Was Medieval 2 rushed?

[lars573]

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?

I think that the problem here is that most people, like you, have an incredibly over inflated view of what a beta tester job is. It's not "Hey the AI army won't attack till I shoot them some, needs looking into." It's "Hey every time I try to shoot something the game looks-up." Or "The Horse models are fugged, the knights are riding on the horses belly while it floats a meter off the ground upsidedown."

Their priority is to catch the big things that make the product unusable. Little things, like passive AI and some half functional animations, can be patched after release. I konw you don't consider them little things, but they are. As they don't impede the games overall functionality. Most of the issues I've seen fall into the category of post release play balancing.

[Gorm]

I came across analogy that compares computer programming to bridge building. With a bridge, if there is a flaw, you can usually pinpoint it to one area of the bridge and can usually see it. With a program, flaws on line 20052 can afffect line 100034523 but you often cannot see the relationship between theses lines as well as you can see a physical object.

Code today is often of the same complexity of a Boeing 757, but we can't often see that a flaw in the cockpit can affect the toilets or the baggage compartment (which is how programming can affect seemingly unrelated items).

And because of the complexity, it is often more apparent when things get published that the thousands (or even millions) of users become de facto "gamma testers". Look at all the updates for Microsoft products!!

I am enjoying this game inspite of the flaws. They may be annoying, but I am confident that most will eventually be addressed. This is by far the most addictive game I have played in a great while. And sometimes those flaws are actually features of the game that reveal the true nature of the Middle Ages (like alliances are not forever, and sometimes a mad king ascends the throne).

Let us all be patient as the developers fix the known bugs and give them credit for a wonderful game. I would rather have a flawed product than no product at all.

[Barry Fitzgerald]

Most agree MTW2 needed more time in develpment..

But the real issue is that it is the least advancing Tw game of the series so far..and the only one to re-visit medieval ere..again. Sure MTW was great...it just ever so slightly dampens things when you have a re-hash..albiet looking real good.

I think what bothers most is that 2 years on from RTW..and using pretty much the same mechanics..there are so many issues..which shouldnt be there at all.

So yes in a way it was rushed...

[rc5924]

I think the game was rushed. I believe it is primarily SEGAs fault as well. I remember when I played Rome, it was freaking awesome. The immersion, having primarily to do with the opening cinema, was GREAT. I felt like I was the leader of a family with aspirations to become the emperor of Rome and therefore the ruler of the known world.

Then Barbarian invasion came along, and I learned it was about the last years of the Roman Empire, the rise of the Barbarians (Saxons and the Germans for instance) and the continuation of Byzantium, or the Eastern Roman Empire. So I was like this is connected to Rome, it has to be great. So I go and buy it, I notice the big SEGA when I start it up, click on the Eastern Roman Empire, and nothing, THERE IS NOTHING. There were no opening cinemas in that game, and when I won there is just a bunch of what looks like ghost soldiers with whatever color banner you were playing as, all generic, all unexciting. For whatever reason I had to uninstall Rome, and I never touched Barbarian Invasion again, I played through my first campaign, and started a few more without finishing. Needless to say I was dissapointed, I felt like I was playing Rome with different colors, hell, the RTR mod was better than BI IMO, and it was FREE.

So I get Medieval 2, after months of waiting, boot it up, and the openers are okaaaaay, at least they SAY something different for each faction, but I dont like how generic they are, and what happened to the unit descriptions? To the building descriptions? Theyre not half as long as those in Rome, and the building descriptions are pretty close to carbon copies regardless of what faction youre playing. What happened to the Immersion? To the historical references? I dont think I need to mention the bugs, alot of people have already done that, and at least I hear attempts are being made to fix these, but I dont think theyre going to release a patch that includes new opening cinemas, or building or unit descriptions that include more depth, like saying something else for a Catholic than Orthodox church. I dont know, perhaps Rome spoiled me, but I expected an upgrade in this department from that game, not a downgrade, perhaps I should have taken my hint from the bright blue letters and the experience of barbarian invasion.

[unknown_user]

If you want to see a game that was really rushed, check out Black and White 2. A game that had such potential, and enemy AI was essentially non-existant. They were struggling to get it working, and EA forced it to release, so they had to give the enemy all scripted reactions, instead of a decent AI.

