rely on the intelligence of the players (TacAI) to see you through any unforseen situations. When the play is over you go back to your huddle and do it all again. (sound familiar?) I can’t believe I never realised how similar it is to the concept of WEGO in CMx1. I must say that this concept of "prediction"/planning/ and strategy/tactics must really appeal to me, and probably to a lot of American football/Madden fans to a degree.

Haha, well if you don't have the imagination to see the parallels in the analogy, then I just hope you enjoyed the story. (maybe I shouldn't of been so abstract and just aimed for a 1:1 representation instead ) You can't see how a "hand made" product that took years to make like CMx1 can be/could be/was seen by BFC as "their baby"? I have even seen BFC use the phrase "it's like someone telling you your baby is ugly" in reference to how they handle critiscm. Absolutely unavoidable. But were BFC particularly vulnerable/too vulnerable to it? [ August 15, 2007, 11:50 PM: Message edited by: Lt Bull ]

I was reading the interesting "The Wrong Left Turn and the Uncanny Valley" thread by MD and was facinated when the discussion started to veer on pages 6-8 towards potentially "saving" the CMx1 concept by making it open source etc and the viability of it all and BFC views on it etc. It got me thinking, "what went wrong" especially when I took a closer look and considered the implications of this statment made by BFC: If you go by what BTS is trying to tell us, the CMx1 game concept HAD to be abandodned, reinvented and made RT if there was ever a successor to the CMx1 series. The evidence from "ecomonic realities" of the CMx1 series seems to support and vindicate their case for doing so. This statement for me is both counterintuitive and extremely vulnerable to mis-interpretation and faulty analysis. I think there is perhaps a more sinister resaon why this may be the economic/market reality BFC state. As a matter of fact if you look at these figures purely through "rose coloured glasses" and apply basic marketing/economic principles/reasoning, you could quite well conclude/reason the following: 1)The market obviously liked and bought CMBO the most thus it became the most commercially successful CMx1 game produced. 2) Sales dropped significantly with each successive CMx1 release indicating that at least owners of the original game had lost interest in the CMx1 series or were put off or not impressed enough by any of the attempts at introducing numerous new engine enhancments and feature additions made to the game each time and so consequently purchased the game in fewer numbers. POSSIBLE EXPLANATIONS: 1) Market was saturated and satisfied with the intital CMx1 release of CMBO. Subsequent releases of CMBB and CMAK did not justify to either prospective new customers or owners of previous titles that they were worth buying or of any better value than CMBO. 2) BTS/BFC strayed from a winning formula. With each successive CMx1 release, BTS/BFC made changes to the game which made the product of less value and worth to their existing customers/prospective customers. They in effect killed their market by reducing the quality of the game with each succesive release of CMx1 making it less attractive for customers to buy than each preceeding release. NOTE: Unlike the Total War Series or even the Madden football series, BTS/BFC do not know how to repackage the basic same game concept and make it more commerically succesful or at least commercially sustainable than previous releases. I guess they are not good at knowing what their market really want or knowing what a good thing is. Can you see what I mean? Something isn't making sense here. This economic/market reasoning/rationale is totally justified if you look at it at face value. However, I do not for one minute believe that the gaming market is/was more interested in early CMx1 offerings (CMBO #1) than the later CMx1 offerings (CMBB, CMAK). There is something else going on here. The thing I believe that might be the most important issue being overlooked here and resulting in a convincing case against CMx1 being "commercially viable" is ....software piracy! Being such a small independant game development company, I have always been concerend about their vulnerablility to the software piracy of their games. I believe with CMBO, they did the right thing. The game was exclusively available directly from BTS only. There was almost an unwritten undertanding between their loyal (niche!) customers and BTS that they would NEVER undermine the value of the game (and the economic rewards entitled to BTS) by either freely distributing the game to friends, let alone encouraging it's pirated distribution by whatever channels were available at the time. It certainly helped at the time that internet data transfer/volume costs and speeds were unlike how they are now, making downlaoding of even several hundred megabytes a chore, unlike how it is today in this broadband world when several gigabytes can be easily and effortlessly copied in a few minuutes. But this relationship they had with their market was not one that they could count on indefinitely to keep them safe from the ecconimic pitfalls of software piracy on a small software company if they ever hoped of expanding their market and reaching out beyond the small niche one they had captured to a much bigger and diverese market. I can't recall exactly when, but BFC eventually made the brave decision to also start distributing, marketing and selling CMx1 the way the "big boys" of the industry do: through third party retail outlets. When they started doing this, they kind of lost control of their product and it's market value, though it certainly exposed CMx1 to a whole sector of the market that would probably have never heard of the game, let alone ever know or care about what BTS stood