Is CMBS dead?

[Lieutenant Ash]

I think the only way around this would be to change the focus for the game setting. Have the expansion set in a fictional second front, maybe a invasion of Finland or Poland.

That way you can reuse any assets already developed and add a new faction. A lot more work but it removes the emphasis from Ukraine.

That or just make a new game entirely.

[rogue189]

Ash, thank you!  That is what I have advocating for in several of my posts!  Just change the setting.

But here is a question for the people discussing the morality of further developing CMBS (and I will front load this by saying it has obviously been settled at Battlefront): if continued development of CMBS is morally wrong because of the on going war, isn't the continued sale of the game just as morally wrong?  As stated by Capt, it is depicting fighting in areas that are active combat zones.  Shouldn't the game been pulled day one of the war?

Edited January 16 by rogue189

[The_Capt]

Just now, Lieutenant Ash said:

I think the only way around this would be to change the focus for the game setting. Have the expansion set in a fictional second front, maybe a invasion of Finland or Poland.

That way you can reuse any assets already developed and add a new faction. A lot more work but it removes the emphasis from Ukraine.

That or just make a new game entirely.

Not a bad idea, however, the DLC was essentially ready to release as I understand it.  So maps were already built for Ukraine.  Forces would be tricky as one would need to do all the research for Polish or Finnish troops - and research is not small.  It is really hard to pivot content when it is that far down the development lines.  TO&Es are built for Ukraine, maps for Ukraine, artwork and models for Ukraine.  To re-tool for Poland is basically an entirely new game to do it right, which might be the plan for all we know.

As to “dead or alive”.  Well I think it will depend on CMx3 timelines.  If the new engine release before the war in Ukraine is over then it makes less and less sense to retcon back to CMx2.  There is also the point that CMBS is looking more and more dated as the war progresses.  People can argue all day on CMCW or SF, they are history.  BS was contemporary and the war is forcing it into that spotlight.  There is a “cut your losses point” and I suspect BFC is getting near it.

[The_Capt]

1 minute ago, rogue189 said:

Ash, thank you!  That is what I have advocating for in several of my posts!  Just change the setting.

But here is a question for the people discussing the morality of further developing CMBS (and I will front load this by saying it has obviously been settled at Battlefront): if continued development of CMBS is morally wrong becuae of the on going war, isn't the continued sale of the game just as morally wrong?  As stated by Capt, it is depicting fighting in areas that are active combat zones.  Shouldn't the game been pulled day one of the war?

I think that idea was probably discussed at length - pulling the entire thing.  But the game had already been out since 2014…and that was even before the whole Crimea thing.  So I suspect that the assessment was that the risk was low.  This is less about being “morally wrong” and more about the perception of being “morally wrong” and its impact on the business.  I have no doubt that BFC does have moral qualms about the whole thing but the final arbitrator is back to risk and exposure.  Releasing a DLC based on a war that just happened could easily see a serious backlash.

Games and books have been pulled by events (see Stephen King and Rage).  But in the case of CMBS I suspect enough time had passed to make the risk assessment acceptable.  Honestly, people are looking for “woke” when it is just business.  We live in a hyper sensitive socially aware culture that keeps re-writing the rules as we make them up.  So I get BFC deciding to stay out of this.  Finally, BFC is partnered up with other corporate entities in all this, so it is not just their own risk at play here.

[Lieutenant Ash]

Yes I can see that developments in drone warfare and use of precision artillery are making BS look a little 'old school'. Winter war 2,0 would be cool though.

Oh! nice to see CM3 is real too.

[Malaspina]

28 minutes ago, Lieutenant Ash said:

Oh! nice to see CM3 is real too.

Is it?

I made a quick forum search and haven't been able to find any confirmation from the developers in this respect

Edited January 16 by Malaspina

[Probus]

I would just like to see an expanded ToE. A simple patch that adds modern weapons would be nice. Breathe life back into the game without the risk of being called out as profiteering from the war. Everyone gets to simulate (to an extent) what’s going on over there with little to no risk to BFC.
 

Players could create the maps and scenarios and upload them to FGM. A compromise that might just leave everyone happy and dying for this damn war to be over. Then BFC could release somefink with proper drone warfare and minefields and such. 

Edited January 16 by Probus

[Lieutenant Ash]

The_Capt is one of the CMCW development team, so if he says that CM3 is a thing, then thats good enough for me. Hopefully we will get confirmation in part.2 of the '2024 year ahead ' thread soon.

[Artkin]

1 hour ago, Malaspina said:

Is it?

Yes, enough people have talked about it. I just hope they focus on a modern title in a new environment like Korea. 

Edited January 16 by Artkin

[Anthony P.]

16 hours ago, rogue189 said:

I get the difference, but I can also separate fantasy from reality.  Playing Call of Duty doesn't make you a violent person.  Playing CM doesn't mean you support the war in Ukraine or condone how the war is being fought.

