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Section Leaders:
20:00 EST We received a very interesting movie file from Jon Johnson today which appears to be a portion of a German Propaganda film that covers the actions in Normandy after D-Day. The quality is fair and there is a translator talking as well as the native German narrator. It also makes brief mention to Michael Wittmann. This Quicktime file is a wee bit over 7 megabytes in size and has a running time of 2 minutes 11 seconds. You can download it directly from HERE. Last night I had a very odd dream in which I was flying over a huge cityscape and I tried as best I could to capture what it felt like in today's POTD. Now THAT is going to be one tough house clearing exercise! See the full version in HERE. -Madmatt 20:00 EST People across the globe awoke this morning with the same thought ringing through their sleepy heads: Ughh, another Monday... Today's rather dreary POTD captures that feeling rather well I think. Rainy, wet, bleak, depressing and deadly, the war wages on... Click THIS for the biggie sized version. Fionn Kelly has popped up a great overview (with pictures!) on some of the Artificial Intelligence improvements that have gone into Combat Mission since the Demo was released. He also goes into some detail about the major differences between TacAi, StratAi and the OpAi. Check it out in the Articles area or you can click right HERE. -Madmatt
21:30 EST Tonight's update had to be cut short due to some REAL WORLD WORK that has cropped up. Hopefully things will settle down again by Monday night. Even with all that going on we still have a few niblets for you. He may be notoriously late on his submissions but we cut the guy a little slack now and again. Max Molinaro gives us what the new faces will look like once they get put into the Combat Mission. Check it out HERE. This evenings POTD looks strangely familiar...I just can't put my finger on why though...Hmmmm. Check it out a little closer right HERE. ON THE
HORIZON:
-Madmatt 20:30 EST A word about the new CMMC (Combat Mission Meta-Campaign) project. A great many people have expressed interest into this endeavor but are a little confused on how to receive further info or get enrolled. Well its quite simple actually, just fire off an email to Fionn Kelly right HERE and request info and he will take care of you! Simple as that... We have received a fair share of submissions already in our YOUR FACE IN COMBAT MISSION offer but we could always use many more. Remember that they don't have to just be renditions of yourself but they do need to be authentic, so no Space Aliens or troops with bushy beards etc... Send as many as you want as this is a limited offer (The game has gotta ship eventually!) For more info on this offer see our Random Face Texture section in the New Features area right HERE.
This weeks POTD Archive is now ready and viewable through HERE. And while were on the subject of POTD's, tonight's offering (much to his surprise I would Imagine) shows us Steve Grammont as he gazes out toward the future...You're next Charles... Click THIS for full version. -Madmatt 23:45 EST BIG NEWS FROM BTS!!!! YOUR FACE COULD STAR IN COMBAT MISSION!!!! Yup you read that right! Combat Mission now supports multiple textures for the faces of the units in the game. Right now it will randomly choose between five separate textures for each and every unit. You could have a Tank Commander with one face and the Driver with a totally different face. Click HERE for details on how to submit your own art for possible inclusion into the game!!! Now THIS is cool!
18:30 EST Tonight we have another in the series of Morning Sky POTD's. This time we arise at dawn with heavy clanking of a trio of German armor. Click HERE for the full size version. After a very long time in the planning stages CMHQ is proud to announce the opening of our first Sub-site devoted entirely to the Combat Mission Meta Campaign or CMMC for short. The link on the left is active and it will take you into the new Welcome area and then into a whole new realm of role-playing and wargaming action. To christen this event we have put up the first FOUR sections of the Meta Campaign Field Manual (rules) and will be following this up shortly with an article on proper Map Reading. Once Combat Mission is released you can expect this area to really get moving and will be updated daily with news and events from this awesome undertaking. Check it out, you won't regrets it! -Madmatt 18:45 EST Seems people really liked that picture of the morning sky posted in the BTS Forum some nights back so we figured we would follow up with another attention grabber right here. Tonight's POTD is titles Chaffe Morning and it's pretty self explanatory...Makes you want to brew up some coffee sit back and watch the sun come up doesn't it? Click HERE for a full sized version. The fighting has started to wane and the survivors have begun the grim task of counting the dead, only the final tally remains to be discussed as the thrilling Riesberg After Action Report winds down in this thrilling last installment. Special thanks go to both Glenn and Doug, who by following my very hard-nosed instructions, made posting this piece so much easier! Thanks guys and great job! See the last turn as it played out from both sides right in HERE. -Madmatt 01:45 EST IT'S HAPPENED AGAIN!!! Some three hours after I posted the first batch of Smoke Screenshots, Big Time Software made me aware that they had an even NEWER version ready to roll. It would seem that on the Nvidia based TNT family of video cards at least, the smoke now looks the way they had envisioned it. I have removed the earlier version of smoke shots and replaced them with 10 all new pictures! Check them out right HERE. Note that the pictures on Page 3 have not changed as they are the non-translucent versions. Tonight's (this mornings!?!) POTD is a redone version of yesterdays picture taken from the same angle with the newer, even more improved smoke. Click HERE to see this new improved version full size! -Madmatt 20:30 EST Due to public demand I have added a third page to the Enhanced Smoke Feature showing the new framerate happy non-translucent smoke graphics. See the new pics right HERE. The newer pictures are on page 3.
