CMSF- Marines Video AAR Posted!!!

[kipanderson]

Hi,

Yup. .just to add my congratulations to MarkEzra… looks great. Very skilful stuff…

Again congratulations… .

All the best,

Kip.

[vincere]

"I hope we'll eventually see some kind of Hand to Hand exchange if not in CMSF"

Yep, I'd be happy to atleast hear shovel type sound like cm1

[Guest Guest]

deleted per user request

[Wiggum]

And i can really have "all" gameplay changes without buying the new Marine-Module ?

[Combatintman]

From everything I've read that should be the case but why wouldn't you want the Marine Module?

[panzermartin]

From everything I've read that should be the case but why wouldn't you want the Marine Module?

Problems like buggy TCP/IP and QBs remain. Some more vehicles and skins won't make these go away and are not worth the extra cash imo. It wont make much of a difference if the non responding unit is a BMP-2 or a BMP-3. I'd rather wait for the patch myself.

[Peter Panzer]

The extent of the fixes and changes in version 1.1 will determine whether or not I purchase the USMC module.

Perhaps the version used in Mark's piece was an older beta build, but I noticed some of the lingering issues with WEGO playback in the "base game" were still present (infantrymen will sometimes slide across the map, vehicles still show an occasional vertical hitch when moving across uneven terrain or when pivoting in place).

This makes me wonder what other "small" issues will remain post 1.1. Tin Foil Hat Guy says: the fact that the smaller, tighter USMC Recon teams were highlighted rather than the much larger, possibly ungainly, USMC rifle squads could raise a skeptical brow....

• Will the M1 be able to use its main gun during area fire?
  
• Will terrain damage reset during WEGO playback?
  
• Will infantry be able to execute a "Face" command while "Hiding?"
  
• Will infantry pathfinding be polished? They still appeared to be a bit noncohesive when attempting to run down an open road in the video.
  
• Will Target Arcs extend off of the map?
  
• Will units be able to exit the map?
  
• Etc....

All of that said, the new vehicle models look superb. This has been a strength of CMSF since the outset and BFC's art team is to be commended. I also noticed the liberal use of hand grenades to break contact, on the surface, that seems like a nice touch.

It would be great to see a video focusing on the gameplay improvements. I am very curious to see what 1.1 brings to the fore.

[Field Marshal Blücher]

Will the M1 be able to use its main gun during area fire?

Have you had problems with this? My M1s use their main guns all the time during area fire.

[Peter Panzer]

Hello Blucher:

That's very interesting. I have played almost 40 minutes of a scenario (WEGO) where I have tasked a veteran M1 crew to direct area fire to spots on the map several times whereby they only employ the coax.

Using "Target" vs. "Target Light" does not make a difference. By contrast, if a REDFOR unit is identified the crew will touch off the 120mm.

Any hints?

[Moon]

Does the M1 have any HE ammo left?

[Peter Panzer]

Hello Moon:

Thanks for the rapid reply.

Indeed they do. Only one round of HEAT has been expended by the crew during the fight thus far. This occurred when the crew ID'ed a REDFOR infantry squad and sent the main gun round their way. If I select a spot of open terrain on the map and designate it for area fire it will be hosed with 7.62, but that's it.

I will play around with this some more, however I seem to recall someone else reporting this experience as well. Unfortunately, I cannot conduct a forum search as I receive a message that the administrator has banned my IP when I attempt to do so.

I will be glad to break this out into a separate thread if need be.

[RommL]

I arrive after the battle. a very beautiful video !

I await with impatience gone out of it module.

[MikoyanPT]

Bring it on !

While the dolar is cheap. ROFL

[Peter Panzer]

Sorry to sidetrack this thread boys, but I located the earlier thread I had alluded to regarding the M1 not using the 120mm for area targets:

http://www.battlefront.com/community/showthread.php?t=75613&highlight=abrams+area+target

Hey Birdstrike, yeah, I can confim it.

Let's hope the Corps' tankers have their act together.

[Piecekeeper]

Could someone tell me when this module will be out...approx? Summer? this year? couple of months? next year?

[kosta]

i bet it will be released after the end of the summer sale, i.e. after 31th july.

hope too that there are some improvements.

- an option to disable use of smoke for individual units(units use smoke in wrong situations too often)

- better skills for pioneers (sometimes they only find mines if a comrade has already walked over it)

- possibility to interrupt disembarking (once initiated you cant stop it until everyone has left the vehicle and then you have to order them to go in again, interrupting would be much better if the situation has become worse and you rapidly decide to retreat)

[Paper Tiger]

You'll find an answer in the following quotes from the Video AAR competition thread:

"The contest launches today (June 9th) and will remain open for entries for a period of at least two months. This period may be extended or shortened at Battlefront.com, Inc.’s sole discretion."

"Runner-ups for the main Prize are going to receive a free copy of Combat Mission Shock Force – Marines upon release."

That means that it's almost certain that it won't be released before the 9th August. Now, it's POSSIBLE to interpret that as 'if the Marines module is released before the competition ends, entrants must decided whether to buy now or wait until the competition ends and maybe win a free copy'. I don't think so.

I wouldn't expect it to be released next month either given that the only information/update we've had about this module in the last 6-8 weeks is this thread. My guess would be some time in September. If it were closer than that, I think we'd be hearing more about it from BFC. But I REALLY hope I'm wrong about this.

