David Aitken

What you see here isn't the Peng Thread, it's the Son Of Peng Thread. The original is worth reading, but you've got to find it first. ------------------ Guderian's anger was monumental. He struggled for words. "To say that the troops are to blame – look at the casualties!" he raged. "Look at the losses! The troops did their duty! Their self-sacrifice proves it!" Hitler yelled back. "They failed!" he raged. "They failed."

I think everyone here could be right, depending on the kind of bocage they're talking about. Bocage could be anything from a thick hedge a few metres tall to "a 1-3 meter earthen mounds supporting root systems of thick brush and trees that can be 15 meteres or more high and often making vegetative tunnels over lanes". Wilhammer's example it taking it to an extreme – this kind of a terrain feature is far more than a simple hedgerow, and the latter is what you'll find in CM. There is no single accurate definition of 'bocage' or 'hedgerow', so for what it simulates, there is nothing wrong with CM. I think the problem we're skirting here is that a big, thick, ancient hedgerow of the kind which would block LOS and be completely impassible to vehicles simply isn't modelled in CM. There are plenty of other things which aren't in the game, and BTS's time is limited, so this is fair. David ------------------ Guderian's anger was monumental. He struggled for words. "To say that the troops are to blame – look at the casualties!" he raged. "Look at the losses! The troops did their duty! Their self-sacrifice proves it!" Hitler yelled back. "They failed!" he raged. "They failed."

Hedgerows are indeed thick, but they're not solid. A tangle of branches will cause you a lot of trouble if you want to get past, but it won't offer you much cover to hide behind. In CM, hedgerows block vision unless you're right up against them. If you're close, you can see through, and you can also be seen and fired upon from the other side. David ------------------ Guderian's anger was monumental. He struggled for words. "To say that the troops are to blame – look at the casualties!" he raged. "Look at the losses! The troops did their duty! Their self-sacrifice proves it!" Hitler yelled back. "They failed!" he raged. "They failed."

Elijah Meeks wrote: > The reason these games have such outlandish weapons is because it best demonstrates the extremely developed simulation of real world environments. What is the purpose of Quake? Run around and shoot things. What is the purpose of CM? To accurately simulate Second World War combat, command structures, weapons and vehicles, and the behaviour of men under fire. Without modifications, games like Quake would quickly bore people and be forgotten, because they have little substance. Oh gosh, a realistic physical environment – got one of those already, it's called reality. Big guns and big explosions are only amusing for so long, but accurately simulated real-world military technology and battlefield behaviour is a subject of almost infinite depth. You can't argue that modifications would be good for CM because they're good for Quake. David ------------------ Guderian's anger was monumental. He struggled for words. "To say that the troops are to blame – look at the casualties!" he raged. "Look at the losses! The troops did their duty! Their self-sacrifice proves it!" Hitler yelled back. "They failed!" he raged. "They failed."

Banshee wrote: > But mods DO make a game better, I can't see how people argue against them. It depends on the kind of game – that's the argument. There's no doubt that mods do a lot for games like Doom and Quake, but those are no comparison to CM. David ------------------ Guderian's anger was monumental. He struggled for words. "To say that the troops are to blame – look at the casualties!" he raged. "Look at the losses! The troops did their duty! Their self-sacrifice proves it!" Hitler yelled back. "They failed!" he raged. "They failed."

Germanboy wrote: > I don't believe in friends. Ah, that explains it. Now I just need to work out what "it" is... [This message has been edited by David Aitken (edited 10-19-2000).]

Germanboy wrote: > It was either that, or kicking sex, drugs, and R&R... You mean all your friends crowded round you chanting "It's gone too far, Andreas! Either the signature goes or we do!"?

My first signature was from an R.E.M. song about the Russian Revolution. All those since have been from Cornelius Ryan's war trilogy. ------------------ Guderian's anger was monumental. He struggled for words. "To say that the troops are to blame – look at the casualties!" he raged. "Look at the losses! The troops did their duty! Their self-sacrifice proves it!" Hitler yelled back. "They failed!" he raged. "They failed."