That was definitely reason for the community to be upset. This? No. They recognised that there were a few bugs that need to be fixed, let us know, and promptly fix it with a patch. Yeah, maybe they were rushed on a few things, but it's pretty much par for the course by now.

[Xaziv]

All EA games are rushed, so yeah...

[Aenlic]

One of the drawbacks to being an oldtime computer gamer, beginning way back with my first Altair, is that I remember when computer games were released bug free. I remember when beta testing was used to find bugs prior to release. In the area of online games, beta testing is just an advertising tool these days, and people willingly pay monthly fees to play "released" MMORPG's games while the programmers work out the bugs. We pay, in effect, to beta test. It's not so bad with the non-MMO's, because with most of them we get free patches and eventually the worst bugs are handled. It is perhaps even better with a game developer like CA which supports an active modding community.

Still, it's a shame that the days of relatively bug-free game releases are dead and gone. It's not likely to change. EA is the worst offender; but they all do it. We have to face the fact that once people started making considerable amounts of money on computer games, the corporate accounting leeches got involved and they now run the show. Add in the deleterious influence of the even more money-driven console game market and we're pretty much guaranteed to get bug-filled products now. Some are just in a beta status and can be fixed with a couple of patches. Others are in worse shape and would have been considered alpha status in the good ol' days of a few years ago. In the end, the corporate suits would rather release a bad product, knowing we'll still buy it, then risk their excessive salaries getting the product right before release.

All things considered, CA is the least offender in system which promotes the release of bugged products. At least the encourage our modding and listen to the community. They aren't perfect; but compared to other developers, it could be much worse.

[Xaziv]

Yeah, compared to other companies CA isn't that bad.

What makes EA so bad is... Not only do they horribly rush games, but there is a 90% chance they will never patch or fix any of the bugs in the rushed game.

There are only a couple series where they release patches, like Battlefield series, but all the rest are usually not patched at all and rushed.

There aren't many good game companies out there. All the good ones seem to be deteriorating... or they are small market game developers... CA, Bethesda, arguably Blizzard... and im probably missing out some others... are all relatively reliable... but all of them seem to be making a turn for the worst... with Bethesda abandoning the roleplay elements that made MW great, with Blizzard being stuck on p2p mmorpgs... with CA improving mostly graphics instead of content...

But yeah, it's not that bad. It could be a lot worse. If this were an EA game, it'd be released with 50% more bugs, and it'd never be patched.

Be greatful we are getting a patch.

[econ21]

For whatever reason I had to uninstall Rome, and I never touched Barbarian Invasion again, ..., hell, the RTR mod was better than BI IMO, and it was FREE.

Not sure about the "hell". If you are into the historical wargaming side of TW, then to say RTR is better than game X is rather like saying Muhammed Ali was better than boxer Y. EB and RTR are both superb mods that knock the spots off most commercial games. However, they would of course, be nothing - literally nothing - without RTW.

Off-topic - if you like RTR, I'd encourage you to try Goth's All factions mod for BI. It does an RTR-style makeover on BI. It's superb and really does justice to a compelling time period.

[rc5924]

Not sure about the "hell". If you are into the historical wargaming side of TW, then to say RTR is better than game X is rather like saying Muhammed Ali was better than boxer Y. EB and RTR are both superb mods that knock the spots off most commercial games. However, they would of course, be nothing - literally nothing - without RTW.

Off-topic - if you like RTR, I'd encourage you to try Goth's All factions mod for BI. It does an RTR-style makeover on BI. It's superb and really does justice to a compelling time period.

I would have liked to have gone out and bought RTR then BI, just because BI had no immersion, and lost the historical background than the original Rome had. Like when I read a unit description it was really a description, of how they fought, where they originated, and how they were used in a famous battle (possibly all this information) but when I played BI, that seemed to have lost its importance, and the same with M2, its just not as in depth as Rome was, and im not the kind of player that will play a game for hours if the game doesnt draw me into it, I play games to have fun doing the things I will never be able to do, like commanding a faction in medieval times, or fighting in WWII. Im not going to spend days upon weeks just doing stuff in a game because its there, I want to BE there!

[Barry Fitzgerald]

I agree with B.I. Never really did grab me that much. Maybe I just never gave it the chance...but then like you say if it doesnt pull you in enough...you dont bother so much.

