BUYER BEWARE...you may have overpaid!

[Guest]

Good point. I'd say no. In my mind being a dev and a game developer in particular just makes me more sympathetic.

[Redwolf]

The issue as to whether anybody can program a better TacAI thaan what Charles put into CM:SF is not relevant.

What is relevant is that Charles doesn't have enough time to do it because he also does the physics, the graphics, the animation engine, the base design, the UI. Uh, everything?

[Guest]

Exactly. It isn't relevant at all (which, I might add, Sixxkiller, is why I haven't talked about it).

And your point comes back to our discussion regarding BFC's choosing not to devote enough development resources to the game to finish it within their release timeframe. I agree, BFC's decision is extremely relevant to the current state of the game.

[aleader]

Originally posted by average:

Maybe that or you guys should spend less time checking the best price, more time figuring out how to get to grad school to get paid in proper money.

Um, not sure what 'proper money' means (if it's a shot at CDN cash it's ridiculous as the canuck buck is worth as much or more than the US$ now), or that BS about grad school. I have a degree in Engineering and an MBA, and I still feel ripped for having paid double for an unfinished game .

The reason I bought from BF direct is the safe (or so I thought) knowledge that in the past, BF games do not end up on store shelves at all, and certainly not on a Walmart shelf at half price a scant few months later. As one poster intimated, I have other things to buy besides beer. In any event, $64.05 worth of beer could have provided me with far more joy than the unwieldy CMSF has to date...

[average]

Actually, now I come to think of it, I paid a lot for my last desktop PC, and I saw the same parts cheaper six months later. I am off to write to Nvidia about ripping me off by introducing the 8800 series cards.

What I'm suggesting is that if your crying a river over the workings of the market you should:-

a. Go to those classes where they teach you coping skills;

b. Get a job that pays you enough so that the $64.05 doesn't get you posting on internet boards with sad emicons; and

c. Learn about how the free market works.

It is pretty simple. It is not BFCs fault the game is being sold at a discount by retailers and even if it was BFC's fault indirectly, it couldn't do anything about.

Aleader - wow, you have an MBA and a B.Eng, dude, wow !!

Double wow that you paid double for CMSF. You didn't pay double. When you purchased it the best price on the market was what you paid for it (maybe paradox cheaper but no goodies). So no, you didn't pay double, unless you have two copies.

My tip - next time get an MBA go to one of those skools where you do economics and stuff.

Incidentally, I'm an Australian, so my AUD's are worth less than USDs, CDNDs and Euros).

[SgtMuhammed]

Interesting how you berate him for having an MBA and then tell him to go get an MBA. Not a very cogent argument for a man who claims to be a lawyer.

[average]

Sgt Goody, for a man who claims to be Sgt you don't seem to understand that when berating someone you don't have to make any degree of sense. At least that's my experience with Cpls.

Where did I berate the poster for having an MBA other than to suggest he must have skipped the economics classes that come with that course ?

What I want is a coherent, cogent answer to how BFC can force retail pricing without running into legal problems ?

I also want to know about this paying double question. To be ripped off means you didn't get what you paid for, which you did. You got CMSF. You might not like it as much as you thought you did, but you've got it. That the price subsequently went down means that in retrospect you struck a bad deal based on imperfect information.

Welcome to the real world 101.

[Panzer76]

Originally posted by average:

To be ripped off means you didn't get what you paid for, which you did. You got CMSF.

To get ripped off also means that you get something of *lesser value* or something *diiferent*, than what you *thought* you would get.

Clearly, paying full price for a bug ridden game can fall into that category. Also, logically expecting TCP IP WEGO and a proper QB system and not getting it, can lead you to feel ripped off.

Perhaps you should stick to the law.

[TheNathan]

It's really no mystery as to why prices are falling so dramatically.

Take a look here.

CMSF is obviously succumbing to the bargain bin, due to a poor release, bad reviews, and an inherently niche market.

[Bloodstar44]

Originally posted by TheNathan:

It's really no mystery as to why prices are falling so dramatically.

Take a look here.

CMSF is obviously succumbing to the bargain bin, due to a poor release, bad reviews, and an inherently niche market.

Maybe we Europeans don't want to buy games with Americans in it?

Seriously has BFC considered bad PR Americans have now in the whole world. They will sell game really good in USA but I guarantee you after Iraq fiasco you cannot walk in "America true freedom fighters" T-shirt without getting beaten around lol.

My friend got stoned and bought that t-shirt and we told him "look, wear that only on that small island where everyone know you". lol

I am also suprised but anyway I would never buy this game. Maybe if you make another game of kicking the Americans out of Kosovo.

[Martin Krejcirik]

Bloodstar, if you haven't bought the game than STFU.

[Stoppelhopser]

I don't fully agree with Bloodstar44.

However, he HAS a point.

