Can anyone who attended comment on the new BB video game?

[GalakStarscraper]

But four minute turns, no top down view, no grid lines in general play.

Well four minute turns are part of the rules ...

Actually I think you have to have this feature on a product that is going to be rolled out to the Xbox Live crowd. You have to force a player to think. Considering that I normally take my turns in much less than 4 minutes ... to me 4 minutes seems a lifetime when playing someone else.

As for the top down view and grid lines ... I'll take these points back to the beta test forum discussions and repoint them out. I know that we have brought them up before ... but having you guys weigh in on these two points will re-emphize that it would be definite things we'd like to see.

As for the additional teams coming in eventually ... I've been involved with some of that. I cannot say anything specific because of the NDA ... but I'll just say I'm hopeful that your desire to have the other teams will be something that can be addressed more in the short term than the long term (however I'm not making any promises because I have no idea where they took the project I worked with them on). But I can ask.

Tom

[gsot_5]

I completely agree with you.


I'm just looking for options....

The gird can be turned on with a button press, so why not a on/off feature in the menus?

Top down will be essential for me, albeit occasionally, some times you've just gotta stand up in a tourny and look from above.

4 min turns against the computer yep, against none bb vets yep. If I play one of the top ranked NAF guys and I'm doing my turn and it takes 4 min 15 secs and the last bit is a blitz I want it done. Both players should agree for 4 min turns. I also like the idea of variable turn limits. you know wanting to play a mad cap tourny for a luagh in a night and playing 1 minute turns... It's a countdown surely if they can do orcs in 3D they can put options for 1,2,3 4 and infinite (10 min if it needs a limit) turn length.

This weekend I had a good 8 minute think against lucifer and the rest of the turn took another 4 or so. I apologised but couldn't make my mind up.

[emeyin]

I completely agree with you.


I'm just looking for options....

The gird can be turned on with a button press, so why not a on/off feature in the menus?

Top down will be essential for me, albeit occasionally, some times you've just gotta stand up in a tourny and look from above.

4 min turns against the computer yep, against none bb vets yep. If I play one of the top ranked NAF guys and I'm doing my turn and it takes 4 min 15 secs and the last bit is a blitz I want it done. Both players should agree for 4 min turns. I also like the idea of variable turn limits. you know wanting to play a mad cap tourny for a luagh in a night and playing 1 minute turns... It's a countdown surely if they can do orcs in 3D they can put options for 1,2,3 4 and infinite (10 min if it needs a limit) turn length.

This weekend I had a good 8 minute think against lucifer and the rest of the turn took another 4 or so. I apologised but couldn't make my mind up.

I agree with everything this man said, especially about the 4 min turn.

Thanks for the video clip Spin1.

[Mordredd]

I don't. Honestly, if you took 8 minutes before you even started moving on a PC game I'd think some very bad things about you and either quit or, most likely, resolve to never ever play your slow ass again. Maybe a time-out function would be a good idea (for toilet breaks and when the phone rings etc) but I really think it's a bad idea not to limit turn times. Might be ok if both players agreed but one player shouldn't be allowed a veto on time limits.

Because the computer does all the counting for you it should be possible to work things out much faster. Because the PC makes all the rolls for you the turns should get done much faster than in tabletop too. Also, because it does entire multi-dice moves in one go there's less omg-I-just-used-my-RR-do-I-continue-now? mid-move paralysis. So much of the drag factor is absent and 4 minute turns should be realistically obtainable for nearly everyone.

But, anyway; back to the game play.

Once you got used to the controls moving the players around and blocking and so on worked fine. I didn't have a problem with the lack of gridlines myself, though I might have turned them on if I'd known I could. All in all I really enjoyed playing the game and think that it should turn out great when it eventually gets released.

3 things were annoying though.

First, that you had to put it back into free camera mode after the start of each of your opponent's turns so that you could properly see what was going on. It would be nice if it stayed permanently in that mode, or at least give that option.



Secondly was the setting up procedure. I'm ok with a time limit for setting up, but I didn't like the system as it was (or at least as I was able to understand it without any real instructions or guidance). The half pitch diagram with the numbered player icons was useless. All the icons were the same and I couldn't tell which players were where quickly enough.

It was also too clunky a system for telling me which players I had available in reserves and I had a tough time getting the players i wanted out of reserve and onto the field. In fact I played most of the game on defence with 4 Gobbos on the field and 2 Black Orcs in the dugout and players scattered randomly across the field in what Indi charitably described as "the best set-up you've ever made"!

The half pitch display also obscured the field so I found it hard to even see where my opponent had set up so was unable to really plan my attack properly.



