Zenomorph Posted November 7, 2013 Share Posted November 7, 2013 OK, maybe it'd be nice if the CM games got the metacritic reviews they deserve but I want to thank the creators - and the modders too! - for creating a GREAT GAME! I work in a very busy ER and it's what I consider to be a fairly high stress job - and at times heartbreaking. (Given that what might be a minor error in another workplace can kill somebody in an ER.) When I get downtime I want to think about nothing. These games are perfect for that. So if the creators and modders ever wonder what the heck "it's all worth" day in, day out (as we all do sometimes)...well, it's worth a lot to me! As for the metacritic reviews I might have an interesting parallel. I love to read and a neighbor once gave me a copy of "A Game of Thrones". I'd never been into the sci-fi/fantasy thing and thought I'd never get into it. And the only reviews were from "Jimmy's fantasy book club" or some such. After 5 or 6 false starts I finally got into and, whoa!!, I'm a HUGE fan of this series now. And if you look at the reviews on the new editions of the books they've now gone from "Jimmy" to the major book reviewers. Apparently for once I got in near the ground floor of a mania. The point is that it took years for the brilliance of these books to sink in. And it was all essentially accomplished by word of mouth. I believe the same holds true for the CM games although I doubt we'll be seeing the HBO miniseries for CMBN anytime soon. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PanzerMiller Posted November 7, 2013 Share Posted November 7, 2013 When I get downtime I want to think about nothing. These games are perfect for that. I know what you mean here, but if you're like me and most everybody else on this forum, you end up thinking a lot about your next move on the pixellated battlefield...you're just not thinking about work. And that's a good thing -- especially in a high-stress job like yours in the ER. Happy gaming! 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Buzz Posted November 7, 2013 Share Posted November 7, 2013 The HBO miniseries for CMBN... Ok Who let that slip! I want names, places and times. So much for "surprises" ER's can be very stressful places to live / work (kinda blends together after years). ER's also keep thing very real. Here today... might not be here... "When I get downtime I want to think about nothing. These games are perfect for that." I agree Zenomorph. CM games are great for minutia of micro management (control) or simply let it rip Real Time - No Pausing allowed and see what happens (free). Enjoy and thanks to the crew at Battlefront, the talented scenario / map makers and mod community. BTW: I never read a metacritic review before it was mentioned here 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
womble Posted November 7, 2013 Share Posted November 7, 2013 ..."A Game of Thrones"...After 5 or 6 false starts... Heh. I don't think I'd get past the 3rd false start of any book. Perhaps your admirable persistence is a metaphor for... something... 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Michael Emrys Posted November 7, 2013 Share Posted November 7, 2013 The point is that it took years for the brilliance of these books to sink in. And it was all essentially accomplished by word of mouth. Exactly the same could be said of Lord of the Rings. When it wasn't completely ignored by major literary critics, the reviews were usually lukewarm or outright damning. But in spite of that, the thing just wouldn't go away. People turned their friends onto the trilogy who then formed fan clubs to discuss it and even start conventions. Publishers took note, there was even a copyright-violating bootleg edition or two, and soon a new breed of critic began to. After a couple of decades growing in the wilderness, it burst out as a major cultural phenomenon as well as a million dollar industry. Michael 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
altipueri Posted November 7, 2013 Share Posted November 7, 2013 Whoa, man I read dem Lord o de Rings in Katmandu in 1976. Frankly I preferred the spoof "Bored of the Rings" where the place of Bilbo Baggins was taken by Dildo Bugger. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Michael Emrys Posted November 7, 2013 Share Posted November 7, 2013 BotR did have its moments. My favorite was the Hobbits' word for non-Hobbits: "Biggers". Michael 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mjkerner Posted November 7, 2013 Share Posted November 7, 2013 Whoa, man I read dem Lord o de Rings in Katmandu in 1976. Frankly I preferred the spoof "Bored of the Rings" where the place of Bilbo Baggins was taken by Dildo Bugger. Lol, I read the Trilogy 3 times in the early 70's...just not in Katmandu! I Read National Lampoon's Bored of the Rings (The Ballhog and Frito-Lay, IIRC, to name a few other characters???) when it came out, and could never get back into reading the Trilogy in the 40 years since. Movies were OK though. