[LOS / LOF problems]

was close to perfect and in hundreds of games I played, I never had a "WTF? how did he see me through the hill" incident.

Really? A lot of times I thought guys were well protected/concealed by a hill that they ended up getting shot through.

Overall I imagine this is an issue of relative spotting. In CMx1 a spotted unit was spotted by everything, it was one of the biggest things people wanted done away with. Now it is gone but with every unit running individual spot checks it creates the potential for obvious things being missed.

It will be improved I am sure, more so than the borg issue which had no real chance of improvement.

[1.03--firing through floors?]

I don't think this is a bug (as far as I know). Interiors of buildings and combat inside is abstracted so I think that is suppose to happen.

[Is it possible to rewind the action?]

WEGO acts the same, no to rewinding in real time, and they have talked about getting text in for vehicle hits, but not quite what you are talking about I think.

[Opinions on Air Bursts]

Before reading this thread I just replayed the first campaign scenario with heavy artillery.

One of my thoughts during the game was "wow the airbursts look a lot better than I remember".

As for whether they look more realistic or not I have no idea, but my initial reaction was positive.

[Grr, it's still here.]

Is this the "shoot through walls bug"?

Maybe I misread but wasn't it stated while they can eliminate shooting through walls to a degree that complete elimination of it is likely impossible?

[Reluctant snipers]

oh, and when the sniper does shoot, his aim is terrible, you gotta give snipers their one shot one kill credibility just like in the real world... going through 5 clips of ammo just to kill one unsuspecting soldier just feels wrong on so many levels.

While I also feel like the snipers don't have the lethality they should, I wonder what the actual field results are for causalities vs shots fired in battle by snipers. How many shots are cover fire, how many miss do to erratic moving targets? The big possible difference I can see from your statement vs what the game might model is that the soldiers are not unsuspecting, they know a battle going on, so they should be moving and using cover.

[Why Vehicles Need a Hold Fire Order]

Which is irrelevant to the example in the first post.

But not irrelevant to the subject heading.

[1.04 - Release date and informations?]

I think the nVidia fix will come out pretty much as soon as they come across what needs to be done to fix it. So really it is not a concrete time.

[PC Gamer UK Review]

Things like bad pathfinding, malfunctioning ATGM systems, soldiers that get stuck, etc... clearly these are problems and we need to fix them.

I am curious once you get pass the "problem" stage and to the "improvement" stage, what kind of improvements can we expect to see. I know you had mentioned in the past improving quick battles and perhaps a pausable TC/IP mode. I see those as improvements, they shipped out the door working the way you had planned but can still be improved.

I was wondering if you guys have made a list over what such improvements will be, or whether it is a "fix problems first then we will worry about".

[Flavor Object Editor]

X amount of cover and X amount of LOS blockage...say, tiny (mailbox), small (trash can), medium (motorcycle), large (car/truck body), Huge (oil tank)...or something to that effect?

You know when I first read that I thought, no that can't work. With how precise tracking fire is suppose to be I don't think something could be quite that abstracted.

However on second thought there may be a way this could work (with my very limited programming knowledge). Added flavor items could be marked as another flavor item already in game. For example someone makes a statue, the game gives the image of that, however the person who makes the image chooses what the item "actually" is, say a fountain. So the player sees a statue, the engine sees a fountain.

That may have been what you were getting at, sorry if I am just repeating your idea.

[Unnecessary roughness = reduction of points]

So do 10% damage, take away 10% of the objective points for the building.

What I hope for is some kind of destruction threshold. A mosque, that the blue side can not touch for political reasons, that gets even minor damage inflicted results in a major loss of points. On the other hand an office building might be able to take a fair deal of damage, and if still usable (standing with walls in tact), the US player doesn't suffer any penalty.

Something like a three options setting. The "objective" is achieved if A) any damage is done about 50% of the building is damaged C) it is reduced to rubble.

[The Crawl of Death - killing a decent AI attack]

Is this game only designed to be played as the attacking side or two player only?

Hey, it is like CMx1

[The Wet Dream Battlefront Gave Me......]

I can't be the only person who thinks this would be amazing if implemented. Multiplayer cooperative play. It just sounds great.

Yes, you are the only one who ever mentioned it. Coplay, whazzat?

Seriously glad it is getting mentioned but from what Steve has said in the past is that it is unlikely to even make it in by WWII (it used to be, in by WWII we hope, now I think it is "soon after WWII we hope).

[What a difference about 2 years makes]

Could you please explain to me how this is, in any practical sense, different to having to sit through a whole [insert elapsed time here] watching the blue bar grow in CMx1?

Well maybe it is because I didn't get into CM until later then everyone else (and thus had a better computer) or maybe because I rarely played huge battles, but the bar was often very very quick. I could easily get the "movement" phase of a battle out of the way in a couple minutes just fast forwarding through turns.

It isn't a huge issue but it was enough to knock me from a WEGO to a RT player for the game. Especially given the scope of the battles (2 hours) with a lot of early deadtime. As dalem posted about going to the kitchen I will often do that in RT (issue orders, walk away, come back in awhile to check on things).

[What a difference about 2 years makes]

Rudel I think you overstate the case. While it is silly to say that WEGO is for serious wargamers only (and I think it is overstated how many people say that), it is also silly to say that it is the sole future. Board games are unlikely to disappear as they offer something unique (the presence of other people as well as unique methods of play). Sure they will shrink do to competition, as turn based may do to real time, but certainly not disappear as there will always be a segment of the population that is looking for that.

[What a difference about 2 years makes]

Opinions vary

Opinions do vary but what I think the following can be said ...

