Patch Update

**BeeSting** · 03-21-2009, 05:59

Originally Posted by Dogfish

This level of support is to be expected considering the state of the game upon release, how CA positions themselves as a top tier development studio, and their own marketing claims about the game before release.

And while I agree with you regarding the compatibility issues, the reality is that many of the gameplay issues, such as naval transport, and the overall passivity of the AI on the campaign map in some situations, pathfinding, balance issues regarding sieges, etc, should've been caught pre-release. I understand compatibility issues may crop up post-release due to the myriad amount of hardware configurations that exist amongst their customer base, but there is no excuse for some of the gameplay issues that, while minor, have great gameplay implications and make the game a shell of what was expected by many, almost to the point of it being unplayable.

At least the modders are making progress now.

I doubt they played the campaign through. Agreed. The game feels and plays like an unfinished product. it's a beta and we are its testers. It was a huge let down for me. I haven't touched the game in a while and won't touch it again until they patch it.

**Durallan** · 03-21-2009, 06:48

I'm sorry lemur but your argument doesn't stack up against beesting's and dogfish's. I preordered the special edition, was incredibly looking forward to it, and understood that they needed an extra month so they could put in the multiplayer campaign mode. This however seems to have evaporated and they are now in damage control urgently needing to fix bugs that I honestly believe don't see how they could have missed.

I joined the Total War Franchise with medieval 2 and I thought that was pretty awesome and I thought dang it, I'll go ahead and get Empire, cause that sounds too awesome to believe. I got it and at first it was awesome, I was having alot of fun, but then 20 turns down the track, the cracks started to appear. the slightly random crash in a battle after I'd fought it, the crash after winning a battle and clicking the victory button, these things could be forgiven. another 80 turns down the track these bugs didn't stop but I persevered, and now it has gotten to the point where if I click on one of my fleets the game will freeze for 2 minutes, then selecting ships in the fleet will take 2 minutes, moving it about is okay but if I end the turn I ahve to go through that mess all over again, and loading armies on ships and through docks, I just can't play the game anymore. My main most important army is now stuck on a small carribean island because each time I click on the shipyard, the game crashes to the desktop. I don't expect a perfect game, but I expect that CA had testers that at least played through a whole long campaign and would have found these bugs, because these are not simple annoying bugs where an animation isn't working properly, I can't play the game I paid money for anymore. and while I don't feel like taking the game back and getting my money back because I know they are at least going to fix this eventually, It just shouldn't have been released in this manner.

Now about people who complain about the bugs that would have complained about the release date, the reason people complain about release dates or at least most people that do, is because normally no information is given, if they said hey, we need 3 months to get some really game breaking bugs out of this game, I certainly wouldn't have minded, unfortunately it seems they spent more time trying to get the demo out and working than they did getting the campaign game working!

thats a joke, probably a bad one but anyway

as my last point I would like to point out that I don't see why I shouldn't be able to criticise CA for releasing an inferior product, credit where credit is due, yes the potential for this game is awesome and it is fun as long as you don't bother trying to invade other regions by sea, but at the moment it is just potential and next time they might want to think about realising that potential and actually getting someone to beta test it before releasing it

Anyway, Not Happy CA!

/rant

**NimitsTexan** · 03-21-2009, 07:50

Personally, I would rather have the game now, bugs and all, than wait another 3 months.

**pevergreen** · 03-21-2009, 08:31

Bugs are not global.

I have not had a CTD yet.

CA have played this game, a lot. Yet they can't, as Lemur said, go round and test every combination of OS's, motherboards, graphics cards with drivers etc. They test with what they have.

A closed beta of 15gb?

The extra month was not for the multiplayer campaign to be put in. don't know why people are still assuming it.

**Durallan** · 03-21-2009, 10:30

then you are one of the very lucky few who have a bug free game, and I'm glad that you have had no problems with that, however me and other people are having bugs which halt the progress of the game completely, not a little, not a little annoying, the game becomes unplayable, and we have a right to complain about that, and it must be a pretty strange bug then, I'm running xp service pack 3 and I would be suprised that one of their computers is not running that operating system yet if they didn't have that problem I would sure like to know why. And if the extra month was not for this multiplayer campaign mode, what was it for? because it sure didn't fix any bugs...

**Akka** · 03-21-2009, 12:13

People prefering to get a game right now, full of bugs, than a little later but more polished...

