WW2 in air -new Matrix project maybe ??

SP-Pete · Post by **SP-Pete** » Mon Sep 18, 2000 6:49 pm

I must say that i had enjoyed all those Matrix WW2 games, but i still miss good air strategy game like Battle of Britain, but i´m curious if there is any chance to make game which starts from 1939 and continues over the ww2, so it isn´t so limited as BoB.I miss campaigns like Poland, North Africa etc.. and good scenarios

.+ of course good editor would be great too.If someone knows any this kind of games please let me know.

Best Wishes: SP-Pete

moore4807 · Post by **moore4807** » Wed Sep 20, 2000 7:21 am

I agree, I posted on the PacWar site something very similar. I would love to see an air war game on a strategic scale and PacWar has several aspects that would be ideal for this type game.
Oh well I'm VERY happy with what games Matrix has put out and spend many hours playing them (my wife will agree to this!)
Good Job Matrix! Wargaming Forever...

Charles22 · Post by **Charles22** » Wed Sep 20, 2000 6:52 pm

Talonsoft, with Gary Grigby's authorship has made a game covering BOTH the more tactical type bombing and strategic bombing (including RAF night bombing!), quite a bit more grandly and detailed than USAAF did. It's called '12 O'Clock High; Bombing the Reich' (BTR for short). If you get past the first 10 days of the campaign, it all starts flowing pretty well, at least from the Luftwaffe perspective, as you get used to knowing what to ignore and how to play effectively, but if you stop before that and evaluate, you haven't done it justice. It takes longer than most games to adapt to it's complexity.

I've been involved with a forum concerning this specific game, but I've become quite discouraged. There's a major flaw in the game (IMO), which the earlier patches didn't have that the latest two have, and that's that when intercepting a fighter group from the front, when it's on it's way to strafe your airfield, both groups when they intersect, will freeze there in mid-air until one of the groups has to turn back for base, at which point a small skirmish will result. It seems it only happens from flights that come out of England as well. It's very annoyingly unrealistic. The Gerry player can freeze an entire group of Allied fighters from hitting their base, with one lone fighter intercepting at that particular angle.

I brought up that problem to a guy who's working on some of the patch stuff, and at first noone seemed to know what I was talking about, as though they'd never seen it. Then later, I found quite a few had experienced this problem but just played beyond it. I couldn't see how they could play with such a garbage flaw. It seems they aren't interested in fixing it either, that they are more concerned about being accurate about which gruppe came into the theatre when. I'm just throroughly disgusted with that game.

I believe the guy trying to fix it isn't working for Talonsoft, doing it on his own, and that Talonsoft probably turns their tech questions on it over to him. It's too bad too, because remove the problem I stated and it's a very intense game, particularly from the Luftwaffe perspective. Don't you just hate it when someone 'fixs' flaws in a game or adds features to it, and it corrupts one of the most basic things of the game (like the problem I spoke of)?

moore4807 · Post by **moore4807** » Sat Sep 23, 2000 12:18 am

Originally posted by Charles22:
Talonsoft, with Gary Grigby's authorship has made a game covering BOTH the more tactical type bombing and strategic bombing (including RAF night bombing!), quite a bit more grandly and detailed than USAAF did. It's called '12 O'Clock High; Bombing the Reich' (BTR for short).

Well after reading about WON being destroyed by the legal types at Talonsoft, I cant say that I will buy anything from them ever again.
As far as the WWII air game, I am more in favor of KOEI's Pacific Theatre of Operations (PTO, PTOII) style of monthly negotiations for production and quotas. The rest of the time was spent playing out your "battle plan" Sure it had flaws but for a console based game it wasn't bad. Koei isnt interested (for some reason) in updating the game for the PC. (To Matrix- hint, hint)
I think this would be an excellent starting point and could be built emphasising the WWII air war. These monthly meetings could be a Joint Chiefs type where you also have to battle the other services for your chunk of the pie in technology and supplies. This type of game could be done on a global scale especially using the Pac War engine... or even the new WITP engine. The command structures renamed but could stay essentially the same, with the ebb/flow of war and the actions of other service branches impacting your bases, sometimes poor communications/interservice rivalries interfering with your objectives, missed fighter escorts (Africa & Italy campaigns)where the bombers got mauled. God I could go on for hours! <grin>
Anyway just my take on it, feel free to make improvements on this or even jump in with something better!
Jim

Dave_R · Post by **Dave_R** » Sat Sep 23, 2000 5:12 pm

This is a game theme that I've been waiting to see done well for so long!
Yes, I've played both BoB and OTR. Wonderfull levels of details in both games, but frankly a game system that stinks! It's clumsy, takes forever to put together a turn, idiot A/I, that ignorse a raid close to a patrol and sends it scurrying of after a lone aircraft halfway across the map, or only uses a fraction of it's resources when you try to get it to auto plot raids for you.
The game has obviously been designed with PBEM in mind, but in doing so at the expence of gameplay. In BoB the Germans attacked and the RAF defended, totally ignoring the fact that even in 1940 Bomber Command was very active.
A briliant idea which was implemented very badly, and which I'm sure could be done much, much better!

