First Impressions

[Yskonyn]

Received the email at 18:00LT, clicked the link, download started! No problem!
Downloaded the game in approximately 8 minutes with my full bandwidth (710KB/sec!! Thanks guys for not joining in too soon! Gna gna!).

After download, installed without problems, although when trying to get the license thing going it asked me (and everyone else I suppose, hehe :D ) for my order ID.

Be aware that it's not the order ID you have to fill in but the license number that's given in the same row in your order confirmation email as where the download link is.
Logical enough, but still confusing, no? ;)

Anyway, got the license to work and fired up the game. It started without any hickups.
Jumped straight into the options to crank every detail up and started a quick battle.

Great visuals! Superbly detailed models, nice textures although the shadows seem jagged and don't display as they should (Catalyst 7.6 drivers), but only a minor gripe.

Camera control is very slow, though and while panning the camera movements speeds up, then slows down again making it quite a burden sometimes to get the right view or to switch position quickly. Maybe I am doing things wrong here? Just first impressions here.

Sounds are great. Difference between speed of light and speed of sound nicely modelled!

Well that's all the time I have for now... Join in and add more first impressions!

Oh and.. please refrain from posting things like: "The game doesn't work, crap!".
It's about first impressions in-game.

Cheers!

[George MC]

Hi Yskonyn smile.gif

Glad everything looks to be going well.

The camera controls takema wee bit of getting used to, but once you do, well you'll find yourself trying to use the mouse wheel to elevate your viewpoint if/when you go to play CMX1!

You found out about left clicking on the mouse and holding that down as you move the camera - that pans the view. Other control I found useful was, as I have said the scroll wheel on the mouse.

Happy fighting!

Cheers fur noo
George

[Yskonyn]

Hi George Mc, thanks for joining in on my, still quite empty, first impressions party! ;)

Thanks for the camera control tips they are bound to come in handy, although I do wonder how anyone would be able to play RealTime with a slow camera?
But anyway, waaaay too soon to give a funded answer yet.

I am missing the LOS tool though! ;)

[Michael Dorosh]

Originally posted by Yskonyn:
although I do wonder how anyone would be able to play RealTime with a slow camera?) Judicious use of the pause button, naturally. smile.gif

[George MC]

Originally posted by Yskonyn:
Hi George Mc, thanks for joining in on my, still quite empty, first impressions party! ;)

Thanks for the camera control tips they are bound to come in handy, although I do wonder how anyone would be able to play RealTime with a slow camera?
But anyway, waaaay too soon to give a funded answer yet.

I am missing the LOS tool though! ;) I'm playing out one of the battles in the campaign now in RT. Must admit the camera works OK for me. I do find myself doing the angel bit and hovering overhead, only going down to lev 1 to check out terrain and stuff. Camera works fast enough for me - could the camera speed be linked to having the graphics set to high for your rig?

Cheers fur noo
George

[imported_Major_Jerkov]

So far, so good... mostly. Graphics look good, as mentioned above though, shadows are real jaggy. Have updated to newest Nvidia drivers and problem still persists. I found the controls relatively intuitive, the basics seem to remain the same.

Started a QB battle which had humorous results, I spawnkilled a few squads of syrian infantry that spawned in my spawn. Good stuff. smile.gif

Video of QB 1st phase (http://home.comcast.net/~lordfoultrajik/cmsf.wmv)

[RedDevil]

why on earth did they change the hotkeys all around???

sheesh now I gotta relearn the keys again

loaded fine
already lost my 1st unit and got my INF pinned down in a sewer trench.. no video issues so far just trying to get the camera angles to suit my tastes...

[Elmar Bijlsma]

Originally posted by Michael Dorosh:
</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />Originally posted by Yskonyn:
although I do wonder how anyone would be able to play RealTime with a slow camera?) Judicious use of the pause button, naturally. smile.gif </font>[/QUOTE]Being aware that {ctrl}+{click} (still) works does help too.

[Moon]

Camera controls: left click + hold and right click + hold are your friends!

Martin

[InvaderCanuck]

For you fellas running the game smoothly, mind posting your video cards?

I've heard some people are having serious issues while the OP here is having none!

Im dling atm and really hope I fall into the none crowd!

[David Chapuis]

i have a 64MG ATI radeon and I am running decent enough on the low and medium levels.

First impressions: I tried to play the campaign without reading any of the manual, but I am giving up. I guess I will read the manual and the game a bit.

I do like the delayed sound though. I heard a big bang, and was looking rewinding looking all around for it (like it did in CMx1 games). then I remembered delayed sound. Pretty cool.

[Razer]

I have the same jagged shadow problem as Yskonyn. But it's no big gripe. I found for camera movement leftclick hold + right click hold to work the best.

Anyway, I'm sitting here with 1.0, patiently waiting for the 1.01 patch to be released. Still think the game is loads of fun tongue.gif

[Yskonyn]

Thanks for joining in chaps!
Lets make this a nice warmup party as the first few hours pass after the release of CM.

I've just finished my first complete Quick Battle; an attack on a small village, although is resembled an airfield more to be honest.

I started with about 10 Strykers, 4 Bradleys, 3 Engineer Squads, and a whole bunch of riflemen.

The first Syrians were spotted the very first second and 2 Bradleys started to shell them causing panick in the first 2 minutes of play.

I quickly forces their flank to give in and overran the western part of their fortifications.
I rushed the 2 other bradleys over to flank the other side and quite easily broke the whole Syrian squad in under 13 minutes.
Played at lowest difficulty setting though. *grin*

Anyway, the camera control is much better now after having set the Unit Detail backwards two notches, so its now set to Improved, texture detail is set to Best and I have hard-set my Anti-Aliasing to 2x (going to try 4x) and Anisotropic Filtering to x8 in the Catalyst Drivers as the game seems to read those settings directly from the driverset. So yes, it does seem that the Unit Detail setting was too high and caused sluggish performance.
Resolution of play is 1024x768.

Framerates are constant and comfortable and I am running the game on a P4 3.4Ghz HT 800Mhz FSB processor, 1GB RAM (Dual Channel setup, 400Mhz), ATi Radeon X1950Pro 512MB, Soundblaster X-Fi Xtreme Gamer Prof, Windows XP.
Using catalyst 7.6 driverset, DirectX 9.0c (june release).

Rightclick + Hold to rotate the camera and
Leftclick + Hold to pan the camera needs a little to get used to, but even after my first game it seems to work quite well! smile.gif

And as Elmar stated: CTRL + leftclick still jumps the camera. *thumbs up*

[Speedy]

First Impression after one quick battle is pretty damn good, though I will say I found the camera controls a bit awkward.
First up tried a real time qb on elite difficulty with my Syrians attacking an Uncon village, go to the map and I find I have approximately 2 companies of mechanised infantry with a pyramid of blue icons above them <gulp>.
5 minutes later I worked out how to load my inf into the BTR's, then clicked the start button. Bugger maybe I should have given orders first, so 6 minutes into the battle I finally manage to get all my units moving. By this stage all the Uncon technicals are toast and I start to hear some whoosing noises, uh-oh hauling the camera around I find that I have lost 2 BTRs to rpg hits, better stop my BTRs and dismount the troops (Can we give groups of units orders? Doing this individually takes quite a while).
Now about 16 minutes into the battle I remember I have some mortar support and decide to call it in to see what it is like, even an immediate call gives me a delay of 6 mins so time to wait a bit.
After 2 mins of waiting for the arty the end battle screen pops up with a total victory for me ( so no arty :( ).
I definately do not want to be commanding that many troops in RT again unless there is a way to give group orders.
Oh and I liked the addition of 'missing' to the casualty list.

[mscano]

Downloaded it in under 5 minutes (1.35mb/sec)! Had a problem with the order ID thing (figured it out myself). Installed flawlessly, no problems.

Fired it up and it runs great! Played the training mission and the first mission on the list. All I can say is throw out whatever tactics you used in the WW2 games....and watch out for RPGs! I took a lot of casualities and would have undoubtly been the lead story on CNN.

One thing I noticed is that you can't lasso units like in the other games. If you double click on a unit, you highlight the entire platoon. They definitely want you to use more realistic tactics.

Overall, I say Great Job!

System Specs: PentIV/3Ghz, 2gigs ram, nvidia7600gt 256mb card, Windows XP.

[rune]

mscano,

yes, you can group select. Look in the manual, but if you left click ont he ground and hold it while moving, you will select that group of units.

Rune

[MoNuckah]

I really like it so far. A couple of little bugs already, but hey, its cool.

Is there any way to toggle 'Show all targets/ waypoints'like in CMx1?

I didn't see anything in the manual or Hotkey menu for it, and its something I'd really like to see.

I have to click on every unit to see the issued commands and current targets, which is a little annoying.

[Steiner14]

Yskonyn,
the X1950Pro can't handle max detail? Damn, this card is on my radar.
What about haze and weather effects? Are they all graphically present with your card?

[Bil Hardenberger]

You can also select multiple units one by one by shift-left clicking on each.

Bil

[Hev]

love the game, its running smooth even on my back up rig with 1gig ddr1 (pc3200 i think)

Just got my arse handed to me on the first campaign mission, im playing on Elite :D

I realy like how the vehicle dont have "Exact" knowledge of where thier buddies are, its implemented realy well.

Thanks Again BFC GOOD JOB GUYS

PS striker rush's dont work -.-

[Bertram]

My first battle played. Thought I was doing pretty bad, not getting my objectives, and a Stryker burning.

The result was a victory - I like those asymetric victory conditions!!

[Battlefront.com]

Thanks for the early feedback guys!

There is alot of "unlearning" that might be needed, but just remember. Things that are in CMx2 are there for a reason just like things that were in CMx1 were also in for good reasons. Since the games are different, fundamentally different in fact, not everything in CMx1 is applicable to CMx2.

I will say this though. We are planning on adding some better feedback in places. You'll get used to how things work and not notice the lack of certain things fairly quickly, but we do understand that other things would be helpful early on or even after a lot of play.

As with all our CM games... the support for the product will continue for years to come!

Steve

[Hev]

love the game, its running smooth even on my back up rig with 1gig ddr1 (pc3200 i think)

Just got my arse handed to me on the first campaign mission, im playing on Elite :D

I realy like how the vehicle dont have "Exact" knowledge of where thier buddies are, its implemented realy well.

Thanks Again BFC GOOD JOB GUYS

PS stryker rush's dont work -.-

[Battlefront.com]

Yskonyn,

Camera control is very slow, though and while panning the camera movements speeds up, then slows down again making it quite a burden sometimes to get the right view or to switch position quickly. Maybe I am doing things wrong here? Just first impressions here.First tip is not to control the camera with the keyboard. That is purposefully slower so as to give more fine control of movement. Camera panning when holding down the right mouse button should be as fast as any FPS game (OK, maybe not QUITE as fast, but darn'd close). There is, however, some built in behavior to slow down the pan so you don't get the "neck snapping" feeling you get with FPS games since that isn't what people generally want for CM. If things seem to be going slower than you want, let up on the mouse button, click in the middle of the screen, and try again. That should do the trick.

Steve

[Battlefront.com]

Heh... man, you guys are posting fast! Looks like Yskonyn already figured out what I wrote :D

And yes Hev, Stryker rushes don't work very well. In fact, rushing anything tends to produce an optimal result from the enemy's perspective smile.gif This is one of the things people are going to have to get used to more than probably anything else. Combat these days is all about taking your time to fix and reduce the enemy while you maneuver something bigger to finsih them off. Going in for close combat is generally not recommended!

You'll hear me say this a lot in the coming months:

SLOW AND DELIBERATE WINS, FAST AND SLOPPY LOSES

Steve

[Sirocco]

Immediate impressions; map edges. ToW seemed to handle them much better.

Two issues, one more important than the other. I couldn't get the AT teams to use their last Javelin's against the bunkers in the training campaign. I split them from the squads and gave them target orders, but nothing from any of them, apart from small arms. All had one Javelin remaining.

The second, and minor issue; when selecting a bunker as point target it was flagged as "vehicle", not "bunker".

[Xipe66]

Pretty, fitting music and really hard.

I have no idea on how to conduct MOUT warfare and my men are paying for it.

The sounds, music and graphics are good though, I can't really comment much on the actual game yet (except I'm struggling) after just playing the first two training missions.

The controls were intuitive enough, but I would have preferred if keybindings had stayed as they used to be (no biggie though) - gonna have to RTFM about how to easily change between command groups though.

