MHertogh

Do vehicles provide cover (meaning will they stop bullets) when the soldiers are running out of their striker? I understand that LOS is not broken by vehicles which is OK as you can imagine if people see a striker pull up, hear the doors open and hear boots hitting dirt that well there are soldiers coming out. I just want to know if the bullets are stopped by the vehicles. I have searched the forums and have seen conflicting info, and most of it was old data. Thanks [Edited to remove typos Twice ] [ July 27, 2007, 02:04 AM: Message edited by: MHertogh ]

Do vehicles provide cover (meaning will they stop bullets) when the soldiers are running out of their striker? I understand that LOS is not broken by vehicles which is OK as you can imagine if people see a striker pull up, hear the doors open and hear boots hitting dirt that well there are soldiers coming out. I just want to know if the bullets are stopped by the vehicles. I have searched the forums and have seen conflicting info, and most of it was old data. Thanks [Edited to remove typos Twice ] [ July 27, 2007, 02:04 AM: Message edited by: MHertogh ]

I'm leaning towards WeGo. As Lt Bull said Wego has its advantages, Two most important for me are time needed to act on a plan and the replay to see all aspects of the battlefield. While you can get good enough in RT to act intellegently under time constraints, since there is no replay in RT I think it will take me a while to see the advantage of RT. So I vote WEGO! While I will definatly try out RT. Ask again in one month!

I would not expect reviews to give detailed explainations of in what cases something did not work. Most people, even trained QA, do not know WHY or in what specfic case something goes wrong, they just say it is broken. This happened to me just the other day QA Bug report. "This bug is hard to reproduce but it has happened three times in the past 2 days" Then it went on to explain the bug... After hours of research I find the problem. it turns out it would only if they had a certain subscreen open and operating then experienced an event that shut down that screen. Then previous event cleared, and the user opened the identical screen again. Then when they attempted to click on a button it crashed. That is a heck of a big difference from "This bug is hard to reproduce but it has happened three times in the past 2 days". They where testing something else that caused that particular sequence of events to happen 3 times in 2 days. It turned out that that code was 2 years old and they had just never encountered that bug yet. This is all to say, Just because the reviewer gave a broad statement, does NOT mean that it is actauly true. I'm not saying I am not a bit worried, but heck I pre-ordered, I will find out Saturday or Sunday if it was a waste of cash. I am willing to bet it will become just as near and dear to my heart as teh original WWII games from Battlefront. Marc

Wow. I thought we had too few with StarFleet Command and we had about 5 programmers and 3 artists. Most were full time on the project (it was one Senior Graphics programmer and four guys for whom it was their first game, but still I am impressed. That is indeed a skeleton crew. Marc

True... but movies have natural motion blurring that does not occure when sampling a video image from the frame buffer. In order to simulate this effect the capture device/program would actually need to capture all frames and then average the extra frames together. This would approximate the blur of a movie. If not, video captured this way will look very choppy even if the source is smooth as silk. Marc

I have a bad feeling about this.

I don't have ti nor was I a beta tester, but in the orignal CM games they had a manual based tutorial. Their was a mission named Tutorial and the manual took you through it step by step. I think that it is is better in someways than interactive tutorials because you are forced to read and try. Leading to faster comprehension most of the time. Lets hope at least that is done in this game. Marc

So are you. No he didn't. Did he tell you? either way it does not matter. Yes, I think so...it has been a while but I think the answer is yes. Not true. Not even close. Actually that result has no proof at all for either side of the argument. Most games generate a "random" seed at the begining of a sequence. You usually use time as the input. Hence you use a standard Random number generator and use time as a seed and violia you have different results because they where generated at different TIMES. You can also get different results if you use truely random numbers (non deterministic numbers that is). So the example is worthless. You are interpeting an effect that can be caused by many things. And so there is your answer. So if you can share the result with the other machine, you just make that the replay data. If you can share it with another machine in real-time, which according to your answer they do, then the data stream is going to be so small as to be easily streamable to your hard drive as well. Done. The real reason they did not include replay has already been discovered. Steve said it himself above. It would take more time. They have used a LOT of time making this game as acurate as possible. They have shown in the past that their attention to detail in the simulation itself is their forte. That detail is what people are paying for, not the replay, so they push all of their efforts into what makes them stand out.

No one would create a non-deterministic random number generator for a game that is supposed to be multi-player. Why would you go through the effort to generate truely random numbers if you need two machines playing the game to have the same results? If you answer this next question you will find your answer. If you get two machines to play a game in real time where both are generating truely random results, how can you make sure the same thing happens on both machines?

