Combat Mission/Close combat first impressions

[dalem]

Quango-

I'm late in the discussion, here, but I think of it this way, maybe this'll help:

CM is 'aimed' at traditional tabletop and hex-based wargamers who want to be able to achieve historical results for battles involving multiple companies on each side, with all attendant supporting elements, without spending half the night going blind flipping through fifty charts and tables for each roll of the dice.

Atomic's first offerings, the V for Victory and World at War series, were also aimed squarely at this type of gamer, by the way.

CM is really just tabletop gaming using a computer to model the environment and do the math.

And as far as CC, well, it's fun, I agree, but it's not a wargame, it's just a top-down shooter. As many here have already stated, it's mainly a question of scaling: if I want to direct a battle involving a battalion or more, I assure you that the current morale state of Pvt. Johnson, 1st squad, 2nd Platoon, Fox Company, 3rd of the 68th, is absolutely meaningless to me.

Hope this helps you understand why CM doesn't need to go in the direction you are advocating, and why CC wouldn't be CC anymore if it tried to scale up.

-dale

[Guest Germanboy]

Ohmegod! It is a full-scale assault by The Fanatical Batallions of Fact™! Nicht schiessen!!!

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Andreas

[mcgivney]

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Quango:

So I see I notice that some don't take the time to read my points and just jump in to make that 'too complex' argument. Imagine if AoE was turn based<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

It was called Civilization. It's generally considered one of the greatest games of all time, and in it's various incarnations (Civ, Civ II, AC) was wildly more popular than AoE.

[Maximus]

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Quango:

I look forward to the day when someone else does create a Close Combat-in-3D or a Combat-Mission-in-realtime. It will make those developers rich! <HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Don't count on it. The game Napolean 1813 was realtime and offered the depth of orders that CM does, and it flopped because there was no way to click fast enough to issue the orders in a sound fashion. A person can never click faster than a computer.

BOY Quango, you sure have opened a can a worms with these ill-informed persecutions. This game has been in developmenmt for 3 freaking years with all of your suggestions being looked at and talked about every since and then for someone like you who has just come on the scene a month and a half after the release and bring up these complaints that have been discussed both ways dozens of times. BAD TIMING DUDE!!!

You have to realise that this board has been up since the first day and the way CM was developed had a direct corrolation on what went on with this board. BTS used this board to get ideas and feedback on what people wanted in the game. There has never been a game company like this that has used it's fan-based community to help design a game. Hell, some of these board members have even helped in art design within the game. Some of the stock textures within the game come from fellow board members.

CM will never be Real-Time. Period. There was talk and consideration to implement a full battle movie feature to where you could watch the whole battle play back once completed.

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Be sure and check out my texture mods on CMHQ.

Dave "Ol' Blood & Maximus Butticus" Molinarolo

[Jaxx Hammer]

Here are a couple of thoughts:

1. A RTS game that you can pause is NOT "real time". (Unless reality has a pause button no one told me about)

2. It is obviously unrealistic for a RTS to attempt to model more than ONE person again because of reality.

[The Commissar]

Howard,

you mentioned action in CC that you did not see in CM.

You used the tank appearing out of no where as an example.

Obviously, you have not played enough CM if you did not see more exciting things happen here! In fact, I find CM quite a bit more exciting and challenging then CC. Thanks to the 60 second real time action turn, the action unfolds before your eyes and if something goes wrong, you are stuck with your decision.

Many a times have I ran a platoon into a forest only to have it massacred from all sides by hiden enemy troops. I've ridden a tank over a hill and had it fried by a flame thrower. I've had moments so gripping that CC couldn't even dream of. I know, because I played CC.

The best cure for your case, Mr. Howard, is to play CM more. Take me as a (rather poor ) example: I played the 4 single player games many times, and got tired of them. Then, I discovered the multiplayer option of the demo, and right now enjoying 6 games of PBEM with different opponents!

Believe me, I am getting action by the truck-load, and I don't regret the quasi-turn-based CM engine one little bit!

Just face the fact Mr. Howard:

(and I'll spell it out for you so no more people have to post countless posts in this topic)

BTS WILL NOT, I REPEAT, WILL NOT MAKE CM REAL TIME.

