Sorry From CA - Current State of the Game and What Happens Next

[Barkhorn1x]

http://forums.totalwar.com/showthrea...t-Happens-Next

A hearty mea culpa:

Hi everyone and thanks for your attention.

We just wanted to reassure you that we do know it’s an extremely annoying and frustrating time for some of you at the moment and we are working around the clock to sort out those issues that you are having. The first patch has just gone up - it's not trouble-free we know and are fixing with a hotfix, but there will be another next week and every week after that till the problems are gone.

At the moment it may seem that the changes are slight, but they aren’t the only ones we are working on currently and bigger changes are happening now for future patches.

If you are having a problem, it is totally unacceptable and a big deal for us, please know that we are spending all our dev effort on fixing outstanding issues.

I realise in our rush to do that we haven’t updated you on the situation, so if you are interested, please read on.

Scale of launch issues
First and foremost let me say that if even one person has a problem running the game we would want to fix it, this is why we’ve set up 24 hour support and if you post in the support forums you will get an answer or discover a solution that’s already posted for your issue.

I appreciate that it doesn’t help to know this if you are somebody having an issue, but the vast majority of people are running the game without problems. At the moment we are seeing 2% of people playing reporting a technical issue. Let me be clear, that is 2% too many and we will be helping them into the game and working very hard to make sure they get the best possible experience.

To these people we are really very sorry that you are having problems, we really want to get you enjoying our game, please do take the time to post your issue in the Support Forum if there isn't a fix for you available in there already.

Technical Issues
ROME II is a big and complex game and, especially on PC, we are always conscious of the wide variety of different combinations of hardware out there and, while we do test extensively before launch, it is clear that we have failed some of you and we will look at the way in which launch games in the future. Again, I know this is scant comfort to you if you have a set-up that is not performing well, but we do intend to fix your specific problem – whoever you are and whatever it is - as soon as we can.

Many issues have been alleviated by the workarounds and system tweaks posted about in the Support Forum, please do head to this thread as your first port of call http://forums.totalwar.com/showthrea...support-forums, if your issue is not solved by stepping through these solutions please do post your issue in the Support Forum and one of the team will get back to you.

Gameplay Issues
If you have concerns on the actual features and mechanics, like gameplay balancing and AI behaviour, we do want to hear about them. As mentioned before launch we absolutely intend to support ROME II post-release with plenty of content, further development and comprehensive balancing through-out – and no I’m not thinking of DLC you have to pay for. We have already planned for some very interesting stuff and we wanted to do that with advice from the community.

Please do keep posting your concerns, our code team are focussing on tech issues to get people playing, but our design teams are very aware of your concerns and are already looking at ways to add further options and rebalance aspects of the game.

You will see our community team dropping into threads to ask questions, please do chat to them, but even if you don’t see a response please do know that we look at the forums every day here and do appreciate what you have to say.

Thank you for reading,

Mike Simpson

[Hooahguy]

As mentioned before in other places, the 2% statistic seems a bit suspicious, but Im glad that they are aware of the situation and trying to make amends.

[BroskiDerpman]

It's almost as if this was all pre-planned to be honest with you guys.

[Hooahguy]

It's almost as if this was all pre-planned to be honest with you guys.

I definitely think that the dev team knew there were problems on release, they cant be that blind to think that it was flawless. At least for the gameplay bugs. Its almost impossible to ensure a game as technically complicated as this one is to be 100% compatible on every system, so they most likely are going to ensure that everyone can actually play the game while working on/fixing the most glaring gameplay problems, then work on the AI and other gameplay related problems. Its a sensible approach. Do I wish the problems were addressed before, even if it took another month or two to release? Absolutely. But they released the game not fully finished and now we got to deal with it.

[BroskiDerpman]

*It's almost as if they pre-planned an apology.

Plus it's not just graphics bugs, it's the gameplay mechanics, balance, and authenticity in which they screwed up on.

