2015 Christmas Bones

[weapon2010]

 I for one like it better not getting everything all at once, you can focus better on what you have in front of you,I probably only played with about 25% of  what CMBB had to offer anyway over the years, the material was so vast, you couldn't get to it all.

[weapon2010]

nice , star shells are in , another bone!

[Myles Keogh]

Would it be possible for there to be a CM game with the scope of the CM1 games? CMBB had hundreds of units from 41-45 and CMAK had all that plus more nationalities and theatres. Is it just not possible to make that much content in any appreciable amount of time?

BFC been very upfront that CMBB and CMAK almost ruined them.  We'll never see the scope of a CMx1 release in any future Combat Mission game.

People simply didn't buy those games in the numbers that justified BFC's efforts and costs in creating them.  The disappointing sales of CMBB, which sold less than CMBO, and CMAK , which sold less than CMBB, is what led BFC to adopt their current base game/modules/packs sales strategy that has thankfully kept them open for business.

[MikeyD]

I don't really see an advantage of having one giant title that covers everything, that costs hundred of dollars and takes much of a decade to field. Would you really have preferred to not have seen CMBN arrive in 2011 because you'd prefer to wait for an imagined unitary CMBN/CMFI/CMFB combo that probably wouldn't have showed up til 2017?

[DougPhresh]

I agree that I've had a much better experience of Bagration in RT than in BB and a much better appreciation for Sicily/Anzio in FI than in AK.

I think I might have used the 'JUN 44" settings a handful of times in each of the big games, and the difference is huge.

[Ts4EVER]

I don't really see an advantage of having one giant title that covers everything, that costs hundred of dollars and takes much of a decade to field. Would you really have preferred to not have seen CMBN arrive in 2011 because you'd prefer to wait for an imagined unitary CMBN/CMFI/CMFB combo that probably wouldn't have showed up til 2017?

True, that being said I could see the advantage in making the games completely modular, so you basically buy 1 engine + the content modules all applied to the same framework. That way you could upgrade all games at once as well. Then again, there might be something in the structure of the engine making this undesirable.

[General Jack Ripper]

I've had some time to think, and I have a question.

Will the "missing tank commander" bug for firefly tanks be fixed with this new patch?

Other than that, everything sounds great.

[General Jack Ripper]

True, that being said I could see the advantage in making the games completely modular, so you basically buy 1 engine + the content modules all applied to the same framework. That way you could upgrade all games at once as well. Then again, there might be something in the structure of the engine making this undesirable.

To be honest, way back when the CMx2 game engine + module system was announced, this is exactly what I thought we were getting: a core game engine with add-on modules sold separately, with all content being compatible.

I think the reason that type of system wasn't implemented is because you would need to have all of the hardcoded system in place at once. For example, the World War Two titles don't need to simulate precision guided weapons, so you leave that part out when building the game. It keeps the memory footprint low, and frees up otherwise wasted processing power. Granted, I have no knowledge of programming, so that could all be nonsense. (I'm a bit drunk atm)

Maybe in the future, the CMx3 engine will pull off something like that, when all computers are solid state, and have 36 processors in them.

[womble]

Steve has said that, in some putative, speculative, notional future CMxN where N > 2, the "unified program spine" with "plug in modules" might be an architecture they'd look at. Like a tabletop rules set plus army lists, I guess it might be, roughly, conceptualised...

If you're concerned about memory footprint, you could have the program only load the sections of itself that are needed by the content modules actually being used in a given game, so the precision munition subroutines would stay on the storage medium for the WW2 modules. That sort of architecture could further optimise by not loading the routines for weather types or even general weapon systems if they're not needed. No need to load the snow algorithms for a battle after the thaw, nor the air support SfX for a game with no flyboys. Whether that'd be worth it is another question entirely.

[Mord]

Would it be possible for there to be a CM game with the scope of the CM1 games? CMBB had hundreds of units from 41-45 and CMAK had all that plus more nationalities and theatres. Is it just not possible to make that much content in any appreciable amount of time?

In a way we are getting all that just not at once, but the end result will be that and even more. As of now CMBN is the yard stick from which we can measure— think of the Bulge title as the second half of the equation. When CMFB is finished we'll have the entire CMBO experience (CMBN+ FB) with way more than BO offered at a much finer fidelity and Battlefront will be fairly compensated for their work. In my opinion it's a win-win for all involved.

To give you a very basic idea let's take a look at vehicle content. CMBO had a total of 125 vehicles/armor covering the June 44 to May 45 period. In comparison CMBN has 185 vehicles/armor for June to September of 44. Just think what that will be by the time the Bulge wraps up. And that isn't including all the hundreds of other details/features that make up the nations, equipment, TO&Es and regions that we'll have when it's all said and done. So, though it's not all under one roof, it's by far larger and finer detailed than what we had in a single CMX1 title (in this case, CMBO). And seeing that all the titles for CMX2 will share the same engine version, it's basically one title just with separate exes.

 

Mord.

