An interesting, if somewhat harsh analogy

[Battlefront.com]

Redwolf,

A forum currently named "gamesquad" (unless I lost track), a poster named "The Coil".

Heh... if that's the case, and it isn't an alter ego, then I stand corrected about my guess at who wrote that post. But I'm not going to be hard on myself for my mistake. A pile of poop is so hard to trace back to a particular person by smell alone

Note that "The Coil" is not a regular over there. People should not take his opinion as representing "the gamesquad crowd" if there is such a thing.

If that were true I wouldn't have sworn off reading GameSquad's CM area last year (broken by a few hours of curiosity in February). I suppose things could have improved since I was last there, but based on the rough treatment given to a newbie who posted a fair minded (yet still critical) post a day or two before I checked in... I'm not hopeful. A handful of agenda driven people have done a pretty good job keeping objectivity out of the discussions. If I'm wrong and things have changed, I'll take your word for it since it doesn't matter to me either way.

MikeyD,

I'm reminded of an old buddy of mine who at the ripe old age of 21(?) had found himself sitting at the same table as a bigwig from "Consumer Reports". My buddy then proceeded to spend the whole evening bending the poor guy's ear about EXACTLY what was wrong with his magazine. Ohmygod, I can only imagine what it was like to sit through that. The saints preserve us from being button-holed by self-appointed "experts".

Hehe... for some reason I can picture that very well.

True story... years and years ago I was just getting into selling my first self made wargame. Through a mutual contact I was put into contact with Keith Zabaloui (Close Combat 1 either just came out or was just about to come out). We got on the phone and at one point he chuckled that he knew I got into gaming because I looked at Atomic's stuff and said to myself "I can do better than that". He was right on the money, but I didn't want to say that I kinda fumbled for an answer and he said something like "that's alright. It's the same thing I said when I looked at other people's games before starting Atomic". In other words, all game designers start out as critics, but most critics never become game designers because going from judging to being judged is not easy for most. The ability to be critical but not the ability to be criticized is a rather standard problem with the Human psyche. Which is fine with me since I'd rather not compete in a marketplace with 20,000 wargame companies or have to wonder which of 20,000 films that came out this year are worth seeing

Steve

[MehMan]

NORMANDY IS MORE POPULAR THAN STALINGRAD?!

NOOOOO. NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO.

:eek:

/sarcasm

Eh. If it has anything to do with normandy in the title it has a lot more chances of being successful. Why are there hardly any big selling eastern front games(cod doesn't count)? Or even movies for that point?

It's a shame really, because the eastern front was far more...vivid, if you pardon the expression, in terms of battles and action.

But eh, what sells, sells.

[Redwolf]

If that were true I wouldn't have sworn off reading GameSquad's CM area last year (broken by a few hours of curiosity in February). I suppose things could have improved since I was last there, but based on the rough treatment given to a newbie who posted a fair minded (yet still critical) post a day or two before I checked in... I'm not hopeful. A handful of agenda driven people have done a pretty good job keeping objectivity out of the discussions. If I'm wrong and things have changed, I'll take your word for it since it doesn't matter to me either way.

I didn't mean to say they/we use objectivity now/aren't critical of CMx2. But generally that particular discussion focuses more on details of the 1:1 move, reasons for it and consequences resulting from it, whether BFC has/had the resources for it and with a good share of accusing BFC of lacking communication skills

[Battlefront.com]

Redwolf,

I didn't mean to say they/we use objectivity now/aren't critical of CMx2. But generally that particular discussion focuses more on details of the 1:1 move, reasons for it and consequences resulting from it, whether BFC has/had the resources for it and with a good share of accusing BFC of lacking communication skills

Which IIRC was usually accompanied by calling me "scrotum" or some other super mature way to demonstrate good communication skills I guess I'm kinda funny about taking criticism for my communication skills from people like that. It's like having a 500 pound guy criticizing me for being on the upper end of my acceptable BMI

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

[Battlefront.com]

MehMan,

It's a shame really, because the eastern front was far more...vivid, if you pardon the expression, in terms of battles and action.

I'm on the record, over and over and over again, agreeing with this sentiment 110%. But I'm also on the record for agreeing with this one too:

But eh, what sells, sells.

