What's the latest news?

Started by Staggerwing, September 21, 2013, 06:11:57 PM

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Staggerwing

Ron, it's nice to see Schwerepunkt have a forum of it's own here. Congrats!

Could you give the boys and girls here a brief estimate of when we may be able to see the game unveiled?
Vituð ér enn - eða hvat?  -Voluspa

Nothing really rocks and nothing really rolls and nothing's ever worth the cost...

"Don't you look at me that way..." -the Abyss
 
'When searching for a meaningful embrace, sometimes my self respect took second place' -Iggy Pop, Cry for Love

... this will go down on your permanent record... -the Violent Femmes, 'Kiss Off'-

"I'm not just anyone, I'm not just anyone-
I got my time machine, got my 'electronic dream!"
-Sonic Reducer, -Dead Boys

Bison

Good to see the Schwerpunkt forum.  Looking forward to some updates on World War II Europe .

rdockal

Its good to be here.  I recognize a lot of wargamers on this site.

WWII-Europe is continuing development.  The maps have been fully digitized.  We have had two playtests, one focused on user interface and the second one on operations.  Many of the battles have been built.  Right now the focus is on the terrain array.  The game is a monster, with 434 x 360 hexes.  Terrain array contains the information about each hex.  I'm on column 322, but parts of the remaining columns have been done.  Once that is complete, then the next effort is the city array.  After that, complete the battles and the computer opponent. So, lots of hard work in front of me, but no showstoppers.

Strangely enough, if the government is sequestered, then progress will speed up on the game.

I'll post a list of all of the changes since RGW and AGW later when I have more time.  Just wanted to say hi to all of my old friends, and summarize the development status for now.

Ron

GJK

Glad to hear that work progresses on this one Ron.  I've enjoyed both RGW and AGW but have not played in years.  I believe that I did a review of RGW a number of years ago for some site.  The details escape me at the moment.  That said, I had always thought that your games had the closest connection to their boardgame brothers.  The looks and the way they play were closer to boardgaming than most (all) other PC wargames I've played.  I know that probably the biggest "issue" with your first designs was with the interface and I seem to recall from some time ago, that overhauling the interface was one of your priorities.  Perhaps you could elaborate on that a bit.

Also, regarding WWII-Europe, I'd be very interested to hear about diplomacy, random events, pacts and neutralities - will those types of things be featured in the game and if so, is it handled by scripting it in, or is it an "anything goes" type thing?  I'll elaborate...every WWII ETO game falls into either of those categories; either the game is scripted to enforce historical-like outcomes, or it is unscripted and wide open yet can (and usually does) give some very radically different historical outcomes.  Preferences for how the game handles that vary; some like historical, some like being able to control either the Allied or Axis destiny totally.  In which of those will WWII-Europe fall?  Thanks!
Clip your freaking corners!
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rdockal

Happy Saturday everyone!

The user interface of WWII-Europe is new and different from Russo-German War (RGW), Anglo-German War (AGW and Middle East (MDE).  It shows a continued evolution.  One of the first things players will notice is the Command Panel.  As you move the mouse over the map and units, it displays ground, air or naval units in detail.  This is done as fast as you can move the cursor.  If you hold the Ctrl key while moving the mouse cursor, the command panel displays the details of that hex.  No mouse clicks are involved in either of these displays.

Another thing that is quickly noticed is that players can configure the interface to their own personal choices.  During playtest, we have had several strong discussions over how a user interface should work.  For example, some favored a 4 step method for a move operation (select hex, select unit, select operation, select destination hex). Others preferred the AGW method of select the move operation once, then a 2 step method (select the top unit in the stack, select the destination hex).  Player gets to choose method desired once, and their choice is stored. In this case, select "Top Unit on" and "Locked Operations as Ground Move to Attack".  Both of these and more are available with the mouse right click.

Ron

LongBlade

All that is gold does not glitter,
Not all those who wander are lost;
The old that is strong does not wither,
Deep roots are not reached by the frost.

