CA blog from Mike Simpson

[Martok]

As Spock might say: "Fascinating...."

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Thursday Oct 01, 2009
Blogging for Quality - by Mike Simpson

Well, I’ve finally given in and decided to start blogging. It’s something I’ve tried to resist over the years. I’ve also not posted directly on the forums, and it’s mainly because it takes so much time. Many of the issues discussed on the forums are deep and complex, and the arguments well put and compelling. Writing considered and persuasive responses that really deal with the issue is time consuming, and that is time I can’t spend working on the games.

So it’s a choice - fix stuff, or talk about fixing stuff. Seems like a no-brainer, but things have changed. I can now add more quality to the games by talking to the community than I can by fixing issues.

Quite simply, the quality of what we produce depends directly on how much we get to spend on developing them. How much we spend depends directly on how many people buy the games. The user feedback on sites like IGN directly impacts sales, and that impacts how positively our publisher views the future of Total War, which determines how much we get to spend on the games.

Normally it’s a virtuous circle, and that’s allowed us to be very ambitious with what we try to deliver. We were not entirely happy with the state of Empire: Total War when it went out, and are only now getting to a point where we are broadly speaking happy with the game. Our own threshold for how we’d like the game to be is much higher than the commercial threshold required by our publisher. We are, like our community, hardcore fans of our own products, and any imperfections drive us nuts.

With Empire: Total War, the virtuous circle turned a little vicious. The community used user ratings and user comments on sites like IGN and Metacritic to highlight weaknesses in the game, to try to encourage us to fix existing issues before working on anything new.

I’m not saying that we didn’t deserve to have a fair number of verbal bricks thrown our way.

However overdoing the criticism (For example I think a 67% user score on Metacritic is unfair), has the opposite effect to what is intended. Gamers (and reviewers. retailers, marketeers and publishing execs) will be put off Total War. That could mean fewer sales and less money to spend on adding quality to the games.

And so I find myself blogging. The aim is twofold. Firstly, I want to explain why we do the things we do, and also a little more detail about what we’re spending our time (and your money) on. That should give the community a much better starting point for discussing issues. Secondly, I want to prove we listen to the community by directly addressing the big issues. I’ll be as honest as I can be without getting sued or fired.

Anyway, I started this by saying I’d rather be fixing the game than talking about it. That’s true, but talking about it is a pretty good second best. I’ll start with the 1.5 patch and AI on the next update, and then go on to talk about Napoleon - what it is, why it’s the size it is, how that affects the price.

Mike Simpson

At the very least, I found it an interesting read. I think this has been about the most candid anyone from CA has been with us in a long time; kudos to Simpson for having posted it. I can at least partially see where they're coming from now.

That being said, however, I still don't know how much I can truly sympathize with CA. They're still guilty of often having promised far more than what they've actually delivered on....and IMHO they really have no one but themselves to blame -- either for budgeting insufficient development time, and/or making a bigger game than the development time allotted to them by the publisher would allow for. While I'm generally critical of how publishers frequently seem to push games out the door before they're ready, I suppose I can't entirely blame Sega for getting impatient.

On the other hand, I'm pleasantly surprised that there's already a 1.5 patch in the works. (I'm even happier that, like 1.4, it's apparently going to be heavily focused on the AI.) It gives me some hope that Empire will maybe receive the support it needs to achieve its potential.

[Crazed Rabbit]

A vicious cycle, hmm? He makes the point that if us buyers had been easier on ETW, they would have made more money with it and been able to spend more making the next game.

That is true, I suppose. But it also makes me wonder; what incentive would CA have to improve the game if we didn't complain and thereby hurt them financially? If we didn't, they'd be rewarded for giving us a shoddy product. Perhaps now they'll have more incentive to make a better product than ETW so they don't suffer financial consequences. So really we're helping them.

Another thing I noticed; they're admitting now that they weren't happy with the release state of ETW. Gee, that'd seem to imply they were lying back when the game was released, weren't they? I think the 67% score for the release game is fair.

Now, what would that lead us to believe about what they're saying about NTW? I, for one, have the feeling I'm going to be punched in the face again.

Well, if I was planning on buying NTW. Given how ETW's AI performed after CA promised dramatic AI improvements, I'd have to be a real sucker. The blog is an improvement, I suppose. It's good to know they plan to work on ETW more, but I don't plan on spending any more money, and I doubt I'll be spending much time on their games I already own, so I feel distant.

Finally, I want to say I'm not trying to accuse any specific employee of anything; I understand their jobs and that they can't say what they believe all the time. It's how the business works. But I take their past statements into consideration when they talk about their next game. That's how I work.

CR

[Yun Dog]

Facinating indeed

Sooo the bottom line was we are to blame for putting at risk the future of total war, because we voiced our dissatisfaction with a product they now admit was not in a good state at release.

really CA have a perfect storm and the only people responsible for it is themselves.

1) people were angry about the game receiving high review scores when it was barely working, so to some extent they went to reviewing sites to show both their frustration with the game, but to correct the review sites from misleading other punters.

2) the blatant denial and spin by CAs PR department just added fuel to the fires

3) The untimely announcement of NTW, rather than envoking a positive response, further fuelled the fire and caused an ugly backlash, such that almost any anouncement by CA was fervently set apon with 'fix ETW first'.

4) unsolicited and unwelcome DLC and patch changes to the game (force fed thanks to steam) was CA version of taking a stick to a bull ant nest.

