Has anyone been to totalwar.com recently

[Old Celt]

CA is behaving in a less than honorable way toward the buyers of RTW. The right thing to do is to fix gamebreaking bugs immediately, and to do it in a free patch release. Imposing censorship on people who complain, no matter how bitterly, over LEGITIMATE issues, just shouldn't happen.

I develop software and know you cannot create perfection on the first shot with a large, sophisticated program. Users know this too, and they will be tolerant to a degree of the first effort. But once you address the issues and say, "We've done all we intend to do", as CA has, you then best better have a nearly perfect product, with no bugs rated as serious or critical. The HA bug is serious, the scarring issue is serious, and the save/reload bug borders on critical for its threat to good gameplay for many users. This is hardly the kind of stuff that should have escaped them, and they need to be accountable for their errors- EVEN IF IT COSTS THEM MONEY TO FIX!!

We aren't going to get fairness though, because CA has sold its corporate soul to the devil, and we will have to pay for fixes in the expansion pack which should have been caught with release 1.1 at the latest. Abusing your customers for short term gain is never a winning business plan.

I admit I'm hooked deeply enough on RTW to pay whatever for the expansion, but I'm disappointed at the lack of both pride in their work and business ethics the management of CA are displaying over this patch fiasco. To the management of CA: If you want to play in the big leagues, then be prepared to play professionally. If you want to be anything more than a "one hit wonder" remember the importance of doing your job right, and then standing by it to correct any errors on your part.

[Quietus]

Hasn't GilJaysmith already dropped a hint of another patch?

Ah, the .org... "Bless 'em" as we so often say here.

You're entitled to huddle together and worry pointlessly about the future, that doesn't hurt anyone. But you could all do us a favour by limiting negative comments about the game and CA to, "Well, I don't like the sound of that, so I probably won't buy or play it." Anything stronger than that - especially as you haven't seen any game assets as yet - and you're asking for a voodoo slap which you won't forget in a hurry...

On the other hand, if you emanate enough positive vibes, who knows what might happen in the very near future?

CA going console???

[Old Celt]

Quote:
Originally Posted by GilJaysmith
"Ah, the .org... "Bless 'em" as we so often say here.

You're entitled to huddle together and worry pointlessly about the future, that doesn't hurt anyone. But you could all do us a favour by limiting negative comments about the game and CA to, "Well, I don't like the sound of that, so I probably won't buy or play it." Anything stronger than that - especially as you haven't seen any game assets as yet - and you're asking for a voodoo slap which you won't forget in a hurry...

On the other hand, if you emanate enough positive vibes, who knows what might happen in the very near future?"

Talk about your pompous arrogance! Gee, I'm sorry if people complaining about serious bugs in the game (and providing research to back it up) offends you, CA. We haven't seen any game assets yet??? What do you call RTW release 1.0? How about release 1.1?? Ahh, release 1.2?? Please tell me that quote was taken out of context to something other than a discussion of patching serious flaws which have been proven to exist, and that any QA simpleton could have discovered in a single day of testing!!

They are the ones asking for serious bad karma if they think they can offend and alienate their customers. It seems to me that CA doesn't know the first thing about public relations or how to be thick skinned about criticism. All I would ask is that they fix serious issues in a patch right away, and do serious testing to validate that they work and haven't broken something else. If that's too much for their current staff, I can provide an e-mail address and they can contract me to teach them how to do proper QA.

I took CA's side in the beginning of the patching process, wanting to believe they intended to do the right thing. Two official patches later, most of the people I was arguing with have deserted the game, and probably won't spend another penny on CA software. They might be able to bs your average consumer, but I write code for a living, and know the customer is entitled to better.

And this: "On the other hand, if you emanate enough positive vibes, who knows what might happen in the very near future? "

Hey, I gave $50 worth of positive vibes, and thousands of words in defense of CA's software developer business ethics. My reward has been patches with kindergarten mistakes, and the statement above which amounts to CA telling me that they might help if I get on my knees and kiss their ass enough. That's some nerve, GilJaySmith!!

Now that SEGA owns them, perhaps they can rein in at least the outward display of arrogance some CA staff members seem to be prone to. They might try to stop the Nazi style censorship going on at other websites as well. At least SEGA has enough experience and staff to know better than to treat customers the way CA has over legitimate business issues.

