76mm

Heh, I've always considered these to be small niche markets (granted with loyal followings), and that the Total War series was able to sell these games to a much bigger audience, but indeed maybe there are more samurai/knight nerds out there than I thought. I know that I didn't have much interest in these periods but greatly enjoyed the games.

Steve, While I agree with you to a certain extent, but I think that truly great games overcome any initial indifference or even opposition to the setting. Two examples which spring to mind are some of the Total War series and Madminute's civil war games. I don't think there were initially many gamers jonesing for a samurai or medieval warfare game, but the series got the balance right and they were a big hit and quite immersive (although rather simplistic). And while there is a big base of Civil War fans, I'm not one of them, but found MadMinute's games very enjoyable even though I have virtually zero interest in the Civil War. So I would say lack of interest in a particular theater or era is more of a "speedbump" than a "roadblock" to immersion.

I took my eyes off this thread for a few days and look where it goes. Wanted to respond to a couple of Steve's points: I think you're overstating this considerably. Most people aren't saying that no departures were warranted, they just aren't necessarily happy with the direction CMSF went. Can't speak for others, but I can put the departures from CMx1 that I dislike into four categories: 1) The more detailed 1:1 represention is fine in theory, but I don't think the TacAI is up to the task yet. It's certainly improved, and will further improve, but frankly I'm only hopeful (not certain) that all of the "immersion-killing" issues will get ironed out. That's where this discussion devolves into a debate about game design. 2) Game features, such as detailed post-battle unit reporting, full-featured quick battles, many terrain/unit/fortification types, etc. have been left out of CMSF. Much of this is understandable in the first iteration of the new engine, but I think BFC tries too hard to justify many of these exclusions because they are not "relevant" to CMSF or to games in general, and that they are simply archaic holdovers from CMx1 that BFC sees no need to address. Maybe I'm the only person to miss these features, and maybe I don't have any good reason to miss them, but miss them I do, to the extent that they are a significant reason why I don't play CMSF anymore. 3) Still haven't clicked with the interface, but maybe this is a personal thing and I'll probably get used to it at some point. 4) I'm not interested in modern warfare, but understand why BFC went in that direction for this game and am certainly not bitter about it or anything. Huh? I don't think anyone's looking for a "perfect representation of the real world", just something "good enough". What constitutes "good enough" is obviously a matter of personal opinion, and while CMSF has achieved this goal for many, for many others it has not. What "valid line of reasoning" do I need to say that I don't like playing CMSF (or anyone number of other computer games out there)? And I continue to struggle to understand Steve's continued threats to ban Dorosh. I think his comments about the game are thoughtful and well-reasoned, even if you don't agree with them. While Dorosh occasionally throws the personal barb, Steve responds in kind, which I believe costs him the "moral high ground". [ March 31, 2008, 07:31 PM: Message edited by: 76mm ]

Great examples. This kind of thing kills interest for me, because as Ken says, it makes it painfully obvious that I'm just struggling to manipulate complex code to get it to do what I want rather than participating in a "battle".

C3K, I totally agree with you. If I recall correctly, Dorosh started a long thread on this, or a similar topic, a few months ago. The "why the hell are they doing that?" moments occur with much greater frequency in CMSF, due chiefly to the higher level of graphical detail, but also to the continuing ironing out of TacAI routines (which is understandable).

Yeah, this is another of the irritating (to me) deletions from CMx1, along with the additional ability to see which units killed what. Frankly, this small thing really takes out a lot of interest in the game for me...I want to see who did well, who didn't, who got that mystery kill?

I can live with that, but we gotta have partisans...and mounted cossacks...and female snipers.

Kellysheroes, you're being kind of a nut. the amount of content included in CMBO, CMBB, and CMBO were an aberration, probably never, ever, ever, to be seen again in the history of computer games. view it as a one-time gift from the boys at battlefront and move on. i've got some issues with the module system as well, but certainly have no problem paying a reasonable price for additional quality content. my main concern is that even after all modules are out we'll end up with about 10% of the content included in CMBB, for example.

Heh, I understood the distinction you were making and agree, but the problem is inevitably that one man's chrome is another man's flavor.

