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Michael Dorosh

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There's loads of other healthy debate and constructive criticism.
Did I say there wasn't? I said it was ugly given the presence of these types of threads. I also said there were "lots of them." I didn't say they were the only ones there.

I stand by my earlier comment.
You stand by your earlier comment that I was "making stuff up" even though I just demonstrated amply that I am not? That seems like a peculiar choice.
 

vetacon

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Did I say there wasn't? I said it was ugly given the presence of these types of threads. I also said there were "lots of them." I didn't say they were the only ones there.

You stand by your earlier comment that I was "making stuff up" even though I just demonstrated amply that I am not? That seems like a peculiar choice.
"It's plain ugly there" manifestly has a wider connotation than one thread on a forum with dozens of active threads. So yes, I do. Had you said something along the lines of "There are some ugly discussions going on in some threads" I wouldn't have made the initial comment. But you didn't.
 

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That is my impression as well, we see many such comments as
"read the damn CM:SF forum"
or "for heavens sake do we have to repeat 3 years worth of posts all over again"
or "does anyone use the damn search anymore".
The part of your quote I bolded is a time honored phrase said in every forum I have inhabited. It has been said in one for or another for as long as I can remember. The other two are just variations on this. I've been told on this forum the same thing by people but the search function almost never results in finding what I have been directed to look for. I personally almost never do that and if I post at all will reexplain something that may have been gone over many times before. Doing that sometimes carries with it certain perceptions.... But don't kid yourself, it happens here as much as it does there and anywhere else I have visted forums.
 

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Originally Posted by Michael Dorosh
Lots of questions by the generation that skipped CM:SF and then the "fanboys" that stuck with the program through the dark years come in and mix it up with them, often in a hostile manner. It's plain ugly there now.
When you posted that I checked out the CM:BN forums to see what you were talking about and that thread you posted was the only hot thread I found with that type of talk. And honestly that thread is just silly I bothered to read the first paragraph that Storm Chaser posted and then moved down to see what people said.

It more or less consists of something complaining about the lack of TCP/IP WEGO in a really drawn out fashion and then some other people roll in their and say some more stupid stuff.
I for one, wasn't too terribly surprised by the response and I think it could have only gone two ways. The type of reply we saw happen or a yep and quickly to the second page.

Of course the yep on onto the second page option would have been better.

Anyway I feel like your phrase "Lots of questions by the generation that skipped CM:SF" combined with "It's plain ugly there now." makes it seem like you're painting with a very broad brush.


In the other threads I checked out people would ask questions that CM:SF players knew the answer too and although there may have been a "its in CM:SF" line here or there the questions seemed to be answered with little fuss.
 
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Michael Dorosh

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When you posted that I checked out the CM:BN forums to see what you were talking about and that thread you posted was the only hot thread I found with that type of talk. And honestly that thread is just silly I bothered to read the first paragraph that Storm Chaser posted and then moved down to see what people said.

It more or less consists of something complaining about the lack of TCP/IP WEGO in a really drawn out fashion and then some other people roll in their and say some more stupid stuff.
I for one, wasn't too terribly surprised by the response and I think it could have only gone two ways. The type of reply we saw happen or a yep and quickly to the second page.

Of course the yep on onto the second page option would have been better.

Anyway I feel like your phrase "Lots of questions by the generation that skipped CM:SF" combined with "It's plain ugly there now." makes it seem like you're painting with a very broad brush.


In the other threads I checked out people would ask questions that CM:SF players knew the answer too and although there may have been a "its in CM:SF" line here or there the questions seemed to be answered with little fuss.
The traffic is fast and furious there; I took another look and it would appear you're right. The last threads I checked included - I think Green as Jade - asking people to stop telling him "it's no different than CM:SF" because he never played the thing. I can't even find that thread now - I suspect it is buried under the weight of the new ones, which seem - at least the few I opened - to be much more even in tone.
 

