Latest update on 1.2 patch from Sega/CA

[knoddy]

im quite happy with this response, we all know that if they had released a patch with buggy code in it IE passive ai, the community would scream like crazy at them, just like what happened with the original release. perhaps the folks at ca/sega are learning :D
i can wait a little longer, although its hard not to play seeing as i just upgraded my pc. everything is so shiney with all settings on high :D

Cheers Knoddy

[Jokerkaaos]

Good news.

I am still playing the "unofficial" 1.2 and I am pretty happy with the improvements.

I have experienced the CTD three times out of many hours (30+, easily) of playing. Once was coming out of a sally-from-seige fight that the AI started, and the other two times were when I clicked an agent (a merchant both times I think) to select him from my Agent list.

These have all been in the same campaign as Sicily (vh/vh), but the game does fine if you reload, and doesn't recrash by repeating anything, or get stuck at a bugged point. Before this campaign I played a short one as England with no problems.

I save a lot now.

I *have* seen some unusual AI in battles, though it seems to be much better overall. I once had a defensive position high on a steep mountain to start the battle, and the AI stopped far away from me and set up facing the opposite direction, as if it were the army waiting for an attack - from the wrong direction. I had no reinforcements coming in.

Overall this is a MUCH better vanilla game. Spies and Assassins have been tweaked nicely. Assassins are easier to train on killings alone without going through an extensive Arsonist Training Program, but you still have to be very careful selecting targets, and a lot of them will die in training. Your Faction Leader's reputation takes a lot of hits for using assassins now, so forget it if you want to stay Chivalrous. I guess people tend to notice when your rivals disappear a lot...

Spies are HARDER to train and seem to get killed a lot more often infiltrating cities (which is much much more difficult percentage-wise to do now). You don't see quite the flood of them from the AI now, which I think is good.

The new diplomatic AI is much more dynamic, as you get relations improvements for fighting someone's foes, and negotiating agreements with diplomats/princesses is much more reasonable now, even on vh. Some of them like to haggle, too. I've seen deals go through two or three counter-offers per side before coming to a compromise. Even with good relations the AI diplomats will try to get you to agree to one-sided demanding deals if you let them.

This campaign has been challenging. The AI holds alliances better, but they WILL stab you if they think they can get away with it. The AI also makes a lot more "enemy of my enemy is my friend" alliances among themselves (due to their good relations from both fighting you). So if you are at war with multiple nations, they WILL start ganging up together on you.

[KARTLOS]

hopefully this will help sega realise that running a ozzy office just isnt reasonable in the modern world. i say move all operations back to britain where everything works proper.

[Foz]

hopefully this will help sega realise that running a ozzy office just isnt reasonable in the modern world. i say move all operations back to britain where everything works proper.

Maybe it works like Oz did originally - just now, it's a SEGA penal colony. Do your job and do it well, or be "exiled" (I use the term loosely) to Oz. I'm not sure how horrible of a threat that is anymore though, it could actually be pretty nice.

Maybe if enough guys end up in CA Oz, they can declare themselves independent from their GB offices just like the founding Aussies did.

[sapi]

Riiight.

And the Aussie bashing stops now.

If you feel like continuing, check where I come from <<

[Csargo]

Brisbane where's that? Near Norway I presume? :P

[Durallan]

back to where everything works proper(properly)? wasn't that the reason they moved convicts here in the first place because things wern't working there? :P and then all the immigrants left because they wanted a better life :P

its not really bashing we all know the rivalry that can occur between aussies and the british :P and there should be an Aussie office, what about hte hard working aussies that helped make this game eh? gonna leave em out in the cold, I'd also remind you its the aussies making the 1.2 patch that is actually fixing the game :P

[sbroadbent]

I haven't posted regarding the patch, but it does bring up one thing I read a while back. Rather than having only a couple "mega" patches that it would be better to have several smaller patches. Set ongoing deadlines. Any fix that resolves a bug gets put into the next patch. If something is found at the last minute that causes problems, remove it and release the rest. I'd rather see several incremental updates that improve the game bit by bit, than one huge update that due to it's enormous size and the promise that it'll fix a vast majority of the problems gets delayed because of one unforeseeable glitch.

