Lurker765

Don't forget the files on the hard drive too (such as the "Outoing email" directory).

Any chance we could have an option to have the WEGO turns at a 30 second length? This would enable many people to handle the file sizes without having to switch email providers. In addition with the quicker moving modern units it would lessen the reliance on TacAI in PBEM. Pretty please?

Don't forget CMBB (2002) 89/100 CMBO scored even higher with the critics than CMBB. I think people forget how well the critics loved the CMx1 series when it came out.

Your playing style must be a lot different than mine if you only need to pause a handful of times in a battalion sized game. In my opinion that scale is impossible in real time without pauses unless you are just lassoing troops and throwing them in a direction and relying on the TacAI (which is pretty bad in this iteration of the game IMHO).

For me the only big difference between real time with pauses and WEGO is the replay. If you can pause then I don't really see any other difference except that real time lets you pause whenever you want. I miss being able to see what happened on the other side of the map when something blows up. Was it a mine? An RPG? Who knows? Not me. I just have a dead unit and my little pixeltruppens refuse to talk. My main complaint is that real time without pauses (TCP/IP since elite mode is getting fixed) limits the scale of the game since you cannot control a battalion of soldiers. I know the game is supposed to be a company scale, but CMx1 could handle a small fight or a battalion one. I like that freedom, and even a company sized fight gets unwieldy unless you can pause. I have nothing against RT players even though I prefer WEGO. I think this rift clouds the real problems of the fun destroying bugs. Many people must feel that the effort spent on making the game RT took away from other features they wanted. Speaking as a software engineer I don't think that is particularly true since I don't see the two as being all that different in execution.

But how would you figure out a unit is padlocked? Wouldn't you think that any unit could be placed into your own setup zone? What if you don't even have a setup zone? What if this is one of your first games ever and you just happen to get one of these conditions (like every quick battle PBEM I have ever tried). When you try using the move command to place your unit during the setup and it is located outside of your setup zone (QBs) it instead shows a move waypoint. That seems to make things confusing. I wouldn't say this question is stupid, especially considering it gets asked a lot. Making someone posting on the forum feel stupid for asking a question that quite a few others have asked does not raise the bar for intelligence. It just makes a potential opponent/customer feel frustrated. Your mileage may vary of course.

Elmar, I don't think the initial placement of units is intuitive. Many people coming from a CMx1 background are used to seeing the 'Place' command in the setup. In addition, some scenarios do not have a setup zone to move around in and also do not give any indication that the units are padlocked in. My second game ever was Ambush at al Fubar and I could not figure out why I was not allowed to move my men into places I wanted them. There was no setup zone and no notes in the briefing (I was Syrian). In some of the quick battles I tried my units were placed outside of their setup zones and I was not allowed to move them into a setup zone. That is confusing as well. I then went to read the manual and could not find anything about how to place your units and restrictions.

the search tool is your friend: http://www.battlefront.com/discuss/ultimatebb.php?ubb=get_topic;f=52;t=002601#000012 From Steve in that thread: "At present we're still testing PBEM but early results look promising that all the problems have been fixed. Several LOS issues have been cleared up, a remaining ATGM bug was finally nailed down (having to do with elevation differences), a bunch of smaller things fixed, a few new things added, and we're still going. v1.03 should be the end of all major outstanding issues. " followed by: "By "major outstanding issues" I mean of a technical nature. We will have many more months of improvements and changes to do other things, such as continually tweak the TacAI, make improvements to QBs, etc."

I don't think the manual is fine as it currently stands. I think the sheer number of questions on using javelins, moving your units during setup, etc in the forums probably gives you a good idea of how many people new to the game are confused. A manual is supposed to explain the common questions on how to play a game. Adding a few paragraphs with the most common questions that keep popping up here would be beneficial. Edit to add: Even just modifying the PDF manual would be good. Don't worry about the printed one since most people do searches for keywords on the PDF. [ August 20, 2007, 08:15 AM: Message edited by: Lurker765 ]

Graphics probably refers to things like the invisible vehicles carrying passengers that are visible, supermen running up invisible buildings, Strykes backing up through walls and unloading their men on the other side, tanks having carnal relations (sitting in the same tile and overlapping), etc.

I'm not sure. You probably have a better idea than I do, but there are some threads from the moderators about this if you do a search. An example would be Madmatt's comments at: http://www.battlefront.com/discuss/ultimatebb.php?ubb=get_topic;f=70;t=000277#000000 Good luck, and bump this thread Monday morning if one of the mods haven't stopped by this topic by then.

It is the weekend and it is a tiny dev shop. I understand your frustration, but they've been working a lot of hours lately, give 'em a break. Someone will definitely try to help you out by Monday.

It was obvious to me until that particular scenario. The no colored setup zones for any units was confusing

The al Fubar scenario didn't have any setup zone at all as far as I can tell. So, none of my units could move. Does that mean you can't padlock a unit in the middle of a setup zone?

How do you tell if a unit is padlocked into position and not allowed to move? I couldn't figure it out in the al Fubar scenario without going into the editor.

