MTW/VI Vs MTW2

[Hosakawa Tito]

Boy, leave town for a few days and the sleepy MP forum suddenly gets rather hot.

It seems we have yet another "Less Filling vs Tastes Great" argument going here. Some are taking it a bit personal. So, let us all take a breath and remember this is a game, the sun shall still rise tomorrow despite the differences of opinion over it. Every-ones opinion on what they find as enjoyable leisure time activity while playing this mp game is going to differ by varying degrees. Not a single person's opinion on "what's fun for me" is wrong. Comparing game performance issues between old game engine & new game engine, and claiming one is inferior to the other is okay too, when backed up with some pertinent info as it relates to game performance in MP. However, implying that one's preference to one or the other is inferior is not okay. Let's keep this distinction in mind please.

People please. Didn't we have enough of this in the other thread? I want things here from VI that can easily be implemented into MTW2. That's all I want. Certainly no one is more quailified than MizuYuuki . He was legend before I even got here. The Mizu clan has pretty much dissected STW and MTW/VI and put them back together. Put please gentlemen can we just have fixes here. This is sounding to much like congress. Can we please stay on topic. If you want to start a thread why MTW2 is inferior to whatever be my guest.

The author of this thread has made a simple and quite reasonable request. I'm asking that the sniping, name calling, and other soap opera drama stop. Right now.

My prior post has suggestions for improving the game:

1. Improve the network performance.
2. Reduce the cpu requirement.
3. Reduce imbalance to less than 15%.
4. Improve the RPS so that you don't need so many special bonuses.
5. Optimize the morale level so that attrition and maneuver are dynamically balanced.
6. Optimize the fatigue rate to the map size.
7. Make the units more responsive and improve unit cohesion.
8. Reduce the uncertainty in the combat results.

and a few more:

9. Adjust the cost of the units so that each unit is worth what it costs.
10. Remove the battlefield upgrades from multiplayer.
11. Remove the multiple hitpoints from units.
12. Bring back the original ballistic model.
13. Lower the charge speed by the same ratio that running speeds were lowered relative to RTW.

This is much better, without all the unnecessary negative baggage and veering off topic.

I've got some catching up to do reading posts. If I feel the need to pm some of you over any questionable posting etiquette I will at my descretion, though most of you know what your responsibilities are in that regard by now.

If you don't have something you're not allowed to critise.

His critisism is the same as me critisising the Peugeot 1007. Yes I've heard loads about it and that it is bad, but I can't voice my opinion untill I've driven it, can I?

Anyone can voice their opinion on the MTW2 MP game, whether they have it or not. The worth of that opinion to you; is up to you. Take it for what it is worth to you, and leave out the personal animosities. Not a difficult concept really (most were introduced to such inter-personal relationship skills training in kindergarten). It seems some people's perceptions of each other, negative or positive, hinder the flow and direction of threads such as this, and bog it down with personal irrelevant baggage. The PM function is the appropriate "sandbox" for one to discuss one's "personal problems" with another member; not the public forum. As my old drill sergeant used to say, "Remember this material people, you'll be seeing it again."

[PutCashIn]

I remember the Spectrum ZX81, 1Kb of RAM, no secondary storage, you had to program whatever game you wanted to play.

Things have changed since 1985, doom and quake popularised online gaming, c&c/red alert brought online RTS's to the masses.

Things have changed since then too, now we want to customise our paints scheme, play on international servers with comparitivley (compared to the modems of quake days) low lag, set teams, add AI players, have online stats.

I unfortunatly have to agree with some of the nay-sayers in this post, some somewhat bizzare marketing/coporate decisions to try sell single player focused game were made, strngley enough, things seemd to have been REMOVED from the game....after all that effort coding them up in the first place? have some faith in your creations CA!

But, to say you cant have a decent SP and MP experience from the same game?
I have a small LAN at home, I have watched (since the first amiga500's were connected with a serial cabe and nullmodem) people play, for example, Quake, Quake 2, HL, HL2, FarCry, Baldurs Gate, Freelancer, NWN, Sacred, Soldiers 2, Civ 4, DOW etc etc, all both single and multiplayer games.

Oops, forgot some amiga SP/MP duo examples, uhm, North and South, Stunt Car Racer, SWIV.

You dont need a different EXE, look at DOW.