Since we are a business, this matters far more than my personal opinion. And what sells are games with US stuff in it. Surprisingly, this is true for non-US customers as well. For the last 11 years our worldwide sales figures have been extremely consistent for all Battlefront games. The only thing that differs is the total number of units sold. We'll see how that pans out with Brits and NATO forces. We expect the ratios to be somewhat different than for Marines. We're definitely curious to know if that's true or not

Steve

[MehMan]

Haven't seen many British specific games, so I guess it's a bit unpredictable. Doubtful that it'll do as good as MARINES FUG YEAH. You know more than most why everybody does the same thing over and over again.

Worth a try though. I'm guessing that at least some viewers of Ross Kemp's near death expirences will go for this.

[Kanonier Reichmann]

I previously wrote this in my second post:

I'm concerned however that there still needs to be sufficient depth within each module to keep ones interest in continuing to play the game although it is taken as a given that there won't be the breadth as existed with the CMx1 series. In my opinion this is crucial to the future success of CMx2 and if there is a significantly crippled ability to auto generate battles or select forces that make sense in a Quickbattle situation then this could be a serious problem for the longevity of the new generation of Combat Mission games.

Is there any chance it could be confirmed that my fears are unfounded?

Regards

Jim R.

[sfhand]

The situation reminds me of a movie all right, the 6th Sense:

"They only see what they want to see; They don’t even know that they’re dead."

And I don't mean BF.

[JonS]

KR, your implied question is logically unanswerable.

[Kwazydog]

I'm concerned however that there still needs to be sufficient depth within each module to keep ones interest in continuing to play the game although it is taken as a given that there won't be the breadth as existed with the CMx1 series.

If you are referring too variety of equipment KR then I would suggest that CMx2:Normandy will have a greater variety available to the player than they had in CMBO once modules are taken into consideration. Even in the initial release it is likely that there will be variants of vehicles that weren’t seen in CMBO as we are able to focus on the selected period in more detail. Time will tell though.

With regards to the initial post phew, what a rant eh, hehe. Personally I find it a little sad that after two years there are still some out there whom are *so* bitter that they find it worth while spending hours writing, editing and revising such a post. Hopefully they can find a way to move on and find other aspects of their life to fulfil them.

Dan

[Redwolf]

It's not depth that made CMx1 such a great game. What made CMx1 great is that it was "good enough" in a vast variety of different things, attracting several different audiences (modders, historical scenario people, ladder gamers, other competitive gamers, PBEMers, people who just like to see stuff blow up, people who use the unit editor for reference, people who learn real tactics). These different audiences then created a community (or several communities) that prolonged the life of these games to a multiple of what you would expect.

So far CMx2 is better in some things but not nearly even enough to attractive larger varieties of audiences.

[Battlefront.com]

KR,

I'm concerned however that there still needs to be sufficient depth within each module to keep ones interest in continuing to play the game although it is taken as a given that there won't be the breadth as existed with the CMx1 series. In my opinion this is crucial to the future success of CMx2 and if there is a significantly crippled ability to auto generate battles or select forces that make sense in a Quickbattle situation then this could be a serious problem for the longevity of the new generation of Combat Mission games.

I think KwazyDog gave a good answer, but I'll go a bit further.

From a business perspective, we don't care if anybody plays a single game purchase of ours after... oh... I dunno... 6 months or so. Anything beyond that is a freebie since even at 6 months the price paid is ridiculously low compared to other forms of entertainment, especially movies and run-of-the-mill games. Which means we have absolutely no concern for people who expect to play the game for year after year. If they do, great, if they don't we have no motivation to do more. Nor should any reasonable person expect us to do more. Slavery and indentured servitude is illegal where we live, not to mention immoral.

What is going to extend the life of the base game are the Modules. Additional content will effectively refresh the previous content. Marines has already proven that to us, Brits no doubt will as well (remember, we do have preorder data available ). We do want to get the times between Modules to 4 months, and I'm sure we will eventually, because we think that's about right.

Theoretically if people aren't interested in Modules (which flies in the face of sales realities) then we have two choices:

1. Don't make any more Modules, leave the planned content unimplemented.

2. Put the Modules' content into the base game and sell it as one game like CMx1.

If the earth opened up and spewed forth the reanimated dead, I might consider this poser somewhat relevant since at that point all bets are off But going with this hypothetical question for a sec... the answer would clearly go with Option #1. Why? Because by not purchasing Modules the customer is saying they don't value the content and will not pay us for our efforts to create it. Since the customer in this hypothetical situation is always right, then the only smart thing for us to do is not spend enormous amounts of our time making things that customers don't want to pay for. In the business world, giving customers things they don't want is quite commonly referred to as "unbelievably stupid". Just ask General Motors if you don't believe me

OK, back to reality!

