Remember when....

[Ted]

I was just taking a trip in the wayback machine and found some interesting links.

Battlefront 1999.

First before you can play the game you'll need, for Windows:

Windows 95/98

Pentium (P5) 166MHz w/3D card

Pentium (P5) 200MHz w/o 3D card

32MB of RAM

50MB of Hard Disk Space (est.)

CD ROM drive

DirectX 6.0 compatible video card

DirectX 6.0 compatible sound card

28.8 modem for multiplayer

I remember these scenes blowing my socks off.

And one of these guys even has a mustache. Wow!

(There is information there that I miss in CM2)

And there's snow!

Although I couldn't find Waldo and I did spot the Panther hiding behind the trees.

Here's the link to the Battlefront Archive (or should I say Big Time Software).

http://web.archive.org/web/20000303205541/http://www.battlefront.com/index.html

Some great names blasting from the past there.

And this one:

http://web.archive.org/web/20000304195452/http://combathq.thegamers.net/

(What did ever happen to Madmatt?)

[Pvt. Ryan]

Madmatt cohosted the first season of American Idol with Ryan Seacrest, but they let him go after that and was never heard from again.

As lame as the graphics were in CMx1, even with the awesome mods, the game was more of a game and less of a simulation and was so much easier to play. CMx2 is much prettier and is much more realistic, but can be so frustrating at times.

[Seedorf81]

In 2000 or 2001 I saw this 3 dollar ww2 game in a discountbasket: Combat mission beyond Overlord. Didn't think much of it, until I had it installed. It turned out to be one of the best games ever. (Spearhead, Abrams M1 Sim, was another brilliant game.)

It stunned me and I played it until CMBN came out. Maybe I'm biased, but I seem to recall that there was more room to manoeuvre. Now I'm trying to play "the scottish corridor" in CMBN-CW and I don't think that Beyond Overlord was ever that difficult and/or frustrating.

So yeah, I feel a little nostalgic sometimes..

[Vanir Ausf B]

That old color scheme was unforgettable.

[Erwin]

Really miss those stats windows... Now we get some info in the tiny weapons icons with a mod. But, having a large easy to read window was great.

The scaling tool was also very useful for locating units. I still am unsure if I prefer the CM2 floating icons vs the CM1 ground bases.

[kump]

Bases vs floating icons?

Floating icons wins hands down. No only selectable from ground '1' view, they give information like select one and all units in same platoon have icons hi-lighted, making things a whole less tedious and easier to keep proper organizational structure, needed for C2. They blink when taking casualties, they fade when panic and not selectable. I can go on and on.

I know its my own opinion, but I do not miss the colored bases except in "map view", but even there the icons are sufficient. If there was an option, I would never go back to bases.

[Doug Williams]

Wow, thanks Ted!

[Wodin]

Really miss those stats windows...

me too, I'd like to see the kills during the game aswell..infact why not expand it as CMx2 should expand on all of CMx1 features and tell us also what unit the kill was from.

I don't miss the graphics or the 3man squads..but I do remember being impressed with CMBB graphics (though wished for the day we could see all the men..and now we can).

[John Kettler]

Ted,

See? The discrimination against the Mac users began early--and both versions were on the same disc! On a more serious note, while the 3D nature of the game and graphics back then were astounding to me, and CMBO was nowhere nearly as realistic--as anyone who tried charging an MG nest found out in CMBB--as CMBN, it was far easier to get into and simply didn't require the troop micromanagement we need to practice today.

Wodin,

You got your individual men, but oh, the price! And how I miss being able to put guns where I wanted them, rather than hope and pray they wind up somewhere usable. Kills by unit would be nice, though I don't recall ever seeing kills listed for off board units, units which exited or FOs. May be defective memory, though.

Erwin and kump,

That variable size tool was a great feature and really helped me see where my guys were. It's much more work now to go from the big picture down to where the war is rather more intimate. I find the icons to be useful in some ways and an immersion killer in others. Reminds me of those samurai era troops who had tall bamboo flagpoles emerging vertically from their backs, with unit flags flying from them. Great for the commander on his hilltop; not so good for the guys trying to close without being seen. To me, playing with icons on is like watching a battle in which each man has a balloon above him which goes everywhere he does. Also, because of perspective and POV, the icon can cause real problems if you're not careful. The are bit annoying when taking screenshots, what with the toggling and untoggling.

