View Full Version : RTW 1.3 Patch Petition
Check here:
http://www.twcenter.net/forums/index.php?act=ST&f=42&t=23309&st=0#entry1811990143
The_Emperor
03-02-2005, 12:42
I don't think it will happen.
An expansion is more likely. (there is no profit in patches)
screwtype
03-02-2005, 12:51
I wouldn't want another patch. It would be unlikely to address the major underlying problems, such as the AI and game balance, and all it would be likely to do is delay the expansion pack.
I think a better idea is just to present to CA the bugs and glitches that have been found since the release of 1.2 and ask for a fix to be included in the XP.
Well, if the saved game bug is as bad as it could be, then Rome will be a distant memory long before any expansion comes out. We're early March now and it's an estimated 7+ months till the expansion. That's a long time to wait and another £30 of hard earned money....
Mayfield The Conqueror
03-02-2005, 16:57
You are going to have better luck having the community patch up the game between now and the expansion anyway. The discussions in the game mechanics forum have been *very* helpful to me at least and I am sure with some cooperation a small patch could be made up by the people who are modding the game.
Red Harvest
03-02-2005, 17:08
I see that the egotistical a$$wipe killemall54 had locked the thread over at .com pertaining to this. Another moderator had said to leave it open. But ole killemall54 needed to go on another power trip.
BeeSting
03-02-2005, 18:11
CA better get their act together since competition is brewing fast. They will no doubt copy the best elements of the game and make things better.
Mikeus Caesar
03-02-2005, 19:46
'Rome will be a distant memory long before any expansion comes out.'
Too true. It's alreadya bit of a memory for me....i remember when i got it, about three weeks after release, being ecstatic about it, and playing it like there was no tomorrow. Now i look back on it, and i wonder, why the hell did i spend so much time playing that thing? Oh well. If an expansion comes out and i still remember RTW, i'm definately getting it.
P.S sorry i couldn't use a proper quote, but for some reason the quote button is refusing to work!!
BeeSting
03-02-2005, 19:58
I see that the egotistical a$$wipe killemall54 had locked the thread over at .com pertaining to this. Another moderator had said to leave it open. But ole killemall54 needed to go on another power trip.
Yeah.... what is up with that guy? Someone needs to pull the sarrisa up his a$$.
Evil_Maniac From Mars
03-02-2005, 20:15
'Rome will be a distant memory long before any expansion comes out.'
Too true. It's alreadya bit of a memory for me....i remember when i got it, about three weeks after release, being ecstatic about it, and playing it like there was no tomorrow. Now i look back on it, and i wonder, why the hell did i spend so much time playing that thing? Oh well. If an expansion comes out and i still remember RTW, i'm definately getting it.
P.S sorry i couldn't use a proper quote, but for some reason the quote button is refusing to work!!
I play more Medieval than Rome now. If it wasn't for Medievals graphics being pathetic, and I didn't want the expansion, I would have sold, or at least "accidently misplaced" the Rome CD. I was really pumped up 'bout it as soon as I heard of the release, but now i wonder: why the heck did I just waste a month of my life?
Colovion
03-02-2005, 21:06
I'd rather have some feedback from CA than another patch.
I'd rather CA tell us the reasons why they've taken this amazing strategy game series and turned it into a Hollywood themepark.
I'd like to know if they plan to keep going down this path.
Then I'll know if it's worth sticking around.
A patch petition! You optimistic dreamers! Good luck... you'll need it! ~;)
Seriously now, we know that CA had a two patch deal with Activision and that they used up the first one as soon as RTW went gold so as to address the MP code which was absolutely terrible. Had the first patch contained much more in the way of fixes and tweaks for the SP game RTW might be in much better shape than it is right now. But since it didn't I can understand the desperation at work here.
I see that the egotistical a$$wipe killemall54 had locked the thread over at .com pertaining to this. Another moderator had said to leave it open. But ole killemall54 needed to go on another power trip.
Indeed. Is the Com a particularly nasty place to post nowadays or what? It's not a good sign when you have rabid moderators engaging in pissing contests with forum members!
I'd rather have some feedback from CA than another patch.
I'd rather CA tell us the reasons why they've taken this amazing strategy game series and turned it into a Hollywood themepark.
