USMC Campaign

[JonS]

... having a campaign with issues is a bit unforgivable. ... there shouldn't be errors in campaigns or scenarios that BF creates for that matter. ... it amazes me how things slip through like this sometimes.

The short answer is that it would take, approximately, 4 years to _fully_ test the iterations the campaign has been through. That's assuming no intermediate patches to game functionality.

If you wanna wait that long let me know, and I'll send you an email sometime in late 2012 to let you know you can start playing

[JonS]

Can we get some kind of an ETA on that?

When it appears* to be ready?

* see previous post

[Field Marshal Blücher]

Why didn't I immediately think, "when it's ready?" Oh well, thanks anyway, and looking forward to the fix.

[GSX]

The short answer is that it would take, approximately, 4 years to _fully_ test the iterations the campaign has been through. That's assuming no intermediate patches to game functionality.

If you wanna wait that long let me know, and I'll send you an email sometime in late 2012 to let you know you can start playing

Ah so we return to the old adage that its better to release a broken product than no product at all.

I have just about reached the stage of the last few missions, I completed Pooh with a US Total Victory. Next mission loads and I have zero forces. I think that this is just too little a force for the allotted task in hand to capture that wadi. Anyone else experience this one. Oh and my marine recon HQ consists of 3 marines and a vehicle crewman, always. Whats the score there?

[JonS]

Ah so we return to the old adage that its better to release a broken product than no product at all.

No. That's not right at all. And pretty bloody offensive to boot.

Whats the score there?

At a guess? You were careless with your forces.

[GSX]

No. That's not right at all. And pretty bloody offensive to boot.

At a guess? You were careless with your forces.

Offensive? To whom?

Ah careless with your forces allows you to go onto the next battle with no forces then.

See every time I get back to liking this game, and I do BTW, yet another thing crops up. Little graphics bugs, vehicles in PBEM that stand on end for half the game, Campaigns that are broken. I know that $25 isnt very much money these days, but I was expecting to play through a campaign.

So yes, Id say that yet again Ive bought a broken product, if you find that pretty bloody offensive then thats your choice. I do realise that its a game, its not meant to be a real life simulation but I spent my money to play a campaign that I cant play.

[JonS]

... careless with your forces allows you to go onto the next battle with no forces then.

Well, yes. That's one of the differences between a campaign and a scenario. Decisions and results in one battle affect subsequent battles.

I was expecting to play through a campaign.

Me too. And you will.

[Field Marshal Blücher]

Ah careless with your forces allows you to go onto the next battle with no forces then.

Slight bit of a spoiler here, but I think he means that you were careless with certain elements of your forces. You start the mission after Pooh with very few units, so if you lost all of them in Pooh, you probably won't see any troops in there for a while.

[GSX]

Well, yes. That's one of the differences between a campaign and a scenario. Decisions and results in one battle affect subsequent battles.

Me too. And you will.

OK, I will wait until my broken game is fixed and then have another go at the Campaign.

My disappointment also lies with BF here. I dont suppose the vast majority of guys who have bought this game even come near the forums. To them, the campaign is over, they may say, was that it, and move on.

I would have thought that after the last year BF would come out clean and say 'hey guys, we've encountered a bug in the campaign'. Now of course the word is out that the Campaign is broken and it looks like yet another cover up.

[Webwing]

GSX,

I understand your frustration with the campaign.

From reading this thread it might seem quite unbelievable how a bug was not detected.

After all users are creating campaigns on their own and it seems they are doing fine.

I have created a campaign myself.

In fact 2, one with 3 missions and another with 8. So I´d say I know reasonbly well the

process of creating scenarios and campagins.

When I did it though it was one fixed version of the game and a fixed TO&E to work with.

I also had all the time in the world to do it. Still it had quite a few bugs in it.

Although I didn´t participate in the creation of the official Marines campagin I had the

opportunity to witness the discussions, the creation and the testing of it. I can assure

you the guys involved in the process have put a lot of hard work into it.

As we all know at the time the developers and the Beta team were doing 3 things at the same time. First

making and testing the new patch. Second making and testing the Marines module. Third

making and testing the campaign.