Regards,

John Kettler

[Duckman]

Haha, memory shock! I never could get used to those 3-man squads.

[Lt Belenko]

Here's an extensive article from GameSpot.com about how BTS all got started.

Game Stats Release date: May 31, 2000

Platforms: Windows 95, 98, 2000; Mac OS 8, 9

Project budget: Approximately $125,000

Project length: 2.5 years

Project size: Over 150,000 lines of code

Team: Two full-time programmers at Big Time; two primary freelance artists; 21 independent contributors: research, testing, scenario authoring, additional artwork

Essential development software: Metrowerks CodeWarrior, Sculpt 3D, Photoshop, 3D Studio Max, SoundEdit 16, DeBabelizer Lite, Movie Cleaner Pro, and proprietary 3D-model compiler tools developed in-house

Essential development hardware: 3dfx, ATI, Matrox, and Nvidia graphics cards

This article is so old. How old is it? They call the turns "hybird RTS - Turn based". I guess the term WEGO hadn't been coined yet.

http://web.archive.org/web/20021220153007/http://gamespot.com/gamespot/features/pc/postgame_wrapup/index.html

The end of the article promises Combat Mission 4 - The Blitzkrieg Battles. Vaporware.

[Ted]

Great article on how CM started up, thanks Lt.

There's even a picture of a couple of young pups.

Charles and Steve

I wonder if they know there's a Mk3 sneaking up behind them.

Actually, they're probably there to buy the thing.

I'll bet there's some grey in that red beard nowadays.

[agusto]

Great article on how CM started up, thanks Lt.

There's even a picture of a couple of young pups.

Charles and Steve

I wonder if they know there's a Mk3 sneaking up behind them.

Actually, they're probably there to buy the thing.

I'll bet there's some grey in that red beard nowadays.

That remindes me of something. When i was in the army in 2008/2009, i was stationed at an arsenal. Next to that arsenal was a military museum and one time we got a real, operable Jagdpanzer IV for service. Was an impressive sight, seeing it driving around in the base.

[TheGreatRadish]

The end of the article promises Combat Mission 4 - The Blitzkrieg Battles. Vaporware.

That was an interesting read. I've never seen it before so thanks for posting.

In more detail, Charles actually said:

Plan ahead. Gamers always want to know what we're working on next, so I'll tell you. Combat Mission 2 will take us to the Russian front, from 1941 to 1945. Combat Mission 3 will focus on battles in North Africa and the Mediterranean, and Combat Mission 4 take place during the Blitzkrieg years of the early war, from 1939 to 1940. We may go beyond that, but we have no firm plans yet.

Such a shame it never happened, but things moved on I guess. I still think it's impressive that, apart from CM4, BTS/BFC made good on their promises. You hear that sort of thing from developers frequently but it never actually happens. Credit where it's due and all that...

[Battlefront.com]

Wow. It's been a while since I read that article too! Funny though, I did tell someone recently to do a search for it.

One error... we were 2 full time "Developers", not programmers, at the time. Charles did all the coding and some of the design work, I did some of the design work and most of the rest of the stuff. Including the art, which is why we now have professional artists

Steve

[bobo]

Wow! I never have seen that article and I played flight commander 2 back in the day. Good read and that might be the most that Charles has been quoted that I have seen.

Thanks for the link and step back in time.

Bobo

[c3k]

Great article on how CM started up, thanks Lt.

There's even a picture of a couple of young pups.

Charles and Steve

I wonder if they know there's a Mk3 sneaking up behind them.

Actually, they're probably there to buy the thing.

I'll bet there's some grey in that red beard nowadays.

That tank is actually driving and, no, they had no idea it was there. In fact, their total lack of awareness of the tank got ported into CMBN. If you EVER wonder why some infantry can't see a tank RIGHT THERE, well, this was the genesis of that bit of code.

Ken

[Battlefront.com]

Heh. That particular M3 has a 100% functional 37mm cannon and MG. It is surprising to find out how loud the danged thing is. The owner also has a fully functional 57mm ATG, which makes the 37mm sound like a kid's cap gun. I can only imagine what the Pak 44 sounded like when it barked. I know the artillery guys here are probably giggling since these are all small time compared to a 155

Steve

[Aragorn2002]

I never could convince myself CMBO was worth buying. It was SO ugly. After buying CMBB (the demo convinced me graphics had improved compared to CMBO) I also bought CMBO, by which time quite a few mods were available. Especially Magua's terrain mods made all the difference.

