the future of MP

[Cheetah]

Well, we are all aware of the current sorry state of affairs with regard of MP. Here is what I think could be the reason behind it. Call it a conspiracy theory if you wish but in my opinion this is the most reasonable explanation of the observed facts. I would be the most happy if CA would prove me wrong.

Facts:

• decentralised servers
• no foyer
• practically no MP maps (there is only one -!!!- unbalanced –i.e. big hill- 3v3 map)

Further observations:

• best game balance since STW
• hundreds of SP maps that would be suitable for MP (just click anywhere on the plains of US or the steppes of east Europe)
• custom made maps are not compatible with the patch

So why do we have all this? It seems as if CA would do his best to ruin the MP side of the game. Surely this is not their interest, or is it? This is a silly suggestion, or not?

Further observation:

• the MP campaign is almost ready
• there is a huge demand of it

Think with the head of the SEGA big guys. MP was a huge financial failure in all series of TW. Even the most popular foyers barely had more than a hundred people online at a time. What is this compared to the thousands playing MMORPG or RTS games? We all know that the ratio of players playing MP to SP is something like 2:98. Sure the budget needed to make MP functional is much larger part of the whole than this. And now CA wants another MP service. Would you be ready to finance two unprofitable MP services at the same time? Hell no! Imagine the following conversation:

CA: we want a new MP campaign, there is huge demand for that.
SEGA: but you already have an MP service
CA: yes but
SEGA: and it is a huge failure time after time
CA: yes but
SEGA: and now you want another?
CA: yes but
SEGA: alright, here is the deal: you can have your new one but you have to close down the old.
CA: sure, no problem.

Of course the problem for CA that they somehow have to sell this move. Obviously it comes handy to have some figures and stats to show how few people played ETW MP battles, so they had „no choice” but to close it down. This means that now they have to make it sure that indeed only a few people plays it. How to do that? Well, a few hints:

Decentralise the servers so that people do not see each other. If you read the other forum you will see threads made by new players complaining that they see only 2 or 3 games hosted. Is it possible, they ask, that there is only so few people playing ETW MP? Hell, no. There are ten download servers or more. Multiply that with 2 or 3 and you have 20 or 30 games hosted. Not much but still it is on a different scale.

Prevent them to communicate with each other. Give them no central foyer. Let’s say we have 2 or 3 games hosted per server, still there could be a couple of people, 5 to 6 let’s say or more waiting to get a game. In all previous TW games these people could see each other. No they cannot. There is no way to know how many people are online who would be ready to play MP! In all previous series when you saw 2 or 3 games hosted but you saw 5 or 6 people waiting you knew you can get a game. In ETW it is impossible, and you log off shaking your head: „so few people, so few …”.

Give them one unbalanced 3v3 map so they get bored quickly and prevent them to organise any tourneys. Even the most enthusiastic players get bored playing the very same maps. Fun part of MP is playing the big battles, 3v3 and 4v4, and we have only one map each!!! Furthermore 3v3s are essential part of the clan tourneys; this is where clans can show (off) their true worth as a team. Tourneys however need balanced flat or flattish maps. We have none!

Prevent any third party to provide these services. Lordz released a custom mappack with several very good 3v3 maps. Guess what? Few days later the patch comes out and all custom maps became incompatible with the game.

This is a crying shame (and regardless whether my „theory” is correct or not) because:

• ETW has the best balance since STW.
• ETW has the best maps of all TW series.
• Providing only the core services that were present in all previous TW games (i.e. central server, foyer, variety of maps) this game would be a huge hit.

All previous releases missed out on something, RTW had neither the balance nor the maps, MTW2 had game breaking exploits (like push through) and the same ugly maps. Finally ETW has both balance and beautiful (SP) maps, and with STEAM a potential to draw from a large pool of players ... then comes CA and denies the essential core services. I am afraid that the deal is done, the course is set and no amount of complaining will change that. Crying shame because this could have been the best TW MP of all times.

I have two bets:
1, The next TW release will include an MP campaign but there will be no MP battles.
2, This thread will be locked and deleted in two or three hours.