19:00 EST STOP THE PRESSES!!!! In the BTS Combat Mission Forum today, Steve Grammont said: Just a heads up for you guys... A couple of weeks ago Charles took some time to do up better smoke graphics. As we have stated for a long time, we wanted to see them done better but weren't in any rush because: 1. Time is limited and the existing smoke was functional and decent enough. 2. Transparencies are highly unstable due to the poor quality of DirectX video drivers. This means a lot of extra work for us to get things displaying as they SHOULD be. 3. Transparencies (the right way to redo the smoke) are framerate hogs. Just one plume of smoke isn't a big deal, and a few aren't either, but a big battle can have DOZENS of plumes. We decided that taking a
couple of days to make improvements to the smoke was worth it. What we
then had to do was make sure that #2 and #3 didn't become a huge
problem. As we feared, the driver bug problem is pretty bad. We don't yet know if we can hack around the sloppy work of others for every card out there, but we are going to try a few things to get at least the major cards to support the new smoke. Because we can't promise that the new smoke will work on every card (in fact it doesn't right now), or every system due to the speed hit, we have included an option to go with something more or less like what is in the demo. Best we can do for now. You will be seeing screenshots of the new smoke very shortly. I've given Madmatt the green light and I know there are a couple coming up in the Games Domain preview due out this week. Steve And we now have them ready in our New Features section right HERE. Our nightly POTD also keeps the same theme with a little job called NIGHT SMOKE. Click HERE for the full sized picture. The Riesberg After Action Report will return tomorrow with the next thrilling installment. -Madmatt 17:30 EST Ahhh, the weekend at last. Been a harrowing week all told but things are back to normal now and it even seems the Forums are working again. Combat Mission is work of art no matter how you look at it and we try to show some of this in the daily POTD. Many times it takes hours to come up with the perfect setup and picture and other times, like in today's, it just leaps out at you. I really feel that this is one of then best shoots we have seen in a while. It's called Panther Hill and its a beauty. Click HERE for the full version. They have been slugging it out toe to toe for over 15 turns. Like two prize fighters in the last round they have no tricks left. Perseverance will take the day. Join us for turn 16 in the Riesberg After Action Report as Glenn and Doug come one minute closer to the finale. You may read this newest installment right in HERE. -Madmatt 23:50 EST SIGH, seems the Forums are down again....Will keep you posted on any new developments. 20:05 EST Things have settled down to relative normality at the Madmatt compound so updates should be resuming to their pre-crisis fast and furious pace. It appears that the Forums are again working so get in there and start posting! You will find the link to our own Combat Mission Forum over on the left. One other link you will find over there is the new Scenario Depot section. This is a Combat Mission HQ exclusive area that will host Scenarios and Operations for Combat Mission once it ships! What is great about the depot is some of the awesome features it has. You can search by keyword or any number of categories for a scenario to fit your requirements. You can also receive email notification whenever somebody uploads a new Combat Mission scenario or operation so will never be out of date. Right now this area only has the 3 default demo scenarios (and they may not appear in the list for another day or so) but expect the activity level to skyrocket when CM ships. Check it and look around at all the info that you can enter for a given scenario. It's very well put together and just another reason to keep your browser parked right here! Speaking of pace, check out today's POTD! And you thought Combat Mission was only good for tactical WWII combat!?! Nah, this baby was meant to race! I think that scout-car on the outside needs to adjust his camber some as he about to loose control. Draft here has a totally new meaning! Click HERE for the full picture. We now return you to the regularly scheduled death and destruction. So that has just gotta mean another turn is now ready in the Riesberg After Action Report. Tonight we bring you all the action that is turn 15. You can begin the fun by clicking THIS. Friday nights can only mean one thing. That's right, our own friend and neighbor Max Molinaro has gotten his Pic of the Week ready. Click HERE to go right to his gallery. One other Friday night tradition is the migration of the past weeks POTD's into their new archived homes. They are nice and comfy there now and have made themselves available for browsing right through HERE. Madmatt 18:34 EST Well by now pretty much everyone has heard the news. My girlfriend is going into surgery early