Shogun's response to patch campaign

[Old Celt]

Criticism is one thing, sabotage is another.

What exactly are you getting at? I see such terms as "guerilla warfare", and "perpetrators" being thrown around pretty loosely in Shogun's rant. It would be nice if he would have been specific about the nature of his accusations.

If he is refering to reviews being written about RTW, then I don't agree with him. People have every right to rate things as they choose, provided they can back up their statements. I don't consider harsh reviews to be any more of an attack on CA, then I would a harsh movie review to be an attack on Paramount. If people don't agree with what is said in a review, they are free to review themselves and set things straight as they see them. That's freedom of speech in action.

[Colovion]

Dear Shogun

If you don't like seeing people complaining about the game then you've chosen the wrong forum to moderate. Reality check. Your hopes of a candy and flowers forum don't coincide with the reality of a large number of unsatisfied people in the community. It's disconcerting to see that closed-minded and ignorant people such as yourself are in a position of authority. I hope you can accept the fact that people have opinions and feel the need to share them with others. Can't take the heat? Get out of the kitchen.

Sincerely,

A devoted member of the Total War Community.

[Bel]

Well, one thing we know about CA is they're not the biggest fans of free speech or dissent. Everything written in those reviews is true, if they think the truth reflects poorly on them, their game, and their reputations they are finally correct about something. It does.

[Crazed Rabbit]

I bought this game, paid good money for it.

Now, I say there's a problem with their product, and their response is "We don't want to listen to your complaints. Anyone else complaining will be banned. Get out, then come back and buy the XP when its out."

Well, I won't buy your XP pack then, and you can moderate an empty forum all you want, striking down invisible flamers and locking all threads not praising you.

Crazed Rabbit

[aphex]

I've been an active part in the loadgame threads over there, but I just can't agree with the way it's gone external in this anti-CA bugfix crusade...
IMO, it would have been a lot more contained if ye olde Killemall moderator hadn't inflamed the situation several times.
Still... maybe his posts were meant to inflame so the thread could be 'legally' R&R'd..?

[Bhruic]

Asking the mods of the forum to allow threads aimed at hurting the image of RTW is a little silly, imo. It's like asking a store owner to let you in his store to hand out flyers asking people to boycott his store. If you want to stand outside the store (ie, public property, in this case, create your own forum), by all means, do so. But expecting him to cooperate is just asking too much.

While I think this crackdown may be going too far in suppressing opinions of the game, I would, in their position, be doing the same thing. Except I'd have booted "Killemall" from the mod team for his flagarant exacerbation of the situation.

Bh

[marcusbrutus]

CA have a fair point when they say that they arn't making another patch because it's not up to them. The suits only care about the bottom line .

Everyone who bought the game has a fair point that it should do what it says on the tin. I want a challenging game, not a challenge to play the game for as long as possible without loading .

I hope the expansion pack fixes the 'statistical fluke' and I'll find out because I'll buy it because I really enjoy playing Total War.

All in all, Total War rocks and I don't care that it's broken, all my best toys get broken and I dont care! It's MORE of a challenge for eagle eye action man can't see what's next to him

Sorry lost it a bit.

[Puzz3D]

Most people are satisfied with the RTW. Those that are unsatisfied are in the minority, and would do well to understand that they're debating from a minority position. If a minority becomes too demanding they will be locked out.

The one patch policy is nothing new. (I don't count v1.1 because that was an emergency fix for MP.) This is how all the games in the series have been handled going all the way back to the first game: STW. It would have been unprecidented for CA to make a v1.3 patch. One patch has never solved all the problems in these games, so you end up buying the second patch in the form of an add-on. The problem for me is that I no longer believe that CA will address the remaining issues to my satifaction even in the add-on. It just too obvious now that CA is not trying to maintain a high level of quality in the gameplay. The fact that many things in the game don't work as they should seems to be ok with CA, ok with the majority of the players and ok with the professional reviewers. It's only a minority of the players who would like to see the game come close to its potential.

[screwtype]

The problem for me is that I no longer believe that CA will address the remaining issues to my satifaction even in the add-on. It just too obvious now that CA is not trying to maintain a high level of quality in the gameplay. The fact that many things in the game don't work as they should seems to be ok with CA, ok with the majority of the players and ok with the professional reviewers. It's only a minority of the players who would like to see the game come close to its potential.

