event reporting is in Medieval is BORING

[Navaros]

it really bothers me how BORING event reports are in Medival. there is only ONE picture used to report an event and NO voice-acting. ie: no matter what vice or virtue you get, all it ever shows is the SAME static pic of a guy kneeling.

i seem to remember watching a buddy of mine play Shogun and it seemed to play FMV sequences and use lotsa voice-acting to report events. i've never played Shogun before so it's possible i am remembering this wrong, but i doubt it.

why did they make event reporting so BORING and mundane in Medieval? event reporting SHOULD have voice-acting, and FMV or at least an in-engine moving display of activities.

[Gregoshi]

You are absolutely correct Navaros in both your point and your memory. Those little videos and voice-overs were one of the things that gave Shogun its charms. Many, many player agree that they missed those features when MTW came out. I really hope CA brings them back for RTW.

[Phatose]

Eh....if they bring back voice acting, they really must absolutely include a 'no voice acting, no cutesy assasination animations, no nothing, just give me the text like in medieval' button, and mark it very clearly.

I seem to remember shogun a little different then everyone else though. I remember there being an ok variety of animations, but nowhere near enough to keep them interesting for a whole campaign. I remember being very annoyed that any time another daimyo would want a ceasefire I'd have to listen to a speech about buddha's wisdom for the thirteenth time before telling him to piss off. Watching a ninja use vault into the castle and sneak down a hallway to kill a general was cool the first times. Watching him sneak into the same castle the same way to kill the same general was far less interesting the seventh or eight time. They started out as pretty cool but inefficient, but rapidly became repitive and inefficient.

I'd much rather see them spend the money on programmers to add functionality to the interface, or modelers to make the battles more interesting then on animators to make event reports graphical extravaganzas, since I know full well no matter how much money they spend on those reports they'll still become boring to me long before my fist campaign is done.

[Gregoshi]

Yeah, options are always a good thing. I personally watched the videos all the way through unless I was really pressed for time, but I could see how you might get tired of it quickly.

[Navaros]

Quote[/b] (Phatose @ Mar. 20 2004,23:08)]Eh....if they bring back voice acting, they really must absolutely include a 'no voice acting, no cutesy assasination animations, no nothing, just give me the text like in medieval' button, and mark it very clearly.

I seem to remember shogun a little different then everyone else though. I remember there being an ok variety of animations, but nowhere near enough to keep them interesting for a whole campaign. I remember being very annoyed that any time another daimyo would want a ceasefire I'd have to listen to a speech about buddha's wisdom for the thirteenth time before telling him to piss off. Watching a ninja use vault into the castle and sneak down a hallway to kill a general was cool the first times. Watching him sneak into the same castle the same way to kill the same general was far less interesting the seventh or eight time. They started out as pretty cool but inefficient, but rapidly became repitive and inefficient.

I'd much rather see them spend the money on programmers to add functionality to the interface, or modelers to make the battles more interesting then on animators to make event reports graphical extravaganzas, since I know full well no matter how much money they spend on those reports they'll still become boring to me long before my fist campaign is done.

if you get bored with the videos then you can press a key to fast-forward/skip them or something with one keystroke. or an Option to DISABLE them outright. those things would be VERY EASY for the devs to code in. would probably only take them a few minutes. repetition is certainly not a reason to exclude them when that repetition could be so easily bypassed.

you wanna talk about things getting old? it gets old that EVERY SINGLE TIME anything happens to a General, you are forced to look at the same dumb picture. your General is the greatest leader ever? you get a dumb pic of him kneeling. your General is a pedophile? you get that very same dumb pic of him kneeling surely this gets much more old than the videos from Shogun. no videos/voice-acting in Medieval really makes it boring for me. i was expecting that they'd be there before i bought the game seeing as i remembered them from Shogun.

it's also very annoying in Medieval how i'm a Muslim faction yet the voice actor on the battlefield has a Scottish accent (or something, sounds Scottish to me - but it's definitely NOT how a Muslim in my lands would speak). and how the same one exact music track plays during EVERY BATTLE i ever fight.

