My review: CM:SF is the best wargame out there

[JohnO]

Let me clarify what I'm agreeing with from thewood

I like playing around with CMSF, but am very disappointed at the community support. It just hasn't caught on anywhere near games like CM1, SP, or CC. I was really hoping that after six months, all the CM1 sites would have thriving CMSF sections.

does that help you now on what I'm agreeing with.

[GSX]

Yes. Leading to a question, not just for you.

Why hasnt CM SF caught on in the communities that you would have expected it to thrive in?

What is the fundemental reason that it just hasnt caught on I wonder!

[JohnO]

Well from me I would have to say numerous reasons, the first one was the bugs on the first release of CM:SF the second one was that most players don't wont modern battles they wont it to be only WW2, third was the time frame and location of the game it represents. But thats just me.

[Other Means]

Originally posted by GSX:

Yes. Leading to a question, not just for you.

Why hasnt CM SF caught on in the communities that you would have expected it to thrive in?

What is the fundemental reason that it just hasnt caught on I wonder!

Yet.

[c3k]

As for me, I find it is WORK to play this game.

I blame some of that on the GUI. Sure, you can invest a lot of time into it, but I don't have/want to put that much time into learning the GUI.

Part is also the SIMULATION aspect.

I am a former active duty member and current reservist. I keep up on military matters. Yet, I find that the icons, weapons, interactions and uses of the various weapons and inventory items is hard to learn. For example, how do I get my guys NOT to use their AT-4's? Why don't Javelins get used? What are the timing issues involved in MOVE for a Stryker, combined with UNLOAD and ASSAULT? Etc.

Implementation of a tactical idea is hard. This revolves around coordination.

I like WEGO. This game is real-time with a fudge to implement WEGO.

There is a dearth of battles and true campaigns.

Quick battles is broken when compared to the QB system is CMx1.

There are a lot of quirks and bugs.

Yet, I still WANT this to be a good GAME.

Hoping for v1.06,

Ken

[bruce90]

Originally posted by c3k:

As for me, I find it is WORK to play this game.

I blame some of that on the GUI. Sure, you can invest a lot of time into it, but I don't have/want to put that much time into learning the GUI.

Part is also the SIMULATION aspect.

I am a former active duty member and current reservist. I keep up on military matters. Yet, I find that the icons, weapons, interactions and uses of the various weapons and inventory items is hard to learn. For example, how do I get my guys NOT to use their AT-4's? Why don't Javelins get used? What are the timing issues involved in MOVE for a Stryker, combined with UNLOAD and ASSAULT? Etc.

Implementation of a tactical idea is hard. This revolves around coordination.

I like WEGO. This game is real-time with a fudge to implement WEGO.

There is a dearth of battles and true campaigns.

Quick battles is broken when compared to the QB system is CMx1.

There are a lot of quirks and bugs.

Yet, I still WANT this to be a good GAME.

Hoping for v1.06,

Ken

I totally agree with c3k on this.I have had the game for quite some time now but sadly I just cannot get into it.Personally I think to get anything out of it you need to possibly be American, preferably with some real life military experience and/or a modern warfare game grog.There are some great aspects of the game which I like and appreciate and it is still on my HD but overall I find myself tinkering with it now and then but nothing more.I struggle to understand a lot of the abbreviations and terminology which a lot of people on this forum seem to use like a second language and this puts me off generally joining in discussions here. As I have said I really appreciate the spectacle of the game.The detailling on the vehicles I think is beautiful and I like the human animation too but when I try to start a game and I'm greeted by that bewildering display of units and vehicles my heart sinks.For a 'non grog' player like me who never the less enjoys military gaming from most eras this is one daunting game believe me.

[thewood]

For me and the group of six people I PBEM with, its the amount of time it will take to get CMSF to where we think it should be.

