Fan-Made Points System

[Falconander]

I'll try and put something together this week...

I like some of the functions of Excel 2007... tabling,indexing, groups etc...

You know we could get really anal about this if we start excel... range... ammo....all of the little nuances that people want to know...

I'm going to have a go at the on-line manual and see if I can copy/paste export some info from there.

it would be really handy to have it open to some fellow comrades to help post/update as needed.

[Redwolf]

User-loaded XML files with "opinion" values such as these would be a good way to go, but that doesn't go well with BFC (any game they publish, apparently).

[Battlefront.com]

Correct. We as developers are not interested in having end user alterations of essential game data. That's been our position for over 10 years now and it isn't likely to change in the next 10 years. But, we don't dictate the feature sets for the developers we work with, so it's incorrect to say that we are against it as a rule. We just don't think it is the right thing for Combat Mission.

Steve

[theFightingSeabee]

As long as the values are agreed upon by both players, then let 'em have at it! I'll be interested to see the results.

[JonS]

AIUI, Falconlander was merely talking about recording the existing values in a spreadsheet (or webpage), and *not* about negotiating with the other player for preferred values of speed or penetration, etc.

[Battlefront.com]

I know, but it usually winds up with someone asking us for direct support so I figured I'd cut that one off at the pass

We have never, and will never, support or interfere with customers making their own systems which can be used externally to our games. There were plenty of these voluntary systems for CMx1 and it's basically none of our business what people do with them, if anything. Therefore, as long as there's no attempt to make us a party to any effort to create an external system everything is A-OK with us

Steve

[Falconander]

Steve,

We all know you are too busy talking about bridges so the thought did not cross my mind...

Seriously I think everyone knows it is a big ole can of nasty worms to think we'll develop stats on some 500 troops...

But what a good challenge to hone down some excel skills and learn more about the game units and their functions...

The added benefit is that 'some' of us might get distracted long enough to alleviate some of the "But I really really want to blow up bridges..." comments.

I see it as a ramp up project to carry us into the release of the Nato module and Normandy....

[Battlefront.com]

Steve

[Redwolf]

Correct. We as developers are not interested in having end user alterations of essential game data. That's been our position for over 10 years now and it isn't likely to change in the next 10 years. But, we don't dictate the feature sets for the developers we work with, so it's incorrect to say that we are against it as a rule. We just don't think it is the right thing for Combat Mission.

Steve

I didn't mean to imply that you influenced the games you publish, but it so happens that most (all?) BFC-published games are fairly mod-hostile and refuse to even consider that XML can make loading user-supplied things much safer than it was "in the old days" when you wrote your own parser and the word "validation" was unknown.

%%

Myself, I still think that this resistance to let people hack up the games is a major reason why wargames are on a decline and other games are not. Most non-MMO games these days are heavily moddable, many with loadable *.DLLs to have people write their own AI and combat mechanics.

There is a huge pool out there of people with a variety of performance-enhancing attention deficits and they are looking for stuff to fiddle with. They all get funneled away from wargames the way that things are going.

I believe that 10 years from now 99% of all games are one (or more) of the following:

• 
  
• dumb
  
• pretty
  
• massive multiplayer or at least online on a massive scale (exploring world that have other human players in them, even if you ignore them)
  
• heavily moddable
  

Aka people either look for the human experience, or they look for something to fiddle with, or they look for mindless fun. There is no room for closed wargames there.

[76mm]

I agree with Redwolf (more or less). I don't have much interest in playing one-off scenarios, no matter how good--all I can think is "so what?" after winning/losing, the scenario doesn't matter at all. I'm still playing a home-rolled CMBB metacampaign on a weekly basis and really enjoy it--even scenarios which would otherwise be boring remain fun because they matter to the metacampaign. Nonetheless, this metacampaign has been an ungodly amount of work because I have to import/export all the game data manually because of the lack of tools.

As Steve has pointed out, they don't want to invest lots of time in a "strategic" layer because just about every player has a different idea about what this should look like, and has strong feelings about it. I totally agree with him on this point, but completely fail to understand why they refuse to consider adding data import/export, which would allow player to come up their own projects. I understand that it might not be top on the list, but they have stated clearly that they will never, ever support this. Seems very odd to me to invest a lot of time in a scenario and map editor but then force people to only use them for one-off, meaningless scenarios.

As Redwolf says, my interest in wargames is dropping because they don't provide what I want. I bought CMSF, played it a few times, have not bought a wargame since. Will buy Histwar and Normandy (OK, and East Front) just to check them out, but will probably play a few canned scenarios a few times and take them off my hard drive. If I can do what I want with the games (create/play metacampaigns), meanwhile, I'd buy every expansion for several years. But I'm not holding my breath...

[Battlefront.com]

We've had the mod debate many times before. I don't think modding sells wargames. People have moved on from wargaming, mostly, because they have not kept up with the times. The ones that have tried to bridge the gap between a serious wargame and RTS/FPS have tended to err on the side of RTS/FPS. And that's a mistake since the leading contenders in those fields put millions and millions into the game graphics alone, not to mention marketing.

