it was a joke mate!Quote:
Originally Posted by sapi
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it was a joke mate!Quote:
Originally Posted by sapi
It's not a bug. The event triggers on YOUR general. Note how it says "enemy army routs." The event could have been more clearly worded as "your general caused the enemy army to route" but as it stands, while somewhat unclear, it is not wrong, nor a bug.Quote:
Originally Posted by FactionHeir
True, however also true is the fact that a company's reputation was built on the code they released, so there were no months later patches fixing the game. If a game was buggy, minor major or anything, then that company would not be able to say, "here we'll fix this."Quote:
Originally Posted by diotavelli
As someone said, it is the consumers acceptance of this method of doing business, letting a company issue a buggy game and then fixing it later, that allows them to follow this business model.
If customers "made" the companies live and die by the code that came packaged in the box, the companies would either start fixing games before releasing them, or go out of business, or the consumers would accept minor issues.
All that said, I knew it would not be a perfect release and chose to invest in the game and enjoy it while letting it be polished along the way, instead of not buying it.
Honestly, after RTW, anyone who expected a perfect release, while admirably optimitic, should be embarrassed to say that they bought the game (assuming they did) not expecting some issues. Unless they are a TW noob :)
That said, I await the official patch excitedly, and in the meantime, I just reinstalled Rome/BI and am re-unlocking the world!
Yep, but not everyone would have taken it that way and we don't want anyone getting any ideas, do we? :grin2:Quote:
Originally Posted by KARTLOS
When I say it worked "as intended" what I meant is that it didn't necessarily introduce any new bugs that made the game worse except for the CTD issue.Quote:
Originally Posted by Foz
Well, I suppose if the AI was passive before the 1.2 patch and is still with the existing patch should it matter if they went ahead with the 1.2 release anyway or delayed it? Essentially, all the other things that the patch fixes were withheld (at the last minute no less), unless you grabbed a copy of the leaked patch. Should we be made to wait until they figure out why the AI is still passive? Does the leaked patch make the AI passive bug worse?
I never bothered to download the leaked patch because with my internet service, I get crap torrent speeds unless I stumble upon a peer/seed that has an amazing upload speed. I was waiting for one of the traditional download sites because atleast then I'd have a much better chance at a quick download.
Regarding the CTD issue, do we even know why it happened? Is it something to do with the installer? Is it easy to fix?
I've worked on a project where I had given myself a deadline. I ended up going a couple months over the deadline, and had several delays. Rather than delay the entire thing too far by trying to get the entire thing done, I decided to release the product in pieces. I probably got more completed since I was focused on smaller chunks and had a better time frame in which to complete the rest of the project, rather than waiting for a single release.
You might have a point where a single large patch makes more of a splash than a bunch of smaller patches, but it causes annoyances when some out here would like to see some progress with some of the fixes getting released.
I'll quickly respond to your points.
1. The community so far has done a good job at bug reporting. Stickied in this forum is the 1.3 Wishlist and 1.2 Buglist. Is there really that much reporting of fixed bugs that occurs.
2&3. This depends on how your organizational process is setup to deal with these kind of issues. Since I don't have much experience regarding the QA and development process, I acknowledge I have an incomplete picture of the overall process.
4. 1.2 was hyped because of how much if fixes, but there has likewise been a fair bit of annoyance and frustration from delay after delay.
Then why did it in RTW show the enemy army's character name? IMO it just doesn't make sense that it should say your character's name if it says enemy army routs. Especially if you then see it with "your forces melt away"Quote:
Originally Posted by Foz
Ca Is Lazyyy
Perhaps it was bugged in RTW and just now got fixed. Just because M2 does it differently doesn't mean M2 is wrong. Of course it looks wrong to you, because you're used to seeing it the other way...Quote:
Originally Posted by FactionHeir
I have no idea which way it is actually supposed to be, and don't think any of us really does... so it seems premature to label it a bug. Of course you're free to think as you wish. It wouldn't be the first time you've labeled something a bug without any clear indication it is not working as intended, though, and I'm quite certain it won't be the last either.
delete
Now there's something everyone can agree on!Quote:
Originally Posted by Daveybaby
It didn't.Quote:
Originally Posted by FactionHeir
That's simply not a useful post.Quote:
Originally Posted by Alex The Great
If you dont' have anything constructive to post, please refrain from doing so ~;)
Think of it this way, as a runner comes up with exciting news.
Enemy Army Routs!!
Prince Arthur; I am pleased to report!
The last battle left so few….
SadCat :book:
I don't think anyone should be expecting this patch anytime soon. Certainly not within the next few weeks. I think that would be impossible given that they are taking feedback from the leaked 1.2 for the official release.
the patch will be out in september:laugh4:
The leaked 1.3 patch will be out in september. :laugh4:Quote:
Originally Posted by mad cat mech
I, for one, welcome and applaud the leaked patch + delay scheme. Had some graphics corruption problems and waited for 1.2 to see if they'd get fixed or a re-install would fix them. Installing the leaked 1.2 led me to finally discover my card was hosed, now with the delay for the fixed 1.2 patch I don't have to feel like I'm missing out while my card is in the RMA cycle.
Huzzah CA for ingeniously forseeing my particular set of circumastances.
Its not that it wouldn't work that way, but I'm going according to convention, since the other screens (Shamed by Blasphemer, Blasphemer executed, Failed to Denounce Blasphemer, Fallen to Heresy) contradict the enemy army routs model.Quote:
Originally Posted by SadCat
Oh? Aus...Austr.....Australiand....Aus ..tra..li.... oh bugger...........GO THE ALLBLACKS! (got to love me?)Quote:
Originally Posted by sapi
oooohh ...do the nasty :whip: ...do the nasty :whip:
fenir............
Woot 300 posts........
Oh, only took me almost 6 years.
Does anyone know if the expansion includes 1.2?
@Alex the great, I agree with our friendly mod team, dont be mean to CA, say how RUBBISH gamespy are instead!!!!
As posted by Caliban at TWC:
Quote:
We are working to get the patch ready as soon as we can. We are focusing on AI and the top community bugs. We have already made some good progress and are looking into some issues further.
