All the same fundamental flaws in all their glory.

[Cid250]

In a very positive article on Google, Garret Rogers opines that one of Google's keys to success is this:

Give people what they want, not what you think they want.

Garret is right of course - product designers need to remove their own fragile egos from product design. But that is only half of the story...

Link: http://blogs.zdnet.com/Google/index.php?p=184

[Guest]

My take on the article, as seen through the filter of a long coding day and a long crying-baby-filled night, is that he's saying that letting your devs be creative, and using customer-driven agile development practices, is good.

More productively, I suppose, how would a small gaming company make use of Google's model, theoretically?

[Cid250]

It's a valid rule for any kind of company, of any size... any business starts just because you fill the needs of some customers.

That's why is very important to take a look to the real needs of the customers. It's a well known universal rule of the economy.

[...]

Let me explain.

Most marketers have been trained to develop and launch products for mass markets. However, the very notion of a mass market is somewhat flawed as even in mass markets not all consumers are equal, and as most brand managers tend to quickly forget not all of their brand customers are equal.

Direct marketers understood the 80/20 rule -- which states that 20 percent of customers make up 80 percent of their brand profit -

[...]

From: http://www.imediaconnection.com/content/9973.asp

CM:SF had much bigger marketing effort than any CMx1 game, but CMx1 got his customers anyway, together with great community feedbacks, external reviews, and mouth to mouth evaluations.

So, due to the marketing investment done with CM:SF, plus the prestige of their former products, CM:SF should grow much more, if it isn't...

Just join the points with a pen, the voices of those customers doesn't speak just because they are random dices choosing a random opinion.

Bugs aren't the main problem for the future of this game, believe it or not.

Be clever and read between lines.

[ October 08, 2007, 06:38 PM: Message edited by: Cid250 ]

[Dirtweasle]

Originally posted by Lurker765:

I believe some people had issues with the text on the game box that says:

"Play the game as you want: Realtime, WEGO-Turnbased, against the Computer or against another human player via TCP/IP, PBEM (play-by-email) or hotseat"

Paradox's web site for CMSF says:

"Playable in both real-time and turn-based modes or head-to-head via TCP/IP, PBEM or hotseat"

http://www.paradoxplaza.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=178&Itemid=199

I'm not sure if this a promise of WEGO TCP/IP or not, but if you came from a CMx1 environment it might be easy to assume it. In any event, the text is a bit misleading in my opinion.

You're right. It's printed on the back part of the box lower left corner.

[Guest]

Originally posted by Cid250:

Be clever and read between lines.

No?

Moving on, how would BFC apply (or have applied, as the case may be) this policy? I don't see any concrete way that any game company, "large or small" could somehow make this happen. Do they build the core of the game and then open it up to users? Which users? Just the ones from Spokane?

Google's model of building simple services and letting people decide how they will go forward doesn't seem to fit well with game development. I would be really interested in your suggestions for doing so.

I may have missed your point, though.

[Andrew H.]

Originally posted by Cid250:

It's a valid rule for any kind of company, of any size... any business starts just because you fill the needs of some customers.

That's why is very important to take a look to the real needs of the customers. It's a well known universal rule of the economy.

[...]

[snip]

This is a statement so vague as to be meaningless. Customers want free products. Customers want flying cars that last 50 years and run on tap water. So giving customers free, reliable, water-based cars is a no-brainer.

Other products are trickier.

J.K. Rowling wrote a wildly successful children's book. Many other people during this time wrote children's books that were not nearly as successful. In one sense, of course, this is because Rowling gave people what they wanted and the other authors did not. But it's not as if that explains Rowlings success and the other authors' failure.

Everyone who is not an idiot is trying to give the customer what they want, within reason. (More accurately, they are trying to produce something that customers will pay more for than it costs to make it). It's just that having the ability to predict what customers will value is not at all simple - it is, generally, a matter of intuition.

(Obviously it is a mistake to know what customers want and deliberately ignore it (see Cupholders in German Automobiles in the 80's).

[C'Rogers]

J.K. Rowling wrote a wildly successful children's book.

