The Vehicle Pack is out!

[JonS]

Try Green As Jade's cmmods site.

Oh? I thought cmmods was what it says on the tin. I'll put it up there later today.

[Stonecutter]

I'm just adding my two cents (or $20 + taxes, as the case may be) to the issue of the new vehicle pack. I love the idea of upgrades and new vehicles but I am in the same boat as several other people with respect to the point and conditions under which I am willing to pay for the pack. Without any new scenarios that employ the pack, I am not too keen as I enjoy QBs far less than regular ones. That being the case, I will wait and see how the pack turns out and if it goes well and a number of scenarios are put together, I will have no difficulty in paying for it.

On the issue of paying for packs/scenario development, I agree that people need to be reimbursed for their efforts and that BF is a business, not my personal gaming charity With that in mind, here are a few ideas other than direct sales taken liberally from other video games on how to monetize CMBN (warning, some ideas are less serious than others!!):

1) Ongoing user fees - a lot of software I buy these days has a self-destruct mechanism that expires after one year/period. I for one am glad that I can continue to use CMBN as long as I want although the patches do effectively accomplish a similar thing.

2) An "app-store" - if people are truly interested in scenario development, a central repository where players could buy additional scenarios might be viable. This would encourage both "professional" and "amateur" scenario developers.

3) Advertising - how about flooding the start up screen with ads for various products that you don't need but are suddenly under a compulsion to buy?

4) In-game Advertising - my personal favourite. I want to see the infantry putting Trojan brand condoms on their rifles before the assault river crossing, tankers smoking Camel cigarettes and gunners drinking Budweiser before lofting a few mortar rounds down range!

[Scipio]

This was my first "not paying for this" post on BFC, but i feel with no scenarios 20 is just too much, but who knows maybe if i find a good video on how to make your own missions maybe i will get it then.. but i dont like quick battles in cm games so this pack would be useless to me sadly

Many people pay more than 40 € for a single tank in 'World of tanks'...

[ChappyCanuck]

Scipio - so what you're saying is that some people are idiots. No problem, I am proud to say I would never do that!

[A Canadian Cat]

I'm just adding my two cents (or $20 + taxes, as the case may be) to the issue of the new vehicle pack. I love the idea of upgrades and new vehicles but I am in the same boat as several other people with respect to the point and conditions under which I am willing to pay for the pack. Without any new scenarios that employ the pack, I am not too keen as I enjoy QBs far less than regular ones. That being the case, I will wait and see how the pack turns out and if it goes well and a number of scenarios are put together, I will have no difficulty in paying for it.

I do see where you are coming from. Making your own scenarios can be pretty intimidating true. But two points:

1. Releasing the pack with just vehicles gets cool stuff into our hands faster than if they waited to have scenarios made and tested too.
   
2. Making your own scenario is not as scary as it sounds. I recommend reading @JonS's scenario design AAR - which ships with the 3.0 upgrade as a PDF but is on one of the forums too. You can go even simpler too - see below...

I bought the pack last night and within a couple of hours was storming the beach against thick minefields, hedge hogs, wire and AT bunkers with nothing but infantry, engineers with flame throwers, flail tanks and AVRE Churchill tanks. Brilliant, loved it.

And I did that by making a custom map of my own.

Here is an even easier way to get started:

1. Think of what you want to test out, that will dictate what units to pickup.
   
2. Find a small QB map (emphasis on small).
   
3. Load the map into the scenario editor and save it to the Scenario directory with a new name, such as "Pack beach test". The hardest part will be deleting the AI plans and setup zones. Do that first cause it is the only part that sucks:).
   
4. Now go to the unit purchase screen and pick some defenders.
   
5. Deploy them.
   
6. Now pick some attackers - these are your forces cause you are attacking
   
7. Deploy them.
   
8. Play
   

There seven easy steps. That is all you need to attack a fixed position - which is not to bad most of the time. After you discover that you enjoy it you can do more and get fancier. Try it you might like it - and you don't need to purchase the pack first either:)

1) Ongoing user fees - a lot of software I buy these days has a self-destruct mechanism that expires after one year/period. I for one am glad that I can continue to use CMBN as long as I want although the patches do effectively accomplish a similar thing.

