Operation Market Garden announced!

[sburke]

Especially because I've been to Arnhem and have a sense of what the city looked like before it was scarred by war.

Steve

Damn, and we thought Emrys is old...

well he is, but still...

[John Kettler]

I read something over on the Defending Arnhem site, I believe, on the "furniture van." The gist of it was that this FlakPanzer was a secret weapon forced into combat. Both it and the manuals were so sensitive they had to be destroyed if capture threatened. Frankly, the logic of such orders escapes me. After all, what's sensitive about a Panzer IV chassis and a 2 cm Flakvierling? I suspect the person who wrote the description confused the "furniture van" with the Wirbelwind. That would've been sensitive, since it embodied a turreted 2 cm Flakvierling with armor protection everywhere but the smallish open top. No longer would the gun crews be exposed to hostile fire and secondary effects from practically every aspect. The Wirbelwind should be a terror in MG.

A two-page Axis History Forum thread on the furniture van" in combat, with a bunch of pics new to me. The second page references the 9th and 10th SS as having them at Arnhem, citing a Concord book.

http://forum.axishistory.com/viewtopic.php?f=47&t=66223

The beastie in camouflage, plus other goodies like a Wirbelwind and the near mythical Panther Coelian turret!

http://forum.axishistory.com/viewtopic.php?f=47&t=136292

Saumur has a real "furniture van", the 3.7 cm original model!

http://www.track-link.com/articles/90

Regards,

John Kettler

[Ithikial_AU]

For a forum of historical wargamers, it's amazing how bad some of us are at remembering recent history. BF have a brilliant track record for a software company and I'm willing to go with recent history to strongly influence my purchasing decisions. My personal experience, all the CM titles I've ever bought from BF have never disappointed, in fact most have surprised me with features I didn't expect. For example, CMAK gave me the ability to deploy Australian troops on a virtual battlefield, something I never thought I'd get the chance to do.

The only things Steve and Co. could do to upset this in the near future would be:

- Release a string of substandard / non-working products (which history suggests won't occur)

- BF stops producing PC titles

- or they sell out to Activision or EA which would probably turn Combat Mission into a First Person Shooter.

Bring on Market Garden, Bulge, Black Sea and Ost Front!

[Freyberg]

Some cool vehicles in that list on BFC. Hellcat. And Challenger !!

[waclaw]

Sure, no problem. The Ditch Lock feature itself is not specific to Market Garden. Which means even without Market Garden you'll be able to use this feature when the v2.10 patch comes out for the Base Game/Commonwealth users.

"trench and foxhole" it will be?

[Wicky]

[nachinus]

Although I'm totally apalled by the lack of an Arnhem Campaign (it's the bloody bridge too far, for gosh shake!), I must admit that I'm looking forward to this module.

...and I hope someone in the beta team is already preparing a comprehesive campaign for the british/polish paras in Arnhem and surroundings.

[waclaw]

if they are drainage ditches, it can also be similarly improved "trenches"?

and on the basis of bomb craters improve the "foxhole"?

[Baneman]

Since there are formations heavily equipped with Stg44's, can I ask if you have added 7.92K ammo to vehicles ?

I know, I know, but ... squeaky wheel...

[Waffen_PL]

There is an old saying... it takes two to tango. You keep expressing an opinion that almost nobody agrees with. It's also an opinion that I have said, very directly, is never going to influence our pricing or development plans. Yet you voluntarily continue to voice your opinion and then defend it when it's clear, yet again, that you're not going to get anywhere with it. And then you get upset that you're being challenged and dismissed, in the process saying that everybody else is at fault for this outcome and you played no part in it.

So if you're asking if I think your behavior is logical... no, I do not

Steve

that's weird. I have dual personality or something ;P

just to clear some things

1. I'm not upset. It is not me. Some other guys have big problem with it but I understand you will not stand against them ;P

2. Actually I'm not expressing my opinions all the time. At least I don't think so. You see, when someone is quoiting me or referring to me when I see I it I respond. Just like you. I'm quoiting you and asking something you reply.

i finished in a previous thread after just few posts.(still as I see we didn't understand each other but this is how it must be probably ) But there were some new people asking same questions quoting me and accusing for something over and over. Yes i could ignore it but I didn't, true but still you think more fault have person who reply not persons who initiate it?

