Dear Coroner and Team,

Let me preface my reply by saying this:

I have been playing realistic first person shooter games since the early days (circa 1999) of Rainbow Six, Rogue Spear, Urban Ops, and eventually Raven Shield. I had always been a computer user (very early Linux user), electronics hobbyist, ham radio operator, etc., etc.

But I was never interested in video games until I was shown the beauty of the Rogue Spear games by two paramedic co-workers who I had befriended when working the night shift in the South Bronx. They sat me down and explained in detail how a realistic tactical shooter wasn't about the fancy guns, the violence, or running around and shooting things all willy-nilly. This was truly a thinking man's game. You had to be calculating and methodical. You needed to employ sound strategies *and* be able to depend on your teammates.

After a few weeks of learning the basics I was up to speed and soon playing team death match with an amazing group of guys several times a week on MSN Zone. And soon after that, I was hosting games with one of the first high speed DSL lines in New York which gave me the ability to host 16 players on MSN Zone. This is still the most fun I have *ever* using a computer. Alas, the fiasco with the Raven Shield series put a damper on gaming for fun; I wasn't too keen on paying for very buggy games that never got fixed by developers. Also, their reneged on their promise to release dedicated Linux server software.

Sorry to ramble, but the point is this: I have played TC:E since the very early days of its release (also hit that PayPal donate button a couple of times!!!) and have wanted to enjoy the game more. But I can't. The game-play of TC:E, i.e., its combination of being an "action" + realistic shooter" is, IMHO, trying to be something to everyone. "Action" being a euphemism for "arcade".

I'm not here to "beg" for features. I'm not here to whine. I'm not here to tell you how you should write software. I'm writing this because I yearn for that *realistic* tactical magic that I experienced --playing for 8 hours straight with great friends and having one helluva time. Being a bit older these days, I need something engaging and cerebral.

There is no free, cross-platform, realistic, thinking man's tactical gamer that is as good looking as TC:E. None of my friends would touch TC:E, as they immediately saw it as some sort of Counter Strike clone. If the "arcade" factor were eliminated from the equation I think you would have a much more popular game. More importantly, it would be *enduring*.


Thanks for listening.

P.S. I still have all my Rogue Spear/Urban Ops and Raven Shield CD's in a box. They're yours, free --for research-- if you'd like. I can send them out USPS Priority Mail; just PM me.

Well it's not the games fault you have some stupid friends ^^

First, I highly doubt you would utter those words in my actual presence.

Secondly, thanks for proving my point about this forum, and more importantly the caliber of player I can expect to find in the TC:E servers.

Way to go, champ.

oh tough guy aren't you? I that thought most people dropped that act when they got out of their teenage years, I guess I were wrong.
Well sorry that I'm not such a realism fan boy as you are.

Your post said a lot of yourself as well.
You have no self distance, you draw conclusions very fast, which mostly is bad.
You can't take no shit at all cause that will humiliate you, which points at low selfesteem. You are actually quite stupid as you can't seem to make a difference between tce and Counter strike. You think your history and contributions ((also hit that PayPal donate button a couple of times!!!)) actually makes you more of an authority in where Tce should be heading

Nope, not tough at all. More of a lover that a fighter. I was merely pointing out that you would not have the testicular fortitude to *personally* say such crass things to a total stranger.



Apology accepted. Don't beat yourself up too hard.



More crass personal attacks, blah blah, meanderings, blah, blah. Thanks.



Nope, doesn't make me any kind of authority. I just appreciated the quality of the software so much that I donated. I donate to the m0n0wall project, Debian, the MPD (music player daemon) project, etc. *And*, if it's any incentive for Coroner to make a few bucks, I would donate again! 'Tis the only reason why I mentioned it. But back to TC:E...

I just though that since Coroner posted in the forum to begin with he might actually want to hear from the TC:E community --even if a few of the posts had a different viewpoint. I'm not the first one to bring up "realism" and TC:E in the debate; it happened quite frequently on the old forums. And even though I know full well that CS and TC:E are very different games, some could rightly argue that at times TC:E can feel like a tactical shooter with a little too much CS lipstick on it.

Should Coroner declare that his mod's game play will be no different from the current TC:E action/realism ratio, you can be sure that I won't be wasting any one's time or bandwidth on this forum.

P.S. If my posts irritate that much then please just ignore them.

K, thx, bye.

i can already tell you that it wont ever be as realistic as you wish it'd be. by reading all of coroners posts you can see that he is kinda heading towards the CoD kind of gameplay and features. not everyone likes the arcady part of this game but imo making it too realistic would slow the gameplay down too much and it wouldnt be as enjoyable for me. ... anyway dont wanna start a discussion now, there's been enough already in the past^^

Thanks for the reply.

Well, you might be right. In typing out my post I was hoping to generate some interest for a more realistic TC:E/CQB , but those players might be long gone.

