Scope or Quick Releases

[Ardem]

For $45 or $35 a copy it just isn't worth putting in that quantity of stuff. Yeah, I know some of you (like me!) really enjoyed playing Conscript Romanians, complete with Romanian voices... but really... how many (% of total customers) would have misssed it if that was missing? Yet we probably spent 1 year's worth of full staff development on those features. Really not smart from our standpoing, nor yours. You guys had to wait 1 year extra for BB and AK because we felt like we had to simulate every darned stinking thing for the entire Eastern Front. Yet I am sure that 95% or more of you would have rather had a smaller scoped version of the Eastern Front a year earlier and then had AK follow right up and then had something else right after (or CMx2 released a few months ago).

This from Steve, I must be in the 5%, say the quality of the engine is the same and rule structure is the same. I can understand business wise why not do the hard yards in putting all the OOB or correct voices, thats why you let the mod community do that. But you got to allow the opportunity for you game to get better if you just put in the structure. BB and AK are one the most replayable games on the market but by narrowing the scope down I am sure we will get sick of it faster.

Who is for quick releases or scope to make the game how you want.

Me I rather wait a year and get 'Scope'

[Caesar]

This will really depend on how BFC choose to approach it. If the original release covers only part of the scope of a CM1 game, by the time a module (or two???) comes out, you may find that it has covered the whole scope or at least very close to it. Done this way, we get the games earlier and in the long run miss out on nothing (well except a few extra bucks )

So long as the detail of the scope covered is kept correct (e.g. Romanians with American accents would be bad) I see little problem with this approach, and I would prefer it to the wait 2 years approach.

Of course it is possible that they will spit out games with too little scope, inaccuracies in the voices, OOB etc etc but I somehow doubt that is what Steve meant or intends. More likely I would guess, is that you will get the Romanians, Finns, Bulgarians etc in a separate module.

I've bought all three CM1 versions and have enjoyed all three. In all three cases I have more than got my money's worth. Even CMAK (which for me has been the least enjoyable of the three) has given me more playing time than any other game I have ever bought. Based on that evidence, I think that they are entitled to the benefit of the doubt where quality, playability, replayability and value for money are concerned.

[Tarkus]

Originally posted by Ardem:

BB and AK are one the most replayable games on the market but by narrowing the scope down I am sure we will get sick of it faster.

While I understand your concerns, to me this isn't bad at all. I'm with Caesar on this. First, smaller scope doesn't necessarily involve less replayability. Well, it does to a degree, but I could play a lot of games on, say, the Battle of the Bulge theatre.

Second, think of the trade off: smaller scope allows for much more flexibility as to what gets in. Take the Ardennes theatre again for instance. The new engine might allow for a lot more variations in terrain elements that will more appropriately depict a specific area. Same goes with OBs. Instead of having to recreate whole OBs of every nations involved in ETO, BFC might come up with very detailed TO&E for the Ardennes theater of operations for this specific period. That means special units, service units, specific vehicles, etc. To me this is all good.

Now, the only concern I might have along yours is if BFC start up with, say, two WWII settings, then get on with a medieval title, an Alexander-the-Great campaign, some civil war battle, then get to Shoguns and Daimyô and Mongols and Goths, it might take a while to get another WWII stage, but that is impossible to know at this point and, IMO, would be far from uninteresting.

My two cents.

[ May 26, 2005, 05:15 AM: Message edited by: Tarkus ]

[Kip Watson]

Ha ha, I have to laugh.

Poor Steve can't say a thing without his every word being scrutinised!

(...not meant as a criticism, guys. I share the impulse. Just makes me chuckle)

[SpitfireXI]

I too will just add that waiting another year to get Romanians and all that was worth it. Same goes for Hungarian and other forces and details that make the entire game way far and above the rest of the gaming industry.

[Pzman]

Indeed. I'd rather wait a year and get all the little tid bits than get some German only vs. Russia game.

[Elmar Bijlsma]

The way I read it, we might still get to way for a year for Romanians, but this time we can spend that year thundering across the steppe in our Panzers and T34s. Yes there is a risk they might get diverted from doing everything, but I have faith in the BFC crew that they will do their damndest to get everything in. Sooner or later. No biggie.

[MikeyD]

I would chuckle when I read those 'Will multi-turret Soviet tanks be in the next game engine?' threads. I never for minute thought the CMx2 engine would redo the entire freakin' Eastern front again! A 3-D computer game the scale, scope, and historical accuracy of CMBB was unprecedented, and simply having to shoe-horn higher polygon count CMx2 vehicles onto a disk will tend to limit the scale of the next game.

My (possibly misguided) conception of CMx2 was that there would be more of an emphasis on campaign play, which would mean following a relatively restricted force through its battle career. The days of obcure encounters involving Finnish infantry vs Italian cavalry may soon be over... unless the next game turns out to be CM:FvI (Finns vs Italians)

[Zimorodok]

How did you get a Finn Vs Italian match up?

I vote for small scope but highly expandable. Even if the "additional" packs cost me $$$. A core "engine" that was expandable, maybe with modpacks and rulesets. As an example: If BTS had done this with CMBB, we would have gotten 1 theatre (additional ones might be expansion packs, not new games) and, say, two nationalities (Ivans & Fritzes). As they were developed (open source?) other services and nationalities could be added for this theatre. In my fantasy world, all BFC would provide is the interaction engine; mods or whatever they'd be called would also contain the wireframes and the details per unit (yes, you can see where this is going) AND the OOB (some packs might just be expanded OOB) so you would add what you wanted (and yes, mod designers could cook up whatever they wanted, provided it fit the game mechanics.... you could design an Abrams, but it could still only fire AP and HE shells and be of rolled steel armour until BFC modified the engine to support those technologies.)

So, by this plan, BFC works on the game mechanics and the such and the mod community colors between the lines.

When a new game comes out, it replaces the old engine, so diehards like me can play with T-38's and BT-7's with the CMAK engine (for instance). You would have one game, with different theatres (all createable... and yes, this opens the door to non-realistic matchups and situtations, I would imagine that BFC would only provide us with "Real" OOB's, and it would be player's choice to play with "real" or "fictional" modifications)

As far as the trade secrets BFC would share with us, i don't forsee the need for anything more complicated than an .xml file (or hundreds of .xml files) and the same bitmaps we work with now.

However, i can see why this won't happen, or at least not in the way i describe. BFC chose to make a retail-ready product, fitting to use "out-of-the-box", and would need to do all the same work they did for CMBB (for instance) to offer a suite of mod files on inital install. AND, although the constant upgrade cycle is a revenuable model (look @ windows, new version for $200 every few years), selling fresh new games might get a bigger distribution, particularly worldwide.

just my .02

Zimorodok.

[aka_tom_w]

Just a suggestion

BUT

someone in this tread should post a link to Steve's latest posts to give this thread and this discussion some context.

OK ok

I will do it

Steve posted a few comments and bones in this thread.

-tom w

[Pzman]

Very interesting, thanks for the pointer Tom.