CMBN v2.0 released

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Someone seems to be a bit perturbed...


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Today, 04:49 PM
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To all of you who want something for nothing
It is not surprising that we have people complaining about the $10 charge for a MAJOR upgrade to CMBN. Also not surprising that it amounts to people wanting something for nothing. Let's look at the facts...

1. We offer CMBN v1.0 for those who want it. When you make a purchase you are buying only what is included, not what is not included. Crazy concept, I know, but it's a pretty standard transaction for the last few thousand years. As such, people can either buy our products BASED ON WHAT THEY ACTUALLY HAVE or not. There is no third option.

2. No game is ever without room for game experience improvements, new features, new content, etc. But since the initial purchase transaction is based on the features included, not those imagined for the future, there can be no expectations of future improvements beyond whatever the software developer promises. We promise technical fixes to existing features and occasionally some small improvements. That's all you get for your purchase price because that's all we're offering.

3. Since new features don't magically appear out of thin air, we have to instead find people to make this stuff. Now get ready for a surprise... those people actually... stay with me now... want to get paid. Money! Yeah, WTF is up with that? Crazy stuff, but trust me it's true. If you can follow that logic so far, then maybe you can see how an Upgrade like this actually costs us a significant amount of money. Where does that money come from? You, of course. One way or another you, the customer, must pay for this work or there will be no Battlefront at all. If you're still confused, might I suggest some schooling in basic economics?

4. The traditional game developer approach is to not offer Upgrades. Instead, when they add some new stuff they call it something different. Battlefield 2 players out there... how much did your upgrade to Battlefield 3 cost you?



OK, so where does that put you, the person complaining about the $10 upgrade? In a world of make-believe world, unreasonable expectations based on absolutely no concept of our costs or industry standards. You therefore have some options going forward:

1. Do no buy the Upgrades. They are for people who want new features not originally part of their purchase.

2. Buy the Upgrade and be thankful we offer it at all. Most game developers do not offer an extension of their existing product, but instead charge full price for a new experience.

3. Don't buy the game at all until you feel it is "finished". At some point we will stop making CMx2 games, and at that point you can pick it up for one price and have ALL the features everybody else paid for along the way. Of course they will have been playing for many years and you will have to instead wait many years. But that is your choice.

4. Get so disgusted with us you stop buying our stuff entirely and instead buy someone else's highly realistic, 3D tactical combat games. Or just don't buy wargames at all. Your choice.

The truth of the matter is we probably spent more making the Normandy 2.0 Upgrade than we will receive in revenues from it at $10 a unit. Does anybody think it's a good idea for us to lose money on what we produce? I mean, really... how long do you think we'll continue supporting a small, rather whiney niche market AND lose money doing it?

The market will decide if this is a good strategy or not. The alternative is to either not make the Upgrades at all (i.e. you will NEVER see an improvement to the games you buy) or we will simply charge everybody $100 per base game and offer 3 or 4 Upgrades at no extra cost. But under no circumstances will we go out of business trying to satisfy people who obviously take great joy in being unreasonable.

Bottom line here is if you don't value the features we've provided for $10 then don't buy it.

Steve
 
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slm

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The update brings big improvements to Scenario Editor. IMO easily worth the $10 alone for those that use Scenario Editor.

So the next step should be Market Garden. Any ideas on when it will be released? Commonwealth has been in use since March.
 

Elvis

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I'm pretty happy about this, time to start using the height maps and Google Maps aerial photos I've been assembling from the vicinity of Carentan with the help of Panzer Command editor since CM:FI was released :)
That wasn't the one I meant. I thought the new ability to select the uniforms was kinda cool. Not a game changer but a nice touch.
 
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That wasn't the one I meant. I thought the new ability to select the uniforms was kinda cool. Not a game changer but a nice touch.
Hahaha, really Elvis, the feature - although primitive - that enables using overlays to draw maps, along with the automated road/hedgerow tools now available, are a real game changer :smoke:
 

Elvis

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Hahaha, really Elvis, the feature - although primitive - that enables using overlays to draw maps, along with the automated road/hedgerow tools now available, are a real game changer :smoke:
I don't doubt that. I was referring the ability to select uniforms for infantry as not being a game changer, not the map overlay.
 

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I would have posted my thoughts on the BFC forum, but with Steve locking every thread that isn't kissing his behind that's not an option, without spoiling someone elses thread.

Someone made the point that we'd been spoiled by the CMSF patches. Anyone, and I do mean anyone, that was around at the time CMSF was launched knows just how laughable that idea is. We, as a community that had faith in BFC were screwed. Pants down, bent over, screwed. The patches weren't spoiling us, they were making the game useable. How many patches did it take before QB's worked as advertised?

