Poll: How are you playing CM? WEGO, RT?

[Volksgrenadier]

Curious what kind of gaming CM-players prefer.

The questions have three categories, so maximum three answers.

 

[Nathangun]

1. WW2: WEGO only
2. CM vita: player for more than 10 years (incl. CMx1)

 

[Volksgrenadier]

1. WW2: WEGO only
2. CM vita: player for more than 10 years (incl. CMx1)

Would it have been better to make the poll showing who voted for what?

 

[Facman]

Would it have been better to make the poll showing who voted for what?

I don't think so, as many of us will say our piece in the thread itself.
Doing it your way, gives us the hard numbers, and gives us the opportunity to speak up.

*
WW2: WEGO only
*
Modern: WEGO only
*
CM vita: player for more than 10 years (incl. CMx1)

If I wasn't so old & slow, Realtime might have had some interest for me...

 

[ioannis3]

1.WW2: WEGO only

2.CM vita: player for more than 10 years (incl. CMx1)

I didnt like modern warfare

 

[Bootie]

WEGO only for me.... with a 3 year old and demanding wife I enjoy the sneaking of to fire out a turn every now and again.

 

[jby]

I mainly play WEGO. The reason(PBEM) being obvious.
There are a few neat things that you can do in Realtime though.
You can dominate an open space with an MG42much more effectively by continously moving the target around every 10 seconds.
The same defending against advancing infantry that keeps blipping out of LOS the second you aquire the target.
In CMSF your syrian RPG team can run for cover the second after you fired, in WEGO its the end if you miss the first time
(unless you opponent has the decency to blunder into your ambush at the end of a turn)

Maybe a bit unrealistic guiding the hand of your soldiers, but then so is having half an hour to think about every next minute

 

[Volksgrenadier]

Thanks to everyone who participated in this poll.
The numbers are quite surprising to me, although my qualitative expectations are more or less supported.
I see three main aspects:
1. An amazingly high pecentage of CMx1 players. Which I interpret, that CMx2 did not win many new and dedicated customers. If CMx2 would have been a smashing success, the new players should outnumber the old ones by a multitude.
2. Another aspect is the almost negligible amount of realtime players. From reading the Battlefront forums I had the impression it was at least 50:50, but from my personal experience was sceptical about the truthfulness of the hailing of RT. Realtime probably would be much more attractive with replay, but the current implementation obviously is not liked by many and honestly it just SUCKS.

I see both aspects as warning sign. #2 indicates that the developer is tending to waste resources on implementations that are not attractive - at least not in the form they are implemented.
And #1 indicates that with CMx2 they can not attract many new customers and keep them.

I also see this supported by the serial numbers of my purchases. The games I purchased over time show a steady decrease in sales numbers over the same period. And the forum hits reflect this quite dramatically, too: Eastern Front is THE thing for wargamers. Nevertheless their forum shows roughly the same interest as the Italian front. And only roughly a FIFTH of the interest in the Normandy front.
Also the amount of usermade scenarios and campaigns show the shrinking customer base. With such an increase of releases the amount of scenarios should increase, even more with the improvd trigger capabilities of the editor. But here I also have personal experiences that show the problem: the engine development does not solve existing problems (therefore I stopped making scenarios), and instead the amount of new content is raised.

What I take from this poll and my personal observations, that new customers are won by new features and improved realism and gameplay, not by new vehicles or TO&Es. No matter how much work they put into making new content, they have not been able to expand the customer base with this strategy and it will only get worse.

CMBS will camouflage the problem, that they create content and are not improving the game engine and realism, because of the very outdated modern CMSF engine. So a big portion of old modern-warfare customers and those WW2-gamers who have not liked modern with the CMSF-engine, will be attracted by it, just by the simple fact, that the CMSF engine is so outdated. But this step of the engine development from CMSF to CMBS only happens once!
I very much doubt that the next WW2 title, the Battle of the bulge, will be a success, if they do not change their strategy and begin to hugely improve the engine's features, to offer a similar progress from CMRT to Bulge like from CMSF to CMBS.