I think it was ok for an expansion pack...but since V.I. well...that was the best one...for exp packs anyway.

Back to MTW 2....hmm going to wait until the patch comes out before I pass final judgement..but having finished one long campaign I am left kind of empty in a way...hard to say even if the balance issues and bugs are sorted if I will really get into the game.

Even the long campaign doesnt seem as long as Rome's one...I liked some points....but lots of issues stop you from enjoying it...esp dodgy cavaly control...and the AI issues are appaling at times. It didnt kick in until turn 150! lol

[Lord Leonard]

Maybe this thread should have been titled "would you still spend your money on M2TW now you know exactly what it is?" After playing the game for a month or so, who's stopped playing it? Whinge and whine all you like about the stuff in it, in fact if you despise it so much, Start, Control Panel, Add/Remove Programs is where you should be.

Unless you were born yesterday, you'd have to know that M2TW would not be perfect out of the box. When you buy any software these days, do you actually assume it will be perfect??? Are you that naive that you think it will be totally to your liking ... 100%? Come on guys! I suggest you don't buy anything Microsoft until SP2, and even then, you'll still spend half your life in a forum complaining about it.

So back to my change of thread title - "would you still spend your money on M2TW now you know exactly what it is?" I'll put in the first vote, yes I would. I really enjoy playing it, which is why I bought it. Do I love playing it like I did RTW, maybe not ... yet. I certainly get frustrated with impotent cavalry, passive AI, unit stat balancing, unit cohesion in battle, the lack of following orders, changing formations when moving as groups, bla, bla, the list goes on. But if I knew all of this and it was being released tomorrow, I'd still go buy it again.

[Warluster]

I totally agree Lord Leonard, there just a bunch of complainers

[Barry Fitzgerald]

I don't see anything wrong with complaining if you have spent your money on a game and it doesnt work properly...If you bought a s/h car and it broke down the same day would you be pleased?

But the op was a question..and most have suggested it was rushed...course everyone can have their say...but spare us the "just a bunch of moaners" speech..it is getting old a tad. And valid points have been raised.

[Daveybaby]

but spare us the "just a bunch of moaners" speech..it is getting old a tad. And valid points have been raised.

The same "valid points" that get raised by the same people over and over at every opportunity. It's getting old a tad.

[Barry Fitzgerald]

If the issues were not raised..then they would not be fixed in patches etc.

In general on this forum I have found the criticism constructive and positive mostly...with a view to improving/tweaking the game.

People are free to praise as they wish..but do not moan about moaners...people do that when they do not have any arguments themselves..and as I said..see ist line....

"Hey wow it looks cool....10/10!" is pretty shallow IMHO..

[Butcher]

I've already played it more than I ever did RTW. Not MTW, but then it hasn't been out for 2 years yet :)

[JFC]

If the issues were not raised..then they would not be fixed in patches etc.

In general on this forum I have found the criticism constructive and positive mostly...with a view to improving/tweaking the game.

People are free to praise as they wish..but do not moan about moaners...people do that when they do not have any arguments themselves..and as I said..see ist line....

"Hey wow it looks cool....10/10!" is pretty shallow IMHO..

I totally agree. I refrain from writing any points that I have because of being classed a moaner and should just uninstall it. Cheers for that constructive advice.

Even if points do get repeated It is a Forum for 'Discussion' after all.

econ21 Sorry for going off topic.

[Shahed]

Constructive criticism and discussion, IS A REQUIREMENT for a good forum. Thankfully we have plenty of constructive criticism here. It's a right to express your view in a civillised, non confrontational manner, on this forum.

The intellectual fascism of the herd dictates that you have to conform to the herd, if you don't you're not ok. You get labelled this or that. Labels don't change one thing, your view and who you are.

[lars573]

I don't see anything wrong with complaining if you have spent your money on a game and it doesnt work properly...If you bought a s/h car and it broke down the same day would you be pleased?

Cars have warrenties so that when things that were damaged by manufacturing and transport break they can be fixed right away. Patching a game is the same thing. It just takes longer than replacing a sparlplug.