As you also know many new features were added in this patch, not only bug fixes. Those were

tested in the missions. They had to be in the new campaign. But any thing new that was

implemented had to be tested. All missions already created had to be changed to incorporate

the new feature. There were new balancing issues, etc.

The TO&E was being created and modified. Once tested in the missions adjustments had to be

done. Again that changed ALL missions.

There was a lot of back and forth as you can imagine. The 3 processes evolving and affecting

each other constantly. Several beta versions of the patch, versions of the module, versions of the

campaign and all mixed together.

Also there were a lot of different people doing the missions. They all had to be working in syncrony.

But the fact is that one process actually helped with the other. The campaign and the missions created

were a perfect testing ground for the new Module and patch but that didn´t make it an easier process, on

the contrary.

On the campaign front JonS did a fantastic job to organize this complex situation.

Anyway, after all this hard work a final test and it was all good to go.

After release a bug was found, I don´t know how or by whom. By a user I guess but I really don´t know.

It doesn´t really matter much at this point. But no one is trying to cover up. If there was BF

could just say: Hey we are going to release a new version of the campaign with some extra missions!

That would be a cover up. What happened was surprise and a sense of urgency to fix it.

I feel bad because after all the hard work and the long hours

some are trying to label the campagin as "broken". No one was careless and we all care. No one is more

frustrated than the ones involved. But it is being worked on.

Nothing that I said here is a secret. Anyone can deduce it from what is publicly available in this

forum. But I wanted to give my testimony and help to shad some light into the complexity of the process and if

a problem occured it sure was not a matter of carelessness.

Hang in there. You´ll soon see the new version available.

[Piecekeeper]

This week?

[ChrisND]

Now of course the word is out that the Campaign is broken and it looks like yet another cover up.

I've seen a lot of stupid crap posted here, but this statement is definitely in the top ten.

[GSX]

I've seen a lot of stupid crap posted here, but this statement is definitely in the top ten.

Oh really, check out some of the websites then. Ask a valid question and your jumped on here, make a valid point and your jumped on here, usual stuff really and Im more than used to it by now.

I prefer honesty, think it works best. Now webwing answered all of my concerns in quite a civil manner and for that I thank him.

My point is that with all that has gone on for what, 14 months? The same old tired lines are brought out to defend the bugs and mistakes. Dont get me wrong, I do like CMSF (since 1.08) but Im not going to pretend all is rosey if it aint. So yes, it is perceived as some as yet another cover up, maybe not you but a lot of others share my opinion.

AT he end of the day its an enjoyable game I spent some money on but cant finish the largest part of it for me. Webwing has assured me that I will be able to soon. You have assured me that this forum is still populated with more than a few defenders of the faith!

[[hirr]Leto]

I'm a member of one of those websites that also holds that opinion, among many others.

Am I to be insulted as well?

Cheers!

Leto

[ChrisND]

Cover-up:

A cover-up is an attempt, whether successful or not, to conceal evidence of wrong-doing, error, incompetence, or other embarrassing information.

So please tell me how this amounts to a cover-up. Note: Ignoring queries (Which annoys the hell of me too by the way) is not a cover-up. A cover-up is an action. Have your posts/threads been deleted?

I'm not taking issue with your charge of a broken campaign. I happen to agree with you on that. It is the accusation of cover-up thrown around so lightly.

[GSX]

Cover-up:

A cover-up is an attempt, whether successful or not, to conceal evidence of wrong-doing, error, incompetence, or other embarrassing information.

So please tell me how this amounts to a cover-up. Note: Ignoring queries (Which annoys the hell of me too by the way) is not a cover-up. A cover-up is an action. Have your posts/threads been deleted?

I'm not taking issue with your charge of a broken campaign. I happen to agree with you on that. It is the accusation of cover-up thrown around so lightly.

See, this is where Im mis-quoted. I said perceived as another cover up. I didnt say that BF wanted to cover anything up, they just omitted to mention it.

Cheers.