[AggonyDuck]

Think with the head of the SEGA big guys. MP was a huge financial failure in all series of TW. Even the most popular foyers barely had more than a hundred people online at a time. What is this compared to the thousands playing MMORPG or RTS games? We all know that the ratio of players playing MP to SP is something like 2:98. Sure the budget needed to make MP functional is much larger part of the whole than this. And now CA wants another MP service. Would you be ready to finance two unprofitable MP services at the same time?

The fact that Steam lists 'Global achievements by players' gives us an interesting perspective to this. According to it 15.9% of all players have achieved the 'Raw Recruit' achievement. So actually the potential ratio for MP/SP players is closer to 1/6. Lets see how this develops; 5.1% have achieved the 'Blooded' achievement by completing ten online battles. Number wise this means that (tens of)thousands of players have actually played MP for some time. The next achievements '1337 Guard' and 'Grand Tactician' stand at 2.6% and 2.0% respectively. The somewhat harder to get 'Marshal's Baton' achievement stands at 0.6%, which means that only around 3.8% of all of those who have tried MP have enjoyed it enough to win 50 battles. I'm slightly afraid to think what the percentage for those who have won a 100 or 200 games would be, as I have feeling we have a further considerable loss in numbers there.

What becomes clear with this little analysis is that the TW MP does have appeal, but it for some reason manages to turn away most of its potential players. I think we can argue, that the ratio of SP to MP players could realistically have been around 5-10% of all players if an effort was made to give the MP game more variation and longetivity. As it is the percentage of still active MP players must stand around 0.2% of all players or less. This means that the current state of the MP game has estranged close to 99% of all players who have tried it, which shows that MP just isn't living up to its potential at the moment and that is a great shame.

[Tomisama]

It is truly unfortunate that the potential for Total War multiplayer has never fully been realized or even truly explored. And when I say unfortunate, I mean truly a matter of fortune for the developers (big bucks).

The success of any game rides on how many people are playing it. That sounds like a no brainer, but the truth is really that simple. People do not buy games because they have slick advertizing, but because they know lots of other people are playing them. This is true for both multi and single players, and the key is “visibility”.

The theory being; “that if there are that many people playing it, it must be good”, and of course multiplayer provides that visibility. It is the very best sales tool that any game has.

The argument I have consistently heard over the years is that multiplayers represent only five percent of the Total War market. But this is a self perpetuating failure. If you don’t invest in a particular segment of your market, it will not grow, and in this case you will never learn how truly valuable it is.

To give you an idea of how much I personally understand the principals espoused above, the Clan Wars Competition started with three Clan Teams six years ago. Over time, through thick and thin, the contests have continued. And even with all of the odds against the success of continuing our competition with the new Empire Total War, we had dual contests with a total of eighty Clan Teams playing in our spring competition this year.

The concept is valid science, what is lacking and has always been lacking; is the vision!

[NihilisticCow]

MAPS, MAPS, MAPS, MAPS, MAPS, MAPS, MAPS, MAPS, MAPS, MAPS, MAPS, MAPS, MAPS, MAPS

Ahem, sorry about that. :P

I don't think CA is trying to deliberately kill the MP community; they don't even run their own servers so doubt there is any substantial cost in keeping it going. Can still play the previous editions in Gamespy afterall, can't see why that would change.

What I think though the problem with new players is (apart from MAPS), is the lack of a reason to keep playing. Generally speaking you play a few games, first games online you'd likely lose, for any game there will be a significant number that just stop at that point (don't like it or whatever), fair enough not everyone will like the game.

It's the remainder though which is the issue, I think many people we play x number of games, find they're beating everyone, but there isn't the infrastructure in place to find better opponents, it's just pot luck. There's no ladder, no decent match making service, no lobby to find others or clans to play with, nothing apart from a screen listing games (on which even the user rank doesn't even display anymore) of which you have pretty much no idea over the quality.

So people will just play a bit, find they beat pretty much everyone, get bored without a challenge then move on. The lack of variety with MAPS only hastens that for more experienced players, as it's the biggest issue if you've been able to get past the issues in finding people to play, either by being in or joining established clans.

