Slitherine

As my headline says, I'm wondering what's next for OoB? Will there be new content and/or campaigns, or will the old ones be reworked? Or will OoB be retired now?

The best answer to this question seems to be "Wait and see." Whoever "they" are now, they are not going to want to come out with an official "That's all, folks!" that shuts the door on the possibility of future endeavors.

On the other hand, there may not be enough interest and available resources at this time to make any promises, no matter how vague. There may not even be any actual thinking about the future of OOB, one way or the other.

It's been quite a ride, these past seven years. Ups and downs; mostly ups. I am glad that I was here for it all.

At first I thought the Moderators response to OPs post was not a ringing endorsement for the franchise. After thinking about it the game is so long in the tooth and who knows how profitable the game has been, I think its a reasonable response.

Personally, its a great game, but I bought it only a few years ago and I have not even finished all the "DLC". It looks and plays a lot like Panzer General III. Id like another iteration though with some improvements.

I think the best move forward is to spend some development time and publish a OOB 2.0 with a couple of campaigns, say Spanish Civil War and Italian.
There are a number of possible improvements both game mechanics and additional terrain/unit types to an otherwise very sound basic design.
A new version would have to be compatible with the current campaigns/scenarios.

Juansana wrote: Tue Oct 25, 2022 8:19 pm As my headline says, I'm wondering what's next for OoB? Will there be new content and/or campaigns, or will the old ones be reworked? Or will OoB be retired now?

For now there's still housekeeping, patching, MP.

As for new DLC: Let's say it's not totally impossible.

bebro wrote: Thu Nov 03, 2022 1:58 pm For now there's still housekeeping, patching, MP.
As for new DLC: Let's say it's not totally impossible.

Thanks for the info!

I think a Chinese campaign would still fit fine into the already overcrowded campaign selection screen.
There are also still a lot of unused mid-late war units for China in the game that could save work and offer enough entertainment for 37-45 with additional inf variants and a couple of more additions.
Allies Defiant as nicely shown that defensive scenarios can offer plenty excitement unlike many offensive ones with mainly static AI units.

We have now the V-1 Rocket but not the V-2 Rocket

I wouldn’t mind a fictional German 45-47 campaign either where you conquer Britain and USA. I miss playing with Horten and Gotha planes and E-series tanks from PC2 times.
These end-war nuclear bombers of OOB would make a better use there too, besides (nuclear) V2 rockets: "Ouch, my five 5-star core units just got nuked!"

Personally I'm not reaaallly a fan of nukes in this games, not even the existing ones. Because IMO this takes in the long run the fun (of building an experienced core army) away when you can just detonate stuff.

My take on V2 is similar - plus it's not really been a battlefield weapon. V1 wasn't either, but there is a point for it in the Channel Coast scn.

Personally I'm fan of nukes in this games, rockets too.

It gives sense of progress, from horses to rockets. That is my opinion someone having most of army as arty.

Horst wrote: Thu Nov 03, 2022 5:11 pm

bebro wrote: Thu Nov 03, 2022 1:58 pm For now there's still housekeeping, patching, MP.
As for new DLC: Let's say it's not totally impossible.

Thanks for the info!

I think a Chinese campaign would still fit fine into the already overcrowded campaign selection screen.
There are also still a lot of unused mid-late war units for China in the game that could save work and offer enough entertainment for 37-45 with additional inf variants and a couple of more additions.
Allies Defiant as nicely shown that defensive scenarios can offer plenty excitement unlike many offensive ones with mainly static AI units.

I second this, ever since the Japanese Campaigns in China I was really hoping for a Chinese campaign given the fact they played a pretty big role in the Pacific. I was surprised that the game even had any China in it. That and we did have a bit of an inclusion of China in the British campaign, and in multiplayer. If I recall correctly one of the reasons they gave initially for not doing so was the fact that it would be mostly a defensive campaign so they weren't really sure what to do. I really hope they manage to squeeze out a China campaign especially since we do have a Finnish campaign.

Applepie68 wrote: Fri Nov 25, 2022 6:39 am I second this, ever since the Japanese Campaigns in China I was really hoping for a Chinese campaign given the fact they played a pretty big role in the Pacific. I was surprised that the game even had any China in it. That and we did have a bit of an inclusion of China in the British campaign, and in multiplayer. If I recall correctly one of the reasons they gave initially for not doing so was the fact that it would be mostly a defensive campaign so they weren't really sure what to do. I really hope they manage to squeeze out a China campaign especially since we do have a Finnish campaign.

But to find information about this conflict, it doesn’t seem obvious...
Replaying the same battles as in the DLC already released but on the other side would not be very interesting.

terminator wrote: Fri Nov 25, 2022 7:15 am Replaying the same battles as in the DLC already released but on the other side would not be very interesting.

Why not? Comparing the scens of the "German" DLC-trilogy with the "Allied" and "Soviet" DLCs, I would say that I've replayed many battles from both sides already. Same with the US and Japanese "Pacific" DLCs.

And I liked them all.

terminator wrote: Fri Nov 25, 2022 7:15 am

Applepie68 wrote: Fri Nov 25, 2022 6:39 am I second this, ever since the Japanese Campaigns in China I was really hoping for a Chinese campaign given the fact they played a pretty big role in the Pacific. I was surprised that the game even had any China in it. That and we did have a bit of an inclusion of China in the British campaign, and in multiplayer. If I recall correctly one of the reasons they gave initially for not doing so was the fact that it would be mostly a defensive campaign so they weren't really sure what to do. I really hope they manage to squeeze out a China campaign especially since we do have a Finnish campaign.

But to find information about this conflict, it doesn’t seem obvious...
Replaying the same battles as in the DLC already released but on the other side would not be very interesting.

I think it could be quite interesting depending one how you frame things. Especially given what the secondary objectives could be as they are usually adds uniqueness to each level. That and the fact that the unit pool, and specializations would be different could make things quite interesting. We can maybe even have suicide bombers as a skill that units could use, I don't know I'm sure they could come up with something to make it unique, that and as Gabe Knight mentioned we did technically replay the European theater 3 different times, and the US Japan similarity were also there.