The gaming trend towards flash/bang, empty headed games has been going on for two decades already. As the world becomes more empty headed and obsessed with quick rewards, wargaming will continue to shrink. Even we aren't likely immune to this trend, though I must say so far we're doing quite well despite the overall market conditions.

Steve

[Apocal]

Not to take the spotlight off CMx2, but the other game I spend hours and hours playing, ArmA2 actually suffers a lot from it's modability in terms of community. ArmA1 at it's height never broke 200 populated servers/2500 players, ArmA2 has not broken 180/2200. This is in a game where a handful of servers and missions can take up to 128 players and sold in the hundreds of thousands of copies. The downside is that many, many servers run mods and casual players have no chance in hell of keeping up with every server's mods. So they just kinda die out in multiplayer.

[Redwolf]

Then how do you explain Linux? The biggest text adventure of all times. Full modability.

There are people who want to fiddle with stuff are out there, and they aren't too afraid of less than best graphics.

Of course modability alone doesn't help either, gameplay has to be there.

[Cambronne]

I agree with Redwolf (more or less). I don't have much interest in playing one-off scenarios, no matter how good--all I can think is "so what?" after winning/losing, the scenario doesn't matter at all. I'm still playing a home-rolled CMBB metacampaign on a weekly basis and really enjoy it--even scenarios which would otherwise be boring remain fun because they matter to the metacampaign. Nonetheless, this metacampaign has been an ungodly amount of work because I have to import/export all the game data manually because of the lack of tools.

As Steve has pointed out, they don't want to invest lots of time in a "strategic" layer because just about every player has a different idea about what this should look like, and has strong feelings about it. I totally agree with him on this point, but completely fail to understand why they refuse to consider adding data import/export, which would allow player to come up their own projects. I understand that it might not be top on the list, but they have stated clearly that they will never, ever support this. Seems very odd to me to invest a lot of time in a scenario and map editor but then force people to only use them for one-off, meaningless scenarios.

As Redwolf says, my interest in wargames is dropping because they don't provide what I want. I bought CMSF, played it a few times, have not bought a wargame since. Will buy Histwar and Normandy (OK, and East Front) just to check them out, but will probably play a few canned scenarios a few times and take them off my hard drive. If I can do what I want with the games (create/play metacampaigns), meanwhile, I'd buy every expansion for several years. But I'm not holding my breath...

I am playing now the "Hearts of Iron" grand campaign where the land battles are fought with CMBB.The results are imported into the HOI by simply editing the savegame file.

[Battlefront.com]

76mm,

I totally agree with him on this point, but completely fail to understand why they refuse to consider adding data import/export, which would allow player to come up their own projects. I understand that it might not be top on the list, but they have stated clearly that they will never, ever support this. Seems very odd to me to invest a lot of time in a scenario and map editor but then force people to only use them for one-off, meaningless scenarios.

It seems only odd if one presumes that everybody else thinks stand alone battles are meaningless Not to mention thinking that the Campaign system we do have is as well. If the majority of our audience, or even a large chunk of it, thought the same way as you then you're right... we'd be fools for not doing something more. I can't help but notice that you're saying you'll buy our games despite offering only meaningless forms of play

And I've never said we won't support a data import/export feature. In fact, I've said exactly the opposite. What I have said is we won't just "build it and expect them to come". If we find a partner who can make a viable commercial product then we'll have something to talk about. But until then we're not going to distract ourselves.

Apocal,

Not to take the spotlight off CMx2, but the other game I spend hours and hours playing, ArmA2 actually suffers a lot from it's modability in terms of community.

Yup, in terms of general modding that's our #1 concern. We saw it happen with Close Combat and other games as well.

Redwolf,

There are people who want to fiddle with stuff are out there, and they aren't too afraid of less than best graphics.

And I know people who obsessively watch The Weather Channel pretty much every night as their primary form of entertainment. Which is great for the Weather Channel, but I don't think it's getting the execs over at Bravo or AMC saying "wow!! People like weather and weather related stuff. Let's change our programming to have more weather related shows"

Seriously... if there is an activity out there to be done, someone is doing it. Recognizing which of those activities are relevant to a particular product is extremely important. It allows you to focus on things that are likely to help a product and avoid things which either add no value or actually cause harm. We're pretty comfortable that we know this market well enough to make those choices.

Steve

[Apocal]

Then how do you explain Linux?

Easy, Linux isn't a game.

[Redwolf]

Easy, Linux isn't a game.

Mentally, for the non-professionals who began it and who still contribute many things, it is.

[76mm]

Steve, thanks for your response, a couple of comments.

First, I don't care much about modding (other than skins and unit/leader names)--you wanna keep all of the unit stats hard-coded, doesn't bother me a bit, but data import/export as totally different and does not have any effect on game play (other than making it easier to transfer game data between strategic and CM layers).

