GreenAsJade

I want 5a : </font>

Me too, except I found the first 10 turns interesting, then it was all over. GaJ

FWIW I agree that allowing a balance rating is very problematic and should be avoided. In place of that, allowing actual results to be recorded would allow people to reach their own conclusions. My experience with the CMxx Scenario Balance Indication Tables has taught me that even very experienced players can make the wrong call about a scenario balance based on only one playing of it. The only way to tell is to look at what results are achieved over many playings. GaJ

Play-aid: can we please be able to turn off the display of dead units.

Any chance of proper transparency for trees?

Like I said - a bit too radical of a suggestion - mostly intended to illustrate that there are other options for asynch than PBEM. Note that server based play would be a new business model too: pay for play instead of pay for a CD becomes possible... GaJ

Back to the original quesiton, scenario balance is notoriously difficult to judge. Experienced players will play a scenario and swear it is unbalanced one way or the other only to find other equally experienced players experiencing it the other way around. People mistakenly think you can judge scenario balance with one play through. Unless it's blatantly unbalanced, you can't. You can find some indications of play balance for various scenarios here. Unlike player's subjective impressions, this is at least data about real game results. Plenty of margin for error, but better than nothing. The games at the top of the balance list are almost certainly balanced. Pershotraveneve Ridge (at the top of the CMBB list) is an excellent small learning scenario. GaJ. [ August 27, 2005, 02:20 AM: Message edited by: GreenAsJade ]

Funny thing ... I reckon I learned little while playing against the AI, other than maybe how it does things. Playing against people and talking to them about it was how I started learning... find someone who likes helping, doesn't mind giving you an advatage and advice as you go along and you'll learn heaps. GaJ

Other methods: async game server is one. Your game connects to the server when you want to play and finds out the state at that time. When you ve played your move it uploads the state to the server again. Of course, the same amount of data might have to be transferred, but it wouldn't have to be wrapped up in an email and subject to ISP email size constraints. If the server actually did the calculations and saved the game state, then maybe less would need to be downloaded to your machine: just the movie info. Of course this latter suggestion is a somewhat radical change in mechanics: perhaps unlikely at this point. GaJ

Station Haapsalu has had some good playtesting at The Proving Grounds, and I think it's ready. If there were a Scenario Depot, of course I'd post it there, but you all know what the deal is - we need to wait a few weeks. Meanwhile, feel free to try it out, and post comments at TPG. GaJ Description: The Germans botched a paratroop raid on a remote Soviet transmitter station positioned at the head of a marshy delta. Now they are following up to finish the job... can they still manage a suprise, or has their initial raid given the Russians time to call for help? ... this is infantry action in somewhat unusual terrain! Author Comment: Based on a recent experience with assault boats, the idea for this scenario lept into my head. I also haven't seen a full-on marsh in a scenario, so I thought I'd do one of those. I'm hoping for subtle LOS effects from the small hillocks in the marsh, combined with the dawn fog limited distance to allow for lots of troop sneaking around to happen. This is designed for head to head play - it doesn't work vs the AI for either side. 1 Review so far: Spiffy little scenario that has extensive use of boats, water and marsh. Fun as 2-player, worked just fine.

Me too. A switch to enable it for those of us who like it would be neat (like the compatible mode smoke switch) GaJ

I didn't use up all my five, so I thought of one subtle but EXCELLENT graphical effect that would be REALLY NICE... ... proper transparency of trees. I'd like to be able to see through the trees in a way that is acceptably close to the way that the troops can! If LOS is blocked by trees to some feature, then I should not be able to see it through the tress (that is how it is now). If there is LOS through the trees to something then *I should be able to see it through the trees* That would be wonderful! (As it is, I play with trees off 99.9% of the time) GaJ

1) Don't loose Asynchronous Play (aka PBEM). 2) Don't change the "scale". CMxx has the right number of the right kinds of units to order around, over the right time period. 3) Actually, it might be interesting, especially if the AI improves, to have slightly longer "turns". 4) Don't loose Asynchronous Play 5) Don't loose modability. Add more. GaJ

You've been playing with the wrong people. You should join a crowd like We Band Of Brothers CM Club ... 300 people who are almost guaranteed to finish your PBEM games... GaJ

Yeah, it says "must be between 1-30", but then tells you off if you say "1"

My ISP seems to be having trouble: email is down for me at the moment, so the usual wait for my turns will be a bit prolonged till I get it sorted... GaJ

PS - I vote YES, please build it!

