Online Petition of Patch Buglist

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Originally Posted by Yunus Dogus

A). MP needs to be made autonomous from SP - so that the unit stats can be tweaked nerfed balanced without having any effect on the SP game

surely this is fundamental and has been discussed at length by Elmo et al in other threads

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Preaching to the choir brother. I'm fully in agreement, hell I think I tossed that into one of the older features thread

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Originally Posted by Yunus Dogus

B). Mods

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I don't want to derail this thread... But I'll just say that I think when it comes to modding, M2TW is a prime example of how NOT to make a "moddable" game. Compared to other (what I'll call) industry standards in modding and current games that are available, M2TW is like a Yugo. Trying to mod this game is like trying to put together a flimsy balsa wood model with railroad spikes and a ballpeen. If you'd like to discuss that please feel free to PM me and I'd be glad to talk about it.

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Originally Posted by Yunus Dogus

LAG/server issue are critical

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That's just a given. High lag/poor coding makes any game unplayable.

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semi-detach it from the SP game and hand it over to the MP community

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Honestly not a bad idea, but I can promise you it'll never happen. /shrug

:bow:

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Why remove units? Becouse they are inbalanced, they are too strong, they ruin mp experience, becouse its easyer to remove them than give them to all factions (that involves new graphics).

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Or why not try and BALANCE the units? Just a thought.

I do agree on making more mercs available for factions, i did it in my LTC mod and will likely expand it in the next version.

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I don't want to derail this thread... But I'll just say that I think when it comes to modding, M2TW is a prime example of how NOT to make a "moddable" game. Compared to other (what I'll call) industry standards in modding and current games that are available, M2TW is like a Yugo. Trying to mod this game is like trying to put together a flimsy balsa wood model with railroad spikes and a ballpeen. If you'd like to discuss that please feel free to PM me and I'd be glad to talk about it.

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And i'd disagree with you. All you need is notepad, a basic understanding of batch files and command lines and your set.

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Originally Posted by Lusted

And i'd disagree with you. All you need is notepad, a basic understanding of batch files and command lines and your set.

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That's what he meant ... even I could mod RTW, but this MTW2 is really too difficult

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That's what he meant ... even I could mod RTW, but this MTW2 is really too difficult

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So it might be a bit more difficult to set up, but the fundamental modding aspect isn't any more different. Alpaca has even rpovided a basic thing tos et up the mdo switch for you.

erhh yes, for me it is

anyway back on-topic

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Originally Posted by Lusted

Or why not try and BALANCE the units? Just a thought.

I do agree on making more mercs available for factions, i did it in my LTC mod and will likely expand it in the next version.

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As far as I understand they dont want to ballance the units becouse it may effect sp players, the thing I proposed is way to ballance mp even in the case they don't want to change any single stat. Off course stats ballancing is better way to do it, and hope they do that, but so far that was not the case.

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Originally Posted by Lusted

And i'd disagree with you. All you need is notepad, a basic understanding of batch files and command lines and your set.

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You're right modding is easy. Heres one with pope that gets all mercenarys (including rocketman elephants) in early-high and do not effect sp. Done in 15mins, I hope ca get the hint ;)


Just unpack all in mtw2 main dir and run lavmod.bat
http://media10.filewind.com/g.php?filepath=6203

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As far as I understand they dont want to ballance the units becouse it may effect sp players,

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And you are wrong. They want to balance things for mp, as it will also mean balanced units in sp.

Why do you always quote only a part of my post? :inquisitive:

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Off course stats ballancing is better way to do it, and hope they do that, but so far that was not the case.

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Read againt text in bold...

Because you agreed with him in the second part:

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Originally Posted by Lavos

You're right...

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Originally Posted by hellenes

How bout all the nice people that downloaded the game from the warez network? Do you know why there was nothing to make them buy the game? Maybe because the original CDKEY isnt worth the ink that its printed in....?
And about that bolded part: WE DO PAY FOR THEIR GAMES...Where do you think theyve got the money to make M2TW? Maybe from RTW/M1TW/STW sales?
And last in order to play MP games one needs an original copy I cant say same about SP..

