CoH on Gamespot Live

[Soulblighter]

At 10am (pst) today, Relic invaded the Gamespot Booth. JD talked about the winter assault expansion for dow, but since this is the company of heroes forum... Jay Wilson gave a brief interview about this title. Overall it went well of course the main draw was that i, greg w. of oregon, had the first question that the gs lady asked of Jay. Hold your applause btw... i am too big of a star now to care about your pleads for affection.

The good news though, is that if you are not a gs complete user you should be able to stream the program in about 30 minutes or so.

link (http://www.gamespot.com/e3/e3live.html)

[Homdax]

sitting waiting

[The Preacher]

It's up now (scroll to the middle of the page). Unfortunately, I'm at work so I can't DL it. Would someone mind summarizing any new information?

E3 2005 GameSpot Live Stage Demo (http://www.gamespot.com/pc/strategy/companyofheroes/media.html)

[Homdax]

Well it was a bout units and balance and stuff. ARTILLERY!!! Almost as good as Ground Control, or maybe better in game, who can tell?
I guess someone more techie than I should sum it up. I would really just want to say I loved what I saw.

[TBS]

A couple of things that caught my attention:

-> in DoW the unit with the most animations had around 150 separate animations, in CoH every single soldier has around 2000 animations. Just wow.

-> the map editor allows very easy creation of movie quality battle scenes - we saw people make some cool stuff with DoW just doing orchestrated battles...with this map editor the creative members of the community will be able to produce some very impressive videos.

-> multiplayer, theyve got a lot of stuff planned that hes "not allowed to talk about". This leaves me intrigued...

[Noir]

The StuG is not a tank! :p

and good for you Soulie :)

[The Preacher]

Awesome, supression and flanking are in. :cool:

[Demon_Eyes]

bah, can't be a star blighter, your from ORUHGUN! ;) I know, since I live in "beaverhell" :P

[Stinger]

Yeah it's a good thing suppression and flanking is in, but in the gamespot interview I saw a few things that made me really worry. Let me explain. The guy they interviewed said that they wanted a more accessible game . He wanted the call of duty of the RTS WW2 genre.

I didn't care for this to much. For me , in this type of game, the devil is in the details. They got this down in the graphics department in spades. But if they remove the detailed elements of the gameplay , or as it's popular to say these days, dumb it down so the average player can "rush" with his squads the tactics side of things (the gameplay) will suffer. I don't really think this is the case though since he mentioned things that pointed to the opposite .
This type of game shouldn't only be about rock beats scissor , beats paper it should IMHO be about maneuvering, cover and fire.
They seem to have the perfect engine for this, and it would be a real waste if I could play this game the same way I play Command & Conquer or even (the excellent) Dawn of War .

I don't like hex based War games or even Commandos and the like but a great game I usually play is Combat Mission . I also thought Close Combat was decent.
I wouldn't mind if they did speed up the action a bit more then in these games but DONT remove the tactical element PLEASE !

Other then that , the game is looking GREAT .

Here's hoping...

//Stinger
Good luck with your game Relic

[Demon_Eyes]

I don't think it is not so much they want to dumb it down as they appear to describe reducing individual unit/entity micromanagment while focusing more on overal strategy, atleast that is my interpretation of all the media. It is a ways off though so nobody can really know. BTW if you like Close Combat and Combat Mission I would suggest World War 2: Frontline Command, good strategy.

[The Preacher]

For better or worse, CoH has every indication of being more "action oriented" or "mainstream" than a game like Close Combat. Rather than going for "realistic" gameplay, Relic seems to be focusing on action packed, movie like gameplay. I for one will be quite satisfied if it has the level of realism found in Call of Duty or similar games. Those games capture the "feel" of WW2 (at least, as portrayed by Band of Brothers), but don't get bogged down in the complexity that comes with more detailed games.

Don't get me wrong, I love wargames, but for a RTS I am more than happy to see some accessible WW2 action that uses a few simple tactics like flanking and suppression but also allows for fast, easy to control combat.

[Stinger]

Hmm...You talk about movielike gameplay, are you talking about Rambo or Saving Private Ryan :D .

I mean even in Saving Private Ryan they use tactics :) .
If they just make it run n' gun they might as well make it an FPS .

Well , I get your point , just wanted to express my opinion. Easy isn't always more fun.

//Stinger

[Tranj]

Yeah it's a good thing suppression and flanking is in, but in the gamespot interview I saw a few things that made me really worry. Let me explain. The guy they interviewed said that they wanted a more accessible game . He wanted the call of duty of the RTS WW2 genre.

