New to the Forum, and a thought on the Demo voices

[Nobody You'd Know]

As to the UI, I definitely don't like it as much, just because it isn't as easy to use. It looks a lot nicer (3d-ish, stone) but if that interferes with use, drop it. It's harder to see who's selected, who's tired...it'd be nice to see not only who's routing but who's routing AND getting attacked at the same time...the minimap is really annoying with those arrows - I hope there's an option in the game to turn off the arrows - I need to know where all of the units are, not which direction they're going in the minimap - and if I want to see the direction, I really only need a three or four pixel arrow, not that huge monstrosity. And please please put the speed slider back. As for the bottom right icons, I think it's probably just a matter of getting used to them.

Here's hoping that they give you LOTS AND LOTS of options to change things around in the UI. And wouldn't it be nice if they gave you audio options to mute just some of the voices (like checkboxes for each of the following: Unit Identification, Unit Commands, Formation Commands (including Group))?

Finally, to respond to the remark about spearmen allowing gaps in the line, just select several spear units, group them, then click the "Group Formations" icon - bottom right hand corner of screen - and choose the line formation. There still may be a little space between units, but I doubt if it's tactically meaningful. And you can probably figure out a way to get them closer, once we're more familiar with everything.

[Soulflame]

About the formation as one line.. I heard you could also use Shift+drag to create a line (without first grouping them) and that + and - would allow for larger and shorter gaps between regiments in one line. Haven't tested then though.

[Nobody You'd Know]

When I used + - (or = and -) - not on the numpad, just to left of backspace - what it did was stretch the selected unit out a little more, or compact it a little more. Just made it a little wider or narrower, by moving a few individuals around. This will have the effect of making a more solid line, but will make the unit have fewer ranks, and therefore spear units will be less effective.

[TomPaine]

Hi Everyone -- Someone over at TWC broke apart the .pak file, in which all of the pre-battle speeches (as well as nearly every other bit of text for the full game) seem to be contained. No idea what the voices are like, but the speeches are amazing -- both in their quality, and in their number. There's 131 pages of them. Yeah, 131 pages of pre-battle speeches your general might use; from what I can tell, they can also be dynamically stitched together. So 131 factorial pages of texts. Samples from just from the first two pages (I'm not going to read much further into it -- I don't want to spoil it for myself):
{ R o m a n _ I n t r o _ 0 4 _ 4 }

I f e a r n o m a n l i v i n g o r d e a d . I d o n o t e x p e c t t h e s a m e o f y o u , b u t i n b a t t l e r e m e m b e r t h i s - t h e c o w a r d d i e s a t h o u s a n d t i m e s , a b r a v e m a n o n l y o n c e . F i g h t w e l l , a n d y o u w i l l n o t n o t i c e D e a t h w h e n h e c o m e s f o r y o u .



{ R o m a n _ I n t r o _ 0 3 _ 1 }

H e l l o . T o d a y w e a r e g a t h e r e d h e r e t o d o b a t t l e . R e g r e t a b l e , i s n ' t i t , b u t s o m e t i m e s , y o u k n o w , l i f e i s l i k e t h a t . Y o u h a v e t o d o s o m e t h i n g t h a t y o u d o n ' t w a n t t o d o , j u s t b e c a u s e s o m e o n e i s t e l l i n g y o u t o d o i t . I d i d n ' t w a n t t o b e h e r e m y s e l f , b u t t h e n m y m o t h e r t o l d m e t h a t I ' d b e t t e r m a k e a r e a s o n a b l e s h o w o f i t a l l , s o h e r e w e g o t h e n . . .

{ R o m a n _ I n t r o _ 0 6 _ 1 }

W e l l r i d e m e s i d e w a y s a n d w h i p m e w i t h a w i n k l e f o r k , l a d s ! T h e r e ' s a l o t o f t h e b a s t a r d s , a r e n ' t t h e r e ? T h o s e a r s e w e a s e l s a r e h e r e t o g e t a w a y f r o m t h e i r u n f u l f i l l e d , s h r i l l w i v e s . H a r d l y s u r p r i s i n g , a s t h e y a l l h a v e t i n y l i t t l e m a n h o o d s ! S m a l l e r t h a n a f l e a o n a c o c k r o a c h ' s b u m !


I know people have issues with the demo, but these speeches make me want to trade a kidney for a beta version of the full game.

[TomPaine]

By the way -- each of those three speeches (and again, there are HUNDREDS AND HUNDREDS AND HUNDREDS) of them is clearly given by an utterly different persona, and I'm certain they'll have separate actors, or at least separate "characters" voicing each one. I don't think we've even begun to see the tip of the iceberg of the voice acting in the full game.

[pmaura]

Personaly I liked the voices and and have no problem with them. In general I really liked the demo and realize its just a demo that is probably a month old. I am condident the full game will be great