Close Combat - The Bloody First, dates update

[IckieStickie]

Thankyou very much Mickxe5 I'm reinstalling as i speak,and i will have a good look again.Now i know it's worth looking.Cheers guys.Done same to you to grog i apologise my friend.seems im hitting wrong reply oh dear!

[IckieStickie]

Wow free installs of the first 5?I used to have 3/4+5 on disk,and later when i wanted these titles again i got 3/4 again but they only worked for a little whilst,i think windows updates put paid to them working again,then i didnt come across them again for few years untill i discovered Matrix/Slith,i would be interested in maybe trying CC2 Arnhem again from that site?as for the others as i now have matrix versions which also have their originals there somewhere theres no need for those.Thanks ill look later see if ic an find CC2

[Nomada_Firefox]

ORIGINAL: CGGrognard

From previous posts, I know a release date is out of the question, but can you offer the fans here some indication by production if it will be completed this year or next?

How they go to know when it will be finished if they do not work with a release date. Other games work with it but they release the game when it reach the date even if it is unfinished.

[PipFromSlitherine]

ORIGINAL: IckieStickie

Wow free installs of the first 5?I used to have 3/4+5 on disk,and later when i wanted these titles again i got 3/4 again but they only worked for a little whilst,i think windows updates put paid to them working again,then i didnt come across them again for few years untill i discovered Matrix/Slith,i would be interested in maybe trying CC2 Arnhem again from that site?as for the others as i now have matrix versions which also have their originals there somewhere theres no need for those.Thanks ill look later see if ic an find CC2

I edited your post, but any future discussion of piracy will lead to a ban.

Cheers

Pip

[Jugger]

[:D]Looks like "The Wargamer" has used 6 month old news to suggest that "The Bloody first" will start beta testing sometime this month and be released 2nd quarter this year suppose that going to happen when you don't have regular or accurate updates[:D] http://www.wargamer.com/news/the-wargamers-videogame-guide-to-2017/

[Reed]

Hi

Any news???
the game is cancelled?????

Reed

[PipFromSlitherine]

Development is ongoing! We're just not quite ready to share screenshots. Marketing likes everything to be just so [:)]

Cheers

Pip

[Tactics]

ORIGINAL: PipFromSlitherine

Development is ongoing! We're just not quite ready to share screenshots. Marketing likes everything to be just so [:)]

Cheers

Pip

This is getting ridiculous. Marketing....lol

[macroparasite]

[font="Verdana"]

Normada_Firefox, and possibly others, rather misread what I wrote: “If Gateway had been reassessed and the next game born from it had a new engine, AI sorted etc…”

Please notice the phrase ‘new engine’ – which I fear N_F must have missed as he keeps wittering on about it! In no way did I suggest that Gateway should be re-tweaked. My point was that the endless re-tweaking had to stop. Somebody had to seriously reassess the game, back then, from the ground up, and my point was simply to get this bloody great game to work first, before pimping it.

OK, point taken that 3D engines are the way to go but CC works fine purely as birds-eye view. FOG and GTC were visually stunning so graphics was never an issue. All that was needed was a game that had the psychological heart and brains of CC but was playable by the ‘new’ generation. Let’s look at what should have been reassessed a long time ago. And this, N_F, is not ‘dreaming’, if you are going to reassess something then serious points should be addressed.:

1) A major frustration of FOG and GTC was having a ‘mission’ then doing it, doing it well but at the end the program saying the other lot won because they had ‘more victory locations’. Huh? My task was to get the bridge, which I did! Where was the real break down? If my troops morale was still high at the end, if nobody had freaked out and surrendered; was that taken into consideration? Was it hell. But it should be. ‘You secured the town and all the VLs but your troops morale is so low you need to retreat’ Minor victory rather that total/decisive victory. A player now has the challenge of trying again, to keep his troops under control, maybe ditch that sexy tank in favour of another group leader etc. However, as it stands, every game/battle/operation/ simply boils down to ‘get as many VLs as possible’. Which is not really that interesting!
2) I love sitting waiting, listening to the crump of distance shells. That’s the beauty of the reality of CC – often nothing happens, and often for a long time! Now, I’m fine with that but a modern ‘blast ‘em’ player will die of boredom. What to do? Easy: Mickxe5 mods his, so why can’t the actual game have options? Term them ‘real’ and ‘game’ and the ‘modern’ player might get the drift that keeping people alive and sane, the true essence of CC, is far more important than body count.

