Grog vs. Gamer

[Hamstersss]

I am curious as to the future of the CM franchise, considering there are, at least, three separate groups of CM players, each sharing traits from other groups but still falling in three very distinct camps. For the sake of argument, I posit that they are as follows:

1. Historically Accurate Grog

This player wants battles as they occurred in WWII (Or wherever the conflict being simulated occurred) and desires results that match up with those conflicts' historical results. These are the players that despise all the Jumbo v. KT games that go on in CM.

2. Realism Grog

This player wants the objects in CM to be modelled as accurately as possible. They vary from the Historically Accurate Grog in that they would like to see perfectly modelled weapon systems and units that were never or rarely used in historic situations, ie the Sturmtiger, snipers, IR Panther, et cetera. Many of these grogs want to engage in what-if scenarios, pondering the effect of a platoon of Maus tanks in 1944 Europe or an integrated sniper element in every company.

3. Gamer

This is the player that wants to see explosive combat and as realistic a representation of war as possible. By this I don't mean accurately modelled TO&E or proper penetration for the long 88, I mean turrets flying off tanks or men reduced to bloody pulps or aircraft crashing onto the battlefield.

To address the desires of all of these gamers, BTS has managed to create CM, a historically accurate, realistic and fun game. For the HA Grog, there are accurate TO&E and equipment based on time frame and country. The R Grog gets, from what my limited understanding of WWII tech can follow, the most realistic simulation of tactical armor combat ever. The gamer gets to mow down hundreds of men, armor and vehicles with an amazing array of arty, small arms and HE.

I consider myself formost a realism grog, considering realistic representation of combat to be the most engrossing, thrilling and fun. I don't much know about the weapon systems or their effect on varied armor but I'm glad other guys are out there keeping BTS honest. What I care about is that the overall combat is a faithful representation of men and their machines at war.

I can, however, appreciate the aspects of CM that relate to historical accuracy, especially in the historically accurate scenarios, and I can, of course, appreciate the visceral pleasure of blowing things up. What worries me is that BTS will try to please one or two of these groups while leaving the others with little or no reason to go to CM2 (Or CMII or whatever the heck it's going to be).

Of course I want more vehicles, more realistic armor penetration and more realistic equipment but we can't forget that

"Graphics Fluff", as some people so snidely dismiss it, is an integral aspect of CM and needs to be treated with as much seriousness as historical accuracy and realism.

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"The hands of the Clock of Doom have moved again. Only a few more swings of the pendulum, and, from Moscow to Chicago, atomic explosions will strike midnight for Western civilization."

-Eugene Rabinowitch

[Sherman]

Great points Meeks.

[Slapdragon]

Good topic, now send me your next turn.

[Papa Khann]

While I value #3 because it makes the game more enjoyable and I do want BTS to put some effort there, I don't agree that it measures up to the importance of items #1 and #2.

Just my two cents.

Papa

[Hamstersss]

Originally posted by Papa Khann:

While I value #3 because it makes the game more enjoyable and I do want BTS to put some effort there, I don't agree that it measures up to the importance of items #1 and #2.

Just my two cents.

Papa

This is my point. You are not BTS's only customer. Neither is David Aitken or Elijah Meeks or any other loudmouth. CM is successful because of a proper mix of all these elements, not in spite of it.

For the sake of simplicity, we will say that BTS has 30 time units to spend on CM2 (Or II or whatever). All that I'm saying is, they should spend it evenly, 10-10-10, not 14-15-1 or whatever other lopsided view has been proposed so far.

As a disclaimer, a time unit is a hypothetical unit, of time, that is used to represent 1/30th of BTS's time used to create CM2 (Or II or whatever) and, therefor, does not exist, nor has it existed nor will it proceed to exist in the future.

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"The hands of the Clock of Doom have moved again. Only a few more swings of the pendulum, and, from Moscow to Chicago, atomic explosions will strike midnight for Western civilization."

