Beta Testing

[Asean]

I would love to Beta Test. But my inexperience with modding probably wouldn't help contribute to helping the mod. So I'll just wait till the final release...

[Bar Kochba]

ehem.... whats happenin with this

[Zanderpants]

Yeah, I'm dying here Hoggy. Do you have any vague estimate as to when we might get the list of people selected for beta testing?

[hoggy]

Ok we've closed the list now. I've sent PM's to a group of you. I'm really sorry we couldn't select everyone but the organisation of all those people would get crazy. Closed beta should start in a week or 2 and hopefully soon after that we'll just open the beta up to the public. We just want to iron out the worst of the bugs before release.

[Abokasee]

Bah! I've been coming by these forums everyday for a year now, and you have to choose the time when my computer dies of a virus to get a beta signup going!

Oh well, it's all good. My computer is in working order again and I am going to be out of college for the summer in 1 more week, so I'll have far, far too much free time on my hands. It'd be quite nice if Blue Lotus could take some of that time out of my hands. I'd have no problem with that. Nope. Definately not.

I don't really have modding experience, but I always play around with the unit and building stat/description files extensively, so I know those pretty well by now.

that was an answer... not a question!

[Morray]

To be fair it was a kinda answer that developed into a question!

...Just devoid of any question marks! heh

[mike007]

To anyone doing the testing: Hows it going? great game or what? many bugs? close to a open release>?

[DragoonXXIV]

I dunno about an open release yet, you'll have to ask hoggy, but i can say this: Blue Lotus is absolutely beautiful, i never imagined it would be so professionally well done. If i didn't know any better i would say it was a completely different game from R:TW.

As for bugs, there are some but the crew is hammering 'em out and the game is currently stable enough to be playable but it's definately not done.

[mike007]

Thanks for the update Dragoon, good to hear you guys are working it all out.

I have to agree, just by looking at the screenshots you can tell its a professionaly made mod.

Just some quick questions, in what way do you mean 'its definitely not done'? What else needs to be worked on?

Also whats your favorite unit?

Great to hear its playable & thanks again for the update.

[IPoseTheQuestionYouReturnTheAnswer]

"its not done" refers to the CTDs, though they are few and far between, and the unfinished artwork, and terrain on the battlemap and on the campaign map, and unit balancing. It's definately playable, definately beautiful, and definately fun, but there's still work that needs to be done.

[mike007]

SO HOLD ME CLOSE BOY, CAUSE IM YOUR TINY DANCER!!!

Rihanna, SOS right? thats where you got your name from? i love that song! (love that Rihanna..hmm)

sorry, back on topic.
thanks for the updates guys, really helps us 'non closed beta people' know whats going on. Im sure i speak for all that visit this site that were eagerly awaiting your results from the closed beta.

ive been testing Chivarly:total wars new beta & it has quite a few ctd's, it seams to be when you choose to partake in battles with certain armies. The way around it is to just auto-complete the battle. Is this similar to Blue Lotus?

Also, how have you found the units moral? (eg, do they route easy? do battles last a long time?) Thats one major problem with C:tw, battles last 2 mins & cavelry are tanks.

One more question, whats your favoirte units?

Thanks again for replying, i highly appreciated you keeping us in the loop.

[Moros]

personally I think morale is to low, but their still working on the stats so I think that will be changed. don't worry. And BL itself is also more stable as I expected, ctd's occur bu not so often.

My favourite unit? I guess that'll be...err....Indian heavy lancers or something together with the chakra throwers. (the master monks and Wang lian me likey too.)

[Bar Kochba]

love those fire lances hehe love burning all those indian elaphants!!

[mike007]

Sweet, thanks for the info Gertgregoor! Im starting ot get so jealous, it seams like everyones playing here but me ;(

I was expecting to hear about alot more ctd's as well, seeing as they have changed so much of the original game. Well done to the BL team!

Moral is easily fixed.

just a few more Q's

Hows the campaign map look?

Also have you assulted any cities as yet? how was it?

Are all factions present in the beta so far?

i see you like the master monks, does this mean monks are playable?

thanks again for the info, cant wait for more!

[IPoseTheQuestionYouReturnTheAnswer]

The campaign map looks excellent. Lots of varied terrain, although there's some wild looking hills that will be fixed soon.

