Michael Emrys Posted August 22, 2005 Share Posted August 22, 2005 Originally posted by stinkypinky: Bah, I live in belgium. I can get him any Belgian beer he wants.They sell beer to minors in Belgium? Michael 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Battlefront.com Posted August 22, 2005 Share Posted August 22, 2005 Hoegaarden... mmmmm.... one of my favorites! We are indeed very close to spilling the beans. As for Martin's comments... hmmm... not sure how hard I should spank him for that. Even though he made his comments back in December 2004, I know Charles and I were thinking early 2006 at that time. Bit of a SNAFU I guess Steve 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
hellfish Posted August 22, 2005 Share Posted August 22, 2005 Define "very close". 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Michael Emrys Posted August 22, 2005 Share Posted August 22, 2005 Originally posted by fytinghellfish: Define "very close". "Sometime this century. Maybe." Michael 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
WineCape Posted August 23, 2005 Share Posted August 23, 2005 Patience = virtue. Wanna see how your new French Barrel (@ R5000 a piece) will interact with your grapes juice in 18 months time with battonage? 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
aka_tom_w Posted August 23, 2005 Author Share Posted August 23, 2005 Battlefront.com Administrator Member # 42 posted August 23, 2005 11:21 AM Quick definitions of what is displayed about each Soldier: Weapon - the primary personal weapon of that Soldier. Speciality - designation of special position within the unit, if any. For example, someone who is trained on an AT weapon will be identified as such. Squad Leader and Team Leader are obvious designations. Radio Man, Assistant MG Gunner, etc. These things are important to show because it tells you what the unit is inherently capable of. If a mortar round comes and takes out your AT specialist, you'll still be able to have that Squad go after a tank, but it will do so without the optimal choice. So you might want to have another unit do it. Condition - This is simply a state of being. Right now we have 4 states, but that could change. The states are Healthy (including superficial wounds), Minor Wound (still functional, though less so), Major Wound (out of action), and KIA (completely out of action). This status has an effect on combat capabilities within the game, but it also has meaning for scoring and campaign play. Guys who end up with Minor Wounds might come back for the next battle, might not. Guys with Major Wounds will not, and could possibly be tallied up as KIA. KIA is obvious. Onto other things... The 1:1 representation is the way to go. We do not think there is any viable in between for a game of this scale. If the soldiers are moving around and looking like they are portraying individuals, people will be confused and pretty upset if that isn't the case. In CMx1 the soldier figures were obviously abstracted and even then we had tons of criticism for not showing every soldier (which was technically impossible at the time in any case). So there is no use whining and complaining about it... the decision was made 3 years ago, it is the right decision, and it isn't changing. We don't know what the upper size of a CMx2 battle will be so we don't want to overpromise. Over time it can certainly go larger thanks to hardware improvements. But for the first game we are focusing on a "task force" type of organization of roughly 1-2 companies in strength. Less than a company should be viable, more than 2 companies... we aren't sure. For those of you who remember CMBO's early days we were saying the same thing, though by the time we were finished battalion sized games were possible for those with decent hardware. The amount of animations our little guys will have comes down to time. We've got all the basics in there already, but we're not sure what more we'll put in. We could spend months putting in stuff. Unfortunately, we hit the point of diminishing returns on development effort pretty quickly since we don't have multi-million dollar budgets and a huge development team. Steve 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
aka_tom_w Posted August 26, 2005 Author Share Posted August 26, 2005 I guess this WHOLE forum is now Steve's recent CMx2 bones -tom w 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Salkin Posted August 26, 2005 Share Posted August 26, 2005 Hehe...yeah , but if he slacks of, keep 'em comming Tom . //Salkin 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