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:no:

If you don't think a game is worth it's money don't buy it for that money and leave it at that - simple as that (either don't buy it at all, or wait until the price dropped to an "acceptable" level).
Not considering it to be worth the price is no excuse for illegally downloading it.

Go to nforce forums and look at what pirates are talking about mtw, they know that its buggy, they consider mp not to be big part of the game, there is no mp campaign, so they come to conclusion that its not worth buying this game. They still want to play campaign a little, so they download it. Yes its very weak excuse for pirating it, but exactly that happen. To battle this, one way is constant game improvement throu patches. Patches tend to take some time to crack, and some decide that its woth buying game for that kind of support. One advice would also be to make shure that only original game supports mods, since those are big factor for tw games. Other one is strong mp part. There is no way around cd keys for pirates. If game has strong mp then they are highly encouraged to buy the game to be able to play online. And you must also know that pirates all have strong net connections to download games, so each one of them is potential mp player.

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Originally Posted by Ser Clegane

things

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A small point I just wanted to throw in here, please note that I am in no way condoning any illegal activity. It's often hard to gauge whether or not a game is worth your money unless you actually go buy it, and if you do then you're screwed and can't return it due to open box policies. I'd like to go on record stating that the demo for M2TW was utterly miserable, it hardly gave me any feel for what most of the game was like, it also totally lacked the campaign map. Multiplayer only demos that seem to be popular lately are also lame, and I often suspect software publishers who do this just use it to do additional "beta testing", esp. when released before the official game is out. :whip:

Buying games is not like buying bread. You don't go to the shop every week and buy one. If you want to buy a game you play the demo, read multiple reviews, etc etc. And if you still like it you buy it. A game costs €50,- , even €70,- for an Xbox 360 game, you don't just buy a game, you look carefully, it's like buying a new photocamera, a new TV, etc etc. You want something good, something you like, not just anything.

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Originally Posted by Lavos

Go to nforce forums and look at what pirates are talking about mtw, they know that its buggy, they consider mp not to be big part of the game, there is no mp campaign, so they come to conclusion that its not worth buying this game. They still want to play campaign a little, so they download it. Yes its very weak excuse for pirating it, but exactly that happen. To battle this, one way is constant game improvement throu patches. Patches tend to take some time to crack, and some decide that its woth buying game for that kind of support. One advice would also be to make shure that only original game supports mods, since those are big factor for tw games. Other one is strong mp part. There is no way around cd keys for pirates. If game has strong mp then they are highly encouraged to buy the game to be able to play online. And you must also know that pirates all have strong net connections to download games, so each one of them is potential mp player.

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Lavos,
generally speaking fan forums (official or unofficial) are extrememly unconfortable having discussion of such things, because they in no way want to be seen to be either associated with, or to be encouraging discussion on such things. We all understand and know of piracy and why it exists, although for my part anyone who is at all a fan of a certain game, should buy those games and support those companys so they can and will continue to make the types of game that persons enjoys. Really there is no excuse, sorry I dont accept the support the game better to reduce piracy argument at all (Particularly when this is the third such game - your going to know if you like total war games - if not - you can get MTW for almost nothing). That said it also would appear to me to be very minimally at best on topic. So I would let it go. Before what has been an interesting discussion gets closed.

So a short dream MP would be:

MP only version of TW that allows the community to:
Host your own server(s).
That can do auto-stat swaps as players connect and/or per battle basis.
Add maps.

=][=

A much larger dream:
Now an MP campaign could work if you Keep it Simple.

My suggestion would be to keep the map like a board game in simplicity (like Shogun the board game aka Samurai Sword). If the battle results can be linked in some manner... even if just the winner takes the province and the Coin value of the armies that survive is used (but the actual army list content is liquid)... each battle would be based on the Coin vs Coin value in each province, but the players can choose for each new battle their armies.