Oh yuck, I really hope they do not do this. No further comment cause I get kind of angry when I talk about this kind of thing

2) An "app-store" - if people are truly interested in scenario development, a central repository where players could buy additional scenarios might be viable. This would encourage both "professional" and "amateur" scenario developers.

That would be cool actually.

3) Advertising - how about flooding the start up screen with ads for various products that you don't need but are suddenly under a compulsion to buy?

LOL sounds good - I could put up with some ads on the opening screen.

4) In-game Advertising - my personal favourite. I want to see the infantry putting Trojan brand condoms on their rifles before the assault river crossing, tankers smoking Camel cigarettes and gunners drinking Budweiser before lofting a few mortar rounds down range!

Now that would be brilliant - product placement ala Hollywood style. Opens up a lot of opportunity for new animations:)

[Michael Emrys]

Rumor at the cesspool is they are already very very short.

True. The enemy tend to throw up their hands as soon as the word gets around that it's me and my men that they are facing.

Michael

[niall78]

Again, I agree: more battles and more campaigns are the lifeblood of this series. I'm willing to pay for them. Are others willing to pay? Will that be enough?

Ken

I'm willing to pay for more battles. For more campaigns I'll pay even more.

I'll happily pay for this vehicle pack and I'll happily pay for any content packs that are released. I'd even be happy to pay many of the Combat Mission modders and scenario designers for the magnificent work they put out.

Nothing has given me more bang for my Punt/Euro than the wonderful CM1 and CM2 series over the years. Incredible value considering the hours spent using the products and the enjoyment (and frustration!) gained in that using.

[rocketman]

I'm willing to pay for more battles. For more campaigns I'll pay even more.

I'll happily pay for this vehicle pack and I'll happily pay for any content packs that are released. I'd even be happy to pay many of the Combat Mission modders and scenario designers for the magnificent work they put out.

Nothing has given me more bang for my Punt/Euro than the wonderful CM1 and CM2 series over the years. Incredible value considering the hours spent using the products and the enjoyment (and frustration!) gained in that using.

I'll second that

[AlexUK]

My personal preference is to release some scenarios with a pack that use the new units - it would make it much more interesting from my point of view (perhaps could reduce number of units if need to maintain the same amount of development time). I was holding off on getting the v3 upgrade as some bugs had been reported, not sure if they are confirmed or not? Once fixed I'll more than likely upgrade and get the pack, but more for giving funding to BF than for something I'll actually use at this stage...

[Jock Tamson]

I bought the pack last night and within a couple of hours was storming the beach against thick minefields, hedge hogs, wire and AT bunkers with nothing but infantry, engineers with flame throwers, flail tanks and AVRE Churchill tanks. Brilliant, loved it.

And I did that by making a custom map of my own.

Here is an even easier way to get started:

1. Think of what you want to test out, that will dictate what units to pickup.
   
2. Find a small QB map (emphasis on small).
   
3. Load the map into the scenario editor and save it to the Scenario directory with a new name, such as "Pack beach test". The hardest part will be deleting the AI plans and setup zones. Do that first cause it is the only part that sucks:).
   
4. Now go to the unit purchase screen and pick some defenders.
   
5. Deploy them.
   
6. Now pick some attackers - these are your forces cause you are attacking
   
7. Deploy them.
   
8. Play
   

That's all fine if you want some kind of sandbox / Arma style experience Iain, not so great if you want the "scenario" experience.

[BLSTK]

"Crabs of Doom" nice I really LOL on that one.

Lends new meaning to the expression, "Honey, I've got Crabs."

[lordhedgwich]

Battlefront, Have you guys thought that instead of making these vehicle packs to just do scenarios packs? I love the scenarios for almost all of the CM2 games and after i beat them all i replay the ones i like a few times, then i move on to the campaigns. I would gladly pay for more scenarios with even if they only included 1-2 new things.

[c3k]

App store wins it for me.

