I've long extolled the customer support of JTS, HPS, BFC, Schwerpunkt, and the other good PC-game providers out there, but this...this...just LOOK at this update. Starting to read through the change log was making my head hurt...
http://www.matrixgames.com/forums/tm.asp?m=3855429
Mother Mary...
Best,
Jim
"Cyrano"
:/7)
Holy shit! Thats a 222 page long PDF of changes!!!!!
Quote from: spelk on May 06, 2015, 01:12:35 PM
Holy shit! Thats a 222 page long PDF of changes!!!!!
I had to check it out....incredibly long list of changes. I didn't have time to read it but was wondering if any of it brings in features from the newer War in the West, especially the Air Directive screen function?
This game have been close to unplayable until this fix:
QuoteG.50(F): max altitude changed from 35108 to 32811, climb changed from 2540 to 2562, durability changed from 24 to 28.
:D
Holy mother of ..... That is one impressive change list.
How does it play? ;)
Well.. If there is so much to be changed, added or fixed one could argue about what the state of the game is / was! Lol! :)
@yskonyn, my wife's comment on this (yeah, she'll talk to me about this stuff to a degree) was very much along those lines, viz.: "so, you're saying they've left Alpha and have proudly announced their Beta release?"
I have nothing invested in this either way since I don't own the game, but I seem to be missing something in this talk of a massive update.
I don't understand what all the fuss is about. What's so special about this update?
I followed the link, and the update pdf seemed to list everything that has been done to the game in the last five years.
The only thing that seems to have been done to it recently were four changes in the March update, and nothing since then.
To my naive eyes that means the most recent update has four changes in it. Am I missing something?
Is this supposed to mean that they've never released an update before and have been sitting on all of this for five years ?
Or am I looking at the wrong list?
It's true that the 222 pages is a full changelog, but the most recent patch, which, I gather, has been in BETA for some time, is impressive on its own, no?
V1.08.03 – March 16, 2015
Bug fixes
1. Fixed a bug where some of destroyed Soviet divisions (rifle, motorized and tank) were reorganized into new units (rifle divisions and tank brigades) twice.
2. Fixed a bug where Soviet divisions being part of corps combat units were getting the same number (usually 1st) upon promotion to Guards.
3. Fixed a bug where it was impossible to transfer goods (resources, supplies, oil, fuel) from cities that had minor shortages to cities that had huge shortages.
4. Fixed a bug where it was impossible to resupply units from cities that had shortages
I didn't die trying to read the update. ;) I AM IMMORTAL Y'ALL!
(I think they were trying to say previous updates weren't released, going back a hundred pages or so. Why not released, I have no idea.)
Regardless of what was changed, and when, I was still impressed by a PDF with 222 pages! :)
Quote from: spelk on May 06, 2015, 01:12:35 PM
Holy shit! Thats a 222 page long PDF of changes!!!!!
So the game was really broken when released? :uglystupid2:
But I actually didn't notice and finished a whole campaign from 41 to 45/46
Quote from: jomni on May 06, 2015, 05:09:08 PM
But I actually didn't notice and finished a whole campaign from 41 to 45/46
Pix or it didn't happen...? :o
Quote from: JasonPratt on May 06, 2015, 05:14:13 PM
Quote from: jomni on May 06, 2015, 05:09:08 PM
But I actually didn't notice and finished a whole campaign from 41 to 45/46
Pix or it didn't happen...? :o
You know he couldn't have actually done it, because we're still here. Everyone knows that if a complete game of WiTE or WitPAE is ever finished the End Times will be upon us. If both are done simultaneously it restarts the universe. And summons Xul.
Quote from: panzerde on May 06, 2015, 09:06:51 PM
You know he couldn't have actually done it, because we're still here. Everyone knows that if a complete game of WiTE or WitPAE is ever finished the End Times will be upon us. If both are done simultaneously it restarts the universe. And summons Xul.
;D
Quote from: JasonPratt on May 06, 2015, 05:14:13 PM
Quote from: jomni on May 06, 2015, 05:09:08 PM
But I actually didn't notice and finished a whole campaign from 41 to 45/46
Pix or it didn't happen...? :o
You want evidence? Here it is.
(https://www.grogheads.com/forums/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fi.dailymail.co.uk%2Fi%2Fpix%2F2014%2F10%2F02%2F1412235847254_wps_7_180704_Second_World_War_B.jpg&hash=5141e0339eaab62da05de51b80ecae91d0e9d4b2)
Seriously, it took me a.few months of playing nothing but WITE. Pushing counters day in day out.
