Any news on the upcoming module?

[Sunbather]

Now that Germany is all white and wintery, I am finally in the mood for some Final Blitzkrieg.

However, I do wonder if the module is right around the corner which would give me the option to just buy the bundle at a reduced price. So is the module still slated to come out together with the Steam release or even before that? St. Nick's Day is soon - and let me tell you, even grown-ups like surprises and presents

[Vacillator]

I had another quick look around, and only came up with:

On January 30th 2023, in the CM General Discussion forum Steve said the Steam release of CMFB was planned for December 23 / January 24.

He had previously said the CMFB module would be released at the same time as the Steam release, but did not repeat that in the January 30th post.

A while later he said there was still a lot to do on the module, but that an update would soon appear in the CMFB forum.  I haven't managed to find that update.

I may have missed things, and the saying 'best laid plans...' probably applies, but my hope is the module will be released in line with the above.  Preferably December, but no biggie if not.

[Sunbather]

3 hours ago, Vacillator said:

I had another quick look around, and only came up with:

On January 30th 2023, in the CM General Discussion forum Steve said the Steam release of CMFB was planned for December 23 / January 24.

He had previously said the CMFB module would be released at the same time as the Steam release, but did not repeat that in the January 30th post.

A while later he said there was still a lot to do on the module, but that an update would soon appear in the CMFB forum.  I haven't managed to find that update.

I may have missed things, and the saying 'best laid plans...' probably applies, but my hope is the module will be released in line with the above.  Preferably December, but no biggie if not.

 

Hmm, Red Thunder was released on June 15th, Fortress Italy followed on September 12th (with zero previous marketing). So I have a hunch that the release might indeed be around the corner. Then again, Matrix/Slitherine aren't too good when it comes to marketing, publishing or actually doing releases. So at the end of the day, we know nothing, haha.

[Vacillator]

5 minutes ago, Sunbather said:

we know nothing, haha

I think that's a reasonable summary .

[CarlXII]

1 hour ago, Sunbather said:

 

 Then again, Matrix/Slitherine aren't too good when it comes to marketing, publishing or actually doing releases. So at the end of the day, we know nothing, haha.

Oooh, really ???

Compared to who ? BFC ? 

Try this on youtube...

It's Tea Time with Slitherine

[Sunbather]

[nevermind]

Edited November 29, 2023 by Sunbather

[Thewood1]

For a wargaming company, Matrix/Slitherine does a pretty good job for a company its size.  They get out ahead of releases pretty well.  BFC does almost nothing outside its own forum.  And even there its crickets most of the time.  But compared to larger game companies, they all suck.  Its about resources and motivation.

[CarlXII]

I know i'm negative...i'm sorry i just cant help it. I've grown seriously dissapointed in BFC in recent years.
The talk about resources...I don't buy that. Lack of resources when it comes to productivity...maybe...but lack of resources when it comes to
information sharing and development discussions with the community...NO ! That has nothing to do with lack of resources.

How many man hours could it possibly take to share some simple progress reports, future idea sharing/discussion etc ? maybe ones a month or something like that...or perhaps ones every second month.

Let's exagerate some...

Let's say it takes a full working day to produce such a report and to answer some follow on questions.

With one update every second month that would mean 6 days lost of development time each year...Considdering how long it takes BFC to release any new product...

nobody...NOBODY ! would notice any difference AT ALL ! if some of BFCs products took 6 more days or something like that before release.

To claim that is utterly riddiculous.

But then again...If you have nothing to share....You have nothing to share...But according to BFC they are indeed working on many things...

Edited November 29, 2023 by CarlXII

[CarlXII]

.

Edited November 29, 2023 by CarlXII

[Centurian52]

1 hour ago, CarlXII said:

I know i'm negative...i'm sorry i just cant help it. I've grown seriously dissapointed in BFC in recent years.
The talk about resources...I don't buy that. Lack of resources when it comes to productivity...maybe...but lack of resources when it comes to
information sharing and development discussions with the community...NO ! That has nothing to do with lack of resources.

How many man hours could it possibly take to share some simple progress reports, future idea sharing/discussion etc ? maybe ones a month or something like that...or perhaps ones every second month.

Let's exagerate some...

Let's say it takes a full working day to produce such a report and to answer some follow on questions.

With one update every second month that would mean 6 days lost of development time each year...Considdering how long it takes BFC to release any new product...

nobody...NOBODY ! would notice any difference AT ALL ! if some of BFCs products took 6 more days or something like that before release.

To claim that is utterly riddiculous.

But then again...If you have nothing to share....You have nothing to share...But according to BFC they are indeed working on many things...

