The Wrong Left Turn and the Uncanny Valley

[Kineas]

Originally posted by Battlefront.com:

About the CMx1 code... we have no plans to license it because that means support it, and we don't have time for that. We don't want to make it public domain either. The code, therefore, is not going to see any further development either by us or anybody else.

...erm..why don't you just sell the code without any support? I don't really get this reasoning.

(But it's clear the possible new products would mean competition for you, so I don't see the incentive either.)

[undead reindeer cavalry]

Originally posted by Battlefront.com:

It took 5 years to get the game engine written (CMAK basically didn't have design changes), so I doubt there will be someone else that will be willing to put in that much time into such a small and uncertain game market.

i doubt it as well and i was thinking more about free fan community remakes. you know, like those done of Panzer General and such. rapid 3D application development has come a long way during the years.

[Michael Dorosh]

That didn't make must sense to me either; why would releasing the code imply a need to support it?

And why trash it if the number of people who could benefit from it is so abysmally low as is claimed?

If you make it freeware you are guaranteed that no one can compete against you with it.

No reason not to do it, although further products such as CM:C might be an incentive to hang on to the rights to it. Steve is technically correct that CMX1 is not being developed, but it would seem at least one other related project is.

Nonetheless, a fan-made Pacific version or early war version or Korean War version would be interesting. At least as much as DF:DR, particularly if some talented 3D modellers and statisticians got their hands on it.

I think the real headache might be the proprietary rights to call whatever resulted "Combat Mission" which would be a no-no for anyone but BF.C.

[undead reindeer cavalry]

there really is no need to obtain the code, if there's a bunch of people, with mutually supporting skills, who are committed to the project. CMx1 features are not THAT complicated to implement.

by the sound of it, it may be that CMx1 code is so unflexible that it would better to rewrite the engine in any case.

[undead reindeer cavalry]

Originally posted by Michael Dorosh:

I think the real headache might be the proprietary rights to call whatever resulted "Combat Mission" which would be a no-no for anyone but BF.C.

well, you could always call it "Battle Mission" or "Yes It Has Horses Mission".

[Andreas]

There may still be an income stream associated with CMx1, so not wanting to let go of it is understandable.

Most importantly though I agree that BFC can not afford to let somebody else go around call their product 'based on the Combat Mission engine', or sumfink.

All the best

Andreas

[Battlefront.com]

Dorosh,

That didn't make must sense to me either; why would releasing the code imply a need to support it?

Not practical. Charles' code is not "commented" hardly at all. It's also gone from fairly clean to terribly hacked. That's why we needed to abandon it in favor of a brand new engine. The result is that nobody would want to pay us for the code without support unless we heavily discounted it. And at that point it becomes not worth it to us. Andreas pointed to a few reaons why.

Steve

[dalem]

Originally posted by Battlefront.com:

The result is that nobody would want to pay us for the code without support unless we heavily discounted it. And at that point it becomes not worth it to us. Andreas pointed to a few reaons why.

Steve

What if we got together a Red Ryder wagon full of those little gold foil-wrapped chocolates? It's almost like a cache of pirate gold. Charles won't know the difference - his eyes are in a different jar than his brain anyway.

-dale

[Andreas]

I think this question would make for a nice Economics 101 assignment.

All the best

Andreas

[Panzer76]

Excellent thread. Dorosh, you may want to rename this thread to something more descriptive, as I, and others it seems, just stumbled over it.

[Guest]

Speaking as a developer who has at previous jobs maintained hundreds of thousands of lines of code written ten years ago, apparently, by rabid animals, I think that I would probably have little problem with uncommented code. Even illogical, uncommented, poorly constructed code can be rewritten and worked with. Without support, I might add.

undead reindeer cavalry is right, though -- with a decent-sized team of talented folks you could probably get a similar product to market -- using volunteer hours -- in well under five years. It took five years to write the engine... for one or a few devs. A properly organized open-source project could get the job done in less time.

That said, I'm all for re-writing CM as an open source project... but I'd prefer to pay my money to BFC and support them in making great commercial games.

If they ever released the code, though, I'd do a happy dance of joy and proceed to my basement to spend years tinkering.

[Zemke]

This has been a great discussion, my hat's off to Mike and Steve and all who posted.

Possible Idea Win Win for All:

What if a private group paid for the rights to modify CM1 code with an understanding that a new version would still be marketed by BFC. BFC would still be getting income while others did the work. If that happened everyone could win, and perhaps then some of the improvements we wanted, like a "follow me" order or better artillery model could be implemented....all at no time or effort to BFC.

[Michael Dorosh]

Originally posted by Zemke:

This has been a great discussion, my hat's off to Mike and Steve and all who posted.

Possible Idea Win Win for All:

What if a private group paid for the rights to modify CM1 code with an understanding that a new version would still be marketed by BFC. BFC would still be getting income while others did the work. If that happened everyone could win, and perhaps then some of the improvements we wanted, like a "follow me" order or better artillery model could be implemented....all at no time or effort to BFC.

I think the danger is that a revamped CMX1 would outsell CMX2 and then Steve would have to kill whomever bought the rights to the original.

