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.
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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.
Heh, i knew all that passive aggressive stuff my ex-gf used to pull on me would come in useful some day.Quote:
Originally Posted by Nebuchadnezzar
Thats fair enough. This is a problem that has occurred throughout the history of the TW series, so i can see your point that CA should have improved things by now.Quote:
I expected a game with far less bugs from the start.
But unfortunately the only way this is going to start to happen is if the game buying public start caring more about quality and less about shiny flashy graphics. CA have real unmovable deadlines imposed on them by the outside world that are a direct result of our (i.e. the game buying public in general) purchasing habits.
There were bugs - what more can they do but fix the bugs? This is one place where i just dont understand why people are complaining. CA/SEGA are doing all that can be reasonably expected of them in this situation.Quote:
I expected better customer service.
I feel thats unrealistic - getting things like passive AI fixed is not a matter of simply finding a 'wrong line' in the code somewhere - its more a matter of balancing behaviours for certain conditions. Very, very tricky (if not impossible) to get this absolutely perfect - e.g. fix things 'too much' and you might end up with an AI that keeps charging at you even when its stupid to do so.Quote:
I expected a more timely patch.
Thats without taking into account the fact that the source code apparently adds up to 65 megabytes (IIRC somebody said recently). Thats quite a few punch cards to look through.
Luckily, spring has arrived here and I'm more inclined to be outside anyway.
Except for the fact that they said it was fixed in day 0 patchQuote:
Originally Posted by Daveybaby
then again in 1.1
then yet again in 1.2
and yet still no fix. Getting tired of hearing this nonsense.
However, it's worth pointing out that Total War has been around for nearly eight years now, and the competition still hasn't arrived. There's a simple reason for that - the Total War games are among the most complex games ever made, with two seperate but interacting environments, many thousands of individual features, text content on the order of two copies of War and Peace back-to-back and a codebase that stretches to millions of lines. Look at how far Battle for Middle Earth has made it down that road for an impression of the scale of the task.Quote:
Originally Posted by crpcarrot
We do try and keep bugs to a minimum - and if we could eliminate them altogether we would - but with products on this scale there is almost always something that slips the net, and I think you'll find that that's true for all software products that don't have the mission-critical requirements of, say, NASA... and even there, look at what happened to the Mars Global Surveyor the other day ;)
:grin2:
At least any software errors that slip into M2TW don't cause that sort of problem :thumbsup:
*sits back, relaxes, and waits for the seemingly inevitible CA bashing to being. Be nice - you've been warned
I don't think anyone here has an issue with the dissatisfied stating their opinion, but when it becomes "CA is lazy" or something that impunes CA in some way, I think that's going to far.
In this thread I've seen CA's work ethic, empathy, competance, and personal virtue attacked, and that sort of thing is not only unfair, but also creates an atmosphere in which CA employees may not be as willing to drop by and talk. And that is something other users here SHOULD be attacking, as it effects them directly.
I do not wish to lose the personal attention we get here from CA, and people who go beyond controlled criticism and attack CA could end up causing that.
As the previous poster stated (and thank you for taking the time to be here), none of us who don't work in the field they do can have an idea of the complexity that goes into this game. So perhaps they do use us as a bit of a last-line tester sometimes... how many of us have offered to do just that as a favor anyways? As a PC gamer, YOU KNOW you are going to get products that aren't perfect. Either accept that the first few months will be spend as an unpaid tester, or wait for the patch in the first place. They could have waited until 1.2 to release it, but we wouldn't have nearly the mod progress we do, and CA wouldn't have the Christmas sales... a lose-lose situation.
(Oh, and I suppose I'll address the "altruistic" argument... "what about the poor casual players who never even know about the patch?!?!"... honestly, do you know a PC gamer who doesn't know about patches? I can understand a console gamer not getting it, but PC gamers generally speaking are a lot more savvy. Besides, they'll get it with the expansion.)
Sadly the strategy genre is stuck in the whole dumbed down basebuilding pathetic clickfests of bar fights of 40-50 guys... :no:Quote:
Originally Posted by JeromeGrasdyke
And I believe that the main reason is that its cheaper to reuse same Dune2 stuff and milk the hell out of the masses rather than to create something truly epic and immersive...
I believe that the lack of competition is harming the series and its outstanding how CA managed to keep their ego quite sane...
After the leaked 1.2 patch the game is really what it was meant to be and the shortness of its buglist is indicative of that...