Maybe people here in europe are different but most don't want to play with the same troops they see in news every evening where real people lie in their blood...

Gaming is about escapism, too.

Is that hard to understand ?

The few people I know which are into tactical games are all uneasy with the setting and would have loved a WW2 or Korea setting. Or a napoleonic or Independence War Realtime/WEGO, like I want .

That does not mean that I don't support the realtime feature and the new engine. They can't come out with the old engine in 2007 and think they will earn money. They have to look into the future.

I will buy this title eventually. Though I will be the only one of my friends.

[ParaBellum]

Originally posted by aleader:

I pre-ordered online from BF and paid $64.05 CDN total (around $60 US at the time). I just saw a bunch of boxed Paradox copies the other day at WALMART for $29.95 CDN :eek: !! What gives Battlefront?! I paid more than double by ordering online. Not happy about that .

So what? I knew that I'd probably pay more when I pre-ordered directly from BFC. In the end, I actually paid the equivalent of 68 US$, since I had to pay additional customs surcharge. Do I regret it? No, I like the idea of directly supporting a developer who has provided me with excellent products in the past.

Is CM:SF everything I hoped for? No. Am I having fun with the game? Sure I do. Do I feel ripped off? Definitely not.

It's not that BFC decided to suddenly cut the retail price of their product just to piss you off.

[TheTris]

There's a demo.

Anyone who wanted to could sample the game before it was released.

There's a forum, where the abundant shortfalls of the release version were discussed almost immediately after release.

I got burnt, because I was way too keen to play what I was sure would be nine kinds of awesome. That's my fault. Noone elses.

[Steiner14]

Originally posted by Phillip Culliton:

Exactly. It isn't relevant at all (which, I might add, Sixxkiller, is why I haven't talked about it).

And your point comes back to our discussion regarding BFC's choosing not to devote enough development resources to the game to finish it within their release timeframe. I agree, BFC's decision is extremely relevant to the current state of the game.

I absolutely agree. If you have only one manhour, you can't begin to develop a new rocket.

If i look at certain aspects of the game and compare them, i clearly see, that some things are overmodelled (development time wasted in early stages), while others were obviously treated in a rush (time running out).

This is a clear indicator, that the development process did not estimate the needed manhours properly. As an extreme example: the vehicles show suspension effects, which may be cool for kids, but wargamers don't care about, but the pathfinding is poorer than in CMx1! :mad: Can this be true after 4 years of development?!

Since CMBO every player was hoping for the possibility to move vehicles on streets in columns to reduce micromanaging. But therefore we have suspension effects and cages around vehicles with a high polygon count! :mad:

Or take the sky: stars are moving on the sky correctly, but units don't find the holes in the walls! :mad:

IMO a complete wrong weighting of priorities. And what makes that so severe: the priorities of BFC's customers never lied in such graphical-FX. They invested time in things, no one was asking about.

And on the other hand, the graphics itself is not even up to date.

I suspect, some in the team lost the roots where they were coming from and started to believe, they know everything much better. And because of knowing everything much better - CMx1 was the proove for them - they aimed at complete other targets. But this assumption was already wrong: every wargamer always dreamt about a tactical 3D-environment. The critics were not about the idea, but if it could be done well enough! Because of the major rule for realism: before displaying graphical details unrealistically, no matter how beautiful it may be, it is WAY better not to display it and to symbolize it. Therefore wargamers were sceptical about CMBO initially!

And with CMSF they thought they can do even better and opened the can of worms with a half baken 1:1 representation - a barrel without a floor - and the rest that follows is only a conclusion of doing that.

What the developers expected and what they could achieve simply is not good enough for most wargamers.

And here comes the next aspect into play: the wargaming community was not big enugh anymore. Realtime was the magic word! And the realtime games outthere are not good enough, too. They thought they can do even that much better, too. The result is a strange hermaphrodite, but not CM anymore.

And CMSF makes me very sceptical about the WWII-release, if BFC strictly denies to go back to it's roots: Steve mentioned it too often, that they do not care about the hardcore wargamers anymore. They were a too small market for them. Great, but they sell CMSF for 10$ now and no one is interested in it anymore. If that is the future? I doubt that.

BFC, go back to your roots (means: before showing useless but nice looking graphical things, but tactical garbage, do not show it all), or this can not have a good end.

[Omenowl]

Maybe people here in europe are different but most don't want to play with the same troops they see in news every evening where real people lie in their blood...

Yet, there are plenty of first person shooters that do exactly that. MTW2 haw dozens of bodies on the battlefield which I know made my girlfriend feel sad.

I wanted a modern combat simulation and have since the 1980s. CMSF has some work, but I am not complaining about the price drop. This is what I get for buying early instead of waiting a year like I did with CMBO.