[Michael Emrys]

CMBO is the only CM that I ever modded, and yes the mods made it look a whole lot better. I was really glad when Dan came on board.

Going back to Flight Commander 2, I recall a demo for that that came on a disk of another game I bought from AH. I played it once or twice and thought it was in some ways innovative, but couldn't see the point of it, so never got the full version. That didn't stop me from buying Over the Reich and Achtung, Spitfire! though.

Michael

[Wodin]

Flight Commander 2 was superb..infact even though I prefer WW1 or WW2 aircombat games I found FC 2 a much better gaming experience than AS or OTR.

I do wish BF would re imagine AS\OTR and FC2..or make Whistling Death into a new tactical Air Combat game.

I only wish it was possible to install FC2 on Win 7 4bit.

[Frenchy]

Flight Commander 2 was superb..infact even though I prefer WW1 or WW2 aircombat games I found FC 2 a much better gaming experience than AS or OTR.

I do wish BF would re imagine AS\OTR and FC2..or make Whistling Death into a new tactical Air Combat game.

I only wish it was possible to install FC2 on Win 7 4bit.

Yea, loved FC 2 also. Would like to see a new version from the BF boys. Sure would be nice.

[ForwardObserver]

This bit (quoted from the article above) strikes me as being as true as it was back in 2000

Over the course of several weeks and many scribbled napkins later, we fleshed out the remaining basic design. The biggest challenge at this stage was to determine the best way for the player to interact with the game. Real time was the hot ticket in town, and we were initially drawn to it because it promised a natural feel, potentially realistic combat outcomes, and the heart-pounding excitement of being right there in the thick of the action. But real time had certain disadvantages as well:

Often there isn't enough time to plan a thoughtful strategy in larger battles; players usually can't view the "big picture," thus they are forced to focus on only one sector of the battle at a given time; artificial intelligence tends to be poor, due to the lack of available CPU cycles; and play by email is impossible. So it was clear that straight real time would not work for us. But a pure turn-based approach did not appeal either, mainly because of its need to impose "phasing" structures to make the combat work in a realistic manner.

This need is really an artificial holdover from tabletop war games, as well as something we prefer to avoid, now that we have the number-crunching and graphics power of modern computers at our disposal.

Combining real time with a turn-based structure turned out to be the answer. In Combat Mission, you give orders to your troops in a turn-based fashion. In other words, the action is paused while you develop your strategies. Once you are ready, you click the "Go!" button, which commits your orders to battle - and 60 seconds of 3D real-time action and combat commence. There are several advantages to this system. First, the action can be replayed as often as you like, from any angle or viewpoint, using VCR-style controls (rewind, play, fast forward, and so on), so you don't miss anything cool or important just because you were looking at another part of the battlefield at that particular moment. It's a little bit like being a battalion commander and a movie director rolled into one. Second, because you cannot interfere with the action during the 60 seconds, you must always think one step ahead of your opponent. The real-time action allows actual military tactics to work in Combat Mission as they do in the real world, and you'll need them to win: reconnaissance, assault movement, overwatch, and more. But the turn-based structure for giving commands to the troops allows for thoughtful strategy, action replay, good computer AI, and play by e-mail.

Quite a few lessons there learnt from Close Combat

Now CMx2 needs an operational layer simple yet engaging like CC3+ and we'd have one game for the ages.

[sburke]

Some of us think we already do have a game for the ages. Don't get me wrong, I absolutely love having an op layer. Just ask Broadsword. But there comes a point where trying to make a game be too many things leads to it doing none of them well. I can handle creating and managing an op layer. That op layer however wouldn't mean squat if CM didn't work as well as it does. Also having played through one OP layer campaign using the St Lo boardgame and only fighting out 5 battles that we cherry picked - I just couldn't commit the time to anything that had us trying to fight much more than that. It seems to be a dream concept, but it really isn't practical.

[altipueri]

The article shows all the more reason why they should have stuck to WEGO instead of drinking the RT Kool Aid.