NCrawler Posted November 5, 1999 Share Posted November 5, 1999 Please do not display dead vehicles on the battlefield. Machines everywhere will be offended by this sensless display of wanton violence... (tongue in cheek) ------------------ Jon Johnson Steel Lightning Productions [This message has been edited by NCrawler (edited 11-05-99).] Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MikeT Posted November 5, 1999 Share Posted November 5, 1999 Wow, do I agree Personally I do not really feel that leaving dead bodies or modified pics of a dead body or even a cross creates problems. I am number crunching on a PIII 500 and have power to spare. Why not make it an option for us gamers, if we want a clean environment then let us select that all bodies and maybe even vehicles be removed. If we want a gritty warts and all approach let us pick that as well, the bodies stay and the vehicles stay. I wouldn't also mind seeing a real affect of a weapons stick on a vehicle. Right now the vehicle either burns, sits there, or maybe has the turret askew. I have seen in the old Squadron books vehicles literally blown apart by internal explosions. Pure eye candy I admit but it does create the atmosphere. That is the function of any well done game, suspension of disbelief. I have a real problem with a trend of cleaning up war. War is nor will it ever be clean. The one thing I would like to see is a tone down of the burning fire noise. I had several last night, 5 vehicles and maybe 4 buildings, moving around the battlefield the noise of the fire does override the senses. Mike Thompson old Squad Leader fan and now a CM fan. You guys have a great product here exactly what I wanted, please don't "clean" it up. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Reverendo Posted November 7, 1999 Share Posted November 7, 1999 We have had problems with the dead bodies thing in other threads, and they all happened because some people weren't respectful with other people's arguments. I'm sure we could attract BTS' attention on the topic if we were to talk about it like the gentlemen we are. I do not think framerate is a problem for dead bodies and/or vehicles. At the start of the battle, every single soldier and tank is rendered by the computer. Wether the soldier is alive or not will NOT change that. I don't think dead bodies take more 'horsepower' than living ones... And the fact of the offensive nature of depicting violence could be easily overridden by assigning a hotkey to hide/show battle debris. Special note for BTS!: Dead bodies AFFECT realism for the AI. That's perhaps one of the only good things CloseCombat2 had. Making your infantry advance over their mates' corpses should really lower their morale. Making dead bodies disappear removes this important factor of war... in my humble opinion, that is. So remember, I'm not talking about a good graphical environment, I'm talking about realism and playability... :¬) P.S: for BTS and everybody else: all of my messages have some kind of smiley face, because I seek not to argue but to discuss. I don't want any yelling. I don't want people to talk, but to speak. I don't want people to hear, but to listen. I don't want facts, but opinions. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Reverendo Posted November 7, 1999 Share Posted November 7, 1999 Anyway, BTS... Here's a jolly good fellow who wants to discuss in a way as friendly and respectful as possible. Please allow me to be heard. I do not ken how other subscribers of this board have acted before about this topic, but my intention is not to disturb anyone. I would just like to have a peaceful discussion with Steve about this topic (not only about infantrymen but also about AFVs). Could it be? Can we respectful speakers be heard? :¬) P.S: great game indeed... ------------------ Regards Reverendo Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Fionn Posted November 8, 1999 Share Posted November 8, 1999 Hi, I'm going to confine myself to pointing out some flaws in arguments being made (principally technical flaws)... 1. Not EVERY soldier is displayed THUS if you choose to put in a figure for EVERY dead soldier by the end of the battle you could have quadrupled the number of soldier polygons on-screen with a consequent major impact on framerates etc. 2. IF you choose to only have a dead body for every 3 or 4 dead than you get into the trouble of WHERE to place the dead body. Do you put it where the first 2 men died or where the 3rd man died? Do you put it midway between the points or what? If you put it midway between then you will end up with red spots appearing in fields 100s of metres from the fighting because of the averaging. If you put it where the 3rd man died then the other player gets FALSE information of the casualties he is causing. He may have killed 1 man in that position and think he's killed 3. The "dead bodies" idea runs into either technical dead ends OR into greater realism problems than it solves IMO. I'm just seeking to discuss too. The issues I've pointed out are well known and are provable and I'm not trying to shut down your discussion, merely inform you as to some of the complexities of the situation which come into play in game design. ------------------ ___________ Fionn Kelly Manager of Historical Research, The Gamers Net - Gaming for Gamers Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Moon Posted November 8, 1999 Share Posted November 8, 1999 Reverendo - not every single soldier is depicted at the start of the battle. A squad can have a max. of three soldiers depicted. But there can be approx. 9-12 casualties per squad. You simply cannot show them all for the same reasons why there are three soldiers per squad to begin with. Showing every third or fourth casualty, on the other hand, is simply misleading and basically negates the effect everybody is hoping for (unless it's eyecandy only). Besides that, many games can start out at the edge of hardware requirements, and as units get killed, the polygon count drops and the game runs smoother. You really want that, because burning vehicles, buildings, fields, smoke, craters - everything adds polygons. So sometimes even keeping the polygon count even can be a bad thing. Anyways, the above is the essence of many (often heated) discussions over the last year or so. So besides moral and legal aspects (the game might get banned in Germany), there are pure hardware limits as well. I hope this answers your questions. If you want more details, why don't you do a search (look at the upper right hand corner for the link) and skim through the older threads about it. Martin Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Big Time Software Posted November 8, 1999 Share Posted November 8, 1999 ARGHHHHHH!!!!! People just DON'T LISTEN. This topic is CLOSED. Can't you find SOMETHING else to talk about, preferably not a gripe? Steve Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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