Sloth

Hi, For any admin who reads this: You need to fix the descriptors that come up when someone searches on 'battlefront' or 'combat mission' on google. In both cases the battlefront site comes up in the #1 position in search results, but it looks like a web security company site and not a site that has anything to do with combat mission or other games. Two examples of searches on google.com.au and the results are shown below. Search on 'battlefront' gives the following result Battlefront.com - 10:49pmOpen Source PHP Anti Hacker - An open source web security system that enhances the security of your web platform. www.battlefront.com/ - Cached - Similar Search on 'combat mission' gives the following result Open Source PHP-Anti-Hacker - 10:49pmOpen Source PHP Anti Hacker - An open source web security system that enhances the security of your web platform. www.battlefront.com/ - Cached - Similar

A nice welcome wagon for any allied raiding party

Steam annoys me quite a bit, but one questionably useful thing it does do is record how many hours you spend playing a game. You can also see how many hours your 'friends' spend playing. Thus whenever I want to bait a friend of mine, I threaten to reveal to his wife that he is up to 1260 hours playing team fortress 2. How is this relevant? Well for any game I particularly like I'll easily rack up over 100 hours. When I look at the entertainment cost per hour for the game it might be 20 or 30 cents. Compared to buying books, seeing movies, going to restaurants, working out at the gym it's cheap cheap cheap. If you look at the world this way then whether you are paying $10, $15 or $20 bucks for shipping is kind of immaterial. When I started buying video games in the mid-80's they cost $60 plus postage. This one costs about the same 25 years on, so in real terms it's waaay cheaper. You can agree with my perspective and be happy, or complain about the price and be grumpy. I prefer happy.

Like anything steam can be a mixed blessing. From Australia it will often download at only 15kbs for hours at a time. If the client is not co-operating, which happens sometimes, then you can't access your single-player games - very frustrating. Even more frustrating if you have to re-install the client because you then have to also re-install all your games - re-downloading 5-6 games at slow download rates is a real pain. So sounds good as a friend finder, but it's performance in this part of the world sounds pretty different to what it is in the US.

Hi, I Just pre-ordered a copy. When I got to the end of the process where it showed all my details and asked for final confirmation, my country (Australia) wasn't shown in my address. So I had to cycle all the way back through the order process to check that my country was in fact in my address (it was). This is a minor thing, but as we know, anything that makes the order process hard will turn off some customers. Could you possibly fix it so country is shown on the final confirmation page? Before anyone tells me to go post this in the helpdesk page a) my experience with helpdesk has been mixed emailing is harder c) I know the owners read these forums thanks

this made my day

The fact that this threads title is true, is pretty unfortunate. The old tradeoff exists between telling people it will be released 'soon' (as at December 10th) and being wrong or telling people it will be released 'when it's ready', which sounds arrogant and contemptous to customers. Personally I think customers are more forgiving of the former, especially when people give updates explaining why delays have occurred. It brings customers along with you and makes them feel more part of the process. Now, rant completed, you can rely on me to send some fulsome praise, when this is released someday.

Mmmm . . . let me see, if I spend my frequent flyers going to Sydney for a game preview instead of a wedding anniversary present, then the seperation should occur about the time the game is released, giving me more free time to play. Which, if it's a great game could be worth it. Decisions, decisions.

ROFL (I understand that a monumental sig line can help to differentiate the quality of the poster, but Lanzfeld's reason is a lot more entertaining).

One vote for the real time pause feature post-release please. My friends don't have the patience for email or my expertise at non-stop real time, so this feature will be a good way to attract them to the game and sell a few extra copies.

Great post Erwin, especially the bit about verisimilitude, which supports my own prejudices I spent about a decade in the Australian Army including some time in Army Office, so your comments about procurement ring true. If approached by them its absolutely worth confirming that the person calling is from an area that has a clear mandate to do this work, as well as the budget. On the plus side the Aussie dollar is strong against the greenback right now, so their capacity to spend will be up a bit.

