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Re: No further patches for M2TW or Kingdoms
Sure, I'm giving them money because i think the games are still worth buying. But you make it sound like CA are the evil monster of doom. They're not. How many other companys show this attitude? A fair few I bet. I'm annoyed as well, but I'm not going to go moaning, because I really see no point, there just isn't enough of us to make a difference.
Quote:
I bet CA loves suckers who think in similar terms as you, because that is what CA is treating you like- a sucker...who will cheerfully buy a product that is half finished...do you do the same with TV's, stereos etc? Im sure Sony would love to hear from you and exchange some of your cash for a broken car stereo or some other bit of kit they have hanging around a factory somewhere...
That's a tad over the top there my handsome but air headed knight, of course I wouldn't want a broken stereo, but I don't think the game is only half done. It's 95% done. the other five percent being the bugs.
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Re: No further patches for M2TW or Kingdoms
A couple of things folks.
First, I call bull on everyone saying that we can't and won't make a difference. I guarantee you there's more than just 100 of us, a great deal more. I further contend that there is a much greater silent majority out there, and that statistically more than a few of them are probably of the same mindset as us. Take me for example, I've been reading the Org forums since 00, and finally just joined up about a year back. I know no less than five people who were in the same situation. Even if someone doesn't sign up and actively participate here or at TWcenter, there's a very good chance that they've browsed the forums at least a little at some point in owning the game. Perhaps looking for bug reports, perhaps guides, who knows. There's always going to be a vocal minority.
Second,
Quote:
But you make it sound like CA are the evil monster of doom. They're not. How many other companys show this attitude? A fair few I bet. I'm annoyed as well, but I'm not going to go moaning, because I really see no point, there just isn't enough of us to make a difference.
I'm sorry, this logic is ignorant, there is no polite way of saying it. Evil monster of doom is a bit childish, but they are indeed displaying the tendencies that plague the rest of the industry in terms of dumbing down their games. And what you call "moaning" is voicing legitimate criticism as a group, if you don't like it, then the door is that way, don't go whining in other's threads about it. Talk about :rolleyes: . And as for not enough of us to make a difference, again that's ignorance, you are directly part of the problem for maintaining that attitude and mindset. I'm going to make a guess that you're probably a teenager from the tone and content of your posts. The reason I state that is because anyone who works knows that the most powerful place by far to hit a business is in it's wallet. Absolutely nothing makes more of an impact than taking your money elsewhere, and losses tend to add up very quickly. Even if we were to go with the lame "100 of us" argument, that still amounts to $5000 split between the developer/publisher, retailers, etc, and $5000 is no small chump change, even when one counts profit, not revenue, in millions. And again, I guarantee you there's quite a bit more than "just 100 of us" who are ticked off enough to vote with our cash next round. You can do the math from here.
Lastly,
Quote:
but I don't think the game is only half done. It's 95% done. the other five percent being the bugs.
That's your opinion. A great deal of us would tell you it's closer to 75-80% complete.
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Re: No further patches for M2TW or Kingdoms
Quote:
Originally Posted by Whacker
A couple of things folks.
First, I call bull on everyone saying that we can't and won't make a difference. I guarantee you there's more than just 100 of us, a great deal more...snip
Second,
Snip...The reason I state that is because anyone who works knows that the most powerful place by far to hit a business is in it's wallet. Absolutely nothing makes more of an impact than taking your money elsewhere, and losses tend to add up very quickly. Even if we were to go with the lame "100 of us" argument, that still amounts to $5000 split between the developer/publisher, retailers, etc, and $5000 is no small chump change, even when one counts profit, not revenue, in millions.
Lastly,
That's your opinion. A great deal of us would tell you it's closer to 75-80% complete.
Hope you don't mind if I cut some stuff out to reduce clutter and specify my reply :book:
Yes some people may be unhappy about the circumstances and will not shell out their 50bucks for the next iteration of TW etc
Yes SEGA/CA will lose out on their money.
Finally Yes the most powerful place to hit a business is in the wallet.
So now you have to measure the difference between keeping these customers and GETTING X amount of dollars, or fixing these bugs and SPENDING X amount of dollars to pay for the programmers/testers when they could be used to work on EmpireTW or whatever secret project.
I'm not gonna make up random statistics (because we all know 84.3% are made up on the spot) so the best I can do is see how long it takes between patches.