Elijah Meeks wrote: > There is a reason these threads have topics and this one's topic is not, "Gee PeterNZer, what's on your mind?" LOL ------------------ Guderian's anger was monumental. He struggled for words. "To say that the troops are to blame – look at the casualties!" he raged. "Look at the losses! The troops did their duty! Their self-sacrifice proves it!" Hitler yelled back. "They failed!" he raged. "They failed."

hakujin wrote: > The obvious solution for people who don't want to play mods is...don't play them. Oh no!! We've got down to the same old argument – "What do you care if we mess around with the game – you don't have to be involved!" Comes up sooner or later with every single request. ------------------ Guderian's anger was monumental. He struggled for words. "To say that the troops are to blame – look at the casualties!" he raged. "Look at the losses! The troops did their duty! Their self-sacrifice proves it!" Hitler yelled back. "They failed!" he raged. "They failed."

Croda wrote: > look at how long it take between turns for the PC to get the movie generated. Much of that is due to handling of all the 3d objects on the screen. In short, the mathematics are handled during the processing phase, and the graphics (polygons) are handled during the playback phase. So dealing with the extra polygons would slow down the maths a bit, but it would have the most dramatic effect on the graphics. You would have to wait slightly longer before seeing what happens in the turn, but the smoothness of the action itself (the important bit) would probably be significantly reduced, depending on the graphical power of your computer. David ------------------ Guderian's anger was monumental. He struggled for words. "To say that the troops are to blame – look at the casualties!" he raged. "Look at the losses! The troops did their duty! Their self-sacrifice proves it!" Hitler yelled back. "They failed!" he raged. "They failed."

Reading books about the Second World War, whenever I hear about a shambles or a defeat (particularly those on the Germans' part resulting from Hitler's stubbornness and irrationality), I suddenly have the urge to fight a battle and do it right. In other words, I have an underlying reason to want to fight, beyond just having nothing better to do. That said, however, I tend to get caught up with the technicalities of the game – I'll spend ages choosing or organising my forces, and leading them into battle, and then I'll get pissed off when they start to get shot up. I think I'd be good at administrating an army, but I'm not sure about commanding it in a fight. =) I usually want to fight in an organised manner – and organisation helps, but it's initiative and decisiveness that wins battles. There are elements of battle which interest me, and which I think are very important to the outcome, which Combat Mission isn't able to simulate. For example, a force that gets shot up, in reality could pull itself together, reform, pick up weapons and ammunition and get back into action – whereas in the game, units are like batteries – they run down, and become useless. I'm in two minds about this – on one hand, it's the kind of realism you can only get from reality, and which you can't expect a game to simulate – but on the other, it's exactly this kind of detail which makes the difference in war. Quite often when I'm playing a game, I like to read into it more than is actually there – instead of just playing to win, I try to imagine what it would be like and what I would do if it were real. I think that sums me up as a player – I'm not much of a competitor, I'm more interested in using the game as fodder for my imagination. David ------------------ Guderian's anger was monumental. He struggled for words. "To say that the troops are to blame – look at the casualties!" he raged. "Look at the losses! The troops did their duty! Their self-sacrifice proves it!" Hitler yelled back. "They failed!" he raged. "They failed."

