David Aitken

fdiskboy wrote: > You would fit in well in Washington. Pity I'm on the wrong side of the pond... I think we're discussing a complicated issue - the subject itself may be relatively simple, but the theory behind it is complicated. And in such a situation, the arguments are also likely to be complicated. I'm sorry if we've become confused. David

If you feel any pain or discomfort using your computer, you're doing something wrong. Make sure you are sat properly. An adjustable computer chair is really a necessity - armrests optional, but a mid-length backrest is needed. If you sit up straight, your feet should be flat on the floor (technically) and the monitor should be just below your line of vision. You should be at least an arm's length away from the monitor. The upper part of your arms should hang vertically, the lower part should be horizontal, and the keyboard and mouse should be positioned to allow this. It's also a good idea to have some padding for your wrists - I have two foam pads for my keyboard, and a decent mouse pad (hard as mouse pads go, but soft compared to the table). That's about it. Good posture is a very good way to prevent problems. Sit up, back straight! (as my Dad would say). David

fdiskboy wrote: > Fascism? Where did that come from? [...] Please don't put words in my mouth or jump to illogical conclusions. It came from your recent post where you stated: > This is why I dislike government. Because it generally thinks it knows better than me when it comes to what is best for me. > Perhaps you are content to allow others to decide for you what is best. I am not. I don't think you could get further from the truth. I am not telling you how to play the game, or suggesting that BTS is doing this. I am saying that BTS designed the game, and therefore, I trust them to provide a user interface which they deem appropriate. They conceived the game, and inevitably the way they design it will affect or restrict the way it is played. I simply recognise their thinking behind the game, and I respect it, and I enjoy following it. If I felt there was something wrong with it, I would be the first to complain. > I think you're wrong. You think I'm wrong. Such is life. Really? You're suggesting that each of us thinks every word the other has uttered is total rubbish? As far as I am concerned, I recognise where your argument comes from, but I'm just putting the case that the changes you want to see in Combat Mission may not be relevant to the way the game is meant to be. I may not be the authority on this, but I am aware of the relevant facts. RMC wrote: > As far as I can tell the Rosterians want a simple OOB list to the side of the screen that allows them to get to their units more quickly an easily than by using the + and - keys or by scrolling around the map. Requests vary... some people are looking for a section which lists the info panels of every unit. This would be a section in itself, not just a menu at the side of the screen. Jeff Heidman wrote: > Frankly, I am pretty tired of your attitude that someone who wants a roster is somehow broken, and is not a "true" CM player or something. I never said anything of the sort. If you play CM, that makes you a CM player. But it's not impossible for features to be included in the game which distract attention from the essence of the game - what sets it apart from the rest. If you employ that feature, that doesn't make you some kind of heretic - but if the feature is there, it can still have a negative effect on the game. Please understand this distinction. > Comments about the game not being "my kind of game" because I think the interface could be better is just more arrogance on your part. Neither did I say that this is not your kind of game - you're twisting my words. What I am saying is, Combat Mission takes time to play - and features which make it quicker, do not necessarily make it better. > quit telling me that my interest in a roster in any way is an indicator to you as to how I play. You really think I'm out to get you, don't you? I am not telling anybody they're wrong, or flawed, or goodness knows what. But as I've said, features could be added to this game which are not in line with the way the game is meant to be (and no, I am not implying I know exactly how the game is meant to be - that's beside the point). Just because you, personally, might not be distracted from the essence of the game, the presence of said feature does change the game, and does encourage people to make use of it. David

fdiskboy wrote: > Again, David, I appreciate your opinion, I just happen to think that I know better than you when it comes to how information should be presented to me, specifically. Land - This is not about fascism. It is about interface design. The job of an interface designer is to guide the user towards the most important aspects of a game. By your argument, designers should ask users how they want to play a game, and provide an option for every single one of them. In reality, it is up to the interface designer, as someone privy to the thinking and emphasis behind the game, to produce an interface which reflects this emphasis. If you want to call the designer fascist, that's your decision. I call them the authority, and I expect them to do the right thing for the game. David

