a call for more variety in the WWII CMx2 game

[Dirtweasle]

How about y'all release the WWII version when it is a rock solid finished product of the quality your customers have come to expect over the past several years.

As for more variety, as I understand the "module" strategy precludes a wide array of different stuff, nations and what not, but you can gain a lot of variety with a better, and by that I mean fuller richer, campaign experience as well as better quick battle generation .

I hope we see better along those lines.

[hammelman]

Question Steve,

Is there ever going to be a way to mix modules, i.e. British, Marines, and Amer Army units all in the same mission? I guess i'm thinking of something like a joint mission, or convoy - British convoy comes under attack, Marine unit is in the area to help, and Air force F-16's fly cover?

[tiger123]

Very interesting.

Here are a few rambling thoughts on the matter.

I`ve had CMBO as soon as it was launched and then the other two.

I still, despite reading Steves posts, understand the logic of doing Current day warfare (Irag/Afghanistan) but refusing to do NATO/WP.

It seems that the logic is " Let`s do a game with US forces (good Banker) against a foe who cannot win.Let`s make sure by giving them next to no ammo

and be outnumbered.

Lets keeps all options few in number and difficult to mod."

If you want to spend the next year in business let alone ten then you have to listen to your customers.If you say that the sales of CMBB were less than CMBO and probably CMAK and CMSF are`nt any better by inference then you need to really stop the rot for all our sakes.

Just saying "We make the games we want to play-If you also happen to like them as well -jolly good " is astonishing.

As far as the genre goes I love your games-I`m even getting to like CMSF-and think you all deserve the best for your efforts (especially Charles).

You must have a Guardian Angel or an alternative income source

Hang on in there..........

[SlowMotion]

Hammelman: I think he already wrote about this on page 1:

"when a scenario designer goes to make a Battle he selects which Modules he wants to include. This filters the selections he can make according to what Modules are checked off."

[tiger123]

P.s.

I meant to say "I still, despite reading Steve`s, posts DON`T understand the logic......."

[mazex]

I have no problems with the module concept now that 1.07 has proven that the base game is sound...

But lets give us something more to drool over - what are the current module plans after the Marines module? There is talk about the Brits - any official take on this? What more? Are all the mods necessarily taking place in Syria or could the year 2008/9 or so be the "CM:SF base"? Just add some grass/tree mod and a russian invasion of Poland in 2010 is possible without to much work... Riots after accusations of rigged elections etc, old style communists regain power and starts threatening old WP countries Possible - nope, but I'm willing to add some imagination to get away from asymetric warfare Well, Russia vs NATO would get assymetrical pretty quick but still...

OK, that's really more work than a module so make it a separate game - I'm willing to pay at least. Then add a German mod with Leos and stuff as the russians somehow squash Poland and roll through Germany to the third mod with french units. It takes lots of imagination but really - a US invasion of Syria is pretty much science fiction today... Just look at all the "which is the best tank" threads in forums all over the world. People are willing to add some imagination to try it out...

[Bradley]

I'll just be thrilled to see a WWII module and folks want to complain about them?

While playing CMSF with it's more refined (post patch)game play I picture what a refined WWII will be and it gets exciting the thought of it. Have many thought about and envisioned how good this might be.

Give me 10 modules, if it is good I'll gladly shell out $$ for them.

[abneo3sierra]

Originally posted by MikeyD:

Its funny that people are worrying about how to juggle modules when many of them haven't even bothered to purchase the base game. I don't really see the percentages in BFC continuing to cater to the old CMx1 grognard crowd, some of whom appear to want to deep-six the game for sheer spite. One guy last week was vowing he'd refuse to buy the game as long as the PDF manual remained in its current form. The first-time pimply teenager market is exponentially more lucrative, and those guys wouldn't be inclined to bitch about the missing blue progress bar.

