Has anyone been to totalwar.com recently

[Intrepid Sidekick]

Will there be an expansion?

Why wouldnt there be one?
Dont expect me to tell you what it is though.

Will we continue making "Total War" games?

Of course.
Why would we be so stupid as to knock a good thing on the head?
As above, don't expect me to tell you what the next version will be.
Just take it from us that it will be great and it will knock any competition in to a hat.

Do we care about the quality of our games?

Yes. Deeply.
I can't think of any other reason for the amount of time and work we put in to producing our games.
We would all rather make great games than work in a dull 9-5 office or produce "run of the mill clones".
I, as do many here, smile ruefully when certain people suggest we don't care or that monkey typists could do better. Perhaps this comes about from a misunderstanding of just how many and how complex the mechanisms we put in place are, to get the game to a playable state, let alone the polished state we like to aim for.
As we live in a real world, we have to deal with some limitations in terms of money and manpower and thus also in terms of time. The result is that we can miss stuff or get it wrong And for this we are very sorry.

So before you put the boot in any more, pause, take a breath, and think about it.
How many strategy/battle games with a 3D camapign map, thousands of 3d troops on 3D battlefields are there out there, that allow you to play the Roman Empire?
And how many of those are better than RTW?

Dont worry. We wont rest on our laurels. And keep the faith.

Yours sincerely

Intrepid Sidekick
C.A Staff

[AussieGiant]

Thanks for the input Sidekick.

I do read between your lines though and it says no patch but an expansion before Xmas this year.

Again thanks for taking the time to jump in.

[Captain Fishpants]

Sidekick was far nicer than I intended. I apologise for that.

[AussieGiant]

Sidekick was far nicer than I intended. I apologise for that.

Sidekick...Fishpants....hell you guys are coming out of the wood work all over the place at the moment.

Keep up the good work fellas

[Old Celt]

Thanks for the replies, CA guys.

I want to say that though my criticism of the patch situation is harsh, RTW still remains the best military game I've ever played, and it is my favorite. I will eagerly await the expansion, and buy it regardless of the open bug issues.

I stand by my statements about quality and how I think customers should be treated. Having said that, I do understand that sometimes, management policy just won't allow you to do the right thing you so desperately wish to do. I have left some jobs because of this kind of conflict between what you know is right, and what managers will allow.

Rome Total War is a terrific game. You at CA deserve all the kudos you received, the GOTY status, and the good sales that accompany all that. I'm sure many here on this forum can recall high praise I've given for a job well done in the game concept, design, and particularly the implementation of the morale system which I think is groundbreaking.

I don't wish to "put the boot in" any further. It is painful for me to be critical of other developers, because I know how such criticism can feel when it's directed at me. Please believe me, CA, you have plenty of respect for your capabilities, this matter of bug fixes relates much more to management policy IMHO.

It may be to everyone's best interest if an official communication could be made from CA or Sega to clear up the matter of whether any action will be taken officially to fix the save load bug between now and the presumed expansion. To my thinking, only the save/load bug is a critical problem. Simple mods fix most other bugs that are of any consequence, and most of us could probably accept that.

Again, I wish to thank the CA staff who have responded, and sincerely hope the lines of communication will remain open. None of us would be posting here if we didn't have a deep interest in the game.

[Attalus]

Sidekick was far nicer than I intended. I apologise for that.

LMFAO!!

[Browning]

And for this (deficiences of the code - Browning) we are very sorry

Dont worry. We wont rest on our laurels. And keep the faith.

Yours sincerely

Intrepid Sidekick
C.A Staff

I daresay this is the answer we were waiting for. Thank you very much.

[SpencerH]

So before you put the boot in any more, pause, take a breath, and think about it.

Sorry, I cant resist. I usually avoid (physical) confrontations, but once they start my training (and experience) tells me to finish it.

How many strategy/battle games with a 3D camapign map, thousands of 3d troops on 3D battlefields are there out there, that allow you to play the Roman Empire?
And how many of those are better than RTW?

How many such games am I playing?

0.

The serious bugs need to be fixed.

[ToranagaSama]

Will there be an expansion?

How many strategy/battle games with a 3D camapign map, thousands of 3d troops on 3D battlefields are there out there, that allow you to play the Roman Empire?
And how many of those are better than RTW?

[snip]

Intrepid Sidekick
C.A Staff

PMFJI, but I haven't been around in awhile, and I can't resist.

In answer to your question, there are TWO:

1) Shogun: Total War

and

2) Medieval: Total War.


In addition, one must mention the effort of WesW and his MedMod, which frankly is the supreme Total War incarnation.

BTW, regarding "keeping the faith", I believe you may be among the many *Newbies* that RTW has brought forth (including devs), and consequently may not be aware, but there are a goodly number of the Total War faithful who have been "keeiping the faith" behind The Creative Assembly's promise, NOTE: that is a paid my hard earned money for promise, of a Multiplay Campaign.