I knew it wasn't for me when I saw this as one of the changes...
" Panther G: front armor changed from 124 to 123"
How can any game that covers the entire eastern front hope to get all the variables working properly when it is concerned about a 1mm difference in a tanks's armor? Holy Crap!
Quote from: RyanE on May 07, 2015, 06:37:06 AM
I knew it wasn't for me when I saw this as one of the changes...
" Panther G: front armor changed from 124 to 123"
How can any game that covers the entire eastern front hope to get all the variables working properly when it is concerned about a 1mm difference in a tanks's armor? Holy Crap!
Thanks to those nit pickers.
I gave the lads at 3MA a bit of a hiding elsewhere re: their coverage of SB:WWI, so, in the interest of fairness if nothing else, I figured I'd post their discussion from a couple years ago about WitE.
http://flashofsteel.com/index.php/2011/01/13/three-moves-ahead-episode-99-war-in-the-east/
It's well worth a listen. Not only does it feature a guest spot from Scott Jennings (one of the best bloggers to ever serve both the MMORPG and, tangentially, wargame community), but Bruce's questions to Joel Billings are more pointed than I've come to expect from gaming journalism. They go straight to the heart of RyanE's comments and are a good discussion generally about what this level of detail does and does not bring to a game.
Best,
Jim
"Cyrano"
:/7)
The main problem I have with detail at this level for a strategic game is that you can't account for every variable. So you have armor down to 1mm. What variability in quality of fuel. What about spoiled meat in the supply chain? What about the guy at the factory having a headache and not torquing a bolt correctly? This is why abstraction is important. Look how long they have been adjusting and tweaking this game.
To me, its just wargaming porn that makes players feel all warm, but either provides unrealistic results or is constantly being worked on with no end in sight.
Well, not to spoil the plot overmuch, but Bruce argues almost exactly that. Making matters worse, it become ever more difficult to suss out how to affect anything in light of the nigh-endless array of minutiae. It's almost a Catch-22, either your data does affect outcomes in which case the player is doomed to never be able to master it all and really play the game "as intended" or it doesn't affect outcomes in which case why did we bother?
Best,
Jim
"Cyrano"
:/7)
Personally, the only reason I could bring myself to play through a campaign of wite, was to redo Barbarossa and go straight for Moscow from the opening shots. Once I did that, no point playing it anymore, there wasn't enough what if situations to play out. I want to change history, not be stuck doing what was already done.
I may revisit the series years from now when wite and witw are combined into one game with control of production. That might pose the possibility of changing history at the strategic level. I certainly hope that they design a friendly AI that you can put in charge of theaters. A game at this size would be an unplayable monster.
On a side note, since tank production is such an issue for the axis, it would be cool if you could try a strategy that targets capturing the soviet tank factories with aim at equipping panzer divs with t34s.
Do you guys feel that the Tiller Panzer Campaigns series is much better for wargaming the Eastern Front then WITE?
Quote from: RyanE on May 07, 2015, 06:37:06 AM
" Panther G: front armor changed from 124 to 123"
How can any game that covers the entire eastern front hope to get all the variables working properly when it is concerned about a 1mm difference in a tanks's armor? Holy Crap!
Strongly agree. A game of grand-operational strategy that niggles over differences in armor thickness down to the millimeter is a game that has lost all sense of proportion.
I have tried on numerous occasions since 2010 to make a serious go of WitE and have given up every time. For me, WitE is Exhibit A when it comes to "How Poor UI Design Can Ruin a Deep and Potentially Rewarding Game." Here is a game that models the firearms of individual soldiers, but can't be bothered to present crucially important information clearly. Combat resolution is case in point. What good is it to model all this minutiae when the *outcomes* that depend on all this stuff are presented in such a slap-dash way? Text cut off, text squeezed into spaces clearly too small for it, typographical symbols whose meaning is far from clear (why is this value in brackets? why is there an asterisk here? what do these arrows mean?)... Bah.
I'm just biding my time until Decisive Campaigns 3: Barbarossa comes out.
...um, I feel kind of ignorant here, but wasn't DC: Case Blau Barbarossa? ???
The DC games seem to have a better regard for balancing scale and special outcomes.
Quote from: JasonPratt on May 07, 2015, 12:43:44 PM
...um, I feel kind of ignorant here, but wasn't DC: Case Blau Barbarossa? ???
Covers the '42 Summer Offensive and subsequent events, which is what Blau entailed historically.
Quote from: mirth on May 07, 2015, 01:09:35 PM
Covers the '42 Summer Offensive and subsequent events, which is what Blau entailed historically.
