sburke

This isn't the only thread to start dispensing business advice to BF in response to the announcement (and not the first by a long shot since the debut of the company). Personally I find the conceit implied to try and dispense advice without actually managing your business much less one in this niche to be pretty daunting. Maybe before we start trying to dispense our Kramer like business wisdom to BF we should review a couple important statistics. The Small Business Administration (SBA) keeps the stats on business failures and claims that more than half of new businesses will disappear in the first five years. A study done by Inc. magazine and the National Business Incubator Association (NBIA) revealed that 80 percent of new businesses fail within the first five years. According to Dun & Bradstreet reports, "Businesses with fewer than 20 employees have only a 37% chance of surviving four years (of business) and only a 9% chance of surviving 10 years." BF is now in year 12 (? I think anyway). Not only have they beat the odds for new business survival, they have come through one of the biggest economic downturns in memory hiring additional personnel and announcing an aggressive schedule of new releases and upgrades. Granted they haven't been the best at meeting their own release dates, however they have been phenomenally good at figuring out their long term game plan. They have established their niche, know their client base and demonstrated a capability at figuring out how to keep producing a quality product that now has an even longer expected support time frame. I think maybe we can stop telling BF how to run their business, they seem to already know. Now sign me up for the pre order for the upgrade and CM MG or whatever you are gonna call it.

Reminds me of the scene in LA Story where he gets robbed at the ATM "I'll be your mugger tonight".

Holy f**kin tornado Batman! How about using that mind blowing capability or even your secret info from Linda Lovelace... oh sorry, the other Deep Throat and figure out how to make a little cash so you can stop screwing around with the demo? And there are laws against those remote viewing sessions - shame on you!

The problem with going cheap on your garage door purchase...

He's a reptoid plant. No not a plant form of reptoid. You know like a reptoid agent, saboteur, tinker, tailor, soldier... spy. Is that a lizard tail in your pocket or are you just glad to see us?

Quoting Bill the Cat - Pffffffft speaking as a customer who does take good care that he isn't spending hard earned money on fluff - I LOVE the Version 2 feature list and the enhancements to the graphics for all the models (not just vehicles but everything in the game). You guys don't need to explain anything, it is all in the announcement. If that isn't enough for this guy he's obviously better off spending his money elsewhere. The alternative could have been CMBN became relegated to the bin with CMSF as not having a continued upgrade path and THAT would have been a shame and a loss to me of an investment. whew, that gets me off the hook from any visit from your Sicilian friends right?

Xian was so focused on building his full scale replica, he neglected to notice WHERE he was building it.

No it isn't. It is actually real helpful in knowing who to add to my ignore list. Then again I don't need to assuming he has already left.

You and Katie Holmes. Well I am not property, guess that's a good thing.. and if the best the Aliens can afford are flying trash cans (maybe they are related to Oscar the Grouch) I think I can relax. So let's get back to CM. As far as I know none of the enemy pixeltruppen are reptiles.

Oh man you just had to post a link. It is now bedtime here. I dunno if I can sleep now after reading this.. Damn where is that nighlight?! If I have no tattoos, does that mean I am a free meal to any ET feeling peckish?! Just call me Bento Burke

I think the only answer here is use him for some useful task, but if he gets hit - do NOT administer buddy aid. Help me, help me please Hmm is that an MP 44 you got there? Sorry buddy everyone knows if I do I'll be stuck with a no ammo weapon. You're on your own.

Nice. Hoping we will see more of Lorraine in the next module and not just focus on MG, lots of good scenario material.

You'll be getting a visit from a couple suits today to warn you against making any unwarranted suggestions about possible surveillance of your gaming habits. One of the suits will just be a brain in a jar. You will be warned against mentioning that.

LOL Gamey PRC!!! Gamey is whatever 2 players agree what it is. Broadsword and I play with no real concern about victory points per se. We play with the perspective of our commanders intent and some calculations about the effectiveness of a unit after it has suffered x amount of losses that conform to the op layer of our campaign. So there is nothing to "rush" in the last minute of the game. Actually most of our games end up with one side or the other conceding once we know we have crossed a particular threshold where the outcome for the op layer is already known. The other opponents I have played aren't based on an op layer, but game play tends to be similar. The scenario VL are generally the commanders intent. I can't 100% vouch for my opponents, but I don't think they or I really get wrapped up in the VL and points so much as try to enjoy a battle. The VLs define the flow of the battle and commanders intent. After that the objective is simple - destroy the enemy Now some scenarios (Shadow of the Hill 5am for ex) define a secure area as objectives. I don't view it as gamey for my opponent to sneak a unit on there. The whole point is I have to secure the area. Stay behind snipers etc are exactly what I am supposed to make sure aren't around. For those that are playing competitively (ladders and such) I'd expect a much more stringent definition of conduct.