The next step for you guys is to give us a MP campaign so we stop nagging about the PO (for marketing reasons called "AI")... :2thumbsup:
your just reinforcing my point, if there was a similar game relased at about the same time CA would be all out to get the patch released not making more expansions.Quote:
Originally Posted by JeromeGrasdyke
i wasnt saying there will ever be a bug free game but some patrons seem to suggest that the patch is a favour being done to us by CA for free. after all u have already got my money. all games are pretty complex in the current market this not unique to Totalwar (at least the good ones will be complex)
and another point i like to make is since u have no competition what is the pint of dumbing down the game and trying to simplyfy the game? affectively making in a generic product.
@ Yawning angel
yeah morrowind was awesome unfortunately oblivions scaling and follow the arrow system and the fact that they took away so many otions for clothng armour etc seem to make me feel it was a step in the wrong direction in some ways. thought most other improvements were great.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Nebuchadnezzar
Yes well it hasn't happened that way, in a perfect world publishers would allow developers as much time as they wanted to make the game what they wanted and bug free, but we don't live there. Instead we live in a world where getting your product out by xmas no matter its condition seems to be a priority for some companies.
I think the customer service has been decent, theyve kept the public informed, theyve posted on the larger fansites to inform fans as to whats going on with the patches, none of them have been rude to anyone or insulting, what more can one ask for?
Well if you want a more timely patch that doesn't fix everything then demand that CA release the patch now, hell with any progress they've made, make the leaked patch the official one and then release a 1.3 later down the track.
Yes okay thats what you wanted, but you don't need to spell it out for us again. We know. :book:
I'm not going to say anymore about this because it only gets people started again, I happen to think that CA has done a decent job on M2TW, I'm still thoroughly enjoying playing it and I'm just waiting for the official patch. I just hope that no one finds anything to complain about the 1.2 patch because if its anything like this thread.... I'm going back to hide in my cave :whip:
and Nebuchadnezzar, if the game really is making you this upset, I suggest you cut the dvd up into little pieces and burn it religiously. There is no way that you should be getting this upset over a game, even if it was buggy when you bought it, they are FIXING (yes it should have definetly been fixed before but there is no use in crying over spilt milk, at least they are mopping it up (and yes they shouldn't have needed to mop in up in the first place, but its happened so they do have to!)) the game as we speak so until they release the next patch to get annoyed about please just relax, install M2TW, don't even think about the bugs, install the leaked 1.2 patch and enjoy some empire building. Otherwise there is nothing we can do to help you!
Have fun peeps, I'm outta this thread, unless I really need to respond to a reponse... :laugh4: :juggle2:
Quote:
Originally Posted by crpcarrot
Uhm I just have to reply to this.... you do realise that it is the UK CA STUDIO who is making the Expansion, and it is the AUSTRALIAN CA STUDIO who is making the patch..... and uhm, No one is saying the patch is a favour being done to us by CA, a favour would be fixing the game even if the company went bust in 2 months time.... It is expected that they fix the game its just nice if everyone wouldn't get so upset over it, and they are simplifying the game or dumbing it down? I didn't know that.
I read your post twice and to be honest I agree with a lot you have said here. I am by no means an advocate for CA but those who make remarks directly to thier charecter and work ethic should be challenged.Quote:
Originally Posted by adembroski
I also agree that those who arent in the field probably cant comprehend what goes into a game and the realities of the business. In all honesty you make a well reasoned argument and I dont dispute your point of view at all.
I think those who have kicked this discussion up to the point of questioning CA misses the larger point. that larger point is that they are the problem. As I have said in prior posts, the gaming industry is in the state it is in now soely due to the consumption of the fan.
I understand we are on a site that is primarily hardcore fans and not even representative of 10% of the overall purchases of the TW series. That said, I have seen very few posters here step up and take responsibility for thier role in enabling this process.
This trend in the gaming industry is hardly new, and at this point we should all be clear that games released today will have bugs, even follow up patches. You can reconcille them anyway you wish, (industry pressure, lack of money, testers, yadda yadda), but from this point on you cant absolve yourself of being part of the problem.
If you buy PC games at release you support the industry standard as is, stop doing that, allow them to patch thier games up to what you believe to be acceptable and then make your purchase.
Not only will you be excersising your absolute power in this process, you will most likely get the game in the developed state you want, most likely cheaper and you will benefit from the many hundreds of other users who are happy to participate in the fix process.
Its a no loose, accept you dont have the game straight away and therefore cant complain about its short comings.
safety responsibility only huh.
what about quality control? or is that a term i dreamed up?
but on the other at least they didnt do like clevers did with war of the machines. release a game and not add a single patch and then disappear.
that game had a lot of potential if it had just been supported.
