An interesting, if somewhat harsh analogy

[Battlefront.com]

KR,

BTW, I hope you're not including me in the category of intransigent naysayers who rail at BFC at every opportunity because I certainly do not do that.

In order to be lumped in with the "I hate Steve and Battlefront, but I spend almost every waking hour obsessing over both" club you'd have to reject rational discourse and start describing my genitalia instead. Oh, and be paranoid, bitter, and all kinds of nasty. Looking at your posts I see you do not meet the minimum requirements, so you're definitely in the clear

I have always understood the rationale behind the new module concept and have absolutely no problems with it ---provided--- the base game has the flexibility I outlined above. Now that WEGO is very much back in favour then I'm pretty much a happy camper, subject to my previous concern.

Definitely understood. The base game itself will be an extremely rich experience that definitely could stand on its own for a long time even without Modules. When Modules are added the content is seamlessly integrated, just like it is in CM:SF. We put in a lot of effort in that regard because the last thing we want is to have things be clunky.

Silverstars,

Ex-Flight Simmer, eh? Well, not a surprising revelation considering Flight Commander 2, Achtung Spitfire, and my personal favorite, Over the Reich(which I bought and led me to follow CMBO's development). I assume the "Former" part of the equation stems not just from a lack of games but also a lack of time. A shame really, the Russkies are developing some real interesting stuff in that genre.

Yes, lack of games and lack of time.

Speaking of Russians, while I have always favored the Western Front in most things wargamey including CM, I find I played BB more often then BO myself. But I think that had more to do with the interface improvements then the setting, at least for me.

I think that's got a lot to do with it for some people. CMBB is a more polished game with some really nice features which CMBO didn't have.

[hirr]Leto,

I don't see what all the fuss is about. If the opinion is so out in space, then ignoring it is a much better strategy than denigrating it openly... in a professional sense.

No, I think the best thing to do is to challenge extremists to make sure their warped concepts get kept in their places. Wacked out wargamers, neo-Nazis, the local anti-tax movement (i.e. we want services, but no taxes), religious fanatics, etc. all fall into the same category. Challenging them makes them even worse, which ensures that their true colors are seen by the most amount of people possible and therefore keeps their numbers and influence as small as possible. The worst thing to do is let extremists pretend to be more moderate than they really are. Politics have endless examples of where that leads to.

The responses I've seen here so far will only serve to set the natives to sharpening their tomahawks...

As others point out... who cares? Besides a bit of perverse fun at ridiculing them every now and then, they are completely irrelevant. They have ensured that they are. I would bet you a billion Dollars that if I posted an open apology letter to them here and say we are going to do exactly what they want us to do (last count about 10,000 often contradictory things ) THEY WOULD STILL BITCH AND COMPLAIN. "they should have done it sooner", "see, we told you we were right", "they'll mess it up", "they're lying", etc. These are people who have far too much invested in being irrationally negative and miserable. Therefore, there's no possible way to do anything to change their behavior in a positive manner. We'd have an easier time trying to convince a religious missionary that the God he believes in doesn't exist.

BTW, I know The Coil personally, and although I do not totally agree with his parable he is not one of the "natives" nor is motivated as such.

I don't know him in any sense of the word and I don't read his posts, so all I have to go by is what was posted here AND the knowledge of what an anti-intellectual, irrational, nasty bunch rule the CM Game Squad Forum. Of course they think they are the voice of reason and speak for all wargamers. If they did we could make this easy for them and stop making wargames because we have zero interest in busting our backs for people like that

Thomm,

As if they need any extra motivation to do that ...

Very true. And if we went out of business they would just turn their ire towards someone else. Misery is their purpose for being... we're just their obsession of the moment. There were others before us and will be others after us. We're special to them only because we're successful at what we do and we openly ignore them. That's the worst of all worlds for them

Steve

[Battlefront.com]

Redwolf,

Right, but it is a consequence of moving down in scale. Of course moving down in scale and higher detail in the 3D models makes casual gamers (aka the unwashed masses) more attracted to the game.

Yes, as well as enriching the tactical environment. CMx1's terrain system was necessarily blunt and quite simplistic. It had to be for a variety of reasons which are no longer relevant thanks to better computers. The greater fidelity of the terrain requires a greater degree of skill to use it successfully. It's like painting. Give someone a large brush and some paint and most people could do a good job covering a fence or a wall. Give them an artist's pallet, lots of small brushes, and a blank canvas... most would rather sit experience other people's work rather than create their own pieces. I felt that way with various FPS games. Loved to use other people's stuff, didn't have the patience or time to make my own.

But it cuts a large chunk of "community fun" out of the game.

