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An interview with Bob Smith
Not much new information. The interesting part seems to be at the very end.
Quote:
when a player selects one of the five starting factions, they’ll get an introduction to their faction, including a description of likely threats from their neighbours and advice on their initial target regions to conquest.
That's interesting. Maybe the 5 who are represented on the official site under the factions option? But it makes no sense... :inquisitive:
Why do they do such strange things?:dizzy2:
I can't see any point in locking most of the factions.
That's pretty stupid. I imagine they will be the English, the French, the HRE, Byzantium and possibly a Muslim one.
What a nonsense decision! And i just wonder why? Why do they put such meaningless limits?
Ok then guys prepare your notepads. We've gotta job to do. Just open Data directory than click :juggle2:
Here we go again...
It seems like a typical kiddy oriented feature/restriction. What next, 'bonus' levels?
On a more positive note... maybe only applies to the tutorial?
It is the same as in Rome: TW, where U could only play the Roman families in the beginning. So I finish first campaign & then play the rest, or I´ll wait for a "all factions mod".
The next thing to expect is a port to Nintendo Wii....
this is nothing new (compared to RTW), I don't understand how some of you are surprised/disappointed by it. The first thing I did when I installed RTW is unlock Carthage so I could play the faction I wanted too. I don't have a favorite in MTW2 so it doesnt really matter there. But it only takes 2 minutes to unlock all factions.
It's one of the improvements over RTW. Now you have 5 starting factions instead of 3. Wait until you see the improvements in the battles.
Hmmm. That would be the HRE, England, the Papacy, Egypt and Byzantium.Quote:
Originally Posted by Ultras DVSC
Well, the game is not out yet and honestly, how long do you think it's going to take before someone opens the relevant file and opens every faction? I know my first game will be with the Danes no matter what CA thinks I should play :-) It is odd that they haven't opened every faction after the experience of RTW, though.
Oh come on, it wasn't that bad in RTW and you know it. You didn't even have to complete a full Imperial campaign in order to unlock the unlockable factions. All you had to do was finish a short campaign and badda bing, you can now play all the (playable) factions. If there was an exceptionally bad part to it, it was that you couldn't play a few certain factions without modding the game.
Of course it wasn't. But it is a bit meaningless not to open all playable factions - I mean, what are they trying to protect us from?Quote:
Originally Posted by Afro Thunder
Well I sure hope its not more than 5 factions or its gonna be too complicated for some... :juggle2:Quote:
Originally Posted by Puzz3D
CBR
Probably because CA thinks that many options confuses new players.
Who cares? In RTW the roman factions were the easiest to play with and were a natural introduction to the game. I certainly didn't mind starting with them, and with the more varied options in MTW2 I don't see this being a problem at all.
:laugh4: Let me say you what's gonna be?! Timurid Katyusha rocket launchers may be?Quote:
Originally Posted by Puzz3D
It's one of the improvements over RTW. Now you have 5 starting factions instead of 3. Wait until you see the improvements in the battles.
Who cares realism let's have some fun! Lets make the game just more accesible right? We are just old school bunch of funs only future lies in console players.
Yes 2 minutes for factions but it's only first step. Couple of months for a realism mods and etc etc. Yeah we know rest of story well...Quote:
But it only takes 2 minutes to unlock all factions.
Great news! will read it as soon as i get the time.
and yes its really easy to unlock whatever faction you want. I always go with my favorite faction the first time as that the game gets more challenging when you dont know evrything about it and i really love to meet enemy armies with fearsome units that i diden't have a clue about that they exsisted at all.
hope that Russia will be hard to play as thats my faction.
I don't see a problem with only 5 initial factions :dizzy2:
I like to unlock other factions :P
No problem with this either.
I can spare 1 minute to move some stuff around in a txt-file.:2thumbsup:
It was so damn easy in RTW.
IndeedQuote:
Timurid Katyusha rocket launchers may be?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shin_Ki_Chon
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rocket_artillery#History
damn you CA for adding a historical accurate weapon. :furious3:
:laugh4:
I think that is a wise decision. I don't want to start with a boring material-less campaign (Numidia), I'd rather start with a rich, feutures-full campaign. (Romans)
Wow, this thread turned out a whole lot more negative than I intended, perhaps I should have been more subtle in choosing a title ?