The third thing was using the apothecary. Not really knowing my players in any way I was unable to make an informed decision on whether to try and save the injured Orc as I was unable to access any details on the player beyond his name. I had no idea whether I was saving (or in this case failing to save) a no-skilled lino or my best Blitzer.

It could be that greater familiarity and an instruction book would solve these issues, but they were a problem for me when I had a game. That being said I'd still buy a copy on the strength of my demo game.

[DDogwood]

4 min turns against the computer yep, against none bb vets yep. If I play one of the top ranked NAF guys and I'm doing my turn and it takes 4 min 15 secs and the last bit is a blitz I want it done. Both players should agree for 4 min turns. I also like the idea of variable turn limits. you know wanting to play a mad cap tourny for a luagh in a night and playing 1 minute turns... It's a countdown surely if they can do orcs in 3D they can put options for 1,2,3 4 and infinite (10 min if it needs a limit) turn length.

I like the idea of variable turn limits, but I think that 4 min turns should be the default unless both players agree not to use them. This is especially true in a computer game, where you don't have to wait for your opponent to hand you the dice, remember what skills his players have. and so on.

If I can't get my crucial blitz done in under 4 mins, then I shouldn't be allowed to do it.

[Purplegoo]

Actually I think you have to have this feature on a product that is going to be rolled out to the Xbox Live crowd.

The whole idea about this product going out onto X-Box confuses the hell out of me. The least console owners expect is drop dead gorgeous graphics, brilliant sound, and A1 gameplay (from the GT - the game passes just about, on a top-end massive PC. I'd imagine X-Box is a step down). It's 2008, we all do. But the X-Box is hardly the home of strategy, is it? The recent Civ game was heavily graphics based, and they'd stripped out layers of strategy as to appeal to the console kids and shift units. You can't really do it with BB, can you? One of the other things the Cyanide guy said at the GT was that the real time mode was; "Tactics based, there will be a pause, then the game speeds up. We're keeping tackle zones, it won't be like Madden." That amazed me. Packaging a tactical game with another tactical game? I thought the only way this would sell and we'd see continued support was if the live-action game was a pick up and go graphical feast of easy play, big hits and action. If it isn't, who on the X-Box is actually going to buy it?

Now to X-Box live; I play X-Box live. I get annoying kiddies in my ear a few nights a week, and it's a struggle to stay in the game. Add dice rolls to wind people up and an hour's play time, eugh. Plus, online modes are pretty standard. Ranked or casual, join or host random games. That's not good enough for BB. I can see that being a lot better on the PC (but still nowhere near FUMBBL), to be fair. If I get an opponent who is losing disconnect on me, I get to leave negative feedback. No worries in a FPS, I've lost nothing, but after an hour and a dead Wardancer or two - I'm liable to get very hacked off. I can't really see a way round this on X-Box, he can just say his ISP died, reloading will be a real issue, and will need (FUMBBL style) hands on admin support. Can't see that on X-Box.

Anyway, thats a ramble, sorry for it being a stream of random points. Just amazes me they think they will sell a niche game in a console market. Much as I love BB, and so does everyone else here, there must be a reason that we can't see that the board game doesn't sell huge units. I don't think an X-Box released version is going to win hearts and minds of the demographic that own consoles, is all.

As for 4 minute turns - pull a FUMBBL. 10 minute global relief timer. If the boss rings, baby cries, etc. you have the safety net. Straight 4 minute turns will put people with real lives off playing. We had this debate over on FUMBBL as the 4 minute timer came in, and we won one for the adults.

Races coming in - even if this is in an advanced stage now and looks likely (reading between Galak's lines), it's still wait and see. The more units they shift, the more chance we have of seeing the full range. Clearly, I'm an old cynic, but I hope I'm dead wrong!

[SillySod]

My comments on the game:

I only really saw it over peoples shoulders because waiting just to be able to see something which will either disappoint me or wind me up waiting for it to be released dosent really appeal. From what I saw it delivers averthing that it said it delivers: cool graphics, decent gameplay, and the proper ruleset. What we dont know it will deliver remains the same: the extra teams, enticing league format, and satisfactory resolution of disconnects and concessions.... also the kind of culture that might spring up as a result.

I will buy this game but I still think that fumbbl will remain my primary BB residence.

My comments on the comments:

4 minute rule - this is totally essential. If you dont includ this then you will end up playing vs either very slow opponents or total kiddies who sulk and cry and refuse to end their turn. Ideally I'd include the option for one or two 3-5 minute timeouts per player... sometimes the cat really has caught fire and it seems a shame to punish that, BB does require you to set asside quite a long time to be undisturbed after all. Ideally they will include an option to change this time limit just for casual play.