Admittedly, I expected CMSF to have all the things we came to love in CM1, but with a RT option, better graphics, and 1:1. It may not be what we wanted, but it is what we expected. I can speak for seven of us in saying for all the steps forward, we took a lot of steps back from a WEGO perspective. Patching has brought a few back, but it sure seems like we may be talking years to get to the point I can say it is a similar experience to CM1 (keep in mind it is six months now). I don't mean all the doodads CM1 had, but the feeling I got that I could get realistic results from a cobbled together scenario.

I think its that kind of thought that is keeping the community out of the CMSF sandbox. Those people who would be most interested in CM scenario or mod building are busy still doing it for CM1.

As for negative comments, they really only mean something if the demo either reinforces it or confirms it. Of the people I play with three never bought it because the demo was crap (their words). the other four of us bought it sight unseen. I don't regret it, but if I had played the demo, I might have waited.

[M1A1TC]

Originally posted by GSX:

</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />Originally posted by Nemesis Lead:

</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />Originally posted by Duke d'Aquitaine:

Anyway guys, I just felt I needed to vent my opinion after lurking for years here since my last post. I just never tire of this game..

Wow--I was tired of this game after two multiplayer battles. Game has been out for 6 months and it still doesn't work as the numerous bug threads all (correctly) point out.

If I remember the URL of one of the CMSF fan websites and multiplayer ladders, I will send you the link.

Oh wait--there aren't any. Why would that be? CMSF is the best wargame ever, isn't it? </font>

[GSX]

Originally posted by c3k:

As for me, I find it is WORK to play this game.

I blame some of that on the GUI. Sure, you can invest a lot of time into it, but I don't have/want to put that much time into learning the GUI.

Part is also the SIMULATION aspect.

I am a former active duty member and current reservist. I keep up on military matters. Yet, I find that the icons, weapons, interactions and uses of the various weapons and inventory items is hard to learn. For example, how do I get my guys NOT to use their AT-4's? Why don't Javelins get used? What are the timing issues involved in MOVE for a Stryker, combined with UNLOAD and ASSAULT? Etc.

Implementation of a tactical idea is hard. This revolves around coordination.

I like WEGO. This game is real-time with a fudge to implement WEGO.

There is a dearth of battles and true campaigns.

Quick battles is broken when compared to the QB system is CMx1.

There are a lot of quirks and bugs.

Yet, I still WANT this to be a good GAME.

Hoping for v1.06,

Ken

That sums me up mate. I think you may have hit the nail on the head, its a chore to play and the interface seems stuck between one designed for RTS and one designed for PBEM. I like my RTS games as simple as they come so that I can react instantly to changing situations. Perhaps future iterations may make a lot more use of the Mouse.

Over at the World at War website we have only had 2 games completed in the 6 months since the game came out and asking around for community opinions garnered the fact that they just didnt like the way the game played or the way that it was published with so many Bugs.

Its a real shame as this game is potentially very innovative, if a little dull.

[Thomm]

My advice: Just stick around!

I guess it will take some months more, but I expect us to really like what this game will evolve into.

Just one example: you have a pair of T72s from the same company. The crew of the HQ tank disembarks and crawls up a slope to get a glimpse on blue-force tanks that are otherwise hidden to the T72s. Now observe the other tank: after a while the spotting information of the HQ team will appear in the 'conscience' of the tank that would otherwise just stumble unprepared into the enemy tanks. If you move this tank into a hull down position, it will already have some mental image of the tanks that are waiting for him and perform better accordingly.

Quite impressive for a wargame.

Best regards,

Thomm

[Guest Guest]

deleted per user request

[GSX]

Hmm, intriguing...... The Crew are spotted by a high flying US F15-E who immediately relay the information by live TV link to the Commanders Humvee, he watches the crew and the tanks then calls up his 120mm mortar team with the co-ordinates for a couple of rounds. Alternatively he authorises his FAC to give the F15 the go ahead to drop a JDAM from 20000 feet. Just as the crew starts to mount its tank the weapon hits. The US commander turns from his TV screen and mumbles 'fools'.