-Eugene Rabinowitch

[Slapdragon]

Originally posted by Elijah Meeks:

This is my point. You are not BTS's only customer. Neither is David Aitken or Elijah Meeks or any other loudmouth. CM is successful because of a proper mix of all these elements, not in spite of it.

For the sake of simplicity, we will say that BTS has 30 time units to spend on CM2 (Or II or whatever). All that I'm saying is, they should spend it evenly, 10-10-10, not 14-15-1 or whatever other lopsided view has been proposed so far.

As a disclaimer, a time unit is a hypothetical unit, of time, that is used to represent 1/30th of BTS's time used to create CM2 (Or II or whatever) and, therefor, does not exist, nor has it existed nor will it proceed to exist in the future.

To be fair, I have not heard anyone propose 14-15-1. One kid wants Diablo style graohics because he saw a version of Quake 2 for WW2 and thinks you can do that with 1000 soldiers and not just 45 sprites. Most people want better graphics progressively. BTS will provide them realistically.

[Hamstersss]

Originally posted by Slapdragon:

To be fair, I have not heard anyone propose 14-15-1. One kid wants Diablo style graohics because he saw a version of Quake 2 for WW2 and thinks you can do that with 1000 soldiers and not just 45 sprites. Most people want better graphics progressively. BTS will provide them realistically.

At the risk of padding my own thread, I speak only of the amount of time they spend to improve the game, Slapdragon. There have been many people who say they don't want the graphics to improve at all from their current implementation. To iterate, many people DO NOT want better graphics progressively, and say that to do so would be for BTS to alienate their fan base. I don't however, feel that they are a majority, rather they are some of the louder forum participants.

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"The hands of the Clock of Doom have moved again. Only a few more swings of the pendulum, and, from Moscow to Chicago, atomic explosions will strike midnight for Western civilization."

-Eugene Rabinowitch

[This message has been edited by Elijah Meeks (edited 01-29-2001).]

[JoePrivate]

You might find Steve's post in the middle of this page interesting as he comments on your concerns.

http://www.battlefront.com/discuss/Forum1/HTML/015600-4.html

[Guest aka PanzerLeader]

Elijah, good points put I feel categories 1 and 2 are very closely linked whereas category 3 is pretty much on its own.

The Historically Accurate Grog and the Realism Grog have no problem living together. Those who don't want to play KT vs. Jumbo battles don't have to. Both are obsessed with realism, and they believe realism should be more important than gameplay and graphics(I know, it's very exaggerated).

The "Gamers" just want to be entertained. They especially enjoy the Action Phase in CM, watching the same explosion from different angles. These are pretty rare here considering that those who want action, graphics and entertainment rather play Quake 3 than CM.

Even though I too like pretty graphics, I believe BTS should always give a slight priority to the first two categories, which constitute its "core" worshippers. I know all categories are present in every player, but the average CM player is, I feel, more closely linked with Cats 1 and 2 than 3.

[Guest aka PanzerLeader]

Oh, and I'd go with something like 12-12-6 or maybe 11-11-8.

[CavScout]

People should be careful not to underestimate the "gamers" out there. I bet you'd be surprised but I think a large part of the CM fan base are so-called "gamers". I bet those who post on these forums are a tiny fraction of the total CM owners so lets be careful making conclusions on the total of CM players from this small slice.

A game that is fun to play and realistic is going to get all kinds of players. CM seems to have done this very well.

[Hamstersss]

Originally posted by JoePrivate:

You might find Steve's post in the middle of this page interesting as he comments on your concerns. http://www.battlefront.com/discuss/Forum1/HTML/015600-4.html

Thanks Joe, I have read the link and tend to worry about the implication that everyone who wants CM to improve graphics is like Gunny Bunny (eg Irrational and, well, stupid.).

You know, I think that all three categories are related. Well, of course I would, otherwise why would I ever start this post. Look at how I described the gamer's view, "Realistic representation of the battlefield". I feel that showing battles as they truly occured is a laudable goal. Do I want this at the expense of realistic combat or historical accuracy, no, I want it as a compliment to these.

