CMBN and CMFI receiving 3.0 Upgrade

[ARCH]

Taken from the Battlefront website:


Time for some spring summer cleaning! We've just updated a number of the existing Combat Mission: Battle for Normandy installer packages. With the 3.0 Engine Upgrade for CMBN and CMFI around the corner, it's time to clean up some legacy releases.

End of life for CMBN v1.x! All CMBN packages (PC and Mac OSX) have now been updated to already include the very latest v2.12 game version. This means that they include the 2.0 Engine Upgrade (and the latest v2.12 patch) as well. This update is only available to new customers purchasing from today on.
The Complete Edition ("big bundle") and the 2.0-Module bundle ("small bundle") now come with a simple one-installer package (both PC and Mac OSX). This update is available for new as well as existing customers. Everyone who purchased these, even in the past, can download the new installer packages immediately. No need to install individual packages, patches or upgrades, it's a one-click install including the Upgrade and the latest patch, as well.

[Steiner14]

It feels more and more as a ripoff to me.
No big improvements, only minor ones and cosmetic ones.

Grid overlay?
Full battle replay?
H2H campaigns?
Multiplayer (at least for PBEM)?
Iron man mode?

What does v3 offer?
Tank riders. WOW. How impressive after so many years of development of CMx2 and even CMx1 had it.
IMO only the Eastern front makes CMRT worth the money, but not the engine improvements.

The enhancements of v3.0 probably will be even weaker for BN & FI: selling flame units and infantry riding tanks as huge improvements, was already lame, but in BN and FI there are no flame units. But wait, why not sell these units as an extra module... The sheeple on their forums would hail that probably.

Oh, I see the fanboys even are praising that they offer new installers now. The daily install of the game becomes more convenient! So important!

Even the v3.0 AI trigger system is only half baked.

Although I bought every game and module, I probably will skip the v3 upgrade for BN & FI.

[A Canadian Cat]

Time for some spring summer cleaning!

This is just some clean up of the offered installers. While true this is not a huge deal, it is nice to not have to follow the 8-10 steps to install a fresh copy - which I did have to do recently when I picked up a new machine.

The real fun will be when the update comes for CMBN and CMFI - no huge changes but engine support for fire and triggers for the AI two very fun and helpful features.

---

It feels more and more as a ripoff to me.
Although I bought every game and module, I probably will skip the v3 upgrade for BN & FI.

There ya go - this time around they did not implement the features you love and you can skip this update. Nothing more to say. Hopefully in the future they will do something that makes you happy and you can buy that offering.

[ARCH]

Canadian cat: I just copied what they posted on the battlefront site

Steiner14 I actually kind of agree, though I love the series and I'm more than happy paying for new features but paying for better load times or turning the music off??

Idk about that

[A Canadian Cat]

Hey, no problem posting references to BFC announcements. Also no problem discussing if you find them valuable or not. Just accept that others will have different opinion and respect them for it and we will all get along.

An hey if the most valuable thing on that list for you is the music on off switch and you don't thing that is worth the update - I can understand that.

BTW the real list of features in the upgrade is more than just better load times and music on / off switch :) Check it out here: http://www.battlefront.com/index.php?opt...Itemid=456

Here is the list with the ones I like highlighted:

Graphics
Hit impacts to vehicles and bunkers now shown graphically ("hit decals")
Water animates for fording units
Improved shaders

Gameplay
Ground units are now able to fire at attacking aircraft
Ammo Dumps allow platoons to have reserve ammo stored separately on map (automatically distributed for certain Skill Levels)
WeGo TCP/IP with the ability to save but not the ability to replay combat action
Spotters restricted to directing only one Mission at a time. Assets can now be group fired.
More realistic/varied RoF of automatic weapons.
Improved load time for scenarios, especially larger ones with complex terrain

User Interface
Three different sets of camera controls; Standard (traditional), First Person Shooter, and Real Time Strategy
Optional graphical Command and Control link tracing
KIAs are shown in the Soldier/Crew Panels to track soldiers lost during the game
Option to disable music separate from other game sounds

Editor
Ability to create AI Triggers that execute actions based on other units or interaction with Objectives (existing battles do not have this, but it can be added by authors if they wish)
Maximum map size increased
Improved responsiveness of 2D editing, especially for large maps
Improved load time for 3D Preview, especially large maps
Customized "Mod Tags" for most graphics. This allows for multiple mods for the same item without the need to move items in/out of Data folder
Ability to specify specific mods be used for a specific Scenario. If CM fails to find the specified mod it will use the default

[Steiner14]

Steiner14 I actually kind of agree, though I love the series and I'm more than happy paying for new features but paying for better load times or turning the music off??

Just like me.
I'm not very price sensitive when it comes to CM. For example, if they would offer decent development, I'd happily pay USD 15, 20 or 30 USD for an upgrade. I think USD 10 is too low anyway for a decent upgrade. That's the price of one fast food menu. A simulation company in a niche market should not aim for customers, that run away if the upgrade costs an additional Big Mac.

Let's take the explanation why they didn't include tank riders serious and let's assume they didn't know when they announced the v3 upgrade for FI or BN, how many tanks would be affected and how long it would take per tank while already in the midst of the development they suddenly were hit by surprise that it takes a certain amount of time per vehicle. It's absurd, but let's assume they already had forgotten everything since CMRTs development and they suddenly recognized that tank riders will not make it in:

But how did they treat customers when they noticed it? Weren't they silent for months? Although everyone expected tank riders for FI and BN.

How could a small customer-friendly company have dealt with this "surprise"? Explained the sudden problem to it's customers while offering something as compensation!

