Feature request: Playback extended support

[CptWasp]

I don't know if it has already been requested here, I can't find it.

The game has playback support for wego mode. It's possible to extend it to real time mode and to give the player an option to save the movie? It would be great!

[Huntarr]

IMHO opinion I like that WEGO gets replay and RT does not. Then again I'm just being mean.

[Elmar Bijlsma]

IIRC it's a thumbs down on that feature. Storing the game data would be too much of a load.

[TOG]

It would be really fun if you could record your whole battle and watch it later. Watching it later without fog of war would be even better.

[CptWasp]

I agree with TOG: and storing the battle in the internal format would be simple (as in wego mode) and it would be a very little load (as in wego).

This can be made optional, obviously; and with no fog of war it would be VERY interesting.

[Rodingo]

I think this would be a great addition. I have seen it done in a RTS (which I will not name), and it makes for an awsome learning tool. It's also nice just to sit back and watch the WHOLE battle again at different angles and viewpoints. Yes WEGO allows that, but WEGO also limits giving commands to your troops in 60 second intervals. Good thing real life isn't WEGO.

[TOG]

Some time ago there was a game Laser Squad Nemesis, which operated in sort of WEGO, but each turn you could not only see last turn, but you could rewind the whole battle to the start. Of course it was far less complicated than CMSF, but the ability to do it was fun. I don't remember if you could save the replay.

Putting this functions to CMSF would make me really happy, as I like to watch how things happened.

[CommC]

I would also really like to see this feature... a game replay for RT mode. Many other complex RTS have this feature such as COH.

Its a great learning tool, and individuals can post games for people to review to learn strategy and tactics. If a narration is added, then it really becomes a useful tool.

[Pinetree]

Well, if BFC get a defence contract from this game, you can be sure it will be the first thing the military ask for as they'll need an AAR feature.

[panzermartin]

Well half of the fun of COH is the replay battle. You can switch sides, have a cinematic camera POV etc. I'd love to see something like that in CMX2.

[pcpilot]

Yeah, I liked Sturmoviks' replay function too. Being able to switch between units was cool so you could get the whole picture on what happened. Too bad BFC doesnt make the effort.

[Sirocco]

I think CM is too complex for a full playback function. But I stated before that having a one minute rewind facility has the potential to streamline the game as well being a good feature in general. I'd like to see it in CMx2WW2.

[KNac]

Originally posted by Elmar Bijlsma:

IIRC it's a thumbs down on that feature. Storing the game data would be too much of a load.

Not really, it can be done, it's nothing new, and usually it's size is small. So if it ahs been done for so many games, yes, it can be programmed someway or an other.

[CptWasp]

I'm just curious to see if the patch will add something good about this... it would be a substantial improvement. Yesterday something hit my Stryker, real time mode, I was "away" with the camera and so I have no idea of what happened... a 1 minute rewind would be better than nothing!

[Panzerfest]

Even a replay of the last 10 or 20 seconds would be better than nothing...

[Huntarr]

Well testing the 1.04 I noticed that I get a FULL 60 sec replay of the action. I was stunned at all the action that you see from every possible angle. What's cool is that every turn after that I could replay the action. Damn WeGO was fun.

BTW I typed this in RT...it was still boring.

[C'Rogers]

This has been brought up many times before and Steve has always said it can't be done given the nature of the game, and that comparing it to games that can is irrelevant because they are a totally different creature. For a long time it was planned (years before release it was mentioned), so they wanted to get it in without a doubt.

This means one of two things.

1) Under the current/any budget it is not possible.

2) They just don't know how to do it.

Personally I imagine it is the former, but either way it won't be coming up soon. But as it was one of the few features that I requested back when CMx2 was just being mentioned I wished it would.

The one minute back in time for real time I haven't heard them say anything about, so maybe there.

[Omenowl]

I have 250 gigs to play with. I think it can be stored onto the hard drive, but you probably have to specify to save or not save first.

I personally would like to see a playback myself.

[Canada Guy]

I would also love the ability to go back and see the whole game (without FOW) and see how my actions (and reactions) played out.

It is difficult to remember turn 1 of a 50 turn game in PBEM.

Also remember that if it is the footprint of the file that is causing problems, we would have been woried about a 10 meg reply in CMx1 and now that would be a laugh. As long as it would be in the 100-200 meg range I do not see this as being a problem as time goes on. Even now it is only slightly cumbersome.

[Neepster]

This has been asked for since CMBO... The answer has always been no. Not sure why, since whatever engine plays back the 60 second movie should be able to play back a 60 minute movie as well... but what can you do?

[Schrullenhaft]

This is a common request that has been around since CMBO. In the past it was somewhat attempted (from what I know), but it was unworkable with the CMx1 engine. It was kept as a suggestion for CMx2, but seems to be unworkable for the real-time engine.

The issue isn't necessarily just the pure size of the data, but the overhead of writing out that data while playing a game in real-time. You're going to have to sacrifice some CPU cycles to write out that data and for most PC's that can cause a problem. The CPU is going to be interrupted to write out this data and that could cause 'hiccups' in actual simulation itself. I don't know if multi-core CPUs with high-performance RAID arrays would solve this issue or not, but they would probably be the only candidates that could support this feature realistically.

Though people point out that some FPS and flight simulator games have this capability, it isn't quite the same thing. They typically have far less data to record than CM would. FPS games typically have few characters/units to keep track of, while flight simulators are also often played with low unit counts. Flight simulators also have an advantage in that their flight actions can be reduced to a 'black box recorder'-like setup and have their actions easily recreated. FPS games that have a large number of characters are a closer match to what CM would need to do and the rub there may be that there are just more development resources to accomplish this task.

Perhaps some sort of 'linker' could be coded up to smoothly playback all of the saved PBEM/WEGO turns of a game (a task that is harder than it sounds). However with all of the issues facing CMSF at the moment, I doubt that this can seriously be considered until some point in the CMx2 WW2 game (if then).

[Neepster]

While it would be nice to have this in RT, I agree that the reasons you cite would make it difficult.

However, I have yet to hear a good reason for why this could not be done in WEGO. The playback files are in memory and could be written out to disk at the start of every turn. Maybe the files would be large, but it should be possible.

I think it keeps getting dropped because it is a

"nice to have" and not a "must have"....

[KNac]

I'm totally ignorant from a techncial point of view, but ie. Supreme Commander, an RTS which can have up to 1000 units per side (or more in the future as computers get better), and up to 8 players does have replays, maps are up to 81x81km. honestly players to run 81x81 w/ highest unit limit and 8 player games are few (quadcores & 8800s), but game is not optimized for vairous cores computers (very few applications are, I hope developers start to update on this, including CMSF).

Don't know how movement does work though, if it's vectory based or uses a grid system (and which resolution). But keeping track of units like movement from X to Y (being grid coordinates) facing Z (orientation), projectiles and events (unit J roots a time 00:00:00, unit I fires weapon A at time 01:00:00, unit K receives damage and is knocked out), while seems a big amount of raw data, is not impossible for nowadays computers. You don't have to keep data of each calculation, just the result which is finally translated to images.

Again, I say I'm totally ignorant, but does not seem impossible to made, but very down on the list.