CA and their games...

[Kadagar_AV]

Ok... So quite some years after my last purchase of a CA game the show at how bad it was slowly died off... Don't get me wrong, the idea of the game is just brilliant. It's just that I have been so hugely disappointed after the original Medieval (remember? AI was completely inactive and it was so bug filled it took all the fun away).

To make a long story short, I decided to get Kingdoms, as I gave up on Medieval II cause it was too bug filled. I hoped that by the expansion they would have cleared the bugs.

Yeah right.

Install the game... Just kidding, of course I cant. I tried to do it on my other computer without internet connection, and guess what, this new Steam **** requires internet to install the game. Got kind of mad.

Oh well, I guess I should have read the small note on the back of the game saying you need a internet connection to install, my bad.

So, I install on the other computer... No problem, works.

Until you start the game that is. Try a campaign, game crashes on turn 3.

I try a Custom battle, game crash before I even placed my troops.

"oh well", I think... I*ll just have to go online for support... So I go to the homepage, click the support link... But guess what, it is a dead link.

This was over a week ago, and I have tested the link daily.. So it's not just temporary.

I then say some words not suitable for this forum, and decide to really give it my best.

I enter Sega.com and try to reach their support.... After VERY MUCH hazzle I find a number to call for support about medieval II kingdoms... Only problem is, it is a german number and I am in austria, so it is rather expensive to call..

Oh well, I called anyway... Had to listen through some 5-10 min of the standard "press...." before I came to an automated service.

This informed me that the support was closed (although I had called on office hours as stated on their page), and that I should leave my name, number, and name of game in question and they would call back asap.

ASAP cant be very fast as it has been a week..

C'mon, SERIOSLY!?

I love the idea of the game, it is just that whenever I buy a CA game I get so frustrated I swear not to ever again! And this time I think I will keep it... Starcraft II is on its way anyway :)




I guess what I want discussed is: Should a computer company get away with releasing **** like this? I am sure that if enough people got together they could sue CA/SEGA to get money back and some compensation for time wasted, no?

[pevergreen]

As if you'd win.

But seriously, you bought the steam version of Kingdoms?

Shouldn't be hard to install if you did, if you didnt, it doesnt need steam.

Same as all modern CA games, play with mods if you don't like it. Kingdoms is the worst so far, IMO.

[Centurion1]

Lol only game I own is artwork still love it even vanilla I just personally mod things that bother, like the egyptians

[gaelic cowboy]

They suits don't want you playing Kingdoms or any Mod of it they want you playing Napoleon or Empire an Steam is a black mark on the face of humanity in my view but it looks like it's here to stay.

One question though does Steam not automatically update your games anyway you shouldn't need to click any link I thought.

I never had a problem with my CA games crashing ever usually it was only when I installed a mod that it started crashing Shogun is still one of my all time top 5 games.

[Kadagar_AV]

Hmmm... Having friends in the computer industry I can have SOME understanding that it is hard to make a game run perfect on release with all the million of possible computer configurations out there.

Now, with this said: I guess what really piss me off is the broken link for support, aswell as their phone support neglecting the call. The bugged up game was strike 1, the lack of support was no. 2 and 3, striking CA out of the game.

Gah!

I am a perfectionist about my work, so I guess I get mad when I stumble upon other companies doing a less-than-average performance.

Grrrrrrrrrrrrrr... Anyway... If someone is pro with all this and dont mind spending some time helping me, I would appreciate a PM and we can bounce some messages back and forth till it is fixed. Medieval 2 ran without a problem, so I assumed kingdoms would too. *oh, and if you PM, please say it here so not 10 people offer to help, happened to me before on thios board, people are very helpful!*

Sorry for the rant... Am just a bit upset, had really prepared for this... Bought the game, made sure I had a day on my own (without girlfriend or work), a nice bottle of wine on the side... Would have been excellet to run though a short campaign or two. But alas :(

[drone]

I can't remember, didn't Kingdoms have SecuRom activation as well? Turned me off CA games at that point, MTW2 was the last one I got.

[Kadagar_AV]

Sorry, might very well have meant SecuRom...

[Beskar]

SecuROM and Steam are two completely different things.

Steam = Good
SecuROM = burn it with fire.

