In beta?

[Spino]

CA made a mistake there then!, i mean take a look at the Morrowind community, how long ago was that game released & yet people are still playing it, this is mainly because of the 1000s of good mods that are out there,bethseda gave a good construction set along with the game, but its those mods that have kept people in the game for years, & as a result the community is buzzing about new game oblivion(cant wait)
MTW xl 2.0 was an excellent if not the best tw mod, same with the total realism guys alot of good work, theve kept me in the game for a while,
come on CA, a little more modder friendly please

Ah, Morrowind. The perfect example of an incredibly large, complex and successful game that was supported to the fullest by the developer and publisher. Activison seems to have selectively ignored the phenomenal success and lessons learned from Morrowind (or for that matter, Starcraft, Diablo or Half Life). Morrowind on its own or combined with its expansion packs is a MASSIVE and incredibly, complicated game that was greenlit for patches numerous times by Bethesda. Furthermore said patches were released independently of the the expansion packs, meaning you didn't have to fork over $20-30 just to get bug fixes and additional tweaks for the original. I jumped on the Morrowind bandwagon from the beginning and was amazed as the support for the game kept on coming as the months passed. Bethesda made good by listening to the Morrowind community and allowed the game to be patched numerous times. The same could be said about Bioware and Atari regarding Neverwinter Nights. However it is clear Activision simply does not give a crap about Rome and the TW community beyond their two patch agreement with CA.

Best of all was the jaw dropping moddability of Morrowind thanks to the inclusion of the developer's incredibly powerful editing tools. This alone made Morrowind the most moddable game I've ever seen. Users could not only edit the game to their hearts content but they even fixed a surprising number of bugs before Bethesda patched them! The amount of user made mods for Morrowind is simply astounding, I wonder just how many man hours went into creating all of them! Given all the factors I've mentioned (as well as the fact that Morrowind was a great game) I could not be more enthusiastic about Morrowind's sequel, Oblivion.

I refuse to place the blame for RTW's shortcomings squarely on CA's shoulders. Not that CA isn't somewhat responsible for that which we find disappointing about RTW but let's face it, they're severely constricted in what they can do to support the TW community based on their contractual agreement with Activision. The die was cast once CA signed with Activison and began taking their money to make Rome. The bitter taste in everyone's mouth is how RTW was a perfect case of two steps forward, one step back. Two steps forward; great graphics, sound, completely new strategic map & gameplay, etc. and one giant step back; the tactical battles, which are the core element of the TW games, are tainted by the fact that the tactical AI is actually worse than it was in MTW:VI. Add to the mix the high speed, RTS clickfest nature of the battles, the blatantly ahistorical nature of some of the factions (i.e. Egypt) and the utter lack of alternative campaign goals (i.e. no Glorious Achievements) and the 'one step back' label is completely justified. This bitter taste is made that much worse by the fact that such a massive and complicated game is being limited by the publisher to two patches, one of which was issued immediately after its release solely to address MP problems! To limit a complicated game like this to two patches and apply a 'the rest will be fixed in the expansion' attitude is a clear signal from Activision that they simply don't give a f---k about their customers.

I consider myself a TW veteran and I certainly don't dislike Rome. It's a really good game. However, the fact that the tactical AI got the red headed stepchild treatment and is worse than the previous installment really gets my goat and prevents me from giving it higher marks.

[Colovion]

So basically CA needs to get in bed with a new publisher.... or alternatively stick it to the man like VALVe did.