I'm not quite sure what to think of this, on the one hand it does make it easier for new players to choose, and it leaves the possibility for making the other factions harder. OTOH I fear the other factions might not get the same level of attention as those 5, like the generic 'barbarians' in RTW.
This really isn't a buy/no buy deal to me, battle mechanics and AI are, which might be discussed in the next interview. This might get interesting :book:
This is funny because I thought to myself last night that they'd never limit the starting factions like they did in RTW and here it is now. At least when they made you play as a roman faction it was somewhat justified in that there was a lot more work put into roman factions and the game was named after those factions. I don't under stand this, but hey whatever, I'll just change it myself. I want to play as Byzantium fisrt anyway and my guess to the five is England, France, HRE, Byzantines, and Egypt. Anyway, before I really bash the game I'll play it fisrt.
Part 2 is online.
Interesting part:
Quote:
There are 21 playable and non-playable factions included in the game. Of these there’ll be 17 factions that are playable in the grand campaign.
Presumably non-playable factions are Aztecs, Papacy, and emerging factions such as the Mongols and Timurids?
Not really interesting.
It is pretty old infact that there will be 17 playable factions and 4 non-playable(Mongols, Timurids, Papal states and Aztecs)
I don’t beleive faction unlocking is much of an issue at all.
I agree faction unlocking is not tough...I did it in RTW and I am not somone who ever does Mods, but it was easy to figure out (Just look around until you find the right file).
Also if there are only a few factions to choose from I am sure it is part of CAs approach. For the casual gamer it provides a whole new set of challenges...Basically play the game through and now you get some other factions to play.
People like "cool" endings or bonuses for finsihing games. So this is CA's Bonus for the casual player. Those of us who are more into these games will just mod the seletcion list. Keep in mnd though we are in the minority as most people who buy games do not go to forums to learn more about them...
Most poeple will just play the main 5 factions that CA has chosen (potentially these factions have more events and uniqueness to them then the others). Bascially these are probably their showcase factions and the rest are just their to keep you interested or provide a challenge.
As in Rome, this design decision is based on time constraints in building feature-rich factions versus less rich factions, in regards to graphics uniqueness, voiceovers, campaign assignments from pope/guilds, etc. They lock initial factions so that no matter what initial choice the casual gamer makes, he/she gets the "full game" effect instead of choosing a faction that has been mostly but not fully filled out. Given limited pipeline and resources, they can't do everything for every faction with an engine as complex as RTWs.
So far in this thread, people have called this a stupid, pointless, nonsense, dumbed-down, and unrealistic design decision. I'm not sure these are accurate ways to describe it.
On a different note I find this part of the interview very interesting...
Everyone has been complaining that they haven't talked about the AI too much, well, here it is!Quote:
In the second part of the Medieval II: Total War Interview, Bob Smith will talk about some of the new features in the game and the A.I. improvements. For more information on the game, visit www.totalwar.com.
5 starting factions is not a problem at all (as others have said), it was really simple to edit the text file so that you unlocked the locked factions...
my guess would be so they don't have to create 4 or 5 different tutorials to bring the player through.
If you have a small campaign with 5 somewhat similar factions, it's easy to create a tutorial that will cater to them all...and then you can put very small amount of work required to open the rest of the factions. That way they don't break their fingers making useless tutorials for all the varied factions, for the new people, and can concentrate more on the actual game itself.
that would be my guess on why they leave some locked....but what do i know.
The 2nd part is out, and I can safely say that all things mentioned are no news at all (except perhaps for the 5 starting factions, but that's no biggie at all).
BTW am I the only one noticing that the wording of most answers is exactly the same with that of previous interviews?
Just... why? Why bother placing a pointless restriction that a huge number of people are going to mod to remove?
I really, really hope the starting factions haven't got all the attention, leaving the others not as well fleshed-out (again).
