Post here if you're unhappy with CA support

[oompalumpa]

I am severly disappointed with CA customer support. I will spend my money on one of the many similar but better supported games coming out soon.

[Colovion]

I was exceptionally happy with them as a company BEFORE the demo.

I recall ranting about how they've reinstated faith in me as a consumer of these entertaiment packages which transport us back into the times of old, reenacting our own famour glory filled sagas. Ensemble Studios now holds the last bastion for me on that end.

/signed

[Julius_Nepos]

You know it took me a while to actually figure out what the problem was here regarding the customer support rendered by CA, now that I have however, I would like to make a few comments if I may.

First of all, as far as I know Activision holds all the purse strings. They control all the money. I.E. no money, no patch. All the knowledge and reporting of bugs in the world will be for naught if there is no money or time to build a patch. If I'm wrong about this, let me know, but I've always been of the mind that the publisher holds all the strings when it comes to financing.

Secondly, I can understand the comments CA has made, whether or not I agree with them. In this kind of game opinion will vary from person to person, and it's really hard to tell whos point of view is accurate. I can no more say that CA is a bad company and wants to screw me over, than I can say that the community of players is 100% correct and deserves restitution, to be honest I don't know what is driving all this angst.

Thirdly, we, as consumers are directly responsible for this situation, not CA or Activision. Let me elaborate: Games are released with bugs because people will still buy them. CA could have released RTW as an unplayable pile of garbage and thousands and thousands of people would still have bought it on the day of release. In my own experience I couldn't get any enjoyment out of RTW until the 1.2 patch, when I finally got back into the game. Of course, my 49.95 had already been spent, and obviously I contribute to the problem. The fact is, game publishers want to release fast and when the profits will be highest and since for every person who complains about the issues there are thousands who don't care, the strategy works. The only way to stop this cycle is to refuse to buy games on release. To hit the publisher in the pocket book and refuse to pay for substandard product. Unfortunately I don't see that happening, ever. The games will be released in as "raw" a state as the consumer will be willing to accept. And, much of the time, we don't know if the game will be unplayable or perfect when the release date comes. This is all ecconomics and marketering, and our only recourse is to not play the game (pardon the pun).

Finally, I still enjoy RTW. In my case it's probably because I'm not that great a player on the campaign map and I still find some challenge in the game on hard difficulty (well not on the battle map, but anyway). I've always felt the design of RTW was overly complex in many places and if anything I think that's the games biggest weakness. Squallor being one of the most prominent examples of what I might consider a flawed attempt at designing difficulty into the game. We have to be careful, in that it is quite possible to mistake bad design for a bug, and vice versa. Anyway I just wanted to give my two cents, it's best not to be losing our minds over this sort of thing.

[Sol Invictus]

I don't think anyone; well not most; are losing their minds, I think it's because RTW is so good it just makes people mad. If there was any willingness by CA to be more flexible with their damn two patch limit this would not be such a huge issue. Hell, if they would even admit there is a problem and simply say that they simply can't patch it but would correct it in the expansion; there would be little concern. As it is now, I am doubtful if CA will even attampt to correct it since according to them, there is nothing to correct.

I used to enjoy waiting those last few days before the release date of games I had been following for months and even years; the anticipation was great; but after this fiasco, I will never buy a game on release day again. It's just not safe. Just a symptom of the sorry state of the gaming industry I guess. I really hope CA wakes up and at some point says that even though it's not a bug, the expansion will include a change that will eliminate the AI reassessment feature.

[HarunTaiwan]

Just imagine if the pri-sec bug had not been caught by the community in time for patch 2.

Very unhappy here and will wait 3 months until after expansion to buy the product.

Might I also recommend offering some BAD REVIEW ON AMAZON?

I think ';ll go there soon and leave one.

[Browning]

I am unhappy with their product support.
I will not buy anything from them anymore. I have other things to do than fighting bugs.

[Biggus Diccus]

I actually sold my copy of RTW to a neighbour. Be sure that I will not purchase RTW + xp unless CA fix some major issues. Meanwhile I am happy playing MTW VI.

[Jambo]

I'm not unhappy with the product. I accept games, particularly those of the strategy genre, are much bigger in size these days and will contain quite a few bugs on release. However, what I'm unhappy with is that despite games getting larger and more complex in nature (and therefore likely to contain more bugs), the patching policy has remained in the past and is no different to when CA released and supported Shogun TW.

Surely the level of support has to evolve at the same rate as the complexity and size of the game. To me, Rome TW is an prime example of what happens when this balance isn't maintained and support hasn't evolved with the complexity of the product. Other similar strategy titles like Civ3 and EU2 had MUCH better post-release support.

[Bhruic]

Thirdly, we, as consumers are directly responsible for this situation, not CA or Activision. Let me elaborate: Games are released with bugs because people will still buy them.

And, much of the time, we don't know if the game will be unplayable or perfect when the release date comes. This is all ecconomics and marketering, and our only recourse is to not play the game (pardon the pun).

And you've summed up the contradiction right there. No, it's not our fault as consumers, because we are left with no other way to decide if the product is good than buying the product. And once we've done so, few places allow us to return it if we didn't like it.

It's just like Gregoshi said in another thread, if all us choose to wait on the expansion to see if it's any good, how will we know if it's any good? Someone has to buy it to report to the rest of us.

Bh

[Julius_Nepos]

Bhruic has a point here, of course there is no way to know the condition of say, an expansion to RTW, unless someone goes out and buys it to find out. However, my point was more or less that publishers of games are willing to release shoddy product (often over the protests of the developers) since customer complaints will be few, and they'll still buy when the game comes out.

I was just making the point that the only way to ensure games come out with the fewest bugs possible is to NOT accept bug-riddled Games when they hit the shelves. This would involve word-of-mouth and actually convincing a majority of potential buyers not to buy. I don't know how anyone would do that, but if it could be done, AND if people were willing to wait another 6-12 months for their games, then we'd have much better product upon release. In alot of ways it is about changing the attitudes of BOTH the consumer and the publisher.

My excitement about the potential Barbarian Invasion expansion is the fact that it will likely cover the 5th century and the fall of Rome, a period of history of which I'm very familiar. Anyway hope it actually turns out to be what we've been waiting for. Cheers!

[tibilicus]

i dont meen to offend or grumble at the c.A but im unhappy that they hvnt updated there website. I dont think this belongs in this forum but any way. I would like to se a few more alternate desighns for units e.c.t. I dont want to many as to put peopl of buying an expanshion just a few more skins and also some bug fixers
;)

[tibilicus]

sorry i forgot to spell check

[Benny Moore]

I'm certainly not paying Creative Assembly any more.