View Full Version : Creative Assembly I am not pleased with RTW
Revenant69
08-20-2003, 07:22
Well i have seen alot of screenies, movies from RTW to pass my judgement on it.
To put it mildly - I AM NOT IMPRESSED. I shall explain my gripes about it.
1 Look at all those pretty graphics, man that must mean that you need one hell of a machine to run that game. My dinosaur P3 is barely hadling large battles in MTW.
2 The campaign map is soooo horrific, yes its all 3D but you know STW and MTW maps drew you into the game. I think a parchment map is enough (like it is in MTW). RTW map looks alot like Civ3. I ESPECIALLY dislike the campaign map - it is a biggie for me.
3 Attack of the CLones. I know MTW has clone soldiers too, however, they are much much smaller and hence their likeness is lost - when you look at your army you see individuals. In RTW you have nice BIG models which all look the same so you cannot escape the fact that they are all clones (i can understand that from a design point of view). But still, it doesnt appeal to me.
Well so far it seems to be it. If you noticed it's all graphics related stuff (cuz so far thats all i have seen). Dont get me wrong, i like the idea of RTW. Roman Empire had rich history, i just hope that us average ppl will be able to enjoy it.
Criticism is welcome (in moderate doses http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/smile.gif ). As I said, it is my current opinion, which may change when i play the demo or something. But so far i am unimpressed.
Cheers
Gregoshi
08-20-2003, 08:38
To bolster your spirits a little Revenant:
1) From everything we've heard from the CA folks, RTW is running on the same machines that currently can handle MTW. And they tell us the code has not yet been optimized for efficiency. So don't dis your computer just yet. There may be a loss of detail on some of the slower machines but that might help you out with gripe #3 (Attack of the Clones). http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/smile.gif
2) This one may be a matter of taste, but still, hope is not lost. There is another post in this forum that show preliminary MTW campaign maps to compare against the final campaign map released in the game. They had quite a different feel.
3) If the Attack of the Clone issue bothers you, then you need not zoom down that close to the action. These movies and screen shots are really zoomed in to show you the kind of detail the game has to offer. However, how many of us will actually play the game zoomed in that close? No, we will hover god-like over the battlefield moving our men here and there like an Olympian game of chess.
In the end, if the game play is superb, then it will pull you into the game such that the graphic annoyances are much easier to overlook. There have been many great looking games that turned out to be just awful because the game play wasn't there. However, I can remember many games with lousy graphics that just didn't matter because they were such fun to play.
I'm very encouraged and excited by what I've seen so far, but it is entirely too early to jump on either the "It rocks" or "It sucks" bandwagons. Time will tell.
Revenant69
08-20-2003, 09:02
Wow, what can i say.....Great reply Gregoshi. You did indeed bolster my spirit somewhat and made me laugh.
I am glad that the performance issue is being looked at - i simply cant afford to buy a new comp or upgrade.
The campaign map does really bother me though. It just looks too ugly for me (graphically and aesthetically (sp?)). As i said, simple parchment like scroll is good enough.
I guess you are right about the Attack of the Clones, they tried to show off their engine and in so doing made tehir clones too BIG lol.
I agree with you that the gameplay will make or break the game, however, if the capmaign map is so ugly that every time i look at it i want to throw up - it may impede my gameplay.
Thanks for a valuable response. http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/wink.gif
i share the concern about the attack of the clones. I think that should be fixed before final realease. Also the horses bobing their tails in perfect sycronicity will be pretty jarring to the eye.
If CA is clearly out to impress us with graphics. They should go all the way, and not leave the job HALF-DONE. http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/biggrin.gif
Well i want them to make it top grahpics even if you need a superpowerd PC to run it.
Well i liek the campagin map.
aslo i agree with the cloons.
Yes I'll just let you stare at the faces of your soldiers while I rush you with loads of elephants.. http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/rolleyes.gif
Fixing all the sync movement would be nice..faces..well I dont have that as my top priority http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/wink.gif
CBR
Quote[/b] (CBR @ Aug. 20 2003,11:29)]Yes I'll just let you stare at the faces of your soldiers while I rush you with loads of elephants.. http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/rolleyes.gif
LOL. Yeah synch movements are more important.
