Sorry From CA - Current State of the Game and What Happens Next

http://forums.totalwar.com/showthrea...t-Happens-Next

A hearty mea culpa:

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Hi everyone and thanks for your attention.

We just wanted to reassure you that we do know it’s an extremely annoying and frustrating time for some of you at the moment and we are working around the clock to sort out those issues that you are having. The first patch has just gone up - it's not trouble-free we know and are fixing with a hotfix, but there will be another next week and every week after that till the problems are gone.

At the moment it may seem that the changes are slight, but they aren’t the only ones we are working on currently and bigger changes are happening now for future patches.

If you are having a problem, it is totally unacceptable and a big deal for us, please know that we are spending all our dev effort on fixing outstanding issues.

I realise in our rush to do that we haven’t updated you on the situation, so if you are interested, please read on.

Scale of launch issues
First and foremost let me say that if even one person has a problem running the game we would want to fix it, this is why we’ve set up 24 hour support and if you post in the support forums you will get an answer or discover a solution that’s already posted for your issue.

I appreciate that it doesn’t help to know this if you are somebody having an issue, but the vast majority of people are running the game without problems. At the moment we are seeing 2% of people playing reporting a technical issue. Let me be clear, that is 2% too many and we will be helping them into the game and working very hard to make sure they get the best possible experience.

To these people we are really very sorry that you are having problems, we really want to get you enjoying our game, please do take the time to post your issue in the Support Forum if there isn't a fix for you available in there already.

Technical Issues
ROME II is a big and complex game and, especially on PC, we are always conscious of the wide variety of different combinations of hardware out there and, while we do test extensively before launch, it is clear that we have failed some of you and we will look at the way in which launch games in the future. Again, I know this is scant comfort to you if you have a set-up that is not performing well, but we do intend to fix your specific problem – whoever you are and whatever it is - as soon as we can.

Many issues have been alleviated by the workarounds and system tweaks posted about in the Support Forum, please do head to this thread as your first port of call http://forums.totalwar.com/showthrea...support-forums, if your issue is not solved by stepping through these solutions please do post your issue in the Support Forum and one of the team will get back to you.

Gameplay Issues
If you have concerns on the actual features and mechanics, like gameplay balancing and AI behaviour, we do want to hear about them. As mentioned before launch we absolutely intend to support ROME II post-release with plenty of content, further development and comprehensive balancing through-out – and no I’m not thinking of DLC you have to pay for. We have already planned for some very interesting stuff and we wanted to do that with advice from the community.

Please do keep posting your concerns, our code team are focussing on tech issues to get people playing, but our design teams are very aware of your concerns and are already looking at ways to add further options and rebalance aspects of the game.

You will see our community team dropping into threads to ask questions, please do chat to them, but even if you don’t see a response please do know that we look at the forums every day here and do appreciate what you have to say.

Thank you for reading,

Mike Simpson

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As mentioned before in other places, the 2% statistic seems a bit suspicious, but Im glad that they are aware of the situation and trying to make amends.

It's almost as if this was all pre-planned to be honest with you guys.

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Originally Posted by BroskiDerpman

It's almost as if this was all pre-planned to be honest with you guys.

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I definitely think that the dev team knew there were problems on release, they cant be that blind to think that it was flawless. At least for the gameplay bugs. Its almost impossible to ensure a game as technically complicated as this one is to be 100% compatible on every system, so they most likely are going to ensure that everyone can actually play the game while working on/fixing the most glaring gameplay problems, then work on the AI and other gameplay related problems. Its a sensible approach. Do I wish the problems were addressed before, even if it took another month or two to release? Absolutely. But they released the game not fully finished and now we got to deal with it.

*It's almost as if they pre-planned an apology.

Plus it's not just graphics bugs, it's the gameplay mechanics, balance, and authenticity in which they screwed up on.

(Not counting ai or other numerous bugs)

2%? IF they are even being honest, that is 2% officially reporting their problems, not 2% experiencing problems. For all you know, 40-50% of RII owners are experiencing major technical problems.

It was so obvious in the weeks leading up to its release that it was an unfinished game. Why didn't they just postpone its release? They could have still shipped out the same discs and boxes and just had Steam automatically update the game when it was released. Don't they know what a killjoy it is to be promised an awesome game and find out that you are an unwilling beta tester?