[[hirr]Leto]

I also think that an action based definition is not appropriate here or at least highly limiting, as inaction, as much as intended action to obfuscate, can also be viewed as 'covering up'.

Its a semantic argument. Just having that argument provides evidence to people that have the perception of a cover up.

Plain and simple, the perception is there: that BF would rather ignore, re-phrase or imply other definitions in response to the queries of people who have paid money for a game that they feel is 'broken' because they cannot play elements of the game that were offered within it.

It's entirely understandable, as admitting an error was made is not good for business, and can lead to other inferences being drawn, such as incompetence, ineptitude, deception and perhaps more importantly: that this is not a good product and I won't buy it (or buy another title released by the company).

Why would BF want that?

My experience in business is that the culture of 'spin' is predominant within almost every business model that one encounters these days. I suspect there is quite a lot of empirical evidence that suggest just as much (although I am not specifically working in the field of public relations or management ethics).

Tell the truth, be up front, and listen to your customers without showing your disdain to them (as all artists and creative people are sensitive about their work... its understandable). If you want to represent the company in a fair and equitable manner, then action, positive and informative as possible, is always the best strategy.

Cheers!

Leto

[Lurker765]

Coverup?

You mean like when I mentioned months ago (November?) that TCP/IP wasn't working and was told that it was working great and that only a handful of people were having problems with it? This feature appears to be working much better now, but was certainly shoveled under the rug and spun for quite a while.

Or when there were numerous complaints about LOS/LOF issues with missiles and shells going through mounds of dirt and knocking out tanks and being told that this was normal behavior and happened all the time in real life? Only to be later fixed with the new and improved LOS routines.

Or that WEGO TCP/IP support was implied on the advertising only to have the descriptions on the BFC website itself quietly changed without any apologies to the folks that bought the game on that premise? My original retail box as well as several non-BFC websites still show that information.

Or that quick battles were working great and as designed? Despite numerous bugs existing in them until it has finally been admitted that they aren't working and will be entirely redone for the next version of CM2 (but not fixed in the current version despite earlier hints that older CMSF executables would be patched up to current ones).

I honestly don't think there is a deliberate campaign to mislead customers, but when the Marines release has a somewhat botched campaign and the entire premise of the module is campaign/scenario/new units then those should be pretty bug free. Especially if there is no Paradox type deadline to meet.

If GSX indeed had a US Total victory in the preceding battle then it seems odd that he would start with no soldiers in the next mission. Even IF this was the intent of the campaign it would seem that getting a notification that you are starting with no soldiers would be best for most users of the game rather than to leave them wondering what just happened and what they should do for the remainder of the scenario.

Mistakes happen in business and software. It is what you do to react and rectify those mistakes that customers form their bond with a company. So far these attacks or spins against customers are not making me want to purchase more products from this company. I would love to see that change, but after lurking here for quite a while I'm just slowly drifting away and stopping by here less and less.

I think it is great that BFC is working hard on patching the core game, but they have to. This is their future. They can't leave bugs in it and move on to their next game like many software companies do. The bugs in many games are left since the companies move on to other projects while BFC have invested years into this one and cannot easily abandon it and move to something different. They MUST fix the core game or they go out of business. Thus, they don't get any special kudos from me for busting their butts to get the game into the shape it currently is in since that is what all small businesses with a single specialty must do to survive.

I love it that they are dedicated and driven, but please, please stop the attacks on customers who report legitimate bugs. If you have Beta Tester in your title you also represent the company since the only way you become one is if the powers that be add you to their secret cabal and share information that only insiders can get. Thus, they trust you. Part of that trust is to treat their customers right.

Feel free to jump on me too though if it makes you feel better.

[Webwing]

It´s funny how fast a thread can be derailed!

Should we try to put this back on track?

By the way, although I don´t have the beta tester title under my nick, I am indeed a beta tester.

I´m very proud to be part of this fantastic team.

GSX,

Thanks for the vote of confidence.

I know when something like that happens it is very frustrating and anything you say sounds just like an excuse or pointless justification. Unfortunately there is not much more I can offer at this point.

@all,

As for the cover up, in this instance I´m not sure there is much more I can add to it. Either you trust me or you don´t.

