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So when will the next project be officially announced?


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One way to make early eastern front profitable is to make it CM3! Hopefully many are going to buy that for the new CM3 alone :)

Either way I am looking forward to whatever is coming next and Cold War was a fresh new family with a lot of potential for future modules.

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Traditionally Erwin has always gotten it wrong about the Early War stuff. He has a lot of wishful thinking. Somewhere along the line he got the idea the early Western Front was part of the plan. He's been corrected a few times but god, it's been 10 years, 7 titles, 8 Modules, 1 Battle Pack, 2 Scenario Packs, 3 Upgrades, and 200,000+ threads, so you can't expect him to remember all of it! BUT, BUT, BUUUUUUUUUT, to be fair, up until recently the plan was supposed to be BF working backwards until the East Front hit Barbarossa.

However, as we know with BF, plans change, especially when they say they aren't gonna do something. So it remains to be seen. But here's something to chew on, once FB gets its module, that is it for WWII. We all know they aren't gonna stop producing WWII content. So the question is, what will it be? Another title? Vehicle Packs? New nations? The mythical CM3?

 

Mord.

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Okay, it's not a car analogy like Steve prefers, but B-52's have been flying for 60 plus years and have been doing fine. Sure the B-1 and B-2 are improvements (and now are getting old themselves) but the B-52s can still get the job done. My question is, though while a new engine would certainly have advantages, what is is that the current engine can't do? Note my question isn't what the current engine doesn't currently have but can be added ( such as a robust terrain fire feature), but what is it that it can't do?  This question isn't meant to argue against a new engine. I'm just honestly curious what specific advantages a new engine would bring that some one who really knows what they're talking about could name? Right now I can only think of curved terrain (roads, rivers, railroad tracks), and a major improvement to how fortifications could be presented and still maintain fog of war.

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My fantasy would be that they create an engine that plugs into and upgrades what we already have.

Steve's fantasy is that it won't take as long to release stuff because all the TO&E is already done.

Whose fantasy is more realistic? LOL.

 

 

Mord.

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I bet the forum will be utterly bonkers (me included) when we get first CM3 game and then are clammering for everything else and new content to be ported, which will probably happen slowly. 

So what game would be first CM3 I wonder?  Black Sea? 

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3 minutes ago, danfrodo said:

So what game would be first CM3 I wonder

I would hope -- and from what Steve has said recently about sales, probably expect -- that Battle for Normandy would be first. But if we're talking a whole new engine, I'll be buying it whatever it is, guaranteed.

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Just to define what is meant here.

First Engine was CMBO CMBB and CMAK

The second Engine is everything since CMSF I. Sometimes this is currently called Engine 4 and they are working on Engine version 5 but for this discussion I'm calling it the second Engine.  Therefore since Black Sea started out using the upgraded second Engine the hinted at Marines module would have to remain part of the second engine (as far as I know).

A third Engine as defined here would be something totally new. Not necessarily in it's subject, but in structure.

 

I hope that helps clear what as meant here (or do you disagree?)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited by Sequoia
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1 hour ago, Sequoia said:

Okay, it's not a car analogy like Steve prefers, but B-52's have been flying for 60 plus years and have been doing fine. Sure the B-1 and B-2 are improvements (and now are getting old themselves) but the B-52s can still get the job done. My question is, though while a new engine would certainly have advantages, what is is that the current engine can't do? Note my question isn't what the current engine doesn't currently have but can be added ( such as a robust terrain fire feature), but what is it that it can't do?  This question isn't meant to argue against a new engine. I'm just honestly curious what specific advantages a new engine would bring that some one who really knows what they're talking about could name? Right now I can only think of curved terrain (roads, rivers, railroad tracks), and a major improvement to how fortifications could be presented and still maintain fog of war.

The only thing BFC said is that engine 5.0 (of CMx2) will be an interation for current hardware.

So that probably means multithreading. Maybe new renderers for Vulkan (and Metal for Mac) instead of OpenGL (why do they make the API wars so messy). Expanded shader functionality (and probably modable).

As for an entirely new engine - apart from terrain flexibility as mentioned above I would want multiplayer-per-side and more fidelity wrt partial hulldown states (which means finer LOS tracking).

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2 minutes ago, Redwolf said:

So that probably means multithreading. Maybe new renderers for Vulkan (and Metal for Mac) instead of OpenGL (why do they make the API wars so messy). Expanded shader functionality (and probably modable).

 

Redwolf, could you elaborate a bit what that means please as it's above my head? Thanks

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13 minutes ago, Sequoia said:

Redwolf, could you elaborate a bit what that means please as it's above my head? Thanks

Multithreading will allow the use of more than one CPU core at any given time. Right now if you have an 8-core CPU only one core is used. That slows down gameplay considerably for people who have many slow cores.

Vulkan and Metal and new programming interfaces for 3D. OpenGL and DirectX as used by the CMx2 and CMx1 are old hats.

Shaders allow you to make the surfaces on 3D models much prettier, or realistic.

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5 minutes ago, Sequoia said:

Does any one know if the current engine could allow moving beyond Open GL etc to these new interfaces? And thanks, I appreciate learning new things,

Changing the renderer is labor-intensive but not particularly difficult. There should be no problem porting the engine if they dedicate the time for it. You could maybe even contract that out since it doesn't require a lot of understanding of the rest of the application. But I read Steve's statement as they have decided to dedicate the existing inhouse manpower for a while to make a 5.x version of the engine.

I expect that we can say goodbye to grass fading in and out and a few other graphics issues at that time.

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1 hour ago, Sequoia said:

Sometimes this is currently called Engine 4 and they are working on Engine version 5 but for this discussion I'm calling it the second Engine.

In fairness, there's a massive difference between the first Shock Force and the game as it is now - when I played SF2, it was like a brand new game.

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My guess would be Operation Torch as the first game for CMx3 - it has the extra shock value of the French fighting the US troops. Followed by a module covering the Brits-Commonwealth fighting the Afrika Korps and maybe the Italians.

I would love to see the early part of the war but it's just a dream. But then again if the partnership with Slitherine is a huge success maybe...maybe...

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14 hours ago, danfrodo said:

I bet the forum will be utterly bonkers (me included) when we get first CM3 game and then are clammering for everything else and new content to be ported, which will probably happen slowly. 

So what game would be first CM3 I wonder?  Black Sea? 

Kursk and beyond. I hope.

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