When will CA annocunce the next TW game?

[hellenes]

You really can't listen to their estimates on what piracy costs them. They treat any download as someone who would have bought the game at full price and other such nonsense. Really its the same as its always been. Good games sell well, while bad games/extreme rehashes don't. Just like bad movies not selling, they want to blame it all on piracy.

If you don't believe me, look at primarily singleplayer games that have sold well like Morrowind/Civ3/Mafia/etc..(more recent games don't come to mind at the moment, unless you want to count the TW series as primarily singleplayer too). Also, Warcraft1-2-3/Starcraft and even Dawn of War all have enjoyable singleplayer, not just multiplayer. Now i'm not against a mp campaign, i'd love one. It just bugged me you were using that other stuff as an excuse for one.

That said, I don't really mind what the next TW is so long as it isn't Napoleonic/ACW, I really don't like those themes. I can deal with older historical themes/sci-fi/fantasy(I too, would kill for a Battletech: Total War). The main thing thats important for me isn't the theme though, but the gameplay. Thankfully CA can do that well, even if the AI suffers at times. :P

In the past people had something like 28kbps with 8mps nowadays only MP games will survive...
Example:
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Age Of Empires III (c) Microsoft
10/2005 :..... RELEASE.DATE .. PROTECTION .......: SmartE/Serial
3 :.......... DISC(S) .. GAME.TYPE ........: Simulation
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In this highly anticipated next installment in the Age of Empires franchise
from Ensemble Studios, Age of Empires III places players in the time period
of roughly 1500–1850, picking up where Age of Empires II: The Age of Kings
left off. As players work to establish their empire, they take on the role
of a European power struggling to explore, colonize, and conquer North and
South America.
Age of Empires III introduces exciting new gameplay elements, including the
all-new Home City and an incredible combat system. Players have new
civilizations to discover, random maps to conquer, and a single-player
campaign unlike any other. Players also find stunning graphics as a result
of a revolutionary graphics engine that pushes the limits of PC graphics
technology in an entirely new way.
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ίίίίίίίίίί Ϋ Ϋ ² ίίίΫ Ϋ ά Ϋίί² Ϋ Ϋ Ϋ ² Ϋ ² Ϋ ά ²ί ά ίίίΫ ίίίίίίίίίί
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1. Unrar.
2. Burn or mount with daemon tools.
3. Install the game, when prompted for a serial enter the following:
*****-*****-*****-*****-*****
4. Copy the cracked executable from the /crack dir on CD1 to your
installation directory.
5. Play the game.
άίί άίίΫ άίίά ² ά άίίΫ άίίά άίίά ²άά άίί άί
ίίίίίίίίίίίί Ϋ ί² Ϋί² Ϋ ² Ϋ ² Ϋίί Ϋ ² Ϋ ² Ϋ ά ²ί ά ίίίΫ ίίίίίίίίίίίίί
ίί Ϋ ίί ίί ί ί ίί ίίί ίίίί ίί
" Now hiring Talented Coders (asm) and Crackers: rld@inbox.lv "




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AOEIII a game that hasnt been released yet its already out on warez but luckily for Ensemble once you finish the quick sp campaign your only challenge and interaction lies in the MP field...

Hellenes

[ChaosLord]

You missed my point, if that were true all singleplayer games would have died out along ago. The ability to commit crime does not equal the number of crimes commited. If it did, we'd have all killed each other long ago. Many games(including previous releases of the TW series) have come out before release but have still sold well. This is because not everyone is a thief as you seem to think. I'm not arguing that warez doesn't exist and that it isn't a problem, but you've really overexaggerated its effect.

And even assuming your theory true and you've done nothing to show it being so, the TW series already requires a valid cdkey for online play, which has a strong community going for it. So if somehow on the next TW release everyone with an internet connection pirates the game instea of paying for it, they'd still have to pay if they want to play versus the real "challenge" in multi as you put it.