Well, "No Russian" created an awful lot of backlash because many, many people found it to be in exceedingly poor taste. As far as I know, COD hasn't made another mission which revolves around gunning down unarmed civilians since, and being a mutli billion dollar studio gives you more leeway than BFC has. And again, the difference is in developing new products for a real, current event. That's why the CMBS DLC was shelved.

If we were to combine this argument with the "No Russian" argument: do you believe it would have gone over well if Activision had released a game titled Call of Duty: Ukraine, featuring a mission called "No Ukrainian" set in Bucha?

[sttp]

6 hours ago, The_Capt said:

As to “dead or alive”.  Well I think it will depend on CMx3 timelines.  If the new engine release before the war in Ukraine is over then it makes less and less sense to retcon back to CMx2.

I am extremely curious about this language in particular!

Honestly when I first saw that everything CMx2 related was going to 50% off on Steam, a small part of me wondered if CMx3 was maybe on the horizon.... I dismissed that thought, but this has just made it resurface!

My wallet's right here, BFC, ready and waiting to throw more cash your way!

[Brille]

Why not change the story of CMBS to a completely fictional one ? Well the game IS already a fictional story but what I mean is a far more fictional one.

All BFC would need to do is to change the backstory, rename locations and factions. If they want they could change/redraw the maps to some imaginary country or leave them out all together.

Lets say the evil red federation of Torumekia is attacking the democratic state of Pejite. On the side of Pejite stands the(well yeah even in fiction you could leave it to the)USA.

Bohemian Interactive is doing it with their ArmA series from the get go. Probably for the exact same fear as to why BFC has pulled out now.

Yes, this way BFC would deviate from their path in stilll connecting their games to the real world somehow but I don´t mind that at all.

You could leave the TOE, the units, the formations all in. The factions would be still recognisable to their real world counterpart but hey it´s fictional now...

I don´t like such preemtive measures in games, we have that sort enough here in germany in terms of censorship (gore, symbols, "stuff that may or may not be offensive to others") but if that´s the way to go then I´m all aboard !

BFC would not have "wasted" their resources and could put out DLC after DLC for this totally fictional game, getting their income and we....well we would get them.

[Thewood1]

1 hour ago, Anthony P. said:

being a mutli billion dollar studio gives you more leeway than BFC has

Yes and No.  It gives you more short-term financial leeway, but almost no long-term leeway.  Being big and public makes you much more risk-averse.  It also makes you much more PR cognizant and influenced.  BFC has the benefit of not having a lot of other people's money funding their operation, other than customers.  So they can mostly do what they want based on their own proclivities.

[rogue189]

Capt, I liked your comments about how difficult it would be to design a Polish theater of operations.  I am not a game developer so this is what I would imagine: find a country that has similar terrain and Army as Ukraine (Moldovia? Belarus? Romania?).  If the terrain is close enough to be convincing, then how much rework would be needed?  Here is a wild suggestion.  Since I have no background in designing video games, its easy to have ideas

Change the name to Combat Mission Dnieper.  Keep the year 2017 and the setting becomes the NATO defense of Belarus after it decides to align more closely with NATO, resulting in a Russian invasion.  Without doing more detailed research, it looks like they use a lot of the same equipment Ukraine is using.  Hopefully it wouldn't be too hard to update uniforms and vehicles to their military.  I am also not certain how close the terrain matches or how many new maps would need to be created to make a convincing campaign.  Honestly, I never really thought the maps in CMBS actually represented real places.  I always thought they were inspired by the general terrain of the area, but nowhere specific.

I am trying to get an appreciation for the factors that Battlefront puts into their decision making.  While I doubt cancelling the DLC was easy, I just hope there is a way to salvage the situation without losing the effort that has already been started.

[The_Capt]

3 hours ago, rogue189 said:

Capt, I liked your comments about how difficult it would be to design a Polish theater of operations.  I am not a game developer so this is what I would imagine: find a country that has similar terrain and Army as Ukraine (Moldovia? Belarus? Romania?).  If the terrain is close enough to be convincing, then how much rework would be needed?  Here is a wild suggestion.  Since I have no background in designing video games, its easy to have ideas

Change the name to Combat Mission Dnieper.  Keep the year 2017 and the setting becomes the NATO defense of Belarus after it decides to align more closely with NATO, resulting in a Russian invasion.  Without doing more detailed research, it looks like they use a lot of the same equipment Ukraine is using.  Hopefully it wouldn't be too hard to update uniforms and vehicles to their military.  I am also not certain how close the terrain matches or how many new maps would need to be created to make a convincing campaign.  Honestly, I never really thought the maps in CMBS actually represented real places.  I always thought they were inspired by the general terrain of the area, but nowhere specific.

I am trying to get an appreciation for the factors that Battlefront puts into their decision making.  While I doubt cancelling the DLC was easy, I just hope there is a way to salvage the situation without losing the effort that has already been started.

Hey I like the spirit and initiative…but.  There is a lot more than maps [aside: we take them directly from RL maps - hell during CW I had to research a rail line at Alsfeld to see where it was in 1982 because it was shut down in the present.  So those are not abstracted, at least not the campaign maps.  For BAOR, I did MS Flight Sim flights over the entire AO].  

