The year to come - 2024 (Part 1)

[Bannon]

1 hour ago, Vacillator said:

Which real or fictional conflicts are you thinking of?

 

I don't have anything specific in mind but ... Korea 1950 or Korea 2025, pick any of the Arab/Israeli conflicts or imagine a modern conflict vs Iran, Vietnam, Baltics 2026, or a future Taiwan conflict.

Will further WWII development bring new blood into the hobby or is it just a rehash of other battles other publishers have already done?

[Traitor]

On 1/6/2024 at 4:13 AM, Battlefront.com said:

We like the modern and near future stuff too, which is a good sign for you

The WW2 stuff for us is a lot of fun, and we'll never NOT make WW2 games, but there is something special about working on things that aren't beaten to death by dozens of wargames throughout the ages. 

Steve

I would absolutely love a new modern/near future title now that CMBS is shelved. Maybe a solution to avoid another CMBS situation is to go even further into the future ARMA 3 style and have hypothetical alliances duke it out in 2050 over a conflict that doesn't exist yet? Sure, it would be even more speculative than any previous CM titles, but the near future setting is already speculative by nature, and it will give the designers much more freedom in the TO&E.

Or the setting could just be something that is extremely unlikely to happen in real life, such as Russia vs China, EU vs USA etc and we would just have to suspend our disbelief for the extremely convoluted backstory that would be required for it to happen 

Whatever is it, I am looking forward to whatever non beaten to death setting you guys have in mind for future games

[Bannon]

3 minutes ago, Traitor said:

I would absolutely love a new modern/near future title now that CMBS is shelved. Maybe a solution to avoid another CMBS situation is to go even further into the future ARMA 3 style and have hypothetical alliances duke it out in 2050 over a conflict that doesn't exist yet? Sure, it would be even more speculative than any previous CM titles, but the near future setting is already speculative by nature, and it will give the designers much more freedom in the TO&E.

Or the setting could just be something that is extremely unlikely to happen in real life, such as Russia vs China, EU vs USA etc and we would just have to suspend our disbelief for the extremely convoluted backstory that would be required for it to happen 

Whatever is it, I am looking forward to whatever non beaten to death setting you guys have in mind for future games

I agree 100% with everything you said. And thanks for quoting Steve's message about modern and near future stuff as I missed that message. It gives me hope!

CM:CW was the game I waited 20 years for, and I'd love to see more from this era and possibly cover the entirety of the Cold War.

[Traitor]

2 minutes ago, Bannon said:

I agree 100% with everything you said. And thanks for quoting Steve's message about modern and near future stuff as I missed that message. It gives me hope!

CM:CW was the game I waited 20 years for, and I'd love to see more from this era and possibly cover the entirety of the Cold War.

I'm not expecting a new modern title anytime soon obviously, but it's something to look forward to I suppose.

If you like wargames set in the Cold War, you might want to take a look at Armored Brigade II, set to release sometime this year

[Bannon]

I'm not into RTS but if Armored Brigade II has a turn-based mode, you can bet I'll give it a close look.

[Vacillator]

25 minutes ago, Bannon said:

Korea 1950

I'd buy that.

26 minutes ago, Bannon said:

Vietnam

And that, but some have said it doesn't suit CM that well (or is the other way round ?).

9 minutes ago, Bannon said:

I'd love to see more from this era and possibly cover the entirety of the Cold War

I'm not into this just yet but I think I might be at some point, so yes why not.

26 minutes ago, Traitor said:

I am looking forward to whatever non beaten to death setting you guys have in mind

With a shiny new CM3 engine I'd be happy to get more of the same beaten to death settings .

[slysniper]

How about having a little more hope. Like CMx3 BEING CREATED AND IT WILL PICK UP WHERE CMx2 leaves off at. 

so continue to work back in WWII but also able to take what has been done in CMX2 and at a quicker pace convert those games into CMX3 versions.

I also wonder if what trends as the best period for sales will not change in the near future.

There is a reason as to what is the most possible period. What is the majority age of the buyers and where their interest lies.

For the younger groups that will become the majority of players in this hobby, they will determine what is the period of most interest. Not what the old guard likes, which is getting smaller all the time since age and health is taking them out.

 

[Bannon]

1 minute ago, slysniper said:

For the younger groups that will become the majority of players in this hobby, they will determine what is the period of most interest. Not what the old guard likes, which is getting smaller all the time since age and health is taking them out.

That is the point I was trying to make earlier only you said it better.

[Traitor]

1 hour ago, slysniper said:

I also wonder if what trends as the best period for sales will not change in the near future.

There is a reason as to what is the most possible period. What is the majority age of the buyers and where their interest lies.

For the younger groups that will become the majority of players in this hobby, they will determine what is the period of most interest. Not what the old guard likes, which is getting smaller all the time since age and health is taking them out.

 

I believe this will be the case too.

While WW2 will always retain a certain level of popularity due to its sheer scale and historical significance, I think there's a growing interest in other time periods among wargamers, the trends will be interesting to observe.

[Vacillator]

At the end of the day (not literally) it's up to BFC to determine what they need to focus on.  Threads like this (which let's not forget was Steve's update, not a 'what would everyone like?' thread) poke around at what people are interested in, but it's BFC sales figures and a bit of crystal balling that will decide it.

[Centurian52]

3 hours ago, Traitor said:

Maybe a solution to avoid another CMBS situation is to go even further into the future ARMA 3 style and have hypothetical alliances duke it out in 2050 over a conflict that doesn't exist yet?

