Slitherine

I'm for Pacific Corp as well. Very well made version of Panzer General with a lot of improved features.

Steel Panthers will be remade as its a money pit. So should games like East Front, West Front, and Close combat. Basically if they used the new "Combat Mission Normandy'' game in a top down perspective with a updated Steel Panthers order panel the game would be a classic, and would probably out sell all other similar games in its genre! A custom zoom level, and rotating camera with maybe slight isometric perspective would enhance the next generation of Steel Panthers 2014.

Here it is already. Ha Ha
http://imageshack.us/a/img195/1727/stee ... 050820.png

I think the biggest hurdle to 'redoing' Steel Panthers, remains, how many fans simply will freak out if you give them anything less than a completely identical experience to what is the case as of now, assuming you have an old rig, and old OS, and you understand dosbox like the back of your hand.

I don't want a different visual experience. I don't want pretty new pictures, I don't require any form of non top down view angle. I don't care what the rest of the planet's games are doing. I am not in need of a new wheel. My current wheel is merely flat to use an analogy that works, I just want the air put back in the wheel

I don't want a 3dish look or a clever camera system or god forbid some real time concept. I mean how plain can we say it eh guys, we want Steel Panthers, we don't really need the name, we don't need the legality angles and the rights, we just want to drive around tanks, individual tanks, in a turn based environment looking from above. We want squads, and all the usual mess of supporting arms. We want WW2 and we don't care how beaten to death WW2 is because it was the one war that covered the globe, had the biggest battles the longest campaigns, and if not for the moronic actions of the Axis and the intelligence cheating of the Allies, that war could have gone different.

I don't require the first release to comprise every nation and every piece of kit they ever fielded at any time in the entire war. Asking for it is asinine.
I don't know what hey would call the game, all the cool names are already gone. I don't care what the name is, but we will all care if they claim it to be something if it isn't. Those that know software history, KNOW which games were being worked on that were assumed to be 'successors' to Squad Leader, and we all know the only game that ever actually DID look like Squad Leader wasn't one of them. Steel Panthers has been the only computer game to actually 'look' like Squad Leader. And this ASL fanatic would know considering I have the other games claiming to 'be like Squad Leader, and weren't. For instance, Squad Leader was a board game, it wasn't a 3d experience. If anything Squad Leader is a flat surface 2d view from above.

I have no programming skill, but I certainly know who does.
Why no one has gotten around to just remaking Steel Panthers, well it's a mystery.
I remember Combat Leader, and clearly they were not thinking correctly. They tried to add new bells and whistles. They got burned for trying to be too clever.
It doesn't need to wear the famous name Steel Panthers. Every wargamer worth a dime will recognize a design that clearly is just a modernized program made for 2013-2014 with current hardware considered.

It's not 1998 any more. And trying to make software from that time 'like' today's hardware and OS environments is more work than it is worth.

I love the heck out of Battle Academy, it is an awesome game. It isn't Steel Panthers though. Different game experience entirely.

They COULD be milking the heck out of a reborn Steel Panthers precisely the same way they are enjoying a lot of success with Panzer Corps and Battle Academy.
Panzer Corps, we all know it is basically Panzer General, just not the same name. It's not really the same code, it is not needed to be the same code. We don't need to put Steel Panthers code into the new version, it merely needs to look the same.

But no one is doing it? Boggles the imagination.

I've bought all of Battle Academy and all of Panzer Corps. Likely the two games I think are the best dollar values since 2000. You can mention any damned aspect that you want that some will say 'oh but I don't like this' and I say, who cares, your complaints don't prevent the games from being some of the best running easiest to enjoy wargames made in years.

It could easily be said of a reborn Steel Panthers too. But, until someone actually feels like doing it, it won't happen.
Heck if I were to win the lottery, I'd be showing up at Slitherine and MAKING it happen

It's not a hard program concept, it is apparently only hard to make the person doing it refrain from breaking something that isn't in any need of being messed with. 2d look down, turn based, individual vehicles, squads, with a scope that is essentially company and battalion level, ie NOT companies and battalion sized units, but enough men and material that a person in charge might BE a company or battalion commander.

The only reason I still periodically try and enjoy my Steel Panthers experience, is I miss the Mega Campaigns. The base game was nothing to write home about. The Long Campaign against the AI was like fighting a moron. The game suffered badly from two players picking badly miss matched forces the same way DYO in ASL is a dumb waste of time. But the Mega Campaigns were pure awesomeness. The SP Camo designs tend to run a bit nicer in today's hardware and OS, but I never got the same bang out of them as I did the Mega Campaigns.

If it was my call, I'd pick two known competitors for a good sequence of connected products.
US vs Germany, Germany vs Russia. British in the Med. I'd release products that didn't try to kill themselves trying to be too much too fast.
I'd plan to make Mega Campaigns once the ball was rolling.

It's not rocket science. No one knew Panzer Corps was going to be as big a hit, nor if Battle Academy would have as many expansions. They started modest, and they did what they did well for day one.

It's all I want, a good start, and something to keep the ball rolling.
Pick a developer, tell them to make the game, not pretend anything revolutionary is required.

Here are some Germans. Regimental armoured engineers with Panzerjagaer support. Without the Combat Mission floating icons this time!

http://img96.imageshack.us/img96/3517/s ... 305082.png

The picture loses some quality as I had to upload to imageshack in medium size as the original picture was too large to upload for free!