In the first mission I unloaded my men at WWII MG ranges (about 500m), and lost one MG team and half a squad right away despite trying to suppress the enemy with the Strykers. smile.gif (my original plan was to unload the MGs earlier, but I didn't know about the Disembark not being among the Movement commands, so my MGs Quick-moved without moving when the Stryker paused).

It's going to be a learning curve.

EDIT: Oh, and I didn't see any map generator in the Scenario Editor - I hope I just need to RTFM, because that's a big reason as to why CMBB has lasted on my HD up to this day.

[ July 27, 2007, 12:39 PM: Message edited by: Xipe66 ]

[Exel]

Impressions after first battle (Allah's Fist):

Controls -
To be honest, really counter-intuitive. The four different command menus are slow to use. Left-click mouse menu would have been nice, but oh well. They are versatile.

The camera controls need some urgent fixing though. The keyboard camera controls have really erratic behaviour; the camera halts, lags, doesn't respond, etc. With mouse the camera works fine, but again the controls are somewhat counter-intuitive. During the first battle I spent most of my time working the camera, not playing the game. I hope it's something one gets used to, but it sure isn't made easy. Suggestion: Make the left-click camera move function have invert axis, so as to 'drag the map' instead of 'push the camera'.

Graphics -
After fixing the initial glitches, works fine except for the shadows. The units look real great! However at times the vehicles seem to sink into the terrain, and when viewed from a distance they often look as if they are floating in the air.

Making out height differences is really hard on the terrain, at least when graphics set to 'Balanced'. Really big of an issue - can't make out line-of-sight, can't position tanks to hull-down. Suggestion: Add a line-of-sight command.

The animations are neat but in some cases really overdone. The Abrams rocks from recoil as if it was a Stryker...

Gameplay -
The tanks behave very realistically - way better than I dared to hope for! Tank battles are fast and violent - and short. Great job there! :cool:


----------

And hey, I found myself in the game!

http://www.edu.lahti.fi/~aroinila/heyitsexel.jpg

How neat is that?! :D

[ July 27, 2007, 12:52 PM: Message edited by: Exel ]

[Bonxa]

Running pretty fine on the following system:
1.8 GHz AMD
512 MB DDR RAM
ATI 9600

My laptop was a bit worse but that's because I'm having problems updating my video drivers which are over a year old...

My first impressions are that this is combat mission for sure but it will take a little bit of getting used to. Camera controls are fine for me, as is real time. The immersion is very good from the get go. Tool tips would be very nice though, but I have already started reading the f***ing manual. smile.gif

[JohnO]

I like it so far :D everything for me is running fine, however I did have a problem on how to mount units in a vehicle, found out the hard way and kept at it until I figured it out. Love the scenario Allahs Fist :D

JohnO

[Salkin]

When first starting it I thought things looked fairly typical "Combat Mission", but as soon as my men and vehicle started to move I was totally blown away! Things looked way better then I hoped they would (and WAY better then in the movies we've been getting).

Watching my first javelin kill was also very nice.

My one gripe so far is with the AI.

I tried a quickbattle on a tiny map vs mech syrian forces.
My first contact was some APC's in the distans.

After a bit of hassle and a few men lost(2) I got my men onto some rooftops armed with javelins from my strykers (all this is very cool by the way, I love getting stuff from my strykers).

"WHOOOSH!"

*silence*

"KA-BOOOM" !!!

Splodey things hit thinly armoured troop transports. A couple of minutes after this I am the winner of the scenario (I think time ran out).

I watch the carnege in the AAR view. The area around the enemy APCs are littered with dead and wounded...voila.

This sounds cool, and it kind of was , but I have a few worries about these quick battles. It seems you REALLY need the right map plans for the right map or the AI may be very inactive in some corner of the map.

This was only my first quick battle , so the second one might come as a positive surprise.

Other then this I deffinitely like the game...this is CM on steroids, with Strykers, Javelins and all those wonderfull details we all love so much :D .

//Salkin

[Salkin]

As for the camera controls that Exel mentioned above , I definitely believe that this is something that you will easily get used to after a few play throughs. For line of sight tool, try the target button.

Now I REALLY need to go and RTFM.

//Salkin

[David Chapuis]

those automatic grenade launchers are something else. Wow! Lots of fun to watch for the first time!

[Exel]

Originally posted by Salkin:
As for the camera controls that Exel mentioned above , I definitely believe that this is something that you will easily get used to after a few play throughs. Probably. But it would REALLY help if the left-click drag camera control had at least an option to invert the mouse axis (both of them). Invert mouse is that something that you get or you don't - forcing to do against one's nature is like trying to force a lefty to become a righty. tongue.gif

Seriously though I do believe it would be a lot more intuitive that way. You click on the map to drag the map, you push the edges of the screen to push the camera. Now they both push the camera.

[Razgovory]

My first impressions. (Note on my specs 3.3 gig processor, Radeon 850xp pro video card, 2 gigs of RAM. Not top of the line but pretty good) The controls are somewhat counterintuitive; the hot keys seem to change when you click on different menus. That's really odd. As has already been noted, using the keyboard to move the camera is not good. Fortunately using the mouse to move the camera works much better. It's not Combat Mission x1 and that's the biggest hurdles you have to get over before you can enjoy it. After you start to figure that out the game gets much better. So far I've played one quick battle and one training mission. Apparently you have to do something for the AI in the quick battle that I don't know how to do yet so the enemy just sat there. That was okay. I got to test artillery on them which was fun.

Once you get past the new controls the game is really a blast though. I do miss the option to speed up turns in the turn based part of the game though.

[MikeyD]

Take it from me EVERYBODY first cusses when trying to control the camera but VERY quickly it becomes the favorite aspect of the whole game. Hang in there.

[Michael Dorosh]

Originally posted by Razgovory:
Once you get past the new controls the game is really a blast though. I do miss the option to speed up turns in the turn based part of the game though. I believe this is fixed in the patch; memory is hazy right now as I usually do RTS.

[Taki]

First Impression i got was some Problems and Driver Updates that didnt Help on that "Camera COntrol" Problem. Laaging, behaves strange and gimmie CTD.

But after all i enjoyed it so far. Have to learn alot i guess. Old WW2 Tactcis CMX1 dont work anymore and that make me Happie somehow.

[Exel]

Two crashes so far, both seemingly caused by the camera, occurred when rapidly dropping the camera from high altitude to ground level - the game just hangs.

[Razgovory]

Originally posted by Michael Dorosh:
</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />Originally posted by Razgovory:
Once you get past the new controls the game is really a blast though. I do miss the option to speed up turns in the turn based part of the game though. I believe this is fixed in the patch; memory is hazy right now as I usually do RTS. </font>[/QUOTE]I have the version pre-order version that I downloaded from Battlefront... I didn't know there was an extra patch. It says 1.01 already.

[CRourke]

I'm pretty impressed so far. Just finished my first quick battle. Limited ability to pick forces is a little annoying, but I also enjoy getting surprised with force structures I might not have chosen on purpose. Played a Meeting Engagement on hills map. Obj is a house inside a walled compound, placed on a saddle in the middle of the map. Force is a medium eng coy backed up with the ATGM section. Enemy is mechanized regulars.

First hiccup. Enemy evidentally air dropped 2 plts of bmp-1 into my assembly area. Thank god for the TOW armed strykers. Enemy force wiped out, with just some light wounds to the guys riding the strykers. (This shared deployment area is an annoying bug, but easily fixable I hope).

Plan: 1st plt will rapidly advance to back side of walled compound, dismounts will seize compound before enemy can close. 2nd plt will advance to a reverse slow position on my left, which gives them LOS to 2nd entrance to compound, to prevent enemy approach/reinforcement. 3rd plt held in reserve. ATGM section pushes to broad right side of saddle, where there fires can engage any armor cresting the saddle. Having already destroyed the two bmp plts, I'm expecting very little resistance at this point.

Execution: Everything goes well in this first phase. Compound is taken. I see occasion dust clouds on the enemies side of the saddle, so I guess he must have some remaining forces that deployed in a 2nd area. 10 or so minutes in, I order a pair of strykers from 2nd plt to hunt forward, pushing near the center of the saddle. As they reach the military crest, there is a huge burst of fire.. in seconds, both strykers are smoking. I send in the reserve plt, this time playing it caution, having them dismount their infantry just behind the military crest. Dismounts immediately come under very heavy fire. I order 1st plt to leave the compound and join the reserve 3rd plt on the crest. 2nd plt is also order to advance, taking the left side of the crest. Meanwhile the TOW strykers have pushed forward, high and on the extreme right... I'm hoping distance will protect them from the RPG's that I assumed took out the first two strykers. Dismounts take casualties as the enemy engages with AR's, MG's, and RPG's. Luckily (unwisely), the enemy infantry is concentrated quite tightly, and my cresting units have a pretty good crossfire. Even better, ATGM section on the right fires a single TOW that explodes right in the center of the syrian mob. After that, our forces have clear fire superiority. The only significant resistance comes from a clever Syrian innovation, the dreaded Twin BMP. Made from stacked BMP-1's, it offers, Twice the Armor, Twice the Fire Power, 1/200 of the Believability. It also offers a nasty suprise to my ATGM Stryker who was climbing further up the peak on the right side of the saddle. But eventually it falls to superior U.S. firepower... possibly from a twin-TOW.

Result: Total Victory.

Opinion: Very Fun. This is a winner, but there are certainly some glitches left. Aside from the deployment issues, I've noticed the camera key controls have some strange lag.. first the camera moves slow, then it seems to get damped and continue on far after you release the key. But scrolling via mouse works ok. No pathfinding issues so far, but it was a pretty sparse map. I do keep hitting 'M', which orders my costly high tech strykers to advance on the enemy in reverse, but thats pretty much my fault. Thinking back to CMBO, I think it was more ready to go out of the box, but I don't see any show stoppers, just stuff that needs to get patched. I'm sure we'll see the usual whine-fest from people, but meanwhile the rest of us will be too busy playing the game to respond.

[rune]

Sirocco sure they had 1 remaning and not just the launcher?

Rune


Originally posted by Sirocco:
Immediate impressions; map edges. ToW seemed to handle them much better.

Two issues, one more important than the other. I couldn't get the AT teams to use their last Javelin's against the bunkers in the training campaign. I split them from the squads and gave them target orders, but nothing from any of them, apart from small arms. All had one Javelin remaining.

The second, and minor issue; when selecting a bunker as point target it was flagged as "vehicle", not "bunker".

[mgk]

For me it is good old CM but with new fast and beautiful graphics and new tactical possibilities smile.gif
Great work !

[Michael Dorosh]

Originally posted by CRourke:
Played a Meeting Engagement on hills map. Obj is a house inside a walled compound, placed on a saddle in the middle of the map. Force is a medium eng coy backed up with the ATGM section. Enemy is mechanized regulars...Sounds like my map from Meeting at High Altitude? I haven't played it in a QB, just with the forces I put in. Too bad about the teleporting set up zones. I just replayed the scen this morning with the latest build; for a sparse map it does have some interesting lines of sight - approaching the crest with caution pays dividends. Still not sure if there is any advantage to avoiding the compound altogether in favour of setting up on high ground to the flank.

[flyinj]

Something I'd really like to see for the camera controls:

Have a "camera modifier" key that puts the mouse into left-hold and right-hold camera modes. For instance, holding down CTRL (or whatever) acts just like holding down the left mouse button. ALT could act as right mouse button. Give the option to make these toggles (tap once to get in, tap again to get out) or hold modifiers (hold to retain mode).

Also, it would be REALLY nice to have smoother WASD camera control. Implementing Total Wars' system would be fantastic, where holding down shift makes the camera move even faster.

[Nidan1]

Got home from work, fired up the computer...downloaded in about eight minutes, flawless operation, no problems with license key.

Game loaded smoothly, came up with less than maximum settings.... up ugraded my 3d settings a bit, and fired up the first scenario. I just drove the Strykers down the road just to see what would happen, frame rates and movement looked good no weird happenings as others have described. Syrian troops then proceeded to blast away at the Strykers killing three with RPGs...so now I am reading the manual. All looks good so far. Great work BFC this is groundbreaking to say the least!!!

I hope those of us who are having problems get them fixed, because this game is awesome.

[CRourke]

Ya, fun little map. I considered putting more of my inf on the flanks behind the right and left peaks, but covering the saddle, instead of rushing the compound, but the engineers seem to lack SAW/M240 support. I could of used the Stryker MG's for long range fires, but I was expecting a pretty good push from BMP's down the center, and didn't want to expose them to it... would be interesting to know how things would have turned out if I'd faced the full enemy force.

