Sam Peckinpah battle recorder and the North Africa question

[Hellmann]

Hello guys, please excuse the impromptu message but I just felt I had to say thank you to Battlefront for making such brilliant games. And I wasn't quite sure where else to post this, sorry if I got it wrong. I just bought Red Thunder and the modules I missed (Vehicle Pack and 3.0+ Upgrades) to complete my CMx2 collection and it's all good stuff as usual, thanks.

Now, I just reinstalled my old CMx1 games I bought years ago and hadn't played for a while and I'm loving it even more! Yes, even with the genius of your CMx2 series I have to admit my favourite is still old CMAK, mainly because of the North Africa theatre. I hope you'll revisit North Africa at some point in the future but at the same time, I was thinking at some possible reasons why you've avoided it in recent years. I'm just guessing here... could the reason be because the swastika on the Afrika Korps vehicles is a bit too obvious and "politically incorrect"? And you want to "avoid potential problems" of having the swastika portrayed in full view? I know you have the swastika in CMx2 already on some uniforms but you really have to zoom in close to see that. But of course, on the main AK vehicles it's right there for everyone to see, isn't it? So, is this one of the reasons you've avoided Afrika Korps recently? I'm thinking this could very well be it!

But hey whatever guys this is my main point I'm drifting from I wanted to say: The main thing I like about your Combat Mission games is not so much the WEGO system (which I love, don't get me wrong) it's just the fact we have those "instant replays" to watch the action from any angles or viewpoint. So I was thinking if you wanted an idea or improvement for a future game, the one "new" feature most welcome would be a full battle replay movie viewer. I'm thinking something along the lines of the movie viewers we already have in games like Rise of Flight, Cliffs of Dover, Flaming Cliffs, Black Shark and DCS World that record everything in the game world from mission start to mission finish, saveable in a replay file for later viewing anytime we like. This way, if we want to play our missions in Real Time mode rather than the WEGO system, then we still have this tool for debriefings and catching events that happened on the battlefield we might've missed during Real Time. I mean, c'mon guys... we had this years ago in Falcon 3.0 and Total Air War, didn't we? And let's not forget what our god and savior Larry Holland did with his Battlehawks 1942, Battle of Britain Their Finest Hour, X-Wing and Tie Fighter movie recorders (even if a little buggy, the trick was not to hit pause during recording!)

If nothing else, we could make editing our war movies so much easier. And isn't more videos on YouTube more free advertising for you anyway? I loved whoever made the "Cross of Iron" video of Red Thunder I saw on youtube a while ago but I think they missed one glaringly important element; no "Cross of Iron" tribute is complete without a "Peckinpah" slo-mo camera mode, is it? Now, if this was somehow recorded in other game engines like Rise of Flight, Cliffs of Dover or even the Birds of Steel engine on PS3 (the forerunner to War Thunder), the "slo-mo Peckinpah" movie camera mode is already built-in to do exactly that with no further editing necessary!

Does anyone else think a proper battle recorder (slo-mo feature optional!) is just a basic feature worth having in Combat Mission, or is it just me? I mean, it isn't just Flight Sims that have "black box" recorders like this, is it? The Total War strategy games have had a save replay feature able to save full battle recordings well over an hour long for years since the first Rome Total War. The Time Commanders game show on the BBC was based on it as well as a handful of other historical documentaries used it (I'm trying to avoid mentioning the History Channel here as they are a total joke in recent years not worth watching). Imagine the possibilities of using Combat Mission game footage in future documentaries if we had a similar battle recorder as in the old Rome Total War? What do you think?

 

[A Canadian Cat]

You are not the only one who has suggested such a feature. I think the barrier is more a case of the amount of resources and time it would take compared to the utility. There is plenty of content and other features that are just more important. 

CMAK was my favorite of the older games too. I would love for them to revisit the time frame and location in CM2.

[John Kettler]

Hellmann,

If CMAK still floats your boat, may I suggest you find a willing foe and PBEM the simply amazing Tiger Valley? You'll be glad you did. Also, since you mentioned DAK, this may be of interest.

http://deutsches-afrikakorps.blogspot.com

Regards,

John Kettler

 

Edited December 31, 2015 by John Kettler

[General Jack Ripper]

I think if a battle recorder was included in Combat Mission, that would be a fantastic thing.

Unfortunately, the replay file size would be enormous, probably on the order of 100 gigabytes for a medium sized battle.

Even a Terabyte drive would rapidly shudder to a halt under that sort of onslaught.

I'm just guessing here... could the reason be because the swastika on the Afrika Korps vehicles is a bit too obvious and "politically incorrect"? And you want to "avoid potential problems" of having the swastika portrayed in full view? I know you have the swastika in CMx2 already on some uniforms but you really have to zoom in close to see that. But of course, on the main AK vehicles it's right there for everyone to see, isn't it? So, is this one of the reasons you've avoided Afrika Korps recently? I'm thinking this could very well be it!

That is clearly incorrect. Battlefront does release a slightly altered version of the game for the German market with no swastikas, but that has nothing to do with the game development cycle. They've certainly never shied away from allowing their customers to mod the textures within the game however they wish.

It seems to me Battlefront hasn't gone back to North Africa yet, simply because they haven't gotten around to it yet. The entire company has what, seven employees maybe? When you lack manpower, total amount of production will be low.

Have patience Hellman, some day there will be a glorious return to Casablanca, Tobruk, Kasserine, and El Alamein. Just not yet.