Modern war is a bugger!

[ January 09, 2008, 10:34 AM: Message edited by: GSX ]

[Chelco]

@GSX: if it only would work like that!

The F15 would confuse friendlies for enemies and relay wrong information info to a freakingly overloaded network. The commander wouldn't know about this data until much later, thanks to the genius who gave his net less bandwidth than a RadioShack 1985 telephone modem. The commander wouldn't care less because anyway he would be cramped with information overload. If the T-72s would finally fire at his post and take his attention from the gadgetry, it would be a blessing after all.

[Omenowl]

I think the biggest disappointment was the lack of the mod community. The original box only came with a few missions, the missions are a bit harder to produce and the lack of skins at the time meant less happened.

When I first bought CMBO I went directly to the mod sites and downloaded a lot of different tiles, etc. This made a huge difference in the game for me.

I will say this much of all the game I purchased in 2007 I play CMSF the most. Medieval total war 2 and dawn of war has many of the same issues as CMSF. The difference is the unit AI for CMSF is superior. The complaint of people getting stuck I have seen in those 2 games. What amazes me is 1 man (Charles) has done as good of a job as all those other programmers.

[Paper Tiger]

Of course it's work to play this game. A wargame that's not work to play is usually quite a simple affair, one example being Avalon Hill's 'Victory in the Pacific". Definitely easier than ASL. I loved playing both. Before I got a handle on it playing ASL was W-O-R-K!

I'd be VERY happy if the difficulty level of computer wargames shot up through the roof thank you.

I'm not American, have no military experience and before I bought this game, I had zero interest in modern era warfare. But this game has got me hooked.

[Battlefront.com]

From our perspective we figured the community involvement would be somewhat reduced in size compared to CMx1 games. The reasons we came up with before release are, I think, still the primary reasons:

1. The subject matter. There is a cult like worshiping of WWII vehicles, uniforms, and just about everything else. The ones who "worshiped" WWII the most are likely to be the most active doing things like mods and scenarios. They are also the ones least likely to have an interest in playing CM:SF. Modern combat doesn't have "cult status" and therefore fewer people are inherently interested in spending all their free time on one game. This doesn't necessarily mean they don't like playing the game, just that they don't have the drive to expand it. On one hand I can count the number of games I've played and contributed to in my lifetime, yet the number of games I've enjoyed is counted in the dozens.

2. The more focused scope of the game. The US forces have a moderate pool of vehicles and those vehicles are all in fairly distinct classes of their own. In CMx1 (especially BB) there were sometimes a dozen vehicles within a single class. The different matchups possible, including messing with the game time to put impossible combos together, is absent from CM:SF on purpose. The Syrians do have a lot of variety, but it takes some scenario design skill to bring it out in an interesting way. Which ties into...

3. Scenarios are more technical and complex. CMx1's overall system is so vastly simple compared to CMx2, therefore the amount of skill and work necessary to make a good scenario for CMx1 is proportionally lower than CMx2. Some of the people who were churning out scenarios left right and center for CMx1 are not doing so for CM:SF simply because they feel the tools are beyond them or (coupled with the previous points) they don't feel the investment in time is worth it. Think of how many of Quake player's actually use the map/environment tools out there proportional to the number of players. I know I gave up on the tools very quickly even though the desire to use them was strong.

These are probably the top 3 reasons. When we move to WW2 I expect #1 to go away, but the other two will remain to some extent. Therefore, I expect the community support of CM:WW2 to be lower than for CMx1 games.

