Talonsoft and HPS ?

[Doc Ozzie]

Question: Did HPS purchase the old Battleground gaming system from Talon, they look very similiar?

And, btw I ordered my Campaign Gettysburg, Civil War Battles yesterday!! And, I appreciate the active community with any game :)

[Boonierat]

Question: Did HPS purchase the old Battleground gaming system from Talon, they look very similiar?

And, btw I ordered my Campaign Gettysburg, Civil War Battles yesterday!! And, I appreciate the active community with any game :)

Same designer: John Tiller ;)

[rahamy]

Yes, same designer. Once you get "under the hood" so to speak you will see there's quite a few differences, and the scope of the games covered by the HPS titles far outdistances anything Talonsoft published. Campaign Gettysburg itself provides more gaming than all 5 of the Talon titles in included scenarios, add-on's, maps included with the game, etc.

[Boonierat]

Never been able to make the transition from Talonsoft to HPS unfortunately, their game had far more superior graphics than CWB and PzC, I've always wondered why there was such a graphic design loss :cry:

[rahamy]

Never been able to make the transition from Talonsoft to HPS unfortunately, their game had far more superior graphics than CWB and PzC, I've always wondered why there was such a graphic design loss :cry:

I'm going to assume you mean the 3D maps, so here's a few points to consider:

The Battleground maps were hand painted, and a fixed size. The expense was very large, and while the results looked good, they were very limited.

The HPS maps on the other hand are tiles and generated on demand, i.e. as the game needs them. What this means to us, the players, is that much larger maps are possible. The system can handle them easier (rather than a huge image file) and they are much easier to create.

So, yes, the Battleground series had beautiful maps, but personally I'll take the vastly larger and more numerous maps per title that the HPS games has to offer over the single battlefield per title the Battleground games had. Case in point, Campaign Gettysburg. It has more maps (space) included with it than all 5 of the Battleground ACW games combined. The sheer variety and maneuverability this allows you totally blows the other games out of the water, IMHO.

That's what it gives to us, the gamers. Then there's also the financial aspect of it. As we all know this is a niche market. Talonsoft was losing money on titles towards the end and so there was no cost justification. HPS has a different business model, and takes steps to keep costs low (such as thousands of dollars per title for a single map) which help enable them to produce more games, which allows us to have more content to play.

And finally, my next game is due out real soon. I made a huge map for it, which really "makes" the game, IMO. If I would have been operating under the constraints of the painted map days it would have been about 1/10th the size of what I was able to do on my own. And that just wouldn't have been adequate...

Regards,
Rich

[Boonierat]

All you points are well founded Rich, wasn't trying to denigrate your work ;) , still, isn't there a way to improve the graphics? I recall the early Battlegrounds were supposed to run on 386/486... and when you consider today's standards (PIV, 512Mb RAM and 128 Mb vidcards) one wonders. I reckon I don't know jack about game designs so I don't know if it would be that costly to improve the graphics, even for a small, indie company like HPS.

[rahamy]

Hi Stéphane,

I know you wern't, no worries. :)

Cost is a big factor. The question has to be asked, if we dump "x" amount into improving graphics will it result in "y" sales. And based on sales numbers between the Battleground and HPS titles John has determined that no, it wouldn't.

With that said though, each subsequent game does get enhancements. And all the testers have told me that the next Napeolonic title is the best looking to date, so it is an aspect that we look at and try to improve, within the constraints we have to operate.

I'd encourage you to spend a little more time with one of the titles...I think if you can get past the lack of the painted 3D maps you will be very happy. :cool:

Regards,
Rich

[Doc Ozzie]

I understand what Boonierat is saying about the Graphics; furthermore, IMO it is a personally valid objective observation from Boonierat. Some PC gamers require better graphics to get into a game while others do not. Neither one is incorrect, it is just what brings their gaming experience enjoyment.

The older I get, the more I appreciate a strong gaming engine over graphics. Most of the games on the market now adays are all very grahically pleasing but horrible engines.(IMO) Campaign Civil War is a type of grognard game that appears to emphasize the engine quality over graphics, which is fine by me.