Actually I am assuming here you are referring to me. You misread my original post, and never read my reply in that topic. My problem was what I saw as a company specifically trying to alienate some of its customers, which is the opposite of what is learned in Business 101. Since that post was made I have gotten a better understanding of the situation however. I never would refuse to buy for a foolish reason, but I would refuse to buy even a quality game from a company that did not care about it's customers.

On this subject, I completely side with Battlefront. Nearly every game puts out modules of some sort. Nothing wrong there at all. As an officer in the US Army I would even recommend this title, with some tweaks, for some realistic training in small team tactics.

[ March 03, 2008, 01:36 PM: Message edited by: abneo3sierra ]

[Mord]

I don't care how much I have to pay...If I eventually get the same stuff that was in CMBO, vehicles, troop types, nations, weather, water and fire, I'll be happy. If that takes 4 modules and five times the money CMBO cost, so be it...I just want to have the variety....more so on the vehicles than anything else. I love all the cool equipment.

Do you guys plan to do that Steve, give us all the vehicles (CMBO) over a period of published modules?

Mord.

[Sirocco]

Originally posted by Battlefront.com:

That's because customers ALWAYS want more than we can possibly deliver. What you see from me is a reality check on those requests/demands. The alternative is to lie and say "yes, we are thinking of doing that" all the while not having any intention of doing it. I guess we could go that route, but I don't see how that's productive.

It was a general comment. You seem to be becoming more and more focussed on what floats your boat with the games, and at times you don't listen to outside input; you downright dismiss it. That's an observation on businesses that grow quickly and then lose sight of what got them there.

Plus, your logic is fatally flawed. CMBB had TONS more stuff in it than CMBO and it sold far less. CMAK had about as much as CMBB and it sold less and at a lower price point. Therefore, contrary to your logic of "less stuff gets us less sales" we have learned the lesson that "more stuff doesn't get us more sales".

We had that discussion before on marketing, so I won't get into it again here. But I think your conclusions on those sales numbers and why they were significantly lower are flawed.

As I said before, I have no problem with the module format, and it's one I'd go with, too. But you were busy chopping out stuff in CMSF because it didn't float your boat that I hope you'll implement again in the WW2 game.

[flamingknives]

Sirocco,

I'm sure that you have some kind of reference for the points you make.

I'd be interested to know what BFC cut out of CMSF just because they didn't like it.

[abneo3sierra]

I have purchased 5 games from this company and will likely purchase more. I hope that they do listen to their customers however. I , and nearly everyone I know who has purchased, the titles like cmbb, would have paid even more for them. Perhaps the direction to go is not to cut things out, but to increase the price. People gladly go to stores and purchase games they will only play for a month or two, for $50-60 US. Many will pay that and even a little more for games that can be played infinitely.

Just my two cents.

[wunwinglow]

Pity the customers can't design their own vehicles, as they can in programs such as Microsofts flight sim series. It isn't easy, but with thousands of dedicated customers, design and painting software, tutorials, add-ons for free and purchase, the base program has a couple of dozen aircraft and a bunch of basic, and not so basic airfields, but the number actually available to the customer must run to thousands and thousands. And most have been done by gifted enthusiasts, for free.

Just a thought....

Tim

PS Heres a Sea Fury I did a few years ago for Combat Flight Simulator. It had working undercarriage, flaps, prop, control surfaces, canopy, arrestor hook, cooling gills. It had alternate ordnance loads, bombs, rockets, fuel tanks, guns, all of which 'worked'. It had alternate colour schemes, and flew pretty well too.

I can't think that a tank would be any more complicated....

[abneo3sierra]

Awesome work there.

[Mord]

that's an old hacked out argument that's been explained a million times.

Can you please scale down the pic so it doesn't stretch the page all wonky.

Nice model btw.

Mord.

[Battlefront.com]

SlowMotion,

I hope this option will be there for QBs as well.

Yup!

Cpl Steiner

Would you be prepared to reveal how CM:SF has performed, sales wise, compared to CM:BO, CM:BB and CM:AK?

