BletchleyGeek

Yes, I know too well But at the bottom the same problem as in TOAW. The UI was programmed for Uncommon Valour (2002) and after that, we only saw it tweaked, not really "revised". Most of the problems we had in WitP:AE were already in UV. If we wanted to set a "gold standard" for what a wargame UI should be like, we should look at Panther Games' Command Ops series, really (it's commented already on the Tea Leaves article comments). It not only covers all the bases - it even has Map Hotspots which highlight major events on the map - but also uses AI to streamline player actions (can't be arsed to "plot" all the counters belonging to 101st Airborne? No problem, just plot a mission for the 101st HQ and the AI will do the rest). And also deals admirably well with "information overload" with event filters and toggling units graphical display to keep track of morale, cohesion, supply etc., While it is an operational game - though amazingly detailed both in the terrain and in the OOB - these can indeed be a problem for a tactical game... you can only imagine how overwhelming can be to keep track of things in scenarios (Command Ops is pure RT, no WEGO) like the one covering the whole push of XLVII PzKorps towards Bastogne. Getting anything like that on top of a 3D display, though, as I said before, may well possibly be a LOT of work. Yet another hallmark of Atomic Games titles: nice interfaces.

Some threads you can check with very detailed proposals: http://www.battlefront.com/community/showthread.php?t=100750 http://www.battlefront.com/community/showthread.php?t=98491 others, such as getting the same menu one gets by hitting the space bar when right clicking on a unit I think don't need any mockup. They're self-evident. Some of these complaints have been found to be moddable http://www.battlefront.com/community/showthread.php?t=97781 (Marco Bergmann's mod depicting more intuitively vehicle armor levels and penetration, that mod I don't remember right now about pixeltruppen status display, etc.) but there's clearly limits to what's moddable and what's not. You can see there have been quite a few individuals trying to make constructive criticism of the UI (and I'm sure there are quite a few more examples out there I'm not aware). EDIT: I admit it's hard to keep track of all these discussions, would be nice to have all proposals and mods which might address some concerns, in one single place.

Indeed, a really good article. I just want to note that WitE developers have been making improvements on the UI based on players' feedback. One funny comment about WitE just after release "Wow, this just doesn't like one of Gary Grigsby's games", because of pretty functional interface. TOAW is actually a community project, the UI (and the game engine) is now 13 years old. ATG, well, is ATG For CM:BN the problem I see is that the kind of UI changes and improvements that have been discussed on the forums would require comparatively a lot more of programming work than in WitE (and I say, really a lot more).

If so, that will be a huge advantage for the Brits, which I guess will be "balanced" by an insane reload time.

One thing I like to do a lot - either US or German - is to enhance infantry forces by attaching directly ATG guns at the platoon or company level. Another way, and relatively cheap way, to enhance the offensive punch of German leg infantry are infantry guns, especially the 76mm. Easy to move around and give close support in the defense or the attack.

Good point, it was the second post. In what regard did Clark fail with any of those 5 steps in his other thread were he even posted a mock up of his feature request. Because, we all need to read everyone's else posts, every day, don't we? Wait, don't answer. I don't care. You just got my first entry on my Ignore List.

I said "some" beta testers. Others always keep it polite and request for more data. Obnoxious people are supposed to be dealt with by moderation, not other forum regulars. If I had to deal with that for 10 years either I would have an ignore list with several thousand entries, developed a skin thick as that of a turtle caparace or just took a long long break from it. I can understand that. I've seen that on Harpoon forums at Matrix Games (with Darren Buckley, RIP, going ballistic on that obnoxious and pompous Herman guy). But then came moderation to, as the name implies, moderate. Capt went precisely postal with Clark, who has perhaps covered all the bases with respect to making a feature request. He also drove the discussion from reviews of videogames and CM:BN in particular to that User Interface issues. I can't really comment on that, but I think it was more like Redwolf trying to get an answer from a deaf person, and that deaf person going Full Aggro On because, even not getting what the other guy was saying, guessed he was being insulted. On the comical side, it reminded me of the Toy Doll's short piece "Florence". Misunderstanding over the Internet is common, but very few people around here come to ever say "Hey, sorry, I got that wrong". And we're all friends. Clark did. And he got attacked. And the thread derailed for four pages.

Cool. The point I made yesterday, before several pages of flames and rage. You could have saved yourself a lot of bile saying this right after my post rather than going postal. Usually reviews appear under categories, in this case I guess it would be Simulation & Wargames. How many FPSers do usually browse that with the same attention as the FPS section? If you buy the New York Times, how much attention do you pay to the International section compared with the attention you pay to the Arts & Crafts section? That's because of certain Betas going postal at criticism made at the game unless the guy criticizing makes a extremely polite request while on his knees, starting and ending their posts with an accolade of the game, and ending all his answers with a respectful and most adequate "Sir", or simply with, "Yes Sir". I don't dislike Steve, Charles nor their work. But I dislike this attitude of some "Beta" people who write and sound like characters from the German movie "The Wave". What's wrong with you guys? Re CM:BN having been released under a different business model. I'm not criticizing BF's business model. I think it's clever and a sane way of handling their business. For niche things like CM:BN - and they will be "niche" no matter how much watered down is pretended to be the game by glossing over all the grog details which are actually in it - it's this model or a subscription based model. Now, consider a big wig MMORPG such as Eve On Line. Do you know how were the ratings for it back in 2003? Care to compare with the ratings 5 years later? Here with CM:BN and CM:SF we've a similar situation. The game you buy isn't finished - it's work in progress.