Now, having said all of this, there are three other reasons the community support hasn't been as strong:

1. We didn't release the Mod tools until a few weeks ago. That wasn't our original intention, but it is the way it happened. It's tough for people to make Mods when they can't get at the stuff to mod

2. Bugs. Obviously on top of the expected disappointment and ANGER from people due to the fact that CM:SF was not a warmed over version of CMAK, there was the unexpected amount of technical problems with the game's initial release. For the first 2 months we had our hands full trying to work around driver bugs, hardware deficiencies, and other fundamental issues that were not uncovered during testing. On top of that, of course, were all the gameplay bugs that we needed to work on squashing. Lastly, there was the unexpected strong resistance to abstraction in CM:SF when comparatively the abstraction levels in CMx1 were so much higher. In other words, technical problems, outright bugs, and perception shifts were too much for some to bare so they just pulled up stakes and left the scene. Whether they come back for CM:WW2 or not is yet to be seen.

3. "My favorite feature is missing". We gave people way too much with CMx1 and told people that they would not be getting everything they wanted in CMx2. Some people were uninformed or misinformed as to what that meant. Shock ensued and anger quickly followed. If the subject matter wasn't all that interesting to them, well... it's not surprising to see that they aren't churning out scenarios

In the end all I have to say is that OVERALL things have gone about as we expected when we decided we could not survive by warming the dead corpse that was CMx1. The people most angry with us now are the ones that still don't understand that fact, and it is a fact. The irony is these folks think that we're about to go out of business because of the decisions we made, when in fact we would probably already be looking for new jobs if we had done as they wanted. It doesn't matter if this is believed or not since we believe it. Even with the rocky start to CM:SF, there are very few things we would have done differently in hindsight. Avoiding the initial wave of bugs is the one primary one, the rest are little things here and there.

So I guess the bottomline here is that we expected the community support for CM:SF to be smaller than for CMx1 for a variety of reasons. We expect the support for CM:WW2 to be larger than CM:SF, but still smaller than CMx1 by a long shot. It's a natural byproduct of the game's more complex and focused nature.

Steve

[c3k]

Steve,

Thanks for the insight.

Regards,

Ken

[SlowMotion]

About that reason #2, bugs. My experience of v1.05 when playing against the AI has been that the low wall bug has been the only remaining game play bug that seriously changed how things went. All the others were just minor nuisances or visual problems.

How much fun some scenario is depends more on scenario designer because he makes the big movement decisions for the AI.

[GSX]

Thanks for the frank answers Steve, although I have to say that reduced community right now means non-existent. However I still have high hopes for future games and hope for the return of a few Mouse menus.......... You never know........ I can dream.......

[Battlefront.com]

GSX,

Thanks for the frank answers Steve, although I have to say that reduced community right now means non-existent

That's a bit of an overstatement, but I do agree that the community around CM:SF has taken longer to get off the ground because of the issues I outlined above. Not least of which was the brutal and borderline psychotic attacks on the game, Battlefront, testers, anybody that likes CM:SF, and myself personally. That certainly didn't help create a positive environment I let it go on for longer than I probably should have, but I felt it was important for people to get it out of their system here instead of in other places. Now they just rant and rave in other places after reading the threads here

As I stated almost 2.5 years ago, much of this was predictable.

One of many comments I made about the effect of CMx2 on the old CM community

We went into this with our eyes wide open and tried to make sure our customers did as well. At least I can stand on a solid record and don't have to stoop to revisionism like some of our critics One only has to remember the Great PBEM Uprising when I mentioned we might leave that feature out to see that we were thinking about big issues and making conscious decisions based on a plan, not emotional reactions. Fortunately, PBEM was viable despite our willingness to sacrifice it the sake of the game engine as a whole.

Steve

[Michael Dorosh]

Originally posted by Battlefront.com:

GSX,

</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />Thanks for the frank answers Steve, although I have to say that reduced community right now means non-existent

That's a bit of an overstatement, but I do agree that the community around CM:SF has taken longer to get off the ground because of the issues I outlined above. Not least of which was the brutal and borderline psychotic attacks on the game, Battlefront, testers, anybody that likes CM:SF, and myself personally. That certainly didn't help create a positive environment I let it go on for longer than I probably should have, but I felt it was important for people to get it out of their system here instead of in other places. Now they just rant and rave in other places after reading the threads here

As I stated almost 2.5 years ago, much of this was predictable.

