BETA sign ups for close combat the bloody first are now a thing on facebook for this game. The game is now listed on steam. I would still guess they are many months off though. I'd say 6-12 months actually.
I have a long history way back to Sulla and close combat.org. Loved gold juno sword mod for close combat the best. Been following the bloody first since it was announced. Loving the similar steed division 2 at the moment. Also own most of the combat mission games.
Just looking at the trailer the game is extremely US centric. Which if I recall correctly the original was, from a campaign perspective.
The trailer also mentions men but does not mention women, cats, dogs or sea lions. So am a bit confused about that. :o
Here is hoping that they use the sounds from close combat 1.
Some features I liked:
* Multiplayer allows for Co-Op play vs. the AI
* New sound effects
* For the first time the armed forces of Italy appear in an official release
* 1 Grand Campaign, 3 Theatre Campaigns (Tunisia, Sicily and Normandy), 11 Operations and 36 battles
* Completely revised 3D that bring a whole new look and feel to the classic Close Combat gameplay. The new 3D engine allows an increased level of detail (down to the the specific types of ammunition used by each weapon) and more realistic movement and projectile physics.
Link to the steam store:
https://store.steampowered.com/app/811880/Close_Combat_The_Bloody_First/
(https://steamcdn-a.akamaihd.net/steam/apps/811880/header.jpg)
Been playing the beta for awhile now...sorry. NDA. >:D
I have been trying to get in for a while now. Funny thing is. When it comes to Matrix games I have always had trouble getting into their BETA's because there is some sort of disconnect between email addresses. Last time I tried to get into a BETA, I asked privately a second time and the gent said that I was already in 3 months ago did I not get the message lol.
No hurry for me on this one. Fingers crossed but expectations are low for me - like a hollywood movie. I am not expecting a polished shiney battlefield 3. Why? Because if I think like this, I cannot be disappointed. Then my hopes go up again because some of the features are the first really new features in a close combat game that are not incidental for 20 years. !!!
Good to see a steady hand is in the hot seat giving feedback.
All right! A Close Combat Bloody First Booty cal-----
....wait, sorry, too late at night here, eyes blurred some oo's from one line to another.
It certainly looks very nice. If the gameplay is solid, this could get me back into the series.
I'm also looking forward to this game. I haven't played the original Close Combat games a lot, but what I have played I've enjoyed. They're great games to pick up and play through a battle in 20 minutes or so, with decent historical accuracy and realism. Plus, I always liked the sound effects and the operational layer to the campaigns.
I was a bit dismayed at how much time went by during the development without hearing any word. Glad to see that they are making good progress!
From about 38mins in close combat and a close combat interview is shown. The first thing I notice is that they admit to speeding things up, but this can of course be slowed down. They are say they have added a fire direction indicator, I thought this was in the originals but it has been so long.
https://www.twitch.tv/videos/433955971?t=40m08s
I see coop vs AI is not a thing according to the dev on the twitch stream on release but was listed as a feature? That was the only real new feature I could see that I was interested in. Focus on 1v1 close combat has been done before many times.
Also a little concerned about the speed being turned up.
Coop vs AI was THE feature I wanted. Otherwise why not play combat mission?
Looks great! Can't wait to get my hands on this. I wasn't too impressed with the last few games in the series but this looks awesome.
Probably just me, but the issue I had with the existing games was the fact hard to see your infantry.....looking at this video, although they have the icons for infantry, still a little surprised to see the infantry are still somewhat hard to see.
I'm not very familiar with this series but this looks like a scaled down version of Steel Divisions? Someone more educated than myself, please tell me if that's a comment from someone less informed? :bd:
Quote from: acctingman on June 03, 2019, 09:11:06 PM
I'm not very familiar with this series but this looks like a scaled down version of Steel Divisions? Someone more educated than myself, please tell me if that's a comment from someone less informed? :bd:
I would say it's more like Combat Mission but scaled down and streamlined into a bit more of an RTS-ey game.
Quote from: acctingman on June 03, 2019, 09:11:06 PM
I'm not very familiar with this series but this looks like a scaled down version of Steel Divisions? Someone more educated than myself, please tell me if that's a comment from someone less informed? :bd:
During its heyday, it's one of the best depiction of morale in a tactical game.
Quote from: al_infierno on June 03, 2019, 09:48:46 PM
Quote from: acctingman on June 03, 2019, 09:11:06 PM
I'm not very familiar with this series but this looks like a scaled down version of Steel Divisions? Someone more educated than myself, please tell me if that's a comment from someone less informed? :bd:
I would say it's more like Combat Mission but scaled down and streamlined into a bit more of an RTS-ey game.
Or rather, CM (since it came later) was scaled up into a turn-based wego system played more 3d than at top-down 2d. But a lot of the gameplay principles, and even the tactical UI, were the same as in Close Combat.
CC did have the advantage of having campaign management, which CMx1 never had (aside from something like RobO's campaign generator, which was a realllly nice excel spreadsheet program.) CMx2 and onward have operational campaigns, but CC's were dynamic, from CC2 onward.
(This was the big selling point of Matrix's CM-competitor Panzersomething... um.... there were two versions eventually combined into Ostfront. Panzer Command? It was an arguably better looking Combat Mission Barbarossa to Berlin, with a few less bells and whistles -- no ability to enter buildings for example which is kind of important for infantry! -- but with a dynamic campaign system.)
