CM Red Thunder page is up

[undercovergeek]

Based on the current situation I bet that they would realize a lot more sales of the Combat Mission Modern Black Sea game set in Ukraine if they released it now!

Yes,
but Battlefront is known for being shy of releasing stuff that slides to close from fictional to current military history in the making.
That's why CMSF was located in Syria (a good trick to have 'Iraq-style' settings and equipment, without someone can claim to be offended by the game, in a world of ubiquitously political correctness madness)
That's why an IDF module for CMSF was often asked for ....and of course never got produced
(so no user-build 'Gaza strip, drive Terrorists into the sea'-scenarios could surface in the repository)

... I would not be surprised if the "CMSF2"  get delayed until crisis in RL is solved (contained political) or a little shift in theater location/time is also possible.

as it stands the story is locked in - not saying it wont change, but it looks fairly solid at mo

[Yskonyn]

Based on the current situation I bet that they would realize a lot more sales of the Combat Mission Modern Black Sea game set in Ukraine if they released it now!

Yes,
but Battlefront is known for being shy of releasing stuff that slides to close from fictional to current military history in the making.
That's why CMSF was located in Syria (a good trick to have 'Iraq-style' settings and equipment, without someone can claim to be offended by the game, in a world of ubiquitously political correctness madness)
That's why an IDF module for CMSF was often asked for ....and of course never got produced
(so no user-build 'Gaza strip, drive Terrorists into the sea'-scenarios could surface in the repository)

... I would not be surprised if the "CMSF2"  get delayed until crisis in RL is solved (contained political) or a little shift in theater location/time is also possible.

I was just typing a reply similar to yours, Mike. I wouldn't be surprised either.

[Yskonyn]

as it stands the story is locked in - not saying it wont change, but it looks fairly solid at mo

I am not so sure; Ukraine is starting up 'anti-terrorist' military action in East Ukraine and the is rumour about a big Russian military operation into the East Ukraine.

[ArizonaTank]

That is what BFC's market boils down to...the majority at this point are almost collectors.  And guessing at the average age of players, BFC might want to accelerate production before its most common customer address is a nursing home.

True...once I hit a fixed income in the hopefully not too distant future...my game buying days will be over.

[Michael Dorosh]

Based on the current situation I bet that they would realize a lot more sales of the Combat Mission Modern Black Sea game set in Ukraine if they released it now!

Battlefront allowed that CMRT has taken more out of them and slipped the Black Sea release from Spring to late Summer.  Still if they threw more resources at it to release it early I think that would be money well spent based on their potential sales having a synergistic pull from real life events and constant media attention to the potential conflict.

Con

I wonder what kind of resources you think they might have available to throw at this, though? They are publicly reporting that they operate with two coders and a handful of volunteer scenario designers. The coders are, one suspects, putting together the CM:RT demo as well as retroactive 3.0 engine patches for the other games in the series. In addition to Black Sea I suspect there will be some work to do around additional flame weapons for these earlier games - one hopes so. Not yet on the list that I have seen, but should be, is a rewrite of the documentation as many new features in the CM:RT release were poorly documented, or not documented at all.

If, as you say, BFC has suggested they were over-stretched enough to put off Black Sea, I have to be frank and say that the state of the CM:RT release does show evidence of a resource strain. The question is always, do you want it done fast, or done well?

The logic is a bit specious anyway. The CM:RT game is set in 1944 and seems to be popular even though the war has been over for 70 years. No reason to think that Black Sea wouldn't sell even if Ukraine and Russia kissed and made up tomorrow.

[RyanE]

Frankly, I think they should focus on releasing a rebuilt CMSF with may a last module that brings in Russia and a more temperate climate.

[undercovergeek]

as it stands the story is locked in - not saying it wont change, but it looks fairly solid at mo

I am not so sure; Ukraine is starting up 'anti-terrorist' military action in East Ukraine and the is rumour about a big Russian military operation into the East Ukraine.

the last beta discussion about it was to go fictional - it didnt go down well

[Con]

If, as you say, BFC has suggested they were over-stretched enough to put off Black Sea, I have to be frank and say that the state of the CM:RT release does show evidence of a resource strain. The question is always, do you want it done fast, or done well?

