Matrix Games and Australian Design Group Seal Deal for World In Flames!

[Endur]

Good luck!!!

I'm one of the testers for the current version of cWiF. Here are my comments.

Some suggestions:
1st)
a)Think Multiplayer, either by saving/email, or collaboration technology.
b) Make the AI a secondary objective and release the game before the AI is released, and then release either a fix with the final AI or another version with the AI. WIF is a very complex game with 100's of options. The AI will need to understand how those options interact, and that is very, very hard. Much more difficult than writing AI for chess. WIF is literally the most complex game that I have ever seen. More of a simulation than a game.

2nd)
a) Implement more options.
b)You should be able to save the game anywhere you are in the game (current CWIF only allows you to save in certain phases).
c)All of the different game sets should be turn onable or turn offable (i.e. Sea in Flames, Plane in Flames, etc.), currently Sea in Flames and Plane in Flames are always on by default.
d) Some of the options should be changable while the game is in progress (carpet bombing, etc.)
e) Allow players to easily be able to advance the clock, i.e. I want to start a game in January 1944 or move a current game from Jan 1940 to Jan 1944... currently there is no way to advance the clock other than playing through a turn.
f) allow all of the scenarios to be open-ended. i.e. you can keep on playing after victory/defeat

3rd)
a) The graphics are old tech, but they work.

4th)
a)The primary issue most people have with the current beta game is not enough implemented options and misc bugs.

[pasternakski]

Make the AI a secondary objective and release the game before the AI is released, and then release either a fix with the final AI or another version with the AI.

Very, very bad idea. First, you've got to get all of the "sales punch" you can out of the initial release. Second, no matter how much you try to ignore the fact, more than 70 percent of wargames (the last survey I saw was in 2001 in Computer World, and, yes, it did exclude RTS and gaming console games), both cardboard and computer, are played solitaire. By releasing this game without an AI opponent, you screw yourself out of most of your sales.

I say do a thorough job, test it completely, then release a finished product.

One last problem to mention. If you design a game so that everything works for purposes of PBEM or hotseat then try to piggyback an AI onto it, you are likely to have to make so many changes in order for the AI to work that you have made the original design obsolete - much to the chagrin, no doubt, of those who bought it.

[Les_the_Sarge_9_1]

I concur, I am not excited by an AI, but do the game as a complete project not in pieces.

I am not the only one wanting the game, so my needs are not the be all and end all either. Address the needs of all the wargamers simultaneously if possible. Sell to everyone, not just some of us.

[Les_the_Sarge_9_1]

(hmm correction... ok files are gone as of this evening hehe guess that answers that , I plan on discontinuing fretting over that matter for those that missed the files, well ya missed the files).
I will consider the files being pulled a request to not circulate them (unless told otherwise).

Want contrast, here is the current competition for global warfare in board gaming.

A3R from Prados.
http://www.avalanchepress.com/game3R.php

A World at War (combines all of the Third Reich genesis of the game into a global design).
http://www.aworldatwar.com/

Warplanner lets you play A3R or A World at War much the way VASL lets you play other board games.

I am looking forward to getting World in Flames for my computer.

[Fallschirmjager]

How deep does WiF go?

Is it as complex as HOI?
Or is it like a giant SC by battlefront (I hope so...A SC covering the whole world would be alot of fun for PBEM)

[Endur]

I can't think of a single "complex" wargame that had a decent AI on the first release.

Have you ever played WiF? A full game of it? With 4 to 7 players?

Very, very bad idea. First, you've got to get all of the "sales punch" you can out of the initial release. Second, no matter how much you try to ignore the fact, more than 70 percent of wargames (the last survey I saw was in 2001 in Computer World, and, yes, it did exclude RTS and gaming console games), both cardboard and computer, are played solitaire. By releasing this game without an AI opponent, you screw yourself out of most of your sales.

I say do a thorough job, test it completely, then release a finished product.