I'm sorry that some of you have a tainted view of CA (although you seem to like our games enough to still be here? , the reality is that we don't see the community as one entity nor do we pigeon hole them. There are trolls here just like every other net community, but there are also professionals as well. The constructive criticism we recieve far makes up for the abuse.
Please have patience, we aren’t sitting around playing grab ass or down the beach surfing. The Totalwar Engine is a massive behemoth of code, art and resources. One of our engine coders just gave me the source-code stats which is: 64mb of source-code in 4189 files that equals 1,655,906 lines of code.
It can take a long time to track some of these elusive bugs down; as you could imagine, the code-base is not a simple descr we can search through quickly.
There are lots of simple bugs that havn't been fixed because of the prioriety we work in. I can say that we will have a fix for the ballista-cannon tower problem in the coming update as well as the other major community bugs TWC and the ORG have been organising for us.
Quote:
It will be out well before the expansion . As for an official date, It will be ready when it's ready.
That's what I was warning about. Bugs can also interact which complicates debugging. It gets to a point where taking more time in the beginning so that there are fewer bugs in v1.0 is more efficient.Quote:
Originally Posted by Lusted
"we aren’t sitting around playing grab ass"
Someone must teach me this game.
Now that I have the leaked 1.2 patch, CA can take as long as they like to release the official version! The leaked patch does wonders for the game's playability overall, and given the how long it will take for 1.3, I'd really like to see them take into account "leaked 1.2" feedback and remaining high priority bugs before properly releasing 1.2.
caliban said-
[I'm sorry that some of you have a tainted view of CA (although you seem to like our games enough to still be here? , the reality is that we don't see the community as one entity nor do we pigeon hole them. There are trolls here just like every other net community, but there are also professionals as well. The constructive criticism we recieve far makes up for the abuse]
the reason we are still out here is because we want to get our dollars worth since we cant get a refund for our game. just because someone makes a critical comment about how CA and sega have handled this situation does not make them a troll.
abuse can go both ways.
Quoted for truth. The "troll" bit annoyed me to.Quote:
Originally Posted by mad cat mech
Calibans comment was made after comments like this:
Edited by moderator to remove bashingQuote:
Different people can also be assigned to different tasks. (e.g. programming/testing/No CA bashing please/everything else that CA deems necessary)
Quote:
still waiting for this, pathetic CA, pathetic...sugar coat it all you like but you are pathetic.
Quote:
Their motto : Let the "scum" (cummunity) do the beta testing.
Quote:
Rather I'm fed up that the patch has reportedly been 'just a few weeks away' for the last two months, whilst Sega and CA have seemingly been doing everything possible to sideline, delay and screw it up without actually telling us that things aren't going well until it's too darn late
Just to give you guys some context, might explain to you why Caliban made that comment.Quote:
This is the most ineptly handled patch development and release that I have had the misfortune of being strung along waiting for since Diablo II v1.10
I think only the first of those comments is a bit harsh. The second last one is true and I agree with the final ones sentiment.
Quickening, has it occured to you that no one at Sega or CA is likely to happy at the time the patch is taking?
They don't want to spend time making patches. It takes up programming resource to produce something they will have to release for free. The only reason they do it is to retain customer goodwill and thus protect revenue from future releases. Ever unnecessary minute spent on the patches is effectively money burnt.
Of course, it's possible that they're not dedicating that much resource to the patch. But, by this stage, that would be self-defeating: if the only reason you build patches is to retain customer goodwill, deliberately and unnecessarily delaying the release of those patch negate any benefit you might accrue because you won't retain customer goodwill due to the delay.
Surely that's obvious? It couldn't be any simpler. There is no reason imaginable why CA or Sega would delay the patch unless they had to. Yes, some of their customers are frustrated by that but comments slating CA as a result are childish and unnecessarily abusive. If you knew and could prove that CA were delaying the patch deliberately, that wouldn't be the case - but I've seen nothing to suggest they are.
diotavelli, you dont understand. If something isnt going exactly how we want it, the people resposible simply must be lazy, evil and incompetent. This has been proven to be true, just ask any teenager. :wink:
Quote:
Originally Posted by Quickening
yeah, how could anyone ever mistake you for a troll? :rolleyes:Quote:
Originally Posted by Quickening
I know that. But I don't think people should be accused of being trolls for not being happy about the situation. That is lame. Not one of those quotes is "trollish". A troll is someone who posts something that has no value to anything. Those people were expressing their dissatisfation and as paying customers that is their right surely.Quote:
Originally Posted by diotavelli
You lot don't know what a troll is then.Quote:
Originally Posted by Daveybaby
Quickening, i've been a moderator at TWC since Jan 05, i'd rate all of those comments, apart from the 2nd to last one as trolling. All of them though are likely to not make any CA guy who reads them happy.
The definition of trolling seems to be expressing disapproval of anything CA does then. Fine, Ive been on forums with similar ideas so I know the deal.
Im going to go and be a good paying customer, shut up, play the game and be happy no matter what CA does or doesn't do.
Well calling anyone pathetic, inept, trat the community like 'scum' is trolling, it doesn't matter it's aimed at CA.
There's quite a substantial difference between being unhappy with the state of M2TW as it was launched and making unsubstantiated claims about "ineptly handled patch development". It is regretable that CA announced the date for the patch and then had to pull it but, since we don't know the full circumstances, claims of ineptitude are unsubstantiated.Quote:
Originally Posted by Quickening
I've been involved in a fair few product launches where we've given a planned launch date and then had to pull the product at the last minute. It doesn't mean there anyone's done anything wrong, simply that IT products are not simple affairs.
It's not like a physical product, where the production process is lineal, and where you can ensure deadlines are met simply by dedicating more resource. IT products nowadays are far more complex than that (think Hofstadter's "strange loops and tangled hierarchies") and throwing more people at the process doesn't necessarily speed things up.
Comments such as "Sega and CA have seemingly been doing everything possible to sideline, delay and screw it up" are just plain stupid. How does anyone know what Sega and CA have done? And why does anyone think either company would have any interest in delaying the patch. If comments like this aren't ill-founded and unnecessarily abusive, I don't know what is.