I can't help but notice that you're saying you'll buy our games despite offering only meaningless forms of play

Heh, but not all of them (although I have tried to support you guys by buying most of them--Dropzone or whatever it was called I never even played once). The point is if you give the games more of a shelf life I will buy modules/expansions for the games I buy as long as you crank them out, otherwise I wont.

And I've never said we won't support a data import/export feature. In fact, I've said exactly the opposite. What I have said is we won't just "build it and expect them to come". If we find a partner who can make a viable commercial product then we'll have something to talk about. But until then we're not going to distract ourselves.

The problem with finding a partner who can make a "viable commercial product" is that there is a good chance that no strategic layer will be a viable commercial product for the reasons you have already pointed out--everyone wants something different (and CMC hardly inspires confidence). BUT creating an "import/export engine" would have two advantages: (1) it would give each game a longer shelf life and thus result in more module sales; and (2) I would expect that you'd be able to sell this import/export engine as a seperate product to a subset of the player base, especially once players have used it to create and distribute metacampaign sistems. And presumably once you had coded this for one of the games it would be easier/cheaper to roll it out to others in the series as well.

Anyway, just trying to encourage you guys to draw distinctions between: (1) modding, (2) data import/export, and (3) creating a full-blown strategic layer and to give another thought to (2)!

[Ron]

Myself, I still think that this resistance to let people hack up the games is a major reason why wargames are on a decline and other games are not. Most non-MMO games these days are heavily moddable, many with loadable *.DLLs to have people write their own AI and combat mechanics.

There is a huge pool out there of people with a variety of performance-enhancing attention deficits and they are looking for stuff to fiddle with. They all get funneled away from wargames the way that things are going.

I believe that 10 years from now 99% of all games are one (or more) of the following:

• dumb
  
• pretty
  
• massive multiplayer or at least online on a massive scale (exploring world that have other human players in them, even if you ignore them)
  
• heavily moddable

Aka people either look for the human experience, or they look for something to fiddle with, or they look for mindless fun. There is no room for closed wargames there.

Apart from the modding part, the rest has been spouted as far back as I can remember, nothing new there.

Considering the openness to modding, I don't think that is entirely the case either. I think it has more to do with the game itself, ie Jagged Alliance2 and Panzer General2 to name two are still going strong today and you can't tell me they were mod-friendly or easy to mod.

I think the general consenus for wargames is singleplayer has to be there and has to be competent. I am referring to a few casual polls conducted over the years at Matrix for some of their games, multiplayer was actually kind of low, iirc ~ 25%. Mind you that ~ 25% WAS PRETTY VOCAL

I think, my opinion, is that wargaming isn't in decline at all. There seems to be a whole lot more out there than ever before - without getting into the definition of a wargame However, for a variety of reasons, I think 'typical' wargames will always and only appeal to a small slice of the total gaming population, period.

[Double Deuce]

Indeed, exports shouldn't be hard to provide either, but I need a bit more meat on the bones before trying to implement any idea put forth here. I would love to see the existing excel efforts or at least get some more detail on the idea behind them.

Everything I have at this point is only a concept on paper and not very detailed at that. I'm currently working on trying to put together a complete equipment(unit) list before I proceed further.

[Falconander]

Not sure how to share an excel sheet in the easiest format...

You can e-mail me at

phillip.wight@WellsFargoAdvisors.com

if you are interested in sharing ideas on an excel sheet.

Basically I am using tables with the Vlookup function to take the data from that table and pull in the unit cost and upgrade costs from a different table.

The thing is that A Sniper team has different upgrade values compared to a HQ team. Experience and leadership play a heavier role for say a HQ unit whereas a sniper unit has more expensive upgrades for equipment, supply and the like.

A sniper with 'severe' supply comes pretty cheap whereas an HQ unit with 'severe' supply only has a marginal difference in cost since their ammo is not what they are all about.

Hope that made sense.... e-mail me to get a better idea.

It would be great if there was a neutral spot to host our excel data....

[Scipio]

About the original question, there's only limited information available to the player without to much efforts. My approach is:keep things simple!

You may wish to check this: http://petzi-fr.bplaced.net/calc/

Not sure if it's what you're asking for.

[Double Deuce]

About the original question, there's only limited information available to the player without to much efforts. My approach is:keep things simple!

You may wish to check this: http://petzi-fr.bplaced.net/calc/

Not sure if it's what you're asking for.

Interesting. I wonder what they used as a basis (as far as points) for calculating the results. Looks like Syrian Tanks are all worth a set # of points (i.e. doesn't distinguish between T-55 and T-72's).

[Falconander]

I think we are looking for a system for setting up quick battles and the like. Though I like the idea on that one...

...also I prefer something that would scale based on experience/equipment etc...

[Double Deuce]

If we can come up with a base point value for each unit and then add multiplying factor (to modify that base value) based on Experience, Motivation, Fitness and supply may be all that is needed. However, after my initial paying around with that, I'm finding it much easier said than done.

My problem so far has been determining all of the possible unit mixes that come from the Equipment Setting, down to the units equipment themselves (# Men, Rifle Type, etc).