One last problem to mention. If you design a game so that everything works for purposes of PBEM or hotseat then try to piggyback an AI onto it, you are likely to have to make so many changes in order for the AI to work that you have made the original design obsolete - much to the chagrin, no doubt, of those who bought it.

[pasternakski]

I can't think of a single "complex" wargame that had a decent AI on the first release.

Have you ever played WiF? A full game of it? With 4 to 7 players?

I can't either, and I also can't think of one that had a decent AI even on the LAST release. All I'm saying is that Matrix/2by3 have to take the market realities into account in order to ensure staying alive. I would hate to see a world without them at this point...

The club I used to belong to played the he11 out of WiF. We've kind of drifted on to other things and locations, though. We liked it because it had more "meat" than 3R and was less cumbersome than the SPI "monsters."

[Les_the_Sarge_9_1]

Fallschirmjager, World in Flames is most certainly NOT HoI.

Among it's many qualities, it is a turn based recreation of actual history.
You will NOT be taking over the world with idiotic nations that never had any real chance of even being noticed in the Second World War.

It uses economic actions, diplomatic actions as well as production of military assets in a routine turn. It employs air naval and land combat forces. You the player are required to make intelligent decisions about the progress of a war that spans the whole globe. You are not forced to play it against the clock though.

It is more or less a hard core wargamers grand strategy wargame.

When it is released, odds are no matter what Matrix Games and the Aussy guys do, it will get slammed for being "antigue". So what, some of us are not into 3d real time stupidity.

My best advice for those wantintg to know what this game will be like, look into finding out what the board game is like. If this is done right, the computer game will be a faithful recreation of the board game.

It can be done.

[Von Rom]

Outstanding news

While the AI may be tricky, a lot of problems can be over come by giving gamers the tools to write in events, and to tweak every parameter of the game.

It would benefit everyone concerned if every facet of the game can be altered - hopefully there will be scenario, event and unit editors. Civ2 had these 7 years ago.

Allow us, the gamers, to get our hands dirty, and actually dig into every component of the game system.

This would ensure that many of the game short-comings can be corrected.

Cheers!

[Fred98]

This is great news.

we are in wargame nirvana at present

[Xelvonar]

Well, poor Chris Marinacci is off the job. It was a valiant effort, but probably too big for one person. But I was worried that I'd have to learn an entirely new interface from the current (now extinct) beta.

But as I thought about it, I realized that Matrix Games should start from scratch and build an entirely new interface. The one on the old beta was kinda clunky. And so (not that I'm much of a programmer, but from what little I know) I suggest, someone impertinently:

Start From Scratch.

More power to you guys. I've waited a long time; I can wait longer for a quality product. Don't rush it. I have bad memories of Master of Orion III.

Besides, I can bide my time and play Empires in Arms on my PC soon. Yeah!

[Les_the_Sarge_9_1]

I have said some fairly glowing comments recently where cWiF is concerned, but I have to acknowledge, I have no fond memories of the cWiF interface either. And I recall, that was one of the more common points that were brought up when anyone wanted to comment at all on it.

I have avoided some games in the past, even when I knew the game itself was good, merely because playing it was to much of a chore.

I play Strategic Command mainly because I think it has perhaps the best wargame interface I have ever seen. It is with a word, "easy".
One click accesses all the other menus off to the side. Giving unit commands is blindingly simple.
The game might have quirks, but ease of operation isn't one of them.

Steel Panthers has all it's commands easily accessed from a single array of easy to use commands. The rest of the monitor is available to just playing the game.

That's what I like.

[Charles2222]

Very, very bad idea. First, you've got to get all of the "sales punch" you can out of the initial release. Second, no matter how much you try to ignore the fact, more than 70 percent of wargames (the last survey I saw was in 2001 in Computer World, and, yes, it did exclude RTS and gaming console games), both cardboard and computer, are played solitaire. By releasing this game without an AI opponent, you screw yourself out of most of your sales.

I say do a thorough job, test it completely, then release a finished product.

One last problem to mention. If you design a game so that everything works for purposes of PBEM or hotseat then try to piggyback an AI onto it, you are likely to have to make so many changes in order for the AI to work that you have made the original design obsolete - much to the chagrin, no doubt, of those who bought it.

