medlinke

Well put on all accounts! Congrats Battlefront.

The engine for SupCom is DEFINITELY not more detailed. The graphics might be, but the behind the scenes calculations are not more detailed than this. It tracks hits, misses, and damage for the most part. It's not tracking ammo, tracer rounds, armor penetration, obstructions, elevation, and the thousands of other smaller things I'm not considering like all the vehicle systems damage modeling!

I do, but I've never had margins come out wonky or not seen that the color on color was too little contrast for easy reading. For the record, I really like what was attempted with the manual. It was a cool artistic direction, but for many folks tone on tone is VERY hard to read. Thankfully I'm not one of those folks, but I count myself lucky in that regard because I know that tone on tone is becoming more popular. In terms of the margins, I've never dealt with a printer who wouldn't deliver a proof that was both bound and of the same quality as my final product. It seems like this would be something that any good printer would have advised you about upon page layout and any reputable printer would have accepted as a modification upon comment from a client. The PDFs, however, serve as much nicer reference materials anyway than a printed manual. I like mine on my iPad so I can quickly search and check things out as they come up during play. A lot handier than trying to keep a printed booklet open with one hand while trying to play with the other!

My favorite old timer memory was the whole "kerfluffle" over the initial review by The Wargamer and the resulting schism that dragged the whole boards down for a while until The Wargamer finally came to their senses and basically wrote this whole review that was like..."yeah we were still right in our initial review, but here are some further thoughts that are more in line with reality..." I remember trying to work with Steve shortly before the release of CM:BO on getting some ASL conversion documentation together in terms of doing scenario conversions. Once everyone got the game it became apparently, quickly, that the engine was well suited to doing it's thing and not trying to replicate the fun of ASL. And I have weighed in on this same topic again in 2011 with CMBN. So...forum young'ns sometimes us old timers have seen and forgotten more than you know. It's actually blast taking the CMx2 engine for a run through Normandy. I'm truly re-learning everything at this point. The depth and sophistication that CMBN adds over the CMx1 based games is fantastic. I feel like each choice has far more consequence than in previous games. Things that were abstracted and could be used as crutches no longer work that way and it's a great new day for WW2 tactical gamers.

Thanks for the responses, this is one I was playing around with last night and had the same thoughts.

The only thing that makes me a bit irritated is that I have to click on a specific area of a battlefield to see the units in that area. For example...on the Brecourt Manor scenario if I sent a feint to one side of the field while moving the main force to another, I cannot see both forces at the same time in a camera angle where they should both clearly be visible. To me, this is kind of irritating. Aside from that...I think the graphics are well enough.

Agree with all these points. I love to play from the soldier eye level using just the next and last unit hotkey to move from unit to unit. Having to fiddle with camera every time so I can double click the unit's icon is a bit of a pain. "Jump to selected unit" hotkey (which I think existed previously) would be a nice addition.

I appreciate all feedback about the game because it usually stimulates some form of discussion and a relative middle ground is typically discovered that gives credence to the OP while pointing out some weaknesses in their initial assessment of things. In this case I have to admit that I see this coming together as it has in the past. There is a big change between CMx1 and CMx2 series games. The engine is flat out different and more of the tactical detail was appreciated and exposed. For example, in CMx1 you could very easily assault and attack a position by throwing troops at your problems to pin them and then moving in risky ways toward your objective. In the CMx2 series you get punished for this behavior and because you're not seeing the target lines and other game screen contextual information that players relied upon in CMx1 (myself included) it's more difficult to ascertain where you may have gone wrong. The inclusion of the Real Time mode was one that a lot of players had asked for in CMx1 engine. There is A LOT going on under the hood that requires a lot of tactical micromanagement in CMx2. So, whereas people had very little to worry about in CMx1 for their less than optimal play it was conceivable that they could easily manage everything in Real Time. In fact, many WEGO turns consisted of offering very few orders while your troops whithered away their opposition. In CMx2 there's just that much more information to deal with. LOS, movement speeds, accuracy, damage, terrain, available orders, etc. are all more complicated. The real time option presents a real world problem in CMx2...how do you effectively coordinate your movements and (more importantly) combat stance orders while your opponent (who is no slouch) does the same but with a brain that can compute far more data at a far faster rate than the human mind? In short...try WEGO and take it slow. You're not playing CMx1 upgraded to CMx2. You're playing a full evolutionary step in the game engine that shares a name and pedigree with CMx1 games...is it's own unique and tactically challenging game. Approach it as though you've never played CMBO => CMAK and you're going to discover that those tedious things are livable. You'll memorize the hotkeys for every order. You'll get to the point where you can more easily read the terrain and combat stances of your enemy and be able to exploit it.