[para]

Although I'm totally apalled by the lack of an Arnhem Campaign (it's the bloody bridge too far, for gosh shake!), I must admit that I'm looking forward to this module.

...and I hope someone in the beta team is already preparing a comprehesive campaign for the british/polish paras in Arnhem and surroundings.

Yes a disappointment

[Ts4EVER]

Did you include any new second line type weapons for the ad hoc German troops? I'm thinking captured stuff like the MG26(t) or maybe older, MP18 based smgs.

[GJR144]

But every single thing we implement comes with a pricetag. The more we do, the longer it takes to come out with a release. The more time we put into a release, the more we need to earn from it. The problem with a niche like this is that there's not a lot of "upward room" in the sales spectrum. Meaning, if we put in 20% more effort into a release we are unlikely to see a 20% increase in sales. Which means we'd have to do something like a 20% increase in the price. And since our critics usually complain about both pricing and the amount of content, obviously we're not going to win over someone with more content if we also charge more money.

Therefore I don't understand why you give away all the upgrades of the game-engine that come with the modules, for free to the base game customers.

Whenever I buy a software, I buy it as it is in the current state.

And it's also part of the EULA.

And since your potential customer base is quite limited, you must maximize cashflow.

Giving the upgrades for free for the base-game, in several ways punishes the module-buyers.

It may sound strange that a customers lobbies for getting less for free, but the free upgrades for the base title come at a cost for those, who buy the modules: less cashflow and therefore probably slower development.

Charging money for game engine improvements probably would have positives for module buyers, too:

You could pack more engine features into the modules, if these features must be bought separately for the base title, too. This means module buyers could get more engine improvements at a faster rate.

And those who are not buying a module, still have the chance to buy the engine upgrade.

Let's take the HMG improvement: this has turned CM into another league.

For free. Cool for customers, but business wise an awful decision.

Does Microsoft offer big Office features with free updates?

Does Sony offer feature upgrades for Vegas for free?

Does Steinberg pack new features into Cubase in a free upgrade?

No!

But you, as small producer with a very limited potential customer base, act in a way, as if you could increase the customer base by giving features away for free?

I believe quite the contrary is the case:

You have a small but strong customer base.

A significant portion buys everything you release WW2 or modern war related.

The ones who skip certain modules still know very well, what CM delivers and is worth. Therefore if they want to get the engine upgrades, they would pay for it.

I mean which person interested in WW2 would not pay $10 or $15 for the improved HMGs? Those who do not cherish it, probably will not play CM for long anyway.

We know better than anybody if we're under delivering for the prices we charge. And how can we tell? By looking at our paychecks. The day we start to get rich is the day we may start thinking we're over charging. I for one do hope that day comes. After pouring 15+ years of my life into Combat Mission it would be nice to have that rewarded.

Restricing the cashflow (with free upgrades) usually is not the way to become rich.

How big is the percentage of customers that buy the base engine because of free upgrades? And how big is the percentage of customers that want the most improved engine and THEREFORE buy the modules?

Sure, no problem. The Ditch Lock feature itself is not specific to Market Garden. Which means even without Market Garden you'll be able to use this feature when the v2.10 patch comes out for the Base Game/Commonwealth users.

This brings me to a second point which I believe could be improved:

The communication and advertisement of new features.

Do you believe, that mentioning somewhere on page 20 in a forum a new feature is maximizing the audience and the propaganda effect?

Where are the cool videos explaining the improvement that the new ditch locks will bring?

Instead of this a tank driving out from fog has been presented.

These days it's not expensive to do good public relations, cool videos and make the audience keen on new features. But mentioning it on page 20 in a forum probably is not the way things get the most attention and impact.

And as third point I want to mention the focus of engine improvements. I have no idea how difficult things are to implement, but I don't understand, that certain improvements with a potential big or very big cashflow impact, are not prioritized.