Dave_R · Post by **Dave_R** » Thu Sep 28, 2000 6:03 pm

Guys, how about a few of us get together and try to thrash out a game idea on this theme, then when we have something more concrete put it forward to the guys at Matrix. If we want this game, perhaps we could sell the idea better to the guys at Matrix if we were willing to do some of the 'leg' work ourselves.

Grok · Post by **Grok** » Thu Sep 28, 2000 8:36 pm

Originally posted by Dave_R:
Guys, how about a few of us get together and try to thrash out a game idea on this theme, then when we have something more concrete put it forward to the guys at Matrix. If we want this game, perhaps we could sell the idea better to the guys at Matrix if we were willing to do some of the 'leg' work ourselves.

Hi Dave

Sounds pretty good! If you check some of the other threads, you'll find others that are thinking the same way. Might be worthwhile contacting them. I'm all for it, and I wouldn't mind working along those lines. Let me know if there is anything I can do to help. I wouldn't mind seeing a grand strategic game of WW2, I believe the genre is lacking a "good" game of this nature. However, I'll help regardless of the final choice. After all, its to all our benefit.

------------------
understanding requires patience

Grok

Dave_R · Post by **Dave_R** » Thu Sep 28, 2000 9:59 pm

Thanks for the offer Grok. I'm away on vacation for two weeks from this weekend, so I won't be online at all. I can use the time to throw together some initial ideas and thoughts.
If between now and the 17th, when I get back, if there's any more of you guys who'd be interested in joining us, leave a message here and I'll start organizing things when I get back.
Just so everybody is clear: The plan is to develope ideas that can be put together to make a Grand Strategic War Game covering the air war in WW2. If we can do this well, set up game concepts, start to gather data, then eventually we may have something that the guys at Matrix may feel might be worth some serious inpout from then in turning it into an actual wargame.
So come on you guys, instead of sitting back wishing that Matrix will write the game you want come and sign up and help us put something together that we might be able to tempt them with!

Charles22 · Post by **Charles22** » Thu Sep 28, 2000 10:42 pm

Considering Gary Grigsby's talents and his working on a project now for Matrix, and his having done BTR, I would hope that would add to the likelihood, but I don't think BTR sold very many copies.

Actually the highest hopes I would have, would be that Matrix would do some serious work on patching BTR, and from there, perhaps create a new game involving a larger scale, or just the PTO by itself.

VictorH · Post by **VictorH** » Fri Sep 29, 2000 12:30 am

The problems with 12 O'Clock High should be emblamatic of the support Talonsoft provides for their games. Look at Matrix, 3 + patches for SPWAW in such a short period of time. I decided some time ago that Talonsoft is all talk when it comes to supporting the wargame community.

I agree with the suggetion that a WWII airwar game be developed! A remake of 12 O'Clock High with Gary Grigsby since he is already on board with Matrix is a grand idea.

Dave_R · Post by **Dave_R** » Fri Sep 29, 2000 6:40 pm

Originally posted by VictorH:
The problems with 12 O'Clock High should be emblamatic of the support Talonsoft provides for their games. Look at Matrix, 3 + patches for SPWAW in such a short period of time. I decided some time ago that Talonsoft is all talk when it comes to supporting the wargame community.

I agree with the suggetion that a WWII airwar game be developed! A remake of 12 O'Clock High with Gary Grigsby since he is already on board with Matrix is a grand idea.

The only worry I have with this, is that as much as I'd love for us to be able to put together enough to get Garry interested, isn't he still under contract to Talonsoft. I would hate for us to see all our work stolen by Talonsoft!
I know that Gary has been doing some 'consultency' work with Matrix, and this comment is not ment as any sort of slur against his integraty, but Talonsoft have already shown their colours by stealing one game from Matrix, I don't doubt that they'd try it again, especially with a game theme, that as far as I'm aware, they are the only ones to do.
Both BoB and BTR are the only current games of this type, so it's natural that they'll be used as a benchmark, at least to start with, but lets make sure that we don't do anything that will give Talonsoft an excuse to steal it!

Charles22 · Post by **Charles22** » Fri Sep 29, 2000 7:41 pm

From what I recall, it seems that Talonsoft had a contract for Gary to do two titles after BOB. BTR was certainly one of them, but I don't know if he did a second. In any case, if Talonsoft could jerk Gary from a project, the very one he's doing now for Matrix would already be a possible target. For me, the USAAF was my all-time favorite, and if BTR were fixed, it would be, but the grand strategic game (all forces) is a close second, however, I don't think either would necessarily pose as terribly good sellers, and the USAAF type game might have the least potential.

