A bit concerned...

[Juju]

[Lurkmode off] Hey guys,

I must say I'm a little concerned about the lack of buzz (dare I say hype) CM:BN has generated so far on basically any gaming site. Compared to many other games it's as if it doesn't even exist.

And to my shame I must even admit that I only learned about it because I'm still subscribed to BFC's newsletter, as I hadn't been visiting this site for years (while now I'm just a refreshing monkey like most of you).

Furthermore, it's pretty obvious this board is mainly frequented by veterans of CM1, it seems, but hardly any 'new blood.'

Why is this? I think it deserves so much more attention.

[Magpie_Oz]

I think games of this nature are very much a niche market, not sure if BFC would get a lot of new comers from main stream.

[Dadekster88]

I don't know, how did ToW and its expansions do?

[RooksBailey]

Hopefully, once the game gets near release, BF will publish some succinct (wargame vids tend to run on far too long for some reason ) and polished promo vids to Gametrailers, YouTube, etc. However, like most wargames, I suspect CMBN will receive the best press from word of mouth post-release.

Does BF have a Facebook page? If not, that is a real easy way to get the word out there.

[Elmar Bijlsma]

There hasn't been all that much news for sites to report yet. Rock, Paper, Shotgun is pretty sure to do a piece on it come the release and no doubt several other big sites will too.

Though it was a bit disconcerting to see the limited reactions in the comments. Pretty much only guys who also post here. But that explains why the coverage is limited. Just not much to report that a more mainstream audience would find useful.

[Ranger33]

I've posted on a few forums about it and got some interest from a few people, but yeah this game is pretty niche. Hopefully a good demo will bring in new people.

[Magpie_Oz]

The market for Cm might be small but I have seldom seen one more dedicated and loyal.

[RogCBrand]

As my oldest nephews started becoming teens, I really hoped to get them interested in the games I enjoy, but they just don't seem to have the patience. They want flashy, fast and something that takes little or no planning or thought. They judge wargames by the standard of FPS's and don't care for rising above, to command large units.

I can't help but think as new generations come, they will be even more Attention Deficit Disordered and as we die off, things like CM will follow us!

[Agua]

Ahhh... juju. Gave me my first arse-beating and education in CMBO. Hope all is well.

[DaveyJJ]

As my oldest nephews started becoming teens, I really hoped to get them interested in the games I enjoy, but they just don't seem to have the patience. They want flashy, fast and something that takes little or no planning or thought. They judge wargames by the standard of FPS's and don't care for rising above, to command large units.

I can't help but think as new generations come, they will be even more Attention Deficit Disordered and as we die off, things like CM will follow us!

Hah. They've been predicting the end of hex and chit board wargames since the 1970s and we're actually in a renaissance of sorts with superb titles coming out from lots of publishers. I'd be surprised if someone didn't take up our hobby as we drop away.

[yllamana]

I think the board would be helped if the attitude of some posters was a bit friendlier. In particular, I've seen people get flat out attacked for criticising the game. Guys... it's okay for people to criticise the game. Really. Battlefront are tough, they can deal. It's fine to see a post where someone points out something wrong with the game and say, well, that personally doesn't matter to me, but I guess it matters to this person, so I am just going to respectfully not reply and let their point stand.

Re: the game in general, I think CMx2 in particular tries pretty hard to put players off it. I had Mac CMBB back when it was cool (the manual is still over there on the shelf!) but largely missed out on the CMSF buzz because of its lack of a Mac version. I noticed CMBN recently, I think because I was on a cute tiny tank kick and where better to find the cutest tiny tanks than Combat Mission? In these fancy days I still have a Mac, but since I have Boot Camp I decided to try out the CMSF demo.

First impression: the top download link for CMSF demo goes to some random shady download site, which tries to give me a CMA demo setup file that's like 5MB in size. Whoops. Oh well, let's try another one. Well, that worked.

Second impression: I start the game and immediately go into the options screen to see what there is to see. 1920x1080 isn't in the resolution menu, but the default is desktop resolution so maybe it's okay. I don't see anything else interesting and exit setup. The music immediately starts breaking up in a horrible way. Well... hopefully that goes away when I start a mission, right? Turns out it doesn't (FWIW, I also had this happen with the CMA demo. Reproduces itself very reliably. I was using Vista32 at the time).

So I quit the game and start it up again. This time I get into a game, woo! Okay, so I have pages and pages of orders, except for that one blank page there. I don't really know what they mean, but they look a bit weird. No tiny icons or anything? Well, okay. I experiment with moving the camera with the keyboard.

