Panzer Command: Kharkov

[Rickie]

EDIT :

Original post was made after long day of unreasonable folks making unreasonable requests on my time.

I've now relaxed, and had my "attitude" adjustment. So inital post is now history.

Rick

 

[Poor Old Spike]

Well - At this point I have to say I hope Matrix stops listening to POS..

No problemo muchacho, I'm not twisting their arm..
Another well-known games company didn't want to listen to me last year when I offered to playtest and help develop one of their releases (CMSF) for free, (they mumbled something about my 'attitude' whatever that means) and its now appearing in bargain bins for peanuts less than a year after its release because nobody wants it..
My guess is they only wanted yes-men playtesters and they knew I'm certainly not one of them..

PS- I used to be a paid tester/developer for CCS Games a zillion years ago, I been around..
Hey maybe I should charge Matrix for my services,or at least try to talk them into sending me cash for a decent monitor so's I can review their stuff in astounding depth ha ha ha..

CCS - http://www.clive.nl/publishers/ccs/

 

[Michael Dorosh]

No problemo muchacho, I'm not twisting their arm.. Another well-known games company didn't want to listen to me last year when I offered to playtest and help develop one of their releases (CMSF) for free, (they mumbled something about my 'attitude' whatever that means)

All the beta testers on CMSF (I was one of them) were volunteers, so your offer wasn't that special - they had a pool of hundreds if not thousands who would have made the same offer, so you had nothing that they couldn't have gotten elsewhere from just about anyone.

I don't know what their beef with you was specifically, but the discussions in the beta forum were much more collaborative and scholarly than the discussions I've seen you take part in here. I think to be honest most of the talk would have been modern historical stuff well over your head rather than game-play related stuff. No insult intended, but you wouldn't have been a good fit, from what I can tell. They were game design and modern-day history guys, not gamey ladder players.

You going to send a turn tonight before bedtime?

My guess is they only wanted yes-men playtesters and they knew I'm certainly not one of them..

I can say I grew to be not much of a yes-man on the public forums post-release, which did not make me popular with certain members of the beta team, but I can honestly say that I don't believe I was ever in danger of being thrown out of the CM:SF beta team for that reason. Whether or not you would have been, I can't say either. I don't recall your name ever coming up. They were too busy talking about the game - gossiping about people who were banned from the forum for multiple personalities was pretty low on the priority list. :laugh:

 

[Rickie]

EDIT: I need to stop posting when I've had a bad day -

But theyr'e good folks and if fixing things for you gets more folks to play PC K then thats fine.

Rick

 

[jwb3]

Maybe in the next version, Panzer Command: Operation Treechopper.

But I also think a CM-like cyclic hotkey/function would be better.

I agree. Being able to toggle between 100% and 10% is worlds better than no toggle at all, but being able to cycle through 0% => 10-30% => 100% would be even better.

CM:BO has more like four levels of tree cover (I think they're None, Sparse, Moderate, and Heavy) which is probably one more than it needs to.

Now, the reason it had so many levels (IIRC) was because not everyone's processor could handle 100% tree cover when it first came out. The fact that it also solved this "hiding the action" problem is most likely completely incidental. But that doesn't change the fact that solving the problem improved the game!

I certainly wouldn't expect PC:K to imitate every detail of how the CM series handles stuff like this, just to make the CM grogs happy -- but I'd sure like it to learn every lesson CM has to offer.


John

 

[Poor Old Spike]

All the beta testers on CMSF (I was one of them) were volunteers, so your offer wasn't that special..

Ah, the old 'POS is nothing special' thing..
At least it means the flopping of CMSF was nothing to do with me..
Yeah I know I'm nothing special (sniffle) just an ex-professional wargame developer and military analyst, been playing an assortment of computer wargames for 25 years, veteran of 700 CM ladder games, triple CM-ladder leader, ex CM Training Instructor, ex Tournament Manager, holder of WPC tank Combat Badges, Infantry Assault Badges, Ostfront Winter 41/42 Ribbon, Blitzkrieg Silver Achievement Award, Gamesquad Service Medal..
PS- any day now I expect to receive the Klingon Star of Honor..

 

[Michael Dorosh]

Ah, the old 'POS is nothing special' thing..
At least it means the flopping of CMSF has was nothing to do with me..
Yeah I know I'm nothing special (sniffle) just an ex-professional wargame developer and military analyst, been playing an assortment of computer wargames for 25 years, veteran of 700 CM ladder games, triple CM-ladder leader, ex CM Training Instructor, ex Tournament Manager, holder of WPC tank Combat Badges, Infantry Assault Badges, Ostfront Winter 41/42 Ribbon, Blitzkrieg Silver Achievement Award, Gamesquad Service Medal, and any day now I expect to receive the Klingon Star of Honor..

Hey, don't blame me for CM:SF, I was just a lowly scenario designer...that "testing" stuff was a pain in the ass.... Frankly, the guys who actually play these things give me the creeps. :freak:

But the truly disappointing thing is that when I go down to Tim Horton's with my CM:SF box under my arm and wave my NDA in front of them, they still make me pay full price for a donut and an Earl Grey. Like they have no respect for my status or something!