Pascal DI FOLCO wrote: > No, the real reason is that in such a BBS it's quite impossible to follow a thread with 100+ posts [...] Starting a thread gives a new start to threads where noone has the courage to go to page 10 Excuse me, who exactly doesn't "have the courage" to go to page 10? That is your personal opinion - not an excuse to disrupt the running of this board. There are now three recent threads based on this discussion. The earlier threads are continuing, which is a far more difficult situation than simply having a long thread. By starting a new thread, you force people to restate things they've already said, while new posts made to previous threads are lost to the discussion. I say again, kindly do not fragment the discussion just because you don't personally like long threads. You're not solving any problems, and you're certainly causing some. David

Jeff Heidman wrote: > I am still not very clear on how tedium=better gameplay. This still seems to me like saying part of the game is to have your significant other come and hit you with a hammer [...] Jeff, I don't know where you're getting this stuff from. No-one is saying or implying what you are saying. The attitude you (and others) have towards Combat Mission, almost suggests that it's not your kind of game at all. Some Quake monkey could come along and dismiss CM in its entirety as tedious - simply because they want instant gratification. We're not talking here about features of CM which were designed to be tedious - we're talking about features which are more suited to the kind of game CM is. The way CM works, is to have everything - as I have said before - down on the battlefield. You earlier reacted to this by saying > It's "on the battlefield"? What in the hell does that mean? Last I checked, there was no "battlefield", just a computer screen giving me information about a virtual representation of WW2 combat. You must agree that there are different levels to the way CM displays battles. You have the 3D model of the terrain and your units, and you have secondary information - the panel that tells you what a unit is doing, and the panel that gives you detailed information of a unit's firepower and kills. These two panels are necessary. BTS have deliberatly chosen not to provide any secondary management features. Games like Close Combat rely on these heavily, and the graphical representation of the actual battle is much less useful. In CM, the only way - and in my opinion, the right way - to find out what is going on, is to look at the battlefield. Various people have argued that a commander would have a list of his units, and a roster represents this. This argument is flawed - you are already given a list of your units, in the briefing. No commander had a real-time display of exactly what each of his units is doing at a given moment. If you scribble down that you have four platoons, the paper does not magically update itself when you lose one. It has also been argued that a commander could not actually jump to one of his units and see what it's doing, so why shouldn't the game provide a roster which a commander wouldn't actually have? The answer, is, when you jump to a unit, you are doing exactly that. You are not looking at a summary of all your units - you are looking at the battlefield, and seeing what is going on first-hand. This is the key to Combat Mission's interface - it is first-hand. No lists, no statistics, no fancy management features - everything you need to know, you find out by watching the battlefield. CM provides you with numerous features to keep track of this - features which enhance the actual action, not features which display second-hand statistics about the action. This is not being awkward or tedious - it is simply channeling your focus towards what is actually happening. I hope this clears things up for you, Jeff. David

Everyone Jump On The Lieutenant? Good idea, if you want your whole platoon to be wiped out with a single shell. David

Pascal - There is no "roster war" - it is a discussion. What you have said here is your personal opinion. It is not the definitive conclusion. Please don't start a new thread in the vain hope that you can get the 'last word'. I might point out that your original "I want a roster" thread was also your attempt to get to the top of the agenda - the discussion should have stayed in "Interface needs work", where it started. This just divides the argument between various threads and creates confusion. David

Mark IV - Sorry if I sound it, but I never mean to be condescending. Even when I'm telling people they have the memory of a goldfish, I don't mean it as a person attack. When reading what I say, assume my enemy is the argument in hand, not the person I'm arguing with. I'm paranoid about making enemies, so to be condescending would only be to make life more difficult for myself than it already is. David too young to fall asleep, too cynical to speak - we are losing it, can't you tell?

Jeff Heidman wrote: > This might be the most arrogant thing I have seen posted on this board all day. Go me. But really, I'm not accusing anyone of playing wrongly - my emphasis is that Combat Mission, while it bears certain resemblances to Close Combat, works completely differently and needs to be played as such. Therefore, CC features like a roster are not necessarily relevant. David P.S. As I said, this discussion has more or less switched to the "I want a roster" thread, so best to check up there.