Now you can do this if the battles can be set so that the Coin values are based on what is in the provinces. At the simplest it would be a manual import, the only requirement being that the MP server allows forces to have different Coin values.

=][=

Not so simple:
The next level up would be automatic import from the campaign Map. The campaign Map would only have to be very basic. You could use a chess board for starters... it would be rather cool actually to play a campaign based on a chess board and giving each of the pieces a set army list but I digress.

=][=

Anyhow there are a few ways that campaign maps could be used in MP:

a) Set players who play MP more like a PBEM. Regular games that take weeks if not months to complete a campaign.
b) Strategic and Tactical command. A person controls a faction on the main map. She gets to select an army to control of their faction in the battle phase Anyone else in their clan can control any of their armies battling in the battle phase. Another version is that strategic command goes to the person who has the leader, the leader dies and the strategic command goes to the next leaders player... could make it much more important to take out the leader. Either version would take awhile to play.
c) Almost the same as above. Strategic command of the Map is given to the AI. Players are the generals, they don't get to choose where they fight. You get placed in a faction and remain in it for the duration of the campaign. If not enough players are present for battles, AI takes over. Host preferences could be such that a player who has commanded an army list before will stay with that if possible, or the best performing general gets assigned to the largest/smallest army in the next fight, or again based on performance they get assigned based on how well they used infantry/cav/archers etc.
This one could be such that battles are fixed length. Every hour another round starts, the campaign is played continously until finished. Players come and go as the generals. Imagine a STW like campaign being played out over a weekend, while one for RTW taking a month.

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Originally Posted by Papewaio

So a short dream MP would be:

MP only version of TW that allows the community to:
Host your own server(s).
That can do auto-stat swaps as players connect and/or per battle basis.
Add maps.

=][=

A much larger dream:
Now an MP campaign could work if you Keep it Simple.

My suggestion would be to keep the map like a board game in simplicity (like Shogun the board game aka Samurai Sword). If the battle results can be linked in some manner... even if just the winner takes the province and the Coin value of the armies that survive is used (but the actual army list content is liquid)... each battle would be based on the Coin vs Coin value in each province, but the players can choose for each new battle their armies.

Now you can do this if the battles can be set so that the Coin values are based on what is in the provinces. At the simplest it would be a manual import, the only requirement being that the MP server allows forces to have different Coin values.

=][=

Not so simple:
The next level up would be automatic import from the campaign Map. The campaign Map would only have to be very basic. You could use a chess board for starters... it would be rather cool actually to play a campaign based on a chess board and giving each of the pieces a set army list but I digress.

=][=

Anyhow there are a few ways that campaign maps could be used in MP:

a) Set players who play MP more like a PBEM. Regular games that take weeks if not months to complete a campaign.
b) Strategic and Tactical command. A person controls a faction on the main map. She gets to select an army to control of their faction in the battle phase Anyone else in their clan can control any of their armies battling in the battle phase. Another version is that strategic command goes to the person who has the leader, the leader dies and the strategic command goes to the next leaders player... could make it much more important to take out the leader. Either version would take awhile to play.
c) Almost the same as above. Strategic command of the Map is given to the AI. Players are the generals, they don't get to choose where they fight. You get placed in a faction and remain in it for the duration of the campaign. If not enough players are present for battles, AI takes over. Host preferences could be such that a player who has commanded an army list before will stay with that if possible, or the best performing general gets assigned to the largest/smallest army in the next fight, or again based on performance they get assigned based on how well they used infantry/cav/archers etc.
This one could be such that battles are fixed length. Every hour another round starts, the campaign is played continously until finished. Players come and go as the generals. Imagine a STW like campaign being played out over a weekend, while one for RTW taking a month.

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Drools......

Wakes up ... She!!!! who might you be referring to here :whip: :oops: :laugh4:

His wife, for example ... or have you picked up something else by now?

No, Wasabi still has full thumbprint authourity over me.