By the way, there appears to be a second video entry posted at Youtube, a CMSF video by someone called Berto.

[John Kettler]

I showed the vids to a longtime close friend last night. He hasn't played CM, preferring not to play on the same computer he spends cubic hours on in his real job, but is an avid wargamer and is quite familiar with BiA, GOW, H3, etc, on the X-Box 360, his platform of choice. His response was that it was quite impressive--for a wargame, but he felt the FPS crowd would have trouble relating, being more used to incredibly lush environments, dynamic terrain, etc. He had major issue with explosions he characterized as "tac nuke" during the vids. In one case, the apparent explosion extended over hundreds of meters in town, as seen from the overwatch position. In another, what I took to be a 100 mm HE round caused similar, but smaller, effects when delivered into the overwatch position. Grenade detonations should've been basically black bursts, as seen shortly thereafter in John Huston's "the Battle of San Pietro," and it wasn't clear in the firefight with what may've been RPG-armed Syrian airborne, what it was that took an American out before he even hit the ground. He thought the vehicles were well done, the soldiers' movements needed some work and that the building looked to "cardboard cutout," but though it might've been a Beta issue. For calibration purposes, this is someone I've gamed with for nearly three decades, playing many types of games, and he's a game designer in his own right.

Regards,

John Kettler

[Mord]

Regardless of his gaming creds he must not know much about wargames per se. I am an avid FPser (since Doom), and CMSF blows me away graphically. Ask him to name one serious wargame, that is historically accurate (in this case equipment and TOE), has all the weapons/armor penetration calculations, can be viewed in 3D, handles squad, to platoon, to company, to battalion level combat showing all the units on a 1.1 ratio, and doesn't look like you are playing a board game from Avalon Hill...answer CMSF...that's it. Anything that might look better does not have any of the accuracy, it's all fantasy...Company Of Heroes, etc.

I am not picking on you John, just the guy can't have played many wargames if he doesn't see that this is light years beyond Steel Panthers, or Close Combat. Then again he's doing a majority of his gaming on an Xbox...totally different mindset.

Mord.

[John Kettler]

Mord,

No offense taken. He fully groks there's an awful lot going on under the hood, and he was pretty impressed to hear the game was under evaluation as a military training tool. Rather, he found some things that didn't track for him in the visuals, and I should say that he's a graphic artist with Hollywood "A" list credits on posters and DVD packaging. He didn't say the explosions were too small, which would be logical based on, say, the Bruckheimer film model of explosive behavior, but that they were so big as to destroy the credibility of what they were supposed to represent. IOW, he thinks the visual FX need toning down for the sake of versimilitude, and this guy's fairly well schooled in weapons, has shot guns IRL, owns stacks of reference books, used to build military models, watches war docs, Future Weapons, etc. He's not some clueless game designer with no knowledge of weapons, tactics, terrain effects, etc., whose selection criterion for inclusion in a game is "Does it look cool?" You should've heard his scathing assessment of the rationality of the GOW chainsaw bayonet last night. As noted before, he plays on the X-Box 360 because he spend upward of 16 hours a day, sometimes more, hard at work on his Mac, creating a profound disinclination to also do his gaming there.

Regards,

John Kettler

[Mord]

LOL it came off sounding like he was basing the graphics on Halo or something. Yeah there is room for some tweaks I'll admit, especially a few of the niggly animations, but you just can't find any wargame, true wargame, that shows off what this game shows. It is bleeding edge for our hobby. HPS anyone? As far as the explosions for say the grenade...that could always be modded ala the dirty explosion mods for CMX1. As for the explosions on say tanks when hit? How big of an explosion would a T72 make when all it's ammo is blown up at once? I'd say pretty large.

Just think, this is only the beginning of what we are gonna see. CMSF is the guinea pig for the big show.

Mord.

[John Kettler]

Mord,

Sorry for the confusion. Mind, we'd love a game of CMSF's caliber coupled with the lush graphics of, say, H3, but we are realists and know full well that there are real limits on what a game company possessing one full time programmer, one full time artist and a budget not measured in millions of dollars can do. That said, he's right that most FPSers' model of what a "proper" game should look like are in fact heavily influenced by the current and emerging FPS games--even when they're not remotely comparable. I think what he's trying to do is preserve the realism factor by toning down what he deems over the top visual FX on the one hand, and to understand what he's seeing on the other. I watched the same vids on his far superior to mine display, yet even I couldn't quite follow what was happening in several places. Nor did it help that we were watching the YouTube versions. Am fairly sure a lot of readout data got lost because of this.

Regards,

John Kettler

[sfiorito]

Hey guys, just found out about this series of games and I'm definitely interested. I spent 6 years as an LAV crewman including a tour in Iraq so I was pretty excited about seeing LAVs included. Being a gamer I've always thought it'd be cool to have a tactical strategy game for LAVs. The LAV rarely gets much attention (even in the Marine Corps) yet it's one of the most capable platforms the Marine Corps has! Just one issue: LAV stands for Light Armored Vehicle.

[John Kettler]

sfiorito,

Welcome aboard! Don't be surprised if the long arm of BFC reaches out and touches you for technical advice. SOFAIK, you're our first LAV crewman here, so expect your brain to be picked. As for the technical point you raised, that's probably some bleed over from the FAV, or some such.

Regards,

John Kettler

[Combatintman]

Kosta,

It comes out in September

http://www.battlefront.com/community/announcement.php?f=79&a=30