Petition CA for MTW source code?

[caravel]

Hello,

It is not simple for the games developers to release the source code for a game. The CA team of today are not the CA team of 2000 - 2002. Also when it comes to source code, it is not just the developer that can decide about this, the publisher(s) is also a big factor. The "intellectual property" is also a factor, the source code may be jointly owned. In short it's bound to be very complex.

I have read about cases like this before, where the rights to a certain game were owned not by the developers but by a previous publisher which prevented the game source ever being released. The publisher in question refused to cooperate so nothing came of it.

There is also the fact that CA have shown no willingness to provide any assistance to those still trying to play STW/MTW. There have been no posts in this thread from CA representatives after almost 2 years.

CA have also stated on numerous occasions in the past that they discount "online petitions" - so I doubt written petitions would carry much weight either. Besides it would be rather difficult to get together a written petition of any real value, considering this is all internet based and people like to protect their anonymity. There is also the small matter of this thread only consisting of 2 pages and a handful of people. Do you believe a company like CA will take notice of this small minority?

I am quite certain that this is not going to happen - for what it's worth I support what you are trying to do and agree with it in principle. But looking at this realistically, CA are not going to provide the source code for this game.

Regards

Yohei

[gollum]

Good post Yohei.

In any case MTW is history for CA - there is insider info that they won't touch the game code to fix problems and i very much doubt that they have any benefit or intention to release the code for free or otherwise. The old TWs will die off and that's it. Buy Nappy :)

[naut]

The only hope is that CA/Activision/SEGA/Whomever else give someone like Good Old Games the rights to fix the software/hardware issues that affect newer systems. But, CA and it's publishing companies over the years have become more and more detached from the community and also the needs of the consumer (ETW/NTW lack of mod tools a key example). Personally (and this is based on my marketing knowledge) I feel that the series will not continue much longer and as a going concern Creative Assembly will not exist much longer either. There is a significant disconnect between what they are producing and the needs and wants of the PC gaming consumer.

[gollum]

And yet they sell more than ever before. I read a post a ttwcentre that even claimed that the pre-orders for NTW made more sales than RTW to date.

There is no doubt that CA moved away from its core community. The guys in twc that have "started playing since Shogun" may be a dime a dozen, but in reality one can tell that the vast majority of them joined after RTW/M2. Despite the complaining waves and even the poor user reception for ETW,TW as a commercial venture is alive and well, and as far as this is so i cant see them quiting or SEGA letting them quit.

If and when CA makes a RTW2 or anything else there are enough fanboys and general interest from the pc gaming market to keep them going for another 10 years with or without mod tools. The multiplayer camp may also well be a huge success. I have to admit that it is cleverly implemented (only two players and one is playing against the other in any battle the other fights be it against the player or the AI factions), and would have loved to play such in the older games. If this is a success, complains about the AI, and indeed a need for a very advanced AI may well be a thing of the past.

[caravel]

The multiplayer camp may also well be a huge success. I have to admit that it is cleverly implemented (only two players and one is playing against the other in any battle the other fights be it against the player or the AI factions), and would have loved to play such in the older games. If this is a success, complains about the AI, and indeed a need for a very advanced AI may well be a thing of the past.

MP is only a small, though important, niche and will probably remain that way. The issue is still campaign map AI and diplomacy which have been found wanting. Yes the average player, or CA's "casual gamer" as they're referred to nowadays, that is to say their target consumer, may overlook crappy fastclicking battles but not shortcomings/bugs on the campaign map level.

[gollum]

Well that's exactly the point - that competitive mp play in battles only had a small fraction of the market, but campaign mp may well be a success in that, and in this case, diplomacy and AI won't be that much of a problem. A campaign mp game will be satisfying because the battles will be and because in the campaign the other player will also be trying to smack you.

To be honest its not that newer total wars lack tactical and strategic dimensions, but that these are terribly underworked and lack optimisation. The reasons for this are well known/suspected: there is an emphasis in graphics and presentation, an emphasis in additional features and games within the game t make the game more broad in its appeal and more pleasing etc However the core game has not been lost, its been simply carried over and used to fill commercial expectations rather than improving it. This is the major sin of ca and tw for me, that they wanted to succeed more than they wanted to succeed in their own terms. However, they had every right, from the start to do so; its their game.

To the point: i dont think that tw will dissapearany time soon.

[edyzmedieval]

I looked over this thread again and noticed the overwhelming majority at the poll - 38 for, 3 against.
This shows how much support MTW has.

I fired up MTW a couple of days ago, and all of those good memories, the "feeling" you had when you started up MTW came back to me. A glorious moment.