The problem with going more than a decade or so into the future is that there is no way to guess at the kind of equipment that will be in service, and the capabilities it will have, with the kind of precision needed for Combat Mission. I think there's nothing for it but to accept that another CMBS situation will always be a risk with near-future conflict settings. In large part because it's the most plausible near-future conflicts that are most worth covering. If you want to avoid that risk with a hypothetic modern warfare game the best option would seem to be to go for hypothetical scenarios in the recent past, rather than the near future. Sort of like what CMCW did.

But I think the risk of a hypothetical near-future setting becoming real is worth taking, in large part precisely because it might become real. I certainly feel that CMBS helped to give me some insight into the Russo-Ukraine war well before it broke out into the current full scale invasion. And a near-future game setting in Korea or Taiwan has the potential to provide the same sort of insight ahead of potential real conflicts in those areas as well. But if BFC feels that risk isn't worth taking, then I'll certainly be very happy with a greater focus on CMCW instead for the time being.

Edited February 2 by Centurian52

[Centurian52]

2 hours ago, Vacillator said:

With a shiny new CM3 engine I'd be happy to get more of the same beaten to death settings .

Yeah, me too I suppose. I'd certainly be dismayed to start all over again at Normandy in CM3 since I'd like to see them get around to covering the whole war eventually. And starting back at the start line (Normandy) over and over again isn't a very efficient way to get to the finish line (the whole war). But I'd still buy it. And I'd still enjoy the hell out of it.

[Vacillator]

5 minutes ago, Centurian52 said:

back at the start line (Normandy)

Yeah this should not be the start line historically, but sales/marketing might say otherwise.  And the argument for focusing on CM3 is perhaps balanced by the argument for not having the same starting content for CM3.  We probably can't have both, but we can hope.

[Thewood1]

2 hours ago, Bannon said:

I'm not into RTS but if Armored Brigade II has a turn-based mode, you can bet I'll give it a close look.

It has a we-go mode where you can adjust the time the game runs and then pauses for orders.  Or, like CM, you can run it in RT.

[Bannon]

Just now, Thewood1 said:

It has a we-go mode where you can adjust the time the game runs and then pauses for orders.  Or, like CM, you can run it in RT.

That may be worth investigating then to get my Cold War fix alongside CM:CW.  Thanks.

[FlammenwerferX]

29 minutes ago, Centurian52 said:

 And starting back at the start line (Normandy) 

Wouldn't that be Shock Force

[Centurian52]

6 minutes ago, FlammenwerferX said:

Wouldn't that be Shock Force

Shock Force wasn't WW2.

[Traitor]

2 hours ago, Centurian52 said:

The problem with going more than a decade or so into the future is that there is no way to guess at the kind of equipment that will be in service, and the capabilities it will have, with the kind of precision needed for Combat Mission.

I might be wrong, but in my opinion military equipment generally takes a long time to develop and procure, and once in service tend to stick around for quite a while.

Personally, I believe that a reasonable approximation of equipment 10 years in the future or so could be made by looking at a combination of the military equipment currently in service, new equipment currently under development or in the process of being introduced (M10 Booker, ACV) technology demonstrators by arms manufacturers (Abrams X, VN20) and some educated guesses based on current conflicts (more Drones, more APS, armor upgrade packages, improved fire control, maybe a new gun for tanks currently in service). The specific platforms adopted for use might eventually turn out different in reality, but it should still provide an overall decent representation of capabilities. For example the Russians might never actually adopt the T-14 Armata, but we can still obtain a good idea of the features they are looking for in a new tank and whatever they eventually go with will probably be comparable.

A lot of the equipment capabilities in Combat Mission are already somewhat approximated as the specific details on many weapon systems are still classified. While trying to estimate the capabilities of equipment that is not yet in service will naturally be tougher, I think it is still possible to do.

[Battlefront.com]

1 hour ago, Traitor said:

I might be wrong, but in my opinion military equipment generally takes a long time to develop and procure, and once in service tend to stick around for quite a while.

Personally, I believe that a reasonable approximation of equipment 10 years in the future or so could be made by looking at a combination of the military equipment currently in service, new equipment currently under development or in the process of being introduced (M10 Booker, ACV) technology demonstrators by arms manufacturers (Abrams X, VN20) and some educated guesses based on current conflicts (more Drones, more APS, armor upgrade packages, improved fire control, maybe a new gun for tanks currently in service). The specific platforms adopted for use might eventually turn out different in reality, but it should still provide an overall decent representation of capabilities. For example the Russians might never actually adopt the T-14 Armata, but we can still obtain a good idea of the features they are looking for in a new tank and whatever they eventually go with will probably be comparable.

A lot of the equipment capabilities in Combat Mission are already somewhat approximated as the specific details on many weapon systems are still classified. While trying to estimate the capabilities of equipment that is not yet in service will naturally be tougher, I think it is still possible to do.

Before I lock up this thread and direct you to the Part 2 thread, I will say that this is almost correct.

Development cycles are all over the place, but if something is moving into "low production" today then it is likely going to be in the field in significant numbers within 3 years.  If we look back a bit further it gets murky, but the roots of that "low production" probably started about 3 years before.  So, if we see something just starting to be kicked around today, figure 7 years before it gets into the field in significant numbers.

At least in peacetime.

Wartime is different.  Everything is sped up.  Things come out of nowhere.  Stuff we've never heard about is suddenly in production.  The war in Ukraine is proving this to be true almost every day.

For those who are critical of my huge time investment in our massive Ukraine Thread, consider it research.  Best damned research source out there IMHO.  Whenever we do get around to the next modern warfare game that benefits of that research will be easy to see.

Steve