Strong pre-sales may influence pushing back release date?

Michael Dorosh

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Or you could always do what I did and use the fast forwards button.
Or you could if the thing wasn't so ridiculously long. I thought of that, but it was on track for taking long minutes to load - and I have a cable hookup. Not worth my time. I let it run in the background and tried to come back to it later, but going back and forth in the video, there was still lots of buffering and crap.

For whatever record there is, I wasnt overly impressed with the video either, not because of length, more of content and what at times he seemed to be trying to achieve. At one point he kept running an AT team 5 feet back and forth around a building to attempt to kill a tank!
I thought it was very manufactured - I kept trying to see if men would run into buildings using the doors or if they were abstracted, and just as men would come close to a wall, the camera angle would shift. It may have been a coincidence, and as a preorder I am sure I will see soon enough. Then again, I only watched a few minutes.

Incidentally, "Barkmann's Corner" has been the name of I don't know how many paintings, not to mention ASL scenarios, etc. Nitpicky, I know. It's like "A Bridge Too Far" I guess, if you have a good title, you just go with it.

Why do you keep talking about "Friday"? Who said anything about Friday?
 

dalem

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No, it's because they can. In some cases that is.

It is interesting that Shogun 2, which is a polished game, is selling for $49.99 and IL2-Cliffs of Dover, which is very unpolished at the moment, is also selling for $49.99. Both games are new and in niche markets, much like CMN. I wonder why BF thinks CMN is worth the premium? It may be the steel box after all.
Buncha guys here have already ponied up.

-dale
 

Michael Dorosh

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I notice a lot of boardgame companies are now doing video previews; they are getting good response. Some are well done. I just can't be bothered to sit through 90% of the amateur stuff that finds its way to YouTube. My threshold is much higher I guess - bear in mind I have a degree in Communications. I'm not trying to sound elitist, but as someone who was trained to put together words for a living and has a little bit of experience in assembling marketing material, it's actually painful to sit through poorly produced stuff if I don't have to.

The video in question is not terrible. It's just not all that fun for me to watch someone else playing a game. I will have the actual product in my own hands soon enough, so perhaps I don't feel the same need as others who are still on the fence. If others get value watching someone else play a game for an hour and a half, I certainly don't think less of you - there are valuable things to learn from the video. I found some of the views from the snippets I watched interesting. It's just simply not for me.

What would have been more effective, or at least more interesting to me, would have been specific video clips of key interactions in the game, perhaps intercut with a situation map. But I don't really need a full-blown AAR to see how the game plays; just examples of what is different and how the game works - or doesn't. I'd like to see specific areas of concern addressed, and that will likely only happen once I have it in my hands. A video of even 10 minutes with closeups of animations and highlighting some new features - yes. 10 minutes of the guy rambling off his set up and mangling the Geman pronounciation of his units? Not so much. At the very least he might have rehearsed or read from a script. And then followed by 80 minutes of dizzying clicking back and forth with limited situational awareness and the urge to click the mouse and spin the camera because he's not really getting it focused on something you want to see...just aggravating by the time it is over.
 
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Michael Dorosh

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That's just the kind of thing Hitler would say. :)

-dale
Nah. He'd get Julius Streicher or Goebbels or Reifenstahl to say it for him. And even one of them would put together a more interesting video saying it because I'm positive it wouldn't be 80 minutes too long.
 

Mad Russian

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There were a few surprises in there that the CMx1 AI wouldn't have managed, like agressively flanking. CMSF has a timed scripted AI which can surprise you with its agressiveness sometimes (just like a human player can) but that just means it is programmed to rush you in certain places.

But yes, the AI in the video looked a little retarded, however I think its worth noting that the CMx2 AI is retarded in vastly different ways to CMx1.
Now that was a mouthful. Not sure of what.

1) The CMx1 AI can be made to be aggressive if reviews for scenarios are any indication.

