An interesting development

[Olorin I]

Here my last two posts on the Total War Forums on this subject - offered to the community here as food for thought.

12/23/2005:

@ Shogun:

It is simply absurd that you have not crafted a solution to this issue after the passage of this much time. I do not say "problem" because this implies that CA had something to do with causing the lobby abuse. Clearly, this is not the case.

Surely, you cannot take this Choja fellow too seriously. He is abusive and parochial. He derides the manner in which free speech is protected in the USA without a true understanding of the complexity of the issue under US Constitutional Law. Although he is certainly verbose, mostly his diatribes are specters -- they may appear formidable, but they are without substance. It is difficult to believe that a true litigation exposure assessment conducted by counsel experienced in this field would yield a conclusion that CA is at siginificant risk of being held liable in a civil proceeding for the intentional bad acts of others.

As for fear of bad publicity, do not make me laugh. Racial comments, religious ridicule, abusive language, foul language, etc are certainly not confined to the Gamespy Lobbies of RTW - unacceptable behavior is rampant on the net --- and RTW is not even an egregious example of this kind of reprehensible behavior.

Let me leave you with this thought. Barbarian Invasion is an expansion pack. Only people with RTW will buy it. If the percentage of your customer base that plays multiplayer is important to you, then you will find a solution to this issue that permits lobby communication without further delay. This is not a threat, but I am merely predicting that potential purchasers who primarily play multiplayer will not purchase the game without the lobby chat function restored. Those of us who have already purchased the expansion will begin to consider returning the title to the stores where we purchased BI requesting a cash refund based on the product not conforming to its advertised capabilities by reason of an action undertaken by the game's developer. This would be truly tragic as RTW and BI are, all things considered, excellent products. I enjoy playing, but much less so now, I must admit.

Olorin I

12/28/2005:

@ Shogun

It has been four weeks since you unilaterally announced the disabling of the chat feature in the RTW multiplayer lobbies. It has been two weeks since your last comment in the very thread that YOU started to keep the multiplayer community advised.

If you are serious about crafting a solution, then it is beyond reason to think that you have not, at least decided on a course of action and taken the initial steps along that course. It is time for you to apprise the community of the progress of your efforts in some degree of detail.

Of course, the cynical amongst us might think that multiplayer is not important to you and that CA never intended to do anything to restore the chat function - but that you/CA simply intended to make enough posts to prevent an initial firestorm, hoping that the ferocity of the storm would ebb as time passed. Certainly your conspicuous silence for the past two weeks gives creedance to that line of thought.

Since the total war forum moderators and administrators are largely intolerant of opinions that differ with or are critical of CA policy/comments, I imagine that one or both of these posts will be edited out and/or I will be banned. Nonetheless, I stand by my critical commentary.

Olorin I