RTW multiplayer is dead

[ElmarkOFear]

Morindin: It was stated in the flash program that came with the RTW Demo download: CA is working on a TW game for the XBox and other consoles. That is where I got my thought on that. The RTS view camera mode, The speed of the battles, The interface, are all typical RTS fare, so I am not far off with my assumptions there.

As for RTS and Console games having a lousy MP experience. That is partly true of the console crowd, but the RTS genre's success has always been its MP side. There are not many RTS games which had a good SP and bad MP that are still around. The successful ones all have a great MP side.

Console games are increasingly offering up MP. Look at XBox LIVE! It has some great MP titles. Most of the successful console games have some sort of MP side to them. Even Pokemon, Mario Brothers, Mario Cart racing for the GameCube, Crimson Skies, BurnOut 3, Ghost Recon for the XBox, and I am not sure of the Playstation 2. This is a huge profitable market. Console game publishers and makers make more money than their top PC game counterparts. I can see why TW would want to join that market. Also, Activision is heavily invested in and involved in the console market. TW would be a gem among gems if it is ported to console in anything like its current form.

The PC has a lot more to offer for the TW series than console, but console is where the money is at. Gotta hope the changes made do not ruin it for us PC types. :)

[ElmarkOFear]

Sorry Zeus I am at work and will have to wait until I get home before I can chat with you. Firewall and all won't let me. :)

[Morindin]

Morindin: It was stated in the flash program that came with the RTW Demo download: CA is working on a TW game for the XBox and other consoles. That is where I got my thought on that. The RTS view camera mode, The speed of the battles, The interface, are all typical RTS fare, so I am not far off with my assumptions there.

As for RTS and Console games having a lousy MP experience. That is partly true of the console crowd, but the RTS genre's success has always been its MP side. There are not many RTS games which had a good SP and bad MP that are still around. The successful ones all have a great MP side.

Console games are increasingly offering up MP. Look at XBox LIVE! It has some great MP titles. Most of the successful console games have some sort of MP side to them. Even Pokemon, Mario Brothers, Mario Cart racing for the GameCube, Crimson Skies, BurnOut 3, Ghost Recon for the XBox, and I am not sure of the Playstation 2. This is a huge profitable market. Console game publishers and makers make more money than their top PC game counterparts. I can see why TW would want to join that market. Also, Activision is heavily invested in and involved in the console market. TW would be a gem among gems if it is ported to console in anything like its current form.

The PC has a lot more to offer for the TW series than console, but console is where the money is at. Gotta hope the changes made do not ruin it for us PC types. :)

Well good luck to CA with that. If they manage to compress RTW down to 7 hours gameplay 12 stages, and extremely limited controls then it might work. ;)

I guess the reason the console market is where 'the money is at' is because you need only make a game worth 7 hours and sell it for the same price.
However computers are becoming increasingly popular with youngsters now, I know a lot of kids from various families and neighbourhoods aged 8-14 who pretty much let their playstations rott away while all playing PC games.
Computers are also so damn cheap these days they're quite affordable.

The longest games Ive ever played on any console in recent times have been Dark Alliance : Baldurs Gate. That's because they're made from Bioware, and RPG games are also very fitting on a console system. Having said that BG:DA is a far cry from the PC version - especially NWN.

I really have my doubts about a 100+ hour RTS game with quite difficult controls to ever be appealing on the console market.

Also, my point about RTS PC games was that yes they have good multiplayer, but they also have very good single player. Infact Rise of Nations recent expansion pack was pretty much totally aimed at single player (and that game has extradionary AI btw).

[FearZeus]

NP thx elmo,

I will be here m8...

[ElmarkOFear]

I agree with all that you said there Morindin. There are a few RTS games out there that have lousy single player, but the MP is fun.

The new Code Name Panzer game I have heard is not very much fun SP wise, but its MP is great!

I haven't heard of many RTS games on the console that are any good, but RTW had concentrated more on the strategic portion of the game, which I think would translate very well to the console market.

Have Empire Earth, Civilization or any of those been made to work well on the Console? If not, I am wondering why? I think they could work fine and would offer that market something a bit more "filling".

ZEUS: You may want to get in touch with Bachus and you two can help to organize everything and present it in a post here for all to look at and discuss. Once the discussions settle down, then you can pretty it up and offer it to CA in a formal post or listing. I think the community has to look at and agree on the specifics and prioritizing of the issues if you want CA to take a serious look at things.