I would definitely be interested in a continuation of the CMX1 engine, though, and there has been much interest shown in the same things Andreas talked about - early war and Pacific, for example. If some licensing agreement could be worked out, and Charles didn't have to spend a single second on it - that would really be cool. As promising as CMX2 is, I have to say, I'm still digging CMX1. Of course, I'm sick enough to think I'd probably play an updated M-1 Tank Platoon with the original graphics if all it did was update the units to modern specs and allow for entire battalions on the map, too.

[thewood]

Its called Steel Beasts

[Michael Dorosh]

Originally posted by thewood:

Its called Steel Beasts

Not even close! I mean something on orders of magnitude simpler, with less of a dramatic impact on the pocketbook and a nostalgic interface. The market is gagging for one of those Microsoft cardboard keyboard overlays.

[Zemke]

Originally posted by Michael Dorosh:

[/qb]

I think the danger is that a revamped CMX1 would outsell CMX2 and then Steve would have to kill whomever bought the rights to the original.

I would definitely be interested in a continuation of the CMX1 engine, though, and there has been much interest shown in the same things Andreas talked about - early war and Pacific, for example. If some licensing agreement could be worked out, and Charles didn't have to spend a single second on it - that would really be cool. As promising as CMX2 is, I have to say, I'm still digging CMX1. Of course, I'm sick enough to think I'd probably play an updated M-1 Tank Platoon with the original graphics if all it did was update the units to modern specs and allow for entire battalions on the map, too. [/QB]

[Zemke]

I keep messing this post up, but I was trying to quote Mike. Forgive Me

[ August 15, 2007, 12:44 PM: Message edited by: Zemke ]

[Zemke]

Well BFC did say they lose sales with each new CM version. I wonder............

The Dream:

I would love to see a mulity player CM TCIP WEGO for large battles. It would then be like Rome: Total War, but better. You could have Subordinate Manuever Commanders, and overall Task Force Commander, a Fire Support Guy...and everyone on Team Speak.

[Kineas]

Originally posted by Phillip Culliton:

undead reindeer cavalry is right, though -- with a decent-sized team of talented folks you could probably get a similar product to market -- using volunteer hours -- in well under five years. It took five years to write the engine... for one or a few devs. A properly organized open-source project could get the job done in less time.

A project like this even have a little chance for success. You don't need to reimplement CMx1, 5 years passed, so you can implement/design new features. (Blue-on-blue, team games, full game replay, individual ammo tracking etc.). Of course not the 1:1 representation but the good old abstract type.

The game has to be moddable, cause more person could work on the content that way.

It's still a tremendous work.

[Dirtweasle]

Originally posted by Andreas:

...and there are still enough others around to produce a meta campaign that truly rocks, based on an engine that is seven years old.

Ah, aim for me weak spot.

Originally posted by Andreas:

So what is there to complain for me? I even get people interested in modern war sort out the bugs so that the WW2 game when it comes round is clean and runs well.

All the best

Andreas

Good point, makes me feel a little better contributing to "the cause" as it were.

[TheNathan]

I've also heard that a large amount of modability in games actually increases sales over the long-term, and can increase the fan-base as people start making mods that essentially widen the narrow focus the game originally had.

I've even seen some communities (Rome and Medieval Total War, Freelancer, UT2004, Half-Life 1 and 2, Civilization III) where many people will buy the game just for a mod or handful of mods. Hell, I bought Unreal Tournament 2004 exclusively for the purpose of playing Red Orchestra.

[Guest]

Seconded. I still play mods that I and others made for games that are *really* old. I still play Tanks! mods that I made back in '94-'95 (whenever that game came out), for goodness sake.

In my opinion moddability increases sales only when mods are not the primary focus of forward development. Honestly, any game that relies on multiple sales based on the same engine needs to be as unmoddable as possible.

For example, I would never expect Tacops to be made fully moddable (although you can build your own tools to do so) because it relies on selling periodic re-vamps. The same thing holds for CM:SF.

[TheNathan]

Maybe, maybe not. In all honesty Medieval 2 Total War is basically Rome Total War with better graphics and some new features, yet nobody ditched Med 2 simply because Rome Total War was modable, if anything most mods for Rome are moving to Med 2 for very tiny enhancements.

Even if true, CMx1 has essentially run the full course of it's lifespan and sales might be reinvigorated if some true modding ability was put into the game. I highly doubt that even if a modern Cmx1 was made by mod devs it would detract from CMx2 in the slightest as 1, CMx1 doesn't really strike me as being very well suited for a modern setting, and 2, they really are two different kinds of games.

[Guest]

Hmmm. Interesting example. I'll give it some thought.

As for making CMx1 moddable... I thought you were talking about CMx2, so nevermind about that. Bit scattered today.

[dalem]

Originally posted by Michael Dorosh:

Of course, I'm sick enough to think I'd probably play an updated M-1 Tank Platoon with the original graphics if all it did was update the units to modern specs and allow for entire battalions on the map, too.

Love that game! My dog just recently ate the old keyboard template I had saved from it too.

-dale