Yet another revelation of lost features

[Kraxis]

True enough, but not as you might think. This has nothing to do with the game working badly, but to do with the features that never made it into the game.

I was looking through the files in UI (need to be unpacked though) and happened to look at the tga files of MESSAGES. What a treasure of dusty old and forgotten features and messageimages. There are images for almost ever instance in the game. Even lowly instances such as that of hiring a unit or retraining it (even agents). But those that were interesting were those of the spies and assassins. There are images for kidnapping, rescues, scandals, thefts and poisoning the water. Another set of images related to decimation of the army (cool image btw), creation of new cities and wonders, various other means of taking cities (threatening and infiltrating), recruitment of ancillary unit (must be taken to mean auxiliary), named ancillaries and a whole lot of disasters...

I must say that the developers at CA had high hopes for the game. Just too bad none of these made it.

[Marcus Maxentius]

Some of those would've fleshed out diplomacy and more reasons to go to war other than I like your land now give it to me.

[slackker]

perhaps u could post this in the mod forumn, and let the modders have a look :)
after all its the modders who still keep the game on my hdd ;)

Cheers

[tai4ji2x]

i doubt modders could do that much. seems like lots of hard-coded stuff. or at least we don't know the triggers/codes/whatever to enable certain actions/events

[Marcus Maxentius]

couldn't it also be a brainstorming list or stuff that was sketched not but never seriously worked on past the planning stage? Pictures and words might all that is there.

[Oaty]

Perhaps in the exp pack.

Quite a few games have unused features in the files and suddenly they become alive on the next release.

[Ginger]

Out of interest, is it usual for games to ship with such lost bits of code and images? Im surprised that they dont strip it down to the functioning code rather than leave old dead-ends in there.

Since i know squat about developing a game, what are your opnions on this?

[Kraxis]

It is quite obvious from the looks of the images (and many of them have only placeholders) that they were discarded quite early in the process. Only fair when you think about it. Who would want a popup image every time he or she trained a unit? That was tried in MTW and was generally disliked.

I doubt anyone can honestly use these images as we can't really create events ourselves and we don't sem to know where the events are to pup these 'new' images (they are btw not used at all as those that are used are in another position alltogether).
It might have been a brainstorming, but why would that end up in the game? To me it looks like they had honest intentions of having all this in the game but it was cut.

When wetalk about these little things and CA in the same sentence the result will invariably be: "Oh... another one."
Ever since STW have CA left little bits of cut features, the most famous from STW was the Medical School. And in MTW there was a great host of leftovers. And now we have even more... I'm beginning to think that they are having a great time watching us dig through it all and wonder at what this and that are.

[Butcher]

"Look what you could have won..."

[Puzz3D]

Out of interest, is it usual for games to ship with such lost bits of code and images? Im surprised that they dont strip it down to the functioning code rather than leave old dead-ends in there. Since i know squat about developing a game, what are your opnions on this?

As an electrical engineer, my opinion is that the features that are put in should be tested and verified to be working before the game is shipped. Going by the number of problems in RTW v1.0, I think not enough time is being included in the development schedule for testing, and this problem is going to impact the quality of the add-on as well as everything that gets released by this company.

[professorspatula]

We mentioned all these things in a post a couple of weeks back. The graphics and text files tell of dozens of features missed out. Most of them are clearly geared towards the Roman game, almost as if playing as other factions was never the focus or important. Which to a limited extent is still the case.

[Mikeus Caesar]

These sound interesting....maybe they leave the dead ends there so we can drool over things that possibly were going to be...

Who knows?

[Butcher]

It's like the 'triumph point value' of each region.. makes you wonder, no?

[Puzz3D]

Wonder about what? How good the game could have been? How about something less ambitious like having what is in the game work properly?

[Old Celt]

My experience has been that the best practice for releasing software is to strip any unneeded code, images, or folders. You shouldn't clutter people's hard drives with unnecessary files. Leaving logs and dev text files can be a serious security risk too, as competitors will lock right on to them and get lots of free information. I think that these things were not cleaned out is a clear indication of a frenzied pace in the dev side of things.