Exhibit A:
I used the dates on the strategyinformer website from wikipedia
Game Release (1.0)
Released : 14.11.2006
Patch 1.1
Patch added: 15.12.2006
Patch 1.2
Patch added: 04.05.2007
Patch 1.3
Patch added: 04.09.2007
Not counting between 1.0 and 1.1 (because usually they're working on patches on the release version before its released) the average time it took to release a patch was about 4.5 months.
That's DEFINATELY a lot of money.
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Re: No further patches for M2TW or Kingdoms
Zorbane, that's a fair point, but the thing that you don't take into account was the status of the game at launch. You won't find many here save for a few of the most staunch CA apologists who will tell you that M2TW should have spent quite a bit more time in the oven. Personally, I found it to be almost unplayable at launch after a few weeks, but again that's just my personal opinion. Regarding the patches, in essence what you then have is them spending that time post-launch getting the game up to the point where it should have been at upon release. The reality of what CA did was release the game half-baked, after which they spent the rest of the time patching the game to a point where they felt it would be "acceptable" to abandon it and work on other projects. It would appear that, unless management has a change of heart, we've reached that point for M2TW vanilla 1.2 and Kingdoms 1.3.
Edit - In short, "What can we get away with?" is the real question.
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Re: No further patches for M2TW or Kingdoms
Zorbane: However the patches weren't really worked on full-time. There was parallel work going on on kingdoms, so it's more like maybe 20% of the maybe 5 devs work time being spent on it (totally made up numbers), which together makes something on a scale of 1 to 10 devs working on this. In my opinion that's definitely not too much money if you have a reputation at stake, and could easily be paid for by the potential loss you can observe with ETW (and still some with kingdoms) now.
If maybe 10000 people won't buy the game because of CA's attitude, that alone will generate the same loss that paying a few devs to make another patch part-time would cost, and potentially more (expansion sales loss, etc.)
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Re: No further patches for M2TW or Kingdoms
Quote:
A couple of things folks.
First, I call bull on everyone saying that we can't and won't make a difference. I guarantee you there's more than just 100 of us, a great deal more. I further contend that there is a much greater silent majority out there, and that statistically more than a few of them are probably of the same mindset as us. Take me for example, I've been reading the Org forums since 00, and finally just joined up about a year back. I know no less than five people who were in the same situation. Even if someone doesn't sign up and actively participate here or at TWcenter, there's a very good chance that they've browsed the forums at least a little at some point in owning the game. Perhaps looking for bug reports, perhaps guides, who knows. There's always going to be a vocal minority.
Heh, it's impossible to figure out how many people actually view the forums, but I doubt enough people notice, care, or anything else enough to stop buying the games just because some people are arguing in a thread.
Quote:
Even if we were to go with the lame "100 of us" argument, that still amounts to $5000 split between the developer/publisher, retailers, etc, and $5000 is no small chump change, even when one counts profit, not revenue, in millions. And again, I guarantee you there's quite a bit more than "just 100 of us" who are ticked off enough to vote with our cash next round. You can do the math from here.
I don't see how that would effect them. :shrug:
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Re: No further patches for M2TW or Kingdoms
Quote:
Originally Posted by Marcus Orentius
... there just isn't enough of us to make a difference.
To the best of my knowledge, the community (read: customers, gamers, on forums) found the majority of bugs in previous TW games, and it's no different with the latest one. Those bugs were fixed because people publicly reported them, and at least in part because they were making noise in a public place where everyone can read it. If that does not qualify as "making the difference" then I don't know what does. But now it seems that even such flimsy support policy is being abandoned by CA, and is being replaced by no policy at all.
The problem is that a lot of the people left after the said situation kept repeating with every subsequent game release. So yes, currently it doesn't seem like much, but that's mostly because so many people have been driven away. However, it wasn't always like that, and the end result is that quite a few sales were lost due to this sole reason. How that reflects on the bottom line, I don't know. Maybe the compensation from newcomers is adequate, maybe more than adequate, but what the bottom line would be if it wasn't for such support policy is anybody's guess.
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Re: No further patches for M2TW or Kingdoms
Ok, I've voiced my opinion, maybe a tad vehemently, but there you go. I'm definitely gullible, naive, ignorant, etc. yep it's all true.
My god, that sound childish, but like I said before, I don't care.
Anyway, with that out of my system, I'll just say one thing the bugger off to leave you to your rambling. I do agree that there are so many things that could be improved, and yes it is rather unfinished, but it is still a very playable and decent game. Better than EE2 by any standards. CA have done a great job just bring this style of game to us, and they should get a bit of credit.
