Reception Towards Frontlines DLC

[Thunderhog]

Today's Slitherine stream had some interesting stuff about the reception towards the Frontlines DLC from Marco. According to him, the DLC is actually one of the best selling DLC's to date. Is anyone else surprised by this? I enjoyed Frontlines but I thought that Axis Operations would be more popular given the amount of content the Operations series had. Regardless, I hope they continue to make narrative focused DLC's like AO but I wouldn't mind more Frontlines to have something while the mega campaigns are worked on.

[BarbarianHunter]

Today's Slitherine stream had some interesting stuff about the reception towards the Frontlines DLC from Marco. According to him, the DLC is actually one of the best selling DLC's to date. Is anyone else surprised by this? I enjoyed Frontlines but I thought that Axis Operations would be more popular given the amount of content the Operations series had. Regardless, I hope they continue to make narrative focused DLC's like AO but I wouldn't mind more Frontlines to have something while the mega campaigns are worked on.

From a gameplay point of view it is surprising. From a political point of view an Allied campaign was well overdue and '46 pushed a lot of people, myself included, beyond their tolerances for all things Nazi (especially alt-history Nazi stuff). I hope they realize why it sold so well and give us longer core-driven Allied Operations campaigns.

[bebro]

Today's Slitherine stream had some interesting stuff about the reception towards the Frontlines DLC from Marco. According to him, the DLC is actually one of the best selling DLC's to date. Is anyone else surprised by this?

I had obvsly no idea how it would do before it went out, but was confident that it's a decent cam if judged on his own. First beta was quite unpolished as some folks may remember , but it was never supposed to be release-ready on (beta test) day 1.

Overall it's pretty clear that many players would like to see longer cams, different topics, that's all good and well, and even expected with so many players around.

[terminator]

Some independent games are short and the fact that they are short is a selling point because it can be finished without much difficulty.

[Thunderhog]

Some independent games are short and the fact that they are short is a selling point because it can be finished without much difficulty.

Yeah, I suppose that's true. Not everyone has time for a 100+ scenario mega campaign

[Thunderhog]

Today's Slitherine stream had some interesting stuff about the reception towards the Frontlines DLC from Marco. According to him, the DLC is actually one of the best selling DLC's to date. Is anyone else surprised by this?

I had obvsly no idea how it would do before it went out, but was confident that it's a decent cam if judged on his own. First beta was quite unpolished as some folks may remember , but it was never supposed to be release-ready on (beta test) day 1.

Overall it's pretty clear that many players would like to see longer cams, different topics, that's all good and well, and even expected with so many players around.

Yeah that first beta was rough lol. Glad we were able to catch a good amount of bugs and its a rather great product now. I personally fall into the longer campaign crowd but my big thing was finally being able to play a campaign with the allies. I love my Panzers but its nice to play someone else now and again.

[Tassadar]

I am not surprised for three reasons.

First is the one already mentioned, the game was starved for some different content form a perspective of other nations - be it different Axis powers, or the Allies.

The second is the DLC length, which ironically worked to the game's advantage. Panzer Corps 2 DLC are not priced aggressively, so if this was a standalone experience, it was easy for anyone to commit to give it a go. AO series biggest advantage, the amount of gameplay it offers, also means it appeals to more hardcore fans. However, this element will not work as well with every other DLC for the same, nation, just a consideration.

Finally, the DLC was marketed as something on a smaller scale and different - this might have peaked people's interest, but again, is not something easy to reproduce.

[bebro]

It could work again with other operations, but IMO not everything makes sense on that scale.

Also, I see players asking for consistent scale (for example at Steam), and it made sense to have it in Bulge. It's maybe not perfectly consistent scale-wise, but to a high degree.

But for longer, linked campaigns the flexible scale of PzC2 is IMO a blessing. In something like AO I think variety in battles of whatever size beats consistent scale, as the latter would just limit the options for battles to include.

[Bee1976]

From a gameplay point of view it is surprising. From a political point of view an Allied campaign was well overdue and '46 pushed a lot of people, myself included, beyond their tolerances for all things Nazi

In one teatime marco mentioned that 46 was a real success. The playerbase is huge, and there are people who havent bought ao46 and there are people who havent bought bulge for theirs reasons.
I bought both and had a lot of fun with both. Bulge got some flaws, but it is an interesting and important theatre of war in ww2.
You dislike ahistorical "nazi" stuff in AO, but if they make a SovietCorps there will be a lot of ppl who dont wanna play "russian" stuff. And some ppl will dislike "boring" US stuff and so on. People have theirs reasons to buy a product or dont buy a product no matter whats the topic.

I hope the bring long Campaigns fpr every faction, with tons of ahistorical stuff as a choice, and i will buy them all
because its pc2 content

[DefiantXYX]

You dislike ahistorical "nazi" stuff in AO

Tbh thats bullshit. Its ok to play "nazi stuff" and conquer poland and bomb warsaw to ashes but winning the war is a no-go?
Most video games are about killing other people and it should not matter who you are killing, because its just killing in the end.
If the story is good it should not matter who you are playing.

