Less than an hour ago I got the update along with the proposed changes and upgrades. Woooo Hooooo. :happy:
Patton may eventually take Moscow because "he doesn't trust the sons of bitches".
Check the site for the detailed update!
This is what I wrote for the Matrix site:
INTEL REPORT.
Well.... I guess there is no one out there who is better able to report on what is new with the Campaign System than I am. And while I would like to tell you that we went in and just souped it up like an old classic car, I'm afraid the truth might not make you all as happy as you might like. What we did want to do was provide a product for you that would run well and have a lot of new features. That I think we achieved.
It has been mentioned that the Campaign Series is an old game system and I have to admit that such is true. But isn't it remarkable that the game has such replayability that it continues to entertain us as long as it has? The game system is quite elegant and despite its age (in game years) she remains a grand old lady with quite a large following. The design adapts fairly readily to a large number of player mods that have been created throughout the years, and while it may have its limitations, I believe that there is still quite a bit that we can do with it. I like working with it, and now that I am actually able to redo some of the code, I have a number of interesting changes that I'd like to implement in order to make it a better product. At the same time however, I don't want to destroy the flavor of the original game that has attracted so many of us and there are a number of areas I'd like to leave untouched. Many of these involve issues that remain controversial amongst many players and always seem to start up arguments on some of the message boards. I don't think it's our business to try and force a decision on anyone and therefore will just let things stay as they are.
Jason and George have put forth a great deal of effort putting in the new equipment and country files that they did, and I of course concentrated on the Far East. But just in case you didn't know, Peter, our programmer kind of vanished on us and thus we were left without anyone to do any of the real in-depth programming required to dig deep into the code and make significant changes to such things as the AI. On the other hand, I do have some experience with coding and being somewhat familiar with how the game engine works (from my days of modding the same) was able to make a number of changes that benefited the game editors and made things better for those who develop a lot of the scenarios that we all like to play. Most significantly, I amended the org editor to encompass a time period extending from January 1930 to December 1953. That means that future changes to the game can include everything from the invasion of Manchuria all the way up through the end of the Korean War. Do we have the units to support these yet? No. But they can be developed. I added additional nation slots to the force pools to allow for all of the new countries that were added to the game, and as things go further, am planning on adding even more to allow for additional countries to be added to the force pool.
The map editor for West Front and Rising Sun have both been modified to make maps for each of the five climatic zones covered by the game. That means that West Front now includes Jungles and Asian Temperate, and Rising Sun can also do Deserts, Mediterranean. So now if you want to have the French fight the British in Africa (or even cover the liberation of Ethiopia) you can do so.
John Tiller was recruited to work on a couple of problems, one of which was the XP problem. I'm glad to say that after hours and hours of running scenarios using the new game files that running on XP doesn't seem to be a problem. Most significant to me is the absence of that annoying repeating sound problem. Additionally, you do not need to load any CDs to play the game. Just select whichever of the three you want to play and go. I always did hate switching CDs while switching between games. And David Heath assures us that they are going to test the game out against Vista to make sure that it works there before sending it out to the world.
Trains now work. They can fight (if so equipped to do so), carry passengers, and they actually stay on the tracks. I was involved in the initial pioneer work on this a number of years ago, but it was George and Jason who actually pushed it into West Front and East Front. After seeing how well they looked, I included them in Rising Sun as well. Rising Sun also has a number of new patrol ships, Sampans, and junks that I think give it a great deal of flavor. These boats even shoot back and forth and one can have riverine battles and contested river crossings. In fact, the waters have become quite crowded with ships, landing barges, and such for all three of the games and that provides for all sorts of possibilities. I am really excited about the Chinese and Soviet additions to this game and wonder why TalonSoft didn't bother to include them in the first place. Also, with the addition of the Soviets (pro-ally and anti-ally) players can begin living out Patton's dream of taking it to the Russians and driving on to wherever.
All of the new units that can be found in the Blitz Krieg PB#1 expansion for East Front can also be found in our East Front. I think Jason got a bit carried away with equipping the Russians and Germans with new toys, but in the end the stuff works. We have command sections for the companies and battalions that have one or two vehicles per section, but alas the leaders still are as they were before.
There are a couple of spotter plane units included in the force mix that don't actually work like we want them to, but give me some time. Once I get this initial release off of my back, I can take time to really dig into the software and start making some significant improvements. I made planes work pretty well in Divided Ground, I think I can do the same here.
