The Daily Update at the Com

[Servius]

I have to say, it's remarkable how far these small daily updates go towards appeasing the fanbase. Knowing what's going on and that work is being done daily makes it a lot easier to be patient.

I agree wholeheartedly. Even when Kieran talks about bugs I personally haven't experienced, or aspects of the game I skip by auto-resolving naval battles or whatever, it still makes me quite happy and considerably more patient. As always, the truth is in the tasting, but having a consistent connection to a dev/rep on what going on day to day and how things are progressing at a macro level is very comforting.

I'm pretty sure I'd be less disappointed in and mad at Relic (regarding Dawn of War 2) if they had this type and level of interaction.

[Barkhorn1x]

The savegame corruption. Y'know, savegames vanishing. It's really quite annoying.

Don't know about disappearing savegames. Never really heard of that one. The claim is that the next patch will fix a 'raft of bugs' and I can imagine that savegame corruption in the sense that a savegame fails to load will be addressed.

You will have to wait for the specific patch fix list from CA.

[TB666]

Don't know about disappearing savegames. Never really heard of that one. The claim is that the next patch will fix a 'raft of bugs' and I can imagine that savegame corruption in the sense that a savegame fails to load will be addressed.

You will have to wait for the specific patch fix list from CA.

Well this sounds encouraging for those that suffer from corrupt save-games

The dreaded 'Indian pathfinding campaign save' corrupt bug was isolated and fixed, removing one of the big save game corruption issues.

[AussieGiant]

"The dreaded 'Indian path finding campaign save' corrupt bug was isolated and fixed, removing one of the big save game corruption issues."

That's the bastard that destroyed my GB campaign after 24 hours of play!!!!

Yes TC, I also like the communication like we are seeing. It is reassuring and a good sign that someone with half a brain and some common sense is pulling the strings behind the scene's.

--------------

CA/Sega Boardroom:

Unnamed SEGA Marketing/PR suit: "So how should we go about appeasing the various message boards and all the frothing at the mouth that is going on about the state of the game?"

Questioning look is cast about the room by said pin stripe suit type.

Unnamed CA developer from the back of the room: "How about we just tell them what we are doing?"

Silence

Unnamed SEGA Marketing/PR suit: "That sounds like a great idea, and something I vaguely remember in Marketing 101.

Excellent suggestion!!

Someone get on that."

CA developers en mass look at each other in shocked silence.

Moments later a CA developer leaves the room and heads for his computer.

[johnhughthom]

Todays update:

The final version of the patch has gone into beta community testing, and we're going to test it over the weekend. We had hoped to have it on general release tonight but it was felt there should be longer dedicated to international version testing.

There are over 70 bug fixes in this upgrade, plus a tonne of balance and feature tweaks.

Some of the key game breakers that were fixed include: Fixing the crash caused by AI capturing a ship after naval combat. Fixed the 'port selection' crash when selecting a port in North America as Great Britain, we fixed a crash on building capture notification, we fixed the 'stuttering loading bar' issue and the mid-battle crash related to audio. We fixed the garrison outisde playable area crash during land battles. We also fixed the crash caused by certain factions attempting to assasinate gentlemen inside a school. We also addressed the hang loading into battle problem.

We hope to have this gameplay upgrade out the early part of next week following the weekend's testing, meaning hopefully, you'll all see a marked improvement.

I'd also like to take this opportunity to talk about Naval invasions if I may. The technology behind naval invasions is actually really rather heavy and is still causing some issues. The gameplay upgrade will make naval invasions possible but they will be rare. The AI now has a proper mechanism for the planning involved and can execute that mechanism when required, however increasing its frequency is a balance issue we haven't been able to get fixed in time for this upgrade. So in short, naval invasions are now possible and may occur, but they will not be frequent, which means we have to up that likelihood.

As a ray of hope to those concerned with this issue, I've seen the work we're doing on the AI for the next patch coming on leaps and bounds. There are a large amount of significant performance fixes that we're working on for the upcoming upgrade, this included. The primary purpose of the gameplay upgrade that will be released next week is to fix the AI aggression issues, remove the vast majority of game breaking crashes and tweak the unit behaviour whilst laying groundwork for naval invasions.