Sailor Malan wrote: > (think about it) I didn't sleep last night... I'm too tired to think. Talking I can do, though. =) Oh, and spelling. Larvae. David

WendellM wrote: > You still have your beloved +/- interface. You can still spend 2 minutes searching for a given unit while I need only 15 seconds. Big deal. Aha, but this is the point. I rarely use the +/- keys, and I rarely lose track of ANY of my units, no matter how big my force is. I just keep my forces organised and I know where they are. Combat Mission allows you to really organise things, unlike Close Combat or whatever - and I think organisation is a key part of winning battles, so I relish the opportunity. In my opinion, this is the ideal way to play. Anyway, it's up to BTS. I would very much like it if they would surprise us with something more powerful and intuitive than a mere roster... otherwise it's next stop, Close Combat 3D. David

WendellM wrote: > BTW, I see you've sidestepped the whole "it ruins the game" issue into the realm of "it's not *that* much more convenient". No, I regard the former argument as having been made, and I am moving with you on to more specific matters. > Why not just admit that you don't like the idea (which is fine!) and admit that implementing this wouldn't be a "wedge" that would *ruin* the game? I am not the only person who doesn't want a roster, and I am putting forward the argument for this camp. As you should be aware, the world revolves around such discussion. > Some of us like the idea, OK? That's all I'm getting at - restated: how would implementing this feature as I've described it hurt *your* enjoyment of CM? Restated, it would see the game branch off in unnecessary directions, which would inevitably affect the way it develops, whether you think so or not. Doing a Microsoft Word, and adding on different ways to let you do the same things, is not the way forward. The ways which are currently available to do things in Combat Mission, are the ways for which the game is optimised. As I have said, it is a simple, powerful program, which should not be subverted by unnecessary window dressing. The improvements that should be made, are those under the hood which will increase the realism of the game. In case you're wondering, I would quite expect the command interface to develop. But this development should happen from the inside - it should grow from the game's inherent strenghts. Combat Mission works in a new and unique way, and if BTS continue doing things differently, the game will continue to be exceptional. If they just stitch on this-and-that because someone saw it in another game, CM will lose its superiority. David

fdiskboy wrote: > For instance, I would like to find my arty spotter...pop up the roster, select him, issue orders, voila, that's it. So if you have a list of info windows for every unit on the map, how many pages is that likely to spread to? The more units, the more necessary the roster, but the more cumbersome the roster becomes. You'd have to have pretty comprehensively lost your spotter for this to be worthwhile. If it's just like a menu listing your units, that is subject to my earlier argument - people will wonder why it's so lame, and demand features which will ultimately make the roster impractical to avoid. David

Mark IV wrote: > There are other substantive things I'd like more, all of which alarm Mr. Aitken. [...] This is a regular pattern.... You could count on the fingers of one hand, the number of threads where a suggestion has been made that I have taken issue with. There are considerably more threads and suggestions than I have fingers. There have been suggestions made that I support, but I am less likely to post in agreement, which I think is a normal human characteristic. It may be the case that I simply see Combat Mission the way BTS sees it. Many of the improvements I would like to see, have been discussed previously and are taken for granted. I don't take issue with people for fun, I do it because I believe there is a case to be made in response. And ultimately, such is the source of good discussion, which is surely the purpose of this forum. David

fdiskboy wrote: > Providing the same information in a roster ALREADY available by cycling through your units with +/- changes the game how? I have already explained. The only way you can use a roster which makes it worthwhile, is to go through it from top to bottom, issuing orders as you go. This takes no account of the actual tactical situation - if you have a bazooka tagging along with a squad, you should be issuing them orders together, not giving the squad orders, then jumping across the map to a different platoon, then eventually getting round to said bazooka. And if you break from your routine to issue orders differently, you lose your place in the list, and you're no less likely to forget about that proverbial Panzerschreck. WendellM wrote: > You know that status section that appears at the bottom of the screen when you click on a unit? All I want is that info in tabular form, with several units per page (and when I click on a given unit's stats, the map centers on it). [...] That way, I don't have to click all over the map / hit +/- repeatedly to get that info. Cripes, that's even worse than I imagined. Okay, you've got your list of info panels. You double-click on one to jump to that unit. How are you going to see said unit if your screen is full of info? The list disappears? So where is the advantage of pulling up a list, finding a unit, dropping the list and jumping to the unit? If you want ALL the information in the panels then, as you say, they'll have to be a few to a page - so how is scrolling through pages of info panels any easier than using the + and - keys? David