I'm not a hardware bigot, despite my promotion of full squad representation and belief that mainstream computers will have more bang for the buck when CM2 (Or II or whatever) is released. I feel that any improvement in graphics can be countermanded by introducing a little button in an options screen that turns said improvement off. I think improved graphics (damage bmps, varied bmps for same-type vehicles in battle, tracks, particle effects, et cetera) would improve the realism of CM, how could it not? For god's sake, that's what the battle was like in real life.

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"The hands of the Clock of Doom have moved again. Only a few more swings of the pendulum, and, from Moscow to Chicago, atomic explosions will strike midnight for Western civilization."

-Eugene Rabinowitch

[This message has been edited by Elijah Meeks (edited 01-29-2001).]

[Hamstersss]

I also want to address a second issue, and that's the case many HA Grogs make for the exclusion of rare and expirimental vehicles. I think more of these should be included because guys like me want to see how they would have handled combat. Otherwise, I feel the mix more resembles 15-10-5, which neglects groups 2 and 3.

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"The hands of the Clock of Doom have moved again. Only a few more swings of the pendulum, and, from Moscow to Chicago, atomic explosions will strike midnight for Western civilization."

-Eugene Rabinowitch

[kmead]

I fall in the 1 and 2 camp. I do truly appreciate fine graphics. I spent innumerable hours in my wasted youth detailing and painting my Tamiya, Monogram and other models in 1/35-1/32 scale and later 1/72.

My limitation re graphics so far has been that my home machines are not the most state of the art. I have chosen to use Macs at home so my fmaily can easily use them. I am happy that I have as my sons have both been computer users since they were age three. I can't justify a full on killer gaming machine so I can play one killer app. There are too many other things I know are more important. to my family and it would be a selfish extravagance on my part.. So I choose games on how much fun I can have within the limitations of my hardware ( in this case a Rev B Imac and a 400 Mhz iMac DV).

I think that our hosts have done a remarkable job of creating a product that was released for Win/Mac simultaneously, provides remarkable accuracy and play with graphics that can be adjusted (moded) to better meet the needs of those who can afford them.

In terms of their balancing of time/efforts they have already shown judgement in their current offering. Hopefully they will be able to better serve the desires of group 2 who currently lack their PantherIIs and E100s. Yes they could do a better job for group 3, and now that there are more and more mainstream applications that require serious graphics muscle, 32Mb (or more) on graphics cards will be the norm soon and not the exception (meaning a game driven geek or like me at work a graphics driven profession).

I would bet that given the release time frame, CM2 Barbarossa and Beyond will add more features to better resolve battles, will have an amazing number of new vehicles modelled and the battles will be bigger over larger fields. The last two items will likely cause the graphics improvements to be modest given that many of us will likely still have the computers we have today, and all of us will be caterwaulling over the time BTS is taking to release the next fix for our habit! Karl Mead

By the way, a nicegroup of posts.

[Iskander]

Originally posted by CavScout:

A game that is fun to play and realistic is going to get all kinds of players. CM seems to have done this very well.

True indeed. As a pup, I never could STAND games like ASL or the folks who played it ... anything beyond PanzerLeader was over my head, tech-wise.

Now that CM handles the tech (or Grog, if you like) stuff in the background, I am able to learn the tactics. And, if I do well, I am rewarded with eye and ear pleasing events (maybe my handle should have been "Pav's Dog"). A good first step. After a few weeks of playing and reading the board threads I then have a VERY tenuous grasp of tactics ... enough that without investigating the specs of the various units I was badly handicapping myself. I could still PLAY, but was wasting the potential of the vast majority of the game (obscure reference: similar to having Pro/E and doing nothing but 2-D line drawings).

