Blodrast
06-16-2004, 17:42
i'll try as much as i can to keep this post from transforming into a rant of its own. not easy.
i think my main point is: people, try to chill out a bit and take the hostility level towards CA down a notch
1.It's quite understandable that a lot of people are unhappy with what RTW promises to be.
Lots and lots of people had high expectations given the quality of the 2 previous games (if you didn't like any of them, wth are you doing in this forum ?), all the more so because RTW is more or less rewritten from scratch.
2.It is also true that a lot of features in the upcoming RTW a lot of us could have well done without; especially the more "mass-oriented" ones, like the bright thingies from the chariots, and funky-looking attires, and several others well outlined in other posts.
3.It is equally true that for a lot of us the hardcore gamers who will play the game over and over hundreds of times this will eat a serious part of the fun, of the immersion opportunities, and the roleplaying capabilities.
4.Finally, it is equally true that we are all entitled to our own opinions, and freedom of speech and so on, and I personally believe that communities and forums are a very good and helpful thing for developers of any piece of software (not necessarily games). And that opinions of the community should definitely be taken into account while developing that piece of software, because it is very likely a good measure of how the entire targeted audience will receive the product.
In our particular case, this is even much more so, because I daresay that the average level of education and IQ of the TW series veterans is significantly higher than that of the, say, Quake community (no offense intended; I play quake every now and then myself; it's just that it's targeting a different audience), so their opinions are all that more valuable.
Now let's have a closer look at each of these points:
1. Nothing, ever, will please everybody. Never ever. It's the freaking human nature ;)
Nobody can do anything about it (well not yet anyway).
We've only seen a small part of the game: the units and their dressup.
There is an excellent post around in these threads that points out that this is a very little part of the overall game. The overall balancing of the game is much more important, and the feeling of immersion as well.
But different people look for different things in a game, and we come back to my initial statement: you can't possibly please everybody.
Were you utterly disappointed with either of the 2 aspects above in STW/MTW ? I think if you had been, you wouldn't have played them. I personally think that these are among the best RTS (and very good - not excellent - overall strategy; there are many things that could use improvement:
diplomacy, economic system, etc) games I've ever seen.
So have a bit of faith and wait till the game comes out.
Just as some of you played the game for its roleplaying, some for immersion, some for the battles only, some for the MP only, etc, I'm sure it will be the same with RTW. I'm sure you will find something you like in RTW, just as you did with the previous ones.
2. Yes, I hate the shiny weird-looking thingies on chariots, and I do believe that CA should strive to get as historically accurate as possible.
But people, you have to realize several things:
- they don't have a free hand in all this; they do mostly what they are told to do; most likely they are told to make the game such that it will have as broad an audience as
possible (which is only normal they won't survive by targeting a very limited audience, come on ).
Unfortunately, this does involve bull warriors and flaming pigs and fantasy-looking chariots and screaming women. But, harsh as it may be to accept it, the hardcore gamers that play the game to death (i.e., us) are NOT the main udience. They have to make money, for which they have to sell copies, for which the game has to be attractive to a large audience.
It's as simple as that. They don't make the bulk of their money from the few hundred or thousand afficionados that will play the game for years. They will make it from the kiddies who will play it a couple of times to see the flaming pigs, that will probably never bother to read Lady Frog's guide or browse these forums to look for some useful info or tips, and that will give it up after getting their butts kicked in MP by some vet disappointed that he ran into yet another noob that cares nothing for strategy, tactics, etiquette, or roleplaying.
And even if stuff weren't imposed from above, and it was their own more or less fortunate idea, they can't simply go back and change things every time 20 people scream that they don't like them ?
Why ? because the game would never be finished, because it's not feasible financially, and simply because that's not the way things work
3. There's always a full half of the glass: yes, there will be flaming pigs.
But, as someone before me well pointed it out, if nothing else, they will definitely be FUN
And I'm sure you may get a kick at least once after launching a bunch of screaming women concealed in the woods at the unknowing romans...
Sure, it will steal from the feeling and accuracy. But, as again was wisely pointed out, that's what there are mods for
You don't like those units because they ruin the feeling of immersion and the overall feeling of the game? Fine, I can assure you there will be dozens of mods that won't contain them. At all.
You don't like the way some of the units are dressed ?
Fine again, they will receive proper clothes in the mods.