This. DC3 is in the works, will cover the war beginning in June '41 and on a larger scale than DC1 and DC2 (chits will be divisional level, not regimental -- I'm not thrilled by that but understand why the decision was taken). I'm a little worried about where the development stands -- still haven't seen anything about a possible release date --
http://www.vrdesigns.nl/?p=867 (http://www.vrdesigns.nl/?p=867)
The DC games model war with considerably less historical fidelity than WitE, in terms of OOB etc., but as a game experience, I'd take the DC games over WitE any day of the week. Far superior in my view.
@Blucher: It's kind of apples and oranges. The scale of the PzC series is narrower and focuses on individual campaigns. That said, it's still my preferred way of doing WWII gaming at anything other than the tactical level where CMx2 is my thing...
As others have suggested elsewhere hereabouts, I far prefer DC to WitE. My Case Blau fight with Doug was an awesome experience...
Best,
Jim
"Cyrano"
:/7)
Quote from: RyanE on May 07, 2015, 12:58:17 PM
The DC games seem to have a better regard for balancing scale and special outcomes.
At the expense of historical accuracy.
Quote from: Blucher on May 07, 2015, 11:45:08 AM
Do you guys feel that the Tiller Panzer Campaigns series is much better for wargaming the Eastern Front then WITE?
Aren't they two totally different levels of scale? I have a hard time comparing the two. Others may see it differently.
Looking at the history of complaints about WITE, I would say its no better than the DC games. And that is with all that detail to back it up.
Many designers and many, many bad designs equate complexity to either opacity of information, volume of information or number of units. Sadly Grigsby's designs use all 3
A lot of good opinions on GG games in this thread, but there are people out there who like them. I'd have to think that if they keep making them it is because people are buying them.
Quote from: challerain on May 07, 2015, 07:49:31 PM
A lot of good opinions on GG games in this thread, but there are people out there who like them. I'd have to think that if they keep making them it is because people are buying them.
These are people who like to earn a "PhD is historical wargaming". Including myself (but fail). WITP is the toughest but if you master it with your own spreadsheets, logistical models and grand plans... it can be a great achievement.
In real life problems, not all data is presented to you at once. You need to test out, observe, create your own databases, do your own calculations and risk assessment. But I guess it is too much work for "mere mortals" and not actually fun. GG
games software feel like work and there are people who like to work rather than merely play games.
Quote from: jomni on May 07, 2015, 09:03:54 PM
In real life problems, not all data is presented to you at once. You need to test out, observe, create your own databases, do your own calculations and risk assessment. But I guess it is too much work for "mere mortals" and not actually fun. GG games software feel like work and there are people who like to work rather than merely play games.
I think this is a good assessment. WitE and it's siblings are sort of the SAP of wargaming software. I own it and WitPAE and while I've pulled both out and studied them, I've not actually played much of them. Just like when I've worked at companies that use SAP every time I look at the software I feel like there's just a ridiculous amount there, but I'll be damned if I can figure out what an awful lot of it is actually for.
DC:CB does, as Jomni suggests, sacrifice some historical accuracy. DC:CB does fall down a bit by not being particularly accurate in it's depiction of specific units, but I think it can be forgiven that by all but the most narrowly focused of grogs.It does that though in the name of playability, and man, is it playable. Because it is, I'd suggest that you can often get a better sense of what happened during that phase of the Russo-German War than you can playing WitE. You simply aren't as distracted by minutiae that an actual theatre commander wouldn't be distracted by, because he has a staff. I think DC 3 will be even better at this since the engine seems specifically designed to reflect this reality.
Which does make me wonder what one of the GG games might be like if it were to be played by a team rather than an individual. What if you actually had an Air Chief that really had a great understanding of all of the airpower rules, and handled only that part of the game, and someone just focused on logistics, etc.? I suspect it'd still be a PITA to play, but it would probably be an interesting exercise in learning a lot about the realities of strategic level General Staff command...
Quote from: jomni on May 07, 2015, 09:03:54 PM
These are people who like to earn a "PhD is historical wargaming". Including myself (but fail). WITP is the toughest but if you master it with your own spreadsheets, logistical models and grand plans... it can be a great achievement.
In real life problems, not all data is presented to you at once. You need to test out, observe, create your own databases, do your own calculations and risk assessment. But I guess it is too much work for "mere mortals" and not actually fun. GG games software feel like work and there are people who like to work rather than merely play games.
You put your finger on what I view as the greatest failing of WitP and WitE: the insufficiency of the UI to help you manage the games' fantastic complexity.