WEGO isn't as good as it used to be (my opinion).

Quick battles aren't remotely as good as it used to be (my opinion again but think I am fairly solid on this).

Real time is a nice new option.

Scenarios are even better.

Depending on what you weight the importance of the above depends on how you see the game.

[What would your reaction been if CM:SF was the first game published by BF?]

Well I think most people would be impressed. The best way to garner this is by looking at people who never did play CMx1 (my sample size is limited though, the two people I gave a copy to who hadn't played CMx1 both really enjoyed it).

[What will make us buy the Marines module?]

Does anybody now what additions are planned on the Syrian side and which improvements to the engine are planned and whether they will be patched back into the original CM:SF game?

From what I remember, and just did a quick recheck, I don't think BFC even completely has the answer to the question. The charge for modules was really meant to be based on how much work was required for them, with backwards compatibility being free if easy, a charge if not.

[Combat Mission: Gold]

It all boils down to one question: Could Battlefront make money with a combined CMX1 release and if so, would it be more money than they could make doing something else?

Unfortunately the answer seems to be that Battlefront refuses to even consider the idea.

Your first point isn't quite true, there is also the factor of what there enjoyment factor would be. They seem to enjoy working with a new engine and really don't want to touch the old. So not only would the money have to better but it would have to be worthwhile to cover there distaste of working with what they see as an "inferior" design.

On the second topic Steve has said they have thought it over. The thing is they did the thinking many years ago (I believe he said the decision was done right after work on CM:BB began). As for outside contractors, again I believe he has pointed out that they see it as more work than it would be worth.

[Should i buy this game?]

Isn't there a law against this type of practice (wrongful advertising) as we call it in U.K. but not sure about U.S.

Sure wrongful advertising is against the law here, but it would be impossible to prove on this issue. There isn't any way you could "prove" a sold game was beta, buggy stuff gets sold all the time. And there is no explicit advertisement saying mortars are in the game, effort to put them in for which screens where created yes, in yet, no. Also BFC quite clearly has marked on the purchase page.

Battlefront.com encourages you to review the product Demo before making a purchase because

ALL SALES ARE FINAL!

They said, try our product before you buy it. If a person passed that offer it isn't exactly BFCs fault (I say this as a person who preordered and wouldn't do it again).

[Combat Mission: Gold]

PS. Michael, it would also be far more feasible to aim at just one tweak, such as Relative Spotting, to update CMX1.

Now there would just need to be endless fighting over what that tweak would be.

[Combat Mission: Gold]

Well being Steve's opinion seems to be ...

New Engine: This thing is awesome, I love working with it. Why just the other day we threw together the whole Franco-Prussian War cause we were bored. Piece of cake to throw new units in (as long as you have the right video card to run it).

Old Engine: This thing is awful, in a beautiful kind of way but still awful. Once I needed to change the firepower of squad by five points at 200m range. It took me nearly 18 hours, a stomach ulcer, lying to our wives, and I had to mug someone on the street because we were out of money and had no food. Given the choice of working on this engine again or being waterboarded while watching a 24 hour gigli marathon I still wouldn't touch CMx1 again.

Also the thing won't make another dime.

Needless to say I wouldn't mind seeing it but think the chances are almost non-existent.

[Did piracy kill the commercial viability of CMx1?]

Lt.Bull,

Have you ever had the experience of meeting a person who gave CMx1 a serious try and just didn't like it (maybe you have said so, don't recall all your posts). You are a person that loves CMx1 (as am I), the thing is that there are a large amount of gamers that just don't like it. I have had copies I have given to friends returned to me.

If that doesn't work I don't think marketing would have helped much more. Sure I imagine there are some people out there who would love CM and never heard of it (probably, like myself, people who could care less about WWII). But the cost to reach them is probably well more than the worth.

As for could CMx1 have been further pursued, sure. However I don't think CMx2 is nearly as far away from CMx1 as you make it out to be. I don't think RT is nearly that big an issue (and if WEGO worked better it wouldn't even be mentioned). 1 to 1 representation is more of an issue perhaps, but that is (IMHO) more do to people wanting to play CM as a battalion level game then a company.

I don't see how BFC made any decisions that took CMx2 away from CMx1. Sure there are some thing that I (in my infinite wisdom) would have done differently. But that is more an issue of priorities then design decisions.

[Two player Turn Based?]

PBEM isnt the same. i never managed to like it...

Yeah I am in the same boat, PBEM was never of any real interest, and TC/IP was always how I played.

I am actually more upset by the fact that there was what seemed like a million threads on whether or not PBEM would make it in while the fact that WEGO TC/IP was being left off didn't get mentioned. Like the original poster I didn't actually believe at first that it wasn't there.

[If you want to see IDF please sign here]

I think the issue isn't who would buy an IDF module, but who would only buy an IDF module.

I have the same chance of picking up a British, Marine, or IDF module. I imagine many people are the same way, with the actual context of the module (vs. the features it provudes) being the major issue (ie does it add gameplay). I'd buy a "Land Units of the Pacific Islands" module if it added to the game.

On the other hand the support for a British, Canadian, German, and USMC module likely well outweighs the IDF in terms of people looking for a context module. As there are so only so many modules BFC will make before they move onto another project it is an issue of which context would sell best (assuming BFC interest was equal in all the subject matters, and I have no idea on that).

So if you want an IDF module instead of just saying it would be cool, you need to say why it would be better than any of the proposed modules in added gameplay/sales (or worth adding on another module and potentially delaying WWII ... certain people on forum might hunt you down for that though).