tomorrow morning and until she is all recuperated I won't be able to update the page. We are hoping that things will be returning to a relative normality by as early as this Saturday, but I can't guarantee anything at this time. Meanwhile I have left you all a VERY BIG parting gift! For all the half-track freaks out there (you know who you are!) we have a new POTD for you displaying a nice little number fully equipped with a cute armed turret! Turn heads and blow up your neighbors with this sporty yet fuel efficient 1944 model! Click HERE for a full screen version. Now then, to keep you all busy while I am gone I have put up a kick ass (sometimes I think I do all this web stuff just so I can say "KICK ASS" and thousands of people will read it!) THREE turns of Riesberg's After Action Report! That's right turns 12-14 from each side are available with movies and pictures. Take your time reading them as you will need to make them last...Notice how at different points how both players completely diagnose their situations so differently. This really shows the awesome (and sometimes overlooked) power of Fog Of War in Combat Mission. You can begin reading all the new reports right HERE. One last thing, thanks to all those who emailed Kristy with their best wishes and prayers! They meant the world to her and me as well. It's great to see that Combat Mission is not just a game but a community that can really care for its members. Thanks again and God (or whatever deity you profess a belief in) willing, we will both be back soon and everything will be ok. In fact she has already committed to writing a After Action Report about her operation and experiences at the hospital! Take Care all and I will see you soon!!! Madmatt 17:10 EST Tonight's POTD is just your plain old vanilla battle shot but it does have a sense of urgency to it. Just to let you know, The AI handed my ASS to me in this one! Yes, it is MUCH better than what you have seen in the demo. So with the yell of 'Panthers Forward!" I assaulted into utter chaos...Curse you Moon! Curse you and your damnable creation to Hell!!! Click HERE for the full version. The death toll is steadily climbing in our Riesberg After Action Report. We weigh in with turn 11 and its still anyone's game in there. Check it out HERE. -Madmatt 18:00 EST Valentines Day! Ahhhh...It's that time of year when the cute, chubby little Fallshirmcherub shoots young lovers with his Nahverteidigungswaffe and nine months later little baby POTD's spring forth! Who am I kidding? This is just another night that our beloved wives and girlfriends and so called soul mates will rip us screaming from our computers, still clutching our keyboards, and force us to make all googly eyes and buy flowers and go out to an expensive restaurant when really all we want is to be left alone and blow the crap outa stuff! Speaking of googly eyes, check out today's love infested POTD which comes courtesy of Ethan Rasiel. Ethan swears this happened totally by accident but it still doesn't explain why he let that observer get so close without sending him on a one way trip to Valhalla!! Click THIS to view this loving picture in full size. Joining our little love fest tonight is the tenth chapter of our ongoing Riesberg After Action Report. There has been no quarter asked, none given in this thrilling battle. My guess is these guys really have deep feelings for each other and want nothing more than to explore those feelings...Perhaps with a mortar round or at the point of a bayonet. We won't judge their love, we are just reporting the news. Check out big ole' numero TEN of their reports right HERE! -Madmatt 16:45 EST The battle continues and Glenn and Doug slug it out today as turn 9 of the Riesberg After Action Report is now up and ready. You can see for yourself right in HERE. Tonight's POTD is the result of some random screwing around with the DYO (Do Your Own) scenario editor and the fact that its raining here at home. Notice the skirts?!? Click HERE for a full-sized version. -Madmatt 20:00 EST Welcome back! Seems the new After Action Report from Doug and Glenn has really started generating a buzz. We even have Beta-Testers privately emailing us asking for exclusive info on the outcome and one guy even was so bold as to ask if he could see the whole thing before the rest of you! Well rest assured that you will see them first and only here at CMHQ, same as everyone else and tonight we have turn 8 all ready to go. See for yourself right HERE. This evenings POTD shows just how detailed the hit resolution can be in Combat Mission. This was one lucky shot, just not lucky enough! Click THIS for the full-sized version. Seems Max Molinaro rigged up some kind of Quantum Quasar Influx Tachyon Disrupter Field and got out of his quandary. Glad to have him back in the present and he has submitted his latest piece of sh$& err work... Check out his newest offering in HERE. -Madmatt 23:59 EST Ok, seems I was wrong. The forums are still hosed! Sorry about that but it is kinda out of my control...
