WineCape

Bright buttons!

That could be costly...

BTW, despite my recently bought property as indicated in my profile, I still have enough change in my pocket left to honour the tourney prizes

Going to shoot 6 x 1,000ft boat distress signal flares tonight at 12pm - over land that is. Here's wishing to all on the forum an excellent New Year with the lightning of these big candles tonight.

Thanks! Send more wine! Madmatt </font>

8+ years on the forum and still not tired of it. Best wishes to all BFC crew and their families. May 2007 be a stunning year, with lots of blessings and great Battlefront happenings. As my 9-year-old daughter Raquel says: “Golden stars and colour rainbows to all."

Tsk,tsk, sunshine for all? Anyone? I agree with both sides of the coin. Does it make me a "draadsitter?"

:cool: :cool: :cool: :cool:

:cool: :cool: :cool: :cool:

Ditto, my sentiments too.

It put a smile on my dial. For the 5th time. They should invite you for the annual Smirnoff Comedy Festival here in Cape Town

Oh, shut up and do what you suppose to do mD - multi-tasking is not the male gender's virtue now, is it? ...

Can we have another Podcast? I don't understand American Twang. Reading the transcript hurts me eyes too...

Sumac, At the risk of alienating you and siding with Steve, which will alienate you even more... BFC has made repeated statements about PBEM a year ago. This has been dealt with before, heatedly. Many times. Many times heatedly. To the point where Steve started yelling back, not after posting many clear and lucid reasonings as to the design decision that they cannot PROMISE PBEM 100% before hand. This is not an issue anymore, as it seems they have PBEM workable in CM:SF. So why keep beating the dead horse to a vapour? A simple search regarding 'PBEM' would probably spared you this rather uninformed (and rude, dare I say) statement: Who can blame Steve, after so many postings in the past about this PBEM issue, that he will act a little crass. It has bean dealt with, many times. Heatedly. Steve's attitude is understandable, if you have done some research by fingering the SEARCH button. But I assume you have not? And that, I venture, is the reasoning for your misunderstanding. And if you have done a search, for god's sake; you keep everyone waiting for other bones. Sincerely, Charl Theron [ October 20, 2006, 12:27 AM: Message edited by: WineCape ]

Question: What will CMx2 be? ...these are the basics (in no particular order): 1. Not CMx1 2. A game system that is flexible enough to handle many different theaters, timeframes, and game genres without doing years of rewriting for each. This does not mean that the CMx2 codebase will automatically support things like horse cavalry or Space Lobsters, rather that it will not automatically preclude them from being added in later. The CMx1 codebase was absolutely not written this way, which is why we told you almost 2 years ago that CMAK would be the last game made using this code. 3. A graphics engine that takes advantage of today's hardware possibilities. The idea is that a more realistic looking game is a more realistic feeling game, all else being equal. When combined with #2 above it also means that internally it is a lot easier for us to make cool graphical representations than it was in CMx1 (which was a nightmare ). Therefore, the development distraction to us should be less than it was in CMx1 even though there will be a big leap forward in terms of quality. A win-win situation for everybody. 4. A game that can be played by more than 2 people, with a heavy emphasis on cooperative play (CoPlay). While we can not do this feature for the first release (not practical), the game engine itself is being coded to work with many players as soon as we can code the rather difficult technological foundation to allow such play. Think of it like CMBO not having TCP/IP functionality even though the game was written to work using this protocol. 5. The plan is for unit focus (scale) to be flexible, though the tactical focus for the first two CMx2 games is the Squad/Team just as it was for CMx1. This may or may not vary from title to title afterwards, we simply aren't planning that far ahead. Just know that in theory the CMx2 code allows us to keep things a bit flexible. 6. The command level is, like the unit focus, somewhat flexible. However, like CMx1 the first two planned games for CMx2 are Battalion/Company centric. 7. Each soldier has its own 3D representation in the game. For the first two CMx2 games there will not be 1:1 control over these soldiers, but if the scale is lowered for another game 1:1 control is possible (eg. we make a Platoon level game where you only have 30 soldiers, obviously more control is desirable). 1:1 simulation is also desired, but hardware limitations will mean some carefully implemented compromises (i.e. 1:1 LOS checks are impossible). Overall the control should be roughly the same as CMx1, but the abstractions far less. 8. WeGo is not being abandoned. In fact, there will be more options to make this system work even better. 9. Relative Spotting, as described in depth over the past couple of years, will be a huge part of the CMx2 experience. This feature can not be turned off. 10. Overcoming CMx1 "Borg" problems is a top priority to us since it is one of the biggest distractions from a realistic combat simulator. However, there is only so much we can do with this, so it isn't like we can eliminate the Borg problem. It will, however, have far less influence over games than it has in the past. Some of these features can be toggled off for those who really want more unrealistic game experiences. 11. The "God" problem, which is related to #10 but is not the same, is also something we are trying hard to knock down. The player will be able to choose how much he wants to be like a real Human commander and how much he wants to be a God. 12. A tighter focus on "story" than in past CMx1 games. A lot of the previous mentioned features will add to this, but we are putting in specific features to draw them together into a more clean message for the player. CMx1 games were sometimes described as "soulless" because of how little influence we (Battlefront) and scenario designers had over the "big picture" setting. We agree with this and therefore are putting in more tools for the scenario designers as well as us the game designers. Again, these sorts of things will vary from game release to game release, being either a more or less important part of the game. 13. Much finer detailing of terrain. This means a ton more flexibility in how maps look and how units interact with them. 14. Coupled with the above, we are including a lot more stuff for making more realistic looking scenarios. In a CMBO setting this might be stuff like telephone poles, previously wrecked tanks, far more rubble options, decorative bushes, haystacks, etc. These things may or may not have much value to the game play (wrecked tanks would, decorative bushes not so much), but the atmospheric affects will help out in a major way. Charles and I aren't changing our philosophy. CMx2 is being designed from the ground up to be an improved simulation of warfare, not an improved version of Combat Mission. Having said that, we aren't chucking things out of CMx1 just for the sake of doing something different. Things that worked well in CMx1 that can work well in CMx2 will stay in. Since a lot of what was in CMx1 worked well, a lot of it will be staying in. Other things will be in, though perhaps not in a way that is directly understood by the player. Some stuff is going to be abandoned in favor of totally new things which will not only replace the old feature but allow for a better game and/or sim experience. In the end CMx2 will be recognizable as being related to CMx1, much the way that an M1 Abrams is recognizable as an improvement of the M60, which in turn was an improvement over previous tank designs going all the way back to WWI. New enough?