Are you on a windows machine or an OS X machine?

I have to say that the interface is a bit clodgy, but it's by no means as outrageous as it could be. There is a lot of sophistication in the way the data is displayed to you in the command bar at the bottom of the screen. Remember, that there has to be a balance between the aesthetics of the game screen and the space people are willing to accept as command space on the screen. In this case, I think Battlefront has done a pretty good job overall. One thing that I'm sure they'll consider since everyone is asking for it is how much data and where they display it in the game area. I have to admit that this is one of Battlefront's smoother releases given how many comments are focused on tweaks rather than CTDs or other nastiness. The fact that we're already having THIS conversation is a good sign I think.

As someone who deals with Apple at an enterprise level I can tell you that they WILL throw unannounced changes at you quickly. That's part of the reason I'm asking. I'm thrilled that Battlefront even attempted an Apple OS based version of the game, but I'm skeptical at their ability to keep up with Apple who is constantly acting on behalf of consumers to the exclusion of supporting their developers and enterprise level customers.

I'm debating which version to get of the CMBN game. I like the idea of being able to play it on my MacBook Pro which runs the demo very well. That said, the support for Apple ended quite abruptly back in CMBO days when Apple upgraded their OS. Given that this game is getting released prior to another upgrade for the Apple OS X series (Lion coming this summer) will Apple users have "long term" support from Battlefront? In the past things like patches to video cards have caused crash to desktop issues on the windows side of things. Likewise, certain video-cards have had their support end abruptly. Will the CMx2 WW2 games all get releases and patches for Mac OS X or will CMBN be a test to determine whether or not the rigors of Apple software development can be sustained for a single product cycle and at the end of that cycle be either continued or discontinued?

Looks great!

A few thoughts: 1 - ASL hexes represent about 40 meters. This makes the individual map size 1200 meters wide by 400 meters tall. 2 - It appears that the default size of a block in the editor is 80 meters. So ... You'd basically have to make everything GIANT or halve the size of the maps if you wanted to do a 1:1 conversion. The other option is to take the ASL scenarios that you're most familiar with and turn the parts of those scenarios that are most interesting into the scenario. A few other notes: 1 - MMP will bring the hammer out pretty quickly if you're attempting to make an conversion of ASL with text and map depictions that match their IP. 2 - This was attempted back in the CMBO days. It went pretty well for a while, but ultimately the problems with scale caused issues there. It's far better to be "inspired by" your favorite ASL scenario and put together a CMBN map and OOB that will best represent that particular aspect of the ASL. For example, I'm playing around with a little ASLSK 1 conversion of the Retaking Vierville scenario. In that scenario there is a central town with a few approaches and the Germans have to take a certain number of buildings from the Americans. Focusing the battle on the city fighting and the most important approaches is going to be the goal. A true 1:1 depiction of the forces and map won't necessarily work though because of the limitations of both ASL and CMBN so it's a matter of finding the balance that works best in CMBN's world which gives the tension found in the ASL scenario!

I saw the title for this thread and wondered if there was information...been away too long! I think BFC has been fair and up front with pricing.

