Requesting beta team access

[Divinus Arma]

EB Team,

I have never installed a mod (other than the alt spart hoplite at the com, but that isn't really a mod)...

So I thought I would do it now. I was waiting for EB to come out, but I became impatient. I am sure you have seen my occasional postings in this forum, since last year.

Anyway, I was about to download RTR, because I need the change.

I figured I would ask (as johnny come lately) to join in on beta testing before I wasted my time with RTR.

Like I said, I know I am late, but here is what little I have to offer:

EB Project loyalty and commitment.
A solid business education (finish the BBA in Management this Nov, 4.0 GPA), with two years of specialized experience in asynchronous project development and team communication.
Personal addiction to PC gaming, especially the TW series.
I will provide clear, concise, and comprehensive reports on my playtesting activities.

I hope you will take the time to consider this, even though your beta roster is currently full. I would hate to download RTR with EB so close at hand.

I eagerly anticipate your reply.

Warmest Regards,

Divinus Arma

[Sheep]

I don't think you would be wasting your time with RTR. It's a solid mod and will be even better after 6.0 comes out. EB beta may be coming out soon and will be cool but many aspects will be unfinished as well. So maybe RTR will actually work better for you at that point (or even later, who knows?)

[Pycckuu]

I would download RTR. Its a great mod, and a very big improvement over the vanilla RTW.

[Sarcasm]

Download both.

[Divinus Arma]

How can I download both and still play both?

I went ahead and downloaded RTR, and it is quite different than Vanilla of course. But with all the changes (new opening song, new "provincial campaign", new loading screens, etc), how can I have access to both EB and RTR? Is there going to be an "on-off" switch?

Thanks

[Mongoose]

1: copy RTW vanilla 1.2 two times
2:istall RTR to the first
3:install EB to the second

[Divinus Arma]

Regarding RTR: did they make hoplites a nightmare, or what?

I would still rather play EB.

[Simetrical]

Hah, yeah, hoplites are a bit nuts in 5.4. Basically, 5.2 was rushed because we wanted to get a 1.2-compatible version out the door ASAP, then 5.3 was rushed because 5.2 had critical flaws, then 5.4 wasn't rushed but also wasn't playtested. 6.0 is being fully playtested. 5.4 can't really compete with either the coming EB beta or RTR 6.0 in polish, balance, or historical accuracy, to be sure, but it's not a bad mod to play while you wait for either, IMO.

A quick unofficial fix for the hoplite unbalance can be found here. Drop it in your Rome - Total War\data directory.

-Simetrical

[GeWee]

Once you go RTR you can never go back.
Vanilla feels like an arcade game compared to it.

I'm still hoping for the EB and RTR teams to come to their senses and merge the two mods though. They should overcome their differences and do what's best for the community.
I'm not going to have two copies of Rome on my hard drive so I'll only play the mod that's the most realistic (I want a sim not a game), even if the 'runner-up' also is great and has features that are lacking in the 'winning' mod.
So merge the mods now! It's an order...

[Aymar de Bois Mauri]

I'm still hoping for the EB and RTR teams to come to their senses and merge the two mods though. They should overcome their differences and do what's best for the community.
I'm not going to have two copies of Rome on my hard drive so I'll only play the mod that's the most realistic (I want a sim not a game), even if the 'runner-up' also is great and has features that are lacking in the 'winning' mod.
So merge the mods now! It's an order...

Abandon all hope...

[Birka Viking]

I play RTR and i think it's the best mod for the moment. But when EB will relice its beta i will play that instead.

[Ranika]

Merging the mods is out of the question. Aside from any enmity, real or imagined, there are entire core concepts and plans that are totally different; it'd not be a matter of compromise so much as screwing one mod out of their plans for a region of the game. It's better as two, and gives the community a superior size of selection. That, in turn, allows a larger portion of the gamers to be pleased with their game, since they can have their mod of choice, and not some Frankenstein's monster we stitch together.

[Simetrical]

Right. My wish is only that they become sister projects, sharing ideas and research to a greater extent than they currently do. There's really no reason RTR and EB should research everything separately—it would be more efficient if we pooled our research, and then built our mods based on the same research but different concepts. (Of course, the exchange of research would be mostly one-way, but I hear you people need a dedicated but not necessarily professional Hellenic researcher—driddle would fit that role nicely.)

Anyway, even that's not going to happen anytime soon. Alas.

-Simetrical

[caesar44]

let rtr be a mod and eb be another

[Shigawire]

Now, why is it that I feel that this thread is 'threading' on thin ice?

[Sarcasm]

Abandon all hope...

I've trying to find out a DVD of that tv show......do you know if they have been released?

Now, why is it that I feel that this thread is 'threading' on thin ice?

Nah....it's all good.

[GeWee]

Right. My wish is only that they become sister projects, sharing ideas and research to a greater extent than they currently do. There's really no reason RTR and EB should research everything separately—it would be more efficient if we pooled our research, and then built our mods based on the same research but different concepts. (Of course, the exchange of research would be mostly one-way, but I hear you people need a dedicated but not necessarily professional Hellenic researcher—driddle would fit that role nicely.)

Anyway, even that's not going to happen anytime soon. Alas.