Anyway, all this is redundant as CA/SEGA are coding the multiplayer into the next iteration as a primary step...so Puzzed can sleep happy knowing all of us that brought the game thinking CA HAD to have noticed the popularity of MP games but ended up getting fleeced into buying a RTW mod (minus half the MP code and options), the rest of us can smile happy in the knowledge that NEXT TIME, someone up stairs at CA/SEGA must realise that to realease two games in a row that fail to keep up with modern multiplayer developments is just a joke.

[PutCashIn]

P.S (from an anti piracy view, surely its best to have a MP capable game, as its much harder to get online with a copied game than with a brought one...case in point, all the M2TW games on the shelf in the store I work at are just sitting there...$NZ100 for a single player game?....now If that were $NZ100 for a multiplayer game, people would have to buy a copy each, yes?)

Guess what I'm really trying to say is EVEN COMPUTER GEEKS HAVE FRIENDS THESE DAYS!

[t1master]

It seems some people's perceptions of each other, negative or positive, hinder the flow and direction of threads such as this, and bog it down with personal irrelevant baggage.

this thread and every other thread like the above is basically the same general argument that's been going on here since rtw came out. these threads (long, soap opera drama; any sorta passionate or heated discussion/sticks and stones , poop flinging match) take on pretty much the same mo every time. this mo is not exclusive to the rtw/m2 crowd, and in my observation, and soemtiems shameful participation have roots and precedence in the tw community since day one
before we could take personal pot shots and poke each others eyes with sharpened, burned sticks, then go play the game.

Boy, leave town for a few days and the sleepy MP forum suddenly gets rather hot.

it seems there's not enough playing of the game at hand to warrant even three mp forum sections here, let alone the sharpening and poking with sticks....

[Orda Khan]

My own opinion is that both lack the balance of STW.
I preferred the pace of VI but since I am fond of HA, M2TW has its appeal by feeling less static. However I still think there are too many things wrong with both. If pushed I suppose I'd say VI because at least back then a 4v4 was actually playable

.....Orda

[Swoosh So]

Shogun was chess, vi was chequers rome was tiddlywinks and mtw2 musical chairs.

[FearofFucyMan]

Well, as the old timers know. Stw in the beginning was so laggy, only the host with a fast conection was able to host a 4v4 game. Then after month waiting, CA came out with a patch and it was then a little better to play with, but still with bugs. As Puzz said, the stats in the game was still unbalance.

The same happend with MTW. After months waiting they finaly came out with a new patch (I believe we waited 6 month for that). But still game was unbalance (Spanish Lancers and other units) and buggy (Puzz remmember when you click on your cavs, and then click behind enemy line, the cavs just ran trough enemy and routed the enemy easy, without even fighting with them).

What I am trying to say is that Creative Assembly never was interested to fully fixing the game for the MP player.For them, SP was always more important then the MP.

We always wanted this game to be better, TW games are great games(Except RTW).

I agree with Puzz, but was Puzz should remember that every TW game wich came out, we always had problems with it, and CA never addressed the problems, we ask them to fix it.

[Fenix7]

http://204.155.67.203/med2/M2TWLaunc...ual&StoryId=25

[Stig]

Words

Remember BI?
They said it would be balanced, yeah every faction had the same units, no that's hard to unbalance. And still they managed to do that with the Horse Archers.

[|Heerbann|_Di3Hard]

We always wanted this game to be better, TW games are great games(Except RTW).

MTW2 is RTW2. I don't think, that they can fix that ;)

[Puzz3D]

Well, as the old timers know. Stw in the beginning was so laggy, only the host with a fast conection was able to host a 4v4 game. Then after month waiting, CA came out with a patch and it was then a little better to play with, but still with bugs. As Puzz said, the stats in the game was still unbalance.

STW v1.0 came out in mid June 2000. A quick v1.01 patch was released to make the game work over AOL which was a popular internet dial-up service at the time. As I recall, the v1.12 patch was released in Sept 2000, and that improved the network performance of 4v4 battles, and also fixed a bug where routing units got a charge bonus which allowed them to get lots of kills on enemy units that they routed through. This had actually become a tactic used by some players where they would purposely rout a unit if it got behind an enemy unit.

I went online Oct 1, 2000 after the v1.12 patch was released, so I never experienced the lag in STW before the v1.12 patch. There didn't appear to be any serious bugs in STW v1.12 MP, but years later when ShingenKrypta and I were running online tests on STW v1.12 for the development of Samurai Wars for MTW/VI, we discovered that the charge bonus for cavalry didn't work. This charge bug is one reasons why heavy cav didn't work very well as a counterunit to warrior monks.

