Rather interesting material the mods at the main forum are locking up repeatedly...

[easytarget]

I'll leave you to draw your own conclusions, I had a pretty good idea of what I thought 5 hours into the campaign before ever reading a review. Which at 60 hours has not changed.

reading version for you literary types:

http://gamasutra.com/view/feature/16...s_process_.php

sound commentary for the auditory focused:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XgU7hqX0KAQ&t=7m50s

[ReluctantSamurai]

I have an intense distrust of someone that needs entire paragraphs to say what could be said in a sentence or two. I hope for CA's sake, that the Metacritics have very deep pockets because if CA keeps designing games with those people in mind, then they very well might be the only folks left to buy the games.

Oh...wait; game reviewers get their copies for free

[easytarget]

Well, I'll say this much about what I see as the fundamental difference between Shogun 2 and Rome 2, the former has a style, feel, and execution to the smallest detail that displays to me a unified vision and purpose while the latter feels like it's missing that at pretty much every level of the game. It feels like design by committee as if the Sega suits indeed did take over and shove this thing out the door.

I think that's why I find it more annoying than I would otherwise, it's a sucker punch. Shogun 2 and each of the follow on iterations with ROTS and FOTS appeared to suggest a plan was at work leading to Rome 2, that CA was testing out and tweaking all the pieces, getting it altogether for the grand prize that so many were waiting for, only to have it snatched away with an Empire style launch.

To be honest, I'll still keep playing Rome 2 and have some fun with it, but I'll never I suspect stop being disappointed by what might have been, because the game design decisions that doom it to rank as a failure in my eyes aren't likely ever be fixed.

[AntiDamascus]

What are they locking repeatedly? An article from over a year ago?

[easytarget]

What are they locking repeatedly? An article from over a year ago?

I guess Daelin is bowed up over the video, just a guess, I'm not going to PM him and engage in a discussion about it.

It just looks like the standard business of burying stuff in rants and raves which they tend to do there.

Not that I care, I mean it's their forum after all, they can run it as they see fit. That said, I can't say that I much mind the amount of heat they are catching because I believe it's well deserved.

[AntiDamascus]

I dunno I guess I was just confused when it was "interesting material" when as you said it's pretty standard stuff. I guess I also don't get the problem, they cut stuff that wouldn't rate well. So?

[easytarget]

Agreed. Reacting to it is where mods often ironically sort of fail at what they are trying to do, which is moderate the forum. In this case calling it out repeatedly by closing down the thread just resulted in it repeatedly popping up.

The easier way to bury anything at an active forum is to do nothing and just let it naturally slide off the first page.

As for the point, suggesting they dial the game to critics instead of the purchasing audience and dial game design same is not exactly what I'd call a long term viable vision, and honestly if that's what they did here, it failed anyway.