[TB666]

Well AOE III is pretty bad.
It is the same with pretty graphics.
Also saying that people will buy games because of MP is not really true since those that download can still play MP.
Nope Total war strength is and always will be SP and everyone knows that.
Focus on a for example MP campaign will actually decrease buyers since people don't have the time for a game like that.
Even if it is just for LAN it isn't worth wasting time on it. It is much better that CA focus on making SP even better then it is now since that is what people want.

[gmjapan]

Dinosaurs:Total War! Where you guide your species to control nesting sites and pay the emerging mammal factions in acorns to bug your rivals!

Er, but on topic, the series has covered specific areas before so I dont see something specific, like the American Civil War, as being neccessarily unsuccessful and of limited appeal. Why did people outside of Japan buy Shogun if that was the case? Or people outside Europe (or Italy for that matter) buy Rome... There are plenty documentaries on TV regarding all these eras so they all have widespread appeal.

Myself, I dont particularly care for an American Civil War setting or even a Napoleonic one. But it sounds like CA are keeping there options wide open which can only lead to good things in my opinion. Why stifle the series by never considering such things as fantasy or sci-fi?

Personally, I am still waiting for a game in the setting like RTW where you can be an archer on the wall during a siege, or the infantryman defending the breach. Involving thousands of soldiers on each side but you dont have "crosshairs" or special powers or mega-combos or be a superhero - just a soldier with a good combat model (not a button masher). You die? No problem, pick a role in the army you want to try and spawn as another soldier on your side and get back in the battle. Climb the ladders in assaults or charge around on a horse. When the battle is over see who won and your stats etc. That screams multiplayer mayhem! Or singleplayer skirmish off the bat. Oops, I'm drifting again....

[hellenes]

You missed my point, if that were true all singleplayer games would have died out along ago. The ability to commit crime does not equal the number of crimes commited. If it did, we'd have all killed each other long ago. Many games(including previous releases of the TW series) have come out before release but have still sold well. This is because not everyone is a thief as you seem to think. I'm not arguing that warez doesn't exist and that it isn't a problem, but you've really overexaggerated its effect.

And even assuming your theory true and you've done nothing to show it being so, the TW series already requires a valid cdkey for online play, which has a strong community going for it. So if somehow on the next TW release everyone with an internet connection pirates the game instea of paying for it, they'd still have to pay if they want to play versus the real "challenge" in multi as you put it.

Well they will with the ongoing increase of internet speeds in UK you can get 8mbs for 17.99£(20$) in the past it was not true.
I ve seen in russian forums warez supporting people and people that NEVER bought ANY original SP game buying ORIGINAL WarcraftIII TFT and WoW and discussing about battlenet tactics and etc.
How many people play RTW online? 400 maximum...You know how many play on the battlenet W3...Isnt that the CLEAR indication of the value of RTW's CD key in the present POINTLESS BORING REPETITIVE deathmatch battles?
A MP campaign wouldnt take SOO long it just has two options:
either as a MMORPG style grand campaign http://www.computerandvideogames.com...p(que)id=99798 (yep CA had thought about it...) where players connect and play whenever they want and the game goes on, or a fourth option (other than autoresolve retreat and fight yourself) that connects you on Gamespy and matches you with a player who gets in charge of the "AI" army...
As you can see the problem is NOT technical its the community of (mostly) PIPEDREAMERS which demands things that even a jonked junky wouldnt even dream (challenging "AI", diplomacy with a CPU... ,etc.)...

Hellenes

[Alexanderofmacedon]

Hopefully an announce in spring -06 with a release in the autum. But the most plausible would be 2007 if they relly want to knock this game back up to no1 again and take it seriously.
Based on history: STW fall? 2001, MTW spring? 2003, RTW fall 2004 if I remember correctly so it seems the devs needs some +1 1/2 years between games.
The main prob IMO is what era will it cover? A guess would be somewhere between 1500-1800 ad. Personally I´d prefer a bronze age game somewhere around 1500 bc or so with empires and a huge amount of city states and/ or factions.

I'd prefer that as well...

