kulik

When you think that a game can't surprise you anymore...

Fair enough. To sum it up, it always was, is and will be on battlefront to set their policies. I hadn't hoped to achieve something concrete with this thread, I was merely expressing my opinion on how to get some additional value out of CMSF by promoting other CMx2 games, expanding the market and bring in more customers.

I do, is the fact that someone proposes something that doesn't yield him an immediate personal gain that unbelievable?

They are still selling it,true, the question is, are people still buying it? Mind you, I'am a working man, I strongly believe that people should get paid for the work they do and for product they create. I'm talking hypothetically, if your products doesn't sell anymore, why not use it to promote other product of yours, or expand a niche market? I agree that this may create a precedence and people may hope that one day other CM games may be free and cease to buy them, but i find this very unlikely.

Well, as I was saying, everyone has it by now. ...it's something that battlefront would have to decide, only they know if CMSF still sells.

And? Did you bought it?

I think CMSF should be made free (without modules). Let's face it, we all have it, if there is a fervent wargamer who doesn't have it, he simply won't buy it for some individual reasons. That leaves the crowds that don't play battlefront games because they don't identify them self as wargamers, maybe, because they never tried out a CMx2 game. BUT people love free games. I bet there are players who simply won't download a demo, but would try out a full free game. If they fall in love, well, they may be potential customers for CMSF modules and other CMx2 games. If not, they will probably uninstall CMSF after couple of hours anyway. Now, if a CMSF is still a good seller for battlefront, and there is no way i would know, this would be obviously counterproductive. But if not, why not use CMSF for marketing purposes? ...worst thing that may happen, forum may get flooded for a week or two with kids who don't like the game and go through the notions of registration just to inform us of this fact. Kulik

Sigh. No replay...well, I still appreciate the effort. One day, maybe.

Agreed, it may be unstealthy, stamina expensive, and as BF stated, there may be a certain risk involved like chance of light injury or random troops getting stuck for several seconds. Getting in could be more safe than getting in, though. At some point in time, i would like to see buildings adjusted for defense, these would be extremely dangerous to enter this way.

It would be great if "fast" in/out of building would make soldiers use windows.

First, thank you Vanir for making these tests. I really wouldn't be able to get to it in the foreseeable future and i felt bad for letting this hang in the air. If I understand this correctly, best strategy is to get to a hull down position, and concurrently, ensure that the spotting line is blue, this way the spotting chances are equal, but you get the bonus of cover against incoming fire. Right?

Akd is on the spot, for answering question 1, I would collate only the set of results when sherman spots one of those panthers first. For answering question 2, the set of results would consist of those cases when sherman is spoted by one of the panthers first.

My limited testing implies the same. (I'm aware of what Battlefront thinks about pooltest, nevertheless, one of such set events in motion which eventuated into the adored "machine gun patch".) On a 1 km long shooting range I've put two panthers against a sherman. One panther perfectly hull-down, one exposed. As expected, all different kinds of outcomes seem to happen- exposed panther spots sherman, sherman spots exposed panther, hull-down panther spots sherman, and - quite frequently - sherman spots hull-down panther first, like this: As a matter of fact, sherman spoted hull-down panther more frequently than the one exposed, but I'd ran only like dozen of tests. I may do some statistic on this, but preliminary, it seems that being hull-down does very little, if anything at all, in terms of spotting and being spotted.

Hello, I've just noticed an interesting pattern. For obvious reasons, I always position my vehicles in hull-down position. I noticed that enemy vehicles are much much better at spotting, even moving vehicles without cover are spotting my unbuttoned stationary hull-down tanks first. I don't have much insight of how the CM engine works in this matter, but, could it be that in the hull-down vehicles, the crew sitting in the hull has obscured vision, thus not spotting at all? And, that the penalty for spotting hull-down vehicle doesn't over weights the natural penalty - that only the turret crew of those spots? It may be the usual frustration bias, but my last game, cats chasing dogs scenario, got me really thinking about this.