Like I said before I agree that it would have taken 1-2 extra months. And I said I was bummed it was not in, but I still pre-ordered, and I don't regret it over just full replay. I worked for a small game developer myself (I was lead prog on the entire line of Starfleet Command games). And we had to cut features left and right to get the product out the door. I just disagreed with the initial explaination of why. Just like other folks here catch each other on points of historical accuracy, I can't stand to hear stuff like pseudo random numbers are hard to mimic on two machines. Ok I guess too much typing has been wasted on this subject... Just wating for the 26th...

More often comprehending is the issue. </font>

Are you implying I did not read that part? I did, and thus called Shenanigans (a South Park Reference meant to convey that I don't believe the explanation is 100% accurate while also implying that I am not taking it too seriously). What I am saying is if they can make this game a multiplayer game...they can save it off. There is no more simple way to say it. Ok I will try A) If you have the ability to let two different machines play this game in a way that you feel is fair to both players, then you must have a way for both machines to be able to stay synch'ed up. If A is true you must have a way to store it to disk as any other method of transferring the data to the other machine is many times SLOWER than a hard drive. So if streaming to the hard drive is slow, god help them if they want to transfer it to the internet. Heck there is not even a C to this argument. The only complaint can be that the files are huge, but heck you can just let the user use a zip program to tighten them up. [Edit] OOps finished before I wanted to. Like I said in my original post I'm sure they could be done it, but it would have added perhaps a month or two to the project. They mention it too in the last part of the msg where they said maybe they will look into this. later but they did not have time. I'm a bit bummed because way back when they started this that was one of the things they said they would add to the new engine. I had assumed it was in there. Bummer. I guess people will be force to use FRAPS to show off the game to friends. [ July 19, 2007, 04:15 PM: Message edited by: MHertogh ]

But by far not deterministic enough for game-replay. Think of the tremendously complex and non-deterministic cache, the register contents, the differing clock and clock-drifts and last but not least, the highly non-deterministic scheduler with non-deterministic c-tasks, sempaphores and so on. Simply impossible. It's difficult enough to build a deterministic hard-realtime system. </font>

I cry Shinanigins! If you have multiplayer WeGo you just need to stich together all of the turns. Or are you saying E-mail WeGo does not work either. In WeGo you either have one CPU crunch the numbers and send the result to the other (meaning you can store the result) or you have both machines crunching the numbers at the same time (which I beleave or Original games do) which means that the two machines do process the data the same way. Also in RT If one machine acts as the host then the data they are spewing is not going to be over 400kbps which can pretty easily be streamed to hard drive as it is streaming it to the net which little slowdown on most modern machines. Now I can beleave that you guys just did not want to put forth the engineering effort to make it work, and if you did I am sure this game would be shipping a month or two later than now but please don't say it is impossible or there is only one way to do something. MHertogh p.s. I love you guys but I still have to call shinanigans when I see it.

I realize I made one pretty big assumption I assumed that Paradox itself was releasing all of their orders. If this is not the case and like you guys said it was just a few stores mssing up and shipping early then, of course I understand. Heck I will understand if you can't release early even if it is true that the flood gates have been released and Pre-Order people get hosed (which actually happens more often than not, which is why I rarely pre-order anything) Thanks for your time. Marc

Dear devs at BattleFront, Don't let the folks that purchased directly through you get a bum deal. We paid the money, we paid more for the manual and you get the entire cut. Now others are getting the game now and playing before us, that is not right. While I understand you may not have the facility to ship us the manual and disk immediately, you have the unique ability to open up the direct download aspect of the product, and luckily since all pre-orders included the download option, everyone who ordered through you will get the benifit. One of the main reasons I buy your products is that as a former game programmer myself, I want to support small independent developers. Please do what small companies can do best.. improvise and change your plans in a quick and effcient manner. Marc