It just seems one barrier after another, which is frustrating as I do see the game as having a lot of potential. To actually implement what we're talking about surely would be a fraction of the time it takes to make a SP or a MP campaign.

Maps, can just use ones in the campaign, and design a few extras, maybe hold a community competition for designing them, give some kind of prize and add them to the next update. Doesn't have to cost a fortune in development. Hell, most of the MP community would be happy to balance test and give feedback for any new maps. They don't require code changes, or any complex QA.

Stopping the servers being decentralised is a no-brainer imo, can't imagine it being hard really. Lag from people in different regions has never really been that big an issue in any TW; other factors cause lag problems (from poor connections to under-spec'd computers), I'm in the UK and am used to playing TW with people from as far away as California and Australia. It causes no problems. Why anyone ever thought regional game lists would be a good idea without making sure there were many playing throughout all the regions is beyond me. Surely it would be something to introduce at a later stage if it turned out to be necessary. Besides, just displaying ping etc, would let people make their mind up for themselves, instead of trying to force it.

As for ladders, auto-matching etc, while it is dependent on there being a sufficient number playing, other games like Dawn of War 2 make use of match making and ladder services provided by Microsoft (Xbox live thing), doesn't cost us anything, probably is licensing costs, but surely much cheaper than developing your own?

At the end of the day, it's starting to get too late for ETW now. It's just being let down by silly factors, which is a shame, as the balance of the game is much better than previous versions and the game does have a lot of (unrealised) potential.

A MP campaign would bring fresh people into playing yes, but I don't know whether that would be sustained. The campaign takes a long time to play, so this would be dependent on playing with people that you know reasonably well to get completed.

Last comment is:

MAPS, MAPS, MAPS, MAPS, MAPS, MAPS, MAPS, MAPS, MAPS, MAPS, MAPS, MAPS, MAPS, MAPS!

[Tomisama]

16th July:

It's time to start talking about the contents of the next Empire patch, which we're aware many of you are curious about.

Without wishing to hype it, this one will be a big one and it will predominantly focus on the Campaign AI.

Our priorities with the next release are to:

- Significantly increase the rate of naval invasions. Including those across theatres.
- Increase AI aggression and improve use of armies.
- Increase the creation and retention of strong mixed higher level unit armies by the CAI.

Some of these are big changes and will take time, so I'm not in a position to confirm a release date for the patch yet.

For those of you wondering how we're progressing, let's just say I've now seen a Marathan eastern seaboard of the United States with both as AI factions.


Naturally we'll update more regularly as the patch develops.

Kind regards,
Kieran

http://shoguntotalwar.yuku.com/topic/53425?page=4


Yet another confirmation of either the totally clueless, or totally careless (could care less) position of those who we look to for understanding. It ain’t going to happen folks!

And thinking back to the best years, which to my mind was the Medieval/Viking game era, I occurs to me that what made that time great was the community!

The community made the maps we played thousands and thousands of games on. The community formed the Clans and sponsored the competitions that gave purpose to their team training and practice. There was a wide array of quality community mods. It was all the community, not the developers! The community!

It has been made more difficult now, as the game is more complex, requiring higher skills and more powerful tools. But people are doing it, making maps, working on mods. It is only a matter of time, and redirection of attention. Ask not what the developers can do for our community, but what we can do for your community ourselves?

I have a dream, and I have a plan. And the first stage of that is to find the people who have the skills and talent to modify this game to the best potential it can have for the serious multiplayer community. Will you join me in seeking these folks, and encouraging them, and doing what ever we can to support them? It’s up to us to make it right. Make it what we want. It won’t be given; we must do it our selves…

[Veho Nex]

I have a dream, and I have a plan. And the first stage of that is to find the people who have the skills and talent to modify this game to the best potential it can have for the serious multiplayer community. Will you join me in seeking these folks, and encouraging them, and doing what ever we can to support them? It’s up to us to make it right. Make it what we want. It won’t be given; we must do it our selves…

Very scary, I almost wanted to get up and join the million man march. I think you should write pre battle speeches and develop a mod for ETW so we can hear those again.