Odin, I take your point but there is an issue I would raise. It may sound facetious but it's not intended to be.Quote:
Originally Posted by Odin
If no one bought PC games until they'd been patched, how would the developers get the feedback that they utilise currently to inform the design of those patches? We know that companies are unable to replicate the sort of mass testing that a released product gets from consumers using their in-house resources. They rely on consumer feedback to improve the product after launch.
I realise that you and a lot of people are uncomfortable with this but I can't see a workable alternative. It's not a question of developers devoting more time or resource to testing - they can't hope to match the variety and quality of playing styles that their consumers will bring to the game.
The upshot is that they build a working version, release it, get us to test it, patch it and hope we're all happy. This approach may not seem ideal but remember that there are benefits: non-buggy changes to the game also occur during this process (e.g., inquisitors get toned down).
Personally, I'm happy to accept the status quo. I know the game will get fixed and I've got plenty of other things to be getting on with meantime. I wish it hadn't taken so long but I realise that CA and Sega have no incentive to hold back the patch and every incentive to get it out ASAP, so I'm prepared to accept that the delay is unavoidable.
through thier own vast testing of thier own product. Having an open beta test for users would achieve this, of course this is counter intutive to the current market condition, why do this when you can get paying beta testers?Quote:
Originally Posted by diotavelli
While I believe your first sentence is a subjective hypothesis, lets assume your correct. Thats a problem the consumer shouldnt be bothered with, thats a condition of thier business, maybe they arent charging enough for thier product?Quote:
We know that companies are unable to replicate the sort of mass testing that a released product gets from consumers using their in-house resources. They rely on consumer feedback to improve the product after launch.
Thats just it mate, it is ideal, for the dev/publisher and the % of users who are happy to go through the bug/mod/reporting procedure for the company. I am not nieve to the reality of the business, but I have been around the block long enough to know that businesses are driven by the consumption of thier customers. So all those people who do nt like the condition of the gaming industry, are the ones who have the power to change it. Perhaps the only ones.Quote:
The upshot is that they build a working version, release it, get us to test it, patch it and hope we're all happy. This approach may not seem ideal but remember that there are benefits: non-buggy changes to the game also occur during this process (e.g., inquisitors get toned down).
I can live with the status quo as well. I didnt purchase MTW2 until after 1.1 and user mods that fixed the issues. I did my dillegence I read the boards and understood what was wrong with the product and waited until there were appropriate fixes. I have also been playing TW games since shogun, I knew what to expect from CA and how this process would evolve.Quote:
Personally, I'm happy to accept the status quo. I know the game will get fixed and I've got plenty of other things to be getting on with meantime. I wish it hadn't taken so long but I realise that CA and Sega have no incentive to hold back the patch and every incentive to get it out ASAP, so I'm prepared to accept that the delay is unavoidable.
I dont begrudge anyone thier use of the system, at any level, my simple point is that only one person can change the current system and thats the customer. Some of the people complaining here dont seem to want to acknowledge thier part in this process.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Durallan
erm have u even read the whole thread?? well it my be my bad english and i must have misunderstood all the comments made by some of the previous posters. i apologise
and just cos u didnt know something doenst mean it didnt happen, that was a very contructive comment thank you :laugh4:
hey guys i downloaded the "lands to conquer 1.2" but apparetly is for the leaked patch. Will this patch work with the official patch too? i need to know in order to leave it to my grandchildren when the patch comes out around those years. :oops:
I gave a further explanation of why developers are unable to replicate the sort of testing a product will get from customers using in-house resources: "It's not a question of developers devoting more time or resource to testing - they can't hope to match the variety and quality of playing styles that their consumers will bring to the game."Quote:
Originally Posted by Odin
The only alternative would be some sort of massive beta testing operation but, given that that would be a logistical nightmare fraught with piracy issues, I don't see it as practical - unless customers were prepared to meet the additional cost.
I agree completely that there is a lack of perspective from many people who post on this forum. It's one thing being annoyed by aspects of the game or by the presence of bugs but to assume that CA should be able fix things quicker or publish patches faster (when we have no knowledge of the real facts) is plain stupid.Quote:
Originally Posted by Odin
I realise that your approach works for you but I'm not convinced it would work if everyone adopted it.
sorry the 2.2 i meantQuote:
Originally Posted by neoiq5719
You know how this game should be fixed??????????By deleting it from every computer and destroying every dvd or cd containing this game.
A lot of anger bottled up huh? dude if u dont like it is ok just throw it away and period, get on with your life. We ( the ones who like it) will stick around till the patch get here.Quote:
Originally Posted by Dracula(Romanian Vlad Tepes)
Have a good life and bye