Yes I know what you're going to say, 'they're a big gaming company with lots of money and workers and whatnot' but still, it's good they've got this out at least. I look forward to ETW, though I need a new comp. I'm sure it'll be a great game.
Smite me, oh unbelievers.
Naively,
Marcus.
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Re: No further patches for M2TW or Kingdoms
I have a Suggestion.
How about somebody here, maybe a senior member, who is better with words than I, start a thread as a petition & message to CA to "drop what they are doing and fix M2TW and Kingdoms" or something to that effect. (definately not how it should be worded but you get the drift)
The aim of the petition is to raise awareness to CA of just how many customers they will lose or have lost from their recent incompetence through lack of patches, product backup and everyones favorite - Securom.
The rule of the thread will be that your reply is your 'signature' as such and that you must only reply once, so not to screw the number of signatures up.
I must apologise, but I am starting to get tired of the "theres nothing we can do" thing. CA must start listening to our complaints.
:furious3: :furious3: :furious3: :furious3: :furious3: :furious3: :furious3:
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Re: No further patches for M2TW or Kingdoms
Most people that have been regular fans and frequent boards are aware of the situation - the thing is that apparently the majority of the TW fanbase does not frequent forums, does not know mods exist and in all probability does not notices or even cares about bugs as basic as the shield bug.
How much effective posting about these issues really is, is arguable - yet it seems to me that it can't be a bad thing in any case.
Noir
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Re: No further patches for M2TW or Kingdoms
I know I said I would bugger off but I'm curious. How do we know securom is on Kingdoms? I looked on the packaging and manual for info, but didn't find anything. Where did people find this out?
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Re: No further patches for M2TW or Kingdoms
Quote:
Originally Posted by Marcus Orentius
I know I said I would bugger off but I'm curious. How do we know securom is on Kingdoms? I looked on the packaging and manual for info, but didn't find anything. Where did people find this out?
Dont bugger off, dissenting views of the majority are often the catalyst for a broader analysis of the issue. Plus you have a touch a moxy, not bad for your 40th post :wiseguy:
The Securom issue I read about at TW center (stop over sometime, nice place) and here on these boards. Wont buy kingdoms myself as its a new release. Also Whacker, while passionate and animated at times, is very knowledgable, hes posted about it.
So has a board member named Didz who has been here for a long time and has seen just about every TW issue come down the pike. All that said, I cant personally confirm its there or not, but you have it loaded on your pcright? you should be able to go through the registry.
AS far as not giving them the business, Ichigo is most likely correct that a 5k loss isnt going to harm thier operations. However, as the gamer/end user thats the only absolute option you have, its not without value. :logic:
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Re: No further patches for M2TW or Kingdoms
Quote:
Originally Posted by Marcus Orentius
I know I said I would bugger off but I'm curious. How do we know securom is on Kingdoms? I looked on the packaging and manual for info, but didn't find anything. Where did people find this out?
You know how to use a search engine?
And yes, you unintentionally hit the nail right on the head there. Nowhere on the packaging does it tell you that you are installing an intrusive, potentially harmful (and incidentally... unremoveable) piece of software on your PC.
BINGO!
Maybe you are going to talk yourself out of being an unashamed apologist at this rate. ~;)
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Re: No further patches for M2TW or Kingdoms
Quote:
Originally Posted by Galain_Ironhide
I have a Suggestion.
How about somebody here, maybe a senior member, who is better with words than I, start a thread as a petition & message to CA to "drop what they are doing and fix M2TW and Kingdoms" or something to that effect. (definately not how it should be worded but you get the drift)
The aim of the petition is to raise awareness to CA of just how many customers they will lose or have lost from their recent incompetence through lack of patches, product backup and everyones favorite - Securom.
The rule of the thread will be that your reply is your 'signature' as such and that you must only reply once, so not to screw the number of signatures up.
I must apologise, but I am starting to get tired of the "theres nothing we can do" thing. CA must start listening to our complaints.
:furious3: :furious3: :furious3: :furious3: :furious3: :furious3: :furious3:
Have you seen Black Adder goes Forth?
Quote:
Edmund: Now, would this brilliant plan involve us climbing out of our trenches and walking slowly towards the enemy sir?
Darling: How can you possibly know that, Blackadder? It's classified information!
Edmund: It's the same plan that we used last time, and the seventeen times before that.
