Update infos from the blog

[Derfel von Saljeth]

http://totalwarcommunity.blogspot.com/

[Lusted]

Nice, so we will see the patch in a matter of days, and that also means the unpacker.

[TB666]

A very good read.
I'm looking forward to those "days"

[Brighdaasa]

it's nice to get an update, although it reads to me like maybe at the end of next week, or even the week after. I'm pretty sure the qa department doesn't work during the weekends.

[Jambo]

It's interesting to finally know the various layers they've added to cavalry charges. Personally I like the design and presuming the patch will tweak it a little to make it less unpredictable, the end product should be very satisfying. Should make it interesting for online play too.

Let's just hope they managed to tweak the failings of the two-handed units (read billmen and dismounted English knights)...

[Doug-Thompson]

Interesting that the "hit or miss" charge method was created in direct response to forum griping about cavalry being all-powerful in RTW.

[Kraxis]

Well, I like the new system a whole lot, and have liked it since my first sitting. Cavalry can still be downright nasty to face or untilize. However the cohesion problem is not something that is good. That wouldn't happen. At worst a few individual would halt, and take a few others with them, but the majority would carry through if they determiend the target to be worth the effort.

So I see no 'interesting' things about this. And I doubt that people in general dislike this, just the problems we have been getting with running down routers, skirmishers and units running/marching directly away.

[Beefeater]

We asked for an explanation, and it was forthcoming. That's good enough for me.

[mor dan]

to what address do we send these "gifts of caffine"?

[BigTex]

Definately good news. Can't wait to see the update list.

Also wonderful to see some explanation of the charge system in there. Hopefully there will be a few more explanations of quirks that arent covered in the manual.

[Shahed]

Ì have no comment on the patch release.

One comment on cavalry.

The more I use cavalry (and that is ALL I use, NOTHING else), the more I like it, when it works as intended by game design.

[TheFluff]

I like the idea of a formed and unformed charge. It makes it seem more realistic in the sence that sometimes you want your knights to charge and break up the enemy lines, but other times your cav archers for instances see a oppturnety on a enemy flank, or a friendly unit is about to rout and they "charge" but its more like a rush. 10% however is kinda small? 4 units is all it would take in a 40 man cav unit. But as long as they fix up the cohesion to make even the weak charge "fallow through" i dont have much to gripe about. I feel like its more important for your units to keep moveing foward even if they arent geting a charge bonus.


Now we have yet to see about 2handers and unit stats. I still think that alot of the unit stats in the game are missprinted, some under and over marked compared to how they really do and this ties in to almot every 2 handed unit either being better or worse then is printed or implied in the descripton,

[Shahed]

The thing that really concerns me, after all, is the way Hashashin is spelt wrong as HashashiM. This in my most humble and unworthy opinion is by far the most significant issue in the game at this very moment. And just by the way I think their helmets look like a bit like those little demi bockets of popcorn you get at the cinema.

[Whacker]

The thing that really concerns me, after all, is the way Hashashin is spelt wrong as HashashiM. This in my most humble and unworthy opinion is by far the most significant issue in the game at this very moment. And just by the way I think their helmets look like a bit like those little demi bockets of popcorn you get at the cinema.

People tend to do ... interesting things when under the influence of recreational drugs. Perhaps they got the munchies, then decided that the munchy container would make an excellent helmet? "BEHOLD HASAN, MY HEAD IS PROTECTED BY ALLAH AND KERASOTES THEATERS!!!" Not that I'd know and never did anything stupid in my youth. *cough*

[Shahed]

roflmfao

[Bob the Insane]

It really shows that they have their ear to the ground and are sensitive to the mood of the the community...

After the last forum note about maybe hearing something about the update in a couple of weeks the mood started to turn a little dark again. And the fact they that they wanted (felt that they needed to?) to do something about this (and thus the blog) is very cool in my opinion...

I remain very optimistic about the forthcoming update...

[Whacker]

It really shows that they have their ear to the ground and are sensitive to the mood of the the community...

