Bruce G.

Did this get resolved or is it the case that was explained in the other thread on the Tailing/Scissors bug? I'm just curious if this is an outstanding bug or not.

I've seen others posting here asking about the original boardgame (designed by Dan, published by GMT Games back in 1993 and now out of print) so I thought I'd post that GMT Games is taking orders for a reprint edition in their Project 500 program. If there are 500 pre-orders, the game gets produced. $28 for people who pre-order, $40 once it ships. Since the eBay price hovers around $60, this might be a good way to pick the game up, assuming it hits the 500-order level. http://www.gmtgames.com/p500/gmtp50.asp EDIT: The game name is Rise of the Luftwaffe. Expansions to the series were published and the Pacific theater games are still available.

Ouch!

Yes, I find it very strange that the default action of clicking on a name is "Ignore." Why? I think I will ignore people almost never, but I would invite people to chat or play a lot.

No, there is not, unfortunately.

All good points by Sku. Just to add my impressions: 3) There definitely needs to be some way to increase wingmen exp at high levels. At low levels it's easy to pick up points because enemy planes don't have as much defense, but this really drops off when you're flying the top-level aircraft. 4) This is REALLY annoying. And in the campaigns can be unbalancing. From the bug list: 2) I have experienced this as well. Once a wingman loses his Escape Death it seems to be gone for good. All of my high level pilots' wingmen no longer have Escape Death and aren't getting it back. 3) Yes, flying the top pilots gets very samey as it's always against the same guys. Why not more variation? 4) The draw stuff needs serious work on all fronts. This is something where the game is really being hurt by not showing what is going on. Any time a pilot draws a card, the reason should be shown.

Mogris - where does the Gamespy review say the game requires broadband? I can't find that part.

I'm not on a wireless connection, but the two people I just played with who had the severe disconn problems both had wireless. To be clear, my connection is stable 99% of the time, and I have put dozens of hours into the game. I think the issue might be with wireless connections.

Do you have Microsoft .NET 1.1 installed?

Is the Wildcat available in the game now? Is it one of the unlockable US planes or something?

There seems to be some issue (anecdotally) with wireless - the two people I played with recently who were experiencing constant disconnects were on wireless connections.

Is anyone having moderate to severe lobby disconnects, or just flat-out game drops? I've had the occasional lobby disconnect over the past couple months, but it was infrequent enough that I thought it might be on my end. But in the past two days, I have had opponents who ranged from disconnects at the end of the game, to disconnects every two minutes. Strange symptoms: the lobby disconnects and the game freezes, or the lobby disconnects but they catch it right away and log on immediately, and the game resumes without realizing it dropped, or the lobby DOESN'T disconnect but the game drops the player for some reason. During all that time, I don't disconnect at all. Is anyone else having frequent disconnect problems of this sort?

Ok, well that's a different issue. I was just responding to this sentence: "There have been too many turns where the wingmen get their turn, get to select a target, but no cards appear in the box." If no cards are appearing in the box, and they should be, that's a bug I have not seen. Although, like I said, this is based on the full version and not the demo. The demo may have a bug. On the useful cards thing, I think I've seen posted multiple times that the AI doesn't "cheat" in getting better cards, so I'll take Battlefront's word for it. Although sometimes it sure seems like it does!

Are the Wingmen damaged or at Very High altitude? I haven't seen any cases of Wingmen not being able to draw the cards they are entitled to, but I haven't been playing the demo.

You can see every card played in the bottom center text window - the info is all there.

My understanding of the rule is that you can only "Draw Extra Card" once per turn when using that particular skill. I have had some AI pilots (notably the high-level British ones, Tracy Baker and Joseph Allen) have 8 cards. I play a card like 1:2 IMS. They don't have a response so they draw a card. Their hand goes to 9. The card in question obviously isn't a valid response, so their hand goes to 10. I really, really think this game needs things like this spelled out. It should not be a mystery why cards are being drawn. If my opponent is getting a card at the beginning of the turn due to his Wingman's Leader Advice, that should be stated. If he is using "Draw Extra Card" that should be stated explicitly also, and the number of "Draw Extra Cards" should be listed. In general, there is too much hidden information. For example, having to constantly flip back to the Dogfight Preview to check enemy skills is clumsy.

Agreed - the uber-pilots will often draw multiple cards per attack. Didn't find that Ace Pilot this time? No problem, he'll just draw again!

So who is going to start up a Polish 303rd Squadron? [ October 02, 2005, 07:52 AM: Message edited by: Bruce G. ]

That doesn't have to be the case, though. With a game like DiF, that hidden approach is more of a design and programming choice.

Ok, you're right that it's a Wingman skill - my bad. But wouldn't that just mean "+1 Wingman Def?" I always thought it worked otherwise. Oh well. [ August 25, 2005, 04:23 PM: Message edited by: Bruce G. ]

One question I meant to ask: what effect are you expecting Check Six to have in this case? Check SIx is a leader ability that allows that leader to draw a card when his Wingman is attacked - it does not affect Wingmen in any way. A leader with Check Six is not going to help keep a wingman from going down to the 2:Destroyed card. You may be misreading the rules?

I agree with Moon. In the demo you're only playing with a limited set of planes, but later, once your wingmen have 4 cards on Defense plus several "Draw extra card" abilities, 2:Destroy rarely works. And leaders are carrying 9-10 cards plus multiple "draw extra." Its main value is actually in allowing 1:1 bursts to get through as your opponent is always wary of the 2:Destroy card coming up. I like 2:Destroy because it's sort of a "lurking danger" card that you always have to be afraid of. But that danger is more anticipated than actualized. The very existence of the card forces more conservative play, but its rarity keeps it from being a game-breaker. Lastly, DiF is at heart a card game. In any card game, the possibility exists that you're just not going to get the right cards, or your opponent will get an outstanding hand and you won't be able to deal with it. That's simply the nature of the game, much as luck has always been part of wargames. I actually like it for that reason. In the boardgame, 2:Destroy was never a problem. I think players will find the same in the computer game once they start playing the full version.

I can understand if you don't feel the game is for you, but to complain that there are other "graphically superior" games available for $35 kind of misses the point. As does the comment that there are "more complex" games available as well. I don't find complexity to be an indicator of quality. More often it masks flawed design. I can see how some people simply don't care for simple, quick-playing games, especially on the computer, since the expectation is that the designer will use the computer's natural strength of numerical stat-tracking to devise a computationally heavy game system. That's a reasonable expectation I guess. I, on the other hand, love the fact that someone has broken this expectation and brought boardgame-like play to the computer. And lastly, the claim that there are "plenty" of "more innovative" boardgames out there, I have to disagree. I think the Down in Flames system was one of the most innovative game designs to appear in a long time, especially at a time (1993) that pre-dated the US popularity of Eurogames. I challenge you to name five more "innovative" board games than DiF.

What info would you like to have seen?

Thanks for the help! Yes, R.O.A.R. is a great project, and as far as something that the community needs (as another thread says) this would be a great thing for CMBB. One thing I really enjoy is playing a scenario that neither I nor my opponent have ever played, thus we are both "blind" except for the briefing. If the scenario is unbalanced, though, that takes some of the fun out. So having a guide to choosing the scenarios beforehand would be helpful. I didn't know about the CM Scenario Depot - I'll definitely check around on that site.