Criticisms of CA... again

[CBR]

Well some of the harsh words has come from the MP community. A few of the remarks has been close to insulting. But these words come from a frustrated MP community that looks at a game that has gone back in time.

Some of the bugs and missing features makes RTW look like a combination of STW 1.0 and MTW 1.0. At this stage the MP community would be busy complaining about faction/unit balance now its fighting just to get features back that we have been used to for years.

CA has clearly outdone themselves with the SP campaign but for lots of multiplayers RTW has been a complete letdown. The developers that visits Org are not even to blame for it as most of the problems comes from higher level design decisions, so its sad they have to listen to all the bitching here. But its not easy not to say something when you are as frustrated as I know several MP'ers are.


CBR

[Thoros of Myr]

As someone that has been a consumer and supporter of select games that I feel represent the best of electronic entertainment for most of my life I have never seen a game that was abandoned leave people with a good taste in thier mouth. I have seen games better supported, better patched, developers better understood and represented in forums where both consumers and developers are vocal about thier concerns and issues. In such an environment brand loyalty is bred even in spite of problems.

It's not a pleasant sight to view the fallout where consumers have been abandoned...it's makes this place look like a petting zoo.

No one is helping the game one bit by putting words like "stupid", "idiotic", "retarded", etc in their descriptions of what CA have accomplished.

Agreed. Frustration and immaturity all too often get the better of people.

[TigerVX]

Better patched? It hasn't even been out for a month yet >>;;;.

[Thoros of Myr]

Better patched? It hasn't even been out for a month yet >>;;;.

I'm not talking about RTW specificly in that sentance, I'm talking about games I have seen in the past.

[Quietus]

Thx Tamur for posting this. I guess we are all guilty of frustration at one point or the other, however, nobody can deny this is a fabulous game! If the game is "garbage", I'll be the first person to throw the tomato and jump off the Total War ship. Thankfully, that's not the case

Thus, let's all make criticism that are to the point and antiseptic (meaning, less driven by emotion and sarcasm). The game isn't even a month old too, so thrashing it badly is premature especially with patch 1.2 in the horizon. The devs who visit do acknowledge issues that are to be patched, so I'm not really sure about the big ruckus?

[Encaitar]

When I saw the title for this thread I thought "okay, what are they having a go at the devs for this time". Pleasantly surprised to see that my expectation was wrong.

Personally I am very impressed by the amount of interaction CA have with the Org forums. For many games, the Devs seem to be quite stand-offish, and only post announcements, never engage in discussion or question-answering, but that's not the case here. It's also worth remembering that these aren't the Official forums. The Devs could very reasonably be expected to completely ignore this place, and only interact with the .com forums. Thankfully they visit both, which is something else worth keeping in mind.

I tend to check the org forums once or twice a day. And in the Colosseum, there's regularly 2 or 3 pages worth of threads with new posts. That's a hell of a lot to keep up with. Over at the .com, there's even more. Despite how long and tiresome this would get, CA do regularly read the forums. Just because they do not respond, doesn't mean they aren't listening and taking what's being said on board. Personally, I'd far prefer them to be spending time working on the game (e.g. fixing bugs and adding more features) than spending all day responding to every post sent their way on both .com and .org forums.

Of course, there does need to be some communication, but I think generally it's pretty good. Bear in mind that most of the threads that get started yelling "BUG" or "CA DO THIS" are things that have already been said dozens of times before in almost identical threads. In many cases, the Devs have actually already responded to an earlier incarnation of the thread.

They do have to be a bit careful with what they say too. Better to under-promise and over-deliver than vice versa. And some things they would be unable to discuss for various reasons.

Just generally, and I think this was the main point of Tamur's post, try to be polite and constructive with your criticism. There have been a couple of instances where people have gone and done some extensive testing on an issue, presented their results clearly and politely, and said "so in conclusion, this looks like a bug to me", to which the Devs have been happy to respond "hey, you're right, thanks, we'll go fix that".

They may not always respond, but they're listening. And if you doubt it, go read the credits again.

[Captain Fishpants]

In the spirit of this thread being reasonable and communicative I thought I'd reply to prove that we do come here and pay attention.

Rather than having ciggie breaks and standing like a dampened loon in the car park developing a nasty cough, I tend to have a flick through the forums (fora?) a few times each day. I'm not the only one, and we tend to share the details of the wittier/funnier/more trenchant/well argued posts too.

So where we are at the moment is this: we're collating material for a patch and looking at the issues that need to be addressed. This is based on user feedback gathered in the many - and largely enthusiastic - responses that we have here and elsewhere. I tend to view even the grumbles as significant, because if you have the energy to come and grumble, then you felt involved by the game. Reasoned comments get through the signal-to-noise filter; unreasoned - and unreasonable - rants tend to be treated as the work of monkey typists. See, it's not nice, is it?

It is a turn off to be told that we are a bunch of ne'er-do-wells (and that is politely paraphrasing the thrust of the remarks) who have somehow destroyed all your hopes, your future and your children with our cruelty in providing entertainment at reasonable cost. Truly, we are fiends incarnate (although Intrepid Sidekick doesn't look good in red - he looks like one of Santa's elves gone to the Dark Side). I look forward every day to stroking a white cat and plotting your collective downfall.

The truth is more prosaic (ooh, look it up) - we are trying to do something damn difficult, and do it well. Very well. The market, the reviewers and most people seem to think we've succeeded. But that doesn't mean we're ignoring people here or anywhere else.

Why do you think we bothered to give the forums - and the Org in particular - a "special thanks" in the credits, after all? So, if you're in need of a hug from the devs...



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