Command Ops: Battles From The Bulge takes the highly acclaimed Airborne Assault engine back to the West Front for the crucial engagements during the Ardennes Offensive. Test your command skills in the fiery crucible of Airborne Assault’s “pausable continuous time” uber-realistic game engine. It's up to you to develop the strategy, issue the orders, set the pace, and try to win the laurels of victory in the cold, shadowy Ardennes.
Command Ops: Highway to the Reich brings us to the setting of one of the most epic and controversial battles of World War II: Operation Market-Garden, covering every major engagement along Hell’s Highway, from the surprise capture of Joe’s Bridge by the Irish Guards a week before the offensive to the final battles on “The Island” south of Arnhem.
The tutorials are good. I never would have bought the game if I didn't see the "Concepts" video. However, I don't think I would pay for just stand alone videos. I would suggest something like the ASL 'zines with historical notes, scenarios and videos. Now that would get my attention.
The video tutorials tell everything one need to dig into the game. What else should be covered - a step-by-step introduction for how to win the whole Bulge battle? [:D]
I would definitely like to see more but as it takes a lot of time away from other development maybe the other things are more important right now. However, maybe you could do some more later together with an expansion pack. Include some history of the scenarios in the videos, that would be just great. And then you have a good place to charge a bit for them too.
As they are, well I would buy some to support if the price is low but then you have to think if you see there is enough money to make it worthwhile spending all the time. What about a process like this? Calculate how much money you think you need to make for it to be worth your time and then make people commit to pre-ordering enough copies to make you produce it and then publish it? Something like I think is used for certain World In Flames products that are only printed when enough promises are made. At least it's worth a survey.
I'd happily pay a tenner (GBP) for a couple of scenarios, a few articles on the historical background and some in-depth tactical tips. The 'zine idea that Stryker mentions sounds good to me. One of those every couple of months and you'd basically have a subscription from me.
I finished watching the Tutorials this evening, I watched them all without even playing along at the same time as most of the stuff in them I fully understood from my time with HTTR and COTA of which I played the latter to death. I still found them really enjoyable and I did learn quite a few things along the way (like the fact I play the game with the unit power turned on all the time and never turn it off, I was missing so much information! lol). I will have to play around with the H hour and planning options more, I am intruiged to see how much the better the AI is as I usually achieved either a minor or desicive victory on every scenario on COTA. I always detatch arty/mortor units and use them myself, only reattaching them when I dont need to concentrate fire where and when I want it, that for me was a key part of the tutorial that people should be using to maximise firepower on high threat units or routed/retreating units.
Tomorrow I shall be firing up the game and giving a few scenarios a go.
"In times of peace, a good general is preparing for war" - Gaius Julius Ceasar
I guess making strategy videos available for cost would not be unheard of, other games make strategy guides available for extra cost, so why not. The videos would actually be a better way to view them then a manual. If people don't find value in them, then they would not need to purchase.
It would depend on the content as to whether I would purchase or not. I don't think I would ever want a video that told me exactly how to do something to win or be a spoiler, but something that went into teaching more of how to attack/defend and all that, I would be interested. Of course they would have to be reasonably priced:)
I would rather dave concentrate on new features and data content than video tutorials.
Oh, and I don't think Dave must necessarily do this considering his otherwise busy schedule. There are quite a few people out there able to do the brunt of the work with recording and formatting the content for Panther Games. Obviously, PA needs to be involved in the QA process considering their intimate knowledge of the engine and the fact that they are the ones putting the packages up for sale, but I would imagine that such a solution would easu Dave's workload a bit as well as generate some really good and inspirational content for the community.