CM:SF is selling pretty much exactly as we predicted it would when we set out to make it (i.e. long before the release). It will probably wind up outselling CMAK, maybe match CMBB.

The only reason I ask is that I'm having trouble persuading anyone to buy CM:SF. I'm even having trouble persuading them to try the new demo. It seems to me that there just isn't the interest out there in CM:SF that there was in the CMx1 games.

Of course. You hang out with WW2 gamers so it's a self selecting sample. Plus, WW2 is by far the largest market for wargames so it only makes sense that there will be less interest in anything else by comparison.

PanzerMike ,

Nah, just kidding. But don't be so gloomy.

Not gloomy at all, just pragmatic We know that no matter what we do people will complain. Doesn't matter how good the game is, how much stuff is in it, or what the setting is. That's just the way wargamers are. Certainly TONS of complaints, insults, threats, and other stuff tossed our way during the CMx1 time period. Customers might forget, but we don't

Well said MikeyD.

Garm.

Just one little question: Is there a chance for a release of the WWII game in this year?

Theoretically yes, but we'll have to see how things go this summer before we can commit to a timeframe.

Dirtweasle,

How about y'all release the WWII version when it is a rock solid finished product of the quality your customers have come to expect over the past several years.

Heh... then we'd never release anything

As for more variety, as I understand the "module" strategy precludes a wide array of different stuff, nations and what not, but you can gain a lot of variety with a better, and by that I mean fuller richer, campaign experience as well as better quick battle generation .

The campaign experience is better than CMx1's and probably will not change much in the near future. Trying to make a "perfect" campaign is a fool's errand since there are too many systems to go with and people tend to be emotionally attached/hostile to certain ones. We'd rather put our energies into things like Quick Battles which have more needs and more agreement on what the end product should look like.

Dennis Gabor

Is there ever going to be a way to mix modules, i.e. British, Marines, and Amer Army units all in the same mission?

Yes, absolutely.

Tiger123,

It seems that the logic is " Let`s do a game with US forces (good Banker) against a foe who cannot win.Let`s make sure by giving them next to no ammo

and be outnumbered. Lets keeps all options few in number and difficult to mod."

What game are you talking about? 'tisn't CM:SF.

If you want to spend the next year in business let alone ten then you have to listen to your customers.

What you silly people can't get into your heads is that there isn't just ONE customer to listen to. Campaigns are a great example. There's probably a dozen different ways to go with them, yet I doubt very much if we could find more than 50% of our customers who would agree on a single design. Then, no matter WHAT form it was released in, there would be endless bitching about the details of it.

If you say that the sales of CMBB were less than CMBO and probably CMAK and CMSF are`nt any better by inference then you need to really stop the rot for all our sakes.

Just saying "We make the games we want to play-If you also happen to like them as well -jolly good " is astonishing.

That's not it at all. We have to arrive at a game design that the most amount of people will mostly enjoy. Thinking that we can make a game that EVERYBODY will TOTALLY enjoy is impossible to the extreme. Therefore, by definition someone is going to have a chip on their shoulder about something. What we have to do is determine which chips we can live with and which ones are serious enough to address.

As far as the genre goes I love your games-I`m even getting to like CMSF-and think you all deserve the best for your efforts (especially Charles).

You must have a Guardian Angel or an alternative income source

The latter If people think that three games with a significant revenue lifecycle measured in months can keep us afloat for years after the last release... well, let's just say that isn't the case. CMx1 sales continue, but not even one of us could live off of 'em. We're not complaining since getting some money from a 7 year old game is something most game developers can only dream of.

Steve

[Sirocco]

Originally posted by flamingknives:

Sirocco,

I'm sure that you have some kind of reference for the points you make.

I'd be interested to know what BFC cut out of CMSF just because they didn't like it.

Two obvious things; QB was gutted and right click menu was dropped. Who needs proper QB's when you have scenarios and a campaign? Who needs right click menu when you have keys.

