sfhand

You are treading on dangerous philosophical ground here...

Hopefully any implimentation of Command Delays will be optional in WEGO and locked into RT... All joking aside, both sides in a 2 player game play by the same rules so I see no unfair advantage in any of this [edit: as currently implimented with no command delay]. In wego, if something dire happens in the first few seconds, there is a built in time delay and if it happens at the end of the turn there is none. To add a time delay to this situation seems nuts to me.

Well... I've seen and played lot of CMSF QB maps that use the same formula as the CMx1 meeting engagement maps and I have enjoyed every minute of it... I must be a gamey bastage.

Very entertaining so far... aside from the new screenies the entertainment factor is mostly because of JonS's actions which I am having a hard time understanding. I'm not talking about the other thread, btw, just what I'm seeing here; I don't understand why he would take actions that reveal his units prior to them raining death on your guys. I can't wait to read his explanation for this.

My interest in tank riding troops is not historical. Many pbem scenarios are meeting engagements. The purpose, for me, of these multiplayer games is not to simulate history as much as it is to create a tactical challenge for both myself and my opponent. An ability to mount otherwise unmounted troops would get them to the point of contention more quickly and in better condition(note: I'm not advocating driving them into firezones). Personally I'd rather see this feature than some others currently in discussion on the board, but I understand I'm just one of many and my livelihood doesn't depend on the production choices being made. As I've said before, I'm glad BF is making the game and I'm sure I will love it when it's released.

Two things I've learned about CMSF in the last 24 hours as a direct result of replay. 1) in twilight/dusk conditions British troops will launch AT weapons at their own misidentified vehicles. (strange behavior because it sees the unit with a blue icon, perhaps a bug?) 2) Syrian rpgs sometimes shoot duds. (I'm sure my opponent hopes this is a bug as well...) I wouldn't know either of these facts had I not had replay. (this post more about the value of replay than CMSF which is why I'm posting it here)

Careful guys, you're undermining Steve's hypothesis that WEGO players are the control freaks in the room...

I was pretty sure that no one, and I mean no one, here thought I was expressing opinions or views for anyone but myself One doesn't have to look far in these forums to find rt players who hit pause, yes in single player, everytime a gunshot goes off that they can't see. One doesn't have to look far to find players in these forums who play rt who say that as soon as they hear the sound of an atgm they hit pause, find the targetted vehicle and back it out of harms way. The part about the black box and graphical representation wasn't in response to wego vs rt, btw, it was in response to someone insinuating that playing as a battalion comander was the purest form of play. And I'm sure you wouldn't recall our earlier discussions on this as I am just another mostly silent voice here, but I'm a wego player that doesn't micromanage to the extent you seem to think is popular. I have asked for moveable waypoints so I can take advantage of terrain in a realistic manner, but I don't plan and have my units perform elaborate movement and targetting orders like one can find in the tips and tactics sub forum. So it's hard for me to relate to your representation of wego players since it doesn't fit my playstyle. But I do like to know how the squad I sent in that building got fried, if for no other reason than I'm the guy who sent them there...

For me the reason for this is simple, I can play pbem or hotseat and get the replay (the payoff of replay far outweighs the "hassle" of file management with pbem for me). So when given a choice of playing with situational awareness or without I will choose with every time.

Good luck getting those who think wego players are more inclined to control than rt players to alter their view. They don't understand that giving orders and then watching them unfold without an ability to intercede is letting go. And if I'm going to give orders and then have no ability to intercede I would very much like to know how things went prior to issuing new orders. For it to be any other way would make the graphical representation of the game meaningless. I'm quite sure I'll love the game regardless of the situation with wego tcp/ip. But I will never use it. I would be excited about its inclusion if I thought it was an evolutionary step toward wego tcp/ip with replay, a feature I would use, but alas it isn't. Who knows, it may be an evolutionary step toward rt tcp/ip with user controlled pauses, which is something I would at least be open to trying. But, as I've said ad nauseum, situational awareness is the most important part of the game, otherwise bring on the black box and save a bunch of development time.

+100 for sendthisfile

Wow, we are miles apart on this... for me the most important feature of the current PBEM and CMx1 TCP/IP WEGO is the replay. The replay is what allows me to have full situational awareness, I can be zoomed in close enough to see the action in different areas of the map with replay rather than trying to remember which icons were flashing while trying to watch the entire battlefield at once. So it's not that I'm not thinking it through when I say I'd rather have other features, flamethrowers, troops riding tanks, moveable waypoints, than to invest time in a WEGO TCP/IP solution that doesn't move you any closer to WEGO TCP/IP with replay (if I understood your description of what you're going to put in).