So far reports say that the unofficial 1.2 patch works as intended (you do need to install over a fresh 1.0 copy). Why can't we get the patch minus the code that causes the problem. Why delay the entire thing. Release what you have, and keep moving forward. Since the original release of M2TW couldn't be released in a perfect state, why try to make this one patch perfect with all the fixes you intended for it.

Or maybe this is just too simple of a concept.

[sapi]

I think CA work the way they do because they are 'allowed' to make x patches and no more.

[Foz]

I haven't posted regarding the patch, but it does bring up one thing I read a while back. Rather than having only a couple "mega" patches that it would be better to have several smaller patches. Set ongoing deadlines. Any fix that resolves a bug gets put into the next patch. If something is found at the last minute that causes problems, remove it and release the rest. I'd rather see several incremental updates that improve the game bit by bit, than one huge update that due to it's enormous size and the promise that it'll fix a vast majority of the problems gets delayed because of one unforeseeable glitch.

So far reports say that the unofficial 1.2 patch works as intended (you do need to install over a fresh 1.0 copy). Why can't we get the patch minus the code that causes the problem. Why delay the entire thing. Release what you have, and keep moving forward. Since the original release of M2TW couldn't be released in a perfect state, why try to make this one patch perfect with all the fixes you intended for it.

Or maybe this is just too simple of a concept.

It doesn't work "as intended." According to the release that started this thread, the "intermittent passive AI" is the main target right now, which means to CA at least, this is dysfunctional behavior, and requires fixing. Many things work right, but that one (at least) does not. And that's not even counting the fact that you have to reinstall the game to 1.0 to use the leaked patch. You could write that off as unimportant, but in reality it's a pain in the butt, and in itself warrants them pausing to remedy it.

As for more patching... I'm sure we've been over this ground before, but for your benefit sbroadbent I'll list reasons not to update more frequently:

1. Doing so invariably means users are running vastly different versions of the game, as many are too lazy to constantly update. This in turn causes confusion, the persistent reporting of old already fixed bugs, and can cause multiplayer compatibility issues as well.

2. Frequent releases waste the developer's time. The more they issue patches, the more time they must spend packing them up, making sure they install correctly, and all of that jazz that isn't simply writing code. Not only is it inefficient to do that step more often than necessary... but it also makes the rest of the process less efficient. Each patch becomes undefined, including whatever happens to get fixed from time A to time B. This means the team doesn't know what's in the patch until it goes out the door, and must spend time figuring out what they're supposed to be doing more often since the patch is so fluid. Also, it's disrupting to release often: generally developers can get in a groove if they're working in the same direction for a while, and will usually remember right where to pick up again next time. Constant releases distract from that continuity of the development process.

3. Cost. One main reason this isn't often done is that it requires huge amounts more testing than a few larger patches do. That testing costs a lot of money. Testing is required for every update that goes out the door, because any one of them being messed up like the 1.2 patch is would cause a big problem. So more releases = more testing = more money, which means companies will try hard not to do it.

4. Less updates means they tend to make bigger splashes each time there is one. Look how hyped people are for 1.2. If these fixes had come out instead in 10 smaller patches, hardly anyone would be raving about how much work the dev team was doing to patch the game. In fact most of us might not even realize the patches were fixing noticeable things, we'd be likely to just take them for granted. Along the same lines, big updates get noticed by other gaming entities as well. The 1.2 update for M2TW is likely to be packaged with notable gaming magazines, and hosted on a myriad of sites due to its perceived importance to the game. Smaller patches are perceived as less important, and so would never rate that sort of special treatment.

There's probably more, but it's getting a lil late here and I'm running out of steam, so I'm going to call it quits. That should be more than enough info for everyone to chew on. Besides, four points is plenty enough for one post

[a_ver_est]

Thanks for he feedback CA, I really appreciate it.