This is a particularly apt example. As you said there are many people trying to write children's book. Yet the Harry Potter series has far outsold all of them. Why? Many people wish they could easily connect the dots and replicate the success, but the customer isn't so clear about what they want.

[molotov_billy]

Originally posted by Cid250:

Direct marketers understood the 80/20 rule -- which states that 20 percent of customers make up 80 percent of their brand profit -

Just how many copies of CMSF does a loyal customer buy?

[molotov_billy]

Nevermind that CMSF is a piece of entertainment, not a tool, and a 'need' doesn't exactly make sense when we're dealing with luxury items.

Some of the most succesful pieces of entertainment ever created went far beyond the imaginations of the customers that enjoyed them - need does not apply here. Even common sense would tell us that the rules for selling milk and bread are not the rules for creating entertaining, succesful video games.

It's up to entertainment designers, be it movies, television, or video games, to create experiences outside of what most people have seen before - otherwise, well, it wouldn't be very entertaining. Failing that, it needs to be executed more effectively than the products that came before it, or done in a slightly different way as to make it a valid use of a customer's limited time and money.

Personally, at this point, I wouldn't say that CMSF is executed well enough to fit either model of success.

[ October 08, 2007, 10:41 PM: Message edited by: molotov_billy ]

[Rayak47]

In the first game played at 1.04, I had the same old "u-turns by the Bradley while in RPG of a building problem" as before, but what really killed me was a squad getting tangled up inside a building so all they did was stay stuck on the first floor for the rest of the game dancing whenever they received an order. I even tried splitting the squad and sending them in different directions, but no luck. What really cut it was when I sent a sniper team into the same building to go to the roof and they decided to stay and dance too! (I should have saved before I did that, but it takes so long to save I've quit doing that much.)

[The Limey]

Originally posted by Cid250:

CM:SF had much bigger marketing effort than any CMx1 game, but CMx1 got his customers anyway, together with great community feedbacks, external reviews, and mouth to mouth evaluations.

I have to ask... what exactly is a "mouth to mouth evaluation"?

[Dirtweasle]

Originally posted by C'Rogers:

</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />J.K. Rowling wrote a wildly successful children's book.

This is a particularly apt example. </font>

[Other Means]

Originally posted by Dirtweasle:

</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />Originally posted by C'Rogers:

</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />J.K. Rowling wrote a wildly successful children's book.

This is a particularly apt example. </font>

[Michael Dorosh]

Originally posted by Dirtweasle:

You're right. It's printed on the back part of the box lower left corner.

How many people read the box before pre-ordering?

[Michael Dorosh]

Originally posted by C'Rogers:

</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />J.K. Rowling wrote a wildly successful children's book.

This is a particularly apt example. As you said there are many people trying to write children's book. Yet the Harry Potter series has far outsold all of them. Why? Many people wish they could easily connect the dots and replicate the success, but the customer isn't so clear about what they want. </font>

[Cid250]

Originally posted by molotov_billy:

</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />Originally posted by Cid250:

Direct marketers understood the 80/20 rule -- which states that 20 percent of customers make up 80 percent of their brand profit -

Just how many copies of CMSF does a loyal customer buy? </font>

[Sirocco]

Originally posted by Battlefront.com:

Remember that many people here are convinced that CMBB is the best thing that has ever graced a computer, then when I say from a sales standpoint that isn't true then they attack us as being incompetent sales people. Dale, you can pretend all you want that there aren't a variety of unreasonable, uninformed, and counter productive customers here... but they exist.

It's this kind of comment that's really starting to tick me off. The wild assumptions, and the wild conclusions that flow from it. Way to categorise people that don't agree with the company line. I would call that being counter productive.

[Exel]

Originally posted by Michael Dorosh:

</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />Originally posted by Dirtweasle:

You're right. It's printed on the back part of the box lower left corner.

How many people read the box before pre-ordering? </font>

[Dirtweasle]

Originally posted by Exel:

</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />Originally posted by Michael Dorosh:

</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />Originally posted by Dirtweasle:

You're right. It's printed on the back part of the box lower left corner.

