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Pre-orders for Fire and Rubble are now open!!


BFCElvis

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About the big deal with Steam. Don't remember if it was CMRT og CMBS, but Battlefront insisted that they were using a major (think it was top 3) CDN to deliver the game files, but it took ages (200KBps and think some people had their download interrupted and had to restart). Then there is the sometimes confusing patching process where you in the past you had to consider engine version too. Few weeks ago I reinstalled CMBS on Steam, the entire process took less than 3 minutes (literally from start of download to being in-game). I did not have to wonder whether I had the latest possible patch because by default you always do on Steam. I did not have to look my license code to activate it since it uses Steam DRM.

Steam is certainly not ideal from a philosophical stance point (eg. you don't own the game - however, don't forget until some years ago you had to manually backup the game download from BF also). I plan to buy Cold War from Battlefront website to support them directly and to ensure they get most of the money. However, assuming it is viable, I will activate the game on Steam and play it from there.

Edited by Muzzleflash1990
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8 minutes ago, Bulletpoint said:

I'd say what gets you guys noticed is the youtube videos made by Josey Wales, Hapless, and others. People out there interested in WW2 watch historical videos by Mark Felton, TIK, Military History Visualised, etc, and then Youtube algorithm recommends a CM video.

No doubt those guys bring 1,000s of eyes to the games. Then there are guys like this that bring 10s of thousands of viewers:
 

And this guy. (super nice guy too) He has over half a million followers and sometimes gets over 100,000 views on a Combat Mission video, like this one. You can't beat 100,000 people hearing the first 2 minutes of this video:
 

 

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8 minutes ago, BFCElvis said:

No doubt those guys bring 1,000s of eyes to the games. Then there are guys like this that bring 10s of thousands of viewers:
 

And this guy. (super nice guy too) He has over half a million followers and sometimes gets over 100,000 views on a Combat Mission video, like this one. You can't beat 100,000 people hearing the first 2 minutes of this video:
 

 

That's funny, never heard of either of those guys. Maybe because I'm not interested in the modern CM games. But yeah, the main point is that Youtube is a huge free marketing channel for BFC.

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I've pre-ordered F&R and cannot wait :) CM:BB was my first CM game (at 15 years old) and served as my introduction to combat sims and/or war-games.  I haven't played in years and kinda forgot about the games, but Covid gave me time to dig through all old favorites and I remembered CM.  Glad to see it's still in such active development.

Sorry, this is a bit off topic, but I feel like folks here need a bit of an update on Steam.

Steam is the largest PC game distribution platform and marketplace.  Steam was released in 2004 as part of Valve's Half Life 2 release.  I have had it since then and I have over 400 games on Steam.  I also use GOG Galaxy which has better support for classic games, including CM1 games BO, BB, and AK.  

Steam manages updates.  Everyday I have 3-5 game updates that download in the background.  You have controls to tell it when you want updates to download/be applied etc.

Steam provides cloud saves (mutli-platform support for saves too) so I can pick up right where I left off on my laptop from my desktop while I'm traveling.

Steam provides a social networking and multiplayer frameworks so developers can tap into that for multiplayer matchmaking.  It could make it easier to find CM online opponents and I can only imagine how using cloud saves with PBEM it could make the experience SO MUCH BETTER!  Any friends that I have that game we pretty much all meet up and organize stuff on Steam, however for voice chat we tend to prefer Discord (Does CM have a Discord server yet?)

Steam provides rich community mod frameworks and modding warehouse.  Instead of having to manage Z folders, I can find a mod on Steam and immediately "install" it and use it in a game -with one click, and with a fancy UI to manage which mods I want on or off when I start a game.  No filesystem management required.  No need to worry about mod websites going down. It's all hosted by Steam / Valve.  If a modder updates the mod it will auto-update just like game updates, so mod updates are managed seamlessly in the background.