BTS DOES NOT CARE TO APPEAL TO STONED TEENAGERS WHO REGULARLY PLAY STARCRAFT AND AOE.

BTS IS CONCERNED WITH REALISM AND FUN, NOT WITH ENDLESS CLICK-FESTS.

BTS WILL CONTINUE TO IMPROVE THEIR ENGINE, BUT WILL NEVER EVER MAKE IT REAL TIME.

YOUR POINTS HAVE BEEN THROUGHLY DISCUSSED MANY TIME OVER BY MANY PEOPLE WHO HAVE BEEN HERE LONGER THEN ME AND YOU BOTH COMBINED.

IF YOU DO NOT AGREE WITH ME, OR WITH OTHERS, YOU ARE WELCOME TO. HOWEVER, PLEASE DO NOT WASTE FORUM SPACE AND OUR TIME DOING SO.

That is all. Enjoy CM, and feel free to engage in conversations with us CM fans on things related to the CM that IS, not the CM that ISN'T.

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...Every position, every meter of Soviet soil must be defended to the last drop of blood..."

- Segment from Order 227 "Not a step back"

[Juardis]

Wow, did this pop up out of nowhere or what?

I'm surprised no one here as mentioned this, but, AoE/AoK are 2d games and hence can handle 10 million people playing simultaneously. Throw in 3d and you can forget about it.

There's a scenario on the CD called Sherbrooke Fusiliers. Involves about 1000 men and vehicles by the time all is said and done. The AI has to track each of them. Not to mention that vehicles burn nicely. Now you have to see transparent smoke and flames. Real time? Hell, I struggled in turn based mode, sometimes taking a half hour to make a move. That's just to give orders. To get to my units to give the orders...well, my cpu was bogged down to the point where my view jumped instead of scrolling smoothly.

Real time will not work and I would not play it if it were.

Oh, and one more thing. Newbies should not come in complaining without having played the game for a while.

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Jeff Abbott

[Rod]

Quango-

First off welcome to the CM world.

Here is another point about the turnbased system. I apologize if it was already been mentioned. I just skimmed through most of the posts because, frankly, these issues have been discussed to death over the last couple of years. But anyway CM has brought a resurgence of the PBEM system. People for months now have played against each other on all sides of the world. Obviously the time differences would probably keep them from playing live(once the tcp/ip is operational).

Realtime would kill the PBEM functionality. Not something to take lightly.

IMHO Microsoft or someone else will probably attempt to make a realtime Combat Mission, but it will ultimately pale in comparison in scope and depth.

[Holdit]

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Quango:

That's what you read. I said that it would remain a niche product. If the developers don't want success/money/etc. then fine, I won't try to convert them, or anyone here. I won't buy shares in them either though

<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

You seem to be basing this argument on the premise that niche products are by definition unsuccessful. Whatever gave you such an idea? The world of commerce is full of successful companies that base their success on supplying a niche market.

As to the developers not wanting success or money, well the position reactions of gamers and reviewers and the fact that their first months' supply sold out in a week seems to show that the success end is in the bag. Without even having a single product on a shelf, mind; they're selling to a niche market using what is still pretty much a niche marketing method. Not bad, eh?

There's also the reward which they must feel from the pride of having designed a realistic, entertaining, historically accurate, bug-free game. If every game manufacturer took such a professional approach, the games industry wouldn't be so full of chancers making unfulfilled promises for their software and having customers pay for the privilege of being beta testers.

Regarding wanting money, well that's their business, but I don't imagine this venture has left them short of a few bob. Read their manifesto to see how much better off they probably are financially by going it alone the way they have. Not much point making a successful game if you're rogered by the publisher.

<B/>In the CC FAQ there is even a question: "Why didn't you make it turn based?". Their answer - because it killed the action stone dead!

There could equally be an entry in the CM FAQ: "Why didn't they make it real-time?" with the answer - because it killed the realism/historical accuracy stone dead!

[This message has been edited by Holdit (edited 08-18-2000).]

I'll get the hang of HTML one day...