2) Programming an AI is, well, programming the AI. Anyone can learn to do that. All AI's respond to something. Depending on how well the scenario designer learns what those triggers are and his skill level in applying them determines just how well the AI responds.

3) BS about being dumb as a box of rocks generally refers to how well the AI does in QB's where it has not been scripted.


If you think the that CMx2 AI will do any better in a QB setting you are going to be disappointed. If the AI is any less capable when it's scripted than it was in CMx1 the game is poorly coded. I don't believe either of those. Knowing how BFC allows for the AI to be used in CMx1 and what I know of the CMx2 game series I just don't see this. The AI will do fine in those instances where it's scripted to do what a human player would do. And it can be.

Good Hunting.

MR
 

Redwolf

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No, it's because they can. In some cases that is.

It is interesting that Shogun 2, which is a polished game, is selling for $49.99 and IL2-Cliffs of Dover, which is very unpolished at the moment, is also selling for $49.99. Both games are new and in niche markets, much like CMN. I wonder why BF thinks CMN is worth the premium? It may be the steel box after all.
I am OK with wargame companies charging more for the games. The low volume switches the math. Since I can't easily increase the number of people interested in wargames that's pretty much required right now. Of course it might lower the number of paying wargamers even more but that doesn't make a solution appear out of the blue.

Hmmm, maybe I should play my $125 Steel Beasts some day...
 

Mad Russian

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The timed AI script 'knows' nothing at all. All it is doing is reacting to what the scenario designer esimated the human player would (or might) be doing. But it will do what is in its selected script absolutely without regard to what the tactical situation in front of it is. If the players actions happen to match up to the fictional behaviour the AI script is fighting against, then all well and good, and the illusion of AI competence can be pretty good. If there is a serious mismatch, then you get fun events like AI defenders rushing out of their positions and getting slaughtered by the overwatch you just finished setting up, as they counterattack an attack that hasn't launched yet.

In short, I'm entirely with MD on this one. Maybe it is purely semantics (since we all know what the AI actually can and can't do I suspect), but once the battle has started, the AI is not respondingly strategically to the situation in the slightest, except by chance (or the the designer has been cunning in the scenario design).
You think so?

I don't.

I think that if the scenario designer gets forces to an area of the map you move into they will engage you. They won't just sit there. If they happen to be on your flank instead of meeting you face to face they will move forward and engage you. I think those same actions would come from a human gamer as well. If you put the AI in the right stance it can/will/does respond all on it's own.

Good Hunting.

MR
 

carl_render

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Also, though I noted the trees seemed to stay on the map despite the draw distance, close up terrain still draws at a pretty poor distance.
With all that was said on the BFC forums about draw distance being improved over CMSF, I am surprised that that the improvement is not more dramatic.

Although I don't doubt I will buy it eventually, and enjoy it, I expected a much bigger leap forward (I think at one time it was said there would be a completely new UI. Well there is no difference to the CMSF UI) than seems to have been delivered.

The video was perhaps a bad marketing idea. Played RT at such a high camera level probably doesn't do the game any favours.
 

Geordie

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You think so?

I don't.

I think that if the scenario designer gets forces to an area of the map you move into they will engage you. They won't just sit there. If they happen to be on your flank instead of meeting you face to face they will move forward and engage you. I think those same actions would come from a human gamer as well. If you put the AI in the right stance it can/will/does respond all on it's own.

Good Hunting.

MR
I'm not sure there MR. In my experience in CMSF the AI will do almost nothing. Fire up an early QB and you can drive your units right to the other side of the map and find your enemy just sitting in their set up zone.

Again in my experience the AI is good at the little things, reacting to fire etc, returning fire and some good other stuff.
 

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I couldn't bare to go through all the pages of posts today in the video thread at BFC but on page 21 someone hit a nerve with Steve about the graphics and he goes off.
 

dalem

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Oh that Steve, a calm, serene force for soundly promoting his own product, as always.

Hey, something I didn't get from the DARs I read - how are zooks handled for Yanks? Inherent? Weapons teams?

-dale
 
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