[crpcarrot]

i just wish they had this attitude before they relased games and annouced relase dates. but i guess its the industry norm now

[Daveybaby]

Unfortunately most developers dont have the luxury of keeping working on a game until its perfect. I guess they could spend a year testing the game (which is probably how long it would take to find most of the bugs with a small team) but then CA would have probably gone bust by now if they'd taken that route so you wouldnt even have an M2TW to be bitching about, ever.

Alternatively you release a playable game on time with a few significant bugs (but not show stopping IMO - if the shield bug is a 'game killer' how come it took so long for people to even notice it) and a slew of minor ones, some of which you will possibly know about before shipping (release day patches are pretty much a given these days) and most of which you dont - but will find out about very soon because 1000's of people playing a game in lots of different ways than you envisaged is going to turn up LOTS of bugs you would never have thought to look for in a million years of testing.

So, which is it people?
Scenario 1 : CA goes bust because they arent selling any games because theyre not allowed to release them until theyre perfect. So no more TW games, ever.
Scenario 2 : CA release slightly buggy games and fix most of the bugs after a few months of patching.

Unless anyone can come up with another scenario, that is. Note: scenario must work in the real world, not a fantasy one where companies dont need money to stay in business.

Yes, i guess in a sense we're paying to be beta testers. If that makes you really really angry, i suggest you have a read of the newspapers once in a while and try to get a sense of perspective (to paraphrase Bill Hicks... albeit slightly more politely).

Rant over.

[Whacker]

So, which is it people?
Scenario 1 : CA goes bust because they arent selling any games because theyre not allowed to release them until theyre perfect. So no more TW games, ever.
Scenario 2 : CA release slightly buggy games and fix most of the bugs after a few months of patching.

The 2nd option is considered standard practice right now, for better or worse. The problem is the current game we have is in terrible shape, hell it makes even Bethesda look like a good software publisher. The shield bug, unit cohesion nonsense, bad pathing, and passive AI are all very serious, game breaking bugs. "Game breaking" doesn't mean CTD, it also means making gameplay thoroughly aggravating, unenjoyable, and a crap shot at best. Of course, one can never expect the Official CA Apologist Crew© or the hardcore fanboys to understand this.

Unless anyone can come up with another scenario, that is. Note: scenario must work in the real world, not a fantasy one where companies dont need money to stay in business.

Yes, i guess in a sense we're paying to be beta testers. If that makes you really really angry, i suggest you have a read of the newspapers once in a while and try to get a sense of perspective (to paraphrase Bill Hicks... albeit slightly more politely).

Oh please. There's a very fine black and white line between being a paying to be on an official beta and being forced into being what amounts to be a beta tester by the publisher. Seeing how this game was never announced or marketed as a "Open Beta" it becomes pretty obvious which category this is. Had I known this was where the game was going to be 4 full months after it's release I would not have dropped my hard earned cash on it. Oh well, we all know how the saying goes. "Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me." This was the last title I buy from CA at launch, if at all.

[fenir]

Hmmmm after some thought, i would have to agree. CA needs to make the game in UK. For reasons we won't get into.


AUSSIE BASHING......woot.... some one has to.

In New Zealand Lamb price is about $7.00 a kilogram, when the wallabies come to play the all blacks, it goes up to $35.00 an hour.

Whats an Aussie with a BMW....a Lebo.

Whats an Aussie with a Mercedes......a really good theif.


Come sapi.....put them dukes up




fenir

[sapi]

fenir, you really are tempting me here, and if you weren't australian I'd be doing nasty things to you about now

[Quickening]

Since this topic is now for all patch 1.2 discussion I'll mention this. If the Pope asks you to cease hostilities you can no longer continue to hold an enemy under siege. You will be excommunicated. As I just found out the hard way

Still, thats a good change.

[Puzz3D]

A patch requiring this much effort can't be a good approach to developing a computer program. It gets to a point where doing it right in the first place is a more efficient process. Troubleshooting a bug can take more time than the time it would have taken to write working code in the first place. I thought the RTW v1.2 patch, which took 3 months and almost half of the whole development team and addressed over 100 problems, went beyond this point, and now the M2TW v1.2 appears to be an even bigger effort. It's not good business, and the company's credibility as a capable developer suffers.