One of many comments I made about the effect of CMx2 on the old CM community

We went into this with our eyes wide open and tried to make sure our customers did as well. At least I can stand on a solid record and don't have to stoop to revisionism like some of our critics One only has to remember the Great PBEM Uprising when I mentioned we might leave that feature out to see that we were thinking about big issues and making conscious decisions based on a plan, not emotional reactions. Fortunately, PBEM was viable despite our willingness to sacrifice it the sake of the game engine as a whole.

Steve </font>

[Lurker765]

It seems that the "psychotic attacks" line is a bit much. For people that couldn't run the game on their system at all due to the initial problems of the incredibly buggy release. Or the WEGO TCP/IP promise present on the copy of the retail box that has now been removed. Or the onboard mortar teams that never made it in despite pictures of them cycled through the media. Or quick battles that don't work (both sides setting up in the same zone).

I would say this did not make it so many customers went in to CMSF with their eyes wide open.

I would also say this particular post by Steve has a lot of revisionism in it. For example, Steve mentioned quite a few times how horribly reviewed CMBO was upon it's initial release but that was not the case at all. Reviewers loved it, as did user reviews on all the major sites. Or the famous "you don't get it" comments directed at people in the early days when they were trying to play through the bugs that haunt this game due to the early release.

That old thread does have quite a bit of interesting reading in it though. I come back here for some of the game design discussions since I used to make computer games myself, but often the level of vitriol from both sides makes this a tough place.

I think many of the current problems could have been prevented with either a release of the game at a v1.06 level rather than the one six months ago, or if the game didn't have the words Combat Mission in it. Just naming it something different would have changed expectations.

Lastly, I completely agree with Dorosh's comments.

[ January 10, 2008, 04:43 PM: Message edited by: Lurker765 ]

[Battlefront.com]

Dorosh,

GJK has been running a scenario depot for years for CMX1 now - has BFC ever thought to donate any money to him?

No, why would we? Seems rather inappropriate. If we gave him money wouldn't we then be obligated to give EVERYBODY money for doing something CM related? In my thinking when someone volunteers to do something they are doing so for their own reasons and money isn't one of them.

Neither one has gotten as much as a kind word or a hyperlink from battlefront.

Again, we don't play favorites amongst the modding community. CMHQ had, I thought, I pretty extensive list of links. I'm not the one that maintained that stuff so I can't say for sure how that was handled.

How about the guy running CMMODs? Has BFC ever sent as much as a kind word of support his way?

Same as above.

Or alternately, why did CMHQ go offline?

It's still online, just not maintained for the last year.

I can understand the time expenditure it took, but others from the community have stepped up with private sites. Why not support them?

Again, why should we expend energy and money on one site vs. another?

Does Battlefront not bear some responsibility, here? Don't other game designers actually take part in the communities surrounding their games?

We did for the first SIX YEARS that the games were out. I'm not sure why that is insufficient in your mind. At some point we have to move on. CMx1 is a great game series, but we are fully concentrated on CMx2. (edit, if you took the time to look at CMHQ you would see that Matt did redirect people to chat on Proving Ground when he shut down CMHQ chat).

Don't you think people would be more encouraged to create mods if they knew the developer had its own website where they could be stored and disseminated? Blaming it on "psychotic attacks" and demonizing people who didn't agree with your concept for CMX2 is dramatic enough, but what exactly has BFC done to positively foster a community?

We made the game. That's enough, I should think, because without that there wouldn't be anything. I don't demonize people who don't agree with CMx2. The people who lash out and abuse the game, my company, the people who test the game, the people who like the game, and myself are in a different class. One can disagree without being abusive. I have no more patience for the CMx1 people who behave like insolent children any more than I had for the CC and Steel Panthers guys who came here in 1998-2002 abusing people. Abuse is abuse, not criticism.

