Whooooooboy, forget World In Flames, I want this

[Hexed Gamer]

I think all of Joe's ideas sounded more like simple interface issues to eliminate what was essentially tedium normally accomplished the way everything else is done with a board game actually, with one's brain.

But I agree with him, why waste a lot of time with tedium, as the point of the computer is to allow me to "enjoy" the game.

To ENJOY it is the whole reason behind any GAME in the end.

His Strategic Warfare comment for instance, darned right, I want all the math made easy. It's just simple math, and this machine is supposed to be a powerful calculator eh.

A World at War will of course be global, want me to sit here waiting anxiously the most, make sure you can deliver a game that can be compartmentalised ie play just the European war or just the Pacific war while acknowledging the rest in abstraction.

If you ask me, Advanced Third Reich was the pinnacle of the design. Rising Sun was a good try, but A3R was best.
In my opinion, AWaW was basically a compromise to allow both pieces to fit together.

I don't want to be told I can only play the whole war or not at all.

Chances are, if they don't make the game "easy" to enjoy, most of us will just end up playing Strategic Command 2 with user made scenarios to fill any gaps the vanilla install left out.
I like detail you bet, but I play games to have fun, I tend to play the game that delivers the fun the best. And whether another design is "more detailed" is not always a good enough argument.

[Fred98]

I reckon the words “better” and “enhance” are both misleading.

“ More user friendly interface” and “less manual calculations” would be a better way to put it.

[Fred98]

Alas I fear the dream will not come true.

I was reading about Warplanner over at the W@W site. It seems the players move the counters in the usual manner. And the Warplanner software is designed, for example, in such a way that you cannot make an illegal move by error. Which sounds excellent.

Their current goal seems to be to make the game an exact duplicate of the original, but with a PBEM feature and a “collaborative play” feature – by which I gather means, players can all play online in one game. A bit like virtually standing around the table.

I would love to play a PBEM game against Les, but it used to take 2 hours to play one turn. It is necessary to be able to save an incomplete turn or such a game would be impossible to play.

[ravinhood]

"Let me say this now loud and clear that this game is WAY down the road and we be only posting things when we feel we have something to say. On when will be be release..........When its done and don't expect it any time soon."

Last time I saw that statement it was THREE years later when the game was released, and it was ROME TOTAL WAR. And it was the biggest letdown this side of REALMS III and MOO III.

Let us hope it doesn't take 3 more years for this one and it lives up to the "hype". In fact, let's not even have any hype.

[Hexed Gamer]

In 3 years time a lot can happen.

I hope in 3 years time I have found a new place, one with a decent dry basement where I can do some occasional woodworking, but mostly just someplace to set up my 4'x8' table where I can play real Advanced Third Reich uninterrupted

Chances are reasonable I can find that place (with some work).

In 3 years time, god only knows what will have happened with computer technology.

In 1995, my then computer was a 486, I thought it was great. Win 95 was released, I was skeptical though, took me a year to get it.

I watched as every 3 years, the entire world of computers was entirely re written.

Win 98 made 95 look clumsy, then XP seemed to be the answer to lame 98.

My current machine, heck it sucks if we are talking power gamer rig.
But against my 486, hell this machine was not even the stuff of dreams yet.

I hope they get around to making the computer version of A World at War. I hope they bother to make it look like the board game.

But in 3 years time, I expect the computer world to have completely changed.... again.

Maybe in 3 years, they will have to add on a voice activated command input routine eh.

Computer send the Panzer Lehr to attack the US forces outside of St Lo.
Execute attack with attack option C.

There is little point getting to in a fuss over a game that might be, in 3-5 years.

In most cases, it is likely best to have already made the game 3-5 years ago hehe.

I bought Advanced Third Reich back when it was first released.
Amazingly, it doesn't really matter how old it is though.

If they want to make a board game work on a computer, they should just make it function on a computer, and stop pretending it will be in a position to be the equal of computer wargame advances 3-5 years from now.