CA really needs to spend money on these things to keep the game compelling instead of shortchanging their customers by skimping on content as is the case with these things not being in Medieval

[Phatose]

I disagree wholeheartedly.

Repetition isn't a reason not to include it, I agree on that - however it is good reason to not overvalue the things. Development time and money is limited, and I'd rather not see CA spending time and money making repetitive pictures into repetitive animations - especially not for status reports and yes/no acceptance screens which aren't meant to be consuming that much time anyway. Throwing money and animations at event reporting isn't going to make event reporting exciting - because it's event reporting. This is what happened.


I also disagree on the picture being less repetitious then the videos. The videos are distracting. The picture is quick and simple and efficient. It's there, it's already loaded, no delays, no waiting, 'this is what happened boss' and lets you get back to your plotting. The picture disappears into the background as a trivial irrelevance - which is exactly what it is. The information is the important part. It's not meant to distract you, it doesn't This is a strategy game, and I want to spend my time strategizing.


Music and voices are both just .wav files - feel free to change them to suit your tastes.


Ultimately, I don't want to have to pay $20 more for a Rome with animations, nor do I want to wait 3 months longer for a Rome with animations. Not when there is a combat engine that could always use more features, and a strategy engine that could always use to be fletched out. If they want to make the game more compelling for me, give me more gameplay. Gameplay stays fresh far far longer then any animation.


It's a simple economic question. Would you have paid $150 for a medieval with animations? If not, would you have paid the same price for a medieval with animations, but with less units, factions and depth?

[Aymar de Bois Mauri]

Quote[/b] (Phatose @ Mar. 20 2004,23:08)]Eh....if they bring back voice acting, they really must absolutely include a 'no voice acting, no cutesy assasination animations, no nothing, just give me the text like in medieval' button, and mark it very clearly.

I seem to remember shogun a little different then everyone else though. I remember there being an ok variety of animations, but nowhere near enough to keep them interesting for a whole campaign. I remember being very annoyed that any time another daimyo would want a ceasefire I'd have to listen to a speech about buddha's wisdom for the thirteenth time before telling him to piss off. Watching a ninja use vault into the castle and sneak down a hallway to kill a general was cool the first times. Watching him sneak into the same castle the same way to kill the same general was far less interesting the seventh or eight time. They started out as pretty cool but inefficient, but rapidly became repitive and inefficient.

I'd much rather see them spend the money on programmers to add functionality to the interface, or modelers to make the battles more interesting then on animators to make event reports graphical extravaganzas, since I know full well no matter how much money they spend on those reports they'll still become boring to me long before my fist campaign is done.

LOL

How can you say that? There were options to skip the videos:

In the Game Options menu, you could turn off ALL event videos.

Don't doubt it, I still have STW-MI instaled...

[Navaros]

Quote[/b] (Phatose @ Mar. 21 2004,02:40)]I disagree wholeheartedly.

Repetition isn't a reason not to include it, I agree on that - however it is good reason to not overvalue the things. Development time and money is limited, and I'd rather not see CA spending time and money making repetitive pictures into repetitive animations - especially not for status reports and yes/no acceptance screens which aren't meant to be consuming that much time anyway. Throwing money and animations at event reporting isn't going to make event reporting exciting - because it's event reporting. This is what happened.


I also disagree on the picture being less repetitious then the videos. The videos are distracting. The picture is quick and simple and efficient. It's there, it's already loaded, no delays, no waiting, 'this is what happened boss' and lets you get back to your plotting. The picture disappears into the background as a trivial irrelevance - which is exactly what it is. The information is the important part. It's not meant to distract you, it doesn't This is a strategy game, and I want to spend my time strategizing.


Music and voices are both just .wav files - feel free to change them to suit your tastes.


Ultimately, I don't want to have to pay $20 more for a Rome with animations, nor do I want to wait 3 months longer for a Rome with animations. Not when there is a combat engine that could always use more features, and a strategy engine that could always use to be fletched out. If they want to make the game more compelling for me, give me more gameplay. Gameplay stays fresh far far longer then any animation.


It's a simple economic question. Would you have paid $150 for a medieval with animations? If not, would you have paid the same price for a medieval with animations, but with less units, factions and depth?