If customers don't value the additional content then they lose nothing because they haven't paid for it. If customers stop playing the game after many months, they lose nothing because they have already recouped their investment and then some. For the rest, there is a continuous stream of content without having to wait for a single, massive, very expensive purchase about a 8-12 months after we could have released the game.

In other words the customer wins no matter what. And for us, we win as well because we'll actually be paid for the work we do which will, oddly enough, encourage us to keep making games. Which, in turn, the customer will have the option to purchase from us. Product that won't be found anywhere else, I'll remind you.

The only potential losers in this arrangement are the ones who want it all, want it now, and don't want to pay what it's worth. But as I said above, we don't care about those people because the number of customers who will REALLY not purchase a base game that they are interested in is so small that it won't ever be noticed.

Now... does all of this sound like we're just money grubbing Capitalists who don't care about you guys or what you want? No. It's just reality that we aren't getting any younger and we aren't a charity service for one of the smallest segments of the gaming market in existence. If we're going to continue with what we do the relationship has to have some sort of equitable exchange for our time and energy. Just be thankful we don't tack on another $5 per game as an "annoyance tax" to make it worth taking all the abuse we get

Steve

[Battlefront.com]

Redwolf,

So far CMx2 is better in some things but not nearly even enough to attractive larger varieties of audiences.

Oh, I very much disagree with you there. I'd say we have a far more diverse crowd owning CM:SF than any previous CMx1 game. The size and scope of the CMx1 community has more to do with the fact that it was a more popular setting (nothing beats Western Front WW2... nothing) and therefore the community support was inherently larger. It is also my personal opinion that there are far more OCD types interested in WW2 than Modern

That being said, I think the community of "extras" for CMx2 will never be as large or as extensive as CMx1. Why? Because CMBO's artwork wasn't all that great due to the fact we didn't have much help with art (I did almost all of the vehicles) and we targeted it for a VRAM limit that was very quickly low end for almost all of our customers. Even mediocre artists could make major improvements, quickly and easily, over the included art simply by doing things in a higher res. Now CMx2's stuff is not only about as good as it gets right out of the box, but it's significantly more complicated to do from a technical standpoint. The time spent on 2-4 CMx1 vehicle Mods probably wouldn't be enough to do even one of the more simple CMx2 vehicles.

Similar is the issue with making scenarios. CMx1 was quite primitive compared to CMx2 in terms of terrain, scenario objectives, and buildings. A good map maker could crank out several very good maps in the same time it would take to do one in CMx2. People who could crank out maps in CMx1, but of only mediocre quality, probably quit halfway through their first CMx2 map experience. On top of that there's the AI and polishing that has to be done that didn't even exist in CMx1.

And why is this? More depth means more work to take advantage of what there is to offer. Not just for us, but also for you customers. This was deliberate as we've said for years now. CMx2 is about depth, not breadth. We know for sure that was the right way to go.

Steve

[silverstars]

I am always at a loss to complain at length about the CM series and its creators based simply on the fact that no else is doing this, let alone doing it better. As far as I can tell only two series of games does WeGo: Combat Mission and Panzer Command. CM is more enjoyable then PC in my opinion, so I buy Battlefront's games. I wish that Battlefront had a much bigger team to really crank 'em out with all the polish the PC (or a console, for that matter) can give and then maybe I might see other companies try to put out different types of WeGo games. Then, when I have a vast array of games to pluck off the virtual shelf, I can be hyper-picky about this that and the other.

Until then, however, they are my last best hope.

Man, it's hell to be a Flight Sim/Wargame enthusiast.

[Homo ferricus]

People who could crank out maps in CMx1, but of only mediocre quality, probably quit halfway through their first CMx2 map experience.

Heh... that is correct...

[Michael Emrys]

Why are there hardly any big selling eastern front games(cod doesn't count)? Or even movies for that point?

It's a shame really, because the eastern front was far more...vivid, if you pardon the expression, in terms of battles and action.

But eh, what sells, sells.