While, as BTS's existence proves, the niche for wargames and wargamers is very limited, they have -- are -- succeeding where many other companies have gone belly-up. And, as much as it galls me to agree with a 'Pooler, Meeks is quite correct: BTS are to be commended for the BALANCE that they have created. Yes, there are TO&E's, yes the depth of unit research is impressive, and yes, I still pump my fist in the air and shout (and scare the wife and dogs) when calling in a massive arty strike or collapsing a building stuffed full of the ememy.

If I want to be shallow and ephemeral, CM lets me. If I want to dig deep, playing surrounded by tech specs and historical reports, CM lets me.

And we all hold our breath: can they do it again? Insh'allah.

[kmead]

Heres to them ding it again, huzzah!

[Guest MantaRay]

I am not a grog, and never will be. I play the game because it is a great simulation and is from a great company.

I dont expect them to make perfection, and could care less if this game has say has realistic skirts on tanks, or the exact camo patterns, or restrictions on what kind of tanks can be bought in a game, or God knows what else.

The sad part is the "grog" mentality detracts more from the game than it adds. If you sit there and think about all that is wrong, you will miss all that is right.

I for one think the current system covers the so called "grog" type game, just as much as the lowly "gamer". Great thing is that it has very close to realistic battlefield results, but for the most part, all the complexities are under the hood, so as to not detract from the overall enjoyment of the game.

But labeling people is not fair, especially with the grog attitude that they are of some higher level than us non-grogs.

I trust BTS to do what is within the limits of both realism and fun...and for my $53, they did more than I could have hoped for.

Ray

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When asked, "How many moves do you see ahead?", CAPABLANCA replied: "One move - the best one."

Click now for shelter from the Peng thread

The Red Army of the Rugged Defense Group Ladder

[Roberto]

Realism, Realism, Realism...

Historical,, I have to say that "CM" is the

best strategy game for the "PC", or Mac, that

i've ever play. I like eye candy, but most games nowawdays do not seem to have depth.

After reading some comments sent in by people

things seem to get a little muddy. But i think

are boys at Battlefront are in a "groove" with

this "CM" and My Hat Goes off to Them...

Congratulations and thanks for the enjoyment!!!!!!

[aka_tom_w]

Originally posted by Elijah Meeks:

Of course I want more vehicles, more realistic armor penetration and more realistic equipment but we can't forget that "Graphics Fluff", as some people so snidely dismiss it, is an integral aspect of CM and needs to be treated with as much seriousness as historical accuracy and realism.

Hi My name is aka_tom_w and I'm addicted to CM

Ooops wrong thread

OK I would consider myself a video gamer and those two catagories of "grogness" seem pretty blurry to me. I think they all look the same to me and they are all GROGS.

Anyway, I played board games like WS&IM and Tobruck and Third Reich and Tactics II and several others as a teen (more kids in high school should play these OLD board games, as they give you a sense of history and a VERY good feel for the geography of Europe, I swear I knew more about the European capitals and geography than MOST other high school students strictly because of studying the Third Reich Map and the World In Flames map)

BUT I would still say I'm a video gamer, because I desire MORE eye candy and better graphics.

What was the question here?

oh yeah....

"but we can't forget that "Graphics Fluff", as some people so snidely dismiss it, is an integral aspect of CM and needs to be treated with as much seriousness as historical accuracy and realism."

most importantly make it feel realistic AND be historically AND look good too!

Sorry just rambling out loud...

GREAT post to open the thread though!

-tom w

[This message has been edited by aka_tom_w (edited 01-29-2001).]

[Moriarty]

Originally posted by aka PanzerLeader:

Elijah, good points put I feel categories 1 and 2 are very closely linked whereas category 3 is pretty much on its own.

The Historically Accurate Grog and the Realism Grog have no problem living together. Those who don't want to play KT vs. Jumbo battles don't have to. Both are obsessed with realism, and they believe realism should be more important than gameplay and graphics(I know, it's very exaggerated).

The "Gamers" just want to be entertained. They especially enjoy the Action Phase in CM, watching the same explosion from different angles.