5) a groundswell of support to 'sack the quaterback' and have TW be taken over by another developer has found furtile ground in the embers of the ETW trainwreck.

and Im sorry... what was that... we're.. the bad guys here.!!!

so now this guy is showing us how much hurt we are causing to our beloved TW by voicing our dissatisfaction and being generally disloyalists. Probably in the hope of quenching some of the flames before the NTW train arrives. but he'd rather be fixing the game

maybe he shouldve signed it Homer and finished with a 'DOH'

whats that sound??... choo choo!! is that the 3:10 from NTW, someone better tell them the track is out!! someone.... anyone....

I wonder what its score on Metacritic will be

[Peasant Phill]

The positive:
- A mea culpa from a developer
- Confirmation that they're working on patch 1.5 with a focus on AI

The negative:
- He apparently can't see that the critical customer reviews and the consequential drop of sales was the long overdue wakeup call. I can't really blame him as he's thinking in terms of budget and time for development rather than in supply and demand. Perhaps higher-ups do get the signal and react appropriatly.

[edyzmedieval]

Most of the times it's not the developer, it's more likely the publisher who's been pushing CA to release E:TW before time. Dissapointing, but thumbs up CA for this blog post.

[Peasant Phill]

Most of the times it's not the developer, it's more likely the publisher who's been pushing CA to release E:TW before time. Dissapointing, but thumbs up CA for this blog post.

Point taken, but for now I can settle with at least someone from CA/SEGA acknowledging that ETW as shipped was far from finished.

[caravel]

Sooo the bottom line was we are to blame for putting at risk the future of total war, because we voiced our dissatisfaction with a product they now admit was not in a good state at release.

That's how I read it as well. The whole blog is marketing pure and simple.

The blog tells us nothing new, reading between the lines, it's the same old "buy the games, don't criticise them (because ratings hit our (SEGA's) profits) and we 'promise' to fix it all later as we did with ETW, M2TW and RTW" ..........

-Edit: It's looks like CA have realised that the blogging/messageboard communites can damage sales by supposedly "hijacking" online user reviews and this is what has prompted this "counteroffensive".

It's only a matter of time before the TW bubble finally bursts. In the past us players complained about "fantasy units", historical inaccuracies and other fine points. Nowadays the complaints are about bugs, poor MP implimentation, serious game balance issues, AI problems, visual glitches, copy protection software, etc, etc. That says a lot about the decreasing standards of the games.

I think we now need to acknowledge that the community does deserve to carry some blame too. We had the chance to show the Total War community can be mature and criticise a game whilst remaining constructive and we comprehensively failed at that task, and it has damaged the game and its future as a result.

I totally disagree with this. The communtiy provides input and the developer can selectively choose to either use it or ignore it. The community is absolutely not to blame for how the TW series has turned out. That fault lies squarely with the developer.

[Monk]

Well this is not what I was expecting when I woke up this morning, but it is a bit of a nice surprise. Communities love to get attention from developers, and any bone thrown to us to make us feel that our comments aren't being out right ignored is always a plus. I have to commend Simpson for coming flat out and laying it down, even if I may not agree with it. We're big boys and girls, we can take it.

I was one of the loudest supporters of ETW prior to release, and I was banging the "demo" drum just like everyone else. I was also one of the ones who was severely disappointed with the state of the game in 1.0 and have not shied away from voicing my criticism. However, i have to take issue with the feeling that "too much criticism is a bad thing". I perfectly understand the sentiment, don't get me wrong. Poor reviews can kill a game and end all hopes of future support. But it's not as if anyone fabricated things to say about ETW, nearly every complaint* that was filed against it was completely fair. I have an important question - and If any CA developers are reading this please do not take it the wrong way this is a candid and honest question.

What score do you think Empire deserved, CA? Now. I'm not speaking of the Empire of today, version 1.4. That Empire has certainly come a long way (but oddly, still has a while to go before we get to what we were promised.) Instead, i ask what do score do you think Empire version 1.0 deserved? I dislike rating systems as they try to boil down the act of enjoyment into an arbitrary number. No reviewer uses honest numbers either, because if they did the score for a truely average game would be 5 of 10, not 7 of ten. But I'd be genuinely interested as to what some developers think on this subject since a 6.7 is "unfair".

This isn't an investment, this is a video game. One that i paid good money to enjoy. As it stands, i'm not enjoying it. My criticism has been aimed at helping the 'powers that be' get a handle on the situation so that they could improve it, not hinder that process. Criticism is only truly unfair when it is used in the hands of those who would destroy that process with argumentative attitudes and unwillingness to compromise. You won't find any of that here, all I want is what we were promised. All i want is better AI.

I stand by earlier comments i've made on this site, and in support Crazed Rabbit's point on NTW. Many of us felt NTW was a slap in the face when the core game still has so many problems. Especially since the touted features of NTW didn't seem to address those problems. It's good to see that they are continuing their patch support, and my fears of there being a "1.4 and no more" were unfounded. We're not out to get you, CA. We're frustrated, we're tired, and we would prefer that we didn't have to pay another $30 for features that were promised in the core game.





*barring rants that are emotionaly driven, of course

[Crazed Rabbit]

I stand by earlier comments i've made on this site, and in support Crazed Rabbit's point on NTW. Many of us felt NTW was a slap in the face when the core game still has so many problems. Especially since the touted features of NTW didn't seem to address those problems. It's good to see that they are continuing their patch support, and my fears of there being a "1.4 and no more" were unfounded. We're not out to get you, CA. We're frustrated, we're tired, and we would prefer that we didn't have to pay another $30 for features that were promised in the core game.

Oh, I wouldn't worry about that. It's definitely going to be $50. It's not an expansion, after all, it's a full game! Though with less of a period change than the first MTW expansion, so they have to change much less, and can get it out the door faster. Heck, it's very convenient; they make the game they were supposed to with ETW and get to charge people for a whole new game!

