sburke

I recognize those zig zags, that is a road from CM. A little to the west is an airbase with 13 fighter aircraft. Kind of insane what the average person has access to now. I just put in Hampton Virginia and there in dock are the Theodore Roosevelt, The Harry S Truman and I believe the Kearsage. Granted I don't know how old the data is, but still the fact that I can look is a little startling. Back to the OP, very cool find.

Self contradictory as is most of your argument. Frankly neither you nor I represent most of their customer base so to BF we are more or less background noise. I think we actually agree on that!

Wiggun the one problem.. well one of the problems with your posts is you always start with the assumption you actually know anything about what you are spouting off about - cases in point: On every one of those you make an unsupported proclamation that you actually don't have any data on. As to the flame in CMx1, what the hell does that have to do with CMx2. the engine is totally different, the AI code is totally different. Hey I bought apples yesterday at the market. Mangos are just another fruit, why didn't they have those? Arguing with you is like arguing with a fart. You can't get anywhere and it just stinks. I think I am done here. You have a nice day grumbling away about life and never appreciating what you have. I pity you, but I won't be sucked down to your level of pessimism and angst. I am realistic about what is possible and the game still rocks. There will be some new stuff, there will be some stuff ported over and the game will friggin rock and I will be able to recreate combat in the Western front post September 1944. It will not be drastically different from the games I have and I am happy about that. I have at least some clue as to what goes in to making it and I know what things will be different. To put it bluntly I actually have more info than you do and I am quite happy with the game as it is coming together. I will be pre-ordering and I don't even have to. You I expect will not be buying it. Fine, that is your loss. Hopefully but doubtfully you will then go away and find some other game forum to prognosticate on. Why you are still here is beyond me considering your feelings on the game and the company. Obviously the act of complaining fills some emotional niche for you. Sad, but pretty apparent. If I didn't like this game as much as you say you don't I wouldn't be here. I'd go find something I did like. But that would be a healthy approach.

Yeah I think Bil is going to achieve his goal. Force the Panther to react. In reacting it may find itself engaged by multiple enemies. Doug's infantry has turned into the bait that will make him have to react. After that luck may end playing a huge roll. If the Panther can take a few rounds from the Shermans, Bil may find himself short some tanks and nothing to show for it. A few turns may decide the rest of the game, especially with those Pshk guys dropping like flies.

LOL we asked for a view to your thought process, you gave it to us and you are apologizing for that? Sir if you are going to be a fighting officer you need to show more backbone. Just tell us to STFU with our questions if we don't like the answer. Then wave your pistols (loaded) around erratically.

You owe me a beer. The one I had just blasted out through my nose. No not specifically at you. I think for BF trying to figure out the price value of a specific game on a labor/man hours basis that gets too specific becomes an accounting exercise they'd rather not have to go through. Honestly I don't think any of us are really in a position to say the relative labor. Even as a beta tester I don't know how long it takes before BF feels it is ready to dump to the testing community. CMFI for example caught EVERYONE by surprise. I can get somewhat of an idea how long it takes and number of issues that crop up once it is to the testing community. One thing I have learned is that it is a lot more work than I ever expected. You don't get to make a game that has the ballistics characteristics of CM without introducing a huge amount of very specific details. I think people's assumption that they simply copy over models between games is not entirely accurate. And that is based on actual experience not just conjecture. Then you start getting into TOEs, I get a headache just reading the discussion of them. The level of detail, the design for options and how to invoke them, how to make sure that the teams all occupy their vehicles correctly etc etc. Folks are used to a level of detail in these games and honestly they do not appreciate what all goes into it. I know I didn't. I think we are all just a bit jaded. We have come to take what we have for granted. There is a reason BF has no real competition. It isn't just that there aren't any really serious competitors, it is just that they are that good that no one is going to go head to head and win. AP series lacks some very fundamental things (PBEM for example) that just makes them different. They are great for the community that wants some very specific things that AP has and don't mind not having the additional things that CM has. That's great that folks have a choice. But if you want to have a HTH game and you want that infantry focused combat, AP is not the game you are going to buy. Wiggun wants something more than what CM is. That's cool. We all do to some degree or another. The one most important thing though that we all want is for BF to survive and continue to develop CM x2 and eventually CM x3 etc. The business model HAS to support that. Expecting BF to completely revamp the engine right after they got into a regular revenue stream is putting that at risk. That isn't to say that BF is not already looking at that, I actually expect they are. It is however something that will be years before it is ready to produce something. Personally I think the upkeep of the engine across the spectrum of games is an overly optimistic projection. When you eventually have 9 or 10 game families it will get prohibitively resource expensive. Perhaps BF will finish the Eastern front, do a remake of Shock Force and then get them all upgraded to a single engine version and stop there. Once they move to CM x3 there is no reason to go back and touch those game families. They will be a finished product and BF will move onto to something new. Space Marines? Who knows, it is years away. The CM x2 engine though is what will be the basis for the next number of game families and it is unrealistic to expect a fundamental game engine change right now. If that is not what Wiggun wants to pay for in the next 4-5 game families, 5-10 modules/vehicle packs etc, then he needs to spend his time and money elsewhere as it isn't going to change. It can't.