The 93% rating from PC Gamer may have been a factor. </font>

How could CMSF not outsell CMBO in the first two weeks comparison? Battlefront is now an established name with a horde of customers who love them who pre-ordered the game based on faith in the developers. How many preorders do you think CMBO got? Plus, from what I recall CMBO was not sold retail, but CMSF has signed deals with distribution partners. Battlefront also has had a ton of word of mouth sales on CMSF due to their larger footprint in the industry. I would imagine many people would buy the game anyway despite poor reviews. If CMBO had received those kind of reviews I doubt Battlefront would have survived to even make CMBB. I think BFC is in a good position now where they have enough cash inflow to survive these hits. I want to see them make a game I enjoy playing. If this exact situation had occurred for CMBO they would indeed been in dire straits. Now, I don't predict doom and gloom for them, but I'm still undecided on fun and enjoyment for me until I see a finalized and patched game.

Hi Melnibone, Fancy meeting you here. I did a quick search and it appears that CMAK did indeed receive lower reviews (still higher than CMSF), but I think that was mainly the 'dated engine' and 'more of the same' syndrome. Both CMBB and CMBO seem to have fared well with the reviewing community. As far as I can tell the old days were somewhat golden for the CMx1 brand in the world of critics.

I would never have discovered CMx1 without the great reviews I read about it. At the time Big Time Software was tiny and didn't have much advertising. I can recall the GamesDomain preview was the one that actually got me to go visit the website pre-release and from that point on I was hooked. The demo was fun, and lo those many years ago I was short on cash so I paid attention to reviews more than I do now and plunked down my money only after seeing (what I recall) to be glowing reviews. I, too, do not recall any negative reviews. But, that was a long time ago it seems and memory is the first thing to go.

Well...I was just going to do my post and leave. But I have to say that I am not Tom Chick, I have never been Tom Chick, I am not associated with him, I had never even heard of him until I read this thread. Please don't blame him for my post. Bajeesus though. Saying someone was never insulted is strange since I just stumbled across this thread and found things like: "First, I must say I am disappointed. That was the sort of juvenile, uniformed, whiney kind of review I would expect from a 16 year old, not something from a seasoned reviewer." or "As for Tom's hardware problems... who knows what they are. You'd be surprised at how many so-called professional reviewers didn't think to update their drivers " etc This thread can die again, but I wanted to make sure that Tom does not get smeared for my post. Sorry about this. I will go away now. I understand this is a touchy subject and I did not mean to call your baby ugly.

After seeing the post complaining about complainers I figured things should be evened out and I drug up this 'old' thread to counter the "Good Lord" one. It seems that someone can't point out flaws they would like to see fixed in their paid for copy of the game without being attacked. Lots of name calling about his last name (pretty immature). He was called juvenile, uniformed and whiney for the review despite it being the precursor of similar reviews. He was cut down for reporting: 1) LOS tool doesn't exist and isn't accurate 2) Replays are buggy (zombies anyone?) 3) Daring to suggest the code was released early and violating everyone's belief that BFC has a very rigid policy of not releasing a game until its clean. 4) Suggesting that the code was going to be beta tested by the paying users. 5) Many of the orders in WEGO won't queue up 6) Uncons spawn out of thin air (I actually haven't seen this one, but I believe it does exist) 7) v1.01 would have fixed all the problems if he had known to ask for it like the other reviewer that designed scenarios that shipped with the game. From what I can tell I don't think v1.01 has fixed all the problems with the game. 8) Reporting that his machine had graphics and stability problems (ATI or 8800 springs to mind, although of course it could have been a dual core issue as well) and he was torn a new one by people claiming it was his fault for not updating his drivers, etc. 9) Daring to suggest the UI was not up to par. This one is subjective, but it's not like he has been the only one to notice this and have an issue with this presentation. 10) No tutorial shipping with the game. 11) The PDF manual being incomplete for many common questions (how to place your units on a setup turn for example). 12) Imbalanced or questionably designed scenarios. This one is probably debatable as well, but once again he isn't the only person to have noticed this. 13) AI is dumb as a stick. Well, the Tac AI is currently causing a nuclear war on these boards and the strat AI does a crawl of death if you lucky in a QB (otherwise it just sits in the setup zones). 14) Complaining that the real time nature limits the scope of the game (true for multiplayer without pauses). 15) That he was a real time junkie just because he dared post a critical review (when he has actually given praise to CMx1). 16) Complaining about a scenario where the uncons were given few RPG assets to deal with armor and daring to mention that the HEAT rounds used by the RPGs caused the game to rely on luck since a hit a win while a miss or three was a loss for the scenario. 17) No tooltips in the game to help people out since the icons are tiny on high resolution screens. 18) Poor graphics performance (separate from the graphic card crashes) 19) He expected more from this game and was then chewed out and told that if the budget/staffing was higher like other game companies they could have done better -- but they still charge the same amount for the game? 20) Slow camera panning (possibly due to the lag issues fixed in v1.02) I could probably find more issues, but there really isn't a need to further drive home the point. So...did anyone ever apologize to Tom Chick about this firestorm? Anyway, I am withholding judgement on the game. I preordered it because BFC has treated me great over the years. They get a mulligan from me for this one until the patches are completed. It just bothers me when either the fanbois/haters jump on people in this forum (like they did on Tom).