aka_tom_w Posted August 28, 2005 Author Share Posted August 28, 2005 No terrain fog of war in CMx2 BUT it looks like they are thinking about it...... It would be nice to hide building details from units, but really... they already know so much more than they should what would this accomplish? I mean, you shouldn't even know if there is a house on the next block at all, not to mention if it has windows with green shutters Fogged out Terrain was something we tossed around as an idea a long time ago. We decided the cons outweighed the pros so that concept is not in the game. Steve [ August 28, 2005, 09:00 PM: Message edited by: aka_tom_w ] 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
aka_tom_w Posted September 4, 2005 Author Share Posted September 4, 2005 Battlefront.com Administrator Member # 42 Battle Scope …the CMx2 scope is just about the same as CMx1 was designed for. Cripes, when we were first testing the game even a Company sized battle was a strain on the hardware! Hardware capability increased and allowed for bigger battles. But officially, we have never sanctioned anything beyond Bn vs. Bn. And even then we did so knowing that there were inherent problems with this since the game design was never meant to handle such large engagements. CMx2 is being written with the limitations of hardware in mind, but with future hardware capabilities (and settings) also in mind. The system is scalable. The first release will focus on sub-battalion engagements and we think people will find it a much more challenging environment. Three reasons: 1. The C&C system is totally different. Keeping units organized is going to be a rather big part of battles. That means the free flowing, helter skelter, BN battles people play now would not be possible. At least not without the frustrations of C&C real commanders would face. 2. Relative Spotting. This should prove to be a huge factor in the way games play out. All on its own it should people to have to think a lot more about what they do, when they do it, and how they do it. That means more thinking will go into doing things, which in turn means that you'll be equally challenged with fewer units. 3. Immersion. The 1:1 system will make you a lot more interested in what's going on down at the soldier level. And because of that, less attention available for handling massive numbers of units. All I can say is people are picturing CMx1 played out on a smaller (and I stress ORIGINAL) scale and thinking it will suck. Well, we disagree. Steve Battlefront.com Administrator Member # 42 posted September 03, 2005 02:35 AM There is nothing under "threat" here. CMx1 was designed for a particular method of play, some people went beyond that. CMx2 is being designed for the same level of play as CMx2, and doubtless people will want to take it beyond that. We don't see why not, though we are not going to do things to specifically support that. For example, we aren not including Battalion level and higher Formations. I'm not even sure we'll have a Battalion HQ available onmap for the first release. Why not? Because unlike CMx1 there are a lot of ramifications to the C&C system with that BN HQ in there. For CMx1 we threw it in late in the development because it was no different than a Platoon or Company HQ. The reason that was the case is we never intended on having BN HQs and therefore didn't have a C&C system setup to make it behave differently. Not the same for CMx2. Now HQs matter. A lot. So we can't just toss in stuff willy nilly. We might get one in there, we might not. It isn't a priority for us since that isn't the game we are focused on making. For the first release hardware is going to be the big enemy of massive unit games, not us. Plus there are all the other things I mentioned in this thread and others about the core changes. I'm not sure people will find that many units fun this time around. Certainly not in some modes of play (actually impossible I'd say). When Co-Play comes around, and hardware increases in capabilities, things will change. But that time isn't for CMx1's first release. Steve Battlefront.com Administrator Member # 42 posted September 03, 2005 02:25 PM quote: If you have more than one company to control would you not need a higher HQ of some sort above that of a single Co. HQ? BN HQ is currently slated to be represented offmap. That means the highest onmap HQ possible is Company. You can have two Companies, and they will communicate with the offmap BN HQ. Support units, organically attached to BN, BGD, RGT, DIV, or even higher can be simulated no problem. You just don't get all the other crap that is tagged to those levels. Steve [ September 04, 2005, 06:05 AM: Message edited by: aka_tom_w ] 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
