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lordhedgwich

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Posts posted by lordhedgwich

    Hallowen discounts for updates

    in Combat Mission Battle for Normandy

    Posted

    May be so. Perhaps we are running out of patience, because we know that we are finally getting what we always wanted and now people still complain. Besides, I remember you talking about the price of the vehicle pack as 'absurd'. Such statements aren't exactly a good foundation for a civil and respectful conversation.

    I did say that but i am also frustrated as i can not get any of my friends to buy this game to play as they say prices are to steep for what it is (especially the engine upgrades) and as much as i try and defend the prices sometimes it seems to be a loosing battle to people who have never really played these games. and i was bashed on a few times for saying that which i expected, but the people saying things like "well the editor is easy to use makes your own missions" or the people saying "dont worry we will make missions so these vehicles can be used" were the voices of reason and made my argument invalid not the people insulting or bashing.

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    So now you guys are sitting around with nothing to do...

    in Combat Mission Battle for Normandy

    Posted

    Yeah, but I still think France 1940 would be more interesting than Bulge ( for eg. ).

    From my point of view, 1944 onwards is much the same, but the early war is rife with tactical conundrums and obscure vehicles leading to same.

    But that's just me - I can also understand BFC's approach which utilises half ( or so ) of the previous work.

    I agree with this 100% not to say i wont buy a Bulge game i love snowy battlefields, but i would much rather see Early war than another game set in 44 unless it was the continuation war

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    Hallowen discounts for updates

    in Combat Mission Battle for Normandy

    Posted

    Why aim so low? Why not suggest BFC give it away free to random customers? Or give cashback?

    I think BFC, having been doing this for 14 years either:

    a) are mad (and broke)

    B) have a faint idea what they are doing

    Which do you think?

    Oh, and $20 dollars too much? Here you are: http://www.businessinsider.com/20-items-under-20-everyone-should-buy-2013-11

    Relax its not like he did not say anything bad about BF all he said was discount for holiday would be cool because his friends cant afford it. no need to get all crazy just chill :cool:

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    Hallowen discounts for updates

    in Combat Mission Battle for Normandy

    Posted

    It's very interesting. Sometimes I think that are we all customers? When I write something constructively for us as customers . Some interesting human beings are interpreting this demands as they are sellers. Are we at the same in side?

    Regards

    I haven't made that many posts but i tend to creep around on the forums and i have noticed the people that have been here for a long time tend to get very hostile and defensive any time they hear something they don't like or agree with. I don't think most people that post mean to "pester" just would like to see what their fellow CM players think about their thoughts and ideas. Or maybe they want to see what battlefronts response is.

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    more modules

    in Combat Mission Fortress Italy

    Posted

    We have plans for Fortress Italy but there is nothing to officially announce at the moment.

    North Africa would most likely be a separate product from Fortress Italy, not an expansion of it.

    Good to hear chris so far Fortress Italy is my favorite CM game I was super hyped for Red Thunder, but it wasnt what i had hoped for (not that it wasnt good) So im excited to see Battlefront still has plans for it. I hope Battlefront decides to do North Africa I would love to see some earlier war games being made

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    Where is CMRT patch?

    in Combat Mission Red Thunder

    Posted

    And I believe Togi's point is that Battlefront's priorities seem to be releasing updates and modules (which generate immediate income) instead of releasing patches (which see no immediate income as the recipients have already paid for the game).

    You can call it paranoia, or you can bite your tongue and claim non-disclosure. Either way, I don't think its a huge leap to scratch your head at the number of upgrades and modules that have been released (such as the vehicle-pack that, according to Steve himself, needs to be priced at $20 per unit to make a profit) and wonder why they haven't spent more time and effort releasing a fix that since August they've promised is right around the corner.

    I have also noticed the Engine upgrade and the Vehicle pack came out before the RT patch.. Which i found very shocking to say the least i have been waiting months for a patch.

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    The Vehicle Pack is out!

    in Combat Mission Battle for Normandy

    Posted

    Something that was said a few pages back is worth repeating.

    For us, it would take about 2 months to make and test a dozen scenarios for a Vehicle Pack. The reason is that there's always development problems that stall scenario development and scenario work that stalls testing (if you're working the Editor you're only testing a subset of the game).

    By putting out a Vehicle Pack now we expose the new content to a LOT more people than our testing team. Give that group 2 months and the number of scenarios available will dwarf what we could have produced in the same time. And all those scenarios are free.