[Cranky Hobbit]

I really dont understand why some people are going to such pains to deny the obvious truth. Yes, the game was rushed. When the company acknowledges it was aware of the problems before the game is even available, this is clear proof it was rushed. As someone was has worked in software development, I am not unreasonable about bugs in software; however, the company was clearly aware of them before shipping the game and chose not to take the time to fix them in hopes of cashing in on the holiday season. There is simply no excuse for this.

[lars573]

Do you work in GAME development. Where release date deadlines are more important than bug fixing. Where it's the indutry practice (and indeed considered normal) to release a software with small bugs and fix them later. Sometimes even large bugs are left in to get the game out on schedule.

[TheFluff]

Maybe this thread should have been titled "would you still spend your money on M2TW now you know exactly what it is?" After playing the game for a month or so, who's stopped playing it? Whinge and whine all you like about the stuff in it, in fact if you despise it so much, Start, Control Panel, Add/Remove Programs is where you should be.

Unless you were born yesterday, you'd have to know that M2TW would not be perfect out of the box. When you buy any software these days, do you actually assume it will be perfect??? Are you that naive that you think it will be totally to your liking ... 100%? Come on guys! I suggest you don't buy anything Microsoft until SP2, and even then, you'll still spend half your life in a forum complaining about it.

So back to my change of thread title - "would you still spend your money on M2TW now you know exactly what it is?" I'll put in the first vote, yes I would. I really enjoy playing it, which is why I bought it. Do I love playing it like I did RTW, maybe not ... yet. I certainly get frustrated with impotent cavalry, passive AI, unit stat balancing, unit cohesion in battle, the lack of following orders, changing formations when moving as groups, bla, bla, the list goes on. But if I knew all of this and it was being released tomorrow, I'd still go buy it again.

At this point i wouldent buy MTW2 untill the patch has been released. Actually im not one to buy games straight out anyway and wait for the more honest reviews. And in all honesty im not sure what crappy games you've been playing that have been released with bugs, but Relic games and paradox games are most likely the BEST games on the market, relic makeing very polished non bugged games, and paradox createing very imerssive games and they actually make an attempt to patch bugs they find.

And like most smart people i dident start useing windows XP untill this year. 2000 is better as far as stabality and memory usuage and less buggy. I think that while subpar games are being released, and much more frequently paircy will contune to grow and game companys will spend less and less effort to put out good products and both sides end up being wrong. I mean MTW2 has had alot of probelms, like when it was supposed to be released, the lack of a 0 day patch, more bugs and non useable units... i mean there arent that many units in the game. Anyway unfortnetly like i said earler, i think its rushed but most games are and thats a shame.

[Dunc]

In my opinion it was rushed. In my experience with the game, the glitches and buggy AI behaviour are terrible, and could not have been missed with a reasonable amount of testing. They either didn't test it enough, or they did test it enough but didn't care enough to fix the issues.

[Musashi]

Yes I would still buy it.

Sure it has a few glitches, but the people saying it's "unplayable" are totally exaggerating a few small issues and making out like it's the end of the world.

[Dunc]

I should add that I still would buy the game like it is. It's still a really fun game. It would just be a lot funner if the issues were fixed. Right now it's so tedious though. Every other turn I'm having to defend Milan from a Milanese siege, and every fucking time there's a spy opening my gates, which means I just have to sit back and let the time limit run out.

[dopp]

And in all honesty im not sure what crappy games you've been playing that have been released with bugs, but Relic games and paradox games are most likely the BEST games on the market, relic makeing very polished non bugged games, and paradox createing very imerssive games and they actually make an attempt to patch bugs they find.

Relic releases without serious bugs? Dawn of War had serious typos on release which resulted in some weapons doing zero damage against certain armor types, like the Defiler's autocannon doing no damage to unarmored troops. The Ork mob size bonuses were broken. Terminator heavy flamers hurt the firing unit rather than the enemy. Fire Dragons are still broken and prefer to melee vehicles rather than use their fusion guns. Tau Broadsides have targeting issues. Vespid have 0 production time. Tau flamers do massive damage instead of breaking enemy morale. Baneblade weapons were not aiming properly and its main gun still cannot penetrate armor. Relic releases can be quite buggy too. Playable and great fun, but still buggy.

