What does the future hold

[Magpie_Oz]

Well it is heavier going than Point Du Hoc in the CM:BN forum at the moment with all forces heavily engaged in a sometimes bitter struggle to work out why the game does what it does, how it does what it does, and how we get it to do what we want it to do and why it won't do what we want it to do.

Haven't bought the game myself, maybe later.

Reading a few of the threads I was given to thinking about what might happen in the coming years, lets say 10 to 15 years from now.

To my mind there are very much two camps when it come to our hobby. For the sake of the discussion let's call them Realists and Controllers.

Realists are those who want a sim, something that represents as closely as possible the reality of the events we model.

Controllers are those who also seek to model the events accurately but have the desire to control and command every aspect of those events.

So which direction do you think our hobby will head, Realist or Controller and what do you think will be the ultimate form of the game in that direction?

[Magpie_Oz]

For me it is the Realist path.

I see the game heading more and more to immersing the player in the ambiance of the battlefield up to the limits of the available technology.

The ultimate form for me would be a situation where you are, in the mode of a FPS, placed on the battlefield as the commander in your HQ and you will be commanding units in the same way a real commander might do.

Everything around you is modelled accurately to the real world performance of equipment and people.

Ironically most of the battle information will come to you from reports that are plotted on a topo map by a staff officer so in one sense the game will look as it did when we first started with cardboard counters.

Pre-battle set up will be as if you were holding a briefing for you commanders. If you run to the top of the hill you can see your forces, if you talk on the radio you can hear contact reports and that sort of thing. You can advance behind one of your platoons and shout directions to your men. You can be shot.

The user interface will be by voice and the AI developed to a degree where your troops and subordinate commanders will act much in the way real people do, even to the point of disagreeing and arguments !

Multilayer would include other players as part of your team and/or the enemy and could even integrate to other "modules" that model things like Artillery or Air Support or naval actions in an 3d Social network sort of environment.

Rantings of a loon ?

[dieseltaylor]

Yes.

A space filled with letters follows to meet BF's posting requirements.

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: )

[dieseltaylor]

Of which you speak has been done in Les Grognards. You can play God, or the general, or a divisional commander. Messages by riders allow for delay and capture. And you see from where you are ... and worry about the smoke.

I come from a chess background so the idea of being a grunt does not appeal in the slightest. Making games more complex is a huge danger to game publishers. The boardgame Campaign for North Afrika went to the detail of rextra water for the Italian troops pasta. It needed a least ac ouple of teams of three and would have lasted longer than the actual campaign. Well unless a huge hole in the rules allowed for the capture of Egypt : 0

Fun is more important than fidelity in wargaming. Otherwise you will be selling to a smaller and smaller market and the opportunity to deter the mildly interested grows.

I do actually have fears that CMSF series including CMBN has actually taken that first step.

[-E]

Of which you speak has been done in Les Grognards.

Actually, it was done by at least the early eighties. (off the top of my head "Napoleon's Campaigns" from 1981 and "Road to Gettysburg" from 1982... Although probably not as pretty as this game you speak of.).

[dieseltaylor]

- E

We have to remember the younger members here

[Magpie_Oz]

No what I speak of has not been done by anyone why else would I be think it as being the future.

I am talking more about an almost virtual reality type of experience where you actually interact with the game as you would other humans.

For example to order a platoon to do something you actually talk a Pl Comd AI Avatar that then goes off and attacks the hill or whatever.

Either way it is not about my vision I am interested in what you all think the game will look like in 10 to 15 years

[dieseltaylor]

I think you are probably right that something like that is not far away. We already have the voice commands for the PC games so this would not be a huge step. The AI might suck a bit but yeah I think it could be a goer.

Retro-fit to CMBN : ) Doing the right accent when playing the Axis ... ouch.

[Michael Emrys]

Regarding the original question, I am somewhere in the middle. Usually I am heard calling for more realism in games, but I guess what I am really asking for is more accuracy and fidelity. I do not want to sleep in a cold, wet foxhole eating cold K rations and being shot at. So much for the realism sweepstakes. I do want my games to be fun, but that doesn't mean mindless shoot-'em-ups. I want to have some influence—not necessarily control—over events on the battlefield, but that doesn't mean endless micromanagement of every little detail. I may want to see at my discretion how every little detail is working out however.

Michael