I'd rather see features like tank riding infantry and moveable waypoints than tcp wego without playback. In fact, as one who only plays wego, I'd be more inclined to play tcp rt over tcp wego without playback because both would have the same level of situational awareness yet one would offer a chance to stop/reduce the damage sooner should I manage to notice it. In all reality I'll stick to pbem rather than play the other ways because watching all of what is happening is part of my enjoyment of the game.

Yeah, I just saw that thread, however, I'm not waiting any longer than it takes to email a turn or pass a memory stick so it's all good for me (wego/tcp always made me feel nervous which led to bad decisions so I don't miss it at all). Frankly, I'm in the even-smaller-minority that wants moveable waypoints way before I'd want a feature that is really only 1/2 a feature. It is important to note that I am not complaining, I'm only feeling Love for BF these days.

It's probably just me, but there's no way I'm crushed over the lack of a feature that is really only 1/2 of a feature... I mean, WEGO TCP/IP with no replay? Seriously? What is the point? PBEM with a memory stick makes more sense on a LAN and vanilla PBEM makes more sense on the internet (at least according to me!). Heck, I'd rather play hotseat than WEGO with no replay (I've played hotseat before, it's really not too shabby).

The crop circles are a dead give-away. While Steve has seemed forthcoming about the BF roadmap, the crop circles are evidence he has been hiding something. Apparently CM:SL will be a fictional invasion set on the planet earth. Mutilated cattle and tinfoil hats will also be modeled. They probably haven't announced yet due to internal disagreement about the time period - WW2 or Modern.

That's a fair point... it reminds me of that line from "Sixth Sense". "They believe what they want to believe, most of them don't even know they're dead." I'm not going to dust-off any bookmarks to remind you of your small part in this phenomenon. Right now I'm just really happy that you guys keep on truckin', year in and year out, making and supporting great games that are clearly the best of their genre.

Firstly, I hope you had/are having a great Holiday. Merry Christmas (if you observe it)! Truly CM is your passion and not just a job (the only reason I can see for your posting at this time), so despite the huge amount of time you spend working on it I'm hopeful that you find it mostly satisfying at worst and exciting at best. This is not an important question, even to me, but I am intrigued by your mentioning CM:SF 3. Is that a typo? Did you mean CMx3? I assume, probably a bad idea, that at some point you have plans to put the CMx2 engine down (it will be a somber affair I'm sure). If that is the case, no doubt you will have a CMx3 engine lined up to take its place. (of course, you might be able to slowly morph CMx2 into CMx3 due to it's modular nature, not being a software engineer I really have no clue) My only remaining question would be, do you care to make a far-into-the-future-prediction-that-has-no-positive-payoff-accompanied-by-plenty-of-negative-side-effects-should-your-prediction-prove-to-be-less-than-100%-accurate estimate of what CMx3 might look like? Oh, and when is it getting its own forum?

One important point being overlooked in this discussion is that colors look different on different computers. A friend and I were playing a game on a lan, we were both in the same room, and a buddy walked in and didn't realize we were playing the same game because the colors looked so different on our machines. My wife is in the design business and has asked to look at some of her stuff on my machine occasionally for this reason. So, the feldgrau you're objecting too might look spot-on on a lot of other people's machines... out of curiosity, the following link leads to a sample of field grey, will everyone or anyone agree that this is the right color? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Variations_of_green#Feldgrau

Ummm... and the A-10 isn't officially a Warthog either.

Well Joe, since I've always maintained I'm not a grog, this has been somewhat of an epiphany for me. This being the first peng thread in this forum, it needs a disturbing element to keep a certain level of continuity with peng-threads-past (a Dickensonian tribute).

I hate to be a Gilligan's Island grog, but it's Mary Ann... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mary_Ann_Summers

Things worth having are things worth waiting for. Happy Holidays!!!

Which rules out the next title being named Combat Mission: Beyond Normandy... (not that it was ever going to be named that) Thanks for the great surprise, BF! Happy Holidays!

I don't think I've misunderstood when Steve has explained the difference between modules and games. I'm pretty sure he's said the difference was the game engine wouldn't, as a rule, have features added to it during module development, which is why I suggested that enhancing the engine wouldn't interfere with module development because they now have two coders (which came in handy with the development of a new game - CM:A - and a module - Nato -). It seems clear that while a new game is being developed both coders would be busy on the task at hand (CM:N), and you have confirmed this. But once the game is developed the modules, by my understanding of Steve's comments, would take less coding because modules are based more on new content rather than new engine features. So, I'm sticking to the big trade off being feature development, i.e., the time normally spent on feature development for a new game would be spent on porting the code to x64 multi-core.