WillLight

Maybe because it hasn't been so romanticised as anything involving the US has, makes it seem more grimy and real, dunno... Anyway, that's where the "bulk" of the war was fought and as someone who likes history, that's where the main interest lies.

Oh, sorry mate, I thought you meant being able to make missions across games, not across modules within a game. That they have definitely said will work and has worked in CMSF. I meant you probably won't be able to make a mission with some forces from CMBN and some from CM:Bagration, for example.

I doubt that's gonna happen, even for the contemporary base games (e.g normandy and bagration). Assuming they keep improving the engine between releases, making the newest release work with the old content will be an effort that will not really be rewarding financially to them as people will have already bought the earlier base games and (understandably) not be willing to pay too much to be able to combine the content...

Yeah, it's definitely a case of damned if you do, damned if you don't. The way I see it, BFC have no ulterior motive in regards to opening up the forum, posting screenies, etc. There's been a clamour for a CMBN forum for a long time now (before it was known to be called CMBN), and of course, you don't open up a forum without any bones. It's not like they get anything out of stringing us along, these are the forums after all, most anyone here will buy it regardless of how long before the release they started posting stuff.

Excellent point Steve, you're obviously thinking about the battle of Crete, and reading into the tea leaves, coffee dredges, etc., I choose to interpret this as there being a remake of CM:AK in CMx2 form, which makes me happy Now bring us the game already, you're forgetting about MY global morale!

Yeah, exactly. So when are you gonna send me the next turn in our PBEM, I'm dying to know if my bazooka guy got your panther, or if he's just dying.

No, I managed to run it under Windows XP using "Windows Vista Compatibility Mode".

That's weird, works on mine... Try renaming it to "CM:BN Demo" and if not, then try changing the shortcut by adding --log=c:\cmbn_log.txt and send in the file after you try clicking it 1024 times.

He he, you can damn right be sure GEORGE MC is in it, we saw a map of his at gibsonm's preview, and it was B-E-A-U-T-I-F-U-L (as well as massive)

There are going to be two campaigns, one US and one german, that's confirmed. Figure each one having between 12-20 missions. Previous releases have had around 20-30 addition stand alone missions. Plus you have the community releases which soon follow, for this figure 3-10 times more than were made for CMSF just cause everyone is crazy for WW2. So all in all, my educated guess is 30 + 25 in campaigns for the official release, followed by about 100 more user made missions (standalone or campaign) in the first six months to a year. Oh, and then there's QBs... life is gonna ba good

Just my two cents on QBs. There was a huge contrast between QBs from CMx1 and the first versions of CMSF. 1. There were issues with exactly which plan got selected when you chose a red attacker initially. 2. The maps weren't that great, nor were there many of them. 3. The AI plans were a bit rubbish too. 4. Force selection was very bad, especially for small forces. Now, that definitely put people off QBs, I know it put me off them too. For a long while I considered them broken and that was that. But throughout the patch cycle, some issues were fixed, some were improved, and #2 and #3 were addressed beautifully when Mark and other people started putting together map packs which had more maps (making random be, well, more random), better looking maps, and far better AI plans (which eventually made it into the official releases, hence earning Mark his God-like status ). Just as missions and campaigns improved as the designers learned the editor's abilities and limitations so did QBs. All that was left was the unit selection and the whole missing aspect of picking and points and that whole game within a game. Well, now CMBN has that in spades and I see no aspect in which CMx1 QBs are superior to CMBN ones. In my opinion, always getting a hand crafted map, with AI plans that match it, is a far superior experience to a randomly generated CMx1 map with flags and a simplistic strategic AI. After seeing the QB interface, I am very very much looking forward to CMBN, and to all you guys who gave up on QBs in CMSF, I'd say QBs are back baby, in as big a way as is humanly possible Well, maybe that was three cents...