The risk I see for CM WW2 CM customers is the following:
Since the developer obviously is not really knowing his customers (poll!), he is endangered to make wrong conclusions (the awful realtime implementation or the insane relative hotkey-mechanism, or the useless mouse game-modes come to my mind). But this has been camouflaged by the fact, that the concept of CM was so unique and so great, that it could withstand losing the focus of the developer for several years: the developer is increasing output of content but the customer base is shrinking with every release. The increased output probably has kept revenue sufficient, but at some point this concept is dead, once it has been milked dry. I think the failure of the latest vehicle pack is an early warning sign, that even the most regular customers are no longer receiving enough value for their money.
CMBS probably will overshadow this strategic development failure, but then the Bulge title will probably and suddenly reveal it again (if the current strategy is kept and the engine not improved dramatically over CMRT). The Bulge will sell even less than CMRT, if there are no DRAMATIC improvements of the engine.
And since the latest modern CMBS sold so much better than Bulge, the developer could conclude, that his future is in modern, not WW2. And then, with the next modern family after CMBS, he suddenly would recognize that it's not the vehicles or TO&E that sells, but features and improved realism and gameplay.

 

[Nathangun]

Just by looking at the average age of the CMBN CMFI CMRT and CMBS gamer that average age will only rise year after year.

 

[Volksgrenadier]

Nathangun,
if the average age is rising (I have no infos about it), then I would see this also as a severe warning sign, that new customers are not attracted and are not becoming regular customers. That selling ever more vehicle models and TO&E cannot solve that, should be quite obvious.

 

[PhilM]

Thanks to everyone who participated in this poll.
The numbers are quite surprising to me, although my qualitative expectations are more or less supported.
I see three main aspects:
1. An amazingly high pecentage of CMx1 players. Which I interpret, that CMx2 did not win many new and dedicated customers. If CMx2 would have been a smashing success, the new players should outnumber the old ones by a multitude.
2. Another aspect is the almost negligible amount of realtime players. From reading the Battlefront forums I had the impression it was at least 50:50, but from my personal experience was sceptical about the truthfulness of the hailing of RT. Realtime probably would be much more attractive with replay, but the current implementation obviously is not liked by many and honestly it just SUCKS.

I see both aspects as warning sign. #2 indicates that the developer is tending to waste resources on implementations that are not attractive - at least not in the form they are implemented.
And #1 indicates that with CMx2 they can not attract many new customers and keep them.

I also see this supported by the serial numbers of my purchases. The games I purchased over time show a steady decrease in sales numbers over the same period. And the forum hits reflect this quite dramatically, too: Eastern Front is THE thing for wargamers. Nevertheless their forum shows roughly the same interest as the Italian front. And only roughly a FIFTH of the interest in the Normandy front.
Also the amount of usermade scenarios and campaigns show the shrinking customer base. With such an increase of releases the amount of scenarios should increase, even more with the improvd trigger capabilities of the editor. But here I also have personal experiences that show the problem: the engine development does not solve existing problems (therefore I stopped making scenarios), and instead the amount of new content is raised.

What I take from this poll and my personal observations, that new customers are won by new features and improved realism and gameplay, not by new vehicles or TO&Es. No matter how much work they put into making new content, they have not been able to expand the customer base with this strategy and it will only get worse.

CMBS will camouflage the problem, that they create content and are not improving the game engine and realism, because of the very outdated modern CMSF engine. So a big portion of old modern-warfare customers and those WW2-gamers who have not liked modern with the CMSF-engine, will be attracted by it, just by the simple fact, that the CMSF engine is so outdated. But this step of the engine development from CMSF to CMBS only happens once!
I very much doubt that the next WW2 title, the Battle of the bulge, will be a success, if they do not change their strategy and begin to hugely improve the engine's features, to offer a similar progress from CMRT to Bulge like from CMSF to CMBS.

The risk I see for CM WW2 CM customers is the following:
Since the developer obviously is not really knowing his customers (poll!), he is endangered to make wrong conclusions (the awful realtime implementation or the insane relative hotkey-mechanism, or the useless mouse game-modes come to my mind). But this has been camouflaged by the fact, that the concept of CM was so unique and so great, that it could withstand losing the focus of the developer for several years: the developer is increasing output of content but the customer base is shrinking with every release. The increased output probably has kept revenue sufficient, but at some point this concept is dead, once it has been milked dry. I think the failure of the latest vehicle pack is an early warning sign, that even the most regular customers are no longer receiving enough value for their money.
CMBS probably will overshadow this strategic development failure, but then the Bulge title will probably and suddenly reveal it again (if the current strategy is kept and the engine not improved dramatically over CMRT). The Bulge will sell even less than CMRT, if there are no DRAMATIC improvements of the engine.
And since the latest modern CMBS sold so much better than Bulge, the developer could conclude, that his future is in modern, not WW2. And then, with the next modern family after CMBS, he suddenly would recognize that it's not the vehicles or TO&E that sells, but features and improved realism and gameplay.

A well set out and reasoned case: but the poll here as one of the sources on which to base all of this seems a somewhat insubstantial foundation ...?

