c3k Posted October 7, 2002 Share Posted October 7, 2002 Okay, no griping here, just a (admittedly brilliant) idea. Both CMBO and CMBB ship with scenarios/battles. Fine. We can also make our own. Great. We can also add ones which others have made. Better. There are too many!!!! Go over to the Scenario Depot. It is overwhelming. Assume you've downloaded every scenario and copied it into your Scenario folder. How on earth are you going to use that mess? Every time you try to select a game you'll get bogged down. My solution is simple: within the scenario screen we should be able to implement a search. This should be done with a simple check-off menu. Select the sides (if you want), the date (or a range), day, night, weather, map-size, length, force types (all infantry, armor, anything, air-support for one or the other, etc), etc. Then you'll be left with a selection of scenarios from which you could choose more easily. As it is you've got to scroll through a huge list of dissimilar items trying to parse your selection using minimal information. (This is true even on the Scenario Depot site. It's too big.) I have shown the way. Now one of you people need to do the work. I'll critique it when you're done. Oh, and someone send me a CD with all the downloadable scenarios. I don't want to take the time to download each of them myself. Thank you. Ken Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
c3k Posted October 9, 2002 Author Share Posted October 9, 2002 Ah, ahem. *Bump* <cough, cough> Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GJK Posted October 9, 2002 Share Posted October 9, 2002 I'm working on a scenario selector/upload/list/search by criteria addition to my cmbb site that will do what you're asking (outside of the game of course). You'll be able to quickly search for text inside the mission briefings or the composition/size of forces, year, weather, other criteria to get a list of scenarios that you might want to play. If it's not one of the originally provided scenarios from the game, then it would be available for download from the site. This of course is going to rely on user participation and I *don't* want to get in direct conflict with the Scenario Depot which I think is an excellent site for just about everything scenario's. My site will be more of a reference listing of available scenarios to help players quickly find a scenario that best fits the parameters that they are looking to fulfill. I'll post more as it becomes available. Comments/suggestions/questions welcomed. GJK Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Holdit Posted October 9, 2002 Share Posted October 9, 2002 It would be even better if you could implement folders. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pascal DI FOLCO Posted October 9, 2002 Share Posted October 9, 2002 Your tone surely deserves you, but features for sorting/filtering scenarios have already often been asked for, and I agree they'd be useful. I don't recall of a BFC reply/stance about it. Perhaps now ? BTW, at one time a courageous soul made an Excel file with all data and links... If the Scenario Depot guys find a way of generating such a file via SQL to their database for download, our problems will be solved ! [ October 09, 2002, 09:05 AM: Message edited by: Pascal DI FOLCO ] Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Michael Emrys Posted October 9, 2002 Share Posted October 9, 2002 Probably one more item in the engine rewrite basket... Michael Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
WWB Posted October 9, 2002 Share Posted October 9, 2002 1) The depot actually grew out of that Excel file, written by Craig "Harv" Harvey a while back. Read the history. 2) I think searchable ingame is not realistic. We pined and whined for such features in the beta, but there is very little "Meta" type info easily retieveable from the scenario files as I understand things. Which makes sorting, parsing and sorting based on some sort of header information a bit problematic, as each file would have to be opened to generate the dataset. I do feel you all's pain, there are close to 100 battles in my CMBB folder already. In my venerable CMBO folder, the total is closer to 500. There are some tricks I use to force sort things: 1) Battles I need to address for some reason (test, comment on, etc) are prefaced with !s, forcing them to the top. Really important ones get multiple !!s. 2) Its not that hard to remember the name of the battle you want to play, and the list is alphabetical after all . . . GJK--I like your idea, but you are to some extent reinventing the wheel. The depot already is searchable to a large extent, and has the files to download, plus the under utilized review feature. Why duplicate efforts? WWB [ October 09, 2002, 09:51 AM: Message edited by: wwb_99 ] Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rob Murray Posted October 9, 2002 Share Posted October 9, 2002 I have a question. Why are scenarios that are on the CMBB cd posted as new at the Scenario Depot? Doesn't make any sense to me. Just wonndering ( so nobody bite my head off ). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pascal DI FOLCO Posted October 9, 2002 Share Posted October 9, 2002 wwb99, Thks for the history tips, I just forgot it in the meantime, sorry The problem is not to find out one precise scenario, but rather to choose/select one amongst say the Russian'44 assaults in the North, small-med map, 1000-1500 points... The needed header info are just those already present in the scenario list (albeit some are just in the description). I understand BTS has surely 1000s of things to do rather than that, so making it an external feature is a better option. And as the REAL problem is to update those damned lists, only the Depot is a viable solution. My 0.02€ Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Admiral Keth Posted October 9, 2002 Share Posted October 9, 2002 Originally posted by Rob Murray: I have a question. Why are scenarios that are on the CMBB cd posted as new at the Scenario Depot? Doesn't make any sense to me. Just wonndering ( so nobody bite my head off ).Rob, That's simply the way that the system works. The "New" label appears on all battles, operations, and maps for 10 days after their initial submission. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Harv Posted October 9, 2002 Share Posted October 9, 2002 Yup, WWB is right (for once). This thread is where it all began, as I was looking for much the same thing. Oh, the CD scenarios are marked as new because they have been recently added to the Depot. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
WWB Posted October 9, 2002 Share Posted October 9, 2002 Originally posted by Pascal DI FOLCO: wwb99, Thks for the history tips, I just forgot it in the meantime, sorry The problem is not to find out one precise scenario, but rather to choose/select one amongst say the Russian'44 assaults in the North, small-med map, 1000-1500 points... The needed header info are just those already present in the scenario list (albeit some are just in the description). I understand BTS has surely 1000s of things to do rather than that, so making it an external feature is a better option. And as the REAL problem is to update those damned lists, only the Depot is a viable solution. My 0.02€Pulling stuff out of the briefings is an impossibility, as they are completely free-form based on author whim. The CD scenarios have some format to them, but even they defy the laws of normalization when put to the test. And some of the things you mention are not quite listed anywhere, nor would I want to put that up at the depot. Do I want to ruin suspense by telling both sides it is an infantry only battle? WWB Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GJK Posted October 9, 2002 Share Posted October 9, 2002 Originally posted by wwb_99: GJK--I like your idea, but you are to some extent reinventing the wheel. The depot already is searchable to a large extent, and has the files to download, plus the under utilized review feature. Why duplicate efforts? WWBThe search on the depot only allows for a search by first letter of scenario name. If you don't know the name of the scenario, or you want to search against a set of criteria other than just the first name of the scenario you'll have that option. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chad Harrison Posted October 9, 2002 Share Posted October 9, 2002 Great idea if you ask me. After I play through most of the stock scenarios, I usually copy them into their own file elsewhere and put all the new ones there. But the ability to show all the 1941 battles would be nice, or whatever. Chad Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
WWB Posted October 9, 2002 Share Posted October 9, 2002 Originally posted by GJK: </font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />Originally posted by wwb_99: GJK--I like your idea, but you are to some extent reinventing the wheel. The depot already is searchable to a large extent, and has the files to download, plus the under utilized review feature. Why duplicate efforts? WWBThe search on the depot only allows for a search by first letter of scenario name. If you don't know the name of the scenario, or you want to search against a set of criteria other than just the first name of the scenario you'll have that option.</font> Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GJK Posted October 9, 2002 Share Posted October 9, 2002 Okay, I'll send Keith an email and see if we can combine resources/talents then. I agree, no need to reinvent the wheel if he's already working on enhancing the search function on the depot. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
V Posted October 9, 2002 Share Posted October 9, 2002 excellent idea... BUMP Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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