What is promising we're promised a better implementation of QB's and apparently the pop up menu is back in. I wouldn't know how that panned out as I haven't had time to look at the game recently.

[Mord]

Originally posted by Mord:

I don't care how much I have to pay...If I eventually get the same stuff that was in CMBO, vehicles, troop types, nations, weather, water and fire, I'll be happy. If that takes 4 modules and five times the money CMBO cost, so be it...I just want to have the variety....more so on the vehicles than anything else. I love all the cool equipment.

Do you guys plan to do that Steve, give us all the vehicles (CMBO) over a period of published modules?

Mord.

[Battlefront.com]

mazex ,

But lets give us something more to drool over - what are the current module plans after the Marines module? There is talk about the Brits - any official take on this? What more? Are all the mods necessarily taking place in Syria or could the year 2008/9 or so be the "CM:SF base"? Just add some grass/tree mod and a russian invasion of Poland in 2010 is possible without to much work... Riots after accusations of rigged elections etc, old style communists regain power and starts threatening old WP countries Possible - nope, but I'm willing to add some imagination to get away from asymetric warfare Well, Russia vs NATO would get assymetrical pretty quick but still...

We'll just have to see where things go. Our current plan is as it has been for some time... Marines, Brits, mix-mosh European stuff. All of these will be in the same Syrian setting. What happens beyond that is as much an unknown to us as it is to you. However, you are correct to assume that some of the things you mentioned are outside of the scope of a Module and lend themselves more to a new Title. It's not outside of the realm of possibility that something might happen there.

Bradley,

While playing CMSF with it's more refined (post patch)game play I picture what a refined WWII will be and it gets exciting the thought of it. Have many thought about and envisioned how good this might be.

I know I have The new terrain system will lend itself very well to the Hedgerows and small villages in a way that CMBO couldn't. Very much looking forward to that.

abneo3sierra ,

My problem was what I saw as a company specifically trying to alienate some of its customers, which is the opposite of what is learned in Business 101.

Depends on how you define "specifically". We make conscious, well reasoned decisions about what to add and what not to add to a given product. These decisions inevitably alienate some people, even piss some off. But since it is absolutely, completely, and utterly impossible to please everybody we have ALWAYS stuck to what we feel is best. This is what got you guys all CMx1 games and therefore it obviously is a good formula for success.

On this subject, I completely side with Battlefront. Nearly every game puts out modules of some sort. Nothing wrong there at all. As an officer in the US Army I would even recommend this title, with some tweaks, for some realistic training in small team tactics.

Thanks!

I have purchased 5 games from this company and will likely purchase more. I hope that they do listen to their customers however. I , and nearly everyone I know who has purchased, the titles like cmbb, would have paid even more for them. Perhaps the direction to go is not to cut things out, but to increase the price. People gladly go to stores and purchase games they will only play for a month or two, for $50-60 US. Many will pay that and even a little more for games that can be played infinitely.

Just my two cents.

For sure a large percentage of the people posting here would, but overall I doubt it would balance out the lost sales from those who aren't as serious about the games as you guys are. For example, in 10 years less people have registered for these Forums (which encompasses more than CM, remember) than purchased CMBO. By a LOT. The few thousand of you dedicated gamers would have to make up a lot of ground for the tens of thousands that would balk at paying anything more than $45 for any game regardless of what it is. Most people only want to play a game for a few weeks or maybe months. Hardcore gamers and wargamers are exceptions to that rule.

Plus, as I said above it is impractical for us to put out a CMBO title again even if we wanted to (which we don't) and it was commercially viable (which it isn't). It's just too much time on the calendar. The only viable way to do it is to slipstream new content as we are able to and have people who are interested in it pay. In the end we both wind up with what we want personally and collectively. By the latter I mean us continuing to be in business.