Come on Colovion, that's easy! Shogun sold over 750,000 units, Medieval sold over one million. Do the math. Anytime those kind of numbers are thrown around you can bet there are going to be some pretty high expectations for the next installment. When CA pitched the idea of RTW to Activision you can bet they took stock of its subject matter and the revolutionary new 3D engine and saw that it had the potential to easily surpass the one million mark. So Activision floated CA a ton of cash to make Rome and spent another ton of cash promoting it. Obviously Activision wanted to make damn sure they made a profit on their investment so its possible they either kept an active and intrusive eye on CA or gave them a damn good idea of what they could and could not do on a very general level.
I think it's safe to say there are CA employees who are just as unhappy with Rome's lowest common denominator approach as we are. The only thing I want to know is just how hard did CA bargain with Activision before inking the deal? Did they really leave room for themselves to maneuver or did they simply sign when they saw the numbers on the contract and believed they could make Rome without too much interference from Activision? Were many of the questionable design decisions that we despise actually the result of Activision's interference or was someone at CA interpreting the spirit of the contract to the best of their abilities?
The worst part of the deal has to be the one or two patch limit. One or two patches for such a huge and complicated game is simply outrageous!
I don't think 1.3 ever coming out.
They already announced XP and it will come out late this year, if the schedule goes right. The problem is the patch needs, if we assume it's ever happening, same crews who's wanted to develope XP. As you know, patches are not done within a couple of weeks, so it will take at least a month or two. I don't think CA ever risks that kind of delay of XP.
AggonyKing
03-03-2005, 01:57
i still haven't downloaded 1.2 yet people are talking about 1.3 already ~:eek:
Speaking of moderating, guess what happened to the petition... ~D
Kekvit Irae
03-03-2005, 03:48
Patch or no, the game will always be, in my eyes, Heros of Might and Magic: Total War. Because of this tempted to do something I'd never dream of... go back to playing STW.
screwtype
03-03-2005, 04:46
Well, if the saved game bug is as bad as it could be, then Rome will be a distant memory long before any expansion comes out. We're early March now and it's an estimated 7+ months till the expansion. That's a long time to wait and another £30 of hard earned money....
What savegame bug? The only one I've heard about is the breaking of AI sieges in reloading a save.
It's a nuisance, but hardly a gamebreaker.
And I don't think 7 months is long to wait, after all we waited, what, nearly five months just for the 1.2 patch which has only fixed some of the more glaring problems.
The point I'm trying to make is that a mere patch won't fix the game's major flaws anyhow, like the ten second battles, instant routing, AI, game balance, steamroller effect, shallow campaign etc. It's going to take CA a long time to fix issues like that - assuming they ever manage to fix them. A patch that fixes stuff like savegame siege breaks or horsed archer moving fire would be nice to have, but is not going to make a critical difference to enjoyment, so why bother with one when CA will only have to spend weeks playtesting it to try and ensure it's stable? That will only put a fix for the real problems back still further.
So I'd much prefer CA put their energies into putting together a much better game for the XP and *then* start worrying about the minor glitches. I know from my own experience programming that it's a waste of time trying to nuance the details before you tackle the big issues, because there is no limit to the amount of time you can spend on details and then the big things never get done.
screwtype
03-03-2005, 04:49
Patch or no, the game will always be, in my eyes, Heros of Might and Magic: Total War. Because of this tempted to do something I'd never dream of... go back to playing STW.
Does STW have any good mods? I love the game but I know it so well by now it's not enough of a challenge anymore.
tai4ji2x
03-03-2005, 04:56
It's a nuisance, but hardly a gamebreaker.
(clip...)
A patch that fixes stuff like savegame siege breaks or horsed archer moving fire would be nice to have, but is not going to make a critical difference to enjoyment
this depends on your personal situation. if you can only play an hour or so every night or every other night, this bug will impact you greatly.
The funny thing is, that during the outcry for a MTW-VI patch, there were a lot of people saying "oooh, no, we shouldn't possibly request this, they're better off spending time to make the Rome perfect". Well, we got the Rome they were talking about, a year later than planned too. I guess the signals saying "we put all our trust that everything will be better in future" really paid off to influence the quality of subsequent releases and all that.
At least with the VI patch that game (as in: the game I already paid for, btw) was really playable. A bird in hand...
Red Harvest
03-03-2005, 05:28
screwtype,
CA's XPack will most likely just be more of the same. If they can't fix the engine for a patch or RTW, I doubt they will fix it for the XPack. I would rather seem them fix the problems now. A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush. With the severity of bugs in the current release and the AI issues, it is hard to imagine the XPack not being a rush job.
Afterall, suicide daimyo's were to be fixed in this patch among other things.