True, but only a minority of customers ever bond to form a community. As much as we appreciate community we are a games business and not a social networking company. We have to remain focused on the game's overall appeal. Having a much richer environment right out of the box increase appeal even if it decreases the potential for community.

Yeah, but CMx1 also had an autonomous AI. Some people thought it does a decent job for some scenarios in some roles. It was also good for replay value since you didn't run out of "AI plans".

The CMx1 AI was quite good, for sure, but it was also quite predictable. It was also nearly impossible to do certain types of battles because the AI simply wouldn't behave. It also was nearly impossible to shape the AI's behavior beyond an extremely limited range of options. Because we added lots of objectives other than "capture the flag" we either had to create a far better autonomous AI or one that could be scripted by the designer. Making a better autonomous AI was not seen as feasible or practical, so we went with the better option. An AI without the correct depth of understanding of the game elements would be a horrible experience and in no way "decent" like the CMx1 AI.

This, too, led to an accelerated rate of scenario contributions, not to mention those that just wanted to blow up some stuff after work and used random map, random forces and just gave the AI a huge bonus. Historical correct gaming? No. A contributor to CMx1's success? Sure.

Not quite. A contributor to CMx1's longevity? Yes. But that's not the same thing as success. Tons of people who bought CMBO didn't buy CMBB or CMAK. Proportionally few who bought either CMBO and/or CMBB bought CMAK. This despite the vast amounts of content and endless amounts of variations to play with it. What the content and variety did do, however, was give people something that they could play over and over again for a decade without feeling they had exhausted the game. As I said earlier, it's a good feeling to know this is the case, but good feelings don't pay bills

The point here is that to repeat what happened with CMx1 it is probably worthwhile to look into ways to make things more accessible again outside of the "hardcore" scenario design with manual AI planning and huge learning/effort curve for modding, and competitive gameplay.

Yes, it is always worth looking at with each major release. This release we're focusing on improving the QB system, including a far more flexible map system and play options.

Everything you said is true, the finer graded game will cause some losses even if you work against it. And of course for the initial release none of the above matters since people play your models and your scenarios.

Correct. As long as the basic game has enough content, the majority of customers will be satisfied with that. We have more "out of the box" hours of content in our games (even excluding QBs and the Map Editor) than most games out there have. Since the majority of our customers range between interested and mildly interested in spending more time than that with a single game, all is fine.

But long-term the CMx2 game series as a whole, as a game out of a 4 man shop that is well more well-known that any other 4 man game (or 6 or whatever it is now) will respond to the same dynamics. These different groups add up to more than just the sum of people. Since people from one group use the other group's work the longevity of gameplay is pretty much multiplied. That means public visibility.

That is definitely one benefit of having long term community support. However, because our sales model doesn't require us to get everybody interested in our games within the first 1-2 months of release... we can afford to have visibility build up fresh after each release and then quiet down before the next one comes out. That's because ultimately people purchase a game because it interests them, not because there's thousands of options available to it.

Having said that, if CMx2 should ever become online-play centric then toss what I said aside because those games live and die based on their communities for a simple reason... without them there isn't a vibrant base of people to play against, which means death to an online centric game.

Or in other words: one major reason people bought CM:SF is that your company is well-known for CMx1, and many people who know CMx1 have learned about CMx1 because there was so much activity for so many years - which is the result of the group mix.

This is, of course, true. Broad based community support can only help, never hurt. But what if CMx1 had 1/2 as much content and 1/2 as much ability to be modded? Would sales have been 1/2 or 1/4 as much? Based on all our years of experience in gaming I don't think sales would have been different by even a single unit. The important thing is to keep a certain critical mass of customers interested in the game. Everything above that is a welcomed bonus, but it for our type of game it doesn't equate to extra sales.

To be clear, this isn't a new philosophy for us. We've always resisted calls to open up the game to more in-depth modding, like unit stats, physics modeling, 3d models, etc. The modders claim that if we opened the game up we'd have a much bigger community and therefore much larger sales. Every bit of data and experience we have at our disposal indicates that this would not likely happen, rather what would be more likely is a net loss of sales over time or an ever increasing budget to achieve the same number of sales. I know from many discussions here that this point of view is not held in high regard by the people pushing for greater modding, but they haven't so much as put on our shoes not to mention walked in them before. We therefore must respectfully agree to disagree.

We've proven ourselves to be quite clever and ahead of the curve in so many ways I think we should be given more credit for knowing what we're doing than we are sometimes given. We are now one of the oldest and most successful wargaming companies in the history of wargaming. In this ruthless environment, with no quarter asked for or given by anybody, there's absolutely no way we got to where we are now by bumbling through things or by freak accident. We're definitely not perfect, and some of our mistakes hurt short term (we almost got into a lawsuit with one of our "partners" back in 2001, for example [edit... we were going to sue them for f'n us over, not the other way around )]), however we're still in business and that is ultimately what matters to us. Since there are so few wargame companies out there worth talking about, being in business is ultimately what matters to you customers as well.

Steve

[Battlefront.com]

Red Reporter,

I just wanted to make sure you all understood what I meant when I said "relative to effort" about CMBB's sales. The overall sales of CMBB were actually VERY good for a direct sequel. In that sense they beat other 2nd releases of other similar games we're aware of. But we were expecting sales to be nearly the same as CMBO (in part due to the community Redwolf mentioned) and that's the sort of effort we put into it. In reality sales were significantly less (about 40% less IIRC). If we had spent only 1 year on CMBB instead of 2 years, we would likely have had the same number of sales for 1/2 the amount of work. This would have, effectively, doubled our revenue and vastly increased profits. Fortunately for you guys, we hadn't thought about that before we made CMBB But ever since then it's definitely been on our minds.

CMBB was in fact quite profitable if you exclude covering our level of risk, necessary skill levels, "opportunity costs", putting our personal lives on the back burner for huge spans of time, AND cash reserves to keep the company going through its next R&D phase. Therefore, we aren't unhappy with CMBB's overall sales, but we weren't happy with how hard we had to work for it. Hence our decision to never do that again once we got CMAK behind us. Hence our lack of sympathy for people who feel we should repeat CMBB. Hence our dismissal of uninformed individuals who think CMBB is what made us the company we are today. CMBO did that... CMBB could be argued to have almost killed us (it wasn't that bad, but I'd quit before I did another one like that, which would kill Battlefront. Especially since Charles would have quit 5 minutes before me ).

Having gobs of cash available after covering costs and reasonable profits is esscential for any company, but especially a company where R&D time exceeds the time a product is actually actively producing revenue. Growth is extremely difficult to do and long term viability is put at risk. It's simple Business 101 rules of the game. Fortunately, we've kept our operations scaled to the available revenue. CMx2 will allow us to do more than that, which benefits everybody.

Steve

[Delta228]

In reality, this entire discussion is moot, because it is essentially a person arguing against change. Things will change. It's a simple fact.

this dude is just pissed that he can't pick up his copy of CMBO II. It's that simple. And if he can't get over that, then his opinion isn't even worth noting. People just have to embrace new stuff, and try somthing different. It won't always work, but it does alot.

In this case. It did. No matter what anyone says, the CMX2 games are AWSOME. Whether it's some bitter critic or one of my stupid fps playing friends who thinks CMSF is boring and slow, i won't listen because I enjoy CMSF, and as long as I do, and BFC is happy with the product they put out, no-one else's opinion matters.

[MehMan]

I felt that way with various FPS games. Loved to use other people's stuff, didn't have the patience or time to make my own.

How did you get into game creation then? I thought modding was a natural step in the evolution to game creation. At least that's my take. But I'm just modding stuff. Every game I get my hands on I try to mod it, just so I can go: yeah devs, you got it that way, but I think I'm more right than you!

[MarkEzra]

No matter what anyone says, the CMX2 games are AWSOME. Whether it's some bitter critic or one of my stupid fps playing friends who thinks CMSF is boring and slow, i won't listen because I enjoy CMSF, and as long as I do, and BFC is happy with the product they put out, no-one else's opinion matters.

You must be just another FanBoi.... Me, too!

[Clavicula_Nox]

I have to admit, when I read the article, the name "Dorosh" sprung into mind.

[Battlefront.com]

Delta228,

In reality, this entire discussion is moot, because it is essentially a person arguing against change. Things will change. It's a simple fact.

Exactly. Some people will never, ever forgive us for delivering something new instead of something reheated (which I am sure they would have bitched about too ). We made a choice to go with something new, customers have the choice of accepting it or moving on. It's only the nutters who choose to neither accept nor move on. What a terrible waste of one's life.

In this case. It did. No matter what anyone says, the CMX2 games are AWSOME. Whether it's some bitter critic or one of my stupid fps playing friends who thinks CMSF is boring and slow, i won't listen because I enjoy CMSF, and as long as I do, and BFC is happy with the product they put out, no-one else's opinion matters.

Thank you and you are correct. This is one of the things that really eats away at the hyper critical types. They are so egotistical that they think "if I don't like it, it's crap and nobody else likes it either". Everything else is denial... and for what? Either the game is a success or a failure, why should it matter to them? They have nothing at stake. Or should not. Some feel their identities are at stake, and that is just pathetic. We make f'n games, not artificial lifestyles for people with empty lives.