You know what idea I had CBR ? Ok make sure you are sitting down. Are you sitting down yet ? You will love this. MUHHAHAA
Right. Every man on the field has an different face, or his face is taken from a pool of avatars like in MTW. When the man gains rank or becomes unit leader, general etc the SAME face from the battle map (i.e avatar) is used for the info screens.
http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/biggrin.gif
Quote[/b] (SeljukSinan @ Aug. 20 2003,12:38)]Right. Every man on the field has an different face, or his face is taken from a pool of avatars like in MTW. When the man gains rank or becomes unit leader, general etc the SAME face from the battle map (i.e avatar) is used for the info screens.
Hehe
Sounds neat and is advanced yet doable. Not sure if you are serious about it, but I think this sounds great http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/smile.gif
Rafiki
A.Saturnus
08-20-2003, 12:25
1) I don`t believe that RTW will run on the same PCs as MTW, but there are 2 years between these two games. You can expect a newer program to need better hardware. If your machine is to old, that`s your problem. Doom 3 won`t run on my machine, but that`s not a reason 'not to be impressed' by it.
2) Parchment is definitely not enough. Remember that there is a continuity strat map/battle map, so it has to be 3D. It doesn`t look final now, but zoomed out it`s not that bad. The map in MTW is ugly too, when you zoom in very much.
3) As Gregoshi said, what we see there are just close-ups you won`t usually see when playing. The same as before, zoomed in the men in MTW look much worse than that. Asyncrone animations would be cool, but aren`t a must. I`m sure you wouldn`t notice it anymore after 30 minutes of the game.
Quote[/b] ]Right. Every man on the field has an different face, or his face is taken from a pool of avatars like in MTW. When the man gains rank or becomes unit leader, general etc the SAME face from the battle map (i.e avatar) is used for the info screens.
Ok, and every man should also have an individual voice and his heart rythme should be simulated individually and influence his behavior. http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/wink.gif
Well, I am impressed. The graphics look absolute fantastic (just look at the pic with the sunset) and combined with the feature-list, I`m seriously worrying what`s gonna be with my studies next year.
1: I'm quite confident that it will be at least as good as UT2k3 was for my gf2mx.
Don't forget that M:TW is mostly only software rendered.
Rome:TW is going to be making full use of at least directx7 (I don't see any signs of pixel shaders & stuff without pixel shaders is effectively directx7) hardware acceleration so most of the extra load will be on the graphics card.
If there are no pixel shaders, then its going to be down to the speed of the card at drawing polys & texture
Like UT2k3 running on my old geforce2mx, I expect that you will be able to use the same detail models, but the textures will be much lower quality and the LOD models/textures will swap in closer than on a more powerful system.
2: I see good points and bad points to the campaign map.
I'm not sure I like the animated armies-as-one-guy.
I'd prefer that they were the classic TW game pieces or a mini version of the contents.
I think it might work out being much better to use than people think from the pics. Could suck ass too though
3: I like the idea of random face textures & it could be about as easy to do as randomising the animation timing.
Otherwise the point remains that you don't need to go down to that level http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/wink.gif
Well the idea for the faces I had, I would implement (or try to) if I had any management say in CA (all CA rise up in appluase happy that I don't have any voice there) :P
If it were my game, I'd do it. Detail is what made STW stand out. RTW is supposed to be a ground breaker, so let's shake up the industry a bit.
I only spoke about it now, coz of CBR's remark. http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/pat.gif
I personally don't think it's a big deal, yet I can hear all those who come to explain WHY it CAN'T be done.
Hell Tell me HOW it CAN be done people http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/biggrin.gif
It's not a main priority for me. Again if I were at CA, once the more important things (like those mad horses) are fixed. I'd pursue it.
Rocket_Boy
08-20-2003, 13:46
While I can see why everyone is suspicious about the system specs required for RTW, every indication from CA suggests that RTW will run just as well as MTW on same spec machines. Why can't we just believe them until we know better, I can't see how it would benefit them to keep us in the dark. Modern 3d graphics cards are much more capable at handling 3d polygonal images than 2d sprites for one reason. Also notice how games for the next gen consoles eg. ps2, xbox have significantly improved graphics than their counterparts 2 years ago despite no hardware improvement.
Sir Robin
08-20-2003, 14:15
For me it is just to early to tell.
I have seen alot of finished games over the years that look very different from the "leaks" and previews.
If the game is playable on my pc: WinME, 800Mhz, 256MB Ram, 64MB Geforce, I will buy it.
