TotalWar has gone to the Dark Side

**Papewaio** · 08-25-2004, 12:00

I still don't have VI...

**Sjakihata** · 08-25-2004, 13:00

I expect at least two official patches, that alters a lot of bugs and fixes / adds different stuff.

If that happens I shall gladly buy Babarian Invasion

**ah_dut** · 08-25-2004, 14:17

agrred i'll say, i'll buy an expansion pack if it fixes annoying bugs. but hey that should be free

**1dread1lahll** · 08-25-2004, 15:35

I too stand in fear of what may come. I can not understand now a successful game which stood as the sole leader in a field which noone else could even hope to follow, suddenly decides to to become a follower of an inferior line of games cranked out in mass, in a attempt to lure a class of people which have in the past never before showed any intrest in the Total War gene. Ive always been proud to say that ive never played any other game on-line, and even more so to say that 'I wouldt play that crap', to those who tried to push AOE stile stuff on me. I hope those people will not have reason to mock my words with RTW'S release.

**Steppe Merc** · 08-25-2004, 15:45

Pape I fear you may be right... they want a bigger crowd so they forget about the old crowd. Case in point: all the newbies at the .com are loving it. Hopefully we will be able to mod and fix most if not all of the stuff.

**Louis de la Ferte Ste Colombe** · 08-25-2004, 15:54

Mods are not a solution for MP... and fixes, if that means patch, we'll get a single one, and we'll need a strong consensus on it; that's not going to happen. If that means buying an expansion; well, I got to buy RTW first, and it's not a done deal yet.

I really really hope they screwed up the demo badly with a poor battle and a poor unit selection. I hope they won't screw up the whole game that way.

Louis,

**Thoros of Myr** · 08-25-2004, 15:59

As of now my sole hope for the game rests on what can/cannot be done with mods & patches and how much of an affect the full campaign will have on the gameplay. Who knows, the strat map may well be watered down as well, or it could be a redeeming factor that helps bring the rest of the game into balance. The future is more uncertain then ever.

**Lucius Lucullus** · 08-25-2004, 16:03

Originally Posted by Steppe Merc

Pape I fear you may be right... they want a bigger crowd so they forget about the old crowd. Case in point: all the newbies at the .com are loving it. Hopefully we will be able to mod and fix most if not all of the stuff.

My thirteen year old brother went like this the other day: "OMG!1!1!!!! Have U cn dat game dat Rome Total War OMG!!1!1!!

My reaction:

yes why?

My brother: OMG!1!!!!!! its so kool, did they really have flaming pigs

Me: Yes, at least in one documented battle did the Romans set pigs on fire to scare the elephants, and it was......

My brother OMG!!!!!!11!!1!!!!, that is awsome, that is great that one can play as in history, OMG!!!1!1111!!! Im gonna be Caesar

Me: You seem a bit excited about this game, I didnt know you had an interest in history...

My brother: This is soooo kool, I didnt know history was this exciting, this game will be better then Warcraft OMG!111!!!!1!, and the elephants are just über, they are like tanks, OMG !!!1!!1!

Me: Well they did have a terrifying effect on the horses and.....

Well I hope you get my drift, it really seems as if CA have made a "smart" marketing strategy, by angling for the 10-15 year olds (one of the strongest marketing groups when it comes to computer games) while retaining enough realism to appeal to the "grognards".

Yes hopefully we can mod this game into something that more resembles history.

**GFX707** · 08-25-2004, 16:21

Couldn't they have just included a button in the options for something akin to "arcade mode" called "f*ckwit mode" that makes it gamey and RTSlike for the masses and left it realistic for us oldschool totalwar'ers?

I hope things change in the final release....

**Maeda Toshiie** · 08-25-2004, 16:22

I have been trawling through the RTW demo forum. I fear that what Pape is saying is right. Of course there are some vets (miraculously appeared over there) claiming that things are sweet. However, I dont like the way things are going, not just the speed.

1. Where is the kill ratio display?

2. The controls are dumbed down.

3. There is an arcade mode... (WTF?! just what kind of message are you sending out?)

4. The mini map suck

5. Why are they adopting so many things from other RTS out there?! Even a bottom menu bar like SC/WC/C&CGenerals. I want big fat unit tabs displaying everything clearly.

I am praying hard that CA would have an advanced mode with the old TW functionalities preserved. Else, that piece of kiddy game aint gonna make me fork out my cash to buy.

*edit*

Another point I forgot: Romans speak Latin, not English. If STW had samurai speaking in english I wouldnt have bought the game.

**Thomas Davie** · 08-25-2004, 16:28

Originally Posted by Steppe Merc

Pape I fear you may be right... they want a bigger crowd so they forget about the old crowd. Case in point: all the newbies at the .com are loving it. Hopefully we will be able to mod and fix most if not all of the stuff.

I'm not a newbie. I own Shogun (although I never played it; similar with MTW). I just figured I owed support to a company that could crank out products this good. I never played em because I *hated* the subject matter or area of history.

Roman history I love, and so I snapped up the demo. Is it perfect, of course not. But I do think that you are deluding yourself with regard to what the game is (or isn't). The tactical combat, despite what you think, is only half of the game. And you know what? It still takes me a few hours ot play the game (yeah I pause a LOT).

I've got this one pre ordered.

Tom

**The Wizard** · 08-25-2004, 17:01

From what I've seen here in the demo, the all-important atmosphere does not seem to have been preserved.

To me, MTW was slightly less atmospheric than STW, but had more than enough atmosphere nevertheless. I remember playing MTW's demo, and thinking "Hmmm, this game is ok I guess, pretty nice combat and such, but not as immersive as it could've been." Imo, the full version delivered quite nicely on the immersion factor.

Now, with the RTW demo, I don't feel very immersed at all. Beautiful graphics and all that, but very annoying voice-acting and unit responses (which is totally not needed for a TW game; following the road set by STW and MTW in this area would have been more than enough), and combat that is a few notches too fast to be immersive for my liking.

Now, I expect RTW to have a higher degree of immersion than the demo, like MTW did. Still, I'm worried that the combination of not all that spectacular music, bad voice-acting and historical innacuracy will mar the game to such a degree that it'll miss a load of immersion it could've easily had.

Slow the game down to the MTW pace (fast enough for me; it could get confusing at times, especially online against human players... "Huh? I thought those chivalric knights were doing great a few moments ago..."), get some high-quality voice-actors that sound good doing voices for characters in a language that wasn't to be spoken for at least 1500 years, and get the TC music for the Romans and Carthaginians (since we don't know how the other music of the game sounds), for that sounded a lot more epic than what I've heard.

P.S. WarCraft III may not be as deep as a TW game, but at least it managed to keep the atmosphere of its predecessors while introducing a shitload of new features and other stuff, and making the transition to 3D. I wonder if Rome will be able to do so in its switch from pixels to polygons...

~Wiz

**Duke John** · 08-25-2004, 15:56

They say it will moddable, but the demo is unmoddable because all the data and images are "zipped". Sure you can change some numbers or switch units, but that is nothing more than changing armies. I want to make ME:TW 3D, but
I'm still doubtfull wether units can be given completely different looks and animations. As it stands now the modders are completely dependant on how much CA is going to give toolwise, I don't like that. If the game cannot be modded to at least the same extent as M:TW, then I will leave the 3D graphics for what they are and just stick with M:TW.

And I agree completely with the cursor effects, commands with voice acting and the speed of those heavily armoured troops, they make the game resemble too much like a standard RTS.

But oh boy, if the game is moddable then I'm in heaven