Again, many thanks for your patience. Hopefully you'll all be discussing these changes next week.

Kind regards,
Kieran

[Barkhorn1x]

Now, that is a nice beefy post with some good news. And CA, take your time and get it right. We will wait.

[Beskar]

Do the upgrades work with mods?

I am wondering, because I am using a mod, would it upgrade the modified file or will it replace that file? And once it is upgraded, can your game be upgraded again?

Also, Naval Invasions?! :O :O

[Servius]

Again, great news.

On naval invasions, I suppose the ideal situation is when the AI treats an invasion that requires transport over sea exactly the same way it treats a land-based invasion. What I mean is, if England was physically attached to France, then the French AI would weigh an invasion of England exactly the same way it weighs and invasion of Spain. If an invasion of England made sense, the AI would do it. If not, it wouldn't.

We just want the AI to know it has access to island regions. If it wants to invade them, we want the AI to know how to do that.

I don't think we want the AI to overvalue invasions of island regions, just so we can see the AI do it. We just want the AI to know it can, and how, if it wants to.

[Servius]

Ooo, a question someone might know the answer to. Will the patch be compatable with existing save games, or will it require you to start a new campaign? The reason I ask is that, if the patch should be out early next week, I'd like to start up a new campaign now (keeping my fingers crossed that the cursed unit bug didn't show up before the patch did). If the patch is not compatable with existing save games, I mind as well wait till it's out.

[johnhughthom]

I've got a feeling the answer to that will be "The patch is savegame compatible, but a new game is advised to get the benefit of all the changes." Or something similar.

[Beskar]

Last I heard, you can play your previous saves, but your saves don't benefit from the changes.

[Negative]

I just want to know if artillery will be fixed. Will it limber/unlimber like it should, and will the cannons cease fire when you tell them to?

Also, will sound effects work properly? I'm sick of hearing gun shots and cannon fire 30 seconds late.

[Rhuarc]

The final version of the patch has gone into beta community testing, and we're going to test it over the weekend. We had hoped to have it on general release tonight but it was felt there should be longer dedicated to international version testing

.

Well, I'd rather they test fully before giving us something that introduces more problems, so good.

I didn't see mention of some of the things I had hoped to see. It sounds like they have focused a lot on bug fixes, but I do hope they fix the battle deployment flip-flop. Right now, I'm avoiding every battle that could include reinforcements, since this means you always start out surrounded. To say that this affects gameplay is a huge understatement.

I'd also like to take this opportunity to talk about Naval invasions if I may. The technology behind naval invasions is actually really rather heavy and is still causing some issues. The gameplay upgrade will make naval invasions possible but they will be rare. The AI now has a proper mechanism for the planning involved and can execute that mechanism when required, however increasing its frequency is a balance issue we haven't been able to get fixed in time for this upgrade. So in short, naval invasions are now possible and may occur, but they will not be frequent, which means we have to up that likelihood.

This is great- I think. I'm a little troubled that CA refers to this problem as 'naval invasions,' as if this is an AI aggression issue. Maybe, but I don't necessarily want a hyper-aggressive AI, and honestly, I don't care about the AI planning complex naval 'invasions', although this would be nice. All I really want is the AI to be able to move troops by sea. Period. If this has been fixed, and Spain/France/Britain can and will now reinforce their overseas colonies, then I am happy camper ready to start a fresh campaign.

Cheers

[Servius]

Well, since the elimination of a campaign-killing bug is something I want to benefit from, I guess I should wait.

[johnhughthom]

.


I didn't see mention of some of the things I had hoped to see. It sounds like they have focused a lot on bug fixes, but I do hope they fix the battle deployment flip-flop. Right now, I'm avoiding every battle that could include reinforcements, since this means you always start out surrounded. To say that this affects gameplay is a huge understatement.

I'm pretty sure one of the earlier updates mentioned this had been fixed.