Most fascinating pasternaski. I've used that 70% to no end when I cared to comment on this AI subject, and now I know somebody who saw the same thing I did. It's good to know I didn't imagine it. I agree with you conclusions entirely. I also find that there is often a direct conflict in quality of games due to the multi-player vs. solo aspect, as too many that dip into multi-play inevitably get dumbed down for sake of 'balance'.

[Von Rom]

I agree with many of the comments here:

1) Wargamers do not want to battle an interface; they would rather plan strategy using an elegant and easy to use game system. Clicking through lots of menu screens is not fun; it's a chore. The game should be easy to learn but difficult to master.

For example, Steel Panthers (most incarnations) has a streamlined interface. This is good. Master of Orion III was a spread-sheet nightmare of menu clicks. This is bad.

I would also suggest the use of lots of single, intuitive hot keys that can be "re-mapped". I should be able to click on "B" to bring up the build screen, rather than having to be a contortionist trying to click "shift-ctrl-alt-v" all at the same time.

2) The game should be geared for the single player in mind. Most gamers still play solitaire. It should have a solid AI. However, the game should be customizable, having all the tools necessary (such as scenario, unit and event editors) to allow gamers to tweak and mold the game into a challenging, evolving wargame.

3) When board game rules and gameplay collide, then gameplay should win out every time. Convoluted and twisted game mechanics to allow for a few rules, will only frustrate, not entertain.

In the end, the game should be fun to play. The game mechanics and interface should aid in that enjoyment. The graphics should be easy on the eyes, and from a glance, should convey their intended function.

I'll be looking forward to seeing how the game develops.

Cheers!

[IronManBeta]

I agree with many of the comments here:

In the end, the game should be fun to play. The game mechanics and interface should aid in that enjoyment. The graphics should be easy on the eyes, and from a glance, should convey their intended function.

Cheers!

Every game should have a superb user interface of course, but beauty is often in the eye of the beholder. People all react differently, and often without much consideration. Most kludgy interfaces get that way because they are trying to satisfy too many different stakeholders in the design process, many of whom give scant thought at all to the UI.

I write software in my day job and I have frequently fought to establish the quality of the user interface as a high priority. It is fiendishly hard to do well though! Just because something sounds like a good idea to the programmer doesn't mean anyone else will like it. There is a fairly humiliating process to be gone through before the ultimate user interface emerges. How well I know that it is easy to produce a hard-to-use interface, and very hard to produce an easy-to-use one. Like you, I wish more people paid attention to it!

Your point about customizing the interface to a degree by remapping keystrokes is a good one. If you can't have one perfect UI for everyone, at least let them individualize it a bit in a way that is more to their liking. Food for thought for game designers everywhere....

Cheers, Rob.

[Les_the_Sarge_9_1]

I think I will support Von Rom on boardgame vs gameplay. Might seem odd for me to say that, but some things easy in a boardgame just won't fly on a computer game.

I am more concerned that a decent wargame come out of this, than a perfect recreation of the boardgame. If the absolute recreation kills the practicality of doing it, there won't have been any point in doing it at all in the first place.

To illustrate exactly what I am saying here.

Some games (boardgames) require the player to move the unit a hex, then look at opponent and ask, going to do anything about that?, no ok. Then you move another hex, going to do anything about that? And so on and so on. That just won't work in a computer game, and I know it.

And that will mean some elements of the original game might have to be altered.

For Instance, Strategic Command allows me to hit a unit with an air unit. If the opponent has an air unit in range, it defends automatically, no decision making process. This is not perfect of course, because some moves/attacks will just be sucker moves/attacks occasionally.
But I can't see a way to fix that. It might not be important enough to want to.

[Endur]

Boardgame vs. Computer game is an interesting issue.

