So when do you think ETW will be stable and ready for me to buy? [Archive]

Monk

03-23-2009, 23:56

ETW has bugs and problems just like every single TW game in recent memory. But are there any game-breaking bugs that make me want to ring up CA's office and shout "THIS IS AN OUTRAGE!"?

No. Not from what I have seen. The only huge glaring flaws the game currently as (imo) is the pathfinding on the campaign map (which leads the AI to be unable to execute naval landings) and the occasional lobotomy of the AI on the battlefield leading them to do some really stupid things. Obviously there are many minor tweaks needed here and there, scuffs of the paint job on an otherwise fine vehicle, but the two gnarled fenders and broken tail lights really need looked at, and they will be by all accounts.

While the game isn't perfect and suffers from some major bugs, I wouldn't call it unplayable by any stretch of the imagination. Of course if you wanted to wait a week or two for the next patch before buying I couldn't fault you either. :shrug:

Me? I'm enjoying myself.

Veresov

03-24-2009, 01:07

When someone asks a reasonable question why do people try to snow him into buying a game that has a high probability of not even running on his PC? Maybe to make him suffer?

I am referring to the THOUSANDS of posts on the developers website in the Technical Support forum from people that can't run the game, have constant CTD's, white screen of death, etc.:furious3:

My personal recommendation is not to buy this game in its current beta form. Wait for the patch that fixes both the gameplay and the technical issues. Empire wasn't playtested well and has more technical glitches than its previous titles.

A Very Super Market

03-24-2009, 02:24

Because unhappy people are more vocal than happy people. Most of us who have little problems do not think of making a thread to praise CA. Just a little justification, though I agree that the game is rather unpolished.

Grumfoss

03-24-2009, 12:05

I want to say that I find the game very playable....yes there are bugs/glitches but these are not really spoiling my enjoyment of the game.

I really just wish I had more time to play as I only get in a couple of hours a night. The patches will help solve a lot of the problems. The developers will never be able to make a game that pleases everyone as machines are different bugs will always exist. That is why so many developers have moved away from the PC gaming market to create games for consoles as they are much easier to program for.

pevergreen

03-24-2009, 12:19

Wheres the option for it being playable now?

+1

Biased poll.

Zatoichi

03-24-2009, 12:30

What no Gah! option? Consider this a vote for Gah!

I'm enjoying it warts an' all. I'm sorry for the folks who are having severe problems - I'm one of the lucky ones I guess - but we have no way of knowing how many people are able to play and enjoy it compared to those who are having game ending problems.

Wait or buy it now, it's your time and money after all - I'm glad I got it on release, I've already had hours of fun. That said, I'm looking forward to patches too, this game is set to get even better.

Merak

03-24-2009, 12:33

were is the option for halle berry?

seriusly i think the game is stable now even though i have had CTD:s but it should be stable within 2weeks

antisocialmunky

03-24-2009, 13:07

Mine work fine at max settings. But I guess I'm fairly lucky.

LittleGrizzly

03-24-2009, 13:12

BeenPlayingSinceRTW

03-24-2009, 13:54

+1

Biased poll.

Poll is not about "playability". Poll is about "stability" and when game will be "worth paying for".

No bias, just asking a fair question. :beam:

Beskar

03-24-2009, 14:06

It's fine enough now. The game is fairly stable and looking to get improved. No real point waiting months for something you want.

Could always see it as play now, get the practise in and improve then come back to it later.

Darth Venom

03-24-2009, 14:14

Poll is not about "playability". Poll is about "stability" and when game will be "worth paying for".

No bias, just asking a fair question. :beam:

It isn't fair because the answer to "Is it stable enough?" and "Is it worth paying for?" is "HELL YES!!!"

BeenPlayingSinceRTW

03-24-2009, 14:18

The game is fairly stable and looking to get improved.

You have hit the nail right on the head.

ETW is not "stable" yet, it's only "fairly stable". And there is definite room for improvement, with major issues related to saving games as well as the AI. Why should I pay for a game that hasn't been finished yet? The boards are full of threads started by people who played ETW for 30 or 40 turns only to find that their saved game files were corrupted due to a bug.

Why should I pay money to be a beta tester?

I would rather wait until CA have finished work on the game.

quadalpha

03-24-2009, 14:19

This seems to be exactly the kind of inflammatory thread we don't need; it was only ever going to divide opinion and not provide any possible objective answer.

BeenPlayingSinceRTW

03-24-2009, 14:26

It isn't fair because the answer to "Is it stable enough?" and "Is it worth paying for?" is "HELL YES!!!"

