Another one of those cool moments

[Blackcat]

Just spent an amused half-hour on that site. So many names I remember of old, and they are still having the same conversations.

What I found particularly sad was a discussion going on about command delays in CM:N. It seemed as if they hadn't realised that they weren't posting on the Battlefront forum anymore and as if anyone cared about their opinions.

[Battlefront.com]

Blackcat,

Just spent an amused half-hour on that site. So many names I remember of old, and they are still having the same conversations.

Heh... I haven't checked out that Forum since the first week in February 2008 precisely for this very reason. "New" to them is taking something written here, twisting it around to fit an already long established pre-conceived position, and patting each other on the back. The only thing that is more of a waste of time than their postings is reading their postings.

What I found particularly sad was a discussion going on about command delays in CM:N. It seemed as if they hadn't realised that they weren't posting on the Battlefront forum anymore and as if anyone cared about their opinions.

It is ironic, isn't it?

The only people that have influence in the decisions we make are those who can present calm, rational, well thought out positions and then defend then calmly, rationally, and with clear thinking when they are challenged by someone. That has been our philosophy since 1997 when we first started talking about what became CMBO and it has served us and the wargaming community very well ever since. Those who aren't mature or skilled enough to handle the simple rules here, sooner or later, go someplace else. When they do that they become irrelevant by definition.

The thing that is most sad about this is that they try to take credit for anything "good" that happens. Yet the reality is they weren't even in the equation. That something actually happened because someone else had the social and intellectual skills to influence opinions through positive interaction. Deep down they know they are as useful to wargaming as a square wheel on a racing car. No wonder they're so frustrated, bitter, and downright nasty. I only hope the rest of their lives aren't as hollow and devoid of joy as their virtual ones since, when we get right down to it...

IT'S ONLY A FRIGG'N GAME!

If someone doesn't enjoy the game, move on to something else. Sheesh. This hobby does not need self appointed guardian egos of wargaming who have decided to save us all from ourselves.

Steve

[MarkEzra]

It's Only a game, It's Only a Game, It's Only a Game, It's....oh hell..this hypno-whatever stuff isn't working.... I Love it...can't live without it...God but I am damned to wargame purgatory for enjoying CMSF

[Lets_All_Fight]

Those were great stories, fellas.

Funny, I was ridiculed by some snide, little douchebag, on another site for posting this thread, because apparently anyone that enjoys the game from lower than a bird's eye nose bleed isn't a REAL wargamer...What was the summation?...oh yeah...

"CM:SF players don't want realistic company-level tactical action, apparently, which was what garnered CM:BO its reputation. They want to make 1 minute war dramas about Johnny Jarhead killing Jimmy Jihad and watch them over and over in slow motion."

LOL 'cause nobody every zoomed in to watch anything happen in CMX1...damn why'd they spend all that programming time on 3D?...They should've just made some X's and O's porking each other on a grid.

Any way, keep the stories coming, they are fun to read, even if you are all a bunch of non wargaming, fanboy, twitch punks.

Mord.

Lol! I sometimes wonder about the general mental health of Strategy/tactical/Simulation fans compared to the fans of other genres who seem capable of taking it slightly less seriously. Graphics is one of those issues that seems to drive certain gamers to frothing-mouthed craziness. I've always personally felt that graphics in titles like this add so much to the atmosphere. I couldn't imagine playing one of the Silent Hunter games and not being able to watch a winter sun setting into a broiling north Atlantic. You could play it from the map screen and the dials alone, i guess, but you would lose so, so much. Personally, I'm looking forward to watching my paratroop section inching through long grass to flank a German 88 position on a cold, rainy Normandy afternoon or a Tiger platoon emerging from a smokescreen to fire upon my hasty defenses.

A good war game should always be heavy with the details and the facts, but they should always go hand in hand with other factors to tell the story. And it's the story a good scenario in CM creates that I'm always most interested in. Reliant on graphics? nope. Never should be. But they help tell the story, and the fact that wars are fought by men and equipment, not statistics and spreadsheets (at least not yet,) is something that many war games seem to forget. it is a fact that tends to be ever-present in my mind whenever I've played Combat Mission games from the CMBO demo onwards.

[Mord]

Funny you should mention that Mord. I just wasted some time on that site myself with that group of self-obsessed Crybois. For a group that claims to not care about CMSF, they do spend an inordinate amount of time micro-analysing and ridiculing everything that goes on here.

My advice is to avoid that sewer, who needs the aggravation.