[benpark]

Good good good so far. It's good old CM, but all grown up.

One CTD so far (turn played out, then CTD), and if it gets some more speed through upcoming optimizations, we are golden. WW2 will be fantatsic with this new engine.

[Vergeltungswaffe]

Originally posted by Xipe66:
EDIT: Oh, and I didn't see any map generator in the Scenario Editor - I hope I just need to RTFM, because that's a big reason as to why CMBB has lasted on my HD up to this day. There isn't one.
But,...you can bet there will be a slew of maps available, post haste, from the community, so you shouldn't lack for variety.

[David Chapuis]

Originally posted by Michael Dorosh:
Sounds like my map from Meeting at High Altitude? I haven't played it in a QB, just with the forces I put in. Too bad about the teleporting set up zones. I just replayed the scen this morning with the latest build; for a sparse map it does have some interesting lines of sight - approaching the crest with caution pays dividends. Still not sure if there is any advantage to avoiding the compound altogether in favour of setting up on high ground to the flank.I am playing this as a syrian light inf force attacking a stryker group. I have 4 platoons of inf and about 6 mg sections. the stryker 40mm grenade lauchers are pulverizing me. I am about to drop some 82mm mortars on a stryker - we will see how that works.

Can only the US side split squads? My RPG guys keep getting plastered.

Also, please tell me there is a way to get rid of the trees

[MrSpkr]

First impressions?

Hmm.

A few nice things, a few let downs, and have I mentioned that finding drivers for a GeForce Go 7600 for the new laptop is a pain in the butt? I currently have version 84.54. I have downloaded version 84.71, but am completely unable to install them (installation program says that they are either th ewrong drivers or mine are the most up to date (which I know is wrong).

First, the nice things: sounds are terrific, and I love seeing the individual men fly through the air when wounded, killed, etc. It was interesting to see (by following the body trails) my opponent's attack lines.

I also like the ability to choose various stories of a building -- rooftop access rocks.

Vehicles are nice, and the strength of modern firepower are telling.

Gameplay was smooth, for the most part, with graphics on the "Balanced" or "better" settings.

I also loved the graphics of a crew bailing out of a tank! Very cool!

Hiccups: a few. In the ambush tutorial, I was attacked by the Syrian First Levitation Brigade, which was rather startling (http://picasaweb.google.com/smhineslaw/CombatMission/photo#5091999035245276354). Also, I had some probs with shadows -- probably my video card drivers. Wish I could fix them.

Things I wish were in it: (a) ability to speed up, rewind or slow down turns as they commence.

(b) The ability to see a given unit's kills in a scenario (one of my favorite things about CMx1).

(c) Better AI on quick battles. I did a QB, blue on blue, I was supposed to defend against an attack. Computer never moved his forces, and I was unable to determine what my objectives were (nothing indicated on the map). If this is the quality of QBs, I am a little frustrated, though I wil probably learn to live with it.

(d) Smoother transition between the actual map and the background.

(e) Joe Shaw driving a technical around town in the aforementioned Ambush scenario.

Overall, I was not as "wowed" as I was with CMAK or even CMBB; however, I do not regret getting the game and look forward to more play!

Steve

[ July 27, 2007, 03:23 PM: Message edited by: MrSpkr ]

[qsito]

I hate you all ;) . I'm sitting here drooling because I'm too cheap to buy it.
-qsito

[Joe Shaw]

Originally posted by MrSpkr:
First impressions?

Hmm.

...{snipped}...

(e) Joe Shaw driving a technical around town in the aforementioned Ambush scenario.

...{snipped}...

Steve Just shows how much YOU know, there's nothing "technical" about driving through a town ... I do it all the time.

Joe

[Sirocco]

Originally posted by rune:
Sirocco sure they had 1 remaning and not just the launcher? It said something like "Javelin 1" under ammo. I'll have another look at that tutorial to confirm, but 3 tanks, 9 Javelin's in total. All three teams seemed to hit the first tank, but I heard the second and third go up quite quickly together, so I had the distinct impression more were left.

[Salkin]

I just had a quick RTFM session.
I ahve to tell you guys, this game doesn't include the kitchen sink, but just about everything else ;) .

There's alot of fun stuff here :D .


//Salkin

[metalbrew]

Originally posted by Sirocco:
I couldn't get the AT teams to use their last Javelin's against the bunkers in the training campaign.I had the same thing happen. The ATGM teams quickly engaged the T54s without orders. The I manually targeted both bunkers. One bunker was fired at, the other wasn't. I couldn't compel my ATGM teams to fire on the second bunker. The M249 had no problems targeting the same bunker and there was a red icon above the bunker (unlike the dead first bunker and dead T54s).

[metalbrew]

Originally posted by Sirocco:
</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />Originally posted by rune:
Sirocco sure they had 1 remaning and not just the launcher? It said something like "Javelin 1" under ammo.</font>[/QUOTE]Ditto for me. The ammo screen showed 1 Javelin remaining.

[B00M$LANG]

First, My hardware:

Athlon 64 3200+ (socket 939)
2GB ram
NVIDIA Geforce 7600 GT, 256 MB
Windows XP, SP 2

Second, game settings: Everything on "balanced"

I'm having no issues at all. Game runs very smooth, no stuttering. I only play in Real-Time (turn-based is for wimps, IMHO! :) ).

I really like this game so far,...and since my job entails using modern military games in the classroom, I'd think that's saying alot.

Though I haven't messed with the editor, if it's fairly straightforward and relatively simple, I could see this as being a valuable training tool.

My only reservation is the map size - 4km x 4km is definitely NOT what the Army needs for an entity-based training simulation.

Any chance the game is HLA-compliant? ;)

BTW, I actually LIKE the camera controls! This is significant, because I couldn't stand the older CM games because of this, but now, I'm liking the RMC+hold paradigm, and I'm getting around rather quick.

[ July 27, 2007, 03:32 PM: Message edited by: B00M$LANG ]

[B00M$LANG]

Originally posted by metalbrew:
</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />Originally posted by Sirocco:
I couldn't get the AT teams to use their last Javelin's against the bunkers in the training campaign.I had the same thing happen. The ATGM teams quickly engaged the T54s without orders. The I manually targeted both bunkers. One bunker was fired at, the other wasn't. I couldn't compel my ATGM teams to fire on the second bunker. The M249 had no problems targeting the same bunker and there was a red icon above the bunker (unlike the dead first bunker and dead T54s). </font>[/QUOTE]The way to get around that is to only dismount one AT team at a time - let the first team take-out the tanks, then you can target the bunkers with the other teams.

[Blackhorse]

BOOM, where are you located that you use these in a classroom environment?

Cheers,
BH

[B00M$LANG]

Originally posted by Blackhorse:
BOOM, where are you located that you use these in a classroom environment?

Cheers,
BH Fort Leavenworth

[Sirocco]

Originally posted by B00M$LANG:
</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />Originally posted by metalbrew:
</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />Originally posted by Sirocco:
I couldn't get the AT teams to use their last Javelin's against the bunkers in the training campaign.I had the same thing happen. The ATGM teams quickly engaged the T54s without orders. The I manually targeted both bunkers. One bunker was fired at, the other wasn't. I couldn't compel my ATGM teams to fire on the second bunker. The M249 had no problems targeting the same bunker and there was a red icon above the bunker (unlike the dead first bunker and dead T54s). </font>[/QUOTE]The way to get around that is to only dismount one AT team at a time - let the first team take-out the tanks, then you can target the bunkers with the other teams. </font>[/QUOTE]You're right, of course, but I imagine the team is saving it's last Javelin, which isn't bad behaviour per se, but if you're telling the team to target a bunker the AI should override that as you're obviously not expecting another significant threat above that.

[Blackhorse]

Boom,

Are you at CGSC? Contact me off-line. I'm at the Belvoir Satellite.


BH

[Sirocco]

I tried the tutorial again. The three squads have two AT4's remaining, and one Javelin. I have one squad split into two, both manually targetting one of the bunkers, and both use only small arms.

[metalbrew]

Originally posted by B00M$LANG:
</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />Originally posted by metalbrew:
</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />Originally posted by Sirocco:
I couldn't get the AT teams to use their last Javelin's against the bunkers in the training campaign.I had the same thing happen. The ATGM teams quickly engaged the T54s without orders. The I manually targeted both bunkers. One bunker was fired at, the other wasn't. I couldn't compel my ATGM teams to fire on the second bunker. The M249 had no problems targeting the same bunker and there was a red icon above the bunker (unlike the dead first bunker and dead T54s). </font>[/QUOTE]The way to get around that is to only dismount one AT team at a time - let the first team take-out the tanks, then you can target the bunkers with the other teams. </font>[/QUOTE]Get around what exactly? The ATGM teams correctly fired on the T54s as needed. No complaints about that. I had Javelins in inventory, the ATGM teams wouldn't fire on the bunkers.

One thing I did notice regarding this, was the in the green-screen portion of the squad info window. The part I'm referring to shows how many M4s and M249s etc... the squad is equiped with. In the early part of the mission and while engaging the T54s the antitank squad member's slot showed a silhouette of a CLU mounted on a Javelin, I took this to mean the AT dude was 'using' the Javelin. Later when I couldn't get the ATGM team to engage the bunker, the green-screen portion of the squad info didn't show the silhouette of the Javelin, just small arms. The colorized info screen for the squad showed 2 Javelin tubes and a CLU. It's as though the AT dude no longer had the Javelin and swapped for a rifle.

Basically the green-screen and colorized screen differed regarding squad loadout.

[Battlefront.com]

MrSpkr,

Hehe... shoot, I thought we fixed that bug! Oh well, at least you probably toasted them shortly after you took that screenshot. Toyotas pickups may run for 300k miles under normal circumstances, but in CM's harsh environment most don't make it that long :D

B00M$LANG,

Not sure if I know you or not, since I'm in contact with several of your cohorts, so contact me off line if we're nto already in contact. We can talk shop.

Metalbrew,

I think I know what caused that bunker problem. When I was testing that scenario I *THINK* I noticed that if the crew abandoned the bunker, or was killed (but the bunker still intact), the Squad decided it wasn't worth wasting a Javelin on. That should be fine for automatic targeting behavior, but heck... if you want it gone, who are we to say it shouldn't be gone? smile.gif I'll write up a bug report for that.

The Javelin is shown in the weapons display and in 3D when the guy feels that is the weapon he should use. If not, it is "stowed" and his primary small arm is put back into use. This is consistent with what I said just above, so if we tweak one the other will follow suit.

Steve

[metalbrew]

Steve,

The thing about the abandoned bunker or killed crew makes a bit of sense. The reason I didn't think this was going on was the red 'MG Crew' icon was still hovering over the bunker. I don't know what enables or disables this icon, but that's why I thought the thing was still alive.

In that scenarios if the Stryker's hadn't been immobile I would've driven down and checked the thing out. As it was, I didn't want to waste 15 minutes moving infantry down the map to see what was what.

[Battlefront.com]

Some quick answers to a couple of questions:

1. Syrians can not split off an AT team from their Squads. There is a different philosophy about their employment in Soviet based doctrine. They are, basically, like a BIG M203 grenade launcher, not an independent tank hunting element. There are some dedicated ones like that, just not with the Squads.

2. We also don't let Syrian Squads split up because, according to their doctrine, they can't. There is a lack of junior leadership and initiative at this level that is not present in Western forces. Look at the HQ element of a Rifle Platoon. The Platoon Leader doubles as a Squad Leader! This reduces the need for Squad Leaders by 33% and Team Leaders by 100%. It also reduces tactical flexibility by as much.

3. WeGo turns can not be speeded up. The reason is... there is no turn compile like in CMx1. The first 60 seconds you are watching *is* the turn compile, so speeding it up would mean crunching numbers faster. It's not possible since the CPU is already doing a lot. The interesting thing is that this means in CM:SF you always wait exactly 60 seconds before you can issue orders again. No less, no more. In CMx1 you could wait that long just to have the turn crunch before being shown even 1 second of combat. So in the end this system results in a HUGE time savings to the player (after all , you don't want to skip all your turns, do you? smile.gif ). Note that you can fast forward and rewind after the initial go through.

4. Trees can't be turned off because there is no ground texture, like CMx1, to show you where the trees are. Plus, individual trees matter in CM:SF, so turning them off has a lot of implications that did not exist in CMx1. Having said that, we know that if we could find a way of turning them off many of you would be happy about that.