The two points show that the game plan, not just the AI, was flawed. Here is a game built around the mindset of humans at war and the results do not reflect, in any shape or form, the handling of it.

Reassess or sort things like that that out before ‘3d’ was my point. I said that we are in danger of getting the same game but in 3D and I fear that seems to be the case. Everyone seems to be begging for screenshots etc but my new question is, and I shout: ‘WHAT IS THE GAME?’. So – Matrix. What is the game? Get as many VLs as possible (but in 3D)? Is that it? I bloody well hope not!

PLEASE MATRIX: You have a gem of a game that works in real time, not turn based: It is a rare beast. Make it work!

Last point: Normada_Firefox, I don’t hide my name – I forget it! It is possibly 15 years, maybe more, since I did a mod or map, which were for CCIII/ Real Red etc. Last time I looked one map (Road 2) was still around, the mod ‘Tanks? No tanks!’ (which stripped AI’s ability to keep trying to replace lost infantry with armor) seems to have gone forever! I was also the first mapmaker to include fallen trees (judging by comments at the time)– which I see were used in FOG and GTC. I also toyed, to some success, of having proper concealed guns under camouflage netting using ‘roof’ and /or ‘trees’. So yes, you don’t know me but I don’t dream – I am pro-active, actually adding my bit to CC’s history; therefore I deserve some right in making points, on being critical. Oh! And you were around back then cos I remember your name, I was living in Barcelona when I did the map and mods (I now live in Russia)– and can I say your English has got a hell of a lot better!!! Abrazos!

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[Saturnian]

Good comments by all. Personally I am not sure what the obsession with 3d is. What I have wanted to see, even since CC2, was actual photo-realistic soldiers. Some very minor, easy tweaking could make absolutely breathtaking soldier animations with authentic uniforms and hyper-detailed movements. But instead we got the same cruddy soldier animations in every single release. No one wanted to touch them up! They would say the animations were "touched up" but they were often worse!!! Why!?!? It was the least they could do. This is not personal against Matrix but really started when SSI got the rights to the engine and Microsoft abandoned the product.

So since 1999 they have just slowly butchered the AI(I was disappointed with the soldier animations since CC2 in 1997! 20 years ago!!!!)

I always loved Close Combat because of the attachment to the soldiers and the psychological model. Yet every release overlooked the strengths of the game and tried to slop on a million other things that only served to make the game more cluttered and glitchy. You can't add 10 features to a game as improvements if you cannot improve the weaknesses of its strengths.

So over the past 20 years, the CLOSE in Close Combat, the soldiers, have still had the same crappy animations for CC2. And with the idea of this 3d engine I can't imagine the animations will look any realer. Probably LESS real!

But thousands of WW2 enthusiasts would have gladly helped to reanimate the soldiers to actually make them look real for a 2d close combat. IT could so easily be done to just make awesome realistic soldier animations. All it takes is focus on the DETAILS, which is what made close combat (in Keith Zabaloui times) so totally awesome.

And of course there could have been more focus on the soldier history, the ability to customize units, what weapons soldiers are equipped with, and soldier placement. But all of that important stuff was overlooked and instead we got more and more tanks, more and more poorly rendered(if animated at all) weapons for the pitiful soldier animations which were always supposed to be the core of the game but have never been improved upon since cc2! Why improve tanks but ignore the soldiers?

Gradually Close Combat became "Slow Tank Spinning" and "Tracked tank in hedgerow machine gunning useless Panzerfaust" Combat. Instead of "the thrill of combat, the power of command" it has become "hide your ten guys in the swamp and wait for the timer to run out" noncombat.

Why no customizing of individual soldiers? more and more units, more and more anonymity of soldiers? Is what I have asked in every release since the dawn of the millenium.

All of these new promises look like they pretend to keep it Close Combat, but feel like they overlook the core of what made Close Combat so awesome.

I don't mean to be negative and I can't judge a game I haven't seen, but I am skeptical about how a 3d engine is supposed to work for close combat. But I think that a much better game could have been made much more quickly if you just stuck to 2D. You could have used an engine that allows smooth movements of soldiers, reworked the AI, and created incredibly hyper realistic(really literally photo realistic) animations.

Now there aren't even multi-storey buildings but there are 3d graphics? It is just like "what?" Its like, all that 3d effort for NOTHING! the only reason I ever wanted 3d in close combat was for multi-storey buildings! Why else would we? But then you don't have them? You could have just found a clever way to make multi-storey work better in 2d and improved the game 1000% but instead we get pointless new engine without even multi-storey buildings!?!? WHY!?