Obviously, you are entitled to your opinion.

But a quick look at the responses to the poll and to this thread shows that you are in the minority - most people do not feel ETW is stable yet. Take a look at Steam's ETW forums or the official Total War forums. Many, many, many people are having problems and are anxiously awaiting the next patch in the hope that it will fix their issues.

It's a legitimate question to ask, and CA are not being forthcoming with the information, so it makes sense to ask here.

BeenPlayingSinceRTW

03-24-2009, 14:29

This seems to be exactly the kind of inflammatory thread we don't need; it was only ever going to divide opinion and not provide any possible objective answer.

That's balderdash - 25 people have voted on the poll. We are getting some good objective data here. Where's the divisiveness?

PBI

03-24-2009, 14:32

You have hit the nail right on the head.

ETW is not "stable" yet, it's only "fairly stable". And there is definite room for improvement, with major issues related to saving games as well as the AI. Why should I pay for a game that hasn't been finished yet? The boards are full of threads started by people who played ETW for 30 or 40 turns only to find that their saved game files were corrupted due to a bug.

Why should I pay money to be a beta tester?

I would rather wait until CA have finished work on the game.

Well if that is your question I would say probably wait for the expansion, I believe in past games that generally represents the final official patch for vanilla, i.e. the point where CA "finish working" on the game.

But I'm afraid if you are waiting for the game to be completely stable, you will be waiting forever, nothing ever is these days. All the previous TW games do still have stability issues from time to time and ETW is not going to be the exception (EB, for instance, crashes on me roughly once every hour but I rarely hear it described as unplayable). The best one can hope for is for it to be stable enough to be playable, which many people would argue it is. Remember to keep saves from previous turns and you should be able to avoid most of the repeatable CTDs.

rajpoot

03-24-2009, 16:32

Yup, nothing is perfect, I don't think they've fixed all the bugs in M2TW even now......the one I'm talking about is not so much a bug but more like a glitch......every time you kill a Native American general the message says 'Saracen' or something like that.

CookieRawr

03-24-2009, 16:54

I've had two ctds in my British game, and a few freezes whilst clicking on a naval port with ships in it still, I was playing it with Unit size set to Ultra. In my new Prussian game I lowered it to Large army size . It seems alot more stable and doesn't freeze as often.

peacemaker

03-24-2009, 16:58

Yes, the game has many bugs. It's still playable and is most definetely worth it. Within the next few patches, they'll start fixing the bugs but until then, PLAY!:whip: It's a great game and deserves your time

Heinrich VI

03-24-2009, 17:25

you are better of waiting until the potentially gamebraking bugs are fixed. might save you alot of frustration. i know some people are not affected by the various CTDs and corrupted saves - lucky few...

py personal experience with ETW so far is:

prussian GC m/m 1769: doomed due to CTD upon pressing endturn
france WC h/h 1755: doomed due to freeze during swedens AI turn
spain GC vh/vh 1722: doomed due to a corrupted save (auto- and quicksave)

:thumbsdown:

quadalpha

03-24-2009, 17:39

Point is, you might be more likely to see people with complaints here than people without.

Relic

03-24-2009, 17:42

People like to complain. I'd say BUY IT NOW if the option was there.
What people fail to realize is that it's IMPOSSIBLE to release a game without bugs. After all, this one has less than previous TW titles did.

Heinrich VI

03-24-2009, 17:49

i have to disagree with this. many people seem to forget how buggy f.e. MTW 1.0 was. it CTDed quite frequently maybe even more than ETW. RTW had the potentially game breaking save/load bug and the missile stats used for melee bug but it atleast was quite stable. M2TW had the disheartening passive AI, 2-handed weapon, shieldbug and no naval invasions (only counting major bugs i remember) but it too was quite stable. and so far only MTW and ETW forced me to abandon campaigns due to corrupted saves or constant endturn CTDs! (not counting crashes due to mods)

Fisherking

03-24-2009, 18:22

Just go buy the game!

And if you can’t get past a bug now and then, then wait for the Gold Edition…

:laugh4:

Vlad Tzepes

03-24-2009, 19:36

The game is great, I really love it. Despite all it's problems, I would go buy it again. Eventually a patch will come and sort out some of the game-breaker bugs and it will make ETW stable. Until then, I just pretend I'm in training time :beam: (trying to be optimistic and not to think about how CA took my money for an unfinished product).