Melchett: Exactly! And that is what so brilliant about it! We will catch the watchful Hun totally off guard! Doing precisely what we have done eighteen times before is exactly the last thing they'll expect us to do this time!
Shoguns View on Petitions
Quote:
Originally Posted by The Shogun
However there is no need for a petition, in fact you should all be aware of our opinion on these by now. Online petitions have to be disregarded as a measure of opinion as they are completely open to abuse there is no email authentication so any one make multiple signatures.
They rely on a short attention span that we get distracted by the next bauble. The standard practice has been to have at most 3 patches for a TW series. People keep going 'But in the next version they will support it more surely.' Hasn't happened yet and isn't likely to happen in the future. With Shogun CA blamed EA that they couldn't get the patches, then when it was Activision being the publisher they got the blame for the patches. One of the key points loudly marketed when SEGA bought up CA was that they would get a publisher that would more fully support the games. Fool me once it is your fault, fool me twice it is mine. Fool me three times and it had better be a menage-a-trois.
You can choose not to buy any more TW games and just enjoy the Tavern. I know I do, as I haven't bought a SEGA published game since getting Rome: BI
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Re: No further patches for M2TW or Kingdoms
Quote:
Originally Posted by Papewaio
Have you seen Black Adder goes Forth?
Shoguns View on Petitions
They rely on a short attention span that we get distracted by the next bauble. The standard practice has been to have at most 3 patches for a TW series. People keep going 'But in the next version they will support it more surely.' Hasn't happened yet and isn't likely to happen in the future. With Shogun CA blamed EA that they couldn't get the patches, then when it was Activision being the publisher they got the blame for the patches. One of the key points loudly marketed when SEGA bought up CA was that they would get a publisher that would more fully support the games. Fool me once it is your fault, fool me twice it is mine. Fool me three times and it had better be a menage-a-trois.
You can choose not to buy any more TW games and just enjoy the Tavern. I know I do, as I haven't bought a SEGA published game since getting Rome: BI
Like I said, it was a suggestion, but what Shogun says there is fair enough.
However I havent seen a computer who can come up with more than a handful of different responses to one issue such as this.
If a petition is going to be disregarded, then hows about someone think outside the square to how to get some kid of action from CA.
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Re: No further patches for M2TW or Kingdoms
I am hesitant to wade into a sea of anti-CA negativity, but I am not convinced from SenseiTW's post here that we won't see a patch for Kingdoms at least:
https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showp...4&postcount=31
Kingdoms has only been out for a couple of months or so, and I can understand CA wanting to let things settle before making a patch decision. (I think the shield bug was only discovered three or four months after M2TW came out.) CA have NEVER been one of those companies that give you patch 1.20 etc; they've always been parsimonious and not exactly speedy.
I think the most productive thing for posters to do here would be to emphasise what needs patching - from this thread, I've picked out only two things with Kingdoms (the Khalmar Union and the Welsh reinforcements). If there are just two things, I can see why a patch might not be green lighted. I think almost all CAs previous titles have been left with a few bugs unpatched - GA points in MTW being the obvious one and arguably a more serious bug than what is left in M2TW. If people highlight half a dozen issues with Kingdoms that are non-trivial, I think CA could be persuaded.
Patching M2TW seems more of a lost hope and it is disappointing to me that this was not updated with Kingdoms - as previous core games were with their expansions.
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Re: No further patches for M2TW or Kingdoms
Quote:
Originally Posted by econ21
(I think the shield bug was only discovered three or four months after M2TW came out.)
The game was published in Nov. 06. The inconsistencies with shields were felt and posted about as early as Dec. 06 and we had the problem pinned down in mid or late Jan. 07. In Feb. 07 we already had a self made fix. CA released their shield-fix in May 07. So, it took the community 3 months to come up with a mod solution, while the CA and its publisher needed 6 months to release a patch.
How the shield bug made it into the release is still beyond me because it became fairly obvious that something was wrong once you started playtesting different units in custom battles. Besides, the problem became obvious when spearmen underperformed against cavalry (any cavalry), this and similar balancing problems have been discussed since Day 1 of STW and have more or less occurred in any TW title since then. CA patched the Cav behavior in the first patch but again overlooked the shield bug. Perhaps it wouldn't even have been necessary to change the Cav if the shield had been fixed before.
Anyway, M2 seems to be an abandoned game and seeing that Empire is scheduled for the near future I can't imagine that they spent much time or resources on the old titles.