[Carl]

@Fenir & Sapi: .

[Odin]

Unfortunately most developers dont have the luxury of keeping working on a game until its perfect. I guess they could spend a year testing the game (which is probably how long it would take to find most of the bugs with a small team) but then CA would have probably gone bust by now if they'd taken that route so you wouldnt even have an M2TW to be bitching about, ever.

Alternatively you release a playable game on time with a few significant bugs (but not show stopping IMO - if the shield bug is a 'game killer' how come it took so long for people to even notice it) and a slew of minor ones, some of which you will possibly know about before shipping (release day patches are pretty much a given these days) and most of which you dont - but will find out about very soon because 1000's of people playing a game in lots of different ways than you envisaged is going to turn up LOTS of bugs you would never have thought to look for in a million years of testing.

So, which is it people?
Scenario 1 : CA goes bust because they arent selling any games because theyre not allowed to release them until theyre perfect. So no more TW games, ever.
Scenario 2 : CA release slightly buggy games and fix most of the bugs after a few months of patching.

Unless anyone can come up with another scenario, that is. Note: scenario must work in the real world, not a fantasy one where companies dont need money to stay in business.

Yes, i guess in a sense we're paying to be beta testers. If that makes you really really angry, i suggest you have a read of the newspapers once in a while and try to get a sense of perspective (to paraphrase Bill Hicks... albeit slightly more politely).

Rant over.

Fair enough, very well presented. since i have been an advocate of the other side of the argument I feel it fair to acknowledge your position. You make sound arguments and decent rationals based on common sense, logic, and the reality of the industry.

Perspective though is a funny concept and one that shouldnt be suggested lightly. As a consumer you pay for a product and you have a certain expectation of what you are buying. If it dosent meet with your expectations and you continue to buy it, the process continues on because you are enableing it to do so.

I dont suppose to know how companies can make "perfect games" I do know that games are produced in the state they are now mainly because the public buys them as is.

Not only that but we have vibrant modding commuties and forums where users post links to user made fixes to the game almost like a badge of honor. And on top of that we have a leaked 1.2 patch that had (by thier own admission) more bugs that caused the game to crash(which were discovered at the last hour before release, assuming we give them the maximum benefit of the doubt).

And whats the general concensus on the 1.2 situation? I have read a lot of data on this board and others and for the most part everyone is happy to have the files leaked to work on, happy that CA has pulled it back until fixed, and content to wait until it is ready to go (thats the majority opinion thus far).

And that my friend is the problem. An entire culture has been born, and is flourishing around games that are produced incomplete at the start. Maybe my point of view is a little off center, but I have yet to come across another industry that produces a product where a culture thrives on its inperfections, in almost glee.

It as if they are doing us some great service by correcting issues with thier product, and not only that should someone suggest that they should have had it done prior, it becomes

CA would have probably gone bust by now if they'd taken that route so you wouldnt even have an M2TW to be bitching about, ever.

.

Maybe my expectations are to high, but really why should I expect more from them, we have an army of willing consumers happy to support the current norm.

[Quickening]

Meh, the game shouldn't have been released in the state it was and we shouldn't still be putting up with the game in this state.

But it doesn't matter what we say or think at all and it wouldn't matter if a handful of us voted with our wallet. Mainly because when the next Total War game comes out the magazines will review it and say "OMFG best game EVA!!!!!!!!!!! *masturbates*" and then a million people will read that and buy the game unaware that it is buggy as hell.
So they've got their money and a few dissenting fans who actually know and care about the bugs won't make any difference. Sad but true.

[Odin]

Meh, the game shouldn't have been released in the state it was and we shouldn't still be putting up with the game in this state.