for (yes they did once have a mission statement) or how protective their traditional niche market was of the game. By this stage CMBO and the CMx1 concept had started to attract suprisingly fantastic accolades from both gamerd and the media. The latest CMx1 was certainly a game to check out!! But it was a double edged sword. The exposure had both the potential to make people take notice of the product and be interested in the game concept, while at the same time making the game appear to the general public as "just another PC game" that is probably worth a look but why spend the money they ask for it (after all, it looks kind of unproffessional and graphics are tacky looking, compared to other stuff on the shelf (from much BIGGER gaming companies)) when you can download it at home in 1/2 hr off Bittorent. And I believe herein lies the demise of the CMx1 as seen by BFC as a commercially viable concept. CMBO/CMBB/CMAK almost became the IDEAL type of game to pirate. Relatively small file size for a game. Virtually no anti-piracy protection. Unlike many other games, a pirated version of the game was fully functional for multiplayer gameplay (unlike say most server based games that require registered unique "product keys" for online game play). Considering the game graphically looks tacky/unpolished/dated etc. unlike the "mass produced" junk on offer from the larger gaming developers, one might even feel justified not paying the unusually high $ for it and instead put it on the "find pirate version" list. But probably most importaat of all. IT WAS A FREAKN AWESOME GAME TO PLAY!!!!!! So what I am suggesting is that perhaps BTS/BFC almost have themselves to blame for not "protecting their investment" and allowing CMx1 to become "just another game to pirate" whose market value subsequently saw it relegated to "baragain bin" status. This is a crazy/extreme/melodramaitc analogy but I can't help but see it this way: It is almost like they had this promising young little girl, who had so much potential, who was safe, loved and respected by everyone at home and the small local neighbourhood who knew her. They spent years instilling good wholesome values into her. Everyone believed she had something good to offer the world, they just had to see it. She was a little pimply and geeky in places but so are many awkward youngsters, especially those from a small town, and everyone was very protective of her. Still, everyone knew she would only become more beautiful with age, just give her the chance. So the day came to let her go off to the "big bad world" of the big city to fend for herslef and find her fortune, competing with all the other pretty girls from all over the country, hoping she will find and earn the respect, trust and value she had back home. But they did so without arming her with the knowledge or taking the proper precautions to protect her from and prevent her from being eaten up and taken advantage and used by the more unscruplulous elements that lurk in waiting in the hussle and bustle of the big smoke. There are lots of trips and traps in the cut throat world out there. People want to get something for nothing, and if you let them, they will. It was a mistake they would soon regret. Several years later, and it's a sorry sight. That same fantastic, beautiful girl, that had (has) so much more to offer, now finds herself exploited on the street corner, selling herself for a few dollars, in the company of what you could only describe as human tragics and misfits. She looks uptown at where so many other girls, superficially beautiful, with little substance and without a fraction of what she could offer, go about their busy day dressed in the latest designer gear, gainfully employed by cut-throat organisations that really just want something good to look at and play with (after all, that is what they have all come to expect). Her hope of ever emulating and reganing the respect and value she once had back home in this new world has been forever lost. Everyone knows she sells herself cheap (you can even get her for free is you know who to ask). She is just another one of those stupid small town girls that niavely thoguht she was "special" and though she was "going to make it" in the big smoke, but she trusted the wrong people who told her how much she was worth, and now peddles the street for a few dollars. Now she is just another one of those tragic downtown whores trying to make a living. Such a waste. The tragedy is this: How could they (BFC) have let this happen? [ August 16, 2007, 03:18 AM: Message edited by: Lt Bull ]

Not really. There is NOTHING simple about "simply providing an opponent which is capable of delivering a decent challenge". Both of them are based on an understanding of mathematcial models to "describe" a game (a language that CPUs are good at understanding), though in the former case, it just happens that the game lends itself well to being 100% accurtately modelled using mathematics (step #1) and to also then have a convergent solution (step #2). Poor CPU opponent coding comes from a poorly conducted step #1 (mathematical model doesn't describe the game enough) which in turn makes any work done in step #2 redundant, or from a porrly conducted step #2. Haha! If only that were true. Do not look towards hardware as a saviour of deficiencies in CPU/AI opponent programming in games. What is lacking is an ability, skill and understanding at the software level to mathematically model the ever increasing complexity of games and to then code this is in a way that can be manipulated and utilised by the CPU. What you are saying is equivalent to saying the solution to all the poor car drivers on the road is to give them the fastest most modern cars. Hardware is nothing without software. Junk software with great hardware just increases the rate at which junk data is output.

