RTW multiplayer is dead

[SouthwaterPanda]

Some advice if I might be so bold...

You need to do some serious work on that list if you want people to take any notice of it. Sending a big list of demands to the publisher or the developer and saying, "Fix all of these or the entire multiplayer community will give up," won't get you anywhere.

That list contains:
- unarguable bug reports
- requests for working features to be changed so they work like the previous game
- requests for working features to be changed for some reason
- requests for new features to be added
- balancing issues
- personal opinion

If you mix them all up as you've done, you get what looks like a long and tiresome rant. I know it's *not* a long and tiresome rant and it's not *meant* to be a long and tiresome rant, but that's what it *looks* like - especially since things like points 8, 9, and 10 are so early in the list and are a combination of personal opinion and hyperbole. (And a bit of a rant ;-)

Play the game with the patch, and draw up a shorter and less melodramatic list, and you'll have more chance of making an impact.

[Morindin]

Well I must say, im having an absolutely blast playing RTW LAN (especially those historical battles! They're great).

Much more fun than I ever had playing MTW by a long way, so I'm figuring most of the problems are the pre-game state, i.e. the lobby, gamespy, etc.

Last night I played a 1v1 Romans vs Carthagians using Pre-Marius armies, I used the classic checkerboard formation (huge units, 8 deep formations) and we had a very long engaging melee of about 30 minutes.
I pulled my histari back when they were getting exhausted and sent in my Principes, and did the same with my Triarii, and it worked effectively.

If the pre-marius Romans wernt so strong the battle would have lasted a much longer time, as I mananged to keep reinforcing my front battleline, whereas the Carthagian general didnt support his frontline units quick enough due to the weaker early Carthagian infantry.

Anyway, in terms of the actual game itself (past gamespy and the lobby) these are my issues, I havnt tried post patch (so these may have been fixed).

Bugs:
Game sometimes slips out of sync
90% of Replays are different from the actual game.
Various other bugs that plague single player (group bugs, movement bugs, etc) plague multiplayer as well. Im sure CA is well aware of these by now.

Personal Issues:
Would love the ability to group a single unit into a control group of its own.
I.E. If I only have two units of cavalry + general, ctrl-5 for left group of cav, ctrl-7 for right wing of cav, and ctrl-0 for general. Right now you cant group a single unit into its own group
Camera needs to be a little bit less restricted, i.e. so you can move to a unit on the other side of a castle wall away from your main group more easily.
It would be nice to have different Denarii ratings for attacker/defender.
You need the ability to withdraw units from battle, so you dont get stuck with a small bedraggled unit on the edge of the map and you cant resign.

Balance Issues:
None so far, apart from the Barbarian races tend to get wasted. Perhaps they need more units per group, I dont know.
Some of the stronger races matchups, Romans vs Carthagians, Egyptians vs Numidians, Seculoids vs Greeks, have all been very close so far.
I didnt think Elephants were overpowered personally, but having said that Id wouldnt want to face them as the Gauls. :)

Specs:
GF4 5800 FX Ultra + GF4 Ti 4200 (game runs fine on max settings on both cards, well done I must say).
WindowsXP Professional SP2
Intel P4 3.0GHZ not overclocked
512MB Kingston 433MHZ Ram
ASUS P4-800 Delux Motherboard + Crappy Onboard sound provider.
256k Up/Down ADSL (Yet to try online play however).

Im sure the online multiplayer community will be able to add to this list in a structured and mature manner yes?

I also think you should post your system specs, so the devs can tell wether your problems of 'laggy gameplay' 'continual crashes' are due to your crappy computer/33.6k modem/outdated video card with 1980s drivers/66% overclocked CPU running at 70 Degrees C, etc

[FearZeus]

Some advice if I might be so bold...

You need to do some serious work on that list if you want people to take any notice of it. Sending a big list of demands to the publisher or the developer and saying, "Fix all of these or the entire multiplayer community will give up," won't get you anywhere.

That list contains:
- unarguable bug reports
- requests for working features to be changed so they work like the previous game
- requests for working features to be changed for some reason
- requests for new features to be added
- balancing issues
- personal opinion

If you mix them all up as you've done, you get what looks like a long and tiresome rant. I know it's *not* a long and tiresome rant and it's not *meant* to be a long and tiresome rant, but that's what it *looks* like - especially since things like points 8, 9, and 10 are so early in the list and are a combination of personal opinion and hyperbole. (And a bit of a rant ;-)

Play the game with the patch, and draw up a shorter and less melodramatic list, and you'll have more chance of making an impact.

I assure you none of this is ranting and I speak for all Rome total war players, I will work on the list as you requested and trust that you will do your best to rectify the problems, bugs, and hopefully yes some of the working issues as they seem to have gone backwards. As for personal opinion yes you right! it's the personal opinion of 300 RTW players ;)

Anyway as you say it needs putting in order and catagorizing, consider it done, and thank you for sitting up and taking notice, I really appreciate it

[FearZeus]

OK guys,

Read the post above, I need help sorting out this list bacchus your name springs to mind as you already advised me... If you guys can help me with a comprehensive list email me fearzeus@hotmail.com or pm me.