Even though I too like pretty graphics, I believe BTS should always give a slight priority to the first two categories, which constitute its "core" worshippers. I know all categories are present in every player, but the average CM player is, I feel, more closely linked with Cats 1 and 2 than 3.

There also are gamers who get just as much enjoyment out of the chess-like strategy involved -- both during the game and setup -- executed perfectly to achieve the goal. These players also appreciate the dedication to realism, but could hardly be considered grogs ... grogs with training wheels maybe, but not grogs. For them, it's not just bells and whistles.

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"Moriarty, you suck." -- Dunno, but somebody must've said it somewhere along the line

[Priest]

I mentioned this in defense of a gamer a ways back. I would have to say that there is a realism group and a gamer group. Now there are factions within each group that either get along or not. There is no way to guess numbers because I doubt the majority of players post to this site. I think that in the future all can be made happy. Think about it, if Steve and Charles (and Kwazy and Matt) take some time and expand on the graphics of the game then the gamers will be somewhat pleased but then wait so will the realism guys (at least some of them) because now not only does that explosion look better but maybe the treads on the Panther A look more realistic with more depth. Maybe the new graphics engine allows the use of trenches thus increasing realism. It is all linked in the end. It is not how much time BTS spends on each part of the game but that they take the same attitude towards the making of the game. Well those are my thoughts. Great thread.

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Sir are you sure you want to go to red alert...it would mean changing the bulb

-Priest

[Priest]

I fit in to #2 in Elijah;s list for those of you who would ask BTW.

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Sir are you sure you want to go to red alert...it would mean changing the bulb

-Priest

[Chupacabra]

Originally posted by MantaRay:

The sad part is the "grog" mentality detracts more from the game than it adds. If you sit there and think about all that is wrong, you will miss all that is right.

I strongly disagree. Grogism has its downsides, but think of it this way - without grogs you wouldn't have rifle grenades or nahverteidigungswaffen, to name a few. The basic grog impulse is to make the game better by making it more realistic. This can often come across as overly strident and demanding, which is unfortunate. But I believe very strongly that to discount any and all grog-type stuff simply because a few grogs don't have decent social skills is as misguided as to demand BTS fix every niggling detail immediately, drop-everything-else-and-do-it-or-your-game- sucks.

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Soy super bien soy super super bien soy bien bien super bien bien bien super super

[mensch]

I am impressd Mooks... for a guy that I thought had two dustbunnies rubbing together for a brain.. you impressed me.. now I see you as having two pieces of lint rubbing together for a brain.

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www.derkessel.com Home of „Die Sturmgruppe“; Scenario Design Group for Combat Mission.

[Guest Germanboy]

It will come as no surprise that I have some issues with the original post.

1. There is no mention of what BTS' drive was behind developing the game. I seriously doubt that they just sat down one day and said 'Uh, let's serve these three audiences with ANYGAME.' That is venture capitalist thinking. I believe it was exactly to get away from that sort of thinking that they set off on their own.

2. Graphics are not as important as realism. They are there to enhance realism. So they are not an end in themselves, but only a means for a realistic resolution of combat in the CMBO world. This makes them subordinate. Yes they are nice, and I like eye-candy, but to claim that they are a means is missing the point. Steve said as much in the GB thread.

3. Rare vehicles. The problem with these is that it is next to impossible to know how they realistically behaved on the battlefield. Yes you may want to thunder across a battlefield with a Maus. Question for you then - how do you know it would have been possible to get to any battlefield? Even the rumours of them seeing combat say that it was on the testing grounds. In many cases, combat reports are an absolute necessity to understand about the abilities and deficiencies of AFVs. Case in point is the Panther shot-trap. If the Panther had never seen combat, you would not know it existed. It did, and there are numerous reports of them being knocked out that way. Ergo you know you have to put them in. If your idea of research for putting vehicles into the game is based on their paper specs, then let me be the first to tell you that that is not sufficient.

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Andreas

Der Kessel

Home of „Die Sturmgruppe“; Scenario Design Group for Combat Mission.