When CMx2 was announced we were told these improvements would be backwards compatible. That was the price of paying for modules, rather than getting everything in one title. That was the sugar coating on the bigger price medicine. We were already going to be paying more, that was the medicine to keep BFC going, the sugar coating was backwards compatibility on continual upgrades module-to-module and game-to-game.

So now we're supposed to pay for the module, and pay for the improvements in that title to go back to the previous module?

Steve, as always, because he's become very good at it over the years, can throw smoke, real or imagined sales stats, can lock threads that disagree with him, and can hide behind what has become a crowd of rabid fan boys, but the fact is all the promise of that much vaunted "mission statement" some of us can still remember, has been dissolved into a continual descent into the corporate outlook that BFC was meant to escape.
 

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In fairness, I think that concept assumed that the (then) new engine would be a lot easier to work with than it has turned out to be. The 2005 happy talk also "promised" you could eventually fight Grossdeutschland vs Roman legionairies if you wanted to.... Blue vs Blue mode is about all that remains of that now.

I don't really blame them for that myself. this has been a hard school for them -- maybe Steve should have said less, fine. As Redwolf has said, welcome to the software business.
 

Elvis

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I can tell you're upset but I do need to disagree with you. I don't remember ever hearing that upgrades to the emgine would be backward compatible until they told us testers about it when they told us about Italy. I don't think they ever imagined they would be able to do it 5 or 6 years ago when we were working on CMSF. The impression I got was that during the early Alpha for Italy Charles or Phil said something like "hey Steve, if we code it this wayy going forward we can backport all this new stuff to Normandy. It's too late for CMSF but going forward we can do it for everything". Someone may have an old post out there showing I'm wrong.......but that would surprise me.
 

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I can tell you're upset but I do need to disagree with you. I don't remember ever hearing that upgrades to the emgine would be backward compatible until they told us testers about it when they told us about Italy. I don't think they ever imagined they would be able to do it 5 or 6 years ago when we were working on CMSF. The impression I got was that during the early Alpha for Italy Charles or Phil said something like "hey Steve, if we code it this wayy going forward we can backport all this new stuff to Normandy. It's too late for CMSF but going forward we can do it for everything". Someone may have an old post out there showing I'm wrong.......but that would surprise me.
Oh, they promised it. They might like us to forget they promised it, but promise it they did.

Steve can't have it both ways. Time and again he trots out the "sales are better after 3 days than we planned for over 3 years" or whatever and then cry poverty. It's one or the other, guys.

I'm not upset, I'm disappointed Steve has become what he has. The minute he signed the contract promising a title after X years with Paradox, that's when the dream went sour. He factored in screwing his loyal customers over right there in ink. This just repeats that habit he picked up. Then to basically insult his customers at every turn, that just compounds it.

People bending over to take this are just guaranteeing more of the same down the track.
 

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You may be right or not Elvis, but we can still question their ironclad assumption that "Theater in A Box" = Bankruptcy, or "Open-Ended Wargame Design Kit" = Bankruptcy, when I look at what Bohemia Interactive -- not a particularly large shop btw, though much larger than BFC, sure -- and its community have accomplished with the Arma 2 engine (which is also a buggy and much-criticized platform), without going bankrupt. Quite the contrary, in fact.

Given the tools to do it, their user community has worked up some truly amazing mods (using a far better looking engine)..... DayZ, Iron Front, Hell in the Pacific, what have you. DayZ alone has single handedly reinvigorated the franchise and compensated for the major delays with Arma3 (sounds all too familiar)

It's all very well and good to say shooter gamers will always massively outnumber wargamers, but I don't think that's a reason for BFC fans to go LALALALALLAICANTHEARYOU and dismiss that comparison out of hand.

Competition for the shooter crowd is also a lot fiercer.... CoD, BF3 etc. Yet the Arma modder community is pretty serious and detail-oriented, living within the current limits of the engine -- e.g. limited terrain set -- much like BFC's community. And the learning curve for that editor is a lot less steep in spite of its complexity.

The more I get into Arma2, the more I come to believe that sometime fairly soon one of these platforms -- which also engineer every bullet, but also every rock and blade of grass, unlike CM -- is going to enable setup and RT command of large AI forces (company to battalion scale). As soon as that happens, a chunk of the grognard faithful BFC depends on is going to migrate there to spend its time and effort.

And they in turn will draw away the more casual majority of the CM player community, who want a reasonably authentic and immersive tactical WWII command experience but don't really care if it's set in a perfect digital recreation of Carentan, or is just a modded up version of a town in "Chernarus."
 

Geordie

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i dont ever remember Steve saying that games would be backward portable but I do remember him stating how easy the code would be to make new games. Alas, it never came to pass and they are making about the same number of smaller games now that they did under Cmx1. In fact from 1999 to 2005 they probably produced more content than they have from 2007 to 2012.

