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I've heard a few people comment that Medieval 2 was rushed, and I was curious about it. I don't think we really resolved if Rome was rushed out the door, although it seems to have been. What do people think about this?

And don't just post one line like, "OMG M2TW sucks and it was rushed because it has bugs." I'm interested in something more substantial.

It may have been pushed a little bit, and admittedly there are a few things wrong with, but it's a much more polished product than RTW was at the release.

mostly all games are rushed nowndays... with only the exception of a few... this game was rushed a little.

it's not as bad as some games though.

No doubt at that, but it is playable even with some annoying bugs. AI can still tear you a new one if you're not careful.

M2TW was rushed, and nobody can legitimately argue otherwise. Seriously, no responsible developer willing to take their time would have let so many glaring, GAPING flaws slip into their product and still feel content to publish it. Umm, Passive AI anyone? They even acknowledged that it was present in the game BEFORE it was released!

How about the inability for gunpowder infantry to reform properly after a loss?

How about the fact that many units are clearly not as effective as they were intended to be? Varangian Guard are paraded as the byzantine main unit, yet they lose against everything. Something like the attack speed bug could not have slipped past a playtest. You'd think ONE of the beta testers would have noticed, "Hey. My varangians just got gothmetalled on by some Peasants. That seems not normal."

How about the stats system being misleading to the point of obsolescence?

Blah blah...you've heard or experienced it all. Granted, it's a much better game than RTW, and I'm not denying that it is a good game, but it's by no means an amazing or fantastic game. CA seems to be making each new game with less and less care and attention. The TW series is not synonymous with horribly buggy gameplay. CA can't keep leaving so many gaping, obvious bugs in their future games and then just hope to write it off with that clever little rhetorical device - "oops!" Eventually, people are going to get sick and tired. I already am.

M2 is a good game with a very limited scope that is further limited by bugs on top of bugs. The game just doesn't live up to its epic scope anymore.

At this point I'd blame things more on sloppy code-base/ code management then being rushed. My guess is that the source code required to fix problems like bad AI just isn't robust enough to handle alterations this far down the line.

This is what, game #4 from this engine?? They've had years to get stuff right, I don't think pushing release back farther would have fixed this stuff.

I dont think MTW2 was rushed at all.

CA is like a music artist, sega is the record company

Gamespot, IGN and such are like MTV and VH1

A Demo is like a single (track)

CA is like a pouplar artist, allready has a few hits, sega is the new boss but still, the arist might have a great album and single but still might want more time to work on some tracks, but sega just wants the finished productand doesnt care if the artist is off temo or what ever (like a bug).

so yes, dispite my complacted analogy, i think the game wasent rushed but sega dident let CA work on the finishing touches, just like when someone rushes out a report and doesnt bother to double check it to hard. they wanted results and they dident want to loose fan intrest or have to dish out more money to promote it. So i dont blame CA, i think its just the industry is like this now and you'll just have to get used to buying subpar games and hopeing after you pay them they will patch it up and fix it.

Good analogy Fluff

I don't think it was actually rushed. They may have missed or overlooked a few things but this is actually much better than most new released games...just shows you how bad most are What have we sunk to!

The manual and lack of tech trees, maps etc is the greatest deficit, IMO.

Would we like changes? Sure but is it as buggy as RTW? NO WAY. This is much above average...I can't help that average still sucks.

Why should we? If I but anything else that is sub standard I take it back. But it is not possible with a game. Passive AI is a major flaw acknowledged by everyone. It is because people accept this standard that companies can continue to produce games that are not finished. The civilization series has had 4 incarnations and countles expansions. That only gets better. I feel that we are no further forward here. Only the mods made RTW a truly great experience. Do we have to rely on enthusiasts' goodwill this time as well?

Wait, no one knows the real time length it took !?! Well guess what...

It's been a while, but I don't recall ever thinking Rome was rushed out the door. I remember at the time, a CA staffer posted here that they were told to take an extra year developing it because some high-ups (at Activision?) got excited. They had seen early work on the engine and thought it was going to be bigger than the rather modest follow-up to MTW that CA planned, so they wanted CA really go to town on it. I inferred this was largely in terms of polishing the game so it was very much on the leading edge in terms of graphics (and there they succeeded, IMO). We certainly did seem to have to wait quite a while for RTW, even watching it being put through its paces on a TV program (Time Commanders) before we could get our sweaty hands on it. So CA had plenty of time to tweak a pretty polished working version of it.