[Morindin]

I agree with all that you said there Morindin. There are a few RTS games out there that have lousy single player, but the MP is fun.

The new Code Name Panzer game I have heard is not very much fun SP wise, but its MP is great!

I haven't heard of many RTS games on the console that are any good, but RTW had concentrated more on the strategic portion of the game, which I think would translate very well to the console market.

Have Empire Earth, Civilization or any of those been made to work well on the Console? If not, I am wondering why? I think they could work fine and would offer that market something a bit more "filling".

ZEUS: You may want to get in touch with Bachus and you two can help to organize everything and present it in a post here for all to look at and discuss. Once the discussions settle down, then you can pretty it up and offer it to CA in a formal post or listing. I think the community has to look at and agree on the specifics and prioritizing of the issues if you want CA to take a serious look at things.

Civ like games would work on the console, but I havnt played any good such console versions since the days of megadrive to be honest.
There are a few turn based games floating around on consoles now, such Heros of Might and magic or something, which are midly fun and I got bored of them fairly quickly.

RTW would work well if you removed the battles completely, but the battles are one of the major reasons the game is what it is, otherwise its pretty much an inferior but prettier version of civ games.

[Surprise]

I am totally on CA's side for this argument.
If someone would make a reasonable list that follows CA's Guidelines I would be very happy to support it, and I would expect CA to fix the problems as soon as they could.

[Surprise]

When you have useless input from many different sources it's a form of hyperpluralism... and it SLOWS things down, so your unreasonable request just make the process longer.

[FearZeus]

Well thanks for your opinion surprise, although not in favour it is still welcome m8 ;)

Thx

[ElmarkOFear]

ELMO LOOKS FOR HIS BAN BUTTON

"OH WAIT!"

I'M NOT AN ADMIN! hehe

I also agree with what you say Surprise, though I wonder if you read my long-winded post from earlier stating as much, but in many, many more words! I blame it on the drugs . . . if I had any that is . . . and if I could actually get up enough nerve to take them . . . . and if my wife let me . . . . and if I wasn't at work . . . and if it wasn't against the law . . . Oh well, it was a nice thought though!

woooo!

[Morindin]

ELMO LOOKS FOR HIS BAN BUTTON

"OH WAIT!"

I'M NOT AN ADMIN! hehe

I also agree with what you say Surprise, though I wonder if you read my long-winded post from earlier stating as much, but in many, many more words! I blame it on the drugs . . . if I had any that is . . . and if I could actually get up enough nerve to take them . . . . and if my wife let me . . . . and if I wasn't at work . . . and if it wasn't against the law . . . Oh well, it was a nice thought though!

woooo!

Well structured level headed posts tend to get ignored around here, its more a case of a the vocal whipping each other up into an enraged frency, blowing everything out of proportion.

I think thats more what Surprise is talking about.

[Voigtkampf]

Uh, people… Sorry for off topic, but what connection is the minimum for the Rome? I am stuck with ISDN at the moment, so I’m wondering… Anxiously I’m wondering, in matter a fact. The benefits of living outside of city are the fresh air, lovely nature and a lot of tranquility, yet I still have to struggle to get the DSL connection!

So, please let me know, am I smeared even before I start? Am I sentenced to 1vs1 games? How fast connections do I and my friends need to have in order to play a decent 3vs3 online?



Back on topic: I think it would be a rather good move from all the respective members to state what issues have been truly fixed with the patch and what issues remain. I would dare say that ElmarkOFear-sama has been very consolidate and most perceptive with his constructive post, and that our issues should be directed within the frames and definitions of his proposal. If you require my assistance, I am more then willing to help in any way possible and as much as possible.

Disclaimer (once more!): I don’t have the game yet, I hope to get it within the next week, so my MP experience is virtually none-existent, yet the grievances other respective members have, and surprisingly unanimous, for the time being, have made me worry seriously about the quality of the MP games. Also, hence I have already stepped far in organizing my own clan, it matters to me a lot that the MP part is as good as possible!