And look at the end of the blog post, where he says he's going to talk about NTW's price. He wouldn't have to do that if it were $20 or $30, because that's what people expect to pay for an expansion. Instead he mention's the size of NTW and how that affects the price. And the size is a whole brand new campaign! Well, not new at all, just the current campaign moved 100 years, but you get my point.

It's $50.

CR

[econ21]

I think the blog is a good step - it shows that CA shares some of the concerns voiced at the Org about the ETW AI. The daily diary was already a novel attempt to try to engage with the community, but now that things are slowing down, that format is less attractive. The 1.4 and 1.5 patches are promising too, suggesting it is not just words.

The blog all but confirms the charge that ETW was rushed out the door for monetary reasons before it was ready. Perhaps the concerns expressed about the negative impact of community feedback on sales will give the money-men reason to pause before repeating that mistake.

Looking at the metacritic user ratings, I was struck by how many 0s and the like were given by users who suffered from CTDs or just could not get the game to run. My impression from the fansites is that those problems were not so common (I've never experienced one). In that sense, I suspect the 6.7 may be unfair: there may be a negative selectivity, of people with technical problems being more likely to rate it.

What score do you think Empire deserved, CA? Now. I'm not speaking of the Empire of today, version 1.4. That Empire has certainly come a long way ...

That's an interesting question, but also largely rhetorical. No one is playing 1.0 anymore. Just as no one is playing RTW 1.0. As the "revolutionary" step in the TW series, there were bound to be more teething troubles - just as RTW had more patches and problems than M2TW. I am reminded of the P-51 fighter or the Panther tank of WW2, which when they first came out were seen as very problematic due to poor technical performance, but then were revamped and reworked to become world-beaters.

What I am interested in, is what ETW will be like after the dust has settled (1.5+?) and what NTW will be like? Replaying RTW, I find it hard to avoid the conclusion that - despite the splendour of some of the mods - it is terribly hamstrung by the woeful strategic AI. Just trying hitting "end turn" for 20 turns in a row mid-way in a campaign to see what I mean. I confess I've put ETW to one side until it stabilises (was going to try 1.4, but with a 1.5 coming, am not sure it's sensible). But from the feedback in the Org to 1.4, I think there's a good chance ETW will end up leaving a better legacy.

[Monk]

Looking at the metacritic user ratings, I was struck by how many 0s and the like were given by users who suffered from CTDs or just could not get the game to run. My impression from the fansites is that those problems were not so common (I've never experienced one). In that sense, I suspect the 6.7 may be unfair: there may be a negative selectivity, of people with technical problems being more likely to rate it.

Without having looked, there's a good chance those are earlier reviews. CTD and lockups were very commonly reported in regards to ETW in the first few months. I haven't had a CTD for a long time, personally. At least two patches ago.

That's an interesting question, but also largely rhetorical. No one is playing 1.0 anymore. Just as no one is playing RTW 1.0.

Perhaps, but it is one I felt compelled to ask. To decry the current rating of ETW on metacritic as unfair just begs the question of "What would you give it." 1.0 was the state of things at release and where many critic scores based their opinions on. There are over 1800+ user ratings, so its hard to tell how many of them were playing which version. Well, beside going through each of them date by date and guessing.

I think the blog is a good step - it shows that CA shares some of the concerns voiced at the Org about the ETW AI. The daily diary was already a novel attempt to try to engage with the community, but now that things are slowing down, that format is less attractive. The 1.4 and 1.5 patches are promising too, suggesting it is not just words.

On this we can agree.

[Peasant Phill]

It's only a matter of time before the TW bubble finally bursts. In the past us players complained about "fantasy units", historical inaccuracies and other fine points. Nowadays the complaints are about bugs, poor MP implimentation, serious game balance issues, AI problems, visual glitches, copy protection software, etc, etc. That says a lot about the decreasing standards of the games.

I've been saying this a few times of late, as have others many times before: It was about time the TW community gave a signal (by decreasing sales) to CA/SEGA that the TW series was in a decline of quality. Ever since RTW, some org members have pointed out that the lack of competition lulled CA into lazyness. I hope they now renew there effort in upcoming patches and TW titles.

[al Roumi]

The communtiy provides input and the developer can selectively choose to either use it or ignore it. The community is absolutely not to blame for how the TW series has turned out. That fault lies squarely with the developer.

Indeed, CA and or Mr Simpson look frankly naive expecting the community of consumers to accept responsability for CA's misfortunes.

My charitable guess is that Mr Simpson is a good programmer who unfortunately has a fairly flimsy grasp of the market economy or expectations of it that are inconsistent with reality.

So it’s a choice - fix stuff, or talk about fixing stuff. Seems like a no-brainer, but things have changed. I can now add more quality to the games by talking to the community than I can by fixing issues.

What so "things didn't used to be like this" when:
1. there wasn't such an easy way for the community of our consumers to react to us directly and
2. when CA produced more complete/stable/enjoyable products -without shameless marketing gimmicks to squeeze more payback out of initial sales (Special forces edition)

What I find particularily galling is what I interpret as CA's perception that we as their consumers should appreciate their efforts -whatever they end up being and never mind what we expect them to be as a result of their marketing.

I can see why they might think that simply producing code which allows a consumer to play a game with a resulting "experience" should engender a mininum of respect and thanks -we wouldn't have anything to complain about if they hadn't programmed the game. Nonetheless, the short sightedness and lack of customer empathy of this point of view is astonishing.

If anything, ETW is a cautionary tale for CA, Sega and any developer who pushes their marketing beyond what their production team can actually provide.

