Sometimes I think this community would be much poorer if CA didn't do so many things we could slag them off about.
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Sometimes I think this community would be much poorer if CA didn't do so many things we could slag them off about.
yeah...thank CA's for being a bunch of F*cks
Please remember, the EB team has never shared these views. CA gave us this wonderful game to mod, and without RTW EB would not exist. We may take issue with how they depict history (and especially how they view those who do not enjoy historical fantasy), but the opinion of EB fans does not hold true for EB members.
Well, i am certainly not mad at CA. Nor am i really very angry about the lack of realism in RTW. I just like to make fun of some of CA's more....color full units. that's all. ~:grouphug:
IMO, direct personal attacks on CA should not be allowed.
saying "CA sucks" and saying "war dogs suck" are two very differnt things....
-Sometimes I think this community would be much poorer if CA didn't do so many things we could slag them off about.
-yeah...thank CA's for being a bunch of F*cks
it was meant as sarcasm...i cant say i hate CA, since i dotn know them.. and again: i dislike their opinion about people liking historical accuracy, and their policy on bug-fixing (the expansion fixes bugs from the original, how crazy is that?)
and, as for all my statements in the forums, i do not pretend to be an EB member. i'm just here a lot...i have nothing to offer EB (knowledge or modding skills)i'm just trying to help people out with their questions. and start a nice discussion..
That's asinine for many reasons...and here they are because I'm an ass.Quote:
Originally Posted by NeonGod
Cú Chulainn was a mythical hero, and principle character of the Ulster cycle. He was named Sétanta, and killed Cullan's dog, and in penance took up the occupation of Cullan's bodyguard in place of the dog. As such, he was called the 'Hound of Cullan'. Cú Chulainn was not a berserker, he was a trained martial artist, who trained under the master of combat Fergus (also the captain of the Craebh Ruadh, the elite band of warriors who organized the defenses of Ulster until the treachery of Conchobar), and then under the female combatant Scathach at Skye, where he learned the 'Salmon's Leap', and recieved his gae bolge (stomach-dart); he was capable with all weapons, but particularly a spear or javelin, and in most versions of the legend, a sword or axe. He was in no way a berserker; he was a trained, very skilled warrior.
So, to recap. They've based a 'berserker' on a clearly non-berserker-type of warrior; particularly, a warrior who was a myth and probably only has thin grounding in reality. Now, basing a unit off of Cú Chulainn wouldn't bother me quite as much, if they:
A. Actually looked Irish
B. Weren't a berserker, because it pisses on what Cú Chulainn was supposed to be; an educated, very intelligent warrior, not some mindless neanderthal thug
My thoughts exactly.
They look purple, and they're dressed, badly, like early Britons. They don't look remotely Gaelic. So, they have purple, asinine thugs, representing the great hero of Ulster (and then champion of Ireland), a martial artist who was supposed to be 'most beautiful of the men of Ulster'. Nice. Would they represent some lame unit based off Musashi as a half-brain dead thug in a Japanese themed strategy game (I'm aware Musashi was a real man, but Cú Chulainn was likely based off an actual champion, and was representative of actual Irish masters of combat)? It's actually somewhat insulting.
I feel your pain. Now you know what I thought when I played RTW, saw the "Spanish" (!) faction, and found its best unit was a horde of toreros. ~:eek:
wix couix easyix paix yix ix ix wanixs ixQuote:
Originally Posted by mongoose
who could easyly pawn you if he wants to
shoot the slavers!!
:cry: :whip: :rifle:
Okay... So we change the name of the unit from "Hounds of Culann" to something else, like "Berserkers". Sounds simple enough to me!
Ranika, keeping in mind most of what I know about Cúchulainn is from The Tain and I haven't read it in a while, didn't Cúchulainn go into a kind of warrior frenzy or beserker like state on occasion? Perhaps this is what CA based the unit off of. True, that doesn't excuse them for handling the unit so horribly, but it's just a thought.
~:) CA was probably like:' argh Damn EB..you know what, we'll make a very cool kickass unit. and give it an Ancient name! EB happy, fans happy...
and then,,they picked the wrong name!?!
Cú Chulainn did enter a state of madness, but only after he was driven mad by spirits sent by witches. Originally, he could enter a 'frenzy' but it was described as an absolute sense of calm, yet filled with intense rage. He could still act logically and fight in a normal sense, he was just remarkably focused and his rage kept him fighting beyond his limits.Quote:
Originally Posted by Lief
And even if the name was changed to 'berserkers', they don't look Gaelic. At all. These are supposed to be some type of Gaelic berserker (in which case they should be called Rastriagh), but I've explained before what Gaels dressed like; they didn't look like ancient Gauls or Britons, damn it. Why is that so hard for CA to grasp?
