NoxSpartana

Yeah it'll probably take a couple weeks... Even with something like HL2 you only see Gamespot's review like 3 days later.

There isn't a sane person alive that wants a realistic wargame at the tactical level. It would require the player - participant - to be able to go without sleep for 3 or 4 days, live in the rain and mud, carry from 20 to 180 pounds of gear on his back, know how to use a map and compass, a GPS, a radio, several types of grenade, pistol, rifle, grenade launcher, light mortar, anti-tank weapons, mines, entrenching tool, be able to conduct combat first aid, drive a vehicle, and on top of it - since he would want to be at least a squad leader - have an elementary knowledge of small unit tactics if not platoon and company tactics. No one would play it, much less make money selling it to people. Even if they marketed a Star Trek-style holodeck to people starting tomorrow, with all the software to do what I just described - there will still be products like CM:SF, just like there are still people who play Chess and Stratego instead of Squad Leader or CM. </font>

^^^I disagree. CMBB got a bunch of great reviews from big names in the gaming review business (IIRC gamespy was among them) EDIT: Ah yes here it is: http://gamerankings.com/htmlpages2/522049.asp?q=combat%20mission Gamespy gave it a 94%, gamespot gave it 9.1 and IGN gave it 9/10. Pretty good if you ask me.

I'm counting the days... I can see myself rocking out in Unreal Tournament 14 (a veryyy unrealistic shooter... shhhh!) in retirement with some sort of brain implant

Alright that's EXACTLY was I was asking for. Thanks for the quick response, I'm especially glad to see unit pathfinding and reactive TacAI on the list. And yeah I pre-ordered from you guys not from Paradox so I'm good

That's good to hear

Battlefront has repeatedly said that many of the problems that the reviewers are griping about in CMSF are fixed in the patch. But I really have trouble believing that a game that's been in the works for years suddenly got its AI/Pathfinding/UI/whatever problems fixed in a few weeks. So could we please get the rundown on what the patch fixed (specifics would be great!) for those of us not quite sure anymore about preordering?

That's awesome Good luck with the tumor.

My only mission editing experience in games was in Operation Flashpoint, (basically the FPS version of the CM series, realism wise), which featured an extremely powerful editor, but also was quite difficult to learn as creating a mission worth its salt meant first learning the specific scripting language of the game and commands (not nearly as difficult as learning an actual programming language but still very time consuming). In short, you could create almost ANYTHING you could imagine in the game (and I mean anything, I remember one guy creating a mission that revolved around X-men like super soldiers throwing tanks around and teleporting), but it took a LOT of time and a LOT of work. One mission that I was working on (but never completed) featured a company of rangers parachuting out of a large group of black hawks. As miniscule a part of the mission as that actually was (just the first minute of it), it took roughly 5 hours to set up (after just as much time spent reseaerching HOW to do it) as I had to write an individual command for every single soldier. So what will creating mission in CMSF be like? Time-wise, will it be a project that takes a week, or something that takes several months? Obviously, it's not an FPS which simplifies things in many ways, but you still have to create terrain, which could be quite time consuming. Could someone give me an idea of how long it will take? Also will scripting be needed for certain things?

So Moon, what kind of differences are there between the version Troy got and the current release version (that we're going to get)? The problems troy mentioned were pretty major, I'm curious as to what/how much could have changed in 5 weeks... Thanks!

Maybe I'm just stupid, but isn't this supposed to be an AAR of CMSF? Is the link wrong?

Michael Dorosh you bring back bad memories of when I was posting on the military.com forums asking various questions about enlisting/going officer, etc... in the Army. I really don't get why, but for some reason, quite a few (I'm not saying all, a lot were plenty helpful) army vets that browse the web seem to enjoy pissing off guys who are about to go into the military. The assumption always seems to be that the interested person is a slothful bum who has no sense of pride, discipline, seflessness, etc... and who is just signing up on a whim to get some cash for college. This view is especially absurd in this case since the OP is a 32 year old man with a wife and kids and a career going. Meanwhile, you seem to be trying to depict him as a high school drop out. And please, do post what music you listen to if you're bashing the Clash (who are not my favorite mind you, but are hardly bad). It really was bothersome just how often I was practically flamed for asking perfectly innocent questions. The recruiters would be furious if they knew what was going on [ July 24, 2007, 04:51 PM: Message edited by: NoxSpartana ]

Are you a tester/dev AdamL? And yeah training thread would be great.