    So for those of you who want to play hand crafted scenarios instead of QBs or self made scenarios... just wait a couple of months and you'll have what you need. Or get it now, have some fun with it, and then in a couple of months get scenarios made by others. No matter what, with the content in people's hands there will be scenarios ready to go even without any shipping with the Vehicle Pack itself.

    To answer another question, we plan on releasing various Packs of the following types:

    1. Vehicle Packs -> primarily vehicles only, though some other weapons too. No scenarios or campaigns.

    2. Forces Packs -> primarily specialized or new national forces, though perhaps some weapons too. No scenarios or campaigns.

    3. Battle Packs -> only battles and campaigns, probably with an emphasis to support Vehicle and Forces Packs since previous releases should have plenty of scenarios and campaigns already.

    Pricing is very flexible. Smaller Packs cost less, larger ones cost more, others are inbetween.

    Note that we are not planning on very small Packs. No firm rules on that, but a small Vehicle Pack might be 10+ vehicles/weapons, a medium one 15+, and a large one 20+ with prices of $10, $15, and $20 respectively.

    Steve

    So for the battle pack would it work the same way any other pack? 10 battles for 10 bucks etc. I would throw money at you for that =)

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    The Vehicle Pack is out!

    in Combat Mission Battle for Normandy

    Posted

    Battlefront, Have you guys thought that instead of making these vehicle packs to just do scenarios packs? I love the scenarios for almost all of the CM2 games and after i beat them all i replay the ones i like a few times, then i move on to the campaigns. I would gladly pay for more scenarios with even if they only included 1-2 new things.

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    The Vehicle Pack is out!

    in Combat Mission Battle for Normandy

    Posted

    Thanks for the feedback! Here's some responses to issues raised:

    The effort to make this Pack was greater than expected. We started on this thing back in Spring 2014. It consumed a lot of development time because there were a fair number of 100% "ground up" vehicles that had to be built, the Crab behavior is brand new in many ways, and even the AVRE needed some unique code. We also had to adjust TacAI behavior in some places and tailoring the new vehicles into the old TO&E in a way that worked for all combinations of game installations.

    We also take into consideration the possibilities of future reuse when we invest in making new vehicle models. A fair number of the vehicles in this Pack are specific to Normandy and therefore won't be reused ever again. Which means their costs can't be spread out over other releases.

    We never, ever intended to ship a Vehicle Pack with scenarios because that adds an entire new layer of work to the finished product. It also adds about 2 months to the release schedule. For a $35 product earlier in the Family's lifespan (see next point) it makes sense to do it. For $20 later in the Family's lifespan it does not.

    CMBN is now 3+ years old. While we are continually pleased by the sales of CMBN follow ups, for sure they are on the decline each release. If it was anything other than that I think we'd have heart attacks :D Even when I worked for a multi-billion game company sales of follow ups always trend downward. If you don't plan for this then you get into big problems. I suspect it is one of the reasons SSI went belly up as an independent company.

    Compounding this is that we only have so many hours in the day to work on things. Spending 2 months on doing scenarios means 2 months our testers aren't working on much of anything else. It means that some members of our development team are distracted, ranging from very to somewhat depending on stage of development and responsibilities.

    The short of it is... this wasn't cheap for us to make, it came at the expense of other development, and we expect sales to be in a range where $20 is necessary to make it worth doing. Since this is our first Vehicle Pack it might be that our costs are too high for the interest from customers, in which case it may be the last Vehicle Pack. Hopefully that won't be the case because I think that would be a real loss to the CM concept.

    Steve

    I wish you guys had the time and money of some of Some of the bigger game companies. With the budget of the battlefield franchise for example i bet you guys could make one monster of a ww2 game

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    The Vehicle Pack is out!

    in Combat Mission Battle for Normandy

    Posted

    damn, I lost. I was betting the first "I am not gonna pay for this" post would happen within the first 10. You guys are slipping.

    This was my first "not paying for this" post on BFC, but i feel with no scenarios 20 is just too much, but who knows maybe if i find a good video on how to make your own missions maybe i will get it then.. but i dont like quick battles in cm games so this pack would be useless to me sadly

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    Status update on "Black Sea"

    in Combat Mission Shock Force 1

    Posted

    So im gonna be that guy... what is going on with this game... From what i have read it was supposed to release already, but we have no screen shots pre order or anything.. and like 3 weeks ago there was a post saying we would see something "very soon" I know the are a smaller company and make quality products, but man i just want some screen shots or a gameplay video the anticipation is killing me.

