Matrix Games Forums

I suspect that after they un-kludge CM2, they will perhaps get some military market for the product.  But many 'civvie' customers may then feel they were used as paying-playtesters of sorts.  Time will tell.
 
I would like to say that there are certain aspects to the demo that are fun.  I enjoyed just micro-managing one single M1 Abrams against all comers.  I left the rest of my troops out of the way.  I think the tactics I used were unrealistic (shooting T72 at 50 meters) but it seemed plausible.
 
But controlling multiple units real time gets to be a pain.  I would prefer that when I select a unit two menus open up.  On one side of the unit is a menu list of movement type commands.  The other side of the unit has firing type commands.  Select unit, issue order.  Done.
 
But it seemed to me to be a shoot em up and not much of a wargame.  At the end of the day, it is missing essential elements of the wargaming experience.

ORIGINAL: Yoozername

I think the 1:1 game credo has stumbled upon an 'uncertainty principle'.  Similar to the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle. 

By pushing precision onto the granularity of the infantry (1:1 modeling), they have to expand the location of the infantry into an area.  I believe they said something like 25x25 feet.  So each 'guy' is tracked but his location is abstracted over an area.

You actually make sense when you aren't attacking people.
As I read the BF CMSF forum they only measure LOS to the nearest 8mx8m cell. Thus their 4kmx4km playing area is really only 500mx500mm real space. A game like Panzer Command is accurate to 1mx1m in a 1000mx1000m playing space. If you similarly abstracted the scale of that game it would be an area 8km x 8km.

ORIGINAL: Chad Harrison

ORIGINAL: JudgeDredd

Ok. I'm officially retired in this thread because your arrogance is just getting my back up.

Now do you see why I did the same thing 3 pages ago? This one thread has more personal attacks than any other thread I have seen in years.

Im disappointed that the mods are letting it stay open.

A cursory glance at Battlefront has multiple threads with savage personal attacks on. Do you not post there?

Aside from a couple of people bringing what appears to be a spill-over from that forum here, I'm not seeing what you are.

Are you mistaking criticism (some harsh, insulting and uncalled for) of Battlefront and CM for a personal attack?

ORIGINAL: dinsdale

ORIGINAL: Chad Harrison

ORIGINAL: JudgeDredd

Ok. I'm officially retired in this thread because your arrogance is just getting my back up.

Now do you see why I did the same thing 3 pages ago? This one thread has more personal attacks than any other thread I have seen in years.

Im disappointed that the mods are letting it stay open.

A cursory glance at Battlefront has multiple threads with savage personal attacks on. Do you not post there?

Aside from a couple of people bringing what appears to be a spill-over from that forum here, I'm not seeing what you are.

Are you mistaking criticism (some harsh, insulting and uncalled for) of Battlefront and CM for a personal attack?

Every forum has its share of personal attacks, Matrix and BFC included. Its quite obvious that Ravinhood and Yoozername has a personal grudge against CM:SF/BFC and thats fine, they are entitled to their opinion. So a lot of the useless garbage being posted in this thread is along those lines.

However, for personal attacks read the past couple of pages in this thread, especially Ravinhood's comments about Michael.

forget it

ORIGINAL: dinsdale

ORIGINAL: Chad Harrison

ORIGINAL: JudgeDredd

Ok. I'm officially retired in this thread because your arrogance is just getting my back up.

Now do you see why I did the same thing 3 pages ago? This one thread has more personal attacks than any other thread I have seen in years.

Im disappointed that the mods are letting it stay open.

A cursory glance at Battlefront has multiple threads with savage personal attacks on. Do you not post there?

Aside from a couple of people bringing what appears to be a spill-over from that forum here, I'm not seeing what you are.

Are you mistaking criticism (some harsh, insulting and uncalled for) of Battlefront and CM for a personal attack?

Ok....I had wrote a nice big response and it got lost...

Dinsdale

I didn't know if your post was in response to mine, Chads or both.

For my part, it was in response to rh's comments about puny forces and states and how the US could walk all over them. Whilst that may well be the case, I think it's arrogant, thoughtless and downright rude to post such it.

He's edited his post by the way, as he regularly does when he realises he's been caught with his pants down...again.

ORIGINAL: Mobius


As I read the BF CMSF forum they only measure LOS to the nearest 8mx8m cell. Thus their 4kmx4km playing area is really only 500mx500mm real space. A game like Panzer Command is accurate to 1mx1m in a 1000mx1000m playing space. If you similarly abstracted the scale of that game it would be an area 8km x 8km.

You're reading it incorrectly (and changing metres to millimetres in the process!) The ranges in the game don't change just because LOS snaps to an 8 metre grid. It simply means the game engine defines game mechanics based on this 8 metre mesh; it doesn't bring anything closer to anything else. A 2km x 2km map is still 4 square kilometres. I'm not sure what it is you think you read that would suggest otherwise? Unless my own reading is incorrect. The devs refer to "Action Spots" from which sighting, etc., are drawn but that doesn't make the map smaller, just defines the point from which things happen.

