Where JTCS went wrong

John Tiller's Campaign Series exemplifies tactical war-gaming at its finest by bringing you the entire collection of TalonSoft's award-winning campaign series. Containing TalonSoft's West Front, East Front, and Rising Sun platoon-level combat series, as well as all of the official add-ons and expansion packs, the Matrix Edition allows players to dictate the events of World War II from the tumultuous beginning to its climatic conclusion. We are working together with original programmer John Tiller to bring you this updated edition.

Moderators: Jason Petho, Peter Fisla, asiaticus, dogovich

osiris_slith
Posts: 240
Joined: Fri Jan 05, 2007 9:24 pm

Where JTCS went wrong

Post by osiris_slith »

Hi

I think this needs to be said as to why I have completely stopped playing this game its a culmination of old technology, a company that has little or no forward thinking and design changes that just went wrong

1: Patches-Upto patch 1.02 it was an excellent game and from there it went downhill

in patch 1.04-

Useless Gimmicks
we have battleships, civilians and all kinds of other useless gimmicks which do not enhance game play..If you want reality then why didnt you include a concentration game icon as well, We have supply depots that do nothing for game play, HQ units that dont work and so on-The most irritating gimmick is Individual snipers ( last time I checked this is a platoon game) why do we need individual snipers!!)

The developers folded to the a minority of players who wanted this crap while ignoring the majority of players

Useless OBs
we have OBs of useless countries which had useless armies- Romania (in fact we have an entire set of scenarios dedicated to that useless army that played such a minor role in the war). Hungarian, Finnish, Bulgarian, Yugoslavian and a few others useless armies that played such a minor role in war

The developers folded to the a minority of players who wanted this crap while ignoring the majority of players

close assualt system
This should either have been changed or NOT-Not some stupid comprimise that again made a minority happy and a majority very unhappy
The developers should have had got some back bone and made a decision

Crummy AI-
This has been a complaint about the game for ages-Unfortunately MATRIX missed the boat on this when they first aquired the game that is when changes should have been made to the game engine before the 1st patch came out

Why I want to play AI-ITS CONVENIENT!!!-
I dont want to wait for some stupid human being to send me a turn 1 week or more later that should take 3 minutes to do-Again Panzer corp solved this problem beautifully

Is playing humans better-Of course it is but its inconvenient!! and finally unlike Panzer Corp which solved the cheating problem JTCS series did not so again
Matrix missed the opportunity to upgrade the game engine

Not so visually stunning Graphics-
As the world of computers gets more and more advanced this game is being left in the dust visually-Again there was a chance for Matrix to do this upgrade and they missed the boat

This game is dying a terrible death because

A MATRIX games missed too many boat to really upgrade this game and

The developers/designers (out of there good heart or whatever the reason was) made the mistake of trying to make everyone happy (especially the minority of players who wanted useless crap in the game

So Im gonna wait for the John Tiller Software to come out with Panzer Battles-a platoon based game and then Im going to toss JTCS series out the window

I completely understand why people want patch 1.02 it represents the very best of JTCS...so give players the option of having it

Rene

PS I wont buy/get modern wars because its based on the same graphics and same game engine as JTCS hence the same problems

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Warhorse
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RE: Where JTCS went wrong

Post by Warhorse »

OMG, here we go again.... And I play against the AI, BTW... This always coming from people that actually don't do anything constructive to perpetuate the game, just complain, try doing something.

Mike
Mike Amos

Meine Ehre heißt Treue
www.cslegion.com
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Jason Petho
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RE: Where JTCS went wrong

Post by Jason Petho »

ORIGINAL: Warhorse

OMG, here we go again.... And I play against the AI, BTW... This always coming from people that actually don't do anything constructive to perpetuate the game, just complain, try doing something.

Mike

+1
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marcbarker
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RE: Where JTCS went wrong

Post by marcbarker »

hmmmmm............not going there....would not be prudent........RR will swoop in
games:
1. AGEOD Blue and Gray
2. John Tiller's Battleground Series
3. Combat Mission: Beyond Overlord
4. Combat Mission: Barbarossa to Berlin
5. V for Victory Games
6. Silent Hunter III
7. Silent Hunter IV
8. Rise and Fall of the Third Re
osiris_slith
Posts: 240
Joined: Fri Jan 05, 2007 9:24 pm

RE: Where JTCS went wrong

Post by osiris_slith »

HI

There is a bunch of people on here including players who have played for a long time who made tons of excellent suggestions and for most part were ignored..The graphics in SPWAW is better than what JTCS has...just listening to the tank sounds and firing is a huge improvement over JTCS

Here is the most common list of things that people have asked for since the game was aquired by MATRIX approx-5 years ago-Search the forums and you will find all of these!!

We asked for graphics improvements-denied
We asked for sound improvements-Denied
We asked for AI improvements-Denied
We asked for a better Hvs H system to stop cheating-denied
We asked for the new Close assault system not to be implemented, instead we got an option and now we have 2 camps of players who play with on and another camp that plays with it off and which created real divides in the community

We asked for windowed-denied
We suggested a new game engine-denied (a lot of us including me publicly stated we would pay extra)

Instead we got a sniper, civilians, useless and unimportant OBs

You play againsts AI thats great [:)]...You want a real challenge from AI go play SPWAW or go play Operational art of war and you will start to understand what a good AI can really do..the AI in those game is not great but its 500% improvement over JTCS

Dont come on here and say people didnt try to move the game in the right direction--the game has NOT CHANGED 1 BIT since the it was purchased by MATRIX games...all we got was some window dressing

rene
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marcbarker
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RE: Where JTCS went wrong

Post by marcbarker »

I stated my views on this numerous times. I just got tired of the hate emails and such...so i keep quiet....One of the biggest peeve I had was the encryption.... that is not going away. So to compensate i have numerous installs. 1.02 and earlier, Original Talonsoft Series, and 1.04. I hate having to maintain 3 different installs but it serves the putpose for what I need
games:
1. AGEOD Blue and Gray
2. John Tiller's Battleground Series
3. Combat Mission: Beyond Overlord
4. Combat Mission: Barbarossa to Berlin
5. V for Victory Games
6. Silent Hunter III
7. Silent Hunter IV
8. Rise and Fall of the Third Re
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Warhorse
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Joined: Fri May 12, 2000 8:00 am
Location: Birdsboro, PA, USA
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RE: Where JTCS went wrong

Post by Warhorse »

Dude, I helped develop WAW from a game called Steel Lightning before that, I've done nothing but try to help the gaming industry, including the "crappy" icons you refer to, which were done AFTER Matrix acquired it, BTW!!! Unfortunately we are stuck with the format of the graphics, why don't you try to do better, if you can, instead of putting us down, I don't get paid a dime, but I like doing this. I haven't seen anything done by you?

Mike
Mike Amos

Meine Ehre heißt Treue
www.cslegion.com
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marcbarker
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RE: Where JTCS went wrong

Post by marcbarker »

I am with you Mike, Either play or don't play really quite that simple. Youstated your opinion that is cool. Glad you did. So now where does this path lead?
games:
1. AGEOD Blue and Gray
2. John Tiller's Battleground Series
3. Combat Mission: Beyond Overlord
4. Combat Mission: Barbarossa to Berlin
5. V for Victory Games
6. Silent Hunter III
7. Silent Hunter IV
8. Rise and Fall of the Third Re
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marcbarker
Posts: 1213
Joined: Sun Jul 06, 2008 4:58 pm

RE: Where JTCS went wrong

Post by marcbarker »

to answer your question mike this may help I know off topic but this is the best way to get it to you

Image
Attachments
process.jpg
process.jpg (76.27 KiB) Viewed 216 times
games:
1. AGEOD Blue and Gray
2. John Tiller's Battleground Series
3. Combat Mission: Beyond Overlord
4. Combat Mission: Barbarossa to Berlin
5. V for Victory Games
6. Silent Hunter III
7. Silent Hunter IV
8. Rise and Fall of the Third Re
User avatar
marcbarker
Posts: 1213
Joined: Sun Jul 06, 2008 4:58 pm

RE: Where JTCS went wrong

Post by marcbarker »

crap forgot to give you the bat files...my bad
games:
1. AGEOD Blue and Gray
2. John Tiller's Battleground Series
3. Combat Mission: Beyond Overlord
4. Combat Mission: Barbarossa to Berlin
5. V for Victory Games
6. Silent Hunter III
7. Silent Hunter IV
8. Rise and Fall of the Third Re
User avatar
marcbarker
Posts: 1213
Joined: Sun Jul 06, 2008 4:58 pm

RE: Where JTCS went wrong

Post by marcbarker »

Osiris, What me and mike do are for the good of the game if something does work right we make it work for our needs. We state our views and that is it. For example I am working on a interactive scenario viewer for CS, a interactive OOB editor that will build OOB's for a DCG. Mike my freind has created something short of fantastic and is working another. So you see people do work on this game but some don't have the source code nor compiler to really try to work it out , that is all in the hands of the people that own it. So there has been many addtions to this game some good some not so good but it is still fun.
games:
1. AGEOD Blue and Gray
2. John Tiller's Battleground Series
3. Combat Mission: Beyond Overlord
4. Combat Mission: Barbarossa to Berlin
5. V for Victory Games
6. Silent Hunter III
7. Silent Hunter IV
8. Rise and Fall of the Third Re
osiris_slith
Posts: 240
Joined: Fri Jan 05, 2007 9:24 pm

RE: Where JTCS went wrong

Post by osiris_slith »

HI Mike

I am not blaming you or jaosn at all...this mess sits squarely on the shoulders of MATRIX and nobody else for not providing a vision for the future of this game

Jason and company did a great job under the circumstances..we all make mistakes and thats understanable..but matrix didnt care and its as simple as that

rene

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Warhorse
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RE: Where JTCS went wrong

Post by Warhorse »

Alright, Rene, thanks for clarifying that! Have a Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!!

Mike
Mike Amos

Meine Ehre heißt Treue
www.cslegion.com
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Warhorse
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Joined: Fri May 12, 2000 8:00 am
Location: Birdsboro, PA, USA
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RE: Where JTCS went wrong

Post by Warhorse »

ORIGINAL: barker

to answer your question mike this may help I know off topic but this is the best way to get it to you

Image

Dang, I get to the picture, click, seems like something happens, flash of a DOS box briefly. Then, a box with a warning about opening the game file, hit open, but nothing happens? Grrr!! Everything looks really awesome, can't believe it man!! Probably something with my machine, lemme try Zonealarm settings.

Mike
Mike Amos

Meine Ehre heißt Treue
www.cslegion.com
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marcbarker
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RE: Where JTCS went wrong

Post by marcbarker »

There is a delay of a few seconds prior to rs opening
games:
1. AGEOD Blue and Gray
2. John Tiller's Battleground Series
3. Combat Mission: Beyond Overlord
4. Combat Mission: Barbarossa to Berlin
5. V for Victory Games
6. Silent Hunter III
7. Silent Hunter IV
8. Rise and Fall of the Third Re
User avatar
marcbarker
Posts: 1213
Joined: Sun Jul 06, 2008 4:58 pm

RE: Where JTCS went wrong

Post by marcbarker »

this is what is in the bat file

cls
cd..
cd C:\Matrix Games
cd John Tiller's Campaign Series
cd Rising Sun

rs Bootcamp1.scn


cd=change directory
games:
1. AGEOD Blue and Gray
2. John Tiller's Battleground Series
3. Combat Mission: Beyond Overlord
4. Combat Mission: Barbarossa to Berlin
5. V for Victory Games
6. Silent Hunter III
7. Silent Hunter IV
8. Rise and Fall of the Third Re
User avatar
marcbarker
Posts: 1213
Joined: Sun Jul 06, 2008 4:58 pm

RE: Where JTCS went wrong

Post by marcbarker »

make sur these settings are done on your adobe

Image
Attachments
step1.jpg
step1.jpg (52.36 KiB) Viewed 211 times
games:
1. AGEOD Blue and Gray
2. John Tiller's Battleground Series
3. Combat Mission: Beyond Overlord
4. Combat Mission: Barbarossa to Berlin
5. V for Victory Games
6. Silent Hunter III
7. Silent Hunter IV
8. Rise and Fall of the Third Re
User avatar
marcbarker
Posts: 1213
Joined: Sun Jul 06, 2008 4:58 pm

RE: Where JTCS went wrong

Post by marcbarker »

step 2

Image
Attachments
step2.jpg
step2.jpg (133.39 KiB) Viewed 212 times
games:
1. AGEOD Blue and Gray
2. John Tiller's Battleground Series
3. Combat Mission: Beyond Overlord
4. Combat Mission: Barbarossa to Berlin
5. V for Victory Games
6. Silent Hunter III
7. Silent Hunter IV
8. Rise and Fall of the Third Re
User avatar
marcbarker
Posts: 1213
Joined: Sun Jul 06, 2008 4:58 pm

RE: Where JTCS went wrong

Post by marcbarker »

If it does not open in adobe please check the following and these are the adobe settings under preferences.....go to the java script settings and emulate what is shown here

Image
Attachments
step3.jpg
step3.jpg (47.47 KiB) Viewed 211 times
games:
1. AGEOD Blue and Gray
2. John Tiller's Battleground Series
3. Combat Mission: Beyond Overlord
4. Combat Mission: Barbarossa to Berlin
5. V for Victory Games
6. Silent Hunter III
7. Silent Hunter IV
8. Rise and Fall of the Third Re
User avatar
Warhorse
Posts: 5369
Joined: Fri May 12, 2000 8:00 am
Location: Birdsboro, PA, USA
Contact:

RE: Where JTCS went wrong

Post by Warhorse »

Hmm, am using Adobe Reader X, but, my game is installed in J: drive, I have 5 hard drives!! Anyway to edit the bat to CD that? J:Matrix Games\Campaign Series\Rising Sun

Sorry to be a pain, I got lots of files!!!;-)

Mike
Mike Amos

Meine Ehre heißt Treue
www.cslegion.com
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