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Originally Posted by Stig

Buying games is not like buying bread. You don't go to the shop every week and buy one. If you want to buy a game you play the demo, read multiple reviews, etc etc. And if you still like it you buy it. A game costs €50,- , even €70,- for an Xbox 360 game, you don't just buy a game, you look carefully, it's like buying a new photocamera, a new TV, etc etc. You want something good, something you like, not just anything.

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Meh, to some people it is. Two things I'll offer.

1. I'm doing exactly what I said I shouldn't do earlier in this thread (pulling statements/figures out of my tookiss), but I don't have anything to back this up with... but I recall reading that market studies show that the majority gamer demographic is age 21-30 males. Further, most purchases are impulse buys, not preplanned purchases as suggested. That's why you get all the flashy box art with bombs guns explosions ACTION well-endowed characters, etc... to catch people's eyes. I really wish I could provide something to back this up. That said, I am in the same boat as I imagine you are, in that I do not generally impulse buy. I research stuff out the wazoo, talk to friends who've got the game already or are thinking about it, read forums, check screenshots, etc. However...

2. No amount of screenshots, video, reading, etc can give one the actual feel of the game, in my opinion. Nothing short of a "fully featured demo" as I'll call them. A really good game demo needs to include at least a representative chunk of both the SP and MP components as needed to ensure the prospective buyer gets a good picture of what the ultimate product is like. Unfortunately, as I've stated I think the M2TW demo didn't remotely achieve this goal, the actual game felt incredibly different than the demo, as the demo didn't include half of the game's real functionality. Battlestations Midway was another incredibly lame MP-only demo. The C&C3 demo is actually pretty good so far. Given how big demos are these days (the C&C3 one is 1.2 gig) I don't see how hard it can be for the game studios to put some honest effort into putting together an honest to god full demo. It's due to these reasons that my real viewpoint is... well I can't actually say in these forums what I really think. I'll just say that I'm a firm believer in "try before you buy", buy being the key word.

Last thing I'll offer is my opinion on demo timeliness. Some publishers like to throw out demos as soon as they possibly can, and throw that lame "does not represent final product" disclaimer on it as a get out of jail free method. Without getting into the "marktet drives all" discussion, suffice to say that I think publishers should be reasonable and release demos when it makes sense and when they can actually represent their product realistically. Again in my view the M2TW demo does not meet those requirements. I'm guessing the C&C3 one probably does.

Just some food for thought. Have a good evening all. :bow:

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Originally Posted by Whacker

Meh, to some people it is. Two things I'll offer.

1. I'm doing exactly what I said I shouldn't do earlier in this thread (pulling statements/figures out of my tookiss), but I don't have anything to back this up with... but I recall reading that market studies show that the majority gamer demographic is age 21-30 males. Further, most purchases are impulse buys, not preplanned purchases as suggested. That's why you get all the flashy box art with bombs guns explosions ACTION well-endowed characters, etc... to catch people's eyes. I really wish I could provide something to back this up. That said, I am in the same boat as I imagine you are, in that I do not generally impulse buy. I research stuff out the wazoo, talk to friends who've got the game already or are thinking about it, read forums, check screenshots, etc. However...

2. No amount of screenshots, video, reading, etc can give one the actual feel of the game, in my opinion. Nothing short of a "fully featured demo" as I'll call them. A really good game demo needs to include at least a representative chunk of both the SP and MP components as needed to ensure the prospective buyer gets a good picture of what the ultimate product is like. Unfortunately, as I've stated I think the M2TW demo didn't remotely achieve this goal, the actual game felt incredibly different than the demo, as the demo didn't include half of the game's real functionality. Battlestations Midway was another incredibly lame MP-only demo. The C&C3 demo is actually pretty good so far. Given how big demos are these days (the C&C3 one is 1.2 gig) I don't see how hard it can be for the game studios to put some honest effort into putting together an honest to god full demo. It's due to these reasons that my real viewpoint is... well I can't actually say in these forums what I really think. I'll just say that I'm a firm believer in "try before you buy", buy being the key word.