[FearZeus]

M8,

Here is the spc's needed as straight of the box ;)

1 gig cpu
256 mb ram
8x cd rom
2.9 gig hd space (plus 500mb for windows swap file
direct x 9b compatible sound card with lastest drivers
windows compatible mouse, keyboard and latest drivers
directx 9b included
1024x768 monitor resolution
3d hardware accelerator card

AS for multiplayer

Broadband

Sorry m8, but CBR has been testing and says he has lagg even on 2v2's and it still testing to find the cause, thx CBR for that m8

[LittleGrizzly]

voigtkampf as of the moment it does seem to be to laggy on 56k i hope this can be sorted though!

grizzy the eternal optimist

[Voigtkampf]

:voigtkampf stares at his monitor:

:intensive amount of most profane coursing:

:calms down, straightens his suit and manners:

:mutters a last, resigning course while he slowly drifts into depression:

Oh, well, this doesn’t surprise me much. I’ll engage both channels and go for 128 connection and pray that I will get a DSL some time soon.

Funny, there is the quote that fits my current state of mind concerning the Rome: Total War.

“It was the best of all times, and it was the worse of all times…”

[FearZeus]

ROFL,

I feel your aggony thier m8, but as of now your missing nothing m8!

[monkey kid]

game killer the CA have has kill a dream 4 can say:"look we can do a new game only for $$$$ not 4 the player"

[Shurikenjitsu]

Hello everybody.

Zeus I signed the petition, anyway I want people knows that I don't agree on point 5 of the list and that point 18 is incorrect/not relevant to me.

About point 5 I personally like the way the chat in game is, once u get used to it there is a GREAT innovation: when you use the presetted messages, everyone of the addressed people can read it in is own language!! This helps a lot with people not used to english!
If you select T for chat, then select allies only, then select one of the message (under support for example), if your team m8 have the Italian version of the game will receive the message in Italian, if he has the French version will receive the message in French!!

About point 18, if you select the units u wanna group, you setup them in position AABBBBAA, THEN (only after!!) you make the group you will have what u look for, a group in the position you want! They will stay as AABBBBAA. If you drain a line with them after, they will always keep the order you gived them in the beginning, even better then Med/Vik (in Med/Vik doing this while troops were moving was resulting in different positions then desidered).

All the other points were mainly correct, there is a lot to be done.
Let's have CA working on it.
I thanks all of of you for the efforts and support giving to have this game great as we all expect.

XXI_RAPAX_Brutus

[CBR]

I dont think anyone wants to remove the advanced chat options. Its how you are forced to press several keys just to type in normal chat that is akward. Other games use t and y like we had in STW/MTW and one other key for the advanced options.


CBR

[AMP]

I dont think anyone wants to remove the advanced chat options. Its how you are forced to press several keys just to type in normal chat that is akward. Other games use t and y like we had in STW/MTW and one other key for the advanced options.

- i agree t for all and y for allies was simple and fast. they should have just left that alone and added an extra letter to press that brings up the list for chatting to just one player.

i'm ok with the camera controls, i've changed it to the way i like. still can't figure out how to keep the same facing when moving a distance with the whole army, is it possible? also gets annoying when a general dies it dose that scene of him getting killed close up... no need for that. you could be in the middle of giving orders or preparing for a charge.. and every secound counts, is there a way to disable this?

also miss the private chat box and 8player battles...

so many changes.. why why why?

[Aelwyn]

If you group your whole army together, then redraw them on the field with the whole army selected, it will draw them in their current position (thus keeping the army in its formation). So you can basically draw the army wherever and with whichever facing you want.

[7bear7yogi]

I agree with Panda that the "list" is a bit disorganised but maybe thats because of the sheer weight of bugs glitches and things that could do with patching. Perhaps Panda has lost sight of the fact that many many Rome players have graduated from Shogun and expect certain features to remain as standard simply because they enable effective MP and tournaments or allow us to talk honourably without flaming or name misuse. Many of the key features of Shogun were hard to improve upon and were carried over to MTW and VI. To ditch them or ignore someone who has spent much time putting together a list of suggested improvements (even if a bit muddled and in one or two places personal opinion) is doing great dishonour to the TW community..... I will be signing the petition...

[d6veteran]

Regarding TW for the console. I don't know how old this crowd is but anyone played the Romance of the Three Kingdoms series on the Nintendo consoles? Or what about Nobunaga's Ambition?

It isn't unlikely that TW could succeed on a console.

There is a history of successful historical strategy games on the console platform in japan.

[AMP]

If you group your whole army together, then redraw them on the field with the whole army selected, it will draw them in their current position (thus keeping the army in its formation). So you can basically draw the army wherever and with whichever facing you want.

- ok thanks Aelwyn. i'll have to try that out, i've been trying to just use the alt and shift and it would always be out of place.

I don't know how old this crowd is but anyone played the Romance of the Three Kingdoms series on the Nintendo consoles? Or what about Nobunaga's Ambition?