Look at the bright side: be thankful that most of the stuff that you don't like is moddable
Maybe that's not entirely accidental either, maybe the CA ppl thought "Well, I'm sure there will be some freaks out there who won't like my nifty-looking bull warrior helmet...ok, let's just put all these into easily accessible bif files so the buggers can redo them as they like"...
It's a great thing that the game can be modded (to such extent) in the first place
4. Again, I believe the feedback that CA can get from these boards is invaluable. However, get real and realize they can't take your posts as the letter of law.
Sure you're entitled to opinions, and I encourage you to post them, as I strongly believe they will help make a better game.
But what if you, as a dev, would come look at the boards and see six dozen posts like "F***ing CA, they ruined my game ", or "Stupid devs, wtf is a flaming pig doing in there ??" or ... You get my drift.
We have absolutely nothing to gain from being hostile towards them, and a lot to lose.
Think about how much info (valuable info) we get from the developers.
Do you really imagine that if they had read a bunch of silly threads accusing them of various things and being hostile and all that, they would have bothered to read on, let alone post stuff ?
Think again. I know that if I were a dev, after having worked my a** for x years on this game, and I came reading the forums 'cause I wanna give some satisfaction to the hardcore players as well as the stupid kiddies out there, and found a bunch of snotty kids all swearing and cursing me up and down, I'd just send them to hell with their complaints and all.
Because I'm sorry, but a lot of the threads on the Colosseum look just like that (fortunately, not all of them).
How about starting a thread saying "Yo devs, this game of yours has a bunch of shi**y features in it that I really hate, like - list with those things, argumented, follows -, but you know what, overall it's a really cool game, and I already spent xxxx hours playing it Nice job, you lousy bastards " ?...
Bottom line: sure, it's not gonna be perfect.
Sure, we were aching (and still are) for the game of our lives, complete immersion, wonderful roleplaying, historically damn accurate, perfectly balanced, and at the same time having an extremely accurate economic system,
a great many diplomatic opportunities, a superb battle engine that runs on a Commodore with 64k RAM, an AI that will _elegantly_ kick your a** with it's pinky, and surreal graphics...
Rome:Total War may not be it, but you can bet your a**es that it will come damn skippy close to it
ps. kudos to all the other people who, in one way or another, called for less hostility and a more peaceful and polite way of expressing opinions.
If this rant offended you in any way, you have my apologies. It was not intentional.
Blodrast
i think my main point is: people, try to chill out a bit and take the hostility level towards CA down a notch
1.It's quite understandable that a lot of people are unhappy with what RTW promises to be.
Lots and lots of people had high expectations given the quality of the 2 previous games (if you didn't like any of them, wth are you doing in this forum ?), all the more so because RTW is more or less rewritten from scratch.
2.It is also true that a lot of features in the upcoming RTW a lot of us could have well done without; especially the more "mass-oriented" ones, like the bright thingies from the chariots, and funky-looking attires, and several others well outlined in other posts.
3.It is equally true that for a lot of us the hardcore gamers who will play the game over and over hundreds of times this will eat a serious part of the fun, of the immersion opportunities, and the roleplaying capabilities.
4.Finally, it is equally true that we are all entitled to our own opinions, and freedom of speech and so on, and I personally believe that communities and forums are a very good and helpful thing for developers of any piece of software (not necessarily games). And that opinions of the community should definitely be taken into account while developing that piece of software, because it is very likely a good measure of how the entire targeted audience will receive the product.
In our particular case, this is even much more so, because I daresay that the average level of education and IQ of the TW series veterans is significantly higher than that of the, say, Quake community (no offense intended; I play quake every now and then myself; it's just that it's targeting a different audience), so their opinions are all that more valuable.
Now let's have a closer look at each of these points:
1. Nothing, ever, will please everybody. Never ever. It's the freaking human nature ;)
Nobody can do anything about it (well not yet anyway).
We've only seen a small part of the game: the units and their dressup.
There is an excellent post around in these threads that points out that this is a very little part of the overall game. The overall balancing of the game is much more important, and the feeling of immersion as well.
But different people look for different things in a game, and we come back to my initial statement: you can't possibly please everybody.
Were you utterly disappointed with either of the 2 aspects above in STW/MTW ? I think if you had been, you wouldn't have played them. I personally think that these are among the best RTS (and very good - not excellent - overall strategy; there are many things that could use improvement:
diplomacy, economic system, etc) games I've ever seen.
So have a bit of faith and wait till the game comes out.