Hi All, The current proposal for replacing "The Scenario Depot" is to have GJK extend The Proving Grounds to become a new Scenario Depot. Gary needs to know whether this will be used if he does it, and whether the community supports him just getting on and building it (without a lot of "fuss" about how it will be run ... IE do we trust him to just build something good?) Please post here to indicate whether you would be happy to use something, and whether you would actually use, something Gary builds. Thanks, GaJ

I've realised there's a twist. The sentiment here is "Gary - we have faith in what you would build, please just go for it". IE we don't really need competeting proposals about what it would have and how it would be run because we're pretty confident we'd like what you would do. So the only point in setting up a poll is to get an indication of what the demand for the service is. If 10 people are going to use it, it's not worth building, just email them the scenarios. If 100 people are going to use it then it's worth building. Right? (The alternative is to open up the can of worms about what features the Scenario Depot should have: I really really think that this would just delay us getting anything without ever finding any concensus! Better to have some benevolent dictator determine what it will have and get on with it!) Sooo.... I'm going to start yet another thread here (!!) looking for expressions of support for building a new one. I will also do the same at WeBoB where members can respond to a poll. GaJ.

(Just so you guys in this thread know, the other thread (entitled "Death of the Scenario Depot" was actually the place where this discussion was happening. A second thread on the topic kinda dilutes that ... I'd encourage you to wander over to the other one). GaJ

I'm like COG. My offer is here as another last resort. If TPG can take it, that's the best solution. So clearly now what we need is to give Gary some indication of community support. The slight catch is getting anyone from here to go somewhere else to vote ... its a fact of life that "voter turnout" is hard to get. Still, let's give it a shot. If someone hasn't already (I'm just about to go looking) I'll set up a poll... GaJ.

Guys, Here's where it's at: - All the scenarios have been (are being?) posted at CMMODS in big zip files one per game type. So in the interim they are at least available. It's not as if "nothing is happening and everyone is waiting for everyone else". - The offer from Cpl Carrot & I to build a site on gregories.net is open. However - Garry (GJK) has told me that he's planning to implement a "scenario depot" at TPG... the only question being whether he can find the time in amongst real life demands. My opinion is that if Gary builds something at TPG, integrated with TPG, it will be better than in Cpl Carrot & I make a new site. So my plan is to wait to see if Gary can pull it off in the near future. If the demands of his job don't seem to be allowing that in a "reasonable amount of time" then I would reassess. GaJ.

As far as I'm aware there are three possible offers of a "one stop home" for scenarios being seriously considered: 1. The Proving Grounds (using GJK's existing server and design/implementation) 2. CMMODS 3. The Proving Grounds (using gregories.net server with Cpl Carrot design/implementation) I'm willing to work with Cpl Carrot to make #3 happen, but neither of us want to waste our effort if 1 or 2 or something else is going to happen. What's the status of everyone's plans? Ta, GaJ

Whoa - there's another thread on this topic in Scenario Talk I think that's the right place for it, so PLEASE TAKE DISCUSSION OF "THE FUTURE OF SCENARIO HOSTING" to that thread. If its discussed in one place, there's less chance of duplicate efforts wasting everyone's time! GaJ

I'd suggest that before starting a new repository, a few things be done: 1) Check whether GKJ is willing to add a "finished scenario" section to TPG. Why make a new hosting site if there's one that will already do the job, with a track record of stability. 2) If TPG is not going to be the place, address these issues: a) How stable is the new site going to be? Where is it hosted, under what conditions etc? How is it going to be backed up? c) Are the basics of the design right? This one is fraught with peril because we can debate till we're blue in the face about how the new Depot should work. However, just chucking all the scenarios up ASAP is unlikely to bear the fruits we're after. Probably stating the obvious, but someone needs to do a bit of site design. That person obviously gets to decide what it looks like while the rest of us argue how it should be GaJ