19:10 EST Lot of things to talk about in the Combat Mission world tonight so lets gets started. The silence is over! Steve Grammont ( Mr. 'Yo you lookin' at me' himself) has started to post frequent updates over on the BTS Forum. I counted at least three separate threads that have been posted by him in the last twenty-fours hours and he covers allot of ground. Current status of Combat Mission, new features and more. You can follow this LINK to go right over to their forums as well. Speaking of forums it appears that our own here at TGN is back up and you can get to it by using the handy link on the left hand Nav-Bar. In other news it appears that our favorite cutup of comedic cartoons Mr. Max Molinaro is stuck in some sort of Temporal Singularity Reflex Node and is forced to continually live through Wednesday time after time. We hope he gets unstuck soon and sends in his latest picture. In the mean time though, we have another budding young artist name of Dan Weaver who seems to also have the 'gift'. You can see Dan's latest creation as tonight's POTD. Click HERE to see the full sized version. Speaking of POTD's you'll be glad to hear that this past weeks offering have now been archives and available for viewing in the Archives section. Special point of note is that there is in fact one NEW picture in this batch. For some reason I never got the POTD for 2-08-2000 posted but its up now and in the archive. You can see them all right HERE. One more thing in our Keg-o-Fun is the latest turn in the ongoing Riesberg After Action Report. This one is just quality through and through and a joy to read. Check it out right over HERE. -Madmatt Last night we threw in a little teaser about some new graphical enhancements that Combat Mission has seen recently and tonight we have another New Feature section ready for your perusal. It's called Interface Enhancements and it has a wealth of pictures and info on several changes and additions made recently. You can see it all in sparkling technicolor right HERE. The fighting in our Riesberg AAR is starting to get close in and dirty and you get even more tonight with the newly posted turn 6! Available right in HERE. Today's POTD shows us a lone Panzerschreck team who with four shots has added four tanks to the growing field of dead. Click THIS for the full version. -Madmatt 18:50 EST Sorry we missed posting the POTD yesterday but we needed to do some actual 'testing' on Combat Mission (What?!? You think us testers just PLAY the game?!?) However this new testing revealed some interface facets of Combat Mission that have changed recently that we hadn't had the chance to show you, until now. Well the wait is over and today's POTD clearly shows no less than FOUR new features! From left to right you have: All new 3D Colored lines
for Command and Control All the old colored lines are now shown in this ultra cool 3D high contrast color scheme and the effect is VERY sweet. Targeting, Area Fire, Run... All of them have been tweaked with this new look! We will be featuring all these graphical/interface tweaks and more very soon so stand by! Click HERE for a full version of the POTD above. Now if that wasn't enough we also have the sixth installment (turn 5) of the current Reisberg After Action Report ready for your viewing pleasure. Click THIS to be taken straight there. Damn I love updates like this...And it's only going to get better! -Madmatt 20:00 EST Good evening all. We are kind of pressed for time right this moment so the POTD will have to wait until a little later this evening. What we do have for you though is turn 4 in the ongoing Glenn vs. Doug Riesberg struggle. It's starting to heat up in there, so check it out HERE. -Madmatt Monday, February 7 23:30 EST We have made some more cosmetic changes through-out the site and more are forthcoming. You will notice that the Headline table above is sporting a new look as well and here is how it will now work. Click the green DAY headline to read the news for that day. Click the Yellow headline to be taken directly to the feature/article/picture that is mentioned. You wanna see Saturdays POTD for example? Click on the headline that says: Saturday's POTD and whammo, your there! Enjoy!