On the one hand, you have to ask who is the subject matter expert, the person who wrote the boardgame or the person who is writing the computer game translation of the boardgame (or for that matter, the novelist vs. the movie script writer). In almost every case, the subject matter expert is the person who did the original work (we don't want to see NUKEs and Robots in the LOTR movie, no matter how cool the script writer thinks those items would be). And so the new translated work should be as close as possible to the original work.

On the other hand, the original author wasn't focused on the new media. So there can be things in the computer game enviornment that the board game creator never considered or it wasn't feasible for a board game. So you can add in new stuff (graphics, etc.). A full map of China and the USA instead of the minimal map that comes with the boardgame, etc.

Additionally, there are some phases that are hardly ever used in the board game. You would probably want options to turn those phases off so you don't have to continually "click through" those phases. i.e. Combat Air Patrol, etc.

Finally, there is playability. Given the limits of AI in computer games, I play most single player strategy wargames once or twice. Once I beat it as one side, I try the other side, then I put the game away and never play it again because it is no longer challenging without massive cheating by the AI side (i.e. greater resources, more units, etc.). A multi-player game on the other hand, can be played many times over and over again, because you have different opponents and every game is differnent and challenging.

I think I will support Von Rom on boardgame vs gameplay. Might seem odd for me to say that, but some things easy in a boardgame just won't fly on a computer game.

[James Taylor]

You are right on Sarge, I've been a big proponent of the "option to intercept" in SC since day 1, rest assured it will be there in SC2. As far as your opponents ability to interact with your present move and combat phase, I believe that could be handled by a list of optional (automatically activated) choices for the unphasing player to select for his units that are elligible to interact. This of course would be done in his (unphasing player) active turn. Take a page out of the HttR book or better, maybe "Battlefields", there has got to be a way. Rob definitely hit the nail on the head for CPU games the interface is the key. I'm sorry Sarge, but I just can't go back to the board games, as much as I loved them, in my life they're past history, and the accidents with the die counters......count me out.

[Spickle]

Never played WiF but a CPU version would definitely interest me. I would prefer a realtime version similar to Hearts of Iron.

[Les_the_Sarge_9_1]

Endur I don't understand you

I just finished playing a game of SC, or rather I just quit playing that particular campaign heeh. The Russians just attacked me dang it hehe (I clearly messed something up because it's supposed to be me attacking them ).

I only just took Norway (thanks to mangled planning) and Yugoslavia just won't frickin Die.
That and I think the Brit unit in Suez in indestructible somehow hehe.

It's May 41 by the way.

Ok clearly I need to get better at my game, but the idea I won't play it the second I win, that seems to me absurd.

I just can't understand the "I beat that game" crowd.

I don't play wargames "just to beat them".

Not sure I fully understand your point on the man who made the original and the man who made the software comments though (at least in respects to WiF). I thought they were one in the same, more or less, or at least it is more or less the same company that makes the board game making the computer version (am I totally wrong there?).
I think your examples Nukes in LotR was a bit extreme hehe

I think it will be nice, that the games map will be a unified singular creation though. Getting all my maps to mate up was always a hassle. And being able to see the whole globe might be nice if possible.
I hope they don't fret to long over graphics for counters though.

I saw a post over at Wargamer talking about how a reviewer totally slagged the unit symbols for Korsun Pocket as being to hard to understand (amongst otgher comments thatruined his credibility as a whole). I guess he isn't a wargamer.

I have been using Nato symbology in wargames since the 70s.
I am actually more comfortable with a Nato symbol that a cute animated unit icon.
I won't cry if they add a bit of spice to the units, but anyone claiming they can't understand the units, clearly isn't a wargamer, or has only been one for a couple of months.
That reviewer was about the most wrongest choice of individual to comment on wargame design in my opinion.

I of course don't want the game to stray so far from being the boardgame, that there is no point in using the same name, but I won't be capable of cursing out the designer for being unable to mimic something that is normally a "physical article" and not a "program".

I like boardgames for many reasons. I like computer games for numerous reasons as well.
In some cases, you can't make a boardgame do what a computer game can do. But equally, there are somethings a computer game can't do what a boardgame can do.