But it just doesn´t make much sense to think it was a cover up in this case.

Actually if I were hired as a spin doctor I would say: No one knows there are more missions. Release a second version with the ones that aren´t playable now and say this is a bonus! No need to justify anything.

Besides there is just too many people involved. So even if a lot of them got totaly nuts and wanted to do something like this some others would denounce it. I know it is hard to believe but we are not the Mafia!

We are just a bunch of guys that really love this game! I know for some this is also hard to believe!

You might ask, so why the silence once the bug was found?

Then I would answer: But when was the bug found? To understand why I´m asking this let me give you an example of something that happened to me.

Someone found a "bug" and posted here in the forum. Should this be reported as a bug or not? The guy thinks it is but could this just be somthing else? Finaly it was reported and I decided to give it a go. So I set up a map and placed things in a way that I could try and reproduce the "bug". I tried to cover all the variables possible. I have several versions of the game so I had to be carefull to use the same one where the "bug" had been reported. I did all I could

but didn´t really find any bug.

Does that mean there is no bug? Nope. It should be tested by others to double check on this.

So before anyone even thinks about fixing or not this issue, it must be confirmed first. This takes time. Testers are not on duty 24/7.

With the campaign this is a lot more complicated as you can very well imagine.

There was this period of testing and expectation. That was all. No conspiracy to cover up or anything. Sorry, I know, its not very interesting but that´s just how it is.

This is what I have seen and those are my impressions, not the official position of the beta team or of Battlefront.

So if you find something you don´t agree or that is offensive in this post blame it on me only!

-

[[hirr]Leto]

It´s funny how fast a thread can be derailed!

Should we try to put this back on track?

By the way, although I don´t have the beta tester title under my nick, I am indeed a beta tester.

I´m very proud to be part of this fantastic team.

GSX,

Thanks for the vote of confidence.

I know when something like that happens it is very frustrating and anything you say sounds just like an excuse or pointless justification. Unfortunately there is not much more I can offer at this point.

@all,

As for the cover up, in this instance I´m not sure there is much more I can add to it. Either you trust me or you don´t.

But it just doesn´t make much sense to think it was a cover up in this case.

Actually if I were hired as a spin doctor I would say: No one knows there are more missions. Release a second version with the ones that aren´t playable now and say this is a bonus! No need to justify anything.

Besides there is just too many people involved. So even if a lot of them got totaly nuts and wanted to do something like this some others would denounce it. I know it is hard to believe but we are not the Mafia!

We are just a bunch of guys that really love this game! I know for some this is also hard to believe!

You might ask, so why the silence once the bug was found?

Then I would answer: But when was the bug found? To understand why I´m asking this let me give you an example of something that happened to me.

Someone found a "bug" and posted here in the forum. Should this be reported as a bug or not? The guy thinks it is but could this just be somthing else? Finaly it was reported and I decided to give it a go. So I set up a map and placed things in a way that I could try and reproduce the "bug". I tried to cover all the variables possible. I have several versions of the game so I had to be carefull to use the same one where the "bug" had been reported. I did all I could

but didn´t really find any bug.

Does that mean there is no bug? Nope. It should be tested by others to double check on this.

So before anyone even thinks about fixing or not this issue, it must be confirmed first. This takes time. Testers are not on duty 24/7.

With the campaign this is a lot more complicated as you can very well imagine.

There was this period of testing and expectation. That was all. No conspiracy to cover up or anything. Sorry, I know, its not very interesting but that´s just how it is.

This is what I have seen and those are my impressions, not the official position of the beta team or of Battlefront.

So if you find something you don´t agree or that is offensive in this post blame it on me only!

-

Thank you WW. That post had the right attitude and was helpful in that it explained some things to the consumer in basic 'unglossed' terms.

I do not think anyone here (at least for me personally) has a problem with you. But there have been at times a 'pack of feral dogs' mentality of some of the beta testers that is less than cordial... whether they feel they have the right to treat the consumers like a scooby snack may be justified in some instances, but they have a duty to not be inflammatory, snide, or disrespectful, especially when someone raises a concern about the very nature of the product itself.