As a game producer, I would assume you stick to hard deadlines and release a game with bugs or other issues and try to fix them later. You'll make more money that way. SimCity taught us you can release a game with more bugs than a backyard and people will buy it in droves as long as you "fix it".

Yeah, short term. Long term though, that puts people out of business. Took me two games to learn my lesson, but I did. They are not getting my money till they start releasing quality games again.

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Originally Posted by BroskiDerpman

It's almost as if this was all pre-planned to be honest with you guys.

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Seems like it, right? It feels an awful lot like they released the beta and are now completing the game ^^

SPARTANS!!! March in one big line and kill everything!

Even graphics wise the game is quite unfinished even compared to Shogun 2 on release.

Yet people keep on trying to tell me on Steam to get the game because "It's awesome", "Well made", "Really fun since it's Rome".

Not going to fall for buying an clearly unfinished alpha version that clearly requires a ton of more work which is now going to be dlcs, and some performance patches. (If CA's balance attempts for Shogun 2 says something)

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Originally Posted by BroskiDerpman

*It's almost as if they pre-planned an apology.

Plus it's not just graphics bugs, it's the gameplay mechanics, balance, and authenticity in which they screwed up on.

(Not counting ai or other numerous bugs)

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Exactly. What's wrong with Rome 2 can't be fixed, it's at the core of the game itself and is the result of a slew of bad design decisions. And what's wrong with it can't be patched or modded into correction. This is as far away from the Shogun 2 masterpiece as you could possibly make a game imho. Disappointment doesn't even begin to describe what I feel about this game.

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Originally Posted by easytarget

Exactly. What's wrong with Rome 2 can't be fixed, it's at the core of the game itself and is the result of a slew of bad design decisions. And what's wrong with it can't be patched or modded into correction. This is as far away from the Shogun 2 masterpiece as you could possibly make a game imho. Disappointment doesn't even begin to describe what I feel about this game.

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Ehhhh..... I disagree. Even with a few mods it made the game a lot more enjoyable for me. The technical stuff can be fixed, and a few other things Im sure will be fixed/modded. The AI probably will stay pretty dumb, but thats a TW game for you.

But it really comes down to preference. I couldnt play more than 3 hours of Shogun 2 before I had to put it away, and I can see myself playing Rome 2 for a long time to come. While for you its the opposite. All about preference.

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Originally Posted by Vuk

2%? IF they are even being honest, that is 2% officially reporting their problems, not 2% experiencing problems. For all you know, 40-50% of RII owners are experiencing major technical problems.

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Exactly. No way in Hell do they release a formal apology about the condition of their game, or put someone on 24hr tech support at the official forum, if they truly believed that only 2% of their sales are being affected by problems. The fact that they even tried to pass that off as true is grimey. :angry:

I hope this little statement of contrition is sincere and they're prepared to not only sort out the game's technical problems, but to address all the major gameplay concerns. Otherwise this release will end up being an unmitigated disaster for them in the long run. There are only so many times you can fool people before they realize they're wasting money on your products... even the suckers.

I hate Shogun 2's setting, I hate the way it looks half the time but for co operative play, it's miles better than Rome2 right now. Mostly because the AI turns literally take 10 minutes (I've stopped the time, it's literally 10 minutes of waiting after each turn) and because the main playable factions are so far away from each other than co operative play just isn't really there, unless you play Greeks all the time.

Modding can only do so much to a highly flawed base game.

If I use Shogun 2 as an example (It's a decent TW game if you aren't too Western biased) the technical stuff was only fixed to a certain point, the unit balance wasn't really paid much attention to except for over nerfing, over buffing or extreme cost efficiency.

Plus Napoleon, and Empire can be used as examples too in which the mods barely patched up the poorly made games.

Mods will not fix things such as default running as if you could it would be already done in Shogun 2.

If ai is dumb then get it fixed instead of rehashing it again and again. CA left the ai unoptimised in Shogun 2 and HedgeKnight had to tweak it, CA could've done that and more if they spent some time and they could do it faster as they're full time.

Oh have fun and be sure to spam all heavy infantry in campaign for me. XD

Oh as of now mods are needed to patch the game instead of fleshing it out, 4tpy is a patch, better combat is also a patch. Cosmetics are patches... Things that vanilla game lacks dearly and needs so bad.

I am the 2%.