[seireikhaan]

Steam version of Kingdoms doesn't have SecuRom, IIRC. That said, I can only take the M2 campaign for so long. It just gets old, tedious, and unfun, even with mods.

[drone]

Steam = GoodBad
SecuROM = burn it with fire.

FTFY

Oh well, I guess I should have read the small note on the back of the game saying you need a internet connection to install, my bad.

I'm guessing he bought the boxed, not the Steam version. So it's probably SecuROM w/activation. And people wondered while I railed against this crap back at release.

[Kadagar_AV]

FTFY


I'm guessing he bought the boxed, not the Steam version. So it's probably SecuROM w/activation. And people wondered while I railed against this crap back at release.

Right you are mate :)

My bad, not steam, SecuRom.

Still though, lack of support is biggest issue (although I ahve now read up on securom, what a pile of....*

Game still not working btw... What are the odds of support calling me after a week? I called again and reminded them, still answering machine...

[Banquo's Ghost]

Hmmm... Having friends in the computer industry I can have SOME understanding that it is hard to make a game run perfect on release with all the million of possible computer configurations out there.

Therein lies the issue, methinks. It's quite hard to make a legal case against a company when the issue might be your hardware - you already admitted to not reading the specifications.

Anyway, for the technical issue, you might find it useful to post a more polite version of your problem in the Apothecary. The official support issue might be more problematic - Kingdoms is quite old, perhaps support has been withdrawn.

By all means continue to discuss the general theory proposed, but please let's be clear that complaints should not mutate into CA bashing, which is against the Org rules.

[Kadagar_AV]

Therein lies the issue, methinks. It's quite hard to make a legal case against a company when the issue might be your hardware - you already admitted to not reading the specifications.

Anyway, for the technical issue, you might find it useful to post a more polite version of your problem in the Apothecary. The official support issue might be more problematic - Kingdoms is quite old, perhaps support has been withdrawn.

By all means continue to discuss the general theory proposed, but please let's be clear that complaints should not mutate into CA bashing, which is against the Org rules.

Well, I have never had these problems with any other game, and if medieval II runs without a problem one would think the expansion would too.

And yes, I would post in the apothecary if main issue was getting the game to work... However, I have already spent a bit to much time on a bad product.

THIS thread however was more towards the bad support.

I don*t know what theory you meant, so I guess I will have to make a theory to discuss...

I have a theory that CA do not mind stressing a game out to the level where it is unplayable (seen in medieval 2 where everyone, not just one or two users), as in the dead battlefield AI. And I also have this theory that as soon as a new game is out, CA completely drop the ball on every previous game.

One would also be able to theorize that CA cant even be bothered to make their own support-sites actually exist, nor return calls when promised.

All in theory.


If that is the theory, I guess question would be: At what point are you as customer allowed money back, or even better, get paid some extra too for your waste of time? With the gaming industry as it is, I think this is a good question.

I heard somewhere that computer game companies have a clausule hidden somewhere that you buy the game "as is", meaning, you buy what you get. If it doesnt work, bad for you, not the companys fault. Anyone know about this?

[Cute Wolf]

if one of us got a nobel prize, and decide to bought the Total War Series' copyrights, and give that engine for open sources..... (ohh... the dream)

[PanzerJaeger]

Apart from Red Orchestra, Shogun and Medieval multiplayer battles were some of the best gaming experiences I've ever had. It's what keeps me hanging around here, hoping they'll find the magic again, despite every new title being more disappointing than the last. You may want to search the forum for Puzz3D's posts, as he knew exactly what went wrong, and how they could have fixed it... very interesting, if not depressing, stuff.

[A Nerd]

I agree that the TW games lost some of the magic after MTW when they switched to the strat map that apparently provided more depth and potential use of strategy. I don't know why the AI was unable to play well on both the map and battlefield however. The drudgery of late campaigns (RTW onward) of endless sieges against full stacks that are content to sit in castles and cities despite war with the player and other AI factions grows very tiresome after awhile. It saddened me to have to auto resolve so many battles late in the game (something I rarely to never did previously) due to the boredom of taking walls and city squares. I have had some fun with ETW however, only because in most cases cities aren't walled and sieges are more field like. But then there is that new and improved (quite novel) building garrisoning ability. :/

[Rhyfelwyr]

Well my PC has died, my PC's always die on me, they just don't want to let me play games.