Pardon my ignorance, but do higher quality units do a better job of accurately spotting enemy? If so then some of this other stuff doesn't matter so much.

This seems to be the nub of the discussion. Better trained & experienced troops operate better on the battlefield & troop quality is vitally important. The game already simulates this to some extent with less experienced troops less likely to fire and more likely to rout. However less well trained troops DO take longer to assess what's happening and react. A better trained group WILL be better at seizing fleeting opportunities and moving quickly, not because they are faster runners etc. but simply because they are better at understanding what's going on around them and operating appropriately as a team. I do struggle to understand those folks who argue that this isn't a factor in battle but can absolutely see that the time/effort required to implement a system could be too great. Having something along the lines of having no delay on orders for the highest quality troops and a small amount (say 8 secs) for the worst quality, would be a significant gain - especially for real time gaming where delays of this length could have a significant impact. This might not be historically accurate but would be more accurate in modelling the impact of troop quality than not having something like this. (note I am talking about small unit quality not higher HQ command delay here). Given this discussion is really about game improvement tradeoffs, I suspect it would help if, in the fullness of time, Steve could give some advice around the tradeoffs (i.e. "guys, you can have a command/experience delay system, or you can have A,B & C - which do you think is more important?"). Having now stated something that has probably been covered in many other threads, I'll shut up.

Hi all, A few thoughts 1. The starting point for considering command delays is to consider what you are trying to simulate (or even if you are aiming for a sim or a game). The problem with command delays here arises because: a) command delays are absolutely crucially important if you are a HQ. For CM this probably applies to company HQ and definitely battalion HQ. If you are trying to simulate a battalion commander's experience of an attack then delays in changing initial orders are crucial. As an officer I found delays were also important in planning as co-ordinating an attack so that things arrived together was key. For more senior HQ it becomes essential. The ability to go through the sequence of observing, orienting, deciding and acting quickly was a key to German success at the operational level in early parts of WWII. Degrading the enemies ability to do this is the goal of command and control warfare these days. They are also a nice way to model the benefits of better troop training (e.g. in CMX1 they were a key difference between conscript, regular, elite troops etc. c) but the command delay makes much less sense at the section/squad & platoon levels. At these levels responses are drive much more by IA's (Immediate Actions), SOP or whatever you wish to call them. This particularly applies to first-contact and run away type drills. So, is combat mission more a game about battalion command or tactical firefights, pretty toys etc? Ideally you could have two seperate games (or even one multiplayer game with different levels of command), but in the absence of this you have to settle for one. I think it is the latter. If it were a battalion command game you would absolutely have delays as well as fuller planning orders set for your subordinate units, boundarys between units, primary & secondary objectives etc. etc. I would love to play this game. However I also love the tactical firefight stuff where you can manage the individual vehicles. Humans get a lot of satisfaction out of controlling things and a game that reduces that control is usually less enjoyable. Being able to manouevre realistic vehicles and troops over realistic terrain is, on balance, probably more fun than acting as battalion commander in BHQ. This means that any delay system would need to be optional as it wouldn't provide the game some folks are looking for. With all that said, on balance I quite liked the delay system in CMX1. Yes it meant some road moves were slow, but it really brought out the flavour of better trained/experienced troops being more effective on the battlefield, while forcing you to use conscipts for simpler, less active work. Wego doesn't really replicate this. I would have thought the realism advantage of Wego over realtime is that wego allows more realistic consideration of what 20-30 units would have time to think about rather than having one human reacting to everything in realtime. Finally one question - will there be delays in calling in indirect fire in CM:N? I gather there is no command delay for on map units?

