Command v1.01 review at SimHQ

[Dimitris]

Some of the comments in these forums and elsewhere make it sound like the game is the house equivalent of a construction dump. (And nobody will pay to move-in to an unfinished house... right?)

The game is perfectly playable right this moment, and that was also the case when it was first released. Warts and all. It is already IMHO (and of others) the best air/naval wargame out there, period.

That we are here, discussing flaws discovered both pre- and post-release and evaluating what must be addressed first, does not mean the game is "half-finished". It simply demonstrates that we're not a "take the money & run" shop, and that we're here for the long haul.

This reminds me in many ways the situation with the F-16A during its first few operational years (1978-1982/3ish).

Was it a work-in-progress? Very much so. Were there a ton of bugs & flaws waiting to be fixed? You bet. (And some of them, like the wiring-caused vertigo or the initial engine problems, got quite a few pilots killed). Was there a truckload of backlash from the existing "user community" who were used to doing things differently? You only had to ask an F-4 pilot about the sidestick controller or the lack of a dedicated WSO. And most of the criticism about its limitations at the time ("No autonomous LGB capability? No Sparrow? No TESEO? No NAW precision strike? No PGMs except Mav-A/B? No variable-geometry inlet? No built-in ECM? What are these guys thinking?") was technically accurate. While also missing the greater point.

The greater point being that the aircraft was already doing things none of its predecessors could do (9G, HOTAS, vastly improved SA, unparalleled strike precision, longer range, lower LCC, etc. etc.), it was based on more modern fundamentals (eg. MIL-STD-1553 - a very big thing back then) and that it was the first step of an evolutionary path that would rectify all its initial shortcomings and turn it into the most successful US-built jet fighter of all time, surpassing even the "sacred cow" that was the F-4.

Those who appreciated its potential were quick to acquire it even in its initial version despite its limitations (US, Israel, Belgium, Netherlands, Norway, Denmark, Turkey), well before it was used in combat. And in combat, used by operators that understood its strengths and weaknesses it went from one homerun to another (Osirak, Bekaa).

The rest (F-16C etc.) is history.

Now of course someone will come up with the valid objection "yeah but the C and particularly Blk40/42 was the first version that fixed most of the major initial limitations, and the big recognition & sales really only came after the mid-80s and especially post-Desert Storm".

To which I answer... so what? For every product you have early adopters willing to go through the teething problems because they recognize the value they are getting from day-1 (imagine the Israelis fighting Bekaa just with F-4s), and (a typically much larger volume of) later customers who realize they've been missing on a good thing. This happens all the time. We often recognize this behavior in ourselves as users of other products/services so we are aware of it and understand it and work with it.

So, to summarize. Command will be "finished" when there's nothing to improve or add, and if Harpoon is any indication it may take a few decades to get there. In the meantime, we're adding things, fixing flaws, and enriching the game from the feedback of the customers. Does this make it "unfinished", a work-in-progress? Yes, you could say that. Does it make it unusable, a "construction dump", something not worth the price of entry right now? In our mind, and the overwhelming majority of the people who have bought it until now, no. It simply means it has a bright future ahead, and ignoring it really means missing out on a good thing.

Thanks!

[erichswafford]

Let's put it this way:

Even if all development stopped on Command right now, it would still be the best game of this type ever made.

The fact that it will get even better, has a dedicated following producing new scenarios, and has possibly the most responsive dev team on the planet is merely icing on the cake.

[Der Zeitgeist]

ORIGINAL: kondor999

Let's put it this way:

Even if all development stopped on Command right now, it would still be the best game of this type ever made.

The fact that it will get even better, has a dedicated following producing new scenarios, and has possibly the most responsive dev team on the planet is merely icing on the cake.

I don't think we're quite there yet, we probably will be before Christmas, though. The enhanced air ops AI will probably solve a lot of the most pressing problems that are there right now.

[thewood1]

I think some people may be looking at history through rose colored glasses. Harpoon 2/3/ANW had massive amounts of micro-management. I coulldn't trust the AI to do anything without close supervision. Good scenarios came about because scenario designers had a decade to hone the craft and jump though some pretty massive hoops to work around system and AI deficiencies. The expectation that Command would come out of the box and eliminate that micro-management is somewhat delusional. Where Command is, weighing good/bad against anything else even close to the same class, is head and shoulders above.

That is on top of the fact that H2/3 was relatively unstable through most of its existence.

[Der Zeitgeist]

ORIGINAL: thewood1

The expectation that Command would come out of the box and eliminate that micro-management is somewhat delusional.

Well, but you have to admit that the developers were extensively promoting exactly that. It's even on their homepage (http://www.warfaresims.com/?p=1873). When you look through that preview, there are several features mentioned that are simply not implemented currently. Sure, they will probably be added in the coming months, but expecting reasonably intelligent tactical AI at release was not delusional, if one didn't assume these previews were simply overhyped.

[thewood1]

And they have eliminated a lot of it. In surface to surface, I rarely get involved. The only time I do is if I am fine-tuning gun vs missile.

Again, I think you are only looking at the stuff that doesn't work. There are people that no matter how good a game is, will continuously focus on the things that don't work the way the like or expect. There is one reviewer in particular that the game is more about finding what is broken.

[Der Zeitgeist]

ORIGINAL: thewood1

Again, I think you are only looking at the stuff that doesn't work.

Yes, I am, you're exactly right. Because pointing out the problems obviously leads to the developers fixing them as fast as they can. [:D]

ORIGINAL: thewood1

There are people that no matter how good a game is, will continuously focus on the things that don't work the way the like or expect. There is one reviewer in particular that the game is more about finding what is broken.