[AggonyDuck]

And there was a reason why, in the end, most still stuck with the regular game. This is called bringing in new players to the game to keep the community vibrant. The fact is that mod-based communities, especially in TW tend to be very insulated from the new players and getting them to start playing a mod was hard already in VI. Imagine what the difficulty is in Empire when we don't even have a working foyer to instruct people how to install the mod/mappack. Imagine the shock of Neil Newbie when he logs in and all games are red for some reason. I have a feeling he won't stick around for long.

The community mods were never truly successful as they never eclipsed the regular game in popularity and the only ones that had any longetivity were essentially total conversions like Samurai Wars or NTW 1 as they attracted a rather different niche of players. The perfect example of a community attempt to improve the game by modding was the Dux mod and within a month or so we were back playing regular VI. As to the Map Packs, we still played more on the regular maps as truth be told the best of them were superior to anything Orda created.

Anyway mappacks being used for tournaments is a valid concept though and has been proven to work as it gives an incentive to install the mappack and play on them. But balance modifications are a major no no as the likes of Dux and Retrofit Mod have proven to us. They are just a dream.

[Cheetah]

http://shoguntotalwar.yuku.com/topic/53425?page=4
Yet another confirmation of either the totally clueless, or totally careless (could care less) position of those who we look to for understanding. It ain’t going to happen folks!

Tomi, this is not cluelessness or carelessness but it is a strategic decision. They want to get rid off the MP as it is. In all the previous releases MP was an unwanted, but necessary burden for them. It was unwanted because it was not profitable and it was necessary simply because they needed an MP tag to sell the game. With the new MP campaign ready in the making the current MP format neither wanted nor neccessary for CA. From their point of view the sooner it dies the better. Guess what, they do their best to speed it up.

As for the Lordz mappack, I love it, it has beautiful maps but it is a very little help (without the support of CA) for reasons described by Ducky above.

[Cheetah]

I don't think CA is trying to deliberately kill the MP community; they don't even run their own servers so doubt there is any substantial cost in keeping it going. Can still play the previous editions in Gamespy afterall, can't see why that would change.

There is more cost than that. someone has to write the MP code, there is unit balancing, MP bughunting, then someone has to test the MP changes, etc.

It's the remainder though which is the issue, I think many people we play x number of games, find they're beating everyone, but there isn't the infrastructure in place to find better opponents, it's just pot luck. There's no ladder, no decent match making service, no lobby to find others or clans to play with, nothing apart from a screen listing games (on which even the user rank doesn't even display anymore) of which you have pretty much no idea over the quality.

Well exactly, but do not you find it strange that CA denies basic infrastructure that was present in all previous games and does not move a finger to fill the gap?
Moreover, even the existing infrastructure is dysfunctional, steam code for people online/in game is highly misleading, people in green are actually in game so they are not suitbale opponents and all the rest are in blue even if you just swithced on your computer to read the news. Strange coincidence?

Stopping the servers being decentralised is a no-brainer imo, can't imagine it being hard really.

Yet you can be sure it will not happen.

Why anyone ever thought regional game lists would be a good idea without making sure there were many playing throughout all the regions is beyond me.

That is the point. This and similar decisions make no sense if you assume that CA wants a thriwing MP but makes a lot of sense if they want to get rid of it.

At the end of the day, it's starting to get too late for ETW now. It's just being let down by silly factors, which is a shame, as the balance of the game is much better than previous versions and the game does have a lot of (unrealised) potential.