Michael Dorosh

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Getting back to Elvis' question much earlier in the thread re: bocage and its depiction in CM:BO - here is a thread from 2002, and a response from Harry Yeide, who is a historian of some note:

http://www.battlefront.com/community/showthread.php?t=51179

How relevant is the issue anyway? Until the Cullins device came into wide use in July, tanks simply didn't enter a lot of hedgerowed fields. When they did, it was after engineers created a hole or a dozer tank did the same. Tankers note that either technique gave German AT gunners something to pre-aim at. As for German armor in the hedgerows, it generally is mentioned in the context of prepared positions (access prearranged) or in counterattacks along roads.
Another response in that thread (again, this is 2002 and CM:BO, not CM:BN:

The one issue I have with bocage modelling in CM is that in Normandy the roads between hedgerows tended to be sunken from 1-3m (and sometimes as much as 5-6m, although this was fairly uncommon) below the level of the field and the base of the hedgerow. This allowed concealed movement through the roads, and thus forces could be shifted between fields without observation. It would be nice to see this show up in the scenarios set in Normandy (I haven't noticed it in any I've played so far, but I've only had the game for a month or so).
 

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Getting back to Elvis' question much earlier in the thread re: bocage and its depiction in CM:BO - .....
A friend who has never posted here sent me this in an email today. It is especially the last few lines that are where my head is currently at. I don't mean offense by it but it does seem to sum up my current feeling on the subject..baring and new information. of course...

A: Wah! Tanks can't drive through bocage!
B: Well, yeah, but that's because they couldn't.
A: Yes they could. It's a frigging tank, and tanks can go anywhere!
B: Well, in that case what's the point of the Cullins device?
A: ...
A: Wah! Tanks can't drive through bocage!
B: But, actually, they can - you just need to prep the bocage first - blast it with demo charges, or direct fire HE, or indirect HE.
A: It's a frigging tank, and tanks can go anywhere!
B: Well, sort of. But in the bocage they needed a lot of assistance.
A: No they didn't! It's a frigging tank, and tanks can go anywhere!
B: That's odd, because all these resources say they couldn't (insert: long list)
A: Nonsense. It's a frigging tank, and tanks can go anywhere! Here's one example!
B: Yeah, that's good, but it's also in a non tactical situation. CM is about tactical battle, not operational movement.
A: Wah! Tanks can't drive through bocage!
B: Hmm. Ok. Let's say that, hypothetically, tanks could drive through bocage. What limits should there be?
A: It's a frigging tank, and tanks can go anywhere!
B: But wouldn't that spoil game play, and make bocage a tactical irrelevancy? Eveyone would just motor through bocage, all the time. That clearly isn't what happened.
A: It's a frigging tank, and tanks can go anywhere! BFC are just selling out to get more sales!
 

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A friend who has never posted here sent me this in an email today. It is especially the last few lines that are where my head is currently at. I don't mean offense by it but it does seem to sum up my current feeling on the subject..baring and new information. of course...
Well, that is one of the problem with most of you betas. You fall back on ridicule way too fast, and most of you don't seem to have the knowledge to support that.

B: That's odd, because all these resources say they couldn't (insert: long list)
Now, it was some time since I followed the main boards regularly, but when was the last time a beta actually did some research and posted that "long list"? Feel free to show me a thread or two where someone with the beta badge cited 4-5 different works in support of his point. (Edit: After the golden age of CMx1 that is :))
 
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Michael Dorosh

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A friend who has never posted here sent me this in an email today. It is especially the last few lines that are where my head is currently at. I don't mean offense by it but it does seem to sum up my current feeling on the subject..baring and new information. of course...
Ok, I see where your head is at and you've mentioned one point a few times and I haven't picked up on it.

I don't mean to imply that moving a tank through the bocage should be quick, easy or even desirable (though the low bocage does seem to be over modelled in its resistance capabilities, but I'll leave that for now).

If it were included, hypothetically, I wouldn't envision that as a fast movement, like the wooden fence. It is certainly not depicted as such in other games. In ASL, infantry cross hedges at a cost double that of normal hedges while vehicles are prohibited from doing so with the exception of fully tracked AFVs. They do so (in forward motion only, reverse is prohibited) by being subject to under-belly hits, loss of side-skirts, and Bog. It costs them half their movement allotment for the turn, whatever it is (a turn being two minutes in ASL).

What would the CM equivalent be? Bog is bog - a chance of temporary immobilization which could lead to unbogging, or permanent immobilization. Loss of side skirts, underbelly hits, etc. seem like appropriate penalties, and taking one full minute to traverse the berm seems reasonable. If the opposing player saw the tank moving and had time to reposition anti-tank weapons to deal with the threat, well, it probably happened in real life, and yes, that is exactly why the Culin device was invented to begin with. To prevent the necessity of going over and through the hedges.

How often was it done? Yeide and other historians say not often; probably because it became very dangerous very quickly.