Jeff - Like it or not, you can't just put in a roster as an optional extra. The kind of things based on personal preference are irrelevant to gameplay - transparent houses, tree coverage etcetera. A roster would change the way Combat Mission is played, in general. BTS, if they ever did it, would not just throw in a roster - that would be lame and incongruous. They would make it functional and worthwhile - or if they didn't, people would demand that they did. It would inevitably develop functions which even an experienced player would be ill-advised to ignore. Adding a roster is the thin end of the wedge. It is an element which is not in keeping with the design of Combat Mission. If it were to be added, it would need to be supported too, or people would start asking why it's so lame. This is why the argument that it can be ignored by those who so desire, doesn't stand up. David

dNorwood wrote: > My Dad tells a story of a guy in training who broke his shoulder with a rifle grenade. You're not supposed to fire them from the shoulder - you plant your rifle butt in the ground. I know it's true - I saw it in a film. David

Papa Khann wrote: > And since the info is already there, I still don't see the harm in added one additional tool that presents it in a more complete format. [...] it would simply add an additional and alternative method to access that same information. Which is a good thing? A roster basically tells you what you'll already know if you have a memory. It may also tell you what a unit is doing, but nothing about the context. To find out WHY a unit is doing what it's doing, you have to look at the battlefield - so why not do that in the first place? > In my mind, the issue of "realism" vs. "should there be a roster" are not related. By that reasoning, the "+" and "-" key functionality should be removed, because it's "not realistic". Ridiculous. There is a distinct difference. All the functionality that is there, is on the primary level - where the action is happening. A roster is on a secondary level. The most effective way to use a roster is to go through it from top to bottom issuing orders, which is a completely unrealistic way to play. > I'm not "down there fighting" now. I'm entering orders on my computer, to which this wonderful software responds by generating 3D movies. It will do that with or without the roster screen. [...] Again, I hardly see the addition of a roster screen influencing my style of play in the manner you propose. It will almost certainly change the way users of the roster play the game, as I've said above. Instead of looking at the battlefield, taking in everything at once and dealing with each skirmish in turn, you're going through a list, jumping around the battlefield, seeing where each unit is and issuing orders in a fashion irrelevant to the actual battle. If you don't use a roster this way, there's no point in having one. > In the end, you could always choose not to use the roster screen, were one added. To add a roster would be a misallocation of manpower and would pervert the essence of the game. David P.S. This debate seems to have transferred to the "I want a roster" thread. Best keep it there.

Jeff Heidman wrote: > IMNSHO, We worship your greatness. > your objection is like someone insisting that the German units only provide their info in German, because that is more "realistic" I've no idea where you got that from. I'm saying the information is on the battlefield, like it is in reality. Combat Mission provides you with numerous ways of assimilating what is happening on the battlefield. You're so caught up with either clicking on a unit or using the + and - keys - that's a Close Combat way of thinking. In CM, you can put the camera wherever you want. You can put bases on units or enlarge them to see them better. Rather than having men scattered all over the place, CM represents squads and teams as distinct groups, and distinguishes between them. You also have command lines to keep platoons together. I could go on. You also seem to have the memory of a goldfish. If you're wondering whether your spotter has any ammo left, you remember where you left him and you click on him. It's not that difficult. If you have a roster, it tells you what a unit is doing, but it offers no contextual information. What's the point in knowing whether a unit is moving or firing or whatever, if you don't know where it's moving or what it's firing at? It makes far more sense to have all the information in one place (ie. on the ground), instead of picking some of that information and displaying it in a roster, which in itself is of little value. Want to know what units you have and what they're doing? (1) Remember. God gave you a memory for this purpose. (2) Look and see. This will give you all the information you need at a glance, instead of offering a couple of contextually useless points of info in a place removed from where it really matters. Oldgamer wrote: > I just want a simple list that prevents me from overlooking a Schrek (or whatever) in the big operations. If you could overlook a team in the game as it is, you could overlook a team even if you had a roster. The units are all there - you just have to look and see. In the same way that you have to look at a roster and see what's there. The only way to ensure you don't miss any units, is to go through the roster from top to bottom issuing orders. This is an awful way to play, and exactly what I'm getting at. Combat Mission is about context and realism, not about lists and statistics. David

