Notes About - The Tactical Art of Combat [Art of Combat]

[Sulla]

Hi Guys,

I wanted to make sure that one thing is understood about this title.

This is about making the best Tactical Wargame or RTTS [Real Time Tactical Simulation] as possible. This is not MY game or the devs game, but OUR game, the communities game.

Its about making the Art of Combat as good as possible at every stage. This means if you have always wanted to see something in the game or always got annoyed at "that" thing, say so. Once the game is built, once it gets to the late stages, its much harder to change stuff, at least core things. Beta testing throws up a lot, but I am talking about things you want or have wanted or thought would be a good idea.

Tell us, we are listening and if its a good idea, it WILL be used. Some of the devs will appear in the next couple of weeks or so. If you want to suggest something, please suggest it! The more imput, the more ideas or thoughts, the less chance of something great being missed.

Cheers - S

[Aetius]

My first suggestion would be to set the game in the eastern front.
So many battles on the eastern front would make fantastic games, but are mostly ignored by developers.

[ke_mechial]

@Sulla
In What to change/improve Thread, I made a few posts, I hope the suggestions help.

@Aetius
I do not care much about the theater of the game. If we get a good engine and a game with flexible moddability capabilities, modders can easily create versions for custom theaters. Example: CC5.

[Nembo]

@Aetius
I do not care much about the theater of the game. If we get a good engine and a game with flexible moddability capabilities, modders can easily create versions for custom theaters. Example: CC5.

Gunna disagree with you ke_mechial. It's the GAME that needs to be good. If the game is bad or just luke warm its gonna have a hard to sustaining itself and a modding community. Yes the game engine needs to be good in order for the game to be good, but games and modding communities don't thrive off great game engines, they thrive off great games with good engines. Most all the major modding communities (half-life, elder scrolls, ArmaII, Mount and Blade, SimCity, Warcraft 3, Microsoft Flight Simulator series) have been based around games that where good in their own right, some of which didn't offer modders any tools at first.

The Close Combat modding community got going despite no aid from the game developers. If anything Atomic discouraged modding as time went by. The doubt the early close combat modders would have spent their time building their own modding tools and then mods if the original close combat games had been bad, even if the engine was still good. As for CC5 I believe it only had such a big modding community because A) It was part of well regarded game series which already had a modding community, and B) it would be years before a game that was similar would be released.

Dont get me wrong the engine needs to be good, and support for mods is essential for the longevity of the game. But none of that really matters if the out of the box game is not good.

For that reason I second what Aetius says, I do hope the theme is not that of the western front during 1943-44. I feel that particular area of conflict has been done over a lot in books/games/movies, which I fear will make it harder for a game to carve out a strong identity for itself. Not saying it can't be done.

[Sulla]

Hia Guys,

I am a bit pushed for time at mo, but will make sure your comments are replied to.

KE, some great suggestions in the threads you have posted. Nembo, if you have more input for the strat layer post them! Now is the time!

I think you will both be happy, both with theatre, scope and the game!

More soon!

S

[ke_mechial]

Hi Nembo, I thoroughly agree, by the way, you are a great modder. I think we both want the same car. You are right, not just the engine, historical accuracy of data, teams, GUI etc. everything should be great. I just meant to say the color of the car does not matter. But if Theater matters: The east front would be great. Bulk of the WWII clashes happenned in the east and in a wider timeline than west, wider range of weapons/vehicles, not just russian and german, lend-lease US and British stuff. I mean Normandy, 44-45 and east front 41-45.

And Sulla, I hope you agree doing well and wish you stamina on project. The suggestions: I was never a modder, but just a great enthusiastic of CC and especially mods. Actually these are all the things on forums, we all have been telling for years, but hopefully this time they will be implemented as they should be normally. But mainly I wanted to imply that Engine would be so designed from the ground up that it would not only be eligible for WWII style clashes &tactics but modern battlefield for future modding.

[Nembo]

I just meant to say the color of the car does not matter.

Understood, didn't mean to come of harsh/jumpy or lecturing if I did. But just to run with the car metaphor a little more, if the theme/theater is to the game, what paint is to a car, I feel like no matter how good the car is. If we paint the cars in polka-dots we're going to have a difficult time getting people excited to buy our cars.


I guess that gets to a concern I have. Today thanks to digital distribution and more powerful development tools, small teams and even individuals can make games. Don't get me wrong I think this is a good thing, but it does mean games and their makers must work hard to A) Get noticed in the crowd of games, and B) Actually catch peoples interest.

The first part I feel Shaun already has a step up on already. The fact that he makes one post here on CSO saying he's going to make a game and then Rock Paper Shotgun writes about it says something. If I did the same I know for a fact that it wouldn't get mentioned on a game news website. So with hard work I'm confident word about the game can be spread.

I feel the second part, getting people interested in the game will be the difficult part. My concern with the western front is that the game will be immediately dismissed as just another WWII strategy game about Americans shooting Nazis.

Many games have moved away from the WWII western front, I believe for just this reason. Call of Duty, Medal of Honor, Battlefield, and Company of Heros are all major game series that got started on the WWII western front that have all shifted away from it, and in the case of the first three even dropped the WWII setting in favor of other war settings. Even the Wolfenstein series which doggedly sticks to the WWII Americans fighting Nazi's theme tries to change it up by re-inventing it's Nazis by playing up things like the occult and sci-fi elements.

