Originally Posted by
Dionysus9
Gil,
Piping dreamers? Come now, you have stooped to our level, at best--calling names like that. That's just offensive and it does nothing to advance the arguments on either side.
I don't want to start a flamewar here as it is unproductive, but I have to respond to your comments. Let me say I respect you more than anyone in the entire CA corporation because you have the cajones to come here and listen to us, talk with us, and from time to time to stand up to us--from what I understand on your own time off the clock which is quite commendable and I've always thought well of you for it. You are the only person at CA that I can count on to listen to me, and only because you personally want to hear--so I really do appreciate that and I appreciate your opinions to.
You hit a raw nerve with the 1% reference, and you are still poking at it. If there is one thing that makes me mad its this much-touted "less than 1%" justification for all the problems in MP. I've been around for long enough to have heard it every time we voice our valid concerns (e.g. with the release of MTW v1.0). In fact, maybe I should just stop complaining about it and accept that whenever CA rolls out the "less than 1%" remark they are really on the defensive for a change and maybe it means stuff will get fixed.
I spend good money on your games and my opinion should be worth as much as any other customer, no matter what "segment" I'm in. If you want to justify poor service to one segment or another, I'd prefer you keep it to yourself or tell us up-front what your position is (preferably before we spend our money).
With all due respect-- what is your personal opinion on this issue 1%? You've asked us what ours is, and we've answered. Now how about yours?
Do you come here just to jab us in the ribs by reminding us that not only CA but the industry at large considers us (and everything we value as MP afficianados) to be of less value than other paying customers? I think not, but with the piping dreamers reference it almost feels like it. This is a sensitive topic for me--the most sensitive topic related to the TW series of games, actually (for me at least).
Let me get to the point-- I knew you would neither embrace nor reject the 1% position based on the way you raised it-- pointing to another unrelated thread somewhere, by someone else, involving some other game. But you see, that position has been advanced time and time again by CA in response to our valid concerns over bugs. In your response (above), you talk out of both sides of your mouth--on one hand you say that it is not CA's position and then you immediately offer the much-touted statistical evidence which CA "has" that justifies that same position.
Which is it? What is your personal opinion? What is CA's official position?
Is it or is it not CA's position that less than 1% of TW sales are driven by MP players?
Are you here just to ask questions without offering your own opinion? Is this a crashcourse in the Socratic method? lol. I'm sorry I went for the cheap laughs-- you got me there. And frankly, I don't know squat about the stardock game or its executives, or the reasons why it failed. I don't know if the MP side of that game was great or not.
Yes, we have the luxury of dreaming about how great R:TW could be-- you have the unenviable task of trying to get us there. But when we are told (directly or indirectly) that our opinions as a community can essentially be ignored--that is going to make us defensive.
Actually thats all we ever asked for was some care, attention, and investigation (like beta testing). But I'm taking another semantic cheap shoap shot--so I won't go further down that road.
I suppose your "statistics" don't include the hundreds upon hundreds (if not thousands) of people who crashed to desktop when they first tried to logon to MP and either gave up or returned the game? I suppose your stats dont include people who couldn't get their CD Key to work? Or what about all the people that were alienated by the lack of MP support (and the plethora of bugs) in the STW and MTW releases-- good solid players who swore never to purchase another EA or CA game again. (Do you remember the massive server crashes and downtime of STW, and all the veterans who left over that? I do). And of course you admit they arent including the LAN players (who in many countries outnumber the online players).
But even so, lets take this 1% stat as the gospel truth--and also assume that no amount of MP support or development will ever increase that percentage to beyond 2%. Is that fair enough? is that too much of an assumption?
If that is true, then why would CA continue to offer an MP side? Just for that 1% bump in sales? Does that make sense? Maybe. If it does make fiscal sense to spend money on MP to gain a 1% bump in sales, then doesn't it also make sense to spend twice as much and hope to gain a 2% bump in sales?
But we never see the increased effort, and so you will never see the increase sales. And then you offer the same old stats to us as justification for not making the effort to begin with? I suggest that the fact that you STILL have 1% MP participation after all the bugs in every release of TW indicates you could have easily grown the MP portion to 2% or 3%.
