So when do you think ETW will be stable and ready for me to buy?

[Graphic]

Wheres the option for it being playable now?

This ^

[Veresov]

Isn't this one far better than the release of RTW and MTW2 (less sure on latter) yeah there are some problems but i think CA have made a big improvment and should be congratulated on the fact, the game would quite likely be very runnable for you... the main killer for me at the moment is the ai's inability to invade by sea

Far better? Not hardly. Give me a break. This game in its current form is unstable and doesn't run. You are lucking that it runs for you. MTW2 and RTW at least launched and ran stable for the vast majority of users. There are a huge number of people that can't even play this game. You are doing no service to the community when you steer people to a game without warning them first to carefully check their specs to see if their pc or graphics card isn't one of the bugged ones.

[BeenPlayingSinceRTW]

Interesting poll results so far...

It looks like aalmost 70% of respondents think it will be at least 3 months before CA have the game stable, with most of that 70% thinking it will be 6 months.

Not too encouraging.

[johnhughthom]

The fact your poll ignores the people who find the game acceptable now, and there are a number of posters in this thread with that opinion, means the results are going to be skewed in that direction. You say the poll is about stability, not playability, for me stability is inherent to playability. It seems to me you have made the poll expecting to gain a certain response.

[BeenPlayingSinceRTW]

The fact your poll ignores the people who find the game acceptable now, and there are a number of posters in this thread with that opinion, means the results are going to be skewed in that direction. You say the poll is about stability, not playability, for me stability is inherent to playability. It seems to me you have made the poll expecting to gain a certain response.

I think you are just displeased because the results of this objective poll show widespread dissatisfaction with the current state of the game.

I'll say it again: The poll wasn't about "playability", it was about when the game would be stable and production-quality. A super-buggy alpha version of a game might be "playable". A buggy beta version or frequently-crashing demo of a game might be "playable". But I wouldn't want to pay money for any of those. If I pay money, I expect a stable game that is free of major bugs. I don't expect perfection, but I expect a certain level of quality. Quality means no frequent crashes to desktop, AI that works at least as well as the AI in previous TW titles, no corrupted save games, battle maps that match the campaign map topography, no automatic patches that break a working install, etc. - you get the idea...

The poll is about when we can realistically expect that level of quality from ETW, not whether it is "playable".

P.S.-If you don't believe that the poll from this thread is reflective of reality, take a look at Amazon.com's reviews of the game where more than half of the reviewers gave the game (in it's current state) only 1 out of a possible 5 stars!

[PBI]

I think you are just displeased because the results of this objective poll show widespread dissatisfaction with the current state of the game.

They don't show this at all, by your own reasoning.

Either the poll is asking the question (as you argue), "when do you think the major bugs in the game will be fixed?", in which case you could describe it as fair since I don't think anyone is saying the game has no bugs at present, or else it is asking (as the title seems to imply) "are you dissatisfied with the current state of the game?", in which case it is a loaded question and essentially meaningless since there is no "no" option. You may as well conclude that since only 41 of the 23,197 members on the site have voted, the rest are all satisfied with the current state of the game.

Reading through what people have actually written in this thread paints a rather different picture to what you would have us believe your poll indicates, just as reading some of the actual reviews on Amazon gives a clearer picture than just looking at the average score (always a good idea whenever buying anything there BTW to find out why people didn't like a product).

[johnhughthom]

I think you are just displeased because the results of this objective poll show widespread dissatisfaction with the current state of the game.

The "result" of this poll will neither please or displease me, I am well aware many people have issues with the game and they have every right to complain about them, the assumption that nobody is having a problem free experience with Empire is something I find annoying.
Just in case you think I'm some sort of CA fanboy I will say that I still find M2TW to be a horrid mess and haven't touched it in over a year. RTW was poor on release and took mods to make it interesting to play. I had low expectations of ETW and have been pleasantly surprised to find it the most playable unmodded TW game since the original MTW.

[BeenPlayingSinceRTW]

They don't show this at all, by your own reasoning.

Either the poll is asking the question (as you argue), "when do you think the major bugs in the game will be fixed?", in which case you could describe it as fair since I don't think anyone is saying the game has no bugs at present, or else it is asking (as the title seems to imply) "are you dissatisfied with the current state of the game?", in which case it is a loaded question and essentially meaningless since there is no "no" option. You may as well conclude that since only 41 of the 23,197 members on the site have voted, the rest are all satisfied with the current state of the game.

