CMX2 second title

[Michael Dorosh]

Friends and Forumites;

If I have to read one more post before the game even comes out about "high-intensity" warfare or the Arab-Israeli Wars, or how much Syria sucks, or how we "really" want Second World War subjects, or how Steve The Corporate Sell-Out has done the world an injustice by not releasing Combat Mission: Shock Force in time for your birthday/wedding anniversary/revival of your shock treatment therapy/whateva I'm going to scream.

I think the best way to avoid all these incessantly whiny, putrid, ignominiously small little petty whines and demands - before you've even seen CM:SF - is to carefully select the subject of the next CMX2 title.

Before anyone gets the mistaken impression I'm about to embark on a polite canvassing of the peanut gallery for your ideas, I think that's been done ad infinitum by this point. Your ideas, frankly, bluntly, suck. Third World War? Finland vs. Arabia? Shootout at the OK Corral? The "space lobsters" joke has been done to death too; it was barely funny when Steve The Big Shirted Corporate Wheel Who Is Killing Wargaming By His Refusal To Listen To Reason(*) posted it the first time, and it isn't funny now, the ten-thousandth time.

No, my friends, this isn't going to be anything like one of your fuzzy little fantasy laundry list threads where everyone throws out the name of his "favourite battle" (you know, battles - those things where thousands of young men in the prime of their lives line up in funny costumes to murder each other so that people can live in freedom, including the right to complain that guys who trivialize their experiences with wargames aren't doing it in the right order) and expects everyone to be so taken with the sheer genius of the chosen subject that they become shellshocked when not only do people refuse to log on to register their instantaneous and unanimous agreement, but dare offer their own equally obscure suggestions ("How's about the Spanish Civil War! But not the one from 1936!") with little regard to the coding challenges ("how much work can it possibly be to code the Bismarck into the next Combat Mission? Just make the maps bigger, duh") or the political ramifications ("I've never met Charles but he must be a real coward if he's too afraid to model the operation at Saschsenhausen in real time - I'll even let him use my 3D models").

No, no, nothing quite so bland. This is merely to serve notice that given the spate of absurd suggestions, demands, gripes, and pleas before the game is even released, the subject matter for the 2nd title is blindingly obvious.

No, I don't mean to champion the first obvious choice - Eastern Europe 1939-1940. As perfect as that choice was, I know there was some friction among the unenlightened (read: American) among you who didn't see the crystal clear logic of that conception. But no matter.

Think of this.

Combat Mission: Dealey Plaza.

I'm quite serious. Look at the gripes about CM:SF - "It's not history", "It never happened", "It's too much like real life - those are real people dying in Iraq, and having fake people dying in Syria trivializes their experiences so please let us re-enact Omaha Beach and gun down the first wave because, like, 1944 happened in black and white, man, and all those guys would be dead now anyhow if they lived - it's just not the same!"

As we all know, there are a number of computer simulations available out there concerning the Assassination of President Kennedy, but to my knowledge, there are no multi-player, RTS MMORPG's out there with the option of WEGO that let you take the role of any character in the drama.

And with current "games", you only get to play for 30 seconds or so. So extend the parameters; take the time limit off. Give us all of November 1963 to take shots at General Walker and get into fist fights with Cuban refugees. Or pick any of the people in Dallas on the fateful day. You want to be the driver of the limo? Go for it - what's your best time from Love Field to the Trade Mart? Want to be Abraham Zapruder? See if you can catch the action on film - then negotiate the best deal with TIME-LIFE, or find another bidder! As Lee Harvey Oswald, can you avoid J.D. Tippitt and Johnny Brewer, and make it out of town on a Greyhound to the Mexican border?

Rearm the Secret Service with grenade launchers; call in airstrikes on the Grassy Knoll and wipe out the hobos. Track and capture Oswald, then escort him to prison and interrogate him.

The most common whine in recent days is "We want to play the Israelis". Well, Jack Ruby is even better. Jewish anguish and bloodthirsty abandon all rolled into one feisty little firecracker, with the added bonus of strippers.

I mean, come on already. People are dying in Gaza and Lebanon and Iraq and Afghanistan every day. It's not remotely funny. But Dealey Plaza? It's been a joke ever since Mark Lane and Cyril Wecht and David Lifton decided to do some light reading with the 26 volumes of WC testimony and never looked back. If we're going to trivialize the death of President Kennedy in response to the notion that believing Lee Harvey Oswald acted alone trivializes the death of President Kennedy, let's at least make it fun.

And last time I checked, fun is what it's supposed to be about.

So all the "brilliant" ideas about Normandy, Israel, Iran-Iraq, the Korean War or the Rambo movies can all be put on the shelf; this is the winner, right here, folks. But really - let's check out the first game, first, and see what we really think it is capable of, or if the new engine would be suitable for the Battle of Gettysburg, Tiananmen Square, Mount Suribachi, the caves of Cu Chi, or whatever other pet projects you've all been dying to see in print.