ETW really has suffered from poor management and decisions which overall have made the publisher and developer look mendacious and more interested in exploiting new DLC features for financial reward than consumer enjoyment.

[Fisherking]

I appreciate the blog.

I don get the feeling that he wanted to stop criticism. I think he was just telling it as it is.

We have to differentiate between constructive criticism and just bashing.

I know the game was buggy in 1.01 and they deserved the unfinished label for it but unlike some of you I thought 1.01 showed a great deal of potential with a few fixes.

It was what they did in 1.2 and 1.3 that was so bad. By 1.3.1 it was getting a bit better but they through in the black knight diplomacy which brought on more gripes.

I too was an ardent supporter of ETW before release but after 1.2 I was accused of bashing. I didn’t see it that way though, and I would do it again. I thought they took things that were working fine and trashed them and put in some quick fixes to placate a vocal minority.

Well as various points they put things back mostly how they were and things are looking up.

The largest part of it is fixed now. I am mostly satisfied with what they have given us and I think I got my money’s worth out of it.

I am even considering buying the War Path Campaign, something I didn’t see happening just a few days ago.

Depending on support and developments I might even take a (skeptical) look at NTW.

[Zenicetus]

Sooo the bottom line was we are to blame for putting at risk the future of total war, because we voiced our dissatisfaction with a product they now admit was not in a good state at release.

That does seem to sum it up. The blog post was remarkably thin-skinned, coming from someone in a game company trying to communicate with their audience. There seems to be an implied expectation that people who have followed CA over the years, and bought previous games, should be good fans of the series. We should keep a stiff upper lip and suffer through the flaws on release; we should help to boost the ratings at places like Metacritic out of past loyalty and future expectations.

It doesn't work like that, not for me anyway. I like to support game companies that are consistent in providing good gaming with minimum hassles on my end. Life is too short, and there are other good games out there to play. Maybe not games exactly like the TW series, but good enough. I don't like being asked to be patient for fixes to make the game playable and fun, after spending my money.

I thought I was being smart by waiting to buy ETW until several months after release and two patch cycles. But 1.3 brought the constant DOW's, and it was only the last 1.4 patch that has made the game worth playing (IMO) on the strategic level.

I'm having some fun with it now, but this experience (and similar experiences with RTW, M2TW) will only make me wait even longer to buy the next major TW game. They have zero chance of getting me to buy a game on release day, if they can't break this pattern. I don't know how a game company can survive, if a significant portion of the "loyal" fan base, who eventually will buy the game, doesn't want to buy it in the critical initial release phase due to past history.

Ok they released it to early no doubt about it, probably due to pressure from SEGA. But also from a lot of the Fan base I remeber reading posts here and on the /shoguntotalwar.yuku.com (not to mention on other sites) that a lot couldn't wait for the release and where angry that it even got postponed for a few weeks.

That has no bearing on the issues (IMO). This is something that every game developer with a large following has to deal with. It just comes with the territory. The better companies learn not to get too specific about release dates until they're forced to, by notices showing up on retail sale outlets.

If the other game companies can handle this kind of pressure, then CA can too. This is the least of their problems.

[Vlad Tzepes]

I absolutely love Total War games, but with ETW it turned out to be a love and hate relationship. I still think CA had a marvelous plan with Empire and after patch 1.4 it looks more like what they probably intended to offer us in the beginning.

Would it have been economically sustainable for SEGA/CA to take an extra year to develop and polish the game and to release it as it is now? I doubt that. But I believe much of the grief and disappointment they probably resent over the community's reaction could have been appeased by starting early a blog (or several) and communicating with people web 2.0 style long time ago. It goes with our grief and disappointment as well.

It's hard to understand why a company that designs software has so much trouble to interact with their software users in a time when anybody interacts with everybody on www.

It also puzzles me why they didn't react faster to the gamers disappointment after the 1.0 ETW release. The crisis was obvious and quick reaction was a must. I'm sure the fellows at CA put lots of hard work and imagination in fixing the game - and I bet they had some quite depressing moments, that they really don't deserve, after all.

The blog comes quite late in this relationship, but better late than never.

[econ21]

It also puzzles me why they didn't react faster to the gamers disappointment after the 1.0 ETW release. The crisis was obvious and quick reaction was a must.

To be fair, the ETW patches came quicker than with previous games. And we did get the daily diaries to reassure us that the fixes were ongoing. Also, given what Monk said about the CTDs etc, I guess the first priority of the patches was to get the game to work on most people's rigs. Fixing the AI was a longer job that was probably rightly scheduled for later.

It should also be born in mind that several folk - like Fisherking and Frogbeastegg - have argued that the earlier patch attempts to improve the challenge from the strategic AI made the game worse because it introduced excessive warmongering. Which probably goes to show that programming a good AI is harder than programming a stable game and so will take longer. Frankly, most TW games strategic AIs have been weak and unchallenging, except perhaps STW which cheated outrageously ("seeing" beforehand your supposedly simultaneous move).

[Elmar Bijlsma]

Meh, damage control.
If they were truly interested in some sort of dialogue we'd have seen a more unreserved mea culpa and less pushing blame off on others. I mean... SEGA and us? Nor would we have been waiting so long for it if they truly felt bad about how it went down.
Face it, what he's saying is that before now it wasn't worth his time to come clean. Nice!

I'll believe CA's honest intentions the second they submit themselves to a Jeremy Paxman style Q&A session.