Reading through what people have actually written in this thread paints a rather different picture to what you would have us believe your poll indicates, just as reading some of the actual reviews on Amazon gives a clearer picture than just looking at the average score (always a good idea whenever buying anything there BTW to find out why people didn't like a product).

You are dreaming if you can't see that there is widespread dissatisfaction with the current state of ETW - here are some quotes from a few of the most recent Amazon.com reviews:

"Don't waste your coin on this"

"Never has so much been done to tart up so little."

"Game unplayable"

"Early purchasers are in effect beta testers."

"it works for awhile until you get a turn where it just crashes every time and goes to the ubiquitous Windows "your program has stopped working...". Wait until the many bugs are fixed."

"Irresponsible release"

"Don't buy this game in its current format "

"The Total War series should be ashamed of itself."

"It is definitely a couple steps down from Rome"

"I would reccomend this game to someone once it hits 30 dollars."

"Gameplay review-- Unsatisfactory"

"the game just feels incomplete"

"Almost unplayable"

"I hope that it will be improved with a patch, but I think it unlikely, at least not to the point where it would be playable for me."

"This game is broken, don't bother, wait until they get it fixed. Game crashes when you attack towns, game crashes when you enter enemy territory, game crashes when you do nothing. The last patch they released for it did not fix these things."

[johnhughthom]

Hmm, it seem I sealed my fate defending Empire, after my last post I tried to load up my current game and all my saves crash....

[KozaK13]

Buy it now it is fine, stop all your gurning.

[Lord of the Isles]

On the whiner/fanboy scale of 0-10, I'd put myself about 2-3. Probably that's been consistent through all the TW series; it isn't just ETW that I've had issues with.

Anyway, BeenPlayingSinceRTW, PBI is only pointing out that the poll itself is missing an option for 'game fine as it is', if you want to use the results of it in any meaningful way. Which is correct. I would consider anyone voting that way plain wrong, but they are entitled to their opinion. I say 'wrong' because even if the game works for them and they enjoy it, there are clearly large numbers of people for whom it works badly, if at all, as CA have admitted. So I couldn't call any game in that state "stable" or recommend that someone buy it, even if I was having a whale of a time with it.

Of course, just when I leap to defend the other side, KozaK13 trolls in.

@johnhughthom: My sympathy. Hope it proves just to be a one-off with this game.

[quadalpha]

Perhaps you should have considered posting your specs if you wanted an actual judgment on if it will be stable for you.
How many reviewers (I mean actual published reviews) have complained about unplayability due to stability?

[johnhughthom]

PBI is only pointing out that the poll itself is missing an option for 'game fine as it is', if you want to use the results of it in any meaningful way. Which is correct. I would consider anyone voting that way plain wrong, but they are entitled to their opinion. I say 'wrong' because even if the game works for them and they enjoy it, there are clearly large numbers of people for whom it works badly, if at all, as CA have admitted. So I couldn't call any game in that state "stable" or recommend that someone buy it, even if I was having a whale of a time with it.

That doesn't really make sense, you can only vote for the experience you, personally, are having. If you are playing a game that hasn't crashed or shown any problems you should say it isn't stable because others are having issues?

@johnhughthom: My sympathy. Hope it proves just to be a one-off with this game.

Thanks, I was only at 1703 in my second GB campaign, though I had just wiped out the pirates.

[rory_20_uk]

Since Shogun I've not bothered playing the basic game.

Playing a heavily modded previous iteration with an AI that can siege, is inherently stable and has been crafted for years is better than one that's more pretty, more features - but not been really tested for how they all work together.

For a game like this having units that still won't fight on the tactical map is inexcusable. This is the whole point of the game! Great - naval combat... oh, but the AI is so weak that you can constantly thrash it due to its poor tactics. And so on.

After a few patches to get the basics sorted out, and the modding community to try to force some "I" into the AI I'll probably get it.

When is less of an issue as I like the last version when I get a chance to play.

For long term use, fewer, better balanced features are better. For the "Wow" factor and to bring in the punters a vast number of sort of worked out features will impress more in the review and shift more copies.