Good slogan. Those who are having trouble with their game should adopt that as their signature. Good way to make a statement.

Anybody want to gift me Rome 2? XD

Just kidding, I'll go check if there's any after action reports going on as I just watched Volound's let's plays and he would always curbstomp the ai on legendary so I just want to relax and read some AARs and look at kewl screenies.

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Originally Posted by Hooahguy

As mentioned before in other places, the 2% statistic seems a bit suspicious, but Im glad that they are aware of the situation and trying to make amends.

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Not really. Sales data combined with the numbers reporting the technical issues. It's very straight forward.

It is what it is.
As the latest product from a company, it is the clearest statement they can make on what matters to them

I blame this whole debacle on those two boobs from rally point.

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Originally Posted by Hooahguy

Ehhhh..... I disagree. Even with a few mods it made the game a lot more enjoyable for me. The technical stuff can be fixed, and a few other things Im sure will be fixed/modded. The AI probably will stay pretty dumb, but thats a TW game for you.

But it really comes down to preference. I couldnt play more than 3 hours of Shogun 2 before I had to put it away, and I can see myself playing Rome 2 for a long time to come. While for you its the opposite. All about preference.

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There's a lot more than mere preference going on in the forums right now my friend. This is not just a case of I like chocolate ice cream and you like vanilla.

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Originally Posted by easytarget

There's a lot more than mere preference going on in the forums right now my friend. This is not just a case of I like chocolate ice cream and you like vanilla.

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Oh yeah, I know. Were you there for the ETW release? I actually think it was on par with this one for the poor reaction from the community (and justified). Left it, gave it a few months, came back, and it was fine. I think it will be like this here as well.

As for S2TW versus R2TW, that is a matter of preference. 3 hours into my S2 campaign and I had to put it town, and that was after all the patches and even with some mods. But here Im 5 hours into my Suebi campaign and I love it. Granted Im not having most of the technical problems that others seem to be having with the exception of slow AI turns, but as I said, give it a month or two.

Again, this is by no means an excuse to brush off CA for releasing an unfinished game, but I just do not think it prudent to write off this game not even a week into release.

Don't rush out unfinished crap, then there will be no need for apologies.

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Originally Posted by Vuk

Good slogan. Those who are having trouble with their game should adopt that as their signature. Good way to make a statement.

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It all seriousness I wouldn't put too much stock in the 2% line. This is Mike Simpson, a man who has a long history of being bad at PR. He is the the same man who blamed players' own perceptions for terrible AI in the original RTW. "2% are reporting issues" easily mistranslates into "2% are suffering problems," it would have been better to keep any official statistics out of his attempt to let the supposed minority know they are taking their concerns seriously.


I suppose the biggest problem with being a total war fan for so long is you remember all the disappointments that came with the previous games, which make continued disappointments that much harder to bear. Rome II is an average game at best... but it could have been :daisy: beautiful. :no:

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Originally Posted by Hooahguy

Oh yeah, I know. Were you there for the ETW release? I actually think it was on par with this one for the poor reaction from the community (and justified). Left it, gave it a few months, came back, and it was fine. I think it will be like this here as well.

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I disagree with you on the "came back and it was fine." part. Empire was never anything more than a total pile of daffodils. Pretty to look at but not a lot more. The much lauded 1.4 patch never solved the AI issues to my satisfaction, and conquering ALL of France with one army in one turn felt incredibly wrong from a gameplay perspective. If it wasn't for Shogun 2's excellence I likely never would have looked at a TW game again, and have still to this day never tried Napoleon: Total War. I haven't played Empire since a few months after it was released.


As for Rome II.. the game just feels like its scale is too big when you compare it to the support systems in the game. Technology, the way unrest works, taxation, AI ability, turns per year, etc, it's all so streamlined that it feels completely inadequate to support the hugeness of the game's map.

Feature-wise a lot of the game feels like it was pieced together in a patchwork manner, nothing feels like it compliments anything else. Technology is researched too quick creating huge gaps between faction military strength. Units gain veteran too fast, causing armies to become death machines in within 10 turns of their creation. Unrest is obtuse in how it builds, and friendly fire unrest from taking neighboring cities is possible. The AI regards the player armies with indifference on the campaign map and tries to rush your cities. Campaign movement speed doesn't make sense for the turn length. There's no penalty for losing all your generals as you get free ones right away, making commanders throw away units.. :no:

I must wonder if there was any beta for Rome II at all. Because playing the released product is..interesting. I asked myself an honest question last night while trying to play: Am I having fun? I answered, "No." And stopped. Wake me up in 6 months when CA finishes their patching cycle and proclaims Empire Rome II ready to play.