But then again, how often did troops race into machine gun fire? It would be a boring game if the program prohibited every poor decision with a message reading "real commanders never did that, try again." I'd much prefer a range of options rooted in reality, and have the game reward good tactics and sound decisions, rather than simply have the game code make those decisions for me, because some of the options are simply missing.

This probably reads harsher than I intend. And it may be a dead horse by now. I just find it interesting, as it is a key component of any treatment of the Battle of Normandy and I'm as curious as anyone as to what "actually" happened, and how close we are getting to seeing a recreation of it.
 

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Well, that is one of the problem with most of you betas. You fall back on ridicule way too fast, and most of you don't seem to have the knowledge to support that.


Now, it was some time since I followed the main boards regularly, but when was the last time a beta actually did some research and posted that "long list"? Feel free to show me a thread or two where someone with the beta badge cited 4-5 different works in support of his point. (Edit: After the golden age of CMx1 that is :))
We betas have been asking you non-betas for days what the frequency was of the move in question. You non-betas have failed to give us betas an answer. Us betas were not asking you non-betas as a test. Us betas were asking you non-betas because us betas were trying to get a feel for the relevance and, in turn, the larger effect that modeling tanks driving over bocage would be. But none of you non-betas have answered that question to us betas. That would lead us betas to think that you non-betas, at the end of the day, don't know any more about it than us betas. And that perhaps leaving out the ability for tanks to drive through bocage was the right choice that The Creators made.
 

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Ok, I see where your head is at and you've mentioned one point a few times and I haven't picked up on it.

I don't mean to imply that moving a tank through the bocage should be quick, easy or even desirable (though the low bocage does seem to be over modelled in its resistance capabilities, but I'll leave that for now).

If it were included, hypothetically, I wouldn't envision that as a fast movement, like the wooden fence. It is certainly not depicted as such in other games. In ASL, infantry cross hedges at a cost double that of normal hedges while vehicles are prohibited from doing so with the exception of fully tracked AFVs. They do so (in forward motion only, reverse is prohibited) by being subject to under-belly hits, loss of side-skirts, and Bog. It costs them half their movement allotment for the turn, whatever it is (a turn being two minutes in ASL).

What would the CM equivalent be? Bog is bog - a chance of temporary immobilization which could lead to unbogging, or permanent immobilization. Loss of side skirts, underbelly hits, etc. seem like appropriate penalties, and taking one full minute to traverse the berm seems reasonable. If the opposing player saw the tank moving and had time to reposition anti-tank weapons to deal with the threat, well, it probably happened in real life, and yes, that is exactly why the Culin device was invented to begin with. To prevent the necessity of going over and through the hedges.

How often was it done? Yeide and other historians say not often; probably because it became very dangerous very quickly.

But then again, how often did troops race into machine gun fire? It would be a boring game if the program prohibited every poor decision with a message reading "real commanders never did that, try again." I'd much prefer a range of options rooted in reality, and have the game reward good tactics and sound decisions, rather than simply have the game code make those decisions for me, because some of the options are simply missing.

This probably reads harsher than I intend. And it may be a dead horse by now. I just find it interesting, as it is a key component of any treatment of the Battle of Normandy and I'm as curious as anyone as to what "actually" happened, and how close we are getting to seeing a recreation of it.
When you're allocating programing time and resources where do you spend them? If you (or anyone) told me that Shermans and Mark IVs drove routinely drove through bocage, constantly, but risked bogging when not in an enemies LOF and bogging and underbelly hits when in the LOF. Then I would agree that it should be modeled in CMBN and should have been in CMBO. But that's not what I'm hearing (reading). So does spending resources to code (a code that would then fall under a certain amount of scrutiny itself for both value of inclusion and accuracy) something that would very likely, in my opinion, be used in a very non-historical way sound like a good use of resources? Again, if someone said it occurred constantly or even often during a fire fight than i would think it would need to be modeled. But that isn't what I'm hearing. Otherwise "wouldn't that spoil game play, and make bocage a tactical irrelevancy?"
 