LOL. Ah the good old days when terrain, cover and exposure in a CM game actually meant something. Sure it was abstracted and represented in a way some people would even say is "not realistic (looking?) enough" (eg. No actual solid tree trunks modelled, no doorways to buildings etc) but it did the job as you would expect. If you placed a unit in "Woods" terrain, it actually benefited as you would expect from being in cover/concelament etc. These same people that wanted this "next level of realism" are the same people who would have rooted for and be thrilled just to see the kind of "realistic looking" 1:1 represenation of individual soldiers, doors, trees, bullets etc that we now see being attempted in CMSF above all else, even if it meant BFC having to literally change the very nature of the game that we knew as CM. What many of those people fail to understand is that there is a world of difference between the fundamental design and coding of game which abstracts 3D terrain (and infantry squads for that matter) like CMx1 does and one that actually attempts to model and represent all objects in a world using 1:1 representation, like CMSF attempst to, so that LOS and cover works as it does in say a FPS. eg. In a FPS, typically, just by entering terrain/area that you would consider "Woods" in CMx1, doesn't automatically entitle you to some automatic concelament/exposure bonus. You must actually place yourself BEHIND a solid object to actually benefit from it. Sure this can be theoretically possible to achieve in a game, but when you consider everything else that needs to be coded to function within this 1:1 world you have created, like TacAI behaviour, pathfinding, LOS tracing, projectile tracing etc, the level of complexity of design and coding goes way beyond the capabalities of probably most game developers, and BFC is no exception. The primary function of "terrain" in CMSF is not to provide an interactive tactical battle landscape which can be exploited by players, but to look graphically realistic" in the first instance, and perhaps then if possible, get it to function in a way you would "realistically" expect it to. An herein lies the change in design philosophy I have seen happen with BFC. They used to focus on designing realistic games first THEN try and make it "look" realistic. Now they seem to be more interested in designing realistic "looking" games, and only then try to make the game actually play out realistically. So I think it is almost a case if most people who are now just wrapped to see the 1:1 graphical representation of individual soldiers, individually armed, running through doorways and into the back of Strykers etc we now see in this new direction the CM franchise has gone, but disappointed (or even surprised) that some things in the game don't work like they did in CMx1 (like cover/concelament gained from terrain)), to just spare all of us the whining or bewilderment for it not being in, or not working in CMSF. You got your stupid 1:1 representation "realistically looking" transformed RTS CM game that you think just because it now looks "real" (and in RT!!) then it must then also play "real" (at least more so than CMx1). Now just spank off over the graphics you got and just keep telling yourself "If it looks realistic then it is realistic". It has all come at a price. As for the question being asked, as far as I know and have expereinced (not even the manual discusses terrain/terrain effects ), no. Apart from buildings and walls (though even that seems to be buggy), the terrain type is basically irrelvant to the combat cover/concelament. Don't be fooled by what you see in the game. It is probably there because it gives the impression of a "realistic" game. This discussion is relevant to ToW as well. Note: This post was in no way directed to the the topic starter, though there is a sense of surprised "loss" of a fundamental ("Can we get the old "exposure" rules back?") that you would expect from a game called CM that I thought needed an explanation. [ August 01, 2007, 09:55 PM: Message edited by: Lt Bull ]

Not exactly but yes, and you can do that with most other RT games as well. However, have you though about the implications of players pausing whenever they feel like it while playing multiplayer? It defeats the whole purpose of RT (and part of that involves how well you can manipulate your hardware to control the software that controls your units) and can get very frustating for both players as the continuity of the gameplay is at the mercy of each of the players random willingness to pause the battle to fine tune their orders at critical times. Of the RT games I have played online MP, pausing the game for this ends (especially if there are more than 2 players in the game) is simply not tolerated. Should it now be OK just because you are playing CMSF? Regardless, the attraction of playing a fixed interval WEGO game like CMx1, is a totatlly different experience and a greater tactical challenge to playing RT with the luxury to pause whenever you like. Plus you are always guaranteed a replay.