Once again you don't seem to understand what you are asking for or where the issues for CM lie in your requests. I am doing my best to give you civil replies and I realize I fail at times, but your questions and your suggestions reveal a fairly profound ignorance as to what CM is up against to accomplish what you want. Why should you finance BF? Simple you are asking they halt their revenue stream to basically completely rewrite the code which assuming it even could be done is going to mean the company faces bankruptcy. As you noted they are profit based. They are currently turning a profit with a very solid game. Maybe not what you want it to be but frankly there isn't anything even close in the genre. So yes if you want a revamped game, then you need to figure out how to finance it because BF is not a Wiggun charity. BF is not a graphics intensive game, it is a CPU intensive game. A critical point in understanding first of all what is possible and second of all impact. Reducing the action squares is a geometric increase on CPU computing load. Your vaunted computer would fry or more likely just simply hang. AI again is an intensive CPU load. Before you even get to CPU though you have to understand what it takes to write an AI to do what you think you want. Phil knows a helluva lot more about what the state of AI programming is and what is feasible than you or I. If he is saying that the general state ANYWHERE on AI programming is such that it isn't going to get better for quite some time (based on first of all being able to write the appropriate AI and second having the system resources to handle it) I take him at his word. That you don't is again just pointless. Neither you nor I are qualified to challenge Phil. Look around at the gaming world in general and tell me a good comparable example for AI coding. The closest is probably Command Ops, but it doesn't have to figure out what an individual pixeltruppen is going to do when a tank and an enemy infantry unit come into view during an artillery barrage. The TAC AI in CM is far from perfect, but it is amazingly good and the behavior is constantly getting tweaked. So the point myself and others are trying to make with you is yes we all want to see CM improve. Those improvements have to have context though. What is BF capable of doing - ie what is the state of computer processing and AI code that are requirements to adding any AI additions to the game. What would it demand of BF in terms of resources and finances that would affect the companies survival. Even you have to admit, if BF attempts to rewrite the AI code and the result was the company went bankrupt, none of us would be particularly happy. Steve is a major proponent of updating the UI, but he has clearly stated on these board that it is a major effort that would require a lot of their time and would likely be part of a major revision, say something like CM 4. In and of itself there is not money for it. As much as folks say they want it, if BF did a version 4 update that was just UI, there would be howls from the community yourself included that you are just paying for a UI mod. For all it's faults and it does have many, CM is an extremely solid game that continues to develop. Your proposals all inherently throw that out as if it has no value. That from my viewpoint at least is the flaw in your argument. You risk the health of the company and the continued development of new CM games and modules for something that inherently is not likely to happen. Agusto regarding CMRT, the coding that went into making tank riders? Flamethrowers? AA fire? BF is pretty smart at figuring out how to produce the game within a target range the market will support. $55 looks to be about what is expected. So to fit within that target and get the additional features they want, do the TOE work, add the models that are new etc means anything they don't have to redo again they won't. The prices I believe ARE representative. It is simply that folks don't look at the whole picture. They look at one piece and decide Aha! See it could have been cheaper! What they miss is the fact that a host of other work is also being done. Every game title has had new stuff that takes time and labor. BF's pricing model allows a slow but sure incremental advance, keeps the company stable and doesn't risk losing the whole thing because this is it guys. If BF goes under who is going to step in and keep making this game? The proposals Wiggun keeps tossing out completely ignore first of all whether they are even possible and second of all the financial risk. Do you take financial advice from the kid down the street running a lemonade stand about what kind of retirement investments you should make? Then why listen to Wiggun's proposals as they have just about the same level of validity.