I know the feeling. I believe it was a few months ago when I myself said something to the effect that CA wouldn't repeat their mistake from Rome in limiting the initial faction selection. I'm honestly shocked to see how wrong I was. I'm very disappointed that such an annoying and unnecessary restriction has made it into the game.Quote:
Originally Posted by Darth Nihilus
Edit: On the other hand, I do appreciate CA was honest enough to give us this information in advance. At least now I know for certain that I don't have to hurry to pick up this game, and that I can definitely wait a while.
[sigh]
No, I noticed that as well. I think it's safe to say that any and all interviews will be almost a word-for-word rehash of what's been said before. (Stupid legal NDA's....) ~;)Quote:
Originally Posted by L'Impresario
Midnight has the right of it, I think. In RTW, the Romans had a fair bit of work put into them, while the others were underdone.
I noticed that too ! omg, sometimes, you got three lines that just appear in every interview :PQuote:
Originally Posted by L'Impresario
How to say something without saying anything??:juggle2:Quote:
How good is the A.I. in the real-time battles? Can players use the environment to their advantage?
We’re always striving to make improvements to the battle AI as the Total War series has developed and Medieval II will of course continue this trend. The new environment rendering system has allowed us to create impassable terrain for the first time in the series which will allow the player to tailor their tactics according to the environment, perhaps protecting their flanks with hills or cliffs. The AI will work similar ploys into their deployment and tactics
Oh well hopefully CA will inform us closer to the release date as this must be commercially sensitive information I guess. Trying to stay positive:2thumbsup:
I find this a very courteous gesture on the part of CA:
Quote:
We also have to balance this with developing the game for an established Total War audience and strategy fans.
I'm on to CA!! They only introduce these limitations on the number of starting factions because they have a monthly sweepstakes running on this. The employee who correctly guesses how many, 'Eh, I can only play as 5 factions, WTF! My Game is bugged!' threads are posted on the net every month wins a prize - possibly a book token and a Sega baseball cap.
Honestly, I see the point of limiting the factions, but at the same time am a little disappointed. Whereas anyone who knows what Notepad is will probably figure out how to manually unlock the other factions, you'll still get countless people confused and wanting immediate satisfaction by being able to play as who they want from the off. Still it helps solve the problem whereby people still post to this day, 'I just got Some-TW-game, what faction should I play as?'. Well if you only got 5 factions, they're obviously well tailored as starting factions, so take your pick.
I'm just annoyed there's no civil war rebel faction for each of the factions. I want factions to go into civil war, and get to choose which one to ally with. Bah. I demand a Sega baseball cap as compensation. Or a valid book token. Or anything I can flog on ebay.
Huh?Quote:
Originally Posted by Bob Smith
If this guy doesn't remember the features of M:TW then I have little hope that he remembers what else made M:TW superior to R:TW. It seems to me that CA does his best to cut loose from M:TW and S:TW and sees R:TW as a new starting point of the series. I guess it's time for me to do the same. No longer will I see M2:TW as a sequel to the excellent M:TW, but as a sequel to R:TW, a game which I did not really like and hardly played at all.
:beam:
It does make you wonder if the new devs have ever played STW or MTW...
It's a bit of an obvious slip.
Yeah, didn't you read it? Now you have 2-4 sequential (random, not necessarily logical) attack moves, instead of just the underhand & overhand smash alternating. That should bring kill rates down, a good thing, right? And 5 starting factions only means those 5 will get extra content, while the others get less focus. My guess is:Quote:
Originally Posted by Puzz3D
Egypt (Islamic)
Byzantium Greek (Orthodox)
England (North European Catholic)
Spain (South European Catholic)
Germany (North European Catholic) or France
First 3: Definitely. Spain, I hope so (enjoyed them thoroughly in MTW). Germany or France then seem likely.
I suggest you have a look for R T Smith in the credits of previous TW titles before calling Bob Smith "new". He's got a bit of a track record where these games are concerned, you know.Quote:
Originally Posted by Myrddraal
That doesn't make it any better :wink:
Quote:
Originally Posted by Captain Fishpants
The new environment rendering system has allowed us to create impassable terrain for the first time in the series
.....
Come on guys, it may just have been an honest slip...
The guy is excited about the new game, he's talking...
