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Frustrated by this recent CMCW announcement . . .


Double Deuce

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1 hour ago, Bil Hardenberger said:

CMCW did not steal any resources from F&R.

I want to highlight and emphasis this point. CMCW was largely handled and developed by a small team from the getgo. The beta testers had no idea the game existed until about two months ago now. Up until that point, they all still thought that F&R was the only new thing being actively worked on. 

2 hours ago, Sprocketman said:

I actually think the WWII interest waxes and wanes.

Not in the wargaming community. Whenever there is a new game released that is not about WWII, all you hear is all the grogs begging for the new game to be converted to WWII. 

2 hours ago, Macisle said:

IIRC (and sorry if I'm wrong), BN is slated to be the first WWII title to hit Steam. That makes total sense. It's got the most content and it's Western front -- which is where the money is. Steve has said so many times, while acknowledging the passion of Eastern front fans. So, until Russian gamers start outspending Americans for targeted WWII content, if something's got to give, it's going to be Eastern front.

I think this is the case, but I do not know for sure. FWIW I agree, I think that CMBN should absolutely be brought on to Steam as soon as possible as I think it will be BFCs big seller there. That said, Slitherine handles all of that, so any suggestions/complaints will have to be taken up with them. 

4 hours ago, Aragorn2002 said:

I hope the release of CW announces a new era with more and quicker releases of games and modules. Perhaps the co-operation with Slitherine will make that possible. It's high time things are gonna change in that respect.

My hope as well!

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All I have to say is that we need to display the same spirit and attitude we have demonstrated in the past. Qualities that I feel makes up the average Battlefront customer.

That spirit is faith that the BF folks are doing their best to produce the same quality which may take a little longer and we all know no development ever survives first contact with reality. Plus they have lives outside of work which as we all know, can influence job performance.

That attitude is Loyalty. I like to think there are no "sunshine patriots" among our crowd. Through thick and thin, past and present, we patiently wait for what we know will be as great as the last release.

Great products and outstanding customer service has always been the hallmark of companies that garner die hard loyal customers. And this company has that in spades.

And to quote my the great wisdom of my caretaker who says, "sounds like a first world problem to me", when her children complain about how unfair or unbearable it is to endure certain situations that are a want and not a need.

To quote a great movie line:

"The oxen are slow, but the earth is patient" - High Road to China

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28 minutes ago, Double Deuce said:

The good thing with the games all using the same basic engine is I get to practice mapmaking which I love doing. I could work on them all day but maps without scenarios isn't going to cut it IMHO. I really need to learn the use the AI to at least make a semi-presentable and challenging opponent.

It's great that you're into mapmaking! The CM Editor opens up a second world of hobby pleasure on top of enjoying the gameplay. Plus, once you get the hang of it, you can create your own content while waiting for new stuff from BF and the community. Whipping up private scenarios with house rules to cover gaps doesn't take much time at all. Public scenarios are a whole other thing and can take massive amounts of time.

While working on learning the AI, one thing you can do to easily add AI traction to QBs is to adjust force size and unit quality in favor of the AI.  For example, in RT, if I'm Germans, I use PIVs or Stugs and give the AI at least +40%. If I'm the Soviets, I give the AI big cats and at least some level of purchase point advantage, less or more, depending on the situation. You'll get a feel for it over time.

In my experience, it's generally better to manually choose units for the AI when it is German, as the auto feature often makes weird choices like all armor or nearly all infantry for "Mixed." The Soviet AI will more reliably choose a truly mixed force an auto.

Good luck with your work!

Edited by Macisle
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2 hours ago, IronCat60 said:

 

All I have to say is that we need to display the same spirit and attitude we have demonstrated in the past. Qualities that I feel makes up the average Battlefront customer.

That spirit is faith that the BF folks are doing their best to produce the same quality which may take a little longer and we all know no development ever survives first contact with reality. Plus they have lives outside of work which as we all know, can influence job performance.

That attitude is Loyalty. I like to think there are no "sunshine patriots" among our crowd. Through thick and thin, past and present, we patiently wait for what we know will be as great as the last release.

Great products and outstanding customer service has always been the hallmark of companies that garner die hard loyal customers. And this company has that in spades.

Watching the gaming industry I second all this.  The gaming industry has this tendency to try and maximize their profit based on whatever new sales idea hits them.  The result is watered down intellectual property where games start looking very similar despite being completely different franchises.  The rush to also get product to market, hype as much as possible, promote with videos that turn out to not be actual gameplay.  All the major players have had huge issues in the past year.  Ubisoft is getting bashed heavily.  Even CD Projekt has demonstrated the same.  BF is one of the few instances of a company knowing their community, their product and recognizing their limitations.  The most that BF has ever done "over promising" is Steve's projections on release dates :D  I have learned to just accept that with BF, it will be delivered when it is done.  And when it is done it will be every bit as good as I expect, probably more so.

