'Featureless' Expansion

[Midnight]

Probably the reason my favourite games are SMAC, Ultima 7 and Planescape: Torment. All look ancient, now, but all deliver excellent gameplay. Ultima 7 has an amazing world, Planescape I returned to several times because there was so much to discover, and the replayability of SMAC means I'm still playing games of it, and probably will until (or even after) Civ4 comes out.

RTW just doesn't do it for me as is. I desperately want it to with BI, but I'm not holding my breath.

[Mongoose]

Cowers in front of the mighty mongoose

thanks! It is very hard to get people to cower from me, seeing as they shadow over me!

Err, i mean...



against the might of mongoose there can be no victory, only pain and suffering

I hope the XPAC will make some good changes to the AI, because most of the other problems with the game can be modded

[Ianofsmeg16]

against the might of mongoose there can be no victory, only pain a suffering

Dear God no! NO! NOOOOOO! IT'S A MONGOOSE RUN arrrrgggghhhh!!!

[Belenus]

Well....if the expansion contains fixes to some of the current bugs *coughloadgameissuecough*, I'll buy it. If the expansion doesn't fix those bugs, I won't buy it. I think R:TW is a great game, but a few bugs in my opinion destroy it.

[professorspatula]

Probably the reason my favourite games are SMAC, Ultima 7 and Planescape: Torment. All look ancient, now, but all deliver excellent gameplay. Ultima 7 has an amazing world, Planescape I returned to several times because there was so much to discover, and the replayability of SMAC means I'm still playing games of it, and probably will until (or even after) Civ4 comes out.

RTW just doesn't do it for me as is. I desperately want it to with BI, but I'm not holding my breath.

Ah Ultima 7 - now there's a proper game. And what a game! Full of bugs initially, and to be fair, there is still plenty of glitches and loopholes etc, but such an amazing gameworld. I think RPGs have gone backwards since. Morrowind in comparison was the most shallow gaming experience I can remember. I bought PT on ebay last year but haven't got into it yet, but seems great. And Fallout 2 was so amazing, and proves you don't need great graphics to be a great game.

And er, I seem to have gone off topic.

Barbarians smell! Down with the trouser wearing, bearded ones! Boo, to rubbish expansion packs; hurrah to great ones!

Think I steered myself ever so slightly back on topic.

[Butcher]

I've just got back in to playing Total Annihlation (what, 8 years after release?).
Will I be doing the same with RTW? Given I don't play it now, doubtful.

[Grey_Fox]

Here's the new page over at the .com covering BI:

http://www.totalwar.com/community/rtwbi.htm

[SigniferOne]

Wow what a great preview, it really excites you to go out and play the game :) Also the features they mention seem rather promising to me, such as two new infantry formations! Finally a shield wall, for all you barbarian lovers, even though it's 500 years too early.

[Grey_Fox]

Shield-wall was used around 400 AD I think...

[Orda Khan]

Well that sounds very nice indeed. Interesting review and with some surprises to follow.



........Orda

[Wishazu]

YAY!! civil wars are back in fashion

[Servius]

Buying it will only reinforce CA's behavior. If you don't like what they're making or how they're acting, don't buy the xpac.

[Daveybaby]

I could care less about any new features in the expansion. I'm looking at it as a bug fix patch that i will have to pay for. Not an ideal situation to be sure, but what the hell - IMO a bug free version of RTW is probably worth an extra 20 quid. If the game actually ends up working properly then its money well spent - at least we have a chance of bugfixes unlike with some publishers (grumble... Atari... Moo3... grumble).

However, i will be holding off on purchasing the expansion until its confirmed that the bugs *have* been fixed, specifically that the AI has noticably improved, the load/save issues are resolved, and that no new game crippling bugs have been introduced.

[Mongoose]

Err...should you have to pay for bug fixes? no! normal developers continue patching their games until they are fairly playable.

[Daveybaby]

Whether to patch or not is pretty much entirely out of the hands of the developers - its up to the publishers whether to fund work on a patch or not. And, even if CA decided to dig into their own pockets (which i sincerely doubt are very deep) then EA still have the final say on whether the patch gets released or not, as there are usually contractual obligations that mean the publisher has to do QA and add copy protection before any patch can be released.