5. CTDs are most likely due to some issue we are currently working on now that some of you are seeing it. Looks like the dual processor and OS combos out there are a lot less predictable than they should be from a coding standpoint. Most of us who tested the game have dual processors and we haven't noted these problems. It's definitely specifc combos of things that we didn't have, so Charles has this as his top priority to address. He's even going to go out and buy a new computer. And if you knew how cheap Chalres is about hardware, you'd understand how serious he takes this problem :D

Steve

[Lio]

Ive had the Javlin/bunker problem to.

But back to "First Impression" tbh my first impression was, CRAP.... then i did a quick read of manual and figured out the hotkeys... its still a hard game since you have to figure out alot of things and i never played a CM game before. But when you learn it all i have no doubt that it will be awesome. Well it already is, but there is some subtle stuff that sometimes leaves one wondering if it is a bug or design. But i guess that just becouse im new with the game.
So two thumbs up from me :D im a happy costumer.
And that Todd guy who wrote that crappy review must have been on crack or something.

[Elmar Bijlsma]

Originally posted by metalbrew:

One thing I did notice regarding this, was the in the green-screen portion of the squad info window. The part I'm referring to shows how many M4s and M249s etc... the squad is equiped with. In the early part of the mission and while engaging the T54s the antitank squad member's slot showed a silhouette of a CLU mounted on a Javelin, I took this to mean the AT dude was 'using' the Javelin. Later when I couldn't get the ATGM team to engage the bunker, the green-screen portion of the squad info didn't show the silhouette of the Javelin, just small arms. The colorized info screen for the squad showed 2 Javelin tubes and a CLU. It's as though the AT dude no longer had the Javelin and swapped for a rifle.

Basically the green-screen and colorized screen differed regarding squad loadout. The green Javelin in the weapons slot is just to show you who's carrying the launcher, not the missiles. The missiles themselves, including the one attached to that launcher, is displayed in the equipment screen. You say you had two rounds left. How sure are you those aren't AT-4 rounds? I'm pretty sure all squads lug two AT-4s around also.

Also, if troops won't fire the Javelin at the squad in the bunker you can area fire it. Effect is the same.

[Elmar Bijlsma]

Originally posted by Battlefront.com:

4. Trees can't be turned off because there is no ground texture, like CMx1, to show you where the trees are. Plus, individual trees matter in CM:SF, so turning them off has a lot of implications that did not exist in CMx1. Having said that, we know that if we could find a way of turning them off many of you would be happy about that.Are you talking about something other then turning off trees with {ALT}+{T}? :confused:

[metalbrew]

Originally posted by Elmar Bijlsma:
</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />Originally posted by metalbrew:

One thing I did notice regarding this, was the in the green-screen portion of the squad info window. The part I'm referring to shows how many M4s and M249s etc... the squad is equiped with. In the early part of the mission and while engaging the T54s the antitank squad member's slot showed a silhouette of a CLU mounted on a Javelin, I took this to mean the AT dude was 'using' the Javelin. Later when I couldn't get the ATGM team to engage the bunker, the green-screen portion of the squad info didn't show the silhouette of the Javelin, just small arms. The colorized info screen for the squad showed 2 Javelin tubes and a CLU. It's as though the AT dude no longer had the Javelin and swapped for a rifle.

Basically the green-screen and colorized screen differed regarding squad loadout. The green Javelin in the weapons slot is just to show you who's carrying the launcher, not the missiles. The missiles themselves, including the one attached to that launcher, is displayed in the equipment screen. You say you had two rounds left. How sure are you those aren't AT-4 rounds? I'm pretty sure all squads lug two AT-4s around also.

Also, if troops won't fire the Javelin at the squad in the bunker you can area fire it. Effect is the same. </font>[/QUOTE]I can visually tell the difference between the AT4's and the Javelin tubes. In addition, one of the ATGM teams I had employed was the HQ, and on the unit screen under ammo it literally displayed "1x Javelin" on the ammo screen in addition to the single Javelin tube graphically depicted in the color unit screen.

[konstantine]

It's all been said, so, simply everything is great so far, but is there a printable list of hotkeys until I memorize everything?

[Timskorn]

Just played the demo. I haven't actually played a CM game since the original, which I played quite a bit, so I was expecting to have to re-learn a lot of things.

I would have loved to have had mouse-over tips to explain what the three dozen icons meant, but I understand this is probably tailored towards a hardcore audience who will RTFM. Fair enough. To get new blood into the series though, mouse-overs would do wonders to lower the confusion level.

I didn't mind the camera system. Picked it up quick as I've forgotten how the old CM camera system worked. Seems easy to learn and master.

The real-time aspect is fun and helps speed things along and keep the action rolling. Animations and graphics are well done, and my favorite moment was towards the end of the demo scenario. I unloaded in the orchard and ordered my men to assault the houses, and I get a pop-up asking me which floor! Simple, but I thought it was cool. Then, to get into ground level and watch the men storm the building and wax the enemy was great.

It's fun, I dig it.

[Zulu]

First impressions - Wow!!

Second impressions - Holy crap, this is awesome.

Third impressions - Well spent $62.

Only complaint - waaa. I want CMSF WWII now!!!

[Battlefront.com]

Metalbrew,

The thing about the abandoned bunker or killed crew makes a bit of sense. The reason I didn't think this was going on was the red 'MG Crew' icon was still hovering over the bunker. I don't know what enables or disables this icon, but that's why I thought the thing was still alive.Our bad on that one. You will see that icon as long as the bunker is alive, it doesn't matter if it is occupied by a weapon or not. We never got around to making a dedicated bunker icon because usually there is a MG in it. I made a note about that so hopefully we can get that patched.

In short, if you see that icon it simply means the bunker is functional, it doesn't specify that it is occupied.

Steve

[Runyan99]

After rolling through the first two scenarios without much of a problem, although there were some losses and a few tough firefights, I'm not sure if I'm digging the asymetrical nature of the forces. The designers are really going to have to work hard to make good 2-player scenarios.

[David Chapuis]

Originally posted by Battlefront.com:

4. Trees can't be turned off because there is no ground texture, like CMx1, to show you where the trees are. Plus, individual trees matter in CM:SF, so turning them off has a lot of implications that did not exist in CMx1. Having said that, we know that if we could find a way of turning them off many of you would be happy about that.
I hope that eventually you will revist this. I can understand why it wasnt a priority since most of the syrians maps (I assume) are not tree heavy. But the first game I played was an inf battle in trees, and I had a really had time seeing my units. I have no ideas how to fix it (maybe something like how you did the buildings in CMx1), but I hope you can think of something.

[Michael Dorosh]

Originally posted by Runyan99:
The designers are really going to have to work hard to make good 2-player scenarios. Aren't you one of us, Cory? :confused:

[Ryan Crierie]

First impressions; using the ATGM ambush scenario; with graphics detail set to HIGHEST on both my GeForce 6800, and the game itself:

Not that great.

http://img256.imageshack.us/img256/2074/cmsfgraphicsek6.jpg

Foreground detail's good, but far away detail is worse than CMBB/AK/BO.

[JohnCalvin]

Great game and it runs on my old rig... 2.6 ghz, geforce 6600 gt, 1 gig ram..

Well done!

[MikoyanPT]

My mouth is watering.
I am reduced to spectator batles, game runs smothly even with maximum settings, but crashes to desktop as soon has i left click a unit.
Some guys at the suport forum report the same problem.
Has soon has it is solved i am launched.

THe game looks great !

[Battlefront.com]

David Chapuis ,

I hope that eventually you will revist this. I can understand why it wasnt a priority since most of the syrians maps (I assume) are not tree heavy. But the first game I played was an inf battle in trees, and I had a really had time seeing my units. I have no ideas how to fix it (maybe something like how you did the buildings in CMx1), but I hope you can think of something.You're right about WWII ETO. It is a must. However, I think one of our bright little testers (Elmar) is right. When in the game click on the Menu Button at the bottom right and then on Hotkeys. Do you see a toggle for trees? Something is telling me we added it near the last minute simply to keep people from bugging us for it (I'm on my Mac now so I can't double check). It still isn't very useful from a gameplay standpoint EXCEPT to look at units in more detail. But unlike CMx1, you have the floating icons that keep your guys from getting lost like they did in CMx1.

Ryan Crierie,

Something looks wrong there! Go into OPTIONS off of the main screen and tell me what your CM graphics settings are. That screenshot of yours looks like something is turned down a bit.

Steve

[Runyan99]

Originally posted by Michael Dorosh:
Aren't you one of us, Cory? :confused: Perhaps not. I did WW2 scenarios to explore history, but I'm not sure the subject matter here is up my alley. I'm sure I'll do some more once the series goes back to the '40s.

I don't know about the trees, but I know in the second scenario, Al Amarah, I had a hard time seeing what the hell was going on inside or between the buidlings sometimes. Does this game have a translucent wall hotkey?

[Michael Dorosh]

Originally posted by Runyan99:
</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />Originally posted by Michael Dorosh:
Aren't you one of us, Cory? :confused: Perhaps not. I did WW2 scenarios to explore history, but I'm not sure the subject matter here is up my alley. I'm sure I'll do some more once the series goes back to the '40s. </font>[/QUOTE]Well, your scenarios were too big and too long (solely in my opinion, as we talked about back in the day) but were always well researched and overall well done. You'll probably dig the restrictions on unit size in CM:SF even less, though the game lengths may be more to your liking (1 hour games seem to be almost the norm, and 2 hours are not unheard of). I'll definitely look forward to your work when we head back into the Second World War.

But ya know, the new editor does grow on you very quickly. Love the new contour line feature. Haven't heard any squawking on the forum yet about it - took me forever to figure it out but once you do, it's pretty intuitive.

[konstantine]

My questions always get overlooked in these threads (easily printable hotkey reference sheet, anyone?), but here is another one:

Why can't we choose our forces in a QB?

I can't believe I overlooked this very salient point as I followed this game quite closely for the past couple of years. I really want to be able to browse through and choose my own units.

However, I am enjoying the gameplay and learning curve so far.

edit: forgot to mention the music isn't bad!

[ July 27, 2007, 07:35 PM: Message edited by: konstantine ]

[Runyan99]

Actually I thought of you a bit when I read the Al Amarah briefing. It says it is a two hour long scenario! (Actually, it is 90 minutes, but whatever) And I was hated and ridiculed for arguing that small unit WW2 battles should be two hours! I was told 90 minutes couldn't work for CM!

I only needed about 70 minutes to secure my objectives at Al Amarah, and then to an exfil. But having the time available allowed me to spend 15 minutes I needed for one tough firefight at the edge of town, so that I could cross a street safely.

Are the devs are quickly coming around to my viewpoint, that combat operations are typically a little bit slower than we imagined in CMx1?

[Michael Dorosh]

Originally posted by Runyan99:
Actually I thought of you a bit when I read the Al Amarah briefing. It says it is a two hour long scenario! (Actually, it is 90 minutes, but whatever) And I was hated and ridiculed for arguing that small unit WW2 battles should be two hours! I was told 90 minutes couldn't work for CM!

I only needed about 70 minutes to secure my objectives at Al Amarah, and then to an exfil. But having the time available allowed me to spend 15 minutes I needed for one tough firefight at the edge of town, so that I could cross a street safely.

Are the devs are quickly coming around to my viewpoint, that combat operations are typically a little bit slower than we imagined in CMx1? It certainly worked out that way here; but in modern combat, if its visible, it's dead, I think. So you move a lot more carefully than you would if you were in a King Tiger. I'll be very interested to see if the trend continues in Normandy. I agree with you that it seems realistic. The impact on sales is yet to be determined - will this give CM the rep of "not for the casual gamer?" I think it will get that based on a lot of other stuff - quite deliberately - outside the time factor.

RTS gameplay may also have pushed up the time allowed also. In fact, I wonder how scenario designers in the community will reconcile WEGO vs. RTS - if they will have different game lengths for the different styles, the way some designers in CMX1 had different force allocations for vs-AI play and FtF play.

[ July 27, 2007, 07:25 PM: Message edited by: Michael Dorosh ]

[Runyan99]

Well, as far as the time goes, I think the change to individual men makes the game speed more accurate. I suppose now that each soldier is visible on screen, and you can see exactly what each guy is doing, be that shooting, or walking, or reloading or whatever, it's a lot easier to judge if things are happening too fast or too slow to be realistic.

