Short Summary of problems with the Beta Demo

[PAEZ]

I remember really liking Cmbo when it was at the alpha stage .....to see all the progress done till now ...well just makes my day

graphics, tracers etc.....sure they add to the gameplay but I take the demo as is

Way to go BFC....Keep the good work

[von Lucke]

In the spirit of "to each his own", here's my two cents:

Seems like there's a lot more info on the bottom of the screen, so it does tend to look more cluttered. After a little more game-play, I'm sure I'll adjust. One question tho: For regular hand-grenades, are the icons equivalent to one grenade each, or is it more?

Oh, and Bates, the map of Europe? It shows which area of USSR yr in; North, Central, or South (note the highlighted area).

Would prefer that the word "Green" was highlighted in green, and "Regular" in white, however (just more logical).

But the thing that needs changing is the highlight shading for the chosen button on the "Single Player", "E-mail", "Hotseat", "TCIP" screen. I can barely tell which one I've chosen without watching the mouse pointer!

And good point about the jump from the 3 to 4 observation hights. 3 seems to close, and 4 too high. We need a 3-1/2 setting.

[Pud]

Im was beginning to think Im the only person not that happy with the direction CMBB has taken?

Removal of "shockwave", this is bad, very bad. Takes away alot of the feel. Now its feels like the HE just doesnt have any effect at all. I know Matt has said that its definately out, but I think thats a bad move.

Removal of "portraits" - unbelievably bad. I was hoping for more individual differences between units, not less. This makes the units seem like amorphous uniform rather than "men".

From the demo i do get the impression it wont be winning many new players over, and given some of the changes it may very well be losing some.

Just my 2 cents worth.

[WWB]

The hand grenade counter counts by 5s, and only whole 5s IIRC (eg grenades 20-24 are counted as 4 but only 25 as 5).

Remember that the portraits are quite moddable. I am sure a real unit portrait mod will appear sooner rather than later.

WWB

[Cameroon]

Originally posted by M. Bates:

The nationality graphic on the bottom left of the screen is fine, yet betrays the rank of unidentified units (example: unknown tank version yet I know it is a command tank)

I decided to take a look at this, and I'm going to disagree with you here. Play the Yelnia game and cycle through the tanks during turn 1. They all _begin_ identified with the same generic "rank". However, after some time being observed, command tanks are identified as such. I watched for this specifically, so I'm pretty sure that's intended.

I don't know about radio tanks, which probably don't give anything away, but those without radios are prol'y pretty easy to identify as the CO's

[Cameroon]

Originally posted by Pud:

Im was beginning to think Im the only person not that happy with the direction CMBB has taken?

Removal of "shockwave", this is bad, very bad. Takes away alot of the feel. Now its feels like the HE just doesnt have any effect at all. I know Matt has said that its definately out, but I think thats a bad move.

Removal of "portraits" - unbelievably bad. I was hoping for more individual differences between units, not less. This makes the units seem like amorphous uniform rather than "men".

From the demo i do get the impression it wont be winning many new players over, and given some of the changes it may very well be losing some.

Just my 2 cents worth.

I don't know where you're getting the idea that it isn't going to win many players over or the idea that it won't bring in new players. Honestly, how can the lack of shockwaves and the (mod-able) different portraits be showstoppers? That's like not playing because the T-34 didn't have your favorite unit markings.

The only people I can see not being thrilled with CMBB are those who can't handle the higher-fidelity of the gameplay or those who just hate the Eastern front.

[Pud]

Portraits - moddable, ok, have to wait and see to what level of individual differences between units can be achieved.

Shockwave - not a case of being upset by some minor grog thing, the shockwave had a large impact of enjoyment, a "woohoo" sort of thing. If theres anything that will be remebered (and missed) from the good old days of CMBO it will be the shockwave.

[M. Bates]

Originally posted by Pud:

Im was beginning to think Im the only person not that happy with the direction CMBB has taken?