You know, I have to take issue with that. CA spent four years developing this game! That is hardly what you'd expect from a company that doesn't care about its products.

More likely Activision blew the whistle and forced them to release before it was quite ready. Either that or the code has just proven too complex to fix. But I don't think one can assume they don't care about their games or their customers. After all, they've given us five great games and expansion packs, most of which have been very well received.

I just hope that when it comes to the XP, they have paid attention to some of the criticisms of RTW, particularly the complaints about quick battles and the less than ideal campaign and battle AI. If they fix these things, and also design it to be as moddable as possible, then I can probably live with a few minor bugs

[Colovion]

Asking the mods of the forum to allow threads aimed at hurting the image of RTW is a little silly, imo. It's like asking a store owner to let you in his store to hand out flyers asking people to boycott his store. If you want to stand outside the store (ie, public property, in this case, create your own forum), by all means, do so. But expecting him to cooperate is just asking too much.

While I think this crackdown may be going too far in suppressing opinions of the game, I would, in their position, be doing the same thing. Except I'd have booted "Killemall" from the mod team for his flagarant exacerbation of the situation.

Bh

I see your point, seeing as it is the main site and all.

However, (and you knew there had to be one) the least they could do is setup one single thread that says "List your Gripes Here" and close all seperate threads.

A community that is discouraged from posting their concerns on the official website is going to find somewhere else (The Amazon ordeal). Would CA rather have people posting in their main site, where they can control it, or in a public area? Sounds like they've made their choice and they can't understand why no one likes it.

[SpencerH]

It's been repeatedly stated the Amazon campaign and its results are not up for discussion - Cat

[Satyr]

After having exchanged a couple emails with one of the staff at CA I think the problem is one of lack of communications from CA and the fact that CA can't fix the problem because of Activision. Even if they wanted to distribute another patch I don't think they can. Rome belongs to Activision and I don't think anything will be different until the first game or expansion is released under Sega. If after that happens and CA fails to deliver a decent game or reasonable patches I will abandon CA all together. Till then I will maintain hope that they do GET it but can't do anything other than what they are doing.

[Ab Urbe Condita]

I see your point, seeing as it is the main site and all.

However, (and you knew there had to be one) the least they could do is setup one single thread that says "List your Gripes Here" and close all seperate threads.

A community that is discouraged from posting their concerns on the official website is going to find somewhere else (The Amazon ordeal). Would CA rather have people posting in their main site, where they can control it, or in a public area? Sounds like they've made their choice and they can't understand why no one likes it.

As far as I can tell, the Shogun has only promised to ban people "set on damaging the TW series." You make it sound like he's vowed to ban anyone who comes to the forums with a complaint.

[Crazed Rabbit]

I'm sorry.

I got carried away in my anger at their patronization. I have edited the post.

Crazed Rabbit

[hoom]

For quoting whats in my sig I was accused here by a CA staff member of being destructive.

I've been playing Medieval since.
Why? Because my N.I. (natural intelligence) decided that indeed I would be better off doing something other than playing RTW.

Many did it before me and many will do it after but all because they are not satisfied.

Fundamentally as I see it CA themselves & Activision are doing the most damage to the TW series by poor design decisions and long term poor support.

I have not partaken in campaigns against CA just argued for better support.

[starkhorn]

IMO, it would have been a lot more contained if ye olde Killemall moderator hadn't inflamed the situation several times.
Still... maybe his posts were meant to inflame so the thread could be 'legally' R&R'd..?

I agree that the whole review thing on amazon probably wouldn't have happened if the moderation and communication had been handled better. I don't understand though how they can lock and ban people from making posts disagreeing with shogun, whilst leaving threads open that agree with them.

http://p223.ezboard.com/fshoguntotal...ID=24780.topic

Even more strange was I had seen a post after Killemall's post which basically said "isn't this double standards ?" which appears to have been deleted.

Doing stuff like that has only inflamed the situation (as Aphex said) leading to the whole amazon and email campaign thing.

Shame that moderation policies got in the way of game issues.

Cheers
Starkhorn