CMC--Word and Hope!

[Taktik]

Lurker, the forum crowd has never been the core customer base of BFC

Who is then? By forum crowd, do you mean strictly the one at BF. Do you separate the BF crowd from the core 3-4 website clubs such as WFHQ, Blitz and BoB?

In my experience playing numerous types of games from various genres, the types of people that play CM are those that gravitate towards clubs like those mentioned. These people are generally well read, older, obvious history buffs/enthusiasts. People that play CM are not there for the looks and pulse-ponding key-mashing found in RTS and FPS.

So, if not the types of people that populate the clubs, who comprises the core customer base and what facts support such?

 

[Lurker]

Who is then? ...So, if not the types of people that populate the clubs, who comprises the core customer base and what facts support such?

That's one of the points I was trying to make. What is the target market for CMSF, if not strictly the military? It will not/has not appealed to the hardcore RTS or FPS types for the all the reasons previously mentioned and is also far too much of an attempt at a realistic wargame to satisfy much else than wargamers. So if their base of wargamers is told to hit the highway if they don't like it then what are they aiming at? Is this some brilliant master plan, or a colossal cluster F%#@? If they get a big $ military contract then I guess they can claim brilliant master plan.

 

[Redwolf]

Sorry folks, but all wargame developers including MajorH of TacOps fame (who I really don't think would lie about this) say that the overwhelming majority of sales come from people who just get the game, get creamed by the AI a couple times and never, ever, talk to another human about it. No multiplayer, no forums, no recommendations, no reviews, no blog comments.

Why BFC bothers with the forum is a different question. Steve can be a real SoaB and try to discredit people by any means he learned, but it's not that he seems to enjoy it. And as people pointed out, the scale change and RT and all the other major changes from CMx1 to CMx2 were certainly not user-requested. The "all soldiers displayed" graphics, sure. More textures on tanks, sure. But otherwise people wanted bigger, not smaller battles. They wanted more than 2 player multiplay, in WEGO, in PBEM. While I have read some people demanding that the fully autonomous AI in CMx1 takes optional hints, I haven't read anybody demand that a scripted AI is the only one provided (let's leave aside that it's broken right now).

The forums are certainly a place to get beta testers, scenario designers and free (for BFC) tech support, maybe that's it?

 

[Lurker]

Sorry folks, but all wargame developers including MajorH of TacOps fame (who I really don't think would lie about this) say that the overwhelming majority of sales come from people who just get the game, get creamed by the AI a couple times and never, ever, talk to another human about it. No multiplayer, no forums, no recommendations, no reviews, no blog comments.

If that's the case then it sounds they are still targeting wargamers and not the frenzied mass RTS market. Perhaps they should listen to their real audience a little more.:cheeky:

I'm also curious how MajorH would know this without periodic surveys. It seems more like a conjecture on his part. Why bank on numerous such individuals buying a CM game as a 'first time try' only to shelve it if he gets clobbered. That certainly doesn't sound like a repeat customer.

 

[Palantir]

...all wargame developers ... say that the overwhelming majority of sales come from people who just get the game, get creamed by the AI a couple times and never, ever, talk to another human about it. No multiplayer, no forums, no recommendations, no reviews, no blog comments.

And there you have it, the real reason CM:SF sucks big time: BFC made it & sent it out the door "quickly" to make a quick buck!

They aimed the game at a mass of people who will chuck out $$ for a game they know nothing about & then will toss it after they find out it's a total waste of time. Plus as an added bonus they never have to hear from them again!! (I wonder how BCF knows what "they" want considering they will never-ever hear from them.)

Unlike "forum/core" CM players who actually discuss the game in detail about what they like & don't like about it. BFC clearly doesn't care for that "type" of player because they KNOW the game they are playing and heaven forbid they want improvements....

 

[Redwolf]

I'm also curious how MajorH would know this without periodic surveys. It seems more like a conjecture on his part. Why bank on numerous such individuals buying a CM game as a 'first time try' only to shelve it if he gets clobbered. That certainly doesn't sound like a repeat customer.

He does his own tech support and is on all known forums about TacOps. He knows how many games he sells, he knows how many people are on forums, he knows what percentage of people need to contact tech support before they can do PBEM (TacOps has a funky scheme that isn't intuitive to everybody). He knows that to play humans you have to find people on forums. I think that allows to figure what the majority of people are doing.

This was, BTW, the true strength of CMx1. They had everything. They had the single-player people (autonomous AI and not too bogus), the PBEM crowd using historical scenarios, the candied up TCP ladder players with QUickbattles, the rest of the ladder people with PBEM and scenarios or Quickbattles, the people who bought the game just for the OOB, the people who just bought the game for the vehicle data, the people who just used it as a slideshow with a ton of mods, the people who had no idea how to play but did awesome mods, the people who were enthusiastically digging into every bit of account from some obscure firefight in Hinterpforzland to make a scenario, and then everybody could use everybody's mods and scenarios and playability. All gone. No mods, no scenarios, no Quickbattles, no interesting OOB, tiny number of bogus vehicles you can't really select in the first place. Sigh :freak::nervous:

 

[Mad Russian]

Has ANYONE ever been polled by BFC?

I was but they told me if I said anything they would have to kill me...and after CMSF came out I thought about killing me myself!!!

Good Hunting.

MR

 

[Michael Dorosh]

Hot damn. And good luck to Bruce on his deployment. Anyone here testing it?

I was, for a little bit.

 

[Geordie]

I was, for a little bit.

How bad was it at the very beginning and did they take the testers on board, or did you suffer the same, you dont get it attitude? Just curious...

 

[Michael Dorosh]

How bad was it at the very beginning and did they take the testers on board, or did you suffer the same, you dont get it attitude? Just curious...

I expect that my NDA prevents me from saying anything about the state of the game or the internal functions of BFC. You've commented yourself on this forum on the way BFC treats its customers in open forum at battlefront. It sounds to me like you're suggesting that they talk to their own testers in closed forum the same way they talk to their customers. I'm not in a position to confirm that. I'm no longer a beta tester, which I think I mentioned. Actually, beta tester sounds kind of inaccurate, I was also designing campaigns though in my case, the one I was working on had the majority of map work done by a talented and hard-working third party who was also on the CMSF beta team with me. He's actually not posted at BFC in a long time either, at least not in public, so I wonder where he's gone to.

I think I can freely say, though, by way of answering your other question, that I volunteered to be on the beta team and was accepted. It was as simple as that. Why, I'm not sure, but my email mentioned my long involvement on their forum (at the time I had the most posts of anyone registered), the fact I had scenarios published by them (on both the CMAK and CMBB special edition releases), and had the time and interest to devote to the project.

Actually, I don't think Hunter would mind if I said he was very polite and open-minded to the input of the testers. I've said in open forums that I don't like the goofy 3/4 map view and it would be a stretch to think I was alone in that. Whether that got discussed in private, I'm not in a position to say. I can't talk about how often we communicated or how, but I will say that Hunter seemed, to us at any rate, very dedicated to the project and on hearing what we had to say. Hunter works for the third party putting the program together, however. BFC had the ultimate decision on who they retained on the project, and who they felt was being helpful.

All that aside, based solely on what has been released for public consumption on the official forum, I personally don't like the way the game looks. I expect it will have moderate success. I can't predict the backlash if the game is not any good. Some at the BFC forum still talk about preordering blind, where do I send my money, etc. Another bad CM release could kill that for good. They realize that, which is why Moon has started hedging in public, and stated that they are considering releasing the code as open source if they can't get the project together in a final form.