For example:

WEGO players are suffering from certain limitations because of the realtime mode. Ok. But why isn't then the realtime mode improved that it becomes much more interesting?

Although I do stricly refuse to play RT, I could imagine that at least a notification system for the player about significant action would be very welcomed. Or - even cooler - a replay function of at least a handful of seconds, when a tank is penetrated or infantry is suffering losses.

Such improvements could have a decent impact on the customer base (those who want to play RT and stopped playing it, because they are missing all the cool action anyway but do not like WEGO), with the positive effects also for WEGO-players, because the increased cashflow because of that feature would allow a faster development of the engine, too.

Last but not least I want to raise doubt on the thesis, that people buy modules because of new units to play with. I can't talk about others, but I'm not interested in the units per se, but in the tactical challenge. Therefore engine improvements are more interesting to me. I buy a module mostly because of the engine improvements and because I want to have one or two new units, like Fallschirmjäger or W-SS. But if all TOEs are available correctly, I don't care, because I don't make scenarios, like 90% of all customers. I play them. And I play what is given to me.

My personal impression is, although module content is nice, the improvements of the engine are of higher significance in the case of CM. I guess this is, because CM has more common with a simulation and less with a shallow game. When a game is shallow and has only graphics to impress, ofcourse new units and models are everything to keep people attracted. But when a software excels in simulating something, then the users usually do not pay the highest priority how fancy it looks, but how the workflow can be improved, what new features would make the software even more productive and deliver more realsitic results.

Therefore I think that reducing the quantity of the content but increasing it's quality (engine improvements), could achieve a more profitable result.

[ASL Veteran]

I just popped in here to say that yes, indeed, there were windmills present in the Market Garden battle area. Maybe there weren't any in the immediate Arnhem area (I don't know) but there were many in various areas along Hell's Highway. Eerde had one that was specifically mentioned in the fighting there. One was specifically mentioned in the fighting at Son. One appears on the topo maps for the area around the town of Best. So yeah, there were plenty of windmills in the area that Market Garden was fought.

This has been a public service announcement. Thank you for your attention.

[Macisle]

My two cents:

As so many have said, Battlefront's pricing is very fair (and probably a bit too low, IMO). They should be charging for what they spend resources to produce. If the new material is not what suits you--then don't buy it. Of course, you have every right to express your desire for them to produce what does suit you. However, to say that they should reduce prices and/or give stuff away because it is not specifically what you currently want is simply not adult thinking. Really folks...I mean, R-E-A-L-L-Y.

Having said the above, I will add myself to the group that is looking for more emphasis on game engine jumps than content with regards to the Bagration and Bulge families (I'm not talking about the MG module here). Specifically, I'd really like a focus on urban infantry combat and fortifications.

Also, though I've always been a staunch defender of CM's graphics and know all the (good and logical) reasons for their being the way they are, I honestly feel it's time for a leap up. I'm fine with the stock sounds, but with Bagration and Bulge, I'm really hoping for a wow jump up in the basic graphics and number of trooper animations. I think it's time.

My list in order of priority would be:

1. Noticeable leap up in quality of graphics and animations (don't worry about sound).

2. Game engine improvements, mainly for infantry (better use of terrain vs AFVs, urban combat) and fortifications.

3. Mission Editor enhancements such as triggers and a more detailed grouping system for waypoints and casualty points. For example, being able to assign unlimited number of groups, including splitting a squad into fire teams with each being its own group.

Anyway, I'm not going to bitch or ask for discounts and freebies if BF doesn't act on the above. But, I did want to post it, as it's honestly where I'm at currently. I'd be totally fine with the new base games offering leaps in the game engine and graphics, but minimal content, with BF churning out content packs for them as fast as they can. They can charge whatever they feel fairly makes it worth their while in as many pieces as they need to.

With engine, editor and graphical improvements, there would perhaps be a lot more community-made content coming to the repository as well.

[Sequoia]

Did you include any new second line type weapons for the ad hoc German troops? I'm thinking captured stuff like the MG26(t) or maybe older, MP18 based smgs.