MehMan,

How did you get into game creation then? I thought modding was a natural step in the evolution to game creation.

When I got into making games "modding" hadn't even been invented

Clavicula_Nox,

I have to admit, when I read the article, the name "Dorosh" sprung into mind.

Didn't it though? It could still be, despite the pseudonym difference. He's got an established track record of creating multiple accounts and using them concurrently. IIRC he has had nearly a dozen on this Forum, half of them created before he got banned.

Steve

[Paul AU]

BFC wrote:

"In order to be lumped in with the "I hate Steve and Battlefront, but I spend almost every waking hour obsessing over both" club you'd have to reject rational discourse and start describing my genitalia instead. Oh, and be paranoid, bitter, and all kinds of nasty."

None of which was apparent in the OP’s quote. The quote was a critical opinion, well expressed, and I think, not without truth, which is perhaps why BFC also said (for just one example of ten similar paranoid, bitter, and nasty responses in this thread):

"A pile of poop is so hard to trace back to a particular person by smell alone."

Which makes this BFC statement in the same thread:

"…but based on the rough treatment given to a (person) who posted a fair minded (yet still critical) opinion... I'm not hopeful. A handful of agenda driven people have done a pretty good job keeping objectivity out of the discussions."

…all kinds of ironic.

If you don't live in a glass ego, you’d could spend less time throwing stones.

BFC’s response to criticism is usually twice as ‘rough’ and ‘poopie’ as the criticism itself. It's not a good look. (That’s my fair-minded, critical, opinion).

“I only said, ‘Jehovah.’”

[panzermartin]

I'm a fan of CMx2 so far but I dont want to see the "less is better" approach completely taking over. When I first got CMSF in my hands I felt that half of the game was missing. Broken QBs, uninteresting stock maps, no water/bridges, TCP/IP was just an idea etc. It lacked substance and felt more like a collection of "cool" modern weapons in a firing range, than a game. It is much better now and I firmly believe that CM Normandy will be even better BUT it wouldnt be bad if some CMx1 love was injected in there instead of pure marketing/sales calculations. I dont want BFC going broke but I don't want to see a Metallica effect on them either, producing uninteresting add ons with just the bare minimum content to excuse a release. However, having said that, the painstakingly and in depth patching of the engine and seeing Steve coming here on a regular basis to lenghty discuss even minor game details encourages me to think that enthusiasm is still alive and well

[Patrocles]

LMAO! What a spot on (and fun to read) analogy of the BF problems!

[Mord]

Thanks for clarifying your previous post, though. Honestly, if the "vitriol" (I know that's a favorite word of mine, apparently) and invented reality was left out there would be some decent discussions there. That's why I initially waded through the posts... looking for something interesting. After a while I basically gave up because the basic premisses were often so far off the mark and the disrespect so over the top it wasn't worth looking for the dime in the dungheap. It's a shame, but it someone wants to waste their precious time on this Earth obsessing about a game they hate, that's their choice. My choice is to make those games that they hate

Steve

HA! I stopped over there last night to check out the hub bub and low and behold my name popped up! Followed by this; "in recent years he's become kind of a uber-*****y pro-BFC supporter almost on a par with the beta-testers and not nearly as funny as he used to be"

Now, I know for a fact I am still as funny as I used to be, I have a bag of rubber chickens and fake dog poop to prove it. And if you've ever had the luxury of seeing me drunk and naked, you'd know all to well that I know how to use them.

As for me being an uber-whatever pro-BFC supporter...I've pointed out many things that were screwed up in the game, mostly graphic oriented...however I didn't act like a gigantic man organ about it...contrary to some of the panty twisters that frequent the board, one can point out mistakes, bugs and screw ups AND be polite about it. You don't have to live cyber-life as a big bag of suckage just because you are hiding behind a keyboard. I've witnessed it a million times, if Steve is treated with respect he gives back respect. Stamping one's feet, acting like a jerk and urinating on the monitor wouldn't get you anywhere in the real world except maybe a smack in the mouth...so why should it here?

But then again, I could just be kissing BFC butt....it tastes of vanilla and spring time! Yum.

Mord.

[Clavicula_Nox]

Generally, a person's E-Male Organ gets larger the more they bitch on forums.

[Apocal]

Generally, a person's E-Male Organ gets larger the more they bitch on forums.

Don't knock increasing the size of your E-peen. Some people dedicate their lives to it.

At any rate, this piece is like one of those shennigans where you get your buds to sit down and listen to your "funny" story, that meanders on and on without punchline for upwards of 10 minutes.