Here are some of my impressions from the day: 1. The maps look great, the colours are vibrant (and very green), and the maps we looked at were very realistic. 2. The game plays really well. While I'm sure there are still some glitches to be worked out, there was nothing preventing us from playing and having a great time at it (albeit watching our troops being massacred was less great ) 3. Normandy is very different to Syria US troops under our command were far more fragile, both in terms of getting hit (no body armour) and in terms of losing morale (not a professional army). 4. Compared to CMSF, there are a million more options of troop types, weapon types, vehicle types, etc. This is gonna provide months of fun (and the modules aren' even there yet). Just seeing the massive list of units in the QB purchase screen or the editor made me feel like I was back in the CMx1 days. 5. QB is now awesome. I can't wait to play it, picking little task forces and organising them. For example, you can pick a tank and put it under command of an infantry platoon. Don't want to get into specifics re map selection, but it is a great improvement over CMSF. 6. Bocage is going to take some getting used to, and adds a whole lot of tactical options to the game. 7. All in all, the game looks great, plays great, and while there is probably a lot of work left to do to get it out (skinning some stuff, missions and campaigns), I have a feeling it will be playable and great from day one. Thanks very much to Mark for inviting us to his home and spending the time showing us through all the features, answering our questions and giving us our own go at the game. It is greatly appreciated.

He he, the preview happened, we are waiting for Mark to post a new thread about the preview and then I reckon we'll all chime in with our impressions. In three words, it was great!

Yeah, you're right, I guess it goes to show how such a pricing model isn't viable unless you have some other form of income. Would they be able to survive on their consumer sales of SB? Only they know of course, but it would seem doubtful.

Not sure about that Mikey, people feel ripped off when a game is way more expensive than its "peers" (regardless of whether or not you think other wargames are as good as CM). This is often a visceral, rather than logical feeling, but we are all too susceptible to those. Just look at what happened when Panther sold BftB for $80, a great game, and objectively well worth the money, but an uproar nonetheless. Look at Steel Beasts, another great game for its niche, and one with no substitute, even more so than CM has no real alternative, and for $100, their customer base is tiny.

11:00 is more palatable, but any time will do really as far as I'm concerned (girlfriend is at Coffs Harbour and working that weekend )

Hey Mark, Hope you don't have to go up north this time. Please count me in for the 19th. Cheers

Hmm, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Jordan, until recently Egypt. These aren't US backed, or not despotic enough? That being said, even if Islamists do take over in Egypt, there is 0% chance of a US backed anything intervening. Anyway, it is now incumbent on the Islamists in Egypt to show the world that an election in which they take part is not the last election in the country, as in Iran and the Gaza strip. They should look to Turkey for an example. Back on topic, it would make a great game, but you'd think all the stuff required is there already, maybe without the arab-looking infantry on the blue side. After all the Egyptian, Saudi, Jordanian, Kuwaiti and to some extend Iraqi armies are US-weaponry based.

Mikey, no one is talking about massive data tables (at least I didn't get that impression). I have played the old CMx1 games a bit (probably 100 or so hours), CMSF a bit (prob 30 hrs or so) and will prob play CMBN a bit more (but not a hell of a lot more). I know a tiger is well armoured, but there are other types, such as the various PzIVs etc, with their different guns and skirts and it would be nice to have some information about how A would fare at shooting at B from range X with some form of breakdown for front/rear/side. If BFC don't have time for it, then fine, fair enough, I understand all about the pressures of trying to put in as many (working) features as possible within a timeframe and the need to prioritise, but saying it's not needed or desired is plainly wrong.

I think it was only panicked that they don't recover from.

He he, if it was 0330 I would still seriously consider it, I'm dying to have a look at this beauty. Just meant to say that I'm happy to accommodate others who might have more constraints. Anyway, you asked so I'll answer, Feb 19th would suit me best. Cheers

I'd be interested, no specific date preference, any time would be great

He is playing WEGO, it's not like he's got a choice in the matter given he needs to make screenies, etc. Still some people play WEGO and watch the replay once or twice, other watch it dozens of times in an attempt to glean any advantage they can. I guess Elvis falls into group #1...

JasonC, fair points, but do you think it's possible to design a system at this level, i.e. 1:1, etc. and still have it designed for effect? If so, I would genuinely be interested in how you see it done, given Steve's convincing arguments re design for effect not working with the too many possibilities afforded by the higher fidelity. If not, then fair play, design for effect is possible only for by-far-more-abstracted systems. I don't think you'll get much argument there, apart from the one saying this more detailed system is more enjoyable to play.

Hi Elvis, thanks for doing this, it's great. Just a quickie about surrendering. Why did you have to dismount your tank crew in order to "un-surrender" your guys? I would have thought a tank being close would be enough... Cheers