I definitely agree with you on this one! The problem is that IMO CA long give up on the current MP format seeing the failure of it to draw in large crowds like RTS or MMORPG games. Remember the RTW changes, green highlights, flaming arrows, elephants, RTS camera settings etc. This all was done to bring in the RTS crowd. It failed. I think that from that point on MP was regarded as a neccessary but unwanted burden. With the new MP campaign at last they can get rid of it.
Of course the crying shame is that they made the wrong decision at the wrong time. It is like seeing a blindfolded long distance runner to give up just a few meter short of the finish line. CA was running all these years and they never finished a proper MP product after MTW. Either the balance was missing or good maps or both, or there were game breaking exploits (blobbing and pushthrough). Not surprising that despite the core support these games failed to pull in a large crowd. They just missed the quality and substance.
Finally after so many years with ETW they nailed it down. They have the balance, they have the best maps, there is no game breaking exploits I am aware of, with STEAM they have the largest pool of potential players ever.
I hoped that we could get an MP game at least of the quality of MTW if not STW.
Then what happens? CA gives up just a few meters short of the finishline and denies core services. Ducky digged up the stats: thousands of players tried out ETW MP. With the core services running there could be still hundreds playing each days. With a bit of an effort, like CA sponsored tourneys and map making competitions even more.
Alas, I do not think that they will change their position. IMO the decision was already made and what we see here is the implementation of it. It is a crying shame but I have no idea what we could do about it.

[Cheetah]

To give you an idea of how much I personally understand the principals espoused above, the Clan Wars Competition started with three Clan Teams six years ago. Over time, through thick and thin, the contests have continued. And even with all of the odds against the success of continuing our competition with the new Empire Total War, we had dual contests with a total of eighty Clan Teams playing in our spring competition this year.

Have CA ever sent you an email "thank you Tomi!"? Have they ever offered help to you? Have they ever offered prize money or CA products as a tourney prize? No? Surprising ... With STEAM it would have been a piece of cake to organise CA sponsored tourneys, I am sure they know very well that it would draw in a huge crowd ...

Tomi, what I would do in your position is write a letter to CA. Explain the history of your tourney, give them the numbers, how many seasons you organised, how many clans particpated overall (it must be hunred or more), how many games were played (I guess several hundreds etc.), how many people were involved (several hundreds too I assume). Then explain the problems that comes form the lack of foyer and the lack of flat maps and ask for help. You can also ask for some CA sponsorship like prize money or special forces edition or whatnot (even if it is just a token).
If they do not responde it is a clear message. If they responde there still might be some hope.

[KrooK]

cheetach sorry but... theory about balance was ... "funny"
maybe we have balance when we give all the untis super stats and delete some morale modificators (like flank or rear attack penalty)
i can say what you have spoken much faster
""
future lies into ""

[Tomisama]

Have CA ever sent you an email "thank you Tomi!"? Have they ever offered help to you? Have they ever offered prize money or CA products as a tourney prize? No? Surprising ... With STEAM it would have been a piece of cake to organise CA sponsored tourneys, I am sure they know very well that it would draw in a huge crowd ...

Tomi, what I would do in your position is write a letter to CA. Explain the history of your tourney, give them the numbers, how many seasons you organised, how many clans particpated overall (it must be hunred or more), how many games were played (I guess several hundreds etc.), how many people were involved (several hundreds too I assume). Then explain the problems that comes form the lack of foyer and the lack of flat maps and ask for help. You can also ask for some CA sponsorship like prize money or special forces edition or whatnot (even if it is just a token).
If they do not responde it is a clear message. If they responde there still might be some hope.

Actually have been there and done that. Shortly after Barbarian came out, a promoter contacted me and offered to provide a number of copies of the game if I would provide statistics impressive enough to warrant company attention. I gave him all of the numbers, and explained how that with a minimum of support that the multiplayer community could be of great benefit in encouraging sales. We got the games (I had requested only five) and gave them away in a contest. But never heard anything else, and never expect to.

And I’m ok with that. They have a business to run. I do what I do for the love of the game. Sometimes these two things bump in the night, but doubt that they will ever hook up for any real relationship.

[t1master]

what the cow said. maps.

[Cheetah]

cheetach sorry but... theory about balance was ... "funny"
maybe we have balance when we give all the untis super stats and delete some morale modificators (like flank or rear attack penalty)
i can say what you have spoken much faster
""
future lies into ""

Could you explain it? I just do not get it.

[Cheetah]

Actually have been there and done that. Shortly after Barbarian came out, a promoter contacted me and offered to provide a number of copies of the game if I would provide statistics impressive enough to warrant company attention. I gave him all of the numbers, and explained how that with a minimum of support that the multiplayer community could be of great benefit in encouraging sales. We got the games (I had requested only five) and gave them away in a contest. But never heard anything else, and never expect to.