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40 minutes ago, sburke said:

BF is one of the few instances of a company knowing their community, their product and recognizing their limitations.  The most that BF has ever done "over promising" is Steve's projections on release dates :D  I have learned to just accept that with BF, it will be delivered when it is done.  And when it is done it will be every bit as good as I expect, probably more so.

Wise words, Steve!

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3 hours ago, IICptMillerII said:

I want to highlight and emphasis this point. CMCW was largely handled and developed by a small team from the getgo. The beta testers had no idea the game existed until about two months ago now. Up until that point, they all still thought that F&R was the only new thing being actively worked on. 

Your word and that of Bil Hardenberger are enough for me to believe that. My heart will be fully at ease after the release of Fire and Rubble, but I'm glad to hear that.

Edited by Aragorn2002
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My (limited view) interpretation of events.

The long CMRT Fire and Rubble saga is closely tied up with Slitherine, the secret British Ministry of Defense project and eventually Steam. The MoD project was important to BFC but the CMRT Beta team was unaware of it and the delays went unexplained. They also knew nothing about the Cold War project but Cold War wasn't taking up resources. It was just a small handful of guys working on it part time 'under the radar'.

The British MoD distraction multiplied when Slitherine decided it looked odd they were offering a product not hosted on their own site. So CMSF2 went to Slitherine, and by association also to Steam. That turned into a Big Thing all its own, and a big distraction that once again negatively impacted CMRT. CMRT Fire and Rubble has basically been a victim of the whirlwind of BFC's unexpected successes. But that's almost over, the mega-module is almost here. And its worth the wait.

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4 minutes ago, MikeyD said:

My (limited view) interpretation of events.

The long CMRT Fire and Rubble saga is closely tied up with Slitherine, the secret British Ministry of Defense project and eventually Steam. The MoD project was important to BFC but the CMRT Beta team was unaware of it and the delays went unexplained. They also knew nothing about the Cold War project but Cold War wasn't taking up resources. It was just a small handful of guys working on it part time 'under the radar'.

The British MoD distraction multiplied when Slitherine decided it looked odd they were offering a product not hosted on their own site. So CMSF2 went to Slitherine, and by association also to Steam. That turned into a Big Thing all its own, and a big distraction that once again negatively impacted CMRT. CMRT Fire and Rubble has basically been a victim of the whirlwind of BFC's unexpected successes. But that's almost over, the mega-module is almost here. And its worth the wait.

Bring it on!

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9 minutes ago, MikeyD said:

Fire and Rubble has basically been a victim of the whirlwind of BFC's unexpected successes.

That tracks, somewhat-

Victim is a new term for having extra time to create more stuff- since the mid-2010's, if I track back to when we first started laying down the foundational ideas. It's always been BFC's timeline, but our relatively small but powerful team kept it going and thriving until they said "stop".

Two games, at once. A good thing.

There was no overlap that would create stalls between these two modules, though some of us transitioned to the modern game when done (and I have given some advice to the modern team gleaned from F&R experience). There aren't a lot of us, but there are enough for two fully functioning teams to work somewhat independently (as you now see).

F&R will stand on its own merits. It is a monster of a module.

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It was just a week(?) ago that Steve told me they needed textures for another vehicle he wants to add to the CMRT module. So that's a vehicle that wouldn't have been in the game if it had been released earlier. Schwimmwagen wasn't on the original vehicle list. Add to that a fair number of pretty impressive additional scenarios too. Heck, not even Russian partisans were on the original list! So the current Fire and Rubble is a bigger, better product than Fire and Rubble at the original hoped-for release date. It almost makes be wish Cold War would get delayed just to see what additional cool things would get added in the interim. ;)

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On 2/21/2021 at 1:19 PM, Aragorn2002 said:

Your word and that of Bil Hardenberger are enough for me to believe that. My heart will be fully at ease after the release of Fire and Rubble, but I'm glad to hear that.

As a beta tester I can attest to this. Getting an email from Elvis asking if I wanted to participate in a hush hush project, and then finding out what it was when he added the right permissions, was a real HOLY ****  moment. And wasn't that long ago! Before that we were all happily plugging away on FnR, except for the small bunch doing all the hard work on CW.

Dave

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On 2/21/2021 at 12:59 PM, Sprocketman said:

My rambling point is that I don't think it's a permanent shift where WW2 interest is doomed to decline, but instead cyclical. Hopefully in a few years we'll see interest in World War-era games on the ascent once again!

Politically the whole era is too problematic from a modern perspective... I think you'll see continued interest in Modern stuff & a return to Future/Sci-fi/fantasy stuff (think Doom & Quake).

It should be noted that the WW2 themed Battlefield's & Call of Duty's weren't recieved well (presumably from either side of the political spectrum).

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20 hours ago, Sequoia said:

@Ultradave I assume the 82nd Airborne's infantry battalions had a different TO&E than a standard infantry battalion back in the day am I right? (other than simply lighter vehicles when they had them)

Correct. Light infantry TOE. I was artillery so we had vehicles ( at least after I graduated from FIST Chief to Fire Direction Officer back in the battery). An infantry company usually had the COs Jeep and the 1SG goat ( which was used mostly to haul supplies here and there ). 
 