[Ryan Crierie]

Something looks wrong there! Go into OPTIONS off of the main screen and tell me what your CM graphics settings are. That screenshot of yours looks like something is turned down a bit.All of them are at bestest.

I'm using a Ge Force 6800 with the latest drivers.

[Kwazydog]

Ryan, what are you referring too in CMBB that looks better out of itnerest? I think that part of what you are seeing here is the texture smoothing we are applying to remove the sparkles you used to see in CMx1. Also, you might want to take a look in your control panel of your graphics card and try turning up you AF settings. That might give you the visuals you are looking for. smile.gif

[Rik81]

Originally posted by mgk:
For me it is good old CM but with new fast and beautiful graphics and new tactical possibilities smile.gif
Great work ! Fast and beautiful graphics? I am obviously doing something wrong. I am not getting those beautiful pictures we saw in the video's they released. I get the blue and red icons to click on and give orders, but I don't know how to focus the replays to see the action. Some one give me a clue please.

[adultery]

awesome

wimpy javelin sounds...can hear them launched on youtube and they have a lot more "ommph" on launch

as does the automatic grenade launcher on the striker...sounds like its firing high speed bags of flour...no "crack" of high explosive going off.

the ability to see all pathline and targets? cant seem to find the comand for that

im sure the sounds will have a mod soon

overall, just finished the tut and loving it

[Ryan Crierie]

Originally posted by KwazyDog:
[QB] Ryan, what are you referring too in CMBB that looks better out of itnerest?The fact that I can see textures from a distance, instead of a blurry mass.

http://img511.imageshack.us/img511/1756/cmakcrispzl6.gif
CMAK - nice and crisp long distance graphics from a height.

http://img511.imageshack.us/img511/3912/cmsfbluriv9.jpg
CMSF - Blurry mass from a height.

Also, you might want to take a look in your control panel of your graphics card and try turning up you AF settings. That might give you the visuals you are looking for. smile.gif Set my NVIDIA driver to 16x AF. No change.

[David Chapuis]

I am pleasently surprised that I like real time better than We go. We go was very cumbersome. Realtime (on the small and not too hectic battles) was better.

[Redwolf]

Originally posted by Ryan Crierie:
First impressions; using the ATGM ambush scenario; with graphics detail set to HIGHEST on both my GeForce 6800, and the game itself:

Not that great.

http://img256.imageshack.us/img256/2074/cmsfgraphicsek6.jpg

Foreground detail's good, but far away detail is worse than CMBB/AK/BO. I have to say, this is true.

The LOD (level of detail based on distance) that you have chosen for CM:SF is very disturbing. A lot of them in the foreground and then very sharply go to zero at what is not very far away. As a result, moving forward looks extremely wired.

Also, as the screenshot above shows, terrain in the distance looks bad.

Would it be possible to give us a user controllable parameters to control density and distance of doodads?

[Kwazydog]

Originally posted by Ryan Crierie:
The fact that I can see textures from a distance, instead of a blurry mass.
Ryan, its not something we have had mentioned to us before but Ill speak to Chalres about it. Its hard to tell from a screen shot, but if you have textures turned up in game, and manually set your video card drivers that should be all you can do on your end.

To an extent this is a trade off between the sparkles of old or the smoothed textures. The reason the sparkles existed in CMx1 is that the textures werent smoothing as happens in most game, and were retaining full detail even what a great distance from the camera.

Originally posted by Redwolf:
Would it be possible to give us a user controllable parameters to control density and distance of doodads?Redwolf, possibly. Ill chat to Charles about this too.

[PAEZ]

Great job BTF.
I played for a few hours, no crashes.
The game looks and plays very well.
It is good too know that there are people that can make a game like this one.
It will take me a bit to get use to the new interface.but it is a new engine and game.
Calling artillery at night its just well... WOW.
note to self ..keep this on drive for the next few years.
thanks again.
Ps.What the hell were those guys from Tomhardware taking about. :rolleyes:

Using a dual core 2 6600.
8800 gts 320mg. 2mg of ram
all the new drivers.

[ July 27, 2007, 09:07 PM: Message edited by: PAEZ ]

[Rik81]

My earlier post referenced the "tutorial battle". I now have looked at the first battle of the Training Campaign, and voila! I can see. However, I can't drive worth a bean flip, lol. Back to the manual I guess. There has to be a way to CANCEL an order and re-issue it. (I play WEGO, no RT stuff for this old man.)

BTW a little gripe: A "tutorial" or a "training" battle ought to have some "on-screen, in the game prompts." I know they warned us to have the manual handy, but at the moment I only have the pdf. When my snail mail copy arrives I am hoping they have a nice printed manual.

[MrSpkr]

A few more thoughts after playing some more:

(e) The ability to show all paths, or all covered arcs, or all paths and covered arcs, particularly in turn based play.

(f) The ability to resize units for easier visibility.

(g) the ability to zoom in and behind a selected unit instantly from any angle (right now, I often double click on a unit, then hit tab, and the camera moves to a position 40 meters or so above the selected unit, looking towards the horizon -- and the selected unit is completely out of sight!)

(h) The ability to turn off roofs and make buildings transparent or opaque (particularly critical if you are trying to keep track of a large number of troops in an urban environment).

(i) A keyboard interface which does not use the same keys over and over (yes, I know I can reprogram, but that is a pain). It is annoying to hit "U" and expect a move arrow, but get a targeting line instead.

Steve

[General_solomon]

I dont know about you guys, but i love this game.

thanks BF for finally releasing the game.

I will see you all in MP.

I am going now to play the rest of the weekend.

[SgtMuhammed]

Only have the demo so far but I am impressed. Going to be interesting to play from the Syrian side.

[Razgovory]

I'm a bad commander. My first scenario mission didn't go well. Something about clearing a town full of insurgents. 20 guys KIA 40 WIA and 2 Strikers down. I eventually pressed Ceasefire and it said I won... but that's alot of casualties.

[Battlefront.com]

Hi all,

So many great things to respond to, and not enough time. So a blanket "thanks!" will have to do.

Two quick points:

Rik81,

Sounds like you might be having one of the known problems with graphics. Use the link at the bottom of my post and that will HOPEFULLY fix your problems. Something sounds very wrong :D

Mr.Spkr,

We have various UI feedback things on the waiting list of enhancements. However, enlarged units is not one of them. We can't do it because the units' visual represetation is actually simulating their physical presence. If we made the infantry twice as tall, they would be simulated as being twice as tall. And good luck getting them into a building :D In CMx1 the 3D visuals were 100% "fluff" so turning them off or growing them had no impact on the game. Definitely not the case now.

Steve

[SgtMuhammed]

By the way calling fire on infantry in the woods was really neat. Not for them but it was fun for me.

[konstantine]

I'll try again: how come we can't purchase units in CMSF QBs?

The reason I want this is because it really helped me with the learning curve in CMBB. That and I really like custom QBs. :D

[NoxSpartana]

I'm really finding the enemy AI to be rather... mentally handicapped I'll say in the scenarios and campaign. They follow their pre-set "plans" but once those are exhausted and I do something they just sit there like dumb mules.

Guess I'll have to stick to MP... but there's no lobby :( . I sure hope I can get games quickly without waiting forever.

[ July 27, 2007, 11:32 PM: Message edited by: NoxSpartana ]

[Exel]

Originally posted by Ryan Crierie:
http://img256.imageshack.us/img256/2074/cmsfgraphicsek6.jpg

Foreground detail's good, but far away detail is worse than CMBB/AK/BO. This is a bad one. Not because of eye candy, but because it makes it very difficult - if not impossible - to make out height differences from any distance. All the terrain shapes are blurred out beyond 50 meters. If there's a small defilade or a knoll somewhere, you wont see it before you're on top of it. Makes it a bitch to try and position units into proper firing positions or to utilize terrain for cover.

As far as eye candy goes, it's not just the blurryness that bothers. The 'softening' of the land mass makes vehicles look like they levitate or sink into the ground when viewed from a distance.

[John Kettler]

MrSpkr,

Armed Sufi mystics, no doubt!

BFC and fellow CMSF piners,

While it's great to read about the game, I'd rather be playing it. Unfortunately, there's no budget at present for a replacement rig.

Regards,

John Kettler

[Caesar]

Overall, I like the game, it is a lot of fun. It is quite the challenge after the previous CM series. Modern firepower is stunningly effective after the WWII stuff. I think (I could be wrong here - it might have been misidentified) I killed a T72 with 80mm mortars. I was a tad disappointed with the effectiveness of the Javelins though, my guys missed with every shot they fired so far (though that could be something to do with the fact that half the squad had been shot up by the tank they were shooting at - maybe it it hard to aim when your pants a full of excrement :D ). Evidently Steve was not lying when he said charging in with Strykers relying on speed was a mistake; the explosions were pretty cool though. The M1A1s look amazing be they moving, shooting or just sitting there. They are pretty good at killing stuff too ;) Can their turrets really rotate that fast; the gunner must need a seat belt to hold them down. The game is however, a long way from perfect; in fact in some respects it feels more like a beta than a final release.

The positives;
- The arty system is fantastic. It is really easy to set up and you can do a lot with it.
- The sound is probably the best I have heard in any game.
- The explosions are great
- The animations of both men and vehicles are very well done (the wheels do disappear into the terrain a bit at times but I can live with that.
- The graphics are reasonable, the details are good, the terrain passable (my rig is pretty weak so it is probably better on better rigs)
- The AI is at least as good as anything else on the market that I have played and at times better.
- The game is great fun and I suppose this is the main point.

The negatives;
- The camera control is just awful. I have played a lot of different games in lots of different formats, and this system is just not good enough. Yes I can make it work but that does not make it good
- The detail textures (grass & small bushes) stay the same colour regardless of the lighting.
- Path finding at times is a bit odd
- The tabbed GUI control system is clunky and awkward (not sure how else to do it but it's still clunky). The interface overall, is not terribly intuitive. Most games I have played I can pick up pretty easily but this one you need to read the manual to get any idea of how to play it.
- Tool tips are missing
- Quite a few bugs; crashes and some other graphics oddities.

[Moon]

Originally posted by NoxSpartana:

Guess I'll have to stick to MP... but there's no lobby :( . I sure hope I can get games quickly without waiting forever. You can use this:

Beta MP Lobby (http://www.battlefront-newsletter.com/MPLobby/tabid/61/Default.aspx)

Or check my sig and use the chat of the Browser Toolbar.

Martin

[Rik81]

Another suggestion: In the CM games I frequently would like to focus on an enemy unit in watching the replays. That is still possible here of course, but what is missing is the rapid map rotation. I believe CM used the "/" key to flip the map end for end. AFAIK we now have to hold down the RMB and rotate the map around. Could we have the "/" restored? A real time saver.

[Tarkus]

Originally posted by Rik81:
Another suggestion: In the CM games I frequently would like to focus on an enemy unit in watching the replays. That is still possible here of course, but what is missing is the rapid map rotation. I believe CM used the "/" key to flip the map end for end. AFAIK we now have to hold down the RMB and rotate the map around. Could we have the "/" restored? A real time saver. Check the hotkey window. There's a key doing just that, albeit I can't remember which one from the top of my head.

[tinjaw]

Originally posted by Battlefront.com:

I think I know what caused that bunker problem. When I was testing that scenario I *THINK* I noticed that if the crew abandoned the bunker, or was killed (but the bunker still intact), the Squad decided it wasn't worth wasting a Javelin on. That should be fine for automatic targeting behavior, but heck... if you want it gone, who are we to say it shouldn't be gone? smile.gif I'll write up a bug report for that.

The Javelin is shown in the weapons display and in 3D when the guy feels that is the weapon he should use. If not, it is "stowed" and his primary small arm is put back into use. This is consistent with what I said just above, so if we tweak one the other will follow suit.

Steve Thanks for that explanation. I've been beating my head against the monitor on this one.

(good catch metalbrew on those icons.)

[Rik81]

Originally posted by Tarkus:
</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />Originally posted by Rik81:
Another suggestion: In the CM games I frequently would like to focus on an enemy unit in watching the replays. That is still possible here of course, but what is missing is the rapid map rotation. I believe CM used the "/" key to flip the map end for end. AFAIK we now have to hold down the RMB and rotate the map around. Could we have the "/" restored? A real time saver. Check the hotkey window. There's a key doing just that, albeit I can't remember which one from the top of my head. </font>[/QUOTE]Ah--I overlooked it obviously. It is the "V" key. Wonder why they went out of their way to "change" some of the hot keys? Just trying to convince us this is a new game/new game engine I guess. I'm even improving on my "rotating", its just going to take practice.

