The future of Command Ops

[dazkaz15]

ORIGINAL: Bletchley_Geek

There's an alternative, of course. Which is to admit that Command Ops is just not a sustainable project, which has succeeded technologically but failed economically. And here I'm talking about the revenue it's generating being enough to cover a decent salary for Dave (I'm not alone in doing what I do for Command Ops for free, backing this project "in specie") we just need to accept it and move to other endeavors. A bit like Charles Chaplin in Limelight, perhaps it's time to wake up and realize we don't have a public big enough to justify the effort.

What do you reckon guys? Is it Limelight or (controversial) new development and business models?

I'm starting my own thread on this as I have quite a lot to say on the matter, with images, and text, but it will take me a while as I don't have much time at the moment, so please bare with me.

I totally believe in games future not just as a game, but as an educational tool.

Over the next few posts (might take me a while), I hope to show you some ideas that I hope will increase sales for you.

I'm going to start by saying something controversial, and hope it doesn't upset anyone [:'(]

The presentation of the product sucks [:(]

It doesn't drag you into the game like it should, and give you a reason to progress, and lacks reward for doing well. This is taken from a gamers point of view.

There is a real missed opportunity here to present the product as an educational tool, and I hope to explain more on this later with images, and ideas. This is taken from a Historians point of view.

All this is because of the initial welcoming screen, after loading the game, and can be changed fairly easily, and indeed should be.

Now I have upset you all I have to go back to work, I'll sort out the next post when I get home again. [;)]

[dazkaz15]

First I'm going to list the things that I think are done badly before going on to explain some ideas of mine that I hope you will think are a big improvement.

On opening the New Game menu, the new player is presented with an uninspiring list, in alphabetical order, of the scenarios, with no real idea where to start, or where they fit into the big picture.

[dazkaz15]

Tucked away in the Annex of the manual is a more helpful list, and an explanation on the current situation that goes some way to improving the picture.

But does anyone know of anybody that reads the manual before playing a game?
I don't.

more to follow later ...

[dazkaz15]

What I am about to propose is a Historical campaign opening screen.

Don't be alarmed as I know this has been suggested before, but I hope to show you a way it can be done without the need to change any of the scenarios as they are now.
All that will need to be changed is the opening screen, and the way they are presented.

There will be NO need to alter any of the stats of the existing scenarios as the player progresses though the campaign.
This would be great for Command ops X, where units will gain experience from previous battles, and formations can be carried forward, but I understand how much work this would entail.

What I hope to propose here is a way that there can be a campaign without the need for this.
I also hope to show a way that it can be presented that will double as a Historical educational tool as well, for those interested in the historical locations, the ebb and flow of the historical battles, and the locations of the formations involved in the battles.

I'm only addressing Battle of the Bulge here, but it can, and should be done, I think, for all official releases of scenario packs, covering different areas of operations.

I hope I'm not hyping this up to much, as I could fall flat on my face here [:D]

more to follow ...

[decaro]

I actually did read the manual and still have my annotated and highlighted hard copy for 2003's HttR that stopped at Annex F.
Thanks for showing me that there's now an Annex G!

[Werewolf13]

Ummmm...

do you know me DazKaz? Cuz' you described me as a player to a T.

Some good ideas there.

Some games just suck you in, one more turners where before you know it one more turn or just 5 minutes more turns into 20 more turns or 2 more hours.

Command doesn't have that right now because as you say the only reward is victory. Don't know when it happened or even how but for gamers today that's no longer enough to keep 'em coming back.

Keep the ideas coming - so Command can keep on going.

[wodin]

More chrome is needed..individual unit logs of who it fought, how long for it's kills (and units the kills where from) and it's casualties and what enemy unit caused the most..add in citations and medals. Have leader casualties aswell. This would add so much to immersion and add\create a narrative.

I'd also like to see fox holes and trenches appear when a unit is digging in and manage to turn buildings into rubble. Also see craters appear aswell. Make the map more dynamic.

[decaro]

ORIGINAL: wodin

More chrome is needed..individual unit logs of who it fought, how long for it's kills (and units the kills where from) and it's casualties and what enemy unit caused the most..add in citations and medals. Have leader casualties aswell. This would add so much to immersion and add\create a narrative ...

I second the above, maybe even commanding officer promotions/demotions.

[dazkaz15]

ORIGINAL: Joe D.

ORIGINAL: wodin

More chrome is needed..individual unit logs of who it fought, how long for it's kills (and units the kills where from) and it's casualties and what enemy unit caused the most..add in citations and medals. Have leader casualties aswell. This would add so much to immersion and add\create a narrative ...

I second the above, maybe even commanding officer promotions/demotions.

I'm getting to that [;)]

It needn't be done from within the scenario though, as it can be done from the Campaign map.
I hope to elaborate on that later.

The image below would be the opening screen of the campaign.
Please bare in mind these are just quick knock-ups for the purpose of showing the concept.

They would need to be polished, maybe even completely re designed to fit into the new interface, that would have dragable, re-sizable, and dock-able info panels.

It would show a large scale map of the entire campaign area, to go with the text describing the offensive build up and objectives.

This first map would be a static one.
It will be a lot larger than will fit on the screen though, just like the scenario maps in game, you would be able to zoom in and out, and pan around to see more detail.
This would be where you choose the side you wish to play for the entire campaign.

For a more educational experience the units could be given mouse over popups, that will give you more details on the units.
On this first overview map that would be at an army level, and could include pictures of the commanders.

The following larger scale tactical maps, I hope to post an image for later, will have a scrollable timeline, that will update the tactical situation as the bar is scrolled across the dates, so will be far more dynamic.
This will be where you select the scenarios, that will have to be played by date order.

In order to unlock the next scenario you will have to get at least a draw.
Of course you could still play any of the scenarios from the New Game list, in any order you like, but it wouldn't advance your campaign, and you won't get a medal lol

Medals will be awarded for anything above a draw with the highest medal awarded for a Decisive victory.
These rewards will be displayed on the tactical map over the projected area that the scenario takes place, to show at a glance your past achievements for them scenarios.
The goal will be to fill the map with medals.
At the end of this extremely long campaign you will get a cut scene movie, and be made a hero of the people [;)]

Ill post an image of this map tomorrow I hope.

[dazkaz15]

Just a quick diversion from the proposed campaign to say that I think this is what will bring in a LOT of people to the game, and as far as I know you guys would be the first to do it in a war game.

ORIGINAL: Arjuna

A little history. We started designing this engine in 1995. That was before Google Earth existed. It was before there were industry standards for GIS data formats. The existing formats at that time didn't provide what we needed. Some were closed and we could not add our data that we needed for the AI - eg firepower influence data. Others were open but used up too much RAM or disk space. Remember back then RAM was in short supply and so was disk space. So we opted to create our own format. I acknowledge its limitations and I do want to overhaul our GIS but that is a big undertaking.

Ideally we want to move to a situation where we can import industry standard formats like DTED for spot height, ESRI Shape files and VectorMap files for our terrain data and bitmap rasters for overlay. We will still then need to augment and convert these because we need to add to these our own specific data for AI purposes - influence, control and concentration maps etc. I do want to see our GUI updated so we can have many more layers and be able to provide users with a 3D flythrough of the op area.

But all of this will require a significant investment of development funds that we don't have. We don't make enough from these games to pay decent salaries. So it's a case of developing over time as we can. It's slow going but I think our track record of continual enhancement stands for itself. We will get there in the end but it's going to take time.

BTE if anyone is in a hurry and has deep pockets please contact me.[:)]

[Jafele]

Really really nice map [&o]. Only watching it I have the temptation to play frequently [:D]

[Arjuna]

Great ideas. Keep 'em coming.[:)]

[decaro]

Something like a highly detailed Panzer General, but in pausable real-time with unit citations and added experience, perhaps even other perks.
Looks and sounds promising.

[BletchleyGeek]

Be controversial, Daz [:)]

I like the Historical Campaign / Scenario Index thing.

PS: I knew the Limelight reference would work well. It's a very sad movie, one of my favourites by Charles Chaplin [:)]

[BletchleyGeek]

Let me repost this from the 4.6.272 thread

ORIGINAL: Bletchley_Geek
Just a few answers to the comments made here: fb.asp?m=3557141

[*] Command Ops is a Sandbox as well. The only thing is that we need to account for certain processes better (like getting minefields done once and for all, supporting more movement modes, and what we call 'mounted ops' and should bring about tank riders or allow to model stuff like amphibious or helicopter-borne operations). The Eastern Front scenarios Chris has been releasing, the Pacific Ops effort by Tim and Jim are proof of the flexibility of the engine. Besides the things we still don't model, we need to improve further the usability of our design tools, which I reckon are already far more stable and useable than anything out there.