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Michael Emrys Posted November 7, 2013 Share Posted November 7, 2013 I've read LotR at least nine times over a span of about 30 years, plus a whole bunch of Tolkien's other writings including two or three volumes that his son published of the collected drafts of the Trilogy. I also have several books on the Trilogy written by other authors including an atlas of Middle Earth, a book on the languages of Middle Earth, and some others. I guess you could say I am a "serious" fan. Michael 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mjkerner Posted November 7, 2013 Share Posted November 7, 2013 I've read LotR at least nine times over a span of about 30 years, plus a whole bunch of Tolkien's other writings including two or three volumes that his son published of the collected drafts of the Trilogy. I also have several books on the Trilogy written by other authors including an atlas of Middle Earth, a book on the languages of Middle Earth, and some others. I guess you could say I am a "serious" fan. Michael You need a life, Michael. Like me and a lot of the other dudes here...CMBN/CW/FI/GL/MG 24/7. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Zenomorph Posted November 7, 2013 Author Share Posted November 7, 2013 Heh. I don't think I'd get past the 3rd false start of any book. Perhaps your admirable persistence is a metaphor for... something... Haha! I had it sitting on my nightstand and when I finished a book but wasn't tired yet I'd pick it up and read a few pages. It took forever but I think I'd read ~100 pages before I started thinking, "hmmm, this Tyrion dude is pretty slick". Gawd! I've read a lot of books and Tyrion is by far the best character I've ever read. The miniseries doesn't do him justice. Hey! Sorta like platoon leader Hochholter in the Panzers Marsch (sp?) campaign. Maybe we could start a fan club for him. I'm thinking of all the skeptics I told about those books who later thanked me profusely for turning them to them. I haven't really done that w CMBN. I probably should. Most people like chess at least to some degree. CMBN is like chess...just with a little 'roid rage thrown in. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Battlefront.com Posted November 8, 2013 Share Posted November 8, 2013 Thanks for the thanks, and a reminder I need to put the latest Hobbit movie on my Netflix queue. The last one convinced me I'm not going to spend money seeing the next two. Steve 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jeffsmith Posted November 8, 2013 Share Posted November 8, 2013 Rumor is Mr Emrys Actually Remembers Middle Earth and Reading Tolkien is a Trip Down Memory Lane I've read LotR at least nine times over a span of about 30 years, plus a whole bunch of Tolkien's other writings including two or three volumes that his son published of the collected drafts of the Trilogy. I also have several books on the Trilogy written by other authors including an atlas of Middle Earth, a book on the languages of Middle Earth, and some others. I guess you could say I am a "serious" fan. Michael 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Michael Emrys Posted November 8, 2013 Share Posted November 8, 2013 The last one convinced me I'm not going to spend money seeing the next two. Right. Some things were nice, but gawd! the chases and brawls that last seemingly forever...ho-hum. People read Tolkien because he is a marvelous story teller (albeit I've always felt that The Hobbit was the weakest of the bunch). Peter Jackson for all his cinematic virtues, doesn't even begin to compare. And when he departs from the story line as Tolkien told it, the results are usually not so good. Like you, I will not pay to sit in an uncomfortable theater seat for three hours to watch a movie that is good in some places and not so good in others. I think what these movies need is some ruthless editing to get us back to the meat of the story. Michael 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Michael Emrys Posted November 8, 2013 Share Posted November 8, 2013 Rumor is Mr Emrys Actually Remembers Middle Earth and Reading Tolkien is a Trip Down Memory Lane Well, I remember you, Mister Smith. Not an insignificant feat considering how seldom you make an appearance in these forums. Michael 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Zenomorph Posted November 8, 2013 Author Share Posted November 8, 2013 Hee hee. How much do I love Game of Thrones? Check out the signature. (I hope it works - never had a signature before). Here goes. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Zenomorph Posted November 8, 2013 Author Share Posted November 8, 2013 Woohoo! Works! Even the minor characters are often brilliant in Thrones. Forel is sorta like a "zen and the art of swordplay" type character. Now if we could just incorporate him into CMBN we'd really have something. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sburke Posted November 8, 2013 Share Posted November 8, 2013 Right. Some things were nice, but gawd! the chases and brawls that last seemingly forever...ho-hum. People read Tolkien because he is a marvelous story teller (albeit I've always felt that The Hobbit was the weakest of the bunch). Peter Jackson for all his cinematic virtues, doesn't even begin to compare. And when he departs from the story line as Tolkien told it, the results are usually not so good. Like you, I will not pay to sit in an uncomfortable theater seat for three hours to watch a movie that is good in some places and not so good in others. I think what these movies need is some ruthless editing to get us back to the meat of the story. Michael The Silmarillion is the real deal. Lord of the Rings was an appetizer (though that divergence on Tom Bombadil makes you wonder what substances Tolkien may have experimented with). The Hobbit was a sale coupon hanging on the local supermarket bulletin board. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sfhand Posted November 8, 2013 Share Posted November 8, 2013 I've read LotR at least nine times over a span of about 30 years, plus a whole bunch of Tolkien's other writings including two or three volumes that his son published of the collected drafts of the Trilogy. I also have several books on the Trilogy written by other authors including an atlas of Middle Earth, a book on the languages of Middle Earth, and some others. I guess you could say I am a "serious" fan. Michael How many times have you read "Bored of the Rings"? Enough to know the question on Goodgulf's cape that glowed in the dark? 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SlowMotion Posted November 8, 2013 Share Posted November 8, 2013 The tweaks to tank spotting and how infantry weapons work have taken the game big step forward IMO. Things look much more realistic now. Advancing towards unspotted enemy is much more difficult because you can't immediately spot where the firing comes from. AT guns may keep firing several times before becoming spotted. Very good for the East front game. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Whiterider Posted November 8, 2013 Share Posted November 8, 2013 The miniseries doesn't do him justice. After reading the first two books I consider the miniseries pure rubbish. The books are incredibly brilliant. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Blackcat Posted November 8, 2013 Share Posted November 8, 2013 The tweaks to tank spotting and how infantry weapons work have taken the game big step forward IMO. Things look much more realistic now. Advancing towards unspotted enemy is much more difficult because you can't immediately spot where the firing comes from. AT guns may keep firing several times before becoming spotted. Very good for the East front game. Bit off topic there, old boy, and I have to say your post was a bit jarring - didn't actually expect to find someone actually talking about the game in a thread mainly about Tolkein's books. Was Bored of the Rings the spoof with an elf character called "LegoLamb"? The heroes rode merino sheep and the bad guys rode flatulent pigs? If so that book must be about forty years old. I am surprised so many people remember it. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
altipueri Posted November 8, 2013 Share Posted November 8, 2013 I agree. It was a reckless attempt to bring the thread onto CM. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sfhand Posted November 8, 2013 Share Posted November 8, 2013 Bit off topic there, old boy, and I have to say your post was a bit jarring - didn't actually expect to find someone actually talking about the game in a thread mainly about Tolkein's books. Was Bored of the Rings the spoof with an elf character called "LegoLamb"? The heroes rode merino sheep and the bad guys rode flatulent pigs? If so that book must be about forty years old. I am surprised so many people remember it. Lots of old guys here The book was brilliant satire. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Michael Emrys Posted November 8, 2013 Share Posted November 8, 2013 ...that divergence on Tom Bombadil makes you wonder what substances Tolkien may have experimented with... Well, one of Bilbo's relatives is named Belladonna Took, which is provocative of speculation. And then there is the pipe weed. Tolkien was a pipe smoker himself, and it is pretty clear that he means us to associate the weed with tobacco, but still... BTW, I always considered Bombadil one of the most fascinating characters in the book. I mean, he slips the Ring on his finger and does not disappear! What's more, it's the Ring that disappears! Clearly he is a person of unusual powers. And there are other interesting clues about him. I think Tolkien meant to write more about him, but aside from an earlier poem which is not very interesting, nothing seems to have turned up. Maybe Tolkien never got around to it. Or maybe he felt that a rigorous exploration of the subject was somehow beyond his powers. Michael 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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