Sick bastard. Using your own blood and taking piccies. Really. I much rather have the concussion/balloon effect from artillery.

Nooooo! Really hoped this would be sorted, firing on fixed lines is such an integral part of the HMGs role, that is a shame! </font>

Nietzsche/Sumac, Please do well to read the following statement below, posted more than a year ago by Steve. PBEM We want PBEM in. Very much so. We fully understand the importance of it. However, we might (and I stress MIGHT) run into technical issues that nix the feature. We don't think this will happen, but we don't want to promise something that we aren't very sure we can deliver. The whole problem with the previous debates is that people, emotionally, wanted us to promise that no matter what it will be in. And that is something we can not do. Remember, even if there is no PBEM there will still be TCP/IP, LAN, and Hotseat options. So the argument that no PBEM = no Human challenge is pure nonsense. It might not be the way some people want to play multi-player, but that isn't the same as saying the options do not exist at all. The majority of our players play solo. At least most of the time. Having said that, as I have said hundreds of times before, we understand that PBEM is an important part of the enjoyment for a significant (though minority) slice of our customer base. We do not wish to cut this feature any more than they do. But if we must cut it for technical reasons, we must. Sometimes a moment of clarity hits me and I can understand why telling lies is so routine in game PR as well as the rest of the world. And when I realize this I am tempted to give into the Dark Side. But I get over it and instead wind up wasting a few days yelling back at people who are yelling at me. Someday I'll get tired of it and lie instead. That day ain't here yet. Bolding mine. Now please rest the matter. Unite! We need another bone! That should be the battle cry instead. [ October 19, 2006, 02:28 AM: Message edited by: WineCape ]

Mmm, you have way to much time at your disposal correcting the nutters. We could direct your energy to more useful tasks, like, err, another bone, or somefink. Pretty please. I demand the surrender of educating the villagers in Bastogne. Nuts!

And the reason, given previous postings of Steve, why the Victory Conditions in CM:SF are way more fleshed out than the CM trilogy - a sine qua non so to speak for CM:SF enjoyment (and long time playability) given the USA's array of equipment at their disposal to sic the enemy out of existence.

Trying to keep this one page one, for obvious reasons Might as well increase the amount of players sparring with one another in the tourney, when CMC ships.

Ahem, you missed it you say. It was posted on the first page of this thread, what, a few hours ago. Sheesh. I might as well stop trying to inform the uninformed with my useless postings. Thanks anyway Tarkus.

This [long] post has been edited ...again. See first page, first post.

Where's the dude that did the simulation graphic titled 'Combat Mishuuuun' - the one where blood was spurting from a shot Axis soldier? He had imagination.

Knowledge. Never too old to require some.