Mission Briefings

[Cabal2323]

I have been with the company since some of their first games.  I will start by saying this is the sloppiest release I have ever seen. Has anyone at Battlefront actually played this game? I mean really played it. Like read the briefings start to finish? Who proofed the briefings? Certainly not a grown adult. I feel like some of the briefings are story being told by a 4th grader. Not the level of excellence we have seen in all previous briefings in games. They are full of grammatical errors and incomplete sentences. I get the impression they were written by a non- English speaker. I teach 4th grade writing and math and I just couldn't shake that I was reading a very novice writers writing. Take some pride gentlemen.

Edited May 9, 2021 by Cabal2323

[The_Capt]

2 minutes ago, Cabal2323 said:

They are full of grammatical errors ad incomplete sentences

Muphry’s Law right there.

[Cabal2323]

Lol! Well played.

[IICptMillerII]

8 minutes ago, The_Capt said:

Muphry’s Law right there.

[Cabal2323]

So many errors....words I have seen: Exscape, invaision, attemp and those are just from the battle load screen. Once you get into the briefing it's nuts. Please tell me you didn't pay someone to write it? Next time look to tens of thousands of customers. I am sure someone here would proofread before release for a fee copy of the game.

[danfrodo]

You started a whole thread to start a mean-spirited thread about typos that don't change the actual gameplay one tiny bit? 

So, Dude can't type and/or spell well but he's bringing great stuff?   If he keeps making content like this I will never care.  I dont' give own littel fuk, just bring me sum NAETO forses spelled any way he wunts.

"for a fee copy of the game"  -- seems y'all can't spell super good neether

[danfrodo]

I guess that was a bit mean on my part.  I should've said " maybe you could bring it to the attention of BFC so they could fix it in some upcoming patch, but w/o being nasty".  So sorry on my part for being nasty.

[The_MonkeyKing]

They don't bother me but I do wonder why the briefing text are not copy pasted to some proof reading software before called "final"

[Combatintman]

I'm not going to disagree - but it all comes down to who is writing the briefing and yes there are plenty of non-native English speakers in the team and who is doing the testing.  I always pick up stuff in briefings - others don't.  There is a definite case for a structured approach to this sort of thing which doesn't exist at present but this project was a headlong rush for all of us.  Conversely you will find briefings that are not littered with errors.

[scarletto]

Actually the initial poster, if that is all he is complaining about, shows how good the game is. However he could be starting at the beginning, and aiming to flood the board with complaints about the lack of umlauts.

[chuckdyke]

Usually members of NATO: No Action Talk Only. But if you run a business yes learn to cross the T's and put dots on the I's. I like briefings not essays. 

[Ultradave]

12 hours ago, Cabal2323 said:

I have been with the company since some of their first games.  I will start by saying this is the sloppiest release I have ever seen. Has anyone at Battlefront actually played this game? I mean really played it. Like read the briefings start to finish? Who proofed the briefings? Certainly not a grown adult. I feel like some of the briefings are story being told by a 4th grader. Not the level of excellence we have seen in all previous briefings in games. They are full of grammatical errors and incomplete sentences. I get the impression they were written by a non- English speaker. I teach 4th grade writing and math and I just couldn't shake that I was reading a very novice writers writing. Take some pride gentlemen.

Feel free to make a detailed list of them and post. Really. I'm not being sarcastic. There are quite a few people on the beta team, however the deadline was short, not everyone tested or even opened every scenario (I haven't even opened the NTC campaign, for example because I was busy on other things). As was said, not everyone is a native English speaker or even if they are not a US English speaker so some military terms and organizations names were constantly being corrected. Most of us were on the beta team for a short time, compared to  "normal" (like FR for instance). So sure, typos are there.

And while everything IS read over, and corrections made, sometimes new errors can creep in when a correction is made and it doesn't get caught. BF always looks for quality, so if you posted a list of errata rather than insulting everyone involved in the entire process, it will definitely go into a list of things to be fixed.