Bison

Sounds like it's coming along nicely.  Plus the screenshots on sugar free gamer look really good.

mirth

Quote from: Bison on September 28, 2013, 06:05:53 PM
Sounds like it's coming along nicely.  Plus the screenshots on sugar free gamer look really good.

+1 The screenies look great!

http://sugarfreegamer.com/?p=83493
"45 minutes of pooping Tribbles being juggled by a drunken Horta would be better than Season 1 of TNG." - SirAndrewD

"you don't look at the mantelpiece when you're poking the fire" - Bawb

"Can't 'un' until you 'pre', son." - Gus

spelk

Ron posted this over at Wargamer.

Quote
Status on WWII-Europe:

1. Continuing to build the terrain array.  Tedious work, but I am making progress.  Now on column 365 (433 total).  After that, the last tedious piece of work is to complete the city array.  Then back to scenario development.

2.  More thinking and design on the air operations.  For a few of the battles which are primarily air units only (e.g. Battle of Britain 1940), we need to add some additional air ops.

3.  More thinking and design on the computer opponent algorithms.

Ron

Staggerwing

A BoB scenario? That could be interesting at this level. No worrying about individual missions, just allocation of resources...
Vituð ér enn - eða hvat?  -Voluspa

Nothing really rocks and nothing really rolls and nothing's ever worth the cost...

"Don't you look at me that way..." -the Abyss
 
'When searching for a meaningful embrace, sometimes my self respect took second place' -Iggy Pop, Cry for Love

... this will go down on your permanent record... -the Violent Femmes, 'Kiss Off'-

"I'm not just anyone, I'm not just anyone-
I got my time machine, got my 'electronic dream!"
-Sonic Reducer, -Dead Boys

Grim.Reaper

Always been tempted on the Middle East game.......need a sale on it to make me bite since I am not sure if it is something I would like:)  Do these games ever go on sale?  Great way to bring new people in.

rdockal

A sale?  We do need to think about that, as I have seen other companies do that.  WWII-Europe will replace RGW and AGW.  RGW is now 12 years old (that is why folks talk about the user interface).  AGW is 8 years old.  A close out sale on those two games to get rid of all of the inventory before we release WWII-E might be a really good idea.

For the Middle East game, I am tempted to take the WWII-E user interface and implement it for MDE, if the user interface is well received.  A sale then would be a good idea.

Ron

rdockal

Latest status on WWII-Europe is we are on column 374 of 434 for the terrain array.  Column 375 has Stalingrad in it.  It appears that Thanksgiving week will give me an opportunity to focus on game development.  My goal is to finish terrain and city array at the end of that week.  This will allow me to go back to building the rest of the battles, and get the play testers to start testing the latest game improvements and battles over the Christmas-New Year holidays.

Ron

Staggerwing

Cool! Can't wait to hear more.  :)

When the play testers start their 'work' don't forget to have some of them post a few snippets of an AAR (even just a few turns) to whet appetites.
Vituð ér enn - eða hvat?  -Voluspa

Nothing really rocks and nothing really rolls and nothing's ever worth the cost...

"Don't you look at me that way..." -the Abyss
 
'When searching for a meaningful embrace, sometimes my self respect took second place' -Iggy Pop, Cry for Love

... this will go down on your permanent record... -the Violent Femmes, 'Kiss Off'-

"I'm not just anyone, I'm not just anyone-
I got my time machine, got my 'electronic dream!"
-Sonic Reducer, -Dead Boys

rdockal

Time for status on WWII-Europe development going into the Thanksgiving week:


1. Now on Column 391 out of 433 on the terrain array.  Hopefully will finish this by the end of Thanksgiving weekend.


2. Developed custom cursors for air and naval unit ops.


3. Developed a dialog box which allows the player to set six (so far) default user interface settings.  These include always choose the top unit in a stack, autoscroll off, game assisted cursor movement off, display uncalculated AF and DF, white air unit circles off, and minimize dialog boxes (supply checking and computer opponent).  The Game always uses these defaults.  Defaults can be changed at any time.


4. Plan to have another round of playtesting during the Christmas holidays.


Ron