Any news?

[KuniworthII]

What's the point of this forum if there are no news on development? Or do developers need help with anything? Or are we just suppose to be suggesting things at random here? [&:]

[SeaMonkey]

Good luck with that Kuni! Come on, you know the drill, just like all the other editions, we're not going to get a lot feedback with the specifics of what is being debated for inclusion into the new release.

I've made, as others have, multitudes of suggestions over the years, with very little discussion excluding the one "supply" thread from awhile back, so I'm not expecting anything out of the ordinary as far as the exchange of ideas.

On the upside, we know, as history has proven, that Hubert, Bill, and Al will always listen to positive upgrades of the current design and any ideas making "the cut" will eventually find their way into the game in some manner.

Hope this helps![:'(]

[Fintilgin]

It would be nice to have an occasional update or trickle of info. I like how Paradox does weekly dev diaries on upcoming titles and expansions. It would be nice to get something like that maybe once or twice a month. Not a huge, time consuming info dump, but just something like a few paragraphs talking about the philosophy behind a system in the game or an update on what's being worked on.

I think building up a positive buzz and keeping people checking back regularly for news can be a boost to the product in the long run.

[Erik Rutins]

Hi guys,

The interest is greatly appreciated. It's too early for us to provide details, but let me give you a more general update. We all met Hubert in person at last year's Historicon where we had our big press event and developer get together. Since that time, we've been working closely together on SC3, but we are still at a pre-alpha stage. A lot of great work has already been done and is still ongoing under the hood to "prepare the battlefield" so that Strategic Command 3 can take the series to the next level.

Today, we reviewed map progress (it's coming along very well) and discussed some of the gameplay decisions that are related to the map work. We also discussed community interaction. We all want to give you guys more information, but from past experience if you start sharing too early it can take too much time away from development and also leave customers without enough information to really get where you're going. The end result is that we can't go into more detail just yet, but we're going to do our best to keep you all more up to date on progress.

Regards,

- Erik

[SeaMonkey]

Erik, how about the team designates a "developer's liaison" for interaction with the forum community? We all understand that nothing is carved in stone but some of us have been with Hubert since the initial offering of SC back in 2002 and have provided many suggestions and continue to play the present iterations every day. It would be very interesting to the SC patrons to be included in the "thought processes" of creation, after all many heads are better than a few, especially those that are very familiar with history and current configurations.

I would suggest Al or perhaps one of the beta testers that have been in close association over the years, there are many to choose from. In this manner, Hubert and Bill can wrestle with the coding and mechanics without interruption and still the community can get expeditious insight of how things are going. Take a page out of Command Ops, how Dave(Arjuna) keeps his many fans in the loop about the progress of Panther creations.

Really, critical thinking concludes there are many advantages to this type of format with little downside.

[Hubert Cater]

Hi SeaMonkey, Kuni, Fintilgin,

We can understand the feeling here and while it is not wrong in any way, as Erik mentioned we really are knee deep in development at the moment and much of it is based on all the feedback and ideas we've received over the years. Essentially SC patron inclusion in the "thought process" has in our minds already been completed and now we are just busy working hard on developing/completing the game and crossing items off of our lists.

At the same time, it is not to say we will not have more information to share, we are just honestly not quite ready for that step at the moment, but rest assured we'll have more information in due course.

Hope this helps,
Hubert

[SeaMonkey]

Fair enough Hubert, how about wading in to waist deep? [;)] Seriously though, any comment about Al's suggestion of strike numbers and efficiency for larger combat formations? I was hoping that something like that could be extended to the air unit formations, especially if there is an "airfield" rule. A feature like this could even the disparity of the Pacific(smaller) deployments vs the European theater.

They would all be 10 strength at creation(build Q choice), whereas the Pacific type fromations could deploy in areas of less supply efficiency(losing greater strength and readiness per mission and having a less strike capability). The larger more complex European deployments could cause greater damage(with more strikes) and taking less strength losses as well as maintaining greater cohesion through the strike sequence. Of course those larger deployments would have limited abilities to rebase with perhaps a dependency on a hex/tile supply level of 8 or more(HQ presence).

Again, if there were perhaps 3 levels of organization per air unit, then a basic breakdown and build up scheme could be used to accomplish the various logistical conditions dictated by the "airfield" rules.

[SeaMonkey]

I have another question Hubert. I'm wondering, for the sake of posterity, looking back on the question of rhombi vs hexes, given the chance to reconsider, would you again choose to go with tiles for SC2?

[Hubert Cater]

Hi SeaMonkey,

As tempting as it is to start wading in waist deep we're going to stick with the plan on our end and will have much more to share once the time is right so that in the meantime we can focus on getting the game to everyone as soon as possible [:)]

For tiles and hexes, at the time tiles felt like the right decision as we wanted to hopefully expand the appeal beyond traditional wargamers. Was it a risk? Sure but since hexes are much more common today for even non wargamer type games, it was a very easy decision to move back to hexes without even considerations of hindsight.

Hope this helps,
Hubert

[SeaMonkey]

Thanks Mr. C, I was kind of thinking I'm going to miss the tiles as I was playing the other night. Never could identify with the naysayers as the advantages of a more concentrated attack configuration seemed to compensate for the exclusion of stacking. Hexes.....Tiles....doesn't matter as I always play with the grid off anyway and only toggle it "on" when doing a specific search pattern counting the Axis sub possibilities.

Anyway, you guys take your time, Global is so good compared to everything else, it's going to take awhile to exhaust my enthusiasm.

[Fintilgin]

But I'm bad at being patient! [:D]

Well, I hope you get someone like the guy who did War in the East's map to do the map. So pretty.

Also, please try for Steam Greenlight as an option. I think SC is 'beer and pretzels' enough to appeal to a wider audience if you put it in front of them!

Finally, I think I mentioned this before, but especially if you can get it on Steam, please think about maybe doing something like Crusader Kings II, where the 'base' game gets all the updates and engine improvements and additional scenarios (SC3 Pacific/Global/Barbarosa) are add-on DLCs. I think it's attractive to new players and, frankly, it's a little exasperating to have 7+ SC2 directories (Strategic Command II: Battle and Bullets, Strategic Command II: Invasion Luxumbourg, Strategic Command II: Hexkrieg, etc etc.) [:'(]