OH MY GOD. The camera sort of jerks itself around in an awkward way. Its movement isn't smooth, it's not rapid or accurate. It's just horrible. Pressing two keys at the same time does unpredictable things. This, right here, is what later led to me putting down the demo. I would be doing things like trying to rotate the view around to see the terrain at other angles, or see the other side of a building, and it would just jerk around and take forever besides. It made playing painful. The other issue was the terrain - looking largely flat from a distance, it of course has small changes in elevation that block line of sight, and the only way to really see them is, yes, to move the camera around - which we've just noted is horrible.

I could go on - eventually I tried multiplayer against a friend (which was also confusing) and even later found out it was more tolerable if you use the mouse to move the camera instead of the useless keyboard controls. It's still awkward, but at least it's not as terrible. I also found out you can quickly change the camera angle and elevation using the number keys like in CMx1.

I ended up buying the game. Hey, I had CMBB and I've been a fan (though never active on the forums - my post count here is mainly from DropTeam, which was cool!) for a long time. But I think my experience is illustrative.

Guys, the reason there are fewer new players is the game (and, more rarely, the community) tries so hard to drive them away. "Realistic wargame" isn't some absurdly tiny niche that only grogs can be interested in. Heck, look at World of Tanks - its big interesting feature is that it tries to model tank armour and penetration accurately, and right this instant there are thousands or tens of thousands of people playing it. The issue is that if you try this hard to drive people away, you'll only end up with the small niche of players who fights through all that for all the great stuff underneath - and that's generally only the people most interested in a very realistic wargame!

The other people - other potential players, friends and customers - will just go back to Starcraft, to World of Tanks, to whatever, not because they aren't interested in patronising a realistic wargame, but because they're not so interested that they're willing to meet it more than halfway.

[RogCBrand]

Hah. They've been predicting the end of hex and chit board wargames since the 1970s and we're actually in a renaissance of sorts with superb titles coming out from lots of publishers. I'd be surprised if someone didn't take up our hobby as we drop away.

LOL! Well, I have thought about how if a worldwide catastrophe destroyed the infrastructure to the point that there was no electricity available, much less things like computers being produced, etc., board wargames would be a treasure and I'd get back into playing all those that have been collecting dust on my shelves!

[Wodin]

niche market as others have said...not much can be done about it...your either unto wargames or your not...it will attaract young new memebers to wargaming but they have to have an interest in it and like more detailed geeky games dare I say...rather than FPS and eye candy.

yllamma..I had no problem moving around CMSF...which is odd as normally I do struggle with 3d games..but it took me a couple of mins to get it...also if you hate CMSF ui then you wont like CMBN...hope you havent pre ordered. In my eyes it takes a few mintues to get used to it. I found everything about CMSF straight forward, didn't even read the manual, the orders where straight forward in my opinion....again myself I had none of the problems you had...so I don't see it as some inherent game problem but maybe a user problem or even a PC probelm as what you describe sounds like with regards to the camera jerking around, your getting crashes and music problems, all things no one else is experiencing..

World of Tanks is hardly a groggy wargame in any stretch of the imagination..I also wouldn't say people on the forum are unfriendly...it maybe it's just the case new people have the wrong expectations of a wargame like CMx2. Also alot of the time people come across as rude and angry when they have issues with a game...which isn't going to get you anywhere with forum members...

[Battlefront.com]

This was the case before CMBO Beta Demo came out. And even then we didn't get a lot of attention until after CMBO was released.

Fortunately for us, we don't need big marketing hype before a release. If you spend $50,000,000 on something... well, you need it. Big time need it. For us? Hey, a sale is a sale. If someone finds out about us in 3 months ago or 3 months from now, it's not a problem for us. We're not in a retail mentality at any level of our operations.

The only thing that's important is our ability to sell enough games to make it worth doing. Based on the preorders for CM:BN so far... we're not concerned we'll come up short on this one. Not concerned at all

Steve

[Barkhorn1x]

Based on the preorders for CM:BN so far... we're not concerned we'll come up short on this one. Not concerned at all

Steve

Good news for you sir. And...good news for all of us!!

[ChrisND]

I think the board would be helped if the attitude of some posters was a bit friendlier. In particular, I've seen people get flat out attacked for criticising the game. Guys... it's okay for people to criticise the game. Really. Battlefront are tough, they can deal. It's fine to see a post where someone points out something wrong with the game and say, well, that personally doesn't matter to me, but I guess it matters to this person, so I am just going to respectfully not reply and let their point stand.

Most of the time when I see someone get attacked for criticizing the game, it's because of *how* they communicate it - in short, they are usually being unpleasant butt-heads (to put it eloquently ), obviously trolling.