They caught him from his Match.com profile. "Looking for Woman with interest in WW 2 military items. You bring the Type XXI Boat, I'll bring the torpedoes"

and I want to s**t gold. Not likely to happen anytime soon. Do you even realize if Battlefront could somehow go on another no income hiatus and do what you have suggested, your PC would not be able to run the game? Oh yeah small little item there it seems you didn't account for eh? Now do you understand why many here feel you are a completely unproductive part of the discussion? That you consider all that "minor fixes" just exposes your ignorance. I am sure if you can finance the effort BF might consider your proposals.

Yeah I think he just misses that you can critique the game without resorting to the 'It is a $55 texture pack" BS. Or perhaps despite it being posted several times he just has yet to actually read this. http://www.battlefront.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=blogcategory&id=338&Itemid=583

You really need to find another hobby. Something that might bring you some happiness Mr Grinch.

Exactly, BF has already made it clear they will never again create a game with the scope of say CMBO. Financially it is a losing strategy. The Labor/revenue equation works out very poorly. That being said I would love to see a 1940 Game.

Well it IS the cesspool. Wait, did you really not know what that meant all this time? PYLE!!!!!

where the hell did you find that? I am sitting here laughing my a** off.

You forgot Alexander the Great!!..oh wait I guess that comes under random interlopers. Never mind It is actually a fascinating history and a classic example of the "Chinese" curse may you live in interesting times, in this case may you live at a crossroads of civilizations. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Afghanistan#Pre-Islamic_period

You know I am kind of wondering what Mord's neighbors were thinking when recorded that. Ironically enough it was probably a lot of "Did you hear that?"

Well Red Rage, we gotta admit, and I will probably lose my beta tester magic decoder ring for this confession. BF only designed it that way to make you step out of the shadows and post, and it worked!!! Welcome to a more active forum!

Speaking of which., we now know why Nidan1 is so enamored with the Marine Corp emblem. Seems he was spotted gallivanting around town in his new attire. lookin sharp Nidan Pyle!!

Don't get Mord started. The only problem with those death screams is they can sometimes get a little too graphic. Like when that tank gets hit and is burning and you hear some gurgling scream. I think the first time I noticed, I mean REALLY noticed a scream sound mod was a YouTube someone posted like that.

It was changed to meet Microsoft criteria. Skynet had decreed this was the way things will be.

Post retracted- forgot we weren't in the MBT. What a shame as it was gonna be an epic put down of stupendous proportions and would have resulted in you donning a doody hat.

I wasn't trying to make a point. It was a reference to your constant sniping at how you think you don't get your money's worth from BF. Despite a constant unrelenting rant you somehow are still here. Yeah we get it. You think you are being resold the same old repackaged item. If you really think it is that bad, don't buy it and leave those of us who feel that with whatever issues it has (in a product that is continuing to develop) it is well worth it, in peace.

there are a few things out there - to note this was where Maurice Rose was killed https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maurice_Rose

then don't buy the game already. You say it isn't acceptable and yet you play the game, which is it? No one is MAKING you buy it. For what it is worth Stagler, that wasn't a response to you. I think you assessment is incorrect, but that is a different discussion.

The main thing I really miss in these two titles is the target brief command. Most everything else I can find a way around, but the fire and maneuver in urban terrain that the target brief facilitates is harder to do. And I do still play them. It just gets harder and harder with all the titles to focus on any one title. Yes that was a back hand complaint that BF has given us too much.