[Cheeba]

I'm really enjoying this so far. It's far from perfect, but then what release-day title ever is? There's still plenty to get stuck into, minor niggles be damned.

The one real problem I have is what Ryan and Exel mentioned regarding the softening/simplifying of terrain as the viewing distance increases. Currently it seems far too aggressive, with trenches turning into a series of indistinct blobs from not very far away. Configurable settings for this would certainly be appreciated. There's not much point having an engine that looks gorgeous at unit level when you spent most of the game looking at a blurry, indistinct zoomed-out map as you plan your tactics.

[ July 28, 2007, 09:44 AM: Message edited by: Cheeba ]

[Vergeltungswaffe]

Seem to recall something about the effect of heat haze on distant terrain.

[Pzman]

Enjoying the game so far, for the most part. Like others I'd say the number one issue is learning the new awkward camera controls. That said, I am starting to get use to it, and within a few weeks no doubt I'd have trouble going back to the CMx1 games camera controls.
Graphics look great, I think I might be able to set them even higher on my system, but don't want slow downs so I'm keeping them at improved levels. As for the GUI, in some ways I like it, in other ways I don't. There is a lot of info right in front of you, and it will take time getting used to that (rather than looking in an info tab, as in CMx1 games). As for the command tabs, a little awkward, IMO, but I think I'll get used to it.
There isn't the feeling of newness as there was with CMBO seven years ago, but the amount of changes and improvements are worth the cash. Overall I'd say I like the game so far and I've only played a few battles. Looks like I'll be waiting a few more days before diving into the editor. :D

[metalbrew]

http://img413.imageshack.us/img413/944/screenshot23dw6.jpg
This shot is a great example how maps become a disjointed piece-meal at a distance. Notice how some roads are sharp and crisp while others are inexplicably shapeless blobs that don't really even approximate the correct object size. The green fields on the right side are also blobbed out and are lifeless. I realize this is texture blending, but it just looks bad. Trenches blur out and behave like the roads in this example.

[Janster]

Damn this game sucks.

Cheesus talk about 4 wasted years...

I just tried to show my other CM friends the game..and they all agree this just plainly sucks.

You've taken ALL the lessons learned from CM and just thrown them away..

Its like starting back to basic...
Dudes, I hoped for progression here...
Shame I cannot ask for a refund, this was wasted money :(

Janster

[mmtt]

Here, are mine. smile.gif
Overall, I'm not disappointed but I have quite a few grips with the game, actually quite a lot. I know this is a game with a low budget, a small team dedicated to a niche market.

Until now, I have played on Elite in Realtime and never paused and one game in TB. I had quite a few technical problems at start but updating my drivers and installing MS hotfix did the trick.
I completed the training campaign (had to deal with the Javelin/bunker bugs), 1st campaign mission, and 2 scenarios and one or two QBs.

Realtime vs WEGO: Well, as I said until now, but in RT, contrary to Close Combat, I'm unable to effectively command my units. The pace of the game and the amount of units (once reaching company size) just makes it impossible to order everyone around. I tried RT to get the handle for TCP. While the speed, the constant action are really great, the constant need for fine-tuning, babysitting units just takes the fun away.

Why? One answer.
Pathfinding: The pathfinding simply sucks for a game released in 2007. What would have been acceptable in 2000' for CMBO is now sorely sticking out. Sorry. My strykers get stuck behind each other in the tiny streets, if they don't try to circle the whole map speeding in front of enemy tanks when the way is blocked. In RT, there is no time to adjust WPs.

Control&Interface:
Camera is very sluggish. The now standard RTS camera system is working well (mousewheel for zoom, panning around). CMSF camera is slow and jerky.
Mind you, I don't know yet all the shortcuts but selecting each squad individually, selecting the Special menu, equipping your guys with the launcher, clicking again for the ammo (who would x1 Javelin when you can carry x3?) then dismounting and giving orders. It's extremely bothersome, especially when a T-72 comes rushing in. Having the same hotkey for Fast movement and Target can lead to some very dangerous consequence including firing some 120mm at your own troops, instead of providing heavy support.
Overall, I’m getting use to it but some work in there would have been more than welcome.

AI:
The TacAI tries hard, tries real hard to be good. But why do my guys fire 3 Javelins at the same target? Assigning specific targets to each squad so they don't waste their precious Javelin missiles is bothersome and tiresome, especially when the same guy fires twice at the same target.
And most of the time, the AI just stand there waiting to get pounded by my overwhelming firepower. Sometimes they can't see the enemy standing next to them...

GFX:
Obviously not the CM series strong point, but that's not what you buy CMx for. IMO, they would have been okay in the early 2000's, but in 2007, they look dated although vehicles and infantry look nice on close up. Terrain is an ugly mesh from afar.

In many ways, CMSF feels dated and clumsy. But despite all those rough edges outside, CM's still a gem inside.

Bringing in a Stryker toward an enemy occupied building, popping smoke while enemy MG fire pings the armor, picking the Javelin for some heavy firepower, having my guys dismount under fire with all Strykers providing covering fire, the troops gets out, hitting the deck, crawling toward the nearby house. One guy didn’t make it. Guess it. My Javelin gunner buys the bucket. (Any way to have my guys pick up that Javelin once the guy's dead?). That was awesome.
The artillery or air support panel is absolutely perfect. It's just a pleasure to use. If the rest of the control were as polished, CM would be great already.
Dismounting a whole platoon amidst the rattling of gunfire and the wind blows away the smoke to rush the enemy trenches is one great experience that few games manage to offer in such a vivid intensity.

[tinjaw]

Add my +1 to zoomed out map graphics being subpar. I would trade my super hires pictures of strykers for a usable map any day.

[Panzer76]

Why are there not unique keyboad keys assigned to each command?!

[Moon]

Panzer76, because there would be too many. We would have to start assigning weird hotkeys and nobody would remember them. The command panel approach gives you a structured environment. It's easier to remember the location of a key than a letter.

The most important six (or so) commands however do have their own keys. Target, Quick (move), Hide and a few others. You can adjust those in the hotkeys.txt file in the Data folder.

Martin

[Guderian]

For me it was worth the buy. CM:SF combines tactical depth with decent graphics. Feels a bit like playing Close Combat, even the theatre is different. The few glitches are negligible for me.

From a technical side it runs fine in 1280x1024, highest settings, on a AMD 3500+, 2 Gig RAM, Ati 1600 (512 MB).

[Childress]

Did notice one thing: the enemy doesn't surrender any more! No more marching the prisoners off the map edge as in previous CMs. Do the Syrians posses more of that fight-to-the-death spirit than their Iraqi (Or Egyptian, or Jordanian or...) confreres?

[Swift]

And why no right-click menu? Don't say that you cant fit all the options in a menu. Just make sub levels like the start button on windows does. I have way more then 36 folders and it manages to show them all quite fast. Or use a modal menu.

And why not make a customizable button panel so everyone can put the command buttons they would like in it.

[Michael Dorosh]

Originally posted by Swift:
And why not make a customizable button panel so everyone can put the command buttons they would like in it. You can customize the hotkeys by editing the txt file in the data folder.

[Moon]

For the former - not functionally better than what is there.

For the latter - that's a good idea. I can say that because I don't have to code it smile.gif But then the six most used commands (Target, Quick etc) are available with direct hotkeys as is.

Martin

[Sirocco]

Originally posted by Moon:
For the former - not functionally better than what is there.If you're talking about the right click menu, I'd have to disagree. It's awkward having to drop down to the right of the screen, click the right commands button, click the desired command, then move back up into the main screen. Unless dropping the right click menu is part of some grand plan we're unaware of it's about as good an idea as not including the adjustable waypoints.

[Swift]

I disagree with the functionality Moon but that is a design issue. I could live with out it if there was good alternatives like my 2nd suggestion or better hotkey mapping.

The "customizable hotkey" function is awful. To be forced to edit a txt file to change key bindings is not what I expect in a game of this quality.
There could least be a stand-alone program with GUI for that (that way I would be able to map numerical keys, something that I am sure works but nothing about it is mentioned in any manual I have seen so I can't do it). Such a program would take a good programmer less then a day to make (most likely a couple of hours).

[Battlefront.com]

Swift,

The "customizable hotkey" function is awful. To be forced to edit a txt file to change key bindings is not what I expect in a game of this quality.I agree, but it works. And the time Charles didn't spend making a pretty ingame feature for this was instead spent on making a better game itself. We'll smooth out rough edges like this as we go along, don't worry :D The most important thing is the game, the game, and the game. For other developers it is the fluff surrounding the game that gets top billing.

The terrain LOD issue is something I'm going to talk over with Charles. It would be nice, I think, if there were more control over when they kick in. Turn off Anti-Aliasing to have the trerrain less smoothed out.

As for the Commands UI. Use the keyboard to issue Commands an the mouse to move the camera. It does take some getting used to, that we freely admit, but after you do you'll probably see why we have kept it this way for something like 6 months at least. Not to say there is no room for improvement (there always is), just that after you use it I think you'll at least find it not as bad as you think it is today.

Steve

[B00M$LANG]

Originally posted by Captain Adultery:
awesome

wimpy javelin sounds...can hear them launched on youtube and they have a lot more "ommph" on launch

as does the automatic grenade launcher on the striker...sounds like its firing high speed bags of flour...no "crack" of high explosive going off.

the ability to see all pathline and targets? cant seem to find the comand for that

im sure the sounds will have a mod soon

overall, just finished the tut and loving it Have you ever heard a Mk19 firing? I have, and this is a relatively good representation...same for the Javelin.

[Panzer76]

Originally posted by Childress:
Did notice one thing: the enemy doesn't surrender any more! No more marching the prisoners off the map edge as in previous CMs. Do the Syrians posses more of that fight-to-the-death spirit than their Iraqi (Or Egyptian, or Jordanian or...) confreres? Or indeed the US forces.

[Rik81]

A Request: Please could you provide "tool tips" for all the stuff down in the UI? It would really be helpful.

[gstelmack]

Originally posted by Battlefront.com:
Swift,

As for the Commands UI. Use the keyboard to issue Commands an the mouse to move the camera. It does take some getting used to, that we freely admit, but after you do you'll probably see why we have kept it this way for something like 6 months at least. Not to say there is no room for improvement (there always is), just that after you use it I think you'll at least find it not as bad as you think it is today.

Steve I'm old. If you think I'm going to remember all of the hotkeys for all of the orders, you've got another think coming ;) The two-step process to issuing at least several of these commands also gets in the way. The map is where I'm playing, and where I want to give orders, so that's where I really, really want them. Besides, I already place waypoints using the mouse, there is no way to get around overloading the mouse for cameras and orders. Why not integrate it? Use SHIFT and CTRL for camera movement, right-click for orders. I'd say a reasonable compromise is to use SHIFT or CTRL for orders, but right-click is the traditional, trained-into-me-via-every-other-Windows-app key for a menu like this.

[C'Rogers]

This is my literal first impression. I have played the game once, and avoided other people's reviews for the most part. Also I didn't read the manual so I went in blind (though skimmed the manual before posting this).

First game: Quick battle, real time, open territory, blue attack, tiny force, forget the other settings, controlling blue. Elite difficulty (if difficulty is the term).

Result: Overall victory

Simple strategy for this one. I had 8 strykers and two platoons of infantry. Allowed my strykers to pound away on the Syrians for about ten minutes and then marched my infantry, got a total surrender with about two minutes to go.

Play Experience: Positive but not blown away.

The first time I played CM:BO I did something similar (played without reading about the game). Then I knew I was playing something amazing, everything was very clear. This time it was a lot more hazy. Because I didn't buy the units really I didn't have much of an idea what was what. Strategy wise I didn't find it very hard, I think much more of the "relearning" has to do with the change of engine then modern combat.

Main Problems: Hot Keys - Besides seeming a fairly illogical setup the fact that I couldn't access them all at once was annoying. I went to move a stryker and then give it a face order, only to find out I need to change tabs (because K was used for both hunt and face for some reason).

I understand this can be partially edited, hopefully I can get all of the hot keys set.

Figuring out what was going on - Even on a tiny battle in real time I was having trouble tracking what was happening to my guys. This may just be an experience issue with the old UI but that seemed a lot clearer (I didn't know until the end of this battle if I had any injured men).