Total War is obviously a successful multi-million dollar franchise so let's not get ridiculous and say that the devs would break the bank by including a decent amount of voice-acting and videos in the game. give me a break.

you are also seeming to neglect the fact that PC games are VISUAL MEDIUM. if i wanted to play a text game then i'd download one for free legally, and there are thousands to choose from which are readily available on the net. if text is the only important thing and not the PRESENTATION of that text, then even having a strategic map in Total War is pointless. the same thing could be accomplished entirely with text.

if i am gonna pay $50 + taxes for a game, then i expect that game to have a decent amount AUDIO AND VISUAL treats to make the game exciting.

the PRESENTATION of information in Medieval sucks. it's boring, mundane, and life-less. it boggles my mind why this point was not belabored over in reviews that gave Medieval glowing scores while entirely neglecting this issue despite the fact that such a huge portion of the game is spent seeing that same one exact boring pic

[PanzerJaeger]

Well personally id pay 100$ for mtw without campaign at all, just for the amazing battles you wont find anywhere else. Then again i play mp almost exclusively and my pockets may be deeper than some people. :)

[Phatose]

It's information man. The graphical goodies are there - in the combat engine which is the core of the game. Do you expect super-snazzy videos and voice acting for the loading progress bar too? Maybe a super animated options screen with voice acting when you turn a switch on and off? The fact that it's a visual medium doesn't mean that everything in the universe needs to have money tossed at it.

And lets be realistic. Multi-million dollar franchise? How much of that do you think actually went to the publishing company? How many copies do you think this game sold? It's a PC strategy game, not a console platformer. Look around at how many PC developing houses have been shut down recently, and how many companies are happily scrapping PC games to make for the consoles instead. If dev costs go up, like you want them to - the companies start shutting down, or making console platformers instead. Money is an issue.

Could the big map be done with text? Possibly. Just not without affecting ease of use and playability. Thus, it's not just presentation. It's gameplay.

And what, pray tell, would be a decent amount of videos and voice in your opinion? I suspect what you're asking for is a lot, lot more then you realize.

[Navaros]

in ANY decent RTS that i play, EACH UNIT has it's own voice-acting line. in fact, most have two or three distinct voice-acting lines PER UNIT. in Medieval, 100% of the units have ZERO voice-acting lines.

by the same standards, most games have at least 5 or more musical tracks that rotate during different battles. Medieval only has ONE battlefield musical track that i'm aware about. i am not sure if that's even one per faction, or just one in total for all the factions (if it's just one in total, that is REALLY lame).

it's very disappointing that your units don't ever give any voice responses at all on the battlefield, or that you are not given voice cues about what's going on (another thing that all decent RTS games have). the only time you hear anything is when you kill an Enemy General or he starts fleeing (or vice versa). they should have could have implemented voice-acting for EVERY order given to a unit, or for every significant happening in a battle.

at the very least, they could spent the same amount of cash that they spent on Shogun to make information-reporting interesting. instead they chose to skimp their customers and give us NO battlefield voice-acting or videos AND no strategic map voice-acting or videos.

if you name almost any decent PC game to come out at the same time of Medieval, chances are that game has A TON of more voice-acting and animations/videos to explain important things. Medieval is not even keeping up to CA's OWN standard with Shogun, much less the industry-wide standard

[PanzerJaeger]

No other game has the epic battles medieval has... its as simple as that. All other stuff is just xtra, sure it would make the game better, but with any game u can name a ton of add ons and xtras that would make it better. Just enjoy the game for wat it is or shelf it and wait for rome...

[Sun Tzui]

Quote[/b] ]repetition is certainly not a reason to exclude them when that repetition could be so easily bypassed.

Couldn't agree more

Quote[/b] ]In the Game Options menu, you could turn off ALL event videos.

Don't doubt it, I still have STW-MI instaled...

yup, I have it too

Quote[/b] ]Just enjoy the game for wat it is or shelf it and wait for rome...

Shelf it ?? NO WAY

[Ulair]

Well, I'm with Phatose on this one. These bells and whistles are great the first time, amusing the second and bloody irritating thereafter. Anyone remember the animated heralds in Civ II? The yes sirs every microsecond as you clicked away desperately in C&C? Did my head in...