[This message has been edited by Holdit (edited 08-18-2000).]

[Kurtz]

My biggest objection against real-time games are that the military chain of command has gone AWOL.

As a company (or battalion) commander I will not give orders to every single squad or team in real-time.

I will give the platoon leader an order and expect him to carry it out or report that he can´t accomplish the mission with the available resources. In the spirit of the Auftragstaktik this shouldn´t normally be a detailed order but rather a general task (take the hill, defend the bridge). The platoon leader will give orders to the squadleaders of his platoon who will give orders to the soldiers in his squad. So, a real-time company-sized game would work if you only had to give orders to the platoon leaders. (And since the plt leaders hopefully can show some initiative and skill you shouldn´t have to issue new orders until they have accomplished their mission or report that they have failed).

The turn based system makes it possible to give orders sequentially that in real life would have been issued parallely.

I´ve tried CC but disliked it for the above reasons, to me it was just a click-fest.

[PzKpfw 1]

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Quango:

Ahem. Close Combat is a strategy game, not an 'action' game. I assume you have actually played it? It does almost all of the same modelling of weapons, armour, etc. that CM does. It's just 2D and real time.

<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Yes many here have played CC. No actualy CC doesnt come anywhere near the detail model in CM etc, what CC does do is model RTS combat, at an manageble level, Ie it was developed to be RTS, and uses a simplified process that keeps it manageble by CCs AI.

Basicly their is no sense in compareing CM to CC, as they are realy very diferent despite their percieved similarities, and these CM vs CC debates always end up in flames.

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>

I look forward to the day when someone else does create a Close Combat-in-3D or a Combat-Mission-in-realtime. It will make those developers rich!

<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

I imagine Atomic etc are already looking into this due to CMs success so you may get the clone of your wish as their realy is no point in continuing with the CC series since CMs release.

Who says BTS isn't already getting rich? .

Regards, John Waters

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"Make way evil, I'm armed to the teeth and packing a hamster!"

[killmore]

I am for REAL TIME. But it MUST BE AN OPTION. It is not possible to play large battles in real time. Up to 15 units RT battles might be fun. Bigger are not possible. You could slow down real time to say 1/2, 1/4 or 1/10. But for some battles it wil not be enough and I think there should ALWAYS be WEGO system included.

In 18 months CPU will be running over 2 GHz. And these will be accesable. It is possible. But might be very hard to do is to rewrite code to add real time option.

Actually I like playing turns against computer but against human it is just waste of my time.

[bcorkill]

Originally posted by The Commissar:

Howard,

snip

BTS DOES NOT CARE TO APPEAL TO STONED TEENAGERS WHO REGULARLY PLAY STARCRAFT AND AOE.

I have found stoners prefer TB games, it fits the thought process better.

[Kingfish]

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Jaxx Hammer:

(Unless reality has a pause button no one told me about)<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

I believe that's called "unconsciousness"

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Wow, I've had the **** hit the fan before, but never like this...

[David Aitken]

killmore wrote:

> Up to 15 units RT battles might be fun. Bigger are not possible. You could slow down real time to say 1/2, 1/4 or 1/10.

Well, okay, lets make CM real time!

Oh dear, it's actually too difficult to play now... so...

Let's slow it down to a fraction of the speed! Yeah, that makes sense. A lot of point in making in realtime there. Worth all the time spent rewriting the engine.

David

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There's a splinter in your eye, and it reads REACT

[killmore]

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Quango:

In CC each soldier has his own characteristics, weapon, rate of fire and reloading capabilities.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

I think different weapons/rof/reload are simulated in CM. But not induvidual soldier character

[Lindan]

People, we are getting soft!

Back in the days when the game wasn't out and everybody on this board was edgy, waiting endless days for the game to appear, tensions running high etc... this post by Howard would have resulted in an immediate assault by at least two dozen flamethrower teams (not to forget Von Shrad's van already on it's way ).

Let's face it: CM made us a soft, nice and forgiving bunch!

Howard:

First, welcome aboard. But:

NEVER jump on people who make some good-minded fun on this board!

and pleaaaase:

do a search before posting!