Point over terrain/simplicity - In the last game from what I remember there was much more scroll information. Scroll over land, it told you what it was. This time I just had to go on appearance (which at a high angle view was a fairly hard thing to tell).

Also there are a ton of icons in the game. I thought I would be able to tell what they meant by scrolling over them but nothing popped up (those I ignored most unit info, which didn't really cause a problem). I hope there is a simpler way to learn them then just looking them up in the manual again and again.

Well those are the only problems I noted so far, unlike others I had no trouble moving the camera around (and didn't really use the mouse much). I bought four copies of this to play with friends and am still kind of worried about multiplayer. As a non-PBEM player who wants to play live seeing that real time was the only option was a huge disappointed (at first I honestly felt somewhat gypped that this had not been mentioned when there were 8 million PBEM threads).

So I enjoyed the game I played and it looks interesting single player wise, though not the amazing level of CMx1 so far. But multiplayer and the replayibility of quick battles is the real test to come on that.

[hoolaman]

Originally posted by Ryan Crierie:
First impressions; using the ATGM ambush scenario; with graphics detail set to HIGHEST on both my GeForce 6800, and the game itself:

Not that great.

http://img256.imageshack.us/img256/2074/cmsfgraphicsek6.jpg

Foreground detail's good, but far away detail is worse than CMBB/AK/BO. I brought this upseveral weeks (months?) ago and made the same comment.

In many ways the LOD and terrain in CMBB looks a lot better than this game. In some places sharp jagged ridges are realistic. A distant ridge in CMBB looked as good as most modern games. Only when you zoom in could you see the CMBO vintage.

Another issue is the way the bushes in the distance are at full colour saturation even after the grass textures are invisible. It needs a bit of haze? not exactly haze but have the textures less bright out in the distance.

Even some of the closeup details in CMSF look worse. CMSF looks like pool table with texture attached, even with piles of crap here and there.
How about a few rocks or tufts of grass?

A few tweaks and this game will look magic, but ATM it doesn't look great at all.

[ July 28, 2007, 10:12 PM: Message edited by: Hoolaman ]

[Adam]

About the hotkeys - they are much better now imo. I can access everything, all the menus and commands without moving my hand.

[Kwazydog]

Originally posted by Hoolaman:

A few tweaks and this game will look magic, but ATM it doesn't look great at all. Just so you guys know, this is something that we will be looking into. We have a few more important items on our list first, but this one is pretty high up there.


Originally posted by AdamL:
About the hotkeys - they are much better now imo. I can access everything, all the menus and commands without moving my hand. Adam, II like them too, as well as the camera control. I actually find it hard to go back to CMx1 now as it feels rather clunky to control in comparison. Im not saying that improvements cant be made, but I think its important that people give themselves some time before making a final descision.

[Battlefront.com]

Rik81,

A Request: Please could you provide "tool tips" for all the stuff down in the UI? It would really be helpful.This is high up on our list for enhancements as we move along. We can never get everything thing into one release that we want. Heck, CMBO went out the door without TCP/IP :D

gstelmack,

If you think I'm going to remember all of the hotkeys for all of the orders, you've got another think coming Which is why we have the system we have smile.gif There are a total of 36 possible Commands for a unit (though I don't think any one has all at once). If we had unique hotkeys for every one of them, as we pretty much did in CMx1, even youngsters would have a hard time remembering them all smile.gif But the way the system is it is visual. You place your left hand over the 9 keys that represent all the orders. You look down with your eye, if need be, to see the relative position of the Command you want. Then you just move your finger and hit it. You don't have to remember what that key is, just it's relative position (which even an old feller such as yourself can handle, right? smile.gif ). This allows you to use the keyboard to control the Commands while the other hand concentrates on the 3D space above. And if you feel like it you can also click on the Command button. It's all there in front of you.

The problem we have with the popup menu is that in RealTime it is impractical. In fact, I never used the popup menu in CMx1. Always keys. Our beta testers originally complained about both RealTime and the Command interface. They are now firm believers in it. Why? Because they took the time to see if we were right to change what was instead of assuming we were wrong. OK, at first they assumed we were wrong but they stuck with it anyway :D

C'Rogers,

Besides seeming a fairly illogical setup the fact that I couldn't access them all at once was annoying.I won't argue with your opinion that it is annoying to you (each to his own smile.gif ), but I can argue about the illogical comment. Nothing we do is illogical :D The mechanics are that way because there is no practical way to display 36 buttons. Well, not without going with abstract symbols and using up most of the UI. So they are in 4 logical groupings based on functions and they are accessed as needed. You'll find you generally only need to flip between Movement and Combat. There are hotkeys for that, as there are hotkeys for commonly used commands such as Target.

Hoolaman,

A few tweaks and this game will look magic, but ATM it doesn't look great at all.It's at the near top of our list. Some more recent changes appear to not have been in the right direction from a visual standpoint.

AdamL,

About the hotkeys - they are much better now imo. I can access everything, all the menus and commands without moving my hand.Adam "gets it" :D

Steve

[dima]

Is anyone having trouble getting Syrian ATGM's fired? I was playing first battle (Abu Susah) and the ATGM (the one that was destroying my guys when I played as US) when I played as Syrians I kept targeting enemy vehicles and during the whole game it NEVER fired one missile.

I've been seeing a lot of Syrians not firing when given order and the target is in plain sight. And I am talking "not firing" for 5 minutes. If I didn't know any better I would've thought that my computer has a virus.

[Kineas]

I have only seen the demo so far. My impressions:

Positives:
- the game is very spectacular. Watching the action unfold is just awesome, I didn't really care about the mission objectives, just set up duels and firefights. Probably the 1:1 representation will mark the beginning of a new age for wargames. This also has implications for the realism factor, a trench will no longer withstand dozens of HE hits, and people will fear the mortar too.
- The best physical engine what I've seen, and I've seen a couple.
- Arty Wizard is superb
- thanks for the excellent zoom function
- camera controls are good
- performance is great an an old rig (P4 2.8, 1.75G RAM, ATI X800). Smooth as silk, at least for the 2nd demo scenario.
- no crashes at all on that machine
- I loathed the selection icons but start liking it now
- sounds are very good
- tracers are very spectacular too

Negatives: later, another day smile.gif

[Adam]

Request: Camera padlocking on weapons like missiles.

[Janster]

Arty Wizard - A bit cumbersome yes? not sure why I have to wade through menues just to get some arty off.

Turnbased its not so bad, but as this is now a RTS, its simply too slow.

Janster

[Rik81]

(from Steve's post above) "The problem we have with the popup menu is that in RealTime it is impractical. In fact, I never used the popup menu in CMx1. Always keys. Our beta testers originally complained about both RealTime and the Command interface. They are now firm believers in it. Why? Because they took the time to see if we were right to change what was instead of assuming we were wrong. OK, at first they assumed we were wrong but they stuck with it anyway "

The comment about RealTime making the right-click menu impracticle makes a lot of sense to me. OTOH--I don't play RT. Consider adding it to WEGO play. However, I can see that would be a LOW priority, if even possible.

After playing some more, the most annoying thing for me is having to stick the mouse cursor in the upper corners to get the camera view to "rotate". Not a smooth enough control there. Any suggestions?

[Normal Dude]

Right click and hold and drag the camera around, it works great.

[Rik81]

Originally posted by Normal Dude:
Right click and hold and drag the camera around, it works great. G;ad ot does for you, for me, not so good.

[Tzen]

Moving the camera with the mouse is fine and dandy, but moving the camera around with the mouse AND keyboard like an FPS is infinitely more fluid, precise and intuitive. Panning AND rotating at the SAME TIME *gasp*, etc. It needs to be fixed ASAP.

As for right-click pop-up menus: waste of time for either RT or WeGo, but I think they should still put them in for the stubborn people who don't want to spend 10 minutes using the keyboard hotkeys to realize "holy sh!t, this is so much more efficient."

[Sgt Joch]

:D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D

[Sirocco]

Originally posted by Battlefront.com:
The problem we have with the popup menu is that in RealTime it is impractical.What makes it impractical?

In fact, I never used the popup menu in CMx1. Always keys.I think for most it was the opposite. And perhaps this is the root of the problem.

[juhhe]

Hi to all.

I have been following these forums for some time and been waiting for this game like the next guy here. Well, when the day came I bought the Paradox version of it and have been trying few battles and QB's. I thought that I might chip in my owm first impressions which are naturally just my own opinions and some of those are already mentioned before.

1) sounds are amazing again. They are really well done and bring a lot of depth to the combat.
2) I would say that the graphics are fine once the problems with the flickering and jagged shadows are gone. Currently I am having some slight flickering problem in the upper part of the screen and if I disable the shadows then the whole screen flicers.
3) action is quite impressive (when the pathfinding and AI works well)

Then there are unfortunately the not so nice things that I am going to write here too. I do hope that is doesnt seem like I am whining, I am just writing down my own experiences. I have some hours now with the game, not much but perhaps to notice some things.

1) Pathfinding can be VERY frustrating specially in cities where there is a lot of staff and roads are narrow
2) not very convinced about the AI. I am not a good player of these kinds of games even I like these but CMSF it seems that you cannot loose (okay, playing the the basic training difficulty)
3) UI is, plainly said bad. Now I know that this is harsh but let me explain. If one chooses the commands with mouse there is a lot of mouse surfing around screen to make a chain of commands.
Then again if one uses hot keys you still have to make sure that you are on correct tab as several orders use same key. So if you want to move with U, make sure that you are not on c -tab. And finally, this combined with the fact that if you after selecting a command, click on a impassible terrain the command is reset and you have to choose it again. VERY frustrating. This clicking on a impassible terrain seems to be quite easy to do (at least on the one battle where it was Syrians vs Syrians and blue force tries to conquer the goverment building, do not remember the name of the battle). I might be wrong but is it so that if there is a fence, a stone wall there it takes up a complete terrain tile instead just the space the wall requires?. I mean that the tile could be sand for example but then on it is the wall blocking movement and LOS. This wall could be for example 1 yard wide and tile as wide as they normally are. Because if it is so that one terrain is always one tile, there is some REALLY tight squeezes between walls.
It seems so as when there is a wall running in 45 deg angle there is a jagged line of impassible terrain and clearly the terrain is more lighter than the road beside it. Even they should be the same road. Hard to explain, hope you can see what I mean.
4) LOS. I am not at all convinced that this works as should on all the occasions. On few occasions I have moved my troops 13 meters away from a FIRING T72 (for example) and still they could not see it. No smoke or other staff blocking the view when I took the camera to unit view. I checked this so, that I brought more of my troops around the enemy and some can see it and some cant. Same enviroment for all of them. One more occasion was that my tank was standing in the middle of the road aiming a long the road. On free parts of the road LOS ended after about 90 meters. But when I moved the target tool 15 deg to right so that the line went THROUGH a destroyed T72 I got almost enless LOS. Endless as the map ended.
5) Enemies appearing out of nowhere behing my troops. And I do not mean the feature where the enemy is only visible when some body actually sees it. I mean that on the excact same point that I drove my tank through appeared an enemy T72 5 seconds later . And no it did not seem to have driven to that spot on the same instat. It just appeared there.
6) When I try to send my infantry behind a corned of the wall, part of the guys stay on the road and not taking cover behind wall. Naturally they got slaughtered there. It seems that the normal US squad of (I think it was 9 men) takes too big space of the map in relation to other units. Might be a spacing problem inside the unit.
7) bad performance. I mean really slow. And I have Intel 945, XP SP1, ATI 1950 and 1,5 Gb DDR. And the flickering of the screen is annoying.


Like said, had been waiting for this game anxiously and feel at this point a bit dissapointed. Cannot understand the decisions on the UI, do not feel confident that the game is not cheating, dont trust the LOS.
I do not want to hurt anybodys feelings and can understant that this has been a enormous task to built up but still my feeling is that the release might have been delayed a bit, engine optimizes a bit better, maybe few things should have been found during the Beta testing and fixed before release.
But anyways, we now have this and with time it will propably become a great game. I just somehow in my fantasy world thought that Battlefront would be the one exception on this business who do not release products too early. During the last few years I have grown a bit tired of patching unfinished games after release.
Sorry this got to be so long but I tried to explain my first impressions with my poor english and to do this briefly is not easy.
Thanks Battlefront for still doing these games. If you would not do these then who would?.