aka_tom_w Posted September 7, 2005 Author Share Posted September 7, 2005 Battlefront.com Administrator Member # 42 posted September 07, 2005 12:35 PM Squad formation will be done automatically depending on the Command, terrain, unit factors (especially Experienec), and ultimately how much we can cram into the TacAI itself. There will be limitations on what we can acheive, though the basics will certainly be there. Remember my correction about splitting Squads. You can split Squads, you can't split Teams. Well, not in the tactical sense anyway. There are certain specific exceptions but I don't want to get into that yet Steve 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
aka_tom_w Posted September 8, 2005 Author Share Posted September 8, 2005 MOVE TO CONTACT BONE Battlefront.com Administrator Member # 42 posted September 08, 2005 06:36 PM Oh, it gets even better. It is now possible for a unit with a Move to Contact order to not fire. Instead it can creep along, spot something, and be quiet so that it can observe instead of announce to everbody where you are. As with CMx1, the Move to Contact command works best in dense terrain. It gives you a chance to see the other guy before he sees you. In open terrain all it really does is avoid getting closer to the enemy before you figure out what to do. And yes, Thomm is correct... in CMx2 ambushes should be a lot easier to acheive. Part of the whole "slower pace" I've talked about before. The more uncertainty a commander has, the more hesitation and deliberate action instead of instant and hasty moves. And that is a good thing. More tension! Steve tom w comments: OK... So unless it is a clever RUSE the first game is NOT a Napoleonic game! So that is a good start I think ( while it is still speculative) we can also rule out the Civil War for the SAME reasons listed below. -tom w Battlefront.com Administrator Member # 42 posted September 07, 2005 10:46 PM Hi Gordon! Well, if we were to do a Napoleonic game right now we would likely have to dumb down the game quite a bit. Graphics would have to be at much lower resolutions, guys would have very limited autonomous behavior, and so forth. We'd probably have to reduce the terrain resolution too, but that wouldn't be a big deal. On the plus side, there are a lot of calcuations that wouldn't be needed due to the ridged formations and lack of variety in weapons. We might also have to do some sort of "figure = x men" where x is greater than 1. These are all just thoughts about how hardware limitations of today would cause us to change what we are building. Instead, we are looking forward to the day when the game system we're building now can support larger environments without dumbing down the system. And that's the beauty of the CMx2 system... its scalable Steve [ September 08, 2005, 04:49 PM: Message edited by: aka_tom_w ] 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
aka_tom_w Posted September 9, 2005 Author Share Posted September 9, 2005 re: Battle scope and size Battlefront.com Administrator Member # 42 posted September 09, 2005 12:40 AM Yes, AEB and Pvt. Ryan are correct. That is what I have been saying. I have also been saying that we aren't purposefully supporting BN/RGT sized battles in CMx2 any more than we did for CMx1. And since we had zero support for them in CMx1, we have zero support for them in CMx2. That being said, we aren't doing anything special to restrict huge games in CMx2, just like we didn't for CMx1. Basically, whatever you guys manage to do with what we release is your own business BTW, I remember a scenario that Rune did. In fact, it was one of the scenarios that got him the nickname "Evil Rune". It was a massive CMBO scenario called "Battle of the Bulge" or something like that. I think there was a battalion of tanks on each side. Each turn took something like 10 minutes to crunch once the shooting started. My framerate was, oh, at about slideshow rates too. And I had a pretty good system at the time. People that bought CMBB and CMAK only don't remember those days because, even though the core engine is the same the hardware wasn't. Oh, and then there was Rune's massive 101st assault on Berchtesgaden. What a monster that was! Less tanks so better crunch times (tanks SUCK up the CPU cycles), but still far too long for turn crunchings for me to finish. Of course on my current computers it would probably take 30seconds to crunch Steve 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
imported_Wildman Posted September 9, 2005 Share Posted September 9, 2005 Personally I'm waiting for "Hammer's Slammers". 15cm plasmaguns is something I'm looking forward to. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
