Exciting news about Battlefront and Slitherine

[Battlefront.com]

We found the place to edit the colors, but... a bug is preventing the change from sticking.  The forum software folks have confirmed the bug and it will be fixed with the next release.  Based on years and years of working with them, I do expect it to be fairly soon.

Steve

[Lucky_Strike]

2 hours ago, BornGinger said:

Maybe white text on orange or yellow could be better?

Jokes aside. The colour choice in the quote box is offending to the eyes.

This is the CM forum, we need Khaki, Olive Drab and Field Grey and lots of it please ...

[BornGinger]

While they're on it with the colours, they could also add a spoiler function so we could hide many or large pictures and quote boxes with a lot of text to prevent a post from requiring too much space.

Edited August 21, 2020 by BornGinger

[sPA505]

congratulations, it went straight onto my wishlist. i just found out. i'm too busy these days.

as much as i basically like slitherine, i have to say that they are not acting wisely on every front. currently it is a big annoyance that they use their big community of panzer corps to promote panzer corps 2 massively. and they just leave a rough diamond like battle academe 2 lying around, what a pity. it is hoped that they become aware of their responsibility - their target group are no teenagers. hopefully they don't overdo it like they did with panzer corps 2.

steamreviews: a lot has already been written here, i share the opinion that the reviews are overrated. if the product description and especially the introduction video are well done there should be no problems. of course it looks different if the user has false expectations. it should be very important to have an adequate description and a video. an explanation video which shows the complete planning phase of a project, comments...likewise, gary grigsby's was in the east: 301 reviews, "very positive", 10 year old game for 70 €. everything done right.

slitherine screwed this up brilliantly with a release announcement (which could not be complied with) for panzer corps 2 but that was a little bit longer ago, so you shouldn't do something like that if you don't want to scare away a sensitive target group for a long time. 

i haven't read the whole thread yet, i will do that when i have more time. probably i will find answers to my questions then.

for me as a battlefront / combat mission-fan is now interesting:

hopefully the titles from the second world war will follow?
steamkey for already purchased titles would be good; steam is a standard for many players.
cm without various mods is out of the question for me - opening the steam workshop for it would be great.

i wish the whole team a lot of joy in working with slitherine.

[LukeFF]

On 8/20/2020 at 5:05 AM, Battlefront.com said:

We found the place to edit the colors, but... a bug is preventing the change from sticking.  The forum software folks have confirmed the bug and it will be fixed with the next release.  Based on years and years of working with them, I do expect it to be fairly soon.

Steve

Steve, as I posted in another topic, the BFC logo is also cut off at the top of the screen on Chrome on Android smartphones. 

[Thewood1]

On 8/22/2020 at 4:29 AM, sPA505 said:

i have to say that they are not acting wisely on every front. currently it is a big annoyance that they use their big community of panzer corps to promote panzer corps 2 massively. and they just leave a rough diamond like battle academe 2 lying around, what a pity. it is hoped that they become aware of their responsibility

Holy Cow!  No huge fan of Slitherine, but you think they, as a company that needs to employ people and make some some money, should provide charity for games?  Its some kind of wargame social justice?  This is one of the craziest comments I have seen on any wargaming board.

If there is some great social responsibility for wargames, I'd suggest developing one that you think is needed for the greater good that can be released for free to the general wargaming public.

[Jock Tamson]

The screenshots on the Steam page are really poor.  Aliasing in all of them, when there is no need for it.  You wouldn't put crumpled clothing in a store window.

[akd]

Wargamer has a short interview with Steve up:

https://www.wargamer.com/articles/combat-mission-shock-force-2-steam-interview/

[sPA505]

@Thewood1: 

it's probably an "occupational disease" of mine, in my trade (guitar teacher for...let's say "unpopular playing techniques" ) such terms as the one you highlighted in bold are on the agenda - with the result that after a few years you have to deal with a small but very reliable fanbase. 

you can find my approach ridiculous, you're welcome. it's also moaning on a high level, slitherine does a lot of things right. 

for me, video games are on the same level as artwork, be it a song, a movie or a painting and i'm a bit emotional about it in this context my "responsibility" is to be seen. if in my branch only popularity would be published...one would have to rewrite the music textbooks, "there are only four chords... "

one will probably still be allowed to wish for things? maybe a misunderstanding: i never said a word about a company releasing a game for free. maybe it's because english is not my main language. sorry for that. my main criticism of slitherine is that they use the popularity of panzer corps (1) massively to promote panzer corps 2. up to a certain extent this doesn't bother me, but if i find five posts regarding panzer corps 2 (in the period 09.06 - 16.07.) under "activity" on the steam page of panzer corps (1) (!) then this really annoys me. apart from the unspeakable panzer corps gold-edition...

[Alchenar]

On 8/24/2020 at 1:35 AM, Thewood1 said:

Holy Cow!  No huge fan of Slitherine, but you think they, as a company that needs to employ people and make some some money, should provide charity for games?  Its some kind of wargame social justice?  This is one of the craziest comments I have seen on any wargaming board.

If there is some great social responsibility for wargames, I'd suggest developing one that you think is needed for the greater good that can be released for free to the general wargaming public.

If anything, Slitherine explicitly said in their pre-Steam days that the reason they didn't want to go on Steam or adopt a sales strategy was that only a certain proportion of their catalogue would survive there (because the rest was crap).  So War in the East is a $70 game because it needs to be more expensive and less attractive than the bad games they have.  Thankfully they've broken free of that mindset.

Also Steam is a shopfront and advertising platform, that's the whole point.  Battlefront should be encouraging everyone here to transfer their install on there (numbers attract attention), thinking about running a free weekend promotion (I think Shock Force is prime for that - you can't scratch the surface of content but a full weekend gives people time to decide if they want to open their wallet for something a bit different and janky looking), and then using that community to advertise the hell out of releasing the rest of the catalogue.  