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    Status update on "Black Sea"

    in Combat Mission Shock Force 1

    Posted

    No "future" equipment, by which I take you mean that we would make a bunch of stuff up and have it look all futuristic-like. ;) By 2017 militaries are going to be for the most part still be using the same platforms they have now, although these platforms are continually being upgraded. That's not to say that the equipment isn't going to change at all. UAVs, precision artillery, active protection systems, more ERA, airburst HE systems, more satellite networked C2 systems (and a lot more)... that tank might have a familiar silhouette, but there are new cutting edge systems on it and around it that are going to make the battlefield quite different.

    In addition, we're giving the Russians and Ukrainians access to some of their best equipment, even if it's bordering on hypothetical because it is either available in very small numbers or not yet being fielded: items like the Oplot-M tank, BTR-4, T-90AM (which we're using as a domestic version of the newest T-90 variants equipped with Relikt armor), etc.

    Future combat systems like the next generation of tanks and IFVs and such are appealing, but the fact of the matter is that there is very little concrete information available on these systems, and definitely not enough to make a detailed representation of it in the game. We'd basically be taking wild guesses about how the vehicle would look and perform. It's a losing proposition for now. Maybe some time in the future when more information is available, these sorts of future systems would make for great content.

    Thanks for reply Im very happy to hear this... I am very excited for this release i cant wait to play as Russia

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    Triggered videos/pics?

    in Combat Mission Fortress Italy

    Posted

    I started playing A little over two years ago I started with the CM battle for Normandy demo.. And i said F*** this its hard and i dont know what to do then out of curiosity i downloaded the FI demo. The same thing happened. I really loved the detail and the realism of the game So i watched the Armchair General combat mission videos. Then i played the demos until i beat all the missions they game with.. Now i own all combat mission games except CMBO and CMA

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    Combat mission and steam.

    in Combat Mission Red Thunder

    Posted

    It makes me a bit suspicious when we suddenly get these "Why isn't CM on STEAM?" threads usually from people who never otherwise post.

    Is STEAM offering rewards to people who can bring em more games?

    Well I signed up for the forum in 2009 so i dont think my goal was to promote steam... lol I just thought it might help promote sales but apparently I was wrong.. I didnt realize this was such a touchy subject and would cause some of you to whip out the tin foil hats lol :P

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    Combat mission and steam.

    in Combat Mission Red Thunder

    Posted

    Honestly even if folks could somehow derive those numbers I doubt BF would be interested. BFs focus seems to have been more along these lines over the past 10 years or so

    1- Develop the cmx2 engine - essentially CMSF they had to first find out that 1:1 was gonna work. Choosing a modern setting was just bring crafty daredevils. Perhaps they just felt they needed a fresh setting otherwise it would be conflicting too much with the existing cmx1 base

    2- Launching back into the ww2 setting and getting a feel for demand. -CMBN and CMFI

    3- Working on the production cycle process and the ability to have more than one project in the pipeline. CMRT and the following modules/game families

    4-Developing a strategy to keep all games current. Release of 2.0 for CMBN and subsequent 3.0. I think BF is still working the kinks out on this one to try and reduce the amount of labor it takes

    At no point there do I think BF really focused on a "sales effort". My impression based on them expanding their company (yeah Phil!) and their output is that sales aren't really their issue right now. Their income versus expense model seems to be increasingly moving in a favorable direction and it would seem that their business model has proven itself sound to survive fluctuations in the economy. In that situation where you are in full control of your sales model and forecasting why would they ever consider putting any of that at risk? The release of CMBS is going to bring them more attention. This one is gonna rock. Even if the setting is not one you are interested in, it is gonna fascinate to see how combat has changed in the Information Age. During the latter days of the Cold War as NATO started looking at air land battle and other such concepts about getting inside their opponents decision making cycle (the modern version of France 1940), we had only a glimmer of what was to come.

    My only question for BF is, what the heck is CMx3 gonna look like. :D

    Considering that from BFs perspective it would likely mean going out of business, I hate the idea.

    I wouldnt want them to go out of business.. I always thought steam was a good thing for games hence the Greenlight stuff and all these indie games getting on steam... I love combat mission i would just like it to get its name out there and be really successful

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