Thx guys...

[SouthwaterPanda]

You cannot seriously tell me that none of the list is ranting. Just at a quick pass, here's what I think of your list:

Bug/issue reports:
1. sort out the join multiplayer drop to desktop issues
7. flaming arrows seems to add fire to the lagg problem (pun intended)
15. solve replay issue not showing real battle
16. Syncronicity -- Ensure game state is not diverging during the game
17. duplicate of 15
19. Grouped units often refuse to take orders (most commonly the run order). Some report un-grouped units are responding to orders directed at a group.
20. When in testudo, if a single unit walks into the formation, you lose control of that unit of the legionaries in testudo formation for the rest of the game.
38. Look into reports of server lag.
39. Look into reports of host-drop crashing all players computers.

Those could be bugs or they could be facts - e.g. "flaming arrows cause lag" may have the answer "yes, they do - tough". Servers may lag - yes, quite true. Some are worth investigating. OK, next:

Change requests:

2. Copy chat for warhammer 40,000 or go back to MTW that was fine
11. make available denarri flexible
12. make all factions available to all players in the game
13. allow multiple units upgrading in unit selection screen
14. add relog files, how the hell could we ever held tourneys?
21. allow Withdrawal/Rout in MP ("W"ithdraw doesn't work in MP!)
22. game info available from lobby
23. allow faction to be selected by more than one player
24. proprietary player names (so some jerk can’t steal your name and ruin your reputation) [linked to CD Key like MTW]).
26. Fatigue bars on units/exhausted units should not be able to run (but they can)
(27. duplicate of 11)
28. #ignore/#ban commands for gamespy lobby
29. fade-out names for “in game” players in gamespy lobby
30. allow selection of faction color
31. show who is deployed and who isn’t deployed on the battle map.
32. Bring back F1 to view unit stats and players/factions/teams list (and grey out names of dropped/routed players like in MTW)
33. Unit tax for more than 4 units of same type
34. We need 2 keys to toggle run– if you have a group in which half the units are already running, pressing “R” makes them walk. So “R” becomes useless in groups where some units are walking and others are running. We need a “Run” button and a “Walk” button please.
36. Once routed, “restricted camera” mode should not apply to you. Please fix.
41. Being able to use general’s rally ability without having to select his unit.

None of those are bugs. The game works fine without them.

And finally, personal opinion and hearsay:

3. the camera control in a nightmare but i hear you can chage that back to MTW style (yet to try so i will leave this here as a fix)
4. when at max height, can't make the units out and the game looks really bad from max height too (it's ugly)
5. the chat has gona backwards (just one key for allies and all)
6. multiplayer needs 4 v 4 or even 5 v 5 so why go backwards again to 3 v 3 plus it laggs, get this right first
8. overall the game just looks tacky and unfinished the units look small the yellow arrows you get from a height just look bad etc
9. How on earth did you make the game look so bad when MTW game play etc was spot on you seem to have changed all the best bits and made them worse???
10. can you please keep us frustrated souls updated on what your plans are, or do we all have to take our games back and demand refunds to get the message across?
18. Unit/Army control is flawed--No way to move army and retain facing (in MTW this was alt-left click), no way to have groups within groups (as in MTW). Formation/orientation is destroyed when dragging a line of units: Say you have AAAABBBB units in a group. When you set them like this AABBBBAA and draw a line the result is AAAABBBB again. Units turn back to their original state and your setting/formation is ignored.
(25. duplicate of 5)
35. Trying to order an engaged non-cav unit to fall back should result in a major morale penalty when they turn their backs. This doesn’t seem to be occuring.
40. Brighter highlighting for selected units (some say it is difficult to tell selected units from non-selected units)
41. Kill rate/game speed
43. Balance (cav/elephant) [more testing needed]

None of that bunch are provably right or wrong, and some are just ranting.

So: there are duplicates, there are points which would make no sense to a casual reader, and there's a general unsorted mishmash of bug reports, personal views, complaints that you want it to be just like Medieval, or another game. And in one case, you're saying "I'm just repeating what someone else has told me about this feature, but you should change it anyway".

I've noted the interesting parts of this list for internal consumption, but you need to see that the tone of the list and its disorganised content is why emails like this only get a pro forma response, or no response at all, when you send them to Activision or CA.

I can believe that the Total War MP community as represented on this site has issues with the game, but if this is the personal opinion of three hundred Rome MP players - name them. Seriously: show me three hundred posts from three hundred different MP players, all of whom back every point on that list, and it'll be a lot more impressive than any one person *saying* he speaks for three hundred.

[FearZeus]

You have noted your issues regarding the list and I have assured you I will work on it asap, I also thanked you for sitting up and noticing and gave you my appreciation.

Now give me a chance to organize it, in the mean time I will also get a list of players name that support the list.

Again I stress, I appreciate your concern and hope you can help us, the MP community.

Thank you SouthwaterPanda