Communicating with people can be pretty exhausting. Companies with resources can afford to hire people whos only job is to communicate with the community. What would you expect to see in monthly status updates anyway besides "no, we aren't there yet"? Trying to boil progress down into some sort of tangible percentage is a pretty rough exercise, and more likely than not to be misleading anyway.

I think Lethaface put it pretty well over on the 'Annual look at the year to come - 2023' thread.

 

[CarlXII]

20 hours ago, Centurian52 said:

What would you expect to see in monthly status updates anyway besides "no, we aren't there yet"?

Everything can be a problem...if you want it to be...even something as simple as getting out of bed in the morning. If you WANT that to be a problem. It certainly can be.
If you want something to work though...it very well might if you put some effort and intrest into it. Like designing the best tactical wargame out there for example !

 

Again...How difficult could it possibly be in todays world with instant communications etc to provide the community with some more regular updates on things going on.

- preferably designate a few dates (the first day of every second month, the first friday of every second month or something like that) to upload these progress reports.

- Ask the assosiated battlepack creators, module creators, scenario/campaign creators, game engine updaters etc to provide a simple file with some pictures and a short text describing recent progress prior to these dates.

- Start a few new threads in this forum (sticky or not). Each covering one or a few of the current projects that are currently being worked on.

- Ask those assosiated people to...in addition to providing the 6 (or whatever) update reports each year...to spend a few minutes each week/every other week to respond to questions in their particular tread. I'm guessing that most of those guys hang around this forum from time to time anyway. Surely not a huge effort on their part to do so.

 

Having a few threads like this will hopefully have the added bennefit of bringing some sort of life into this forum. That cant be a bad thing either...can it ?

The designers/content creators will be able to get feedback on their WIP from a broader bunch of people compared to a limited number of BFC playtesters etc...Questions could be asked by the community. Tips, suggestions and requests could be shared with content creators.

 

A more happy crowd all around.

 

George Mc have done something like this in the past with projects he has been working on and i think those threads got well recieved.

 

Critisism, negative comments and almost impossible request might offcourse be part of such discussions...but come on ! Surely that is something that most people can handle. If kiss-***, super possitive comments are the only ones allowed then something like this might obviously not be a good thing.

But hopefully that is not the case.

[Vacillator]

10 minutes ago, CarlXII said:

preferably designate a few dates (the first day of every second month, the first friday of every second month or something like that) to upload these progress reports

With this I agree, perhaps quarterly would be good enough.  The only problem (which I have first-hand experience of ) is if all you can say after 3 months is 'there has been no progress'.  But that's something you can manage.

13 minutes ago, CarlXII said:

Ask those assosiated people to...in addition to providing the 6 (or whatever) update reports each year...to spend a few minutes each week/every other week

I think this already happens for some developments.  As you say, @George MC 'involves' the community, and so does @Ithikial_AU.  Perhaps the problem with the CMFB module is we don't know who (if anyone) is working on it.   As it's bringing in new forces etc. I imagine it will involve Charles as well as 'outsiders'.

17 minutes ago, CarlXII said:

a limited number of BFC playtesters

Play-testing is often done by more than a limited number of BFC play-testers.  By invite or by volunteering.  But of course this needs the communication you referred to above.

And I can't help but mention the current work of @Mr.X on RT campaigns.  Frank has done absolutely great work but has also involved a lot of people to play-test by requesting it on the forum.  All for a free user-made release.  Love it .

Anyway, the more I think about it I'd just be happy to know that the FB module is still part of 'the plan', and that it will arrive at some point.  I would happily pre-order if that would help, but I doubt it.

[Centurian52]

41 minutes ago, CarlXII said:

Again...How difficult could it possibly be in todays world with instant communications etc to provide the community with some more regular updates on things going on.

Like I said. Communicating with people is exhausting. Modern technology eliminates the time delay in communicating with people over a wide geographic area. But it doesn't make that communication any less exhausting. If anything, it makes it worse.

[Thewood1]

Its only exhausting if don't like doing it.  There are people that are happy to communicate with people all day and some of them are good at it.  Steve obviously loves it based on how often he posts in the Ukraine thread.  I would think taking half of his posting in that thread and focusing it on updating customers and prospects would be a good reinvestment.

[PIATpunk]

Quote

  I would think taking half of his posting in that thread and focusing it on updating customers and prospects would be a good reinvestment.

Exactly.  Right now, this company has a distinct 'boys club' vibe, at the expense of the product itself.