Stuff happens... :shrug:
I believe he was speaking in the R:TW realistic mapping context, not the M:TW pre-rendered one.
No big deal to make all factions playable, same as RTW. However, like others I fail to understand why CA pursue a trend that was unpopular
.....Orda
Quite right. It was a general sarcy comment. My apologies.Quote:
I suggest you have a look for R T Smith in the credits of previous TW titles before calling Bob Smith "new". He's got a bit of a track record where these games are concerned, you know.
I'm sure in his mind he was thinking of RTW, but why did he say 'series'.
It is a bit of a silly thing to say... :shrug:
Not really sure why CA would take this approach. The original Medieval allowed you to play 2 different game types, 3 different eras, and all factions unlocked from the start. This was bad how? :inquisitive:
I think Bob has gotten the "bad" label attached to him simply because when we hear unwelcome news from CA on M2 it's often him who's saying it. I have to admit I fall into the category of those who have unfairly paired up Bob's name with emphasis on style over substance. I'll stop with that now and think a bit more before pidgeonholing the fellow.
if they aren't 100% sure it's a new feature then why announce it as a new feature. Might be a small detail but your reaction was justified. Like DJ says, it really makes CA look as if they've forgotten a lot about MTW, and that's very painfull for those of us who are still hoping CA will revert back to the old gameplay.Quote:
Quite right. It was a general sarcy comment. My apiologies.
I'm sure in his mind he was thinking of RTW, but why did he say 'series'.
I, for some reeson find it hard to manually unlock factions, my gmae always crashes when trying to pick one (on this computer). Maybe I did something different from my last computer. I would like them to use M:TW for the benchmark. That was the best game in the series (all around, at least for me). I wish they compared it to that instead of Rome.
Wow, I come in here to comment on the 5 starting factions thing and I see the whinging thread has spilled over... :inquisitive:
My personal opinion is the same as many here that it is unnecessary to limit us like this, but given how easy it was to mod previously I don't really care that much and a short game as one of the starting factions will hardly be a chore...
It certainly does not bring me to question the ability of the designers or the enthusiasim of the marketing machine...
I agree. all three games are different enough and should not be compared against each other because they are in different time periods or parts of the world. m2tw vs mtw on the other hand is a fair call... pls do not compare RTW vs MTW vs STW. it's like comparin' ww1 vs ww2 vs vietnam war.. :)Quote:
Originally Posted by IrishArmenian
It is not so much about whinging as it is about discussing our views. Whingning is stubbornley negative.
Maybe if we were nicer.....u'd be amazed what good manners gets you these days.
If I was a game developer and read criticisms which bordered beyond constructive and evolved into something vicious, I'd say "to hell" with you and make life hard for you....and still have the gratification of knowing that the game will sell well.
I don't view my posts as being vicious, though. And when did you become a woman (avatar)?
i dont see it as a problem, infact i look at it as a challenge to those who wish for more objectives to accomplish and like to unlock things, its never been any problem for me to edit in factions in about a minute
of all the things to rightly complain about, i feel this isnt one of them
lets hear more complaints about glorious achievements and no years ~:argue:
Unlocking factions in R:TW was not a problem, because winning a game as a Roman was a piece of cake.
There's been some speculation on what the five starting factions are. I'm sure somebody's already mentioned the five factions listed on the official website, which look like the frontrunners:
Byz (Greek Orthodox)
HRE (North European Catholic)
England (North European Catholic)
The Papacy (South Europeand Catholic)
Egypt (Islam)
============
I think the purpose of the "unlock" features is to keep a new player from picking some faction he likes for outside, historical or sentimental reasons, then getting clobbered. People with bad first impressions rarely get addicted.
The papacy won't be playable.
They are like the senate in RTW.
Quote:
Originally Posted by TB666
Back like they were in M:TW, ehh, only moreso.
the best bet for a south european faction would be either italy or spain.
I, for one, am annoyed about this. In BI, when I trying editing the text files to make the Burgundii
and the Lombardi playable, the game crashes.
=========
However, they did say there were "17 playable factions". Now if this is true, then surely this an improvement over Rome.