ORIGINAL: JudgeDredd
He's edited his post by the way, as he regularly does when he realises he's been caught with his pants down...again.

clickfest lol hehe lol clickfest bargain bin clickfest......OH S--T......backspacebackspacebackspacebackspace

If you have ever followed the BF forum, you might be surprised at some of the old timers responses.  peng has gone on record as saying he isn't buying.  Dalem, who usually borders on a grammontophile with his signature "I am so in your head Steve" , has take to basically poking jabs at the game's design.  So yes, for all that has been lost; Can we get a tally on what has been gained?
 
I banned myself from that forum.  Thereby, allowing myself to transmogrify at will to anything needed and re-join that forum as game developments dictated.  Just so everyone knows.
 
As my good frind, Mr. Lee told me; make sure you find a dummy to play email with, allow the game to get very exciting, then quit before it is over!  Words to live by.  Not really applicable to anything here, but fun stuff believe me.  Anyone recall Mr. Lee?
 
I am also privvy to some juicy inside info about the playtesting but I don't want to compromise that person's status.  But from what I hear, someone here is lying.

There is talk about using 'dots' so that game players can see where the game is 'looking'

Something like SL?



or maybe even a bigger throwback.....?

ORIGINAL: Michael Dorosh
The ranges in the game don't change just because LOS snaps to an 8 metre grid. It simply means the game engine defines game mechanics based on this 8 metre mesh; it doesn't bring anything closer to anything else. A 2km x 2km map is still 4 square kilometres. I'm not sure what it is you think you read that would suggest otherwise? Unless my own reading is incorrect. The devs refer to "Action Spots" from which sighting, etc., are drawn but that doesn't make the map smaller, just defines the point from which things happen.

It snaps to the cell centre. You can say each cell represents units of whatever you want, cubits, furlongs, yards or 8 meters but there appears to be only 250 of them per side in a so called 2km x 2km map.

ORIGINAL: Mobius

ORIGINAL: Michael Dorosh
The ranges in the game don't change just because LOS snaps to an 8 metre grid. It simply means the game engine defines game mechanics based on this 8 metre mesh; it doesn't bring anything closer to anything else. A 2km x 2km map is still 4 square kilometres. I'm not sure what it is you think you read that would suggest otherwise? Unless my own reading is incorrect. The devs refer to "Action Spots" from which sighting, etc., are drawn but that doesn't make the map smaller, just defines the point from which things happen.

It snaps to the cell centre. You can say each cell represents units of whatever you want, cubits, furlongs, yards or 8 meters but there appears to be only 250 of them per side in a so called 2km x 2km map.

And so what does that have to do with the range? Instead of counting in units of 1s, if we are talking about the same things, the game then counts in units of 8s. It doesn't invalidate the game data or reduce engagement ranges.

ORIGINAL: Michael Dorosh

ORIGINAL: Mobius

ORIGINAL: Michael Dorosh
The ranges in the game don't change just because LOS snaps to an 8 metre grid. It simply means the game engine defines game mechanics based on this 8 metre mesh; it doesn't bring anything closer to anything else. A 2km x 2km map is still 4 square kilometres. I'm not sure what it is you think you read that would suggest otherwise? Unless my own reading is incorrect. The devs refer to "Action Spots" from which sighting, etc., are drawn but that doesn't make the map smaller, just defines the point from which things happen.

It snaps to the cell centre. You can say each cell represents units of whatever you want, cubits, furlongs, yards or 8 meters but there appears to be only 250 of them per side in a so called 2km x 2km map.

And so what does that have to do with the range? Instead of counting in units of 1s, if we are talking about the same things, the game then counts in units of 8s. It doesn't invalidate the game data or reduce engagement ranges.

No it doesn't. And I don't know the density of troops. Can you get more than a squad or more than one vehicle in a 8m x 8m area?

ORIGINAL: Mobius

And so what does that have to do with the range? Instead of counting in units of 1s, if we are talking about the same things, the game then counts in units of 8s. It doesn't invalidate the game data or reduce engagement ranges.

No it doesn't. And I don't know the density of troops. Can you get more than a squad or more than one vehicle in a 8m x 8m area?

Perhaps I've misread your comments, but it seemed like you were saying that it did? I'm not sure I understand why you're asking the last questions then - is it related to the first concern? Have I cleared anything up?

ORIGINAL: Yoozername
I am also privvy to some juicy inside info about the playtesting but I don't want to compromise that person's status.  But from what I hear, someone here is lying.

Oh that's a good one - make unspecified allegations from an unknown source and then jsut sit back and tap the side of your nose in a knowing fashion....

I say put up or shut up[:@][:@]

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ORIGINAL: JudgeDredd
I didn't know if your post was in response to mine, Chads or both.

It was to Chad's point. It was really the hyperbole of his post as though his eyes hadn't encountered anything so vulgar since perusing alt.comp.wargame.maniacs or other similar usenet slums from years past

For my part...