[mor-dan]

Well, I’ve finally given in and decided to start blogging. It’s something I’ve tried to resist over the years. I’ve also not posted directly on the forums, and it’s mainly because it takes so much time. Many of the issues discussed on the forums are deep and complex, and the arguments well put and compelling. Writing considered and persuasive responses that really deal with the issue is time consuming, and that is time I can’t spend working on the games.

It is not Mr. Simpson's job to write considered and persuasive responses to our pleas for better AI. It is his job to make sure the dev team delivers to the community what is needed to have a working game. It makes no sense that before this time when people complained there was no time to respond but now there is.

I can now add more quality to the games by talking to the community than I can by fixing issues.

This is actually the no brainer, because without communication you don't know what to fix. It makes no sense that there was no time to talk before, but now that you are hard at work on NTW you have time to discuss the problems with ETW. This is very suspicious.

Quite simply, the quality of what we produce depends directly on how much we get to spend on developing them. How much we spend depends directly on how many people buy the games. The user feedback on sites like IGN directly impacts sales, and that impacts how positively our publisher views the future of Total War, which determines how much we get to spend on the games.

In the movie, The Running Man, we would be seeing the flashing text saying, "Killian is lying to you!!!"

A) The quality of a game does not depend on how much you get to spend on the team. It does effect how many team members you get to hire which in turn determines how long it will take for a product to get completed. That's like Cheverolet saying, "The quality of car you buy from us is directly related to the amount of money you pay us." Who would buy a $12,000 car? You would then expect lower quality because you aren't paying $30,000. You would expect that the $30,000 would have better brakes, tires, windshield wipers, engines, harnesses, and body construction. You would expect the $12,000 care to be a death trap. Why? Because quality is related to cost. No sir. Quality is based on the commitment to excellence of the team putting the product together. Value is when I get more than what I paid for. Quality is what should come with everything I purchase.

B) If how much you spent was directly related to the game then the game should grow by leaps and bounds, not take steps backwards as has been the case with RTW up to now. NTW should almost be a different game because the engine should have been so completely overhauled and made to be some kind of a beast that pummels Shogun as like a pre-historic piece of grass. The games have sold in the millions of copies at $50 each, plus $30 for the expansions. That's $80+ million for each Total War title. Movie studios don't enjoy such elaborate successes. But as you are finding out, consumer purchasing is directly related to part A. You just told us that if we don't part B, you can't part A. This is an incorrect business model. You deliver qualify FIRST. Then we deliver our money.

C) If feedback determines how much you get to spend on the game, then you have been in trouble for a long time. You just didn't know it because everyone was being nice. Now people aren't being nice anymore. NTW is in danger of not selling and you have been asked to try and smooth things over with a community that is abandoning the marketshare.

Normally it’s a virtuous circle, and that’s allowed us to be very ambitious with what we try to deliver. We were not entirely happy with the state of Empire: Total War when it went out, and are only now getting to a point where we are broadly speaking happy with the game. Our own threshold for how we’d like the game to be is much higher than the commercial threshold required by our publisher. We are, like our community, hardcore fans of our own products, and any imperfections drive us nuts.

That's funny. Perhaps that guy promoting Napolean didn't get the memo that as a compay you guys weren't happy with the state of Empire, because that guy said he was very proud of Empire. And what do you mean ambitious? What are the primarily ambitious additions to Empire? Siege works? Been done before. Real time battles? Been done before. Turn based strategy? Been done before. Tech trees? Been done before. Naval comabt? Been done before. Diplomacy? Been done before. Guns? Been done before.

There is not a single thing I can think of about ETW that hasn't been done before either by you in the TW series or by a competitor in a different game. There is no ambition here. Only addition. By the way, I love how you threw the publisher under the bus and will later make a comment on how you won't say anything that will get you sued or fired. It's a huge red flag that the company knows you are writing this and has approved you bashing the parent to reach the masses.

With Empire: Total War, the virtuous circle turned a little vicious. The community used user ratings and user comments on sites like IGN and Metacritic to highlight weaknesses in the game, to try to encourage us to fix existing issues before working on anything new.

I’m not saying that we didn’t deserve to have a fair number of verbal bricks thrown our way.

However overdoing the criticism (For example I think a 67% user score on Metacritic is unfair), has the opposite effect to what is intended. Gamers (and reviewers. retailers, marketeers and publishing execs) will be put off Total War. That could mean fewer sales and less money to spend on adding quality to the games.

Now Mike... I know you are a smart guy. You wouldn't be in the position you are unless you had some sort of university degree. But let's be realistic, ok? It is basic rule of life that if you don't receive criticsm you don't grow. If everyone tells you how great things are, you won't change anything. The problem here isn't people being unfair, it's CA being deaf. I have not read a single complaint on these boards that I did not hear about M2TW or RTW. So this is game three. You have to expect the voices not being heard to get a little louder if you aren't going to listen to them. For a game I have repeatedly heard as "beta released", you are lucky to get a 67%. And if you will take a moment to look at the job you have now been assigned you will see that just the opposite of what you said has occurred. We haven't damaged the game, we've damaged the wallets of the powers that be. We accomplished our goal, and because of that your team may just deliver a better product. It sounds to me like we are winning the battle. And it's about damn time.



The reason I have responded thus is two-fold. Being an actor and reading scripts has taught me a few things. People have a thing called "sub-text". It's what you aren't saying but you really mean. We don't realize how often our subtext comes out in what we write. It's difficult for the company proof reader to catch (ie. "...we have higher standards than our publishers... i won't say anything to get myself sued or fired..." um, if you're my employee and i didn't give permission for you to say such things, you're fired). This is why I know that you aren't writing to tell us what you are spending your time and our money on. You're doing it to try and rebuild consumer confidence in your product. Bad reviews, sagging sales, and flame wars brought on by the announcement of Napolean with weak pre-order outlooks have the PR and AD campaign teams scrambling to put the piss back in the bladder. CA has been evacuating on us for three games now and the community finally said enough is enough.