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visit lindan.panzershark.com

member of the Combat Mission webring

[killmore]

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by David Aitken:

Let's slow it down to a fraction of the speed! Yeah, that makes sense. A lot of point in making in realtime there. Worth all the time spent rewriting the engine.

<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

As ussual some people against RT totally miss the point. The idea is to give player a choice. No one wants to take WEGO away. For you RT might be useless. For others it will be a main atraction. It might push CM in mainstream.

Don't you know you can also slow down CC to fraction of real time? Don't you see RT OPTION would atract more people? Why do you think this question keeps coming back? Not everyone want to play batalion size battles. I like 1000 points and very small maps. I don't have time for large battles.

If you can make it real time you can change "RT speed" easily. So 2x, 1x, 1/4x or 1/10x speed easily is possible.

[This message has been edited by killmore (edited 08-18-2000).]

[Maximus]

Howard,

You remind me of another one of our board members when we all tried to explain to him why the computer will "throw in the towel" when it feels there is no point to continue the fight....but that's a different story.

The point is that we all tried to explain it to him, including BTS, and it took him 6 to 7 pages of explaination in the particular thread. The problem was that he wouldn't listen to what everyone was trying to tell him. This is you here.

You don't understand the development history of this game at all. All of what you are saying and suggesting has been discussed countless times and the game developed the way it has because of what works.

Real-Time will simply not work in this environment.

As far as sells go, regarding this niche product??? Well, considering that it sold out of the initial one month supply in ONE WEEK and the second printing sold out in TWO WEEKS, I don't see where you get your finacial questions regarding retail success.

Also, if it were such a niche product, why does the Gaming Mags and Gaming sites all give the game at least a 4.5/5 star rating average?

Concerning CC. I guess you never experienced the STUPID attacking AI bug where tanks just sit and spin in place.

I really suggest you read the Battlefront.com Manifesto.

Boy I just love a good stupid arument to bring the good ol' "Ol' Blood & Maximus Butticus" back out to the Forum. I haven't seen this stupid of argument since before the Gold Demo.

For veteran members (pre-CM release), they'll tell ya of my antics back then. For now I spend my time in creating winter mods for the community. It's my way of giving back to the community for all the **** we went through.

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Be sure and check out my texture mods on CMHQ.

Dave "Ol' Blood & Maximus Butticus" Molinarolo

[David Aitken]

killmore wrote:

> The idea is to give player a choice.

The choices which are applicable to the game, are already there. There are plenty of options for personal preference. 'Choice' does not entail tacking on any new feature that somebody says they want.

> Why do you think this question keeps coming back?

Because people ignore the concept of the game - something which Combat Mission is unique in having by the truckload - and decide they want X feature and Y feature because they saw it elsewhere and they couldn't be bothered playing the game the way it was intended.

If you don't like the way CM is done, don't play it. It was done that way for many, many extremely good reasons, and BTS are not about to bastardise it to appeal to people who aren't really interested in realising its full potential.

I'm not calling everyone who wants realtime a lout. However, the demand for realtime is small - and among the most long-standing fans of Combat Mission, it is negligible. While some people, such as yourself, would find it useful in certain circumstances, it would only truly be worthwhile if BTS were seeking to attract a much wider audience - but this audience is not the kind which is likely to fully appreciate the game.

BTS don't want to make games which will sell to everyone on the planet and their dog - they want to make games which conform to their standards, and which they can be proud of.

David

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There's a splinter in your eye, and it reads REACT

[Tom Callmeyer]

Quango. Hi Welcome to the board. Let me just add a personal note. I perfer the turn based 3d. I don't have a lot of RT 3d games (AoE is about it). Why? I like sitting and thinking my turns trough, Just as much as I like the 3D stuff. I like Sims for example. There are more folks like me. This is a new and revolutionary game system. RT 3D has already been done. If some other company builds a game like you are describing and they get rich, good for them. That's not what CM is about. Not what It was designed for and not the audience for which it was intended. I presume you would buy such a game and enjoy it. Maybe you will forget about CM and make room on your HD for the new game at CM's expense. That' fine. Buy it. I will be buying CM 2 or 3 or 4 or whatever. Different Strokes you know.