[Ianofsmeg16]

Y'know, i wouldn't mind a fantasy game...just, please, no magic.
i wouldn't mind seeing a Victorian era, with the whole world as a map....something like Victoria:EUTS but with RTW graphics etc

[ChaosLord]

I doubt they were really interested in SP games hellenes, and if they were really that into warez they were probably playing WC3/FT on bnetd(emulated battlenet servers) instead of buying it. I also wouldn't take one look at how many people are in the lobby and says its just 400. Far more pass through then that. I also don't see why you think the MP campaign will suddenly have tens of thousands(to even to begin equaling the numbers playing popular MP games) playing it.

Theres tons of people who play singleplayer who don't play multi and its not because they find the battles pointless, its because they just don't like multiplayer. I also have to say again, i'm not against an multiplayer campaign. It'd be a nice addition to the TW series. But theres nothing to show it'd suddenly prevent all the piracy you think is happening. For most the main attraction of TW are the battles, not the campaign map.

Those who want can get their fix for battles from sp and mp, while the few that prefer the campaign map to it get their fix in singleplayer. Challenging AI also isn't a pipedream, its just not as easy to implement as the latest uneeded graphics feature. Go play Civilization 2, then play Civilization 3. You'll see quite a leap in the AI, and Civilization 4 is only looking better in this reguard as well. Now admittedly this is turn-based battling, but CA could spend some time improving the ability of the AI to wage organized wars on the campaign map and better army composition(to also make battles more difficult).

Diplomacy is a bit harder, but not so hard they couldn't do something to show AI mood towards your nation like other games do. Or for the AI to give more diplomacy feedback. Anyway i've strayed from the point. In the end it doesn't matter if a games main attraction is multiplayer and its protected by a cdkey. A popular enough game will end up with cracked multiplayer. Its happened to WC3/FT, BF1942, NWN, etc... Pretty much any multiplayer game there are now work arounds out there to play it. There are even cracked servers for popular MMORPGs like WoW and L2.

Now if those get cracked and played online without being bought, what makes you think CAs multiplayer campaign will be spared the same fate?

[Viking]

I'd prefer that as well...

CA, go for bronze age, please.

[hellenes]

I doubt they were really interested in SP games hellenes, and if they were really that into warez they were probably playing WC3/FT on bnetd(emulated battlenet servers) instead of buying it. I also wouldn't take one look at how many people are in the lobby and says its just 400. Far more pass through then that. I also don't see why you think the MP campaign will suddenly have tens of thousands(to even to begin equaling the numbers playing popular MP games) playing it.

Theres tons of people who play singleplayer who don't play multi and its not because they find the battles pointless, its because they just don't like multiplayer. I also have to say again, i'm not against an multiplayer campaign. It'd be a nice addition to the TW series. But theres nothing to show it'd suddenly prevent all the piracy you think is happening. For most the main attraction of TW are the battles, not the campaign map.

Those who want can get their fix for battles from sp and mp, while the few that prefer the campaign map to it get their fix in singleplayer. Challenging AI also isn't a pipedream, its just not as easy to implement as the latest uneeded graphics feature. Go play Civilization 2, then play Civilization 3. You'll see quite a leap in the AI, and Civilization 4 is only looking better in this reguard as well. Now admittedly this is turn-based battling, but CA could spend some time improving the ability of the AI to wage organized wars on the campaign map and better army composition(to also make battles more difficult).

Diplomacy is a bit harder, but not so hard they couldn't do something to show AI mood towards your nation like other games do. Or for the AI to give more diplomacy feedback. Anyway i've strayed from the point. In the end it doesn't matter if a games main attraction is multiplayer and its protected by a cdkey. A popular enough game will end up with cracked multiplayer. Its happened to WC3/FT, BF1942, NWN, etc... Pretty much any multiplayer game there are now work arounds out there to play it. There are even cracked servers for popular MMORPGs like WoW and L2.

Now if those get cracked and played online without being bought, what makes you think CAs multiplayer campaign will be spared the same fate?