Mord,

I don't care how much I have to pay...If I eventually get the same stuff that was in CMBO, vehicles, troop types, nations, weather, water and fire, I'll be happy. If that takes 4 modules and five times the money CMBO cost, so be it...I just want to have the variety....more so on the vehicles than anything else. I love all the cool equipment.

Do you guys plan to do that Steve, give us all the vehicles (CMBO) over a period of published modules?

There is no specific goal as such, however I do expect it will happen eventually.

Sirocco

You seem to be becoming more and more focussed on what floats your boat with the games, and at times you don't listen to outside input; you downright dismiss it. That's an observation on businesses that grow quickly and then lose sight of what got them there.

Err... what got us to where we are is floating our own boat and at times ignoring outside input, sometimes to the point of dismissing it You were around for the assaults by the Close Combat and Steel Panthers guys, right? Using your logic we should have made CMx1 2D and either made it RealTime or IGOYOUGO with hexes. We "dismissed" those potential customers because their vision did not mesh with ours. We did not cave into these guys even though there were huge blowouts with them at the time, including a virtual war between the Close Combat 3 boards and our own.

We had that discussion before on marketing, so I won't get into it again here. But I think your conclusions on those sales numbers and why they were significantly lower are flawed.

Start up a game company, produce games over a period of time similar to us, then come back and compare notes. Until then you've got no credible reason to challenge our conclusions. Since I've already outlined how naive, faulty, and outright illogical the argument is that CMx1 could have turned out any other way than it did I'll not repeat myself. Wargamers, especially grognards, are about as in touch with general market conditions as the monkeys that pick stocks are about Wall Street. No offense meant to our simeon friends

Actually, I find it really funny to see the line of logic presented by people who feel that CMx1 could have done better. We broke all the molds, CMBB and CMAK reviews were on the whole even better than CMBO reviews, and customer awareness of sequels was probably as high as it could possibly get. Yet we have plenty of CMBO customers who deliberately skipped over CMBB and bought CMAK, and CMBB customers skipped over CMAK. They have posted their reasons, directly and without censorship, on these very Forums. Marketing was not amongst the reasons given, rather lack of interest was. Not much we can do about that.

CMBO was largely successful because it was the very first ever wargame of its type. A fresh coat of paint on an existing game engine can't duplicate the success of the original. Moving to less popular settings (everything is less popular than NW Europe, and that's a wargaming sales fact of some 50 years) is also a certain way to have lower sales. We knew all of this before one minute was spent on CMBB and CMAK so we're not surprised by the outcome. In fact, we did better than we expected and (from what we can tell) better than other similar wargame makeovers.

BTW, this isn't just limited to wargames. Look at successful mass market games such as Quake, GTA, Warcraft, etc. They have to pretty much reinvent themselves every few years in some way, usually graphically. Millions of Dollars in advertising and marketing influence also kinda helps

As I said before, I have no problem with the module format, and it's one I'd go with, too. But you were busy chopping out stuff in CMSF because it didn't float your boat that I hope you'll implement again in the WW2 game.

Chopping out things that haven't even been coded takes a couple of seconds to do Instead we were busy implementing lots and lots of new features. Many of which, mind you, came from years of user discussions and experience with CMx1. Again, there will never be complete agreement on these things but looking at what we have now I know, for sure and without any doubts, that we have made the right decisions along the way.

flamingknives

I'm sure that you have some kind of reference for the points you make.

There is none to be had It's part of a cycle that started a while back when we announced the first game would not be WWII. Since some people haven't liked our decisions they feel that they have to justify their opinions. This is the wargamer way and it's as old as the industry itself. For some reason wargamers not only think they would make better game designers than the ones actually doing it, they also think they can do better marketing, customer support, and pretty much everything else that goes into making a business. Yet they don't. Go figure

I'd be interested to know what BFC cut out of CMSF just because they didn't like it.

I'd be interested to hear that too! Even the lack of cherry picking in QBs was requested by some people. Which gets me back to the inescapable truth that there is no one customer to listen to and therefore we can never get it completely right in any individual's eyes.