Yes, I played and enjoyed ASL back in the day, and never played Firefight. Why? Because it looked BORING...generic units and basic maps don't interest me. Don't understand what this is supposed to mean? Actually agree with you here...it got kind of crazy after awhile. I don't want "a simulation of modern combat stripped to it's basics." I want a realistic game which provides an immersive experience with as many of the chaotic elements of real warfare as possible. And I can suffer through LOS checks because to me interesting terrain is one of the key elements in making a tactical situation interesting. You can dispense with LOS checks altogether by playing a tactical game on a chessboard, but I beg to differ if you think this allows you to focus on "developing realistic tactics". I disagree. Actions playable on "simple and boring maps" represent a very tiny fraction of the types of tactical battles I'd like to play. In CMBB, I regularly play battles in forest, farmland, towns, villages, cities, steppe, hills, night, day, snow, rain, heat, etc. And that's how I like it. Don't tell me I should learn how to enjoy myself playing on the same generic map over and over and over again... If you like chess and go, I encourage you to play them. I find them quite boring, and we're talking about something completely different here. This is a very patronizing statement. In fact, ASL geeks like to take the tools that the designers give them and provide themselves with endless hours of entertainment, rather than playing the same scenarios over and over again, placing rifle squad A in location X instead of Y, etc. Again, a very patronizing statement. ASL is not popular because of the "packaging". It is popular because it allows players to create a huge--practically infinite--variety of interesting, challenging, FUN, tactical situations.

Battlefront's approach to CMSF thus far seems to be to include stuff that "usually" happens in battles of the represented scope. This is perhaps natural in a new engine, and the last seven patches have properly been focused on getting these fundamentals right. In many cases Steve has said that feature X or Y is desired, but they have not had time to implement it. Totally understandable and no big deal. But in too many cases the response is that a certain feature hasn't been included because it is "outside the scope" of the game or "doesn't occur in real combat", etc. While ASL probably represents one end of the spectrum with all of its quirky capabilities and functions, I think CMSF has gone too far to the other end of the spectrum. Frankly, I haven't touched the game in months, and have only played sparingly at all, but I found the game to be a rather tedious exercise in firepower (things like troops in buildings getting wiped out by small arms fire, etc.) and devoid of the "little things" that make combat such a fascinating and unpredictable affair. It is one thing to quibble about particular features, but to me a tactical wargame which leaves out so much (rivers, foxholes, barbed wire, slopes passable to infantry but not vehicles, prisoners, etc., etc., etc.) just seems awfully sterile. The niggling bugs and feeling that I was fighting with the interface to get troops to do what I wanted didn't help (sounds like many have been fixed in recent patches, but I wouldn't know). Admittedly, much of my boredom with CMSF probably stems from the subject matter and contemporary warfare in general (which is probably to a larger extent than earlier periods a tedious exercise in firepower) rather than the engine itself, but to me the constant justifications for keeping features out and the very narrow focus of the games/modules are not an encouraging sign. To repeat for the umpteenth time, I have no problem with the module concept, but I hope that future games and modules are a bit more expansive than what we've seen so far.

Sorry, YD, missed Omenowl's request and besides am kinda cranky today.

I presume from the smiley that you're joking about Dorosh "deserving" to be banned. While Dorosh is certainly opinionated, and his opinions often seem to differ from yours, I find that his posts are thoughtful and civil. Your threat to "enforce" the banning policy a few months ago kinda struck me the wrong way, even if you haven't banned anyone since then... And no, I am not Dorosh's alt! [ March 06, 2008, 05:07 AM: Message edited by: 76mm ]

Ummm, I'm not sure what post you're responding to, but I think it is abundantly clear that I am asking for snow in one of the WWII modules, regardless of whether it was actually on the ground in the Bulge. Has someone asked for snow in the Mideast game, or did you misread the thread?

Dorosh, Many good points raised about unit capabilities, I fully agree with the thrust of your arguments.