On the other hand, people here say other TW titles were unstable while in 1.0 version. I'm sorry to say that, but none of the others forced me to abandon even one campaign. Ever, from Shogun onwards. In ETW, I already had to drop 2 and it looks like the third is going the same way...

Other people don't seem to have any problem. Lucky b***rds :clown:

Are you a lucky person? Then go for it!

Skott

03-24-2009, 20:05

You can play it now and have fun but if you are wanting it as bug free and as stable as possible I'd say 6 months. If they dont have all the kinks worked out by then then CA wont ever have it worked out. I should point out that CA has never ever had a totally bug free game even after all the official patches. IMO it will be the modders that take this from an okay good game to a really good or great game. Just like they did for RTW amd M2TW. That is just my opinion though. :book:

Graphic

03-24-2009, 20:06

Wheres the option for it being playable now?

This ^

Veresov

03-24-2009, 22:07

Isn't this one far better than the release of RTW and MTW2 (less sure on latter) yeah there are some problems but i think CA have made a big improvment and should be congratulated on the fact, the game would quite likely be very runnable for you... the main killer for me at the moment is the ai's inability to invade by sea

Far better? Not hardly. Give me a break. This game in its current form is unstable and doesn't run. You are lucking that it runs for you. MTW2 and RTW at least launched and ran stable for the vast majority of users. There are a huge number of people that can't even play this game. You are doing no service to the community when you steer people to a game without warning them first to carefully check their specs to see if their pc or graphics card isn't one of the bugged ones.

BeenPlayingSinceRTW

03-25-2009, 12:51

Interesting poll results so far...

It looks like aalmost 70% of respondents think it will be at least 3 months before CA have the game stable, with most of that 70% thinking it will be 6 months.

Not too encouraging. :no:

johnhughthom

03-25-2009, 13:06

BeenPlayingSinceRTW

03-25-2009, 14:53

The fact your poll ignores the people who find the game acceptable now, and there are a number of posters in this thread with that opinion, means the results are going to be skewed in that direction. You say the poll is about stability, not playability, for me stability is inherent to playability. It seems to me you have made the poll expecting to gain a certain response.

I think you are just displeased because the results of this objective poll show widespread dissatisfaction with the current state of the game.

I'll say it again: The poll wasn't about "playability", it was about when the game would be stable and production-quality. A super-buggy alpha version of a game might be "playable". A buggy beta version or frequently-crashing demo of a game might be "playable". But I wouldn't want to pay money for any of those. If I pay money, I expect a stable game that is free of major bugs. I don't expect perfection, but I expect a certain level of quality. Quality means no frequent crashes to desktop, AI that works at least as well as the AI in previous TW titles, no corrupted save games, battle maps that match the campaign map topography, no automatic patches that break a working install, etc. - you get the idea...

The poll is about when we can realistically expect that level of quality from ETW, not whether it is "playable".

P.S.-If you don't believe that the poll from this thread is reflective of reality, take a look at Amazon.com's reviews of the game where more than half of the reviewers gave the game (in it's current state) only 1 out of a possible 5 stars!

PBI

03-25-2009, 16:12

I think you are just displeased because the results of this objective poll show widespread dissatisfaction with the current state of the game.

They don't show this at all, by your own reasoning.

Either the poll is asking the question (as you argue), "when do you think the major bugs in the game will be fixed?", in which case you could describe it as fair since I don't think anyone is saying the game has no bugs at present, or else it is asking (as the title seems to imply) "are you dissatisfied with the current state of the game?", in which case it is a loaded question and essentially meaningless since there is no "no" option. You may as well conclude that since only 41 of the 23,197 members on the site have voted, the rest are all satisfied with the current state of the game.

Reading through what people have actually written in this thread paints a rather different picture to what you would have us believe your poll indicates, just as reading some of the actual reviews on Amazon gives a clearer picture than just looking at the average score (always a good idea whenever buying anything there BTW to find out why people didn't like a product).

johnhughthom

03-25-2009, 17:03

I think you are just displeased because the results of this objective poll show widespread dissatisfaction with the current state of the game.

The "result" of this poll will neither please or displease me, I am well aware many people have issues with the game and they have every right to complain about them, the assumption that nobody is having a problem free experience with Empire is something I find annoying.
Just in case you think I'm some sort of CA fanboy I will say that I still find M2TW to be a horrid mess and haven't touched it in over a year. RTW was poor on release and took mods to make it interesting to play. I had low expectations of ETW and have been pleasantly surprised to find it the most playable unmodded TW game since the original MTW.

BeenPlayingSinceRTW

03-25-2009, 17:12

They don't show this at all, by your own reasoning.