Combat Mission provides you with numerous ways to keep track of your men, and understand what they're doing, by looking at them. All the information is there, down on the ground. Close Combat needs lots of statistics screens because there's a limit to the information you can glean by looking at your men. This subverts the focus from the battlefield, and the way you fight your battles is less realistic as a result. Instead of getting down there and fighting, you sit back and watch all your flashy statistics. If you get into CM properly, and play it the way it was meant to be played, you won't need a roster. Such an addition would simply encourage people to play CM like CC, which is wrong. CM may resemble CC, but the way it works is completely different. Combat Mission is ideal the way it is. The way to develop it is to refine what's under the hood, not to add on lots of bells and whistles. The latter is the Microsoft route of product development - tack on hundreds of different ways of doing the same thing, without actually doing anything special underneath. The finest programs in existence are simple but powerful. CM is a perfect example of this, and I sincerely hope it remains so. David

Combat Mission provides you with numerous ways to keep track of your men, and understand what they're doing, by looking at them. All the information is there, down on the ground. Close Combat needs lots of statistics screens because there's a limit to the information you can glean by looking at your men. This subverts the focus from the battlefield, and the way you fight your battles is less realistic as a result. Instead of getting down there and fighting, you sit back and watch all your flashy statistics. If you get into CM properly, and play it the way it was meant to be played, you won't need a roster. Such an addition would simply encourage people to play CM like CC, which is wrong. CM may resemble CC, but the way it works is completely different. Combat Mission is ideal the way it is. The way to develop it is to refine what's under the hood, not to add on lots of bells and whistles. The latter is the Microsoft route of product development - tack on hundreds of different ways of doing the same thing, without actually doing anything special underneath. The finest programs in existence are simple but powerful. CM is a perfect example of this, and I sincerely hope it remains so. David

No (no). Nein. Non. Nuh-uh. David

John wrote: > I've read the review in PCGamer [...] They agree with me about the roster, by the way. They agree with you, or you agree with them? > The job of a game interface, in my humble opinion, is to make controlling your units as simple as possible. Which is not the same as filling your screen with statistics. In CM, all the functions are there, but BTS thankfully (and commendably) elected to tuck them away instead of plastering them all over the place to try and impress you. > Take the units holding formation. This was probably a design decision, as it makes holding lines easier. It was actually a late addition for lazy people. I hardly ever use it, and I find moving squads individually neither a chore nor particularly time-consuming. If you get into the game properly you should understand why group-moving is both unrealistic and inadvisable. > If there was an option for units to break formation and regroup, or seek cover (holding down a key when you set the order would do it), this would solve the problem. Hang on, I'm sure Charles can knock that together in a few minutes for you. > Similarly, being able to check what every unit was doing at that moment, without changing views, would make keeping track of the battle much easier, and in turn this would make the game more fun. Yup, and this would be a good simulation of the laptop computers Battalion commanders were issued with in WWII. You know, the ones that gave them instant feedback about exactly what each of their men was doing during a battle. When you walk down the street, do you have a head-up display telling you how many people are in your field of vision and what they're doing? Or do you prefer to look and see for yourself? Not everything you need to know is always available to you, especially in war. You've got to find it out for yourself, and I think Combat Mission simulates this rather well. David who should either be dead or working by now

Combat Mission is three-dimensional. Reality is three-dimensional. Game over. David