Another option could be a mini-mod (mod of mod??) of Coroner's CQB. Where simple things could be tuned: running and jumping could be reduced; wounding would have an impact on aiming/limping; no health regeneration, etc.

Could it be a simple mod of a mod with a different name? I don't know what that would entail as I don't program.

Just ideas...

Hey New Yawk! Sorry about your 'welcome' to the forums, but sad fact is it's par for the course for this mod's lovely 'Community'. I too am a Tactical Realism Fan, since EA's SEAL Team in fact (which nearly twenty years later is still a benchmark for realism and tactical sophistication), have collected FPS realism games in seven languages for over twenty years -- and have just about everything.

I came by True Combat (then a Quake III Arena mod) obliquely via my Step Sister's interest -- we played WFA together and when she discovered the 'world of mods' True combat was it as far as she was concnered. I don't know what exactly sustained her interest in TC, perhaps it was just that she was ridiculously skilled at the game, but TC then (as now) struck me as another Counter-Strike derivative mod with a Max Payne paint job.

I vividly remember her asking, 'They want ironsights, and want me to vote and comment; what should I say?' because at the time she didn't even know what ironsights were. My intrest was piqued -- as at that time ironsights were sort of a Grail of realistic game design intent that only existed as a mod for Hidden & Dangerous (which was later incorporated into the retail game, and is now free), and as a Quake II mod called D-Day Normandy (now a free stand-alone game).

At the time, and throughout development part of its life True Combat at least gave the appearance of intent of gearing for more realism then just 'another Counter-Strike wanna-be'. While TC in its various incarnations in the hands of two different Developers continued to sustain the appearance of that intention it was sadly never to be -- 'realism' was more of a brand then a design goal, and was briefly ramped up in Acrid's iteration of the mod, and steadily declined from there to what you see today; many realism Fans later labeled 'Serious Realism' Fans (pronounced in a low sarcastic voice), and even later 'Tactical Realism' Fans were disappointed.

I tried to re-kindle and rally interest in a realism option for TCE via a g_realism var, which was greeted with initial enthusiasm and even support from Coroner, but was later met with so much hostility and histrionic reaction including from one Moderator that the thread was deleted in entire and my account with it. Suffice to say what ever precident Coroner sets with CQB's design, that will be it, any suggestion of change after the fact in terms of 'realism' will be met with hostility of a scale so epic you won't believe it -- that may include threats, phone calls, and vandalism to your vehicle and home.

In all there are over 1,700 games and mods that have essentially Counter-Strike derivative game-play and metrics where the only differentiation are superficial features like leaning, ironsights, various realism effects and affectations which are tweaked (or 'balanced' in the parlance of action realism Developers) to have little consequence on actual game-play with respect to realism -- nearly 2,000 games that are essentially Quake II (many even with direct engine lineage to Quake II) with a realism paint job of varying levels of quality and palate -- and True Combat is just one more...

None of this is a value judgement; I like and have enjoyed every iteration of True Combat, but far less then more realistic games like: Rogue Spear, Hidden & Dangerous II, the R6 games, Ghost Recon, OFP, the BI ArmA games and VBS simulators, and even the Battlefield games and mods...

I find it more then a little confounding that with the 'action realism' market saturated with an average of two genre titles released each month on top of the glut of two thousand standing, the gaming demographic getting older and increasingly impatient with 'twitch' action shooters that have as much depth as a game of tic-tac-toe; that Coroner has apparently described CQB to sound rather like TCE II that will not only be 'another one just like the other one', but will compete wtih TCE itself -- is even harder to get.

Even more surprising is that Coroner had a brilliant and original project called Elite 626 that looked sort of like No One Lives Forever meets hot sexy Nazi babes in rubber costumes; ergo much more thematically and genre original as far as action realism shooters go then Close-Quarters-Counter-Strike-Of-Duty XXVCIXC.

Some think the serious realism market is too small to sustain much interest but miss the fact that Ghost Recon has sold over fifteen million units, is still selling, and is in something like its 143'rd production run -- hardly 'insignificant', especially so as there has been virtually no marketing or advertising for the game. ArmA and H&D II have similar spectacular sales performance that betrays the size of a rather quiet 'mature' audience.

In my experience I've found that Mature Developers generally find developing for more mature audiences much more gratifying as well -- but to each his own; this is Coroner's project, obviously he has to do what rings all his chimes and is fun for him -- even in the very worst case CQB will still be better then Counter-Strike and an impressive one man show... If your interested in some of 'what's new and coming' in the more serious genre, PM me, as it will only draw histrionics and ridicule on this forum...

I just wanted to add that I, obviously in contrast to some other ppl, enjoy reading about different opinions and like to hear suggestions and about different views.
Thank you for sharing your opinion and don't hesitate to share more.

I agree, that Elite 626 was very original. I would like to continue with it but there are legal issues with using the models from wolfenstein.