Either the poll is asking the question (as you argue), "when do you think the major bugs in the game will be fixed?", in which case you could describe it as fair since I don't think anyone is saying the game has no bugs at present, or else it is asking (as the title seems to imply) "are you dissatisfied with the current state of the game?", in which case it is a loaded question and essentially meaningless since there is no "no" option. You may as well conclude that since only 41 of the 23,197 members on the site have voted, the rest are all satisfied with the current state of the game.

Reading through what people have actually written in this thread paints a rather different picture to what you would have us believe your poll indicates, just as reading some of the actual reviews on Amazon gives a clearer picture than just looking at the average score (always a good idea whenever buying anything there BTW to find out why people didn't like a product).

You are dreaming if you can't see that there is widespread dissatisfaction with the current state of ETW - here are some quotes from a few of the most recent Amazon.com reviews:

"Don't waste your coin on this"

"Never has so much been done to tart up so little."

"Game unplayable"

"Early purchasers are in effect beta testers."

"it works for awhile until you get a turn where it just crashes every time and goes to the ubiquitous Windows "your program has stopped working...". Wait until the many bugs are fixed."

"Irresponsible release"

"Don't buy this game in its current format "

"The Total War series should be ashamed of itself."

"It is definitely a couple steps down from Rome"

"I would reccomend this game to someone once it hits 30 dollars."

"Gameplay review-- Unsatisfactory"

"the game just feels incomplete"

"Almost unplayable"

"I hope that it will be improved with a patch, but I think it unlikely, at least not to the point where it would be playable for me."

"This game is broken, don't bother, wait until they get it fixed. Game crashes when you attack towns, game crashes when you enter enemy territory, game crashes when you do nothing. The last patch they released for it did not fix these things."

johnhughthom

03-25-2009, 17:17

Hmm, it seem I sealed my fate defending Empire, after my last post I tried to load up my current game and all my saves crash.... :embarassed::shame:

KozaK13

03-25-2009, 17:21

Buy it now it is fine, stop all your gurning.

Lord of the Isles

03-25-2009, 17:40

On the whiner/fanboy scale of 0-10, I'd put myself about 2-3. Probably that's been consistent through all the TW series; it isn't just ETW that I've had issues with.

Anyway, BeenPlayingSinceRTW, PBI is only pointing out that the poll itself is missing an option for 'game fine as it is', if you want to use the results of it in any meaningful way. Which is correct. I would consider anyone voting that way plain wrong, but they are entitled to their opinion. I say 'wrong' because even if the game works for them and they enjoy it, there are clearly large numbers of people for whom it works badly, if at all, as CA have admitted. So I couldn't call any game in that state "stable" or recommend that someone buy it, even if I was having a whale of a time with it.

Of course, just when I leap to defend the other side, KozaK13 trolls in. :smash:

@johnhughthom: My sympathy. Hope it proves just to be a one-off with this game.

quadalpha

03-25-2009, 17:43

Perhaps you should have considered posting your specs if you wanted an actual judgment on if it will be stable for you.
How many reviewers (I mean actual published reviews) have complained about unplayability due to stability?

johnhughthom

03-25-2009, 17:52

PBI is only pointing out that the poll itself is missing an option for 'game fine as it is', if you want to use the results of it in any meaningful way. Which is correct. I would consider anyone voting that way plain wrong, but they are entitled to their opinion. I say 'wrong' because even if the game works for them and they enjoy it, there are clearly large numbers of people for whom it works badly, if at all, as CA have admitted. So I couldn't call any game in that state "stable" or recommend that someone buy it, even if I was having a whale of a time with it.

That doesn't really make sense, you can only vote for the experience you, personally, are having. If you are playing a game that hasn't crashed or shown any problems you should say it isn't stable because others are having issues?

@johnhughthom: My sympathy. Hope it proves just to be a one-off with this game.

Thanks, I was only at 1703 in my second GB campaign, though I had just wiped out the pirates.

rory_20_uk

03-25-2009, 18:13

Since Shogun I've not bothered playing the basic game.

Playing a heavily modded previous iteration with an AI that can siege, is inherently stable and has been crafted for years is better than one that's more pretty, more features - but not been really tested for how they all work together.

For a game like this having units that still won't fight on the tactical map is inexcusable. This is the whole point of the game! Great - naval combat... oh, but the AI is so weak that you can constantly thrash it due to its poor tactics. And so on.

After a few patches to get the basics sorted out, and the modding community to try to force some "I" into the AI I'll probably get it.