What some customers don't understand is that EVERY game decision we make is based in large part on what "floats our boat". It's how CMBO, CMBB, CMAK, and CM:SF were all made. Sure, there was ample input from customers and testers, but that input was always either acted upon or not based on our judgement. We're not perfect, however I think it's rather silly for someone who's been registered on this Forum for 6+ years to start complaining about the process now It's not changed.

Popup menu is a case in point. Nobody suggested we put it into CMBO, yet we did. Was that wrong of us? No? Then why is it wrong of us to put in something else in its place without explicit customer input? The fact that someone doesn't like it isn't relevant when discussing the process itself. Meaning, there is nothing wrong with the process, though frequently the end results are objected to. As I've said over and over and over again that's unavoidable. Can't make an omelet without breaking eggs. The fact that a bit of shell gets into the omelet every so often is just a fact of life.

wunwinglow,

Pity the customers can't design their own vehicles, as they can in programs such as Microsofts flight sim series

I've posted about this, at length, more times than I can count. A search on "MOD" or "Modding" should come up with some of those threads. The short of it is that we wish to remain in business. Opening up our game engine will mean our death, so it's not an option. I know that many of you don't understand how that is possible since other game companies seem to thrive on mods, but that's what happens when people make uninformed comparisons in order to support a hypothesis they refuse to believe may be flawed. Put another way, someone who loves mods (either making or using) is not likely to accept any reason for modding to be withheld from him no matter what, so trying to be rational about it is pretty much not possible. Business that are run irrationally are likely to fail sooner rather than later. Like our decisions or hate them, only a fool would call our approach irrational.

Steve

[ March 03, 2008, 06:04 PM: Message edited by: Battlefront.com ]

[abneo3sierra]

Steve,

Thank you for the reply. I am curious, although I completely understand if it is still a secret, about one thing. You stated here in your reply that you wouldn't be doing another CMx-1 game. Most people in that particular forum think the cm-campaigns game will be based on cmbb.

Personally, CMBB I consider a masterpiece, but the engine in this new variation also shows a lot of promise. So, I am curious as I said, will campaigns be a cmbb Part2, or a CM-SF module?

And May I say that it is encouraging you do listen to your customers, listening does not require following what we say, impossible as you pointed out with everyone, but simply that you at least notice what we say and consider it, which I now see you do. Great job sir.

[Bruce70]

Originally posted by Battlefront.com:

What you silly people can't get into your heads is that there isn't just ONE customer to listen to. Campaigns are a great example. There's probably a dozen different ways to go with them, yet I doubt very much if we could find more than 50% of our customers who would agree on a single design. Then, no matter WHAT form it was released in, there would be endless bitching about the details of it.

I agree with what you are saying here Steve and it's good that you plan to improve the QB system, but I would encourage you not to ignore the campaign system entirely. While it's true that your customers will never agree on how to improve that, I believe that you would attract a wider audience no matter what direction you went in. (Of course that wider audience has to be balanced against the effort involved, and I'm in no position to comment on that)

Having said that, there's not a whole lot more that I think needs to be added to the current campaign system - except more campaigns!

Is it your intention that the campaign system will evolve over time?

[panzermartin]

My humble wish for the WW2 game is some more character in buildings. I'm sure modules will gradually cover most vehicles/weapons but what I'd love to see is more facade textures, gas stations, groceries, pansions, warehouses, cottages, various roof shapes etc etc. I'm not expecting Call of Duty level of details, just some slight spicing up of the landscape. The current building customization system is genial and I hope we will see a further extension of it.

[Battlefront.com]

abneo3sierra ,

Thank you for the reply. I am curious, although I completely understand if it is still a secret, about one thing. You stated here in your reply that you wouldn't be doing another CMx-1 game. Most people in that particular forum think the cm-campaigns game will be based on cmbb.

