Latest update on 1.2 patch from Sega/CA

[Slicendice]

Ok I didn't really read all the posts here. I read about half and I skipped through haphazardly until I got to the end. Kind of like CA writes code? Oooh, wouldn't want to be mistaken for a troll now.

I hope the patch is as good as some have said. It will be nice to be able to play the game the way it was intended.

That said, I'm not happy with spending my money on a game and then waiting 6+ months to start getting full value for my money.

I realize there are around a million and a half lines of code, and bugs beget more bugs and whatnot. I realize that CA has a bottom line to make and releasing a game that isn't truly finished is the norm for game developers these days.

I am not going to blast them for what is the status quo. We all know this is what developers do and despite having access to the Internet and the countless forums, blogs, fansites, and official sites all giving us the scoop on games we are interested in and their problems, we still go out and buy the game bugs and all. If we all go out on the release day and buy them who can blame the developer if they sold us an incomplete product?

That said, I will never buy another game on release day. It took me a few times to learn my lesson. Now I'm going to wait until a game gets a couple of patches. I'm going to listen to the forums when people say a game is unplayable. And most importantly I'm going to save my money. In fact if I wait long enough I might even be able to get the game on sale. So not only will I get a game that works, but I will pay less for it than the poor schmucks that had to have it on the release date.

If enough people do this then what will happen? For starters games may not reach #1 in sales. The profitability of releasing incomplete games will decrease and badly needed cash flows will come in a trickle rather than a flood.

I realize if enough people do what I suggest it might hurt game developers, but given the choice of sticking it to them or letting them stick it to me I choose to stick it to them. Do they deserve better? They don't think we deserve better.

[sapi]

Unfortunately for you, that idea is extremely unlikely to work.

A miniscule percentage of gamers read forums, and only a small proportion of those who do will boycot the game. Such actions simply won't make a big enough difference to change anything.

[Whacker]

Unfortunately for you, that idea is extremely unlikely to work.

A miniscule percentage of gamers read forums, and only a small proportion of those who do will boycot the game. Such actions simply won't make a big enough difference to change anything.

OK, this is starting to annoy me now. I'd really like to see some hard facts to back this up, about people not reading these forums. No "logic", hard facts and stats please.

[Foz]

Unfortunately for you, that idea is extremely unlikely to work.

A miniscule percentage of gamers read forums, and only a small proportion of those who do will boycot the game. Such actions simply won't make a big enough difference to change anything.

That's exactly the same false logic people use to justify the fact that they do not vote. "What difference can I possibly make?" It's bull. Elections are the sum total of each seemingly insignificant vote, just as a game's success is the sum total of each seemingly insignificant consumer. You just do not realize how much power we have, because no one has ever tried to exercise that power. Between us, the power of the Internet, and word of mouth, it's practically guaranteed that we could reach the majority of gamers out there for this (or any other) reason. For instance how many gamers do you know that are familiar with the "All Your Base" phenomenon? It's hard to find any that aren't, which is my point: the communication tools are in place and working. The biggest roadblock is not communication per se, it is rather getting the key elements (like forum mods and webmasters) to support the issue so they can actually get the communication engine working. A very small handful of the right people, if convinced to support it, could easily get (and keep) a large portion of gamers informed and involved, and empower the entire community as a result. At the heart of everything, I guess the biggest point is that we need infrastructure if we want power.

[sapi]

I'm sorry, but that just doesn't cut it.

It's a simple fact that the vast majority of gamers do not visit online forums.

If you're looking for proof, consider the fact that only 847 members have visited these forums in the past 24 hours.

Take a very conservative estimate of that as 10% of the total number of people visiting these forums, and you still only have an audience of under ten thousand people.

Say, multiply that by two or three to take into account the other TW sites, and you're still looking at a tiny percentage of the hundreds of thousands of people who have brought the game.

All you need to do is have a look around your friends, and you'll see what I mean. Sure, around half of them play games semi-seriously. But of that half, only a handful would even consider visiting a forum for that game.

You can talk all you like about affirmative action and the tricke effect and so on and so forth, but you'll never get enough people to make a difference.

I can even use your example of the 'all your base' phenomenon as proof for my case: put simply, if I asked any of the rl gamers I knew, you'd be lucky to even get 10% who've heard of it, despite 'widespread' coverage.

You're welcome to try your strategy - no one can stop you from doing that - but it might be worth while taking a nice dose of common sense as you do so.

[Temujin]

It's a simple fact that the vast majority of gamers do not visit online forums.

No it isn't.

If you're looking for proof, consider the fact that only 847 members have visited these forums in the past 24 hours.

Take a very conservative estimate of that as 10% of the total number of people visiting these forums, and you still only have an audience of under ten thousand people.

What exactly is this "conservative estimate" based on, then? Because you can't multiply integers and hot air like that, it's simply not mathematically correct.