I doubt anyone is suggesting that you should be a passive, uncomplaining fool who buys stuff from Sega and CA with no regard for the quality of service you're receiving in return - simply that if you're going to make a complaint in a public forum it should be proportionate, justifiable and not ad hominem.
if you paid for the game you have a right to complain until the game is officially fixed.
if i tell a person that i can fix their car if they bring it in on a certian date and they set aside the time to bring it out and then i say i cant get to it because i put them off to do work i could make more money at is irresponsible and dishonest workmanship.
if i sell a car to someone that has something wrong with it and me and the person agrees to a set time for them to bring it in so i can fix it and they bring it in and i make some excuse for not being able to get to it that day. i would think that is being a real jerk.
when customer comes first in business, you drop what you are doing to complete unfinished business with an unsatisfied customer before you move on to making more money. this is common business practice among most companies i know of.
if i buy a riflescope and it is a bad one and i call a large corporation that sells many scopes in one year they still have the time to talk to me one on one over a 1 800 number and help me resolve the problem and will send me pretty much whatever we agree on without any cost in shipping.
how is a gaming software company immune from common business etiquette?
Because software is a completely different kind of product to a car or rifle scope. It would be insane to think that a software company would drop everything to provide fixes for everyone who complains about their products, there would never be an end to it, and where are they going to work on their next product if they're endlessly fixing things.
Do you have any idea about how difficult it is to set a realistic time scale for anything in sfotware, i've done programming and i would most of the time refuse to give an estimate for whn i might have something done for the course apart from a very vague timescale because i just don't know how long something will take sometimes.Quote:
if i sell a car to someone that has something wrong with it and me and the person agrees to a set time for them to bring it in so i can fix it and they bring it in and i make some excuse for not being able to get to it that day. i would think that is being a real jerk.
Now of course setting a date and then not meeting it is bad, but when they pull something because they aren't happy with some of the things still giving problems shows they are now fixing to the best of their abilities and they want to produce a quality patch.
Mad Cat said:
I couldn't agree less, Pard. I reckon the vast majority of us are still here because there is nothing that compares to CA's work, like it or not. I know what's involved in business and programming. I have the utmost respect for their products and work. Money's worth, lol? Come on, guys, we've been playing this measly $50 game since NOVEMBER! There is no doubt that the game can use some improvements, but it is most certainly playable. $50 bucks might seem a lot if you're 16, but when compared to a 3 hour night out to a movie and dinner at McDonalds with your spouse or squeeze, it's a reallllllllllly good deal. And that includes the additional five minutes you guys would spend afterward if you get lucky, lol. I've seen this poor game compared to bad brakes on a $30,000 vehicle, which is a bit of a stretch. Aside from the cost differences, brakes or such would be a physical hazard. I've also seen it compared to the quality of a movie. ?? Again, movies are multi-million dollar productions that we spend close to $50 bucks on for about 120 minutes of entertainment. Well, if we don't like the movie, then we've only invested a couple of hours of our time. Dah? Come on, folks. If that's the case, then I got my money's worth the day I installed any TW game. (I stayed up half the night playing M2TW. Wow, that's pretty sad, isn't it?)Quote:
the reason we are still out here is because we want to get our dollars worth since we cant get a refund for our game.
I have no intention of belittling anyone's opinion or comments, and I'm not trying to single anyone out. I guess the point of this is simply that I have gotten far more than my money's worth with all of CA's games; and patch or no patch, I'll still buy the next one. Let's face it, except for cosmetics and certain minor variances, all FPS's and RTS's are identical. We simply can't compare any other titles to TW for playability. I doubt I'd still be gaming if the only choices I had were more of the click-fests or run & guns. I mean, I can still go out to a movie. Right? :laugh4:
I believe the biggest cause of grips in our forums isn't the unplayability of the games, rather our desperation to satisfy and enhance our addictions to them. I still need my next fix from TW.
I agree with that. There are problems, and I hope they are resolved soon, but it has given six months worth of enjoyment for a relatively small amount of money.Quote:
Originally Posted by Lord Ovaat
The problem is that this phenomena is unique to the game software industry. Anywhere else, "it'll be done when it's done" is completely, totally, and utterly unacceptable. You have customers, project managers, and management all breathing down your neck, so you're forced to give an estimate and make good on it. It's amusing in the gaming industry because it's the only one I'm aware of (besides the way Microsoft acts) where the owners and publishers can treat their customers relatively poorly, make and sell shoddy/incomplete/bug riddled software and get away with it nearly scott free. That's not necessarily aimed at CA, but it's true in general.Quote:
Originally Posted by Lusted
This is why it never ceases to annoy me when the fanboy crowd rolls through and says "u just wait because u shuld lole its just a game". Sorry, that's tough turkey, it may be a game but it's also a BUSINESS. Entertainment is a BUSINESS. I'm paying for something that I can relax and enjoy, and when I don't get my money's worth damn right I'm going to say or do something about it. Unfortunately, this is one area where it's all but impossible to get a refund for my hard earned money, therefore we have no real means to achieve satisfaction except collectively raise our voices in frustration. The problem is that you get the paid shills (I think there are a few here) and fanboys that make it hard to do so with all of their trolling, and then you get the kiddies who don't know how to be constructive and troll on the opposite end of the spectrum.
Thus is the situation. If I could get a full refund at this point I probably would, then I'd be done saying my piece. Since that's not an option, I'm going to continue doing whatever I can until relief is given, and so are the others. For all of you can can enjoy the game right now, I seriously envy you. But stop telling us this game is fine. It's got some horrid bugs, and that's great you all can ignore them, quite a few of us can't. If you aren't going to help us or stand with us in trying to get this fixed, fine. But don't try to hinder us, tell us this game is "fine" or "playable", or generally try to disrupt what we are doing. I really do want CA to both listen to us and succeed, but this "sit down and wait" crap is totally unacceptable, it's been almost half a year. "When it's done" is not acceptable.
Quickening, I feel your pain mate.
Thank you.
all i can say is that i hope they have learned their lesson about releasing an unfinished game.older total war fans such as myself which are in the minority for computer games will continue to attempt to have faith in the game title.
however younger players are not going to be too fond of a game that requires so many fixes to make for balanced and realistic game play. i fear a lot of those players have moved on to play something else and will not buy total war again.