For example, you've just criticized aspects of the game, and I predict you won't be attacked because you managed to do it while not intentionally trying to irritate everyone around you.

[Barkhorn1x]

Most of the time when I see someone get attacked for criticizing the game, it's because of *how* they communicate it - in short, they are usually being unpleasant butt-heads (to put it eloquently ).

For example, you've just criticized aspects of the game, and I predict you won't be attacked because you managed to do it while intentionally trying to irritate everyone around you.

By George, I think he's got it! But I do think you meant; "while NOT intentionally trying to irritate everyone".

[ChrisND]

By George, I think he's got it!

Eh, I just realized a typo in there that managed to totally change the meaning of the second paragraph. And now you've recorded that in the quote for posterity.

(there should be a "not" in that sentence...)

[Wodin]

Also I will defend members on here...so excellent people frequent this forum who all share a passion for CM...also I've personnely experienced a very generous offer by a forum member...well above the call of duty...

[sburke]

I think the board would be helped if the attitude of some posters was a bit friendlier. In particular, I've seen people get flat out attacked for criticising the game. Guys... it's okay for people to criticise the game. Really. Battlefront are tough, they can deal. It's fine to see a post where someone points out something wrong with the game and say, well, that personally doesn't matter to me, but I guess it matters to this person, so I am just going to respectfully not reply and let their point stand.

Guys, the reason there are fewer new players is the game (and, more rarely, the community) tries so hard to drive them away. "Realistic wargame" isn't some absurdly tiny niche that only grogs can be interested in. Heck, look at World of Tanks - its big interesting feature is that it tries to model tank armour and penetration accurately, and right this instant there are thousands or tens of thousands of people playing it. The issue is that if you try this hard to drive people away, you'll only end up with the small niche of players who fights through all that for all the great stuff underneath - and that's generally only the people most interested in a very realistic wargame!

The other people - other potential players, friends and customers - will just go back to Starcraft, to World of Tanks, to whatever, not because they aren't interested in patronising a realistic wargame, but because they're not so interested that they're willing to meet it more than halfway.

Granted I haven't been that active on this forum really only since CMBN was announced, but I don't believe in that time I have ever seen anyone attacked just for criticizing the game. Doing so in an off hand flippant manner that is just ridiculously trite however, yeah that is going to draw a reaction.

As to the statement that there are fewer people playing, not sure where you are drawing that data, if anything what I think we are seeing on the forum is actually an increase in user response.

BFC is making enough money on the game to apparently do okay to the point that they are very happy to continue making a product most folks on this forum are chomping at the bit for. As to your experience with the game, that sounds more like you need to raise some technical questions. For myself the music and animation including camera control are perfectly fine. I have been running on vista 32 on an HP pavilion laptop.

[ClarkWGriswold]

I agree with a lot of what yllamana has said. A lot of the gripes I have with CMSF (I've only bothered with the demo) and CMBN (judging from AARs and facts iterated on this forum) are the same ones he has. The keyboard movement controls are more than awkward and the change to "relative hotkeys" adds confusion and unnecessary keystrokes. The UI is also cluttered and confusing. Additionally, there's no guided walkthrough or tutorial in the CMSF demo, which turns off a lot of people.

Despite those fairly significant issues, I'm very much looking forward to CMBN. But probably only because I know how good CMBO/CMBB are. I know that despite it's shortcomings, it is likely to be the best game of its kind on the market. Probably for several years to come, in fact.

I also agree that CMBN can appeal to a lot more people than many give it credit for. I'm definitely not a "wargamer". I own flight and sub sims and first person shooters, but no other tactical or strategic war games outside of CMBO/CMBB. My friends that play CMBB are the same. They don't own any other war "board games" (computer based or otherwise). Despite not being "war gamers", the CM titles appeal to us. But the steep learning curve and control idiosyncrasies of the CMx1 games drove me away for a long time. It took me several tries and two years of sitting on the shelf before I came to grips with CMBB. If it weren't for my extreme stubbornness, I probably would have just filed it away in a box somewhere, and my friends certainly never would have bothered to give it a try. In fact, they probably would not have even heard of it.

I'm just rambling now, but I guess my point is: This game could appeal to a lot more mainstream audience with just a few changes. Nothing that would water down the "simulation" experience, and nothing that would compromise what the game is. Just a little more hand holding at first, and a more standardized control scheme would go a long way. A company could come out with the best first-person shooter ever created, but if there's no training level (one that guides you; not one that requires following along in the manual) and if the control scheme is totally different from Halo, CoD, etc., it's going to be an uphill fight to get players to accept it.

[MikeyD]

We're not in a retail mentality at any level of our operations.

You dudes are really strange.