I want those 10 minutes back.

[Battlefront.com]

PaulAU,

None of which was apparent in the OP’s quote. The quote was a critical opinion, well expressed, and I think, not without truth, which is perhaps why BFC also said (for just one example of ten similar paranoid, bitter, and nasty responses in this thread):

You really haven't spent any time over at Game Squad, have you? That post didn't come out of a vacuum.

…all kinds of ironic.

How so? I'm more than willing to discuss things rationally with rational people. The irrational ones, however, don't have any intention of doing so. I don't see why they should be excused for that.

If you don't live in a glass ego, you’d could spend less time throwing stones.

I have more stones chucked at me than all of our detractors combined. I think I hold up pretty well It is amusing that if I chuck a pebble back I get all kinds of grief about it.

Bottom line has always been, and will always be, that I never attack someone unless they attack me first (and often, actually). The self and not self exiles over at GameSquad are extremely nasty pieces of work.

Ali-Baba,

It is much better now and I firmly believe that CM Normandy will be even better BUT it wouldnt be bad if some CMx1 love was injected in there instead of pure marketing/sales calculations.

If we determined what we did by pure marketing/sales calculations alone we wouldn't be making wargames in the first place There are a lot of things we want to add, some of which (like QBs) should make you quite pleased. These things will add value to the game and therefore add to our sales/marketing efforts. Win-win. But we're being smart about what we put in instead of trying to throw the kitchen sink into the market place. There's no reason for us to do that other than to make an extremely small segment of gamers a little less bitchy.

Mord,

HA! I stopped over there last night to check out the hub bub and low and behold my name popped up! Followed by this; "in recent years he's become kind of a uber-*****y pro-BFC supporter almost on a par with the beta-testers and not nearly as funny as he used to be"

Well, now you have made the big time! If you like CM:SF or the direction we're headed in you're branded a "fan bois" just like the Steel Panthers and Close Combat people branded them as "fan bois". If PaulAU wants to talk about irony, there's some irony.

As for me being an uber-whatever pro-BFC supporter...I've pointed out many things that were screwed up in the game, mostly graphic oriented...however I didn't act like a gigantic man organ about it...contrary to some of the panty twisters that frequent the board, one can point out mistakes, bugs and screw ups AND be polite about it.

Which is exactly what I've been saying for 11 years and they still don't get it. Every time we get into something like this people break into two camps; those who know how to have a productive, civil discussion and those who think being an A-Hole is the only way to get what they want. Which is not surprising, because like a spoiled rotten child and a good parent, the good parent isn't swayed by "I hate you!" lines of irrational babble when the child is denied something he wants. Which is the beauty of our position... we have the power and they don't. Which pisses 'em off even more, which in turn makes them even more bitter.

I've witnessed it a million times, if Steve is treated with respect he gives back respect. Stamping one's feet, acting like a jerk and urinating on the monitor wouldn't get you anywhere in the real world except maybe a smack in the mouth...so why should it here?

That is the problem with the Internet... they can live out their fantasies of being bullies without much ramifications. All I can do is continue to rub salt in t

But then again, I could just be kissing BFC butt....it tastes of vanilla and spring time! Yum.

Am I the only one that finds this disturbing? I thought not

Steve

[Battlefront.com]

Apocal,

At any rate, this piece is like one of those shennigans where you get your buds to sit down and listen to your "funny" story, that meanders on and on without punchline for upwards of 10 minutes.

Yeah, I think this has run its course. The reason I pursue threads like this is that it gives me a chance to explain what we're doing, why we're doing it, and where we go from here. There's a lot of good meat in this thread in addition to my shots back at the lunatic fringe. I just like to rattle them every once and a while just to make sure they still have a purpose in their lives since they obviously have so little going on outside of obsessing over a game they despise so much. It's the least I can do for such wonderful people as they

But, it's probably best to lock this one up now.

Steve

[Kwazydog]

BFC wrote:

BFC’s response to criticism is usually twice as ‘rough’ and ‘poopie’ as the criticism itself. It's not a good look. (That’s my fair-minded, critical, opinion).

There is a huge difference between someone being critical and someone being just plain rude, and I think you are confusing the two.

If you take the time to search through the forum you will see that Steve has spent many many hours discussing different aspects of the game to which people may be be critical. The result is that we have a much better idea of the direction people would like to see the game take and forum members have a much better idea of the details of game development.

What we have never accepted on our forums is people putting across their opinions in a rude or trolling manner. Personally I think that Steve should be credited for at least addressing these peoples posts as it would be FAR simple for us to simply hit the ban button, as most developers would.

Dan