Well, the 50mm Mortar is one they mentioned.

[Sequoia]

I just popped in here to say that yes, indeed, there were windmills present in the Market Garden battle area. Maybe there weren't any in the immediate Arnhem area (I don't know) but there were many in various areas along Hell's Highway. Eerde had one that was specifically mentioned in the fighting there. One was specifically mentioned in the fighting at Son. One appears on the topo maps for the area around the town of Best. So yeah, there were plenty of windmills in the area that Market Garden was fought.

This has been a public service announcement. Thank you for your attention.

Okay thanks, I was going by what I remembered some one else posting once.

Oh and I wasn't expecting troops to be able to be on the top exterior of a windmill. I was just wondering if they were multi-storied.

[MikeyD]

Where are the cool videos explaining the improvement that the new ditch locks will bring?

The 'cool video' explaining ditch lock would be a picture of someone holding down the ...uh ...control key (I think) while drawing a line of elevation points. A Henchel turret King Tiger rolling over a historically accurate 500 foot long Rhine river bridge sounds a little bit sexier.

[bisu]

...Last but not least I want to raise doubt on the thesis, that people buy modules because of new units to play with. I can't talk about others, but I'm not interested in the units per se, but in the tactical challenge. Therefore engine improvements are more interesting to me. I buy a module mostly because of the engine improvements and because I want to have one or two new units, like Fallschirmjäger or W-SS. But if all TOEs are available correctly, I don't care, because I don't make scenarios, like 90% of all customers. I play them. And I play what is given to me.

My personal impression is, although module content is nice, the improvements of the engine are of higher significance in the case of CM. I guess this is, because CM has more common with a simulation and less with a shallow game. When a game is shallow and has only graphics to impress, ofcourse new units and models are everything to keep people attracted. But when a software excels in simulating something, then the users usually do not pay the highest priority how fancy it looks, but how the workflow can be improved, what new features would make the software even more productive and deliver more realsitic results.

Therefore I think that reducing the quantity of the content but increasing it's quality (engine improvements), could achieve a more profitable result.

+1 to this!!! I couldn't express it better! Cheers GJR144!!

[Battlefront.com]

Therefore I don't understand why you give away all the upgrades of the game-engine that come with the modules, for free to the base game customers.

Because of what I already stated above. If we make features specific to Modules then we shatter the ability for people to play against each other unless they have exactly the same stuff. Which, in effect, means having to purchase everything we put out.

And since your potential customer base is quite limited, you must maximize cashflow.

Giving the upgrades for free for the base-game, in several ways punishes the module-buyers.

Not true. First of all, let's keep in mind that the Modules don't include new features as a rule. They only include new features, and minor ones at that, which are needed for that particular Module setting (unit or terrain). Let me repeat that, because it's something you've missed, these are MINOR features. Major features are, in fact, reserved for people who are purchasing them.

Plus, you have an extremely simplistic concept of marketing. What matters to us is overall revenue. We are sure, absolutely sure, that at the end of the day we have more purchases and more happy customers because we keep the system flexible. Give customers fewer, not to mention more expensive, options and you likely have fewer purchases. Which means lower overall revenue. This is a pretty well understood dynamic and it's one we think is applicable to our niche.

Charging money for game engine improvements probably would have positives for module buyers, too:

You could pack more engine features into the modules, if these features must be bought separately for the base title, too. This means module buyers could get more engine improvements at a faster rate.

No, it would increase the development time for each Module, increase our costs, and decrease customer flexibility. This in turn would result in lower revenue and higher costs for us with less responsiveness and more waiting for customers. Not a good strategy for anybody.

Let's take the HMG improvement: this has turned CM into another league.

For free. Cool for customers, but business wise an awful decision.

A perfect example of how to destroy our customer base cohesion and increase our support costs. Imagine trying to take into consideration a dozen different possible feature combinations when troubleshooting customer reported problems.