After the last forum note about maybe hearing something about the update in a couple of weeks the mood started to turn a little dark again. And the fact they that they wanted (felt that they needed to?) to do something about this (and thus the blog) is very cool in my opinion...

I remain very optimistic about the forthcoming update...

If by "update" you mean patch, then yes, I share this optimism.

However, the community blogs and updates (as in press release type communications, not patches) are a double-edged sword. By and large people expect results, not words. In short, we want the fixes, not flowery prose about how well it's proceeding and it'll be here "soon". Too much of this will only server to annoy people and darken the mood more. The recent post by Shogun was, imo, a bit of both. There was some empty lameness to it, but the description about charge mechanics was great, and exactly what quite a few people have been clamoring for. Real, meaningful community interaction goes miles for improving relations and the overall "mood" imo. Lame, empty, hollow, intangible, and insubstantial "Things are going great expect great stuff soon" statements only serve to aggravate.

FYI, I have long been a reader of the .org and have always approved of your pointy hat. Perhaps it is time to accessorize? Ever consider a popcorn bucket?

[Quickening]

If by "update" you mean patch, then yes, I share this optimism.

However, the community blogs and updates (as in press release type communications, not patches) are a double-edged sword. By and large people expect results, not words. In short, we want the fixes, not flowery prose about how well it's proceeding and it'll be here "soon". Too much of this will only server to annoy people and darken the mood more. The recent post by Shogun was, imo, a bit of both. There was some empty lameness to it, but the description about charge mechanics was great, and exactly what quite a few people have been clamoring for. Real, meaningful community interaction goes miles for improving relations and the overall "mood" imo. Lame, empty, hollow, intangible, and insubstantial "Things are going great expect great stuff soon" statements only serve to aggravate.

But people complain far more when they hear nothing. The longer I am on this forum, the more I feel sorry for CA.

[Barry Fitzgerald]

Hmm not sure I feel sorry for CA...

I mean the game has been in development for over 2 years...they must have a team working on graphics, structure and AI etc...

From the looks of things the eye candy dept got to priority in that pecking order!

Sure making a game isnt that easy..esp one such as this, but they had the rome engine to work from...surely not that difficult to put it out without massive major problems?

And I think we know it could have done with a few more months..I would say 6 of tweaking and perfecting before release.

[Whacker]

But people complain far more when they hear nothing.

Exactly, which is why frequent, meaningful communication and community interaction is the key to winning the day.

The longer I am on this forum, the more I feel sorry for CA.

I somewhat share this notion, but it is somewhat tempered by my perceptions of CA's actions and responses to the community in general, as well as the initial product quality of their latest game, at least as I see it. I think I'm a pretty easy going and sympathetic person, but I do have standards and demand a minimum level of quality and service when I do business with someone.

[AussieGiant]

It is certainly a timely and well thought out blog entry to the community.

As I have mentioed previously, at least now we have the charge concept explained we can start to really focus and help CA on implimenting it.

I personally think it's great and I'm even more impressed by this line:

"This is certainly something we will look to get your feedback on once you get the update and see the charge in action with the additional tweaks."

Now...is it just me or are they outlining here a multiple patching schedule??

[Faenaris]

If by "update" you mean patch, then yes, I share this optimism.

However, the community blogs and updates (as in press release type communications, not patches) are a double-edged sword. By and large people expect results, not words. In short, we want the fixes, not flowery prose about how well it's proceeding and it'll be here "soon". Too much of this will only server to annoy people and darken the mood more. The recent post by Shogun was, imo, a bit of both. There was some empty lameness to it, but the description about charge mechanics was great, and exactly what quite a few people have been clamoring for. Real, meaningful community interaction goes miles for improving relations and the overall "mood" imo. Lame, empty, hollow, intangible, and insubstantial "Things are going great expect great stuff soon" statements only serve to aggravate.

FYI, I have long been a reader of the .org and have always approved of your pointy hat. Perhaps it is time to accessorize? Ever consider a popcorn bucket?

I know my post is off-topic, but I just wanted to reply to your comment regarding "lame, empty, hollow, intangible, and insubstantial things", Whacker.