There are very few companies nowadays (outside of online gaming) that issue more than 1 or 2 patches for their products. Firaxis and Valve spring to mind, and valve is certainly a special case in that they had enough cash to finance HL2 themselves, so are totally in control of their own game - a very rare occurrence these days.

While i agree that its not a good thing to have to pay for a whats effectively a bugfix patch (plus a load of stuff that i'm personally not really bothered about having), at least we have the *chance* of getting this stuff fixed. Just thank your lucky stars that RTW isnt published by Atari, who would probably have forced the game's release 6 months early as an unplayable mess, and then abandoned support because nobody bought the game, because the rampant bugs generated bad reviews. And I dont think Bhruic would have enough free time to fix 2 games in parallel .

[Mongoose]

activison is awful. If they are the publisher of BI...

And think of the BI bugs! Units with more moral routing faster? Troops with AP doing less damage? GAH! it will be a mess when it's released.

[Midnight]

IMO it's a poor state of affairs when it comes down to, "Well, it could be worse."

The problem is RTW is not a complete game. It needs to be fixed. I'm not going to shell out more money for new features which are equally bugged, nor will I for what amounts to a patch - it's going to have to fix everything and add significant exciting content for me to buy. An X-pack should not *have* to fix bugs, it should simply add to a stable game.

The problem isn't, apparently, with RTW or CA, it's endemic in the industry. IMO, that's just crap.

[bodidley]

The sad thing is that CA will end up losing a lot of customers. You don't need a boycott against you to lose sales. When BI comes out I probably just won't get around to buying it; there are products coming out that I'm more interested in because CA has not demonstrated superior "artisanship".

[Daveybaby]

IMO it's a poor state of affairs when it comes down to, "Well, it could be worse."
...
The problem isn't, apparently, with RTW or CA, it's endemic in the industry. IMO, that's just crap.

Thats exactly my point. Its all very well to say that it shouldnt be like this - and you'd be correct. Unfortunately, however, it *is* like this. So we are stuck with it.

[Puzz3D]

While i agree that its not a good thing to have to pay for a whats effectively a bugfix patch (plus a load of stuff that i'm personally not really bothered about having), at least we have the *chance* of getting this stuff fixed. Just thank your lucky stars that RTW isnt published by Atari, who would probably have forced the game's release 6 months early as an unplayable mess, and then abandoned support because nobody bought the game, because the rampant bugs generated bad reviews.

RTW v1.0 multiplayer was an unplayable mess, and CA avoided bad press on that by not including internet multiplayer until the last minute. Many problems in the game are subtle and difficult to identify, but can affect gameplay greatly. Total War has evolved into a highly complex game. The v1.2 patch was a 3 month effort in which 25 programmers were initially involved by CA's own statement, and there was a beta team drawn from community players who worked very hard trying to find problems. However, there were so many problems to be addressed and the game so complex that everything couldn't be addressed or even identified. Given the complexity of the game and the limited time to develop it, how is BI "not" going to have major problems in the gameplay, and what is the likelyhood of BI being patched? Not very likely I would say.

If the shield wall feature in BI doesn't work properly, is CA going to fix it? They wouldn't fix the phalanx in RTW v1.2 despite being advised of the problem including a replay to backup the claim. They wouldn't drop the desert cav back to 40 men, and still insist that the unit is not unbalanced. How is the unit balance going to improve in BI when they don't see an unbalance as blatant as desert cav? Traits are a great feature riddled with simple logic errors. A nice feature is that cav archers can shoot on the move, but it doesn't work properly. The upgrade system doesn't work properly. Load/Save issue is something that CA has said was intended, but how can anyone actually believe that it's ok for the gamestate to be lost between saves?

Where is the optimisim that BI is going to correct gameplay issues coming from? The gameplay can never work well with the business model that CA is using. There isn't time or resources to make it work well. I expect BI will have nice graphics and won't CTD which is fine and good, but I'm interested in good gameplay as well and I don't see that happening.