Secondly, I am also a student of the bible, which means a student of ancient literature. When it comes to ancient literature you have to know things like who the author is, who the audience is, why is the author writing, what time frame is it, and what is going on with the audience at the time of the writing. This establishes historical context so we can understand what the writer meant. Obviously this is helpful not just with ancient literature, but all literature. It will help people to read what I have written and divulge why I wrote it. This is why I know that you are not writing to prove that you are listening to the community. You are writing to SAY that you are listening to the community. If you were listening to the community it wouldn't have taken three games for it to come to this point. You would have fixed it a long time ago. Action is what will show us you are listening. Less talking, more fixing.

That said, maybe you should go back to what you said at the beginning. If you are talking, you aren't fixing. That's what I see. That's what I read. It's good that you mentioned patch 1.5. It's the only thing that makes your post worth reading. It's the only thing that might show you really are listening.

[Servius]

Quite simply, the quality of what we produce depends directly on how much we get to spend on developing them. How much we spend depends directly on how many people buy the games.

This statement has a chronological error. What he should have said (and probably meant to say) is...

"Quite simply, the quality of what we produce depends directly on how much we get to spend on developing them. How much we spend depends directly on how many people purchased the previous game(s) in the TW series."

You can't spend money making a game that you can only earn after that game is done. I think what he meant to say is the money used to make a new game comes from profits from previous games and/or spec. money from publishers/investors. Thus, if ETW doesn't sell well, CA will have less money to spend on NTW, which may lead to a less-awesome game, which may lead to fewer sales. This is the vicious cycle he talks about.

Normally it’s a virtuous circle, and that’s allowed us to be very ambitious with what we try to deliver. We were not entirely happy with the state of Empire: Total War when it went out, and are only now getting to a point where we are broadly speaking happy with the game. Our own threshold for how we’d like the game to be is much higher than the commercial threshold required by our publisher.

The good news I see in this statement is that problem, cause, and consequence are clear. The problem is that games released before they are ready get panned by players, which leads to lower sales. The cause is that SEGA (and maybe CA?) seem to care more about short-term than long-term revenue, so TW games are released with shoddy AIs and other problems. They'd rather eat the goose that lays golden eggs now than keep the goose alive and get golden egg after golden egg in the future. The consequence is CA has less money to make the next TW game.

The solution is also clear. Never release another TW game before it's ready.

>>>>>>>>>>>>>

Lastly, on naval invasions and why they're such a big deal, ETW covers the colonial period, which requires naval invasions since the colonies are overseas. It's also a big deal, a big accomplishment for CA's AI designers, because it's also a lot more complex than invading an adjacent neighbor.

[caravel]

Lastly, on naval invasions and why they're such a big deal, ETW covers the colonial period, which requires naval invasions since the colonies are overseas. It's also a big deal, a big accomplishment for CA's AI designers, because it's also a lot more complex than invading an adjacent neighbor.

Diplomacy was also a big deal during the period, more so than in earlier periods. Though we don't see a 3D real time diplomatic engine where you walk your agents into the city and find your way to meet/kill the rival faction leader in person. No TW does not have 3D real time diplomacy/espionage, so does it need 3D real time naval engagments, when there is still so much wrong with the core land battles and campaign map games, that the TW series is supposed to be about? I would say no, it doesn't.

If CA had not spent much of the budget on the naval battles and instead concentrated on doing a good job of building a quality TBS/RTS of the standard TW format they might not have this mess on their hands now. A jack of all trades is usually a master of none.

[AussieGiant]

So while the next patch 1.5, is downloading as I type; (top job there CA)

I have the following thought.

Based on the blog from Mr Simpson, the important lesson is as follows.

Due to the longevity of the franchise there is clearly a very well informed and LARGE player base. Something that is a direct result of the generally high level of quality games produced to date.

Due to this, well informed and large player base, there is clearly a minimum quality threshold for the "retail release" of CA titles.

In this instance I believe CA have realised that, for better or worse, their 1.0 version game was so far below what the, well informed and large player base expected, that they received a harsh set of responses.

The key:

Next time, keep this LARGE and well informed player base in mind, and ensure SEGA "get this", before forcing something out the door. Therefore, release the next game at the equivalent of E:TW 1.3 patch or higher.

To support my point: "If everyone could take a moment to imagine their response to the game if 1.3 was the initial release version...

...there done."

I would expect the criticism to be far less damaging, no?

If you don't make this adjustment, then expect the LARGE informed player base to react in the same fashion and the self fulfilling cycle of feedback, sales and decline will continue.

What you certainly do not want to do, is give an indication that the consumers responses are the reason for the franchise failure.

For better or worse, CA have clearly tens upon thousands of players with more than a few CA titles to compare. Managing expectations is what needs to be the future focus, why, because at the commercial size CA are right now, they can afford two ups, before they are done...finito, kapputt, 'game over'.

Maybe this was one of them...I'm not sure, but it was certainly a "FIRE DRILL" in the first 4 months of the E:TW release, and that is not good for business as we have now read.

Kudos for Mr Simpson's words.

It' bodes well for the moral fortitude and future of this business.

I'll get off the soap box now. **Grin**

[gollum]

Originally posted by Servius1234

This statement has a chronological error. What he should have said (and probably meant to say) is...

"Quite simply, the quality of what we produce depends directly on how much we get to spend on developing them. How much we spend depends directly on how many people purchased the previous game(s) in the TW series."