[Monsieur Alphonse]

Today at the com

April 27th

Dear All,

Today's update is very short. We're finishing the testing of the patch at SEGA's in-house QA and verifying the weekends results with our beta group. Provided they are content we should be able to sign the patch off for general release and distribute it tommorrow evening (28/4/09) around 1900 GMT. Naturally if there are any unforseen problems this might move a little, but it's looking strong at the moment.

We're currently writing up the full changelist which we'll include with the patch, so you'll all be able to see the full extent of the problems addressed and features added/tweaked.

Today saw the regular SEGA/CA annual conference take place at which we discussed Empire's future and the future of the TW series in general.

I appreciate today's update isn't technical in nature, as hopefully, all this information will be released tomorrow evening.

Kind regards,
Kieran

Patch tomorrow !

[maestro]

\o/

Yay!

[Marquis of Roland]

w00t new campaign tomorrow

[hoom]

Hurrah!

Today saw the regular SEGA/CA annual conference take place at which we discussed Empire's future and the future of the TW series in general.

Not sure that this is actually a positive?

Hoping the discussion went more like:
Sega: ETW has sold well, just a shame there were so many bugs at launch.
CA: You made us release it too soon, it needed several more months development.
Sega: Yeah, we now realise this, sorry. Hows the patching going?
CA: Well we're nearly at release of the first big patch, planning on doing several rounds of small quick fixes & bigger less frequent patches.
Sega: Ok cool, how many patches are you going to need to do?
CA: Looking like we need to do at least 4 of these cycles to get the game to the quality we want it to be at.
Sega: Ouch, we really should have given you guys the extra months huh? Oh well I guess we're going to just have to suck it & let you do that. Keep at it & make those fans happy!
CA: Sweet.

Rather than:
Sega: ETW has sold poorly & there are too many complaints.
CA: You made us release it too soon, it needed several more months development.
Sega: We're probably not going to let you make any more TW games unless they are for console.
CA:
Sega: & this is the last patch for ETW.
CA & fans:

[TB666]

However as far as I know, ETW hasn't sold poorly.
It was nr.1 for quite a while despite being a PC-exclusive which is pretty hard these days.
Anyway, here's to the patch and let's hope it fixes most of our issues like the sound de-sync issue and CTDs for some people and corrupt saves for some people.
And that the AI can finally do a naval invasion if it wants too.

[AussieGiant]

I hope it's the first version of hoom's post.

They have certainly verbally committed to more than this patch. If CA were to turn around now and say "that's it" it would cause an uproar.

[Razor1952]

ETW is a new game engine , once its bugs have been ironed it should be on to the next game/ expansion for CA/Sega with this engine.

As for Steam I hope it has kept the real world pirates at bay so CA/Sega have the revenue streams to produce more PC games .

Personally in ETW if I could identify some real pirates I 'd happily nuke them in the game even if it meant cheating a little.(like putting a tank with uranium shells into ETW) Pirating of ETW is this communities real mortal enemy.

[Beskar]

As for Steam I hope it has kept the real world pirates at bay so CA/Sega have the revenue streams to produce more PC games

I heard the Somalians are too busy at the moment to pirate E:TW.

[Nebuchadnezzar]

Hurrah!

Not sure that this is actually a positive?

Hoping the discussion went more like:
Sega: ETW has sold well, just a shame there were so many bugs at launch.
CA: You made us release it too soon, it needed several more months development.
Sega: Yeah, we now realise this, sorry. Hows the patching going?
CA: Well we're nearly at release of the first big patch, planning on doing several rounds of small quick fixes & bigger less frequent patches.
Sega: Ok cool, how many patches are you going to need to do?
CA: Looking like we need to do at least 4 of these cycles to get the game to the quality we want it to be at.
Sega: Ouch, we really should have given you guys the extra months huh? Oh well I guess we're going to just have to suck it & let you do that. Keep at it & make those fans happy!
CA: Sweet.

