Theatre of War

[JudgeDredd]

The Theatre of War demo is out (I have no idea if this is old news...just letting the uneducated (like me) know).

[Hertston]

Better have a decko then. 650 meg, to save anybody looking.

[Titanwarrior89]

Looks to be a good game---but I am not buying it - the elicense thing. Which has already been covered in another thread in here.[:-]

[Hertston]

It's alright if you like that sort of thing, judging from the demo. It will disappoint those who thought ToW might be a next generation Close Combat, not to mention the surprising high number (judging from the BF forums) of those who seemed to be expecting real time Combat Mission or, indeed, just CM with prettier graphics... but it's obvious the design was intended to be neither of those things and it's only fair to judge on what it was actually supposed to be. There's a lot less pizzazz than something like Company of Heroes and I can see why it ended up at Battlefront, not Ubi or EA. That's not a criticism; folks here or at CM won't see that as a downer as ToW certainly seems to be a more 'realistic' game than CoH.

I only really find the demo scenario playable using the pause function to give orders (big brownie points for including that) and I can't imagine that being different with the others. In the absence of use of that feature, though, it's bog standard RTS fare and I wouldn't anticipate much fun from multiplayer unless that's what rings your bell. The single-player game might be worth the money, but I'm not sure how much reply value is there. There is a scenario editor, but not a map editor, apparently.

Performance is OK on my less than stellar rig, which is gratifying considering some of the rumours kicked about at one stage. The price for that is that the graphics are a couple of years behind the game IMHO (as opposed to "state of the art"), albeit attractive enough and perfectly functional.

Worth trying the demo, but not really my sort of game.

[JudgeDredd]

ORIGINAL: Titanwarrior89

Looks to be a good game---but I am not buying it - the elicense thing. Which has already been covered in another thread in here.[:-]

eLicense? Urgh...well...I enjoyed the demo at least.

It is VERY resource hungry. I have a
AMD Athlon 64 XP3200+
2GB DDR4 Ram
PCIe Gigabyte Geforce 9750 500MB card
And it was very slow in places...but then I had all the graphics to the max (I like to do that, then tone it down to a playable level).

Graphically it's a little less than Company of Heroes, but good all the same.

I liked the long ranges for tank fire, but it was awkward at times determining what the tank could see. Also, if you were employing tanks and making use of the long ranges, the game really did chug because of the amount of terrain viewed.

The camera was pretty good and very flexible.

I did see some Combat Mission / Operation Winter Storm / Company of Heroes here, but I prefer the Combat Mission engine with the minute of AI control and the pause for order asignment (for the life of me, I can't remember what that engine is called)...but I like that one.

I suppose it "kind of did" because it had a pause feature...but I like the fact that Combat Mission executes your orders for an hour and you can't change them.

Shame about the eLicense...maybe some other time.

[ravinhood]

[Graphically it's a little less than Company of Heroes, but good all the same]

A "little less" than CoH??!! Aren't you being a bit lenient on it's graphics here? I don't think they come anywhere close to being a little less than CoH graphics, it's more like a lot less. But, maybe our eye perception is much different.

[Mobius]

I can't see playing real time where you have to think about things in real time for more than one shooter.  They may have to rethink the realtime angle on all their new games.

[JudgeDredd]

ORIGINAL: ravinhood

[Graphically it's a little less than Company of Heroes, but good all the same]

A "little less" than CoH??!! Aren't you being a bit lenient on it's graphics here? I don't think they come anywhere close to being a little less than CoH graphics, it's more like a lot less. But, maybe our eye perception is much different.

yeah...maybe

One has to remember, though, that there is a lot more going on under the hood in ToW.

It did appeal to me...I even STILL have the demo on my comp after a day (unlike Supreme Commander which was removed within 30 minutes of downloading that 1.5GB beast!!).

I liked CoH (barring the fact that it was an RTS (clickfest to you ravinhood)...although you could slow it down with a command at the console...but it was still RTS. When things get out of hand, I like to pause and rethink...which is why Combat Mission, ToW, COTA and general turn based games have my vote.

Now this is RTS, but it does have a pause feature, which is it's saving grace.

Still, as stated in my previous post eLicense is a no no for me.

And Mobious...
The pause feature is a godsend in rts games. It doesn't completely remove the fact it's an RTS, but it does help to make it more playable...imo.

[cdbeck]

I heard the pathfinding is awful in ToW. Some guy was saying his trucks took out like 8 trees just going down the road. Me, I am too busy with LOTR Online and Baseball to actually mess with it. Mission loads are a bit long on my rig, not sure why. Lots of other good stuff out now, so I think this one may fly under the radar for me (remember it is a remake of a several year old Russian game, BF picked it up, dusted it off and "fixed" much of the gameplay, and created something a bit new. Perhaps that is why the graphics are a bit aged (AFAIK, the original may have been released BEFORE CoH).

