Multiplayer is the future

[CBR]

Well to be honest I dont think MP campaign is worth it. Yes it would be nice to have but would it be worth the effort?

How many people play Civ online? Spartans made 1v1 campaign available IIRC but dont know how much that online option is used. Games like that are the ones we have to compare with for Total War.

What Im disappointed with is how the current MP part of Total War is kept down with bugs and missing features. It doesnt feel like its moving forward at all. Sure we got a few new features in and thats great but from a player point of view it seems like we lost a few features and got a few bugs for each feature added.


CBR

[Tamur]

Looking in from outside the MP community, I can see that a lot of the comments being made are simply reactions to a disappointment that the MP niche wasn't more the focus of development. This thread has been a bit surprising to follow --- I really hope that MP is not the future of gaming.

Why? Because I value innovation -- it's what brought me to Shogun -- and innovation simply does not succeed in multiplayer gaming. "Evolution not revolution" is the phrase you hear large MP/MMO design teams quoting over and over.

Consider Uru and A Tale In the Desert. One dead, one living, both very interesting concepts. ATITD is a fun game, but the degree to which ATITD has succeeded wouldn't float even a medium-sized development team, let alone marketing, testing, admin, etc etc.

[FearZeus]

There are now over 300 people on the list, as I said I speak for 300 plus people who play MP!
This game is full of bugs and lag which makes this game unplayable, if this is CA's way forward I wish them every success and bid farewell. I have better things in which to spend my time other than be accused of ranting by someone under CA's supervision which coincidently just happens to be the company that has taken my money for the last 5 years or so.

Do yourselves a favour CA, listen to what YOUR customers are asking for! that way you will have a much more profitable business, have you guys ever heard of the customer is always right? I rest my case!

[AMP]

if you have any common sense you can tell if your gonna fail or do great with mp.

ever play civ online and spartan? i did and you can easly see why there aren't many playing it online... look at the graphics, lobby, and support for the games. now take a look at warcraft3.. hmm i wonder why that has so many players online.. zzz

i'd play a mp campaign. you don't need a full out campaign, just atleast 4 players max to start. they have the graphics and nice battles to keep me playing a campaign for yrs, just like i've been playing the battles online for 4yrs. like the others say.. reason why it's so small is not much has changed.

how many players online playing at once would be worth it to focus online.. thousands, 36,000+ like warcraft3, or 100,000? to be honest i think if rtw had stable mp campaign and a nice lobby with very few bugs we would reach 5,000+ maybe, that isn't enough? were up to 350 or more at times with how messy it is now, so i'm sure they could make it into the thousands.

it maybe a good thing others have failed to make a good mp campaign online. they can be the 1st to do it with the nice 3d battles. i mean you'll have the battles on top of mp campaign to play...

anyway that's my view on it

[Alrowan]

talk about a thread bowing out, as it stands, RTW is a fine game, we arent saying its anything less, all we are asking is that MP takes more consideration than just 2 hours before the game is released (mind the sarcasm)

Even if CA invested 10-20% more of the time they spent on MP, in improving MP, i know that most of the issues would be solved, a tweak to the interface here, changing a value there, and then we would have something that at least many of us would be more than happy with.

PS. logfiles are essentual for tourneys, please include them in the next patch

[FearZeus]

Wish I could bring myself round to play SP, but playing a computers AI does nothing for me, I will take everyones word about SP being great and appologize for not looking at it! But I have never played a game that involves AI.

[d6veteran]

To the CA developers, I can sympathize with the agony (and fortunately not relate) of working so hard on something and then have strangers rant and bitch up a storm and call names. I have a lot of respect for you guys and am a hug fan of TW. I've come to your defense before on this board specifically when the "monkey" reference was thrown out.

I apologize for that kind of treatment. Sincerely it sucks.

The SP game was genius. No argument there!

The MP game that was released was worse than most betas I've played. That isn't an excuse for some of the harsh criticism you've had to weather on the 'fan' boards, but it does at least give an explanation for the tempers and rants.

Pipe dreaming? Come one now! The things that have been asked for and even the idea I proposed isn't even in the same ball park as the ideas that bore fruit in the RTW single player! Am I too believe that the great minds behind the single player would write off pretty straightfoward fixes and ideas for the multiplayer as pipe dreams?

Bah! :D

I talk till the sun goes down and it probably won't change what CA wants or doesn't want to do with the multiplayer. But why can't we at least have a position on it?

Why can't you take a break from lapping up all the kudos for the single player and tell us what the hell happened to the multiplayer on release? I mean jeez, whether it is 1% or 50%, you put multiplayer in the game, added it as a feature on the box and what? What happened to it? Seriously.