Isn't the waiting part of the fun though? Keep up the good work and remember...the time you spend here Steve & crew is time you can't eat, sleep & code.

They are VERY well received in the boardgame geek community which normally gets wargames pretty correct in terms of reviewing them. Core Games World at War: Eisenback Gap - http://www.boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/25729 World at War: Blood & Bridges - http://www.boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/35035 World at War: The Untold Stories - http://www.boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/41934 Expansions World at War: Death of the First Panzer - http://www.boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/33490 World at War: Gamer's Guide - http://www.boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/34687 World at War: Operation Garbo - http://www.boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/37767 That should give you plenty to read! Lock n Load publishing puts out some really great stuff and their customer service on the boardgame side of things is top notch. They replace counters that get mis-printed and the like. Mark supports the games well and actively browses the BoardgameGeek forums.

Hi Moon - I do have that dll file. I turned off UAC and it started and played like a charm. Thanks for the assist! So...my question is...how do I operate with UAC on, but still get to play CMSF? Or...do I have to toggle it whenever I want to play?

Will do. I'll post back here either way once I get home from work and test it out tonight. Thanks for the prompt help and the tips in all the other Vista issue threads in this forum!

The game is installed already. The problem happens when I try to actually start the game. I've tried uninstalling/reinstalling with the answers that have previously been given here. The LicCtlService never starts for some reason. And even if I set Rumservice.exe to Run as Administrator that doesn't make a difference.

I just tried setting the RunService.exe to run as administrator and that didn't fix the problem either. I upgraded to 1.10 and tried and then upgraded to 1.11 and tried again. Neither of those resolved the issue and I'm still getting the same error message as above. When I run the exe I don't get anything. The UAC shows up and I click Allow and then nothing happens. When I look in the even viewer I see the error above with the time I tried to run CM:SF at listed as the corresponding time. I went back in the logs to be certain this wasn't a pre-existing condition and it only started after I installed CM:SF tonight.

A few notes: 1. I read the Help Desk Entries on DEP and did that. 2. I installed the game by right clicking on the CMSF_Setup.exe file and selecting Run as Administrator. 3. I did not let the game launch on its own. I went into the filesystem and right clicked on CM Shock Force and selected Run as Administrator. 4. I get the UAC dialog box and click Allow. 5. When I look in C:\Windows I see Runservice.exe 6. I have the US Boxed version I ordered from Battlefront.com's store. 7. I have disabled my firewall and antivirus. 8. I have tried uninstalling, restarting my computer, disabling firewall & antivirus services, and trying again. 9. When I look into my Event Viewer > Applications I see the following error: I have uninstalled and reinstalled twice following the guidelines above and I'm at a loss at this point. Any help would be greatly appreciated!

This sounds very standard. Look at what Bioware does, etc. Thanks for BFC for helping us keep track of those keys!!!

I agree with Steiner... The community will deal with it. There are other issues too...like knocked out vehicles not being able to be moved which would render bridges impassible, etc. I can certainly appreciate the complexity from an AI pathing standpoint, etc. But it smacks of "that's too hard we'll just not do it." Certainly you've read many accounts of how insurgents take advantage of natural obstacles to gain the upper hand. Bridges are one of the singularly most effective places to stage those kinds of hit & run battles, particularly ones near towns. So it's not like there isn't documentation out there supporting the inclusion of bridges over water, ditches, etc. as core strategic elements for outnumbered forces. Even though the argument is that it would have cost more time to implement than it would given players enjoyment...I think clearly you're getting first hand responses on the contrary.

Based on everything I've read Marines offers some significant gameplay improvements and expanded unit rosters. I'm not going to sit here and play fanboy about it or anything, but $25 seems in line with what most companies charge for smaller add-ons. Think about all those Heroes of Might & Magic Addons. Those were between $19.99 & $29.99. The Sims uses a similar pricing structure with some of their addons, I believe, costing into the $30+ range.