I wonder what would have been the score in the review if all the content planned for the future CM:BN modules would have been available upfront. I mean, classical reviewing makes more sense for those games who are released in a "classical" way. That is, the whole thing is on the table at release, buggy or not. Battlefront model of develoment is quite different, with its Families and Modules. Is CM:BN complete? No, very much like CM:SF wasn't "complete" until the release of NATO and 1.32 patch. Rather than charging us 100$ up front, we'll eventually be paying that amount as modules are released. Here, very smartly, Battlefront is aiming at obtaining a steady income stream, rather than risking to put up a very expensive game that takes even more time to develop that CM:BN "vanilla" has needed. I'm pretty sure that somebody buying all modules at release will be paying more than 100$ dollars at the end. As a business model, it makes a lot of sense. So what did the reviewer do? He, consistently with the usual practice, reviewed CM:BN as he would have reviewed a release made under a "classical" business model. And compared to that, certainly CM:BN lacks the polish of many other titles out there. What a reviewer can't do either, is to take at face value the promises by Battlefront of continuous patching and delivering modules at a regular pace. Why? Because they're just promises and expectations not facts. He's to made the review with what he has at hand, not with what he will eventually have at hand. So CM:BN got a 73%? Is that bad? What would be "right" score for you guys? I think it's fair. In my book, CM:BN "vanilla" 1.00 should get a B, and probably, when we've everything on the table - content, patching the odd stuff we've all seen and experienced, making a few UI improvements - it would get an A+ and make it into the Hall of Fame of computer wargaming. Is B a good mark? It depends on how liberally you rate stuff. I wouldn't event put a B- to most AAA releases in the last year, to be honest.

Does/would the AI act differently when it's RT?

A really useful suggestion Clark.

Exactly what I was thinking

Panicked troops are that, panicked. They're supposed to be seeking for cover and running away from the enemy. Usually this ends up with most of them being mowed down in the process. CO's try to rally panicked troops. If the CO is dead, or too far away, or he's himself running away, it can happen that the panicked units end up exitting the battlefield altogether or surrender. Besides failure, the rally check can have two other possible outcomes. Both imply that the panicked units recovers its cohesion and will to fight. One outcome is "Broken", which means that if it's more prone to panic again, and in general, will not operate as effectively as before (decreased rate of fire, individual men in the unit going on their own, inreased chances for surrendering, etc.). The second outcome is "Rattled", which means that the unit retains some effectivity, but substantially less than originally. Well, the question is what happened to them before getting into that state. The suppresion indicator is highly variable.

That would have a pretty simple answer: "Because the jeep driver wants to eventually go back with his family in Vermont in one piece".

I was assuming H2H play. There's no RT pause in H2H, and the kind of finesse in the flanking maneuver above it's not really within CM:BN AI capabilities - or most AI's out there.

That's the big difference and why I see that people playing RT might need more time. In WEGO one can wear the boots of each officer or non-com and issue orders in a simultaneous way, in RT this is just impossible. You have two platoons assaulting a position and a third one in reserve. You notice that the enemy is maneuvering to flank the two platoons performing the attack. In RT either you micro-manage the ongoing assault or you micro-manage the third platoon to counter the enemy move. In WEGO you can do both things. Regarding the issue with time limits: it depends on the context the scenario designer has in mind for the action being modeled. If the action is part of greater operation which gives context to the scenario, time limits make a lot of sense. A recon in force, for instance, might be needed to be performed quickly, to allow for planning a Regiment level assault. Or once the assault is going on, a force on the flank might be tasked with taking out some AT guns from a elevated position with overwatch on the main force. For both tasks, having a hard deadline is quite reasonable, in my opinion.

Thank you for gathering the data. I agree with the analysis, though I'd add it won't harm to set territory objectives so they're more fine-grained (when it makes sense, of course).

Well, it could well be as you say. In general, I never was too convinced of the feeling of infantry (in general) in CMx1. Either they sucked too much damage for too long or they were gone as quickly as the memory of a dream fades when one wakes up (in my opinion).

Building which aren't fortified shouldn't be of much protection. They offer concealment, but no cover, since you have to expose yourself a lot to enemy fires. One concealment is broken, is better to get some cover. For cover you need to improvise it with sandbags, furniture, etc. to make windows and doors to be something which the same purpose of what in Spanish is called "aspillera" and in English is referred to as "embrassure" or "crenel". This is πολιορκητικα 101 (Poliorcetics). Not to play the "in CMx1 it was like this" but in CMx1 I found buildings not to be that much cover unless when the designer placed foxholes inside. What we need is a "fortified" or "reinforced" building type in the editor.

I saw the movie three weeks ago, it was aired on a local cable TV station. Just joking, senators in Spain aren't so notorious as in the US

Who? I'm Spanish Didn't mean to derail the thread, btw. I wanted people here to lower the tone and forget about real or imaginary attacks on their persons, CM:BN or BFC. I just think things get out of hand way too easily in this parts, and get personal at a hair split. I'd like to see WriterJWA to come back to the thread and expose his concerns with a more neutral tone - hint: neutral doesn't mean uncritical, btw -, in a structured way and accounting for the answers he got.

Ughh, I've had a really weird dream...

This Is An Automated Reply. Bletchley_geek Has Gone On Vacations For An Unspecified Period Of Time. Nothing To See Here, Move Along.

Womble, your second explanation was very clear, and WriterJWA was a bit too crass. But he apologized. Are these forums hosted in North Korea, or what?

If you have someone who play you can trust, one thing that can work would be that: 1) The campaign author releases the campaign unbaked, accompanied by a small guide telling the players which battle outcomes influence which others 2) The players carry over losses, manually from scenario to scenario. It's a pain, but being just one the battle involved each time, it might be doable.