Giving a tangible release date is paramount to disaster. Ask every mod team regarding a release date and they'll say "when it's done", even when the mod is released the very next day! A smart thing to do, for if you missed your date, you will have hordes of fans, screaming bloody murder "WHY????".

I know the folks at the .ORG are sensible people and wouldn't curse CA for 10 generations in 7 languages if they missed a date, but the majority at the .COM forums would be spamming the board to hell. Imagine a new buyer (or soon-to-be-buyer) walks in and notices all those whiney threads and decides that CA is "le suck" ... So, I agree with CA's philosophy: Give info, DON'T give an EXACT date. The very fact that they bothered to explain the Cavalry-charge mechanism gets two thumbs up from me. We all know plenty of other examples where the Devs don't say a word to the community.

[Kraxis]

I personally think it's great and I'm even more impressed by this line:

"This is certainly something we will look to get your feedback on once you get the update and see the charge in action with the additional tweaks."

Now...is it just me or are they outlining here a multiple patching schedule??

Wold seem like it... If that the idea they are workign with now, I'm happy. Lots of small patches are by far to prefer, for me.

[Spino]

Keep in mind the Total War series is Sega's baby now, not Activision's. When CA was owned by Activision they were on a very tight leash when it came to patches. Based on how aggressively Sega is promoting MTW2 (there are commercials for it all over cable TV, a first for the franchise) I can see why they might want to ruffle as few feathers as possible by being unusually supportive of the game.

[Whacker]

Giving a tangible release date is paramount to disaster. Ask every mod team regarding a release date and they'll say "when it's done", even when the mod is released the very next day! A smart thing to do, for if you missed your date, you will have hordes of fans, screaming bloody murder "WHY????".

Ave Mr. Fen

Well spoken, looking back I was perhaps being a tad harsh with my wording, but my overall point was still there. It's probably just all those years of having to suffer through the subtle lies, blatant lies, half-truths, and "creative license" that the gaming industry as a whole have been throwing at me coming to the surface.

I do agree somewhat with what you've stated, and there's some that I do respectfully disagree on. In general, I do agree that when Company X states that they've got a deliverable that's coming on Date Y, and they miss that date for whatever reason, there's going to be some fairly serious backlash from the customer base, and for good reason. I know there've been several instances of this in terms of patches throughout my gaming years, I just can't recall any... Chalk it up to old age. In terms of a whole game release, I agree with you completely up to a point. The "when it's done" is a perfect mantra to stick to, up to a point where you're close enought to release that it's time to get geared up for it. Distributors need to be brought in line, advertising ramped up, helpdesk/support tested and verified, etc, so one will be prepared when it hits the shelves. Without going off on this tangent, suffice to say I think the industry in general is doing terrible job with this bit.

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

*cough* S.T.A.L.K.E.R. *cough*

In terms of patching, I have a slightly different opinion. I still say that 1. maintaining close contact with the community to verify and collaborate on bug-finding and feature-requests is an absolutely must, and 2. as the patches near completion, THEN give us firm dates when to expect them. For the 2nd item, I do not believe this is too much to demand. I realize there are a number of different software dev methods for dealing with ongoing support and patching, but by and large everyone does have a final QA test cycle, in CA's case it appears to be 2 weeks. By the time this cycle is hit, it's pretty much a given that everything will be done at the end of this and verified. Devs don't (shouldn't, I should say) just slap together some code then commit it to the CVS and let the QA folks handle it, they should generally run some test cases to ensure they squished it properly. QA simply verifies this and ensure that nothing else broke, which the dev should have also taken into account.

Still awake? Anyway, take that all with a grain of salt, it's just my hard-headed opinions.

Wold seem like it... If that the idea they are workign with now, I'm happy. Lots of small patches are by far to prefer, for me.

I wholeheartedly agree with this.

[AussieGiant]

Wold seem like it... If that the idea they are workign with now, I'm happy. Lots of small patches are by far to prefer, for me.

Well Kraxis, now that you have also interpreted it this way, then I can't wait for a few rounds of QA on this game.

I think there is going to be a bit of a rude shock in the community when the Passive AI is fixed after this patch.