P.S. I understood that the Battlefront version is delivered with 200 pages PRINTED manual. Is this correct?.
If so then why is the Paradox version equipped with skimpy 70 page one with nonsense about e-licensing etc. Battlefront shoud make sure that every version should be provided with same "accessories". I just HATE reading the manuals on screen.

[gstelmack]

Originally posted by Battlefront.com:
The problem we have with the popup menu is that in RealTime it is impractical. In fact, I never used the popup menu in CMx1. Always keys.
Steve Here's the problem then. I used the popup for everything in CMx1. And in Close Combat. Which was real-time. And very practical. And in any other tactical / strategy game that had one.

Maybe once I spend weeks getting used to it, I'll like the 2-stage approach to giving orders, assuming I ever get used to remembering what page I was on as I analyze a battlefield, and trying to get used to overloaded keystrokes for each order. But I've never been a keyboard guy unless I had to be, and then only when there's a handful of commands to remember, and certainly not a 2-stage approach. To give you some idea, I'm a programmer, and I almost never use the hotkeys in my editor. Not something I ever get used to, as I have to use a command over-and-over to get it burned in, and with an editor there are only a handful of commands that fit that bill (copy-and-paste is about it for me).

And having to look down at the panel to remember what page I was on and try to learn the keys breaks immersion and seems less practical in the heat of real-time combat than a right-click menu in the place I'm giving orders that just has what's legal right then.

Anyway, before it sounds like all I'm doing is whining here, I should also give some positives, because I AM enjoying the game despite the difficulties using it. I love the icons above the units, especially for targeting. Makes it very easy to target a specific unit. I love the look of the soldiers, helps immersion tremendously over what we had in CMx1. I love the real-time option, as the battles go much faster / smoother than WEGO, where I didn't much like the 60 second chunks that kept breaking things up. I love the sound effects, the tracers and explosions, and the smoke.

I'll add my weight to some of the pathfinding problems mentioned elsewhere (I just need to get used to what throws it off, as it's not obvious just yet what will cause a vehicle to go through contortions to try and move a few meters forward to a hopefully hull-down position), and the game is harder to use than it should be, but the rest of the game seems fairly solid so far and a ton of fun. No performance or video fits here for me, installed it and it just worked.

[PFMM]

Finally finnished fooling around with the Demo.

Runs fine on my HT P4 3.0,1GB RAM and 9800PRO, with graphics a notch below maximum. Some lag from time to time but nothing intolerable.

Visual impressions were initially good, but after a while I disliked the washed out look everything has. The icons made that dislike worse as I found they contrasted with the background to much. Feel that TOW has it done better, though I think SM:SF has far superior audio effects.

I found the menu more cumbersome than that of CMBB, and the easy way I slid into CMBB without worrying about which key I was pressing was not there. More keys to press to get things done as well worries me.

Played the missions against the computer, and, as usual found nothing special in the gameplay or the decisions of the computer. Predictable and easy to beat, with odd beahaviour here and there. Then Played online against a friend, which was better but not that exciting. We both thought that the gameplay may be too tactical with little in the way of strategy, and didn't feel like repeating the effort either.

Overall, I was disenchanted. The gameplay I found limited and boring. The real time did not add anything for me or detract from it either. The other considerations are of minor concern and would probably fade with time. As I'm a fan (not an expert, just a fan) of modern ground combat and all it's toys I'll be interested to see how this develops. This product, however, is not for me.

[SgtMuhammed]

Things I learned playing with the Demo.

1: The M1 is not invulnerable if you get it in a bar fight with an entire Syrian Tank/Mech team. It sure is a tough mother though.

2: The Javelin is awesome and it seems can be fired by nearly everyone. Actually this isn't too far off as we used to cross train everyone with everything.

3: The Mk19 is like a magic wand against trenches.

4: Strykers armed only with a .50 cal have been taken in by the Myth of the M2. It isn't an anti-tank weapon anymore guys, quit shooting at T72s and getting their attention.

5: I can't wait for my student loan check to clear so I can buy the full version.

[Renaud]

I played the Demo and vastly enjoyed it. Played first as the Syrians, then US, elite difficulty.

I did not expect to enjoy CM2 as much as I have and that's just the demo. In fact I haven't enjoyed a game this much since I fired up CMBB the first time years ago (and cmbo before that). The vehicle animations are a joy to behold. The sound is high quality. The ballistics are great. The graphics and sound are very close to the experience of a squadron live-fire night exercise at NTC, except the bad guys are real and we're firing service ammo!

One thing that I wasn't looking forward to was seeing types of vehicles that I served in blown up...it was rather shocking. I actually got a sickening sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach when I took out 2 M1's with multiple cross fires from hidden AT-4's. For this reason I would rather play historical settings. Anything prior to 1990 really. The graphics, sounds and immersion are spot on.

I have enjoyed TOW, but this is light years beyond in terms of fidelity and immersion. CM2 also runs a lot smoother. TOW is to CM2 as CC was to CM1.

All that being said, obviously there's room for improvements which I'm sure will be added over time with patches and new 'modules'. I'm just happy someone is making games like this. Everything else out there is fluff (perhaps fun, but still fluff).

[hoolaman]

Can I suggest having the WEGO replay start from the END of the video. That way all you do is skip if there is nothing you want to see.

Saves watching and then fast forwarding through the video.

[Knaust]

I played the demo, but I was disappointed with AI.
I played the Syrians and got a Total Victory, Elite difficulty, against the AI.

---SPOILER---

Deploy Syrian units on the Syrian right side and wait for Blue units approaching. ;)
The Blue AI doesn't have the correct approach to this strategy.

[ July 30, 2007, 01:50 AM: Message edited by: Knaust ]

[SgtMuhammed]

Originally posted by Hoolaman:
Can I suggest having the WEGO replay start from the END of the video. That way all you do is skip if there is nothing you want to see.

Saves watching and then fast forwarding through the video. Just hit the big red button if there is nothing you want to see. That takes you right to the orders phase.

[Mindfield]

After playing around with the demo:

One scenario (tutorial not counted), quite dark. Not the best promotion smile.gif

Sound: ok

Graphics: Well, trenches look strange at distant. I was really wondering what those "patches" are, before positioning the camera there.

Gameplay: played the old CM games, especially CMBB, I really like what I see here. Controles will take some time to get used to, but I really like how to call artillry. Missing the right-click menues from time to time. Quite good so far.

BUT:
The realtime mode needs some kind of replay!
I hate what amount of action Im missing due to not being there in time or simply occupied with other things.
During play it would be very helpful to get audio or visual events (console) to what is happening to your troops. I found a whole squad killed, after marveling at the looks and move of my tanks.
I switch to my trops to hear one of my tanks blown up by...well what hit it? I dont know. Its ok to not exactly know what killed it, but after the battle it would be nice to see that information for learning and analysis.
That leads to the need of some kind of replay. I understand that you cannot track everything due to the big amount of data, but what about an event driven replay?
Like: Track results, the cause of kill, maybe narrowing on only big calibers, some special comands. Not animated, but you can click through the events or let them run in a timely manner (only the events) and get a static display on the map. This would be so helpful and getting some feel for the past battle! Not to metion to share it on the web. smile.gif

There it is: Im missing the individual killborad and some OOB overview display of all of my troops.

And get me a daytime scenario (in addition to the tutorial) for the demo please, though the small arms tracers bouncing of destroyed tanks looks very nice.

Overall: Good, with a "But" and potential to grow!

[C'Rogers]

BFC said
There are a total of 36 possible Commands for a unit (though I don't think any one has all at once). If we had unique hotkeys for every one of them, as we pretty much did in CMx1, even youngsters would have a hard time remembering them all [Smile]A mere 36 keys to remember? What, are you over 30 or something? smile.gif

Seriously though, after a couple days wish I could say I was picking up how you had laid things out but still continue to give the wrong orders.

[track]

Played two games (one with both sides) last night of the Allah's Fist. Both ended up in Syrian victories.

- Compared to earlier CM-games AI seems very lazy at moving units???

- Is there a way to draw a box in order to select multiple units?

- Camera is very sluggish to use

I have very mixed feelings at the moment. Have to play some more.

[jomni]

Originally posted by track:
Played two games (one with both sides) last night of the Allah's Fist. Both ended up in Syrian victories.

- Compared to earlier CM-games AI seems very lazy at moving units???People have complained about this. AI does static defense.

- Is there a way to draw a box in order to select multiple units?Shift and drag the mouse?

- Camera is very sluggish to usea lot have complained but you just have to get used to it. using the mouse instead of keyboard is faster.

I have very mixed feelings at the moment. Have to play some more.wait 'till you discover the poor pathfinding.

Anyway, I find the game decent but the bugs should be really fixed to make it enjoyable.

[track]

Thanks shift drag does it.

You mean that they do not know how to reinforce a faltering position anymore?

CM AI was perhaps lame at attack, but it surely made you pay if you did a sloppy advance on their position and it could reinforce positions by shifting troops.

[Lindan]

Originally posted by Janster:
Arty Wizard - A bit cumbersome yes? not sure why I have to wade through menues just to get some arty off.In case you actually start playing the game someday, instead of bitching about every single aspect of it:
there are more OPTIONS to chose from than your mouse has buttons.
This may be a strange concept to you. How about playing some Desktop Tower Defense (http://www.handdrawngames.com/DesktopTD/Game.asp) for your wargame fix instead. Really good game. Only one mousebutton and 4 keys needed, too.

[Blackmuzzle]

Indeed, arty calls are so simple in this game, it's really the one part of the UI that stands out and shines. How can you complain about that? Do you have any idea of how complicated this is in RL, or even VBS1 with arty addon or Flashpoint with the artillery mod?

[Ronn]

In case you actually start playing the game someday, instead of bitching about every single aspect of it:
there are more OPTIONS to chose from than your mouse has buttons.
This may be a strange concept to you. How about playing some Desktop Tower Defense for your wargame fix instead. Really good game. Only one mousebutton and 4 keys needed, too. Could you please stop with this childish
kind of argumentation?

What Janster said was right.

This game is a good game, but need much work
and tuning for usability and gameplay ...

[Steiner14]

Originally posted by Lindan:
</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />Originally posted by Janster:
Arty Wizard - A bit cumbersome yes? not sure why I have to wade through menues just to get some arty off.In case you actually start playing the game someday, instead of bitching about every single aspect of it:
there are more OPTIONS to chose from than your mouse has buttons.
This may be a strange concept to you. How about playing some Desktop Tower Defense (http://www.handdrawngames.com/DesktopTD/Game.asp) for your wargame fix instead. Really good game. Only one mousebutton and 4 keys needed, too. </font>[/QUOTE]:D Exactly my thoughts!

[Truppenfuhrung]

Originally posted by dima:
Is anyone having trouble getting Syrian ATGM's fired? I was playing first battle (Abu Susah) and the ATGM (the one that was destroying my guys when I played as US) when I played as Syrians I kept targeting enemy vehicles and during the whole game it NEVER fired one missile.Same thing here...

[Battlefront.com]

AT-3s have a 500m dead zone in front of them. There was also a bug that we fixed that held the TacAI back from firing on its own. I think that was fixed in v1.02 (if not, it is fixed for v1.03).

Steve

[Truppenfuhrung]

Originally posted by Battlefront.com:
AT-3s have a 500m dead zone in front of them.I forgot about that... And about the long 5 minutes to deploy the weapon !

[Lindan]

Originally posted by Ronn:

What Janster said was right.
No it wasn't.

[scottie]

PROS:
game good , it the spirit of CM style tactical warfare.

CONS:
interface is taking sometime to get use too.

SUMMMARY:
good effort battlefront, i trust your vision.

[Gimble]

Originally posted by metalbrew:
</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />Originally posted by Sirocco:
I couldn't get the AT teams to use their last Javelin's against the bunkers in the training campaign.I had the same thing happen. The ATGM teams quickly engaged the T54s without orders. The I manually targeted both bunkers. One bunker was fired at, the other wasn't. I couldn't compel my ATGM teams to fire on the second bunker. The M249 had no problems targeting the same bunker and there was a red icon above the bunker (unlike the dead first bunker and dead T54s). </font>[/QUOTE]Yes, and no tried it 3 times and from briefing I got the impression that you can just easily destroy also bunkers with Javelins. But that's bull **** according to my experience. Even if you split an antitank team and target with that. They just keep fireing with their rifles, which probably makes as much damage to bunger as would when just stand there and scratching balls ;)

Seems like I actually havo to send my guys walk there, if I want to get thru it properly…and I do want! I will probably take forever. But yes, i still love it…can't wait to get into real mission.