CMC, the CM campaign game system, is completely separate from CMx1 code and is almost entirely being developed out of house. As such I can say for sure that it will not be wrapped into CMBB, BO, or AK in the way I understand your question to mean.

Personally, CMBB I consider a masterpiece,

Personally, I agree However, I knew before we started making it that the Eastern Front isn't everybody's cup of tea. For 20+ years I've tried to figure out why and have come up with lots of reasons that still make no sense to me!

but the engine in this new variation also shows a lot of promise. So, I am curious as I said, will campaigns be a cmbb Part2, or a CM-SF module?

CMC, if that is what you're talking about (just need to make sure), is specifically coded for CMx1's data. I don't think it will be anything other than that. At some point CMx2 (the game engine underneath CM:SF) will return to the Eastern Front. It will be a Title (main release) and not a Module. Way too much to do there to make it viable as a Module.

And May I say that it is encouraging you do listen to your customers, listening does not require following what we say, impossible as you pointed out with everyone, but simply that you at least notice what we say and consider it, which I now see you do. Great job sir.

Thanks! I'm always pleased when someone knows the difference between listening and obeying. One can listen without snapping to attention and running about to do as you wish. Since you're in the military I know you understand why Generals don't go running around following your instructions to the letter (exception! From my understanding 2LTs should ALWAYS do what their senior NCOs "suggest" ).

Bruce70

I agree with what you are saying here Steve and it's good that you plan to improve the QB system, but I would encourage you not to ignore the campaign system entirely. While it's true that your customers will never agree on how to improve that, I believe that you would attract a wider audience no matter what direction you went in. (Of course that wider audience has to be balanced against the effort involved, and I'm in no position to comment on that)

I agree there is more we can do with the current campaign system. Unfortunately, campaign systems are black holes from a design standpoint. There are so many cool things that can be done that if not kept in check the underlying game system will suffer for it. In CMx1 people complained endlessly about the Operations and we said the same thing back then as we do now: everybody, including campaign players, experience the tactical combat. If the tactical combat isn't what it needs to be then nobody will want to play it, stand alone battles or campaigns alike. Therefore, the focus must be on the tactical aspect first and everything else after.

Campaigns are, however, quite important.

Having said that, there's not a whole lot more that I think needs to be added to the current campaign system - except more campaigns!

Obvious I agree that the current system is pretty good "as is". There is no need for radical change, but some decent sized improvements would be quite nice to have.

Ali-Baba,

My humble wish for the WW2 game is some more character in buildings. I'm sure modules will gradually cover most vehicles/weapons but what I'd love to see is more facade textures, gas stations, groceries, pansions, warehouses, cottages, various roof shapes etc etc. I'm not expecting Call of Duty level of details, just some slight spicing up of the landscape. The current building customization system is genial and I hope we will see a further extension of it.

Each setting we simulate will have its own look and feel, that's for sure. I also would like to see more variety in the facades. Fortunately, that's something the engine was designed to handle so we will be able to do this over time for sure.

Steve

[FAI]

Originally posted by Garm:

Just one little question: Is there a chance for a release of the WWII game in this year?

Sure, like a snowball in hell

[Tuomio]

Todays world is full of products, which keep pumping the money out from same concept by adding modules to them. I would gladly see Steve getting some money out from his product too (well not too much, empty stomach is what keeps people productive). As long as we have CMxx series with us, we always have a place to challenge our tactical visions.

Just look at the Sims for example, i think that one has about 30 modules by now for the same boring concept. They add nothing really new or interesting to it, because it just doesent take that much effort to please teenage girls. Just a new set of virtual clothes will get you 100 000 * 20$.

I am pretty certain that if BFC goes under, we will be stuck at playing this version of CMSF for all eternity. If you want a dictionary definition of underwhelm, just look at gaming consoles and its gaming industry. People will buy new console just to get "revolutionary" SEQUEL *Cough* Halo *Cough*. Thats the future, you end up paying lots and lots for essentially nothing.