This is indeed, at first glance, curious. Thirty-thirty-five years ago, the Eastern Front was the hot item in the board wargaming world. It was no accident that Panzerblitz was released well before Panzer Leader was, or that game after game came out that tried to improve on Stalingrad.

But times have changed. An in depth analysis of the factors that led to that change would be too big (and probably too boring) to go in this thread, but it could be summarized by saying that most gamers are fairly young and are responding to what is currently out in the larger culture. How many really good movies set on the Eastern Front have been released in the last ten years compared to those concerning the Western Allies? To a very large extent, gamers want to reenact something that they have read about or seen in a movie that interested and excited them. And those are the kinds of games that they will buy first.

Michael

[Battlefront.com]

silverstars,

I am always at a loss to complain at length about the CM series and its creators based simply on the fact that no else is doing this, let alone doing it better.

While we never want people to throw their standards and expectations out the window and resign themselves to accepting whatever we put out (that would take the fun out of it for us!), it would be nice if the hyper critical customers could remember that swinging around a sledgehammer in a china shop doesn't make the management all that interested in having you in the shop Healthy levels of criticism and debate are not only good for CM they are necessary. Criticism in a vacuum, however, is as useless as it annoying.

Until then, however, they are my last best hope.

If only I had Obi Wan's ability to influence the minds of the weak with my own. I'm stuck using a stupid keyboard

Man, it's hell to be a Flight Sim/Wargame enthusiast.

As a former Flight Sim junkie I find it sad that we have the hardware we wanted 15 years ago but not the games to use on them.

Homo ferricus,

Heh... that is correct...

We decided that fewer, deeper, higher quality scenarios beats quantity with radical quality variations. Obviously some think that quantity beats quality, and that's fine. But we don't.

Michael Emrys,

This is indeed, at first glance, curious. Thirty-thirty-five years ago, the Eastern Front was the hot item in the board wargaming world. It was no accident that Panzerblitz was released well before Panzer Leader was, or that game after game came out that tried to improve on Stalingrad.

No doubt within wargaming circles the Eastern Front is still the #1 subject. So if CM were catering just to the wargaming niche then sales of an Eastern Front game would probably equal, if not surpass, a Western Front game. But CM never has been, and never will be, targeted exclusively to the wargaming niche. We'd never have wasted our time making a 3D game engine if that were the case Therefore, CM's actual customer base will want different things. And it's very safe to say that the general wargamer/gamer out there doesn't want Eastern Front over Western Front. All data we've ever seen, even in non game related things (like movies, books, TV shows, etc.), show that Eastern Front isn't top dog. But it should be, darn it

But times have changed.

Actually, as stated above I don't think so. I think the hardcore wargaming crowd has pretty much the same levels of interest for various conflicts that they had 10, 20, or even 30 years ago. What's changed is that they are no longer a market segment large enough for anybody to exclusively cater to. Which means Eastern Front can't be at the top of the agenda.

How many really good movies set on the Eastern Front have been released in the last ten years compared to those concerning the Western Allies?

Last 10 years? Let's look at the last 70 years (i.e. including wartime films). The two largest producers of movies are the US and the UK, with the US dwarfing the UK and the UK dwarfing everybody else. Both countries have natural markets in the other's territory, both fought (mostly) the same campaigns, and neither one fought on the Eastern Front. Germany has largely avoided making war films until very recently due to domestic problems with showing such content. France had a war on its own soil to concentrate on. And after that... who is out there making movies that are generally seen by the bulk of the Western nations on a regular basis? None. So it's not surprising that the vast bulk of the films made over 70 years have been Western Front. And that in turn reinforces people's interests.

Books are similar. When I was in college it was damned near impossible to find good books on the Eastern Front in English written from a low level perspective. Even high level stuff wasn't all that easy to find. It wasn't until the printing costs came way down that we started to see translated works in any volume. Then you had to look damned hard to find them since the military history sections in book stores were pathetic if they even existed. Online didn't exist yet either, so it was the Military Book Club for most of us. I don't know when they got their start, but I'm glad they did because I might not be making wargames if they hadn't!

Steve

[Moon]

Michael Emrys,

Quote:This is indeed, at first glance, curious. Thirty-thirty-five years ago, the Eastern Front was the hot item in the board wargaming world. It was no accident that Panzerblitz was released well before Panzer Leader was, or that game after game came out that tried to improve on Stalingrad.