(The pay or die model? Cool...until the recipient of your money goes out of business or something. Then you lose everything. Forever.)

99 cent battles? Bring 'em. But, how do you do that and keep folks from trading them/copying them? More drm licensing? Designer rep/reviews would be critical to sales, so a robust, built-in, easy to use, review system would be needed. (Make it part of the exit screen? Can't exit unless you give it one to five stars, comments optional?)

Shrug.

Meantime, I'm still dreaming of finishing one of the best ideas for a CMSF campaign ever envisioned. Map 1 is still in progress...but the plot for the campaign is done. In my head.

[BLSTK]

I bought a sandwich for lunch today. It took an unskilled laborer 5 minutes to make. I asked her why it took so long. She called me an a**hole. I went to the register and found it cost $8. I asked why so much. They told me to leave and never come back. I asked about a license for activation when I get hungry tomorrow and they said I would have to pay all over again . . . somewhere else because they don't want me to come back. 4 hours later I have forgotten what it tasted like.

Perspective is an interesting thing

Burkey, you are priceless.

Thanks for making my day.

[Kanonier Reichmann]

They were found in the Normandy timeframe with Canadian formations, so they should be fair game for a CMBN battlepack. They were utilized more effectively in the Scheldt battles (Oct-Nov 44), which is where my mind was going last night when I made the list.

Most definitely the Wasp II/IIC should be strongly considered for inclusion in any possible future Battlepacks.

According to a source I located there were around 1,000 of the Wasp II's in service by around June 1944. I would find it astonishing that they weren't utilised in one way or another soon after D-Day and in the months that followed. The thing that concerns me is that if they're not part of this vehicle pack, when will they be available? There's certainly no guarantee that a 2nd vehicle pack will be produced so, it seems, we well may be without the use of one of the most common flame equipped AFV's the Allies had!

Regards

KR

[Macisle]

Very good advice from Ian back in post #130 (http://www.battlefront.com/community/showpost.php?p=1561389&postcount=130).

If you haven't tried making your own battles, you are missing out on a huge source of fun from the game. To be honest, most of the stock content from BN and RT is still untouched by me. Not because it's not great stuff and not because I'm not gonna' play it (am saving most single scenarios for blind PBEM), but because I love grabbing a map I like and making quick custom battles. To date, I've spent most of my time playing this way. I just never publish them because that would require me to spend the extra time testing, polishing, and packaging and I don't have that time.

I got weeks of fun out of one battle in CMRT. I took the Radzymin map and spent about 30 minutes adding AI plans and units. IIRC, I gave the Soviets a battalion of T34-76s, a battalion of infantry with extensive ATG support, a company of SMG troops, and a company of IS-1s (as counterattacking reinforcements). On my side as the attacker, I had two companies of PIVs and a battalion of panzergrenadiers. The time limit was 2 hours.

By using multiple groups with the large number of forces involved and the large town area, I was able to really mitigate the effect of knowing what the other side had, and I didn't know exactly where anything was--only the general area. Honestly, CMRT paid for itself with that one battle. I had a blast and like I said, I only spent about 30 minutes setting it up in the Editor.

[Battlefront.com]

Something that was said a few pages back is worth repeating.

For us, it would take about 2 months to make and test a dozen scenarios for a Vehicle Pack. The reason is that there's always development problems that stall scenario development and scenario work that stalls testing (if you're working the Editor you're only testing a subset of the game).

By putting out a Vehicle Pack now we expose the new content to a LOT more people than our testing team. Give that group 2 months and the number of scenarios available will dwarf what we could have produced in the same time. And all those scenarios are free.

So for those of you who want to play hand crafted scenarios instead of QBs or self made scenarios... just wait a couple of months and you'll have what you need. Or get it now, have some fun with it, and then in a couple of months get scenarios made by others. No matter what, with the content in people's hands there will be scenarios ready to go even without any shipping with the Vehicle Pack itself.

To answer another question, we plan on releasing various Packs of the following types:

1. Vehicle Packs -> primarily vehicles only, though some other weapons too. No scenarios or campaigns.

2. Forces Packs -> primarily specialized or new national forces, though perhaps some weapons too. No scenarios or campaigns.

3. Battle Packs -> only battles and campaigns, probably with an emphasis to support Vehicle and Forces Packs since previous releases should have plenty of scenarios and campaigns already.

Pricing is very flexible. Smaller Packs cost less, larger ones cost more, others are inbetween.

Note that we are not planning on very small Packs. No firm rules on that, but a small Vehicle Pack might be 10+ vehicles/weapons, a medium one 15+, and a large one 20+ with prices of $10, $15, and $20 respectively.

Steve

[lordhedgwich]

Something that was said a few pages back is worth repeating.

For us, it would take about 2 months to make and test a dozen scenarios for a Vehicle Pack. The reason is that there's always development problems that stall scenario development and scenario work that stalls testing (if you're working the Editor you're only testing a subset of the game).

By putting out a Vehicle Pack now we expose the new content to a LOT more people than our testing team. Give that group 2 months and the number of scenarios available will dwarf what we could have produced in the same time. And all those scenarios are free.

So for those of you who want to play hand crafted scenarios instead of QBs or self made scenarios... just wait a couple of months and you'll have what you need. Or get it now, have some fun with it, and then in a couple of months get scenarios made by others. No matter what, with the content in people's hands there will be scenarios ready to go even without any shipping with the Vehicle Pack itself.

To answer another question, we plan on releasing various Packs of the following types:

1. Vehicle Packs -> primarily vehicles only, though some other weapons too. No scenarios or campaigns.

2. Forces Packs -> primarily specialized or new national forces, though perhaps some weapons too. No scenarios or campaigns.

3. Battle Packs -> only battles and campaigns, probably with an emphasis to support Vehicle and Forces Packs since previous releases should have plenty of scenarios and campaigns already.

Pricing is very flexible. Smaller Packs cost less, larger ones cost more, others are inbetween.

Note that we are not planning on very small Packs. No firm rules on that, but a small Vehicle Pack might be 10+ vehicles/weapons, a medium one 15+, and a large one 20+ with prices of $10, $15, and $20 respectively.

Steve

So for the battle pack would it work the same way any other pack? 10 battles for 10 bucks etc. I would throw money at you for that =)

[Darknight (DC)]

According to a source I located there were around 1,000 of the Wasp II's in service by around June 1944. I would find it astonishing that they weren't utilised in one way or another soon after D-Day and in the months that followed. The thing that concerns me is that if they're not part of this vehicle pack, when will they be available? There's certainly no guarantee that a 2nd vehicle pack will be produced so, it seems, we well may be without the use of one of the most common flame equipped AFV's the Allies had!

Regards

KR

Realize that I agree with you on the point about Wasp II/IIC being within the Normandy time-frame (July 44 on from what I've read), but I think the "1000 in service by June 1944" probably does not relate to the true number in the area of operations in actual formations. A lot of that number was probably still in the UK and a significant proportion were possibly the out-dated I's, which didn't go into action.

It doesn't concern me that the Wasp isn't in this particular Pack, as there are understandable practical limits on how much content goes into each Pack; from what Steve has posted about Packs, I still believe that we'll get to see the Wasp in a future Pack. There are still lots things that can fill content in future Packs (see the wishlist I made a few posts back for just the Commonwealth stuff....and I could probably even think of some more additions to that list).

[Ithikial_AU]

1. Vehicle Packs -> primarily vehicles only, though some other weapons too. No scenarios or campaigns.

2. Forces Packs -> primarily specialized or new national forces, though perhaps some weapons too. No scenarios or campaigns.

3. Battle Packs -> only battles and campaigns, probably with an emphasis to support Vehicle and Forces Packs since previous releases should have plenty of scenarios and campaigns already.

Steve

No terrain packs (industrial set, port facilities set etc) to test out the new artillery toys on?

Love the idea of Forces Packs.

[Sequoia]

I'm thinking when Steve says $10 for 10 vehicles he's refering to new to Combat Mission 2x vehicles but maybe sweetening it with stuff from other games such as the Möbelwagen would be a good idea.