Elijah Meeks wrote: > Hey Peter and Chup, this is a serious discussion, stay on topic or move on. Yeah, back to the Cesspool you louts. ------------------ Guderian's anger was monumental. He struggled for words. "To say that the troops are to blame – look at the casualties!" he raged. "Look at the losses! The troops did their duty! Their self-sacrifice proves it!" Hitler yelled back. "They failed!" he raged. "They failed."

deanco wrote: > Man, this is the thread from hell. I really gotta laugh when you guys get on your high horse about realism. Wanna know why us non-wargamers like CM? Cause it's a deep, fun game that takes a long time to get good at. I'll bet you at least half of CM's fans would lose faith – and hence interest – in the game if they started to doubt its accuracy. That's BTS's main selling point – anyone can throw together a game based on a historical war, but how many are willing to make the effort to make it realistic? It is immeasurably more rewarding to win a battle if you know that you did it under realistic constraints. Dalton wrote: > I'm not sure how fast the guys at BTS can compile this data, but my feeling is that it would be quicker to review proposed units than researching them from scratch. BTS have, in the past, explained that vetting submissions would probably be as time-consuming as doing all the work themselves. To be sure a submission is realistic, you'd have to do all the research that the creator has done – and then you've got to keep rejecting it until it's right, which could multiply the time involved. Simply coming up with a near-realistic tank model only represents a fraction of the work needed to include it in the game. David ------------------ Guderian's anger was monumental. He struggled for words. "To say that the troops are to blame – look at the casualties!" he raged. "Look at the losses! The troops did their duty! Their self-sacrifice proves it!" Hitler yelled back. "They failed!" he raged. "They failed."

hakujin wrote: > Half-Life must be the best selling game of all time that no one plays. People only buy the game to play the mods. I think in 5 years, buying a game that is hardcoded will be like buying a computer that wasn't "upgradeable" 6 or 7 years ago What does this say about the current standard of games? It would seem that no-one makes well-rounded games packages any more – something you'll want to play through as the creators intended. Now developers just pump out flashy new first-person shooter / flight sim engines, no thought goes into substance, and the only longeivity value is that you can modify it until you're blue in the face. The 'upgradeable computer' analogy is a perfect example. Computers are disposable – on their own they're worthless, it's what you do with them that matters, and they're constantly being overshadowed by new technology. That's all games seem to be now – disposable technology. No creativity, no imagination, no story, just an engine for people to play with. I must cite as an example Bungie's first-person shooter Marathon, which was released about six years ago. At the time, its technology was pretty impressive. But the reason people bought the game, and the reason it was still being discussed years after its release, was because of the intricacies of its storyline. Bungie spent about as much time conceiving the story as they did programming the engine and producing the graphics, and it made the game about ten times more absorbing and memorable. People weren't particularly interested in modifying it, because there was so much to be had in the original release. It is for this reason that Marathon – game though it may be – still has a place in my heart, while others such as Doom, and even the latest, flashiest offerings like Unreal, are quite forgettable. Pretty, modifiable engines are ten a penny, but who really makes GAMES any more? Now, BTS haven't put any work into a story – the story of the Second World War is already written. But they haven't just pumped out a fancy engine for people to play with – they have put an incredible effort into researching all the tiny little details of each of the plethora of weapons and vehicles which have gone into the game. This is the substance of Combat Mission, the equivalent of Marathon's storyline – what sets it apart from other games, and makes it worth playing. Companies like ID, who can't seem to do anything but churn out a new, flashier, first-person shooter engine every other year (a new Doom? Gosh, how exciting), NEED to make their engines modfiable, otherwise people wouldn't care about the new release. There's nothing new – no story, no substance – so instead of letting people play the GAME, they open up the ENGINE and let people play with THAT. If 'upgradability' is the future of games, I lament the death of creativity and imagination in the industry. But developers such as BTS, who really do produce games with substance, should certainly not put their creations at the mercy of those who have grown to believe that the purpose of a game is to be modifiable. David ------------------ Guderian's anger was monumental. He struggled for words. "To say that the troops are to blame – look at the casualties!" he raged. "Look at the losses! The troops did their duty! Their self-sacrifice proves it!" Hitler yelled back. "They failed!" he raged. "They failed."

I'm sure BTS have their own ideas about how they'd like to do this, but whatever happens, we're not going to see it before CM2. David ------------------ Guderian's anger was monumental. He struggled for words. "To say that the troops are to blame – look at the casualties!" he raged. "Look at the losses! The troops did their duty! Their self-sacrifice proves it!" Hitler yelled back. "They failed!" he raged. "They failed."