No no sorry, I was referring to the two posters who appeared to have some grudge at Battlefront and come here. You (and often me ) arguing with Ravinhood is par for the course here. Didn't mean to imply anything about you.

--------------------

ORIGINAL: Chad Harrison
However, for personal attacks read the past couple of pages in this thread, especially Ravinhood's comments about Michael.

I've read the thread Chad, compared with pre-moderated stuff at Battlefront a week or two ago, it's tame, and appears to be a two way exchange of insults.

ORIGINAL: Michael Dorosh
And so what does that have to do with the range? Instead of counting in units of 1s, if we are talking about the same things, the game then counts in units of 8s. It doesn't invalidate the game data or reduce engagement ranges.

Without wishing to put words in Mobius's mouth, to me it reads as though he's commenting on the granularity of the playing area. To make a boardgame analagy, if I double the map dimensions, but then double the hex size, I may have increased the scale, but in practical terms it's the same number of map locations.

I'm actually having a hard time understanding how the action area meshes with 1-1 representation, as the two concepts appear contradictory unless the area size is small enough to represent the location of an individual. [&:]

However, as there's a demo out, and almost every release the last 5 years in this genre has been bug ridden at version 1.0, I don't quite understand why there's so much hostility or why bugs are a surprise.

ORIGINAL: dinsdale

ORIGINAL: Michael Dorosh
And so what does that have to do with the range? Instead of counting in units of 1s, if we are talking about the same things, the game then counts in units of 8s. It doesn't invalidate the game data or reduce engagement ranges.

Without wishing to put words in Mobius's mouth, to me it reads as though he's commenting on the granularity of the playing area. To make a boardgame analagy, if I double the map dimensions, but then double the hex size, I may have increased the scale, but in practical terms it's the same number of map locations.

I'm actually having a hard time understanding how the action area meshes with 1-1 representation, as the two concepts appear contradictory unless the area size is small enough to represent the location of an individual. [&:]

However, as there's a demo out, and almost every release the last 5 years in this genre has been bug ridden at version 1.0, I don't quite understand why there's so much hostility or why bugs are a surprise.

Thanks for the clarification - I hope that's what he meant, anyway. I don't see that the logic is any better in that case. If you have 5 hexes each of 100 metres (to follow your boardgame analogy), or 50 hexes each of 10 metres, you can still simulate weapons effects at 100 metres, 200 metres, 300 metres, 400 metres and 500 metres. In the latter case, you have more flexibility to do so, if you wanted to have drop off of, say, weapons effects at the 250, 350 etc. metre mark.

Is this perhaps the type of thing he's getting at? I believe that is what you mean by granularity, anyway?

8m seems like a pretty good "grain" for this scale of combat, then. The old system was a 20 metre terrain grid; I think some game functions were on a 2 metre sub-grid, at least unit placement was.

These are pretty deep details that most gamers don't get into; I must confess an interest in them myself, so the conversation is interesting to me.

So what is it we are saying about the strengths/weaknesses of the 8m grid? Aside from the obvious point that it is an abstraction, which any game is going to have, I guess I still don't understand the point about engagement ranges. I know Muzzle Velocity - a very early true 3D tactical game/FPS hybrid - was criticized because while it had King Tigers and Panthers and Sherman Fireflys in it, the typical armour engagement was only 300 metres or so. The terrain did get telescoped down IIRC. I'm not aware of that ever being a valid criticism of any of the CM games though?

ORIGINAL: Mobius

ORIGINAL: Yoozername

I think the 1:1 game credo has stumbled upon an 'uncertainty principle'.  Similar to the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle. 

By pushing precision onto the granularity of the infantry (1:1 modeling), they have to expand the location of the infantry into an area.  I believe they said something like 25x25 feet.  So each 'guy' is tracked but his location is abstracted over an area.

You actually make sense when you aren't attacking people.
As I read the BF CMSF forum they only measure LOS to the nearest 8mx8m cell. Thus their 4kmx4km playing area is really only 500mx500mm real space. A game like Panzer Command is accurate to 1mx1m in a 1000mx1000m playing space. If you similarly abstracted the scale of that game it would be an area 8km x 8km.

I believe you mean to say that there are 250,000 'action-spots' 8x8m^2 in a 4000x4000m^2 area?

So if I follow your math, you also mean to say that there are 1 million 'squares' (1 by 1 meter) in PC. Therefore your point is that there are 4 times as many as CMSF. And you would be right about the 8k by 8k since it is also 4 times as much, etc.

But its about 'grain-size'. Technically called resolution by us technical types. And what is the resolution of the things that go in the 'boxes'?

Again, maybe the infantry UNITS should be limited to smaller grains. True 1:1 is too much because computers can not track soldiers as units when simulating actions with this many vehcles, troops, etc. I really feel that infantry sections (or fire teams, whatever they are called) of no more than 4-5 men is the way to go.