But it doesn't matter what we say or think at all and it wouldn't matter if a handful of us voted with our wallet. Mainly because when the next Total War game comes out the magazines will review it and say "OMFG best game EVA!!!!!!!!!!! *masturbates*" and then a million people will read that and buy the game unaware that it is buggy as hell.
So they've got their money and a few dissenting fans who actually know and care about the bugs won't make any difference. Sad but true.

The magazines are part of the gaming culture, they have everything to gain by giving games great ratings.

the only persons who can effect a change in the gaming culture is the consumer, companies that are for profit always gear there business to make the customer happy.

[Barry Fitzgerald]

It has to be said the length of time that this patch has taken..and its vast size surely indicates how poor the original code really is.

In a way I feel sorry for CA..since release the game has come under heavy fire for snazzy looks..and not a lot of time spent on the real meat..aka getting the AI, and game working correctly. Things went from bad to worse with further delays..and well withdrawn patch 1.2,

There is nothing new to all this...its a sad fact of life that companies release unfinished games a lot more nowadays..CA are not alone in this. Some more than others..but shockingly some games dont have a lot of issues.

I really hope CA can recover from all this..the damage done to their reputation has been vast. It would be a shame to suffer for this in the long run. I know many players will now be much more sceptical about buying a CA game in the future..lessons will have to be learnt here..and big ones.

If you do a job for someone..whatever that is...paint a house..fix a car..make a cabinet...you should do the best job you can. Quality counts for more than quantity. Do a bodge job and you do yourself no favours at all. Your rep suffers..and cowboys land you get marked with.

Software whilst not that extreme is the same. Nobody expects perfection. But we really deserve better than this.

I hope CA can take all this in and put extra effort into ensuring that future releases are at least acceptable in quality. Maybe part of the problem is lack of competition....that would help to give them a wake up call.

[Elmar Bijlsma]

Thanks for your ongoing patience.

I think someone doesn't quite grasp the situation.

[Andres]

I for one have learned my lesson now.

Next time, I'll just wait for the box with patched original and expansion(s) all in one for less the amount you have to pay for the bugged original at its' release.

No more "special edition" for me.

[Midnight]

Same here - while it looks as if the 'when it's ready' attitude of things right now is a good one, I'll be getting my next CA games from the bargain bin.

[Quickening]

For every single person on this forum who will not buy the next CA game, there are a thousand others out there who will.

If we really want to try to change the way CA works we should like start a topic on the expansion pack and those of us who will not buy it on release can make our voice heard there. We can then see how much money CA is losing. If they really do read this forum then they might take notice then. Basically, to change anything we'd have to show that we're united by the fact that we refuse to accept unfinished work anymore.

[diotavelli]

I think that there is a lack of true perspective from many of CA's critics right now. Ten or fifteen years ago (pre-WWW), there were no forums for discussions of the relative merits of computer games other than magazines and groups of friends. If game was released with a "killer bug", the general gaming community would know about it but minor bugs didn't tend to get much air. Games that were imperfect tended to be generally recognised as such but it wasn't considered too big a deal if they were still enjoyable.

Online forums have changed all this. The Guild is a perfect example. There may be a few hardcore modders who would have found all the bugs in M2TW even were they operating in splendid isolation but their number would have been small. The vast majority of us would have played the game, enjoyed it or not and become fans or not on that basis.

The lists of bugs and the regular threads of outraged indignation merely serve to heighten awareness of problems with the game out of all proportion to the true situation. Purists who think that a game is unplayable if it doesn't work exactly as planned may hate M2TW but a lot of people aren't bothered.

Do you know how many copies of M2TW have been shifted? And do you know how many of those with a copy frequent these boards? This forum lists 19,560 members, not all of whom will be current and not all of whom will own the game. Far more than 20,000 people own this game. The vast majority of them will play it unaware of any problems. They may notice that some things don't happen as they expect or that some units behave/perform unexpectedly but they'll live with it or bin the game. No big deal.

The idea that CA's reputation is damaged to a "vast" extent is laughable. That may be the case with the hardcore who really know their stuff, buy loads of games each year and spends ten of hours playing each week but with the average punter (2-3 games a year, average of 5 or so hours played each week), it's not. Average punters seriously outnumber the hardcore but they pay just as much per unit.