I don't necessarily disgree with the problems you foresee into the future, but are you sure you didn't already have this view, and an agenda to raise (your "qualitative expectations": describing aspects of the game as "awful", "insane", and "useless" for example), before you even had the poll results, such as they are?

I've already read and seen the "put CM:BS on Steam" thread over on the BF forum to have had enough of people telling BF that they don't know how to run their business.

They might not; and getting good advice and constructive criticism never hurt anyone: but my reaction to your post is to feel more than a little disillusioned that I contributed to the poll and supporting your "qualitative expectations" that weren't spelt out as the reason for the poll in the first place, rather that you were just "curious" ...

 

[Volksgrenadier]

You don't bring a single fact, but you denounce my analysis of the poll.
And since I have concluded, based on the clear numbers of the poll, that the realtime implementation is NOT contributing to the success of CMx2, you are even worried to have voted...
The WEGO-customers are the HUGE majority and they are made shut up by the developers with their usual arguments of "development costs". Now with our knowledge how few customers are playing realtime, it is obvious where the REAL development costs have been coming from and which part of the customers is the part that is keeping the ship afloat! It's the WEGO crowd.

 

[PhilM]

You don't bring a single fact, but you denounce my analysis of the poll? Now I'm asking myself what may be your agenda?

Whatever ... you just keep on amusing yourself!

 

[Volksgrenadier]

I don't find it amusing that you don't contribute anything useful to the thread and the analysis.

 

[Rambler]

1. WW2 Wego and RT
2. Modern Wego and RT
3. >1, <5

I come from an RT wargaming background (C&C is my all time favorite game, and I love the ToW series), and I had zero interest in playing CMx1, even after trying the demos. The only reason I started picking up CM titles was because they added RT. I now play a mix of RT and Wego. Wego for PBEMs and large scenarios, RT for small - medium scenarios.

Personally, I think the sample size here is way too small to come to any conclusions on whether or not CMx2 is a failure.

Another aspect is the almost negligible amount of realtime players. From reading the Battlefront forums I had the impression it was at least 50:50, but from my personal experience was sceptical about the truthfulness of the hailing of RT. Realtime probably would be much more attractive with replay, but the current implementation obviously is not liked by many and honestly it just SUCKS.

Who says it isn't 50/50? Those on the BFC forums are only a tiny slice of everyone who plays CM, and this forum is an even tinier slice. Most RT games don't have a replay, btw. CM is no different in that respect. RT in CM doesn't totally suck. It has its quirks, but it's easily playable, and enjoyable, that way.

I also see this supported by the serial numbers of my purchases. The games I purchased over time show a steady decrease in sales numbers over the same period.

How do you conclude serial numbers reflect sales? It's just a randomly generated key.

And the forum hits reflect this quite dramatically, too: Eastern Front is THE thing for wargamers. Nevertheless their forum shows roughly the same interest as the Italian front. And only roughly a FIFTH of the interest in the Normandy front.

BFC has always maintained Normandy titles are their best seller. IIRC, they said it was their experience with CMBB (spending massive amounts of time on a plethora of content in one package with lackluster sales) that prompted them to adopt the module sales model. EF is nowhere near as popular as WF in the mainstream. If you're going by forum post counts, it's obvious CMRT is probably the WW2 CMx2 title that has the second most interest. It almost has the same amount of posts in less than a year as the CMFI forum has in over two years.

Also the amount of usermade scenarios and campaigns show the shrinking customer base. With such an increase of releases the amount of scenarios should increase, even more with the improvd trigger capabilities of the editor.

Not necessarily. With a more complex editor, the amount of time and effort to create a scenario goes up. This is a natural trend in the modding scene writ large across genres. The more complex a game is to create scenarios or mod for becomes, the more amount of time it takes to complete them. This shrinks the available pool of modders/scenario makers that actually have the free personal time available to sink into creating their works. You can't tell the health of sales by looking at how much user content is created.

What I take from this poll and my personal observations, that new customers are won by new features and improved realism and gameplay, not by new vehicles or TO&Es. No matter how much work they put into making new content, they have not been able to expand the customer base with this strategy and it will only get worse.

CMBS will camouflage the problem, that they create content and are not improving the game engine and realism, because of the very outdated modern CMSF engine. So a big portion of old modern-warfare customers and those WW2-gamers who have not liked modern with the CMSF-engine, will be attracted by it, just by the simple fact, that the CMSF engine is so outdated. But this step of the engine development from CMSF to CMBS only happens once!
I very much doubt that the next WW2 title, the Battle of the bulge, will be a success, if they do not change their strategy and begin to hugely improve the engine's features, to offer a similar progress from CMRT to Bulge like from CMSF to CMBS.

The risk I see for CM WW2 CM customers is the following:
Since the developer obviously is not really knowing his customers (poll!), he is endangered to make wrong conclusions (the awful realtime implementation or the insane relative hotkey-mechanism, or the useless mouse game-modes come to my mind). But this has been camouflaged by the fact, that the concept of CM was so unique and so great, that it could withstand losing the focus of the developer for several years: the developer is increasing output of content but the customer base is shrinking with every release. The increased output probably has kept revenue sufficient, but at some point this concept is dead, once it has been milked dry. I think the failure of the latest vehicle pack is an early warning sign, that even the most regular customers are no longer receiving enough value for their money.
CMBS probably will overshadow this strategic development failure, but then the Bulge title will probably and suddenly reveal it again (if the current strategy is kept and the engine not improved dramatically over CMRT). The Bulge will sell even less than CMRT, if there are no DRAMATIC improvements of the engine.
And since the latest modern CMBS sold so much better than Bulge, the developer could conclude, that his future is in modern, not WW2. And then, with the next modern family after CMBS, he suddenly would recognize that it's not the vehicles or TO&E that sells, but features and improved realism and gameplay.

I agree with some of the points, but it's not just a lack of engine updates that turn people off to CM these days.

 

[Volksgrenadier]

1. WW2 Wego and RT
2. Modern Wego and RT
3. >1, <5

I come from an RT wargaming background (C&C is my all time favorite game, and I love the ToW series), and I had zero interest in playing CMx1, even after trying the demos. The only reason I started picking up CM titles was because they added RT. I now play a mix of RT and Wego. Wego for PBEMs and large scenarios, RT for small - medium scenarios.

Personally, I think the sample size here is way too small to come to any conclusions on whether or not CMx2 is a failure.

Rambler,
I did not say CMx2 was a failure. I raised a few arguments that show the developers are moving on a path where they are living on the existance of an extremely loyal, but rapidly growing older customer base, which they are not capable to expand and replace, although their output has multiplied.

Who says it isn't 50/50? Those on the BFC forums are only a tiny slice of everyone who plays CM, and this forum is an even tinier slice. Most RT games don't have a replay, btw. CM is no different in that respect. RT in CM doesn't totally suck. It has its quirks, but it's easily playable, and enjoyable, that way.

If it is 50/50 then it must be very good hidden 50%.
CM is not an action shooter, I think it is more like chess. And that depth leads to long time usability. Long time usability and fascination leads to playing humans. Therefore I guess the serious CM player will sooner or later visit a community.

You may argue, that most players maybe are not that kind of players. Then I answer: and these players also are not long term customers. Either you like Chess and want to learn it, then you will play it probably for years and invest a serious amount of time, or you are just interested in a shallow action shootout - then CM isn't the right thing anyway.

How do you conclude serial numbers reflect sales? It's just a randomly generated key.

I do not mean the licence number, but the billing number. They seem to be continuous numbers.

BFC has always maintained Normandy titles are their best seller. IIRC, they said it was their experience with CMBB (spending massive amounts of time on a plethora of content in one package with lackluster sales) that prompted them to adopt the module sales model. EF is nowhere near as popular as WF in the mainstream.
If you're going by forum post counts, it's obvious CMRT is probably the WW2 CMx2 title that has the second most interest. It almost has the same amount of posts in less than a year as the CMFI forum has in over two years.

What increases the posts in the forum are releases. After a few weeks after a release the forum topics and posts are almost constant. For example the RT and FI forums are almost dead. Therefore it's quite easy to estimate the interest in a release after quite a short time and it becomes comparable to other releases. The interest is diminishing with each release and I fully understand why that is the case.

Not necessarily. With a more complex editor, the amount of time and effort to create a scenario goes up. This is a natural trend in the modding scene writ large across genres. The more complex a game is to create scenarios or mod for becomes, the more amount of time it takes to complete them. This shrinks the available pool of modders/scenario makers that actually have the free personal time available to sink into creating their works. You can't tell the health of sales by looking at how much user content is created.

Maybe, maybe not. But I can tell from my own experience, that the editor is not complex at all, but what made me stop making any scenarios were huge problems with modelling realistic and semi-historical battles I would be interested in, but can't be modelled, because the developers ignore the shortcomings of the engine and prefer to increase the amount of available vehicles instead.

And I believe that's the main problem they have. They are not winning much new and losing their old customer base of hardcore wargamers over time, because they do not improve the engine enough (realism, gameplay) - and they do not offer enough fancy new features for newbies, to have a look (again).
"Precision artillery"! OMG. Is there tactically anything less interesting? What is more boring than modern tank battles? Precision artillery.

I mean what is more important: having a Kingtiger, instead of a Tiger, or to have a recon vehicle, when it faces a threat and is hunting, moves back into safety instead to "fight" against tanks?
What is more important: to have alternative mouse modes, or the hotkey unit assignments are saved with the game and not lost and movement paths are clickable to select units?
What is more attractive: to have another infantry battalion's TO&E, or to have a realistic campaign mode that allows to model the continous attack on the same map (for example to model the attack on a fortress or the different phases of a battle)?

I agree with some of the points, but it's not just a lack of engine updates that turn people off to CM these days.

What do you think is the reason, why they are not expanding, despite more releases than ever?

 

[Rico]

I think the continuing CMx1 player base is because CMx2 is a radically different game with a heavy increase in detail and immersion and harder work (especially when it comes to scenario and map design) ... and some players just prefer sticking to the greater simplicity on CMx1.
More complex and detailed isn't necessarily better.

 

[Frosty]

WW2 WEGO only. I have no objection to modern it's just that I only own CMRT and don't have the money to spend on getting all the CM games I'd like to have, atleast not yet.

The ability to move time forward and backwards in turn based mode is far more useful to me than having the slight increase in control that real time allows by letting you give orders second by second instead of minute by minute. however in order to play in real time and still command a force of any size effeciently you have to constantly pause the game which would ruin any multiplayer game and makes playing real time in single player an arduous and lengthy process.

I accidentally selected real time on a campaign mission a few days ago and decided to roll with it to see how things would turn out. While it was nice to be able to correct a unit from doing something stupid that would get itself killed mid action I found that to advance only 10 minutes in game that 30 or more minutes had passed in real timee. I ended up quitting and restarting the mission on turn based. real time was just way too slow to get anything done and I found that I was missing a lot of the action while my attention was on a different part of the battlefield issuing commands.

 

[Massimo]

.....(the awful realtime implementation or the insane relative hotkey-mechanism, or the useless mouse game-modes come to my mind)....

this is the most annoying thing to me, most of turn based games implement a right click dropdown action menu. On the other side successful game like "Company of heroes" has a large combination of hotkeys and menu buttons.
What I want (and many others) to be improved is the overall performance of the game vs the hardware, the engine looks too old and outdated.

..... but then the Bulge title will probably and suddenly reveal it again (if the current strategy is kept and the engine not improved dramatically over CMRT)......

again, I don't think the strategy is changing. just before Christmas, the admin post in the BFC forum reveals the intent. A new Ardennes game with two modules on the way, one for the TOE + vehicles (Commonwealth again) and one for an extended timeline.
BF wants take advantage of this engine as much as they can.
The old cow is still giving milk.

 

[Volksgrenadier]

again, I don't think the strategy is changing. just before Christmas, the admin post in the BFC forum reveals the intent. A new Ardennes game with two modules on the way, one for the TOE + vehicles (Commonwealth again) and one for an extended timeline.
BF wants take advantage of this engine as much as they can.
The old cow is still giving milk.

I don't think the engine is so bad. Some of the problems are just programming tasks they do not make (clickable movement paths, campaign system, vehicles behaviour torwards threats, the ugly as hell cover arcs, the unit hotkeys which are not saved) and not limited by the engine (replay for realtime). I am not even sure if the problem with fortifications sunken into the terrain mesh are engine restrictions.
The engine seems quite solid to me. Even graphically they probably could improve it, if they would use a bit of haze in the distance even with clear weather.
And that rain and snow animations can not be switched off, should also not be a limitation of the engine or OpenGL, but just a result of their ignorance. They obviously never have played big WEGO games in a snowstorm.
This or the not clickable paths make me believe, they are not playing their own games seriously anyway. So they do not recognize what serious players really need. They believe their product is beloved, because it is so good, but my personal opinion and my impression from others is, that it's not beloved because it was so good, but only because there simply is no competition and no alternative which comes close, on the market. A huge difference. It's like staying with a woman because of a missing alternative.

Massimo, I hope you are not correct. I have the slight hope, that improvements to the engine were left out from CMBS, because they see the modern setting, weapons and the jump from CMSF to CMBS as enough to sell, which IMO it is.
But if Ardennes would be on the level of the Black Sea engine with only the few minor changes like animations and tank riders, and with some other things nobody from their core customers has requested (I am still shaking my head in disbelieve about the hailing of mod-tags in their forum, while problems for people who actually PLAY their games were ignored! ), I am convinced it will become the worst selling family.