Regarding Divided Ground. When Matrix got the source code from Take Two, no one could find the Divided Ground Source Code. However, I have made it one of my main quests to recreate it from the existing Campaign Series Source Code that we do have and therefore start souping it up as well.
I've worked in the defense software industry for over 20 years and can pretty much gauge how much effort it takes to make changes in a software system. Things like "tweaking the AI" are easy to identify as problems, but not so easy to change or fix. Most of what people see as bugs are actually limitations in the design and code. The three of us are eager to make enhancements but at the same time, we have to proceed slowly to ensure that when we attempt to fix one problem we don't create a bunch more. That's easy to do with software. But so far, CS has proven fairly robust, and I look forward to exploring the code and "tweaking" it like a classic automobile.
Now just in case you haven't noticed, there are only three of us on the team working on the game. For us this is a part time endeavor and we still have to pay attention to our full-time jobs, families, and in my case farm animals. So as much as we wanted to get this totally bug free, there are probably some minor glitches out there waiting for someone to find. Most of these will be limited to easy fixes to the various data files, but regardless of what they are, if you report them on the forum, we will listen and try to let you know what we are doing to get them corrected. One of my pet peeves with a lot of game forums in the past, especially TalonSoft was that we would report problems and not hear back on them until suddenly, bam! They were corrected, or else not. I'd like to think that we will be far more responsive than TalonSoft ever was, and like several of the other teams working with Matrix, we'll continue to support the game as long as we are able.
As for pricing, I believe David mentioned that the game would sell for $35.00. That's not a bad deal. Especially since you're getting all three of the main games. And considering the improvements that have been made I'd buy it.
If anyone has any other questions, I'll try to answer them. We submitted the game files to Matrix for "Gold Mastering" and Vista testing, so it shouldn't take very much longer before it is ready for release. I have placed a hold on any further changes so that we can quit delaying things. But other than that, we'll see what happens. If I get overly busy here on the farm, and don't get to the message boards, Jason is always there to alert me of something, so we'll just wait and see.
Way to go Dog! I hope the Vista issues get cleared up!
Nice work by all the Blitz boys!
Yep i would also like to thank Dogavitch Jason all all other Blitz members for their effort in trying to get a better game.Hopefully this will result in another 10 years of this old but great game comtinuing.
Great to see that lots of members are looking at this Matrix discussion and hopefully buying when the long awaited disc is available. It is far too cheap for such a great enterprise.
I am worried that the attempt to load it via Vista will delay it further or even (SHUDDER) stop it as I have read that there are reasl problems loading older CS files to Vista.
Let us all hope that Vista won't hold back the release of the new verison of the CS...Speaking for myself, It's been long awaited and I hope it comes out very soon. The sooner the better!!! :hissy:
If it helps the spotter aircraft in DGVN are just flying "trucks". They have a high defence to fire and low to assault. They have zero weight so that they can fly over mines and are allowed to move over water. The aircraft that can fire Spectra's and Spooks, along with Skyraiders (which actually look WWII and could be used in WF or EF) are actually MG Trucks that fly if I remember correctly. Also a lot of the boats and river craft in DGVN would lend themselves well to Rising Sun.
Since you have RS working with all the maps etc. Has anyone tried just copying the DGVN OOB's into RS and and seeing if the scn's run? Just a thought. Let me know if I can help in anyway.
j
Actually, reference the aircraft, I was thinking of going into the source code and fixing things from there. I already have pretty good idea of what I want to do, I just need to get the time to do it. When I am finished I am hoping to do more than make the aircraft (and/or helicopters) "flying trucks."
Also, when I originally did the aircraft in DGVN the movement slot I used was that already established for DGs helicopters. The DG helo slot not only allows the aircraft to fly over almost every type of terrain, but also gives them an extremely low terrain cost for doing so. RS does not have the helicopter slot prepared and so your aircraft and helos would not function as well (i.e. no water/swamp/marsh/jungle/etc crossing).
DG is the best game right now for the on-board aircraft.
Many thanks to all people involved in that project
New coutries to be playable? GREAT!!!
New units? GREAT!!!
New scenarios? Even BETTER!!!
But personally what I look for mostly is ability to play onliners again!!! :smoke:
Maybe we will be able to recreate our Online Games Ladder?
Regards
Slawek