You can't spend money making a game that you can only earn after that game is done. I think what he meant to say is the money used to make a new game comes from profits from previous games and/or spec. money from publishers/investors. Thus, if ETW doesn't sell well, CA will have less money to spend on NTW, which may lead to a less-awesome game, which may lead to fewer sales. This is the vicious cycle he talks about.

What i am trying to say is that quality is not a function of resources only. It is a function of scope, of planning of objectives and of resources. If you want a detailed hex grid on the strategy map that has thousands of targets and possible paths and you mount on it an AI that beforehand was treading on the "2d" map of STW/MTW it doesnt take a rocket scientist to guess whats going to happen. CA is overambitious with their games not because, as they'll tell you, they want to make them better, but because they want them to sell more. There is no other explanation why RTW's map was Civilazation-like as were many of the "new" features. Also all the new fanbase that came to TW after RTW was exactly the people the game was designed to appeal to; SP players of mass market RTS games. The original TW fanbase had nothing to do with Civilization or AoE, because STW and MTW had nothing to do with these games.

The statement of Mr Simpson simply goes to show how their whole philosophy, not only of design, but also of development is based around the "more" concept. It has gotten so far now, that they are communicating to the fanbase in order to keep up the sales, because, we are told, they mean more quality. This is an outright lie. Even people who enjoy the newer games agree that the older games were better in terms of quality, and this was clearly not because CA had more resources then but because CA was designing games with the available resources in mind as well as the capacities of the engine and AI and also, crucially, because their fanbase was not so mainstream oriented and quality was essential to it. So the game was more well put together and hence more challenging and the system worked so to make sure that the AI was aware of (most of the) features and options available to the player. CA new that the gamers that picked up STW and MTW were having gameplay and immersivness as priorities and not fancy visuals and tons of micromanagement.

Wether you play it in the latest 3D graphics or in a chess board, a strategy game is a strategy game. Representation is important for clarity and immersion, but ultimately its not were the game is at. When i want to play a first person shooter or a first person adventure or puzzle game, i'll play that. TW is supposed to be about strategy on the battlefield and it makes no difference to that how much i can zoom in and how well things look when zoomed in. Anyone who plays the battles knows that you command better when zoomed out. So all those fancy graphics which i am sure occupy a lot of resources offer little quality in terms of gameplay. So why are all these graphics oriented resources needed? Whats the point of having great 3D sea surface textures and no tack (sailing maneuver against the wind) for sailing ships in the battles? To make the game sell in the mass market, that's why. Nothing to do with "quality". Or "realism". In fact i am pretty certain that CA would make far more interesting games had their budget remained low. They wouldnt be able to count on visuals then to attract people. They would have to make it by interesting and immersive gameplay like they did in the past.

CA started with a brilliant battle engine; the SP campaign was a way to bind the battles and give them purpose, and gradually, for business purposes alone, TW ended up as a AoE/Civilisation/Warcraft/TotalWar/TBTabletop bloated SP hybrid that tries to take players from all these genres/games by offering breadth over depth. This choice of breadth over deapth is responsible for the loss of quality and the loss of direction of TW, as the original concept was watered too much to fit the expectations of players from other genres/games and so break in the mass market. CA as creators did not have the guts to stand by their creation and market it for what it was and not for what the mass market wanted it to be.

For those who like Heavy Metal, CA is the Metallica of PC developers; a company that has strayed so far from its roots and origins, in order to make it in the mainstream, that it cant return to them even if it wanted to.

[Servius]

@ Asai: I agree with you in that land battles are the core of the game and the logical place to start. My point was simply to answer a question posed earlier in the thread about why everyone was making such a big deal about naval invasions, and at least in my opinion, it's a big deal because it shows the CA knows how to make an AI that can execute complex operations.

@ gollum: I agree that there is not a 1:1 relationship between $ and quality. There is a strong relationship between the two to be sure, but there's also the innate quality of ideas of the game designers. No amount of money can make a dumb idea fun to play. I have no idea what kind of development money CA had to work with when they made Shogun, but I'm guessing it wasn't a lot, or at least not a lot relative to what they've had to work with since, so that supports your idea that it's not all driven by money.

I also agree that CA may just have tried to bite off more than they could chew. Mike's blog said they have been "very ambitious", and perhaps too much so. I felt RTW was the best example of reaching beyond your means. The technology and skill existed to make a 3D TW game, but either the programming skill or publisher patience wasn't there to allow the AI programing and other aspects of design to keep pace with the graphical advances. IMO, RTW sucked because the shift to 3D maps and units introduced WAY more variables than the AI could handle intelligently on release, and I'm pretty sure CA moved on to M2TW before they had properly fixed the RTW AI. I think the 1.4 patch represents a major improvement to the AI, which makes me feel that the gap between the AI and the variables it needs to deal with is closing, which is great. That being said, I'm nearly certain I won't buy NTW until ETW's AI is solid. Since NTW will likely just be a reskin of ETW, I don't want to buy it until I know the AI in both games is actually intelligent.

[Basileus]

CA only has them selfs to blame and i dont even care anymore, i´ll see what the future realeses show from now on before i ever buy another of their products.

To even think i bought E:TW SF to support them.

[fenir]

Well i no longer post much, but i still read here.

Been here since shogun. And it's nice to see a return to some developer consumer communications. Even if it is just a marketing controlled damaged limitation exercise.

Overall Mike is saying, the consumer is to blame for poor sales. Because of the negative comments.

I agree.

So lets visit this.
The developer released a poor game. The consumer complained. The big gaming houses, like sega et cetera.. do not engage their consumers, nor do they take any notice. Thereby compounding the problem.
So the consumer needs an out let. Hence the complaints.