I certainly hope I'm not compared to the one that shall not be named. [:D]

Really, I don't criticise for the enjoyment of finding any faults or bugs. I'm spending quite a lot of time with CMANO or other related activities like resarching OOBs for scenarios I'm planning, and it's quite a lot of fun so far. If I wasn't seeing the potential in the game I certainly wouldn't spend hours with it but would rather play GTA V or something.

[strykerpsg]

Have you ever noticed.that a high percentage of the highly negative posts are from new members that seem to also pop up in other forums and are fans of the original Simhq review posted by the unmentionable(TM pending)? Just saying......

[&o]

[tocaff]

A very well done review. The game isn't perfect, but what is? Ongoing support is something that makes a game great. People thought War In the Pacific (WITP)and then WITP/AE were expensive, but when you consider the time spent over the years playing then the cost becomes nothing. I expect that I'll be feeling that way with this baby too.

[navwarcol]

Reading through this post, I am also not sure how a game I have spent more than half of my free hours on over the past month now, PLAYING, could be considered unplayable. I also have posted a few things I hope to see AS ADDITIONS, but none of them missing at the moment, affect the game in any way. I am not sure why people dance around the name of he who shall not be named, but yes, I saw his review as well. I even agreed with parts of it such as the weather, but, again, even those parts did not make the game unplayable... adding those things will make the game even better, but I do not regret my purchase at all, and I do remember regretting my H2 purchase a long time ago. It took really years, AND a lot of work by the same people who did this game, before I really enjoyed the H2 game, and before I even purchased H3.
In short, this is not an unfinished house, this is a very comfortable house with a lot of room for expansions, and new rooms.

[Schnaufer]

removed due to negativity

[erichswafford]

And I have a better system than yours which suddenly developed the inability to play BF3 smoothly after the latest "Game-Ready R331" nVidia driver. Also, BF3 had terrible mouselag for months until it was traced to Google Chrome running in the background.

These problems didn't affect anything else, just BF3. Does this make BF3 "crappy"? Does it make my 5.0Ghz/32gb/RAID0 1gb SSD/SLI GTX780/Triple-screen system crappy?

No, it means that we're using a Windows platform that uses innumerable permutations of drivers, hardware, and software. In my case, for instance, CMANO crashes at 5.0Ghz, and at first I was frustrated until my small brain realized that maybe my OC wasn't as great as I thought. Ever since backing off to 4.8, it's been running fine. Something similar could be happening to you.

You're guilty of assuming your experience with a scenario is definitely a fault within the game. But lots of things can go wrong with a Windows game these days, only some of which are due to the way the game is written.

I do know one thing: That scenario works just fine for me. Then again, mine has a fresh Win7 Ultimate install.

Until you supply the devs with a savegame that illustrates what you're talking about, you're just trolling.

I truly do not understand people who would rather complain loudly than pursue actual solutions.

If you'd like to be considered in the latter camp, I'd advise trying to work with the devs, provide them the info they're asking you for, and stop assuming your machine is the ne plus ultra of all computers and, therefore, you're in a position to know the game itself is broken.

ORIGINAL: Schnaufer

As one who posted like I felt I was beta testing software, I see 2+ pages in manual crediting beta testers, but when I tried to play Shamal scenario at launch, and even to this day with patches the game crashes without an error message. Sometime I have to start task manager to shut the program down.
I have a 3770K, GeForce 690, 16 GB ram, Windows 7 ultimate.
Software titles I buy from all other places run on my machine, from 2-d simulations to 3-d first person shooters online.
This software is non functional in that scenario, and I am not playing the crappy game anymore until this is fixed.
As I said before, there is a lot of potential here, but as of right now it's unplayable.

Just my less than 2 cents worth.

[Schnaufer]

removed due to negativity

[Dimitris]

...and still no autosave.

[Tomcat84]

Schnaufer,

take a look at the last three posts in this thread:
tm.asp?m=3445219

Someone has a crashing problem. He posts the savegame.
just over 24 hours later, the crash is fixed for the next patch.

I'm sorry man but I dont think you can expect a project as complex as this to be completely perfect and crash free out of the box. Especially since we're not all playing this on one type of console or something, but on thousands of different computer configurations. Stuff is bound to happen and you cannot catch everything in a closed beta.

If you would just please produce the crash and post the save, maybe they could help you fix it!

[Der Zeitgeist]

ORIGINAL: Tomcat84

Especially since we're not all playing this on one type of console or something, but on thousands of different computer configurations.

With all these crashes on different PC configurations, CMANO 2 will probably be an Xbox One exclusive. [:D]

[navwarcol]

I have a fairly mid-grade system, WIN8 (which in most cases I do not like, but different topic[:D] ) and have yet to crash in any scenario provided. Crashed once in a scenario I am making, but it was pretty much my own fault for just deciding for the hell of it "Hey, let's put the entire world military in here" And even then, not entirely sure it crashed, just sat frozen for about 2 minutes so I decided "Well, THAT was a dumb idea" and closed the program.

[erichswafford]

I've never seen a dev team fix things that were posted to a forum in well under a week -until this game came out. Sometimes I don't think people get just how unusual this is. It demonstrates, I think, just how deeply this dev team cares about what they created.

Like I said in my review, you're basically buying a lifetime subscription to an ongoing effort. Seen in that light, the price is well-justified.

And - not to beat a dead horse - If you aren't even willing to send a savegame to demonstrate your issue, even after numerous postings (each of which took more time than it would have to simply send the requested info), then you have no right to complain.

[Dimitris]

I just saw that Schnaufer got in touch with me through PM and explained the problem in greater detail. Please give us some time to see what we can do about it.

[erichswafford]

Outstanding. Hopefully you can get to the bottom of the issue he's having.