Crazed Rabbit
03-03-2005, 06:50
Right now, I doubt I will buy the X-Pack. I mean, what's the point? The game will still be shallow and unchallenging. They won't change the core gameplay of sucky battles and sucky AI. New bugs will pop up. I don't even play RTW now, and won't try it again until SPQR comes out.
I'm sick of giving money to CA if they lock threads about a 1.3 patch and act like we are peasants.
Crazed Rabbit
Duke John
03-03-2005, 09:13
we know that CA had a two patch deal with Activision and that they used up the first one as soon as RTW went gold so as to address the MP code which was absolutely terrible.
I believe that you are wrong on this. Just like with M:TW and VI CA only releases one (1) patch. They had the same deal with R:TW. Now they screwed up the MP so enormously (only 30 people could play MP at any time) that they needed to fix it as soon as possible. That 1.1 patch was just a quick fix to make MP playable and should not be seen as a normal patch that balances or fixes several bugs. The 1.2 patch was in essence the first real patch and the only one we get (probably).
It would be interesting to know just how much involvement Activision had in the production of RTW. Yes they will have wanted the eye-candy, the graphics, the head-hurlers et al, but are they the true problems with the game?? The majority of the complaints on here (forgive me if I simplify just for brevity) relate to game balancing, lack of challenge, stupid AI.
Are any of these things down to Activision influence?
Don't forget RTW was 12 months late anyway, and I can't bring myself to believe that it slipped a whole year because CA were forced to take the good stuff OUT ~:confused:
Yes, the battles are too quick, and this could well be an Activision-inspired thing - but making battles ultra-fast could have easily been achieved by increasing the base speed of the battle engine, yes? If a slow base battle speed existed, then surely the fast battles would have been implemented as the 'Arcade mode' (or it could be reversed and have slow battles implemented as an option). Logical conclusion - there is not, and never was, a slow base battle speed. At least not one that worked. Let's face it, slower battles didn't harm the sales of STW or MTW, and no way will the fast battles have, on their own, made a difference to the number of units shifted.
Do you see where I'm heading here? A lot of blame gets put on to Activision for this, but personally I'm coming to the opinion that CA just bit off a whole lot more than it could chew with elements of the game. Whether the XPack will fix any of these things remains to be seen of course, but I have my doubts.
I presume that work on whatever the next project is is well under way. they already have the 3d battle engine and campaign map, so personally I am expecting a better battle AI when we get Total War 4, NOT the xp for RTW.
Cheers,
Rob.
SpencerH
03-03-2005, 13:34
A lot of blame gets put on to Activision for this, but personally I'm coming to the opinion that CA just bit off a whole lot more than it could chew with elements of the game. Whether the XPack will fix any of these things remains to be seen of course, but I have my doubts.
I think there is a lot of truth to this. Theres no doubt that building a challenging strategic and tactical game is a massive undertaking, essentially it's two games in one. If they had been able to use MTW's tactical engine but improved the strategic portion alone, that would have been enough for me.
It seems to me to have been a management/philosophy shortcoming. If you've taken on more than its possible to do given the time constraints, how do you handle the situation? CA seems to have chosen to put out a working (but flawed) game with the expectations that it will be completed with the XP. Personally, I wonder how many units of the XP will be sold. I think a lot of hardcore players will "wait and see" and I think that the new players will move on to CIV4 (which may be out late 2005) or some other RTS or RTS-like game. I believe that when they realized their situation (if they ever did) CA should have used their fanbase (us) to find the game problems. If the demo had been released earlier I think that we would now have a relatively bug-less game.
Old Celt
03-03-2005, 15:26
It seems to me that CA is screwed as of this moment. They obviously compromised their principles to sign a deal with the ActiVision devil. They bit off more than they could chew for the project requirements and exacerbated the situation by coming to release over a year late. Then all the flaws of the product are "discovered" by the discerning players, even though CA HAD to know about 99% of them already. When you put these events together, it seems unlikely the project has even been profitable so far, and it makes CA look bad to potential financial backers for future work.
My view is that the only hope for survival now is for CA to say: "Damn the torpedoes, full speed ahead!" What I mean by that is that CA must prioritize doing the right thing for its customers, even if it means negative consequences with the publisher. These forums have value to CA because they quickly show the mood of the gaming community and how satisfied/dissatisfied they really are. It would be greatly in CA's interest to search out beta test people here and use their feedback in design decision/implementation.
