Big announcement... Battlefront is now Slitherine

[Battlefront.com]

1 minute ago, Grey_Fox said:

You claimed it only worked for PBEM, but that's not true. When you made that decision, were you operating under that misapprehension?

What's your point?  To throw a tantrum?

The decision was made at the same time as the feature was implemented.  That was about 4 years ago.  I've not used it since, so oops... I forgot the details.  Doesn't have any relevance anyway because the feature is what it is and the decision that it's not viable as a commercial feature hasn't changed.

Also, it's not like this was my decision.  There were others involved.

Steve

[Grey_Fox]

20 minutes ago, Battlefront.com said:

What's your point?  To throw a tantrum?

The decision was made at the same time as the feature was implemented.  That was about 4 years ago.  I've not used it since, so oops... I forgot the details.  Doesn't have any relevance anyway because the feature is what it is and the decision that it's not viable as a commercial feature hasn't changed.

Also, it's not like this was my decision.  There were others involved.

Steve

I'm not throwing a tantrum, I'm pointing out that the rationale you posted here was partially incorrect.

[Centurian52]

I'm sorry I brought it up.

[Vacillator]

24 minutes ago, Centurian52 said:

I'm sorry I brought it up.

I'm reminded that we all feel strongly about a game we love, so robust discussion is par for the course.

The game evolves and that's great.  Steve talking about it is also great.  Long may this continue .

[Bannon]

I didn't realize this feature had been considered previously. Mea maxima culpa!

[Vacillator]

Just now, Bannon said:

I didn't realize this feature had been considered previously. Mea maxima culpa!

Hey no worries.  I'm also aware we need to play a game at some point...

[nposborn]

YIKES

 

Not that it means anything, but I rescind my appreciation for the devs updates and community engagement if they can’t help but be antagonistic towards what can easily be interpreted as good faith discussion and earnest questions. Extremely off-putting doesn’t even begin to describe it. 
 

The fact that someone feels the need to apologize for bringing up a possible QoL improvement is insane. 

[Battlefront.com]

7 hours ago, Grey_Fox said:

I'm not throwing a tantrum, I'm pointing out that the rationale you posted here was partially incorrect.

The tone of your response was certainly not just about that.  And as I said, it was not my decision alone and it's still the right decision.

Steve

[Battlefront.com]

36 minutes ago, nposborn said:

YIKES

 

Not that it means anything, but I rescind my appreciation for the devs updates and community engagement if they can’t help but be antagonistic towards what can easily be interpreted as good faith discussion and earnest questions. Extremely off-putting doesn’t even begin to describe it. 
 

The fact that someone feels the need to apologize for bringing up a possible QoL improvement is insane. 

Each to his own, but if your standards for discourse do not allow for even mild barbs to be exchanged then I think you'll miss out on a lot of good stuff.

And no, the comment I made was not about a good faith post but an attitude that the poster in question feels he is owed something extra.  Even then, I acknowledged his point that I misstated something.  I could have not done that or simply stopped reading this thread.  But again, each to his own.

Steve

[chaos49]

Hi Steve

Now that you've chosen Unity, I was wondering if you could share your thoughts on choosing Unity for CM3 over other graphics engines

Edited October 11 by chaos49

[chuckdyke]

Graphics is the box in which the game is imbedded. If it is good more new people will get interested. At present we are preaching to the choir. The choir has its fair share of elderly gentlemen. 

[Bannon]

19 minutes ago, chuckdyke said:

The choir has its fair share of elderly gentlemen. 

At 71, I guess I resemble that remark!

[chuckdyke]

2 minutes ago, Bannon said:

At 71, I guess I resemble that remark!

You are still a juvenile Iam moving towards 75 in a few months. I wonder who the oldest CM Player is?

[Battlefront.com]

5 hours ago, chaos49 said:

Hi Steve

Now that you've chosen Unity, I was wondering if you could share your thoughts on choosing Unity for CM3 over other graphics engines

It's the only one not designed explicitly for FPS games that has a future we can bank on.  There really isn't much to choose from anyway, so it was pretty much Unity or doing it by scratch (as we did with CM1 and CM2).

To the player, high quality FPS and RTS environments seem similar because they are both aiming to show the same thing; a real world environment.  However, the means of getting there are very different because there's little else similar between FPS and RTS.  So a game engine that is used to create FPS games will not work (well) for trying to make an RTS game, or vice versa.

You can not take a truck engine and make a high performance car from it, nor can you take a Ferrari engine and make a delivery truck that can get up a hill with a couple pallets of snack foods.  Sure, theoretically you might be able to reengineer it to work, but it would be far better to start with the proper engine.

Steve

[Bannon]

I'm an ole programmer Steve so if it doesn't give away trade secrets, what programming language are you using for CM3?

[Centurian52]

25 minutes ago, Bannon said:

I'm an ole programmer Steve so if it doesn't give away trade secrets, what programming language are you using for CM3?

I'm also curious about this. I started (and never finished) a Unity game development course on Udemy. And that course was using C#. Though I would think that any language should work.

I wouldn't think that which one would be a trade secret. Some of them may be clunkier for certain purposes than others, but I believe they're all Turing-complete (some of them may take more statements than others to accomplish the same thing, but they should all be capable of accomplishing the same things (granting that I decided to leave my programming education incomplete when I became a defense contractor)), and ultimately the processor sees them all as the same machine code.