The logic is a bit specious anyway. The CM:RT game is set in 1944 and seems to be popular even though the war has been over for 70 years. No reason to think that Black Sea wouldn't sell even if Ukraine and Russia kissed and made up tomorrow.

My point was not to say it wouldnt sell but that they would sell more titles due to the ongoing "publicity" around Ukraine pulling in a potential larger audience for this game then would exist just among the current Battlefront customers

There are three legs to the production stool, Quality, Speed and Cost.  You can usually have two out of the three.  In this case they would have to increase costs (ie higher as many programmers as needed, pay overtime, outsource to a larger marketing organization, have specific document control implement quality by design etc) in order to get an earlier release.

CMRT is popular but as seen by the Flashpoint game there is gap in modern land combat operations (or at least a lot fewer choices than WWII) couple that with the ongoing non stop coverage of the Ukrainian crisis I would anticipate that you would pull in significantly larger market share with this title if launched at this particular time.

I bet if we polled here almost everyone who has combat mission would buy Black Fleet today if it came our regardless that CMRT was launched only two weeks ago.

Con

[MengJiao]

So I don't think CM2 lived up to the expectations they initially had.

  I write a lot of programs and I have some idea why (even if CM2 seems just as slow to develop as CM1) you'd want to move on to a more structured development environment and cycle even if it takes just as long to build games with it.  The feeling you get with something like
CM1 is that sooner or later you are going to hit a wall of bugginess and have to rebuild the thing anyway -- so essentially you are going to have to scrap it sooner or later and not at a point when you can necessarily afford it or plan for it.  I think (from a programming point of view) they did the right thing to get out of CM1 and into a cleaner, more predictable development cycle even if it does take as much time.  The advantages are predictability and that you can add progammers and other developers without as much risk.

[bayonetbrant]

That's why an IDF module for CMSF was often asked for ....and of course never got produced
(so no user-build 'Gaza strip, drive Terrorists into the sea'-scenarios could surface in the repository)

I would almost suspect the opposite scenario would be the real reason for squashing this.

[Michael Dorosh]

There are three legs to the production stool, Quality, Speed and Cost.  You can usually have two out of the three.

This is a good way to put it.

In this case they would have to increase costs (ie higher as many programmers as needed, pay overtime, outsource to a larger marketing organization, have specific document control implement quality by design etc) in order to get an earlier release.

There is pride of authorship, which I think runs high among the BFC staffers. I wouldn't discount it, even if it is not a traditional leg in the stool, member of the holy trinity, or any other way you want to describe it. And I think we know enough about the personality of at least one of the BFC founders to think that what you suggest is not likely. Not impossible, as they have certainly morphed from the "friendly little company" in order to suit their needs in other ways. But certainly out of characters. None of which is an insult. I think many with experience in creative endeavours can relate to the difficulties in letting go control. And look what happened during the CM:SF release and the partnership with - was it Paradox?

CMRT is popular but as seen by the Flashpoint game there is gap in modern land combat operations (or at least a lot fewer choices than WWII) couple that with the ongoing non stop coverage of the Ukrainian crisis I would anticipate that you would pull in significantly larger market share with this title if launched at this particular time.

I bet if we polled here almost everyone who has combat mission would buy Black Fleet today if it came our regardless that CMRT was launched only two weeks ago.

Con

Not trying to be argumentative, but I do want to suggest there might be a principled few who refused to buy it if there was even a hint BFC was attempting to 'cash in'. And given Steve's lengthy post on the subject on his forum not long ago, I think they are very sensitive to appearances. This is nothing new - games going back at least as far as M1 Tank Platoon had similar disclaimers from their publishers. Whether sales of games like A10 Tank Killer, F-16 Fighting Falcon, M1 etc were hurt by their relationship to ongoing events of the Cold War, I don't know - I tend to doubt it.

But I think society in general has changed its relationship to war and the military. Even at the height of Vietnam, the "World War II movie" had its glory days and the war was just becoming a subject for mass consumption by board wargamers as well.

We now have a more - I don't know if it is cynical so much as realistic - view of various missions like Afghanistan, Iraq, et al. Fictional Syria did seem - to me - a wiser choice than the real Iraq. Incidentally, I am of Ukrainian heritage, and I work in an office with a girl who was born there and still has family in the old country. A fictional game would be of more interest than the real deal. At least for now.