City assaults are pretty much the same. I haven't had any assaults on cities with stone walls yet, since stone walls are now at the top of the tech tree. It's always interesting, though, to attack an enemy city full of guys,a nd send some copper dragons through the front gate and push everyone out of the way. Firelancers are also EXTREMELY useful against bunched up groups of enemies in city assaults, I've had a couple Firelancer units rack up a few hundred kills.

All the factions are present.

Yes, the Monks are playable, but they are clearly not supposed to be. Most of their units are superunits that have extremely high stats and sort of unbalance things, though I suppose that's the point since they're Monks. Also, they lack many essential unit types. For instance, the Monks have no siege weapons.

[Moros]

yup I must agree with Ipose...
The campaign map looks great, some minor random hills need a bit of fixing but for the rest it's really good. I realy love the new ground textures. Well the monks aren't supposed to be playable tough you play with them as custom battles. The few ctd's and looking how ready things are I must say, WOW!

[mike007]

Awsome preview guys!~ those dragons & fire lances sound like allot of fun!

Have you had a chance to play with the demond army?

How about those 10 ft tall devil monsters? are they as uber as they look?

Does a campaign game play like normal or does it feel different?

I guess my last & most important question is do you think its close to an open release?

thanks againf or the previews, the games looking great!

[IPoseTheQuestionYouReturnTheAnswer]

Yeah, the Demons are the only faction I've used in the campaign. They're actually very...different from most of the factions. They have MANY different units, but each unit only serves a specific purpose and can't do anything else very well. Most of their units are for support, and you really need to be coordinated for your army to come together and win without taking a ton of losses. It's hard, but fun - kind of takes you back to the old Shogun TW days when every unit, no matter how crappy it is, was useful for something.

The Hanyas? Those are the 10 ft tall monsters, and they just so happen to be my favorite unit. These guys are so big that they don't even need to swing their weapons, just walking around knocks guys out of their way. They're a ton of fun to watch, but won't last long unless backed up. They are usually the infantry unit that gets the most kills in my battles.

yeah, the campaign is definately different. Most of the factions have very advanced starting armies, so you're up against armored heavy cavalry and hordes of horse archers right form the get-go, and it's very challenging since you can't retrain your advanced units for a while, until you get the requirements for them. The start of the campaign is basically trying to remove as many elite units from the enemy's possession as possible while keeping as many of yours alive as possible, I've found.

Hmm, I'm not sure if it's close. I'd probably be able to give a better answer when a patch arrives.

[Avicenna]

So does this mean overpowered elites, since it's a fight for them?

[IPoseTheQuestionYouReturnTheAnswer]

No, not overpowered. Just better than levy units. A good metaphor would be every faction starting out with many units of Militia Pikemen and Light cavalry, with a few units of Silver Shield Pikemen and Companion Cavalry mixed in, but only the ability to retrain the militia and light units initially. So if you lose your Silver Shields and Companions fast, you'll be at a disadvantage if the enemy still has theirs. They're definately not invincible or overpowered, though.

[mike007]

Cool, i like the sound of units playing a specific parts, like Shogun. I sometimes dislike how many units in rome are 'all in one' soliders.

Anyone played as the indians yet? what do they play like?

Are archer units overpowered like in vanila rome?

Whats the moral of the units like, do they break easily?

Also is this patch your talking about going to fix the problems the closed beta testers have found? have there been many bugs?

thanks again guys, really appricaite the info! ;)

[Morray]

JHust out of interest is there a very hard campaign very hard battle options?

I hope so as I belive that is the only way to make battles challenging for me!

[mike007]

yes there will be.

[Moros]

Cool, i like the sound of units playing a specific parts, like Shogun. I sometimes dislike how many units in rome are 'all in one' soliders.

Anyone played as the indians yet? what do they play like?

Are archer units overpowered like in vanila rome?

Whats the moral of the units like, do they break easily?

Also is this patch your talking about going to fix the problems the closed beta testers have found? have there been many bugs?

thanks again guys, really appricaite the info! ;)

Yes I have. I wouldn't call the archers overpowered not at all.
Well in the old version morale was to low but it is said to have been fixed in the patch, but I haven't had time to test this much.

[Morray]

How fast are the units aswell?

I played EB and to me the infantry moved way way to fast! IS this apparent at all in BL or does it seem fine?

[mike007]

also, any chance someone can make a small demo video? id love to see this game in action