Infantry squads are a little bigger in light infantry - no issues with stuffing them all in an APC. 
 

3infantry companies and a support company. (  81mm mortars  )

jumped with LAWs and Dragons  

also we didn’t do the cross attached company teams like mech did ( not enough armor to go around) We might get armor attached from 4-68th Armor battalion which was part of the 82d then. Back then those were Sheridans. 
 

9th infantry and 10th Mtn divisions had similar TOE. Probably more vehicles, but pretty similar. We just arrived in style 😀

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As a long time observer of BF forums this thread's topic seems very familiar. I do not write this to denigrate anyone, I am and have always been someone who is deeply fascinated by human behavior and psychology. I am all too human myself. I have enjoyed the perks and suffered the follies and heartbreaks that go along with that.

From my first days here I, as a gamer not a grognard, have taken note of my fellows' interests, partially to enrich my own experience of CM and to enhance my abilities in game in an effort to be a worthy opponent. As a result, I have read many people expressing desires for many things. In terms of "what games they would like to see next" the Eastern Front of WW2 and a fictional Fulda Gap scenario have been very popular ideas dating back to CMBO. As a result I can only view this as a win/win with no losers from either camp.

For me, if I were to look for one of my "CM desires" to be frustrated by this announcement it would be my desire for a modular CM3 that could take full advantage of modern computer architecture (another very common theme around these parts). I write this as one who can not know if the development of a fully modernized CM3 is likely, or even possible, for a small company like BF. So, in reality, I am not frustrated by the announcement but rather very happy for more content, engine upgrades of current content, as well as more user made scenarios and mods that will invariably follow. Two birds in the hand... what?

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23 minutes ago, sfhand said:

As a long time observer of BF forums this thread's topic seems very familiar. I do not write this to denigrate anyone, I am and have always been someone who is deeply fascinated by human behavior and psychology. I am all too human myself. I have enjoyed the perks and suffered the follies and heartbreaks that go along with that.

From my first days here I, as a gamer not a grognard, have taken note of my fellows' interests, partially to enrich my own experience of CM and to enhance my abilities in game in an effort to be a worthy opponent. As a result, I have read many people expressing desires for many things. In terms of "what games they would like to see next" the Eastern Front of WW2 and a fictional Fulda Gap scenario have been very popular ideas dating back to CMBO. As a result I can only view this as a win/win with no losers from either camp.

For me, if I were to look for one of my "CM desires" to be frustrated by this announcement it would be my desire for a modular CM3 that could take full advantage of modern computer architecture (another very common theme around these parts). I write this as one who can not know if the development of a fully modernized CM3 is likely, or even possible, for a small company like BF. So, in reality, I am not frustrated by the announcement but rather very happy for more content, engine upgrades of current content, as well as more user made scenarios and mods that will invariably follow. Two birds in the hand... what?

All true. But the development of Fire and Rubble has been a very troublesome one, with a lot of delay and radio silence. And human as I am I've lost my patience and good manners on several occassions. With two new products in the pipeline it's easy to forget how the frustration and impatience came about. All in all I think the development of Fire and Rubble is an example of bad communication and agonizingly slow progress.

All water under the bridge now, but there are lessons to be learned here and not just by a short tempered, greedy forum member like myself. 😉

Edited by Aragorn2002
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23 minutes ago, sfhand said:

As a long time observer of BF forums this thread's topic seems very familiar. I do not write this to denigrate anyone, I am and have always been someone who is deeply fascinated by human behavior and psychology. I am all too human myself. I have enjoyed the perks and suffered the follies and heartbreaks that go along with that.

From my first days here I, as a gamer not a grognard, have taken note of my fellows' interests, partially to enrich my own experience of CM and to enhance my abilities in game in an effort to be a worthy opponent. As a result, I have read many people expressing desires for many things. In terms of "what games they would like to see next" the Eastern Front of WW2 and a fictional Fulda Gap scenario have been very popular ideas dating back to CMBO. As a result I can only view this as a win/win with no losers from either camp.

For me, if I were to look for one of my "CM desires" to be frustrated by this announcement it would be my desire for a modular CM3 that could take full advantage of modern computer architecture (another very common theme around these parts). I write this as one who can not know if the development of a fully modernized CM3 is likely, or even possible, for a small company like BF. So, in reality, I am not frustrated by the announcement but rather very happy for more content, engine upgrades of current content, as well as more user made scenarios and mods that will invariably follow. Two birds in the hand... what?

Well put! Not to detract from anything you have said here, I do want to point out that I think the original poster meant the title as slightly tongue in cheek. 😁

8 minutes ago, Aragorn2002 said:

But the development of Fire and Rubble has been a very troublesome one, with a lot of delay and radio silence. And human as I am I've lost my patience and good manners on several occassions.

I understand the frustration, but I do want to quickly point out that there were some very real (and serious) life complications that cropped up (multiple times unfortunately) that caused a fair number of the delays. It is not my place to comment on those. I only mention it to try and give some context. 

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