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Grenadier -> Lost Victories is FINISHED (12/8/2001 12:51:00 AM)
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For those of you who have sweated waiting for it as much as I have sweated making it. Merry Christmas. We both get a present. I get time back in my life to actually PLAY Steel Panthers and you get the culmination of 10 months work by a dedicated team of gamers like yourself who are bringing you the ultimate gaming experience in SPWAW, Lost Victories.
This project would never have gotten done without the dedicated people who worked with me on this project. Their names are on the credits, but there are a few who deserve special attention for their willingness to get me what ever I needed whenever I needed it. ![]("smile.gif")
Bryan Melvyn-Who kept the line of communications going in the team and did many of the nodes
Mosh-A dedicated nodemaker and tester as well. Always there to help when needed and a strong team leader
Dr. Klaus Muller-Buschbaum. herr professor put in a huge amont of time recording and translating OKW communiques and did some of the best nodes in Lost Victories along with some great maps.
Rockin Harry Zahn-a wonderful nodemaker and a great mapmaker, who also dedicated himself to being the "Voice" of Vebber's commander ![]("cool.gif")
Don Doom-Started out as an apprentice in my scenario design class and ended up a a member of Wild Bill's Raiders. He carried the ball in converting my SPWW2 scenarios into nodes.
Paul Lewis and Mike Amos-THey made my dream of having airplanes on the ground and abandoned equipment for the players to destroy into a reality
Red Baron-An excellent designer who was in from the beginning to the end and brought Wittmann's first tank battle into the campaign
Bob Wallace-Who did my document maps and put together the whole branch into the Crimea. he also did a great job in research and making node maps. he set a new standard in mapmaking for this project.
Neil Stalker and Fabio Prado-Did the Crimea battles to complete the campaign and fill out the campaign plus fabio kept the interest going in the project thru his website
Derek Boain-Who did the music from my ideas and patiently put up with my "one more photo to convert" requests ![]("wink.gif")
Michael Wood-always willing to put up wityhbmy phone calls or ICQ messages. He did a wonderful job in his editor and the changes necessary in the code to make the mega campaign editor much more than a campaign vehicle
Wild Bill-Who alway took my phone calls and answered my questions, even after he "retired". His dedication to this game is amazing. I would never have completed this project without his being there for me.
And lastly-David Heath-Who put together the idea for mega campaigns in SPWAW and took a leap of faith in giving me the opportunity to make Lost Victories and stuck by me in all my times of troubles.
Lost Victories is so big that even now it is still being tested and there will be a patch for it to coincide with the release of the CD to deal with any last minute issues. The sound files alone originally started out taking 100MB so to get it to fit on the CD we redid them in another format that had the added bonus of making them sound like old radio broadcasts.
One of the major decisions about the design is how realistic do we want to make it. The war on the Eastern Front was like no other. Rule of decency and chivalry were non exixtant. It was not a PC war like that in Desrt Fox. Do we deal with the partisan war? What about the Commisar order? The objective was to give the player the experience of fighting on the Eastern Front, warts and all, and I think we acheived a good balance of realism and political correctness. If the player wants to recreate some of the less stellar behavior of the landsers in Russia, the opportunity is there. Ther are also articles in the documents section dealing with these areas, such as the fate of the OUN, the Ukranian Independence movement headed by Stepan Banderas and a reproduction of the Commisar order. All the other aspects of the war, the mud, the rain, the bitter breakout battles from the pockets, the freezing cold of the Russian winter are fully portrayed.
All of the Fuhrer directive's, 21, 33 33A, 34, 34A and 35, have been reproduced in their entirety and many of the OKW communiques as well along with the complete speech given by Dr Goebbels on June 22nd 1941 to the nation and read to the landsers on the evening of June 21st. Full biographies of Kleist, Budenny, Reichenau, Cruwell, Rokkosovski, Runstedt and many other are included as well.
It is my sincere hope that all of who who have ordered Lost Victories will find the value of it far exceeds the price paid., For the number of photos alone a book equivalent would be at least $50.00. I know, I have several that cost that much and more ![]("biggrin.gif")
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Tell that to all the British tank crews I massacred...
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, which includes Michael Wood, Brent and me.
Once the MC is done, however, and one has the opportunity to view the handiwork of so many put together into a hemogenous whole, a sense of relief and pride fills his soul.
I don't know if you'll see any more Mega Campaigns after these three in SPWAW. I hope so. The idea behind it, however, will carry over into other games of the same ilk by Matrix I am sure.
The three Mega Campaigns that now exist have enough gaming possibilities within them to keep a good wargamer busy for six months to a year.
Great scenarios, superb maps, great pictures, and very illuminating and inspiring documents pervade the entire program of each MC.
Any one of the above mentioned inclusions would make a Mega Campaign worth the price. I don't think you'll find a better deal anywhere if you are a lover of SPWAW as I am.
North Africa, Russia and Guadalcanal. Its a nice world-wide package that cannot help but greatly enhance your gaming experience. I hope you'll get them all. It is money well spent.
Wild Bill
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But I do hope you'll get your gaming experience set to next level when you'll play LV.
And as said above somewhere; without Brents decisive deadlines we would have been continuing this MC to the days of Armageddon because it was really great adventure. It did hook up and to some of us it became part of a lifestyle, (if you can call hunger for learning and enthusiasm as lifestyle).
It is not over yet, we'll play it thru and search for missing docs, pictures and voice-files. JUST to be sure that it is done by one shot. In case something is wrong you'll get a patch quick 