If CA believes they are contractually in handcuffs, then they need to find a way to leak patch code to modders who can distribute it to the community to solve problems like this save game bug prior to the X pack. It is also absolutely vital that CA handle all the known bugs being discussed here with X pack development. There's absolutely no excuse not to: they are being paid for it.
Duke John
03-03-2005, 15:51
Things might be more complicated than just blaming ActiVision. Just look at this game:
http://www.madminutegames.com/
It's a strategy game about the Civil War and is made by enthusiasts. It's got a entire modding section on the site explaining things in detail. There is no indiciation that they plan to forget support after a single patch. These guys love what they made and they want to share it with the community. Now here's the catch; it's published by ActiVision. That makes you think, doesn't it?
Things might be more complicated than just blaming ActiVision. Just look at this game:
http://www.madminutegames.com/
It's a strategy game about the Civil War and is made by enthusiasts. It's got a entire modding section on the site explaining things in detail. There is no indiciation that they plan to forget support after a single patch. These guys love what they made and they want to share it with the community. Now here's the catch; it's published by ActiVision. That makes you think, doesn't it?
I have that game. It's not a strategy game; it's a tactical game written by two programmers, and very well done. However, they have the same problem with Activision in that any patch they produce has to go through Activision QA for approval. They don't have the problem that Creative Assembly has in that Rome is a major game in Activision's portfolio, and subject to more interference from Activision. Bull Run is an Activision "value" release priced at less than half the price of Rome, and I've seen no statements in the Minuteman forums that Activision interfered in the game's developement.
We know that Activision caused delay in Rome's development. Activision rejected the minimal_ui, and made CA create that grotesque UI that shipped with Rome. That's more time taken away from AI development and debugging. The game shipped with hundreds of bugs. We also know that Activision wanted some of the "spectacular" graphic effects which not only took time to produce but also altered the playbalance. Players have confirmed that stuff such as "jumping" horses damaged the playbalance by changing the effectiveness of the phalanx.
Red Harvest
03-03-2005, 17:45
RJV,
I think the battle speed and movement speed issues are tied to initial decisions made in the architecture by CA. I don't really think Activision had much input on them (purely unbridled speculation, of course.) The reasoning I have is that chance of a kill is one of the fundamentals in the attack and the attack ratings all seem to be tied together in some way. So I suspect the very base value being used is a bit too much--and/or the base level defense is too low. Base attack has a 0 to 63 range, ditto for defense and armour, while shields are 0 to 31. I'm not sure what happens with charge bonuses, and mount bonuses, etc. that exceed the 63 total. Notice how almost all base unit stats fall into the very low end of the ranges, yet we have very high kill rates? That strongly suggests that the overall base attack efficacy is too high (or base defense is too low.)
The speeds are tied to the animations and skeletons. There are several things I am seeing in the unit choices and skeletons that tell me this was all rushed. First, there are not all that many skeletons and from what I can tell they must take a lot of time to develop. This is why we have only two horse speeds (ignoring fatigue.) Second, there are some rather basic unit types that don't exist at all or that have been changed from historical contexts. The ones I am thinking of are primarily javelin units: British chariot archers were actually javelinmen according to Caesar, javelins were often used by elephant crew, and many barbarian infantrymen had both throwing spears (javelins) and thrusting spears--yet you can't make any of these units in the game without doing extensive modding. There are also allusions to other weapon types in the files that are currently absent.
BeeSting
03-03-2005, 17:58
I look forward to the day where corporate game brokers no longer stands between those with passion for pc gaming, especially in matters of strategy games for which I know these guys only yawn at. All TW modders should unite and create a game on their own, and freely publish it via internet. I’m tired of waiting year after year for something good to buy off the shelves. What’s there to lose? We will only create games that we will love to play ourselves. If CA with 25 developers could create something like this, then the modding communities with their vast pool of volunteers could easily come up with something better. Who needs office hours? Thanks to the advent of internet, we could come together electronically. We could literally find hundreds of volunteers from a vast pool of talents to easily share the load. F@$% Activision! It's time we show them what money can't buy :duel:
I look forward to the day where corporate game brokers no longer stands between those with passion for pc gaming, especially in matters of strategy games for which I know these guys only yawn at. All TW modders should unite and create a game on their own, and freely publish it via internet. I’m tired of waiting year after year for something good to buy off the shelves. What’s there to lose? We will only create games that we will love to play ourselves. If CA with 25 developers could create something like this, then the modding communities with their vast pool of volunteers could easily come up with something better. Who needs office hours? Thanks to the advent of internet, we could come together electronically. We could literally find hundreds of volunteers from a vast pool of talents to easily share the load. F@$% Activision! It's time we show them what money can't buy :duel:
That has actually been done previously.
