Small Bone

[dalem]

Originally posted by Battlefront.com:

Some people find making maps "work", others find it "fun". If you look at the number of maps that have been made for any one CMx1 game you'll find that they number in the many thousands. Any one of those scenarios could have the units stripped out and be played as a QuickBattle. So I have no fear that QBs will still be "quick" and varried.

Steve

I find making CM maps both "work" and "fun".

And I just plain disagree with your conclusion. Reiterating my comments to tom above, I'd a) rather not rely on other people for ALL my maps, and I'd rather not be bothered with the need to do so for every QB.

Bottom line is that you are removing a feature of the game experience that is extremely important to me (and whoever thinks and plays sorta like me). I don't doubt that you have darned good reasons, but a thousand hand-crafted maps are not the equivalent of 100 random ones.

-dale

[Thomm]

Giving orders when paused should be pretty much standard nowadays, especially in a serious wargame like CM:SF, where delays are enforced by the game, anyway.

I know there where times when I used it in EYSA, especially at the beginning of the battle, when you draw your initial plan out. The problem there was the implementation: there was little to no visual feedback about the given orders ... it was very confusing and in no way comparable to the excellent CM plotting system (that obviously remains for the turn-based part, so why not reuse it??!?).

For multiplayer, implement it any way you want; I do not care, because I do not play multi.

But obmitting orders on pause in single player mode will draw serious critisism, I do not have to be a prophet to predict this!

Best regards,

Thomm

[Thomm]

The cool thing about the random battle generator was that I could easily produce very small battles that could be played through in one hour or less. And with the most obscure equipment, too (who would by a platoon of tankettes, hehe).

Best regards,

Thomm

[Kineas]

As you can read above there is a small chance that the map format will be open, so you can have a fan made random map generator.

The problem IMO is that random map generation is applicable for 'tile-based' games, and the CMx2 maps will be rather FPS style maps. Like what you can see in the Battlefield series. Writing a random map generator for those is quite challenging, and the quality gap between the human made maps and the generated maps will be far wider.

[Mr Shirt]

I think the idea with real-time not allowing you to make orders is so that you can't just pause, give orders, pause, give orders, etc. Keeping the real time aspect involved.

[Salkin]

Ok, I'll chime in even if I know it means nothing to the legends that are BFC.

I'm really dissapointed that you took out the random maps. I only played random maps. I needed the unrealistic hills to give me cover in dangerous situations. I always got my ass handed to me in user created scenarios also blablabla blablabla...

There...just my 2 cents.

Oh, but I will still buy CM:SF regardless .

//Salkin

[Sergei]

Originally posted by Salkin:

I'm really dissapointed that you took out the random maps. I only played random maps.

Sure you did, you good-for-nothing Swedish asswipe! :mad:

[Scipio]

In my opinion, random maps had the big pro that you don't need to search a map first.

The big contra of random maps are of course that they are simply poor, with senseless placed VLs, unrealistic cities, no rivers, and a serveral of errors.

[Sergei]

A handy thing would be if you could tell the game that you want a map with "large hills", "village" and "open ground" of "medium size", and the game would randomly pick a map from your map folder that fits these requirements (these parametres would either be flagged by map makers, or automatically set by the map editor - perhaps the latter is better).

That way, you would get the type of map that you wanted (if you had that type on hard drive), without having to preview each beforehand. In essence the same functionality as before, but with better maps.

[Thomm]

Originally posted by Mr Shirt:

I think the idea with real-time not allowing you to make orders is so that you can't just pause, give orders, pause, give orders, etc. Keeping the real time aspect involved.

May as well be the case, and I think it would be strange reasoning for developers who built their fame on a turn-based game!

Best regards,

Thomm

[Kineas]

Actually this can be done easily with an external tool. Only thing you and your opponent need is a true random number

Originally posted by Sergei:

A handy thing would be if you could tell the game that you want a map with "large hills", "village" and "open ground" of "medium size", and the game would randomly pick a map from your map folder that fits these requirements (these parametres would either be flagged by map makers, or automatically set by the map editor - perhaps the latter is better).

That way, you would get the type of map that you wanted (if you had that type on hard drive), without having to preview each beforehand. In essence the same functionality as before, but with better maps.

[aka_tom_w]

Originally posted by Mr Shirt:

I think the idea with real-time not allowing you to make orders is so that you can't just pause, give orders, pause, give orders, etc. Keeping the real time aspect involved.

I think Mr. Shirt has it nailed.

[Rant On]

If you could pause and give orders, oh say, EVERY 60 secs, (!) why not play we go???

RealTime means nonStop REALTIME action, no whimpy pauses for orders. Its a good call, and it makes sense because if you want to pause to give orders play WeGo and be done with it!

[/Rant off]

[Lars]

Originally posted by Battlefront.com:

As I said, we never made a choice between the two. Random map generation was cut for reasons entirely on their own. But, if I had to make a choice now, it would be to go with Campaigns. Sorry, it really is a no brainer decision for us. And this is coming from someone who has already twice said that this is the primary way I used to play CMx1. So obviously no amount of "I really like random maps, keep it" arguing is going to get anywhere because I obviously understand why people like the feature.