How many people read the box before pre-ordering? </font>

[Lurker765]

Originally posted by Michael Dorosh:

</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />Originally posted by Dirtweasle:

You're right. It's printed on the back part of the box lower left corner.

How many people read the box before pre-ordering? </font>

[Guest]

Originally posted by molotov_billy:

Nevermind that CMSF is a piece of entertainment, not a tool, and a 'need' doesn't exactly make sense when we're dealing with luxury items.

True. I still wonder how Google's model could apply to game companies. Perhaps more clever folks than myself could clue me in (Cid?).

Originally posted by molotov_billy:

Personally, at this point, I wouldn't say that CMSF is executed well enough to fit either model of success.

It seems as though the RT thing has gone over well, and is an expansion of the experience of the previous games, as is the 1:1 representation. This might be the model they're going after -- what do they need to do to make it successful, with that model, in your eyes?

[InvaderCanuck]

Originally posted by Battlefront.com:

So it isn't so much that CMx1 is superior as a simulation, it is just superior at hiding stuff. CMx2 shows more and does more, therefore it is increasing the chances of seeing things that aren't necessarily realistic.

I agree with this statement, but not the implications of it.

Hiding things from me in CMAK or CMBB was fine because that was the game. That is what you expected. CMSF may be 100x more complex, and it may do things 100x better, but because it is more transparent, when you do see these things they are INFINITELY more frustrating.

When a squad in CMBB was broken or routed or even eliminated from a rubbled house, you were not worried about if the tracers were hitting accurately. You weren't worried about it because the game was played on a much grander scale of abstraction.

In SF when an MG team fires through a row of buildings and kills a squad of infantry, well this is an entirely different ball park. When the game is played at a 1:1 level and then LoS is not functioning in a similar fashion that is a situation that is far more difficult to reconcile.

It is difficult to reconcile this because your mind is being told 1:1, no abstraction. Then you watch tracers fly through a block or two of buildings and wipe out a squad.

I wouldn't say that LoS is a fundamental problem, but it could be. I don't know if the problems we are seeing now are possible to fix, and forgive me for being a realist, but you would say that it is fixable ;p

[Foobar]

Steve>Adam1

But since it is impossible to have everything simulated completely realistically, then you must be willing to accept something less than that. You were willing to accept FAR less than that in CMx1, so just understand that you are not using a universally consistent method for judging what you see in CMx2. I'm not saying you have to like the way things are now, I'm just saying you should consider the context of your objections in a more open minded manner. It would lead you to more accurate analysis too.

Im personally willing to accept far less in CMx1, because the gameplay is really rock-solid, and the interface is very very easy to use (only 1 key per command, no sub-menus)

At this point I would abandon realism altogether to have a squad behave in urban environments, in a way that I can somewhat predict and count on. As it is, I am scared to command them to do anything, because the squad grouping and movement is so unpredictable.

High Hopes and Low Expectations here as well, and I'm looking forward to future advances and improvements.

Until then, i'll be burning a hole in my CMBB disk..

[Pandur]

well, i dont wanted to do another thread just for this and it fits in this tread.

i did some screens about oddities in 1.04

the first 5 are all shot around the same 2 houses. i think it shows that some LOS/LOF problems could be tied to specific houses and a specific spot of the vehicle. when i moved the vehicle a bit it mostly worked or changed at least. at the 3rd house in this map i couldnt find such spots at all.

this one is a great shot i find. its a RPG emerging out of the ground scoring a bottom penetration after pirceing about 15-20 meters of soldid material in front of the tank. the tank was knocked out and burned as soon as it hit.

the tank was visible, though. just a part of the turrent was possible to catch a hit and not the rest, let alone the bottom side.

[SlowMotion]

When I tested these LOS/LOF issues using 1.03 the strangest things tended to be near buildings just like in your screen shots. Maybe it has to do with those action spots, I don't know.

About your last screen shot, shooting through ground: I posted an example in the "Little things" thread. The weird thing was: when bullets had travelled through ground and continued towards the target in air, there was even graphical "bullet hits ground" effect visible in the place where target line became visible. So the system knew the bullet hit "ground surface", but the bullet didn't stop there.