Fine, fine but that was BI. When was that? You (they) should do it for each release! Not just for one!

And I’m ok with that. They have a business to run. I do what I do for the love of the game. Sometimes these two things bump in the night, but doubt that they will ever hook up for any real relationship.

First of all, do not be shy Tomi! Feel free to push your agenda! Second it should hook up because what you do actually promotes (advertises) their business. You love what you do, and it is their interest (or it would have been their interest) to see you succeed. I am still puzzled why they never made any CA sponsored tourneys (ever, not just in ETW).

[Tomisama]

Fine, fine but that was BI. When was that? You (they) should do it for each release! Not just for one!

The name of the plan is:

Empire Total War World Championship Clan vs. Clan Team Competition

I almost called the autumn contest that, but setbacks caused by updates, and difficulty in finding time and energy has slowed things a bit, and it may not totally materialize this Fall. But when it does, in all of its polished and shining glory, we may have more that just the words to bring to their attention.

If not, we will at least have the largest, most highly organized, most enjoyable, and most significant Total War contests (Land and Naval) in the history of these games!

[Veho Nex]

Looking forward to it.

[KrooK]

ok i can explain
this game was not balanced, is not balance and i don't think will be balanced
something you call balance was result of deleting many morale modificators which made game typical rts when cheapest line infantry can hold charge of elite cavarly from its back

[NihilisticCow]

In 1.3 infantry rout incredibly fast to being attacked from behind with any cavalry, I usually chain rout whole armies that way. There are things you can criticise about balance, but surely that's not really one of them.

[tibilicus]

This game including it's MP aspects were dead for me after about one week. Therefore my contribution here is useless.

On a better/ more useful note how are you guys who still play it finding it? Is there actually still a MP community or has it slowly eroded away?

[Veho Nex]

The community is meh

[Marcus Caelius]

I've never played TW multi-player since STW, mostly because my system has generally been on the low-spec end. But getting a new one soon.

i offer the following suggestions for consideration in addition to more and better maps:

-All factions should be playable - you've already done the work, let them be used.

-Balance can be modified later, or it simply be announced that some factions are not considered balanced (native american bowmen spring to mind)

-It should be possible to arrange unequal starting cash allowances to encourage battles featuring unequal forces and terrain advantages (and can also be used to counter natural imbalances in the army lists)

[Tomisama]

This game including it's MP aspects were dead for me after about one week. Therefore my contribution here is useless.

On a better/ more useful note how are you guys who still play it finding it? Is there actually still a MP community or has it slowly eroded away?

Hi Tib

To my view a bit reduced now by recent update frustrations.

The thing I have noticed on the positive side is a new middle group (don’t want to say class) of more serious players. It seemed for a time that there was a split between Vets and “Steamers” (those introduced to Total War for the first time thru Steam). You could tell them for sure by their names, but am now finding that distinction fading.

I personally am still reluctant to team with unknowns, and carefully try to pick my 1v1s with seemingly more mature players (judging by personal and game name style). It’s still a mine field, but there are some decent, good natured and fun folks out there, who I didn’t know before. And I am sure more I have yet to meet

[Jochi Khan]

To my view a bit reduced now by recent update frustrations.

The thing I have noticed on the positive side is a new middle group (don’t want to say class) of more serious players.

I personally am still reluctant to team with unknowns,

It can be very frustrating, sitting for ages, waiting for players to log on that you know.

This again depends on whether or not they are in your Friends list.

I too am reluctant to join just any game and find there are no players I know in that game.

A big problem I find so far is, still being unable to host or join games with 'some' of the players I know. But perfect strangers are able to join. Wierd to say the least.

Oh for the days of Gamespy. At least we could see everyone online and play together.

[Marcus Caelius]

further to my previous thoughts, it occurs to me that there could be a very simple way of balancing armies and different terrain without CA having to do very much at all.

There could be a MP mode whereby, 1 player sets up the game, chooses the terrain from any existing map type, chooses the factions, chooses the available funds, and who's attacking and who's defending.

And the next player gets to choose which side to take.

