I have gone over to the Dark Side.

[SgtMuhammed]

Ok, I know I have stated many times that I am too old and slow to mess with real time. But I finally decided to give it a shot. So I started playing the campaign. If you are going to jump in you might as well make it with both feet.

I like it. I have much more control over fire distrubution and can take control of my guys before they do something too stupid.

I think some of the really big scenarios will have to be WEGO but I think I will be able to live with this.

I do wish there was an option to play back the last few seconds for those "What the hell was that?!" moments.

[jhdeerslayer]

Originally posted by sgtgoody (esq):

Ok, I know I have stated many times that I am too old and slow to mess with real time. But I finally decided to give it a shot. So I started playing the campaign. If you are going to jump in you might as well make it with both feet.

I like it. I have much more control over fire distrubution and can take control of my guys before they do something too stupid.

I think some of the really big scenarios will have to be WEGO but I think I will be able to live with this.

I do wish there was an option to play back the last few seconds for those "What the hell was that?!" moments.

I was a WEGO guy too and thought I would never change. I played a small scenario as RT one time and have been hooked ever since. You can always stop the action and the scenario's just play quicker and have more suspense and control to me.

Of course, you do miss some action and have to watch for 1.03 oddities but that soon will be gone as an issue I suspect.

[Guest]

It really does give you much more control. I find it hard to manage more than a few platoons, though.

[kipanderson]

Hi,

Pause-able RT is fine… I am pulsed how anyone could have any objections to it.

However… RT without the ability to pause is a real problem.

All the best,

Kip.

[KNac]

Pausable RT w/o big PAUSE message in the middle of the screen is even better!

Pausable RT Tcp/IP is necessary.

[handihoc]

I love pausable RT. I always found WEGO a bit of a pain in the butt - real sense of breaking the exquisite tension every minute, particularly in MP. Being able to pause when you want is great - but not sure how that works in MP with CMSF.

I love this game. Even with all its flaws it's the best I've played in a long time. Thinking about possible future add-ons and expansions, once the basics are sorted, really gets me on one.

[DzrtFox]

I actually enjoy RT also... My biggest problem with it is that it is very difficult to split your attention between two different areas. It makes it really hard to control a flanking force while still paying attention to your main force without being zoomed way out. I also miss not being able to rewind the action when I miss something. I can't stand when I divert my attention elsewhere and come back to a smoking vehicle with no idea what happened.

However, I do enjoy the tension and realism that RT provides...

[bwgulley]

RT is the only way to go!! With pause it's much faster and I'd say more real the WeGo.

[JSB]

And against a human player, the pace is far more playable. (but without pause...)

[RMC]

Dark side? Cheney plays RT?

I've been RT since CC1. It makes it hard to go back to a TB environment.

It's interesting to see the TB guys giving RT a real go and enjoying it. I've argued around here for years that WEGO with 60 sec turns is selling an illusion of control that you can't really get. It's kind of funny that you ae feeling more in control with RT.

[Mord]

I've tried it and still don't like it. For me WEGO is the best of both worlds...it's not dry like Turn Based, and I never miss cool stuff like in RT.

I do like the fact that it is in the game though, makes people that wanted it happy (which sells more games) and it's much quicker if you want to check or test stuff. I don't think it's anymore realistic than WEGO...both have their realism arguments.

It would have been great if they could've had a UI for each type of play too. Probably a HUGE PITA to implement. But would've solved a lot of bitching on both sides of the fence.

Mord.

[SlapHappy]

I think the game would have worked better if they had used an individual soldier command level with WEGO that stopped whenever there was enemy contact that required fresh orders instead of a fixed time span.

Sort of a WEGO with "action interrupt".

Guess it's a little late for that, though.

[KNac]

individual soldier command? micro nightmare, no thanks. or do you wwant to playa single platoon AT MUCH?

[GSX]

I enjoyed it too but only for very small battles. Otherwise as has been said you miss a lot of whats going on elsewhere and get sucked into a specific location. WEGO is still the best ever compromise in a simulation of more than Platoon strength I think. Especially if you want to enjoy the graphics improvements, otherwise you end up just looking from afar at little blue circles.

[bodkin]

I think alot more people would play RT if there was a rewind feature, I would think it would be quite easy to do as WEGO at the moment is just RT without a pause/issue commands feature.

I agree with GSX I want to zoom in and look at the detail and watch the action with the knowledge my troops aren't getting slaughtered somewhere else because I'm not flicking around the battlefield, I don't want to just look at the blue and red baloons.