The v1.02 patch to STW/MI (Warlords Edition in the usa) improved the network performance by about 15% over what it had been in STW v1.12. This actually made it more difficult to control all the units because the game sped up by 15%.

The same happend with MTW. After months waiting they finaly came out with a new patch (I believe we waited 6 month for that). But still game was unbalance (Spanish Lancers and other units) and buggy (Puzz remmember when you click on your cavs, and then click behind enemy line, the cavs just ran trough enemy and routed the enemy easy, without even fighting with them).

As I recall, MTW v1.0 was released in Aug 2002, and it had severe network stability problems. This was corrected in the v1.1 patch that was released at the end on Nov 2002. So that would be about 3 months later. Some players left out of frustration during that time, and never came back. The infinite charge bug was fixed much later in the MTW/VI v2.01 patch which came out during the summer of 2003. LongJohn did address balance issues twice in the MTW v1.1 and the MTW/VI 2.0, but two attempts isn't nearly enough to get it right.

RTW v1.0 was released in Sept 2004, and had network stability problems in addition to only allowing 30 players online. The 30 player problem was fixed in the v1.1 patch released a few weeks later. The network stability problems were mostly fixed in the RTW v1.2 patch released in early Feb 2005. So that's about 4 months after the release of the game.

What I am trying to say is that Creative Assembly never was interested to fully fixing the game for the MP player.For them, SP was always more important then the MP.

I don't think they allow enough time in the development schedule for MP. At the same time, they won't drop MP because it generates about 5% additional sales.

I agree with Puzz, but was Puzz should remember that every TW game wich came out, we always had problems with it, and CA never addressed the problems, we ask them to fix it.

Network performance has been problematic in every Total War release, but they did correct it 3 to 4 months after release for every Total War game except M2TW. It doesn't make much sense to spend time on M2TW MP playbalance adjustments if the network performance can't be improved. According to CA the design of the battle engine limits network performance, and in my opinion it also limits the tactical depth that can be achieved compared to the older engine.

[Stig]

MTW2 is RTW2. I don't think, that they can fix that ;)

So not true.
RTW was utter rubbish, you would always win if you had Urbans and Prat Cav. It was so unbalanced that it wasn't fun anymore.
Cav was uber overpowered and far too fast.

MTW2 is far better when looking at that.
Yes it has some flaws, but I'll give you a crate of beer if you give me a flawless game that recently came out.

[Swoosh So]

The bottom line is totalwar will never be a great muliplayer game as CA are focussed more on the single player game, the only reason people bother with it online is because theres nothing better out there in the genre, i love the totalwar series but the simple fact is other online games are so more fun.

Shogun was a really good game i felt with great balance and maps where the maps really made a difference to the gameplay, i dont see that with the new totalwars, i dont care too much for terrain in my games. As an example the small hump in the middle of the tutomi map in shogun was a major defencive obsticle that had to be overcome - that same size hump in rome would be next to nothing in terms of the battle.

Imo in becoming 3d the battles have actually become more 2d somehow.

All that said its a great single player game but as soon as i logon you lose like 80% the playability, i wouldent even look at it twice online if i hadent been a member of this community since 2001.

The frustrating thing is that its soooo good offline, but when i logon it seems to become a different game where units are unresponsive and battles seems to take on weird shapes IE no battle line troops all over the place with about 20 flanks free, it just feels wrong!


Imo the game has just got worse and worse online just look at the foyer for example the older ones were great a visually appealing foyer that was nice to logon to each night, now this ugly badly designed thing that just feels cheap. Doesent even allow tournament rooms to be setup anymore, the player ladder removed etc etc. We whinged and whinged at ca for an old style foyer and they dident listen :| would it have been so hard to reimpliment? if they cant change a simple thing like the foyer for the fans i wouldent go getting your hopes up for much else.

Still this isent a call for CA to do anything i just dont expect they will do much despite all the discussions and community attempts at interaction which is a shame.

Im happy with it as a single player game and with great mods like the long road i can get quite alot out of my £30, its just a great shame a great online community fell apart because of the degrades in online play.

From what i saw so far shogun was best online mtw1 was second best rome was 3rd best or equal with mtw2, still i feel alot of the problems online could be due to my pc somehow an old 3ghz pentium with 9700 pro graphics card im not sure.