-Simetrical

Yes, I suppose cooperating is almost as good as merging.

I don't see why that won't happen anytime soon though.
Just tell the people with the egos to skip the whole "my mod is better than yours"-attitude and force them to work together! It would make the development of both mods progress faster and that's the only thing that matters.

[Ranika]

Well, there are problems like that, admittedly. It's not shared by everyone on either project, mind you, but even a handful would make even the most basic sharing relationship very complicated and difficult; possibly more difficult than it's worth.

[Mongoose]

RTR thinks that units should have names like "swords men" EB prefers "Dghhshshshshshsghsdhs"

They would never really work together...just download both to different folders

[bodidley]

True... but you don't have to like someone to successfully compare notes.

On the topic of RTR: I just downloaded it, and it's a world of improvement over Vanilla. If I'm not mistaken, EB won't be out for some time unless you are fortunate enough to be a beta tester, so to anyone considering RTR I'd say "do it"

[Region]

There's the open beta coming soon...

[hoom]

I play RTR now, I will continue to play RTR till EB comes out and then I expect to play both.
When they are out I plan on playing Sengoku Jidai, Chivalric, Punic & Americas Mods too :)

I initially considered RTR to be a useful stopgap during the wait till EB came out.

The extended development time (& extended extent) of EB combined with rapid improvements of RTR fairly quickly led me to the conclusion that by the time EB is actually out there will be little in terms of modding quality (art quality, scripting, improvements over RTW etc.) between the two.

Differences will be there in the details of art and aspects of gameplay.
Most obviously (at least in screenshots) there are differences in interpretation of generally pretty sparse historic evidence.
RTR may not have the same level of primary/academic evidence but in contrast to opinion in some circles its my opinion that there has been clear effort by RTR to differ from EB on a number of points even if just to be different.

RTR is 'damned if they do & damned if they don't' to a fair extent on the matter of historical evidence.
If EB produces good evidence of some point then and RTR goes 'oh, well in that case I guess we should do it that way too' they get 'look RTR copied EB again' however if they stick to their previous direction they will be accused of not sticking to Realism.

Similarities will be there because of limitations of the game engine and both mods being set in the same time period.

At the very least, while EB will doubtless be awesome, RTR has playable stuff out there now and its already vastly better than RTW, so go play it!

[Byzantine Mercenary]

I play RTR now, I will continue to play RTR till EB comes out and then I expect to play both.
When they are out I plan on playing Sengoku Jidai, Chivalric, Punic & Americas Mods too :)

where are these mods you are talking about?
they sound pretty good, all the other mods i have found bar RTR are not finished yet.

[Divinus Arma]

I have to admit... so far RTR is better than I expected. I think my days with Vanilla have come to an end. I enjoyed facing down pyro of epidermus right off the bat. It is, as one member put it, an effective "stopgap" until the release of EB or RTR 6.0.

I had a look at 6.0 via their website... not bad. I saw many similarities to EB, especially with the faction symbols.

Unfortunatley, I did not have the good sense to duplicate a vanilla before installing 4.6 or 5.4, or whatever it is.

I will probably playtest both to death and make a decision on which is better, er, more playable. Then I'll write a cheesy self-important review of both, as I am sure four million other people will do on every Rome site in existence.

On that note... "playable"... I kind of like the evil killer unrealistically deadly hoplites. For once, I felt a little angst going into battle after my first experence on 'emperor' against "Athenain hoplites" (which, according to records on the Peloponnesian War, were good but vastly inferior to Spartan Hoplites- and that makes me wonder how supercharged uber the Spartans are in 4.6, 5.6, whatever since I have yet to encounter them)

Well, yyyyyyyyyyaararafgfghhhhhhh. I still drool in anticipation of EB.


Regards,

DA

[jerby]

yeh, RTR is a good mod. best out there at the moment.
the difference between RTR and EB wont be in quality, but in ways of production. EB started gathering Info a long time ago and have one 'recently' started to mod. while RTR started modding from day one. so there will not be a quality issue (correct me if i'm wrong but i thought i saw one modder work for both mods)

I'v eplayed RTR from 4.0 to now. and i love it. altough my experience with hoplites was good. i play greek cities and on normal (wich is death-difficulty with 1.2) so that compensated everything.

[hoom]

where are these mods you are talking about?

None are out yet but here's links to their various forae:
Sengoku Jidai This is on the .org. I only noticed it recently & there's heaps of TW.org oldtimers hanging out there.
The rest are on TWC
Chivalry: Total War (ChivTW) -I believe there is a multiplayer/custom battle release of this but no SP campaign yet
Native America: Total War (NA-TW)
Punic: Total War (PTW)
There are a bunch of others that will probably be quite interesting over there at TWC.

There's a whole heap of really really good modding goin' on

[anonymous_joe]

Where's RTR available from?

Not that I'll need it til my exams are over.

[Shigawire]

pyro of epidermus? is that some superhero with flaming powers, living in epidermus "skin-ville"?

[deguerra]

i do believe he means pyrhus (sp?..can never get him right...) of epirus. =)

but pyro of epidermus sounds cool too =)

deguerra

[GoreBag]

I recently downloaded RTR 5.4 and, well...it's awfully slow-paced. Is it intended for use with the "four turns per year" script?