I'm not a CA "apologist" or "fanboy" but I do work in IT. I know that CA are working in conjunction with SEGA. I know that SEGA are hugely successful, not because they appeal to the hardcore community but because they sell products in their millions to the mainstream "leisure" market.

CA will be feeling bad that the original game was as bugged as it has turned out to be but, like most of us, it probably took them a while to realise the true extent. They will wish they'd got the patches out sooner but they'll know they have a certain level of resource and a finite capacity.

The game works. Not perfectly but it works. If it doesn't work well enough for you, let it go. Find other things to do with your time. For most of us, a delay to the patch of one week or one month is a little frustrating but really no big deal.

We're talking about a computer game here. A fun but trivial bit of kit designed to help you waste a few hours of downtime. It's not like someone sold you a car with faulty brakes or an life insurance policy that didn't cover you properly. If that were the case, some of the rants I've read recently would be justified.

As it is, withdraw your hard-earned cash from CA's future sales pipeline, if you like. Boycott SEGA. Write letters to your MP, Senator or village elder. Rant furiously to the likeminded about how the whole world's gone to hell in a handcart because shields in M2TW are bugged and the pathfinding doesn't always work.

But please realise that employees of CA probably don't care as much as you do. Sure, they prefer to have happy campers in consumerville but, for the most part, they do. Some people are pissed off but they're few in number. Confronted by all the real issues of daily life (relationships, illness, stress, etc.), passive AI may not seem such a big deal.

[Odin]

We're talking about a computer game here. A fun but trivial bit of kit designed to help you waste a few hours of downtime. It's not like someone sold you a car with faulty brakes or an life insurance policy that didn't cover you properly. If that were the case, some of the rants I've read recently would be justified.

I agree with your overall sentiment that in the larger scope of life this game is really trivial, and that the gripes here are mostly from hardcore players, on that I concede. However comments like the one about the car brakes are very telling and apart of the larger problem.

Like it or not your rationalizing the fact that the game was infact released with problems. By your own example, what would you do if you had recieved the car like that? List the problem on a bug forum and link your fix in your signature?

As it is, withdraw your hard-earned cash from CA's future sales pipeline, if you like. Boycott SEGA. Write letters to your MP, Senator or village elder. Rant furiously to the likeminded about how the whole world's gone to hell in a handcart because shields in M2TW are bugged and the pathfinding doesn't always work.

Sarcasm lessens your position considerably. No one has suggested that this has a major impact on the world as a whole, but since this is a fan site for the game critisism here is appropriate. Minimalizing the valid arguments on an appropriate site do little to validate your own position, IMHO.

But please realise that employees of CA probably don't care as much as you do.

We realise this.

Sure, they prefer to have happy campers in consumerville but, for the most part, they do. Some people are pissed off but they're few in number. Confronted by all the real issues of daily life (relationships, illness, stress, etc.), passive AI may not seem such a big deal.

again no one is suggesting that this is the end of the world. This is a fansite of the totalwar series and an appropriate place to discuss the total war games and thier impact on the forum members who chose to participate.

Continual comparissons to life events of larger scopes underlines the weakness of your argument. Of course this dosent compare to

(relationships, illness, stress, etc.)

but the Org isnt dedicated to those realities now is it?

[Durallan]

biiig post

hear hear! what I've been trying to say all along. The best thing to do probably is either get a petition or write to CA employees, in a nice but firm way that if the next game is as buggy or has some major problems with it, you won't be buying it. Considering that CA employees actually post on forums which happens once in a blue moon on EA forums or other faceless publishing entities, they may take more note of what you say, as long as you aren't insulting. Continuing to whine/rant/complain may make you feel better, but CA isn't constantly watching this thread, you need to make a thread, get lusted to tell them to read the thread or ask someone else to do that. If CA says theyre hands are tied then you will have to barge into the SEGA boardroom and demand that developers get more time to make bugless games.