[thewood]

Originally posted by ParaBellum:

</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />Originally posted by aleader:

I pre-ordered online from BF and paid $64.05 CDN total (around $60 US at the time). I just saw a bunch of boxed Paradox copies the other day at WALMART for $29.95 CDN :eek: !! What gives Battlefront?! I paid more than double by ordering online. Not happy about that .

So what? I knew that I'd probably pay more when I pre-ordered directly from BFC. In the end, I actually paid the equivalent of 68 US$, since I had to pay additional customs surcharge. Do I regret it? No, I like the idea of directly supporting a developer who has provided me with excellent products in the past.

Is CM:SF everything I hoped for? No. Am I having fun with the game? Sure I do. Do I feel ripped off? Definitely not.

It's not that BFC decided to suddenly cut the retail price of their product just to piss you off. </font>

[Dirtweasle]

Originally posted by ParaBellum:

Is CM:SF everything I hoped for? No. Am I having fun with the game? Sure I do. Do I feel ripped off? Definitely not.

What he said.

[Sixxkiller]

Look my point is that Battlefront WANTS YOU TO LOVE THIER GAME. They would love to have put out a 100% complete product from the gitgo I am sure. They design these for more than a paycheck, they do this because it is their hobby too guys. The problems of the game have not been what they wanted to happen. I am pretty sure that sleep is something they can use and all this **** people are spewing about how ripped off they feel because BFC put out a game that wasnt what they expected doesnt do diddly to make them fix it. THEY ARE WORKING VERY HARD TO FIX IT ANYWAY!!!!!

But what threads like this do is scare off others who dont know BFC's track record on fixing things. I mean you guys act like they have taken your money and arent doing anything to satisfy you. Then you complain about something as silly as overpaying for a game that most likely will be on your hard drive for YEARS to come. Ever thought about sending BFC a few bucks for CMBB or AK providing you with years of fun beyond the initial $45 you paid when it was new?

BFC have always supported thier products and I am sure they will as long as they are doing this. So calm down and wait for 1.04......

[Sirocco]

I don't know if you can compare the longevity of CMSF with the CMx1 titles. In fact BFC are on record that we were spoiled to get so much out of them.

As far as the incomplete nature of the product is concerned that was pretty much inevitable when BFC signed a contract with a deadline.

Personally the money isn't an issue as much as the fact it's gone straight to the bargain bin. The reasons for that are what should be of concern.

[dpabrams]

Maybe we Europeans don't want to buy games with Americans in it?

Seriously has BFC considered bad PR Americans have now in the whole world. They will sell game really good in USA but I guarantee you after Iraq fiasco you cannot walk in "America true freedom fighters" T-shirt without getting beaten around lol.

Come on Euro, spare us the pacifist, socialist, Euro cry baby BS. Like BFC stopped to think, " Oh, I hope we don't offend escapist, social welfare, peace nik, roll over for anyone, in the pocket of the Saddam types in friggin Europe, with CM:SF". Better yet, let’s create a complete fantasy game, where a European Nanny State intercedes in a foreign nation militarily for its own security, where the fate of the western world is at stake! Save, for the British (God Bless the Queen), the rest of you Euros are too obsessed with your 35 hour work week, social welfare checks and topless beaches to do a damn thing with your militaries. So I am sure that BFC realized quickly that a hypothetical conflict involving France, Germany, blah, blah, blah, any nation but Britain, was and is pure fantasy!

[Melnibone]

It's only downhill from here.

[Melnibone]

Originally posted by dpabrams:

Save, for the British (God Bless the Queen), the rest of you Euros are too obsessed with your 35 hour work week, social welfare checks and topless beaches to do a damn thing with your militaries.

I may be an exception, but I am British and obsessed with topless beaches.

[Omenowl]

The Europeans excluding british and the old warsaw pact countries Post WW2 are primarily limited to:

Gulf War 1

Bosnian War (yes, let me play a game where I cant shoot back).

Rwanda (see above)

French Foreign legion

Special forces

Korea

Various African Conflicts

I don't think anyone would buy those games either. That said is CMx2 with a few modules could do all those conflicts. They could also do theoritical Warsaw vs. Nato.

[FinnN]

I agree with Sirocco. I pre-ordered (at the last moment, as the modern setting doesn't interest me but I thought I may as well support the game for the future) and don't regret it. It is interesting to see the price go so low so quickly - you expect 33%, even 50%, off from major suppliers these days over the official retail price - but 80%+ within a few weeks?

I'm in the UK and even though it's too cold here for topless beaches I only work a bit more than 35 hours per week. I can't speak for anyone else, but for me personally a 'real' modern scenario or (to a lesser extent) a really interesting fantasy one would grab my attention more than the somewhat shallow scenario presented in CM:SF - it just doesn't mean anything to me and doesn't have the 'surprise' factor that a totally fictional one might have.

Have fun

Finn