Perhaps they're using Python? That seemed to be the popular one a couple years ago when I last checked. It's an admittedly pretty elegant language (generally takes fewer steps to do more complex things). But the total lack of semicolons just feels very wrong.

Edited October 11 by Centurian52

[Dynaman216]

Since CM1 and CM2 were almost certainly written in C or C++ my guess would be C# for CM3.  It is the closest to C/C++ in terms of structure (though still very different in many ways) versus the scripting nature of python.  It is possible it is a mix of the languages that interact with Unity too though.

 

[Bannon]

44 minutes ago, Centurian52 said:

I'm also curious about this. I started (and never finished) a Unity game development course on Udemy. And that course was using C#. Though I would think that any language should work.

I wouldn't think that which one would be a trade secret. Some of them may be clunkier for certain purposes than others, but I believe they're all Turing-complete (some of them may take more statements than others to accomplish the same thing, but they should all be capable of accomplishing the same things (granting that I decided to leave my programming education incomplete when I became a defense contractor)), and ultimately the processor sees them all as the same machine code.

Perhaps they're using Python? That seemed to be the popular one a couple years ago when I last checked. It's an admittedly pretty elegant language (generally takes fewer steps to do more complex things). But the total lack of semicolons just feels very wrong.

How interesting! While you're swatting Germans in Italy (have you made it to France yet?), I'm attempting to learn some C#, and possibly enough Unity, to make myself a little board game. Programming was the highlight of my 40+ year career in IT.

Edited October 11 by Bannon

[Centurian52]

1 minute ago, Bannon said:

While you're swatting Germans in Italy (have you made it to France yet?)

Haven't made it to France yet. In fact WW2 is on pause for me at the moment at the slopes of Monte Cassino. The itch to switch eras was just growing too strong. And I did the math, based on how quickly I was finishing scenarios and how many scenarios I have left, and determined that strictly adhering to my original chronological rules would mean not playing anything modern for another 5 or 6 years.

So I've adjusted the rules of my playthrough a bit to allow me to switch eras whenever the itch for a new era gets too strong. I'm still playing more or less chronologically, but not with a strict progression from WW2 to Cold War to modern. Instead I've now got the WW2 track, and the Cold War/Modern track, and I'm letting myself switch tracks whenever I need a change of eras. Within each track I'm still playing chronologically (except that I'm playing CMA before CMCW (even though technically its timeframe is '79-'89, which is later than CMCW's '79-'82 timeframe) because it's a bit lower tech and lower intensity, so a good way to ease back into modern warfare)). So Cold War timeframe before CMSF2, and CMSF2 before CMBS on the Cold War/Modern track. This new system will demand a bit less discipline than the old one, and will allow me to compare WW2 with modern warfare much sooner. And I'm still seeing Cold War weapons from the perspective of how much better they are than WW2 weapons, rather than from the perspective of how much worse they are than modern weapons (and from this vantage point the T-55 looks terrifyingly good!).

On a related note, I may be up for another CMCW H2H battle sometime in the near-future.

[Bannon]

I'm in awe of, and have total respect for, your commitment to examine these eras chronologically. I'm looking forward to eventually hearing about your experiences and what you learned.

I haven't played CW since our battle so I'm looking forward to our next opportunity to play. Besides, I need practice to get ready for @Vacillator when he has the time for a battle.

[Battlefront.com]

C#.  I don't think you can work in Unity effectively without going that direction.  I mean, I know it's possible, but it's also possible to go to foreign country with a mix of local language and English.  Not ideal when you're out in the hinterlands and nobody speaks any English

Steve

[LuckyDog]

I'm curious to understand how the new environment will alter tactics and experience. For example, a destructible landscape (especially those sabot-resistant trees!), the possibility of fire, non-artillery smoke, and a more refined terrain surface. We may well see some attenuation or enhancement of the weapon systems in this new environment.

@Battlefront.com have there been any surprises so far? Do you have any examples you could share?

[OldSarge]

14 minutes ago, Battlefront.com said:

C#.  I don't think you can work in Unity effectively without going that direction.  I mean, I know it's possible, but it's also possible to go to foreign country with a mix of local language and English.  Not ideal when you're out in the hinterlands and nobody speaks any English

Steve

Basing off C# is probably the best approach for new development efforts, especially with Unity. It is still possible to make calls to native mode C/C++ routines when required for those time critical routines so you can still write high performance code. 

[chaos49]

Hi Steve
Now I don't know much about making games, but maybe you can answer if CM3 will evolve as Unity also gets new capabilities. I can see that Unity 6 will be released in a few days and think that you are too far ahead with development to change version.

 

[Battlefront.com]

1 hour ago, chaos49 said:

Hi Steve
Now I don't know much about making games, but maybe you can answer if CM3 will evolve as Unity also gets new capabilities. I can see that Unity 6 will be released in a few days and think that you are too far ahead with development to change version.

 

In theory, any improvements in Unity can be incorporated into CM.  Theory is sometimes compromised by past decisions and/or "bang for buck" calculations.  So it's definitely a case by case basis at the time the assessment is being made. 

What I can say is that, for the most part, we are making decisions based on where things might be several years down the road.  We are definitely taking the better to do it sooner rather than later approach.  Anybody who builds things, code or otherwise, understands that this is always the optimal way but not always practical to do.

Steve