There was a group of players of StarCraft that thought it wasn't good enough and so they made their own game. They found out that it was much harder than anticipated and the endresult in bought games (very cheap intenet bought) was very low. Not even the people that had pushed hema long bought the game... It was huge letdown for the developers.
BeeSting
03-03-2005, 18:21
So it has been done, which is good to know. But we shouldn't sell it by any means, hell no!
Make something we ourselves will enjoy playing for years. What's there to lose?
screwtype
03-03-2005, 18:26
screwtype,
CA's XPack will most likely just be more of the same. If they can't fix the engine for a patch or RTW, I doubt they will fix it for the XPack. I would rather seem them fix the problems now. A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush. With the severity of bugs in the current release and the AI issues, it is hard to imagine the XPack not being a rush job.
Afterall, suicide daimyo's were to be fixed in this patch among other things.
I don't know, Red. CA have been hinting that they are going to make substantial changes to the design in the XP, along the lines of the criticisms that have been made about RTW on the boards. Although they haven't revealed specific details.
I think they've got to have been a little concerned about the reception the game has received, especially in relation to stuff like fast kill speeds and quick routing (in fact now that I mention it, I think I recall Jerome Grasdyke saying they were reviewing some of these issues). So I'm hopeful that we *will* see substantial improvements in the XP. After all, it seems to me they've done most of the work now - they've got the game out the door and made it reasonably stable, from this point on is where they get a chance to really improve things.
On the other hand, like you I'm still sceptical that much will be changed, because RTW clearly represents not just a new 3D engine but a change in game philosophy towards a simpler, more accessible product. It remains to be seen whether the game's mixed reception amongst the established fanbase will be enough to persuade them to recant and move back to a more complex model.
Also as someone else said, one has to wonder whether CA has not simply overreached itself in creating this game, and will be unable to do more than fiddle around the edges.
But the bottom line for me is that just fixing a few more glitches like horse archers or disrupted sieges is not going to revive my interest anyway, so why bother? The only thing that will get me back to playing is if substantial changes are made, which would surely require more work on CA's part than could be justified in a free patch. So roll on the XP.
So it has been done, which is good to know. But we shouldn't sell it by any means, hell no!
Make something we ourselves will enjoy playing for years. What's there to lose?
A lot of time and money.
The game they made was brilliant in terms of balance and tactics (attacking the rear gave bonus and terrain gave bonusses as well to both speed and stats), but it was simply not that well made, looked desidedly rough and it was heavy to play (very bad for an MP game). These guys had used more than 2 years on it and they couldn't get it to be good enough. And that was with borrowing the StarCraft engine and a significantly less complex gamesystem. They were not few and they were not bad at this.
What I learned from it was that good modders aren't always good developers.
Duke John
03-03-2005, 18:35
All TW modders should unite and create a game on their own, and freely publish it via internet.
There are quite a few game engines for sale. Lite versions cost around 100$. If you can find some good artists, modellers and most of all good programmers then that step isn't that farfetched. 2 example game engines:
http://www.powerrender.com/
http://www.garagegames.com/
A group that developed its own engine and is spreading source and game for free:
http://www.glest.org/eng/
However it is a much more difficult project than a modding project. But if you can find the talent than there is no one stopping you.
But the bottom line for me is that just fixing a few more glitches like horse archers or disrupted sieges is not going to revive my interest anyway, so why bother? The only thing that will get me back to playing is if substantial changes are made, which would surely require more work on CA's part than could be justified in a free patch. So roll on the XP.
Because the interest of some other people might get rekindled?
The message being sent that way is basically "do whatever you want, we'll swallow it because we won't be bothered about the thing we bought after a few weeks anyway". Fine, you don't care about the game any more. However, do you think that expressions of complacency now will in fact help to improve the things for, say, some future edition when you might care again? Like when you decide to spend more money on the next installment? After all, wouldn't you rather see without a doubt that these things are in fact fixed *before* you buy the next game which may or may not rekindle your interest?
Boudicca
03-03-2005, 18:41
I would so much wish for a patch 1. 3.
(1) I didn´t really think of v. 1.1. as more than a bugfix
(2) Patch 1.2. really screwed difficulty levels, they should at least adjust that
(3) They owe it to a community of fans of the Total war series, some of which have played on from Shogun to Rome, spending a hundred Dollars or more into those games (I' am one of them). This point is far beyond any contractual obligation.