Mainly weather--snow, lack of leaves on trees, frozen rivers, which are tough to do in a June 44 setting. Yeah, I could probably make frozen rivers out of pavement tiles, etc., but I'd probably rather read a book. I'm looking for IMMERSION! And I'm not really concerned about having every single unit type represented, but all the common vehicles are kind of a must--like how about trucks?!. One of the things I don't like about CMSF is that there are basically two types of US vehicles--Strykers and M1A1s (I'm not suggesting to add laser hovercraft, but I find the limited choice, well, boring). Hopefully the terrain will be adequate for what you propose, although in addition to your list, I think that BFC needs to do something to better represent European cities/towns (not just the skins, but building types, etc.). And frankly, I could care less how much snow was on the ground during the Bulge--I mainly play fictional scenarios, and I want snow, dammit! Yeah, King Tigers, great...as mentioned above, I'm not asking for every single vehicle/unit type in the German OOB to be included, but if they include 3-4 vehicles in the base game and then dribble out 1-2 more vehicles per module every six months, I'll be mightily disappointed. Frankly, writing this post has made me recall that at the end of the day I got bored fairly quickly with CMBO as well--the gold standard I guess is CMBB, with the huge range of vehicles/units/ terrain/weather. I'm not asking for something like CMBB, but we're gonna need a lot of modules for the Eastern Front!

Maybe my post wasn't clear, but I would say that "focus" is units, terrain, and weather, and that the limitations on these present in CMSF (and potentially the Normandy game) constitute too narrow a focus. Maybe I don't understand your point? For instance, a post above hints that the Bulge might be a seperate game rather than a module. WTF? This would pretty much be the same units, with only winter terrain/weather effects thrown in. If a "game" is limited to Normandy, June 1944, I personally will lose interest quickly. [ March 04, 2008, 08:22 PM: Message edited by: 76mm ]

Dorosh, Of course you are right about the US unit types and the importance of additional terrain (and weather--winter, anyone?) for creating diverse and interesting scenarios, but my point remains the same: keeping a very narrow focus in the original games and not releasing enough modules to cover a wide scope of situations will lead to pretty sterile and unsatisfying (to me) gaming.

I totally understand why Battlefront went with the module concept and have no problem paying more for good content. BUT, I've got to say that b/n the subject matter and lack of diverse units, I haven't fired up CMSF in months...I just find it terminally boring. A Normandy game limited to "US Rifle Battalion vs. German Kampfgruppe with four types of units" won't be much better. I hope that for WWII the modules come out quickly and cover a wide variety of theaters/units, or I have to admit that the game is probably going to lose my interest pretty quickly. This from a guy who still regularly plays CMBB.

There's lot of posts in this forum about quick battles in CMSF, and the problems with them. Your questions are all addressed in these other threads. Try a search.

How exactly would the "gunner's sniper rifle" work? As a replacement to the coax? Tied to the main gun's optics and computer? Interesting idea, but kinda weird...

Maybe they meant US customs...geez, you don't want people sending weapons willy-nilly to a place where US troops are being shot at!

I recently had a similar problem; screen would go all wacky if I left the computer on for more than a day or two. As part of my trouble-shooting, I unplugged the monitor cable from the video card and found that somehow a piece of lint had lodged itself among the connector pins. I removed the lint, and voila, since then no problems.

Steve, this is all very helpful, but I'd like to clarify: in the paragraph above, I understand that you're assuming that the two action spots have LOS, and now you're in the "spotting" phase to see whether the two units can actually see each other, right? If so, it seems like spotting can actually serve as a back-up LOS check, as in the case of the tall wall you describe above, right? (In other words, chance of spotting is zero, so LOS is effectively blocked). A different spotting scenario would be where a unit is hidden in underbrush or in a building, to which the enemy has LOS, but there is a probability-based "spotting" check to see whether the hidden unit is spotted. Is my understanding correct? If not, my concern would be that two units with a high wall between them could spot (if not fire upon) each other (because the action spots have LOS) even though they shouldn't be able to.

In another thread, Steve said that BFC is considering allowing "licensed" individuals or groups to develop content. I have no doubt that there is a critical mass of hard-core players with the skills to develop high-quality content, and given the constraints on BFC's resources, this is the only way we're going to see anything with even a small fraction of the breadth and scope of CMBB (for instance).