My beef isn't exactly with CA or their unrealistic units. I perfectly understand their dumbing down of the game to reach their market base, the purpose isn't to please any one group, but reach as wide a market as possible.
My real problem with CA is that they're being perfect assholes about letting people mod their game. They're being quite adamant about sitting on their asses and watching the mod community scurry around the hardcoded engine trying to accomplish goals that may never be reached. All the while never releasing so much as a bad SDK, let alone a good one.
CA should read history books, not fansaty books.
Edit: Also, the sparkles are crazy! I expected a strategy game, not a fantasy one.
While I'm upset with CA's fantasy approach, I'm far more furious with their blatant disregard for the gaming community. Their lack (and often late) patches topped off with the inability to mod features or putting restraints on moddable feature (faction size, unit size, diplomacy etc).
This game was released in 2004, it's the later half of 2005 and all we've seen is two patches. Converserly, Blizzard entertainment just released the eleventh patch for diablo 2 (17 for Warcraft 3), it consists of new goodies and a new challenge for players to fight. Diablo 2 is no longer making money for blizzard. The fact that they are still improving and adding features to this old title just goes to show how much they appreiciate their fan base.
Ya, CA made the engine. Fact is it's mired with flaws which they ignore for long periods of time (still pending). The old "shut up they made the game so you can't complain" line is a bit diffcult to swallow since they CAN upgrade the game, they just choose not too.
I would like to see other companies tackle this engine and improve on it. CA needs some competition to show them that their fan base does not come cheap. We demand the best. The motto "we give the best" does not hold true at the moment down at CA. "we give you a really good engine, then allow a number of issues to interfere with your enjoyment of the game, have fun"
The same goes for the developers of Cossacks. That game is filled with bugs, but patches are about as frequent as being struck with lighting. As it stand the developers have no competition. People are stuck with that game since it's the only game that really depecits Napoleonic warfare. Ditto with RTW.
CA falls short of greatness in my books. I've downloaded almost every single modification just to see if any of them tackle the problems i have. Of course they don't, since it's all hardcoded. I find the new skins and maps a good distraction for short while. Then the old issues began to appear. Very annoying.
Well Blizzard and CA are in completely different leagues...
How so? Why point it out if you're not going to tell why.
theres nothing more historically accurate than fairy dusty floating around a berserker...
why the hell did they do that? i noticed it in the demo and though " um ...what the fuck "
i also thought it was funny how those berserkers do a funny little dance attack where they spin round like some sort of disco dancer.
Mmmm, looks like that's Neo, in a previous version of Matrix.
I quite enjoyed the demo. No better, no worse than the original RTW.
I thought the BI demo was weak. I like how RTR slowed down the movement of troops. After performing clavary charges in RTR, the BI demo felt like NASCAR.
I share your pain, CA's behavior of late has been just short of impolite. That said, I do think you are a little unfair to them here. They are nowhere near as big or established as Blizzard so they cannot keep up the same level of support. Also, Blizzard can QA its own patches whereas CA needs the help of the publisher for that. For M:TW and R:TW, they were stuck with Activision, who only allowed one patch per game. Perhaps Sega does better: the fact that there may be a 1.3 patch for R:TW vanilla indicates Sega is better disposed towards customer support. Perhaps.Quote:
Originally Posted by Chester
All but the simplest of games are very complex and issues can be burried deep in the engine. It requires many man-hours to correct them and even more to find them. Just think how long it took for the primary/secondary or charge issues to be uncovered. Blizzard rellies on a large and dedicated fanbase for balancing and spotting bugs; CA, for whatever reason does not. Again, this maybe related to publisher's constraints and/or manpower issues.
Relations between CA and the fanbase took a nose-dive after R:TW's release and I think CA's stance was a major cause for this. That said, the community did get a lot more aggresive after the release of the R:TW demo, so I sometimes pity the developers who still take time to post here. At othertimes, when I just played a particulary frustrating battle, I want to go after them with a club ~D .
I totally agree with you!!Quote:
Originally Posted by Chester
I saw the interview with one of CA developers (the one where he says there are only a dozen history freaks that want historic realism) and I think he was deliberatly trying to put all the weight of the complaints on this historical issue. From reading his interview you would never guess what CA lacked in minimal support with this game.