Well to be fair I also was playing with Darthmod which made the experience much better.

Darthmod is much easier for me with all that cash rolling in early game and the still mental ai. Plus the stats are even less balanced than Vanilla Empire. The mod itself is quite unpolished with missing text, misplaced graphics, etc; can't blame Darth on that when the game itself is still horrid and buggy to beyond infinity. I can still beat all of France with one army. ;)

Don't know why he kept fire by rank, one of the broken firing drills, skirmish ability on line infantry is the most authentic and least buggy firing drill for Empire.


(Not trying to bash anybody, just some thoughts on Darthmod and Empire TW)


Additional rant: I do like how Napoleon Total War players force me to play on their terms on heavily imbalanced classic battles with no dojos then complain why I keep kiting and shooting, isolating their units, lure their forces in traps, etc. Then they say the game requires no skills and say Napoleon is the best. Pure genius... I only used a quarter of my forces to beat all of theirs...

(I play NTW and the online is usually quite linear and bland unless you play as Ottomans most of the time, hence why I just play SP modded)

This is why I stopped buying after Empire. Stop asking me to buy a friggen titan to run the game at medium settings and start getting some good programmers to work on AI.

I would buy Empire all over again if they released it exactly the same, but with a completely new battle/campaign AI

If that was to happen at least flesh out the game a little more and fix many bugs and issues such as firing drills.

Though something I did like about ETW was the (at least on the surface) fleshed out tech tree. In Rome 2 it seems kinda shallow. In my opinion, if they took the graphics, province, and army system (and a few of the battle features- in ETW the terrain was poorly done) from Rome2 and combined it with the UI of ETW and then put in the traits and family system of Rome 1 and I would be very happy.

I argue for the Shogun 2 ui over Empire.

It's much more responsive, icons stand out more, simply makes for a good feel in the Warscape engine. Plus the immersion factor too. (I still prefer Medieval 2's feel)

The patch has made the unit graphics look tremendous, shame the battlefield animations, AI, gameplay, etc is still bloody awful.

Back the Third Age mod for Medieval II I guess!

At least there the unit collision makes more sense! XD

I believe Nvidia blames performance issues on CA's poorly optimized game than their own drivers. Interesting...

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Originally Posted by BroskiDerpman

At least there the unit collision makes more sense! XD

I believe Nvidia blames performance issues on CA's poorly optimized game than their own drivers. Interesting...

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http://www.incgamers.com/2013/09/nvi...e-optimization

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Originally Posted by BroskiDerpman

I believe Nvidia blames performance issues on CA's poorly optimized game than their own drivers. Interesting...

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Not surprised at all.

Seems like an really legitimate argument too from what I've read in the Nvidia forums too.

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Feature-wise a lot of the game feels like it was pieced together in a patchwork manner, nothing feels like it compliments anything else. Technology is researched too quick creating huge gaps between faction military strength. Units gain veteran too fast, causing armies to become death machines in within 10 turns of their creation. Unrest is obtuse in how it builds, and friendly fire unrest from taking neighboring cities is possible. The AI regards the player armies with indifference on the campaign map and tries to rush your cities. Campaign movement speed doesn't make sense for the turn length. There's no penalty for losing all your generals as you get free ones right away, making commanders throw away units

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This. Seems to be a common opinion amongst many veteran players. The lack of cohesion between game features, the incomprehensibility of others. Somehow I can't see these kinds of issues being fixed by patches & hot-fixes.....

And yes, you may spend considerable time right now, playing the game....How much of your attraction to the game, at the moment, is simply novelty? how much is because of the 'meat & potatoes' of the game itself? how much time will you be spending 6 months from now? or a year?

That's where a mediocre/average/good/classic game gets sorted out.........

I know it's been mentioned a million times but it still boggles my mind how this game scored so high with reviewers. I guess there are really only 3 possibilities to account for this gross error in judgement.
a) they never actually played the game beyond 3 turns.
b) they are massively incompetent.
c) they where offered '"incentives" to utterly ignore the obvious shortcomings and focus on the few good aspects of this game.
Apologies aside this game reeks of everything wrong in the PC gaming industry today which is to say the souless persuit of profit over professional integrity and just doing what's right for your loyal paying customers.
Sorry to be so heavy handed but I'm just sick of this CRAP.