If you look at Rome Total war and see what it could be made...well then I take two thoughts into account:
(1) Why don't they give us the damn support for it (just like HOI2 or other games mentioned in this thread have)
(2) If they really don't, we'd have to manage this all by ourselves, but as far as I'm informed, the AI ist hardcoded and difficult to change. h
In fact I like the game and it's graphics, but I found more fun in MTW than in Rome. The problem in turning back is the graphics of Rome, which are quite impressing (though not at the same level as in the trailers).
Activision...do your job!
I believe that you are wrong on this. Just like with M:TW and VI CA only releases one (1) patch. They had the same deal with R:TW. Now they screwed up the MP so enormously (only 30 people could play MP at any time) that they needed to fix it as soon as possible. That 1.1 patch was just a quick fix to make MP playable and should not be seen as a normal patch that balances or fixes several bugs. The 1.2 patch was in essence the first real patch and the only one we get (probably).
Thanks for the clarification DJ. I had read snippets about that here and there but was unsure of whether this was actually the case. I'll take your word for it that it is.
One patch for a game like this is a crime. It really irks me that that CA would ink a deal that limits them to one patch for a game like this. Statistically speaking when dealing with a game of this complexity things are bound to slip through the cracks even with an army of testers on the case. This has happened twice with the discovery of the secondary weapon bug pre 1.2 patch and the mounted archer bug post 1.2.
I must assume that either CA placed too much confidence in Activision's testing dept. or they hoped the one patch would catch all the major bugs and issues and and treated the expansion pack as a secondary patch of sorts. As with Medieval anyone who doesn't purchase the expansion pack is denied any further bug fixes and tweaks.
screwtype
03-03-2005, 19:28
Because the interest of some other people might get rekindled?
Okay, I was going to reply to you earlier but didn't get around to it.
Look, I think you have every right to continue to lobby CA for another patch if that's what you want. I'm obviously just speaking from my own POV. But I sincerely doubt that fixing horse archers is going to have people flocking back to the game in droves.
Also I think it would require a major effort to get CA to change its two patch policy, after which they might decide they've bent over backwards to accommodate us already and don't owe us anything more.
But I sincerely doubt that fixing horse archers is going to have people flocking back to the game in droves.
Might be so, but wouldn't you rather have a more tangible testimony that this bug is going to be fixed in the XP, as opposed to a mere presumtion (though I'm more concerned about ones we cannot fix ourselves)? As in, a patch for RTW that you can download and see for yourself, and not just thinking that surely they'll get around to do it?
Also I think it would require a major effort to get CA to change its two patch policy, after which they might decide they've bent over backwards to accommodate us already and don't owe us anything more.
But wouldn't that change of policy be a great change for all of us in the long term?
I'm not delusional as to think that my dissenting voice will change much, but I am certain however that forgiving, forgetting and being generally complacent will not bring any change whatsoever.
ps.
Btw, I hope you're not taking this a wrong way - I'm not attacking you or anything.
Cheers,
Having almost completed my second imperial campaign - this time as the carthagians. I have noticed a couple of things for the worse from patch 1.2 compared to 1.1
Firstly there is the quicksave/seige breaker - which to my thinking is a very serious bug - almost a game ruiner
Second I notice (and this may be related to the first) that none of the AI empires have expanded or taken a single land other than barabarian land - I just encountered the egyptians and they have been stagnant, the Jullii and Gaul make ceasefires every turn, and neither has taken a land. Wait a sec no the macedonians were wiped out early, so there mustve been some action by the greeks I think - they mustve taken it during one session of gaming before I loaded and the AI forgot what it was doing.
on the up side of 1.2 I fought a battle for Alexandria in front of the great lighthouse, and the egyptians had elite pharoh body guards and archers, totally amped.
on the down side the general is the first to fall still ~:handball:
so Im thinking real hard about going back to 1.1
Id like your opinions - weighing up the pros and cons do you think Id be happier playing 1.1 or 1.2
the whole 2 patches thing is complete short sighted rubbish - how do they know they wont create a bug with one of the patches that needs fixing - its an insult - so what too bad if we wreck the game with the patch we aint fixing it! Its like activision selling us a three wheeled car and then saying ok you get one service - the car comes back from the service and now its got two wheels - they say sorry we have a one service policy
corporations that hide from their consumers behind policy and doing the absolute minimum are COWARDS - FIX YOUR PRODUCT ACTIVISION
screwtype
03-04-2005, 04:58
Might be so, but wouldn't you rather have a more tangible testimony that this bug is going to be fixed in the XP, as opposed to a mere presumtion
I'd certainly like to see more communication from CA about what they're up to and what they intend to do. But for reasons best known to themselves, they choose not to operate this way.