[Daveybaby]

RTW v1.0 multiplayer was an unplayable mess

I'm talking mainly about SP here - MP is a different beast entirely. I think i can count the number of games where MP worked out of the box on one hand. Actually, i cant think of ANY off the top of my head, except for pure MP games such as Q3/UT/MMORPGs.

Given the complexity of the game and the limited time to develop it, how is BI "not" going to have major problems in the gameplay, and what is the likelyhood of BI being patched? Not very likely I would say.

Well *hopefully* they will fix most of the existing bugs in RTW, and maybe add just a few new ones in BI. There will probably be a patch for BI - there was one for MTW:VI, so i'm not sure why you think a BI patch is unlikely.

If the shield wall feature in BI doesn't work properly, is CA going to fix it?

They would fix it if there was a budget from EA for a patch. Otherwise they probably wouldnt.

They wouldn't fix the phalanx in RTW v1.2 despite being advised of the problem including a replay to backup the claim. They wouldn't drop the desert cav back to 40 men, and still insist that the unit is not unbalanced. How is the unit balance going to improve in BI when they don't see an unbalance as blatant as desert cav? Traits are a great feature riddled with simple logic errors. A nice feature is that cav archers can shoot on the move, but it doesn't work properly. The upgrade system doesn't work properly.

Theyre not going to fix bugs in 1.2 because there isnt any money to do it. The concept of issuing patches to solve problems as and when they occur is, like, totally 1990's dude. The (maximum) number of patches is usually decided by the publisher before the game is even started. And that maximum is usually 2. One quick one for the terminal cockups in the core technology shortly after release, and one 'proper' patch to fix gameplay/balance issues after a 3 months or so. And thats your lot. Forever.

If EA have allocated budget for a BI patch (i imagine there would be just 1 maximum for an expansion pack, since the core technology is already stable) then there will be a patch if needed. If in the unlikely event that a patch isnt needed, hey - free money for the EA execs. Maybe they'll buy us all a drink .

I doubt that MP balance issues will ever be entirely resolved though. It should be fairly obvious by now that MP is not the primary focus of the TW series - I doubt CA are willing to bankrupt themselves trying achieve the impossible (balance 20 factions) for the *tiny minority* of people (in terms of sales) who play the game online. Its the reality of the economics these days, unfortunately.

Load/Save issue is something that CA has said was intended, but how can anyone actually believe that it's ok for the gamestate to be lost between saves?

CA have never been very good at load/save stuff, have they? Oh well. Hopefully it will be fixed in BI or i wont be buying it. Theyre going to issue a statement on that soon, apparently - so they are at least looking at it.

Where is the optimisim that BI is going to correct gameplay issues coming from? The gameplay can never work well with the business model that CA is using. There isn't time or resources to make it work well. I expect BI will have nice graphics and won't CTD which is fine and good, but I'm interested in good gameplay as well and I don't see that happening.

Well, CA specifically asked for a list of outstanding bugs to be addressed in the expansion. Which implies that theyre at least looking at fixing them.

Dont get me wrong, i hate the way all of this works as much as anyone. I wish that publishers would allocate money for one final patch a way down the line (say 6 months after release) - but its never going to happen. Its just the reality of game development these days. Its all VERY big budget stuff - the days when the one guy who wrote all the code could just knock out a patch and stick it on the internet are long gone. It all has to be QA'd and approved and copy protected by the publisher, who is, after all, stumping up millions to develop the thing in the first place. Unfortunately the publishers dont really care about the games any more than record labels care about music. Its all about the bottom line.

[doc_bean]

Lionhead has released 'beta' patches when working under EA. CA could do it if they wanted too.

I know a lot of money is involved, but the management has got to decide what these issues will do to the name 'total war' and 'CA', Rome was the series big breakthrough, the TW name alone could have been worth millions. Now I fear the every reviewer is going to remind as of the remaining bugs in RTW when they review BI, not good advertising.

It makes sense for Activision of course (I always thought they released buggy games) since they lost the TW name, but wouldn't sega be interested ? Are they planning any future TW games ?