Not sure I get the question. I assumed (apparently incorrectly ) that this was for the player's sake. The AI has apparently some "memory" for continuing to shoot at a location once it no longer spots a unit it had been firing upon, but memory of where it spotted a target once it goes back to the vehicle and remounts? Come on guys the AI is not Data from Star Trek It is a simple statement of continuing firing upon x for y amount of time after losing sight of x (with perhaps a caveat of shoot something else if you see it). It doesn't actually remember anything. Besides, in the amount of time it took to remount, the situation may have totally changed. - They saw a PSW 222 and ran back to their tank (giggling uncontrollably about the easy kill they were gonna have) and while they were running a King Tiger pulled up...oops.

beautiful! Yeah it looks like he bounced it right off the tree trunk. Lucky thing you didn't have a team moving up to join them. They'd likely have been a bit pissed. LOL

Actually you can dismount the crew if you want. I wouldn't cause mine would end up strolling into a minefield. It isn't quite like dismounting just the TC, but if you are looking to have them hop out and take a quick discreet peek with hopefully a chance to not be observed it is an option.

I totally get that and it isn't about bright etc. Once you buy the game, it is yours to play however you want. Whether BF considers trying to implement something that stops the timer and allows the game to continue is up to them. If there was enough demand they'd probably consider it. Not sure how they would implement it as the AI is directly tied to the timer, but that is a programming thing of which I know zip. I still think it will end up being an unsatisfactory experience simply because you have now effectively dumbed down the AI. It no longer has any orders so you are playing against a static situation or worse. Noooooooooooooo WeGo is absoultely the best part of CM. Okay in my poor humble opinion anyway. I can't stand real time and if you are really into the narrative of the game, the only way to appreciate the million and one things that are going on in most battles is review. It also breaks you from being able to minutely control everything every second. You basically have 60 seconds to live with the conesquences of your decisions. For me, a high point of the game.

I picked up Lions of Carentan, but I can't say I really recommend it. It didn't turn out to be quite what the title implied. Very little on the battle for Carentan. There is a bit more info on the unit's experience in Holland and some on Italy, but overall the book is pretty thin on detail.

Much as I really love his work, the mods are secondary to all the feature enhancements and fixes that should come with version 2, much less the additional Modules etc. I have modded the hell out of my copy and I suspect I will have to dump a lot of them and that'll be a little bit of a bummer for awhile, but modders are what they are and I am sure I will see the ones I do lose getting replaced over time. If you really do want to retain them you can always load a second copy of CMBN on your PC and upgrade that copy - get the best of both as it were. I suspect Aris will be looking to mod version 2 as well especially if the new models allow for things unable to be done in version 1.10, but only Aris can speak to that. Also as BFC is having to redo all the models anyway they may surprise us in how good they turn out. The CMFI vehicles certainly look pretty good.

You mean CM:American Factory has been announced?!!

Smarter than the average bear!!! Hey Boo Boo?! As everyone else has noted, depends on what AI you are talking about. Individual units have their own survival TAC AI, but the fact that one unit has spotted your unit is completely irrelevant to any other unit that has not done so. They will follow their own AI plans the designers has programmed until they specifically have a reason to not want to, like being dead. Orders are orders.

LOL yeah can you have it only happen to my opponents? Actually I am in the camp of it having a more serious impact. Defining what "more serious" means and finding that illusory happy middle ground is the tricky part.

And a scenario that can anticipate a human's actions and create a credible defensive action (much less those that simply have occasional unit movement to create the feel of an active opponent) is truly an art to appreciate. Besides part of the tension of the game is to know you are going to have to take some risks. The issue then becomes how to lessen the risk by using better tactics, not simply by taking more time (however going slow is definitely a must). @George MC - we need SOMETHING to kill time waiting for CMFI while at work...

Perhaps we need to define artificial. The allotted game time plays a couple functions. One is to help you understand the AI plan is only going to handle a set period of time. You can edit a scenario to change that, but now you have effectively hamstrung the AI. secondly it forces you to act. This is the only way to give the AI a chance. Once you have overrun the timer, you now have complete liberty to act knowing the AI has no further plans. third - WW2 commanders (actually commanders in any era) rarely had the luxury of deciding when to act. They were given objectives and a time to meet those objectives. For some reason gamers seem to think a low level military commander gets to decide to take all the time they want to meet an objective. THAT is unrealistic. Even higher level commanders have timed objectives - closing a pocket on enemy troops for example doesn't work real well if one pincer takes it's good sweet time about doing so. On the other hand deciding how long it should take to achieve X is a really really difficult proposition for a scenario designer. Is the audience playing RT vs WeGO, are they a cautious player, are they expereinced.. there are so many variables that affect how the AI plan will interact with a player's decisons to make a challenging, realistic and fun scenario that it is frankly very intimidating to create them. I know it has scared me off so far as the user response is all over the map and no one seems to appreciate that their opinion is completely counter to others.