- i've played shigen the ruler and all of the romance of the three kingdoms for nintendo and sega consoles. played them for yrs by myself and with friends, they were great times and great games at the time. oh and i would always crushed my friends to the point where they hit me or throw and break a controler.. i loved it.

[ElmarkOFear]

There have been many a times on the battlefield against you AMP, I would have loved to hit you too!!

[Sp00n]

There have been many a times on the battlefield against you AMP, I would have loved to hit you too!!

LoL

MizuSp00n

[hellenes]

The ONLY thing that i have to add is that the games with weak multiplayer loose money from PIRACY...Single player games cant fight it since the CD key is not worth anything if the MP is weak...If you can read russian and visit some ru tw sites you will see how much of the RTW has been downloaded via emule/bought illegal copies...In greece the piracy is being fought but its still a MAIJOR part of the PC games...The common thought of any south/eastern european gamer is:well what i want to play MP or SP? SP? then ill pay 5 euros for the illegal copy and play it...You just have to see what happened with Blizzards WarCraft III ANY internet Cafe in greece that has it has the 100% LEGAL copy NOT because they cant have the illegal BUT because they CANT provide Battlenet feature without the legal copy...And as long as the CA/Activision dont provide a MP campaign no matter how good/stable the current BIZZARE (yes it is because all that player want to build armies in mp) for the common RTS players MP gets they will see themselves behind Blizzard,EA etc(note The battle for Middle earth)...

PS An older post of mine at the .COM
the whole hosting-quitting-dropping etc etc is a NO for a MP campaign wich will have to be a single grand campaign going online with commanders and subcommanders taking their place if one drops-quits-disconnects also its a TURN BASED campaign so one leaving on the camp map wont cause many probs since the option of the replacements could be relieving...
Second the MP campaign isnt vital FOR the "staggering numbers" of the users online its inorther TO HAVE stagerring numbers....The present online part of the game looks bizzare and awkward to the other (note:majority) RTS ers the whole bre battle selection and lack of strategy (yes the TW series are TBS-Turn Based Strategy+RTT-Real Time Tactical games) with only the RTT part online has only a small potential to draw the other Strategy gamers off the resources gathering-click-fiestas RTSes....The low level of the Programmed Oponnent makes the boredom unbearable in the later stages of the game as the lack of the diplomacy (there is NO diplomacy with a PO)....
My feeling of the present MP is that the sterilised and artificial battles drew away all the feeling that i had from the first contact with the game in sp.
The "mirror" like laboratory flat battles with ideal "non benefiting/giving advantage" sterile enviroments made the all thing pointless in a way.
Although remarcable the exeptions of the above majority fought in hilly desert and other enviroments battles couldnt take away the tasteless feeling and smell of drugstore of the whole process.
However as it goes if you dont have smthing u are forced to live with what you have so the sterile enviroment keeps its existance and the community after the disdain of the CA to the idea of creation of an MP campaign remains IMHO prisoner of the sterilised encounters...

Hellenes

[Shurikenjitsu]

THIS ISSUE MUST BE ADDRESSED IMMEDIATLY!!!!

Anyone can modify the stats of the game and play online!!!!
It works!! Potentially we can modify troups and cheats, in order to have unbeatable army!?!?!?!?!

This should addressed urgently, otherwise will be impossible to play Online....No way to make tournament or even in a friendly battle to control if your enemy plaied correctly.

UNBELIEVABLE....
What kind of programmers created this game????
In Shogun we had a great room, was also possible to create personal rooms for chatting and hosting game, Med/Vik was improved on most things (but this one), now Rome seems coming from noobs programmers!!!

Brutus

[CBR]

Yes its known by some and CA has been informed about it. We just wanted to keep it down so it wouldnt ruin MP for everyone..


CBR

[Oswald]

[QUOTE=Shurikenjitsu]Hello everybody.


About point 18, if you select the units u wanna group, you setup them in position AABBBBAA, THEN (only after!!) you make the group you will have what u look for, a group in the position you want! They will stay as AABBBBAA. If you drain a line with them after, they will always keep the order you gived them in the beginning, even better then Med/Vik (in Med/Vik doing this while troops were moving was resulting in different positions then desidered).


XXI_RAPAX_Brutus


Shurikenjitsu are u sure? Can you give me the control key sequence, I would like to replicate this. And I am sure others would too.. If necessary we will alter the point.