I stopped playing WitP:AE when it became clear to me there was no way to play the Grand Campaign without 2nd party apps like WITP Tracker and more humble implements like pencil and notebook. The more I got into WitP, the more frustrated I became by constant recourse to tools *external to the game* to manage it. This is a fundamental game-design flaw, one that I find especially egregious in Grigsby's games.
The problem is not that "In real life problems, not all data is presented to you at once." That's true, but it's not the 'fog of war' or imperfection of intelligence that drives me crazy in WitP / WitE. It's that the games do too little to help you cope with *either* information *or* gaps in information effectively. Case in point in WitP: the SigInt and Operations reports. You get an ambiguous report of a "surface contact at Hex 36,108" (or whatever). Does the report hyperlink you to the map coordinates to show you where the hell that is? Nope. Does it 'flag' the map coordinates? Sometimes, but just as often not, depending on the strength/reliability of the report. Do I now have to spend minutes hunting for that particular hex, in order to locate that contact (which is, to boot, one of dozens of contact reports from that day alone)? Yes. Is this how I want to spend my limited gaming time? No.
Bottom line -- GG's games expend way too much effort obsessing over differences in armor width and the climbing performance of the Martlet Mk. III between 15,000-20,000 ft. than they do on figuring out ways to design a UI that actually lets a player manage a game of such huge scope. Not saying that is an easy problem to solve. Am saying it's a problem that doesn't seem to concern the devs very much.
Quote from: jomni on May 07, 2015, 09:03:54 PM
In real life problems, not all data is presented to you at once. You need to test out, observe, create your own databases, do your own calculations and risk assessment.
A great game could certainly incorporate uncertainty with great affect, in fact some boardgames have experimented with combat strength being unknown until combat begins, but I don't think that's what Grigsby's games do. They are, IMHO, adding false complexity and reducing strategic choice by overwhelming the player with information irrelevant to the scale of the game. Rather than using the computer to free the player to make strategic/operational choices, the player is reduced to the role of a quartermaster or logician in ways which do not IMHO add to the game experience.
Quote
But I guess it is too much work for "mere mortals" and not actually fun. GG games software feel like work and there are people who like to work rather than merely play games.
Making a 1mm armor choice to a tank years after release is absurd. If balancing or realism a game which covers the entire eastern front is dependent upon tank armor then there are serious problems of design and prioritization.
There are plenty of complex games, there are plenty of simple games with complex choices, but you're right, I don't like to play games which are 'work.' I would like to delegate the work somewhere else while I pretend to play the role of a commander of whatever scale the game is attempting to portray. That can still be complex, but it should not require me to scrub toilets and launder uniforms :)
Let me provide an example of a game which can never; Napoleon's Austerlitz campaign is
DC Case Blue is a complex game that I love but sometimes too complex for my likes. I can only play when I'm really feeling the "Monster" need. Otherwise it's just too much for me, but I appreciate the scope of the game and the size doesn't work against it. DC WtP was more fun for me as it was a bit less huge and complex.
I would hate hear what you think of WitE...
I think there is a misunderstanding in how some of these updates work over the years. Gary Grigsby doesn't sit around and tweak 1mm armor thickness. He is working big picture programming, AI and design. There is quite a bit of specialization within the design teams that include volunteers that like tweaking some of this data stuff for enjoyment. We have one guy, Dennis, that strictly works on aircraft and vehicles stats. Myself and a few others work on scenario design and unit research. After a certain amount of time, 2by3 and Matrix allow interested volunteers to take over the updates if they are interested and have been vetted by the design team. Gary has been minimally involved in the WiTE updates for several years. The last several years of WitE updates have been done by volunteers who just really enjoy the game. Dominik (Morvael) pretty much runs the WitE updates on his own with Dennis' help. Joel will help coordinate as needed. This has become common when the 2by3 team switches completely to its next project. I can't think of any other companies that allow their projects to continue like this.
The micro-management can be a bit cumbersome if you let it. I enjoy these games just fine even if I don't dig into the nitty-gritty details. The data is provided for those that want to get into that much information but it isn't necessary to enjoy the game. I will say that if you plan on playing a competitive PBEM game, then you probably will have to master those details. There are also numerous scenarios that are smaller in scope than the campaign games. Most people talk about the 1941 Campaign game 90% of the time but my favorite scenarios are the Army Group level ones that last about two dozen turns.
Trey
I wish WitE was a perfect game. If not for me then anyone else. It's just my few functioning brain cells left would be on overload.