I speak at risk of repeating or contradicting what has already been said on this subject. Combat Mission is more of a simulator than a game. Everything that goes into it has to be carefully vetted – this is true of the game (I use the term loosely) as it is, and as it would be if it were reworked to represent other wars. Games like Quake and Half-life are eminently modifiable, because they have flashy engines, and the substance is of little concern as long as it plays well. The more bizarre your idea, the more effective the modification. But where specific wars are concerned, there is a right and a wrong way to do it. BTS's goal is to accurately simulate historical combat, and for this reason, I doubt they would be happy to put their engine at the mercy of the general public. Doubtlessly some of the results would be impressive, but they would always be of questionable accuracy. It's not much use to suggest that the wargaming community would reject innaccurate modifications, considering even the technicalities of Combat Mission itself are the source of constant debate. Other issues spring to mind, such as the aforementioned games being less revolutionary than Combat Mission in their genres, making it less of an issue to let people mess around with them – and the effect modifications might have on BTS's future plans. I think it's a bit early on in the life of Combat Mission for BTS to allow lots of variants and clones to appear. David ------------------ Guderian's anger was monumental. He struggled for words. "To say that the troops are to blame – look at the casualties!" he raged. "Look at the losses! The troops did their duty! Their self-sacrifice proves it!" Hitler yelled back. "They failed!" he raged. "They failed."

I'll bet some journalist at CNN took a look at one of the old caps, thought "Hey, it folds up like an envelope!", and then started imagining soldiers prancing around, remarking "Gosh, Charles, I am so exquisitely delighted to be casting off those beastly envelope caps!". ------------------ Guderian's anger was monumental. He struggled for words. "To say that the troops are to blame – look at the casualties!" he raged. "Look at the losses! The troops did their duty! Their self-sacrifice proves it!" Hitler yelled back. "They failed!" he raged. "They failed."

Here's a good joke... A New Zealander, an American, a German and an Englishman walked into a pub. Two of them produced laptop computers, and they proceeded to play hotseat games of Combat Mission while getting increasingly drunk. Getting tired of all the gunfire and explosions, the other patrons of the pub started to make derisory comments such as "Ha ha, look at that bunch of geeks!", "Hey you guys, you won't find an answer to your problems at the bottom of a magazine!", and "No no, you'll never penetrate the glacis of a Panther G at that range, you need a flanking shot with anything less than a 17 pounder!". ------------------ Guderian's anger was monumental. He struggled for words. "To say that the troops are to blame – look at the casualties!" he raged. "Look at the losses! The troops did their duty! Their self-sacrifice proves it!" Hitler yelled back. "They failed!" he raged. "They failed."

You could start off by making sure that you haven't toggled off high-quality smoke (Shift-I). The explosion bitmaps won't appear if you have low-quality, or no, smoke. David ------------------ Guderian's anger was monumental. He struggled for words. "To say that the troops are to blame – look at the casualties!" he raged. "Look at the losses! The troops did their duty! Their self-sacrifice proves it!" Hitler yelled back. "They failed!" he raged. "They failed."

I think this is more to the point...

Moriarty wrote: > 'e dinna look like a Scotsman. He's scowling, isn't he? ------------------

If you want something done, do it yourself.

Ta-daa: ------------------ <a href="http://www.reckoning.demon.co.uk/cm/"> </a> Oh, well don't then. See if I care. [This message has been edited by David Aitken (edited 10-15-2000).]

Cripes, 215 posts? It's like playing an arcade game, racking up an all-time high score, dying, and then starting all over again. Anyway, down to my REAL reason for posting... ------------------ [url=http://www.reckoning.demon.co.uk/cm/] Damnit, it didn't work. Back to the drawing board... [This message has been edited by David Aitken (edited 10-15-2000).]