Removal of "shockwave", this is bad, very bad. Takes away alot of the feel. Now its feels like the HE just doesnt have any effect at all. I know Matt has said that its definately out, but I think thats a bad move.

And the weird thing is - the *new* system is not realistic (that word again).

Shockwaves are a big big issue, effecting HE, artillery and building destruction.

Why could BTS not find an alternative system? At the moment, when a shell hits the turf, it looks like a mole is slinging a few handfuls of mud. It's possible to lose half a squad of men to HE, yet the ground around them is HE-Resistent!

When CMBO was originally developed, BTS obviously included shockwaves for a reason. They are there for a purpose. Loads of CMBO reviews commentated on how good shockwaves were as an effect - also aiding gameplay.

Okay - maybe shockwaves are cheesy and should not be used on buildings - fair enough - but what about a better graphical expression -instead of removing any expression altogether?

Removal of "portraits" - unbelievably bad. I was hoping for more individual differences between units, not less. This makes the units seem like amorphous uniform rather than "men".

Totally agree. In CMBO, tankers are easily identified. In CMBB, I am looking for the back end of a helmet or some minor uniform difference. CMBBs portraits serve the additional purpose of telling us if the unit is a C/O or not. But that fact is available, barely 2 inces away to the right, on the very same screen!!!! Yet again, another example of style over content/gameplay in the CMBB demo. Again, it *can* be modded (I hope).

From the demo i do get the impression it wont be winning many new players over, and given some of the changes it may very well be losing some.

Just my 2 cents worth.

I agree. CMBB has more features, and, yes, will be a bit more complex than CMBO.

However, the CMBO demo is appreciably more clean looking and accessible than the CMBB demo. How the hell newbie players will be able to follow the battle I do not know. I guess they'll be using low-slung camera angles and rewinding/pausing the movie playback *just* to struggle to see where a tank's shell landed.

[M. Bates]

Originally posted by von Lucke:

In the spirit of "to each his own", here's my two cents:

Seems like there's a lot more info on the bottom of the screen, so it does tend to look more cluttered. After a little more game-play, I'm sure I'll adjust. One question tho: For regular hand-grenades, are the icons equivalent to one grenade each, or is it more?

This is just a personal opinion, but ALL of the CMBO interface mods were total rubbish. Gimmicky graphical substitutions for perfectly good text originals.

What is the point of putting infantry weapons on the status bar? Do they give a firepower figure? No. Do the graphics actually tell you what the weapons are? No. Either print *in text* what the weapons are or take away the entire panel altogether! Presumably, someone purchasing CMBB already knows what a German rifle looks like, and if they don't, well the 3D men are actually holding one of the ruddy things!

I now know what the mini-map does. Yet again, is it really needed? Isn't this information already available a million times before in the briefing? Do we really need this distracting, useless waste of screen space?

Why not cut out this stuff and *increase* the size of Combat/Stealth/Morale/Command bonuses???

[edgars]

Originally posted by Wolfe:

The one deficiency I see with bases is they're almost completely hidden by the foxhole graphic.

I have to second this. On defence it's very hard to find your dug in units, especially if terrain is heavily shelled before.

[Michael Emrys]

Originally posted by M. Bates:

At the moment, when a shell hits the turf, it looks like a mole is slinging a few handfuls of mud. It's possible to lose half a squad of men to HE, yet the ground around them is HE-Resistent!

Sometimes I wonder if we are talking about the same game. I've only played the Tutorial so far, so maybe that makes a difference. But in that one, when HE hit the ground there was a flash, smoke, and bits of sod flying. I didn't have any trouble spotting even small explosions. And it left a crater behind unless it was a treeburst.

Michael

[Michael Emrys]

I have to agree that I found the GUI (especially the toolbar) disappointing. Not a game breaker, but not appealing either. CM deserves better than that.

Michael

[Michael Emrys]

A couple more observations and then I'll shut up for a while.

I thought the marsh looked REALLY GREAT! Nice job.

But overall, I thought the scenery/landscape looked rather dreary. It is supposed to be midday on a clear day, but the drabness of it all made it look like an overcast late afternoon. Maybe some grass mods will perk things up. Something needs to.

Michael

[Thin Red Line]

Originally posted by M. Bates:

What is the point of putting infantry weapons on the status bar? Do they give a firepower figure? No. Do the graphics actually tell you what the weapons are? No. Either print *in text* what the weapons are or take away the entire panel altogether!

Well, I like this new feature. In CMBO i'm always hitting the info key to know what weapon is left in the squad, i find it just fine to see it at a glance.

[MikeyD]

Mr. Bates asks:

"Do the graphics actually tell you what the weapons are?"

Yes, they DO. If you've got a Squad that's carrying a light mg and you split it into Teams you can track which half gets the mg and which half is stuck with nothing but smgs. A VERY important thing to know during the battle. and how would a line of text saying "Mauser rifle" be more efficient than showing a picture of a Mauser rifle?

I am simply STUNNED by the amount of griping here! People are complaining because a useful graphical weapons list is included, and also complaining because the pointless old CMBO vanity troop portraits are missing?

[Thin Red Line]

I totally agree with you MikeyD but i'm afraid it is unevitable, when things move ahead it always implies some nostalgy...

[TSword]

- Tracer is much better now then in CMBO (IMHO)

- I like the mood of the picture now (I LOVE the colour of the Tutorial for instance, i'm in similar landscape very often and the mood is caught extremely well.

However one of the things which i never was really happy with is the viewing system, especially rotating is annoying and creates headache after some time. Hint: Implement Snap Views for the side and back-views.

Also the stickiness of the unit centered view is to much (one cannot adv the view forward or backward or jump to another point without moving the view first with the mouse).

So Basic View Commands:

- Keep the rotational view as is plus a fast rotate (Somhow the view becomes blurry in rotationa and i become headache with time..)

- Introduce Snap-Views including Keycombinations

- "Scalable" View-movment commands which can be adjusted in speed via a second key.

- Adjustable Zooms ?? (Don't know if poss with

system -> User Preference setting ???)

- Remove the Mouse stickiness of centered views, so one can easily jump to new pos without first need to alter view with mouse (Center-View, ctrl-Mouse -> View Jumps to new position)

Otherwise everything is just fine now, Great work so far !

Question: Where is the Terrain info gone, where one could see wether it is dry, wet and the like ?

Greets

Daniel

[ September 03, 2002, 10:15 AM: Message edited by: TSword ]

[MrSpkr]

The whining here would make me vomit but I just came back from the dentist and, with half my face numb, I'm afraid I would end up dribbling it down my shirt.

Wahh! No shockwaves! - Deal with it. Yes, there needs to be some graphical representation - like maybe a cloud of smoke/dust from the impact of an HE shell - but that is it. The shockwave from the houses was ugly, unrealistic, and silly. The new Dust Cloud effect should be sufficient.

Wahh! I want text instead of pictures of weapons! - Deal with it. The pictures are important because they tell which half-squads or damaged squads still have their MGs (which are MUCH better at suppressing than rifles). Since the squad can't split it's weapons up to fire at different targets, why do you need text to tell you firepower? If you have a target - aim at it and see the FP total. If you have no target, hit the [enter] key and see what the FP is at the various ranges.

Wahh! I don't like the unit portraits! Deal with it. They are moddable.

It is simply amazing to me the levels to which some people will stoop in order to shove a stick in someone else's eye.

Steve

[Andreas]

The weapons graphic is a really great help, the unit pictures are there for a good reason, and they are modable (I look forward to a B/W mod like the one in CMBO, never liked the original, and did not like the first proposals in the beta CMBB at all), and the shockwave - well, I have not missed it at all, and the first comment I have heard about it is here. Nothing during the previews, nothing on the beta-board that I can recall.

The map is helpful in QBs, to let you know at a glance where you are (remember, no briefing!) and thereby gives you a bit more 'feel' for the QB game than before.

[Sarge Saunders]

Who hears whining? I don't hear any whining. People here are not whining. They are stating their preference.

Up till now BFC has built CMBB with the input of a few knowledgable people. Now, they get to find out what the many knowledgable customers think. Even though this is the gold and final demo, this feedback is extremely valuable (I hope) to BFC.

Even for myself, there are a handful of changes that I will need to get used to in order to accept. Still, overall CMBB is a vast improvement over CMBO.

Remember this: many of these complaints are small matters of preference (such as mouse left/right). Eventually, BFC may give us a choice....or they may not.

Either way, I am sick of this Holy Grail CMBB attitude. If people can't give honest feedback without upsetting those who worship this demo and game then BFC will never hear all sides of the story.

My $0.02.

-Sarge

[ September 03, 2002, 11:07 AM: Message edited by: Sarge Saunders ]

[deanco]

Originally posted by bsd:

Deanco, I hope you never read this awful thread, but if you do:

I think your interface design is excellent and a pleasure to use. Everything is clear and attractive, and a real improvement over CMBO. Good work!

Thanks bsd. Yeah, I'm reading it, but that's ok, a grog that doesn't bitch ain't a grog.

• Some unit indicators (buttoned etc) now in illogical places (see below)

Yep, we literally ran out of room, and there was no other place to put them. If you can go through all the indicator labels and figure out where buttoned, et al, can go, I'm sure Steve would like to hear about it.

• The ALL CAPS font used in places is very ugly compared to the CMBO original.

I assume you mean the individual Unit info (top line)? IIRC the CMBO version is in white typewritten letters. I don't know what was so beautiful about that, or why this version is so ugly, but once again, if you can make a better font, please do so. I'm sure it will be a popular mod. In alpha we went around and around with this issue until a compromise was found.

"The interface and AAR are, well, dissapointing. Not as 'clean' as cmbo..."

This is only to be expected. The amount of info being passed on to the player has gone up by around 30%. It's bound to be a little more cluttered. As far as the AAR screen goes, The AAR screen in CMBO sucked, period. If I want an Excel readout, I'll use Excel. When I play a video game though, I want something a little more colorful. Having said that, the font used in the AAR is 'wrong', meaning it's NOT the font I had in mind, and hopefully it may get fixed in the first patch. Despite repeated emails, somehow this detail slipped through the net in the final hectic days.

"This is just a personal opinion, but ALL of the CMBO interface mods were total rubbish. Gimmicky graphical substitutions for perfectly good text originals."

How nice of you, Mr. Bates. Remind me to say something nice about you the next time I see you. Care to explain WHY they were 'total rubbish'? Or is a simple assertion enough for you?

OK, lookit, folks. Implementation of the GUI started 1 1/2 years ago. During that time, the interface underwent intense scrutiny by myself, Steve, and Charles. No detail was too small to look at. For example, the font used for the individual unit info. I have 17 copies of different 30002.bmps we tried, here on my computer. Finally one made the cut. Then it went to beta, and underwent the scrutiny of the groggiest of the grogs, for months. When something wasn't right, we changed it. Now, after playing the demo for three days, suddenly everyone's an expert when it comes to the GUI.

All I can say is, once you have the full game and have played it for 2 or 3 monts, come back and we'll talk. I'm sure your comments will have some validity then. Until then, I really consider most (but not all) of the complaints here knee-jerk grogism.

Flame away.

[Andreas]

Rock on DeanCo

[ParaBellum]

Originally posted by deanco:

All I can say is, once you have the full game and have played it for 2 or 3 monts, come back and we'll talk. I'm sure your comments will have some validity then. Until then, I really consider most (but not all) of the complaints here knee-jerk grogism.

Well said!

Some guys should print his out and stick it on their monitors, just in case...

[edited 'cause I still can't quote...]

[ September 03, 2002, 01:12 PM: Message edited by: ParaBellum ]

[Michael Dorosh]

If anybody really wants to complain about the interface, they can mod it themselves or find someone to do it.

I have no obections to the interface, it is functional and clean. I am having fun doing an updated version of the ASL interface I did for CMBO, but any changes I make are for whimsy, not because I feel there are issues with the original.

One example is the use of the PLAY and PAUSE buttons. I am reversing them so that when the movie is playing, the PAUSE button comes up. It seems odd to play the movie while the PLAY button is showing, but this is a matter of personal taste, not life and death.

There are a lot of mods out there that personally I don't think should have seen the light of day, but I wouldn't be so crass, unthinking and unfeeling as to say it to anyone. Common sense tells us that if you don't like a mod, don't use it - or offer constructive criticisms if you really think it would help you get what you want. But laying idle broadsides on someone can gain you nothing but enmity from others. I should have thought that goes without saying.

EDIT - Michael, your comments about "drab terrain" really surprised me - the bright greens and waving trees really made it seem like a pleasant day out doors. Perhaps your gamma settings are screwed? Check out the GI Combat screen shots for what I consider 'drab' and 'depressing'. I can't see any graphical stuff I don't like a lot.

As for interface status bars (or whatever you call them), there are so many different types (fitness - incidentally why don't crew served weapons teams have fitness showing?, vehicle status, speed, location, fatigue, etc.) it would be insane to come up with a colour scheme and font scheme that would distinguish them from one another first, and then the seperate degrees of fitness, fatigue, etc. FWIW, the current interface does a good job.

The matching of some of the unit icons on the interface and the actual in game units doesn't seem to always match (the Russian 45mm ATG has the same icon as the German 37mm ATG - perhaps on purpose?) but with what - 600 to 1000 seperate units and vehicles - how many bmps can we reasonably expect BFC to cram on a single CD? The mini tank icons alone must have been a mammoth undertaking. And in the end, we come back to the idea that the play is the thing....right?

[ September 03, 2002, 01:22 PM: Message edited by: Michael Dorosh ]

[M. Bates]

Originally posted by deanco:

Yep, we literally ran out of room, and there was no other place to put them. If you can go through all the indicator labels and figure out where buttoned, et al, can go, I'm sure Steve would like to hear about it.

Funnily enough, I just checked and CMBB no longer has tank buttoned and infantry morale status in the same place which is better than before.

IIRC the CMBO version is in white typewritten letters. I don't know what was so beautiful about that, or why this version is so ugly, but once again, if you can make a better font, please do so. I'm sure it will be a popular mod. In alpha we went around and around with this issue until a compromise was found.

Okay, the typewritten font was not pretty. But (1) it was not all in capital letters and (2) it was always printed as white text on a black background.

The amount of info being passed on to the player has gone up by around 30%. It's bound to be a little more cluttered. As far as the AAR screen goes, The AAR screen in CMBO sucked, period. If I want an Excel readout, I'll use Excel. When I play a video game though, I want something a little more colorful. Having said that, the font used in the AAR is 'wrong', meaning it's NOT the font I had in mind, and hopefully it may get fixed in the first patch. Despite repeated emails, somehow this detail slipped through the net in the final hectic days.

AARs in CMBB are a vast improvement. As for the other stuff, well why is the space alotted for movie controls and map controls actually *less* than before? And since CMBO people will have increased monitor size and monitor resolution, making the buttons appear still smaller.

How nice of you, Mr. Bates. Remind me to say something nice about you the next time I see you. Care to explain WHY they were 'total rubbish'? Or is a simple assertion enough for you?

I am not referring to any author/mod in particular: I accept also that 'total rubbish' was a silly thing to state.

Now, after playing the demo for three days, suddenly everyone's an expert when it comes to the GUI.

In a creative process, the movie director is often the last person to realise that other people will not view the finished product in the same way that he does. CMBB's interface is very different to CMBO's interface despite the fact that both games are essentially the same, accepting the point that new features have been added. I believe that CMBB's increased interface is not justified by the number of new features in the game.

It is inevitable that people are going to comment when a demo is released. anyone who creates an interface for a video game is clearly talented. Just because I disagree with decisions taken does not mean that I think you are a poor designer. ( )