question for Bf Team

[haouai]

First of all, I would like to apologize for my English, I didn’t practice for a long a time.

I play CM for 7 years now and I bought all the CMx1 and CMx2: I’m what we can call a big fan (and I’m so impatient to see the next one)!

I understand that making a wargame is not an easy thing, and to make money with it as well.

So, I’m totally ok with your module’s policy and, as a CM fan, I’m ready to buy all of them.

But there is a point, and a important one, that I don’t understand:

For CMBN, you’re going to do 1 basic game and, at least, 1 module:

US vs. Heer (basic game)

CW vs. SS and FJ (1st module)

Why do you want to split the German forces like this and do not include all of them in the basic game (US invasion vs. all German forces)?

- In a technical way, the only difference between Heer and SS or FJ is the number of men by Squad, clothes (camo, helmet …) and chain of command if there are different forces in one KG ; the equipment is the same (weapons, tanks …)

- In a historical way, since June 6, US forces had to fight against a patchwork of all the German forces (Heer, Luftwaffe field Division, SS). I don’t understand very well why we’ll have to wait the 1st module to play, for example, the battle around Carentan; as we all know that this battle was a very important strategic city for Us Générals to unite the two US bridge head.

- In a financial way, I’m not sure that the “casual gamer” will buy the 1st module just to have the StuG from the 17 SS PZ or the Von der Heydt Fallshirm Rgmt (a “Command a Conquer player” doesn’t care about it :eek: ). On the other hand, the CM fans (as me) or the historical aficionados will buy it for sure, even if they already have all the German forces in the basic game, just to be able to play the CW around Caen (Arrrrg, Pegasus Bridge or Battles around Tilly …)

I know that is what you’ve done with the CMSF modules (A new Allies forces with a new Syrian Opponent) but as it was a fictional conflict, it wasn’t a big deal to play without the Syrian Airborne in the basic game.

With the WWII CMx2, it’s look very very weird for all of those who know a little bit about the Normandy battles to imagine the US forces without FJ or SS in the basic game.

I’m just talking about the OOB, not about equipment.

Of course, in the basic game I would like to be afraid to find a S35 hiding behind a church when my Airborne coy is occupying a village during the night of the 6 June or to destroy a strongpoint with flamethrower on Omaha beach.

But I also understand that there is a lot of work to do so (game engine, ballistic …) and it’s not a good economical choice for you to spend time on it to be able to include it in the basic game (it’s could be a dangerous choice, as for CMBB)

This kind of “exotic or rare equipment” could be on the future module, or why not, include in a kind of a “paid patch” for the real aficionados who want to have a totally complete Normandy TO&E …

To resume, at this point of the CMBN development, is it technically possible to have a historic basic game which cover the entire US invasion vs. all the German forces?

The US, WC or German “exotic or rare equipment” could be add with futures modules (or/and new US scenarii to add something else than “only” a new Allies Army if you think peoples won’t buy a module just for CW forces) or by “paid patches” for the ones who really want it.

It could be a good balance between financial, historical and playable points of view.

Merry Xmas and happy New Year

Mathieu

[Sequoia]

I think this quote from Steve in another thread will answer your question.

Your English is excellent by the way.

It's pretty much not wanting anything more on our plates that needs to be supported through the testing process. There is so much TO&E in the game now that our legions of testers have not even touched some of them, which means we still have bugs in what we already have that need to be worked out. Introducing new TO&E at this point, no matter how theoretically simple, is not an option.

One of the traditional problems we've had with "easy" TO&E changes is that they generally aren't. Often times there is some sort of critical piece of equipment that crops up and then we're faced with abandoning the new Formation or investing more time than we had allocated. Which then introduces all kinds of potential sources for additional "gotchas" that cause even more delays.

We got hit over the head with this BIG TIME when doing the NATO TO&E. At the start the new equipment needs looked modest. But when we got into it we found that stuff we thought we could share turned out to have minor differences which required new models instead of just new textures.

Steve

[Battlefront.com]

Welcome, Haouai! I understand your English just fine.

Sequoia has posted a good quote from me. Players do not understand how little differences add up to big work. I am the guy that has to make the TO&E and I can tell you that having more TO&E in one release is not possible to do without delaying the game's release. And that means we should charge more money for the game because you are getting more.

Breaking things up into Modules makes sense. You guys get games to play quicker, you get more things for the money you spend. And when all Modules are released you can play everything in one battle if you like. There is no problem with that.

To put it another way... you are going to have to wait and pay for all the units no matter what. I do not see the benefit to players if we delay the release of the game for another 1.5 years and have a $150 price tag on the product. I think the way we are doing things works out a lot better for everybody.

Steve

[futon river crossing]

+1

What he said

[sawomi]

We should all thank Battlefront for its generosity to sell us full army packs for a risible price with the possibility to duplicate the virtual figurines as much as we want. Think about it. Could all be much worser...

You get them even painted out of the box here.

[herr_oberst]

Being in the software development development economy myself, I can totally agree with BF's decisions about limiting scope to make deliveries, and offering add-ons (i.e., added value) for added $$$ (not to say that I don't, as a gamer, want it all NOW).

Having spent the greater part of a few years looking at TOE's and the variances across time, it IS a non-trivial piece of work to get an accurate reflection of historical availability and unit profiles into a workable format. And I'm not even touching on nuances between units, or temporal effects.

While it would be very cool to see an accurate representation of (and be able to "field") Grossdeutschland at any point where they appeared during the conflict, that isn't a scenario that yields a decent return for the time invested by BF.

I'm just thrilled that they are coming back to the Normandy time period (been waitin a while for this as I have no interest in "modern" conflicts).

Rock on BF!

[haouai]

Thanks for your answers even if I'd prefer an other one

As I'm really impatient to play to CMBN and creat some scenarii, I started to read about Normandy campaign since I heard about this new game and that's why I asked you this about the German OOB.

The few things that I learn about this Invasion was espacially with SS, FJ or mixed forces KG (Heer/SS, Heer/FJ, SS/FJ)

So, I was looking for some normandy scenarii with US Army vs. Heer in CMBO and I didn't find a lot, 4 or 5 only.

What will be the campaign battles (the road to Cherbourg, to St Lo ...) ?

[bodkin]

If I understand the situation correctly, the first module will contain Commonwealth forces, SS and FJ's. That's a huge module, if Commonwealth means full Brit and Canadian TOE. Then again NATO had three different forces in it.