Perfectly said Whacker! :yes:
Game software business is still in kindergarden stage:
- no use of professional software design and handling
- each game company is developping from scratch no use of reusable elements or standards intercompany wise
- the customer base is splitted into many people, no big end user companies as for example in the SAP Software sector --> so the customers have no power, and the fans are still low aged fanboys and doesn't know to much about business
- there are no other enduser organisations as in the business software field, so no power...
In the long future we will see a merge between business software and game software, regarding 3d userinterfaces, AI, storytelling....and maybe the gameplayers organize themselves....
So up to this moment we have imature software and imature fans...
repman
I must say, I'm getting a bit tired of people justifying a half finished product at a fully inflated price just because "software" is different to any other product on the planet... how so?
A purchased product is a purchased product whether it's a pair of shoes, a car or a piece of software. I expect what I paid for, and this bug ridden piece of software isn't what I expected. Saying that, I was quite happy (for some reason) to wait for CA to do their duty and finish this software.
This hasn't been done before they are trying to take more money out of my pocket for another piece of software, :help: I'm still waiting for my last purchase to work properly.
This wouldn't be tolerated in any other sector of the market, and saying "it's software, cut them some slack" cuts no ice with me.
Come on CA, show some loyalty to the people who have spent hard earned cash with you instead of treating us like mugs.
Because, instead of putting it aside and never using it again, installing a mod, or uninstalling the game and waiting for a patch to be released, people who are mad at software will spend at least six months on a forum complaining. Even though most people don't really care.Quote:
Originally Posted by Slug For A Butt
More, if it's an operating system.
I must admit that I am a bit disappointed with the current state of MTW2 myself. I've been quite happy with the 'out of the packet' state of the previous releases (STW, MTW, RTW), as although there were bugs, there were none that irritated me greatly.
Unfortunately, MTW2's bugs are sufficiently 'in your face' for me to be reminded of them every time I play the game.
Whenever I send spearmen to attack peasant archers I am reminded of the shield bug. Whenever I play a faction whose units include lots of two-handed weapon troops I'm reminded of the two handed-weapon bug. When ever I try to use cavalry I am reminded of how CA have nerfed cavalry charges. Sure, if I was a gearhead I could fix the first one myself, but I'm not.
Its a real shame because underneath the bugs is a really great game. Its reminiscent of the state that Master of Orion 3 (the sorry end of a great franchise) was in. Sure you can play the game, but the annoyance factor is such that you never really enjoy it.
Given that the game was out before Christmas, a 6 month lead time to some sort of decent bug fix is frustrating. After all, if I had waited 6 months to buy, I could probably have bought the game more cheaply. Perhaps this is the way to go for future CA releases.
I wasn't aware i was saying that.Quote:
But stop telling us this game is fine.
Because software code isn't like a mechanical car, it's friggin complex and a pain in the ass to get perfect.Quote:
I must say, I'm getting a bit tired of people justifying a half finished product at a fully inflated price just because "software" is different to any other product on the planet... how so?
And where do people get the idea im justifying the state of the game, i also wish it had come out with less bugs but im glad CA are taking the time to make sure the 1.2 is a very good patch.
Oh come on, Kingdoms isn't out til September of something, 1.2 will be out before then.Quote:
Saying that, I was quite happy (for some reason) to wait for CA to do their duty and finish this software.
This hasn't been done before they are trying to take more money out of my pocket for another piece of software
it sure doesnt help any though when one of their devs pops off attacking the community that pays his wages.
if the guy didnt have anything better to say then he did he should have just shut his mouth.
if i talked to a customer service rep from any company i can think of and they popped off like that they would get into some serious trouble.
people that pay their wages have a right to complain and shouldnt be called a troll.
its not so much the current state of affairs that gets me frustrated its that a CA dev would pop off like that. he ought to apologize but im sure he never will.
He isn't a customer service rep, Caliban has been posting quite a lot at TWC recently because he feels the devs should be more active on the forums. If you read my post on the previous page you'd see some of the comments he's been faced with, and some people have been trolling CA. He also makes a point about constructive criticism, which most comments are. It's the few people who just insult/troll CA his comment was aimed at.
I find that impossible to believe for RTW, and from what I hear, MTW as well. RTW vanilla 1.0 was one of the worst releases I've ever seen, from a favorite company, on a beloved subject. The amount of scorn heaped on RTW has been such that to overlook it now, with blissful equanimity, requires rose-tinted glasses with extraordinarily thick lenses.Quote:
Originally Posted by Theodoret
"nerfed cavalry"? That's ludicrous, and at the very least a judgment call, certainly not a game crashing bug that you tearfully describe. Not only do the 'mass' settings in the text file really matter now (and can be adjusted to your liking), but there's a more powerful charge setting you can employ for units that you believe are underpowered. As for me, I personally feel that your underpowered cavalry charge is ludicrous; I'm no powerplayer by any means, and I struggle with the game on H/H, but when I use my heavy cavalry properly they absolutely decimate the opposition. Using conquistadores against Aztecs in Otumba battle is the only way for Spanish to win against overwhelming odds. Also, in your post, the very fact that you lump two-handed units indiscriminantly into the bug category, shows that you don't understand the nature of the bug involved. It affects 2-handed axes only, and thus really hurts a select choice of units, mostly Denmark huscarls, and Byzantian Varangians. Otherwise, the reason for the suckage of 2-handed units lies solely at your feet...Quote:
Whenever I send spearmen to attack peasant archers I am reminded of the shield bug. Whenever I play a faction whose units include lots of two-handed weapon troops I'm reminded of the two handed-weapon bug. When ever I try to use cavalry I am reminded of how CA have nerfed cavalry charges.