At this point, some Orgahs are probably going to show up and give their "100 reasons why I think STW/MTW is better than RTW" speech again. But I don't think most of those reasons are to do with bugs or simply a rushed product. Some features from the earlier games may have been lost, but I don't think there is any evidence that this was due to "rushing". Rather it was more like early coal-fired ships lacking some of the features of the later sailing ships.

I remember being shocked to hear, just before Heroes of Might and Magic V came out, that the AI of HommV was only being worked on a couple of months before release. However, it seems standard practice to put all the elements together and then give attention to the AI. I guess it makes some sense - you can't see how a car runs until you have put the wheels on and installed the engine etc.

From the developer blogs, M2TWs AI seems to have been given a lot more attention than HommVs - perhaps because with RTW already existing, they could get earlier builds which they could tinker with. But I still get the feeling that the shortcomings of M2TW have some analogies the HommV AI story. Most of the bugs that people have identified are not missing wheels or an engine that won't run. They are components that don't quite mesh together; things that need a slight adjustment to get them running smoothly.

If I compare M2TW with one (great) game that we know was rushed - Star Wars Knights of the Old Republic 2 (KOTOR2), there's no comparison. KOTOR2 was just incomplete - whole parts of the game that were planned had not been added due to lack of time - and the whole thing just feels clunky. By contrast, M2TW still strikes me as a fairly polished complete product - as much as any TW in the past. It certainly feels as if it has hard more tender loving care lavished on it than BI (which is a game I like). It just needs some tinkering through a few patches.

Maybe game design schedules should allow a longer period for tweaking etc. But I guess you have to stop sometime and the biggest bug with M2TW in my opinion - the "passive AI bug" - seems to have been introduced after tweaking (much like the "kings die at 56" MTW bug).

Interesting analogy. Looking for comparators, it did strike me that Civ 4 was released as more a polished product than M2TW. But it also seems a less ambitious one. I suspect programming a Civ AI is easier than programming BOTH a TW campaign AI AND a battle AI, the latter with all the animations, wide open spaces etc.

Personally, I think M2TW stands in relation to RTW as Civ4 does to Civ3. Both of the later games are much further forward, and better, than their immediate predecessors. They are also arguably better than MTW and Civ2, although there the gains are less dramatic.

You know, I was just reading your comments and I realized... I don't really remember how RTW was in vers 1.0 and 1.1. I remember having a few corrupted savegames, but that was it. In all honestly, I think my favorite patch level was 1.2, it just felt like for all the stuff they fixed in 1.3 and 1.5, they broke something else pretty bad. /shrug I the end I still say I am satisfied with the ultimate resulting product, it makes for great fun and replayability.


LOL!!! I'm waiting for it too. For the record, I don't really like to compare too much, even though I often do for the purposes of providing background to my positions/arguments/suggestions. Each game was cool in it's own right, and they each had their strong points and weaknesses. M2TW looks to be no exception to that rule.

Mmrrr.... That's a tough one and a great point on KOTOR2, I had to think about that for a bit. My gut reaction was to disagree with you on some of the nuances, but I can see how you got to that conclusion and would be inclined to agree on some points. KOTOR2 was/is the poster child of mis-managing a game's release. If you actually tear into the files and read some stuff from the web boards, quite a bit of the bugs and inconsistency can be directly traced to the huge amounts of content that was axed in trying to force a scheduled release, and even then they overshot xmas by 2 months. I guess the part that I disagree with you on is perhaps your wording about "stuff that was planned but not added", though I'm trying not to read into it. Almost everything IS there, it's tucked away in the game files, just not used. Team Gizka is nearing completion on their restoration project, if you're interesting go take a look and browse around their website. You'll get an idea how much stuff really IS there, it just got "cut" but left in the game for the fans to discover. This is also the ongoing raging "discussion" on who's to blame for it being in the state it's in, I think by and large you'll find people blame Lucasarts. They haven't exactly had the best track record over the past few years, so one can somewhat see how that came about. There's a few who point the finger at Obsidian, and a few others who blame both. Personally I don't really care, trying to place blame is counterproductive and it's not really going to solve anything, hence why I made some comments to that effect in the now-locked latest "STOP WHINING!!" thread.