 

[ratdeath]

Release delayed until September 1st.

I think CM is cursed when it comes to release dates
"Unfortunately, we have some bad news: we won't be able to release today as the game is still in the Steam review queue. It is entirely dependent on Steam, and there is nothing we can do but wait."

Guess it's tradition

 

[BornGinger]

Das Tactic, who does great videos about the Slitherine game Field of Glory II, has resently made two videos about Shock Force 2. I guess he got the game before release to make a review of it.

[aleader]

On 8/6/2020 at 4:31 AM, Battlefront.com said:

In short... we're not worried.  In the end, it only matters how much money we make.  We already have a solid community to draw from for feedback and support, so for us Steam is all about the money.  Which is why I won't be spending my time there.  Too many other things to do.

Steve

I'm sure the crew on here will trash me for it (so be it), but this sort of seems like an elitist thing to say, does it not?  You care about the cash but not the customers on Steam, many of whom will not want to come over here to these forums?  Will you have someone over there doing 'PR' at least?  I've seen the vitriol on Steam with DCS World (and many other games) when they ignore Steam over the ED forums.  

[com-intern]

The quality of the Steam forums depends on the game. Usually wargames have decent communities.

My personal pref would be to lock down the Steam forum to exclusively announcments and direct all users over here.

[Erwin]

2 hours ago, com-intern said:

My personal pref would be to lock down the Steam forum to exclusively announcments and direct all users over here.

Yes.  Hopefully STEAM's biz model doesn't depend on getting more people to use their forums. Otherwise they are going to try to get the folks here to move over there.

[Probus]

It's up!  As soon as I get my Steam Key, I can leave a review!

https://store.steampowered.com/app/1369370/Combat_Mission_Shock_Force_2/

[Sandokan]

Jeez, I hoped to be first. 

[gallycadet]

Not putting the modules on sale? Not having steam keys ready. Not even announcing you would be able to release a day earlier then planned after a delay? Not having the modules on sale at launch? (I get it that you don't want to give Steam their 30% but come on people.... This is basic launch day 101. I'm taking some marketing and computer programming classes right now, and I really want to thank you guys for giving me some examples of what NOT to do. 

[iMolestCats]

18 minutes ago, gallycadet said:

Not putting the modules on sale? Not having steam keys ready. Not even announcing you would be able to release a day earlier then planned after a delay? Not having the modules on sale at launch? (I get it that you don't want to give Steam their 30% but come on people.... This is basic launch day 101. I'm taking some marketing and computer programming classes right now, and I really want to thank you guys for giving me some examples of what NOT to do. 

Cringe take. A lot of this is outside of battlefronts control. Try again. 

[gallycadet]

Got a source for this? 

[com-intern]

@gallycadet

pricing:

The pricing and sales are controlled by Battlefront (well I guess technically Slitherine would communicate that to Steam). The current setup isn't that unusual for any game with a decent amount of DLC. You place the base game on sale to get an install base that will buy your DLC. This is especially true for an initial release where you have a relatively small install base.

Once you've heavily sold your base game you then do DLC sales but without that install base there isn't much of a point. Its very similar to Humble Monthly sales or really just any game post-release.

----
Steam Key:

These are all being handled via Slitherine. Well its really a more complex process.

 Battlefront -> Slitherine -> Steam -> Slitherine -> Users

This is unusually complex for activating Steam keys for a game which is why we're probably seeing some issues. But effectively Slitherine seems to be the active partner when it comes to communicating with Steam if you read any of Battlefronts posts.

Also I think Slitherine is a British company which would mean that there is a full 8 hours difference from Valve time to Slitherine time which might also be impacting steam keys.



--------------

I will say its a bit unfortunate current users couldn't get keys earlier since it would likely bolster reviews. Reviews being relatively key to success on Steam.

[com-intern]

@gallycadet ANd anyone else really.

Steam keys are available I just had to hard refresh the site a few times.

[aleader]

2 hours ago, gallycadet said:

Not putting the modules on sale? Not having steam keys ready. Not even announcing you would be able to release a day earlier then planned after a delay? Not having the modules on sale at launch? (I get it that you don't want to give Steam their 30% but come on people.... This is basic launch day 101. I'm taking some marketing and computer programming classes right now, and I really want to thank you guys for giving me some examples of what NOT to do. 

Yah, I noticed this too.  For instance the Big Bundle with the game shows $118 CDN for me, even though I already own SF 2 (and have it installed on Steam).  Individual modules are $39.99 CDN each...$120 for all three?!  Or, I can get all of the modules on the BF site for about $99 CDN.  This could be the same thing that ED attempts to do...get people to avoid Steam and buy off of their site (which I do now as they also give reward $ with each purchase, and the price is roughly the same).  So, is this whole Steam move just a PR stunt to get CM more exposure?  I can't imagine a sensible person buying the game on Steam for those prices.  

[Probus]

24 minutes ago, com-intern said:

@gallycadet ANd anyone else really.

Steam keys are available I just had to hard refresh the site a few times.

That worked.  Went to https://www.slitherine.com/member/mypage and then logged into my account and was able to register my serial number for SF2.  Then it will let you get your Steam key. No problems.  Thanks for letting us know.

[aleader]

On 8/28/2020 at 2:17 PM, com-intern said:

The quality of the Steam forums depends on the game. Usually wargames have decent communities.

My personal pref would be to lock down the Steam forum to exclusively announcments and direct all users over here.

Yes, Steam users are people too believe it or not   There's just a lot more of them, which is naturally going to increase the % of boneheads.  Locking it down would be a bad move as most people (myself included) like to use the forum where their game resides, not have to create another login at a different site for every game.