(Not counting ai or other numerous bugs)

[easytarget]

*It's almost as if they pre-planned an apology.

Plus it's not just graphics bugs, it's the gameplay mechanics, balance, and authenticity in which they screwed up on.

(Not counting ai or other numerous bugs)

Exactly. What's wrong with Rome 2 can't be fixed, it's at the core of the game itself and is the result of a slew of bad design decisions. And what's wrong with it can't be patched or modded into correction. This is as far away from the Shogun 2 masterpiece as you could possibly make a game imho. Disappointment doesn't even begin to describe what I feel about this game.

[Vuk]

2%? IF they are even being honest, that is 2% officially reporting their problems, not 2% experiencing problems. For all you know, 40-50% of RII owners are experiencing major technical problems.

It was so obvious in the weeks leading up to its release that it was an unfinished game. Why didn't they just postpone its release? They could have still shipped out the same discs and boxes and just had Steam automatically update the game when it was released. Don't they know what a killjoy it is to be promised an awesome game and find out that you are an unwilling beta tester?

[CaptainCrunch]

2%? IF they are even being honest, that is 2% officially reporting their problems, not 2% experiencing problems. For all you know, 40-50% of RII owners are experiencing major technical problems.

Exactly. No way in Hell do they release a formal apology about the condition of their game, or put someone on 24hr tech support at the official forum, if they truly believed that only 2% of their sales are being affected by problems. The fact that they even tried to pass that off as true is grimey.

I hope this little statement of contrition is sincere and they're prepared to not only sort out the game's technical problems, but to address all the major gameplay concerns. Otherwise this release will end up being an unmitigated disaster for them in the long run. There are only so many times you can fool people before they realize they're wasting money on your products... even the suckers.

[AntiDamascus]

As a game producer, I would assume you stick to hard deadlines and release a game with bugs or other issues and try to fix them later. You'll make more money that way. SimCity taught us you can release a game with more bugs than a backyard and people will buy it in droves as long as you "fix it".

[Vuk]

Yeah, short term. Long term though, that puts people out of business. Took me two games to learn my lesson, but I did. They are not getting my money till they start releasing quality games again.

[Sp4]

It's almost as if this was all pre-planned to be honest with you guys.

Seems like it, right? It feels an awful lot like they released the beta and are now completing the game ^^

[BroskiDerpman]

SPARTANS!!! March in one big line and kill everything!

Even graphics wise the game is quite unfinished even compared to Shogun 2 on release.

Yet people keep on trying to tell me on Steam to get the game because "It's awesome", "Well made", "Really fun since it's Rome".

Not going to fall for buying an clearly unfinished alpha version that clearly requires a ton of more work which is now going to be dlcs, and some performance patches. (If CA's balance attempts for Shogun 2 says something)

[lars573]

As mentioned before in other places, the 2% statistic seems a bit suspicious, but Im glad that they are aware of the situation and trying to make amends.

Not really. Sales data combined with the numbers reporting the technical issues. It's very straight forward.

[HopAlongBunny]

It is what it is.
As the latest product from a company, it is the clearest statement they can make on what matters to them

[sassbarman]

I blame this whole debacle on those two boobs from rally point.

[a completely inoffensive name]

This is why I stopped buying after Empire. Stop asking me to buy a friggen titan to run the game at medium settings and start getting some good programmers to work on AI.

I would buy Empire all over again if they released it exactly the same, but with a completely new battle/campaign AI

[BroskiDerpman]

If that was to happen at least flesh out the game a little more and fix many bugs and issues such as firing drills.

[Hooahguy]

Though something I did like about ETW was the (at least on the surface) fleshed out tech tree. In Rome 2 it seems kinda shallow. In my opinion, if they took the graphics, province, and army system (and a few of the battle features- in ETW the terrain was poorly done) from Rome2 and combined it with the UI of ETW and then put in the traits and family system of Rome 1 and I would be very happy.

[BroskiDerpman]

I argue for the Shogun 2 ui over Empire.