So maybe you can help us understand why it makes sense for CA to half-ass MP in order to get a 1% increase in sales, while it does not make sense to double your effort to see double the increase in sales?
By the way--these games you suggest were great and that had great MP content that failed, I've not played any of them except Stronghold. I bought Stronghold at the same time I bought STW (I think I bought them both the same day) and I played it for 10 minutes and its sat in my computer desk for 3 years since then. I think I paid $39.95 for stronghold and $19.95 for STW.
Compared to TW, Stronghold is a pathetic excuse for a tactical game. I'm surprised you could even put it in the same class its so bad. I kid you not, I haven't put it into my computer since I bought it over 3 years ago. Really it was just Lemmings on crack with no tactical elements--just puzzle solving and fast clicking.
I've been playing nothing but TW and online poker since I purchased STW. In fact, I haven't purchased a single non-CA game since then. Now that is brand loyalty for you.
and what do we get in return? we get another buggy release and the hoary old justification (direct or indirect) that we are "less than 1%" so we might as well just accept what we are given and be happy about it.
You name plenty of successful MP games yourself--more than I can come up with--more than I knew existed. I just know the market for them exists because everyone I know prefers to play MP, and the vast majority of forum goers I bump into prefer MP. I had no idea there really was such a precedent out there for MP oriented profit. In any case, I think it is safe to say that from a player's perspective those games don't hold a CANDLE to Total War's potential.
"Tell me why we should take any risks without a great deal of care and attention and investigation *and some numbers to back it up*."
Because we are the players and we say so. That's about all we have that we can tell you. If you would share some of your figures or even your opinion maybe we would have something to work off--but you are asking us to persuade you without even knowing where you stand.
Take a look at your numbers from STW and MTW. I'll bet you see a pattern. Immediately after the initial release you see some really good MP numbers online (or trying to logon but getting crashed). Maybe even up to about 1.5% or 2%. Then after a few months the numbers dwindle back down to 1% (dissatisfaction). After the patch you get another small bump, and then dwindle again down to probably about .5% or .75% before the next release.
Here's another guess. Your online numbers went up a little bit after each major release, but not in between (expansions). No matter what happens, there is always a base of maybe .5% that is always around.
That .5% is us, your hardcore loyal MP players. The expansions dont effect MP play that much because they don't bring in any new players and by that time the folks who are fed-up have left and its just us hardcore folks left. Maybe a few come back to try the expansion, but not many.
My guess is that you lose about 1% of MP players PER full-release to frustration and alienation at the numerous MP bugs and poor support (EA was the worst! I still have nightmares about loggin on to the Shoggy server), and that those players never return. Look at the active registered members here at the .org compared to the inactive members. Lots of people have gone the way of the do-do over the years.
One thing is for sure--the unpolished, unfinished, buggy MP aspect of TW full releases drives people away. After the patch your numbers stabilize.
If your "care and attention and investigation and numbers" show that MP is a waste of time, then just cut it already. If not, then take the damn risk and see what happens. Rather than allocating 1% of your budget to MP, try allocating 3% and see what happens. It's not going to bankrupt CA but it will pay off, trust us. Thats all we can say. We are done here in the trenches every day. We see the MP afficianados leave in droves after ever full release. Its been like that after EVERY release for YEARS at a time-- and yet your numbers hover around 1%? Thats because you get new hard-core MP players who are willing to accept the bugs to play this wonderful game of TW--but you can never replace the paying customers that have given up, you can never replace the players who try MP but get errors and quit to play another game.
The vast marketing bonanza that is MP word of mouth has never been tapped into by the Total War series. MP word of mouth has worked AGAINST you. And it always will until you allocate more resources to fixing the problems BEFORE you go to press. No amount of thought and consideration is going to change that fundamental problem-- if you sell me a crappy tasting burger the first time I come to your restaurant, I wont come again. If your response to my complaint is that most of your customers buy your steaks and arent interested in your burgers, so you really don't mind that your burgers suck, then you can also expect I wont return to your establishment to buy a burger.
Then when your burger sales are flat you say, ahh well, nobody wants burgers?
This has got to be the circular logic of the century--can't you guys see that?
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