I have posted before here, and on other forums, what a legend RT Smith is to those of us old enough to remember classic games like Arnhem, Desert Rats, Tobruk & Ancient Battles.Quote:
Originally Posted by Captain Fishpants
But that doesn't alter the fact that we keep reading in interviews about this "new" feature of impassible terrain.
I'm just surprised & disapointed that after all the furore over unlockable factions in RTW that we have it again in MTW2 ~:(
For those who forget, in the original MTW, all minor factions were initially unplayable.Quote:
Originally Posted by drone
This required a text edit.
[As for the arrangement with this game, provinces and map specifics concern me
more than the text edit.]
I see it like this
new players-Unlocking factions
Mid players-Follow papacy missions
hardcore players-Conquer the world
I actually think they are knowing full well that people will go and modify the game, but they would at least like to have you see some of the opening sequences to show off all of the hard work they have done
My quick and dirty analysis...Quote:
Originally Posted by Mount Suribachi
The communication flow for games usually goes something along these lines:
developer -> studio marketing -> publisher marketing -> journalist -> editor
As you've all pointed out a mistake has been made. It could have been made at any step in the chain. Bob has worked on every Total War game to date. If you had to put money on where the mistake was made, how many of you would bet on it having being Bob?
I know I was mortified when I read on these forums some of the stuff I was supposed to have said in a magazine article around January. It was only afterwards that I realised that what I said had been edited, translated for a Belgian games mag, re-edited and then translated back into English.
Basically, what Pras is saying, that the magazines are editing intentionally the articles? :inquisitive:
No, he's saying that journalists and PR people don't always report accurately.
I've experienced it personally twice before.
Once was in university politics - it was simply amazing, person A would say "X" and the student newspaper would report person B (in the same party) said "not X" (when they had said no such thing). And not just once, but on virtually every single instance we were reported. Now this was just student politics and student journalism but it made me fear for what goes on in the real world.
The other case was when an academic unit I worked in hired a journalist to present its research. It was just hopeless. What was reported was either completely vacuous or completely wrong. In the end, we had to write the stuff ourselves and politely bid the journalist farewell.
I'm not sure what's going on, but part of it is that the reporters do not have the necessary technical knowledge to understand what they are talking about. Kind of like if you asked me to report something you said in Romanian or something. They use their own words and end up distorting the message horribly.
Well to be honest I don't see the problem, as long as we can play the other factions by editing a simple text file then that's it.
Well, I think it's just there to keep the player playing, give him some sort of a objective other than conquering the twenty needed cities. That simple.Quote:
Originally Posted by Doug
:balloon2:
Do you mean like glorious achievements? I've heard that was an effective way to keep players involved.Quote:
Originally Posted by Dutch_guy
I was giving my own opinion on Doug's theory of why there'd only be 5 starting factions, he basically stated it would be more new-comer friendly, I stated it was probably done to give players some sort of objective to complete - some sort of a mission, or goal.Quote:
Originally Posted by danfda
So I didn't exactly mean glorious achievements, but you have heard correctly, it is an excellent way to keep players involved. And I for one, am hoping to see the GAs back in M2TW.
:balloon2:
I think you're giving people to much credit. I once was interviewed and found my words totally twisted in the newspaper (with a bunch of made up stuff) I complained in a public forum the journalist could moderate and quickly found the entire rant deleted and I got an angry email from the guy in question. When i asked him why he did it he said my real answer didn't make for an interesting story...Quote:
Originally Posted by econ21
:wall: :wall: :wall: :wall:
There's a reason I rate journalists above (below?) politicians and lawyers on my scum-of-the-earth-o-meter. Every experience I, and people I know, have had with them has been overwhelmingly negative ~:(
That's amazing! I wonder what the margin of error was for each modification. Not to mention the intentional distortions.Quote:
Originally Posted by Pras the Reaper
Yeah, I should've added a [/sarcasm] tag. :laugh4:Quote:
Originally Posted by Dutch_guy
I, too, hope frevently there will be a GA mode. IMO its part of the reason MTWwasis so special. Has any dev said yay or nay with regards to GA?
If nay, someone should mod them in... :dizzy2:
*slaps forehead*