[MengJiao]

Based on the current situation I bet that they would realize a lot more sales of the Combat Mission Modern Black Sea game set in Ukraine if they released it now!

Yes,
but Battlefront is known for being shy of releasing stuff that slides to close from fictional to current military history in the making.
That's why CMSF was located in Syria (a good trick to have 'Iraq-style' settings and equipment, without someone can claim to be offended by the game, in a world of ubiquitously political correctness madness)
That's why an IDF module for CMSF was often asked for ....and of course never got produced
(so no user-build 'Gaza strip, drive Terrorists into the sea'-scenarios could surface in the repository)

... I would not be surprised if the "CMSF2"  get delayed until crisis in RL is solved (contained political) or a little shift in theater location/time is also possible.

   Yes, after Syria turned in to a bloodbath after CMSF had covered that possibility, you can see why they might be nervous about what they simulate.
    I'm not sure why they are shy about representing the Modern IDF.  At the moment with the gear in CMBN and CMFI with the commonweath modules you could simulate many battles featuring the IDF from about 1948 (I guess technically there was no IDF in the Yishuv) to about 1958.
The IDF would look pretty American and the Egyptians would look pretty commonwealthy.  I don't find these to be tactically very interesting and will probably happily play whatever comes up for the East Front for the next few years.

[Bletchley_Geek]

There are three legs to the production stool, Quality, Speed and Cost.  You can usually have two out of the three.

This is a good way to put it.

I reckon this is the only way to put it that makes sense. Cost will be always a "hard" constraint for war game devs, you need to minimize personal risk (say you have an asset as a house to get a mortgage on, would that be sound?) and pay for the expenses up front (usually, there's no group of "investors" backing you up, and contributors to a KS aren't really "investors"), so one only can operate freely on Quality (that also includes the breadth and depth of the scope of the content covered and what is simulated in the engine) and Speed (deadlines are indeed moving targets, but keeping always an eye on making good what you had pony up to develop the thing).

[Redirected]

I wonder what kind of resources you think they might have available to throw at this, though? They are publicly reporting that they operate with two coders and a handful of volunteer scenario designers. The coders are, one suspects, putting together the CM:RT demo as well as retroactive 3.0 engine patches for the other games in the series. In addition to Black Sea I suspect there will be some work to do around additional flame weapons for these earlier games - one hopes so. Not yet on the list that I have seen, but should be, is a rewrite of the documentation as many new features in the CM:RT release were poorly documented, or not documented at all.

If, as you say, BFC has suggested they were over-stretched enough to put off Black Sea, I have to be frank and say that the state of the CM:RT release does show evidence of a resource strain. The question is always, do you want it done fast, or done well?

The logic is a bit specious anyway. The CM:RT game is set in 1944 and seems to be popular even though the war has been over for 70 years. No reason to think that Black Sea wouldn't sell even if Ukraine and Russia kissed and made up tomorrow.

Not sure if you meant to say that either of the coders are expected to rewrite the documentation?  From the manual, Steve and some other people are supposed to do the manual.  And documentation 'slip' has been going on for the last couple of products.  Anyone that has worked on anything technical (besides a book), knows that documentation is usually that last thing on the list of "to do" and usually contains errors.  Good management will have documentation done in parallel to other design/development so as to capture what is going on.

I believe the coders need to work on the armor penetration modeling and some other odd things like tank rider behavior and perhaps tank movement (tanks doing odd turns).  They clearly need a hot-fix for some items and a patch (IMO) for others.  Certainly before documentation fixing.

I don't expect a Black Sea Pre-Order or product release soon.  And it would be unwise at this point.  Not for political reasons but for business reasons.  They should concentrate on a 3.0 Upgrade and also a 'sale' that moves as much CMBN and CMFI product as possible.  Perhaps a Pack can be developed for each of these Families also.  This might help in Bundle sales.

How they could possibly put resources into Reduxing CMSF is beyond me.  It isn't very clear what this will even be.  They may not be able to bring it up to '3.0-Tech' but some sort of 'Bolt-On-Build' version that might wring out some revenue.

[Keunert]

Is Battlefront doing sales? I do not remember?

And when do demos usually arrive?