I mean, it's their game...if they want to make it Fantasy Total War it is their right, but the point is not that.
I think you forgot to mention that not only they totally failed to give this game proper support, but also there were some very weird inconsistencies(sp?) with the videos, screenshots and features advertised before the release of the game and what we really got. Some of the things that were missing than are now being advertised as features for BI???? This was the first time I ever felt this kind of cheated by a game company. ( I don't buy EA games ~;) )
All this coming from a company I had in high regards (together with Paradox and the old people from Impressions) after all they game me two awesome games in STW and MTW. But their behavior with RTW is really not something to be proud of and it makes me think twice before ever buying a game from them again.
kayapó
I think you touched the point. They were very unpolite and disregardful for their fan base. But the size of the company does not matter. The 1.2 patch was soo buggy that any company would have been ashamed to release it like that. But not only they released it but also it was their FINAL patch.Quote:
Originally Posted by Ludens
Yes Blizzard might be bigger but Paradox isn't. Impressions isn't either. Paradox for example uses their fan base to ful capacity. I mean, who needs QA when you can release a public beta and have the people that matter balance out the bugs and gameplay.
I think it is all a matter of good relationship with it's fans and CA, for some reason, failed this time around.
This thing about Activision not letting them do another patch sounds weird. I think Activision woudn't finance another patch. But they were free to patch up if they wanted to. I never heard of a game left full of bugs by a developer because the publisher didn't let them patch it.
Well, call me naive but I still think CA will come out with a descent explanation for everything (that's all it takes).
As an example: After releasing Crusader Kings, Paradox had to start working with HOI2 right away, as that was the money making title that keeped them afloat. So CK got less atention in the beggining. That didn't generate any problems as they were always very correct and straight forward about it. And also gave CK atention whenever they had a chance.
kayapó
Buggy? As far as I know the 1.2 was not buggy at all. There were a few glitches, yes, but most major patches have these. The patch definitely improved things for me and a lot of other patrons, so it wasn't buggy.Quote:
Originally Posted by kayapó
While you have a point, a public beta is a risky venture, because of illegal copies and idea-stealing, and the publisher might object to it. Since Activision does not seem to care much for patching, it is likely that they would forbid an open beta as well. Also, to sort out all the issues or even keep track of the flurry of reports created by a public beta requires a lot of manpower. I agree however, that CA should make more use of their fan base.
Size does matter a lot when it comes to how much issues (read: bugs) they can adress in a given time period.Quote:
Originally Posted by kayapó
Activision has a bad reputation when it comes to support, or so I understand, but R:TW certainly is not a buggy game. Yes, there are plenty of issues, but this is not the same as buggy. However, CA probably cannot go without a publisher to release a big patch. QA is necessary to prevent buggy patches and small developers, like CA, do not have the resources to do this. Blizzard has, but Blizzard does not qualify as a small developer.
In other words, Activision has to do this, and they have a one-patch policy. CA could make another patch, but without QA there is a distinct risk that it will make things worse.
Yes, more openness from CA to the fan base would definitely help.Quote:
Originally Posted by kayapó
I think we both agree that CA's attitude towards its fans is not what should be. Perhaps they were provoked by their fans' hostility, but R:TW seems to be designed for a different market share, and if CA expected us to accept this, they were very wrong.
blesphemer! stone him! stone teh heretic!Quote:
Originally Posted by Geoffrey S
http://www.scholia.net/images/The%20...%20Stephen.gif
~:joker: nah...
Oh, man... if that wasn't so huge I would put that in my signature. That was classic.Quote:
Originally Posted by jerby
I just meant that 1.2 has some bugs that were very obvious. They might not be huge bugs that compromise stability. But the fact that not even the difficulty settings work properly is very telling.Quote:
Originally Posted by Ludens
As I said I am sure CA has reasons. Why do I think that? Because they have in the past given me two awesome games that are in my all time favorites list, and they're both very near the top.
Yes hostility might have been the case, at least it seems that they're pointing in this direction. But what did they expect? It was their decision to make RTW a more "open for all ages and types of players" so I say they should have been prepared.
I'm an academic, and I know very well the feeling of someone openly bashing the work that sometimes took all your adult life. But I don't use that as an excuse to close myself down in my room.
When I said size doesn't matter I meant that you don't have to be big to be polite and open to criticism. I guess we agree on this.
Anyway CA has credit with me. STW and MTW gave me much more than the few dollars that end up going to the developer.
kayapó