I will go back to lurk mode and continue to await CM x 2 Normandy (dreaming of sugar plums and functioning, effective WEGO, QB generators and workable pathfinding).

Cheers!

Leto

[Thomm]

Leto;1100016']I do not think anyone here (at least for me personally) has a problem with you. But there have been at times a 'pack of feral dogs' mentality of some of the beta testers that is less than cordial... whether they feel they have the right to treat the consumers like a scooby snack may be justified in some instances' date=' but they have a duty to not be inflammatory, snide, or disrespectful, especially when someone raises a concern about the very nature of the product itself.[/quote']

I absoultely agree with you.

On the other hand it is very painful to be attacked for being a beta tester continuously (by some people), even though I could swear that I never acted as described above myself.

As for the campaign: I take the liberty to claim that it is not the duty of the beta testers to make sure that the product is 100% working as released. I can tell you, why: Because it is not a job, but a voluntary service to BFC.

In the long run, there is, of course, no difference. The tester plays regularily and reports as needed.

But the picture changes in the last days before release. Suddenly, there is the demand to playtest something like the campaign for many, many hours, because of some last minute changes that might have an influence. Personally, I have sunk literally hundreds of hours into the Marines module, but I absolutely refuse to neglect my family and my job just to play the campaign for the tenth time in a matter of hours just because there was a little change to the OOB (that might, indeed, prove fatal in the end). This is the job of the persons who actually EARN MONEY with the thing, in my opinion. And, as far as I recall, these persons actually did that kind of testing.

So what went wrong? No idea. I play-tested almost all campaign scenarios, some multiple times, but not the campaign itself, because I felt that my job was done by testing the individual scenarios. Does this make me a "bad" beta tester. Personally, I do not think so.

Something else: I always read about "the beta testers". Please acknowledge that we are just another layer of the onion, and by no means omni-potent. It sometimes happens that we report bugs (that are later also reported on this forum, or elsewhere) and they are simply flagged as "not a bug" because correcting them would involve too much of a change in the engine. So please do not assume that we can "force" BFC into any activity, just by acting "tough".

Best regards,

Thomm

[Piecekeeper]

can someone tell me what will be fixed?

[GSX]

I absoultely agree with you.

On the other hand it is very painful to be attacked for being a beta tester continuously (by some people), even though I could swear that I never acted as described above myself.

As for the campaign: I take the liberty to claim that it is not the duty of the beta testers to make sure that the product is 100% working as released. I can tell you, why: Because it is not a job, but a voluntary service to BFC.

In the long run, there is, of course, no difference. The tester plays regularily and reports as needed.

But the picture changes in the last days before release. Suddenly, there is the demand to playtest something like the campaign for many, many hours, because of some last minute changes that might have an influence. Personally, I have sunk literally hundreds of hours into the Marines module, but I absolutely refuse to neglect my family and my job just to play the campaign for the tenth time in a matter of hours just because there was a little change to the OOB (that might, indeed, prove fatal in the end). This is the job of the persons who actually EARN MONEY with the thing, in my opinion. And, as far as I recall, these persons actually did that kind of testing.

So what went wrong? No idea. I play-tested almost all campaign scenarios, some multiple times, but not the campaign itself, because I felt that my job was done by testing the individual scenarios. Does this make me a "bad" beta tester. Personally, I do not think so.

Something else: I always read about "the beta testers". Please acknowledge that we are just another layer of the onion, and by no means omni-potent. It sometimes happens that we report bugs (that are later also reported on this forum, or elsewhere) and they are simply flagged as "not a bug" because correcting them would involve too much of a change in the engine. So please do not assume that we can "force" BFC into any activity, just by acting "tough".

Best regards,

Thomm

This is an excellent reply and in no way do I think that its the responsibility of a beta tester to take the flack. I blame no beta tester for flaws in the game. I do wonder why some beta testers seem to take great offence at observations about a game though.

This probably stems from the fact that we hear little from the official BFC guys. I can understand why they dont have the time to post though as they are the ones whose livelihood depends on their product.