Bottom line, meh, I guess I'm inclined to agree at this point on K2. BOTH KOTOR1 and 2 were shoved out the door early, trying to force schedules and releases for holiday sales. The main difference to me is KOTOR1 was eventually 99% fixed, KOTOR2 was patched once and kinda left as a wounded animal.

RE: M2TW being polished... Again, my own personal opinion... I just can't agree. I think that it should have stayed in the oven for at least a few more weeks to iron the kinks out. Like I said, I'm enjoying the game for the most part, but the first impression just left some bad tastes in my mouth. I have no doubts CA will patch and fix this over time... I still refuse to move off of my "I demand good quality upfront" position, just because it's a principle that I choose to adhere to. I also challenge anyone who thinks this, to show me where I've been bashing CA or the game, as I've repeatedly made my positions known. I've been a good CA customer since the beginning, as I stated I bought each game (twice actually) within a week of release, expansions included. I may not be a highly respected .orgah vet, or even known at all in the community, but I do believe that as a loyal customer I've earned my right to participate, voice my positions and opinions, just like everyone else does. Those comments are directed at NOONE in particular for the record, it's just me thinking outloud.

Inclined to agree here, though I am making some assumptions about what the "final" product will look like. CA has, in my opinion, done a good job of ensuring that each new iteration of their games have made some good solid strides forward.

We now return you to normal programming.
Cheers!

it seems rushing games has become part of the industry as of late. kotor 2 being one of the best examples i can think of atm.
nwn2 also felt rushed and if not for the newest patch it would still be crappy (but playable mind you, just that the patch made it sooo much better)

mtw2...well...it feels alot like rtw. i guess its because of the engine =P. i do miss a couple of things mtw had that mtw2 didnt but im still enjoying the game as is.

Excellently said. Although I get the impression that the game bugs were more apparent to you than to myself as Ive actually enjoyed the game a lot. It is only the endless complaining on this forum that has tainted the experience for me, it's hard not to read it.
Like you, if I spend £30 on something, then I expect to get exactly what I pay for. Not an unfinished work that requires patches to bring it up to the standard. They say "vote with your wallet" but I don't believe that ever works. It would take one hell of a movement to convince gamers to boycott games companies until they release games that are actually finished. Sadly, I think it is something that is just going to keep happening.

Considering the fact that most players experienced the 'passive AI' bug within hours of installing the game, I think there is no question the game was rushed out.
There really is no reason why something as obvious (and with such an impact) could have been overlooked.

Still, the game is enjoyable enough, and I've promised myself a new campaign as soon as the patch is out (I have a problem finishing campaigns, always starting new ones.... so I'm forcing myself to stay with the current one in this way ;) )

Was it rushed? No more than PRETTY MUCH EVERY GAME THAT HAS BEEN RELEASED IN THE LAST 10 YEARS.

To anyone who thinks this game was rushed: take a step back and look at the depth of every other game out there compared to M2TW. Now tell me M2TW was a rush job again.

Yes, really is a reason the passive AI bug was overlooked. There was a last minute tweak to the AI that broke something, and by the time it was noticed the game was in production.

I guess they could spend a month or two testing every last change before going gold. And then, when they find a bug, fix it then spend another month or two testing. In some industries (ones where if there is a bug, the worst case scenario isnt a forum full of whining petulant twelve year olds, its where EVERYBODY DIES), thats what happens.

I guess game developers could emulate that approach, but you would be waiting for another year for M2TW, and it would cost twice as much money. and CA would go bust, because theyre trying to compete with wafer thin RTS and MMORPG-by-numbers and crank the handle FPS, none of which have the complexity of TW and none of which require anything like the AI that TW has.

As many people have already said, all games are rushed out of the door these days. Things are getting so complex that it would take forever to iron out all of the bugs (and the bugs created by the fixes and so on). In my (limited) experience of software development, these days you end up saying "Well, it doesn't actually kill the user, lets do a code freeze for release" at some stage.