Sorry I came off as a "know it all". I am a relative noob in this forum, I've only been browsing since maybe a year ago and registered in March, but all I'm saying is in many political arguments people really fail to see "the other side", which is, yes, naive. I'll be the first to say that this community is vastly more mature than the majority of gaming communities I've been a part of, but that doesn't change the fact many times people still have very, very biased views when it comes to this sort of thing. As for Lone Syrian, I'm not aware of the guy's past, and I'll take your word for it that he's had multiple offenses, but in my mind it still doesn't justify his most recent banning. Think about what your reaction would be if some Iraqi guy online was talking about how cool it would be to see some American soldiers get the crap blown out of them by an IED (regardless of whether the person meant it in a bad way)

Everyone needs to relax. Lee's comment was pretty stupid, though I'm pretty sure he was thinking that watching something getting the crap blowed out of it by 16 inch shells would be cool, not seeing actual people blown to bits. It's a fact of life, guys like to see stuff get blown up. Live with it. Not really any different than someone thinking that the Pearl Harbor bombing scene was cool (as idiotic as the movie was, and as innacurate as the bombing scene was, it was still cool). On the other hand, I don't think LoneSyrian should have gotten banned, because he wasn't really out of line, and I completely understood his reaction. A lot of the people on this forum are pretty hypocritical and naive when it comes to the thin moral line our wars (and war in general) are always balancing on. I wish some of you could go visit some Moroccan slums (the part of the ME I lived in for 6 years), and talk, and live with, and start to understand them. You'd all change your tune pretty quick (I hope). [ July 23, 2007, 06:26 PM: Message edited by: NoxSpartana ]

As long as the TacAI is good I'm set. I do hope the campaign's enjoyable though. But I'm a multiplayer man all the way I kinda wish a dev member would comment though EDIT: Dug this up: From http://www.deafgamers.com/07reviews/combatmission_shockforce_pc.html OP what "reviews" that you've been reading "a lot of" are you referring to? [ July 23, 2007, 05:50 PM: Message edited by: NoxSpartana ]

Stop bashing Starcraft and CoH, both are fantastic games, but of an entirely different mold. CnC Tiberium Wars though, is however, a piece of garbage.

Don't confuse Tactical AI with Strategic AI. The tac AI carries out your orders AND the OPFOR orders, the Strat AI figures out what those orders should be (go here, go there, etc.) And, as has been brought up, it can actually a good thing if the AI on the defense doesn't simply abandon it's defensive positions. If you played the CMx1 titles then you know how stupid the strat AI could be on the defense, abandoning strong positions to try and take back one small flag that wasn't worth the cost. CM isn't a game of annihilation, which most RTS games are. If the reviewer is more of an RTS player (which it sounds like might be the case, note the lead in comment "I've never played any of the Combat Mission games before"), then the Strat AI's restraint (remember, it can't replace those troops that it loses after all) is quite likely a good thing. Even though I'm not worried about the AI - it will NEVER be as strong an opponent as even mediocre human opponent can be, just the nature of the beast - I expect it to hand me quite a few losses until I improve my tactics. </font>

Don't confuse Tactical AI with Strategic AI. The tac AI carries out your orders AND the OPFOR orders, the Strat AI figures out what those orders should be (go here, go there, etc.) And, as has been brought up, it can actually a good thing if the AI on the defense doesn't simply abandon it's defensive positions. If you played the CMx1 titles then you know how stupid the strat AI could be on the defense, abandoning strong positions to try and take back one small flag that wasn't worth the cost. CM isn't a game of annihilation, which most RTS games are. If the reviewer is more of an RTS player (which it sounds like might be the case, note the lead in comment "I've never played any of the Combat Mission games before"), then the Strat AI's restraint (remember, it can't replace those troops that it loses after all) is quite likely a good thing. Even though I'm not worried about the AI - it will NEVER be as strong an opponent as even mediocre human opponent can be, just the nature of the beast - I expect it to hand me quite a few losses until I improve my tactics. </font>

...And there I was hoping for a second that some wandering English fisherman had come upon the sword and cleft some passing brigand with it...

The lack of a tutorial bothers me, but it's hardly the end of the world, it'll just make the game harder to learn. It will however, limit the size to which this community can grow, which is BAD! The enemy AI issue however, is very worrying. Thankfully there will always be online play Even more worrying is the tactical AI... I thought out-of-eight said it was good???

Watch the CNN video (bottom) at this page. "[blackwater] can assemble hundreds of battle ready men, a small private army, at a moment's notice." Sure sounds like mercs to me. As abhorrent as the idea of our government employing these guys is, it really highlights a problem with our military... our soldiers out there risking their necks every day don't get paid nearly enough for the insanely dangerous job they do.

Heck yes, release ze download NOW!

ARGGHHH I WANT THIS so baddd! This game is gonna obliterate all my other startegy games on my computer. Seriously, not only is it deep and realistic, but also beautiful. Seriously this looks as good (or better) as Company of Heroes in my opinion. Definitely better in certain areas (read: VEHICLES!) The explosions/smoke also look fantastic and a far cry from earlier CMSF shots. No more MSPaint explosions!

AHHHHH lucky prick!