My constructive criticism of your criticism. Take it or leave it

Dave

[The_Capt]

Weighing in here a bit, first off criticism accepted and we can always do better (our unofficial motto).  Anytime one does something creative and then puts it out there with a price tag, one has to be ready to accept criticisms by paying customers.  Some is useful, some less so but one does have to take it into account moving forward.  In this case, I do find it both odd and ironic that the original poster's main complaint seems to be poor briefings which impact in-game experience through lack of clarity, while at the same time the criticism itself is also lacking in clarity but let the healing begin.

So first questions - how did the briefings impact your game experience?  Were they distracting or did the issue mislead or create for poorer in-gameplay, if so how?  If you could pick three scenarios to fix, which one would they be?  Some scenarios/campaigns are written from a stylistic point of view.  The US Campaign, for example, is written from a personal in-the-field journal style, so a lot of writing conventions are going to be removed to emulate the style of a scared, tired leader in-combat.  Some briefings are written from a Soviet point of view, which is stark and minimalistic.  Further many others are written in what I would call a deep-military writing style, this could very well explain the "incomplete sentences", which emulates Frag Os and the type of written orders veterans recognize from the field.  So if we could separate style-decisions from honest errors, that would be a first good step.

As to the typos etc, well we can go back and correct the most egregious, particularly if they mislead the player.  Moving forward, I am thinking we will move to 1) putting all briefings in Word docs first, before moving them to the in-game text docs and 2) hiring an editor to review all briefings before release (I have the hook and very good one) because right now the content team of contributors (nice alliteration Capt!) is basically totally unsupported, so that is on us.

And finally, as always you are free to exercise the BFC return policy if you are unhappy with the product and same will apply with Steam etc.   

[stikkypixie]

"Killing time at Kirtof" has a repeated block of text. Can't copy it here because the game does not allow for copy-paste.

My 2 cents is that I don't care really. I do know that the game was delayed to get all the details right, and if it's important to have polish to the game, then the briefing texts are part of that. But again, I don't care, just as I don't care that the pouches are not entirely correct on the soldier models :)

[Der Zeitgeist]

21 minutes ago, The_Capt said:

As to the typos etc, well we can go back and correct the most egregious, particularly if they mislead the player.  Moving forward, I am thinking we will move to 1) putting all briefings in Word docs first, before moving them to the in-game text docs and 2) hiring an editor to review all briefings before release (I have the hook and very good one) because right now the content team of contributors (nice alliteration Capt!) is basically totally unsupported, so that is on us.

Grammar and spelling are also a bit of a pet peeve for me, so I tend to notice any errors there and find them pretty annoying, even if they don't impact the gaming experience per se.

It's obvious that a huge amount of work, research and time went into the scenarios and the campaign, and I guess for me it just feels weird that someone would be working for weeks and months on a scenario but wouldn't invest the five minutes it takes to proof read or let someone else proof read the scenario text.

[Combatintman]

15 minutes ago, Der Zeitgeist said:

Grammar and spelling are also a bit of a pet peeve for me, so I tend to notice any errors there and find them pretty annoying, even if they don't impact the gaming experience per se.

It's obvious that a huge amount of work, research and time went into the scenarios and the campaign, and I guess for me it just feels weird that someone would be working for weeks and months on a scenario but wouldn't invest the five minutes it takes to proof read or let someone else proof read the scenario text.

Some do and some don't mate - a couple of the team asked me to give their stuff a once over.  As with my previous post in this thread, there is room for improvement and I'm sure mechanisms will be put in place as @The_Capthas said.

[A Canadian Cat]

33 minutes ago, stikkypixie said:

Can't copy it here because the game does not allow for copy-paste.

While I don't think everyone needs to quote each and every mistake if anyone does want to quote from a briefing you can get the text. Open the scenario in the editor and select the briefing editing page and export the briefing that you want. That will let you save the briefing text to a text file. From there you can open the file in a text editor and quote away.

[Cabal2323]

I wasn't being nasty at all as a long time customer. I was pointing out a definite quality control issue. For a company that wants their games to reach as a large of an audience as possible (steam), they have to do better.  To say you didn't have enough times to even open up and read the briefings says everything. You should be embarrassed to admit that in a  public forum. To use the excuse that is was rushed is also lame. When the restaurant F's up your meal because they were rushed, I am sure you don't take the same attitude. I could have proofed all those briefings in a single evening. Sorry, not buying it.  I can read 30 students papers in a hour and their grammar and spelling is atrocious. By the way I do enjoy the game. The graphics engine is at the end though. Can't see myself investing in another game after this if it is the same engine.  