Having said that, the fact that CA announced a "day zero" patch pretty much on release of the game suggests that they were forced to ship before they'd fixed everything to their satisfaction.

This is simply untrue. I labbed Varangians to see how they were performing before I decided how to address them, and they win against most units. They crush peasants, dismounted feudal knights, dismounted chivalric knights... I had to pit them against Zwei Handers before they actually lost.

However, I didn't think they were winning by enough, and losing to Zwei Handers seems odd considering the Varangians have significantly better stats, so I changed their animation and now they own everything in sight, which is simply a reflection of their amazing stats.

However, while you can say they don't live up to their stats in the stock game, they definitely don't "lose to everything" and they absolutely will not lose to peasants, ever.

Personally, I regretfully have to say that yes, I think M2TW was rushed. I don't care whether or not it's CA's fault or SEGA's or whatever, I care that I spent 50 bucks of my hard-earned money on an obviously unfinished product.

Apart from the already mentioned bugs (passive AI), what I find it extremely disturbing is how many things CA "fixed" that weren't necessarily broken in RTW, e.g. archers shooting vertically when on walls, units completely incapable of obeying orders to attack when on walls, UNIT COHESION, etc. All of these obvious bugs should have been detected on first play by even the most incompetent beta-tester, I can't fathom who CA hired for QA - chimpanzees?

On a similar note (and I know that some people here actually like it), the new charge system shouldn't have passed playabilty tests, either. Just yesterday I ordered a unit of Crusader Knights (60) to charge a unit of Town Militia (58). The knights were completely in formation, about 25 meters distant from the enemy. I right-clicked once on the enemy unit, but instead of lowering their lances to charge in... THEY FRIGGING WALKED!!! ... all the way to the enemy unit, losing 41 knights in the ensuing melee. You can't tell me that this would NOT be noticed by any beta-tester, it's happened to me countless times. Same goes for billmen - they don't kill anything, ever, after their first charge.

Don't get me wrong, I still like the game, but it is unfinished, and that's a fact.

Changing something, especially something so vital, then sending it to production without taking the time to properly test and adapt it, is a typical example of what I would call 'rushing'.

There was a nice analogy earlier ... here's another one.

Those of you who have had to take their time and write a university thesis or some other major paper know what I mean.

The fact is that a thesis/game (for many people at least) cannot be finetuned to perfection. Each time you look through it, you find something that you think can be improved, changed, added etc. But at some point you have to draw the line and hand in/publish your thesis/game. Undoubtedly the next time you open it, you fill find things that need changing but this process could last indefinitely.

Its the same with this game and many others ... you can't go on tweaking it indefinitely or you'll just go bankrupt or will at least have to drop the project. At one time or another you have to draw the line, especially if the community is screaming their hearts out for the release, and bring it out. Now its time for the community to voice their opinions about it, what they like about it and what they despise with some exceptional rotten apples that are overly constructive and label the game broken and unplayable.

This, however, is where the analogy ends ... you can never patch a thesis that has been handed in :)

With the release of every game there will be people screaming bloody murder ... that is unfortunate albeit inevitable. Of course CA may partially also be blamed for this ... the three previous games were too good and the public expected them to something so much more thus leaving them in bitter disappointment. I think if you create illusions and get your hopes up too high, you can be disappointed in almost everything ... a new car, a concert, a game, a movie etc.

(Bold font added:) Wow! Have you explained how to do this in one of the modding forums?

I remember Qwerty saying how much animations matter (above and beyond stats) when modding RTW for EB. What you've done starts me thinking of a player1 type bugfixer for M2TW. Assuming the worst case scenario of issues not being fixed in the patch, it would be good if the community could come up with something that addressed whatever can be addressed through modding. I'd want a pretty minimal set of changes, however, not a lot of personal preference (e.g. not "I think unit X should be uber so I raised their charge to 100...").

One positive point though - am I right in thinking player1's bugfixer is now pretty irrelevant for RTW? I noticed there was one for BI, but it seemed to only fix BI specific stuff. I inferred that CA eventually incorporated the bugfixer changes or made other changes that rendered them unnecessary. Or am I simply confused on this point?

Very good analogy. My thesis has a mistake on the first line - I got the year wrong! D'oh!