[Other Means]

Originally posted by GSX:

I enjoyed it too but only for very small battles. Otherwise as has been said you miss a lot of whats going on elsewhere and get sucked into a specific location. WEGO is still the best ever compromise in a simulation of more than Platoon strength I think. Especially if you want to enjoy the graphics improvements, otherwise you end up just looking from afar at little blue circles.

Originally posted by bodkin:

I think alot more people would play RT if there was a rewind feature, I would think it would be quite easy to do as WEGO at the moment is just RT without a pause/issue commands feature.

I agree with GSX I want to zoom in and look at the detail and watch the action with the knowledge my troops aren't getting slaughtered somewhere else because I'm not flicking around the battlefield, I don't want to just look at the blue and red baloons.

Agreed, but with a different slant - see here.

[Battlefront.com]

Interesting thread considering that RealTime is completely unplayble. Or so said some when the game first came out

I would LOVE rewindable RealTime. Unfortunately, I don't think this is practical. Still, it is on my wishlist and I'll continually pester Charles about it until it is implemented (or I retire to collect Social Security ).

Steve

[Pinetree]

How about a rewind to the last pause?(or even rewind a minute of action) Since that is what basically happens now with WEGO isn't it?

[Battlefront.com]

It is possible that CM could do some sort of rolling memory thing, kinda like TiVo does (TV-DVR technology), but it would require a lot of memory and there would be some performance hit because the system would have to spend a lot of time putting data into memory and purging it on the fly. It would also not be written to disk, since that is something that really whacks the system's resources.

I'm hoping we can give something like this a try for WW2, but we've got to balance this with all the other things needed for that game. Time is never unlimited, and all of these things take time.

Steve

[Dhul Karnain]

ok, so we know that would be a big performance hit. so what about rewinding only last 30 secs of the action? for single player only.

[Battlefront.com]

No idea how bad the hit will be until we program it. Up until now we haven't had the time to do speculative development like this. Someday we will, and I hope that day is soon because this would be a BIG benefit. And yes, it kinda goes without saying that it MUST be a single player feature only. There is no way this would work for multiplayer in any sort of a good way.

Steve

[Thomm]

Never played CM:SF in WeGo mode, not even once!

BUT: I really prefer having WeGo around, and, perhaps more importantly, have people still play WeGo, because they will act as a big quality assurance department for the TacAI.

After all, everything in this respect, that is good for WeGo, is good for real time, too!

Best regards,

Thomm

[SlowMotion]

Originally posted by Battlefront.com:

No idea how bad the hit will be until we program it. Up until now we haven't had the time to do speculative development like this. Someday we will, and I hope that day is soon because this would be a BIG benefit. And yes, it kinda goes without saying that it MUST be a single player feature only. There is no way this would work for multiplayer in any sort of a good way.

Steve

If replaying realtime battles is not possible, would it be a huge task to record WEGO games so that the whole game could be later played as if it was one big movie? Maybe this could even work for WEGO multiplayer games?

[zwobot]

Originally posted by SlapHappy:

I think the game would have worked better if they had used an individual soldier command level with WEGO that stopped whenever there was enemy contact that required fresh orders instead of a fixed time span.

Sort of a WEGO with "action interrupt".

Guess it's a little late for that, though.

Brigade E5 has something like this, everytime a soldier has completed an order the game is paused so you can give new ones. The idea is not bad but maybe the action interrupts should not affect all orders and incidents, otherwise I think it could become a bit annoying with a feeling of micromanagement.

I never tried Realtime in Shock Force because I don't want to miss important stuff going on. On the other hand missing those stuff adds to the fog of war.

[Steiner14]

More control in RT only seems nice. But it reduces the fun, because the LESS control in WEGO gives an additional thrill RT never owns.

Horror movies work, because you are doomed to watch and cannot change the flow and cannot escape.

WEGO creates exactly that feeling with the right amount of control.

I just received several artillery barrages in a CMBB battle. Will the tanks close their hatches? Will it panick my men? Eternal seconds, where i'm doomed to watch and cannot escape it, by reacting and redrawing them after the first round.

And this thrill lasts not only for a few seconds, but it is even built up until the next movie shows the results of the taken measures.

In WEGO you are doomed to watch.

It's similar to the hours before Christmas for children. Although every child hardly can bear the time to go by, but if you remember yourself about it, this time, where you wish and imagine having the gift, is the really precious one. In German we have the saying "Vorfreude ist die schönste Freude."

And here lies the magic of WEGO.

If you ask a child, if it would like to have it's gift immediately or wait until the time has come, no child would deny to recieve it immediately. Give it to me now!

RT is the instant delivering of the gift. But WEGO ist the ceremony with Vorfreude.

[ September 29, 2007, 03:27 AM: Message edited by: Steiner14 ]