Hopefully the broken campaign can be fixed soon as I was having fun with it.

[JonS]

can someone tell me what will be fixed?

Well, "fixed" is a matter of perception, but the following is a partial list of changes off the top of my head:

* Battle 1: Points values changed, setup zones changed, firesupport changed, changes to AI, changes to map, changes to briefing. Overall, this battle should be familiar, but much tougher.

* Battle 2: Changes to Syrian OoB. Changes to setup and AI.

* Battle 3: Changes to Syrian OoB. Changes to setup and AI.

* Battle 4: Map extended so that units won't enter under the gun. Syrians made slightly more formidable (IIRC).

* Battle 5: All units have tpt

* Battle 6: Points allocations changed (the intention here is to open up the other route ... which should always have been open anyway :mad: )

* Battles 7,8,9: no changes (you won't have seen these battles yet)

* Battle 10: Set up zone modified so units don't enter under the gun

* Battle 11: No changes ... I think.

* Battles 13 and 13A: changes to try and ensure scen doesn't end at this point (which shouldn't have been happened anyway :mad: )

* Battles 15, 16, 17, 18: no changes (you won't have seen these battles yet)

When it's ready, I think you'll find the campaign is substantially different to what you're used to.

Jon

Notes:

# There is no battle 12 or 14. They were removed at an early stage of development, and the original numbering scheme was retained for consistency. (Actually, these two battles never got beyond the concept stage)

# Battles 2 and 3 are an either/or proposition. They are on the same map and are generally similar, but which one is fought depends on results of battle 1.

# The same applies to Battles 13/13A. Which is fought depends on which route you advance down from Battle 6.

[Battlefront.com]

I think Webwing and Thomm have summed things up quite well already, but in order to avoid a "cover up" I'll chime in here too

Simulating combat at this level is extremely difficult to do. Not just from design standpoint, but also from a technical one. This isn't a paper and dice game where the rules are not only simple, but there can be no bugs per se. A six sided die won't suddenly jump up in the air and fly across the room all on its own. A pencil tip that breaks is about as bad as it gets, and a sharpener or backup pencil fixes that problem pretty easily. Not so with the sort of thing we do.

Our problem has always been, and will always be, that we are trying to give you guys too much. Not only too much in terms of total features, but also too much for the money you spend to enjoy them. The unfortunate side effect of this are things like bugs. Bugs because the code must be ungodly complicated to make the sim feel realistic and not like a fancy game of rock-paper-scissors and yet we can't afford to sit around and do regression testing for 6 months with full time paid testers to make sure there aren't any significant problems. And even if we did, we'd probably be no better than a big game company, which is definitely not perfect. It's like all the problems in Vista... you can throw billions of Dollars and thousands of people into a project, but if the thing is inherently complex and impossible to fully test... there will be some problems for sure.

The cynics here will, of course, see this as an excuse. It is not. It is an explanation of reality. Our testers work VERY hard and are extremely dedicated, but at the end of the day they are volunteers. Because you customers don't want to spend $150 a game so we can increase our testing and programming staff, which would still not fix all the problems, this is the best arrangement we can come up with for you. The other option, which is not making any more wargames for you guys and moving onto something entirely different, should be viewed as a far less desirable way to "solve" the problems.

Now, does this mean we are happy with problems that come to our attention after we release something? Certainly not. But overall the system we have works fairly well. You get powerful products that nobody else is insane and talented enough to make, you get to pay a very small amount of money compared to the work that goes into them, you get them within a reasonable timeframe, and patches come out to move things further ahead fairly quickly. It's not perfect for sure, but perfection is an impossible goal. Impossible.

Practically speaking, we've learned some lessons from where things went wrong with the Marines Campaign. There's nothing wrong with the testers, that's for sure. The problem lies with the complexity of the Campaign system and not enough tools for them to use in order to make the testing load more manageable. There are definitely some things we can do on the programming and scheduling side to help out here, and so we shall. We're sorry that you guys have to be involved in the learning process, but it's either that or we move on to some other vocation where the expectations and reality are more in agreement.

Steve