Another analogy that strikes me is with typing/wordprocessing and with computing. In days gone by, you had to be very accurate in writing because it was time consuming to re-type something. Similarly, in computer programming, there was a premium on accuracy, because a program might take a day to run and so errors would set you back a long way. However, with word processing, we probably write more sloppily because we can correct it. And in computing, a PC can run basic programmes so fast, a bug does not set you back so much. Patching may just be like the wordprocessor or powerful PC - it makes it easier to correct errors, so companies are more likely to be willing to release a product they know has an error.

[EDIT: Apologies for double posting! Bad moderator! ]

.. rushed as all games ... despite the fact that it has sys requirements that the majority of players can not get .. i`m 23 and i have bought my pc *P4* only recently *september* ... had P* whit 733 Mhz .. good old machine still have it ... money is money after all ..
Remember Shogun ??? in the video options it had software and harware .. guess what i playd it for 2 years on a p 166 whit 4mb video and 64 ram ,... still whit good grafics .. now whit Rome+BI+Alaexander and Medieval 2 ... dont bother putting everything to high ... forget highest ... only if you have a video card like 256 Mb .. some 1Gb rad * its speed at least 400 MHz * but the higher the better ... sad ...
and most of the Games the "new" ones are rushed and bugged ... i guess i schould take out my 2.86 whit its 13 MHz and play Dangerous Dave ...
okok ... nostalgy is not to good ... at least the Graph if u have the system is worth the money ... to a point ...

Aaaah ... the good ol' days when the grass was greener, the sky was bluer and when the youth was not so spoiled.

You should keep in mind that when things (games among them) become more complicated, they are more prone to mistakes, bugs and errors. Most of us are spoiled by the development the games have gone through in such a short time.

I remember being so content with Digger, Alley Cat, Larry 1 etc. From every new game we expect so much more - for it to be more realistic and more fun - and when they don't deliver we are disappointed (I'm repeating myself, aren't I).

I may be wrong here, so don't take this as 100% fact. But i've seen at least 1 post here saying they had been told that no beta testing actually took place, so even though these bugs should have been caught, they wern't becuase their was no bug cathcing phase.

You need to double click, or hit (R) if you want them to charge. My way of making good charges in the demo is to march them at the enemy then when they are right on top of them right click and tap (R). They baerly slow down and seem to hit at full power. allthough I can't be sure TBH.

I wouldn't call it rushed. Just because it has a few bugs doesn't mean it was rushed and should be tossed aside.

When have you seen a game that didn't need a patch or two after it was released?

It's all in the "Secret of Janissary Heavy Infantry" thread here in the Citadel... Someone else figured out the method, and I'm sure I'm not the only one who went through and switched the animations for all the bugged troops.

I gave the JHI animation to all the two handed axe troops (Who, to be fair aren't "bugged", just slow as molasses) and the Halberd Militia animation to some like Dismounted English Knights and such that have pointy weapons that are meant to be good against cavalry (Because the Halberd Militia animation when fighting cavalry is mucho efficient) and so on.

I'm not sure they're actually quite THAT considerate.... If they could kill the user, they probably would.

With some of the customers I've got to look after at my place I willingly would

Anyway, onto the topic. How I look on it is that you are never going to get a perfect product out of the door and you simply make the best of things in making sure that the real glaring bugs don't slip through. Inevitably though they do. Customers are essentially advanced beta testers in that respect in finding the bugs. It's not necessarily right I acknowledge but, it's the best compromise in order to get a product out the door to make money for your company without having too much of a time lag in paying out for development costs without that money being brought back in from the customers.

In Medieval's case I certainly noticed the screwed up Billmen not attacking cavalry. Bit annoying as in the original Medieval an heroic Billman won the Battle of Agincourt for me once taking out the French commander in the first 30 seconds of the combat (morale being calculated as it was back then I then just had the herd the french off the map). The passive AI one I've noticed to a lesser degree. For gameplay purposes I've found these things annoying but not game killing so I'm prepared to put up with them.

Same with most people, as long as the bugs are fixed without adding any more bad bugs then I'll be fine with it. Sure we all want the perfect product but given the fact it's a complicated beast I can accept, to a degree, if there are flaws in it.

So yes, I'm a real sit on the fence type

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