Buy now or wait for the patch?

[Gaius Terentius Varro]

I have glanced thrugh the Bug List and it really reminds me of RTW (stupid/passive AI etc). Is the game in it's current state gonna drive me nuts? Or won't someone who has played TW games way too much the last 4 years really notice...

[Nutranurse]

Well I have bought the game, and I am enjying it to no possible end...hell...I think this may be the best purcahse done by me since I took my girlfriend to get birthcontrol...

So there are a few kinks, they do not ruin the game FULLY, just learn to overlook them and you are fine

[Vanya]

GAH!

Thought is overrated. Don't use your mind. Toss out your head and your mind will follow!

Reach deep into the bowels of your gut and see what you come up with.

Just, do as Vanya sez and not what you might THINK Vanya is trying to say. One misinterpretation could have youz trying to do something no sentient being would ever want to attempt.

And when youz see the wisdom of your guttural revelation, the winds of fate shall steer you on the proper course.

Vanya already knows your choice. But Vanya will let youz try to "discover" it.



GAH!

[Gaius Terentius Varro]

Or maybe just buy some of vanyas medication...

[Nutranurse]

GAH!

Thought is overrated. Don't use your mind. Toss out your head and your mind will follow!

Reach deep into the bowels of your gut and see what you come up with.

Just, do as Vanya sez and not what you might THINK Vanya is trying to say. One misinterpretation could have youz trying to do something no sentient being would ever want to attempt.

And when youz see the wisdom of your guttural revelation, the winds of fate shall steer you on the proper course.

Vanya already knows your choice. But Vanya will let youz try to "discover" it.



GAH!

This...is more confusing than my AP World teacher trying to explain the Greeks in 2 days....

[KARTLOS]

I have glanced thrugh the Bug List and it really reminds me of RTW (stupid/passive AI etc). Is the game in it's current state gonna drive me nuts? Or won't someone who has played TW games way too much the last 4 years really notice...

it is still worth buying as you can get alot of fun out of it. i would say the majority of bugs are minor - you only notice them occasionally and they are irratating rather than game destroying.

i would however suggest avoiding factions who have units which suffer from the two-handed weapon bug for example the english whose billmen are supposed to be a key unit, and the byzantines with their varangian guard )- you have to wait along time to get them and then they turn out to be useless which is very frustrating).

[Martok]

GAH! Hey Vanya; good to see you 'round these parts again. GAH!

@Gaius Terentius Varro: My personal recommendation would be to wait, as it seems like CA was forced to release the game when there were still significant coding issues yet to be resolved (i.e., bugs). It really depends, though. If you were one of the players for whom the bugs in Rome drove you crazy, then I would probably advise you to wait until the patch is released.

If they didn't bother you that much, however, then there's probably not much reason to hold off on picking up a copy. Given that most people's impressions of the game are generally favorable (even I would give Medieval 2 a tentative thumbs-up from the short time I played it), you would probably enjoy the game as is.

I personally will never buy another game until it's patched, however. That's just one lesson I've learned the way.

P.S. - Don't worry about Vanya guys. He's one of our oldest active members, and very much a decent fellow. He just happens to be a tad....eccentric. (So in other words, he fits in perfectly here. )

[unknown_user]

Go ahead and pick it up now. You can use the time from now till patch to tinker around and get used to some of the new mechanics and gameplay elements, and then when the patch comes out, start a new campaign.

[Barry Fitzgerald]

Hard to say..don't get me wrong good game..but not amazingly great IMHO. As for how it plays with the patches...well I am waiting to see what CA do, and if they tweak a lot of stuff...it will be great.

Have to say not playing it half as much as the other TW games..

As for most bugs are minor..um no this is the most bugged TW game ever! without question.

[Gaius Terentius Varro]

I do tend to get hung up a lot on small things... Thank you for the feedback tho.

[Shahed]

It is the most bugged TW game for sure, but I'd still say Buy Now, because it is the best TW game ever.

[SirGrotius]

If you ever want to take a medicine and you read the package insert, you'd be scared off by the safety information. It's the same thing with this game--don't judge the game based on a bug list. It's enjoyable, lighten up, and have fun. A patch will come.

[RussianWinter]

I'd say wait and see. It's nice to have new units, factions n all but I find myself getting frustrated w/ the game for the same reasons I got frustrated with RTW. Even 2 expansions later things didn't seem to change. One persons minor frustration is another persons showstopper, but if the only litmus test you have is Rome, then there you go.

[Chrisky]

I say wait for the patch. I have bought it 0-day and have stopped playing because the battle AI bugs/"new features" made it so boooooring. Had I known of the bugs before, I would have waited. It's like with the Airbus 3XX; Not fully working > No deal.

The game is enjoyable; when it works. Unfortunately, it does not so for me a lot of the time, why i have stopped playing until the patch arrives.

Battles are simply no challenge, just have your archers mow down an army standing still is only enjoyable for so long.
Another game I recently bought (Armed Assault) is full of buggy behaviour as well, however they managed to put out a patch quickly fixing the worst and acknowledge need to further patching.

It is a concerning development that Publishers force Studios to release unfinished stuff more and more. We as consumers are paying the price. CA lost a lot of goodwill with me thanks to M2TW. They're still making an excellent game, if they actually finish it someday.

Notice CA is calling news of an UPDATE not a PATCH - patches fix BUGS. Updates are making good software better...

Personally I think they shouldn't say anything how long it takes anymore - they were talking 0-day patch originally after all and are losing credibility by announcing stuff like that. Like Microsoft and the Vista release... Who in turn did things right putting off the release until their QA was through and lots of beta testing finished... Sorry, getting OT, apples and oranges...

Wait for the patch.

[Fearless]

I would wait. I haven't touched the campaign game for two weeks because of all the problems. Done a lot of custom battles testing units etc which of course also wants sorting out. The way things are going you may pick up a copy in the sales as I have just read it has dropped to no.10 in the Gamespot games sales chart. All very sad.

[dopp]

I say get it. There are workarounds to most of the bugs and the game is a solid improvement over RTW, especially if you liked MTW.

M2TW was definitely a little rushed. The game should never have been allowed out the door with the cohesion and other formation bugs. Many features also seem incomplete (armor upgrades, armor penetration values for different weapons). But except for the 2-handers, most of the other units affected (knights, guns, maybe pikes) still work pretty decently. While the game is perhaps the most buggy TW ever released, it also features the most improvements and perhaps the best TW experience so far. I tear my hair out much less playing M2TW than RTW.

I wonder which period they will visit in the next TW. TW2142?

[Throumbaris]

I got the game and i played it like a heroin addict. Then i read 1000 posts about bugs and stopped playing it because i had a crazy thought that the bugs destroyed the game. After a few days i started another game to see what bugs destroyed the game and i got addicted to heroin again.

[Satyr]

I got frustrated so I reloaded MTW and am enjoying that more. I do yearn for the better graphics but the game play is way better on the original.