I think it was a good decision to go 1-1 but I also think its cost development time. Every animation has to look good now, some still dont, like the AT gun movement or firing MGs from the shoulder and in a 1-1 game this detracts from the immersion. But on the whole the vehicles look great and the vast majority of animations are OK.

Its also good to hear Steve saying that you dont need the CW Module to play the upcoming MG module as they will include both Brits and SS units. Mind you, for those of us that bought the CW module, what does that leave, German Paras and Naval infantry? I thought the Naval Infantry were compulsory enlisted in the SS? New uniforms I suppose.

Finally, I remember the CMSF release all too well and to actually state that we were all spoilt by the number of patches is laughable. It took about 5 patches just to get it to where it should have been on release.

Finally, finally. Has anyone ever seen CMBN advertised anywhere on the web? How do they get new customers? Where do they market the game? Ive never seen anything anywhere. I bet they wish theyd thought up World of Tanks now!!!
 

junk2drive

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What set CM apart in 2000 was WEGO. There were and are plenty of 3D FPS and clickfest RTS games. Now there is Achtung Panzer series and the upcoming Close Combat 3D (not EYSA I hope) and who knows what else but they are real time. CM is real time, x1 with forced pause and x2 had it tacked on. Is WEGO really dead?
 

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I thought about getting CMBN for my brother but they're still oly selling the V1 game. You'd think they would go directly to the V2 game now it's out? Who would want to buy yes today's product?
 

Rule_303

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In theory WeGo is alive and well for those wanting to play that way, but due to the shortcomings in the TacAI you have to time any kind of risky or complex movement for late in each turn, so as to be able to cancel or reissue if your guys do something wonky like taking the wrong door or stopping out in the open. It's a lot better than it was, but still chancy at times, especially in complex terrain.

I think a lot of the hardcore CM2 fans either play mostly in god mode and just accept that a lot of guys will get mowed down stupidly while executing generalized orders or else focus on AFV fights and consider infantry an afterthought. So wonky pixeltroop behavior , deathstar mortars, nerfed MGs doesn't bother them much. It'd be like agonizing over a single space Marine or Zergling in Starcraft... not important to the overall win.
 

Elvis

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I thought about getting CMBN for my brother but they're still oly selling the V1 game. You'd think they would go directly to the V2 game now it's out? Who would want to buy yes today's product?
They had said that CMBN v1.0 was going to be sold at a reduced price until it is sold as CMBN 2.0. Looking at their site that looks like the case. CMBN is now $35 (down from $55). So even with the upgrade CMBN is now $45 including v2.0. Someone can correct me if that price was reduced to $35 before v2.0 was released. I haven't looked at their Store in a while.
 

Elvis

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i dont ever remember Steve saying that games would be backward portable but I do remember him stating how easy the code would be to make new games. Alas, it never came to pass and they are making about the same number of smaller games now that they did under Cmx1. In fact from 1999 to 2005 they probably produced more content than they have from 2007 to 2012.
That is what I remember as well. And aside from the first or second CMSF module the engine seems to be delivering on the timetable that was laid out (i.e. some new game or module every 6 months or so and if Steve's outline for 2013 is correct then much faster than that). The promise (if you will) of the new engine was that it would lead to quicker releases that did not require BFC to build the game from scratch each time. Heck, was it Rule that just said something about dying from indigestion or somefink? Hell, people (like yourself) are passing on things because they don't hold great interest and something that does interest looks to be right around the corner.



Its also good to hear Steve saying that you dont need the CW Module to play the upcoming MG module as they will include both Brits and SS units. Mind you, for those of us that bought the CW module, what does that leave, German Paras and Naval infantry? I thought the Naval Infantry were compulsory enlisted in the SS? New uniforms I suppose.
That was the case with CMSF too. It has always been the case that you don't need every module to buy the newest one. That's why there are no units in any modules release scenarios that are not in the base game or the module being purchased.
 

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I wonder if you skipped the CW module if there would be enough CW content in MG to play CW scenarios? Or are the scenarios tagged to the module in some way?

i suppose you could open a scen up in the editor and substitute their own forces, I'm not sure that's possible either though.

i skipped on FI because I really don't think it will bring anything at all to my gaming and can't really see where they can take it that CMBN can't go in 1944. I bought into CMA and got bitten there, it's really a dead game now and I haven't played it for ages. Then there's the Italians that remind me of the Syrians and how hopeless they were to play.

im also not interested in CMSF2 either for various reasons, mainly because of CMSF. To set a game in the Ukraine is just daft i think and I'm not sure he Russians have the kit to stand up to NATO forces any more. Setting it in 1985 Europe would have been more my game.

so that leaves me the EF Bagration game, and the MG module. To be honest this will probably do me for a while, even the Bulge game hasn't piqued my interest as I can't see it being much different from Normandy.

So I suppose the new model works for me but maybe not BF as I will only be buying probably 1 new game and 1 module in 2013.

any news on the once mentioned Packs?
 
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