'Featureless' Expansion

**Puzz3D** · 06-08-2005, 16:37

Originally Posted by Daveybaby

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.

Originally Posted by Daveybaby

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.

Originally Posted by Daveybaby

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.

Originally Posted by Daveybaby

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.

Originally Posted by Daveybaby

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** · 06-08-2005, 16:52

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** · 06-08-2005, 17:07

Originally Posted by 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?

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