Last thing I'll offer is my opinion on demo timeliness. Some publishers like to throw out demos as soon as they possibly can, and throw that lame "does not represent final product" disclaimer on it as a get out of jail free method. Without getting into the "marktet drives all" discussion, suffice to say that I think publishers should be reasonable and release demos when it makes sense and when they can actually represent their product realistically. Again in my view the M2TW demo does not meet those requirements. I'm guessing the C&C3 one probably does.

Just some food for thought. Have a good evening all. :bow:

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Yes indeed the demo was really poor. At first the demo was only for a few people. And then the demo itself was without AI and no multiplayer. It was not possible to try out 3vs3 or 4vs4. The demo should me warned, but i bought the game to sell it later. :wall: :wall: :wall: Other companies bring out 2 or 3 demos, multiplayer and singleplayer, open beta tests and they speak to their community. Very important.

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Originally Posted by |Heerbann|_Di3Hard

[..] and they speak to their community. Very important.

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:stunned: You mean like....a dialogue? :fainting:

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Originally Posted by R'as al Ghul

:stunned: You mean like....a dialogue?

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We had a dialogue until CA told us the game wasn't for hardcore players. That basically shut the door.
Total War is now being made for the more casual gamer who is more tolerant of faults in the game.

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Originally Posted by Puzz3D

We had a dialogue until CA told us the game wasn't for hardcore players. That basically shut the door.
Total War is now being made for the more casual gamer who is more tolerant of faults in the game.

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Yes, I know. (I guess my irony wasn't obvious enough?)
When I started posting here, you could often see the devs online and even participating in threads. I don't know when they stated that "the game isn't for hardcore players" but since Rome or after MTW/VI 2.01 I've rarely seen them participating.
Occasionally, guys like Jerome drop by and even contribute to solving a problem but that's more the exception than the rule. BTW, Jerome who doesn't even work on M2, had the decency to acknowledge the shield bug. No word from the real devs. I don't need to be pointed to recent posts or statements like "CA reads all the forums". It's just not enough. And others seem to feel the same or else why would they constantly point out other games with more developer involvement? The way they (The Shogun) reacted to the MTW Gold petition is very telling how they think about their fans/ customers and it has offended more people than myself. (a pity that Papewaio's acid comments have been edited)

In my opinion, M2 still has great potential and it would be a pity to waste all the time and manpower already put into it to only get a mediocre game when it could be excellent.

R'as

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Originally Posted by R'as al Ghul

I don't know when they stated that "the game isn't for hardcore players" but since Rome or after MTW/VI 2.01 I've rarely seen them participating.

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It was said just before the release of RTW v1.2 patch which was Feb 2005. There is also this statement which was made back in Aug 2006 to player 753 after he played the M2TW demo which I quoted in an org post:

Posted at the Total War Forums by the player who played the M2TW demo.

Originally Posted by 753
"The Demo Battles were very very easy to win and i have to say the combat is pretty fast , even infantry combat.....

....Mark Sutherns , Marketing Manager from Creative Assembly said for him personally Total Realism is very impressive but impossible to do it by themselves because its pointed to hardcore players and CA wants to reach all types of players but it's are great work that you did and he hopes that the fans of Medieval 2 will do something for this game as well."

Puzz3D, what a disingenuous use of that CA quote. It says they want to reach out to all types of players. Yet, you use it to take another swipe at them.

That quote was by CA justifying why they had not made Rome Total Realism. It does not mean that they don't want to appeal to the historical hardcore as well, but rather that they can't focus exclusively on them. They are too few. And anyway, there are limits to how much historical realism people want. It always amuses me in RTR vs EB flamewars, how many RTR supporters loathe EBs use of original languages for unit names. Clearly, there are limits to how much total realism we should have. (And rightly so, I for one welcome the absence of blunt trauma and hours of force marching while playing RTR and EB.)