[PEB14]

10 hours ago, Vacillator said:

And I can't help but mention the current work of @Mr.X on RT campaigns.  Frank has done absolutely great work but has also involved a lot of people to play-test by requesting it on the forum.  All for a free user-made release.  Love it .

AFAIK Frank is not affiliated to BFC by any mean. And his communication regarding his great work is more or less what @CarlXII is suggesting to BFC...

[Vacillator]

8 hours ago, PEB14 said:

AFAIK Frank is not affiliated to BFC by any mean.

That's correct, he's not.

[Thewood1]

On 11/30/2023 at 5:38 PM, Thewood1 said:

Its only exhausting if don't like doing it.  There are people that are happy to communicate with people all day and some of them are good at it.  Steve obviously loves it based on how often he posts in the Ukraine thread.  I would think taking half of his posting in that thread and focusing it on updating customers and prospects would be a good reinvestment.

Just to put a quantitative point on it, Steve has posted around 65 times in the last week in the Ukraine thread.  He's averaging about 10 posts a day in a topic that right now has nothing to do with the game.  And no where else in at least a month, and maybe more.  Its his company and his time to do with what he likes.  But based on some of the counterpoints that communicating with people is exhausting, he either is doing heavy doses of uppers or he is completely exhausted.

BFC has gone through this before.  Back when CMSF 1 came out and was almost a disaster of a CM product for the first few months, Steve was spending all of his posting energy for weeks at a time prolifically debating the concept of the Stryker brigade in one thread.  It finally hit a point where enough established players were vocally walking away that he shifted his comms from his Stryker tirades to addressing game issues.

[Sunbather]

I just like release dates. For example, I know for a full 3 months now that I will be spending 60$ on Warhammer 40k: Rogue Trader on December 7th. That's nice because so I am able to plan ahead with my budget. If there is a delay, if there is a change or whatever, just tell us. It took us months to learn that the WW2 series of Combat Mission wouldn't come out in 2022...

Of course, you could argue that Final Blitzkrieg is already out and so I am tempted to just buy it. But I just have that feeling that I buy it and not much later the game drops on Steam which means an initial sale and also regionally adjusted prices and maybe even the release of the module which will make a nice and money-saving bundle with the base game.

Steve can't say anything about it because it is the publisher's prerogative to announce or not announce release dates. And Slitherine/Matrix - as I said - are not good at this. Sometimes they announce a beta months ahead (e.g. for that weird Terminator: Dark Defiance game), other times they just drop a major release without any previous marketing (Fortress Italy). Their Steam prices are weird (60,68€ for CM: Normandy) because they rigorously follow Steam suggestions for currency conversion. Every child knows that you either have round prices or go the .99 cents way; it's simple psychology. Their website is sometimes bad, often times simply horrendous. You are greeted with a loud jungle when you open their main page, their forums are laggy, you get constantly and randomly logged out...

All that being said, I love their products and that they give niche wargames a home. But their PR/marketing is really strange and probably not very effective.

 

PS: Battlefront does marketing, at least for their fans. E.g. the battle pack for Red Thunder and Cold War were both announced on their main page weeks or even months ahead. I think this was very nice, since - again - it gave me the possibility to plan ahead a bit.

Edited December 2, 2023 by Sunbather

[Mr.X]

I have now given up hope that we will live to see the period before the summer of 1944 on the Eastern Front. But I'm still somehow optimistic about the CMFB module, that it will suddenly be there, just like CMFI was back then. Two outstanding designers have been suspiciously quiet about their projects for some time. May be they are working on the module, or it's just my naive hope 

And thanks for the kind words @Vacillator and @PEB14 

Regards

Mr.X

[Redwolf]

Why are some people focusing on what Steve does in the Ukraine thread? Surely nobody expects him to work on the game 24/7.

 

[Thewood1]

The point was that a poster said its hard talking to people.  I'm just pointing out Steve obviously doesn't think so.  Everyone gets time off, but maybe instead of 10 posts a day in the Ukraine thread, 9 posts a day and one day a month post something on the games he produces.

[Redwolf]

17 hours ago, Thewood1 said:

The point was that a poster said its hard talking to people.  I'm just pointing out Steve obviously doesn't think so.  Everyone gets time off, but maybe instead of 10 posts a day in the Ukraine thread, 9 posts a day and one day a month post something on the games he produces.

He obviously decided that saying "no news" every month is worse than not saying anything.

[Thewood1]

How about just more than once a year or when two threads begging for some info start up?  Its called marketing beyond your base.

[CarlXII]

1 hour ago, Redwolf said:

He obviously decided that saying "no news" every month is worse than not saying anything.

I guess that we will be waiting a very long time before seeing any new releases then...Since nothing of note has happened.