Grid Lines - I'd assume that this will be easy to fix. I quite liked the way all the squares lit up but I can see how useful grid lines would be, especially from an angled viewpoint. Well worth asking for.

Top Down View - I doubt that they can deliver this in anything other than quite a basic minimap view type thing. When you ask for it make it clear that you dont want a top down view of all the nice graphics but you just want something simple that you bring up to give you that overall viewpoint to help plan. I say this because I would bet that extending the graphics to include a nice top down view would take alot of effort on their part, enough that they may well dismiss it out of hand.

New Races - anything that they can do to get us the extra races would be superb

Replays/Spectating - if this currently isnt included then I suspect it would be best proposed for an expansion if one is ever released. Its a cool feature but its relevance is unlikely to occur to brand new players so they can probably make most profit out of implementing it for an expansion to appeal to an existing crowd of gamers.

My questions for those that played it:

What was the in game chat like to use? Was it clumsy and would it get in the way of a decent conversation?

[Purplegoo]

Replays/Spectating - if this currently isnt included then I suspect it would be best proposed for an expansion if one is ever released.

When pressed on online play (as a few of us attempted, Jock got answers, not me), we got told there would be no speccing, only replays. Obviously a tick in the 'con' column for those of us used to it. I tried to push further, but there were others asking questions.

[Mordredd]

My questions for those that played it:

What was the in game chat like to use? Was it clumsy and would it get in the way of a decent conversation?

Think I saw someone try to use it and find it wasn't enabled. But it looked like the sort of chat you get in World of Warcraft, i.e. a box in the bottom left for your text. So its probably ok, as far as these things go.

[The Ref]

chat was just like in counterstrike, press y (or was it enter?) then write and press enter to send You had to press an icon for this to be activated though.. I only tried for a message or two though

an alarming thing is that they're not planning on implementing the undead team, at least that's what they said when I asked about other races.. Would be strange if they don't make all the races in LRB5 imho, almost a turnoff for buying it.. But I'll certanly buy it Makes a great substitute for the tabletop game when we need to play the AnBBL Champions' Final between our north and south conference champions

And you could create your own teams(edit players) so that they would match i.e. your well developed league team, by modifying the players.

The animations was great fun, but much alike from time to time I suppose you get used to it after a game or two, and then start focusing only on the tactics of the game

Would love to see some sort of mini map bird view though(as suggested earlier) and the setup phase was crap, only circles with numbers - and when two went on top of eachother by accident, the latter dissapeared so that I could not place him(probably into the "invissible" replacements box)

That said - I only played for about 10 minutes - and the guidance was brief.

For console gaming I would suggest it to be more like madden, with live playing..

[bootylactin]

an alarming thing is that they're not planning on implementing the undead team, at least that's what they said when I asked about other races.. Would be strange if they don't make all the races in LRB5 imho, almost a turnoff for buying it.. But I'll certanly buy it

Undead may not be available in the initial release, however the Cyanide guys put a poll up on their forums wanting to know which race(s) people would like to see next in the game. Guess which team is in the lead?

http://www.cyanide-studio.com/forums/vi ... hp?t=57074

As far as including all races, from a stats perspective it's no big deal... if all of the LRB5 skills are already programmed, that is. However they have to model and animate all of the players for a race. And that's what's going to prevent every team from being available from the start. I think it's perfectly acceptable for those to come later.

Thanks everyone for your comments so far, as getting anything out of Cyanide/GW/Focus Interactive lately has been like pulling teeth.

[SillySod]

And you could create your own teams(edit players) so that they would match i.e. your well developed league team, by modifying the players.

Depending on how this is done this could be a huge downside.

[The Ref]

Well, undead not beeing implemented (or all the lrb5 races) will mean that we can't use the computer game as a substitute for tabletop gaming across our wide stretched country(Norway) for our AnBBL Champions' Final - wich would be a GREAT function our league could use the game for..

Probably the necromantic ressurection of zombies is to difficult a task to program hehe Guess they're pressed for time - and 3D modelling is some job I suppose.

[Gracehoper]

As far as the limited amount of races go I simply can't be upset. In a historical perspective BB has always come out with limited races and skills and then "updates" with more races, rules and skills (2. ed + the Starplayer and Companion books, 3. ed + Death Zone). What Cyanide does is actually just a part of the tradition.
Would I like to see undead right from start? Sure. Will I miss playing dark elves once I tried the 8 other races in the game? You bet. But I've been there before with 2. and 3. ed TT. And I'd rather see a good game with fewer races to begin with than a crap game with all races.

[Darkson]

And I'd rather see a good game with fewer races to begin with than a crap game with all races.

Quoted for truth.