Plus, you totally overrate these improvements in terms of their costs to us and/or the perceived value to customers. HMG behavior, for example, was just an adjustment of some variables. Our testers put more time into giving us a good direction to go in than it took to actually make the change. And regardless of that, you're being rather naive if you think we can market such a feature improvement successfully.

You have a small but strong customer base.

A significant portion buys everything you release WW2 or modern war related.

The ones who skip certain modules still know very well, what CM delivers and is worth. Therefore if they want to get the engine upgrades, they would pay for it.

I mean which person interested in WW2 would not pay $10 or $15 for the improved HMGs? Those who do not cherish it, probably will not play CM for long anyway.

This speaks to a PORTION of our customer base, no doubt. We could probably go the route of Steel Beasts and charge $100+ for Combat Mission packaged a different way and the customers you mention would still pay. But we'd lose everybody else. I know that the hardcore wargamers have an overly inflated sense of importance within our customer base, but it's just that. Combat Mission would not be viable without more casual wargamers. And casual wargamers won't shell out $100+.

The communication and advertisement of new features.

Do you believe, that mentioning somewhere on page 20 in a forum a new feature is maximizing the audience and the propaganda effect?

Absolutely not. Which is why it's noted on the Market Garden page.

Where are the cool videos explaining the improvement that the new ditch locks will bring?

If we thought this would sell one extra copy of Market Garden you'd see such a thing. But it won't so we aren't wasting our time.

These days it's not expensive to do good public relations, cool videos and make the audience keen on new features. But mentioning it on page 20 in a forum probably is not the way things get the most attention and impact.

We don't need it to. The hardcore figures things out pretty quickly and we have the time to wait until the slower ones do. We don't need to expend time and resources promoting things which don't need promotion.

And as third point I want to mention the focus of engine improvements. I have no idea how difficult things are to implement, but I don't understand, that certain improvements with a potential big or very big cashflow impact, are not prioritized.

For example:

WEGO players are suffering from certain limitations because of the realtime mode.

Argh... this again. THERE ARE NO LIMITATIONS ON WEGO GAMEPLAY BECAUSE OF REALTIME!!!! In fact, it is exactly the opposite with many things that were problematic for WeGo are actually fixed because the game engine is RealTime.

The only thing WeGoers lack right now is TCP/IP with Playback. That's not to do with RT as much as it does nasty coding issues related to the volume of data that has to be dealt with. Meaning, even if CMx2 were a WeGo based game engine, like CMx1 was, we'd still be where we're at today.

Ok. But why isn't then the realtime mode improved that it becomes much more interesting?

Although I do stricly refuse to play RT, I could imagine that at least a notification system for the player about significant action would be very welcomed. Or - even cooler - a replay function of at least a handful of seconds, when a tank is penetrated or infantry is suffering losses.

If you played RT games which have systems like this you'd know why we haven't include them. At least not to the extent you've described. Information overload doesn't make the game more "interesting", it makes it less playable.

And who is saying we aren't going to make improvements? We just have limited time and can only do so much with any one release. As a WeGo player you should be thankful that we prioritize our time on improvements which are applicable to the whole customer base.

Last but not least I want to raise doubt on the thesis, that people buy modules because of new units to play with. I can't talk about others, but I'm not interested in the units per se, but in the tactical challenge.

The tactical challenge often comes, in part, from the new units. But putting that aside, I do understand there are people who value features over units as a general rule. But I don't think that's our majority customer.

Therefore I think that reducing the quantity of the content but increasing it's quality (engine improvements), could achieve a more profitable result.

While I appreciate you taking the time to share your thoughts with us, I think it's better to leave the game development and game marketing decisions to those who do it for a living. I don't know what you do for a day job (or did if you are retired), but I'm sure that my impressions of how you could do things better would similarly run into issues. I'd even go so far to say this would be true if you make software or even non-wargame computer games. Cookie cutter concepts don't work too well in real life, as many MBA (higher level business degree) students quickly learn when they get out in the real world. And being a customer doesn't make up for that.