Not to get into a full on flame war here but this is so wrong. I have seen many reviews of Dx10 cards and I keep seeing issues mentioned with the latest ATI cards. And while they have improved their intial drivers a lot, when it was first released it was horrible. I have had both cards over the years but ATI is really flagging now, and it does not make it easier when the company gets bought by another. All drivers have bugs. But they are buggy in different areas, it seems that nVidia has a Vista 64 problem with their latest and greatest card (so it has the least amount of testing). In time I'm sure it will be fixed, either because a big company will need it fixed, or over time they will react to complaints from smaller companies. Oh and BTW, how do we know if ATI has a problem with Viata-64 with their latest card.. Does a tester actually have that setup? If you check out the statistics of people playing Source games you will see that hardly anyone actually owns a ATI HD 2900. Sorry to derail this slightly but that comment seemed to be 100% fanboy based. Some sources (just did a quick google) http://www.elitebastards.com/cms/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=432&Itemid=29&limit=1&limitstart=3 Quote from above "Sadly, this is where things begin to go awry for ATI from the very start - While NVIDIA's drivers show no rendering issues with this title, firing up the game in DirextX 10 mode on any Radeon HD 2000 graphics board gives horrible corruption for all in-game text, making any menu screens unreadable. It appears from looking around the World in Conflict beta forum that this issue will be addressed by a forthcoming patch, but once again we find ourselves in a very disappointing situation where ATI's DirectX 10 hardware isn't currently able to fully enjoy its capabilties on account of driver or developer relations issues. Despite this issue, we managed to work around the problems to deliver results for our two ATI boards by basically memorising the layout of menus to make our way around and run the benchmark - Thankfully, the actual rendering of the benchmark and game itself (text aside) is without, issue, so we can at least get an early indicator of performance under these boards from this." http://enthusiast.hardocp.com/article.html?art=MTM1MSw2LCxoZW50aHVzaWFzdA== QUote from aboves conclusion "The Bottom Line We hoped newer driver revisions would improve performance on the ATI Radeon HD 2900 XT. With the newer driver we used for this evaluation we did not see any “magic” happen when it comes to real world gaming experiences at resolutions at and above 1600x1200. The ATI Radeon HD 2900 XT is not even a match for even the much less expensive and much less power hungry 320 MB GeForce 8800 GTS." http://www.dailytech.com/article.aspx?newsid=7052 [Edited from initial post to be a little less fanboyish on my side.. Hey we are only human] [ July 17, 2007, 10:06 AM: Message edited by: MHertogh ]

Wow, that is scary news I had thought the graphics had glitches I sure hope I don't have to reboot every half hour... Would kind of suck for Multi-player wouldn't it? As a Vista-64 8800 gtx owner...that pre-ordered this non returnable game.... I hope it was only your system. Marc p.s. Hey Battlefront devs, you need to include more beta testers for this very reason. If nothing else just to have better coverage on compatibility issues. Why don't you send mine over now so I can help you out...

Alright Rune.... because of you .... I pre-ordered. Ok now if I can only convince my Supreme Commander friends to buy it. I guess I will have to show it off at the next LAN party. By then, perhaps I can pressure them to by the direct download version then and there. ...So... When are you guys going to support more players than 2? Marc

As I was writing my initial post I was wondering if this feature was in the drivers. I vaugely recall seeing it once and wondering why anyone would use it... now I know why. Ok that is cool. I was seriously considering moving to Vista 32, but as long as it works acceptably with little back and forth.. I guess I will take the plunge. Thanks for you info folks. I guess I will be laying this and Guitar Hero II 80's edition come Late July! Marc

To Rune or anyone else with 8800 GTX and running Vista 64. NVidia has released new drivers... are you usinging them, and if so do hey cure the graphical issues with ths game? Also you said you needed to turn off shadows which is fine, but you also said you need to turn off a driver option. Could you clarify, I play Many other games besides CM, so I don't want to toggle low lever driver settings everytime I play, or is it something that is exposed in the video options of the game. I really want this game, but it is hard to drop $50 on a wish that it will work without more hassles than it is worth. Thanks, Marc

Ok guys I'm going to need a little resurance before I pull the trigger.... 1) I am using Vista-64bit with a 8800 gtx card anyone willing promise it will work? No I will not sue but I'll be mad if I fork over the money and I get a non refundable digital doorstop out o f the deal. Update: I don't mind having small graphical glitches, but I do want the developers to know Vista 64 exists and I hope they will strive to tweak things to get them to work. 2) eLiences..Um when I bought the previous games this did not exist.. I am a little worried about this, I like the fact I can rummage through my CD collection and pop in Combat Mission and I don't have to worry about eLience (Hmm I wonder if Combat mission will work on vista...). So is this a number I have to magic marker onto my disk, or is it a file I need to burn to another disc and pray it stays together? Anyway, Could some of you folks just give me a little push to because I really want this to work, but am a bit afraid because of the no return policy (and no I really don't want to wait for the demo ) Thanks again, Marc [ July 05, 2007, 03:38 PM: Message edited by: MHertogh ]

I was thinking that also(we-go vs Real time). I loved the we-go system in CM.. So will I prefer We-go, over real time... I think I will stick to we-go. But I will have to experiment to find out. Marc

Ok, Bummer, the WarGammer review mentioned random maps I thought, bummer. So that leaves me with one of the other questions then, plus now a bonus question. Any word on how bad the driver issue is (I recall in combat mission my ATI drivers had text issues that did not get resolved for ages). And two if there are no random maps, are there any simple maps like generic meeting egagement maps, or assault stuff where we get to choose our own weapons we bring, or will we be forced to bring only what the "historical" loadout should be. THanks, and of course any idea when we can pre-order? Mhertogh