Straight lobbying.. Cold War please :D

[Strela]

Yes, something was posted a while ago..... from the archives;


David

I know you guys usually play close to the vest so as not to make false projections but is there any possibility of a :

Possible for this year / Not possible for this year  hint?

A hint??  

Let's be clear to everyone we will always try and be as forthright as we can be. As pointed out, John Tiller mentioned that this title was being worked on pretty much two years ago, just after Kursk came out. With that in mind, I'll provide the best update I can.

The first Armor Battles title was being developed by Tazaaron who put out the definitive mod for Modern Campaigns - Bolt from the Blue. Tazaaron did a fair bit of work, but with changes in his personal life left the project late in 2014. A new developer who I will leave unnamed, (unless they want to reveal themselves here) has just started to review the project and is looking at what needs to be done to complete it. I'll be very clear - it is in the evaluation stage - not committed stage. As I have posted elsewhere, we have a minimum eighteen months to get a title out and that requires a lot of people working on a lot of things. With all that in mind it won't be this year unless we all have the rest of the year off - sorry...!



To help you all I will give you an idea of what is being worked on with our small team;

• Patch 1.01 for Normandy. We're (slowly) getting programming support from John. Most of this is ready to go, pending John's input.
  
• Patch 1.02 for Kursk - this will port over the latest fixes and changes from Normandy 1.0/1.01 to this title
  
• Updated Game manual and charts - this will be a continuing work in process. An update will come with the above two patches.
  
• Panzer Battles 3. We have given enough hints on this already but the good news it is progressing. We have just scrapped the game maps we had and are completely redoing them by hand (like Normandy). We won't be using the process that was used in Kursk where the Panzer Campaigns map was converted to build the Panzer Battles map. All the orders of battle are in place as are many of the game graphics. The scenario designers are busy reading up on their areas of responsibility and hopefully work on the scenarios will begin soon. We will again need further programming from John as there will be some unique features required for this title. I'm really excited about this title and it really is looking fabulous.
  
• Panzer Battles Demo. We're investigating whether we can do a demo to showcase the game system. This could be really cool with some of the ideas thrown out there but is not yet committed to. I believe if we get going you could see this, this year.
  
• Armor Battles 1. Mentioned above  and not yet committed to. A fair bit of base work is done - you can see some of the prototype graphics in this thread, but things like the map are to be scrapped and redone, not to mention no scenarios have even been thought of yet.
  
• An unnamed project for the US Army using this game scale.
  

I hope you get the idea, but we're trying to provide both support for our existing titles as well as build new product. We're listening to you, but are a tiny team of volunteers who do this all in our spare time. I'm really impressed with the community here at the Blitz and many of our testers and in some cases team members have come from the ranks of the willing who frequent these forums.

Thanks all, hope those are hints enough and again please note where I mention committed and not committed...!!!  

David

[Xaver]

Thanks for the info Strela, as usual our wargamers desires run faster than teams work in new titles 

Ummm PzB demo... sounds interesting... is going to be more like PzC demo (covering something out of PzC titles) or like Nap demo (using an existing scen)??? i think that a good demo could help more PzB specially now with Campaigns reworked titles (Middle east is a very good release and with the taste of old game with all in one).

Even when patch PzB1-2 is allways great and a must have... sometimes i think that is "better" timing the patches with new titles... instead delay a new title to patch existing games if you can "buff" speed to have new title is in general "better" imagine have 3rd title in a little more than one year 

PzB3... here my only question is if we are going to see a 41 battle or a 42 battle in the sand... maybe i prefer Crusader over Gazala. 

Is planned open a dedicated thread for PzB3??? maybe to release some info about how is going on ... every month or 2 months and later when is closer return to the weekend reports... damn i want again weekend reports 

[Strela]

The demo has been proposed to cover new topics to those that have been covered in PzB 1 & 2. When it was first proposed it was going to be the getting started scenario(s) from Normandy, but we have had some different ideas since then.

Patching of existing titles will always take precedence over new - negative comments will always have an outsized impact so we try and correct early and if necessary often.

PzB3 - no more clues or info for the moment. You will all have to wait a little longer...

David

[jmlima]

...
The first Armor Battles title was being developed by Tazaaron who put out the definitive mod for Modern Campaigns - Bolt from the Blue. Tazaaron did a fair bit of work, but with changes in his personal life left the project late in 2014. ...

Think I was on that one even before Tazaaron... Alas, real life et all.

[Don Czirr]

[quote pid='410459' dateline='1459265026']


I hope you get the idea, but we're trying to provide both support for our existing titles as well as build new product. We're listening to you, but are a tiny team of volunteers who do this all in our spare time. I'm really impressed with the community here at the Blitz and many of our testers and in some cases team members have come from the ranks of the willing who frequent these forums.

Thanks all, hope those are hints enough and again please note where I mention committed and not committed...!!!  

David

[/quote]


Thanks for the detailed update David.


I see this as a most unfortunate situation - that a talented team such as JTS, with great things to offer, is shackled financially while some glitzy bubble gum cracking developers pump out gobs of idiot-ware for popular consumption.

I guess that's nothing new and there's no sense crying about it ...

So - good luck and thanks for all your efforts ....

[Xaver]

Well, is allways good patch games but sometimes i prefer less "fast" patches and work in new features in a new title to introduce it in previous titles... instead work in 2 patches (pre new game and post new game) do it in a single patch.

Demo... if is not going to cover PzB1-2 area you are going to follow the Mius way no??? a demo that could be called a minigame (i remember the Steel Panther demo... even with only 3 scens for me was like a full game hehehe).

I am interested in know whats going to be the Demo area maybe in a few months we can have a leak hehehe.