Sequoia

Okay, cool. I wonder if this is because of Cassio's influence?

I'm pretty sure the best someone from Battlefront has promised about Brazil is a "solid maybe".

You probably know this, but I believe his contention is troops in the foxholes are too exposed, not that the foxholes are too visible.

There was a thread where someone mentioned that troops are over exposed in foxholes and trenches. Any truth to that or is it just a perception?

That makes sense. You're probably right about the sdkfz 7. I was surprised when they announced the Möbelwagen. I thought it would be too much trouble to animate/code properly. Same with flail mineclearing tanks.

So any updates to the update, or has there been one somewhere (such as the streams) that I missed? It's a new year in many parts of the world now, and it's Fat Tuesday. How about a Mardi Gras bone?

First of all to Nik, you have to have willpower my friend. As far as sedans and staff cars, if by that you mean Horschs etc for the Germans, I'm curious if they were really that much rarer than Kubelwagens? They certainly could transport a larger group, though of course less than a truck, say a half squad. It seems this middle ground could have some tactical significance. I wonder if they're in the TO&E's of frontline units below the regimental level and the Kubelwagen is used as a replacement in the game? The Allied equivalent would be the Dodge 3/4 ton "beep" . Again I wonder if these too were part of the TO&E of frontline units.

Jon, I have no experience building scenarios, while you are one of the most experienced scenario creators, so your opinion carries more weight than mine in this regard, but when you say North Africa doesn't have a wide enough range of interesting battles, couldn't the same be said about the Normandy bocage? Your probably right in that there wasn't much urban fighting but I would think that isn't the CMX2 "sweet spot" anyway.

As I recall Steve did at one point say they would not do the Hungarians and Romanians again though calling them marginal forces is a little harsh. Later though he made a comment he would like to see them again, though I have a feeling Steve's desires probably outreach the capacity of what Battlefront can produce in reality. P.S. That said I'd rather see the Finns!

By the way another thing came to my mind about a reason for my perceived "slow down" in releases. Let me see if I have my facts straight on this. The CMX2 engine is based on something called "Open GL". Open GL was chosen way back in 2004 because it had the advantage of being Mac friendly, among other things. As time went by however Video Card manufacturers became less and less concerned with support of Open GL drivers. There has been talk of converting the Engine from Open GL to something else (what I'm not sure DirectX perhaps, it's over my head). Such a conversion I'm sure would be a major project and take up lots of time. If I have butchered the facts my apology.

Battlefront had a contract with Paradox to release Shock Force by a certain date, so it was in actuality released prematurely, hence the early bad reviews. Steve has said they will never enter into such a contract again.

Btw I'm interested in hearing more about the myth that Hitler delayed the ME 262 by insisting on bomb racks. Where can I read about the origins of the myth and how it was debunked?

Michael, you're absolutely right in your recollection. My wild speculation is based on nothing more than the fact that prior to this Battlefront was turning out a new base game or module about every six months. It's now been a year since Black Sea and the slow down seems surprising to me. So that and the fact that the current engine is aging leads to my guess. I have nothing to lose by guessing so it comes easy. Should I be right however I doubt even the Beta testers would know at this point.

I'm beginning to suspect Final Blitzkrieg will be the last Family developed with the current engine (and I don't mean CMX2 3.0 vs 4.0 etc). They'll still be turning out modules for the current Families for a while- there will soon be 5 not counting Shock Force- but I think they'll be starting to develop CX3 soon and possibly rather than start with Normandy all over again and compete with their own product may either start with Tunisia and work backwards in North Africa or Ostfront '43 i.e Kursk. Wild speculation to be sure but I think there's many advantages to developing a new Engine soon that may out weigh the cost.

I also think more softskinned vehicles such as Horschs, Beeps, captured French trucks, and of course the always popular Schwimmwagen, not to mention the Seep, would add to the game; plus the various sdkfz's mentions. RH didn't say it was the ONE thing he would like to see added.

I mean vehicles that could already be in the game for the other side (say German) but add them as a special unit to the other sides (i.e Allied) normal available list of units without doing the side switch routine and having to mod the skins. If for example you now used the editor to add the same vehicle to both sides in the same scenario they would all have the same skin and crew.

With the Final Blitzkrieg family BFC will bring us to the end of the war in the West. Captured vehicles were more a part of the Ostfront then the West but there were some. Adding captured vehicles would be relatively easy, but were there enough to be significant and make the effort worthwhile as opposed to other additions? I really don't know, perhaps someone out there can provide some information. If nothing else, did the Germans ever have a significant number of French vehicles in use in addition to the R-35s and Chars the CMBN Battlepack provided?

As I recall the Soviets captured the 2 unfinished prototypes somewhere deep in Austria. I would assume including a Maus or E-100 would presume accelerated development or delay of the wars end. Personally I'd rather see something rare that actually saw combat than 2 projects that really were rather dumb and only had a remote chance of ever becoming operational.

There is a rumor, started by Steve, and I can find you the post if you insist, that the final module for the FB Family may include the Maus or E-100.

It's sort of going to be twins, isn't it?

Didn't Steve and Charles lose their Internet connection the last time this happened?

Now that would be desirable. But adding medics, as other have said, would add undesirable micromanagement that distracts from the what the game is meant to be, at least in my opinion. There are many more features I'd rather see worked on them something many people wouldn't even like.

Bulletpoint, no problem, I know everyone has different priorities, but as I mentioned it was second at 19% of the responses in my admittedly unscientific poll with 71 total responses. Scenarios and Campaigns was by far the #1 response at 47%.

Note you can download the CM:Afghanistan demo and check it out to see if it has any more you may want. You can them get them from the demo brz files.

Yes adding the Schwimmwagen to the game has become something of a gag meme on these boards, but some of you may remember the poll I created a while back where by far the greatest request was for more scenarios and campaigns. I don't know if my poll had anything to do with it but we are now getting the Battlepack fulfilling that wish. The second most desired component was the addition of amphibious vehicles and rafts/assault boats. Battlefront has coding done for amphibious vehicles done as seen in Black Sea. Rafts/assault boats would need additional coding. This thread is meant to discuss the pros and cons of amphibious vehicles in a Battlefront WWII games. I believe Battlefront when they said they said they have no desire to replicate amphibious landings with landing craft on D-Day. What I have in mind is river crossings as we have in Black Sea. Here is a list of vehicle candidates I came up with: German: Schwimmwagen US/Commonwealth: Ford GPA "Seep" GMC DUKW "Duck" LVT3 LVT(A)3 Commonwealth only : Terrapin. As I mention, rafts and assault boats would be highly desirable to me to allow one to recreate the 82nd's crossing of the Meuse for instance. Some may say amphibious vehicles like the Seep and Schwimmwagen will allow gamey recon by death with these vehicles. I would say players are already using jeeps and kubelwagens this way. The best counter argument may be "sure amphibious vehicles and rafts etc would be nice but I would rather they work on something else (e,g, fully functioning fire) ". I know Kohlenklau will be all in on this. What do you others think?