10 years ago - pretty much to the day - two guys with a rather fancy idea of breaking free from the chains of traditional game distribution and starting to sell their games online, revealed their plans to the world.
People were already scratching their heads about these two guys. They planned to make a 3D wargame that noone thought was possible to pull off anyway. 3D? We-go turn-based? Just these two guys on their own?
As it turns out, ten years later, both these plans worked, and did they work.
I remember playing PBEM with a local, and he broke down and gave up because I kicked his ass so badly. He said he’d spend hours with his moves, then I’d respond back 15 minutes after he mailed the turn back and just walloped him.
I think the kicker was when a replay made it look like one my Shermans just squashed one of his panzershreck teams flat while tooling down a road.
To be fair, CM:SF has improved a lot since launch. I still don’t much like modern warfare, or the naturally unbalanced nature of the opponents, so almost never play. But it is at the stage where I think that when they go back to WWII, it will be decent.
My favourite CM moment was a 2" mortar making the crew of a Whirbelwind bail… Actually, my favourite moment was the first few minutes of the demo, and realising that this was the game I hadn’t even dreamt about, but was genius.
Combat Mission has had a very wide impact. I remember being amused by seeing a history book where the author mentioned it was one of his inspirations for choosing the subject of the book.
Edit: The book is Steel Victory by Harry Yeide if anyone cares.
I remember the peng thread! PeterNZer reporting in!
I loved CM too. Met some good guys through it too, JonS in NZ, Germanboy, Chupacabra, Kip. Best moments were the CMMC (massive 60 person campaign) and playing a PBEM game with 18inch naval guns, carve a path to victory!
I think they really have to give credit to their forums in general for being a large part of the success of battlefront.com
You have in depth discussion of tactical minutiae, Massive AAR’s, friendly help for newbies, an active mod community and the likes of the peng thread, all rolled into one.
I could read the tactical hints forum for hours talking about the use of rifle squads vs SMG squads etc, it was great stuff
Well, we decided against cheesey “CMBO Limited Anniversary edition” sales. We have always wanted to break with what seems to be a tradition in the wargaming market of milking your customers by relabelling product. We also decided against fancy merchandise. Who really needs “I played CMBO for 10 years and all I get was this lousy t-shirt”…
Instead, we want to give you a first glimpse of where this journey began, and where it’s leading to, in the next 10 years, by releasing a very first in-game shot of the next World War Two Western Front Combat Mission game.
What, just one lousy screenshot? Yes, just one lousy screenshot. AND notice how I skillfully sailed around mentioning any official game title, too :)
Hey Peter, think we had a pbem going back in the day. Geier reporting in. Yeah, the Peng guys were a great bunch. Except Meeks of course, but he was crazier than a tree full of rats.
And if they go back to WW2, Battlefront might regain a customer.
Yeah, they lost me before SF. I didn’t like the company attitude and I didn’t like how stupidly neocon the forums had become. But if CM2 is good I will probably grab it :)
Heh, the BFC fora are the only time I’ve gone out of my way to meet people IRL from a forum. I spent many hours on the golf course with Major Battaglia, and met up with Germanboy on his honeymoon in Bangkok.