The big positive about RTW, and what made it superior to the earlier TW games for me, is that it made RTR, EB and other great mods possible.

Further, RTR is made for the "hardcore" in terms of historical realism, whereas on this forum, I think people mean "hardcore" as in veteran MPers. I doubt the two are the same.

IIRC, Palamedes's blogs had explicit references about M2TW being designed in part to cater to the multiplayer and hardcore players.

I suspect CA got stung by the criticism of the "hardcore" of RTW, but with the development of M2TW, they are making more of an attempt to reach out to them.

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Originally Posted by econ21

Puzz3D, what a disingenuous use of that CA quote. It says they want to reach out to all types of players. Yet, you use it to take another swipe at them.

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That quote backs up what was said in private 6 months earlier. They wouldn't fix the mouseover info because it would only be of interest to hardcore players. If they were sincerely trying to appeal to hardcore players, they would have fixed the mouseover info becuase the casual players don't care about that. How would it hurt the casual players to fix the mouse over info? How would it hurt the casual players to have playbalance or a battle engine as good as it once was? The mouseover info would be trivial to fix compared to improving playbalance or the battle engine. The term "reach out to all types of players" means features important only to hardcore players can be left out, and that's what has happened. RTW and EB mods can't change the battle engine. I didn't use RTW as the basis of Samurai Wars because I wouldn't be able to get as good quality in the battlefield gameplay.

Puzz, think like this:
-You have a pretty well running game company
-You released 2 games which recieved a small fanbase
-You want to make money
-What do you do:
A. Make another game for that small fanbase
B. Make a game for the "new" gamers. The gamers who prefer graphics over gameplay

A. will make sure you make $500,000 profit, B. will make sure you make $5,000,000 profit.

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Originally Posted by Stig

Puzz, think like this:
-You have a pretty well running game company
-You released 2 games which recieved a small fanbase
-You want to make money
-What do you do:
A. Make another game for that small fanbase
B. Make a game for the "new" gamers. The gamers who prefer graphics over gameplay

A. will make sure you make $500,000 profit, B. will make sure you make $5,000,000 profit.

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That's fine. I don't have a problem with that. What I have a problem with is the claim that the game is being made to appeal to both of those fanbases when I can see that features that appealed to the small fanbase are no longer present. A few crumbs of improvement for the small fanbase are made between the last game and the latest game, and then it's claimed that the game is being changed to appeal to the small fanbase. People in the small fanbase then buy the game without realizing things are still missing and they are disappointed and their time and money wasted.

Aye absolutely true, problem is that the small fanbase (Vets like you, Elmo and others) all have different opinions. Yes there are similiar things you want, but some are different as well. CA then contacts some of those oldtimers, but then you can't please anyone, always some will be left out. And if you contact the oldtimers who were already somewhat pleased with the game they won't want very drastic changes as you (for example) want.

All in all this is a very arcady like game. Sometimes I like that (realistic battles (Waterloo took 2 days or what?) are a bit too much), sometimes I don't like it (routing within 2 seconds). I can live with it, RTW was, my first TW game, I'm used to it. I can't voice an opinion about MTW and STW. On some points they might be better, on some points they might be worse.
I've seen the MTW MP lobby tho, and I would like that "back". Looks far better (and not the looks, but the options)

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Originally Posted by Stig

Puzz, think like this:
-You have a pretty well running game company
-You released 2 games which recieved a small fanbase
-You want to make money
-What do you do:
A. Make another game for that small fanbase
B. Make a game for the "new" gamers. The gamers who prefer graphics over gameplay

A. will make sure you make $500,000 profit, B. will make sure you make $5,000,000 profit.

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See I think CA can have it's cake and eat it too, check out my two huge posts in the "MP losing appeal" thread for my reasoning. In short I firmly believe that CA can keep expanding their customer base AND make cranky old farts like us happy... it's just going to take some real work and some good decisions on CA's part. I'm not optimistic but I am ever hopeful.