Just as some of you played the game for its roleplaying, some for immersion, some for the battles only, some for the MP only, etc, I'm sure it will be the same with RTW. I'm sure you will find something you like in RTW, just as you did with the previous ones.
2. Yes, I hate the shiny weird-looking thingies on chariots, and I do believe that CA should strive to get as historically accurate as possible.
But people, you have to realize several things:
- they don't have a free hand in all this; they do mostly what they are told to do; most likely they are told to make the game such that it will have as broad an audience as
possible (which is only normal they won't survive by targeting a very limited audience, come on ).
Unfortunately, this does involve bull warriors and flaming pigs and fantasy-looking chariots and screaming women. But, harsh as it may be to accept it, the hardcore gamers that play the game to death (i.e., us) are NOT the main udience. They have to make money, for which they have to sell copies, for which the game has to be attractive to a large audience.
It's as simple as that. They don't make the bulk of their money from the few hundred or thousand afficionados that will play the game for years. They will make it from the kiddies who will play it a couple of times to see the flaming pigs, that will probably never bother to read Lady Frog's guide or browse these forums to look for some useful info or tips, and that will give it up after getting their butts kicked in MP by some vet disappointed that he ran into yet another noob that cares nothing for strategy, tactics, etiquette, or roleplaying.
And even if stuff weren't imposed from above, and it was their own more or less fortunate idea, they can't simply go back and change things every time 20 people scream that they don't like them ?
Why ? because the game would never be finished, because it's not feasible financially, and simply because that's not the way things work
3. There's always a full half of the glass: yes, there will be flaming pigs.
But, as someone before me well pointed it out, if nothing else, they will definitely be FUN
And I'm sure you may get a kick at least once after launching a bunch of screaming women concealed in the woods at the unknowing romans...
Sure, it will steal from the feeling and accuracy. But, as again was wisely pointed out, that's what there are mods for
You don't like those units because they ruin the feeling of immersion and the overall feeling of the game? Fine, I can assure you there will be dozens of mods that won't contain them. At all.
You don't like the way some of the units are dressed ?
Fine again, they will receive proper clothes in the mods.
Look at the bright side: be thankful that most of the stuff that you don't like is moddable
Maybe that's not entirely accidental either, maybe the CA ppl thought "Well, I'm sure there will be some freaks out there who won't like my nifty-looking bull warrior helmet...ok, let's just put all these into easily accessible bif files so the buggers can redo them as they like"...
It's a great thing that the game can be modded (to such extent) in the first place
4. Again, I believe the feedback that CA can get from these boards is invaluable. However, get real and realize they can't take your posts as the letter of law.
Sure you're entitled to opinions, and I encourage you to post them, as I strongly believe they will help make a better game.
But what if you, as a dev, would come look at the boards and see six dozen posts like "F***ing CA, they ruined my game ", or "Stupid devs, wtf is a flaming pig doing in there ??" or ... You get my drift.
We have absolutely nothing to gain from being hostile towards them, and a lot to lose.
Think about how much info (valuable info) we get from the developers.
Do you really imagine that if they had read a bunch of silly threads accusing them of various things and being hostile and all that, they would have bothered to read on, let alone post stuff ?
Think again. I know that if I were a dev, after having worked my a** for x years on this game, and I came reading the forums 'cause I wanna give some satisfaction to the hardcore players as well as the stupid kiddies out there, and found a bunch of snotty kids all swearing and cursing me up and down, I'd just send them to hell with their complaints and all.
Because I'm sorry, but a lot of the threads on the Colosseum look just like that (fortunately, not all of them).
How about starting a thread saying "Yo devs, this game of yours has a bunch of shi**y features in it that I really hate, like - list with those things, argumented, follows -, but you know what, overall it's a really cool game, and I already spent xxxx hours playing it Nice job, you lousy bastards " ?...
Bottom line: sure, it's not gonna be perfect.
Sure, we were aching (and still are) for the game of our lives, complete immersion, wonderful roleplaying, historically damn accurate, perfectly balanced, and at the same time having an extremely accurate economic system,
a great many diplomatic opportunities, a superb battle engine that runs on a Commodore with 64k RAM, an AI that will _elegantly_ kick your a** with it's pinky, and surreal graphics...
Rome:Total War may not be it, but you can bet your a**es that it will come damn skippy close to it
ps. kudos to all the other people who, in one way or another, called for less hostility and a more peaceful and polite way of expressing opinions.
If this rant offended you in any way, you have my apologies. It was not intentional.
Blodrast