SoM

[Hertston]

ORIGINAL: Son_of_Montfort

I heard the pathfinding is awful in ToW. Some guy was saying his trucks took out like 8 trees just going down the road.

Yeah, that happens in the demo mission. To be fair the vehicles all move down the road, but they manage to knock down the trees at the side of the road! I'm not really sure why they included that feature; it's just showing off, really. The trees are pretty uniform, and of a size that you are unlikely to drive even a tank into unless blind drunk.

The actual pathfinding doesn't seem that bad, or at least no worse than in most similar games (has anyone ever seen one that got it right?). The lack of multiple waypoints is a serious omission, though.

[pasternakski]

ORIGINAL: JudgeDredd

The pause feature is a godsend in rts games.

Now enshrined forever in vol. 226 of my non sequitur encyclopedia.

[Prince of Eckmühl]

I've played both the demo and the download version of the full game.

I'm having trouble suspending my sense of disbelief about what's going on with the game as it plays itself across my monitor.

Apart from myriad examples of wildly anomalous behavior, it appears EXTREMELY limited in scope, with little more than a platoon, or two, in play at once.

Perhaps, the developers just reached too far on this one, tried to do too many things.

It wants to be a tankers game, but so much effort is devoted to stuff like picking up satchels and re-manning abandoned equipment that the armour game appears to have gone underdeveloped.

I could be wrong about all this, given my paucity of time behind the keyboard scheme, but that's my impression, thus far.

PoE (aka ivanmoe)

[ravinhood]

The biggest problem I see with the game is trying to push advanced graphical technology into a niche market of wargamers, most especially grog wargamers. I know from just reading several forums that most wargamers don't have top end rigs. Oh there's a few rich boys, but, most of us out here have pretty common average systems and average graphics cards and trying to toss this on us just ain't gonna cut it I don't believe. ALready the highest complaints in the Battlefront tech forum is because of graphic issues and choppy play. Even some people claiming to have higher end rigs are complaining about the slog with everything set on high.
 
Of course if their idea was the mainstream market then it could be profitable, but, after seeing CoH and now this I don't think it's going to hold a fire under the pan because of the way it's designed. Mad Minute tried and they didn't succeed either getting into the mainstream market and they used two well known named publishers; Activision and Paradox. Some games just ain't gonna make the big bucks like a Total War which can have craptastic gameply and AI, but, appeal to the mainstream audience because it has MORE units and makes it feel like a huge battle. ALthough if you really looked at it you only controlled 20 units max during any battle. The illusion is what makes the Total War series popular. You got less units to control than any other rts game I can think of. lol

[Monkeys Brain]

ORIGINAL: ravinhood

The biggest problem I see with the game is trying to push advanced graphical technology into a niche market of wargamers, most especially grog wargamers. I know from just reading several forums that most wargamers don't have top end rigs. Oh there's a few rich boys, but, most of us out here have pretty common average systems and average graphics cards and trying to toss this on us just ain't gonna cut it I don't believe. ALready the highest complaints in the Battlefront tech forum is because of graphic issues and choppy play. Even some people claiming to have higher end rigs are complaining about the slog with everything set on high.

Of course if their idea was the mainstream market then it could be profitable, but, after seeing CoH and now this I don't think it's going to hold a fire under the pan because of the way it's designed. Mad Minute tried and they didn't succeed either getting into the mainstream market and they used two well known named publishers; Activision and Paradox. Some games just ain't gonna make the big bucks like a Total War which can have craptastic gameply and AI, but, appeal to the mainstream audience because it has MORE units and makes it feel like a huge battle. ALthough if you really looked at it you only controlled 20 units max during any battle. The illusion is what makes the Total War series popular. You got less units to control than any other rts game I can think of. lol

Yeah, dream on. ToW is fantastic game. And about sales - you are wrong but wait 1 year and then we will see.
Oh and sorry for interrupting this little chit chat how ToW is bad, how e-license stinks and how ToW will not sell etc... buahahaha. Just buahahaha.

[Hertston]

ORIGINAL: Monkeys Brain

Yeah, dream on. ToW is fantastic game. And about sales - you are wrong but wait 1 year and then we will see.
Oh and sorry for interrupting this little chit chat how ToW is bad, how e-license stinks and how ToW will not sell etc... buahahaha. Just buahahaha.