Yah, I'd stumbled upon that place by accident a while back , and low and behold, someone was taking shots at me then, too...I am a legend in my own mind as well a representative of the types of people CMSF attracts.... And here I thought I was just a dude on a wargame site, trying to have some fun while making some mods for other people to dig on. It ain't easy being cheesy.

A good war game should always be heavy with the details and the facts, but they should always go hand in hand with other factors to tell the story. And it's the story a good scenario in CM creates that I'm always most interested in. Reliant on graphics? nope. Never should be. But they help tell the story, and the fact that wars are fought by men and equipment, not statistics and spreadsheets (at least not yet,) is something that many war games seem to forget. it is a fact that tends to be ever-present in my mind whenever I've played Combat Mission games from the CMBO demo onwards.

Totally agree. And if CMBO had been like Steel Panthers or the others that came before, I wouldn't be here 9 years later, typing this.

The cool thing about these games (CMBO, CMBB, CMAK), is they chipped away at the wall between abstraction and visualization. With CMX2, I get even more of this, especially on the infantry level, which was woefully lacking comparatively speaking. I don't ever remember armor junkies complaining that the visual representation of tanks in CMX1 was mucking up the game play. I sure didn't.

Are the infantry animations absolutely perfect? Nope, but for the most part I give them leeway just like I had to for CMX1...now, barring a really wacky bug, I have to give WAY less leeway than 8 years ago.

BUT, BUT, BUT, without the game play, without the details, none of the rest would matter. With this new engine, I feel like I am getting the best of both worlds and it's getting better and better with every patch and module that comes along. If that makes me a slobbering fan boy, oh well...pass the drool cup BFC...I'm having fun...and in the end that is all that matters.

Mord.

[Moon]

What I love is that this game creates wonderfully unscripted moments. Moments that pit crews, technologies and happenstance together in a myriad of ways that result in eye-popping and original outcomes.

Thanks BFC.

Thanks Gpig, this is a great line, may I borrow it from you sometime?

For me it very nicely sums up what the REAL difference is between CMSF (actually, make that CM) and most other games (not just wargames) out there. It's a conceptual difference and sometimes just subtle. But once I realized that it's there it's difficult to go back to the scripted movie-like solve-this-level games that you usually see from the big labels.

[BFCElvis]

Yah, I'd stumbled upon that place by accident a while back , and low and behold, someone was taking shots at me then, too...I am a legend in my own mind as well a representative of the types of people CMSF attracts.... And here I thought I was just a dude on a wargame site, trying to have some fun while making some mods for other people to dig on. It ain't easy being cheesy.

Mord.

I was actually surprised to see you mentioned by name since according to him you, Lanzfeld, Blackcat, Gpig, me and anyone else who has been around for 8,9 or 10 years, no longer visits or posts to this forum.

[BFCElvis]

On a personal note, I can vividly remember small combat moments from CMBO pre-pre-alpha when the map was hex based. I can remember small combat moments from the initial layout when we changed it to squares. I can remember almost the entire Alpha ARR and some of its very minor, but exciting, moments. I can remember pieces of battles from all three release versions of CMx1 and all of the CM:SF games from the time of the early alphas to present.

What I can't remember much are the details of any other wargame battle I've ever played before. I dunno... I guess my mind isn't all that interested in remembering the time when a Panzer counter went from 3-2 to 3-1 because I rolled a 4 instead of a 5

The beauty of CM is that it has the details that all the games before it lack in addition to the graphics that the other games lack. The two feed off of each other in a positive way without detracting from the other. The proof is already out there for all to see. No wargame in existence has matched CMx1 in terms of what is going on under the hood, not to mention its graphics. CM:SF is already way, way ahead of CMx1 on both counts and we're continuing to enhance both. No reason to look backwards when the way forwards is so clearly the right way to go.

Steve

I have a very lear memory of a board game situation of my first serious war boardgame playing Peng is Panzerblitz. Mention was made of using an "elastic defense". No idea what that meant at the time but certainly found out and the light bulb moment is what hooked me on war games....

That being said and more on topic one of my favorite "wow" moments in CM:SF was playing TCP vs Steve in a night tank battle right after the cook off feature was introduced. Jumped out of my chair a few times trying to figure if the explosion I just heard was a cook off or fresh dead friendly tank. And the visual was fantastic. (If memory serves I spanked him too.)

[Thomm]

... them ... their ...

Let's not forget that 'they' basically boil down to two truly hopeless cases.

Best regards,

Thomm

[Wengart]

Back to cool moments, I had one PBEM game where my last T-72 took 25+ AT-4 hits, possibly 1 SMAW hit, numerous hand grenades hits, and a barrage of LAV fire to the frontal aspect after being immobilized, and as it sat there killed 35+ Marines and one LAV.