That's really kiddy thinking "I want it now ! I want it now !".
Grow up, become adults and learn to have standards. It's not by swallowing everything thrown at you that you'll increase quality of work. If people are stupid enough to buy half-finished game, that's no surprise we're seeing more and more of this since a few years.

God I'm happy not to have bought this one. Steam-released, forced upgrade and half-finished ?
Yeah, no thanks, I'll pass.

**antisocialmunky** · 03-21-2009, 13:50

Akka, you're arguing that the people telling other people to patiently wait for patches to sort everthing out are immature. What the hell dude? That makes no sense because those people are satisfied to wait. Most of us knew it would be this way and we bought it anyway, trusting CA to do what they should do and they are. We're not idiots, we been around long enough to know how it works.

Your 2 cents are welcome but don't go swinging at everyone like a bar room brawl or atleast get your facts straight.

There are a lot of valid viewpoints to this thing:
-I paid $50+ for a polished game and am angry because its buggy.
-I paid $50+ for a playable game and am angry because I can't get it to run.
-I paid $50+ for a game that will eventually be playable and and disappointed.
-I paid $50+ for a game knowing that it would probably be buggy and am satisfied that it will be fixed eventually.

Honestly, this is debate isn't going to change anyone's mind since your viewpoint is dictated by your expectations.

**Dogfish** · 03-21-2009, 14:46

Originally Posted by pevergreen

Bugs are not global.

I have not had a CTD yet.

CA have played this game, a lot. Yet they can't, as Lemur said, go round and test every combination of OS's, motherboards, graphics cards with drivers etc. They test with what they have.

A closed beta of 15gb?

The extra month was not for the multiplayer campaign to be put in. don't know why people are still assuming it.

People, we need to separate the compatibility issues from the gameplay issues. Functionality testing and compatibility testing are two completely different test methodologies and usually are in separate labs with separate people. When I was in QA we had a 12-person team for functionality testing on the most popular configs, and then 3-person team in a 50-machine lab for compatibility testing. So yes, compatibility issues aren't global, but gameplay ones are.

I mean, I haven't had a CTD yet, either. Even if I did, I'm fine with, and completely understanding of, compatibility issues. That said, with the number of complaints regarding CTD's and such, they probably should've spent more time in that area as well. But I guarantee you every single copy of the game out there that is on the current release version has:

A) No naval transport by the AI
B) Pathfinding errors
C) Passive campaign AI
D) Raiding/destroying factories don't reduce income
E) Balance issues (Such as Fluyts and Galleys vs SOLs)
F) Battle AI occasionally gets stuck in loops
G) Fixed artillery in reinforcements sometimes get stuck off-map and prevent the battle from finishing
H) Ships sailing upwind raise their sails and become almost immune to chain shot
I) SAVED GAME CORRUPTION

... you get the idea. I can post a much larger list of issues like that if necessary. For a quality title, with this much hype and marketing behind it, issues like this should not be present. Not if CA wants to maintain their reputation, which is already cracking due to the last couple of releases going downhill in this regard compared to Shogun and MTW. Issues like this are present either by bad design, lack of testing, or rushing of release. There are no other reasons. Bad design, lack of testing, or lack of development time. Different system configurations have no bearing on these issues. None. Zero. Nada.

Now, some of these are more prevalent for some than others, dependent upon how you play the game. If you play as the Ottomans and never try to go colonial, odds are you aren't going to mind the lack of AI naval transport. But if you play as Great Britain, then it's almost a gamebreaker. You can leave England completely defenseless without worry, and you are never challenged in India by other colonial powers.

But again, hardware combinations have no bearing on poor design decisions or gameplay issues like the ones above.

Also, why not a closed beta of 15gb? How is that any different than releasing a 15gb game as a digital download through Steam?

Also Also, http://www.videogamer.com/news/creat...war_delay.html

Empire: Total War developer Creative Assembly has explained the game's delay, saying it will allow time for polish and a new multiplayer campaign mode.

I was never under the impression the MP campaign was going to be released with the game, I thought it was to put in the foundation for it and finish it up post-release, but it was one of the main factors in the delay, and with news items written like that it's easy to see why some people are confused about the matter. I also find it slightly amusing that the delay was for "polish". Marketing like that is why I was expecting nagging small gameplay issues like the above to be ironed out before release.