They had to beg you to set up a scenario forum, for example, and you still can't store any files there.

And there still isn't a "modding" forum at all.

We don't know if there is enough demand for a modding forum specifically. If there is we can set one up in about 10 seconds. Hosting files is another thing altogether and we currently don't have the resources to manage it. If someone approaches us with a need for space and a demonstrated ability to manage such a site, then we are open to that.

Honestly Dorosh... I don't know what your point is.

Steve

[ January 10, 2008, 07:58 PM: Message edited by: Battlefront.com ]

[Battlefront.com]

Lurker765,

It seems that the "psychotic attacks" line is a bit much.

For 98% of the people who posted criticism and disappointment, sure. But a VERY small handful stalked threads and purposefully ensured that any positive discussion of the game got derailed. Again, it was a small number but it was enough that it drove people who actually liked the game off the Forum.

I would also say this particular post by Steve has a lot of revisionism in it. For example, Steve mentioned quite a few times how horribly reviewed CMBO was upon it's initial release but that was not the case at all. Reviewers loved it, as did user reviews on all the major sites.

We also had throngs of Close Combat and Steel Panthers people deriding the game in extremely brutal fashion. Very much like some CMx1 fans attacking CMx2. At one point a bunch of CM fans went over to the CC3 Forum to kick them in the teeth, so to speak, and I had to ask them to not do that. If you have forgotten about this, you can check out the archives. Look up the user name such as Igotmilk and you should find some of the more infamous conflicts.

Or the famous "you don't get it" comments directed at people in the early days when they were trying to play through the bugs that haunt this game due to the early release.

My only regret about saying that is how easily it has been taken out of context and distorted. The "you don't get it" comment was aimed at people that rejected the game system itself, not those experiencing bugs or difficulties using the UI. I always went out of my way to make that distinction clear, but the people who fundamentally did not like the game (bugs aside) chose to twist this around to suit their own agenda.

That old thread does have quite a bit of interesting reading in it though. I come back here for some of the game design discussions since I used to make computer games myself, but often the level of vitriol from both sides makes this a tough place.

Well, finally and admission that the critics sometimes stepped over the line. Thanks at least for that.

I think many of the current problems could have been prevented with either a release of the game at a v1.06 level rather than the one six months ago,

Hindsight is great for pronouncements like this, so with that in mind I agree.

or if the game didn't have the words Combat Mission in it. Just naming it something different would have changed expectations.

I still find this line of argument silly. CMx2 is a direct decedent of CMx1, so why the need for a new name? No matter what we do, what we say, someone is going to get a hair across their butts about it. If we changed the name to something else I guarantee you we would have had a crapstorm of some other sort from the same people. They are pissed we didn't spend the last three years remaking the same thing we already had, so the name really doesn't matter much.

You see...that's the difference between you and us... we know we can't make eveybody happy.

Steve

[ January 10, 2008, 08:00 PM: Message edited by: Battlefront.com ]

[Michael Dorosh]

Originally posted by Battlefront.com:

Honestly Dorosh... I don't know what your point is.

Steve

The point is that battlefront.com has done nothing to actively foster a healthy community in which fans of its currently supported games can share files (hosting skins, .wavs or scenarios), play competitively (hosting ladders or even tournaments), find opponents in real time (chat feature) or increase their enjoyment of the product by increased contacts of a material nature (all of the above, add in other stuff like scenario design contests, tactics contests or other promotions).

That is the point. I apologize if I was somehow unclear. In other words, the lack of community is not entirely the fault of the "WW II cult" as you insultingly put it, nor the "psychotic attacks" of people who did not like the game, but perhaps in a small part by a lack of direct tangible support by you, the developer and publisher of the game.

Do you disagree that the latter might be a small factor?