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Re: No further patches for M2TW or Kingdoms
Ugh, horrid memories coming back. I still remember the bad taste that was left in our mouths based on CA's responses to that earlier petition.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Galain_Ironhide
Like I said, it was a suggestion, but what Shogun says there is fair enough.
Disagree completely. The logic and reasoning that was presented by CA as to why they'd ignore it was total bunk, thus what was said was nothing more than an attempt to silence fan dissent.
Quote:
If a petition is going to be disregarded, then hows about someone think outside the square to how to get some kid of action from CA.
Here's the thing though. CA disregards or ignores us at their own peril. Petitions and other organized movements that gain a certain critical mass will often move on their own inertia. Simply because perhaps 200-300 of us Orgahs sign something doesn't mean that there aren't dozens, hundreds, if not thousands of others who agree yet don't participate, not only here but also at TWcenter and in the general userbase.
Quite often the best way to obtain results and responses by fans is through organized, consolidated movements such as petitions organized through sites such as the Org and Twcenter. Again, the devs/pubs ignore these at their own peril. Actions that tend to grow in size will invariably gain recognition beyond just the sites or means that they were started in, and if ignored will tend to generate quite a bit of bad press and word of mouth (esp. when significant news outlets get ahold of the story, witness the latest EA Securom fiasco), thus impacting current and future sales.
In short, everyone should simply ignore CA's statements about ignoring petitions, etc, for the above reasons. Ignored, blown-off, or half-hearted responses are recognized for what they are, and if enough people are annoyed, it's going to be evident in sales/income. The best way we can make an impact is to work collectively. The whole is greater than the sum of the parts.
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Re: No further patches for M2TW or Kingdoms
We do not listen to petitions for a variety of reasons. It is not to do with silencing dissent, it is to do with other issues.
We will, and do, read the forums and we are well aware of people's feeling on this issue given the large of posts on it, and it has been the subject of a lot of discussion. As SenseiTW said over at the official forums, an answer on this issue will be forthcoming soon.
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Re: No further patches for M2TW or Kingdoms
@Slug for a Butt:
I know what securom is, I was just wanting some proof that it exists in Kingdoms, I'll have a look for myself, thanks.
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Re: No further patches for M2TW or Kingdoms
Well, I'll give Lusted credit for a reasonably straightforward response at least.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Jack Lusted
We do not listen to petitions for a variety of reasons. It is not to do with silencing dissent, it is to do with other issues.
And you (you being CA) ignore your customers at your own peril. If those "reasons" and "issues" are what were stated in responses to the petition in the past, we already shot down every single one of them, which were supported by responses from Tosa and other experienced forum admins/mods.
Quote:
We will, and do, read the forums and we are well aware of people's feeling on this issue given the large of posts on it, and it has been the subject of a lot of discussion. As SenseiTW said over at the official forums, an answer on this issue will be forthcoming soon.
So you'll ignore petitions signed by hundreds/thousands, yet you'll lend weight to forum threads with thousands of views and posts by a few dozen people (again you being CA)??
:dizzy2:
Edit - OK, so after thinking about this a minute, I'll pose a question to CA. If you're going to ignore petitions, what format would you listen to then? Forum threads? Only posts in certain venues, like the .com forums? Preemptively, suggestions that involve us doing things individually are totally unacceptable, we are collectively a whole and will act as such, so do not try to divide us. In other words, something like "send an email feedback" or "call such and such a hotline" is not acceptable.
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Re: No further patches for M2TW or Kingdoms
Haha, you guys are still buying CA's products?
I remember the big stink that we put up over the 'Die at 56' bug in the MTW1 expansion. That worked actually...A new patch came out to fix it due to the whining. It taught me a lesson though.
Still, I am enjoying my 10 dollar RTW+Expansion with EB on it. Not that I would have bought it brand new, the vanilla game sucked badly. I learned back in the days of 'Viking Invasion' that this company wasn't to be trusted when it came to a polished product, and even less when it comes to fixing said product. The only surprise to me is seeing all these names who went through the same thing three or more times now, and STILL haven't learned anything:laugh4:
I really loved Shogun. I also enjoyed MTW, until the bugs started kicking in and then CA started jacking up about making patches for it. That attitude is what totally put me off the company, and I haven't bought a full priced (Nowhere near full price) product of theirs since Viking Invasion. The fantasy units in RTW Vanilla also put me off, though I only bought the thing for EB. I had to see the Vanilla game in all its glory before I put the mod on of course...