It's much more responsive, icons stand out more, simply makes for a good feel in the Warscape engine. Plus the immersion factor too. (I still prefer Medieval 2's feel)

[The Blind King of Bohemia]

The patch has made the unit graphics look tremendous, shame the battlefield animations, AI, gameplay, etc is still bloody awful.

Back the Third Age mod for Medieval II I guess!

[ReluctantSamurai]

Feature-wise a lot of the game feels like it was pieced together in a patchwork manner, nothing feels like it compliments anything else. Technology is researched too quick creating huge gaps between faction military strength. Units gain veteran too fast, causing armies to become death machines in within 10 turns of their creation. Unrest is obtuse in how it builds, and friendly fire unrest from taking neighboring cities is possible. The AI regards the player armies with indifference on the campaign map and tries to rush your cities. Campaign movement speed doesn't make sense for the turn length. There's no penalty for losing all your generals as you get free ones right away, making commanders throw away units

This. Seems to be a common opinion amongst many veteran players. The lack of cohesion between game features, the incomprehensibility of others. Somehow I can't see these kinds of issues being fixed by patches & hot-fixes.....

And yes, you may spend considerable time right now, playing the game....How much of your attraction to the game, at the moment, is simply novelty? how much is because of the 'meat & potatoes' of the game itself? how much time will you be spending 6 months from now? or a year?

That's where a mediocre/average/good/classic game gets sorted out.........

[sassbarman]

I know it's been mentioned a million times but it still boggles my mind how this game scored so high with reviewers. I guess there are really only 3 possibilities to account for this gross error in judgement.
a) they never actually played the game beyond 3 turns.
b) they are massively incompetent.
c) they where offered '"incentives" to utterly ignore the obvious shortcomings and focus on the few good aspects of this game.
Apologies aside this game reeks of everything wrong in the PC gaming industry today which is to say the souless persuit of profit over professional integrity and just doing what's right for your loyal paying customers.
Sorry to be so heavy handed but I'm just sick of this CRAP.

[JeromeBaker]

how much time will you be spending 6 months from now? or a year?

That's where a mediocre/average/good/classic game gets sorted out.........

Very good point ReluctantSamurai. I started the game this past weekend and I have had no major issues with crashes or graphical glitches. I think for me reading all the negative forum posts greatly helped to reduce my expectations when starting. In fact they were reduced so greatly that I was pleasently suprised at a few things. I think my fav change was how you can build up an army's abilities and reputation away from simply boosting the traits of the general. Being able to create the 10th legion and build it up to fight my toughest foes was a very neat premise. Seeing the stats of my 10th legion, broken up by past generals, added some immersion. That being said though, I really do not see myself playing this months from now without some overhaul. I see enough i like that I will not close the book and hope that mods and future patches can bring some much needed improvement to the immersion factor. Perhaps the biggest deal to me is the wait time inbetween turns. I can overlook a lot, but when you spend more time waiting than playing in the late game it kills the fun factor big time.

But to your point, I would much rather see RTW or M2TW get a graphics boost and some of the cool features I like than the idea of RTW2 getting patched and moded to a more playable form.

[Lemur]

I can't see these kinds of issues being fixed by patches & hot-fixes.....

Yeah, I was saying to a RL friend, who is new to the TW world, that CA is okay with eventually fixing bugs, but they have never, ever fixed a design problem in an existing game.

And a lot of what ails R2 appears to be fundamental to design.

I've spent most of my time in the campaign, and there's a whole lot of "Huh?" going on.

Why do I need to click through three sliding screens to perform an upgrade on a general? Why?

And the general lack of cues and feedback ... that's just bad design. Carthage had an epic civil war last night. Why? I have no idea. The Hanna Montana dynasty had ~20% control of the Senators. This was nowhere near the trigger point, by my understanding. None of the other factions had massive control. The "Other Families" had ~50% control. So ... civil war? Why? Who knows?