I'm sorry, Master of Orion 3 was not a game. It was business management software. The game was released not in rhetorically half-finished state, but in actually half-finished state. The back-end business modeling of the universe was in place, but the actual soul of the game was not there yet. Not to mention the fact that MOO3 was exactly 0% moddable. And to that you're comparing a fantastic game that has both the complex model behind it, and a finished front and personality in front of it, with only a few bugs, that were fixed not only in official patch to be, but in the leaked patch already available for so long. If you can't see beyond these points, I'm sorry, I can't help you. But I'll just say there is no justice behind your points.Quote:
Its a real shame because underneath the bugs is a really great game. Its reminiscent of the state that Master of Orion 3 (the sorry end of a great franchise) was in. Sure you can play the game, but the annoyance factor is such that you never really enjoy it.
I believe and sincerely hope that they were referring to the people, mainly at the .com forums, who mainly do troll all day long. I've tried and simply can't read those forums, it's full of some of the worst grammar I've ever seen and some of the worst arguments, trolls, fanboys, and nonsense that I've had the unfortunate experience to encounter in all my years, and that's saying a lot.Quote:
Originally Posted by mad cat mech
It's unfortunate in a number of ways, because the person who simply writes "thsi gaem sux lole ca sux" may actually have some legitimate and constructive criticism and points to add to the mix, but for whatever reason we get that type of garbage that I used as an example. The same with the hardcore fanboys, being able to politely and constructively argue FOR something without flaming or trolling could add value to the discussions.
That's why I say I think it was mainly about the .com kiddy patrol, because I've come to believe that in general the folks at the .Org are a bit better than that. That's not to say that there are some intelligent, polite folks at the .com, but in my experience they are few and far between. That and the likelyhood of anything being censored there is pretty high compared to here. That and I've been reading these forums since what... late '00?
Lusted, my post was not aimed specifically at you, my apologies if that was the perception. If you'd like a serious answer to your middle question, I am willing to PM if you really want to know.
Regards.
:balloon2:
Whats a troll? (other than green and regenerates)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_trollQuote:
Originally Posted by PutCashIn
Lovely critters. It's been perfected into an art form over the years.
Edit - @ Star Captain Insane Feline Robot
No, you aren't a troll. Your grammar and spelling leaves something to be desired, but your posts are almost always funny, sometimes hilarious and occasionally way off topic, but seemingly well intended. You're a good guy, not a troll.
i am a troll. i just dont like being called one:beam:
Well, it's true ever since the widespread adoption of broadband Internet access anyway. That's the real problem here. Back in the days when we were all using 300 baud modems (if that), PC games and other types of software had to work right out of the box, because there were no expectations of anything other than very low-level patches. It wasn't possible to basically re-distribute a major chunk of the original game, the way it works now.Quote:
Originally Posted by Whacker
But there's no way to put that genie back in the bottle. All we can do as consumers is take our business to companies that don't abuse the ability to release large patches, and who release fairly solid products (Stardock, for example). For companies who do abuse the patching cycle and release too soon (I'm looking at you, Ubi and SH4), we'll eventually learn to control our enthusiasm and wait a few months until the patch cycle is complete... and then buy from the bargain bin. That way, we're not rewarding bad behavior by the game companies. It does take self-control though, and I'm certainly guilty of jumping the gun on a game I'm excited about.
What did you pay for? You have no idea, do you? Then how can you decide if anything is "fixed" or not, without a clear description of what the game is or how the game works to begin with? The analogy with any other product fails here already: you inspect most products to make sure they are what you want before you buy them. You do not do so with software, so honestly you're buying whatever the company decided to put in the package, and you pretty much have to be fine with that b/c you didn't test drive it. Not saying that you COULD do so even... but from a business standpoint, the company doesn't owe you anything after you agree to pay for the product. You have no rights at all after you paid for the product in the state it is in, and it's remarkable that companies actually bother to listen to consumers at all b/c of that. They honestly don't have to, at all. You paid, with no contract for ongoing service, ergo you now have no rights.Quote:
Originally Posted by mad cat mech
You're obviously trying to draw a parallel to CA delaying the patch. You got the situation wrong, however. It's not like them making an excuse why they didn't get to your car: it's that they found more wrong with your car than they estimated at first, and have to keep it in the shop longer to fix it so you can drive it properly and safely again. Coincidentally, car repair shops do that all the time.Quote:
if i sell a car to someone that has something wrong with it and me and the person agrees to a set time for them to bring it in so i can fix it and they bring it in and i make some excuse for not being able to get to it that day. i would think that is being a real jerk.
The patch could easily have been released on the day they said. You wouldn't have as many fixes in it as there will be in the version currently in progress, but then again you don't have an official agreement with CA to have any particular fixes in this patch, do you? It's not like other industries where you actually contract a company to develop something to given specifications. There is no end goal here, no way for a user to determine when the game does what it is supposed to, because there is nothing it is supposed to do except run. CA simply tries to keep users, who I will reiterate have already paid for the 1.0 product, happy. They have no obligation to do so. You can be upset about that if you want, but you have no right to be since you paid for the imperfect 1.0 product. At that point, you gave up your right to demand a better product, because you completed the transaction. I'm not saying it's good, or I condone it: I sure don't like it either. But once you pay, the deal is done, you accept the product as is. If any of us expect the situation to be reformed, it will have to start with a change at this step: we can't allow ourselves to be forced into buying products before we can tell what they are or if they meet our approval. To continue doing so is to throw our consumer rights out the window.Quote:
Originally Posted by Whacker
Stardock do release fairly stable release but they also release alot of patches too.
I don't mind people complaining about a product that they bought, but can we at least stop complaining until 1.2 is released? Everyones pretty much said their piece but then some people (even though they have a right to) they keep going on about it, we know it was a bad release at the start and we found more bugs than we knew about at the start and CA are doing something to remedy the problems, I for one am going to wait to see what the real 1.2 patch fixes before I judge them again, I dunno this topic just seems to keep veering off into discussions about CA's business practises and the industry at large which it isn't reaaaaallly for, I might get flamed for this post but I'm just trying to point out that well we have all heard what everyones had to say about the Release M2TW 1.0 the state it was in etc, we just seem to keep going round in circles about the same thing which doesn't reallly accomplish much. I would very much like to see what the 1.2 patch does to the game and am looking forward to the patches release.