Sure awsome graphics would be a bonus, but not at the cost of a crappy engine.


Thanks for the responses of the history of this game.

[Boonierat]

I'd encourage you to spend a little more time with one of the titles...I think if you can get past the lack of the painted 3D maps you will be very happy. :cool:

I'm considering it actually, might purchase CWB Gettysburg and PzC Normandy in the near future.

[Rich Walker]

90% of my gaming is in 2D, so graphics mean very little to me. I only look at the 3D after I finish moving. In 2d, the is little or no difference between HPS and Talonsoft. And the enhancements, make up for any Talonsoft map.

BTW, Joe Amoral did all of the maps for John Tiller's Talonsoft games and he still works with John on improving HPS games.

And HPS is still pumping out games. Where is Talonsoft??? :smoke:

Rich

[Boonierat]

And HPS is still pumping out games. Where is Talonsoft??? :smoke:

Rich

They sold out to the big corps and left to the bahamas with the money I guess ;)

[Hunter]

As a longtime Talonsoft gamer, I have to say that the old Battleground are STILL just as playable on the newer rigs as the older computers that they were designed to play on.

My rig is a P3 1ghz with WinXP Pro on it and I have no problems with these games at all. That was the genius Of Mr. Tiller's programming. Though about they are old they still perform xcellently.

The biggest thing that you have to do when playing these games on modern rigs are that you have to get the Original Talonsoft patches, then go to Mr. Tiller's site and grab the patches for each game. The good part is that the 32 bit patch can be USED for all the BG games except BG-9 Chickamaugua. That one was the last of the BG games that John made for talonsoft and is alreadygood to go for modern machines.

There is another glitch is that since Take Two ( the corp that John Rose sold Talonsoft to in 1999 ) has since taken the Talonsoft website down and with it the BG patches for ALL the Battleground ( ACW and Napoleonic ) East/ West/ Rising Sun/ campaign series, TAOW series down. Luckily though, These can be downloaded from the WARGAMER.com web site, and the ACWC website.

Now for a plug. The ACWC is made up of a number of us that play both the BG and HPS Campaign series. We basicly choose armies and play against each othe rin tourneys as well as single matches.

There is a wealth of information, scenarios as well as the above patches. For more info go to the link below.

http://www.wargame.ch/wc/acw/ACWmainpage.htm

As I said above, the last Battleground was Chickamaugua and was available only through Talonsoft. It was the last of the line and had many of the earlier BG flaws fixed by then. It still had the beautiful painted maps and if you were familiar with the earlier BGs you had no problem playing this right straight from the box. Unfortunately there was two bugs that lurked in the game. If you owned a Gateway rig, you had to download a fix inorder to get it to run properly on these computers. The second was to fix a flaw that allowed it to be compatable with Windows 2000 and XP. These are the only two patches needed for this game.

If you can find these games, I would recommend them highly as not only are they fun and educational, but serve as a good introduction to the HPS series. Most of us treat these games as gold. I made copies of Gettysburg, Shiloh, Antietam, Bull Run when I play them, using my originals as masters to replace as needed. The only BG that you can't do this with is Chickamaugua as Talonsoft put a copy guard encryption on it.

In closing, c'mon to the ACWC site and take a look. I'm sure that you will like what you see.

Colonel Lloyd H. Cole, CSA
Third Virginia Cavalry Division,
II Corps ( Jackson )
Army of Northern Virginia
Commanding

[trauth116]

This was part of my 'problem' with talonsoft ... and that was Chickamauga .. as it was billed as for sale only through Talonsoft -- but it did get released to retail chains eventually - and at $20 -$30 less than what you'd have paid through the Talonsoft offer --- that always struck me as a big F U to their customers like me.


But anyway, I am appreciative of the tips to get these to work - I knew I'd seen them somewhere -and probably just have stuff installed in the wrong order or something ... gonna work on this soon - and yeh I really like the Tiller Talonsoft games. Especially the Civil War and Napoleonics...