The LAV kill itself was quite impressive. My T-72's right flank was protected by a beat up building, and my opponent attempted to get around to my tanks rear armor by using the building as cover. However, just as the LAV made it to cover the force of my T-72's main gun firing knocked the building down. Needless to say the LAV was quickly spotted and dealt with.

Its times like these I wish CM:SF had detailed unit statistics.

Not to mention savable replays.

[Other Means]

Back to cool moments, I had one PBEM game where my last T-72 took 25+ AT-4 hits, possibly 1 SMAW hit, numerous hand grenades hits, and a barrage of LAV fire to the frontal aspect after being immobilized, and as it sat there killed 35+ Marines and one LAV.

The LAV kill itself was quite impressive. My T-72's right flank was protected by a beat up building, and my opponent attempted to get around to my tanks rear armor by using the building as cover. However, just as the LAV made it to cover the force of my T-72's main gun firing knocked the building down. Needless to say the LAV was quickly spotted and dealt with.

Its times like these I wish CM:SF had detailed unit statistics.

Not to mention savable replays.

I'm not sure but have you tried saving at the beginning of a movie?

[Wengart]

I'm not sure but have you tried saving at the beginning of a movie?

I'm not really sure what you mean, but the action took place over several minutes so it wasn't really feasible just to reload the turn and watch it again.

[Battlefront.com]

Mord,

Are the infantry animations absolutely perfect? Nope, but for the most part I give them leeway just like I had to for CMX1...now, barring a really wacky bug, I have to give WAY less leeway than 8 years ago.

You and probably 98.2% of the people who bought CMx1 games We got a fair amount of grief for not looking like Quake at the time, so pumping out a game that still looks c.1998 was a non-starter for us. It has to do with the often forgotten fact that we need to stay in business to keep making games

BUT, BUT, BUT, without the game play, without the details, none of the rest would matter

Yup. Whether CM:SF is liked by someone or not, the fact (and I mean fact) is that there more details, accuracy, and fidelity in CM:SF than in any of the previous CM games. For CM: Normandy it will be even more than CM:SF. Fortunately only a few are not content with that. And chances are they will by CM: Normandy anyway and probably "hate it" even after years of playing it

Steve

[Battlefront.com]

Wengart,

I'm not really sure what you mean, but the action took place over several minutes so it wasn't really feasible just to reload the turn and watch it again.

Yup, that's definitely something we want to explore sooner rather than later. The potential technical problems with "rolling replays" in RealTime or continuous replays for WeGo are enough to keep it off our immediate horizons. But we absolutely want to tackle these hurdles as soon as possible.

Steve

[MeatEtr]

Wengart,

Yup, that's definitely something we want to explore sooner rather than later. The potential technical problems with "rolling replays" in RealTime or continuous replays for WeGo are enough to keep it off our immediate horizons. But we absolutely want to tackle these hurdles as soon as possible.

Steve

Virtually almost every battle I've played I wanted to rewind to see something I missed. Only 20 seconds rewind time would be huge IMO. Not to mention that it's pretty apparent that RT mode is more widely used than WeGo. At least for SP, since most MP is played PBEM.

[Mord]

Yup. Whether CM:SF is liked by someone or not, the fact (and I mean fact) is that there more details, accuracy, and fidelity in CM:SF than in any of the previous CM games. For CM: Normandy it will be even more than CM:SF. Fortunately only a few are not content with that. And chances are they will by CM: Normandy anyway and probably "hate it" even after years of playing it

Steve

I think a little (maybe a lot) of that misunderstanding is the way the game presents its info now. It took a while for me to get used to, but there is a ton of depth, shown in a more graphical way. For instance, we no longer have detailed armor hits (which I liked) but we DO have detailed armor hits, just...different. I click that little damage tab on my vehicle and I get much more info at a glance then I used to from a text message. I know what's ok, partially damaged or totally wailed. I know what crew guys are screwed and which aren't. I just have to remember to check.

BUT in a perfect world I'd like both.

Mord.

[MeatEtr]

If you wizards can stretch the RT replay mode to a full minute. Then guess what, WeGo mode is truely obsolete or doesn't even really exist for that matter.

I hereby declare this the future of CM!

[sfhand]

If you wizards can stretch the RT replay mode to a full minute. Then guess what, WeGo mode is truely obsolete or doesn't even really exist for that matter.

I hereby declare this the future of CM!

