No MP campaign after all...

[Jacque Schtrapp]

Unfortunately, players will not be able to play the campaign in multiplayer, which has been a request since the first Total War game. Mike Simpson, Creative Assembly's technical director, told us they calculated that it could take up to two years to resolve a multiplayer campaign game, and few players would have the interest in participating in such a game. Apart from that, the game is shaping up quite well, and Creative Assembly plans to have it done by the end of the year.

Gamespot (http://www.gamespot.com/pc/strategy/rometotalwar/preview_6094948.html)

[Kraxis]

Quote[/b] ]Creative Assembly plans to have it done by the end of the year.

GAH GAH GAH GAH
I hope the writer is just misinformed, and that the september date is still the one to aim for.
GAH GAH GAH GAH

[RisingSun]

Um, T3h 0ld n3wz. http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/biggrin.gif

When it was first announced, one of the devs stopped by and put the rumor down.

[Kraxis]

Quote[/b] (RisingSun @ May 06 2004,18:43)]Um, T3h 0ld n3wz. http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/biggrin.gif

When it was first announced, one of the devs stopped by and put the rumor down.
Yes, exactly... That is why I'm even more scared. http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/ht_hide.gif

[Knight_Yellow]

Quote[/b] (RisingSun @ May 07 2004,00:43)]Um, T3h 0ld n3wz. http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/biggrin.gif

When it was first announced, one of the devs stopped by and put the rumor down.
yeah like 2 months ago....

why did somebody expect them to change their minds between then and now?

and also why do people see 1 sites release THEORY and start to panic?

look at the whole of the gaming sites and you see dates ranging from summer to next year.

CA are the only people who know and they said not even 1 week ago that they are on target for a "Fall" release.

[Hurin_Rules]

Fall is officially from September 21 to December 21.

[Murmandamus]

2 years for a multi game? wtf?

Each player picks a faction, you chose a limited region where each player gets 5-10 provinces, then they go head to head. No AI factions so all the battles are against the other player. It'd be like doing a France v's England game in M:TW.

Who wouldn't LOVE to play something like that? No way it would take 2 years. With 5 provinces each, 15/30 min time limited battles you could probably do it in an evening.

[Knight_Yellow]

Quote[/b] (Murmandamus @ May 07 2004,05:43)]2 years for a multi game? wtf?

Each player picks a faction, you chose a limited region where each player gets 5-10 provinces, then they go head to head. No AI factions so all the battles are against the other player. It'd be like doing a France v's England game in M:TW.

Who wouldn't LOVE to play something like that? No way it would take 2 years. With 5 provinces each, 15/30 min time limited battles you could probably do it in an evening.
will you buy RTW without a multiplayer campaign?

Yes.

why should CA bother implementing something that wont drasticly change sales figures?

I know it evil and blah blah blah, i want a MP Campaign too but i do realise that CA would actualy loose money by doing it.

(they would have to code it ingame and delay the release and loose money becuase they had to pay coders to finish the game and make a MP campaign that as said before wont affect # of sales)

[TigerVX]

Does anyone else see what they mean? In order to play a single player Campgien, it takes a LONG TIME. Imagine having to get people organized in order to play it. It would most likely take a year or two to not only play the game, but get all the factions players on at one time.

[metatron]

The dreams I had for this game...

Long ago, I had the realization that the ultimate strategic map would be the tactical maps all shown together (without all the detail). One could use their mouse wheel to zoom in, as if you were God, and get an upclose view of any fighting.

This system presumes that there would be gameplay to warrant such a system. I wish CA dropped the turn-based forumla (or at least give us a choice) in favor of real-time decisions. Preset choices in the options would correlate to how long a "year" in the game would be (perhaps ten minutes). One could zoom in, and see his legions marching across the country side, maybe even witness an ambush on the roads. Movement would hinder as units became farther away from your capital/leader and communication took longer, barring certain upgrades (chariots, horses, roads). Perhaps the engine would allow us to create regional commanders/governors, letting the AI run the operations on the frontiers.

It would've been glorious.

Sigh...

[Leet Eriksson]

There are awlays alternatives... http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/tongue.gif

Everyone could organise a tournament that works like a campaign...i think it might work.

[Nigel]

Quote[/b] ] ...it could take up to two years to resolve a multiplayer campaign game


Well, Lords of the Realm 2, which was the original game with TBS strategy and RTS battles, had a multiplayer campaign option which worked really well. A friend and I played a MP campaign which lasted for about 4 or 5 sessions on evenings. I know it can be done http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/rolleyes.gif



So why aren't they ?
I fear Yellow Knight is right. Why should they put effort into somethinig that won't drastically improve sales. Sounds sad, but the reallity is that CA are a business, which has to make money. Not a charity or an art form.

So again, we are left to do the MP campaign ourselves - sigh -

[Kraxis]

I think the problem is indeed that... There are simply no money in an MP campaign, or at least it is not visibly there.

Shadewolf and I made a small MP campaign, just for the two of us. It worked fairly well, actually it worked quite well. And that was just two people talking and doing a little work on it (he did all the direct work on it).
Of course we ended up having to agree on maps (which won't be an issue in RTW), we had to figure out the ransom of the troops captured and the cost of those dead (no half units remember). But the greatest problem was to get more people into the battles as soon as we had to have third parties... We had a single great battle where three of my armies joined up to beat his two. It took more than a week to get enough people to join in. We agreed it would be impossible as soon as we were forced to have another two factions in the game (we played the 100 years war).
To make the game easier we had no training cap or buildings. And that is very much a possibility. It won't be as epic, but it will be rather fast, and in an MP campaign we need speed.

So the RTW campaign map. We can train all we want for the money we have (and later get from taxes and plunder). We can place those troops in the cities as we like, and from there we march out into the world... It would still be interesting to set up ambushes and fight in good territory, and it would never be perfectly balanced in terms of troops.
It is possible...

Edit...
We had a special forum for diplomacy, where we sent letters to each other (including ransom and demands for land as well as simply being arrogant).

[Swoosh So]

All thats missing from the mp campaign is an input output text file when battles start and end Im really hoping with the new addition of mp historical battles they will allow us to use reduced units and have the ability to play these games. Im begging u CA leave the debug comand in that allows u to change factions during the game