In short, we're pretty pleased with how things are going. We are constantly changing and improving what we do and how we do it. But we're doing it based on what we know works and doesn't work. That is the whole reason why experience is important for survival. That and a bit of brains

Steve

[agusto]

LOL i just took a look at the MG page at BFC.com at read about all the new stuff. Didnt know it already had its own page there. Now i feel i have to get it. When is it going to be released? 17. September IIRC? BTW my grandfather fought at Arnhem bridge. I am really interested to see what that was like, or at least how Battlefront depicts this battle.

[Battlefront.com]

My two cents:

As so many have said, Battlefront's pricing is very fair (and probably a bit too low, IMO).

Thanks, and you are probably right about us underpricing. But we're not foolish enough to think that price isn't an issue for some, especially our more general gaming customers. So we always tread a fine line between gaining revenue at the expense of customer base size. And one thing is for sure... when you are in a prolonged recession it's always better to have the largest and most diverse customer base you can possibly have.

It would be great if we could raise our prices a bit and see what happens long term without actually having to raise our prices and see what happens long term

Having said the above, I will add myself to the group that is looking for more emphasis on game engine jumps than content with regards to the Bagration and Bulge families (I'm not talking about the MG module here). Specifically, I'd really like a focus on urban infantry combat and fortifications.

Not to worry, there are some urban centric improvements on the way for you guys very soon. Some will be in Market Garden, others will be in the not-too-distant-future Upgrade v3.0.

Also, though I've always been a staunch defender of CM's graphics and know all the (good and logical) reasons for their being the way they are, I honestly feel it's time for a leap up.

Oh, we totally agree. It's why the majority of time and cost put into the feature improvements for Italy and Normandy v2.0 were graphics based. Not only to make the game look better, but also so that it runs better/smoother. With a side benefit of it being a bit faster to develop future stuff.

We have had expansion and improvement of animations on our list for some time now. It's a huge and expensive undertaking which we definitely will do. But there's only so much we can do at one time and because it's so huge we have not gotten to it yet. But I do think its time will come relatively soon.

With engine, editor and graphical improvements, there would perhaps be a lot more community-made content coming to the repository as well.

Maybe, maybe not. Don't forget that one of the improvements that came with v2.0 was the ability to easily make "linear" terrain items in maps. This was, without a doubt, the absolute worst and most tedious part of making maps prior to v2.0. But there was no explosion of new maps and scenarios. So I think it's safe to assume that the amount of content in the Repository is a more complicated issue than just a feature here or there. One that I keep hearing is that the richness of each scenario and quantity found with the Modules generally keeps people busy enough proportional to their free time. Which means a huge increase in Repository submissions probably won't have much practical impact for most players simply because they lack the time or "need" to play them.

That said, we will continually improve the Editor over time.

Steve

[PanzerMike]

Steve is very active on the forums lately, something must be up...

Ow wait: Not to worry, there are some urban centric improvements on the way for you guys very soon. Some will be in Market Garden, others will be in the not-too-distant-future Upgrade v3.0.

This is wonderful news!

Can we pre-order yet, he he he.

[agusto]

Maybe, maybe not. Don't forget that one of the improvements that came with v2.0 was the ability to easily make "linear" terrain items in maps. This was, without a doubt, the absolute worst and most tedious part of making maps prior to v2.0. But there was no explosion of new maps and scenarios. So I think it's safe to assume that the amount of content in the Repository is a more complicated issue than just a feature here or there. One that I keep hearing is that the richness of each scenario and quantity found with the Modules generally keeps people busy enough proportional to their free time. Which means a huge increase in Repository submissions probably won't have much practical impact for most players simply because they lack the time or "need" to play them.

That said, we will continually improve the Editor over time.

In my opinion the Overlay feature has by far been the best editor improvement in the recent past. Havent tried it yet, but making accurate maps from satelite images in CMSF is an almost painful experience, so i am sure the overlay is a very helpful tool for map makers.

[MikeyD]

All this corporate-speak about maximizing profits may lead BFC to entirely abandon the genre they to love for the 'big bucks' doing "My Little Pony" iphone games for nine year old Japanese schoolgirls. Make 'em filthy rich. You wouldn't want Steve to go that route, would you? :eek: