M113 ?

[JasonC]

No matter how many times the silly person attempts to pigeonhole me into a strawman box he has all ready, it fails completely. He thinks his customers want everything without paying. In fact, some just want a game worth their time, the pittance involved being irrelevant to anyone with a job.

[Battlefront.com]

JasonC,

Ah... back to Stage 5 again... can't get what you want, insult the other person. What a surprise.

So, back to the strawman argument you're making (not mine):

The argument you are putting forth is, whether you wish to admit it or not, an argument for getting something without paying for it. You can dress it up any which way you wish, but in the end what you want is everything for $45. You can also invent your own scenario where it doesn't harm us, but we have no such luxury because we have to live with the results in the real world and not the ones in your imagination.

I've explained in detail why this is so, but you dismiss this because it doesn't suit you. The dismissal takes the form of purporting to have superior knowledge and understanding of how a games company works form the inside without having knowledge or understanding sufficient to make such claims. When your view is challenged by someone who actually does this stuff for a living you shrink from a debate and instead resort to insults.

You made your case, I've made mine. I understand why you want things to work your way, you haven't shown you understand why your concept may have flaws in it. I've tried to give you the honest perspective and all you've done is repeat your basic demands and then insult me some more. That's a standard you've set for yourself so you at least get credit for consistency.

On that note... I'm growing tired of cutting you slack. Either grow up and act like a rational adult or I'll give you the boot. I'm not asking you to actually care about other people's opinions (I honestly think that is beyond your capabilities), but I wish you to it least attempt to not be so nasty about it.

Over the many years you have been here you've violated the rules more times than I can count, and not just directed at me. Though on that point I can count at least a half dozen really obvious violations in this thread alone.

Your choice.

Steve

[Battlefront.com]

Ah, didn't see JasonC's last post on the previous page:

There is enough in CMBB to take all of my gaming time.

Once again, proving my point that unlimited content gives a player too much incentive to not play anything else. What is the incentive for us to purposefully risk our company's future so that we can meet your unreasonable demands? Thankfully there are few like you, because otherwise we'd already be out of business.

That is the bar all the accumulated CMSF content has to clear in my personal case.

Each to his own, but I've said for years now... we'll never release a game like CMBB again. Your behavior in this thread, and your unreasonable attitude, only reinforces the correctness of that decision. As I've said many times over, hardcore Grognards are their own worst enemies.

Steve

[ May 17, 2008, 09:53 PM: Message edited by: Battlefront.com ]

[Lampshade111]

While still used among some reserve and national guard forces my opinion is that the M113A3 should be a rather low priority. M1114 and M1151 armored HMMWVs are usually more popular for patrol use anyway, as are all the MRAP "trucks" in service.

Much of their use earlier in Iraq was because many units were stuck using old unarmored M1025s and M1043s for patrol use.

I would rather see ERA for American vehicles before this.

[Battlefront.com]

Lampshade111,

I would rather see ERA for American vehicles before this.

And so you shall

Steve

[M1A1TC]

Steve

Awesome! Should I assume that includes Bradley and M1A2 TUSK?

[Splinty]

I really don't see all the fuss over M113s anyway,as I posted earlier,they've been reduced to mobile front gates.

[Secondbrooks]

What! ERA on US vehicles? Come on! Give Syria atleast 140mm AT-Railgun and few Terminator models (female T-1000 and female T-X) + Full grown male Godzilla :eek:

[Battlefront.com]

Splinty,

I really don't see all the fuss over M113s anyway,as I posted earlier,they've been reduced to mobile front gates.

I think the fuss is because this was never about the relevance of the M113. That was just the initial attempt at justification for it. The real motivation was to have far more than the M113 and have no reason to justify any of it.

I've seen this style of argumentation for eons here (i.e. prior to CMBO's release). A Grog (usually) makes a case for X game feature (this is usually not related to things like UI, sounds, graphic effects, etc.). Initially it is justified by arguments of it being more realistic to have it than to not. Or as is often the case, the other way around. And that is that the game as it currently stands isn't realistic because X is absent.

This is the correct way to go about it because realism is the central concept that binds everything in all the CM games, ever, together. If an idea isn't realistic, or improves the realism of something already in the game, then it's probably not ever going to happen. So I, and others here, take the argument at face value and debate it if necessary.

More than a few times the argument in favor of X starts to fall apart when it is examined. Assuming that the person's facts are straight (and they often are not, at least completely), things start to fall apart because the initial argument tends to be along the lines of "it exists, therefore not having it is unrealistic". If that were the only test then we might as well give up because even an open source concept, similar to JasonC's idea, would fail to deliver EVERYTHING that passes that test. Therefore, it is pointless to advance an argument with such unfocused reasoning. So other tests become relevant. Specifically:

1. Is X relevant to CM's chosen scope (it doesn't matter if one agrees with the scope or not). The less it is relevant to the chosen scope, the less beneficial it is to include it. The opposite is true as well, to the point that adding very irrelevant stuff actually harms overall realism.

2. Is X is indeed with the scope, relatively speaking how relevant is it to a broad spectrum of game situations? The less special cased X is, the more important it is to consider. The opposite is true too, including the potential to harm overall realism.

3. If X is within the scope and relevant enough, how difficult is it to implement? This establishes basic feasibility. Some things are not technically possible even with millions of Dollars of investment, others are technically possible only with disproportional investment of resources, others come with tradeoffs which have to be balanced, etc. all the way down to "hey, that's a quick tweak".

4. If X is within the scope, relevant, and reasonable to implement... how does it stack up against the other things that have made it this far in their own evaluations? The stronger the answers are at this point, the better. However, technical considerations sometimes are the sole arbitrators of if a feature has a chance of getting in or not. Things that do pass the basic tests then have to be shuffled into a rough priority with the overall importance of the feature being only one consideration.

That's the process I try to work through with people here. It is extremely helpful to us. And the process generally works very well. Many of the advances in CMx2 over CMx1 were developed this way, most of the improvements in CM:SF were because of this.

Where things go wrong is when the initial test fails or fails at the first filter. Generally I've found that the person who made the suggestion doesn't want to hear this. So the kitchen sink gets thrown in to justify their position because, obviously, they can't make the case they originally wanted to. In other words, that person knows they have lost the case they presented so now it's time to start chucking poop at the wall and see if enough of it sticks that they can get what they want. This line of argument generally is contentious and counter productive. It also NEVER results in us changing our position.

If our position changes it is because someone else made a better argument that navigated the above process better than previous attempts. That does happen from time to time. So it's often good to not immediately dismiss someone bringing up something again even though it was unsuccessful a previous time/s.

Insults are the best sign that the person arguing for X has run out of intellectual ability to justify the request. The other one is to suggest that we either change our entire business model (this is but one example, BTW) or some other equally impractical/absurd suggestion. It's a challenge to deal with people that insist on being a part of the problem instead of the solution, but some people just don't have the intelligence to know the difference or the skills to do anything other than be negative.

Steve

[Dragon67]

//I think the fuss is because this was never about the relevance of the M113. That was just the initial attempt at justification for it. The real motivation was to have far more than the M113 and have no reason to justify any of it.//

I started this thread and going back through all my posts I don't see the plot you allege.

//Insults are the best sign that the person arguing for X has run out of intellectual ability to justify the request.//

Show me where I insulted you here other than the fact I pointed out that you keep saying ideas are irrelevant to a Syrian scenario when in fact in all irony your own grand designs are on a WWII mod in Europe centered around the King Tiger. I bet once you get WWII every little vehicle suggestion gets a positive response and you have like 6 different trucks and the duck and everything else...

//It's a challenge to deal with people that insist on being a part of the problem instead of the solution, but some people just don't have the intelligence to know the difference or the skills to do anything other than be negative.//

LOL- At least you admit there is a problem.

[Field Marshal Blücher]

Dragon67, I think most of Steve's post was directed at JasonC, not you.

[undead reindeer cavalry]

Originally posted by Battlefront.com:

Once again, proving my point that unlimited content gives a player too much incentive to not play anything else.

i am sure JasonC would buy CMBB v2 if you added a couple of fixes and gameplay improvements.

in CMx1 the models could have as well been totally untextured, had 50% less polygons, and the graphics would still have been groundbreaking. it's the game mechanics that made the game so good.

i'm going to be an arrogant clueless ass for a while now, once again

for gawd's sake, one in a hundred gives a flying f about the details you model and show in 3D. you do not need to show individual men correctly disembark from a APC. you do not need to simulate how and when the loader can use his MG. individual shells do not need to hit tree branches. if your content pipeline is such that it will take several days to add such an featurewise simplistic and visually such an block of a vehicle like M113 then you are simply doing it wrong.

stop ruining the game by focusing on meanigless overengineered crap. please focus on game mechanics and game play - that's what made CM so dear to our bleeding hearts.

Leave Britney Alone!

[birdstrike]

Originally posted by Secondbrooks:

What! ERA on US vehicles? Come on! Give Syria atleast 140mm AT-Railgun and few Terminator models (female T-1000 and female T-X) + Full grown male Godzilla :eek:

I'd definitely buy a Godzilla module.

[Thomm]

Originally posted by undead reindeer cavalry:

If your content pipeline is such that it will take several days to add such an featurewise simplistic and visually such an block of a vehicle like M113 then you are simply doing it wrong.

If they added the M113, we would have the same discussion about another vehicle, say, a M60.

Best regards,

Thomm

[luderbamsen]

So, does this mean we'll get the E-100 then?

[undead reindeer cavalry]

Originally posted by Thomm:

</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />Originally posted by undead reindeer cavalry:

If your content pipeline is such that it will take several days to add such an featurewise simplistic and visually such an block of a vehicle like M113 then you are simply doing it wrong.

If they added the M113, we would have the same discussion about another vehicle, say, a M60.</font>

[M1A1TC]

IMO, There is a big list of things out there that still need to be fixed (too many to list) that adding extra vehicle would take time away from those more important changes. Would you rather have cherry-picking and artillery smoke added and QBs fixed, or have them instead working on adding another troop transport? Remember,there is only one 3D modeler, one programmer

[undead reindeer cavalry]

bingo.

just to throw one example, real mines or fortifications would be meaningless to simulate in CMSF setting. dynamic realtime simulation of vehicle suspension, on the other hand, is crucial to have in the game.

[M1A1TC]

How about support for triple monitors? That was a must have! I can now go out and buy 2 more monitors so I can play CMSF on them

[cool breeze]

3 monitors!!!! really!?!? that rocks!! HOw do I do it? I got at least one extra I can set up. for triple wide screen? wouldnt that be like a 180 degreee view? Really!?

[M1A1TC]

Yep. Support was added in 1.08

[Clavicula_Nox]

Some people play with that. I would if I had the space, it would be especially useful in first person games.

[M1A1TC]

I actually have my PC connected to my 50 inch 1080P plasma

[Clavicula_Nox]

Well..uh..uh..aren't you special! Yeah! I just have a 19inch flatscreen.

[Battlefront.com]

Dragon67,

I started this thread and going back through all my posts I don't see the plot you allege.

My comments were about the "fuss". To the extent you were involved in the "fuss" my comments apply to you. To the extent you were not, then they don't. As someone already pointed out, I never said you were the one I was speaking to.

I bet once you get WWII every little vehicle suggestion gets a positive response and you have like 6 different trucks and the duck and everything else...

heh... you really don't know me very well, do you? Not only do I have a track record of saying "no" to vehicle requests, but this is actually at the heart of JasonC's real motivations. He knows what to expect for WWII and he's absolutely not in favor of it (to say the least). Hence the "fuss" he's been making here.

URC,

in CMx1 the models could have as well been totally untextured, had 50% less polygons, and the graphics would still have been groundbreaking. it's the game mechanics that made the game so good.

[

And it would have sold a couple hundred copies and we never would have gone out of business before CMBB even got started.

the gist behind the whine of course being that perhaps the task of adding new content has become such a burden because the engine has been overengineered to max.

But this is just your opinion, of course. There are others here that insist that on the opposite. And as I've said already in this thread... we can add vehicles into CMx2 far easier than we could in CMx1. Same for everything else, including gameplay features. CMBB took us two flippin years to produce, and that was with almost the same terrain and a decent chunk of the same vehicles and TO&E. The fact that you think it's the opposite indicates that you aren't really being fair minded about the reality.

if focus was on gameplay functionality and mechanics, instead of simulation of meaningless details, addition of vehicles x and y would not push them out of business.

I've already made the counter argument to this within this thread and elsewhere. The more content we put into a game the less reason people have to buy the next one. I've already made this argument in this thread so I won't repeat myself beyond this.

just to throw one example, real mines or fortifications would be meaningless to simulate in CMSF setting. dynamic realtime simulation of vehicle suspension, on the other hand, is crucial to have in the game.

In your opinion. In our opinion the existing fortifications in CM:SF are adequate for the setting and the vehicle suspension behavior is exceedingly important. Well, if we want to stay in business. If we didn't, we could just make a 2D game and save even MORE time and money for game mechanics.

M1A1TC,

How about support for triple monitors? That was a must have!

Certainly it wasn't. But IIRC Charles spent a couple of minutes fixing an issue that had prevented it. Taken out of context of the hundreds of features added and fixed since release I don't think one can argue that we have our priorities out of whack. Otherwise you sound like the cranky woman out a recent town meeting who suggested the best way to avoid cranking up our town taxes was to buy different copier paper. When I pointed out that the $500 or so she thought we would save would amount to less than ¢1 per tax payer, she got rather huffy. My point being that picking on things that don't really contribute to a larger goal really has no value.

To recap...

Our investment in CMx2 is in the game engine itself. That investment is larger than any one CMx2 release can possibly return to us, regardless of the setting itself. The less certain future sales are the less incentive, or ability, we have to stay in the wargaming business. To do this we need to make sure that we do not create products which remove/reduce incentive to purchase subsequent products from us. Therefore, we will continue to give people a generous amount of content with each game we make (relative to what other games dish out) for the amount people pay for it. The end result is a game system that people will play a lot longer than the majority of other games out there at the same price point. As long as we do that then we should all benefit.

Steve