After years and years of seeing online play degrade in the totalwar series i accept it for what it is now a great single player game with mp just tacked on.

blah blah blah just my jumbled thoughs.

[|Heerbann|_Di3Hard]

So not true.
RTW was utter rubbish, you would always win if you had Urbans and Prat Cav. It was so unbalanced that it wasn't fun anymore.
Cav was uber overpowered and far too fast.

MTW2 is far better when looking at that.
Yes it has some flaws, but I'll give you a crate of beer if you give me a flawless game that recently came out.

They have MTW VI. That is really a reference. They doesn't need to compare with other games. MTW VI is unique. And MTW 2 has more than some flaws. One of the most annoying thing are the missing features. My dream is a MTW VI with better graphics and some new tactical features. Better graphics doesn't mean 3D Graphics. It means better textures, better animations AND that the developer don't forget, that it is a BATTLE SIMULATOR with up to 10k Men on field. I don't need good graphics for a single soldier. I need a good graphics if I zoomed out!

Some features would be very nice: Maybe combo attacks or traps. A modifiable battlefield and more modifiable units. Not only armour 1,2,3. Nice would also be, if I could paint on the battlefield some moves to show my team mates my plans. Other game modes like King of the hill or capture the flag. I think there are still so many opportunities to make a very interesting ONLINE game. A RANK system. Clan ranking list, stats like in Battlefield 2. Wounded units, that maybe the general unit can heal. Or you can leave behind the wounded men of the unit. Nice would also if you could merge a 10men unit and a 18 men unit of same type to one unit.

But what have they done. Polished the strange RTW a little. :\

[Stig]

MTW and MTW2 use different engines, you can't compare them

[Orda Khan]

MTW and MTW2 use different engines, you can't compare them

???
The topic title suggests that people do just that

.......Orda

[Stig]

Well you can't for the simple fact that with RTW CA choose for a different engine, that didn't allow the same things as MTW.

That's why we call it different engine.

[Orda Khan]

MTW/VI Vs MTW2

Stig,
Above is a copy/paste of the topic title. Forget trying to be snide for a minute, I am well aware of why it is called a different engine.
It seems you choose to be argumentative for some reason only you are aware of

....Orda

[Noir]

MTW and MTW2 use different engines, you can't compare them

There is a certain amount of truth in this - however, what you can compare is the game it self, especially gameplaywise; it is essentially based on the same principles and having the same aim - the engine renders it one way or the other, but the results are comparable as in the overall gameplay impression they provide.

For example focusing on a close perspective visually and ignoring the overall perspective in the graphics - having units that obey without lag to commands - having good internet performance - providing the necessary hardcoded mechanics/parameters for tactical gameplay (for example blobbing penalty - fatigue rates relative to the maps used) are issues that affect the game regardless of the engine used. Of course the design and quality of the engine influences these parameters, and so one can draw his own conclusions as to which suits better the scope of the TW MP game.

Many Thanks

Noir

[Stig]

having units that obey without lag to commands

I actually like that, gives some realism. Men don't directly follow orders, it takes some time, nice realistic imo.

Can be irritating I agree.

[Puzz3D]

It's important to have responsive units so that you can react to a dynamically changing battlefield situation. Also, non-responsive units detract from the ability to coordinate the units.

[Lusted]

The order delay only seems to happen on H/VH difficulty so just setting MP difficulty to medium should prevent that.

[CeltiberoMordred]

The order delay only seems to happen on H/VH difficulty so just setting MP difficulty to medium should prevent that.

MP difficulty is bugged and battles only can be played at "Normal". It's not going to be fixed either. And there's a delay even at normal.

It's realistic but it benefits the attacker and therefore the defender have less time to react. Another advantage for a game that already favours rushes.

[Mars]

Well, about STW i played right from start, i already was hugged playing the demo...

I used a german version at start, the first patch was only english, so i couldnt play online anymore, well.... u needed someone without patch.

LAg was insane, worser than now, it was only play able if u got someone with cable or all had settings lowered massivly....



The problems i see here are, that some try to compare the pure stats. While other compare also feelings.
Its also hard to arque about many things, since some simply never made any experience in STW or MTW.


I really have problems to understand people, who constantly claim that CA/sega forget about the Onlineplay....since it is the "future" ...bla bla

For TW it isnt and never will be! TW has an own market and there are tons of player who dont want to play online. Some simply are too slow to run a clickfest, other have stuff to do and like to have many breaks while playing. Other simply dont like to play battles.... u can add many many more reasons...