Dionysus made a very valid point. I can attest to the number of people who refused to play MTW multiplayer due to all the headaches of logging on through GameSpy. I would say 50% of the people that casually tried out the multiplayer didn't get past the CD key or GameSpy profile issues. And I am certain that estimate is a conservative one. I worked in usability studies at MS and 2 other software companies and the MTW/GameSpy ui was highly confusing and botched.

Multiplayer is the future. Go out and find some gamers and ask them what they really want. Unless I live in some sort of bubble, over half the people you talk to are going to want a robust multiplayer experience.

Calling it pipe dreaming is a cop out. You guys have delivered a pipe dream and I bet you're working on a nother one right now in skunk works.

So tell us, what happened to the multiplayer? If you trully only think 1% cares, then give us the truth. The worst that can happen is a percentage of that 1% stops buying your games. Big deal.

[SpencerH]

I'm glad I ran across this thread. Since becoming bored with CIV3, I've been convinced that purely MP games (without SP AI limitations) are the future of gaming. No AI can compete with the deviousness, inventiveness, and fun of playing against a human. I have no doubt that developing such games will be a risk, but a team that can design and code a game as complex as RTW could build an awesome game without AI.

[d6veteran]

No AI can compete with the deviousness, inventiveness, and fun of playing against a human. I have no doubt that developing such games will be a risk, but a team that can design and code a game as complex as RTW could build an awesome game without AI.

I think that is the best summary of what we are all trying say!

[soso]

Warning: this post is made by a consumer and is purely a personal comment. The Author assumes no affiliation with any organization, clan, business or other entity, save for being a part of the general Multi-Player community at large. Comments may offend some CA representatives or their wannabees. Read on at your own risk.

I have been a customer from the first release of the series and I too was looking for a similar experience that the two prior versions had offered (Shogun and Medieval). Unfortunately, this did not happen with Rome much to my chagrin, in fact, for me, this was totally unexpected. I usually like to nurture the hope that there is something better to be sought or learned from a bad experience. I had heard various new elements that were to be included in MP, new campaigns and other things that gave me butterflies in my stomach in anticipation.

Rome had been touted as the next great game in the Total War series. Well maybe I misunderstood what that meant so I looked up the word series to be certain and sure enough, it was as I thought: (from the Merriam-Webster Dictionary) Series, noun: a succession of volumes or issues published with related subjects or authors, similar format and price.

Rome is not in the same format, but it is the same PRICE! So okay there are many issues that need to be resolved, we have presented them and are continuing to do so, in fact I think the petition is up to around 400 names now over at the NET. However…

To add insult to injury, it is apparent CA will do nothing to alter the present state of affairs. What’s more, it is overwhelmingly apparent that the CA employees posting here have no authority to do anything about this situation, by their own admission. So why waste time and effort talking to the wall. CA and their staff would do well to at least be honest with their customers. Yet they have proven they use tactics and methods meant to deceive and mislead customers and what borders on false advertising in order to get sales. Good show chaps.

I’ll waste no more time on CA or their employees until such time as they change their policy and views. Similar to what Bachus said earlier, I have spent approximately $850 in total on the Total War series, buying for myself, family and friends so we can all play together and enjoy the online experience. If they want my business and that of my family and friends, they will have to earn it. CA has seen the last cent from me and those I brought into the series. Although Rome will not be traded in or thrown away (I am a collector of games), I will unload it from my computers, pack it away and set in on the shelf with all the other games I do not play anymore.

Instead, I will continue to play other true MP games and enjoy a pleasant online experience with friends and family, no frustrations or anxiety, and be saddened by the ultimate demise and death or the Total War MP aspect of the game. SP is okay the first couple of times, afterwards it is repetitive and boring, no matter how good it looks.

I join the thousands now playing Warhammer 40k: Dawn of War and soon Lord of the Rings: The Battle for Middle Earth and World of Warcraft. These companies, Relic, Blizzard, THQ and EA are focused solely on the MP community, where I am and want to be.

Like a friend of mine likes to say all the time:

Enough words lost.

Cheers CA and good luck with all your SP endeavors.

SoSo

[FearZeus]

Very well said indeed SoSo ;) i'll drink to that m8

[Angel of Deception]

Wow! One of my old accounts is still here! Neat-o!

Thanks Zeus. BTW are you buying?

[Lazy O]

Just saw the date......


*epic facepalm*

[Ludens]

The point has been made, guys. Lay off of Takeda, please.