Though I would like something in the pacific Island to Island fighting The Canal to Tarawa to .. Something like you get the 1st Marines or the 6th Marines and fight their Island battles. I would love to see the American Civil war with battles done this way, from battle to battle in the East and then in the West.

Steel Panthers was a fantastic platform or engine for battlefield tactics. I don't think i played anything better in that regard. I'll always add my voice to a chorus singing for an updated version. Hopefully the success of turn based games like Panzer Corps and Battlefield Academy increase the chances that a developer will look into it. Matrix even announced a remake (complete with screenshots) but then cancelled the project with no explanation. Old Close Combat titles were even resold and "new" versions announced.
I would never say success is guaranteed but there's been strong interest in the past which still remains. I'd buy it (and that is guaranteed ).

adherbal wrote: I wouldn't want the Lordz to be known as "the remake studio"

WHO CARES!?!?!

You guys do good work, and some of these older games are unplayable. I didn't play Steel Panthers in it's hayday, but I own SPMBT (Shrapnel) and while I think it has tons of potential, it is unplayable....it's engine is really showing age.

Jugger wrote:Here it is already. Ha Ha
http://imageshack.us/a/img195/1727/stee ... 050820.png

Not funny....You had me for a second, but those ugly Combat Mission icons gave it away.

Obsolete wrote:For some reason, I just never really got into the Steel Panthers series. I've played one of the demos before but that's where it ended.

What I'd be more interested in (I think) would be A.S.L. The first & only software version that came out a decade ago was an absolute atrocity. I guess that was expected, with Hasbro holding the reigns at the time...

Errr ????

That is precisely what Battlefield academy is about.... It is ASL without the 200 page rule book

tmoj2000 wrote:

Obsolete wrote:For some reason, I just never really got into the Steel Panthers series. I've played one of the demos before but that's where it ended.

What I'd be more interested in (I think) would be A.S.L. The first & only software version that came out a decade ago was an absolute atrocity. I guess that was expected, with Hasbro holding the reigns at the time...

Errr ????

That is precisely what Battlefield academy is about.... It is ASL without the 200 page rule book

Those in the know of course, know of VASL a computer program that permits a person to play ACTUAL ASL on the computer between an opponent. It is not a game mind you it is only a tool and you actually need to know how to genuinely play the real game (which is what you are doing).

Battle Academy is more or less an adequate Squad Leader like experience, but it mostly shines in that it doesn't overwhelm you with a barrage of counters and a massive sea of rules design concepts.

200 pages eh, you have not looked at the manual recently

Battle Academy is a totaly different engine than this gaming system. You would have to come up with a whole new game system to do ALS. They want too use this engine to redue a game or they want to do a game they already have the rights to. This system they could do Russia, take it to a different period, or go to the Pacific, otherwise they just need to add more DLC's. Steel Panthers (tried to play). I did not find it that enjoyable in a later version. If they own the rights to SP they might want to do it. I'm all for a true squad level game.

No Steel Panthers will not be coming back from the past.

The people that own it, have made it clear they are sitting on the rights.

BA of course can give a person a decent squad level activity, but I prefer to think if the game more like chess in that it rewards skilled use of your limited forces in the same fashion.

The ONLY thing that Steel Panthers suffers from is age, and the main quirk has been and looks set to remain, is an annoying mouse speed aspect which seems to defy anyone trying to eliminate it (considering how long it has been a pain). The frantic jerking motion you get from trying to move about the map, well it will drive even the most hard core fan mental in short order If not for the mouse problem I suspect most would be of the opinion that it was not possible to make another game like it, as it would never make it against the massive tide that is in favour of Steel Panthers.

I don't think they can actually make ASL into a computer game that runs solo vs an AI. I have seen the level of speed getting computer World in Flames finished Some board games simply are too complicated in design for it to be possible. Some day, when I am 80, they might get World in Flames out as a computer game, and the response we all expect is it will suck thanks to the AI which is to my knowledge, the only reason it isn't on sale now. Doing an ASL game, would make WiF look easy

Bring new life and graphics. You will make money!!!
Steel Panthers!!!!!

It would be easy to create a game very similar!

DSWargamer wrote:No Steel Panthers will not be coming back from the past.

The people that own it, have made it clear they are sitting on the rights.

The ONLY thing that Steel Panthers suffers from is age, and the main quirk has been and looks set to remain, is an annoying mouse speed aspect which seems to defy anyone trying to eliminate it (considering how long it has been a pain). The frantic jerking motion you get from trying to move about the map, well it will drive even the most hard core fan mental in short order If not for the mouse problem I suspect most would be of the opinion that it was not possible to make another game like it, as it would never make it against the massive tide that is in favour of Steel Panthers.

And too bad too, I have been playing Steel Panthers since the it came out, love the game and love the updates that have been put into it by some very dedicated hard core Steel Panthers fans! between the mouse issue and the infamous Artillery Screen click issue, it is a great game. Yes, I still play it on my Win7 PC with a few tweaks to allow it to run and I also keep an old Win98 PC for even older games (Original Panzer General (DOS version) and others.

morge4 wrote:Yes, I still play it on my Win7 PC with a few tweaks to allow it to run and I also keep an old Win98 PC for even older games (Original Panzer General (DOS version) and others.

[/quote]
Actually it seems to be running better in Windows 8 than in Windows 7, and without the need of extra tweaks.

Holy cow, this is epic thread necro.

Kerensky wrote:Holy cow, this is epic thread necro.

Steel Panthers still brings a lot of passion.