I didn't care for this to much. For me , in this type of game, the devil is in the details. They got this down in the graphics department in spades. But if they remove the detailed elements of the gameplay , or as it's popular to say these days, dumb it down so the average player can "rush" with his squads the tactics side of things (the gameplay) will suffer. I don't really think this is the case though since he mentioned things that pointed to the opposite .
This type of game shouldn't only be about rock beats scissor , beats paper it should IMHO be about maneuvering, cover and fire.
They seem to have the perfect engine for this, and it would be a real waste if I could play this game the same way I play Command & Conquer or even (the excellent) Dawn of War .

I don't like hex based War games or even Commandos and the like but a great game I usually play is Combat Mission . I also thought Close Combat was decent.
I wouldn't mind if they did speed up the action a bit more then in these games but DONT remove the tactical element PLEASE !

Other then that , the game is looking GREAT .

Here's hoping...

//Stinger
Good luck with your game Relic
It's not about dumbing the game down, it's about making the soldiers smarter. We don't want the player to have to control their soldiers to the point that you need to tell them to duck or go prone. We don't want you to have to move them behind that wall when they come under fire, and if the are moving dow a road with a tank, we don't want the player to have to tell them that it's a good idea to get behind it if the bullets start flying. We want the soldiers to do all of these things as if they were the trained soldiers that they reazlly were. We want the player to focus on the strategy of the game. As for the question about Saving Private Ryan vs. Rambo, it's definitely Saving Private Ryan.

[Stinger]

Sounds great !
Well , like I said in this type of game the details are important and we really don't know much about how the game is played but I'll definitely will be keeping my eye on this one :D .

//Salkin

[Starblade]

As for the question about Saving Private Ryan vs. Rambo, it's definitely Saving Private Ryan.

The first time I read that, I thought it said 'Saving Private Rambo'. :lol:

[Siguld_001]

Like Rambo would ever need saving ;)

Anyways, I ,like the idea of the soldiers being more intelligent. This way I get to actually WATCH the battles unfold. CoH seems like it will be worth the wait! ARTILLERY!

[Jaen-ni-rin]

The trailer looks very promising at the stage on which the game is currently. Hope that such issues will be corrected. The physics (though sometimes strange) is awesome. I like when the buildings are blown up :) The graphics seems to be nice and detailed too.

But there are also two bad things I've noticed:

1. Soldiers do not always react as they should (not always taking cover when necessary; they close on Sherman which is about to be blown by Tiger... they should see where do Tiger's barrel aim)
2. The physics is strange. When this Sherman exploded, some soldiers who came to it were blown away and some seemed to be not affected.

[ionfish]

Does the phrase "Alpha version" not mean anything to you?

[Jaen-ni-rin]

Yes.
That's why I do not say "it sucks".

[KON Air]

hmm... so if morale drops to zero they'll act on their own, flee or act like Rambo... hmm... let me note this somewhere...

[Tiresias]

ome soldiers who came to it were blown away and some seemed to be not affected

maybe some of the soldiers are harder than others


Soldiers do not always react as they should

well they don't neccessarily in real life either (not digging at soldiers in anyway btw), maybe some are just stupid, or brave.

[Shadione]

Soldiers do not always react as they should (not always taking cover when necessary; they close on Sherman which is about to be blown by Tiger... they should see where do Tiger's barrel aim)

Yes, the version shown is 'very' early, and there are problems that need to be worked out for sure. I do think that its reasonable to assume that even real soldiers might not have such all-encompassing a view of the battlefield to realize that the tank they are next to is being targeted, or may be destroyed soon. There are hundreds of bullets whizzing by to be concerned with after all. :)

All that being said, we're quite proud of where its at even at this early stage, and think you'll be hard pressed to find RTS units more intelligent than the ones in CoH.

And on tactics: The goal of CoH is to make a tactical game that has the appeal of an RTS in the same way Rise of Nations makes a Civ-style game out of an RTS.

[Alliance]

jaen, most battle feilds dont have biblical sized mouse arrows floating overhead either, and I've never seen anyone complain about that.

watched the video, It doesnt really give out a whole lot more than we knew already, but Im glad to see this game is being "endorsed" by the big internet game reviewers, that will probaby make the game sales sky rocket.

[Starblade]

That's because most arrows are classified as:
1. UFOs.
2. Low flying aircraft.
3. Clouds.
4. God.

[Alliance]

or big metal birds. dont forget the metal white birds. birds metal big. big bird metal.