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Originally Posted by sassbarman

I know it's been mentioned a million times but it still boggles my mind how this game scored so high with reviewers. I guess there are really only 3 possibilities to account for this gross error in judgement.
a) they never actually played the game beyond 3 turns.
b) they are massively incompetent.
c) they where offered '"incentives" to utterly ignore the obvious shortcomings and focus on the few good aspects of this game.
Apologies aside this game reeks of everything wrong in the PC gaming industry today which is to say the souless persuit of profit over professional integrity and just doing what's right for your loyal paying customers.
Sorry to be so heavy handed but I'm just sick of this CRAP.

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There are fair reviews out there but they turned out to be very few and far between. The Rock, Paper, Shotgun analysis likely captures the spirit of playing Rome 2 the best. The writer describes in perfect detail how awesome the spectacle of the game is and the disappointment at everything else. The "When i stop playing, i'm not sure if i was having fun" (paraphrased) line sums up my experience to a T.



And it's not that I want to be negative or bash on the game, I doubt any of us do. ~:( I was so hype when my preload was unpacking, i dare say I was giddy. Truly excited for the potential that lay ahead of me. Right now my attitude is summed up by the words extreme disappointment.. there is much more wrong with Rome 2 than technical issues, there are deep flaws in the way the game is constructed.

It's shocking really, to believe the same studio who made the refined and incredibly focused Shogun 2 could make a game as scatterbrained as this.

On the bright side, I kind of have a hankering to reinstall STW now.

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Originally Posted by sassbarman

I know it's been mentioned a million times but it still boggles my mind how this game scored so high with reviewers. I guess there are really only 3 possibilities to account for this gross error in judgement.
a) they never actually played the game beyond 3 turns.
b) they are massively incompetent.
c) they where offered '"incentives" to utterly ignore the obvious shortcomings and focus on the few good aspects of this game.
Apologies aside this game reeks of everything wrong in the PC gaming industry today which is to say the souless persuit of profit over professional integrity and just doing what's right for your loyal paying customers.
Sorry to be so heavy handed but I'm just sick of this CRAP.

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You said it. Incidentally, my guess is all of the above :angry:

CA banked on the 'big spectacle', it was by design that nobody was given an early build of the campaign so they could get into the nuts & bolts of the system and see that it was FUBAR. This is their beta, "now that we're getting real-time metric feedback from thousands of players" says it all.

There's no question that what I saw pre-launch drove my curiosity to overcome my suspicion. The fact that STW2 was so well made also played a big role in my decision making, which I think is true for many others. I felt they were on the right track to make something really special... at least something really fundamentally good that the modding community could take the rest of the way.

Maybe they didn't set out to intentionally deceive their customers, but they certainly set themselves up for failure without realizing it when they gave themselves such a short development cycle for such an ambitious release. They thought they could pull it off... they were wrong. Evidently when they finally realized that, they probably hoped that the grandeur and scale of the game would impress enough to make it a sales winner, and plenty of people fell for it. Hell, there are those out there who think 'OMFG TEH G4ME POWNZ!' Maybe those are the customers they want to attract now? That argument can certainly be made going by their PR campaign and the 2 fools they hired to promote it.

There may come a day after patches and add-ons when the game will actually be more or less finished, but I don't think it will ever be considered a worthy successor to RTW cuz there are just too many poorly implemented and ill conceived core features. Time will tell of course, but this is how I see it at the moment (and the game runs pretty damn well for me on an older machine, which I have to give them serious props for).

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Originally Posted by ReluctantSamurai

how much time will you be spending 6 months from now? or a year?

That's where a mediocre/average/good/classic game gets sorted out.........

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Very good point ReluctantSamurai. I started the game this past weekend and I have had no major issues with crashes or graphical glitches. I think for me reading all the negative forum posts greatly helped to reduce my expectations when starting. In fact they were reduced so greatly that I was pleasently suprised at a few things. I think my fav change was how you can build up an army's abilities and reputation away from simply boosting the traits of the general. Being able to create the 10th legion and build it up to fight my toughest foes was a very neat premise. Seeing the stats of my 10th legion, broken up by past generals, added some immersion. That being said though, I really do not see myself playing this months from now without some overhaul. I see enough i like that I will not close the book and hope that mods and future patches can bring some much needed improvement to the immersion factor. Perhaps the biggest deal to me is the wait time inbetween turns. I can overlook a lot, but when you spend more time waiting than playing in the late game it kills the fun factor big time.