My own druthers would be South Beveland 1944; most of the world would say "huh?", those that know what I refer to (you're probably either Dutch or Canadian) would just yawn. So let's sell BF.C on the idea of Dealey Plaza - join forces as it were - and go forward with a unified voice with an idea sure to sell a zillion bucks worth.

If you're not part of the solution - you're part of the problem!

<font size="0">(*) For "reason" substitute the name of your latest pet wargaming CMX2 engine project suggestion, be it X-Wing Fighter Duels in the Death Star Trench, Naval Battles of the Greek Dynasty, or Monster Trucks of the Carolinas. They all suck, and Steve knows it. Get over it.</font>

[PLM2]

All these trivial conflicts have too little a scale compared to a World War.

Even modern conflicts, if done realistically the intensity is gonna be relatively low or its gonna be a one-sided slaughter. Where's the fun in that?

I am still a consumer right? Someone cares what the consumer thinks right? Right now becoming a fan of this game is still very much in the air so maybe thats why many people are still looking beyond it. Modern warfare on a limited front just doesn't get me excited, bring me back to the days where each side stood a fair chance and the outcome actually matters. Because they're only games and thats whats fun.

Dont particularly wanna play a game where some 3rd world country is fighting the greatest military power in the world, regardless of the motivation for making the game. Sorry, I havn't dedicated years of my life to making incredibly realistic WWII games. So its still very much the tactical playground for me.

So if I can't hear American soldiers yelling "****" and "****" obsessively, and Islamic troops yelling "Allah Akbar" and whatnot in the demo, I think i'd prefer something else.

[MeatEtr]

That's all fine and dandy, but how much cowbell will there be?

[37mm]

I agree Dorosh, Vimy Ridge all the way!

[stoat]

Looks like Michael has some sand in his grog. It is also now apparent that you've been reading a 1600 page book type deal about the Kennedy assassination.

[Michael Dorosh]

Originally posted by stoat:

Looks like Michael has some sand in his grog. It is also now apparent that you've been reading a 1600 page book type deal about the Kennedy assassination.

Where on earth have you been hiding? Picking out a college? Time for summer vacation, or are you slaving away somewhere. Don't worry about answering, if I can't hijack my own pointless thread, who can?

Been reading - finished it. What have you been reading lately? I still don't think I could keep up with you, your own reading list seemed extensive last time we talked.

[Nick Schieben]

How about Panzer Command: Kharkov '42?

[Echo Delta]

[Michael Dorosh]

Originally posted by Nick Schieben:

How about Panzer Command: Kharkov '42?

This is why your neighbours make faces when you pass them in the street, Nick. I mean, I can see the humour here, whether intentional or not - yeah, PC:Winter Storm was touted by some as a transparent effort to capitalize on the Combat Mission brand, sure, we all get that. But at the risk of taking you seriously, I have to wonder - what could possibly sell anyone on the concept of 1:1 coverage in real time with a smattering of WEGO thrown in for taste about an entire frigging campaign as grandiose and obscure as Kharkov?

Sure, you have your Nazis and Communists, but not a Tiger tank in the bunch. Don't listen to the anti-Syrianites who complain that steamrollering a third-class army with next generation weaponry is somehow tactically unchallenging. Basically, wargamers are dullards. I mean, they'd have to be to be sitting here rapping out tired old arguments into a computer-box in the middle of June proselytizing their latest greatest hair-brained master plan to rule the wargaming universe with their multitudinous plans (read: several options) for the next Combat Mission title, instead of standing outside in the pouring rain listening to the neighbours scream blue murder at each other and generally going ape-**** from the heat.

But I digress. No one wants to lose; just look at what George C. Scott said. Said so well that people think he was actually the commander of the Third Army instead of that far more vulgar old man with the old woman's voice. Losers won't be tolerated. And you can't win without a King Tiger tank or two at your beck and call - just ask Robert Shaw.

Which brings us back to the squabbling about which, exactly, arena of human conflict will allow us the most lopsided battles with the preservation of the appearance of a fair fight. And why the only solution (short of Eastern Europe 1939-1940; not to blow my own horn, but don't think I've forgotten the sweet nirvana of that revelation) is really Combat Mission: Dealey Plaza. A 6.5mm Carcano may not take on a Tiger Tank, but a sick mind will always win out over the soft-headed assumption that nothing can go wrong if you just wish that it won't.