Do you wear your medals to dinner, or just carry them with you in a velvet lined showcase? I'd considered getting NUMBER ONE BETA TESTER tattooed on my forehead but could never decide if I should get the letters left to right, or mirrored so that I could read them when I was shaving.

 

[Poor Old Spike]

Actually I'm thinking of having a "Combat Mission Ladder Leader" motif printed on a tee-shirt so I can strut around town and into game shops wearing it..
I've already got my "Rugged Defense CM No 1" silver trophy at home, carefully positioned so it catches the eye of guests the instant they walk in and becomes a central talking point for the rest of the evening..

But seriously, I know I'm nothing special, my late dad used to tell me often enough, for example as a kid I overheard him saying to my mam about me -"He's nutty! No don't laugh, I really do mean it, he wastes all his pocket money on silly plastic model aeroplanes then hangs 'em on string from his bedroom ceiling in full view of the street, I dread to think what the neighbours are saying about him, when's he going to start saving his money instead?"

I got my own back though, I filled his radio with sand from a builders yard down the road and enjoyed his bewildered expression when he tried to tune in the Clay-Liston fight but all he got were electrical crackles and splutters. He he he
Then the sand began pouring out in torrents like an Indiana Jones temple and he freaked, "I don't believe it!" he yelled, "its full of bleddy sand, how the hell did that get in there?" Needless to say, I innocently denied all knowledge of it..

He's been dead now 25 years but I wonder what he'd say if he knew I still buy models, I got Amelia Earharts red Lockheed Vega last year and have currently got my eye on a cool B-25 Doolittle Raider down the model shop..

 

[Michael Dorosh]

Dads are a funny thing. I've been buying collectors games and magazines for the past year in hopes of publishing a book on the history of tactical wargames. Proudly showed off my 4,000 dollar tax refund cheque on the way to the bank to mine yesterday. All I got in response was a sarcastic "wow, think of how much of it you can waste on kid's games."

Ironically enough, he built plastic models when I was young; I remember a dozen airplanes hanging from my ceiling when I was 5 or so.

But it would be silly to let these minor irritants transform our lives. Or, for that matter, to let our hobbies do so. If you do start wearing your medals, or start talking to your trophy - or worse, hearing your trophy talk back to you - you'll know the day has come!

 

[Poor Old Spike]

..If you do start wearing your medals, or start talking to your trophy - or worse, hearing your trophy talk back to you - you'll know the day has come!

Funny you should say that mate, I can never look at a photo of my late dad without hearing his voice running through my head-"Get out and look for a job, they're crying out for people at the glue factory....

 

[Redwolf]

The topic drift of this thread is better than the drift of Louisiana trucker after a roadhouse visit

 

[[hirr]Leto]

The topic drift of this thread is better than the drift of Louisiana trucker after a roadhouse visit

The Dorosh / POS dialogues are some of the funniest (no relation to witty, btw) things I have read on the boards for a long time... but probably not for the reasons thought.


One of the greatest things about POS before he was tamed by the Devil was that you could often see the gaping crack in his skull that had the little viewpoint into his world of purple skies, pixies, grand posing statues of Mick on a large warhorse and nude pictures of Maggie Thatcher.

I for one miss that insanity.

: )

Cheers!

Leto

 

[Poor Old Spike]

....grand posing statues of Mick...

I am the Polossus...

"Why, man, he doth bestride the narrow world
Like a Colossus; and we petty men
Walk under his huge legs, and peep about
To find ourselves dishonourable graves"
-Shakesp's J.Caesar

 

[KG_Jag]

I don't know about that Spike. But you are certainly "something else."

 

[Poor Old Spike]

..I for one miss that insanity..

Pop in and visit me here mate, that's me sitting in the cubicle at the back half-naked wearing a crown, and you'll no doubt recognise other CM players here too, I think that's Randy sitting halfway down the stairs with the dog yapping at him, it'd better watch out or he'll ban it..

 

[Poor Old Spike]

I'll post close-ups of all the PC Kharkov tanks, here's the first batch of pics-


T-60

T-34/76

Stug short75

Panther

 

[Poor Old Spike]

KV-1

Ferdinand

Pz III long50

BT-7

 

[Poor Old Spike]

PzIV short75

PzII

T-34/85

PzIII short50

 

[Michael Dorosh]

Spike, why are you posting those really awful looking closeups?

You know they are all lo-res, right?

Why not get some really nice hi-res mods installed?

Or better yet....send a turn. :laugh:

(Not to criticize the art team at Matrix - I watch the battlefield from up high, and really don't care to come down and count rivets. The artwork is perfectly fine at the altitude I look at the game from. I also realize that for those that do care, there are all kinds of talented dudes out there probably frantically working away as we speak. I know they did for CM at any rate.)

 

[Poor Old Spike]

T-70

PzIV long75

T-26

Pz38