But wouldn't that change of policy be a great change for all of us in the long term?
I don't know. We've just had a patch that fixed some old problems and introduced some new ones - in spite of supposed QA. What guarantee is there that the next patch might not introduce some even worse problems?
I think if CA put one or two programmers working fulltime on patches, which could be released to the community as is, without any QA which seems to be useless anyhow, but just a warning to install at your own risk, that might be a great way of involving the community in an ongoing exchange. But it's hard to see how CA would make any money that way, unless they charged a subscription or something, so realistically I don't think it's going to happen.
I'm not delusional as to think that my dissenting voice will change much, but I am certain however that forgiving, forgetting and being generally complacent will not bring any change whatsoever.
I don't see myself as complacent at all! On the contrary, what I want to see is radical surgery rather than cosmetic makeovers. My main concern with the idea of ongoing patches is that all the resources will end up going into incremental servicing instead of the major overhaul that I'd like to see.
Not that I really think I'll get what I want in the XP either, but I do think it gives them the opportunity to tackle at least some of the bigger issues which would be hard to address in a patch.
Btw, I hope you're not taking this a wrong way - I'm not attacking you or anything.
Cheers,
Not at all! I like an exchange of ideas, that's part of why I come to these forums ~:)
RJV,
I think the battle speed and movement speed issues are tied to initial decisions made in the architecture by CA. I don't really think Activision had much input on them (purely unbridled speculation, of course.) ...................................
I think this is what I was trying to say really. There is a lot of Activision bashing going on, but it's not really very constructive JUST to blame the publisher. CA wrote the game after all. And we know that development for RTW has been going on since the time MTW was being developed, so this is clearly a long and complicated project.
My eyes glazed over at all the stats you quoted, but what you said rings true (with me at least). There seems to have been a lot of stuff started and not finished, suggesting time and resource constraints. Whether Activision could have helped here is open to debate of course.
Re - major changes for the patch. I'd be surprised. We have a tactical game engine that (for a vocal section of the community) is far too fast. The fact that it was released that way and nothing was done about it in 5 months of pre-patch development time suggests to me that nothing will be done in time for the xpack. That's just me being pessimistic though, and if it turns out that they've been working on it for months and just needed some more tweaking and testing time to get it right then I will be delighted, and if someone could spread jam on my humble pie that would be great.
In the meantime, I (still) play the game as CA intended, and still love it.
Cheers,
Rob.
Red Harvest
03-04-2005, 15:55
RJV,
I agree. I don't see any need to blame this on the publisher--and I have not seen any information direct to the community from the publisher (marketing does not count) so their voice is not represented in this. I have no idea what the actual contract is, nor do I know what was presented to each side. Activision would expect certain deliverables and pay for them. There would certainly be a limit as to how far they would be willing to pay for patching the game--leaving it open ended invites abuse by the developer (any developer, not trying to besmirch CA.) And it is unlikely that Activision would have direct control over the quality of the patch either. I suspect that if CA developed another patch (without additional compensation) and presented it to Activision it would be tested and accepted, but that is a guess. Activision would still incur some internal costs that way, so even that might not be accepted. And who knows, it could even pose some sort of legal/contractual problem for CA in effect admitting that previous patches were insufficient.
When I first got the game, I played it for as long as I could unmodded, trying to give it a chance to grow on me in vanilla form and to get as much feel for the innate balance as possible. However, I could only resist fixing a few things for a week or two.
I am glad you are enjoying the vanilla game. There is nothing wrong with that. We each have our own expectations.
The Stranger
03-04-2005, 16:35
I would so much wish for a patch 1. 3.
(1) I didn´t really think of v. 1.1. as more than a bugfix
(2) Patch 1.2. really screwed difficulty levels, they should at least adjust that
(3) They owe it to a community of fans of the Total war series, some of which have played on from Shogun to Rome, spending a hundred Dollars or more into those games (I' am one of them). This point is far beyond any contractual obligation.
If you look at Rome Total war and see what it could be made...well then I take two thoughts into account:
(1) Why don't they give us the damn support for it (just like HOI2 or other games mentioned in this thread have)
(2) If they really don't, we'd have to manage this all by ourselves, but as far as I'm informed, the AI ist hardcoded and difficult to change. h
In fact I like the game and it's graphics, but I found more fun in MTW than in Rome. The problem in turning back is the graphics of Rome, which are quite impressing (though not at the same level as in the trailers).
