Dammit I want CMN now!

[noxnoctum]

I was playing Paper tiger's new campaign just now... and watching all those sexy infantry firing animations... and thinking, damn, I can't wait till I'm watching BARs blowing the crap out of hordes of german pixultruppen...

As an aside, MAJOR KUDOS TO BFC for fixing the scroll map thing. It used to be it would gradually speed up... very irritating and contrary to practically every other RTS/wargame known to man, it was driving me bat****. Now it's the way it should be. Thank you .

Now just get in those moveable waypoints and fix the LOS issues and it's golden!

[Wodin]

I fully concour....

[MeatEtr]

Dammit I want CMN now!

The question is, who doesn't?

[Elmar Bijlsma]

Those who want a finished campaign, fewer bugs in the game and functional Quick Battle system?

[ChrisND]

Those who want a finished campaign, fewer bugs in the game and functional Quick Battle system?

Details.

-

[MikeyD]

Poor BFC. I don't think it would be much of a secret to say they wanted to have both Afghanistan and NATO off their to-do list some time ago. But when has computer programming and game design ever held to a firm schedule? No, those other projects have not halted work on Normandy at all, its just a matter of keeping all the balls in the air at once and the exponential increase in headaches. I understand even the Pentagon's latest F35 "Lightning II" fighter is far behind schedule writing code for the darned thing... and they have a considerably larger budjet than BFC.

[MeatEtr]

Those who want a finished campaign, fewer bugs in the game and functional Quick Battle system?

Well duh, but we want it now!

[undercovergeek]

F35 "Lightning II" fighter is far behind schedule writing code for the darned thing... and they have a considerably larger budjet than BFC.

is this comic genius or fat fingered keyboard mashing??

Are you suggesting CM:N might come out at the same time, nay before the two previously mentioned games (whatever they are, as if anyone cares ) or do we still have to wait?

[Pvt. Ryan]

The announced plan is that it will come after the other two, but you never know.

[MikeyD]

Are you suggesting CM:N might come out at the same time, nay before...

Its a race between a marathon runner who has much more ground to travel and a sprinter who has a later starting time. But my money's still on Afghanistan, NATO, then Normandy in that order. Afghanistan's pretty mch out of their control, though. All we need is for some guy's hard drive to get fried in metro Moscow and there goes the schedule!

[Chops]

Yeah, and what I have heard about the Russian developer, there isn't a Snowball's chance in hell that we will see CM:A anytime soon.

[Boche]

Yeah, and what I have heard about the Russian developer, there isn't a Snowball's chance in hell that we will see CM:A anytime soon.

i see what you did there

[Taki]

I was playing Paper tiger's new campaign just now... and watching all those sexy infantry firing animations... and thinking, damn, I can't wait till I'm watching BARs blowing the crap out of hordes of german pixultruppen...

As an aside, MAJOR KUDOS TO BFC for fixing the scroll map thing. It used to be it would gradually speed up... very irritating and contrary to practically every other RTS/wargame known to man, it was driving me bat****. Now it's the way it should be. Thank you .

Now just get in those moveable waypoints and fix the LOS issues and it's golden!

Only Problem with that is that the Germans will blow the Hordes of the Tommy Pixeltruppen

[Wodin]

Pixeltruppen....a word I picked up here...and since has become a favourite of mine in many forums....what genius thought this one up I wonder...

[Redwolf]

Those who want a finished campaign, fewer bugs in the game and functional Quick Battle system?

At this point I'd rather concentrate on the bugs, release, then have an open beta for the campaign and the quick battle system in an unsupported patch.

Apart from the fact that it's a lot of stuff to do before release I think there's not much of a chance to do all three of these things well, given how many programmers work on the thing.

[Elmar Bijlsma]

The campaign isn't a programming intensive effort at all and the making of it would be going on alongside other polishing. One doesn't significantly impact on the other.

And you can't get a review on a promised campaign, so releasing one without it will cost BFC dearly. Even though I think the campaigns are pretty weak tea as far as campaigns go (great secnarios but as a campaign it is not very campaign-ey) a release would be very much weakened if they weren't included. A reviewer would be duty bound to comment on the lack of one, costing BFC customers they may not get back when they patch in the campaign.

I don't see why BFC should pander to the impatience of some customers. BFC want it out the door as quick as us, but they've got more staked on it going out in a fit shape.

[Redwolf]

The campaign isn't a programming intensive effort at all and the making of it would be going on alongside other polishing. One doesn't significantly impact on the other.

And you can't get a review on a promised campaign, so releasing one without it will cost BFC dearly. Even though I think the campaigns are pretty weak tea as far as campaigns go (great secnarios but as a campaign it is not very campaign-ey) a release would be very much weakened if they weren't included. A reviewer would be duty bound to comment on the lack of one, costing BFC customers they may not get back when they patch in the campaign.

I don't see why BFC should pander to the impatience of some customers. BFC want it out the door as quick as us, but they've got more staked on it going out in a fit shape.