Fact is, like 2-3% of the people who bought a TW copy played online or tried it at least once! Fact is that 1,5 million copies are sold, fact is they made some good cash.

Now, tell me, how on earth they can gain a good amount of new Mplayer with this kind of game? I mean, they need to get like 200.000 more to make it a different and worth to put some effort in it.

Yes, u get it, this kind of game isnt made to be a good online game. The system the basic mecanics are not made to pleassure 200.000 or more player.
The only way to attract more or lets say, enought...is to make it more arcae like and this would be something completly different from what most people want.


It doesnt matter, which TW game was best or what u like most, if u love STW, go and play STW, if u love RTW, go play RTW.... this is tiresome!
The current game (only this is supported by CA) is MTW2, play it or play it not, but to compare something is theorycraft and completly useless, apart from giving some old farts some base to repeat their phrases over and over again.

TW will always stay 95% Single player, unless is completly change. U must be ignorant or stupid to think that this battles will ever hugg more than a few hundred/thousend player.



The orginal TW game, which was the best for my liking, was surely the most skilled TW game, u could outplay people by maneuvering and win 1v2 or 1v3, by using the terrain. This kind of game is too complex to attract many player, especially younger people are not interested to "learn" a game, they want to log on, understand the basic and than get into the average phase in a short time.

Exactly this is, what the most successfull games provide, like WC3, SC, egoshooter....


And u can see, that this also understood CA, they dumbed down every version, in the end u had a game with MTW already, which was pretty simple compared to old STW. Inactivity was winning over activity in MTW, u could win by doin nothing.

I made longrun tests with amp, we made turtels and also did put all units in same spot, guess what..... (just in short)

In the end i had a 99:100 winratio in my games, i simply won any CWB or whatever game, it was tiresome since i was used to move quick and a lot.

Its a shame, i did end with moving 1 or 2 spears to tire out enemy units and than just roll it up... MTW was the first big step down the river...

Anyway, i dont expect anything from CA, they move on with what we are used to. I just come here check old guys and whine a bit myself....


Mars


PS: Susi u surely rember some of our epic battles, the CWB 2v2 ...wooot, it was 1v2 and this was almost impossible in MTW or the insane 1v3 played in STW....hell :P

People did fear skill back in STW, today they fear ur setup!

[Stig]

It's important to have responsive units so that you can react to a dynamically changing battlefield situation. Also, non-responsive units detract from the ability to coordinate the units.

Some simply are too slow to run a clickfest

Oh, pick me, pick me!!!

Go post Mars

[|Heerbann|_Di3Hard]

@Mars

Do you remember, what they said in the developer blogs? "Balanced game, we will be all happy about the MP mode..." ;)

If they are not interested in the MP mode, why did they integrated that mode? In my opinion next TW game shouldn't have any MP part anymore. And they should develop for the XBOX and PS3. They can sell 10 MILLION copies :) They will have alot less complains and only few less fans. And games for console gamers can have ALOT less content. They want only "NEXT GEN" graphics.

[Mars]

@Mars

Do you remember, what they said in the developer blogs? "Balanced game, we will be all happy about the MP mode..." ;)

If they are not interested in the MP mode, why did they integrated that mode? In my opinion next TW game shouldn't have any MP part anymore. And they should develop for the XBOX and PS3. They can sell 10 MILLION copies :) They will have alot less complains and only few less fans. And games for console gamers can have ALOT less content. They want only "NEXT GEN" graphics.

Yes, ofc i remember that, i also remember the famous blog of pala...
U could read there what every Mplayer was dreaming about.

Now lets get it straight. He an ex-Mplayer who exactly know ( at least i assume that) was lieing or in the best case, he was left out and the devs did hold informations back. Whaterver, what he wrote was wrong, the blog did mislead people.


Yes, i agree, TW should have any MPlayer part at all, the few % they will lose are not mentionable. Still, it sounds much better if there is "....online epic multiplayer battle.." on the package.


I remember pretty well, how i wrote a few sides to pala, with many questions, exact questions, my post never made it into his "blog", he simply ignore it.
Exactly this was the point, where i was aware of what we was getting, it was also obvious that he knew most or at least many problems already.