When is less of an issue as I like the last version when I get a chance to play.

For long term use, fewer, better balanced features are better. For the "Wow" factor and to bring in the punters a vast number of sort of worked out features will impress more in the review and shift more copies.

~:smoking:

Relic

03-25-2009, 18:16

JUST DO IT!

:2thumbsup:

Seriously though, amazon users just love to whine! Most of them are either too young or too old the understand the problems games face when they are released. Patches and solutions take time... but it's worth trying it and if its not satisfying then ignore it for a month or two.

quadalpha

03-25-2009, 19:00

Think of it this way: decide if you're going to buy it, and then decide if the amount of interest your $50 would earn over the next few months sitting in your bank account is worth the trouble.

KozaK13

03-25-2009, 21:45

Of course, just when I leap to defend the other side, KozaK13 trolls in. :smash:

It is only a game, not as if it is something major that requires people to have opinions defended. Anyway why does he not check reviews to decide on whether to buy it or not? Why not read threads people already have made? Why create a poll that only people who have problems with the game can answer? Pointless thread that is basically just for people to argue over, and the problem is many people including myself can't resist arguing....

Malkut

03-26-2009, 00:06

Obvious solution: if you're that afraid, just don't buy the game.

BeenPlayingSinceRTW

03-26-2009, 19:39

A lot of people on this and other TW boards are reporting that yesterday's patch made the game worse for them. Also reports that people who previously had no problems are now getting CTD after the patch.

Not a good sign. :no:

Malkut

03-26-2009, 20:27

MikeV

03-27-2009, 14:01

Point is, you might be more likely to see people with complaints here than people without.
There is another group, not counted: those who can't even get the beast to run. Wonder how counting them would change the stats.

johnhughthom

03-27-2009, 14:03

Wouldn't they be in the "getting a refund, games not ready" category?

nameless

03-27-2009, 15:25

Wow this poll is really skewed.

The game's run fine on my rig and it's not even top end. I get some crashes first time but the patches have fixed it. THen there was an error with the previous patch but CA's recent hotfix changed that so now I'm able to finish my game. I reckon there's tons of people out there with the same experience just don't have a need to come here and complain/look for help.

I'm just at work so I can't play right now :p

The only thing I can think of is probably the memory slowdown when your in the late game but that's that.

Now this may shock you guys but people actually have computers that are actually DIFFERENT from each other so the poll should read, "When do you think ETW will be 100% stable that EVERYONE can play it?"

There's no way any computing company can make a software as complex as Empire to work on millions of different computer layouts immediately.

Slaists

03-27-2009, 19:31

Clearly from the huge volume of complaints and reported bugs, ETW was released before it was ready. Right now, ETW has only two stars on Amazon.com ( http://www.amazon.com/Empire-Total-War-Pc/product-reviews/B0018YXM3Y )

So I'm glad I waited and decided not to buy initially. :yes:

But when do you think the game will be okay for me to buy?

Well, I have had the game for 4 days now and have probably around 24 hours of game-play 'behind me'. The game has not crashed one single time running on all ultra settings...

So, the crashes are highly user system specific.

Skott

03-27-2009, 22:35

Here's an example of one problem players may experience. Today I was playing a GB campaign and I was in India taking on the Marathas. I deploy my troops and start the battle. Everything is going well at first until my horse artillery units (3 total) got a mind of their own. I had them on a hill behind and above my line infantry facing towards the enemy. They are limbered up because I had plans to move them somewhere else soon but hadnt decided where yet. My General and his body guard were a little bit behind the artillery. So there I was my infantry standing solid and holding the line as some Maratha soldiers were advancing. Battle is going well and next thing I know all three artillery units unlimber, do a 180 degree turn (about face) and shoot at my General's body guard. They killed my 5 star general and some of his guard!

I'm like WTF!!! :furious3: So I give a quick command to stop, turned off the auto fire, and gave the command to limber back up again. Nope, they then do a 180 degree turn and start shooting at the enemy which by now had closed with my linemen in melee. Both my troops and the enemy are getting blown up. Again I give them a stop firing command and try and get them to limber up. Finally they took the command and I moved them back farther away from the battle so they couldnt do any more harm. The rest of the battle went fine for me but I was pissed I lost my 5 star general. Luckily it wasnt my more experienced general.

True story. I dont know what posessed the units to do that. I had moved them up onto the hill and just had them waiting there till I could decide what to do with them. I swear there's a gremlin in this game! I like playing ETW but there are times I want to break the retail discs and go find a CA developer to strangle! :wall: