Upcoming Combat Mission stuff

[jomni]

I want that CMSF reboot. I totally skipped WW2 stuff.

[MinmatarCitizen]

Well it needs a better way to make maps

How so?

Like a way to import height data and a way to lay roads and walls as line objects. As it is now you do all of that one pixel at a time, which is frankly painful to do. Maybe there is a way to do that, but I haven't seen it. I hope there is for the sake of the poor map/mission makers.

[undercovergeek]

As a poor map maker the roads and walls can be done by clicking a start point and an end point so no pixel at a time

[Boggit]

I'm really looking forward to the battle packs. I just wish they do some of the early Blitzkrieg stuff, with tanks blazing away only to have shells bounce off unless they get a lucky hit. I'm hoping they'll eventually do it, as they included the core of French tanks with their vehicle pack. If you haven't tried it, they're a lot of fun, especially the Crocodile, and the Churchill AVRE. I was surprised they missed out with the Wasp, but perhaps we'll see it in a later expansion? O0

[MinmatarCitizen]

As a poor map maker the roads and walls can be done by clicking a start point and an end point so no pixel at a time

Then I guess I'm a horrible map maker. Thats how I've been doing it! I'll have to look into that. In any event importing height data would be very useful.

[MengJiao]

^ I agree.

Progress is so slow with their dev path, I feel like they are going kill their customers with wait time like eagle dynamics is doing with dcs world 2.0.

  Good point, but its not like niche game companies can risk expanding their work forces.  I'd rather have the games come out slowly than have them blow an expansion effort and disappear.  Which reminds me -- I will be getting the CM Bulge game (does it have a name?  CMBulge?) -- AND I just had a blast last night flying the Mig15 in DCS world 1.0.

[Sir Slash]

The CM folks know me well. I would buy a dead frog if it had the CM logo on it.

[undercovergeek]

The CM folks know me well. I would buy a dead frog if it had the CM logo on it.

thats the French package

and theres a bug with the surrender option - it keeps coming on

[Skoop]

^ I agree.

Progress is so slow with their dev path, I feel like they are going kill their customers with wait time like eagle dynamics is doing with dcs world 2.0.

  Good point, but its not like niche game companies can risk expanding their work forces.  I'd rather have the games come out slowly than have them blow an expansion effort and disappear.  Which reminds me -- I will be getting the CM Bulge game (does it have a name?  CMBulge?) -- AND I just had a blast last night flying the Mig15 in DCS world 1.0.

Contract temp coders then lay them off at the end of the project.  The Snowball development of CM Afgan I thought would be a good option for outsourcing but it seems there was no future in that.

I've always said battlefront should have followed the arma example, let everyone mod your game....then you can focus on the big ticket items.  If battlefront followed the arma path, we would be at CMX5 or 6 and modders would have produced modules for every conflict known to man, and you could buy CM on steam with exposure to millions more consumers.  If battlefront is always going to think small, then they will always be small.  They took a bold risk in 1999 when they released CMX1 and CMBO, I feel like they haven't done anything bold since.  It's just safe, slow, static cookie cutter modules.  I wouldn't be as critical if we were getting new ones every quarter, but this pace is like watching paint dry.

[Sir Slash]

So that's why my troops won't charge the enemy. They've been swilling wine and eating snails all day. Merde!!

[RyanE]

I tend to agree on the pace of development.  I was excited when CMSF was announced and the plan was a couple games a year and module a quarter.  It's picked up a little since they added a second programmer, but the average must be a game every other year and may 1-2 modules a year.

Of course, the market might not bear that anyways.  Who's to say.

[jomni]

The CM folks know me well. I would buy a dead frog if it had the CM logo on it.

[MengJiao]

^ I agree.

Progress is so slow with their dev path, I feel like they are going kill their customers with wait time like eagle dynamics is doing with dcs world 2.0.

  Good point, but its not like niche game companies can risk expanding their work forces.  I'd rather have the games come out slowly than have them blow an expansion effort and disappear.  Which reminds me -- I will be getting the CM Bulge game (does it have a name?  CMBulge?) -- AND I just had a blast last night flying the Mig15 in DCS world 1.0.

Contract temp coders then lay them off at the end of the project.  The Snowball development of CM Afgan I thought would be a good option for outsourcing but it seems there was no future in that.

I've always said battlefront should have followed the arma example, let everyone mod your game....then you can focus on the big ticket items.  If battlefront followed the arma path, we would be at CMX5 or 6 and modders would have produced modules for every conflict known to man, and you could buy CM on steam with exposure to millions more consumers.  If battlefront is always going to think small, then they will always be small.  They took a bold risk in 1999 when they released CMX1 and CMBO, I feel like they haven't done anything bold since.  It's just safe, slow, static cookie cutter modules.  I wouldn't be as critical if we were getting new ones every quarter, but this pace is like watching paint dry.

  I don't find the results of the safe option to be all that bad.  For example, I went way into the mods for all the ARMAs except arma3 and what I found was a lot of unworkable and unfinished stuff that was mostly pretty bad.  Plus BI had other sources of income with its earlier simulators and they are based in eastern Europe where costs are presumably lower and even so their development history has not been all that easy.

   Also, the battlefront focus on getting realistic and representative results from their simulations is different from most other game companies.  I find it very refreshing in itself and if they shifted their development model or allowed for more mod expansions, I suspect the emphasis on realistic results would begin to fade.

[Ubercat]

I've always said battlefront should have followed the arma example, let everyone mod your game....then you can focus on the big ticket items.  If battlefront followed the arma path, we would be at CMX5 or 6 and modders would have produced modules for every conflict known to man, and you could buy CM on steam with exposure to millions more consumers.  If battlefront is always going to think small, then they will always be small.  They took a bold risk in 1999 when they released CMX1 and CMBO, I feel like they haven't done anything bold since.  It's just safe, slow, static cookie cutter modules.  I wouldn't be as critical if we were getting new ones every quarter, but this pace is like watching paint dry.

If Battlefront made boardgames, they'd be one of the few companies that wouldn't allow Vassal mods of their games. And I wouldn't touch their products, just like I don't for those companies.

[GJK]

Probably common knowledge to most of you guys but I remember thinking that this (what we have now in production cycles) would be the outcome when one of the big wigs on the BFC forums was talking about CMx2 and how they "weren't going to give away the kitchen sink like they did with CMx1 titles" (paraphrasing) meaning no single game was going to cover an entire front; they were going to nickel and dime (more like $20 and $50) it out in pieces.  That really squashed my enthusiasm for the (then) new series at the time.  That of course is their marketing choice obviously though.