Secrets of Riesberg revealed!

[Pzman]

Ah the good old days of the beta demo...

[Terence]

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

Ah the good old days of the beta demo... <HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

I believe that it is wrong to use mods.

If Steve and Charles wanted us to use mods, they would have included them in the game.

I'm sure people who use mods have the game run slower than the rest of us normal, right-thinking Combat Mission players.

I also bet that using mods causes the game to return many ahistoric results, like when a Sherman kills a Panther.

Also, I think you mod guys like to drop kick small dogs and probably push little girls out of line at McDonalds.

[Guest Babra]

I knew the A/I was cheatin'...

[ 06-04-2001: Message edited by: Babra ]

[Moriarty]

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

I believe that it is wrong to use mods.

If Steve and Charles wanted us to use mods, they would have included them in the game.

I'm sure people who use mods have the game run slower than the rest of us normal, right-thinking Combat Mission players.

I also bet that using mods causes the game to return many ahistoric results, like when a Sherman kills a Panther.

Also, I think you mod guys like to drop kick small dogs and probably push little girls out of line at McDonalds.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

I had a modded HMC kill a King Tiger. You mean that's ahistorical?

[dNorwood]

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

I had a modded HMC kill a King Tiger. You mean that's ahistorical?<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

OK. I checked the "Instant Graemlins [sic]" and it's not there. How do we indicate irony and/or humor....

[Guest Warhammers]

Absolutely fantastic. Gave me a good laugh especially since Maximus is thumpimg my Butt. :mad:

[Moriarty]

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

OK. I checked the "Instant Graemlins [sic]" and it's not there. How do we indicate irony and/or humor....<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Well the easiest way is to take your member number and divide by 4. If the member number of the person you suspect is using irony or humor is at or less than that number, you're probably right.

[Moriarty]

Rats. double post.

Move along, move along. Nothing to see here.

[ 06-04-2001: Message edited by: Moriarty ]

[Moriarty]

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

It's just that people always want more eye candy, and if they say they don't, they're lying. <HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Not necessarily true. It may well be that a majority of CM players use mods to one degree or another, but to make a statement like this is ludicrous. I use some mods (mostly vehicles) because I appreciate the additional detail. But, I rarely spend any appreciable amount of time at View 1 so I would enjoy the game just as much if there were no mods. Whether they are there or not makes no difference to me.

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

I mean, just listen to everybody who uses mods, they all say that it makes it a new game everytime. In my game, just about everything is modded.

<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Listening to "everybody who uses them" is preaching to the choir. That's not exactly an objective audience from which to draw a conclusion.

[ 06-04-2001: Message edited by: Moriarty ]

[David Aitken]

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Panzer Leader wrote:

Look at Davids picture again. Notice the jarring diefferences in color. Glaring brights, it is hard for me to enjoy looking at, but mine, with nice fall colors, subdued grass, buildings with bullet-holes and cracks, a red sky at dawn, flames tracing through the smoking husks of tanks. It looks pretty.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

In my experience, the Real World™ also has plenty of "jarring differences in colour". When I look at 'subdued' textures they seem too drab to me. Maybe Scotland has its colour intensity set too high... or maybe you lot are too used to seeing the Second World War in monochrome.

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

I also bet that using mods causes the game to return many ahistoric results, like when a Sherman kills a Panther.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

This has been clinically proven. Different textures on the surface of a vehicle offer different properties. Depending on the kind of paint used, the friction created on the impact of an Armour Piercing shell can decrease the chances of a ricochet. German vehicle textures with Zimmeritt are impervious to magnetic mines, whereas more complacent texture designers have been responsible for many a knocked-out Tiger or Hetzer. There have also been documented cases of designers omitting details such as hatches or vision slits, leaving the crew blind or even trapping them inside the vehicle.

[Battlefront.com]

Hi David,

Laughed my ass off! I've saved this one along with some of your other classics

As for Mods, it is all a matter of taste since there is no such thing as perfection. I have seen some vehicle Mods, for example, that some posters think are "great". However, I look at the same Mod and think it is a step backwards. I have seen some excellent vehicle, building, etc. Mods so don't get me wrong here. I'm just saying that "different" is not necessarily better in the eyes of the beholder.

I think 1/2 of the excitement about a really good Mod is that it is different than the {fill in blank} you've seen 100 times already. Kinda like listening to the same CD too many times and then getting something new to listen to. In other words, I think if you replaced every single default texture we provided with the "best of the best" and played that solid for a couple of months you would probably look at just about any decent Mod as being "better" than the one you had before.

I even remember someone posting a JPG and someone saying "GREAT MODs!! Where did you get them?" The reply was "CMBO 1.0 CD-ROM". The person asking the question had basically loaded up Mods from day one and never really experienced the originals, so when he saw them he thought the originals were Mods and wanted to download them. Funny, eh?

Steve

P.S. I don't play with Mods

[Battlefront.com]

David wrote:

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>In my experience, the Real World™ also has plenty of "jarring differences in colour". When I look at 'subdued' textures they seem too drab to me. Maybe Scotland has its colour intensity set too high... <HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Add New England to that list Having just been outside in the pouring rain all day I have got to tell you that there is PLENTY of color out there. The greens around my place are so vivid that even our original texture set doesn't do them justice. The subdued ones might be easier on the eyes for some, but the color intensity is far too low to be called realistic. At least not by the standards I am used to

As for the snow coloring... you try coming up with 20 shades of pure white and see how much fun you have And talk about color intensity! A snow texture set that doesn't cause temporary blindness when viewed by the naked eye are certainly not intense enough... But of course that would kinda make playing the game with snow conditions rather unfun

I also agree with David. Until we can put in semi-random "junk" into the 3D world it will always feel artificial. Look at a movie like Toy Story II, Antz, or A Bug's Life and, for the most part, the environments STILL look artificial. Much, much, much less so than CM for sure, but it just goes to show that replicating the real world even with some of the world's best artists and most powerfull systems still falls short of the mark.

Steve

[Terence]

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

This has been clinically proven. Different textures on the surface of a vehicle offer different properties. Depending on the kind of paint used, the friction created on the impact of an Armour Piercing shell can decrease the chances of a ricochet. German vehicle textures with Zimmeritt are impervious to magnetic mines, whereas more complacent texture designers have been responsible for many a knocked-out Tiger or Hetzer. There have also been documented cases of designers omitting details such as hatches or vision slits, leaving the crew blind or even trapping them inside the vehicle.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

David, you are so naive.

Why would these mod mad degenerates stop with mere paint?

Take the Sherman 88mm mod that some cheaters use, the filthy swine. No Sherman had an 88 mm gun, but swap those illicit BMPs in there, and suddenly you've got one huge gun, and are storming all over the battlefield.

Add that to the horrifying shark mouth mod for your tank and you're shooting and eating everything you see.

Thats why correct-thinking Combat Mission players don't use mods.

If you want your thinking to be perfectly correct, delete all the mods at once!

[mensch]

I think its true different mods give different properties to the vehicles. For example the camo tiger I did.. when I use the dark yellow tiger I loose them faster then say if I used BTS default. Ironic realy.

and if I use my grey camo tiger I usually get first kill then I die from another tank busting bully on the field.

it is not fair BTS programmed the game to alter stats when you change the skins on tanks, just damn unfair.

Worse yet they programmed it so when your wife plays with you in a hot seat she wins in the most gamey way possible AND SHE HAS NO IDEA WHAT SHES DOING!!

STEVE your getting my medical bills for that.

[Lawyer]

I use all the best mods in a nice mix and match that makes CM much more immersive to me. It's awesome when you crawl around at ground level and see some of the details.

How alarming, then, to learn that many of my current and future (that means you, Aitken!) opponents are using lo-res units, terrain, and effects! That means they are blowing up my beautiful hi-res units, and probably getting more points scored for destroying the extra pixels I have so carefully installed. It's kinda like getting killed by a cartoon character or somefink. Clearly, lo-res units shouldn't be able to kill hi-res units in order to assure balanced gameplay.

Frankly, I was wondering how some of my opponents did so well against me. Now I KNOW that it is a serious technical problem that needs to be addressed by BTS.

I think this discovery deserves its very own lengthy and detailed thread to ferret out all the angles, starring the usual suspects...

Oh, and David, the colors in Scotland really are deficient because the English stole the good ones.

[ 06-05-2001: Message edited by: Lawyer ]

[Iskander]

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

...they programmed it so when your wife plays with you in a hot seat she wins in the most gamey way possible...<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

One could build an entire Thread around that....

Anyway, besides the dynamic stuff (fire, explosions and sounds), I've left most of them alone. I d/l'ed and messed about with the famed "ModManager" which very quickly turned this wonderful game into just another damned job. Off it came and out it went.

And, by the by, if you really want to improve the processing of your system, just delete all the files in your BMP directory; the game speeds up considerably.

[mensch]

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

One could build an entire Thread around that....

<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

your right!!! we should make a thread on how BTS (particularlalalay Steve) programed the game to be such!! I agree nothing is worse then insider programming to corner the market so that you don't want to play against your wife!

BTS DO SOMEFINK.

[David Aitken]

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

Until we can put in semi-random "junk" into the 3D world it will always feel artificial.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

There are, of course, entirely functional ways in which the look and feel of Combat Mission could be dramatically improved. Anyone interested, who didn't catch it the first (or second) time, should have a look at my illustrated megathread on the subject:

Photography Mission: Urban Terrain In CM

[Battlefront.com]

Hi David,

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>There are, of course, entirely functional ways in which the look and feel of Combat Mission could be dramatically improved.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

I checked out the thread. Believe it or not, the semi-random stuff would be easier to add at this point. Until we can move to a smaller resolution tile set, most of the suggestions I saw in there can't be implemented. This not only requires a total and complete rewrite of the core engine, but it also will require substantially higher end hardware. One of those things where each individual suggestion isn't the problem, but the sum of them is a huge one.

Expect to see this sort of stuff when we rewrite the engine after we complete CM2. We are hoping for at least a five fold increase in terrain tile resolution (2x2m tiles instead of 20x20). This will probably be doable and will open up huge doors to all sorts of things.

Steve

[David Aitken]

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

Expect to see this sort of stuff when we rewrite the engine after we complete CM2. We are hoping for at least a five fold increase in terrain tile resolution (2x2m tiles instead of 20x20). This will probably be doable and will open up huge doors to all sorts of things.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Exactly what we were hoping for. I look forward to seeing what you can come up with!

(I don't know if you went all the way through the thread – I did a Part 2 with lots more photos from Edinburgh, which is more thorough.)

[L.Tankersley]

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Big Time Software:

We are hoping for at least a five fold increase in terrain tile resolution (2x2m tiles instead of 20x20).<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Wouldn't that be a hundredfold increase in resolution? (100 tiles where there was one before?) Maybe tenfold depending on what you mean by resolution.

Be careful when you do this -- your nice squad/team abstraction (all the men treated as being at a single point) starts to lose some of its attraction when your terrain becomes more detailed.