I've just noticed that the vids have been made public again. All it took was one short sincere comment about the whole issue. Sometimes, it's the small things that matter, i guess.

Any lurker like me reading the forums waiting for a CMBN complete pack? :-) This may sound crazy but i have a policy to buy only complete and finished game. And with this module system, I don't regard game being finished unless literally stated by Battlefront that no expansions/modules/whatever is coming. (This said i love the idea of upgrades which will keep older games on par with new releases, feature vise.) I've bought CMSF only after BF stated they are moving to CMBN. This in turn meant i had a LOT of time to enjoy CMSF and not being tempted by CMBN. Weird strategy, i know, but it works for me.

Wait, so Eastern front is a family and these are games: Bagration (Summer 1944 - Spring 1945) Kursk (Summer 1943 - Spring 1944) Case Blue (Summer 1942 - Spring 1943) Barbarossa (Summer 1941 - Spring 1942) and each of these will have separate modules (let's say each three modules)? That would make it 4x55$+4x3x35= 640$ for someone who would want to enjoy the whole eastern front?

Nachinus:Not really i said "tactical infantry focused wargaming" both games you mentioned seems panzer oriented.

Again thanks for the reply. I was just stating the state of affairs as they are i surely didn't wanted to imply that it's you who is holding that knife. That was a rough estimate for the upcoming eastern front game, 55$ base game with 4 modules each 35$. Didn't counted any upgrades as there is no official pricing for them. I think that most of us even if sometimes bitchy are really gratefull for the things you do and how you do them and most of the subtle hate is actually frustration that the game shapes in a different way that particular whiner is imagining his perfect game most of the time overreacting over flaws and lack of features thinking it will have more impact that way. ...in that way i percieve the "civilised" whiners with more respect as those brown-nosed fanboys. You could of course go do something else but we're living in hard times and you have here a stable market, devoted customers and not a sign of competition that could disseise you from your position and if you can make a living out of it anyhing other seems quite risky.

True, but if you really love tactical infantry focused wargaming you have somehow knife pressed against your neck. Of course you don't have to pay the 200$ for one game it but then its "Go back to 1996 and play Close Combat" for you. BF thanks for the blow-by-blow response on my post. As i have no insight in your company operations i have to trust your word that you're not just trying to cut your pie for as least number of people and that you're not sitting on a big pile of money while writing this. :-)

It doesn't sounded too bad for me. The key point is that even if he was very critical he also seemed to enjoy the gameplay itself. Important fact is that it's the computer wargaming genre that is years behind other computer games genres. From this viewpoint CMx2 games are the best out of the worst. In my opinion Battlefront lacks a healthy competition, the development (of new features not theaters) takes ages and the pricing is really pushing it. You are always whining that you are targeting a niche market but the frequency of sold material raised from CMSF development period significantly so why can you hire more people to help you make the games you do better? You lived through years without new releases and without any significant income (kudos to that, must have been really hard) and now here you are starting to pump out new releases, modules and newly upgrades (great idea BTW i always hated that CMBO was so outdated when new games came out) at quite high pace. Why don't you use the money to get some men so we can have tcp/ip WEGO, coop, fires, random map generators, operations and all the neat stuff in your game? You have to be beyond the sustainability issues if CMFI limited edition was sold out in matter of couple days...

My question is: "Was CM1 utterly wrong?" (I remember the rule of thumb regarding arty in CM 1 that everything under 100 mm pins with small casualties as a bonus.)

They profit will skyrocket compared to CMSF production period. And i certainly wish them that but they could hire more people to make more games and make them quicker which in return could make their profit even higher.

Standard meeting engagement- a race to the cap zone and then an unbalanced defence/attack mission. You won the race and i have here a 100 bucks that say you'll win.

A question: As the frequency of new releases of games,modules and newly upgrades raises wouldn't it be feasible to bring more people (coders, artists...) on board?