Anyway back to playing my denmark campaign... first one I've hit 200 turns in! its fun making the aztec cities rebel because I made the population Catholics :P but now theyre attacking my city >.> and the Timurids don't have much left I think theyre trying to reach Constantinople and gonna make it their capital, not sure yet all I know is theyre not attacking me :D
(Yay 100 posts!)
and fenir are you a New Zealander? for someone who says they live in Aus you don't seem terribly patriotic... :P
Foz,
I heartily agree with you. Yes, it is imperfect, but at least they are honest about their errors and willing to make it right.Not many software developers care enough to do that. I have bought many clunkers and have been stuck with them. ~:pissed: And what if the "gameplay" is not exactly what you wanted? Don't like RTS? Too bad. Sell it on eBay.
Let's have everybody grow up a bit and stop whining. :disappointed: Software is very complex. Let them do their job. I am glad we have MTW2, even if there are flaws. :2cents:
i liked zenicetus? viewpoint.
next time i think ill try to wait for the bargain bin.
and yes CA/sega have a responsibility to fix a buggy game. if they dont then it will look very badly for them. no its not breaking the law by not fixing the game but it is very bad business practice and that will come back to haunt them in the future.
i have played all the total war games and this is the only one that had this many bugs off the shelf and i refuse to believe anyone to tell me otherwise.
I can't help but feel that yesterdays outburst @twcenter by Caliban regarding trolls may have been pointing a finger at me!!!
Does expressing my displeasure at having received a faulty game make me a troll? or for being observant enough to notice the plethora of bugs and then brave enough to make comment make me a troll? Am I a troll for expressing dissatisfaction for the fact that I had to wait 5 months for customer service to fix the game?
or, god forbid to ever make any negative comment in regards to the game whether justified or not make me a troll?
Did I make some serious error of judgement here to expect the right to make comment after having purchased the game. Perhaps my rights are to shut up and silently put up with what has been handed to me without comment and anything to the contrary will make me are troll. So very well, I'm a troll!!
I love the totalwar series so please lets not try to compare MTW2 with other more buggy games. How ridiculous to compare a highly respected business clearly passionate about their games with some "fly by nighter" game developers whose sole purpose is to release a game for a quick buck then dissapear into the night clutching their cash. Its like trying to compare Sears with some pyramid selling scheme!! Oh please stop.
What hurts is we expected better. We expected better from the start and we expected better customer service. We just simply expected better all round and were let down big time so many times that it hurts.
and spare me "but theirs x million lines of code to debug" or the argument "a product of this complexity will always have bugs". So bloody what! How very unimaginative since every product ever discovered and used by man undergoes a natural complexity evolution that will alter it significantly over time but this will never mean that it should become less reliable! In fact complexity should not only improve ease of use and functionality but also reliability.
So perhaps I should wait for at least the third safety recall before purchasing my next BMW, mmm... Rubbish!!!
or that the space shuttle is so less reliable than the German V1 that every third launch will end up god knows where. Rubbish!!!
Almost every product we use today in the western world are subject to minimum standards set by governments and these products must meet certain legal, safety and consumer protection requirements but unfortunately for the consumers software games manufacturers are not subject to any strict form of controls or standards and the legal requirements are little more than laughable.
Perhaps this is a reason why we are buying games that faulty or dysfunctional and not because some uninformed programmer wannabe thinks its a technical impossibility.
OK, so maybe I don't know what I'm talking about since I'm only a troll and not one of your so called conforming "Professionals"
Never mind that I first programmed in the early 70's using fortran and punch cards, or for the fact that I spent 12 years studying & working at the Dept Maths & Computing in a university or spending the last 14 years as a technical director for a product development company.
Here nothing else really matters because I'm just a totalwar playing troll who was disappointed because he expected better. I am very sorry for being a troll.
Would you like to lock down this thread now as well before CA see it Sapi?
Ooookay, I think you took it a little more to heart than you should have. The people he was calling trolls are those that were insulting CA, not saying they were disappointed, those that were calling them lazy, inept, etc....
I'm working on a diploma at the moment, right now I'm working in flash actionscript which can be fun and extremely frustrating at times. I've made a couple of things which worked off the bat, but most refused to work at all. I debug for about half an hour trying to figure out whats stopping it from working (and this is with just about 50 lines of code) and it might end up being a spelling mistake or I put an instance name where I needed a variable. Imagine that in 1.5 million lines of code, trying to figure out where that one little mistake is. I personally think you are overreacting and taking too much of it to heart. Yes it should have been done months ago and yes it should have worked out of the box but like most games it didn't. (Actually it worked fine until we found the balancing issues/AI but anyway...) We know this. This is what people have been saying for months and everyone gets the idea. You aren't a troll, unless you were constantly posting that CA is useless at making games and throwing general insults at them. CA is fairly decent at making games just like Microsoft is fairly decent at making Operating Systems. We all know that Windows works out of the box, but it does have issues (M2TW worked out of the box, the machanics of the game worked fine even if the AI wasn't right and there were balancing bugs/issues that prevented people from enjoying the game fully, cept for the elephant crash bug) Windows doesn't run perfectly all the time it has issues aswell, but do people get this upset about it? (and lets face it you pay alot more for Windows than you did M2TW)
You have a right to complain but if its this upsetting to you, you should go back to the store and demand a refund, or write a letter to CA/SEGA and demand a refund or that you get their next game for free or that you won't purchase another single copy of the game, because those are the things that are going to make any difference, continually expressing your disgust, annoyance and general frustrations in this post anyway won't help your goal of getting a bug free game. Whats the saying? There's no use in crying over spilt milk, its happened, we can't change the past but maybe if people decide to do something instead of continuing to talking about it you can do something about the upcoming expansion.
Can we at least maintain a pretence of civilised behaviour?
I'm not going to rush and lock down this thread as Nebuchadnezzar suggested (and I'll even ignore the implications behind that comment), but I would like to remind some people of what has already been said on the matter: a lot.
We've even had a CA programmer who's been trying to cease the flow of trolling and flaming (and i'm not pointing the finger at anyone), but it seems that nothing will please the community as it is.
I'm not a CA fanboy; never was, never will be. I haven't played M2TW in almost two months, and won't until the patch is released.