Edited January 3, 2016 by Mord

[Buzz]

In a way we are getting all that just not at once, but the end result will be that and even more. As of now CMBN is the yard stick from which we can measure— think of the Bulge title as the second half of the equation. When CMFB is finished we'll have the entire CMBO experience (CMBN+ FB) with way more than BO offered at a much finer fidelity and Battlefront will be fairly compensated for their work. In my opinion it's a win-win for all involved.

To give you a very basic idea let's take a look at vehicle content. CMBO had a total of 125 vehicles/armor covering the June 44 to May 45 period. In comparison CMBN has 185 vehicles/armor for June to September of 44. Just think what that will be by the time the Bulge wraps up. And that isn't including all the hundreds of other details/features that make up the nations, equipment, TO&Es and regions that we'll have when it's all said and done. So, though it's not all under one roof, it's by far larger and finer detailed than what we had in a single CMX1 title (in this case, CMBO). And seeing that all the titles for CMX2 will share the same engine version, it's basically one title just with separate exes.

Mord.

^^^ ? Solid Summary Mord.

[Battlefront.com]

Yes, I think it's worth pointing out that CMBN has more stuff in it than CMBO.  Not just bits and pieces of battlefield equipment, but also the formations.  Not to mention all of them have a lot more detail and accuracy than the original.  More terrain types in CMBN by far over CMBO.  Which is to say it is absolutely true that CMBO had more out of the box than v1.00 CMBN, that isn't the case any more.

I haven't done a comparison, but my guess is the same is true for CMFI and CMRT for comparable timeframes of CMAK and CMBB.

Let's keep in mind that total development time for CMBO, CMBB, and CMAK was about 6 years.  We've spent about 11 years on CMx2 games with more staff and no change in fully loaded schedules.  We also have ever increasing experience with game production.  The numbers alone show quite clearly that CMx1's three games were made faster and with vastly less man hours than CMx2 games.  Since it's obviously not because we're getting worse at making games, the obvious reality is there's a ton more in CMx2 than there was in CMx1.

We think we made the right decision to go deep with CMx2 instead of broad like CMx1.  For future CM games we will keep to that philosophy.

Steve

[Freyberg]

I don't comment on this board much, because I'm intimidated by the military history geeks, but I've bought every Combat Mission game and module since CMBO (except Afghanistan) and I think the game is just getting better and better.

CMBB was amazing, with the vast range of equipment and the many nationalities, but the detail of CMRT is indeed more engaging.

[Aragorn2002]

Yes, well said, Mord.

[Kieme(ITA)]

Yeah, comes down to the mere psychological effect of "the big title" compared to few plus their modules.

Edited January 3, 2016 by Kieme(ITA)

[domfluff]

Hmmm... access to the British Indian army for CMFI... Gurkhas?

[Jotte]

Hmmm... access to the British Indian army for CMFI... Gurkhas?

Total war-like close combat animations with Kukris confirmed! 

[domfluff]

You mean Gurkha's *can't* jump twelve feet in the air, or bludgeon a Panther to death in close assault armed only with another Panther?

[JonS]

perhaps, but don't tell them, or they'll cut your head off. In the middle of the night. And so silently you won't even notice.

[Cobetco]

Gurkha drawing incoming tomorrow, too sneezy and wheezy to finish it. (first version was finished but was DERP quality)

[Cobetco]

No color, too sick.

[LUCASWILLEN05]

 

5. After Final Blitzkrieg is out early next year, our plan is to spend 2016+ expanding our current titles with more modules and packs. The following are closest in the pipeline:

• Fortress Italy module: this is the next big thing coming, and work has already begun on it. See #5 below for details!
• Red Thunder module: winter combat on the East Front...
• Black Sea module: think Marines, Naval Infantry, and VDV, among other new forces. And new high-tech toys. I want to really flesh out American, Ukrainian, and Russian forces/equipment on all levels before moving on to new nationalities.
• More Battle Packs.

 

Question/request re Black Sea Module. Please could the other new forces include the Ukrainian and Russian militias. This would certainly contribute to the fleshing out of Ukrainian and Russian forces :-)

Also a winter variant would be great allowing for either an extension of the war into the winter of 2017 or an alternative winter war scenario :-)

[Michael Emrys]

That helmet doesn't look right to me. In all the pictures of Gurkhas from the WW II period I've seen they are wearing either a slouch (the most common) or the standard British helmet. May I ask, where did you find this image?

Michael

[BLSTK]

Michael, Michael, Michael. That's your question?

How about: why is this man smiling?

[Cobetco]

 

That helmet doesn't look right to me. In all the pictures of Gurkhas from the WW II period I've seen they are wearing either a slouch (the most common) or the standard British helmet. May I ask, where did you find this image?

Michael

when i do get around to painting stuff in it the reason for the smile will be clear. helmet is defiantly wrong and was more or less a placeholder. i'm just getting over that fever and for some reason i forgot to redraw it to fit the profile of a netted tommy pot. (which is why its a placeholder, that netting would need to be painted on, not drawn on) i could not find any photos of Gurkhas wearing the slouch in an enviroment that looked to be continental Europe the slouch only appeared in photos with the khaki Shorts Uniform. but if you can give me a good piece of evidence i would prefer a slouch, and i have to redraw it anyways.

Edited January 12, 2016 by Cobetco