[Faenaris]

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

Ave Mr. Fen

Well spoken, looking back I was perhaps being a tad harsh with my wording, but my overall point was still there. It's probably just all those years of having to suffer through the subtle lies, blatant lies, half-truths, and "creative license" that the gaming industry as a whole have been throwing at me coming to the surface.

I do agree somewhat with what you've stated, and there's some that I do respectfully disagree on. In general, I do agree that when Company X states that they've got a deliverable that's coming on Date Y, and they miss that date for whatever reason, there's going to be some fairly serious backlash from the customer base, and for good reason. I know there've been several instances of this in terms of patches throughout my gaming years, I just can't recall any... Chalk it up to old age. In terms of a whole game release, I agree with you completely up to a point. The "when it's done" is a perfect mantra to stick to, up to a point where you're close enought to release that it's time to get geared up for it. Distributors need to be brought in line, advertising ramped up, helpdesk/support tested and verified, etc, so one will be prepared when it hits the shelves. Without going off on this tangent, suffice to say I think the industry in general is doing terrible job with this bit.

*cough* S.T.A.L.K.E.R. *cough*

In terms of patching, I have a slightly different opinion. I still say that 1. maintaining close contact with the community to verify and collaborate on bug-finding and feature-requests is an absolutely must, and 2. as the patches near completion, THEN give us firm dates when to expect them. For the 2nd item, I do not believe this is too much to demand. I realize there are a number of different software dev methods for dealing with ongoing support and patching, but by and large everyone does have a final QA test cycle, in CA's case it appears to be 2 weeks. By the time this cycle is hit, it's pretty much a given that everything will be done at the end of this and verified. Devs don't (shouldn't, I should say) just slap together some code then commit it to the CVS and let the QA folks handle it, they should generally run some test cases to ensure they squished it properly. QA simply verifies this and ensure that nothing else broke, which the dev should have also taken into account.

Still awake? Anyway, take that all with a grain of salt, it's just my hard-headed opinions.

It isn't a hard-headed opinion mate. On the contrary, you saw some reason in my point and I'm happy about that. Some people would stubbornly ignore things that didn't comply with their view, but you aren't one of them, so, not hard-headed at all.

I agree with your vision regarding the patches though. Developpers should communicate alot with the community regarding requests and bugfixes. While CA does this to a certain extent, I agree that it could be a whole lot more, but it appears to be "hard" to do this. The only developper that truly (and fully) communicates with its fanbase is Kerberos-Productions. Best developper-fanbase interaction I have ever seen.

Fact is, we don't know what is going on at CA's office and we will never know either. But I find it very good to see CA comming out and giving more info than they did when RTW was released. "Save-load-feature" for the win. Let's hope the current trend keeps improving.

Oh, and I gave up on Stalker. The one big reason I wanted that game was because of the co-op Multiplay. Unless there is an expansion that implements it, I'm not gonna spend my days trying to scrap some tidbits of info regarding the game together.

[Grimmy]

Depends on how the patches affect mods and modding. One of the reasons I invest in TW games is because of the fantastic mods that get produced for the games and the greatly enhanced replayability that brings. The mods are a big "bang for buck" multiplier.

If the lots of little patches means I have to have lots of M2TW installations to play the mods that are sure to be even more fun to play than the vanilla, then I'd rather have just a few bigger patches.

[Faenaris]

Well Kraxis, now that you have also interpreted it this way, then I can't wait for a few rounds of QA on this game.

I think there is going to be a bit of a rude shock in the community when the Passive AI is fixed after this patch.

Aye, I can't wait to have a bloodthirsty AI unleashed on my unfortunate troops.

Dread +1

[Kraxis]

Well Kraxis, now that you have also interpreted it this way, then I can't wait for a few rounds of QA on this game.

I think there is going to be a bit of a rude shock in the community when the Passive AI is fixed after this patch.

Heh... I don't know if I have interpreted it like that, but I hope and there are a few little pointers at it. It is up to everybody himself to find out if this is what we expect. I just hope, and previously I couldn't even hope. I guess that is the difference.

I am looking forward to 'The Revenge of the AI'.