Everyone knows someone that is a hard core gamer. Myself, i am going on 22 years of online games.
I still have Sid Meirs Civ 1 on two 3.5 floppies.
I also own majority holdings in 3 companies. So we are far from idiots here. There are marketing exec's here, software developers, and many more as such.
And with this it makes one wonder just why CA/Sega mainly, have not sort to engage us more comprehensively in the past.

Anyway, back to it...

With everyone knowing a hardcore gamer, it is not hard to find out what a game is like.
In world war II online, we were talking about the poor state of it, after telling people it should be a great game. Even the GM's where engaged in talking about it. Including a RAT. (Name given to the developers).
Unfortunately the release was not good. And we told people. Gamers listen to gamers. doesn't take a uni degree to find like minded gamers.
Even Lord of the rings online appranently, and warhammer, there was much discussed on the state of ETW.

You can hardly expect people to buy a broken down car, and for it to travel back and forth to work, without fixing it.

And this was the problem with ETW.

The entire purpose of doing what the gamers here and else where did, was to hurt Sega/CA finanically. It's the only way we can get you to take notice.
And it obviously worked.

So the lesson CA/Sega should be taking from this is simple.

Gives us a damn product that works on release, with what you claim it to do. And we will tell people. They will buy it.
Give us crap again, we will repeat the exercise.

Previously there was grace in this, because CA was a small company, but with the $1 billion mark cap of sega, I cannot see money being a problem for investment.
The blame lies entirely, at the developer/Publishers feet. Without question.




Ok i read someone saying that many wanted the game released, literally saying we wouldn't like it to be any longer than it had to be.

Well that is human nature.

If the highest ranking person at CA/Sega posted and said, look guys we found some late sreious problems. I will not release this game unfinished.

Many of us, myself included, would have reposted what we said orginally.

Ahh bugger, No worries mate, take your time.

I have no problem with delaying somthing to get it right. For one it would have had a positive effect, knowing hey no marketing crap/propoganda. Just an honest the boss saying it's not up to standard yet.
We would told everyone, look the boss said he needs more time. People would have been impressed. It would have spread like wild fire. Sales on release of a finished no hassells product of a good game could have doubled.
The most basic marketing, look at what your competitors are doing, and what are they not doing. And do something they are not.
Reputation is everything when selling.


And on release, the game would have got far better reviews, and hence far greater sales return.

Basic 101 first year university.
Professor Don Trow.
"If you make a good to sell, make sure it works before it leaves for the consumer, make the consumer want to tell their friends about your product. Only then can you place a premium on your product."

Personally i have never seen this fail.

So do what CA did orginally.
A unique product, quailty of work, place a $5, or $10 premium on the work.

As long as it does what you claim, and what the consumer expects.

But dont blame the consumer for poor products.

Sincerely

fenir

[gollum]

Originally posted by fenir
With everyone knowing a hardcore gamer, it is not hard to find out what a game is like.

CA know what hardcore gamers are very well - that's why they manage so well to make games that are not for them, but for the mass gaming public.

The entire purpose of doing what the gamers here and else where did, was to hurt Sega/CA finanically. It's the only way we can get you to take notice.
And it obviously worked.

Did it? ETW sold double what RTW and M2TW according to the link of antisocialmunky. This is after making two straight half baked and commercially oriented products (RTW and M2TW) that were full of bugs and ultimately partially fixed, AND hyping up ETW to the stars with any means possible, while knowing that the game wouldnt even "broadly satisfy them" at release.

In reality if the game had less stability issues and avoided common AI flaws and bugs with its predecessors, CA would have gotten away with it this time too. At least, the so called "professional reviewers" were revealed for what they are. The discreepency of scores between reviewers and users was nothing short of enjoyable.

[nafod]

CA know what hardcore gamers are very well - that's why they manage so well to make games that are not for them, but for the mass gaming public.



Did it? ETW sold double what RTW and M2TW according to the link of antisocialmunky. This is after making two straight half baked and commercially oriented products (RTW and M2TW) that were full of bugs and ultimately partially fixed, AND hyping up ETW to the stars with any means possible, while knowing that the game wouldnt even "broadly satisfy them" at release.

In reality if the game had less stability issues and avoided common AI flaws and bugs with its predecessors, CA would have gotten away with it this time too. At least, the so called "professional reviewers" were revealed for what they are. The discreepency of scores between reviewers and users was nothing short of enjoyable.

Easy, the quote by antisocialmonkey measures metacritic ratings. In no way is a purchase of a game linked to submitting a metacritic rating on a one to one basis. In fact I own all of the games he listed but only rated one--you guessed it--ETW. Back in 2004/2005 I wasn't even aware metacritic existed.

It is probably safe to infer ETW outsold earlier releases, I don't know about the twice as much as both combined bit though.

And yes I believe the "Professional" reviews are to blame as well. The self serving internal reviews from CA didn't help either and provided for some comedy for the community as the mirage of ETW unravelled rather quickly.

For the record I only look at game media reviews to see if a game flops entirely, (eg a 4 or less) as they do call out total lemons pretty well. It's just the difference between a 6 and a 10 is often hundreds of thousands of dollars in advertisement costs it seems.

[gollum]

Hello nafod,
it seems i got confused - i cant remember after all who linked there, but i meant this link
http://ve3d.ign.com/articles/news/45...-Sales-Records

[nafod]

Hello nafod,
it seems i got confused - i cant remember after all who linked there, but i meant this link
http://ve3d.ign.com/articles/news/45...-Sales-Records

No problem, I'm sure there was a more reliant source.