[fry30]

Steve mentioned that people could use vehicles from the vech-pack if their opponent had purchased the product. That is to say, if I play someone with the Fancy Vehicles Module and I have only CMBN vanilla, I could be playing against ARVEs and Crocodiles, or choose them myself?

Was this a mistake, or is that really true? It doesn't fit their current model, (pay for essentially everything that comes out) but if that is the truth it would really help a lot of us without said modules to continue to play PBEM battles online even if we don't want to continue purchasing modules at the moment. (Upgrades are here to stay apparently, so without them I guess I'll be stuck playing myself.)

-------------

Something that I would gladly pay for, in fact something I believe should be free but still, something I would gladly pay for, is improved AI functionality. (Mostly with regards to QBs)

I know we can't have random QB maps, I'm fairly okay with that one. But one is usually attacking from the same side. In Red Thunder especially, it feels like if one sets certain parameters such as meeting engagement, open/rough medium size, you're gonna be playing on one of two maps.

The AI force selection is so bad one could claim it is broken. Would it be, I know how snarky this sounds but I mean it sincerely, that difficult to re-implement Combined Forces? I'm pounding a dead horse into the ground here, but I'm really sick of picking my force only to go up against 10 At guns.

The AI battle plans are wildly predictable. Once one understands the game mechanics, usually by creating their own map, it becomes obvious what the enemy will do at any given time. This is usually endemic to this game genre, but I feel like with more thought and time given to the triggers we can improve the AI. Even if we have to cheat, and give the AI some sort of Aggression increase when the total force value of their opponent has been weakened, it would probably work better than what we are working with. I've had several battles where I walked right over the computer, only to find that it had 4 AFVs sitting in a meadow that I bypassed.

Maybe it can be done without much cheating (on the AIs part). Maybe it can just remember, like a player would, how many units of each type it has destroyed. I am mostly thinking about AFVs as they can truly dominate a map especially once most long range AT assets have been destroyed.

With the AI plans being the way they are, once you figure out what group an enemy unit belongs to, you can generally figure out where the whole group is going even if you only spot one unit.

I've fought battles that appeared to clearly be made for infantry vs infantry battles. IT was mixed forces, and I brought in 2 Su-76s and an IS-1. My computer opponent went almost entirely with armored forces. They were so intent on getting to their "waypoint" that they completely ignored common sense and flung a few Tigers into the middle of a city square. I think the Triggers are great in theory, but they should really have more under the hood work with regards to decision making. Again, if this requires any sort of cheating, be it additional intel whilst clearing city blocks, or being psychic with regards to hidden AT guns, that's still okay with me. I want a challenge, but more than that I want a surprise. I'd love to see a group in full attack mode stop their movement plan for a turn or two if several of its units are under attack, only to continue their orders once suppression has been alleviated.

--------------------

Sorry for the long post... I guess I'm just getting more and more disappointed in this series' priorities. Maybe I'll just resign myself to patient gaming. Maybe the prices will finally drop in a couple years. I still play Doom and Starcraft, some games are just that great. I believe this game has the potential, but until the AI is "fixed" and the pricing system is relaxed, I just can't devote my limited resources (time and money) to a game that even when its patched and upgraded to it's fullest, still seems broken.

---------------

I'm not turning my back on this game in response to the nickel and diming, I understand this company has to make money one way or another. I just don't think I'll be helping fund the future anymore until either multiplayer is given a stronger focus, or the AI is finally fixed. Feel free to flame away, I truly do love this game series. (You can look up my opinion on improved multiplayer functionality, and even see my Fanboi glee upon playing my first RT battle, [only to realize that all the features I thought I was seeing were infact only in my head.])

[JonS]

I'll put it up there later today.

http://cmmods.greenasjade.net/mods/5385/details

[c3k]

Downloaded. (And you KNOW I'll check the map and forces out against Ian Daglish's book! )

Thanks.

Ken

[JonS]

(And you KNOW I'll check the map and forces out against Ian Daglish's book! )

... and you should KNOW I used that book as the basis for this scenario