As a sidenote, CQB has a g_realism switch at the moment. It is, however, risky to try to appeal to different communities. Sad to say but also true, TCE and CQB will always be judged as W:ET mods which in many ppl's perception can't be that different to the original game and thus can't be realistic by definition.

Well, I really don't think that's true or fair with respect to the Tactical Realism audience as characterized by the typical GRN subscriber who is 35 to 50 years old, see his target game selection limited to about five or so games, and is very open to trying anything new.

For this audience a game 'fails' the 'Tactical Realism' test if realistic tactics don't consistently prevail in the game and/or arcade tactics do -- it's as simple as that.

Tactical Reailsm Fans play some very rough realism mods like, Hostile Intent, PRM, and Insurgency on some very arcade games/engines, and go through elaborate hoops to play ugly old Rogue Spear games which no longer have master servers -- if you option enough realism they will come, so, I hope you don't give up on them so easily this time around...

Can't really see why you are waisting your time here then, you guys have mentioned several games that apparently is better, you seem to think the community is garbage. You have Coroner saying the game isn't heading where you want it to head. You can't really have that much to stick around too here.

stop whining!

WoW! a few days with no posts and now ...

Eqpe i think ur being a little bit too harsh. All their asking is for more realism, which isnt a bad idea at all. However it does seem they are appearing out of no where and are randomly imposing to change the game that has kept the true community of the game picking up the pieces for years.

To Hoak and Nyc_Paramedic: you guys have to realize that most of the community that use to be around for this game is gone. and the people that are left are people that enjoy the game so much that they have been literally picking up the pieces. Gathering old maps remaking old maps and making new ones for a dying game that it was. I didnt see any of you 2 around when that was happening. So dont be surprised if the community you guys have provoked will not come back and attack you guys for trying to change a game from what it has been for years to something you guys want. Your points may be valid but your motivation is not.

We'll take what we get and will play it either way.

I'd like add two more cents:

CQB has a "physical player movement system" which will disable many mad and unrealistic moves, most importantly instant turns. I hope that this will make the game to be dominated by realistic tactics.

Secondly, I am not so happy with the perception that CQB will be very similar to Cod4/6/MW. Yes, you guess right, I enjoy playing those games but mainly because they got a lot of things right that I always wanted to do with TC. The features that are now going to be in CQB are therefore many of the original intentions, probably with another taste (I am also ten years older). The fact that MW uses RPGsh player customization doesn't make every game that also uses such a system MWsh.
My intention is to build a game that is much more realistic than MW while keeping the good things.

Ross6056 I certainly am not 'imposing' -- I do not and never have had the power to impose anything. If you actually make an honest effort to read the posts you'll see that at one time I suggested (very different then 'imposed') an OPTION in the game for more realistic settings, that could be enabled server side -- from the language of his posts it's obvious that nyc_paramedic was looking for something similar.

The immature histrionics and hostility of True Combat 'Community' are a legacy that's legend and has even been recognized in the print press; so I won't in the least be surprised by apoplectic tantrums, insults, threats, and childish hysteria that make no effort to actually discuss the content of posts, and otherwise shits on the adult Fans of the mod that have helped pay the bills.

Coroner, your 'physical player movement system' will I agree go a long way to igniting the interest of TR Fans, but won't I believe be enough to sustain it; there are still a few too many things promised, and part and parcel of ET and TC:E that are 'deal breakers' to the 'Tactical Realism' flavor of fun. If you decide to enable and offer the g_realism option, the chief vars TR Fans will fell need to be effected are movement speed and the size and scale of the hit/damage boxes.

Movement speed in TC has always been absurdly fast, not just in terms of Operator realism, but in terms of game scale as the game's small urban setting radically skews scale to the degree where closing distance exceeds the weapon metric scale differential and can even obviate it; this is easy to see, measure, and demonstrate. That there is no acceleration and the player is instantly sprinting at bicycle speed just exacerbates the issue.

In terms of Operator realism; a real CQC Operator is heavily encumbered and that encumbrance is not just a function of weight and awkward bulk, but the fact that body armor is very hot, typically has a plate and is stiff -- add to this a belt or load bearing rig, helmet -- all of which makes real life fast running very impractical, as all the gear will not only 'beat you to death' but makes the Operator a very vulnerable and ineffective shooting platform. After running having to readjust everything and the delayed effect of heat build-up 'cooks' and has even prostrated men. So while running and sprinting is 'possible', (as are many other things we don't see in games) the fast gliding shuffle 'as seen on TV' is pretty much the de facto limit of real world practice.

There are many things like this that are certainly 'possible', and made to seem common through the magic of Hollywood that just aren't practical and obviate what TR Fans covet. If there's any hope or place for g_realism option settings in CQB and feature discussion; I hope it can proceed in some separate venue where it won't be perceived by less stable minds as such a threat to the world and religion as they know it...