[Bee1976]

You dislike ahistorical "nazi" stuff in AO

Tbh thats bullshit. Its ok to play "nazi stuff" and conquer poland and bomb warsaw to ashes but winning the war is a no-go?
Most video games are about killing other people and it should not matter who you are killing, because its just killing in the end.
If the story is good it should not matter who you are playing.

this wasnt my opinion, this was what barbarian said.
i have no problem with ahistoric stuff, i just wanna play good tbs games

[DefiantXYX]

Yeah my bad, my quotation is somehow misleading.

But doenst matter, I have often red this here in the forums. This argumentation is just weird, like I said before you often play the bad guys in games. Some people even enjoy the "dark side" more

[BarbarianHunter]

Yeah my bad, my quotation is somehow misleading.

But doenst matter, I have often red this here in the forums. This argumentation is just weird, like I said before you often play the bad guys in games. Some people even enjoy the "dark side" more

The argument is not weird. Your analysis of it is.

Dark side is common in gaming. Rarely is it coupled with the degree of historical realism in Panzer Corps2.

[DefiantXYX]

The argument is not weird. Your analysis of it is.

Dark side is common in gaming. Rarely is it coupled with the degree of historical realism in Panzer Corps2.

You said

[...] '46 pushed a lot of people, myself included, beyond their tolerances for all things Nazi (especially alt-history Nazi stuff).

which is pretty clear.
If you dont like "nazi stuff" in a pc game you can keep your units in 1939 where they are and dont attack. Will be a short campaign so...

If you stay historically correct this game is limited, its good that they tried to do something new. Unfortunately most of it was just weird.

[BarbarianHunter]

The argument is not weird. Your analysis of it is.

Dark side is common in gaming. Rarely is it coupled with the degree of historical realism in Panzer Corps2.

You said

[...] '46 pushed a lot of people, myself included, beyond their tolerances for all things Nazi (especially alt-history Nazi stuff).

which is pretty clear.
If you dont like "nazi stuff" in a pc game you can keep your units in 1939 where they are and dont attack. Will be a short campaign so...

If you stay historically correct this game is limited, its good that they tried to do something new. Unfortunately, most of it was just weird.

I think we can agree that we disagree on this. Again, it's not weird.

I have no issues playing a "Nazi-centered" game as I know how that ends (all's well that ends well, so the saying goes).

I think you may have missed the meaning of the phrase you quote: "'46 pushed a lot of people, myself included, beyond their tolerances for all things Nazi (especially alt-history Nazi stuff)." As you've taken issue with it, I'll explain further.

The key to understanding the statement is the word "beyond." Specifically, as I am playing and am rather fond of Panzer Corps 2 gameplay mechanics and to one degree or the next storylines, I must have some degree of tolerance for playing "the bad guys in games" as you put it. Is that weird? No, it's not.

I play many games. When I play the space grand strategy game Stellaris as "Driven Assimilators" (robots hell bent on turning everyone to Borg) do I feel bad about it in any way? No. Because it's science fiction regarding a far-away future with little resemblance to a reality one would hope we'd be smart enough to avoid. When I nuke every other nation into glowing green radioactive husks in a farcical 4X tale do I feel bad? No, not in the least as there is no resemblance what-so-ever to the reality we live in. When I transition out of '44 into 'historical 45 then 46 or '44 into a farcical '45 then to a ludicrous '46 and am presented with briefings regarding glorious victories by the team that started WW2 in which 75 million people died and ushered in a pan-European decline (still equivocal as debt implosion/currency devaluation yet to prove as fact), I scratch my head think "this is too much." I seemed like just yesterday I was just running for dear life @ Orel, now I'm capturing and renaming the Enola Gay and negotiating peace w/ the Soviets. That's '45 before Wonka's chocolate factory researches, designs and produces all variety of unbelievable gadgets in a hear-to-fore mostly historical WW2 wargame.

I hope that clarifies the matter, which I hope to close.

[DefiantXYX]

I think we can agree that we disagree on this. Again, it's not weird.

I agree on this one
Looks like my english is not good enough to follow your argumentations completly.

But I am wondering what did you except in 1945/1946 ahistoric?
I think the devs did a good job in getting rid of the real bad guys and putting not so bad guys into position.
But still, you are playing the third rich and you are leading a war against the good guys. And its written from a german point of view.
Wagner and the other guys cant blame themselves all the time for everything that happened.
Its still a war game, you cant play missions of humanity all the time. Bring food to africa, free your own the concentrations camps, help to rebuild the wasted areas of war...

I think there is just no way for you to create a scenario where germany is winnig that could satisfy you.

[BarbarianHunter]

I think we can agree that we disagree on this. Again, it's not weird.

I agree on this one
Looks like my english is not good enough to follow your argumentations completely.

But I am wondering what did you except in 1945/1946 historic?

About what we got.

I think the devs did a good job in getting rid of the real bad guys and putting not so bad guys into position.
But still, you are playing the third rich and you are leading a war against the good guys. And its written from a german point of view.

Agreed. The devs did a good job of creating a situation in which the not so bad guys ended up fighting the not so bad guys.

I think there is just no way for you to create a scenario where germany is winnig that could satisfy you.

You're right. I thought I could just play the game in ahistorical 45 and into 46 knowing it was just a game but it passed beyond my tolerance and felt wrong somehow. Perhaps I've been exposed to one too many Allied not so bad guy propaganda films re: the matter, who knows? Whatever the case, it detracted from my gameplay enjoyment so much that I didn't want to play.