Did you really not see the part about the strippers? :confused:

Look, we're talking 1 to 1 modelling here. Polygons out the ying-yang. Dealey Plaza is a couple hundred metres across at best. I know there are some that would have you believe that any game that doesn't give you enough space to deploy an armoured brigade defending in depth is a waste of the programmer's talent, but you throw that much crap onto a map, you pretty much even the odds through sheer numbers. Attrition. It's beyond me why every gamer on the board wants to model attritional wars (see Brute Force by John Ellis vis a vis the Second World War, and Corrigan will do nicely for the first) at the scale of tactical engagements where every shirt button is modelled individually. And then cram so many units onto the same map that absolutely none of the burden of higher command is modelled anyway, so really it's just a big game of toy soldiers without the strange looks of friends and family wondering why you have so many Britains scattered across your rug, or the PTSD reaction to that sickening sound when you know your best platoon of microarmour just went up the spout of the Dirt Devil. Again. Why the hell the wife doesn't realize what "defilade" means and vacuum accordingly, you'll never know.

But in Dealey - everyone is their own master. No morbid battles of atrition. 1 to 1 is just that; count the microscopic fibres from the blanket in Ruth Paine's garage. Thrill to the lineup at the Western Union office.

But Kharkov? Kharkov? Leave that to the amateurs at Matrix.

[stoat]

Originally posted by Michael Dorosh:

Where on earth have you been hiding?

I haven't gone anywhere, and the corn is not yet tall enough to hide behind, so perhaps it is you that have been hiding? From my internet presence, that is.

Picking out a college?

Working on it. Oddly enough I recieved information from a gambit of religious-affiliated all-women's schools. If you're reading this St. Kate's, piss off.

Time for summer vacation, or are you slaving away somewhere.

No vacation, and meh.

Don't worry about answering, if I can't hijack my own pointless thread, who can?

What's the point in asking a bevy of questions in a decidedly dead-end thread if you don't anticipate a bevy of answers?

Been reading - finished it. What have you been reading lately? I still don't think I could keep up with you, your own reading list seemed extensive last time we talked.

I haven't had all that much time up until the past week or so. Even so I've finished off Wragg's Swordfish, a book nominally about the Taranto raid but in fact one third a romance poem to the Fleet Air Arm in the late 30's, one third generic commentary on battles taking place well after Taranto, and one third on the workup and raid itself; Milner's The U-Boat Hunters, about the RCN in the Atlantic from 1943-1945; Mohr's A Magnificent Irishman From Appalachia, a history of the First Ohio Light Artillery, Battery L surrounding the letters of a Lieutenant James Gildea; and some O'Brian, chiefly The Mauritius Command and Blue at the Mizzen no matter how disjointed and non-sequential those two volumes may seem.

[MikeyD]

Reading the above I somehow imagine Michael red-faced with clenched fists. Not to say red-faced and clenched fists is inappropriate as a general rule. As a matter of fact, about 2/3rds of the subjects out there these days can bring me to clenched fists and a red face - including that new "forever" rate-changing postage stamp :mad: :mad: :mad:

[Nick Schieben]

OK Mike, I'm convinced - next stop Granicus! I want elephants! They make them there tigers look so lame! Kharkov is for weeners.

[Guest Guest]

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[David Chapuis]

He doesnt care. That is the Dorosh-method of having an exciting Saturday night.

[PFMM]

Well, having read so many references to it, I see it as the next must do module.

Space Lobsters of Doom is a certain success.

The demand is there.

The research is done.

The market is primed.

Why won't Battlefron act?

[Michael Dorosh]

Originally posted by AdamL:

God Mike, why do you care so much?

Well, ladies and gentlemen, you've seen perhaps one of the finest actors we have on the BF.C forums deliver a very fine performance.

Unfortunately, it won't work, Adam. Or shall we call you Pillar?

Yes, we know all about you. Take for example your handiwork in this thread, where you seemingly don't "get" the fact that that M16 is no longer in use, and have to be told three times what the thread is really about.

Why does it matter, Adam? Because, as the rabid anti-Semetic histrionics of a dozen other posters will reveal to you, the subject matter of the next Combat Mission title is the most important thing in the entire world, bar none, because as you all know, it will be impossible to enjoy the CM:SF debacle now that so many have stated their opposition to it and BF.C has exhibited their forthright opposition to delivering everything we ask for instantaneously. Woe is us! We must prevent this from happening again. And the only way to please everyone (impossible you say? I think not) is for Combat Mission: Dealey Plaza to become a reality.

You've been skulking along in this forum with your little platitudes to reason and sanity, sure, but we know what your real objective is.

Are you not the "Adam Lemnowicz" (sic) that registered at the Holiday Inn Express on North 4th Street in San Jose, California in 2005 - in the heart of Silicon Valley - and do you deny discussing the future of the Combat Mission series with parties that to this date have not been properly identified?

Or are you going to suggest that what I just wrote is a complete fabrication? That would be very much like you and your ilk, wouldn't it.

What about this online article with Adam Lancman, where the Australian connection is revealed in its full, hideous form. Competition for BF.C? You've been rather coy with your screen name, haven't you, Mister Lancman?