[Butcher]

There's an ongoing joke on paradox forums that a game there isn't considered to be any good until version 1.3 at least :)

[TheFluff]

Relic releases without serious bugs? Dawn of War had serious typos on release which resulted in some weapons doing zero damage against certain armor types, like the Defiler's autocannon doing no damage to unarmored troops. The Ork mob size bonuses were broken. Terminator heavy flamers hurt the firing unit rather than the enemy. Fire Dragons are still broken and prefer to melee vehicles rather than use their fusion guns. Tau Broadsides have targeting issues. Vespid have 0 production time. Tau flamers do massive damage instead of breaking enemy morale. Baneblade weapons were not aiming properly and its main gun still cannot penetrate armor. Relic releases can be quite buggy too. Playable and great fun, but still buggy.

When was this? Relic has more titles then just DOW, Homeword 1/2, and company of heros are all great titles and have won awards. Dawn of war Dark Crusade was one of its best releases, and unlike MTW2, even though it used the same engine it was as much a stand alone game as it is an expansion. MTW2 "feels" like an expansion, not a stand alone. Also to clear up DC issues, there are very few and no game breaking bugs (some unit balance issues). SOme of the bugs included the power sword dident do enough damage compared to the defult weapons. Also Tau dont have any flame useing units, ork mob sizes have never been an issue and all factions are balanced being strong early mid or late games. Firedragons are not broken but there range is extreamly short and if you pit them against a walker it will go into CC because its being attacked. Anyway i dont want to get into this since im sure many people on this fourm have never played DC and i feel as if im being a tad rude. Howerver the point im makeing with relic games is that if there IS a problem, they do fix it, and they release both mini patches and BIG patches (like adding new upgrades/skills) and there games to me have never felt rushed even though they were just as hyped as MTW2 was.

There's an ongoing joke on paradox forums that a game there isn't considered to be any good until version 1.3 at least :)

Ah yes, this is very true, victoria and EU1/2 come to mind (DD was pretty good though). So your right, BUT when the imersion factior comes into play, very few games can boast such a claim as the paradox team with there indepth studying, research and listening to the fan base. They are a very fan orented company and arent afraid of being so. There products are buggy more beacuse they arent a really rich dev team to afford the time/man hours and the games they release dont cost alot. MTW cost anywhere from 40-50 dollars in the US and are run by "big shot" companys. Your supposed to pay for what you get. Although you cant really compare a paradox game (useing the more risk style aproch with alot more depth) the fact is i dont think a game that is going to cost full price is makeing abit of a statement in itsself. I





If MTW2 was a FPS game i think there would be alot more. going on. And again this is my opinion, but i have played few games where i looked more foward to playing the mods and not the actual game out the box, and thats not a complment.

[Carl]

Relic releases without serious bugs? Dawn of War had serious typos on release which resulted in some weapons doing zero damage against certain armour types, like the Defiler's Autocannon doing no damage to unarmored troops. The Ork mob size bonuses were broken. Terminator heavy flamers hurt the firing unit rather than the enemy. Fire Dragons are still broken and prefer to melee vehicles rather than use their fusion guns. Tau Broadsides have targeting issues. Vespid have 0 production time. Tau flamers do massive damage instead of breaking enemy morale. Baneblade weapons were not aiming properly and its main gun still cannot penetrate armour. Relic releases can be quite buggy too. Playable and great fun, but still buggy.

It's an interesting list but forgets a couple of factors:

1. Vespid Build time has been like that from the beginning and in the opinion of most sensible people it isn't a bug, it's what they intended. Weather it’s balanced or not dosen’t really matter. It’s only a bug if it’s not what they intended to happen.

2. The targeting bug was also intended as they couldn't fix it. I'm part of a group who developed a workaround to it though. We've passed it on to relic, but we won't know if they use it till the patch.

3. The Heavy Flamer bug would be down to the Friendly Fire (pardon the pun), being enabled I’d bet, (I wasn't around back then though, but as a DoW modder I’m fairly sure of what could cause this).

4. The Tau Flamer is obviously mucked up. however it's the opinion of a group of people (and I’m one of them), that Crisis suits where balanced around the bad flamer, and that’s why they're so weak without it.

5. The Baneblade was buggy, but it's actually quite a hard error to spot, and didn't actually make it ineffective so it's not like it matters anyway.

The rest where/are/sound like honest bugs. But his point was more that Relic releases games with few if any really major bugs, (Fire Dragon AI is the only game breaker I’m aware of).