Michael Dorosh

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When you're allocating programing time and resources where do you spend them? If you (or anyone) told me that Shermans and Mark IVs drove routinely drove through bocage, constantly, but risked bogging when not in an enemies LOF and bogging and underbelly hits when in the LOF. Then I would agree that it should be modeled in CMBN and should have been in CMBO. But that's not what I'm hearing (reading). So does spending resources to code (a code that would then fall under a certain amount of scrutiny itself for both value of inclusion and accuracy) something that would very likely, in my opinion, be used in a very non-historical way sound like a good use of resources? Again, if someone said it occurred constantly or even often during a fire fight than i would think it would need to be modeled. But that isn't what I'm hearing. Otherwise "wouldn't that spoil game play, and make bocage a tactical irrelevancy?"
But your assumption is that it would be like coding something special. They already have code for a tank moving. They have code for bogging. They have code for moving through terrain such as fences. They have code for moving a tank up a hill. I don't write code so I don't know what the challenges are, but it seems to me that prohibiting a tank from entering a building or crossing a hedge is no more, or less, a deal than making a tank drive up a hill or through a fence.

In short, it just seems like a design choice, not a coding issue. But I honestly don't know.

I'll bring up my other example again. I don't expect many infantry squads ran straight on at machine guns in open ground. But it would be a dull game if I wasn't given the option of entering open ground with a "fast" command every time I was in the LOS of a known MG unit. As the player, I should have the option of doing all kinds of stupid stuff. That's how you get better at the game.

And I'm not unconvinced that tanks "never" did what is being described under fire.



Terence Cuneo's painting will always come to mind. I guess I could post pictures of comic books, too, but it's all I have at the moment.
 

Michael Dorosh

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Besides which, imagine the "hang time" on that Churchill as it crosses that bocage. How fun would it be, waiting to see if a German squad could bag the underbelly with a Panzerfaust in that situation? More fun than watching those tanks turn tail and start hunting for a gate. IMO.
 

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Besides which, imagine the "hang time" on that Churchill as it crosses that bocage. How fun would it be, waiting to see if a German squad could bag the underbelly with a Panzerfaust in that situation?
With my luck they'd hit every time so that would be no f'in fun at all.

More fun than watching those tanks turn tail and start hunting for a gate. IMO.
Yeah, i reckon we'll be using the reverse command an awful lot.
 

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A friend who has never posted here sent me this in an email today. It is especially the last few lines that are where my head is currently at. I don't mean offense by it but it does seem to sum up my current feeling on the subject..baring and new information. of course...
See why I didn't bother to go look up any references? Because it doesn't matter to anyone. Either you're okay with tanks not being able to drive over anything called "Bocage" or you're not. We know they could do it, at times, with difficulty and risk; and we know the game doesn't allow that. Whether it's a big deal or not is personal preference, but it's certainly not accurate.

-dale
 

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When you're allocating programing time and resources where do you spend them?
I guess it depends on what your game is called. If it's called Combat Mission: Battle for Cassino, then spending time and resources on getting all aspects of Norman hedgerows correct would be wasteful. If your game is called Combat Mission: Battle for Normandy, then maybe it's less so.

-dale
 

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See why I didn't bother to go look up any references? Because it doesn't matter to anyone. Either you're okay with tanks not being able to drive over anything called "Bocage" or you're not. We know they could do it, at times, with difficulty and risk; and we know the game doesn't allow that. Whether it's a big deal or not is personal preference, but it's certainly not accurate.

-dale
Very true, that is the real bottom line here.
 

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Isn't the inability to crash a hedgerow by a tank without cullins or dozer implements a very insignificant but very groggy point?

I think the real point is that Normandy was picked for the kick off of the new WW2 CMx2 game and that many have already pointed out that the hedgerow battle enactments may not provide the type of gaming that many of us (who loved the freewheeling mobile style) would like?

There are definately tactics that must be adhered to in the bocage, but it is also rather limiting in what can be done and how you may approach a map, especially on small maps (go straight down the road, or down one or two other possible avenues).

I am sure that scenarios will not consist mainly of bocage, as that would be a complete deathknell for the game's playability and interest right of the bat.

Cheers!

Leto
 

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[hirr]Leto;1393502 said:
Isn't the inability to crash a hedgerow by a tank without cullins or dozer implements a very insignificant but very groggy point?

I think the real point is that Normandy was picked for the kick off of the new WW2 CMx2 game and that many have already pointed out that the hedgerow battle enactments may not provide the type of gaming that many of us (who loved the freewheeling mobile style) would like?

There are definately tactics that must be adhered to in the bocage, but it is also rather limiting in what can be done and how you may approach a map, especially on small maps (go straight down the road, or down one or two other possible avenues).

I am sure that scenarios will not consist mainly of bocage, as that would be a complete deathknell for the game's playability and interest right of the bat.

Cheers!

Leto
I think you've pretty much nailed it there Leto.
 
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