But to your point, I would much rather see RTW or M2TW get a graphics boost and some of the cool features I like than the idea of RTW2 getting patched and moded to a more playable form.

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Originally Posted by ReluctantSamurai

I can't see these kinds of issues being fixed by patches & hot-fixes.....

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Yeah, I was saying to a RL friend, who is new to the TW world, that CA is okay with eventually fixing bugs, but they have never, ever fixed a design problem in an existing game.

And a lot of what ails R2 appears to be fundamental to design.

I've spent most of my time in the campaign, and there's a whole lot of "Huh?" going on.

Why do I need to click through three sliding screens to perform an upgrade on a general? Why?

And the general lack of cues and feedback ... that's just bad design. Carthage had an epic civil war last night. Why? I have no idea. The Hanna Montana dynasty had ~20% control of the Senators. This was nowhere near the trigger point, by my understanding. None of the other factions had massive control. The "Other Families" had ~50% control. So ... civil war? Why? Who knows?

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Originally Posted by Barkhorn1x

Not surprised at all.

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I side with Nvidia here. There may be plenty of video card makers but they all carry chipsets from either Nvidia or AMD. In contrast, there are dozens of video game publishers and hundreds of video game developers. I don't see why the onus is on Nvidia and AMD to tweak their drivers to support the games instead of developers making sure their games are optimized for all of 2 chipset manufacturers.

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Originally Posted by Lemur

Yeah, I was saying to a RL friend, who is new to the TW world, that CA is okay with eventually fixing bugs, but they have never, ever fixed a design problem in an existing game.

And a lot of what ails R2 appears to be fundamental to design.

I've spent most of my time in the campaign, and there's a whole lot of "Huh?" going on.

Why do I need to click through three sliding screens to perform an upgrade on a general? Why?

And the general lack of cues and feedback ... that's just bad design. Carthage had an epic civil war last night. Why? I have no idea. The Hanna Montana dynasty had ~20% control of the Senators. This was nowhere near the trigger point, by my understanding. None of the other factions had massive control. The "Other Families" had ~50% control. So ... civil war? Why? Who knows?

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And to piggy back off of that, I think the political system is great in concept, but poorly executed. For example, I think a power-struggle is about to start between my faction leader and the next in line, another general. My FL has about 60 gravitas and the other guy has about 80. But nowhere does it say what happens when someone reaches 100, and I dont even know which one is part of "my family." No idea where to see my family list/tree. In the end I sent the rival general first into a siege and he was killed. Overall, great ideas, poor execution.

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Originally Posted by Hooahguy

Overall, great ideas, poor execution.

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Nothing's quite as tacked-on and Early Atari-style as, say, the railroad transport screen in FotS. But a lot of it is close. Damn close.

https://i.imgur.com/7YtZ3HJ.jpg

Do you know how that works? Never got to really start up FoTS yet.

It seems to me this game had a deadline set a year ago, and no one with the cojones to say "that just won't work" as the game neared release. So many of the little pieces (the traits and faction politics) sound like such fun, but they're too poorly done to be interesting. I need more time with naval combat to pass judgement but my initial thought is it's a circus.

I enjoy the army stances, the look of the map (I am the 98%, and even the game turns aren't terrible when I think of the enormous number of factions) but not the enormous UI in battles.

Azi

It's the ui... Ahhhhhhh it burns m'lord!

I wished CA reconsidered redoing the ai with important functions hidden in other buttons. Plus the modern minimal ui gets on my nerves,I thought CA learned from Shogun 2 and designed the ui that way. It was immersive and functional.

The more I read about this game, the more of a joke it becomes. Like most AAA titles.

CA has never had a real competitor. The Total Wars are a unique blend and because there are so many apologists and marketing (hence the 40% larger budget), they honestly do not have to improve anything but graphics.

I don't know what the solution is, other than to simply not buy R2 and not buy the next game on principle unless there is a public beta or until the *actual* reviews come out, post-release.