There is really nothing so infinitely clever about A World at War when you get right down to it.
It's a game design that depicted the war at the army group level primarily and used seasonal turns. It has a decent political aspect and a good economic design.
But it isn't so incredibly radical, that it will sweep away all competition.

I think that's the reason no one is playing Computer World in Flames.
Too many people can't get it through their heads, it's just a board game, admittedly a famous one, but as a computer grand strategy design, it likely won't be singularly special.

It will probably be easier to design a good global grand strategy hex using turn based game from the ground up and no previous board game baggage.

I am sure TOAW or SC or WitP was easier to design, than the conversion of a board game intact is going to be (assuming everyone gets all of their wishes ie gotta have an AI etc etc etc).

[JTGEN]

I'am waiting for this too. Have played the board game a couple of times but the main problem is to get all those people at the place all at the same time. Ant then to have place to store the game while game is on, without somebody 'cleaning' the mess away as it is the way. A friends wife once allmost 'cleaned' the mess out. Now that would have been a nice catastrophy.

But I think they allready have some form of it, since a friend of mine has been trying out some version of it for a long time. But it did not have any AI on it yet. But have not checked from him for a long time on the status of things on this front.

[Fred98]

I made some enquiries and received this answer;


Joe,

Warplanner is a PC version of A World At War which can be played entirely on the computer, and sent via E-Mail to a player anywhere in the world.

There are also admin Tracking charts which can be used to do the bookkeeping of a Face-to-Face board game, or with Warplanner.

You can save the game at any point, and change, undo, redo, and replay past turns if you wish. The Program saves all moves from the beginning to the end in a replay.

Warplanner allows you to use the computer to save and display your moves, and does many automatic functions, but does not restrict you overly like previous -non-user-friendly version had done, hampering your game experience, such as Third Reich PC.

Warplanner will not stop you from making an illegal move, just like the board game will not stop you from making an illegal move. But, I bet the other player will notice, and let you know. You can correct your error easily, since a replay of your moves is saved.

The AWAW websitehas a player registry which you can use to find players that live in your area, for a real face-to-face game; http://www.aworldatwar.com

You can visit the Warplanner Website at the following link and view snapshots of the game, and download the program full install here also; http://www.warplanner.com

I hope that answers your questions,

[IronDuke_slith]

ORIGINAL: ravinhood

"Let me say this now loud and clear that this game is WAY down the road and we be only posting things when we feel we have something to say. On when will be be release..........When its done and don't expect it any time soon."

Last time I saw that statement it was THREE years later when the game was released, and it was ROME TOTAL WAR. And it was the biggest letdown this side of REALMS III and MOO III.

Let us hope it doesn't take 3 more years for this one and it lives up to the "hype". In fact, let's not even have any hype.

I wouldn't quite go this far, I think it's a better game when modded.

However, I'd agree it falls short of expectations. I suspect that last summer (03) the plaudits they were receiving for the title at the game shows led to a postponement (remember everyone was guessing Sept 03 or March 04). I'm guessing they used the time to dumb it down a little for the RTS crowd. (Or rather, slicked the interface and streamline the features set!) I think that was why it was released with unit speed and kill rates set as they were. It plays like an RTS until you mod it. A click fest with quick battles. To keep the existing fan base on side, everything was done on text files allowing easy modding, but you can only mod so much and the game whilst fun, is not what I would have wanted.

The dynamic map wasn't quite as clever as I'd hoped, and the two turns a year and problems that caused them was a further issue. And although they tried to get away from provinces, replacing them by making Cities the key only changed the name not intent of the original design.

Battlefield command hasn't really moved forward during the three titles, and the novelty of the graphics is difficult to appreciate when you're trying to control 4000 men. You don't really get time to zoom into a unit of Legionaries going at it with some chosen swordsmen. I dare so they made more money this time, but overall, it disappointed.

Regards,
IronDuke