Again, i gonna repeat me, the current lag was 100% known before they games hit the shops! All u did need was 4-6 computer and than test is via GS server.
The game was sold with the knowledge of this major problem, also pala knew it and he still did claim at this time that the game will fit our liking!


His blog isnt up anymore, the last i could read from him, was something like...
"...yes, im involved into CA and i had to realizie how "bussiness" work, i see now the big picture..."

Not the exact words, but it contains the words he used.


Mars

[Puzz3D]

And u can see, that this also understood CA, they dumbed down every version, in the end u had a game with MTW already, which was pretty simple compared to old STW. Inactivity was winning over activity in MTW, u could win by doin nothing.

I made longrun tests with amp, we made turtels and also did put all units in same spot, guess what..... (just in short)

In the end i had a 99:100 winratio in my games, i simply won any CWB or whatever game, it was tiresome since i was used to move quick and a lot.

The fatigue rates in MTW are exactly the same as they are in STW with one exception. The exception is that the fatigue rate for running cavalry is 10% less than it is in STW. This was a suggestion I made to LongJohn to enable cav to pursue routers all the way to the edge of a large map. My original suggestion was to reduce the fatigue rates for all units, but he refused to do that. The problem with fatigue in MTW is that the maps got larger.

The battle engine in MTW is actually superior to the battle engine in STW, and you can recreate the gameplay of STW very well with the MTW engine. It's done by adjusting the parameters in MTW for better balance. The only things wrong with MTW/VI v2.01 are that the parameters are not adjusted as well as they could have been, and the discount on upgrades for ranged units is misguided. The specific request made was for more effective ranged weapons, but LongJohn implimented the discounts instead.

There is no way you can recreate the gameplay of STW with either the RTW or M2TW engines. These engines are inferior in their ability to create the depth of tactics and robust statistical modeling of the STW/MTW engine.

I think multiplayer participation would have continued to grow if all the features of the old STW/MTW battle engines had been retained and improved upon in the new RTW/M2TW engines, and if the network performance had been maintained. You can see this trend with the increase of something like a factor of 2x in multiplayer participation from STW to MTW.

[Mars]

possible puzz. I always was more a player who did trust his feeling.

While in STW i could easy outmaneuver people and flank pretty nice,
in MTW, i did end (vs good player) with some simply "tricks", i used it only in important games to avoid people make it a generall tactic.

The tactic ensured me an insane winratio, i did beat the elite in CWB 1v2 twice up and downhill. Most people considered it impossible to win 1v2 as mostly u just lost coz fatique to the second guy.

Anyway, using the different types ( elite and normal) move a spearunit with 2 rows in front of ur 4-5 elite in center and ensure, that the enemy fight exactly this unit. Its determind by the use of units and how people move.

The good guys ordered any unit and the less good guys just clicked behind, whatever u did, u run into the spear, the cheapest one ofc... u can imagin what happend, i stand compact and tired the enemy elite by sacre my useless spear.

2 row spears i used mostly 2 units and it worked perfectly, i also could close a whole side on flat maps in 1v1.... stupid mecanics.

The problem was that with time u lost fatique and that the moralsetting was crap in MTW, it was very hard to rout enemy player. So u had to wait to get 2 bars down, what made ur units shaky as well.


U can surely mod anything with that engin, but majority play with CA version online mostly.


And again, pure number of player.... the record i personal saw was as i hold my tourney, 326 on peak. We should get real, u need 50.000 or 100.000 player to make a it interesting for online play.

Even with a factor of 2x we could end with maybe 1000 or 2000 player online.
I dunno at what point it would become interesting for CA/SEGA, but even 5000 would be too less.

You, me and some other guys have the patience and the lust to learn a game and improve by playing it, we also can accept and even love that, that it takes a lot of time to get better and better. Find new tacs, try out stuff, work on different styles....

Sadly the majorty of the possible online player are not like this, i already wrote it some pots up.... Majority player like to buy a game and get to an average skillvl in a very short time.

While in STW, people came online and was rolled for some weeks, it took ages for new people to get to a certain skilllvl to at least not get spanked in a min or two. Most young player dont like this, but this is the majority. CA is aware of this fact and they did adjust their game.

Mars

[Stig]

The new engine was introduced to take full advantage of 3D.
Millions like it, Puzz3D doesn't like it.

It's a hard choice for CA, hard indeed.


TW's future isn't in the MP business, you can see that when you look at the amount of players. Most people can't be bothered with MP anyway, they prefer the campaign.