I am a bigger fan of gameplay than eye-candy. The clone soldiers will not bother me because I will rarely zoom in. I will be more worried about not keeping tabs on the enemy's moves, than seeing individual "clone-drones" hacking at each other.
My main concern is game balance and AI intelligence, or lack thereof.
If it takes till summer or even x-mas 2004 to get the AI in shape, I will not be too upset. Though I am grateful for the new movies to satisfy my addiction.
CA seems to be aiming for a larger global multi-lingual market than just europe and north america. Keeping min sys reqs down and eye-candy high will help grab a larger chunk of that market. With the tech slump many "casual" players are no longer upgrading their pcs for each new game.
Hopefully this will not cause any skimping on quality of AI coding.
I... Must... Stop... Rambling... http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/rolleyes.gif
I guess what we're really waiting for is an official playable demo, so that we have a baseline for what the developers' intentions are for the game, instead of a collection of more-or-less official videos than might or might not show something or nothing of what the game is or isn't going to be like *sigh* http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/dizzy.gif
Also, in the end, i must agree with people here, it doesn't matter how things look like, if the underlying gameplay and game mechanics are crapola. But as might be expected, I like having both, if possible http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/biggrin.gif
Rafiki
Jacque Schtrapp
08-20-2003, 16:03
Quote[/b] (SeljukSinan @ Aug. 20 2003,03:29)]Also the horses bobing their tails in perfect sycronicity will be pretty jarring to the eye.
That drives me nuts every time I watch the new vids. Totally unrealistic. http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/frown.gif
Revenant69
08-20-2003, 17:22
Quote[/b] ]Also the horses bobing their tails in perfect sycronicity will be pretty jarring to the eye.
Yeah i totally agree about that one. I found it odd when i watched the video, it just jumped at me. As one of my very knowledgable friends says: "Synchrony cuases Epileptic seisures". Now we dont want to suffer from epilepsy do we? http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/wink.gif
Clone Soldiers aside, my main gripe right now is the campaign map. I just plainly dont like it, I hope as some of you have said that the final product will be much better.
Saturnus I must agree to disagree with you.
Quote[/b] ]Parchment is definitely not enough
I think it is enough, I dont need alot of flashy 3D graphics to make the game exciting and for me the parchment-like map reminds of old times when generals stood over the map of the world and planned their conquests.
rafiki I think you are right about the fact that a playable demo would be kind of cool. It wil help me (at least) to decide whether or not to bother spending money on RTW.
Captain Fishpants
08-20-2003, 17:32
Quote[/b] (rafiki @ Aug. 20 2003,05:59)]
Quote[/b] (SeljukSinan @ Aug. 20 2003,12:38)]Right. Every man on the field has an different face, or his face is taken from a pool of avatars like in MTW. When the man gains rank or becomes unit leader, general etc the SAME face from the battle map (i.e avatar) is used for the info screens.
Hehe
Sounds neat and is advanced yet doable. Not sure if you are serious about it, but I think this sounds great http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/smile.gif
Rafiki
Do-able? Probably, yes. But not practical. This would mean that every single model on the battlefield would have its own unique texture page. Do you have a several gig video card to hand? If you do, can we have it please? http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/smile.gif
So would this idea actually run on anyone's machine anywhere in the world? No. Sorry.
MikeB ~ CA
Knight_Yellow
08-20-2003, 18:06
maybe not every soldier but the odd individual here and their.
spiffy_scimitar
08-20-2003, 19:50
Great to get feedback, Mike. Thanks for the reply.
How about the syncronicity problem, it's been something that's really bothered me ever since Shogun. It's not simply that it looks unrealistic, it's that instead of a unit looking like a collection of 60 individuals, it makes a unit look like a troop of one. This counteracts everything the game strives for, massive armies of thousands of men, not several armies of the same automaton.
And this is visible no matter how far away you pull the camera.
Got a techie excuse for that one ? :P
Sir Robin
08-20-2003, 19:55
I'm not really sure how they will get around the clone issue. Randomizing the drones could cause problems with combat and ramp up min specs.
Not sure though, still I suspect something will be done to make it look less "clone" like.
Quote[/b] ]This would mean that every single model on the battlefield would have its own unique texture page
Surely you could get away with just a bunch of face textures on the one shared "face library" texture page from which each model takes a random one?
A techie excuse always comes handy. But they always have a point also.
Hey Mike http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/biggrin.gif Always good to see you.