It would be nice if you focused on the details rather than trying to make this massive epic sprawling thing. By the very nature of the beast it is destined to be riddled with faults. The best close combat games focused on single operations. Because what made the game was the CLOSE. the DETAILS.

But I'll get off my soap box. Please DO prove me wrong! I appreciate your hard work, but since close combat is literally the only game i'd consider wasting my time and money on, I have great expectations for a new engine.

[macroparasite]

Darn it! Couldn't have put it better! Thanks Saturnian. Yes, the 2d version was never made fully fit for purpose. For example, even in GTC, a tank can see (how?) and eliminate a hidden bazooka from an incredible range. I also believe a bazooka/panzerfaust can still be fired from a building - which is impossible unless suicide was on the agenda. This I can't prove as anybody with anti-tank weapons/flame thrower are mysteriously spotted and dispatched within seconds of game start!

I understand that 3D is more than just the visuals - it would help place people better for example - so I am now cool with 3D, but I am very nervous about the whole of the game structure, as in the player's motivation, as it was just so throwaway and meaningless before.

Right now Matrix have to get a working game out there so it can be field-tested but they should also be ready to hurriedly work from the feedback and get V2 out quickly.

Good Luck Matrix!

[DAK_Legion]

Any news?

Enter to march.....

[PipFromSlitherine]

We are pushing to get something to see out, but I will confess it is a frustrating case of never being happy with the shots and what we want to show off.

Cheers

Pip

[Nomada_Firefox]

Get my advice. If you are trying to get the perfection, really you are losing time instead. The day that you publish anything, you will be judge very very very hardly because you did not showed anything for years.

And because the human being is imperfect, you will not get the perfection.

[Hexagon]

If you wait the perfect shot you waste time to promote game and attract customers, months ago a simple pic (better more than one) showing whats going on sure help push interest in game but now, with release date "close" with only pics from 2 years ago and 3 monhts with promised pics MIA and as bonus saying you dont release pics because are not perfect enough... well, more than made interest in game increase do oposite specially when in last months appear very interesting games that could not be CC but are in market and offer an interesting aproximation (i recommend you see videos of Syrian Warfare, is very green with no morale system and with a single player mode 1 campaign BUT graphics are great and combat even being to fast for my taste feels great specially mortars that looks much better than in any CC game i play).

I dont have a lot "faith" in have a game manteined at day with patches from a company unable to release pics of their product in 2 years and pushing release date of a simple pic of game 3 months because "is not perfect enough" [8|]

[Saturnian]

That's another reason why I am a little disappointed 2d is being abandoned in favor of cartoonish 3d graphics. Could have literally taken photographs of real people and tanks and put them into close combat. All you'd need is maybe a dozen frames to create hypnotically lifelike movement of soldiers. Image 50 photo-realistic, frame by frame movement soldiers in close combat along with tanks and realistic light effects? that would blow my mind. with realistic plants moving, buildings crumbling.

MAybe it can be done with 3d? you can apply photo-realistic textures to the 3d soldiers? I hope so. I want to see something that looks real. not a cartoon.

If the gameplay makes up for it then mediocre graphics are forgivable. But its difficult to get an idea of what to expect. 3d graphics without multi-storey buildings, a new engine with new AI(that works in 3d). This is all leaving a lot to the imagination.

Honestly I have no idea what to expect out of this. But I do appreciate the effort you are putting into it. And that you are holding back on what you are releasing shows you are conscientious about what you are releasing. Which is a good thing.

[PipFromSlitherine]

From a technical point of view, with a requirement for modern levels of animation and resolution, 2D images become impractical. The visuals we are aiming for are partly constrained by our desire not to require people to own high-end machines to play the game.

Cheers

Pip

[Justmebeingme]

Oh thanks GOD pip is here to save us with his ever enduring posts......


I couldn't live without nor would purchase a game without the perfect screen shot of a game.
Maybe this is the exact reason they don't put there games on STEAM.

STEAM has standards as which one has to apply to.................Matrix has trolls (including themselves)who cant even produce a screen shot in X amount of years

But I cant WAIT!........This is gonna be the BEST EVER GAME/Dream Ive ever played!

[Justmebeingme]

Maybe they should take their game to Glamor Shots for that perfect picture

[PipFromSlitherine]

It is:

"thank GOD"
"don't put their games"

also, apostrophes are a thing.

You may want to revisit your assertion that our games are not on Steam.

But otherwise, thanks for your constructive posts.

Cheers

Pip