The Only Thing that I Think CM Still Needs

[Rick]

Steve & Charles,

I believe you guys know me well enough to know that this is not meant as a complaint to you or a form of nagging. Anyhow, I reassure you that this is not the intent.

Everyone,

There's only one feature that CM NEEDS in my opinion that hasn't already been implemented. (I emphasize needs, because there might be many features that would be nice, all the important ones have been implemented, IMHO.) This one "feature" is to get the ones already implemented polished and the game released. Some graphics might not be the prettiest, but they achieve their purpose. Smoke works about as well as it can given the state of technology, however, I assumed that the tightness to the pattern was tweaked with the rest of arty.

Real-time might make the game better for some, but would ruin it to the greater number of people here. Etc. etc. etc.

I hope that wasn't inflammatory. The last thing I want to do is instigate a flame war.

[Guest phoenix]

Don't even MENTION the words "real time" in this forum. Blah!!! God I hate RTS games.

[Rick]

You know, I played Age of Empires II at a friends house recently and I loved it except I couldn't get over my distaste for real time. It seems like the game comes more down to whether or not you can click fast enough, more than your strategy.

[Guest Big Time Software]

Rick, we couldn't agree more. Polish is pretty much all we are doing right now.

I've said this before, but I actually like RTS games. They are more like dynamic puzzles rather than military type games IMO. Like a very involved game of rock, paper, and scissors. I can't stand playing them solo as the AI is HORRIBLE in every one I have ever played. More like non existant But multiplayer with 3 or 5 guys is great fun. Yes, I still scream at the computer for getting my guys stuck, and yes there often is too much to manage at one time, and yes the games often have achilies heels in terms of game play, but they are fun none-the-less.

But don't worry, CM will never be realtime I like FPS games too, but CM will also never be one of those either. Just isn't what CM is about.

Steve

[This message has been edited by Big Time Software (edited 01-26-2000).]

[Berlichtingen]

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>CM will never be realtime<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you...

Did I get my point across?

[Das Boot]

Yes, Yes, Yes, Yes, Yes, Yes, Yes, Yes, Yes, Yes, Yes, Yes, Yes, Yes, Yes, Yes, Yes, Yes, Yes, Yes, Yes, Yes, Yes, Yes, Yes, Yes, Yes, Yes, Yes, Yes, Yes, Yes, Yes, Yes, Yes, Yes, Yes, Yes, Yes,

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The first casualty when war comes is truth

[Thomm]

Dear Rick !

I think you have to distinguish general conceptual discussions from demanding new features. I think everybody has the right to make suggestions and to have a personal taste. But this should not be seen as an attack on Combat Mission as it will be completed. I think everybody has understood that there will not be any major changes at the present stage of the project. But this does not mean that thinking of new features and details should be restricted or commented on negatively.

Regards,

Thomm

P.S.: ... even if that means that I will not (and probably never) get my "Waypoint-LOS-Tool-with-Limited-Range" ! BUHUUU !

[Lanzfeld]

I love CM the way it is! The system they have developed where as both sides plan moves and actions for the next 60 seconds and execute them at the same time is PERFECT! No more UGO-IGO and no more "click-fests"! Now BTS.....hunker down and finish this dream come true!

Lanzfeld

[Rick]

Thomm,

I apologize if this thread seemed like an attack on others opinion. I meant it only as expressing mine. Agreeably, mine is fairly opposed to some others, but that doesn't exactly mean that I am trying to shut them up.

BTS,

Glad you understood the message for what it was.

[Sarge]

Well as long as wer're just killing time while waiting, and hoping....on the topic of smoke;

if the game includes weather, does it include wind (or will it in a patch later release etc?) and if wind "is" included the affects on smoke.

on a breezy day that tall column might be laying near horizontal - covering a loooong front. or on a windy day, make it useless!

like Rick, i'm not asking for inclusion, just throwing out ideas.

[Rick]

Well, if you rely on my memory. I believe BTS said dynamic weather, wind etc., is beyond the ability of computers to model today, at least if they're going to continue to model everything else they do.

Now, do you want to rely on my memory?

[This message has been edited by Rick (edited 01-26-2000).]

[Doug Beman]

If the National Weather Service is unable to corrctly model/predict weather I'd say let's not even ask BTS to do the same.

DjB

[Rick]

Good point, Doug.

[Goanna]

I am with you Rick. What it really sounds like is needed is a few clones of Steve, Charles and some of their crew so that the polishing can be completed more quickly. However, that is just wishful thinking since managing more people might add to their problems rather than speed things up.

I would only caution them in their labour of love to continue with their mantra of "It will be released when it is ready" but not shoot for perfection, lest they scrub the shine off of their gem with too much polishing.

Patiently waiting with my old favourites.

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desert rat wannabe

[Rick]

I discussed how great it would be if BTS had more people to do the work with Fionn privately many months before. He informed me that theoretically it is a wonderful idea but there are a huge number of problems with the idea practically. After thinking about that a while, reading other things etc., I came to the unfortunate conclusion that he is correct.

Those differences between theory and reality make you angry sometimes. I was hoping that some more people could be thrown at the process and then CM 1-4 would be completed by the end of 2002. In reality, there's no way that's going to happen.

[guachi]

There is one major advantage to adding more people to a small software company. My mother and step-father have a two person software company. I had no experience programming at all but they asked me to work for them for a while because they thought I could learn quickly and help them out.

My main tasks were to do necessary but tedious/low skill jobs. It was a complete waste of time for either my mother or step-father to do stupid things like reformatting all the program code to one standard way, changing all the docs over to Word format and adding pictures, or (what I spent a majority of my time doing) basic and repetitve Y2K fixes.

There IS a place to add more programmers/staff and that is to do grunt work.

Jason

[This message has been edited by guachi (edited 01-26-2000).]

[Rick]

Kind of a strange thing to say, but I bet Steve & Charles would be great to work for compared to large corporations.

[Lorak]

Getting back to the original post title.... Anyone remember them Berzerk russians from Squad leader? hows that for an expansion idea?

Lorak

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"A stupid man dies a stupid death."

[Goanna]

No, let's stay with the idea in the original post, not just the title of the thread, which Rick meant to set up the main point of his post.

Adding grunts is great provided you can house, provide a working environment, pay (given cashflow considerations) and lets not even get into workers comp and all that crap.

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desert rat wannabe

[Rick]

I think virtual office is one method to deal with those issues. However, it creates the problem of "are they working or goofing off?" I think virtual office would be very common already if it weren't for that problem. With companies trying to have the bare minimum of employees there's no way for them to tell if they're at the minimum or not if they can't watch the employees.

BTS, runs the problem of if they add grunts, then they will need to make larger profits. So would the customers be better off if BTS had grunts and could maybe finish things up faster, or would the extra pressure to make more money damage those things we really like about BTS?

[Guest Big Time Software]

Well, as to adding more people to our "staff", this is a difficult thing to do. First of all, we need to find someone willing to work for about 2 years without pay. Funny how quickly offers are withdrawn when that happens As for additional programming... there are more problems associated with this than benefits at the moment. Ground up, massive code bases like CM's benefit from one clear minded visionary behind the coding. Having managed a team of three programers, and dealt with the results of others, I can tell you that I much rather have one coder taking twice as long as having three working on the same thing and finishing it in half the time. Notice that CM's quality level is a few notches above other games in terms of stability? No surprise to me...

BUT, having said that, Combat Mission is NOT just the creation of Charles, myself, and one artist. It is in fact the joint effort of about 20 core people. Names will be made public when the game ships, but you are going to be surprised at how many different people have worked closely with us on CM. But if they all charged money for their labors it would be just Charles, me, and an artist There simply isn't enough pie to share beyond that for the most part.

Steve

[Galland0]

Steve and Charles,

Well IMHO it's well worth the wait for a good stable, quality, wargame with real effort put into realism. I've got every TALON#$@% title,

SS*, tried Clo$# Com@!# too. They were what they were and there wasn't much to compete in the way of military minitures feel till now.

I cut my teeth on Avalon Hill... you name it!

You've produced the computer wargame Sqa$% Lead^& a game I played for years.

I'm really impressed, and hoping that BTS is rewarded for their efforts buy shaking up the bigger software houses. I'd like to see the game magazines wake up a little too.

Let's get back to being the elite computer geeks again. Here's to breaking some new ground with BTS. Good work Gentlemen.

Ready to pre-order CM2

[Rick]

Galland0 said one of the more important things, "ready to pre-order CM2." People are already so loyal to CM that I imagine few here doubt that they will get CM 2,3&4.

Steve,

Looks like more payed employees would be a bad idea at least for the time-being. I don't know about you, but one thing that scares me about hiring someone to help with my photography business is that I could not in good conscience treat my employees the way most employers do. I have not only found the way I've been treated in the workplace unpleasant, but offensive and unethical as well. However, I don't know that I could ever afford to treat someone in a manner that I would consider ethical. Luckily, my mother helps with much of the administrative work on a volunteer basis. Mothers can be great things.