Activision...do your job!
yep me too
The Stranger
03-04-2005, 16:37
Having almost completed my second imperial campaign - this time as the carthagians. I have noticed a couple of things for the worse from patch 1.2 compared to 1.1
Firstly there is the quicksave/seige breaker - which to my thinking is a very serious bug - almost a game ruiner
Second I notice (and this may be related to the first) that none of the AI empires have expanded or taken a single land other than barabarian land - I just encountered the egyptians and they have been stagnant, the Jullii and Gaul make ceasefires every turn, and neither has taken a land. Wait a sec no the macedonians were wiped out early, so there mustve been some action by the greeks I think - they mustve taken it during one session of gaming before I loaded and the AI forgot what it was doing.
on the up side of 1.2 I fought a battle for Alexandria in front of the great lighthouse, and the egyptians had elite pharoh body guards and archers, totally amped.
on the down side the general is the first to fall still ~:handball:
so Im thinking real hard about going back to 1.1
Id like your opinions - weighing up the pros and cons do you think Id be happier playing 1.1 or 1.2
the whole 2 patches thing is complete short sighted rubbish - how do they know they wont create a bug with one of the patches that needs fixing - its an insult - so what too bad if we wreck the game with the patch we aint fixing it! Its like activision selling us a three wheeled car and then saying ok you get one service - the car comes back from the service and now its got two wheels - they say sorry we have a one service policy
corporations that hide from their consumers behind policy and doing the absolute minimum are COWARDS - FIX YOUR PRODUCT ACTIVISION
AND CA
BeeSting
03-07-2005, 23:49
*bump* ~:)
HarunTaiwan
03-08-2005, 04:43
I think it's a great game overall, and obviously CA bit of more than it could chew.
I would suggest they provide some feedback to modders who are guessing at fixes so the modders can do a patch with confidence.
You know, the trait bugs, the horse archers, etc.
Clean it up.
For major changes like game speed, they need to have that in the XP.
Browning
03-08-2005, 11:55
That has actually been done previously.
There was a group of players of StarCraft that thought it wasn't good enough and so they made their own game. They found out that it was much harder than anticipated and the endresult in bought games (very cheap intenet bought) was very low. Not even the people that had pushed hema long bought the game... It was huge letdown for the developers.
That (developing a game by the users) has been done previously. I mean "Steal Panthers: World at War".
The RTS players may not be familiar with that story, but there was a series of turn-based strategy (and later on, tactical) games placed in WW2 and after called "Steel Panthers", by SSI. After many people modded the games, SSI released the code. Based on this code, a group of fanatics created a completely new tactical game, just "SP:WaW". AFAIK, it was a major success. Last I checked it is available to download for free from www.matrixgames.com .
As I am also suffering from the "AI abandon all tasks" bug, having hardly longer than 1 hour for playing, I support the petition for the 1.3 patch.
Ah but that game had the same code as the original, we can't expect that. Hope perhaps but not expect. So until that happens I think people should shelf any ambitions towards creating their own game, it is not worth it.
wipeout140
03-08-2005, 12:50
I agree they should bring another patch
Browning
03-08-2005, 13:11
Ah but that game had the same code as the original, we can't expect that. Hope perhaps but not expect. So until that happens I think people should shelf any ambitions towards creating their own game, it is not worth it.
The first version of SP:WaW had large portions of the original SSI code, which were gradually replaced by the code written by the community.
You have the point, we can't expect that CA/Activision release the code.
Aetius the Last Roman
03-08-2005, 19:52
I wholly agree with the community,
I think CA and/or Activision should at least bother to honour our requests.
Their flagrant disregard for their fanbase is aggravating and downright disrespectful considering that the majority of ppl on these forums are dedicated fans since MTW and STW.
:singer:
Personally, I just want accountability and an explanation for why things went so badly, any less and the end will be near for CA's fanbase. So let us e-picket :end:, let us protest, :director: we have a right to be angry :veryangry2:.
Whatever CA does, it cannot hide :hide: behind some nothing, two-faced ~:yin-yang: Activision consultant, no they cannot yell :oops:, say :stupid:
and wave a white flag, :surrender:
I say :hanged: whichever group of idiots who ruined the TW series.
I hope the community appreciates my smilies charged speech.
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