Looks good to me. They did say you could play the campaigns in MP, but just 1vs1. I thought it was new that you could switch out parts of your squad, like add more bazooka's or other speciality weapons to individual squads. The pathing from what I could see was better, of course how could it be worse. There's a pause feature, and you can speed it up or slow it down on demand. Looks like you can zoom down pretty well, and add the black outline for units like the old games. They didn't talk much about modding, just that you could adjust parameters of the units, nothing about creating new units or maps. I have to see more, especially the AI .
Thanks Jason for the much better explanation ;D
Re: the pathfinding... If the stream chat is to be believed, the poor pathfinding in previous games was partly a result of the sprites system. This is a totally new engine.
in simplest terms the pathfinding was a problem with the ai trying to figure out the terrain code system overlayed on a flattened 3d map.
^ What he said plus Real Time. Great game for it's day but not without issues.
As much as I think the game looks pretty, I'm waiting for reviews (mainly here) and I still need to finish SD and I want to get SD2 before I even try this one.
Who the F thinks we have enough time to play all these damn games? >:(
Quote from: GDS_Starfury on June 03, 2019, 11:28:10 PM
in simplest terms the pathfinding was a problem with the ai trying to figure out the terrain code system overlayed on a flattened 3d map.
Is this you
finally getting around to your long-promised
Panthers in the Fog review?
Quote from: bayonetbrant on June 04, 2019, 11:36:35 AM
Quote from: GDS_Starfury on June 03, 2019, 11:28:10 PM
in simplest terms the pathfinding was a problem with the ai trying to figure out the terrain code system overlayed on a flattened 3d map.
Is this you finally getting around to your long-promised Panthers in the Fog review?
How ironic, and bittersweet. He finally gets around to it, and you're not even here to bask in the glory. :'(
:2funny:
Im not even bothering to sign up for the beta of this.
Quote from: Jarhead0331 on June 04, 2019, 11:47:45 AM
Quote from: bayonetbrant on June 04, 2019, 11:36:35 AM
Quote from: GDS_Starfury on June 03, 2019, 11:28:10 PM
in simplest terms the pathfinding was a problem with the ai trying to figure out the terrain code system overlayed on a flattened 3d map.
Is this you finally getting around to your long-promised Panthers in the Fog review?
How ironic, and bittersweet. He finally gets around to it, and you're not even here to bask in the glory. :'(
If he comes back to visit for that, I have no complaints! 8)
JH, I know you're under an NDA, so you may not be able to answer this, but can you tell us if this game will finally be released at least this year? I've waited so long for a new Close Combat that I just thought I'd give the question a shot.
I'm on the beta and I'll say that I have no idea when official release is.
The game's pretty playable, I'm on the second version of the closed beta, had a ton of crashes in the first version. Those have cleaned up now.
I would be shocked if this dragged out more than a year, so.....
Appreciate the info you are able to give Skoop.
My understanding is that the game is scheduled for a release in a matter of months. The indications I have are that release is not far off at all.
I see this game is Real Time. Is there a way to slow it down like in SD? If not, this is a no buy for me. For some reason RT and me do not mix. :idiot2:
During the twitch stream they mentioned a pause feature.
Thanks Budd
CC has always had a pausable orders feature, at least since CC2. I'm glad to hear it's still going to be available, but I'm not surprised. :)
What is the spotting like?
Quote from: acctingman on June 06, 2019, 10:25:56 AM
I see this game is Real Time. Is there a way to slow it down like in SD? If not, this is a no buy for me. For some reason RT and me do not mix. :idiot2:
The game runs really slow by default already. At least the previous iterations.
Quote from: acctingman on June 06, 2019, 10:25:56 AM
I see this game is Real Time. Is there a way to slow it down like in SD? If not, this is a no buy for me. For some reason RT and me do not mix. :idiot2:
You can control the game speed and slow it down, yes. You can also pause the game and review the battle and give orders while paused.
Cheers
Pip
Quote from: PipFromSlitherine on June 07, 2019, 10:11:05 AM
Quote from: acctingman on June 06, 2019, 10:25:56 AM
I see this game is Real Time. Is there a way to slow it down like in SD? If not, this is a no buy for me. For some reason RT and me do not mix. :idiot2:
You can control the game speed and slow it down, yes. You can also pause the game and review the battle and give orders while paused.
Cheers
Pip
Thanks Pip
Can the camera be tilted or only zoomed at a fixed angle?
You can spin the camera so I assume that means you can also zoom from any angle.
What I meant was tilting the camera (fixed zoom level) along the Y-axis. Not panning or spinning. Like using "R" and "F" for those familliar with Combat Mission.
Oh I get ya. Yes that would be good. Somehow I don't think this will hold a candle to Combat Mission for realism. It's a nice action wargame that will be fun but missing things like proper communications and physics I would think.
Quote from: rocketman on June 08, 2019, 07:43:50 AM
What I meant was tilting the camera (fixed zoom level) along the Y-axis. Not panning or spinning. Like using "R" and "F" for those familliar with Combat Mission.
Yes - you can tilt the camera. You can change the angles pretty much as you like outside the norm too, but the assets are not designed for very close in inspection.
Cheers
Pip
Announcement on BluesNews & the MatrixGames site: Close Combat: The Bloody First on their website and Steam October 3rd. FinallY!