But please, have a think about the situation that the other guy is in. CA truly is in a no-win situation as things stand: they delay the patch, they're flamed for giving a wrong release date; but if they had of released it, I can tell you with absolute certainty that many people, maybe even the same people, would be complaining about the bugs that CA is even now trying to fix.
For a long while there was little official response.
Now, there is. Lusted has conveyed to us something from the TWC forums, somthing that if not official is as close as we're going to get; and a response that I honestly doubt I would be restrained enough to give in Caliban's position.
So please, calm down. The patch will be done when it's done, and flaming CA here will achieve nothing.
To reiterate: CA is working on the patch. They're working in response to our feedback and for our gain; working at something that is decidedly not easy. I'm sure they'd appreciate a break, and that, at the moment, is all that we can give.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Caliban
You only made a serious error in judgment if you expected what you say to magically influence CA. You may have the right to say what you please in whatever country you reside in, but everyone else (most especially CA/SEGA) almost certainly has the right to ignore it. I don't mind anything anyone says on here, really, but I do think it's rather silly to go on a forum and expect to have real power over huge corporations, especially after you've already paid them.Quote:
Originally Posted by Nebuchadnezzar
The kind of standards you're talking about are generally to prevent the products from causing physical harm to people, or to ensure a minimum level of consumer protection if the item involves some level of risk (a car for instance). When was the last time you saw a computer game injure its user physically? Games aren't regulated because they can't cause harm the way many other items can. The government does not care at all if a DVD player you bought breaks in a week, or if the moon roof of your car is shoddy and only works half the time - it only cares if you might get hurt as a result. Every other aspect of the product remains quite unregulated, and up to the consumer to spot and avoid if necessary. Software isn't an exception in this area, it's the rule.Quote:
Almost every product we use today in the western world are subject to minimum standards set by governments and these products must meet certain legal, safety and consumer protection requirements but unfortunately for the consumers software games manufacturers are not subject to any strict form of controls or standards and the legal requirements are little more than laughable.
Can I assume that if you had actual experience recently that was relevant to projects of M2TWs scale, you'd have mentioned it explicitly in the part between the early 70s and now? I think I just did. I'm not going to put too fine a point on it, but if it's been a decade or more since you were involved in any projects writing sizable amounts of code, then your experiences are largely irrelevant to the 1.5M line program we're discussing.Quote:
OK, so maybe I don't know what I'm talking about since I'm only a troll and not one of your so called conforming "Professionals"
Never mind that I first programmed in the early 70's using fortran and punch cards, or for the fact that I spent 12 years studying & working at the Dept Maths & Computing in a university or spending the last 14 years as a technical director for a product development company.
If you've written 1.5M line programs that are perfect in every way and you are set on proving the experiences and observations of the entire software development world wrong, though, then just link me to them so I can find the plethora of bugs you've overlooked.
If you haven't done that, though, please stop trivializing the process and acting like a perfectly coded game should be easy (or even possible) to make, as you clearly have no reasonable basis for making that claim. Coding on punch cards in the 70s doesn't make you a specialist on modern software design, nor does being a Math & Computer faculty member at a university, no matter how much you'd like them to do so.
Everybody who purchased the game has a reasonable expectation that CA/Sega fix the significant bugs with patches (although, FYI, no right to have that happen). I dont think anyone on these forums would think otherwise.
What i have a problem with is the constant pointless derailing every other thread by the same handful of people. Its just unconstructive bitching and it achieves nothing except piss off everybody else and destroy yet another thread.
Its isnt highlighting problems.
Its just whining, bitching and trolling. Nothing else.
My god, are you people like this in the real world as well?
Oh, and can we please stop trotting out the 'IF I HAD BOUGHTED A MOTOR CAR' analogy. It doesnt hold water and it never has. Car manufacturers have to jump through hundreds of safety tests to get a car out the door because CARS CAN KILL PEOPLE. I guess if you dont mind paying double or triple the price for your games and waiting an extra couple of years then i guess software companies could do the same thing too. Oh, and cars are still buggy as hell anyway - and thats despite the automotive industries amaaaaaazing levels of innovation put into every new car. :rolleyes: Anyone who makes this analogy immediately marks their whole argument as being the work of somebody who doesnt have a clue how the world works.
Oh, and one last thing: ITS NOT JUST GAMES SOFTWARE. Its all software. And its not just software. Its everything. Everything we buy is cheap crap. Everything breaks after 6 months. Buying coca-cola will NOT make supermodels want to have sex with you. Video recorders, mp3 players and phones all crash on a fairly regular basis. The entire western economy is based on crap products marketed by bald-faced lies. Just so you know, in case you ever have to interact with the real world once in a while.
Well everyone else is having a go so why not I,
I will spring to CA defense, because as a self taught minor programmer of several small technical simulations, I sympathize with CA trying to find bugs in 1.5 megs of coding. Bugs are a fact of computer life, look at Microsoft and the number of updates you get there. If I had to pay for the patch then maybe there would be a case for CA bashing, but we don't.
What would you have ?, a small perfect game or a large ambitious game , I know I want the latter with sure a few bugs but still immensely enjoyable.
I think it was 6.8 megs of coding, and if someone shows you 6.8 megs of text in a .txt file you will realise how much that is ;) its kinda scary actually.Quote:
Originally Posted by Razor1952
Sorry! You've totally lost me here. I had no intention of exercising any power over anyone or anything.Quote:
Originally Posted by Foz
No! I was more leaning towards various consumer laws and manufacturers warranties such as "working as described", lemon laws, function without fault etc... but I think you already know this.Quote:
Originally Posted by Foz
I only included some background to emphasize the fact I was not talking from the wrong hole. But truthfully, you are right in your assumption that I no longer code but very much mistaken to even suggest my experiences are irrelevent for today.Quote:
Originally Posted by Foz
Perfection was never an issue. Functionality is!Quote:
Originally Posted by Foz
Again perfection was never the issue nor did I ever say it was easy but rather done a little too fast.Quote:
Originally Posted by Foz
I'd like to point out that programming a program is very different than doing so for a game.
A program must get the user from point x to point y, and that's it. Almost every situation is predictable and most importantly controllable by the amount of functionality that the user is given.
A game, however, has an AI and relies on emergent gameplay. It would be infinitely more difficult to debug such code than anything else.