Forums are down currently all across TGN but we still have plenty of other appetizers for you to feast on. Turn 3 of the Riseberg AAR is now available in the After Action Report section. You can just tell even this early on that it is going to be bloody! Check it out right HERE. Tonight's new POTD gives a little peek at what was going on just South of Sword Beach during the 'Big Day'. Thanks go to Wild Bill for another fun packed scenario. Click the thumbnail above or HERE for the full version. Hopefully the return of the Did You Know and Quick Tactics will be occurring shortly and you can also expect a change in the functioning of the Link Table above later on tonight.
Just a quick message to let you know that TGN has currently taken all the Forums down and is performing maintenance on them. Sorry for the inconvenience. -Madmatt 20:40 EST Things are back on track here at CMHQ and tonight we have some tasty treats for you. Starting off the evening is a rather somber POTD which gives us Polish Airborne troops in a river crossing. Picture taken from a scenario by Moon. Now where is Gene Hackman? Turn 2 has also been posted in our new Riesberg After Action Report from Doug and Glenn. Head right over by clicking THIS. Also it seems that TGN has resolved the problems with the Forums but some have reported losing their status and needing to re-register. Not a problem as we only lost a whopping ONE message! So get in THERE and start posting! -Madmatt 23:57 EST Just another quickie update before the morning arrives. You will find that the POTD archive is now current up to the last picture posted. You can catch all of the old Picture of the Day's in the Archive section right HERE.
We're Back!!! It was long, painful, tedious and I can't tell you how many times I deleted the wrong version but the new site changeover is finally complete (or at least close enough). So what did the fruits of this labor bring forth? Well for starters the site is now MUCH friendlier for those of you who browse in 800x600 resolution. Many optimizations have also been implemented for the Netscape crowd out there. We are now more integrated with our host TGN and can even post updates on their newspage located HERE. We also now have our own dedicated Combat Mission Message Forum which you can check out using the Nav-bar off to the left. Speaking of that, we now have a new navigation system in place which should make zooming through the site much more intuitive and fast. Some of the older After Action Reports still need to be converted to this new layout and are currently listed as Offline. We hope to get them finished very soon but it didn't seem worth delaying the whole site for features that were no longer current. The Did You Know and Quick Tactics features will be making a return soon in a new browser friendly NON-SCROLLING form, so keep your eyes open for those.
So what new features DO we have for you tonight? Well, we have plenty so lets jump right in. Tonight's POTD comes from a thrilling Bil Hardenberger bocage laden scenario. We also have a new picture from our own resident crack-up Max Molinaro. Tonight Max's takes into the secret archives the Third Reich and unveils another German technological terror! Check it out right HERE. Finally finishing up is the Last Defense AAR between Fionn and Rick. The last few turns and debriefs are now up along with the associated movie files. Check out the conclusion to this stomping in HERE. Please note that the earlier turns are temporarily offline for reasons sited above. Jumping into high gear is an awesome new After Action Report, this time focusing on Riesberg. Doug Beman and Glenn Giesey have done a great job documenting their encounter and we have their initial setup and turn 1's now ready for viewing. You can see all the action right through HERE. We do apologize for the recent down time but we hope you will find the changes welcome. Rest assured that we are most certainly BACK! In any site wide change like this there are bound to be some missing or incorrect and broken links. If you find any (excepting the ones marked as offline) please let me know at my new email HERE. Comments and Questions are also welcome as well! Thank You and enjoy your stay with us! Special thanks got to TGN's own resident master of HTML, Frank Donati! -Madmatt Tuesday, February 1, 200018:25 EST Nice to have you all back today. It's snowing outside and to hallmark the event today's POTD shows just a hint of falling snow behind the running Fallschirmajers... Oh did we forget to mention that's the first time they have ever been shown?!? Hmmm, musta slipped our minds... Picture taken from another Wild Bill epic. Rick's persistence is only outweighed by his refusal to lay down and die. Will Fionn finally blitz through Rick crumbling defense or will the Hellcats on the hill pull a victory out of the Tigers maul? Find out in turn 11 of the Last Defense After Action Report right HERE. -Madmatt
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