I'll stake my optimistic claim by picking Jan 26th! Anyone else want to pick a date? If Michael Emrys was able to pick it then he'd really have something to brag about in his signature block. So pick a date and let's see what the consensus guess is. 'Vaporware' is still a valid option, but undefined dates like 'after Duke Nukem Forever' is completed ain't

"I can't see any good reason why screenshots and videos/aar's shouldn't be pouring out of the Battlefront PR machine right now. Many companies start their marketing efforts years (or at least "a" year) before release, and posting these things is free for the company!" My guesses for reasons are: a: Staff are focussed on finishing the game rather than promoting it (in a small company people often have multiple jobs). b: There's a lot less need to create a buzz. If you are putting out another FPS with great eye candy, then you need to make a lot of noise to sell it because it's a crowded market and two other FPS will be out this month. For a product like CM:N there's a lot less competition in the market and a niche dedicated audience, so less need to promote. The sales profile is more likely to be a slow burn rather than big bang. c: Not having a good idea on completion date. To build a buzz you need to know when you are going to launch. Given this game is taking years longer than the initial estimates and it isn't being developed to any particular release date, then it would be unwise to spend the effort creating a buzz and then have it fade away as development times take longer and longer. I also imagine some games reviewers would be more interested in taking a look at a game that is due to come out 'next month' than one that will come out 'when it's ready / we don't know'.

Mmm. . . I read the start of the thread "All we're saying at this point is 2009, sooner is better for everybody than later. We're saying sometime in 2009, that's all at the moment. Progress is going very well" If we deleted 09 and inserted 10 do you think it would be accurate?

Not sure if Severin is still around but the prediction below made over 3 years ago about release date proved right (please excuse my clunky quoting). Assuming the game will take another year is a good idea because you may be pleasantly surprised, whereas assuming 'next month' leads to a lot of monthly disappointments. Seriously though, if it is going take at least several months more then Battlefront should just say this. Saying "when it's ready" gives people absolutely no idea whether it is weeks or half a year away and is a form of non-communication that can come across as being smug, even though it is not intended that way. I fully understand why people shouldn't commit to a specific date FOR release, but there is zero harm in saying 'it WON'T be ready for at least x months'. That would save me having to check forums in the meantime 05-18-2007, 10:25 PM Severin Member Join Date: Mar 2006 Posts: 64 CMSF was announced Oct 8 2005. That makes it about 21 months from announcement to release. I'm going on record as saying the US will probably have a new president before CMx2 WW2. __________________ And Iran, Iran so far away

June 6: Maiden Voyage Anniversary The church describes this holiday thus: "Each year the annual Maiden Voyage event, commemorating the anniversary of New OT VIII, has come to be one of the most important gatherings of dedicated Scientologists and an opportunity for senior Church officials to meet and work directly with these parishioners to advance their religion. Scientologists who attend this annual spiritual cruise become “OT Ambassadors” and initiate programs to help Scientologists all over the world advance the aims of Scientology and to reach the top of the Bridge at New OT VIII.[1]." June 6th release - is battlefront a front for something else? (I now prepare meekly to be admonished in the best tradtions of US political correctness)

Why would they release a game on Bjorn Borg's birthday? It's not a tennis game is it? I propose February 29th as the official release date.

Are we there yet? are we?

4.5 is perhaps a bit harsh, but I have no problem with gamespot reviewing the game from a 'gaming' cf simulation perspective. I've been computer wargaming for almost 25 years, bought all 3 CMX1 games and played extensively, but after playing thru the CMSF campaign - it's just not fun!! Pretty much every scenario has you beating up against weaker forces defending in open country from trenches/buildings. There's no sneaking, no particularly even stoushes and a victory condition of 'destroy the enemy without losing more than 10-20% of your own forces' just isn't fun compared to the WWII 'take the village at all costs'.

Wow! A review, that pretty much sums up my experience with this game so far. Written for insiders who know the earlier games, and pretty much on the money IMHO.

Question from a tightarse. The promo says $10 off for pre-order, but you can only pre-order to receive digital download PLUS the mailed versions - for $45 plus postage (which comes to about $61 for me). How much will the digital download only option be once the game is released? Apologies if I missed this somewhere, but couldnt find answer on thread or site. Deluxe owners have pity on my scroogedness