Rather than:
Sega: ETW has sold poorly & there are too many complaints.
CA: You made us release it too soon, it needed several more months development.
Sega: We're probably not going to let you make any more TW games unless they are for console.
CA:
Sega: & this is the last patch for ETW.
CA & fans:

LOL.. But real business doesn't work that way. Try

SEGA GUY TO CA: Tell us more about your next proposed project. The approx development time and team size?

Sega guy runs to SEGA number crunchers who confirm that a profit is possible.

....4 years later....

CA: We have run into technical problems and the games not stable enough for release. We will need to delay.
SEGA: How long
CA: A couple of weeks, month at most and we should have ironed out the problems for sure.

.....1 months later....

CA: We have run into technical problems and the games not stable enough for release. We will need to delay again.

Sega guy has meeting with Sega senior management recommending a further delay. At this point Senior management consider disciplinary action and/or management changes.

.....2 months later....

CA: We have run into technical problems and the games not stable enough for release. We will need to delay yet again.

SEGA: Our distributers & retailers invest considerable capital into promoting an expected product and many supply contracts carry substantial financial penalties on delivery default. We cannot affort another delay particularly in this economic climate. We will need to release the game by the agreed date.

The discussion may have went something like this;
How much more will ETW cost us?
Were sales good enough to offset your previous delays and cover existing support costs?
Can we possibly afford to continue with TW series considering ever increasing development & production costs? What can you do to make the franchise a profitable business again.

[hoom]

Well that is more or less the scenario 2.

I skipped the first bit up to 'the discussion probably went like this'


Anyway, regarding the daily updates, I don't understand quite why CA don't post updates at the CA Developer blog http://blogs.sega.com/totalwar/ ???
I mean, isn't that exactly the sort of frequent updates that are what a developer blog is for?

[Rufus]

When they say naval invasions will be possible but rare, are they referring to any transportation of troops by sea to any destination, or just to a foreign country (true invasions)? I don't have a problem with naval invasions being rare, but the AI should transport troops by sea to its own colonies more frequently.

[Monsieur Alphonse]

Patch will be tomorrow

April 28th

I have to start this one by saying 'and this is why we don't normally put dates on things'.

The patch will now go live tomorrow (29/4/09), rather than today as there have been some last minute technical issues to do with distribution. I should stress the patch itself has been through the CA, SEGA and external Beta group test phases and has done well, so we don't expect any hitches with the code itself. That said we're unable to bring it you this evening due to a technical problem with uploading/distribution.

My apologies to those of you who have cancelled appointments/meetings/dates/operations/weddings as a result of this change, this upgrade will make a genuine difference to the way Empire plays and of course address it's stability issues.

Kind regards,
Kieran

[Beskar]

My apologies to those of you who have cancelled appointments/meetings/dates/operations/weddings as a result of this change, this upgrade will make a genuine difference to the way Empire plays and of course address it's stability issues.

Wife-to-be: Darling, tomorrow we will finally be married and have the happiest time of our lives.

Husband-to-be: Sorry Hunny, we got to cancel.

Wife-to-be: What?! Why?!

Husband-to-be: CA are releasing their new patch. I can't miss it for the world.

Wife-to-be:

Husband-to-be: What's wrong?

Wife-to-be:

Husband-to-be: ?

Wife-to-be: ARggghhhh!!! Mother was so right about you!!! *runs off crying*

*ex-Husband-to-be, logs onto to see daily update at the Com and reads the delay*

Ex-Husband-to-be: YOU CA!!!!

[Elmar Bijlsma]

So... SNAFU?
This Steam thing, what a marvellous idea. Really does wonders for patch distribution. Makes traditional sites like GamersHell look rather foolish now. It's only one day, but in the current cavalcade of fool ups (no prizes for guessing which word I would rather have used) it's just stunning that they could bungle something so comparatively simple as patch distribution. It's like they are doing it on purpose.

[Servius]

I understand the anti-piracy advantage of steam, and I can see how it might offer an advantage in patching in making sure everyone who plays has the current patch, but it doens't make patching easier or faster.

Downloading a patch exe from a developer and double-clicking it to install the patch is pretty easy. In this case, the use of Steam causes a delay in patching, even if it's (hopefully) only for 1 day.