And who is this "Adam Parker" posting in the Panzer Command: Winter Storm thread - another Australian, with system specs remarkably similar to yours, and talking about a game directly biting in to Combat Mission's share of the already fragmented PC/WW II Tactical wargame market. Coincidence? "Parker" and "Pillar" start with the same letter, after all, and also have the same number of letters. Again, I think we all know exactly what is going on.

I think perhaps you have more reasons to see the next Combat Mission title fail than you're letting on.

No, Adam, the question isn't why does it matter to me.

Why doesn't it mattter to you? Or rather, why protest so strongly that it doesn't?

You can downplay the most important decision to be made in wargaming history since John Hill said "let's just make the streets 40 metres wide and be done with it", but don't think you'll ever convince those torchbearers of the truth who would seek to expose the enemies of this game system. Those long years of yours playing CM, writing about CM, inhabiting these forums as if you were one of us; I mean, congratulations. It was well played. But if your objective is really to convince us not to care, realize that your motives instantly become suspect.

But this bickering is pointless. Let's ask the really pertinent question here.

Why do you hate Combat Mission, Adam?

Have we injured you in some way? Is your desire for the Texan Revolution to enter the CM pantheon so overpowering that you would punish the rest of us by bringing the entire project to its knees? Is the sight of the Alamo rendered in 3D really so important to you, you would drive a stake through the hearts of CM fans around the world in order to spite us?

Like Lee Harvey Oswald, were you perhaps wounded by Peng's rejection of you? Do you really believe they run the agenda here? If Joe Shaw is any indication, they can't even pick out their own socks in the morning.

This is not constructive, Adam. Join once again with the forces of reason; lobby with me for the clear choice and bring wargaming back into the light.

[Speedy]

Originally posted by Michael Dorosh:

If I have to read one more post before the game even comes out about "high-intensity" warfare or the Arab-Israeli Wars, or how much Syria sucks, or how we "really" want Second World War subjects, or how Steve The Corporate Sell-Out has done the world an injustice by not releasing Combat Mission: Shock Force in time for your birthday/wedding anniversary/revival of your shock treatment therapy/whateva I'm going to scream.

Um am I the only one here that wants to hear Dorosh scream?

As for CM I don't care just so long as there are no bloody Canadians in it.

Of course anything before 1942 would be good.

[Sgabuzzino]

I hope you are using your writing talents in some other way too, Mike.

As for the topic, I would like to see Combat Mission: Dorosh Combat. (Including Afro-Dorosh (Frodorosh), Play-Dorosh, Endo-Rosh, etc).

[Zebulon Pleasure Beast]

Originally posted by Michael Dorosh:

The "space lobsters" joke has been done to death too; it was barely funny when Steve The Big Shirted Corporate Wheel Who Is Killing Wargaming By His Refusal To Listen To Reason(*) posted it the first time, and it isn't funny now, the ten-thousandth time.

Actually, it was I who made the first reference to the fabled Space Lobsters of Doom that Steve then picked up in his reply. You can doublecheck that if the thread still exists, the copyrights are mine! :mad:

The proof!

[MikoyanPT]

Originally posted by Zebulon Pleasure Beast

[/qb]

Actually, it was I who made the first reference to the fabled Space Lobsters of Doom that Steve then picked up in his reply. You can doublecheck that if the thread still exists, the copyrights are mine! :mad:

The proof! [/QB]

[Guest Guest]

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[Fenris]

Speaking of Space Lobsters...

I'd love to see CM:WH40K

That'd be cool.

Otherwise I have nothing to add to this thread.

[mav1]

Kursk to Berlin is my choice.

The ww2 eastern front is the most interesting war in history in my opinion.

Kursk to Berlin will involve about half the info that Barbarrossa to Berlin involved. Since Steve said he could'nt be arsed to make full length games anymore.

[c3k]

Hmm,

"CM:Somme '16"

It has the cool double entendre engendered by the use of "Somme" and "psalm". That ALONE makes it THE BEST TITLE EVER.

Now, the gameplay would make for the BEST GAME EVER.

You could play the Brits/Commonwealth: "Right, chaps. Dress right, DRESS! Straighten out those ranks. Steady. Foward, 'ARCH!"

Or, the Germans: "Hurry, Heinz! We need more machinengun ammo. My arm is getting tired of sweeping from right to left, to right, to left..."

Yes. It needs to be done.

Ken

[Peter Cairns]

OVERLORD

Module 1

U.S. Sector Utah and Omaha and the push inland with historical maps and scenarios.

Module 2

UK and Canadian, Sword and Juno with historical maps and scenarios.

Module 3

Airborne. US, UK Red Berets 82nd Airborne and 101st Airborne, with historical maps and scenarios.

Peter.