Which thread are you reading? [8|]

All anyone has done is commented on some 'issues' with ToW all of which have been acknowledged at BF even among those who share your enthusiasm. And who has said it won't sell (Ravinhood bitches about everything, and so doesn't count)? It may not to the 'grog' element, even among CMers, but the design clearly suggests it was aimed at a different audience. BF is more than CM even if many CMers don't recognise the fact! But.. ToW is not the latest and greatest thing in hardcore wargaming, and as such won't have people who prefer such hard-core games jumping up and down with excitement even if it had been implemented perfectly.

The e-license thing is a seperate issue. There would be a virtual riot here if Matrix used the same system, but they don't. BF do use it and rightly or wrongly some folk just don't like the system.

[Monkeys Brain]

[/quote]

Which thread are you reading? [8|]

All anyone has done is commented on some 'issues' with ToW all of which have been acknowledged at BF even among those who share your enthusiasm. And who has said it won't sell (Ravinhood bitches about everything, and so doesn't count)? It may not to the 'grog' element, even among CMers, but the design clearly suggests it was aimed at a different audience. BF is more than CM even if many CMers don't recognise the fact! But.. ToW is not the latest and greatest thing in hardcore wargaming, and as such won't have people who prefer such hard-core games jumping up and down with excitement even if it had been implemented perfectly.

The e-license thing is a seperate issue. There would be a virtual riot here if Matrix used the same system, but they don't. BF do use it and rightly or wrongly some folk just don't like the system.
[/quote]


More or less I agree with you. No comment on e-license, if they want to miss some great game because e-license, I have no problem with that.

I am not only praising ToW. You can go to BF forum and see that I also posted some problems I have with this game.

It's the matter of fact that Russian developers are catching up with western. What they lack is tradition, organization of game development from the very beginning, clearly definied what game needs to have when we talk about features, gameplay, mission balance, gameplay issues, bugs (!), and interface issues and on top camera control issues.

Now here comes trademark of Russian game developmen. While they excell at some things they really can ruin some things or make it substandard work at best. They are lazy, not very organized and sloppy.

That's why they need direction from western producers and some advice. Well, game is published by Battlefront.com so they will have to watch very seriously at Quality Control.

Now when I speak this I must also add that if they manage to iron those bugs and change some things and put few other things THAT CAN BE PUTT etc... they this game will be really great. I smell even classic. What cannot be putt due to time or money constrainst ok but they need to organize themselves and do what can be done.

That's it.



Mario

[Monkeys Brain]

make the big bucks like a Total War which can have craptastic gameply and AI, but, appeal to the mainstream audience because it has MORE units and makes it feel like a huge battle. ALthough if you really looked at it you only controlled 20 units max during any battle. The illusion is what makes the Total War series popular. You got less units to control than any other rts game I can think of. lol
[/quote]

MTW 2 game is really great. Yes, it have some issues but I have enjoyed it very much. In new add on that is planned for Fall you will have the opportunity to control all reinforcements as well so more than 20 units. And so on. Game is really fun to play. It have some movie epic battles [;)]


Mario

[ravinhood]

ORIGINAL: Hertston

(Ravinhood bitches about everything, and so doesn't count)?

Lol I love how little people know about me to make such comments. You'd be surprised how much I count. I may not count in your book, but, you see you don't count. lol

[Titanwarrior89]

I read some of the comments in the Battlefront forums and there are some who are not to happy with the game. Battlefront is a good company, I hope them well with this one. But its not for me(elicense). Wish'em luck![;)]

ORIGINAL: Monkeys Brain

make the big bucks like a Total War which can have craptastic gameply and AI, but, appeal to the mainstream audience because it has MORE units and makes it feel like a huge battle. ALthough if you really looked at it you only controlled 20 units max during any battle. The illusion is what makes the Total War series popular. You got less units to control than any other rts game I can think of. lol

MTW 2 game is really great. Yes, it have some issues but I have enjoyed it very much. In new add on that is planned for Fall you will have the opportunity to control all reinforcements as well so more than 20 units. And so on. Game is really fun to play. It have some movie epic battles [;)]


Mario
[/quote]

[Monkeys Brain]

[quote]ORIGINAL: Titanwarrior89

I read some of the comments in the Battlefront forums and there are some who are not to happy with the game. Battlefront is a good company, I hope them well with this one. But its not for me(elicense). Wish'em luck![;)]
----

Well, I also... But I have praised them and when I put some criticism about the game and after this I got spanked lol [:D]
There are angry fanboys everywhere I go... [;)]

Game is good no doubt but it have some issues. My PC got lock up in second German mission. After PC restarts or I kill the game process my monitor have 60hz refresh instead of 100 hz...

Camera control - they just had to look at other games that used mouse for everything! Rotating, zooming etc... no need for keyboard! And no - they have their way... Heroes 5 or mentioned MTW 2 have better camera controls and many other games.