In this way the onus on balancing is on the player setting up the game since the joiners will naturally tend to take the side they think has the fewest disadvantages

[FearofNC]

please visit the mp map petition thread

http://shoguntotalwar.yuku.com/topic/60316

[Centurion]

Cheetah - I do find it hard to believe that CA would be trying to kill MP battles off but I see where you are coming from - that it is not profitable compared to single player .

I think when players realise how time consuming and frustrating to organise and play MP campaign is gonna be - they will be put off that ! - I could be wrong !

Would the answer for MP battles be to have a small monthly subscription charge eg $3-5
(Too late for this for Empire obviously but for future TW games)

That way Money is in the pot for more staff to sort out bug fixing / balance / map making / organise official money tourneys etc and of course ORGANISED LADDERS AND RATINGS
I know I would pay it for a really good MP service.

[KrooK]

Centurion - sorry but what are you talking?

Before ETW we were promised that multiplayer campaings WILL BE PART OF GAME or WILL BE ADDED INTO ONE OF FIRST PATCHES. We paid for Empire and now you suggest us pay more? No way!
Your theory about economical advantage of single player (as part of game that can give more cash to CA) is funny comparing with global stats of computer gaming. Most popular are online games - Half Life (and famous mods), Americas Army, Quake 3, Unreal Tournament, Halo 3 and of course World of Warcraft. Especially the last one is big cash industry for Blizzard. If we compare it with single - only two titles can be mentioned - Max Payne and The Sims.

And once more:
I don't want pay even 1 grosz (0,3 cent) for improvements into multi, stabilisation, tourneys and maps because.... WE ARE ALL ALREADY PAID FOR IT. CA JUST CHEATED US because everything you mentioned were already promised and should be part of game. Things you wrote are part of normal (good made) games. If we are talking about tourneys - CA always did bad. Best are community ones and Heyah Logitech Cybersport (very good lan in Poland).

[Andres]

I have two bets:
1, The next TW release will include an MP campaign but there will be no MP battles.
2, This thread will be locked and deleted in two or three hours.

I don't know about bet 1, but I hope you didn't lose too much money with bet 2

Anyway, allthough I'm not an MP player and a bit of an outsider, I understand the frustration. It's the frustration of the unsatisfied customer who faces a big, faceless company that doesn't seem to care about the individual customer. David vs. Goliath, but without a chance for David to win. It sucks, it's infuriating and you are powerless.

From what I understand, RTW was a disappointment for the majority of the MP community. Then M2TW came, and the majority of the MP community was disappointed again. Now it's ETW and at first sight it looked great, but now it seems to develop into yet another disappointment for the MP community; this time probably an even bigger disappointment since the game apparently has (had?) all the potential to become a fantastic MP experience, yet somehow, it doesn't live up to the expectations.



Imho, you can do two things:

a) Take a deep breathe, sigh and then do your best to be constructive. Explain the problems as clear and simple as possible to the developper and offer or suggest solutions. Hope they will listen to the community. There are some people among you who are very experienced with TW games and, correct me if I'm mistaken, even a few people who know more than a thing or two about making games/modding. Unite all MP players with plenty of knowledge, work together, contact CA and nag, nag, nag until it costs them less effort to do what you ask than to read your nagging e-mails. Be prepared to be ignored and to face yet another disappointment which will probably and unfortunately bring you to option b);
b) decide that you had enough of it and either:
- do no longer buy TW games;
- still buy TW games, enjoy the SP aspect and don't bother with MP anymore.

Feel free to use the accomodations of the Org for organising option a) if you want.

[Cheetah]

The name of the plan is:

Empire Total War World Championship Clan vs. Clan Team Competition

I almost called the autumn contest that, but setbacks caused by updates, and difficulty in finding time and energy has slowed things a bit, and it may not totally materialize this Fall. But when it does, in all of its polished and shining glory, we may have more that just the words to bring to their attention.

If not, we will at least have the largest, most highly organized, most enjoyable, and most significant Total War contests (Land and Naval) in the history of these games!

Looking forward to it, but it gives you an other reason to write to CA, ask for help and explain to them how it is impossible to organise a good tourney without maps.