Nathman Posted January 24, 2001 Share Posted January 24, 2001 Seems like I see quite a few references to CM II on this forum, even though it will be many, many months before it's released. I'm wondering if for the sake of searching for info regarding CM II, it might make sense to start a separate forum so as not to clutter this one. Just a thought. [This message has been edited by Nathman (edited 01-24-2001).] Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
David Aitken Posted January 24, 2001 Share Posted January 24, 2001 This is the Combat Mission forum, is it not? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nathman Posted January 24, 2001 Author Share Posted January 24, 2001 Exactly my point. It is the Combat Mission forum. I would expect at some time BTS will create a separate forum for CM II, and why not do it now rather than later? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Maximus Posted January 24, 2001 Share Posted January 24, 2001 Nathman does have a point, but I think the main issue here is that this Forum is kinda like our Chat Forum, ie. it has the majority of posts and this is where most people come when they just want to converse with our fellow CM friends. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Treeburst155 Posted January 24, 2001 Share Posted January 24, 2001 Speaking of CM2 and chatting. I wonder what the minimum system requirements will be for the game? I think they should make it so that a PII 450 with Geforce SDR barely squeeks by and do away with the many restrictions to the game engine built in just so low end machines can handle it. If you don't have at least a PII 450 in 18 more months you need to upgrade bad. You can get an 800 mhz with a Geforce cheaper than the PII 450 used to cost. Things will only get faster and cheaper over the next 18 months while we wait for CM2. If everybody upgraded BTS would have more computing power to play with and could make their games even better. Treeburst155 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
David Aitken Posted January 24, 2001 Share Posted January 24, 2001 Nathman wrote: > Exactly my point. It is the Combat Mission forum. Yeah, but I said Combat Mission, not Combat Mission: Beyond Overlord. CM2 is still Combat Mission. You can't draw a line between what is CM1 discussion and what is CM2 discussion. Most is appropriate to both. And as CM2 draws near, discussion will become more weighted towards it. But I can't see the point in splitting the forum. We'll just end up with the same discussions going on simultaneously. Treeburst wrote: > I think they should make it so that a PII 450 with Geforce SDR barely squeeks by and do away with the many restrictions to the game engine built in just so low end machines can handle it. BTS isn't powerful or arrogant enough to require us to upgrade our machines to play their games. That's for bigger companies. BTS must cater to their niche, and war game enthusiasts on average have much less powerful machines than other gaming audiences. For BTS to hike up the minimum requirements would be to shoot themselves in the foot. I imagine CM2 will be slightly more demanding than CM1, but it's not going to be bump-mapped and ray-traced. The fact is, CM doesn't rely on flashy graphics to appeal. I've just been playing the Oni demo from Bungie, and it's bloody impressive, but regardless of how nicely programmed it is and how realistic it looks, I can't escape from the feeling that it's just the same old clickfest. Punch, kick, run, jump, shoot, repeat. If it didn't look cool it would be a pretty miserable game. If CM didn't look cool it would still be fascinating, because it's so complex. You've got to think about what you're doing, and it takes time to implement your orders – and the results are dependent upon thoroughly researched information from real-world weapons and vehicles. CM's strength is in the detail and complexity, not in the 'wow' factor and compulsiveness. I've played the two levels in the Oni demo a few times, and I feel I've seen it all and I'm not sure I'll be getting the full game. I've owned Combat Mission for something like eight months now, and I've barely scratched the surface. I don't play it because I need an injection of cool graphics and violence, I play it when I want to test out my tactical abilities and have a sense of achievement at the end of it all. I wouldn't care if the game were completely untextured, it would still knock the socks off everything else. David Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gremlin Posted January 24, 2001 Share Posted January 24, 2001 Point taken, David, but as noted above, by the time CM2 comes out, the current minimum system requirements for CM will be vastly outdated (and they already are for most gamers). The better the graphics, the greater the emotional immersion and the greater the sales. Graphics promote and sell games, like it or not, and part of CM's uniqueness is its wedding of tactical depth and historical accuracy to a 3D environment. And yes, I'm obviously aware that CM's strengths and appeal don't primarily rest on its poly counts. Improved graphics would only be icing on the proverbial cake and help draw in an even larger fan base, meaning more money for BTS and more games from them based on that success. ------------------ When men are inhuman, take care not to feel towards them as they do towards other humans. --Marcus Aurelius Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jarmo Posted January 24, 2001 Share Posted January 24, 2001 I wouldn't expect a major need for upgrading, as the engine will remain (largely) same. Sure, 16MB VRAM minimum might be in order, but even that will/would be more than many currently sold packages have. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Treeburst155 Posted January 24, 2001 Share Posted January 24, 2001 I wasn't really thinking of graphics when I suggested a higher minimum system requirement. I was thinking more in terms of the behind the scenes calculations. Relative spotting, tanks blocking LOS when alive, and other compromises they made which don't come to mind right now. Maybe better building damage and things like that. Updating the graphics to what we now call "hi-res" mods would be fine with me. I'm not sure they can do much with the LOS and spotting issues by raising the minimum to 450 mhz with 128 RAM. (Notice I changed the specs-no video card), but I still think Charles could enhance the game if he knew he could aim at the above system for a minimum. He would have more to work with. treeburst155 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
David Aitken Posted January 24, 2001 Share Posted January 24, 2001 Gremlin wrote: > by the time CM2 comes out, the current minimum system requirements for CM will be vastly outdated (and they already are for most gamers). Outdated system requirements? Are you suggesting that a game isn't worth its salt unless it requires new hardware? And who are "most gamers"? Certainly not the CM audience. > The better the graphics, the greater the emotional immersion and the greater the sales. CM does not sell on the basis of graphics or emotional immersion. It sells on the basis of being an accurate historical simulator. The audience which this appeals to is BTS's core audience and they would alienate this audience at their peril. Plenty of people want CM to be more visually impressive, but that will never take precedence over the game's historical credentials and the relevant audience. > Graphics promote and sell games, like it or not I think gameplay is rather more of a selling point. Never forget that BTS have pushed the historical simulator into a whole new arena. Everything prior to CM was done in 2D with approximate calculations. Now it is done in 3D with exact calculations, and it has the graphics to match. This is a complete revolution for the wargaming genre. The drawback is that now people are comparing CM to more visually impressive (but less conceptually inspired) 3D games. This is not fair or relevant. As I have explained above, most games need flashy graphics or they won't sell. This is why the first-person shooter genre requires hardware which isn't available on release of the games. CM sells because of what's going on under the hood. Its competitors are all still in 2D with hexes. Such games still sell well, not because of how they look but because of what they do. Think about it. > Improved graphics would only be icing on the proverbial cake and help draw in an even larger fan base, meaning more money for BTS and more games from them based on that success. This "larger fan base", if drawn in on the basis of flashy graphics, would demand more. To satisfy this audience BTS would have to make compromises on their vision. As such this audience is not sustainable. BTS will stick with the audience which appreciates the aspects of CM which all the work has gone into. Treeburst155 wrote: > I still think Charles could enhance the game if he knew he could aim at the above system for a minimum. BTS have a lot of ideas for enhancing the game. Some of the more (relatively) straightforward enhancements can be incorporated into CM2. However, from a programming perspective it is simply not possible to make more fundamental enhancements without totally rewriting the engine. This rewrite has been planned, and is scheduled for after the current series of games. Most of the issues you mention, plus many more, will be addressed at this time – but until then the engine will remain basically as is. David Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nathman Posted January 25, 2001 Author Share Posted January 25, 2001 Originally posted by David Aitken: > You can't draw a line between what is CM1 discussion and what is CM2 discussion. Most is appropriate to both. David Oh really? Having never played CM 2, I wasn't aware of that. I'm led to believe that CM2 will have new game features and also since it concerns the eastern front, Soviet weaponry (not much discussion will concern that, I'm sure ). I guess time will tell if BTS starts a new forum on CM 2 or not, but the reason I believe it would be nice if they did revolves around the search function and making it easier to find CM 2 specific topics without having to search through CM topics, but since most of the discussions are appropriate to both, I concede to your argument. [This message has been edited by Nathman (edited 01-24-2001).] Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nathman Posted January 25, 2001 Author Share Posted January 25, 2001 [This message has been edited by Nathman (edited 01-24-2001).] Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
David Aitken Posted January 25, 2001 Share Posted January 25, 2001 Discussions concerning Soviet weaponry can easily be located with the appropriate keywords. I would say that the vast majority of the topics on this forum are already CM2 related. New feature requests and such. If CM1 and CM2 were happening simultaneously, it would maybe make sense to have two separate forums. But one follows on from the other, and the forum will progress also. Creating another forum will simply fragment discussion. David Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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