[steve]

I do understand that it cant be 100% bug free first time, and agree that any bugs that have a major effect on game should in time be solved by CA.. I was just refferring to the fact that i see people searching and bitching about bugs you can hardly notice and that really do not effect the game play, just that buyers obession with 100% perfection . As far as the console game goes, i think its a good idea and will perhaps introduce RTW to many new people, i do not like the whole Fantasy part of it, i think that seems rather lame. I would rather see them try to produce games that are more historically accurate and that provide an entertainment and learning experince, rather then Zelda Total war or whatever the hell this game will be about. I think they mentioned dragons? i may offend people but the whole Fantasy thing just seems like something i picture 9 year olds playing because they dont have the patience nor the respect of history to deal with the historical aspect of it. Too bad Decisive Battles is off the air, that was a great show and the reason why i bought RTW.

[screwtype]

I develop software and know you cannot create perfection on the first shot with a large, sophisticated program. Users know this too, and they will be tolerant to a degree of the first effort. But once you address the issues and say, "We've done all we intend to do", as CA has, you then best better have a nearly perfect product, with no bugs rated as serious or critical. The HA bug is serious, the scarring issue is serious, and the save/reload bug borders on critical for its threat to good gameplay for many users. This is hardly the kind of stuff that should have escaped them, and they need to be accountable for their errors- EVEN IF IT COSTS THEM MONEY TO FIX!!

We aren't going to get fairness though, because CA has sold its corporate soul to the devil, and we will have to pay for fixes in the expansion pack which should have been caught with release 1.1 at the latest. Abusing your customers for short term gain is never a winning business plan.

I admit I'm hooked deeply enough on RTW to pay whatever for the expansion, but I'm disappointed at the lack of both pride in their work and business ethics the management of CA are displaying over this patch fiasco. To the management of CA: If you want to play in the big leagues, then be prepared to play professionally. If you want to be anything more than a "one hit wonder" remember the importance of doing your job right, and then standing by it to correct any errors on your part.

Geez, and to think you started off here by slamming everyone who dared to criticize CA. You've come a long way baby. LOL.

But I agree with your comments. The last straw for me was when a member of CA on this board recently confessed that Activision had exerted no pressure on CA and that all the design decisions in the game were CA's own. That and the fact he seemed to think the game is great because lots of folks have bought it - it's clear that CA are going to continue with their business strategy of appealing to the lowest common denominator at the expense of realism or anything else which might get in the way of maximum sales. Get ready for "Witches and Warlocks: Total War" people, because it's not far away...

[hrvojej]

The last straw for me was when a member of CA on this board recently confessed that Activision had exerted no pressure on CA and that all the design decisions in the game were CA's own. That and the fact he seemed to think the game is great because lots of folks have bought it - it's clear that CA are going to continue with their business strategy of appealing to the lowest common denominator at the expense of realism or anything else which might get in the way of a quick buck.

True. This, coupled with the sorry state of this game right now, is what led me to conclude that I will most likely obtain any future games from CA from the bargain bin, if at all.

This forum is still a nice place though, and the only reason I still hang out here sometimes.

[Craterus]

the forums on this site are really friendly and they're nice to come and "hang out". The Tavern is a cool forum!

[Simetrical]

The last straw for me was when a member of CA on this board recently confessed that Activision had exerted no pressure on CA and that all the design decisions in the game were CA's own.

Well, of course CA was the one that decided to make the game mass-market rather than realistic or whatever. No, the only thing I expect Activision is responsible for is the bad support. That's a very big thing, however.

The only design decision I really hold against CA was their failure to release so many modding tools to the public—we had to come up with tools like PAK extractors and CAS editors ourselves, we have to edit the many layers of the campaign map by hand, and so forth. The biggest thing CA left uneditable is the AI—true, it would be much harder to edit than anything yet released, but dedicated and skilled people like Vercingetorix could manage it if they didn't have to make basic tools like animation extractors. Other major annoyances are the hardcoding for the factions and the limitations of the scripting systems.

My future TW purchases will, in large part, probably be contingent on moddability. If Hun Invasion (or whatever the expansion will be) addresses enough of my modding complaints, you can bet I'll be buying it.

-Simetrical