I really hope another company can get their act together and put some competition on the table though.
Anyway, see you all at the opening whine fest for Empires. You know what to expect so dress appropriately:tredmil:
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Re: No further patches for M2TW or Kingdoms
Quote:
Originally Posted by Whacker
So you'll ignore petitions signed by hundreds/thousands, yet you'll lend weight to forum threads with thousands of views and posts by a few dozen people (again you being CA)??
Well, to be fair - academic discourse works the same way. To discern the truth of something, it does not matter how many people say something - it is the quality of what is said. To games designers like Lusted, I suspect what matters when discussing a patch is what bugs there are, how serious they are and how easy to fix. They have to make a case to the people above them who control the company resources. If one poster on a forum zeroes in and identifies the shield bug, that it is likely to be much effective in eliciting a patch than an internet petition.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Empress Zoe
I remember the big stink that we put up over the 'Die at 56' bug in the MTW1 expansion. A new patch came out to fix it due to the whining.
I doubt it. The VI patch came out because the 56 years thing was a (literally) killer bug. I don't remember any CA resistance. There was no "whining" - just pointing out the obvious and, as I remember it, any complaints were pushing at any open door. In my recollection, VI had a good reception here - the "whining" came with RTW.
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Re: No further patches for M2TW or Kingdoms
Quote:
Originally Posted by econ21
Well, to be fair - academic discourse works the same way. To discern the truth of something, it does not matter how many people say something - it is the quality of what is said. To games designers like Lusted, I suspect what matters when discussing a patch is what bugs there are, how serious they are and how easy to fix. They have to make a case to the people above them who control the company resources. If one poster on a forum zeroes in and identifies the shield bug, that it is likely to be much effective in eliciting a patch than an internet petition.
If I am reading you correctly, then I have a few thoughts in response. It's not just bugs that we're including here in the patch discussion, it's features that existed in prior games or ones that we've been clamoring about for awhile and don't have/were removed. Though to be fair bugs do seem to be the biggest focus.
And regarding the bugs/features, patching, and management, I have a somewhat pessimistic view based on my years in the business world and dealing with suits. One person finding a bug isn't going to move an exec at all to release funding for game repair work. Hundreds and thousands of angry customers chomping at the bit to have a bug fixed/feature added is going to provide a lot more incentive, as it represents a much larger risk and potential loss of face and income. The execs are thinking about what they can get away with in terms of saving money, and it's our job as the customers and fans to make it very clear to them what we think. If the folks responsible for gauging customer reaction don't properly relay that to upper mgmt, that's not our fault.
Thus, a single person working diligently to find and document bugs like (with all due respect to my boy) Factionhair and others is going to mean squat to the execs and financial controllers, esp. to the people trying to put together a business case with cost/benefits. A horde of angry fans yelling collectively is going to get a lot more attention and represents a much larger potential loss, hence a bigger incentive.
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Re: No further patches for M2TW or Kingdoms
Quote:
Originally posted by Whacker
A horde of angry fans yelling collectively is going to get a lot more attention and represents a much larger potential loss, hence a bigger incentive.
I'm sure that this will be very effective as long as the horde (of fans) remains convincing in that it yells because of the issue at hand rather than because it likes yelling.
Noir
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Re: No further patches for M2TW or Kingdoms
Quote:
Originally Posted by econ21
I doubt it. The VI patch came out because the 56 years thing was a (literally) killer bug. I don't remember any CA resistance. There was no "whining" - just pointing out the obvious and, as I remember it, any complaints were pushing at any open door. In my recollection, VI had a good reception here - the "whining" came with RTW.
I remember it too. They were unwilling to release a patch for that either. There was a huge petition here, and a lot of outcry, and they ended up releasing a small patch just to fix that and they threw in fixed reinforcements order for good measure. However, IMHO if it wasn't for all that yelling we wouldn't have gotten that. In other words, MTW would have been left in an unfinished state that M2TW seems destined to remain in. Whether that sort of critical mass and willingness to respond exists today is questionable.
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Re: No further patches for M2TW or Kingdoms
I have to say I absolutely understand ignoring petitions, in my experience they are a rather blunt instrument with little reasoning behind them. Responding to them encourages a brute force approach (Find more signatures, by any means necessary) whereas listening to posters on a forum at least guarantees that there is a potential for debate and dissention. The suggestion is that if a number of clearly reasonable people present a well developed case for a patch that their reasoning will be at least considered.