Despite what everyone says, i think Rome only has one serious flaw: the AI. It's serious because any idiot playing the game will notice and, after a certain point, get fed up with it. I hope they will improve it for BI, but maybe it's already too late. How many people will still be playing RTW (compared to the amount that bought it) ? I think most people will be ready to move on to other things (B&W 2, Rise & Fall, AoE 3 !) by the time BI gets released.

Then again, I don't know much about marketing, i could be wrong.

[Puzz3D]

Well *hopefully* they will fix most of the existing bugs in RTW, and maybe add just a few new ones in BI. There will probably be a patch for BI - there was one for MTW:VI, so i'm not sure why you think a BI patch is unlikely.

Because when the VI add-on for MTW was released CA announced that the product had been "end-of-lifed" and there would be no more patches. So, Activision didn't intend to fund anymore patches to that product. However, a major bug in SP campaign surfaced which was that all kings died at 56 years of age. Eventually, after a huge clamor in the forums, the programmers at CA decided to make a patch working after hours off the payroll. In the process of doing that, a serious bug in MP was also fixed, and the play balance was improved because MP got another pass by LongJohn who designed the tactical AI and who also interacted a lot with the forum members here. Have you seen any posts by LongJohn since RTW was relased? I haven't, and there is no interaction with anyone at CA that remotely approaches what we had with LongJohn. The official RTW strategy guide doesn't have any chapters on the game engine, but MTW did and those chapters were written by LongJohn.

I doubt that MP balance issues will ever be entirely resolved though. It should be fairly obvious by now that MP is not the primary focus of the TW series - I doubt CA are willing to bankrupt themselves trying achieve the impossible (balance 20 factions) for the *tiny minority* of people (in terms of sales) who play the game online. Its the reality of the economics these days, unfortunately.

Don't stop with MP because this also affects the playbalance in SP. What the hell are 20 factions doing in the game if there is no way that they can be balanced? Now BI will have 80 more units and more factions all of which cannot be balanced under the present way this company does business.

CA have never been very good at load/save stuff, have they? Oh well. Hopefully it will be fixed in BI or i wont be buying it. Theyre going to issue a statement on that soon, apparently - so they are at least looking at it.

This problem didn't exist in STW or MTW, and it's only some insignificant players who investigate the game that think it's a problem. CA doesn't think it's a problem.

Well, CA specifically asked for a list of outstanding bugs to be addressed in the expansion. Which implies that theyre at least looking at fixing them.

As I recall it was Jerome who asked for the list. He's one person at CA, and he's not the boss. I saw one response from him in the bug forum where he said many things had been addressed,but without specifics. That's not reassuring to me because I know how this company plays with semantics.

Dont get me wrong, i hate the way all of this works as much as anyone. I wish that publishers would allocate money for one final patch a way down the line (say 6 months after release) - but its never going to happen. Its just the reality of game development these days. Its all VERY big budget stuff - the days when the one guy who wrote all the code could just knock out a patch and stick it on the internet are long gone. It all has to be QA'd and approved and copy protected by the publisher, who is, after all, stumping up millions to develop the thing in the first place. Unfortunately the publishers dont really care about the games any more than record labels care about music. Its all about the bottom line.

So what you are saying is that it can't work, and I agree.

You see the mod link below my name? That's a mod for MTW/VI v2.01 which is the 8th iteration of the original game engine. So, in a sense, Samurai Wars is the 9th iteration of the original STW. It has 14 units and one faction type, and it was difficult to balance despite have a good starting point in the original STW stat. The Samurai Wars stat itself went through about 20 iterations in 3 months.

[BDC]

It looks promising. I think the issue of budgets is just going to get worse as graphics etc. improve. I mean who is going to be able to afford to patch a game which costs millions of pounds to make?

[Puzz3D]

It looks promising. I think the issue of budgets is just going to get worse as graphics etc. improve. I mean who is going to be able to afford to patch a game which costs millions of pounds to make?

So, the graphics look promising, and the gameplay goes to hell.

[Midnight]

That's the way things are going in general anyway!

Super-flashy cutting-edge 3D engine? Great! Gameplay? What's that?

[Mongoose]

God damit! i want a game that looks uber bad-ass and is very, very, easy to play!
Screw every thing else!