Unfortunately, for a lot of gamers, I don't think that they envision a war limited to the air, as being very appealing, but if they ever played USAAF they would know it's very appealing.

laurent Favre · Post by **laurent Favre** » Fri Sep 29, 2000 7:46 pm

Rumor:

The third game Gary has signed with TS would have to be developped only after the release of Steel Panthers 4.

VictorH · Post by **VictorH** » Fri Sep 29, 2000 8:37 pm

Good point about Talonsoft possibly pulling another WON on Matrix. They have already dishonored themselves once, what do they have to loose by doing it again. They have lost me as well as a number of others as customers.

I don't have any idea of what sort of deal Matrix has with Gary Grigsby, nor what sort of deal they had with Frank Hunter. But, a good lawyer can help keep them out of trouble.

[This message has been edited by VictorH (edited September 29, 2000).]

wflarry · Post by **wflarry** » Fri Sep 29, 2000 8:38 pm

USAAF is my all time favorite. Thank the lord for emmulators. PACWAR is a close second. Have not tried BTR yet, and from your comments about bugs, and the fact that I would HATE to put any money money in Talonsoft's pockets right now, I probably won't give it a try.

I would love to see an update/remake/new game along the lines of 'High Command' or 'Third Reich' with PBEM capabilities.

Of course as a thank you, at this point I will buy any title Matrix is able to sell.

Jeff Panzer · Post by **Jeff Panzer** » Sat Sep 30, 2000 12:59 am

He folks isn't Empire Games relaeasing a BOB
soon. I saw an article in PC Gamer. They claim 1,000 plane can be in action at a time.
The screen shots looked good

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Jeff Panzer · Post by **Jeff Panzer** » Sat Sep 30, 2000 1:00 am

He folks isn't Empire Games relaeasing a BOB
soon. I saw an article in PC Gamer. They claim 1,000 plane can be in action at a time.
The screen shots looked good

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Dave_R · Post by **Dave_R** » Sat Sep 30, 2000 11:26 am

Originally posted by Jeff Panzer:
He folks isn't Empire Games relaeasing a BOB
soon. I saw an article in PC Gamer. They claim 1,000 plane can be in action at a time.
The screen shots looked good

I've not heared anything about it, but it'd be worth looking at. Does it just cover the Battle of Britian? Talking of which. The other weekend I went to the Imperial War musium at the old Duxford airfield, it was the weekend of the 60th aniversery of the Battle of Britain, the highlight of the day was a fly past of 20+ Spitfires in formation! It sure brought a lump to my throat. By the way. If any of you Americans are planning on visiting the UK I suggest that you visit Duxford, there's a gigantic dispay hanger given over to the USAF in Britian! with a B-52 as it's centre piece, never realised how big those mothers are, there#s a B-17 next to it, and all it does is emphasis how small they were and makes me respect even more the guys who flew in them

moore4807 · Post by **moore4807** » Wed Oct 18, 2000 8:53 pm

Just a posting to keep the thread alive... <g>
Really I would like to talk more about the air war and all the types of planes that Matrix has already "modeled" in PacWar, WiR, and SPWAW. Seems like with all this information already packaged, applying a game engine and mapping are the next hardest things to do. (boy if its so easy, why dont I do it??? <sarcastic grin>) I wonder if the game engine for PacWar or WitP could do it? If you were to use a windows based engine then I believe pilots names could be used in Windows Notepad (similar to changing rosters in Baseball/Football Mogul by Imonkey Games) Just throwing out an idea- anybody have any add-ons?

Dave_R · Post by **Dave_R** » Wed Oct 18, 2000 10:36 pm

Originally posted by moore4807:
Just a posting to keep the thread alive... <g>
Hi again Moore, and the rest of you crew. Just got back from my vacation! Gotta say, you Cannuks have a wonderful country by the way!!
I need a couple of days to get back into the swing of things, then I'd like to realy start developing this idea further. So if there's anybody else who'd like to get in on this drop me a line at
dave@rainger.karoo.co.uk
and lets see what we can put together.

I wonder if the game engine for PacWar or WitP could do it?
If we are going to do this, let's do it right. OK other game engines are good for idea's and insperation, but let's make this 'our game' and give it a whole new engine. After all, we want to be able to do enough work to get the guys at Matrix interested, so lets try and give them something that they can own, and make money on

Just throwing out an idea- anybody have any add-ons?
Don't worry! I've got loads to throw in too! As they say! "Just watch this space! (g)