Thanks a lot for your imput (apart from the NO SORRY bit :P)
Hmm well I did not think that each model would need an independent source page for his avatar. I see what you mean though, each model would have to have his avatar loaded up pre battle, and that avatar would have to remain in video memory.
I don't want to drag you into this conversation but is there a way it CAN be done. Apart from a multi gug video card which we all want http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/smile.gif
What about the tail wagging and gallop in step . I hope that can be fixed ?
These are definetly minor details compared to the actual game mechanics and play. However since we are going all this way with video engine, people will complain about attack of the clones with wagging tails. So perhaps there is a way to stave that off.
Quote[/b] (Captain Fishpants @ Aug. 20 2003,18:32)]Do-able? Probably, yes. But not practical. This would mean that every single model on the battlefield would have its own unique texture page. Do you have a several gig video card to hand? If you do, can we have it please? http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/smile.gif
So would this idea actually run on anyone's machine anywhere in the world? No. Sorry.
I too see that individual faces on every single one of teh soldiers on the battlefield is way off. I don't think too many will see it, and the amount of resources needed to make the faces and render them afterwards is prohibiting.
I was more thinking along the lines of perhaps 50 different faces or so, at least to give an impression that we aren't fighting the clone wars or something http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/wink.gif
Regards,
Rafiki
Sorry if I left any doubt http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/biggrin.gif That is what I meant, initially EITHER every man has his own avatar OR it's selected from a pool of avatars, maybe 200 at maximum.
I'm thinking more like 5-10 per culture would be practical.
50-200 while it would look great, is obviously not practical.
Pick a number below 200, or whatever is practical.
Revenant69
08-23-2003, 15:45
That is a great idea to have a pool of like 200 avatar skins - it would certainly diversify the game a bit. Besides as far as i can see you only need 200 avatars for 1 unit cuz you'd be able to redress/reuse them for other unit types. Am i right here?
PS SeljukSinan what does your signature translate to?
As for the treating lower end computers while still having great graphics I think there just need to be more setable options. The smoke and unit size is cool and all but there could be more like turning unique faces on and off. Clone movement on and off. Lighting.shadows on and off. Just more things like that.
...Or, we could let CA do their stuff. They have made two top quality games and two great expansions, so I think they have the hang of creating stellar games. I think that gameplay issue and balancing should be more of an issue and the graphics look fine to me right now. Hell, if we are playing with tiny little 2d sprites, anything looks loads better I trust them when it comes to the mechanics of the game. I still like to mod my units, but I really do trust that the latest TW game will be in the same vein as the others.
Sir Robin
08-25-2003, 22:47
As long as we can mod so they only wear one sandle I'll be happy.
Must be able to make my Life of Brian: Total War.
"He has given us... His shoe"
"The shoe is the sign. Let us follow His example."
"Let us, like Him, hold up one shoe and let the other be upon our foot, for this is His sign, that all who follow Him shall do likewise."
Of course we must also have thousands of gourd wielding fanatics.
"Follow the Gourd The Holy Gourd of Jerusalem"
Then, of course, the ability to add your own voice overs.
"I think it was 'Blessed are the cheesemakers."
"Ahh, what's so special about the cheesemakers?"
"Well, obviously, this is not meant to be taken literally. It refers to any manufacturers of dairy products." http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/biggrin.gif
ElmarkOFear
08-26-2003, 02:02
The view that you will use most when in battle, will be a view that is zoomed out to see your entire army and in taht view you will not be able to see faces and the horse Tails in synch problem will not be as noticeable. Sure it would be great to zoom down onto the field and see different animations for every soldier, but you will soon find yourself using only one view, the most useful view, the zoomed out view.
spiffy_scimitar
08-26-2003, 18:46
ElMarkOFear, the syncorization of my guys is more, or at least just as, obvious when I'm zoomed out and see 3 groups of sixty horses doing the exact same movement than when I'm zoomed in and see only 10.
I don't think we need to worry too much about the 'synchronised swimming' effect and the fact that all the men look the same. From what I have seen in a DVD from Gamestar, who have tested the game as it stands at the moment, it looks wholly satisfactory. Naturally, there are always things to do better and in time games will evolve more and more. i reckon that is one of the best things about them. It goves us a chnce to be joyous for the future.
As for me, I can't wait for the release, although it still seems to be very far away. I have seldom seen so much fun in a game and from what i have gthered so far...wow http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/biggrin.gif
'till next time...
quid
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