Fire and Rubble

[Aragorn2002]

3 hours ago, Battlefront.com said:

The good news is we've figured out some ways to make adding content to existing titles easier to do.  We do expect to step things up a bit in the near future.

Steve

Good news! That should help to remove the chip on my shoulder.

Edited April 7, 2021 by Aragorn2002

[chuckdyke]

50 minutes ago, Aragorn2002 said:

Good news! That should help to remove the chip on my shoulder.

Civilized people settle their differences privately. They don't broadcast it, in any business customers come first. 

[Anonymous_Jonze]

2 hours ago, Cobetco said:

 

this is what QB selection looks like for me in which the months they should appear, the Aufklarung battalion is available but not the bread and butter Gebrigsjager, do I have a bad install or something? please let me know because while I can build scenarios with them they are missing on this list. 
(doing a clean install now)

Okay so I'm both right and wrong. The waffen ss has a Gebirgsjaeger Battalion in 45. The German Grenadier Battalions have a uniform option of Gebirgsjaeger. So that kind of simulates mountain troops right? Was there a fundamental operating difference between a SS mountain division and a Heer one? Sorry bout that!

[Aragorn2002]

48 minutes ago, chuckdyke said:

Civilized people settle their differences privately. They don't broadcast it, in any business customers come first. 

To be fair, Steve and Elvis always have been very patient with me. Even though they have been bombarded with requests to remove me permanently from this forum. So no complaints there.

I'm one of the few critical forum members, but my arguments are always based on facts. Also in this case. I've become a Don Quichote charging towards the huge BFC windmill.

What I hope to achieve by all this? That BFC frankly admits that the handling of FR has been a shambles from beginning to end and a sincere apology, instead of denying what happened and ridicule those who are upset about that.

Edited April 7, 2021 by Aragorn2002

[Ales Dvorak]

1 hour ago, Aragorn2002 said:

I've become a Don Quichote charging towards the huge BFC windmill.

 

Relax man...  

Btw, where is Sancho?

[Aragorn2002]

2 minutes ago, Ales Dvorak said:

Relax man...  

Btw, where is Sancho?

He slowed me down, so I had to execute him.

[Warts 'n' all]

1 hour ago, Aragorn2002 said:

What I hope to achieve by all this? That BFC frankly admits that the handling of FR has been a shambles from beginning to end and a sincere apology, instead of denying what happened and ridicule those who are upset about that.

There was a time when I would have summoned Mr. Axeman at the mere sight of a post from you. But as I'm now in my 420's I'm beginning to mellow a little bit. And you're perfectly correct it has been a shambles. Although I suspect Percy Punter and Danny Dollar have to take their share of the blame.

[Aragorn2002]

2 minutes ago, Warts 'n' all said:

There was a time when I would have summoned Mr. Axeman at the mere sight of a post from you. But as I'm now in my 420's I'm beginning to mellow a little bit. And you're perfectly correct it has been a shambles. Although I suspect Percy Punter and Danny Dollar have to take their share of the blame.

I must admit not even the sudden release of Fire and Rubble could have taken me more by surprise than your post, but thank you.

[Ales Dvorak]

9 minutes ago, Aragorn2002 said:

He slowed me down, so I had to execute him.

Ohhh I see ... but he slowed you down for a good reason.

[Ales Dvorak]

9 minutes ago, Warts 'n' all said:

And you're perfectly correct it has been a shambles.

But you are the copyright owner of Battlefront Flexible Calendar. I thought you know the stuff...

[Ts4EVER]

Sounds to me like a typical example of mission creep. I see it in modding all the time: Oh, let's put this in while we are at it. We have some time left, why not add X, it will be easy!

And suddenly everything balloons in complexity.

[Warts 'n' all]

1 hour ago, Ales Dvorak said:

But you are the copyright owner of Battlefront Flexible Calendar. I thought you know the stuff...

I think that Elizabeth threw the Flexible Calendar away when she was spring cleaning last year.

[benpark]

50 minutes ago, Ts4EVER said:

Sounds to me like a typical example of mission creep.

It was many things, combined. Making games is damned complex on an easy day, and we didn't get many of those.

BFC got busy in spurts as Steve laid out with projects that had timelines other than the traditional ways, that's been said many times. Otherwise- health issues, people vanish between modules, the pandemic. We all stuck with it, even though it took up vast tracts of our time when we needed it elsewhere. This has been intense, and it is something of a miracle it will exist, at all. That's the facts.

If I ever did anything remotely like this again (not likely), I'd have it spring out of thin air.

[wadepm]

Not to mention that GUY who wanted Italy and paid to have it so...

 

[benpark]

I can't even remember how far back that was. I don't think any of the Italy games overlapped, at all as I was helping to work on 'em at the time.

I started background work on this in 2016 with BFC (mainly Mike and Cassio, my real stars of this show).

That expanded a few short years ago to a full-tilt FR production team. That's not too far off from some of the larger base-games, to which this is comparable to in scope, but there's a lot more happening these days. Which is a good thing, ultimately.

[Battlefront.com]

6 hours ago, Aragorn2002 said:

Not even remotely fair? Some examples...

June 1, 2018

Steve: The one you're all interested in is the first Module for CMRT.  Let me tell you a bit about it. When will it be available to you?  As always we have to be vague about it, however we're very sure it will be before the end of the year. 

Steve: It's been in the works for a significant amount of time already.  Most of the forces have already been plugged in and all of the vehicle models are done.  As you can see from the snapshot of the Berlin map, there's been substantial work done on the scenario side of things already.  What's really helping is that the CMRT Module doesn't require much internal development resources at this stage, which in turn means it's not being held up by CMSF2 or CMFI R2V work (or vice versa).

July 11,2019

MikeyD: The CMRT and CMFI modules have been 'almost complete' for awhile. Much of the CMRT module artwork was finished 2 1/2 years ago.

That's quite impressive data mining!  Not that anybody doubted your level of obsession.  I'm definitely surprised by the 2018 quote, but I'll address the implications of that below.

4 hours ago, Aragorn2002 said:

I'm one of the few critical forum members, but my arguments are always based on facts. Also in this case. I've become a Don Quichote charging towards the huge BFC windmill. 🙂data:image/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAPABAP///wAAACH5BAEKAAAALAAAAAABAAEAAAICRAEAOw==

Nah, there's plenty of critical forum members.  You're just one of the few that insists on doing it with an unpleasant edge.

4 hours ago, Aragorn2002 said:

What I hope to achieve by all this? That BFC frankly admits that the handling of FR has been a shambles from beginning to end and a sincere apology, instead of denying what happened and ridicule those who are upset about that.

Why admit to something that isn't true?  Development has actually gone very smoothly, just not as fast as anybody wants it to.  As for an apology for things taking so long, I have no problem doing that.  We do it all the time because just about every release we've ever done has taken longer than we thought.  I'm sorry it's taken so long.
Our games take a long time to do in part because we are perfectionists, in part because we always keep our development calendar flexible, in part because we didn't anticipate doing defense contract work, and in part because unanticipated things like pandemics happen.  F&R was unfortunate enough to get hit with all of this.  When the going gets tough, something gets put onto the back burner. 

The quotes you dug up were back in the day when we thought we had magically gotten over a development speed bump.  We said similar things about other Modules and Packs.  The difference is that F&R actually got made, the others are still sitting around waiting their turn.  If you look in the other Forums you should be able to see similar quotes from the same time period.  I doubt you'll see anything similar since then.

Why were we so optimistic in c.2018 about how quickly we could crank stuff out?  Because, for the first time, we had artwork mostly sitting in hand.  Up until then we thought that artwork was our bottleneck and everything else paced itself to that.  What we learned was the playable content (campaigns, scenarios, etc.) took the longest to do.  Throwing more people onto playable content only seemed to produce more and better content, not faster.  Trust me, it was a surprise to us and the lessons from were learned.  Why do you think you haven't seen me talking about Modules being right around the corner for Final Blitzkrieg and Black Sea?

It would be very nice if we could predict release times better than we do.  But like I said, compounding factors come into play sometimes more than others.  Cold War got done faster than expected, Fire and Ruble a lot slower.  I know you don't agree with how we prioritize our time and resources, but that doesn't mean our decisions are poorly thought out or executed ("shambles").  Quite the opposite.  Things have been going very well for Battlefront on the whole as of late.  Fire and Rubble included.

Steve

 

[wadepm]

Italy should have been the very last game developed.  That it got a base game and two modules before the East Front was done is just scandalous!!  I am going to call my congressman!

[Mr.X]

Did I miss something? CM Fortress Italy was initiated by a private guy, who payed for the development ???

[PIATpunk]

Forget it.  CMCW  (Combat Mission Chaco Wars) is next.

[t34577685]

12 minutes ago, Battlefront.com said:

It would be very nice if we could predict release times better than we do.  But like I said, compounding factors come into play sometimes more than others.  Cold War got done faster than expected, Fire and Ruble a lot slower.  I know you don't agree with how we prioritize our time and resources, but that doesn't mean our decisions are poorly thought out or executed ("shambles").  Quite the opposite.  Things have been going very well for Battlefront on the whole as of late.  Fire and Rubble included.

I have never doubted the development ability of BFC。

If send some screenshots of the game at this time. The content is Russian soldiers in overcoats, helmets and cotton caps mixed, even better。

[BletchleyGeek]

48 minutes ago, Battlefront.com said:

Why were we so optimistic in c.2018 about how quickly we could crank stuff out?  Because, for the first time, we had artwork mostly sitting in hand.  Up until then we thought that artwork was our bottleneck and everything else paced itself to that.  What we learned was the playable content (campaigns, scenarios, etc.) took the longest to do.  Throwing more people onto playable content only seemed to produce more and better content, not faster.  Trust me, it was a surprise to us and the lessons from were learned.  Why do you think you haven't seen me talking about Modules being right around the corner for Final Blitzkrieg and Black Sea?

Very interesting Steve. Is that time accounting for playtesting, map making, research etc? Also for developing simulation models for new vehicles and equipment? 

Thanks again for sharing these insights into the development process. And all the best with the upcoming releases!

[wadepm]

46 minutes ago, Mr.X said:

Did I miss something? CM Fortress Italy was initiated by a private guy, who payed for the development ???

Yes.  Now, if he had paid for the development of RT and all of it's modules we wouldn't be having these arguments.  I would be playing Barbarossa right now!  Instead of on my deathbed... 

[benpark]

5 minutes ago, wadepm said:

if he had paid for the development of RT and all of it's modules we wouldn't be having these arguments. 

Think about it- There are only so many of us to make any of these things.

If they hired outsiders, how would they even know how to do any of what is necessary? And would anyone want something made by a person with no real investment in what they are doing?

This is games developed by people that like the game (and made it themselves, because no one else could).

[Mr.X]

@wadepm:

Thank you for these info. Very interesting! Is this guy still active with CM? 

There should be a Russian Multimillionaire who sponsored the Eastfront Titles 

 

[wadepm]

I agree with everything you said.  But you aren't addressing the points I raised.  Namely, absent FI we would have all of RT right now.  BFC "prioritized" FI over RT based on the input of one person.  Was there anyone on this board clamoring for FI over RT?  Was there anyone within BFC who wanted FI over RT?  Steve has said on several occasions that he is an east front guy and even he couldn't get what he wanted.

I just wish they would have let us know there was bidding war for modules to let us put together a package...