If CA had to make the choice between getting one of the finest battle simulations out the door on time, or skimping on the battle engine to add more weebly videos, then they made the right one. It's the choice I'd've made if I'd been the project manager - and in software development, there's always a choice to make LOL

IMHO, too many bells and whistles in a game is often a smokescreen for bad gameplay. And gameplay, ultimately, is what the punters want. OK, this punter, anyway

Anyway, MTW has Sean Pertwee, the man with the coolest voice in Britain...

Oh, and the Muslims and Catholics have different musical themes to suit their cultures; dunno about the Orthodox lot - not played them yet. And I find the pseudo-mediaeval music very atmospheric - reminds me of Fantasy General.

Cheers,
Ulair

[Red Yak]

Quote[/b] ]These bells and whistles are great the first time, amusing the second and bloody irritating thereafter. Anyone remember the animated heralds in Civ II? The yes sirs every microsecond as you clicked away desperately in C&C? Did my head in...

Arrrggghh Nothing was more annoying than the commando in C&C. Such an irritating voice. I remember running him into minefields on purpose.

Quote[/b] ]
Anyway, MTW has Sean Pertwee, the man with the coolest voice in Britain...

Ah yes, Sean Pertwee of course I was thinking he sounded like Rik Mayall

Event videos and other goodies are nice to have when you first get a game but if I have to see that event every turn then I'd prefer a simple, but nicely presented window with picture and text (which is what we get with MTW). Last night I sat and watched the entire MTW intro video - that's the second time I've watched it since getting the game. Worth CA including it?
Yes, include videos, but not at the expense of other developments. And give us the option to turn them off. Rome looks like it's going to be a visual feast anyway.

[Ludens]

Quote[/b] (Navaros @ Mar. 22 2004,07:14)]in ANY decent RTS that i play, EACH UNIT has it's own voice-acting line. in fact, most have two or three distinct voice-acting lines PER UNIT. in Medieval, 100% of the units have ZERO voice-acting lines.

The units do have a voice. It is just that they don't shout Yes Sir as if they are on a direct radio transmission. Just think of how it would spoil the historical atmosphere if that kind of thing was implemented
Now you can hear the unit leaders shout orders, but only if the camera is close to them. I find this perfect.

Quote[/b] ]by the same standards, most games have at least 5 or more musical tracks that rotate during different battles. Medieval only has ONE battlefield musical track that i'm aware about. i am not sure if that's even one per faction, or just one in total for all the factions (if it's just one in total, that is REALLY lame).

There are three battle tracks for the Christians alone, and a fourth if you install VI. The Arabs have another three. And that's only battle music, there are also three 'mobilize' (again, four for the Europeans if you install VI) and three 'tension' tracks for both. Check the music directory of the MTW folder.

I am with Navaros that the way of event-reporting of MTW is kind of boring, but it just depends on what your standards are. The videos of STW got boring after some time too. I think that atmosphere is a very important part of a game like this and videos are a great way of creating it. But they are neither essential, nor the only thing.

[SwordsMaster]

Personally i also would prefer some variety for MTW reporting.Ive been programming for some time,and its not that hard (2 hours work) to have a decent window popping up once you have the image itself.

Its not even about the videos and sounds,bu at least they could have had some 11 or 15 screens depending on the vice/virtue gained and the level even if it takes them a week more...

[Trax]

IIRC RTW will have the event movies again, I personally am very happy about it.

[Gregoshi]

Should they throw money at these audio-visual bits and is it worth it? Unfortunately they did throw money at the audio-visual stuff in STW and set an expectation by doing so. Then they omitted it in MTW and the omission was obvious. The audio-visuals, while not game-play critical, did help with the emersion factor. It drew you into sixteenth century Japan. The STW campaign is, by comparison, a poor campaign for game play but a wonderful experience. The MTW campaign is a much better campaign from the game play perspective, but a rather sterile experience. MTW game play with STW emersion level would have been grand.

Here's hoping for excellent A-V features in RTW. Take me back to Rome baby