I realize the games I mentioned above are all major AAA game series and in a market a tad different from what The Tactical Art of Combat will probably be aiming at, but I do believe that where their is smoke their is fire, and if major studios/publishers were/are having a hard time marketing the WWII western front setting to most gamers, smaller studios will probably have a similar difficulty.

Again its not that the WWII western front is bad, I just firmly believe that at this point in time it will be more difficult to hold peoples attention with that setting.



And while on the topic of markets and marketing, I really think the names "The Tactical Art of Combat" or the "The Tactical Art of Close Combat" are both very very wordy (as in too long, and confusing to the uninitiated). In this day and age when things like twitter with its 140 character limit are king, and newspapers are reporting that many people only have the vocabulary of a high schooler, a shorter and more telling name might be good thing to consider.

[KG_Werfer]

For that reason I second what Aetius says, I do hope the theme is not that of the western front during 1943-44. I feel that particular area of conflict has been done over a lot in books/games/movies, which I fear will make it harder for a game to carve out a strong identity for itself. Not saying it can't be done.

With you there also Nembo. The theater would have to be popular enough to draw interest, but also one not beaten to death and think many of us are just fed up with D-Day and post D-Day and have been for a LONG time games, mods etc.. *IF* any proposed game came out with western allies, I'd say Italian theater, only because it hasn't been beaten to death yet, other than that? Full agreement on Eastern Front, if everyone thinks that area would be popular enough in the retail area.

Question: Does, say the Eastern theater have to be defined to a certain period Shaun? If so, that shouldn't be hard to do either.

Werf

[Antony_nz]

Hello. I'm going to post a few ideas.

[Antony_nz]

*The game should fundamentally be a Close Combat game. Let it be Close Combat:TAC It should look like Close Combat.

*If 2D graphics are used, they should be varied and attractive. I don't see why 2D graphics need to be a prohibitor of on screen depth.

*Good and realistic graphics will be nice. Tilting or rotating camera doesn't particularly excite me. But a zoom in function would be nice.

* I have long suggested mixing 2D and 3D together such as the game Commandos.

*I have often dreamed about a very comprehensive destructible terrain.

* have often suggested a comprehensive death sprite system where each fatality looks according to the way they were hit.
If its subtle and well done, it could bring a shocking real time effect. And it would make observing the dead fun and thrilling.

*I have dreamed about soldiers playing out realistic behaviors, including possibly moving and wriggling after being shot.

*A possible smoke system.(Residue Bullet impact graphics. Unpredictable and varied explosion graphics. (Where balls of flame can take off in different directions)

*Possible litter, guns, spent cartridges, left behind.

*With Close Combat a voice is recorded for different messages. For example if you troops say "I cant hit that". Why repeat it twice? Some games might add a variation. And record 2 or 3 recordings. Instead of 1, why not 4. Why stop at 4? Record 12!
Record enough times so we rarely notice the same recording. Its very rare this is done in video games and it always baffled me.

[Antony_nz]

I have always liked the black and white intros.

I suggest the main menu music start off with ominous music, with the sounds of guns and yelling. And then shortly transform into the Lili Marleen tune. With soft rifts and whistling.
Much like this one.
But with out the words. Of course there are many variations of the Lili Marleen tune.
If done in this way i suggest deceptive imagery of Italy. Making the place look happy Of course this is just my take. There are so many fun ways of doing it.

If the main menu has a credits button, i suggest the song "We'll Meet Again" by Vera Lynn.

Do we know what part of Italy the game is covering?

The game should continue to showcase the tormented sounds of your men being killed. It was always a bonus for CC..

The game should assist for potential role playing endeavors. (I have encountered other players who have taken considerable effort to achieve this) Nerds.
Renaming units, history stats, related statistics. (Morale,thoughts,condition,) Maybe medal allocations.
Would hometowns be going to far?
Alberta,Liverpool,New York

To be honest i have always liked the CC5 strat map in alot of ways. But there are many ways of doing it.

These are just a few ideas i have thought of.

Dont rush.
Take your time. Don't let anything destroy your creative process.

Thank you and i wish you the very best of luck.

[Sulla]

Cheers Antony,

The guys are all very busy, we will hopefully have a couple of screens soon.

We are trying to ensure, the things that were always missing or needed improving are going to be. The campaign, RPG elements, everything.

There is obviously much I can't post, but we have ex Atomic guys, CC guys, Grogs, we are aiming to ensure that we deliver the game people want. We are listening and if ideas are good, they get incorporated.

More soon Antony

- S

[Therion]

I'd advice playing multiple modern real time simulation games to see what advances were made in terms of interface, AI, mechanics, etc. Armored Brigade, Command Ops.

A campaign that stays on one command level would be nice (no jumping between commanding armies and tactical battles).

RTTS [Real Time Tactical Simulation]

:salute:

[Peter386]

Suggestion. Nothing has bothered me more in close combat than the time it takes for the A.I. to move and make decisions, and, when it does decide to move or attack, the A.I. is uncoordinated and basically dumb. Drastically improved, aggressive, and cunning A.I. would be greatly appreciated. Also, the game should take place during the greatest land battle in the history of the world: the Nazi-Soviet War (1941-45).

" The titanic struggle between German Fuhrer Adolf Hitler and Soviet Premier Josef Stalin and their despicable dictatorships has no equal." -Robert Kirchubel.
'Atlas of the Eastern Front 1941-45'