aka_tom_w Posted September 14, 2005 Author Share Posted September 14, 2005 Very interesting! (posted September 14, 2005 06:19 PM) Battlefront.com Administrator Member # 42 posted September 14, 2005 06:19 PM CMx2 will be more newbie friendly. We are planning on a "training campaign" and will invite new players to play the game using a sort of beginner's mode. This means features that normally are newbie hostile, such as Relative Spotting, will be turned down as much as possible or disabled completely. The game will play quite differently and some people will stick with it even after they get the hang of it. Let's not forget that there are people that play CMx1 with Fog of War turned off (yes, it is true!). Steve 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SlowMotion Posted September 15, 2005 Share Posted September 15, 2005 Some things not mentioned in this thread can be found from this three part interview (people from several sim game companies): http://www.simhq.com/_all/all_006a.html 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
aka_tom_w Posted September 15, 2005 Author Share Posted September 15, 2005 Battlefront.com Administrator Member # 42 posted September 15, 2005 02:48 AM Emrys is correct: quote: From the accounts I have read, guys who broke individually as is being discussed here, were usually gone for the day. Yes. Individuals are generally writeoffs. If the bulk of a unit flakes out there might be some hope of being brought back into line. But individuals in that state have already moved well beyond simple cowardly behavior. They are likely psychologically toasted. quote: And in any event, we need to be leery of bogging the game down in too many fine details. You can't put everything from WW II into it and still have it playable, either by the player or his machine. This is a serious concern of ours. Not only the hardware hit to have potentially more guys as individual panicked "units" as regular combat units. Remember, whether talking about a tank, a Squad of 8 men, a Squad of 12 men, or a single guy in Panic mode... there is a certain amount of overhead that is identical. Same basic book keeping hit, same implication for spotting, identical needs in terms of LOF calculations, and probably even MORE need of TacAI and pathfinding. The latter all on their own could be devistating to hardware performance because the little panicked guys will be constantly hitting that stuff whereas the player controlled stuff only needs it periodically. On top of that, lots of CPU cycles and RAM will be needed to manage the behavior of all those fleeing guys. So... we are still toying with some concepts, but there are some serious limitations as to what we can realistically do right now. As time goes on, and hardware gets better, the choices increase. Steve Battlefront.com Administrator Member # 42 posted September 16, 2005 03:50 PM quote: So Steve does that mean that we're gonna see real and good 1:1 graphics for the loading/firing of mortars and guns then? Yes. For common types of team weapons we do expect to have at least the firing animations correct. Breaking down and setting up... probably not. At least not for the initial release. We are, however, simulating the different pieces of the weapon. Lose the guy with the baseplate and you got yourself a a guy lugging around a very heavy bong Steve [ September 16, 2005, 07:21 PM: Message edited by: aka_tom_w ] 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
aka_tom_w Posted September 29, 2005 Author Share Posted September 29, 2005 Battlefront.com Administrator Member # 42 posted September 28, 2005 01:49 AM I'll give you some timeframe on when you'll here more than just crickets. There is a sneak preview article coming out in Computer Gaming World very shortly (late October in mailboxes, early November on stands). Lots of things are explained in there and screenshots are part of it. Since there are screenshots, the setting is obviosly also plain to see. However, by the time it is in print you'll already know the basics before then and will have some screenshots of your own. Yes, the end of the suspense is near Steve LOS and the God and Borg Problem quote Battlefront.com Administrator Member # 42 posted October 04, 2005 10:08 AM Yes, God and Borg are the terms we use to distinguish between the two. And it is these reasons that we artificially reduced the ability to fire blind. It is one of those compromises we had to make in order to maximize overall realism. In CMx2 the Borg is not as much of a problem as it used to be. Still there, but greatly reduced. God is also somewhat reduced, but it is pretty much still there like in CMx1. Therefore, I am not sure what we will do with blind firing. We'll cross that bridge when we come to it. Just know that if we feel we can allow blind firing this time around we will. There's no technical reason to prevent blind firing, nor is there any desire on our part to artificially restrict this. However, we must do what we must do to limit gamey God/Borg effects and that means we might keep things the same as CMx1. Steve [ October 04, 2005, 07:28 AM: Message edited by: aka_tom_w ] 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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