Keeping the faith? How long has it been? 3, 4 YEARS!
RTW is a royal screwing of the faithful.
Sorry, my *faith* well runneth dry....

[Shambles]

TW web site Sux lol.
Rome Tw sux lol :)

I dont care what they do any more tell you the truth,
CA arent as good as ea when it coemes to the Tw games, but
EA let me down by closing server so i no longer Buy any of there games after all whos to say All there games wont suffer same fate,


and personaly With the patches so far I hope they Stop playing with things they dont understand :P
still cant complain all day,
Still love shogun,
but I played rome tw again today
(thing still sux compared to shougun )

lol im gonna leave now b4 i start really complaining.

[Ser Clegane]

CA arent as good as ea when it coemes to the Tw games

I'm not sure if you are aware that CA is the developer of all TW games. EA was just the publisher for STW as Activision was for MTW and RTW.

[starkhorn]

Will there be an expansion?
Do we care about the quality of our games?

Yes. Deeply.
I can't think of any other reason for the amount of time and work we put in to producing our games.
We would all rather make great games than work in a dull 9-5 office or produce "run of the mill clones".
I, as do many here, smile ruefully when certain people suggest we don't care or that monkey typists could do better. Perhaps this comes about from a misunderstanding of just how many and how complex the mechanisms we put in place are, to get the game to a playable state, let alone the polished state we like to aim for.
As we live in a real world, we have to deal with some limitations in terms of money and manpower and thus also in terms of time. The result is that we can miss stuff or get it wrong And for this we are very sorry.

Ok so if you really care about the quality of your games then how about requesting to your boss that a patch is released to finalise the last issues created or left over from patch 1.2.

If your boss or whoever says no, then how about asking that you fix the bug in your spare time and release an unofficial patch.

The main issues that I'm talking about are

(1) Why is the AI no longer as agressive in v1.2 as it was in v1.0 ? I'm only really able to play 1 or 2 turns per session, but the AI doesn't seem to be doing anything agressive against me whilst in v1.0 I was fighting for my life in the early stages. No or little regions seems to ever change hands.

(2) Why are fewer ships being built in v1.2 as opposed to v1.0 ?

(3) After uninstalling RTW and then attempting to reinstall RTW v1.2 patch, it's impossible to re-install patch v1.2 as it thinks that it's already installed.

If you really except us to believe that your care then prove it but so far the actions from CA suggest otherwise.

Ignoring posts about potential issues, making no statements about patches and finally having a CA staff member on .com forum stating that a seige loadgame bug is not a bug but indeed a "feature" (or that the AI is simply thick), all suggest to me a company that doesn't care about the quality of it's games and more especially that it doesn't care about the customers who bought said games.

So come on CA, prove that you really care and prove it. But why come along and make posts saying that customers are silly for thinking that you don't care about the quality of your games when your actions (or rather lack of actions) suggest otherwise.

Cheers
Starkhorn

[Cruelsader]

You can chose to sit around and whine for weeks on end or you can roll up your sleeves and try to nail down this bug.

I guess that you are trying to balance negative reactions but .... why could not CA simply make a request to provide all the information they need to test whether there is a bug? Just out of courtesy, does not even matter whether they have done it before or whether they need the information .... The more I think of, the clearer it becomes to me that CA is in a desperate need for a (more) professional PR.

Finally - and some of you may choose not to believe this, if you wish - I'm not in a position to make any kind of official statement about patches or expansion packs until or unless they have been subject to a formal announcement. Long industry experience means that I'm not inclined to make informal comments on these matters either.

Personally, I am glad for this clear statement. I wish there were more like it.

And I would be even happier to see more posts like this. (Plus, I strongly believe that such communication would make reading the forum less frustrating experience for CA staff.)

Will there be an expansion?

Why wouldnt there be one?
Dont expect me to tell you what it is though.

Will we continue making "Total War" games?

Of course.
Why would we be so stupid as to knock a good thing on the head?
As above, don't expect me to tell you what the next version will be.
Just take it from us that it will be great and it will knock any competition in to a hat.

Do we care about the quality of our games?

Yes. Deeply.
I can't think of any other reason for the amount of time and work we put in to producing our games.
We would all rather make great games than work in a dull 9-5 office or produce "run of the mill clones".
I, as do many here, smile ruefully when certain people suggest we don't care or that monkey typists could do better. Perhaps this comes about from a misunderstanding of just how many and how complex the mechanisms we put in place are, to get the game to a playable state, let alone the polished state we like to aim for.
As we live in a real world, we have to deal with some limitations in terms of money and manpower and thus also in terms of time. The result is that we can miss stuff or get it wrong And for this we are very sorry.

So before you put the boot in any more, pause, take a breath, and think about it.
How many strategy/battle games with a 3D camapign map, thousands of 3d troops on 3D battlefields are there out there, that allow you to play the Roman Empire?
And how many of those are better than RTW?

Dont worry. We wont rest on our laurels. And keep the faith.

Yours sincerely

Intrepid Sidekick
C.A Staff