[Puzz3D]

I think that these things were not cleaned out is a clear indication of a frenzied pace in the dev side of things.

Exactly. Now extrapolate the effect of that to the add-on.

[econ21]

It's interesting about the frenzied pace, because I seem to recall RTW being delayed by about a year or more so that CA could make it more grand - probably graphically - than they had initially intended. I've seen lost features leftover in lots of good games - most recently and dramatically in Star Wars Knights of the Old Republic II - maybe it's just an example of creative chaos?

For what it's worth, I think posters here tend to be too critical of RTW - it's a pretty smooth and well oiled game. Sure it's got it's flaws, but it is still way above the average. As someone who has experienced the still-born Napoleon 1813, Civilisation: Call to Power 2 and Heroes of Might and Magic IV, I can't gripe about how RTW has turned out.

[Old Celt]

Simon,

I think the members here are more demanding as many of them have derived expectations from earlier games in the TW series. RTW is a departure from the past, and it is a good thing in the advance of graphics, but it is a bad thing in the retreat of AI quality. Hard core players know the product best, and you can't expect them to pull their punches. We still love it, warts and all, but have to be honest about its faults.

[Kekvit Irae]

I remember quite clearly Robin Hood and Joan of Arc in MTW. I wonder what would happen is someone exactly used those images

[AntiochusIII]

I remember quite clearly Robin Hood and Joan of Arc in MTW. I wonder what would happen is someone exactly used those images

Joan of Arc's image in MTW looks romantic (in term of Medieval romanticism - chivalry and honour, not modern meaning). She was the best general I've ever had. How sad she comes into the game so late, eh? 20-30 turns for the greatest general (and the only woman-general) in the game.

I just want these kind of "heroes" to be in Rome, who has taken a turn of cutting the character system in many ways and improving a few others. Traits may be much more defined (with bugs, by the way) and ancillaries are included. But the simple fact that you can't use a name twice without a different "last name" is absolutely horrible. After all, the rulers of the ancient world tend to use one or two names again and again in a dynasty, just like Medieval...

[Kekvit Irae]

Joan of Arc's image in MTW looks romantic (in term of Medieval romanticism - chivalry and honour, not modern meaning). She was the best general I've ever had. How sad she comes into the game so late, eh? 20-30 turns for the greatest general (and the only woman-general) in the game.

Indeed, I definately exploited the heck out of her when I could train her, but I'm talking about the army pieces on the strategy map. There was a Joan of Arc piece to replace the standard "chesspiece" knight. That was quite possibly the best unit piece in the game, and it was unused

[Copperhaired Berserker!]

Kraxis can you give me the exact directory to that file with the messages and stuff?Plz?

[Kraxis]

DATA/UI/MESSAGES
Of course you must have unpacked that, but I guess you have.

There was a special piece for Joan in MTW? Damn... I never knew.

[The Stranger]

TSSSSS ACTIVISION. now you pissed me off. if you would just have taken the time to let CA develop for a few xtra months and we would have the game we all wanted and that was worth paying 50$ for. this is only my 2nd misbuy but one of the worst

[Brutus]

I just want these kind of "heroes" to be in Rome, who has taken a turn of cutting the character system in many ways and improving a few others. Traits may be much more defined (with bugs, by the way) and ancillaries are included. But the simple fact that you can't use a name twice without a different "last name" is absolutely horrible. After all, the rulers of the ancient world tend to use one or two names again and again in a dynasty, just like Medieval...

You can't use the same name twice? Actually in my game I once had three Manius Julius (Manius himself, his son and his nephew who was the son of my Faction Leader and Manius' long-time war-companion) walking around at the same time. Two of them are still alive, one ruling Londinium, the other one besieging Halicarnassus... Also, two Servius Julius were in the making but one came of age as 'Servius the Handsome' because he was so stunning to look at (with his bald head and all).

[Copperhaired Berserker!]

Kraxis, how do you unpack it? What program do you need?