No doubt within wargaming circles the Eastern Front is still the #1 subject. So if CM were catering just to the wargaming niche then sales of an Eastern Front game would probably equal, if not surpass, a Western Front game. But CM never has been, and never will be, targeted exclusively to the wargaming niche. We'd never have wasted our time making a 3D game engine if that were the case Therefore, CM's actual customer base will want different things. And it's very safe to say that the general wargamer/gamer out there doesn't want Eastern Front over Western Front. All data we've ever seen, even in non game related things (like movies, books, TV shows, etc.), show that Eastern Front isn't top dog. But it should be, darn it

Quote:But times have changed.

Actually, as stated above I don't think so. I think the hardcore wargaming crowd has pretty much the same levels of interest for various conflicts that they had 10, 20, or even 30 years ago. What's changed is that they are no longer a market segment large enough for anybody to exclusively cater to. Which means Eastern Front can't be at the top of the agenda.

Interestingly enough, and in support of what Steve is saying, while CMBB has sold less then CMBO, it is by now still played more often, more regularly and by a bigger bunch of (hardcore) wargamers than CMBO. You only need to look around the various ladders and leagues to see that.

[Marwek77 aka Red Reporter]

CMBO sold way more than we ever guessed it would. CMBB was a sales disappointment compared to the effort that was put into it. CMAK was about what we expected, however our expectations were fairly low. CM:SF has sold about what we expected, despite the initial problems with it. CM:SF Marines sold more than we expected (and I mean more than we expected before CM:SF was released!). We expect British Module to do about expected, but it's too early to say. Also too early to say about any of our other games not-yet-released.

So you wanted to say that:

CMBO = more than expected

CMBB = disappoinment

CMAK = as expected

CM:SF = as expected

Marines = more than expected

So if there is US it means MORE money, so in the future we will stay with this idea and we will forget about the RED???

Personally i think CM:SF + modules is something like BETA concept still in evolution payed by gamers and the BIG FUN will start with recreating the history again and THE TOP will be modern NATO vs Warsaw pact modern pif - paf!

Don't worry, i am still ready to pay this your evolution

[Kanonier Reichmann]

KR, your implied question is logically unanswerable.

Yes, I see your point. I think the intent of the question is clear however.

@BFC

Thanks for getting involved in the discussion. I may not have expressed myself very clearly previously but what I was driving at is that I'm hoping the base engine will be sufficiently developed with at least the foundations of a good quickbattle system to allow later modules to expand upon it and make it very schmick in the end.

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. 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.

Regards

Jim R.

[silverstars]

As a former Flight Sim junkie I find it sad that we have the hardware we wanted 15 years ago but not the games to use on them.

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.

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.

Although Katushkas and Soviet SMG Platoons were pretty damn cool.

AK in some ways gave me the best of both worlds, but by then the graphics were getting real long in the tooth. I don't consider myself a graphics whore by any standard, but I do find that 3D graphics don't hold up as well as old 2D/Sprite based graphics.

[[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.

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

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.

Cheers!

Leto

[Thomm]

Leto;1131358']The responses I've seen here so far will only serve to set the natives to sharpening their tomahawks...

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

Best regards,

Thomm

[sfhand]

Leto;1131358']

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

Ummm... I'm not trying to be rude, but seriously, who cares?

[Redwolf]

That being said, I think the community of "extras" for CMx2 will never be as large or as extensive as CMx1. Why? Because CMBO's artwork wasn't all that great due to the fact we didn't have much help with art (I did almost all of the vehicles) and we targeted it for a VRAM limit that was very quickly low end for almost all of our customers. Even mediocre artists could make major improvements, quickly and easily, over the included art simply by doing things in a higher res. Now CMx2's stuff is not only about as good as it gets right out of the box, but it's significantly more complicated to do from a technical standpoint. The time spent on 2-4 CMx1 vehicle Mods probably wouldn't be enough to do even one of the more simple CMx2 vehicles.

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.

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

Similar is the issue with making scenarios. CMx1 was quite primitive compared to CMx2 in terms of terrain, scenario objectives, and buildings. A good map maker could crank out several very good maps in the same time it would take to do one in CMx2. People who could crank out maps in CMx1, but of only mediocre quality, probably quit halfway through their first CMx2 map experience.

Right.

On top of that there's the AI and polishing that has to be done that didn't even exist in CMx1.

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".

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.

%%

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.

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.

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.

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.

Anyway, I need more coffee.