The reviewers write their reviews without much relationship to the released game in question anyway. That could be clearly seen at CM:SF's release time.

I think BFC will lose many more customers by slamming in all three of bugfixes, campaign and quickbattles and getting their lackluster state documented by reviewers. In the unlikely event that they play the release version of the game in the first place.

There are plenty games that opted to go with a less-bugs release and then shoved promised game features out in patches. And those features were usually found to be extremely buggy even though they did go through the usual beta team's test. So it was the right decision to release a solid game to do *something* first.

[mike_the_wino]

A wise old Texan once told me, 'Want in one hand and piss in the other. Then tell me which one fills up first'.

Okay maybe he wasn't that wise but he was old and that was his way of telling me I wasn't getting any money for capital improvements.

And I believe this is the part where someone declares, 'BFC releases games when they are ready'....or some other platitude and then promptly f*cks off.

That's my cue to f*ck off now. TA!

[Elmar Bijlsma]

The reviewers write their reviews without much relationship to the released game in question anyway. That could be clearly seen at CM:SF's release time.

I think BFC will lose many more customers by slamming in all three of bugfixes, campaign and quickbattles and getting their lackluster state documented by reviewers. In the unlikely event that they play the release version of the game in the first place.

There are plenty games that opted to go with a less-bugs release and then shoved promised game features out in patches. And those features were usually found to be extremely buggy even though they did go through the usual beta team's test. So it was the right decision to release a solid game to do *something* first.

Again, the campaigns aren't getting in the way of bugfixes.

[Redwolf]

Again, the campaigns aren't getting in the way of bugfixes.

I opt for not buying that argument

Code-wise maybe not, although it is hard to believe that modifications found required will never require code changes. Testing, release engineering wise?

[Sgt Joch]

1. In terms of bug fixes, CMN is being built using the CMSF 1.21 code, which has been worked on and improved for the 3 years since release. It is stable and very bug free for a commercial game, so we are already far ahead of the original release of CMx2.

2. since the majority of customers only play single player mode, you need a number of scenarios and campaigns to keep their interest, so both are also required in the retail release.

3. even for the minority that enjoys multiplayer, you need a number of historical/semi-historical scenarios for players who do not enjoy gamey, artificial QBs.

4. finally, you will have cherry-picking QBs for the ladder PBEM players.

so, there is not really anything that can be cut from the initial release of CMN.

[Redwolf]

1. In terms of bug fixes, CMN is being built using the CMSF 1.21 code, which has been worked on and improved for the 3 years since release. It is stable and very bug free for a commercial game, so we are already far ahead of the original release of CMx2.

2. since the majority of customers only play single player mode, you need a number of scenarios and campaigns to keep their interest, so both are also required in the retail release.

3. even for the minority that enjoys multiplayer, you need a number of historical/semi-historical scenarios for players who do not enjoy gamey, artificial QBs.

4. finally, you will have cherry-picking QBs for the ladder PBEM players.

so, there is not really anything that can be cut from the initial release of CMN.

We'll see what the code looks like as released.

The addition of TCP in a patch for CMBO didn't seem to be much of a problem for it. Shipping with a non-working Quickbattle system will be much worse than delivering it in an unsupported patch and letting people have a look. Sure, they won't be amused about further delay in quickbattling. But I think everybody here knows that the set of people who are in the beta team have no clue whatsoever what the quickbattlers actually want. Such as yourself as you say "cherry-pickers" and "PBEM" when almost no laddergaming with self-picked forced involved PBEM back in the days. Given that, there is no chance to satisfy them on release either way.

I see the campagin argument for the home players, but it would be much better to make the editor a little more straightforward and powerful (for large scale changes) so that you have more players building scenarios that those guys can download. You won't be able to provide a big scenario base from a campaign that you build with so limited manpower. And the beta testers have failed before in making the campaign actually work at release time. I don't see how it'll be different now.

[Vergeltungswaffe]

Games are so much more complex now that it takes a much greater number of people to think of new ways to break things and exploit them, etc. As such, what is called beta is really just private alpha with the small group of testers and release is public beta.

Few companies have the wherewithal to have a group of testers so large that they can release a game that has any designs on greatness, but doesn't need some pretty substantial patching.

Just the nature of the modern beast, imho.

[Pvt. Ryan]

Come on, BFC, we don't really need graphics or sound effects in the initial game release either. They can be added in a patch later. Release the game now!

[Redwolf]

Games are so much more complex now that it takes a much greater number of people to think of new ways to break things and exploit them, etc. As such, what is called beta is really just private alpha with the small group of testers and release is public beta.

Few companies have the wherewithal to have a group of testers so large that they can release a game that has any designs on greatness, but doesn't need some pretty substantial patching.

Just the nature of the modern beast, imho.

This is why you don't attempt to do the eierlegende Wollmilchsau in the initial release.

Give people something that plays as intended. Don't beat you head against things you can't get right (Quickbattles).

There are successful games out there that postphoned functionality in favor of getting people something to play with. In CM's case those people could also build scenarios, BTW.