[*] I do agree that the volume of sales of such scenarios isn't going to be spectacular, and indeed, at the end of the day it's something that will be done mostly out of love. The thing is that by increasing the diversity of scenarios we can only expect to increase the sales of the engine. I see many comments of the sort - oh it's a Market Garden game, oh it's a Bulge game - which are missing the point about what Command Ops is and can do. What we want to achieve here is to open up things, and let people work in what they're interested in, rather than slavishly subjected to a particular goal. And get some payment, if it's just symbolical.

[*] We do want to make deep changes in how the game is perceived and played. This involves overhauling the User Interface (which includes the graphics) of the game, integrating as much feedback as possible from the community. This also means we're going to try and have WEGO PBEM supported sooner than later.

[*] Regarding content: at the moment we have several maps covering diverse parts of the Eastern Ukraine, the Don Bend and the Don-Volga land bridge, at diverse stages of completion. We're like 30% done with the mapping of the AO of the Korsun operation (these maps cover more than 20,000 sqr. kms. kudos to Rick). And these are the projects that I am involved in most directly. But as Dave says, we can't do it all, guys.

[wodin]

Daz..I'd like detailed combat logs for my units as mentioned in my post above..you agree? Also as I said leader casualties. If in a campaign game they may just be wounded and come back later on.

You got my medal and citation idea abit wrong..not saying you get a medal..but medals and citations are awarded to your units. This would give some attachment to your counters and add a personal touch. Lets say one coy had a VC or MoH if American, you can look at the units combat log and see what they where doing and then imagine one of your pixeltruppen being a hero during the action. At the end of the campaogn you cna then see an OOB that has all the units you'd had during the campaign with it's medal and citation haul and casualties and kills. If the unit was destroyed give the date, time and place of the battle they came a cropper. Again adding narrative, attachment and immersion.

[BletchleyGeek]

One note on what the 'commander' entity is in Command Ops.

It should be understood as an aggregate of the officers and non-com's in a given unit. So the ratings that we use to characterize them kind of correspond to an 'average' of the capabilities of each individual. In that sense, I can't see an awards system similar to that of Close Combat here - we might have a Hauptmann Stransky in the game, but he's just, so to speak, a surrogate for a group.

Having say that, accounting for officers and NCO's attrition is something relatively simple to do, as we have good data at hand of officers an NCO's casualty rates. The open question is to determine what kind of effect that attrition has. Obviously, it should degrade the ability of units to process orders (increasing the force delay, decreasing staff quality, perhaps). But regarding to the ratings, I reckon that things aren't so clearly cut out.

Replacing the leader rated with an 'A' with a leader rated with a 'B' when the former gets killed doesn't follow so clearly to me. There should be a chance that, for instance, your leader 'C' when killed, gets replaced by a leader 'A' (i.e. the slackers are being culled). Same thing for rank and file, actually - the ones that survive may be better (as in fitter, more skilled, wiser or just more lucky) than the ones that don't.

The thing is that a more detailed model as the above, would be worthless if we can't make it apparent to the player in some interesting way.

[Werewolf13]

Bletchley_Geek:
Replacing the leader rated with an 'A' with a leader rated with a 'B' when the former gets killed doesn't follow so clearly to me. There should be a chance that, for instance, your leader 'C' when killed, gets replaced by a leader 'A' (i.e. the slackers are being culled). Same thing for rank and file, actually - the ones that survive may be better (as in fitter, more skilled, wiser or just more lucky) than the ones that don't.

^^^^^^^^
This man gets it. The cream rises to the top is not just a trite cliche'. It is true and especially so for US military units in times of war.

War tends to bring out the best - and the worst - in men. Both should be operable and have visible impact in any simulation so the player can react/proact accordingly.

[RangerX3X]

This is probably a strange request and I don't mean to hijeck daz's thread (yes I do), however I would like to see X-Fire support for the game so I can track total hours played. Maybe it's just me, but I like seeing that kind of thing.

[wodin]

If the second in command is known historically then use him. Leaders already have a good selection of stats. I still think Leaders should play a big part in how well units perform in CO. No idea if their effect is negligible or not.

I agree also you may get a better leader if the original was injured\killed.

As for medals citations just do it like Flashpoint Campaigns. The game doesn't need to name names or anything like that..just award the odd medal here and there for exceptional unit performance. Leave it to the players imagination what the soldiers names where and what they where like etc etc.