cm:bn virgin, comparisons to cm:bb

[Macisle]

CMx1 was WAY better than the Close Combat series. I had CC3 and 4 and they felt so unrealistic in comparison. Yes, the infantry units were abstracted graphically in CMx1, but what happened in game was sooo much more believable than in CC.

And, CMx2 is WAY better than CMx1.

My humble opinion.

Macisle

[Battlefront.com]

Fun is always subjective, so I can't say if a Close Combat fan would find CM:BN any better than CMBB. HOWEVER, I think so. If I had a guess...

If a CC fan never made the leap to CMx1 games, then I think there's a good chance CMx2 (in this case CM:BN) is likely to be a good match. RT and 1:1 are two reasons I can think of. Certainly the games don't play at all alike, and the scale is somewhat different as CC couldn't scale up to the size of a CM battle.

If a Steel Panthers fan never made the leap to CMx1 games, I'd say they're still probably out of luck. The reason I say that is CMx2 is even further away from Steel Panthers than CMx1 was. In other words, from a hardcore Steel Panthers player it is probable that Combat Mission continues to go in the "wrong" direction.

Whatever the case may be, we're fine with people playing what they want to play because that's what they want to play. If it is a CM game, great. If not, no sweat.

By most definitions, though, what everybody has already said... from a depth standpoint CM:BN clobbers any CMx1 game. From a breadth standpoint, any CMx1 game has it over CM:BN *so far*. By the time we're done adding Modules to CM:BN it will be the equal of CMBO. And as we've said so many times before, we're never going to make a game with CMBB's breadth ever again. We put way, way too much stuff in there for the return we got. Gamers should consider CMBB the best mistake we ever made

Steve

[dieseltaylor]

Short term economically maybe but it made BF's reputation & support rock solid. Cunning Japanese ploy. : )

[guachi]

So far, I've found that CM:BN is more enjoyable at smaller unit scales. The 1:1 unit fidelity (for infantry) means there is just so much more to see and experience. Watching and hearing a soldier reload his weapon is pretty cool.

For larger battles, it seems to be a wash. The individual unit modeling is almost irrelevant as you likely won't be spending large amounts of time watching individual squads. In fact, it's much harder to see anything as the units are so tiny when zoomed out.

I'm hoping, and there is no way for me to know at this point, that the higher realism/fidelity counteracts the fact that there is less breadth in CM:BN than CM:BB (certainly) and even CM:BO.

[hm_stanley]

Wow, an official response.. I feel honored.

I think you're right, after reading all the "features" of CM:BB I can see why you would never do that again, it's pretty overwhelming. I think the features you've focused on in CM:BN is really spot on, and again the only thing I would think you would have added would have been vehicle damage.. but I won't beat a dead horse.

Berlin to Barbarossa is just enormous.. and the amount of content, let alone the varied nature of that theater (tactics, strategy..) is just too much. This is why I haven't bought Gary's game "War in the East.", it's too much and I can't get my head around it.. and I know if I bought it I would sit there and just.. well... stare... like i did with his game "blue and the gray".. great idea, and man I was stoked.. played it over the weekend and never played it again.. my head exploded.

I think your strategy of adding in incremental features per new module load is the way to go, not only from a biz perspective (can't be everything to everybody, and you should never try).. but it adds a sense of "impatience" on the player base, that is.. "I can't wait until you add vehicle damage in the next module, where I get to also see wunderkind running around in fancy camo.." anticipation is healthy

In addition, limiting the scope to operations, like from what I've read, bagration, market garden, caen, etc. really focuses the agenda from a content point of view (expectations are pretty much set from a player's content demands), while not limiting you in your creativity on enhancing the existing feature set of the game

...like vehicle damage modeling..

wait? did I mention vehicle damage?

//SIGNED//

[Vanir Ausf B]

For larger battles, it seems to be a wash. The individual unit modeling is almost irrelevant as you likely won't be spending large amounts of time watching individual squads. In fact, it's much harder to see anything as the units are so tiny when zoomed out.

I'm playing a Huge QB now, and what I do is just watch the movie more times. I divide the battle up into sections and watch the movie at least once for each section.

[Mord]

@ Guachi...If you aren't gonna zoom in and watch the pretty stuff...why bother playing a 3D game? Playing the whole game zoomed out is like going to a steak house to watch other people eat.

Mord.