[DanE]

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by killmore:

The idea is to give player a choice. No one wants to take WEGO away.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

IIRC, I think it has been established by Charles that there can be no option. CM has to be one or the other. The only way to put RT in would be to come up with a new code, and then you would have two DIFFERENT games.

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Don't you see RT OPTION would atract more people? Why do you think this question keeps coming back? <HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Hmmm...perhaps because people keep overlooking the fact that Steve and Charles decided NOT to make it RT. They had a vision as to what they wanted their game to be, and that vision did not include RT.

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Don't you know you can also slow down CC to fraction of real time?<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Very good point. Perhaps somebody could explain how any game could claim to be realtime when you have an option to pause or "slow down" the realtime. Why are these features included in the first place.

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Dan

[Purple4Ever]

Come on now - his (Quango's) last post was at 10:59 am EST.

We still have people, 3 hours later, posting "you still don't get it, do you?" replies.

He defended himself for 2 hours and left, like some suggested.

Leave it alone - let it die....

[Guest Zulu1]

Flame Alert!!

Maybe Quango is IGOTMILK back from the CC Forum and looking to stir up things. In spite of the reasoned replies and suggestions to use the Search function, we have all these posts and a flame war brewing. I think most people in here have played the CC series and agree that the two games do not compare. CC is fun especially against someone over the net, but would not be able to handle the scope of CM. Atomic has also categorically stated that CC will not go 3-D.

If Quango will not listen to reasoned responses then ignore him. PLONK.

[This message has been edited by Zulu1 (edited 08-18-2000).]

[Guest Big Time Software]

OK, time to give the official response and about 10 minutes to let folks finish posting what they are writing. Then I am going to close this up because it is a fairly pointless discussion that simply goes nowhere. Killmore is the best example of that

No matter how many threads he has participated in on this subject he still fails to understand that it is IMPOSSIBLE for us to make it an option EVEN IF WE WANTED TO and felt that IT WOULD WORK. We can not say this enough times or enough ways it seems, so at some point we just have to shurg and move on to things that are relevant.

But now to answer Howard's points:

1. CM will never be, and SHOULD NEVER BE, realtime.

2. Others have mentioned about a dozen reasons why it shouldn't, nobody has mentioned even one reason why it should. The only one floated is that it is more realistic, and that is pure BS for this level of combat. Pure and simple.

3. Changing CM to realtime would cause the game to be a historical farse, if we could even make it work out to be fun to play. For the reasons stated by others, this is highly doubtful. So I guess we could spend the next year screwing up our future (i.e. going out of business after release) to prove we are right, but I think not

4. Any gamer that thinks he knows more about game development and marketing than us should kindly put a sock in it. NOBODY, not even the best and brightest gamers out there, have a clue what it takes to make a game like this work and sell unless they have done so successfully themselves. I know how a rocket works, but to say I can design a better one is pompous at best.

5. CM is more realistic than CC in nearly eery way. I am not even going to start on why. There are nearly 100,000 posts here, many of which show the reasons clear as day.

6. Many of us found serious "strategy" flaws in CC, WC2, C&C, AoE, etc. long before CM was even started. And this is coming from folks who do in fact like these games (I know I do). The failure of RTS games to provide realistic control, decent AI, and complicated physics is why nobody will ever make a realtime version of CM. Even if you can overcome the last two problems, the first one is something that hardware is highly unlikely to ever solve. It will never happen, especially not from Atomic who is going a different route for the foreseable future.

7. The number of figures thing has been covered to death. Even with increased CPU speed and 3D card power we are not likely to graphically increase the headcount of a squad. There are about a half dozen reasons why not, all of which have everything to do with gameplay and nothing to do with hardware capabilities (which is a MUCH larger issue that games think). Those that don't understand this are not thinking clearly, and are certainly not game developers. To check out the reasons, try a Search of this Forum. Been covered to death.

In the end we welcome all new players. But when a player thinks that spending a couple of minutes with our demo makes them a game design expert... well... we don't care for that much

Steve

[This message has been edited by Big Time Software (edited 08-18-2000).]