Nooooooooooooooooooooooooooo!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[souldierz]

The replay is probably the most anticipated feature.Id love to see it in real time.I hardly ever play WEGO but in my mind the pause button is my WEGO play.

Its cool that in this forum Battlefront actual communicates with the players and also gives them feedback on why or why not the user ideas will work or not work.

I know I'm new here but the fact that i see people giving out some intelligent ideas (not all of them lol) and Battlefront reacting to them, tells me this game will only get better with age unlike other games that usually stay the same more or less.

And unlike some other forums or internet comments I'm actually seeing some intelligent minds in here and not immature nonsense.This forum is interesting and now that i know there's a Normandy version in the making, I'm definitely gonna be hooked on the Combat Mission games from here on out.

I thought i also seen somewhere that there might be a shock force 2 and that it will still be in the modern era, is there any truth to this?

[Mord]

Yep, these forums are pretty neat, 'specially when we've got some good conversations going on. The guy's at BFC have been listening to everything from outright bitching to on your knees pleading, ever since I came here, and it's why I've stayed. And we've even been able to influence things in the game. It's rare for any company to have this level of interaction.

And Yep, CMSF2 will be Temperate, probably Russians vs US, Brits and the like.

Mord.

[Battlefront.com]

MeatEtr,

Virtually almost every battle I've played I wanted to rewind to see something I missed. Only 20 seconds rewind time would be huge IMO. Not to mention that it's pretty apparent that RT mode is more widely used than WeGo. At least for SP, since most MP is played PBEM.

Yup, totally agree with you there. However, a big chunk would stick with WeGo because of the control issues. Which is fine since we're never going to ditch WeGo. There's no reason to

souldierz,

I know I'm new here

Everybody was new here at one point. Even me Welcome.

I thought i also seen somewhere that there might be a shock force 2 and that it will still be in the modern era, is there any truth to this?

Yup. As Mord said, complete with top-of-the-line "Red" equipment in a temperate setting. Likely to be some significant changes on the Blue side by then as well.

Steve

Steve

[Chops]

I just witnessed a 5-man U.S. Army recon team hunkered down in a muddy irrigation canal in the middle of a cornfield, having a really bad day.

The recon team had just shot up a Syrian that wandered into the trench about 25 m away, and were intently focused on him, when they got jumped by a 6-man Mech. Infantry squad hidden at their 3-o'clock position. They started taking small arms fire from AKS-74's out of the corn which caused them to go prone in the trench. Then a grenade lobbed by the Syrians, bounced harmlessly near the top of the trench and into the corn on the opposite side, where it exploded. However, the recon team had run out of luck.

Suddenly, another grenade arced out of the cornfield and landed in the bottom of the trench, exploding with such force that the nearest soldier lying on his stomach was flipped up and onto his back killing him instantly. Three other recon members were seriously wounded, leaving only one soldier unhurt. After witnessing such horror, he scrambled to his feet and bolted back down the trench toward the relative safety of a stone wall at the edge of the field.

Unfortunately, his valiant attempt at self-preservation followed by prayers for divine intervention were all for naught, as the Syrian squad swarmed out of the cornfield into the trench and put a bullet in his back. They then proceeded to give the coup de grace to the remaining wounded survivors lying in the mud, bleeding, at the bottom of the irrigation trench. Their work finished; they then melted away back into the corn.

The realities of war - it was enough to turn my stomach.

[travcrouse]

Cool Moment:

Occasionally, a Brit 51mm mortar makes a spectacular shot - putting an HE round right on top of an RPG or ATGM team... Priceless...

[Pandur]

If you wizards can stretch the RT replay mode to a full minute. Then guess what, WeGo mode is truely obsolete or doesn't even really exist for that matter.

I hereby declare this the future of CM!

possibly coffee to your cowbell!?

However, a big chunk would stick with WeGo because of the control issues.

a verry big chunk that is

[Homo ferricus]

Not cool moment:

Humvee versus small IED = 100% KIA of all four passengers. Explosion was NOT directly under the vehicle, but rather a couple of feet to it's left.

Seriously folks, let's tweak the IED/RPG lethality vs. passengers please...

But to stay on topic, cool moment:

Literally a running gunfight as I chased a Syrian SF squad through the village in the "Following the Euphrates" scenario (I think that is what it's called). As I pushed them back from one house to the other, taking advantage of the LOS my Abrams and Strykers had to put area fire on and around their position, they withdrew deeper and deeper into the town, denying me the use of my vehicle weapons, and causing horrendous casualties on my infantry everytime I probed or assaulted one of their new positions.

Frustrating, but ultimately cool.