Edited May 10, 2021 by Cabal2323

[Jiggathebauce]

 

Quote

To say you didn't have enough times to even open up and read the briefings says everything. You should be embarrassed to admit that in a public forum. To use the excuse that is was rushed is also lame. 

Lol

Edited May 10, 2021 by Jiggathebauce
Typo

[MOS:96B2P]

14 minutes ago, Cabal2323 said:

I wasn't being nasty 

 

21 hours ago, Cabal2323 said:

Who proofed the briefings? Certainly not a grown adult. I feel like some of the briefings are story being told by a 4th grader. 

I get the impression they were written by a non- English speaker. 

Well, if not nasty, maybe overly dramatic and rude. 

Some of the briefings were written by scenario designers who speak English as a second language.  IMO they are very talented, intelligent multilingual individuals who donate their time for our Battlefront community.    

Good teachers/instructors are often taught and trained how to interact with others to facilitate the passing on of information/knowledge.  If you are actually a teacher you hopefully had some of this type of training and continuing education.  It is a shame you didn't demonstrate very much teaching, influencing, mentoring ability in this forum.  Instead you are probably a good case study in how to quickly alienate, polarize and shut down positive communication.     

Think of the knowledge and help you might have provided if your opening post was not so overly dramatic and rude.  Probably a squandered opportunity to be a positive influence.    

[Kevin2k]

8 hours ago, The_Capt said:

Weighing in here a bit, first off criticism accepted and we can always do better (our unofficial motto).  Anytime one does something creative and then puts it out there with a price tag, one has to be ready to accept criticisms by paying customers.

 

47 minutes ago, MOS:96B2P said:

Some of the briefings were written by scenario designers who speak English as a second language.  IMO they are very talented, intelligent multilingual individuals who donate their time for our Battlefront community.    

 

This is confusing for this release. It is hard to decide who you are facing, a commercial company or enthusiasts who did the wargaming world a favor. Seems to be both. But I do think the commercial company side of things should have gone over things afterwards, more then they did, or price CMCW one dollar below normal full game price?

[domfluff]

41 minutes ago, Kevin2k said:

This is confusing for this release. It is hard to decide who you are facing, a commercial company or enthusiasts who did the wargaming world a favor. Seems to be both.

"Both" is correct. Battlefront is a niche of a niche, and as such has a very cottage industry approach to things. This is still very common in tabletop wargaming, and Combat Mission has much more in common with that industry than other computer games.

To be clear, that doesn't make errors (grammatical or otherwise) okay - they can and should be pointed out and corrected - but I think it's reasonable to approach this kind of thing with a different set of expectations.

[Kevin2k]

2 minutes ago, domfluff said:

 but I think it's reasonable to approach this kind of thing with a different set of expectations.

I suppose. That last bit I quoted. You mean CMCW or any CM? How would anyone know that, who does not hang out regularly in the forums here.

[domfluff]

Any CM. Again, that's not trying to diminish any or all issues - problems are problems, and should be fixed. Some are clearly more relevant than others - spelling errors are definitely not game-breaking (or even that uncommon - there are *still* some long-standing spelling errors in Stellaris floating around, for example).

"How would anyone know that" isn't really a question that's worth engaging with, I think. It definitely doesn't help to start aggressive, and "I didn't know" isn't a good excuse for name-calling, in any context.

Again, errors are bad, pointing them out is good.

I also don't think the moral onus should be on the end user to proof-read these, so I'm not sure how seriously I'd take the suggestion of that above. It's certainly the kind of thing that's often done in this kind of environment, since it's often a group of people interested in helping each other, but I don't think that's a reasonable expectation either.

 

[Kevin2k]

I kinda know CM by now. The question "How would anyone know that" only applied if your answer was 'CMCW' instead of 'any CM'.  Which is actually what I thought this was about, since I wrote my confusion is for this release.

I have no strong opinion about the briefings really, other things more so.