Well the point is that they ARE interested in SP games, there is even a russian TW forum where there is a thread:Help a friend send free pirated copies of RTW VI to others!!! they just arent interested in ORIGINAL sp games...
W3TFT's battlenet is much lag free UP date 1.20a patch, and most important OVERWHEMINGLY popular with all the features, its very hard to any emulated server to compete thats why the numbers of players on the offical server are so high...
I think that a MP campaign would give what most people like RTW for the ability to play the MAP online thats why IMO the number of current mplayers is so low. Do you know many players that play only custom battles in sp?
RTW's Campaign map "AI" isnt its main weakness its the justifiably poor battlemap "AI" because of the HUGE amount of variables in a 3 dimensional enviroment with limitless possibilities and factors that the current hardware "AI" cant compete with a decent player. There are just TOO MANY rules (or no rules...) for the "AI" to comply and compete with the result of billions of years of evolution...
Ive seen in greek netcafes faceservers of L2 (set up by chain greek netcafe corporations) the lag is unbearable items get lost and its misreable, while ANY faceserver of WoW gets shut down ASAP as one reports one...
The bottom line is a SERVER by CA with the quality of Blizzard like support with low lag and attractive features can make the TW cd keys actually worth the ink they are printed in...

Hellenes

[ChaosLord]

Thats not suprising to hear of, not making any accusations but piracy is more common in the part of the world. Asia is also particularly bad in the reguard. I must say again that i'm not claiming piracy doesn't exist or isn't a problem, but you really need to get off it as an excuse for a multiplayer campaign. First you claimed good protected multiplayer sold games, since otherwise everyone would be downloading it. Now you're claiming its the quality of multiplayer availble(which by the way, emulated bnetd servers have all the same features and take only a short while to update).

The pirated MMORPG servers aren't anything new, there are quite a few popular and lag free ones around, they've been around since UO by the way. Blizzard doesn't indeed shut down WoW servers when it can, but thats only when it can. Many of these servers are hosted in foreign countries where the ISPs involved don't care so long as they get payed for their service. You also can't really compare take one bad experience with a server and claim they're all like that. Because if they were, noone would bother putting them up.

I also didn't mean to imply campaign AI was the main weakness, I just meant it would be the easiest to improve apon compared to battle AI. There is no way for the AI to consistently beat a good human player, but there are ways to make it much more difficult. Really, take a look at Civ3, theres an AI that can beat human players(although, it does cheat on higher difficulty with bonuses, and can see the whole map).

And finally, do you really think CA can afford the time or the money to set up a battlenet-esque network just to make playing multiplayer campaigns and multiplayer battles easy? CA have said time and time again that the mp campaign would take ages to play, especially if players were to fight out battles. And they haven't even gotten all the kinks out of regular multiplayer battles. Lastly, no offense to CA but multiplayer has never seemed to interest them much, it often seems added like an afterthought.

This is because(I think, anyway) CA realizes the majority of their players play sp, and the games STILL SELL WELL. I've got to emphasize that since you seem to thing singleplayer games selling well is impossible in this day and age. We're running in circles now though, unless you want to accept that not everyone with the ability to pirate a game does so. And if you can, we can just call an end to this arguement and hope CA does finally add a multiplayer campaign in their next game, because it would be fun to play even if battles all had to be auto-resolved.

[Alexanderofmacedon]

We need to petition it Viking...

[Ayra]

For one I'd love a Fantasy: Total War.

This way, people wouldn't scream bloody murder everytime there's a female unit in the game! If the Sarmatians history isn't enough to get people to accept female units on the battlefield, maybe a completely fantasy world would. Hopefully I wouldn't get things like: "WTF? Your army is mostly female! That's not historical!" all the time anymore

About the multiplayer campaign, I'd love one too. I play more multi-player than single player in this game, and it would be bliss to have a multiplayer campaign. I know it would take a long time to play this, but I'd simply play with a few friends over a few weeks and everyone would be happy. To be honest though, I'm not sure it would be a feature enjoyed much for the main audience, though.

Another turn-based strategy game (Age of Wonders 2) had a "play by e-mail" feature amongst others, which enabled people to play long games over a few months. Of course, this removes the battlefield aspect of the game (In that game, it autocalced the results if the battle was between players, and made normally when a fight against the AI), which is pretty major in this game I admit. Not sure there's an easy solution that would reward the effort involved in making it, all in all...