[finalcut]

I know someone who owes me a favor and he owns a Cessna Skylane single engine prop plane.Maybe I can get him to do some skywriting over Tampa Bay.Something like "Check out CM'BN at Battlefront.Com."In big huge letters over Mcdill Air Force Base.That may get him in a little trouble with the USAF,but it would be all over the News and there would be tons of free advertising.All you guys at BFC need to do is promise to pay his legal fees and bail him out.

[Battlefront.com]

I think the board would be helped if the attitude of some posters was a bit friendlier. In particular, I've seen people get flat out attacked for criticising the game. Guys... it's okay for people to criticise the game. Really. Battlefront are tough, they can deal. It's fine to see a post where someone points out something wrong with the game and say, well, that personally doesn't matter to me, but I guess it matters to this person, so I am just going to respectfully not reply and let their point stand.

Others have said it already... presentation of criticism is very important. People that criticize without respect do not deserve respect in return. You are respectful and polite so nobody has attacked you even though you have made very wide (and not positive) comments about the people who frequent this Forum. But I've been trying to point this out to people for 12 years and it seems no matter how obvious it is to most it isn't obvious to all.

First impression: the top download link for CMSF demo goes to some random shady download site, which tries to give me a CMA demo setup file that's like 5MB in size. Whoops. Oh well, let's try another one. Well, that worked.

Gotta love automated bot virus websites, right? I only download software from the websites I know to trust. Random GOOGLE searches for downloads is risky.

OH MY GOD. The camera sort of jerks itself around in an awkward way. Its movement isn't smooth, it's not rapid or accurate. It's just horrible.

Yeah, there are some bugs in CM:SF's keyboard camera that have been fixed recently. Short of it is the camera was never really designed to be used by keyboard, so the bad behavior of the keyboard slipped by unnoticed by us.

Guys, the reason there are fewer new players is the game (and, more rarely, the community) tries so hard to drive them away. "Realistic wargame" isn't some absurdly tiny niche that only grogs can be interested in.

Sadly, you're wrong. I've been in the games biz, specifically war/strategy, for almost 20 years now. Game companies which have followed a development strategy based on the notion that there is a wider audience for detailed wargames has failed. Often to the point of going out of business. Even SSI, which had Panzer General (not a serious wargame) as a big commercial success, went under because it was chasing an audience that does not exist.

Having said that...

Our audience is not declining. It's growing. Better yet, it's broadening over time. How many CM:SF players here thought they would never enjoy modern warfare?

The reason why we're still here, and so many others are not, is that we haven't lost focus on what makes us successful chase phantom customers. It's a death sentence... really, it is.

The other people - other potential players, friends and customers - will just go back to Starcraft, to World of Tanks, to whatever, not because they aren't interested in patronising a realistic wargame, but because they're not so interested that they're willing to meet it more than halfway.

Well, the thing is we have already met those types "half way". We've got a very good 3D environment and the option to play RealTime. We've also completely done away with tons of arcane board wargame conventions that even most board wargamers are cheering the death of. The thought of what grognards would do to the UI if we let them loose in the design phase scares the piss out of me

Still, it is true that CMx1 and CMx2 have UIs that are more difficult to get into than other games. That's partly because the game's depth requires vastly more UI than something like StarCraft. In fact, games like that are hobbled from a gameplay standpoint precisely because they don't want to increase the amount of UI. Form must follow function when it comes to UI.

Having said that, there is more than one way to do UI. I for one will not sit here and tell you that the UI in either CMx1 or CMx2 (so far) is the best it can be. It isn't. But we know where the rough edges are and intend on smoothing them off for the next major release. It was just too much to do a complete UI overhaul for CM:BN *and* make our first WW2, temperate setting wargame all in one shot.

To sum up...

1. Rude posters are not the same as critical posters. Each get a different reaction and I will not have it any other way here. Rude posters have NOTHING to offer us as a community, so the sooner they shape up or get lost the better.

2. Our customer base is allowing us to make the best wargames out there, bar none. Having more customers would be nice, and we aren't opposed to it, but we're not going to chase after customers that don't exist.

3. There are rough edges in CM:BN still. But from experience we've found people who are interested in the game will tough through it and eventually figure out a comfortable way to play (as they did for CMx1). Those that don't have the patience to get through the UI probably don't have the patience for the game itself. So the primary goal of improving the UI is to give our actual customers a better experience rather than changing things for a customer that doesn't exist.

As I said, we're quite happy with where we are. Are things perfect? Nope, and they never will be. Fortunately, they don't need to be in order to be happy. Good life lesson there that goes beyond wargame development.

Steve

[gunnergoz]

Works for me.