How would CA being more open about their Development be a negative?

[Papewaio]

If the binding of a book falls apart or a ten pages are missing do you complain to the publisher or authour?

[RomanCavalry]

I'd blame the publisher, but the reality of the situation is that the Author's rep is still tarnished.

I do think you could have used a better example than a book, but still...it serves it's purpose.

If I wear a suit to a powermeeting at work and the suit rips, my co-workers are not going to laugh at Armani, they're going to laugh at me.

[IceTorque]

I think a better analogy would be.

A Macca's emplyee (C.A.)being told by the manager (Activision)to cook the burger(RTW) for 30 seconds instead of the usual 60 seconds.

the 2% that complain do so to the employee.
80% don't buy macca's anymore.
and the rest don't notice the burger is half cooked.

Result employee loses job.
But plenty of new jobs at burger king.

[HarunTaiwan]

Let's use the book analogy since it is closest.

1. Physical Appearance, etc. "The binding fell apart, etc." Well, I have seen ZERO complaints about RTW's CD-ROM breaking, the manual falling apart, etc. So the printer/publisher did their job. Perhaps the patch policy could be considered a fault of this level, though.

2. Content, as in the story sucks, the characters are underdeveloped, etc. - you blame the author not the printer. In this case the author is CA.

Case closed.

Even if the publisher forces the author to adulterate their material to meet deadlines or new markets, the author knows whose name will be dragged down in the mud...ask yourself, do you buy books based on authors or on publishing houses?

[InsaneApache]

Well I sat and read all this 'bug' this and 'patch' that and the simple fact is this.

No one here knows what is going on at CA (probably not even those from CA who post here). It is a business and will have several imperatives to fulfil in order to survive and flourish. Now I'm not saying that the game is perfect. Clearly there are issues involved with this bug and that, but I have been playing this game for 5 years and I can remember the 'AI sux this' and 'the AI sux that' on Shoggy, MI, MTW and VI.....

Another thing.

This eye candy that keeps getting mentioned, well it is impressive and obviously required 1000s of man hours to write just the code. I compare it with my first computer game I played at home. Horace goes Skiing on the Spectrum 48k rubber mat home computer system. (sounds cutting edge eh?)

I believe that CA have listened and I believe that most, if not all of the bugs will be addressed in the fullness of time. Remember the games release was put back nearly a year, so obviously there have been issues from day dot.

In conclusion I dont blame the guys from CA keeping their heads down ..... we had an example of the type of sociapath you can get on these forums this very morning.