Battle Academy 2 Early Access Program is now available

[geeves]

Well done guys, just finished the Barbarossa test campaign, not much that can be improved there ( not long enough though) looking forward to more campaigns / scenario,s. One suggestion though, during the skirmish mode, let the players choose the units they want...... King tiger v I.S.1, yet to happen for me, make it happen boys.

[pipfromslitherine]

Pip, at the min I'm also playing Battle of the Bulge on IOS, now I love the movement phase of this game but if the conflict stages where played out on a BA format it would make it exceptional.............any thoughts on adding something like this into BA2.

We don't have plans for a specific campaign in BA2, but we are working on the ability for users to set up online campaigns to run MP matches.

That said, there is now modding support for campaign layers built in to BA2 (more details on the wiki once it is shaken out a little more).

Cheers

Pip

[pipfromslitherine]

Is user created contant going to be able to download form the game on iPad

Yes, as with BA1 it will be possible to download user mods and missions.

Cheers

Pip

[pipfromslitherine]

Well done guys, just finished the Barbarossa test campaign, not much that can be improved there ( not long enough though) looking forward to more campaigns / scenario,s. One suggestion though, during the skirmish mode, let the players choose the units they want...... King tiger v I.S.1, yet to happen for me, make it happen boys.

Glad you are enjoying it! We don't have plans to allow the user to pick specific units in a skirmish map - that sounds awfully like the editor doesn't it

Cheers

Pip

[bruce1944]

The finish screen on operation Barbarossa is a jumble of lines

[pipfromslitherine]

The finish screen on operation Barbarossa is a jumble of lines

Indeed. We might need to disable the end of campaign screen until we have campaigns with all the actual missions in.

Cheers

Pip

[kingt]

As a person that plans to play the game exclusively on an iPad, I'm interested whether the iPad version would also be offered for free once available if I'd purchase the early access.

[pipfromslitherine]

As a person that plans to play the game exclusively on an iPad, I'm interested whether the iPad version would also be offered for free once available if I'd purchase the early access.

Unfortunately that isn't possible. It is not allowable to link App Store products with others. Sorry!

Cheers

Pip

[kingt]

Yeah, but it is possible to give away the iOS game for free via access codes, such as codes you could generate for games sites to review the game free of charge, to those that buy the EAP, and then inside the iOS game one would simply have to log in with the same id as in the EAP. A specific link between the two products isn't needed.

[best75]

Giving a promo code for the game to those brought EAP for iOS sounds like a good idea but the amount of promo codes allowed for devs to give away is limited

[protectivedaddy]

Basically lads no matter what work a rounds we come up with the answer will be NO.

The IOS versions are a cash cow, SLITHERINE is fundamentally a PC gaming company, they cherish the modding scene as this not only adds to the game but adds longevity to the game, IOS users are in the main not seen as the 'geekoids' who would help further develop ideas.

Or it's pure laziness, after all SLITHERINE release a substantial amount of pc games - with IOS ports - with all the work being put into future game development do they want to create the headache of negotiating with Apple in regards to releasing of EAP's etc. when they can simply say - give us more of your money and buy both the PC versions and then your nice cozy convenient to use IOS version.

The most annoying part of being a IOS player is the lack of modding ability on IOS - I still can't get my head around why we can't - even if we had to use a PC to put the different elements together surely there is a way of designing just the battle maps on IOS.

[IainMcNeil]

Giving a promo code for the game to those brought EAP for iOS sounds like a good idea but the amount of promo codes allowed for devs to give away is limited

This is actually banned by Apple and they only give you 100 codes in total so you need those for the press so it wouldn't be enough anyway. There is absolutely no chance of this happening I'm afraid.

[IainMcNeil]

The most annoying part of being a IOS player is the lack of modding ability on IOS - I still can't get my head around why we can't - even if we had to use a PC to put the different elements together surely there is a way of designing just the battle maps on IOS.

There is no file management system on iOS and so no way to get your maps off your device to share with anyone else so if we did allow you to create scenarios you wouldn't be able to do anything with it. We'd like to have the infrastructure in place to allow you to do this but it requires a complete cloud system like the PBEM system which we don't yet have and also has issues of hosting content created by users that others might find offensive. Most mods are not just created with the editor, they require text changes, scripting, new art and models, none of which is possible on the iPad as you cannot insert any of your custom content in to the game. These are the reasons you rarely if ever get any scenario designers on iOS. Fundamentally the issue is iPads are designed for playing games not making them.

[protectivedaddy]

Is none of this possible even on a jail broken ipad - I know you wouldn't create software for a jail broken device but the fact when jail broken it opens up the ipad would it then enable some of the requirements for what you mentioned.

Now I'm not having a go at Slitherine here, simply stating it is so frustrating when you have ideas for maps but can't enact them unless we purchased the full BA for PC - would you not in future possibly consider releasing just an editor for the pc for us ipad players to enable us to create without having to fully purchase the pc version of the game.

[IainMcNeil]

Possibly yes but we are never going to start developing for jail broken devices as we'd have our Apple account closed in minutes so it is not something we are going to investigate as its not an option!

[best75]

Just a quick question but in BA you could download user created contant on the iPad but in Panzer corps you could not so what's the difference between BA and panzer corps on iPad that allows mods on BA to work but not on panzer corps

[IainMcNeil]

They are just different games with different engines. PzC does not really have any mod support built in so you cant switch between mods without having multiple versions of the game.

[kingt]

I understand that you guys have limited options when dealing with such matters, and I don't want unofficial iOS versions of the game, or stuff that will get you in trouble with Apple. But I also don't want to pay for the same game twice just to play it on the platform that I actually want to play it on.

What if you soft-launched the game for free X days ahead of the actual launch. You'd then direct message everybody that purchases the EAP with a unique link to the App Store to download the game for free, which would let you track downloads so that nobody abuses them. The link would be valid for 24 hours or so, then the game would be updated with a price increase, and then you'd notify the press about the game. That way only the EAP buyers would get the game free of charge plus the few people that find the game via the App Store by mistake - maybe not including certain keywords for it would limit the game appearing in App Store searches.

[pipfromslitherine]

I understand that you guys have limited options when dealing with such matters, and I don't want unofficial iOS versions of the game, or stuff that will get you in trouble with Apple. But I also don't want to pay for the same game twice just to play it on the platform that I actually want to play it on.

What if you soft-launched the game for free X days ahead of the actual launch. You'd then direct message everybody that purchases the EAP with a unique link to the App Store to download the game for free, which would let you track downloads so that nobody abuses them. The link would be valid for 24 hours or so, then the game would be updated with a price increase, and then you'd notify the press about the game. That way only the EAP buyers would get the game free of charge plus the few people that find the game via the App Store by mistake - maybe not including certain keywords for it would limit the game appearing in App Store searches.

I understand, but while we would love to be able to have an EAP on the iPad it's just not worth trying to jinx around Apple to get it done. Who knows what they might consider to be underhand?

Cheers

Pip

[pk867]

I buy two copies. One for my iPad and one for my MacBook Pro. It is not that expensive, but hat is my choice though.