[Relic]

JUST DO IT!

Seriously though, amazon users just love to whine! Most of them are either too young or too old the understand the problems games face when they are released. Patches and solutions take time... but it's worth trying it and if its not satisfying then ignore it for a month or two.

[quadalpha]

Think of it this way: decide if you're going to buy it, and then decide if the amount of interest your $50 would earn over the next few months sitting in your bank account is worth the trouble.

[KozaK13]

Of course, just when I leap to defend the other side, KozaK13 trolls in.

It is only a game, not as if it is something major that requires people to have opinions defended. Anyway why does he not check reviews to decide on whether to buy it or not? Why not read threads people already have made? Why create a poll that only people who have problems with the game can answer? Pointless thread that is basically just for people to argue over, and the problem is many people including myself can't resist arguing....

[Malkut]

Obvious solution: if you're that afraid, just don't buy the game.

[BeenPlayingSinceRTW]

A lot of people on this and other TW boards are reporting that yesterday's patch made the game worse for them. Also reports that people who previously had no problems are now getting CTD after the patch.

Not a good sign.

[Malkut]

A lot of people on this and other TW boards are reporting that yesterday's patch made the game worse for them. Also reports that people who previously had no problems are now getting CTD after the patch.

Not a good sign.

Okay, so . . . seeya in a month or so?

[MikeV]

Point is, you might be more likely to see people with complaints here than people without.

There is another group, not counted: those who can't even get the beast to run. Wonder how counting them would change the stats.

[johnhughthom]

Wouldn't they be in the "getting a refund, games not ready" category?

[nameless]

Wow this poll is really skewed.

The game's run fine on my rig and it's not even top end. I get some crashes first time but the patches have fixed it. THen there was an error with the previous patch but CA's recent hotfix changed that so now I'm able to finish my game. I reckon there's tons of people out there with the same experience just don't have a need to come here and complain/look for help.

I'm just at work so I can't play right now :p

The only thing I can think of is probably the memory slowdown when your in the late game but that's that.

Now this may shock you guys but people actually have computers that are actually DIFFERENT from each other so the poll should read, "When do you think ETW will be 100% stable that EVERYONE can play it?"

There's no way any computing company can make a software as complex as Empire to work on millions of different computer layouts immediately.

[Slaists]

Clearly from the huge volume of complaints and reported bugs, ETW was released before it was ready. Right now, ETW has only two stars on Amazon.com ( http://www.amazon.com/Empire-Total-W...ews/B0018YXM3Y )

So I'm glad I waited and decided not to buy initially.

But when do you think the game will be okay for me to buy?

Well, I have had the game for 4 days now and have probably around 24 hours of game-play 'behind me'. The game has not crashed one single time running on all ultra settings...

So, the crashes are highly user system specific.

[Skott]

Here's an example of one problem players may experience. Today I was playing a GB campaign and I was in India taking on the Marathas. I deploy my troops and start the battle. Everything is going well at first until my horse artillery units (3 total) got a mind of their own. I had them on a hill behind and above my line infantry facing towards the enemy. They are limbered up because I had plans to move them somewhere else soon but hadnt decided where yet. My General and his body guard were a little bit behind the artillery. So there I was my infantry standing solid and holding the line as some Maratha soldiers were advancing. Battle is going well and next thing I know all three artillery units unlimber, do a 180 degree turn (about face) and shoot at my General's body guard. They killed my 5 star general and some of his guard!

I'm like WTF!!! So I give a quick command to stop, turned off the auto fire, and gave the command to limber back up again. Nope, they then do a 180 degree turn and start shooting at the enemy which by now had closed with my linemen in melee. Both my troops and the enemy are getting blown up. Again I give them a stop firing command and try and get them to limber up. Finally they took the command and I moved them back farther away from the battle so they couldnt do any more harm. The rest of the battle went fine for me but I was pissed I lost my 5 star general. Luckily it wasnt my more experienced general.

True story. I dont know what posessed the units to do that. I had moved them up onto the hill and just had them waiting there till I could decide what to do with them. I swear there's a gremlin in this game! I like playing ETW but there are times I want to break the retail discs and go find a CA developer to strangle!

[Didz]

I've not had any problems.