Anyone else a little worried by the interviews?!

[TB666]

I think the majority of the interviews is actually about new features, like the princesses, assassin videos, the new city/castle system, battle system, The new world conquests, the new merchant unit and mud and blood.

[Watchman]

Marketing talk. Gotta get the low-brow end of potential customers interested, you know.

[Trithemius]

Marketing talk. Gotta get the low-brow end of potential customers interested, you know.

It might be true, but these people pay the same price that you and I pay for the game - even if they don't spend half their waking hours arguing with people about the military history of Sweden or the equipment of lanciarii on these forums. ;)

[GFX707]

It might be true, but these people pay the same price that you and I pay for the game - even if they don't spend half their waking hours arguing with people about the military history of Sweden or the equipment of lanciarii on these forums. ;)

Don't you think it would be easy to satisfy both lots, though, with a few simple checkboxes in the options? The kiddies who want something like AoE with more men on the screen can simply turn off all the "realism" options and they have their 20 minutes of fun while the hardcore military history dorks can tick yes to all these options and have proper feudal recruitment, a detailed economy, and no ahistorical units.

It really is something I think CA could have realised by now....they can still sell a lot of copies while not "selling out" or their game being considered "boring".

[screwtype]

Don't you think it would be easy to satisfy both lots, though, with a few simple checkboxes in the options? The kiddies who want something like AoE with more men on the screen can simply turn off all the "realism" options and they have their 20 minutes of fun while the hardcore military history dorks can tick yes to all these options and have proper feudal recruitment, a detailed economy, and no ahistorical units.

It really is something I think CA could have realised by now....they can still sell a lot of copies while not "selling out" or their game being considered "boring".

Yeah, I totally agree with that and for the life of me I can't understand why CA aren't giving the player more options.

I mean, heck, if they're so worried about making the game too "hard" for the kiddies, just make the default mode the RTS one and then tuck most or all of the realism options into a configuration file where the hardcore gamers can go and tweak them. That way there is no chance of the poor little kiddies getting all confused with the different choices.

[Servius]

I think Puzz's questions are valid. I also think any real Q&A session with a developer would include those questions and their answers.

While unfortunately uncommon, such questions are appropriate to ask, and if the game design has progressed far enough allong where the devs actually know the answers, they should provide them. If the game has not progressed that far yet, then the devs should be honest and say 'We haven't made up our minds about that yet.'

[Trithemius]

Don't you think it would be easy to satisfy both lots, though, with a few simple checkboxes in the options? The kiddies who want something like AoE with more men on the screen can simply turn off all the "realism" options and they have their 20 minutes of fun while the hardcore military history dorks can tick yes to all these options and have proper feudal recruitment, a detailed economy, and no ahistorical units.

It really is something I think CA could have realised by now....they can still sell a lot of copies while not "selling out" or their game being considered "boring".

I do think that it would be pretty easy. However, the developers might not have the time or the money, and the producers might not be willing to give it to them. There might also be technical considerations that I know nothing about that make it harder.

I'd really like for there to be more customisation options - just like the ones you mention; I am not sure if it will happen simple because of the economics of game sales.