For example, since the engine can handle flames, they could have broken their rule and added one flame unit for each side. No big TO&E work, just take a german unit from CMRT and add one for the Western forces.
And since triggers are present, they could have offered one or two new scenarios, containing the new flame unit(s) and making use of triggers. They could have also adapted a few of the factory scenarios to make use of the new triggers.
With the benefit, that new players, who come in with v3, would see and experience the most advanced status of the engine.

How much work would it have taken, to include a lousy flamethrower unit and adapt a few scenarios and communicate with the community not to have wrong expectations?

Customers (not fanboys which are always happy, no matter how badly customers are treated) would have registered the good will and with a fair compensation for not including an important feature would nevertheless be staisfied - and probably most loyal customers would have continued to buy the upgrade. Just because they recognize the good will.

And to strenghten the impression of the good will, they could have included a little surprise, an easy to program enhancement of the engine. I'm thinking about something like the unit data window from CMx1. Ofcourse without data, but the data easily to fill by modders.

Since CMRT needs a patch anyway, the whole process of testing and recompilation must take place anyway. So including a small feature update to bring the engine to v3.1 would have cost not much development wise, but would have pleased not only BN + FI customers, but would have hugely positively surprised CMRT customers, too.

And if fixing a bug takes so long, that is usually reason for a developer to beg the customers for pardon - on the BFF clocks are running backwards: the customers shall be glad if bugs get fixed after four months or for not being fixed at all because fixing bugs uses precious resources! (anti aliasing not working in movie lighting mode, for example)

[ARCH]

Canadian Cat:

Thanks for the link brother! but I've already read the features on the site before. And its great to see CMRT features are available! Don't get me wrong I'm not trying to attack Battlefront or its user base. I was just making a point.

:)

I could care less about music, after all they let you mod in your own in which is pretty nice. (I guess they do anyway, I downloaded the Band of Brothers theme for CMBN. Haven't tried my own music yet.)

But I can understand why most would think it kind of odd that those features aren't already implemented, ex. better loading times.

I have high hopes for CM, but honestly I had to dig a deep hole to find this series. Most people don't even know what there missing busy playing those "fancy" AAA titles

:P

[Steiner14]

I have high hopes for CM, but honestly I had to dig a deep hole to find this series.

I think that's a very important aspect. Their marketing just sucks.

When I was not banned yet from their forums, I suggested Steve to contact a person, who was already multi-millionaire at 30, a genius in internet marketing. A nice guy and I think they would have got a meeting without a problem. Reaction: the suggestion was not even ignored.

Until this day they don't understand, that it doesn't take a big budget to have effective marketing on the net. And this is even more true for niche products.

And although their amount of products grows steadily, until this day they do not have a visual presentation, so that any new customer immediately sees how games, versions, modules and upgrades are interconnected and which one could interest him the most.

And as third argument this not-present marketing is also present when they release upgrades:
Instead to always showcase the improvements with included new or updated scenarios, they offer: ZERO. Nothing. Nada.
But how long would it take for their experienced scenario designers to update a scenario? For example to make use of triggers? Instead to showcase the new features immediately, they release them hidden. So only already customers who OWN a game with this version know, what they can expect. New upgraders, for example players who have not bought RT, have no idea, what to play first, to see the most new features in action.

Imagine the difference: releasing one or two new scenarios with the current 3.0 upgrade for FI: the player immediately is playing with AA-units shooting at planes, is walking units through fords and recognizes the water animation, has ammo depots at his deposal while he experiences how the AI is capable to deliver nasty surprises, that never happened before and he suddenly sees units or houses, he has never seen before, because of the use of mod-tags.

Btw: The showcase would also have a positive effect on scenario designers, because there immediately would be an example showing the potential of all the new things.

Their way: customer buys the upgrade but has no clue how and when he will ever see them in effect.
Quite some difference in the experience for the customer.

[A Canadian Cat]

No problem, I misunderstood - thought you were reacting to other people's reaction rather than the original source.

I hear you about having trouble finding this series. If I had known about CMBO way back 14 years ago I would have been playing these games for the last 14 years rather than the last 3+. I only found out about it by accident. I do no know the answer to get the word out to more people because those that I know that play those first person shooter games have zero interest in actual tactics or historical equipment or behaviour.

The thing about implementing features is it all takes time and there are never enough resources (i.e. money, programmers, artist) available to do everything all at once. So they have to make choices about what they do. Choices that not all of us will agree with - for example tank riders - it sucks not having them. And I can assure you no one sets out to write code that loads slowly :) For all their faults BFC do a good job at picking and choosing a manageable set of things to work on and they execute pretty well. They try to make sure that the things they do and the choices they make will allow the game to work in lower end hardware and the work on things like loading times, threading etc. to make that better incrementally. Which is a good thing.

I hope next time they add more features that you care about but you can rest assured that someone else will be disapointed. ;)

[H1nd]

There is something I can readily agree: their marketing "strategy" sucks. Period :> But then again even tho I raised some voice on this issue on the forums myself, it is once again something that is beyond your control. They will do it their way for the good or bad. (most likely there will be a period of hardship incoming for them wich hopefully will cause them to adjust) In a sense I can understand your pain steiner but I my self am more inclined to accept that we simply can't change their ways. (call it fatalism or something..) There simply is nothing we can do except vote with our feet and since there are no alternatives in this genre.. well you get the picture. Ohh and i'm very dissapointed about the tank riders.. even tho I was roughly 50% sure that they would no include them, some information earlier this summer would have been crucial to avoid this dissapointment that I feel right now.