With that in mind let me say that if a substantive patch for MTWII and Kingdoms comes out I will reconsider my position on not purchasing Kingdoms. SecuRom is (Pulling no punches) a vile and purposeless thing to inflict on your customers, but a company that follows fan discussions and considers them deserves some consideration in return.
:egypt:
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Re: No further patches for M2TW or Kingdoms
Quote:
Originally Posted by hrvojej
I remember it too. They were unwilling to release a patch for that either. There was a huge petition here, and a lot of outcry, and they ended up releasing a small patch just to fix that and they threw in fixed reinforcements order for good measure. However, IMHO if it wasn't for all that yelling we wouldn't have gotten that. In other words, MTW would have been left in an unfinished state that M2TW seems destined to remain in. Whether that sort of critical mass and willingness to respond exists today is questionable.
OK, my memory was hazy - the search function does reveal an awful lot of yelling. Whether it was necessary to get the patch, I don't know - I guess only Captain Fishpants or another CA insider could tell us that.
The chronology is interesting for reference:
VI was released on 9/5/2003
Mount Suribachi started a "I'm won't buy RTW until VI is patched" thread here on 8/6/2003
Captain Fishpants announced a patch on 17/7/2003
The Patch was released - or leaked - on 13/10/2003
Maybe I am just getting old and used to a more leisurely pace of life, but the gap between VIs release and the patch announcement (a couple of months) does not seem that egregiously long. The final patch release did get held up in testing etc, but CA themselves were not happy with that.
I suspect we may see something similar with Kingdoms.
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Re: No further patches for M2TW or Kingdoms
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Originally Posted by econ21
Well, to be fair - academic discourse works the same way. To discern the truth of something, it does not matter how many people say something - it is the quality of what is said. To games designers like Lusted, I suspect what matters when discussing a patch is what bugs there are, how serious they are and how easy to fix. They have to make a case to the people above them who control the company resources. If one poster on a forum zeroes in and identifies the shield bug, that it is likely to be much effective in eliciting a patch than an internet petition.
Based on my experience working on CA beta teams this is correct except for the last sentence. Players identifying bugs is only the first step in getting a patch. The players then have to make a case that the bugs are serious enough to affect the company's reputation in the eyes of it's customers. In the past, this worked because the Total War was aimed at a niche market. Now the game is aimed at a broader market that's more likely to find v1.0 acceptable. As long as v1.0 runs on most machines, there's no reason to patch the game for that market. That market isn't going to notice things like "all kings die at 56" in MTW or the shield bug in RTW.
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Originally Posted by econ21
I doubt it. The VI patch came out because the 56 years thing was a (literally) killer bug. I don't remember any CA resistance. There was no "whining" - just pointing out the obvious and, as I remember it, any complaints were pushing at any open door. In my recollection, VI had a good reception here - the "whining" came with RTW.
There wasn't any CA resistance to making the VI v2.01 patch, but there was Activision resistance. In fact, Activision refused to pay for the patch, so the CA programmers made the patch after hours on their own time. I can't envision the current incarnation of CA making a patch on their own time without pay.
Just pointing out the obvious isn't going to work anymore. Witness the load/save bug of RTW. After that was discovered by a player and verified by other players, CA insisted that the game was intentionally designed that way. Obviously, they knew about this all along and never said anything. Only after a great deal of public outcry, in spite of the topic being banned from discussion at .com, did CA back down and change load/save to retain the state of the game when saving. When the players who care that the game works properly are up against that kind of resistance from the company there really isn't much hope of getting things fixed up let alone maintaining the quality of the tactical simulation or having the strategic game be something more than a huge number of clicks to an inevitable conclusion.
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Re: No further patches for M2TW or Kingdoms
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Originally Posted by Jack Lusted
We will, and do, read the forums and we are well aware of people's feeling on this issue given the large of posts on it, and it has been the subject of a lot of discussion. As SenseiTW said over at the official forums, an answer on this issue will be forthcoming soon.
Thanks for the update. Can we please get separate responses on the issue of a final patch, and the SecureRom issue?
Will CA/Sega release a utility or patch for completely removing SecureRom after the game is uninstalled? I don't think that's too much to ask for. If they will, then I'll buy Kingdoms. Otherwise I (and I suspect many others) will continue to pass on it, and I'll recommend that my friends not buy it either.