Further, to move the game into Belarus and involve NATO we are talking a lot of research and TO&E development.  Data for a single nation at the resolution of CM takes months of work (trust me).  Then there is the Belarus military which would need to be built as well.  All this would be for 2017, which is modern era so we are taking new vehicles and models…that is artwork and mechanics.  All that takes more time and effort.  I mean this is no longer a DLC but a stand-alone title.  At that point and level of effort I would not do 2017 but 2027 because fighting a “what if” from 6 years ago when the real thing is happening on the news gets weird.  But then we are talking features which is getting into coding.

I am sure the guys can salvage something.  Maybe some stuff can show up in a Russia v US somewhere else but it is no small investment to make that happen.  BFC has to weigh time and effort to payoff - I will let Steve speak to that.  Finally a key principle in business matches the same one in war; know when to cut your losses and move on.  I suspect that is what we are looking at here.

[rogue189]

Wow!  I had no idea so much went into getting the terrain right.  Thank you for your hard work Capt!

So to summarize, the problem regarding CMBS is this:

1. The game and existing action pack were developed and released before the start of the Ukraine war. Both are still available for purchase. 

2.   A DLC expansion of some sort has been under development during the period the war started and is near completion.

3. Selling the existing material is not a concern, but developing new material is.

4. Further development on the title has now been shelved because of the ongoing war.

5. Redeveloping the game is not a simple task even using the existing maps and models.

I guess the solution is clear: Battlefront needs to convince the Russians and Ukrainians to stop fighting so we can get our game back. 

However, if that fails, I guess CMBS is developmentally dead. I understand the passion of several of these posts. I disagree on some points, but I can concede that I wouldn't play a game depicting the invasion of my homeland if it was under attack.  I just hope something can be salvaged of the work that has been done. 

Hey, here is another proposal for you: Combat Mission Red Dawn (2024)!  Please don't take inspiration from the dumb remake! 

If the modern titles are on hold (anything post 2017) I propose the following games to scratch the modern itch:

Combat Mission Desert Storm, Combat Mission Iraq War, and Combat Mission Kabul (since Combat Mission Afghanistan is already taken).

and, just for fun,

Combat Mission Pacific Theater of Operations.

As I said.  I am not a game developer, and i know nothing of Battlefront's market research so throwing out ideas is easy.  I have played combat mission for a long time and I want Battlefront to succeed.  Frankly, I was also one of those people who believed the company was made up of passionate volunteers with some part time coders to develop the game. Thank you all for your hard work and letting me run my virtual mouth in your forums!

Edited January 17 by rogue189

[The_Capt]

7 hours ago, rogue189 said:

Hey, here is another proposal for you: Combat Mission Red Dawn (2024)!  Please don't take inspiration from the dumb remake! 

CMCW: Red Dawn (1982 - Patrick Swayze hairstyles)…now we are talking.

[Lieutenant Ash]

'Go Wolverines'

[Lieutenant Ash]

'Nobody puts baby in a corner', specially when shes packin a A.K. - Sorry, couldn't resist!

[StieliAlpha]

On 1/15/2024 at 4:47 AM, rogue189 said:

I have been a player of the CM series since the Beyond Overload days and have bought just about every title since.  I have enjoyed the modern games and I am very disappointed to hear the the expansion for BS has been shelved.  Why?  As I understand it, Battlefront did not want people thinking they were making a profit off of a war even though the game was designed before the war in Ukraine.

It‘s not CM, but this (in development) board game may be interesting for you:

https://www.gmtgames.com/p-1087-defiance-2nd-russo-ukrainian-war-2022.aspx

 

 

[Harmon Rabb]

Hey this forum is a lot bigger than I thought it was.

Speaking as someone who played CMBS for a few hours total. Personally what I would like instead of any content for a game which features a fictional war in Ukraine like CMBS. What I would like is a when this war becomes just an unpleasant part of history like the many wars before it, is a game be made about the actual 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine. 

After spending as much time as I did on the famous "hot thread" and speaking with the man who runs this company. @Battlefront.com.

I'm convinced that they could make the the most realistic wargame featuring this conflict while handling the subject matter with the respect it deserves.

[MikeyD]

CM titles that are actually 'dead'. All of CMx1, CMSF1, CM Afghanistan. Everything else including CMBS is still supported, gets game engine updates and patches. So lets differentiate between 'dead' titles and titles where new content has been suspended. Its two different things.

[MarkEzra]

"Wars are about killing and being killed for goals which may, or may not, have value. Wargames are about the tactics and weapons of those wars" Steve@BFC

and yes: It's one of my taglines.

[BornGinger]

On 1/15/2024 at 6:31 AM, Blazing 88's said:

It's because russia is losing and the war may not be over before the end of 2024...I hope I am wrong...

So you're actually having a similar opinion as Simcoe?

[Blazing 88's]

I had a vision and it just flowed through my fingers.... Does that work for you?