The only time I had a good stint was with M2TW and then Kingdoms. AI was indeed poor to the point of being retarded at times, but at least Kingdoms added a bit of spice, have to give it credit as an expansion pack.

I have given up gaming, except EU3/Victoria, which are the only games which don't crash my PC.

[A Nerd]

By the way, what the heck is SecuRom? I play M2TW and haven't noticed anything to complain about other than gameplay. Don't think Steam is that bad.

[drone]

By the way, what the heck is SecuRom? I play M2TW and haven't noticed anything to complain about other than gameplay. Don't think Steam is that bad.

SecuROM is not on M2TW, only on Kingdoms. M2TW had SafeDisc, if I remember correctly. The SecuROM on Kingdoms is just the disc check method, not the activation version.

[Skullheadhq]

I believe kingdoms had some kind of a rootkit in it...

[drone]

I believe kingdoms had some kind of a rootkit in it...

SecuRom showed up in rootkit detection programs. It's debateable whether it actually is a rootkit. It is possible that the protection system opens up a computer to attack through poor design, Sony (SecuROM's creator) has some history of doing this (CD protection with XCP).

[LittleGrizzly]

Apart from Red Orchestra, Shogun and Medieval multiplayer battles were some of the best gaming experiences I've ever had. It's what keeps me hanging around here, hoping they'll find the magic again, despite every new title being more disappointing than the last. You may want to search the forum for Puzz3D's posts, as he knew exactly what went wrong, and how they could have fixed it... very interesting, if not depressing, stuff.

Quoted for truth!

Shogun and Medieval MP were the peak, the most fun I have ever had online bar none.

Unfortunately from my first battle experience in RTW I could tell it would never be the same, I played one or two of the other total wars offline but never again online.

If i could afford to buy the total war franchise puzz would one of the first people i employ, I wouldn't be suprised if he didn't have his speech with the problems with the game memorised by now...

Although the next total war maybe h2h combat I hear, so perhaps there is some fient hope... though I can't help feeling the games been dumbed down slightly for a bigger audience, it took time and effort to learn the tactics required to take down a bigger opponent but if done right a small army could take on one many times its number and this after the learning curve is huge satisfaction, but people don't want a steep learning curve....

Edit: Ok just spread it out and put some extra puncuation in there, bit more readable but its always going to be a difficult read, I type as if im having a conversation with someone but i talk quite strangely and don't quite use puncuation properly (who needs full stops ? commas all the way!)

[Kadagar_AV]

Quoted for truth!

Shogun and Medieval MP were the peak the most fun I have ever had online bar none, unfortunately from my first battle experience in RTW I could tell it would never be the same I played one or two of the other total wars offline but never again online, if i could afford the total war franchise puzz would one of the first people i employ, I wouldn't be suprised if he didn't have his speech with the problem with the game memorised by now...

Although the next total war maybe h2h combat I hear, so perhaps there is some fient hope... though I can't help feeling the games been dumbed down slightly for a bigger audience, it took time and effort to learn the tactics required to take down a bigger opponent but if done right a small army could take on one many times its number and this after the learning curve is huge satisfaction, but people don't want a steep learning curve....

I am sure you tried to make sense, you just failed miserably at it. Kudos for longest sentence ever though!

Jokes aside, I think I agree with your point, but you might want to re-read your post as much of it was lost to me.

[rory_20_uk]

As with all these games, features are added before bugs are fixed.

Shogun had a nice simple map. Small, so strategic Ai didn't have to be good to be fun. OK, the ports were a bug.
Then we came in Medieval to a much bigger map, and extended fleets - which didn't work. The Strategic Ai was barely coping, and the battle AI wasn't any better.
Obviously, to sort this out we moved on to a more dynamic map that the AI hadn't got a hope in hell of coping with. The poor fleets were partly dealt with. More a sticky plaster over a wound than a fix though.
Medieval 2 decided to make the game more complex without addressing all the niggles in the previous ones.
And seeing as how fleets don't really work, in Empires this aspect of the game was extended to show how unplayable this can be with an AI who can't really use his ships.

Yes, I like the graphics. But I'd rather more time spent on getting the guts of the game sorted before the glamour. But this doesn't sell so many games...