Oh sure, I understand why you're going the way your going.

Campaigns = Sales.

But,

Random Maps = Longevity

Which, at some point, has to translate into sales after the initial buzz of the release wears off.

Perhaps throw in the horse**** random map generator. Better than nuthin if you can just dust off some old code.

[Thomm]

Oh my Lord, now all of a sudden some of us become die-hard real-time fanatics!!!

Brrrrr.

[Noiseman]

Originally posted by Lars:

</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />Originally posted by Battlefront.com:

As I said, we never made a choice between the two. Random map generation was cut for reasons entirely on their own. But, if I had to make a choice now, it would be to go with Campaigns. Sorry, it really is a no brainer decision for us. And this is coming from someone who has already twice said that this is the primary way I used to play CMx1. So obviously no amount of "I really like random maps, keep it" arguing is going to get anywhere because I obviously understand why people like the feature.

Oh sure, I understand why you're going the way your going.

Campaigns = Sales.

But,

Random Maps = Longevity

Which, at some point, has to translate into sales after the initial buzz of the release wears off.

Perhaps throw in the horse**** random map generator. Better than nuthin if you can just dust off some old code. </font>

[Lazy Gun]

Not sure if this has been posted before but here is another, very , small bone from Armchair General magazine (September 06 issue I think).

It was sent to me by a friend and this was the biggest he could get the picture. It was part of a one paragraph preview of the game which I don't think said anything new.

[aka_tom_w]

Originally posted by Rollstoy:

Oh my Lord, now all of a sudden some of us become die-hard real-time fanatics!!!

Brrrrr.

Hey

I think it great there is an option!

They have made what appears to be a breakthrough in a game offering.

Giving us BOTH WeGo and REALTIME in the same game!

I don't know of any other game that does that and it should be getting great deal more "hype" and attention that both styles of play are offered instead of the now routine complaining that you can't pause and give orders in RealTime ("because that's the way every other war game works").

-tom w

[aka_tom_w]

Originally posted by MikeyJ38:

Not sure if this has been posted before but here is another, very , small bone from Armchair General magazine (September 06 issue I think).

It was sent to me by a friend and this was the biggest he could get the picture. It was part of a one paragraph preview of the game which I don't think said anything new.

are there any other pics?

Have we ever seen this one online before?

sure its a month old, but I don't recall if I have seen this one before or not, it does sort of look familiar.

-tom w

[Lars]

Originally posted by MikeyJ38:

Sheesh, they sure get pissed if you miss the target.

[Kineas]

erm... X-Com 3

but it doesn't really count

Originally posted by aka_tom_w:

[MikeyD]

"Have we ever seen this one online before?"

If by 'we' you me me, no I haven't. S'matter-o-fact doesn't this count as only the 3rd or 4th picture we've ever seen of the game?

Mortar definitely looks cooler than the CMx1 mortars. I'm a happy man! :eek:

[Thomm]

Apologizing in advance for being an annoyance, I give it another try.

What was it again, that was so great about the one-minute turns? Surely, that you could take as much time as you wanted to give orders to your troops. Furthermore, the replay feature was great, because you could re-watch the action ad nauseum. This features are important for large battles!

What was bad about it? Well, the interruptions were kind of artificial and the game was not "flowing" properly. Also, there was no opportunity to make good use of game-time by leap-frogging squads to their objective, a behavior that emerges naturally in real-time. Moving to contact was simply boring, often taking too much wall-clock time before the actual action started.

What is good about pure real-time: the game is flowing along without interruption and consumes very little wall-clock time (important for real-life constraints). The stress factor is high.

What are the downsides of real-time: one gets lost in large battles and potentially misses important actions. Some front sectors are neglected while others are micro-managed, depending on where the gamers focuses his/her attention.

What happens if one allows for a hybrid design? The benefits of both methods are combined!

With regards to orders, the benefits of being able of giving orders when paused should be self-evident!

The optimum would of course be to have unlimited replay at any time during the game, probably coupled to a messaging system that notifies the gamer of important events or even pops up a hot-spot camera window!

Best regards,

Thomm

PS: Good one, Lars

[Ace Pilot]

Originally posted by Lars:

Oh sure, I understand why you're going the way your going.

Campaigns = Sales.

But,

Random Maps = Longevity

Which, at some point, has to translate into sales after the initial buzz of the release wears off.

Don't most game companies want to avoid longevity? If you are still happy playing the game 12 months later, you have less desire to buy the company's next game version that was cranked out 6 months ago. I thought this was one of the fundamental business problems of the CMx1 series - the long-lasting popularity of the early versions cut into sales of later versions.

[Lars]

Dunno, we've never seen the sales figures.

But I did buy all three of the CM series, and would have bought another if they had made it.

Whoops, forgot CM Campaigns. Looks like it's gonna be four after all. :cool:

[aka_tom_w]

I did not like CMBB at all (no english speaking nation) but I bought all three as well. I did like playing the ETO scenarios in CMAK the best however.

-tom w