Announcing CMBB Distribution Details

[ParaBellum]

Ugh, buying from CDV. I'm not too happy with that idea...

But then BTS/BFC have stated that their cooperation works very well so far. And since I will support BFC (almost) whatever they do I guess that means buying from, well, CDV.

But NO WAY I'm gonna buy the localized (german) version if it's again that badly translated as CMBO.

I really hope they will offer both the 'original' version AND the german version here...

[Ales Dvorak]

Hmm I'm confused. Am I from E Europe or W Europe ( Slovenia ).

Mr. Moon, please help.

TIA

Ales

[Moon]

Ales, you're from East Europe.

Martin

[M Hofbauer]

Originally posted by Moon:

"Battlefront can not ship CMBB to European addresses in accordance with our agreement with CDV"

Martin,

ok, I guess I will have to buy it off the shelf from one of my lesser - hated software retailers.

however, feldgendarm, raises a valid question: will the CDV "english" version be the exact US version, in other words, will there be those "Waffengrenadiere" of CDV-fame? I am fully aware of the legal issue here in germany, but I can't stand it if they are trying to be holier than the pope himself by p.c.-ing out things that are actually legal, like when they are doing their Waffengrenadiere thing.

I would really appreciate a definite answer about this since if the cdv-european-"english" version is not the same as the US version, I will have to prepare making arrangements with said "friendly" americans.

[Joseph Porta]

"Battlefront can not ship CMBB to European addresses in accordance with our agreement with CDV"

W00t !! :eek: CDV my only option ? Groan... :mad:

[Juju]

Originally posted by ParaBellum:

But NO WAY I'm gonna buy the localized (german) version if it's again that badly translated as CMBO.

I really hope they will offer both the 'original' version AND the german version here...

That's what worries me also. I've seen some pretty crappy game manuals here in the Netherlands. Some were so bad I had to literally translate them back to English to find out what was meant.

The most ugly example of this 'literal translating' thingy was in the Baldur's Gate manual. In this Dutch translation The Paladin's ability to 'turn undead' was clearly misunderstood and translated thus that is now said that your paladin could turn himself into an undead, even though the the actual description of the ability stated nothing of the like. I mean really!! A paladin!!

It was at that point that I wanted to strangle the translator, and vowed never to buy another game that has a Dutch manual. Even if I have to wait for it a bit longer.

[Battlefront]

Hof,

The UK English version will not have SS stuff in it. I thought I had explained this to you before. CDV is a German company. If their name is on *anything* that is in violation of German law they are comitting a criminal offense. It does not matter if the product is generally sold outside of Germany or not.

CDV is simply obeying German law and therefore should not be looked down upon for this. The CDV guy we work with directly is the son of a Wehrmacht officer and thinks the laws are as dumb as you and I do. He even tried to get CDV's legal council to sign off on us including some "gray area" stuff, but thanks to the nearly unquestioned authority of the German software ratings board that got nixed.

As much as we REALLY dislike this we are not going to piss away a very good deal for us and the CM Community over something we have NO control over. Only an idiot would have made this a "deal breaker" issue. An idiot with principles, true, but still an idiot

Steve

[ParaBellum]

Originally posted by Battlefront.com:

...

CDV is simply obeying German law and therefore should not be looked down upon for this....

As I said before I respect your and CDV's decision but it's still not that clear to me.

The inclusion of Waffen-SS units in CM is not against german law. Not as it is now, without the SS-runes and without glorifying the Waffen-SS in any way (Waffen-SS units in CM are not better than standard Heer units).

I know of no wargame that got legal problems because of the inclusion of Waffen-SS units.

A further problem for me is that the german translation of CMBO on some parts was rather sloppy. With this in mind I think I wait for CDV to surprise me in a positive way, otherwise I'll have to contact some US friends.

[Juha Keratar]

Just a clarification please: the differences between US CMBB and UK CMBB, when it comes to SS and stuff, are in manual, packaging etc. only? Or is there an actual difference in what is in the game, ie. SS omitted entirely? :confused:

This definitely interests me, as I'm under the CDV distribution...

-Lunael

[Pud]

This must be the first time i have thought to myself that im glad I have to import it myself from US (I live downunder). Added to this the recent debacle with the local release of Neverwinter Nights, I now can understand and appreciate BTS distributing via web. Using a distribution network does seem to raise alot of crap that isnt needed.

[antawar]

I received my copy three days after ordering in july last year. I live in Montreal and BTS is in Burlington vermont, which is about an hour and a half drive from here. It went tax free through the customs as it was labelled as a book.. hehe thanks BTS for putting the cd in the manual

[Kasei]

Originally posted by Moon:

Kasei, please scroll up a couple of posts. I mentioned that, of course, anybody can order the UK version from CDV and/or as Andreas pointed out, through Amazon or other mail order companies.

Martin

Darn, sorry Moon, should have read all posts before including mine. Thanks for the confirmation anyway.

[Fred]

First of all, I will not buy any crippled, censored or code-changed version that is one iota different from what is delivered to customers in the US.

It is my money, and I decide where and what to buy.

Second, this german company had some issues with copy protection mechanisms used on their cd's (forgot the name, but there was trouble with some latest DVD drives).

So I would like to ask, if here is any US customer that would order the game for me from BFC and then ship it to me in Germany.

Of course, I will pay anything included (PayPal)?

I remember a time, when Big Time Software claimed to be an independent internet publisher with direct sale and no obligations for the 'big' publishers...

Now they are going the same way, so that long-time customers like me must use complicated methods for giving them my money...well.

So, if anyone would be so nice and help me in this, email me at fred.hartig@freenet.de

Fred

[109 Gustav]

I'd be willing to act as an intermediate to send U.S. copies of CMBB (at cost plus a buck or two) to European customers, as long as the game is released after August 20, when I get back to college. Email me if you're interested.

BTS, would this be ok with you?

[SturmSebber]

Hi,

I'd like to say that as long as the game finally arrives and gameplay is not altered, i don't care if i get a slightly different version.

I do have some questions:

1)I heard that in the US cmbo, one could alter names of units if one wanted to, but the CDV-version was coded or something so you cannot alter the silly Waffengrenadiere after you buy it. Will this be changed for CMBB? And if it is not changed, would BTS considder making a "patch" for the European version wich alters the waffengrenadiere and other alterations?

2)I've had the luck to be able to play the US cmbo and the CDV version. Will i still lose the cool intro-movie the US version has for some CDV advertising intro?

3)Will other things than the waffen SS name be changed in the European CMBB version? "Political correct Nazi Flags ea. ...?"

4) How where sales in Europe? Here in Belgium the game was found in abundance in stores everywhere.. Where sales high enough to do this again? Or will i be driving for two hours to find a store wich has the CDV CMBB?

I really hope one of those friendly people of BTS will reply to this question, thank you in advance,

Strumy

Ps.: Sorry for any grammar mistakes.

[Chad Harrison]

I have brought myself out of hiding after one or two months of no CM to find out *finally* what we have all been waiting for.

Bravo to Battlefront.com in advance for what will be yet again the greatest game ever! Looking forward to getting back on the ladder at RD and doing battle with you all!

Chad Harrison

[Battlefront]

ParaBellum

As I said before I respect your and CDV's decision but it's still not that clear to me.

The inclusion of Waffen-SS units in CM is not against german law. Not as it is now, without the SS-runes and without glorifying the Waffen-SS in any way (Waffen-SS units in CM are not better than standard Heer units).

The Waffen SS are in the current CDV release of CMBO and will be in CMBB. However, we can not call them Waffen SS. Trust me, I know the German laws like the back of my hand, and so does CDV. The problem is that the German software ratings board can, without any recourse, black list any product that it feels is in violation of its own standards. These are based on German law, but are not held to German law. From what I understand it is very arbitrary and unclear. If they blacklist a game, it is as good as dead. Why risk it to put two tiny little letters ("SS") in the game vs. what we put in there ("WG")? It is a stupid risk to take when hundreds of thousands of dollars have already been invested.

As I said above, we have principles. But we are not stupid. If you ran your own business, I would be very surprised if you took idiotic risks with your future

I know of no wargame that got legal problems because of the inclusion of Waffen-SS units.

What games to you know of that had SS runes or Totenkopf symbols in them? We honestly tried to find some sort of preceedent to show the ratings board that we were not the first. We also tried to find a game that clearly labled units as Waffen SS, but failed to find anything of that sort distributed in Germany (or by a German company). If you know of any, it would be good to about them.

A further problem for me is that the german translation of CMBO on some parts was rather sloppy. With this in mind I think I wait for CDV to surprise me in a positive way, otherwise I'll have to contact some US friends.

To be clear, CDV had nothing to do with the translations of CMBO. That was done by people we hired. This is the first we have heard about sloppy translation work, yet the game has been out for over a year. But in any case, we are using a different translator for the German version this time around for completely unrelated reasons.

Juha,

Just a clarification please: the differences between US CMBB and UK CMBB, when it comes to SS and stuff, are in manual, packaging etc. only?

For the most part, yes. The only differences within the game are the same as the current UK CMBO and US CMBO. And that is in the US version they are called "Waffen SS" and in the UK they are called "Waffen Grenadier". This is shortened to "SS" in US version, "WG" in UK version. The US version also uses a "SS runes" BMP for the Load Game dialog while the UK version uses "WG". This can, of course, be altered by the player. There are no other differnces beyond that. Just cosmetic changes which do not affect the historical accuracy of the game one itsy-bitsy bit.

Fred,

First of all, I will not buy any crippled, censored or code-changed version that is one iota different from what is delivered to customers in the US.

It is my money, and I decide where and what to buy.

It is true that this is your choice to make.

Second, this german company had some issues with copy protection mechanisms used on their cd's (forgot the name, but there was trouble with some latest DVD drives).

Copy protection software is becoming the norm for computer games. You can thank the pirates for that.

I remember a time, when Big Time Software claimed to be an independent internet publisher with direct sale and no obligations for the 'big' publishers...

Now they are going the same way, so that long-time customers like me must use complicated methods for giving them my money...well.

Oh spare me the crap, wouldja? This is overall a very good move for everybody concerned. We can't please everybody, so if you want to get your knickers in a twist about two letters being changed and one BMP being different than the US version, knock yourself out. If this is your definition of selling out, we sold out before we ever started because we ALWAYS have been a for profit company interested in making a good living in a very difficult industry. If you seriously think we have compromised our quality and indepence so much, do us both a favor and boycott our products for ever more. Or you can keep your soapbox speaches in context of reality.

Now, would we have liked to still sell directly into Europe? Sure. But is that a reasonable thing for us to request? Absolutely not. We don't let CDV sell into North America and Canada, so why should they let us sell into their territory? It makes absolutely no sense.

So what were our choices? Walk away from a very good deal, not just for Battlefront but also for CM customers (past and future), just because German law and software ratings ar ridiculously strict and at the same time horribly vague? I doubt anybody put in our shoes would walk away from such a positive relationship. However, I have NO doubts that most people in our shoes would have signed a horrible deal that would have driven them out of business. CDV is still the only publisher we have been in contact with that we have any interest in partnering with. That should count for something.

Gustav,

BTS, would this be ok with you?

As long as we are shipping to a non-Western European address, it is none of our business where it eventually winds up.

Steve

[BaD JoKe]

Mock all You want about the finnish translations.

CMBO sold more to Finland than it did to Great Britain when it was available only in the net. :cool:

That anouncement makes me a one happy camper

[Battlefront]

Hello SturmSebber,

I'd like to say that as long as the game finally arrives and gameplay is not altered, i don't care if i get a slightly different version.

I outlined the differences in my previous post.

1)I heard that in the US cmbo, one could alter names of units if one wanted to, but the CDV-version was coded or something so you cannot alter the silly Waffengrenadiere after you buy it.

This is not true. Nobody can alter this sort of information, no matter what the version is.

Will this be changed for CMBB? And if it is not changed, would BTS considder making a "patch" for the European version wich alters the waffengrenadiere and other alterations?

It is not going to change for CMBB because German law has not changed. I don't know if we will make a patch. For one year the German version of CMBO has been available and nobody has asked for such a patch. Yes, I am sure people might like it, but it hasn't been a huge issue. Most people know what the units are and don't care that the name is not exactly the same.

2)I've had the luck to be able to play the US cmbo and the CDV version. Will i still lose the cool intro-movie the US version has for some CDV advertising intro?

The German and French CMBO versions have the same intro movie as the US version. There is, however, an additional CDV intro AVI which is played. It is very short and is just their logo from what I remember.

3)Will other things than the waffen SS name be changed in the European CMBB version? "Political correct Nazi Flags ea. ...?"

I answered this in my previous post.

Note that ALL versions of Combat Mission, since the very first one shipped, came without Swastikas. Originally the reason was that German law is VERY clear that this is an arrestable offense for the customer and an international legal issue for us. Since we only had one version of the game we had to remove the Swastikas from it. After CDV took over sales in Europe we did not change this because, believe it or not, a lot of people do NOT want the historically correct version. In fact, I bet that if we had a poll there would be more people who say "keep the symbol out" than would say "put it in". This is not something we expected, but it does appear to be true.

4) How where sales in Europe? Here in Belgium the game was found in abundance in stores everywhere.. Where sales high enough to do this again? Or will i be driving for two hours to find a store wich has the CDV CMBB?

Sales for CMBO in Europe were excellent, making both CDV and us quite happy. Which is why we have agreed to work with each other again. It is more difficult for us to sell directly to Europe than it is for CDV to sell through retail. Some day this will likely change, but for now retail is still a viable option for us in Europe. This is not true in the US where our direct distribution is much, much stronger. Our sales to other countries are good, but could be better with the right partnership. But so far we have found nothing which would offer us or the customer a better arrangement, so we happily continue to sell directly to countries like Canada and Australia.

Steve

[Geier]

Originally posted by Pillar:

The problem is in the seemingly totalitarian censorship laws of the German Gov't.

Thass right!

Uh no it isn't. There is one name for one unit type that's changed and one bitmap. A non-German attacking Germanys own supreme laws and calling them totalitarian because someone else in another country might not get to see a bitmap of the SS runes in a computer game?

Self-righteous crap.

If you believe that information about what happened before and during WW2 is lacking or unavailable in Germany you're wrong.

Johan

[Derfel]

Yeah!

What he said! (Geier, that is)

Now, for what might be a real problem, those damned copy protections. Yes I know why they exist and I totally understand the need.

However, most copy protection systems seem to run afoul of some hardware/OS combinations, and the further from "US standard" the computer system is, the more common the problems seem to be.

SO; If I arrange to by a U.S version (I have friends in low places) will it come with the same copy protection as the CDV version, or possibly a different copy protection or even no copy protection?

Oh, and BTW is there a list of CDV retailers in Europe? Might be interesting to shop around a little...

-Derfel

[ July 10, 2002, 05:25 AM: Message edited by: Derfel ]

[Wicky]

Will the retail Euro CM-BB be Mac compatible?

As the mail order CM-BO was dual but the retail version was PC only.

[Naja]

Only an idiot would have made this a "deal breaker" issue. An idiot with principles, true, but still an idiot

Steve

------------------------------------------------------------------------

Truth....I give BTS a lot of credit; I can at least digest the truth. I did some translation testing for Mattel..was very ugly what Barbie said. I hope that compromise will not be the norm but I fear for the worst - like a platoon in reserve I will hold my judgment. Watching....waiting....

[Francesco]

May I ask something, please?

I'm from Italy... is this E or W Europe? I also have to ask this...

Second: how do I know if the CVD CMBB will be the same of the BTS CMBB? I would prefer to buy it directly from BTS, because I liked their service when I bought CMBO....

Which will be the cost of CVD-distribution CMBB and BTS-distribution CMBB?

There will be an Itialian version? I'd prefer an original US version...

And also: when will it be releasedhere in Italy?How much time after its release from this site?

Will it be more swift to buy it from here (a local store) of from BTS site? (I don't live in Rome, so I can't be sure that one of the 3/4 local sores will have CMBB...

Thank you very much in advance...

[Jochen Schmidt]

I can´t believe this!!!

So even here the times are gone, to buy a game via Internet from a small, intuitive company wich individual support was a new experience for me.

the time is gone, to avoid such companies like CDV - don´t get me wrong, but i´m so disapointed i can´t say how...

I loved to have that flair, when CMBO came from the US to me. I felt independet of all that German ****, i have to face everyday here - i´m no nazi i am only a wargamer - and so i wanna have the full version, the original version. I was proud to see, that CMBO wasn´t on the shelfs - for me this was this "ah, there is a baby growing"-feeling.

Now the baby has grown up and the deal is, that i have to face again all those restrictions i have in every localized version of good game here in germany.

Moon, thanks a lot for your answer ....but, i can´t believe it, and i don´t wanna be forced to spend any EUro to CDV - i hate them. I know, that BTS has a deal with them, and don´t get me wrong, i like to see BTS earn their money...but, i´m so disappointed to see, that it is not possible to order CMBB via Internet - This is really odd!!!!

If i´m forced to buy it at CDV - for me, CMBB is not the game i waited for...i want to buy the US version - without any localized sh.. . Give us (europeans), give me back the possibility to decide where to buy this game!

(excuse my bad english again, please)