Doug Williams

This might be a bit of a derail, but I'm finished with the Steam discussion, because I trust BFC to do what they think is best for the CM series. If they ever decide to sell CM on Steam, fine with me (I am on Steam), if not, fine with me (I can play games just fine without Steam). What I wanted to comment on is......is the median age of a "gamer" really 30 these days? Also, define "gamer"? Let's assume, for the sake of simplicity, that we are talking about "video games", and not cardboard games and/or pen&paper games. Do you mean the median age of all Steam users is 30? Or...do you mean the median age of all console + PC gamers is 30? I could almost believe the former, but certainly not the latter, since PC gaming requires a higher investment in hardware than console gaming. I'm also completely ignoring smart phone and tablet gaming. I find this fascinating. At the very high end of "video gaming" you probably have the flight sim guys who spend thousands of dollars on hardware. I would imagine that the median age of these guys is at least 40. At the low end, you have the 14 year old who's mom & dad bought him the latest console and a couple of games from Wal-Mart for his/her birthday.

If they carry any type of small arms, I consider them foot soldiers, once dismounted from whatever larger weapon/vehicle they were originally assigned to, and will use them as I see fit, since I am the commander of my troops. "This is my rifle, there are many like it, but this one is mine."

I would imagine that $50 (U.S. dollars) is not "quite a bit of cash" to most CM players. It's probably just equivalent to taking the wife out to dinner and a movie, or buying five decent novels that will be read in a few months, or buying some other computer game that we would play and be finished with in a month or two, and then delete. CM has been a bargain for me, in terms of entertainment value per week, ever since CMBO.

Well said, Sir.

PP, your logic is good, but please understand that BFC has considered all angles on this issue and have decided that Steam is not a good distribution method for their product at this time. No amount of argument in this thread is likely to change their minds. We all admire your devotion to CM. Welcome to the brotherhood.

SNAP!! Oh, now you done it! Yessss we are!

Snarre I actually understood that, and agree. Where are you from? I'm guessing English is not your first language.

"For a year" is no longer true, PP. It's unlimited now.

.....uh.....yeah.

No matter what we say, BFC will ultimately decide how their game is distributed. They have obviously considered the pros and cons of Steam and rejected it, at least for now. That's fine with me. I'm old school enough that I'm not bothered by downloading and manually installing exe's. When I first started playing computer games, they came on 5 1/4" floppies, and there was no interwebz. ;-) Their aggressive DRM is annoying, but I've come to accept it as a necessary evil, just like the copy protection schemes on those old floppies.

You might be right, Pelican Pal. Probably most of the type of "doodspeak" people I am referring to have long since moved on to console gaming, if they ever played PC games at all. The Steam crowd may be far more mature than I imagine. As I said, I don't socialize there.

Superlative idea, Lt Belenko. ;-) Seriously, great idea. I'm 100% behind this.

I think the comparing started when CoH players decided to start it. I very much doubt anyone on this forum would have ever thought to compare CM to CoH. CoH might be good fun, but it's nothing like CM. I enjoy playing Starcraft 2. Too bad I can't click fast enough to play against the people on the Starcraft servers. So I have to content myself with the AI and play on "slow" speed.

I have nothing against Steam, I do use it to buy games (though not for socializing), and I've never had a problem with it. With that said, I'm not too thrilled with the prospect of CM being sold on Steam, for what some may perceive as an "elitist" reason. Despite some of the threads I've seen and participated in on these forums, I feel that CM players, as a whole, are more mature, knowledgeable about things WW2, and prone to enjoy slow paced tactical games that require a lot of thought and planning than your average Steam user. I can see CM being released on Steam and, after the Twitch crowd tries it for ten minutes, comments such as "OMGWTF!? CM suxxorz. I Zerg rushed and lost all my DooDZ. Where are the power ups!?!"

What about power ups? :-)

That's kinda sad, Michael. Let me know if you want to try a CM PBEM, seriously. As for myself, my best guess it that 80-90% of my CM play is multiplayer (100% PBEM). Occasionally I will play against the AI, but that is rare. This doesn't hold true for other computer games, however. Most of them I play single player mode. I would like to play Starcraft 2 multiplayer, but it seems that everyone wants to play at Fastest speed, and I would much rather play at Slow. So basically I suck at Starcraft 2 and have to content myself with the AI.

I've probably played Baldur's Gate 1 & 2 at least three times all the way through. I've played Doom 3 all the way through two times. Currently on my second play through of the Panzer Corps campaign series. Takes a long time.....

The only thing I'm not looking forward to with 3.0 FI/BN is the Casualty markers in the UI. I hate those. If they must be introduced, give them an on/off toggle, please.

Has there been any official word from BFC regarding when we can expect the 3.0 upgrades for CMFI/CMBN? I'm hesitant to start new PBEMS if it's going to be in the next month or so.

I've never beaten it and I've tried at least six times. This thread makes me want to have another go, however.

CMBO demo did it for me. BTS/BFC and I have been married ever since, with a brief estrangement between the initial release of Shock Force and CMBN.

You have to actually *have* standards in order to lower them. ;-)

Good thread. Sorry, but I felt an overwhelming desire to post this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=np9tBI7_nq8

This is a good point. I confess I haven't been reading the BFC forums as often as I used to since the release of RT. Any idea how soon the V3 updates for CMBN/CMFI might be released? I might hold off on starting any more PBEMs if it's going to be "soon".

I tend to keep 4 to 6 PBEMs going, and I tend to stick with opponents who can do a turn a day. As slysniper pointed out, I can manage doing 6 turns in around a hour when I get home from work. On weekends, I wish I had more games going, but it just wouldn't be a good idea Mon-Fri.