Speak for yourself.Quote:
Originally Posted by Daveybaby
No not at all.Quote:
Originally Posted by Daveybaby
I don't know what shop you buy your stuff from, but I recommend a change.Quote:
Originally Posted by Daveybaby
Ah yes the old "anyone who cares must be a loser with no life" card. Very good. Well guess what, I have a job, a girlfriend, studies, a good social life and ambitions but... Im still not happy about this situation and I still want the game fixed! OMFG!!!!!!1111111oneone :yes:Quote:
Originally Posted by Daveybaby
As for Coke, it's a drink. You buy it, you drink it and that's that. Yes it consists of shit but everyone knows that. The coke analogy would only work if there was some imperfection in the can that meant you only got like 83% of the Coke you paid for or something.
I bought Medieval 2: Total War from Creative Assembly and SEGA not Generic Shooter 8 from Cowboys Interactive. Big difference. Creative Assembly are now a well known and respected developer so it's not the same as buying some cheap rubbish and complaining when it doesn't work.
Here's another rule of the real world: you pay for what you get. Well Ive paid and what I got is still not what I paid for.
Actually, the rule is "you get what you pay for".
You did - you paid for M2TW (or at least you should have), and you got a 1.0 that worked pretty darn well.
Now CA's doing more at no cost and all people want to do is complain.
I play the game, I enjoy it and I love it. I even went and bought the Collectors Edition and gave my first copy to a friend so we could play online. But that still doesnt make the situation acceptable.Quote:
Originally Posted by sapi
And CA arent "doing more" as in going above and beyond the call of duty, they are merely fixing an already released product. And sure some companies dont bother but even when you have a good reputation you have to work to maintain it.
Right and this is an oath right here, this is the last Im going to say on this issue no matter who responds with what. Debate on the internet is always a waste of time but all too easy to get drawn into :shame:
EDIT: Also, no hard feelings Lusted, Davey Baby and everyone else.
whats going on here this forums turned into a total fanboy site. can noone voice an opinionQuote:
Originally Posted by sapi
it doesnt work darn well cos its broken i ahvent played it for months and i paid full price.
it is NOT a favour CA is doing us it is what we have already paid for.
with all due respect to sapi, lusted and co if you have nothing new to add to the discussion dont post anything your views are well known and there is no need to repeat them.
i was going to reply to an ealier argument justifying the way CA is working saying its a business or something like that, what crap.
the only reason that CA/SEGA can do this to its cutomers is cos of the uniqueness of the product and an apprent monopoly in this type of game. SEGA made a great investment when they took over from Activision. thats good business. and all monopolies exploit the cutomer since there is no alternative. but when the competition does arrive it will be a different story.
hats off to sega for having more dialogue but didnt that also start after the latest patch delay.
the only way anyone can change this is by changing buying habits. if u want a complete game wait for expansion when bugs are fixed and pay less for original game. thats what i do with all my games except for total war but i think thats gonna change now as well.
maybe its just me but some patrons of these forums seem to have developed an attitude where they think their opinions mean more than someone elses.
please dont turn this into another totalwar.com forum
Its not me particularly, but if you have a look around the forums for thousands of different products, you will see people complaining about issues for TVs, cars, customer service etc that makes the issues people are having with M2TW look insignificant.Quote:
Originally Posted by Quickening
Actually, that was aimed at all of us, myself included, having arguments about a computer game on the internet is about as far removed from the real world as its possible to get.Quote:
Originally Posted by Quickening
Yeah, but thats not how they market it, is it?Quote:
Originally Posted by Quickening
But M2TW and Generic Shooter 8 are the same price.Quote:
Originally Posted by Quickening
You got what you paid for :grin:
None here, and none intended either.Quote:
Originally Posted by Quickening
If you can criticise CA's attitude, surely we can criticise yours?Quote:
Originally Posted by crpcarrot
And theyre doing it... theyre fixing the game. What exactly is it you want, that theyre not already doing, thats giving you cause for complaint?Quote:
Originally Posted by crpcarrot
I'm afraid this has been my game buying practice since I bought RTW . .Quote:
Originally Posted by crpcarrot
Love the total war series, but sure as hell not buying MTW2 until they sort it out. To be fair this is the same for other games as well, thought Morrowind was great, but I'm not buying Oblivion until its expanded, patched and maybe patched again (and a mod to fix the stupid levelling they put in the game :dizzy2: )
No they are not.Quote:
Originally Posted by Daveybaby
M2TW comes with support, patches & customer service whereas generic shooter 8 comes with nothing but whats in the package which in all respects ends up costing more for less. So, no you do not always get what you pay for. Only the smart shopper does.
What fantasy says patches are free!!! They never are because you pay for them when you purchase the game.
Can't understand the suffocating nature of these forums. Don't you think everyone who legitimately purchased the game has a right to express an opinion without ridicule even if it doesn't agree to others simplistic ideals?
Doesn't the person that writes "dis gaim sux" carry equal weight to yours.
So what exactly is it youre complaining about?Quote:
Originally Posted by Nebuchadnezzar
i'm really at a loss here. Youre complaining that CA are supporting the product or what? :dizzy2:
If that's all theyre contributing to the discussion then, frankly, no - any more than if all i kept saying was 'stfu n00b CA RULEZ!!!!' over and over and over again. I would hope that we could aim somewhat higher than that.Quote:
Doesn't the person that writes "dis gaim sux" carry equal weight to yours.
Sorry this wasn't meant for anybody specific only a generalization. But I would add that no matter what side of the argument one sits the 'stfu n00b CA RULEZ!!!!' equivalent always seems to be the bulk of contribution one way or another.Quote:
If that's all theyre contributing to the discussion then, frankly, no - any more than if all i kept saying was 'stfu n00b CA RULEZ!!!!' over and over and over again. I would hope that we could aim somewhat higher than that.
Thanks for the confirmation.Quote:
Originally Posted by Nebuchadnezzar
Now look what you go and do to make me feel bad:embarassed:Quote:
Originally Posted by Daveybaby
In summary
I expected a game with far less bugs from the start.
I expected better customer service.
I expected a more timely patch.