Steam makes it easy to backup games and to migrate games between hard drives. A personal favorite of mine, since I like upgrading my NVME SSDs and I dislike having to uninstall CM and reinstall it and going through support for activation.

Steam is cross-platform.  I'm using it on my MacBook Pro right now.  From what I can tell, CM and Slitherine are only enabling Windows on Steam currently.

All of this is to say, from the end user/customer experience of Steam is amazing.  I do not know about the Developer/backend Steam experience.  I don't know if those Frameworks have good API and code samples to build from.  I don't know what Steam's sales cut is.  I don't know how the Steam approval process works or if they'd want German military insignias modified.  For a small developer like Battlefront Steam may not make sense.  I have no insight into the cons.

If Battlefront does decide to adopt Steam, I recommend really taking the time to utilize the modding, matchmaking, cloud saving, Multiplatform, and updating experiences, because they are pretty awesome for your users.

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2 hours ago, nox_plague said:

If Battlefront does decide to adopt Steam, I recommend really taking the time to utilize the modding, matchmaking, cloud saving, Multiplatform, and updating experiences, because they are pretty awesome for your users.

It has adopted it basically because the partnership with Slitherine allows to manage easily the admin burdens that you very clearly identify in your first post. The user experience is great, tbh. For the small business side... well, it's not like Steam will send to Steve's address (figuratively speaking) truckloads of unsold copies as it used to be the case.

Welcome to the forums! I hope we will all be able to enjoy our favourite Eastern Front vignettes (within the 1944-1945 timeline) this weekend if that "mop up" that John mentioned doesn't turn out into a "snafu".

Edited by BletchleyGeek
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59 minutes ago, Bufo said:

What's the use of a pre-order here anyway? In other places it means you can get like a 10 percent bonus. OR you get an exclusive item in game.

I see it as a way to support the developers and encourage them to make more content. I don't begrudge them some working capital. 

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And I always want to say that although CM is being sold on steam now, and the price on steam is cheaper than that on BFC website in my area, I will still buy CM on BFC, and then exchange it for steam key. The reason why I do that is that I am worried that if the DLC isn't on steam in the future, and if I only buy my ontology in steam, it will be very embarrassing . 

As I said in other posts before, ten years ago, some of our Chinese players gave money to our friends to buy CM in BFC. As a result, the key of each copy was the same, so that I bought cmrt and Gustav separately with my own account.

My current cmsf1, Cmbn, Commonwealth, market garden, cmfi, the keys purchased before 2014 have been invalid, because the keys are the same, and some of us sold our own keys, resulting in the invalidation of our own keys. Now I don't know if I can activate the above parts with keys once I buy a new computer, and I also don't know if I can activate the above parts with keys after cmbn and cmfi goes on steam.

NOW 75% of the keys I have are under my own account name, and 25% of them must have been invalid,、

And a few years ago, I even bought cmrt and GL twice just to make them appear in my own account. If I need to buy cmbn and cmfi again in the future, I hope I can buy a separate ontology, because part of my subsequent DLC is under my own account.

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37 minutes ago, Ts4EVER said:

Seems unlikely, developer studios usually don't release on a weekend on account of people not working.

I don't mind releasing on a weekend if it's ready. I consider this is a 24/7 365 job. I would rather release it the moment that it is ready than hang onto it over a weekend. I also like the idea of Monday through Friday people getting something on the weekend but I wouldn't hold something until the weekend for that reason either.

The short answer, if it's ready on a weekend it'll be released on a weekend.

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58 minutes ago, BFCElvis said:

I don't mind releasing on a weekend if it's ready. I consider this is a 24/7 365 job. I would rather release it the moment that it is ready than hang onto it over a weekend. I also like the idea of Monday through Friday people getting something on the weekend but I wouldn't hold something until the weekend for that reason either.

The short answer, if it's ready on a weekend it'll be released on a weekend.

What about minor holiday's?  Let's say, for instance, St. Patrick's Day? 😁

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