A suggestion for the forums

[Icerian Rex]

It seems to me that approximately every few weeks or so, someone is coming up with a post about "what the developers can do to make the game better". It's an incredibly popular subject, as everyone inevitably comes up with their own "stroke of genius" that would really take the game over the top.

Developers, on the other hand, are limited by the amount of disk space, computer speed, etc.... and probably often have found some interesting ideas posted, but are then lost again amidst the other posts.

My (hopefully) brilliant idea would be to create a seperate forum (or subforum within a forum) dedicated entirely to the subject of "bright ideas": All those new factions people are yearning for, the ideas on diplomacy, on sea battles, subject matter for future additions (a la american civil war, MTW2, Shogun revisited, etc...), perhaps ideas on formations - whatever the case.

I believe that, in such a manner, all ideas would be in one nice, easy to find and dissemenate location - One where, should the developers decide to take a peek, they could find an (over)abundance of information at their fingertips. Whether they decided to use it or not would be up to them, but I think it would provide for a much better opportunity for ideas to be heard, and more often.

Also, one thing that I've noticed when reviewing people's ideas, is that (depending on personality/playing style) people are asking for uniquely different requests, with some focusing entirely on the battle map, others focusing more on the strategic/realistic aspects of the game, and still others seeking more "mod-friendly" environments. These could be broken down into sub-sections of said forum, so that each "group" would have their ideas more easily recognized, and their voices on said subject made all the clearer for the effort.

Any feedback on this subject is much appreciated.

[Scipio]

I think it is too l8 isnt it? heck the game is coming out in a 4 days or so! But yeah this could work for ideas of patches I geuss

[Shahed]

GOOD Idea

[Icerian Rex]

To me, the whole idea here is not necessarily to have something limited to MTW, RTW, or even to the Total War series. Total War would be the main focus, but not the only one.

Now, obviously there are probably alot of sites out there that have nothing but ideas, but in large part these ideas are an "across the board" type of environment, with everyone from FPS's to B&D's to Arcade Style each chiming in.

My idea is more toward the TW developers: "Hey, you've got a dedicated audience here - an audience that already buys your product and likes it - you may (during brainstorming sessions) wonder which way things should go - well, here's your audience telling you what they want".

This is not to say that the developers will agree with all (or even most) of our suggestions, but rather that these suggestions all have the best ability possible to be heard, should the developers choose to listen.

[Ludens]

Though I like the idea of the gamers having input in the development a game, I wonder if a forum dedicated will work. Apart from the forum getting buried under bug reports, historical inaccuracies and ad nauseam repeated suggestions, it may lead to people feeling entitled to the developer's attention (3D ship battles, anyone?). CA's staff doesn't feel like commenting on every suggestion now, let alone when there's an entire forum full of it!

More to the point, the developers probably want to create their own game, not that of the fans. It is much more satisfying to find your own way and see where it leads to than to follow that of others. If there is a large forum cluttered with all kinds of suggestions, rants and people demanding attention, I don't think the developers will pay much heed to it.

If you can organise it, with directed discussions and a comprehensive list of suggested improvements (a bit like Blodrast did for the demo), then I think it will work. But what I fear will happen is that the place will turn into a chaos which will do neither fans nor CA any good.