All you need to do is have a look around your friends, and you'll see what I mean. Sure, around half of them play games semi-seriously. But of that half, only a handful would even consider visiting a forum for that game.

I have a bunch of gamer friends, too, and with the exception of the one guy-with-no-internet-access, they ALL visit forums to keep up with the games they are playing. All of them.

My unsourced, empirical datapoint is bigger than your unsourced, empirical datapoint. So there.

You're welcome to try your strategy - no one can stop you from doing that - but it might be worth while taking a nice dose of common sense as you do so.

Common sense is the collection of prejudices acquired by age eighteen.

So, how old are you, then? Time for an update, perhaps?

[sapi]

No it isn't.

Have you got any evidence to support that?

I can tell you that general statistics (sales numbers vs forum members) are on my side, so the onus of proof is on you

What exactly is this "conservative estimate" based on, then? Because you can't multiply integers and hot air like that, it's simply not mathematically correct.

Based on a known fact (the number of users who visited the forum in the past 24 hours)
Known data (members) adjusted to account for guests (which were 90% of currently online users when i posted)
And rounded up

I have a bunch of gamer friends, too, and with the exception of the one guy-with-no-internet-access, they ALL visit forums to keep up with the games they are playing. All of them.

And that, I suspect, is because we come from different countries and different age groups.

My unsourced, empirical datapoint is bigger than your unsourced, empirical datapoint. So there.

So, how old are you, then? Time for an update, perhaps?

Nice quote, btw

[Generals_Bodyguard]

Actually he's right...majority of the customers dont come to the forums...

[Temujin]

Have you got any evidence to support that?

I can tell you that general statistics (sales numbers vs forum members) are on my side, so the onus of proof is on you

Uhm, No. You were the one making claims and backing them up with pseudo-stats and handwaving (what my stats-prof at uni called "lying with numbers"), so the onus is on YOU to actually back that up with real data and math that doesn't require magic to work. Asking me to prove a negative isn't going to make your claim ring true to anyone with a sense of logic in their heads.

Based on a known fact (the number of users who visited the forum in the past 24 hours)
Known data (members) adjusted to account for guests (which were 90% of currently online users when i posted)
And rounded up

Even accepting these numbers (which I can't verify), that's still a far cry from proving that "It's a simple fact that the vast majority of gamers do not visit online forums". Here's some questions to help you on your way to make that claim more than an unfounded assertion:

1) What's the size of the general population of gamers?
2) What percentage of the online forum attendance goes to totalwar.org?
3) Was yesterdays attendance stats representative of the activity of this forum?
4) Is this forum representative of the general population of forums in terms of attendance vs. memberships and daily activity?
5) Is the membership and unregistered attendance of this forum representative of the general population of gamers?

There are more, but this is just a handful to get you started. Either prove your claim or acknowledge that you used pseudo-stats with no backing to reinforce your point.

Having an opinion is fine, but trying to raise it to fact with no basis is a sort of bullying I particularly dislike.

[Husar]

I realize if enough people do what I suggest it might hurt game developers, but given the choice of sticking it to them or letting them stick it to me I choose to stick it to them. Do they deserve better? They don't think we deserve better.

I don't think that's the case.
When I program myself, it usually takes some times before I get rid of all the compiler errors, then I have to see whether the function works the way I want it, which is usually done with test data, once that works, all is fine, but what if the "test data" somehow didn't cover all possible cases? Well, that's a bug... And I'm talking about "projects" with less than 100 lines, even the professors etc. at our university know that programming without bugs is almost impossible. Let me give you a common metaphor to underline that:

[RickooClan]

@Husar

Nice picture!

[Slicendice]

Frist off I don't need half of all consumers to boycott a game. Even a 1 to 5 percent drop in sales is enough to do damage and prevent a game from going #1 or becoming game of the year.

Yes the traffic on the forums may not be that high (today), but everyone who participates in a boycott or delay in purchase ultimately talks to someone else, and believe me a person is more likely to convince his friends to boycott than a forum is to convince a stranger. Boycott wasn't my term, however, delaying a purchase should become more of good "common sense" rather than a movement. It should be a personal choice of gamers who accept the reality of the business and have decided to save themselves the frustration and disappointment of buying half completed games at full price only to wait 6 months to play what they paid for.

Whether my plan works or not ultimately is moot. I'm making a personal choice and I'm sharing that choice with others in the hope they might also consider the same action. I realize without the support of the forums as well my idea probably won't get very far. But in the end my goal has been achieved. I have been changed and I will be better for it.

BTW I keep seeing a common theme about how nice CA is for making a patch and listening to the community even though they won't make any money on the patch blah, blah, blah. . .

Frankly I think it was very nice of the community to BETA! test their game for them, and to pay full price for that BETA!. I consider the patch and any patches to come to be the actual game and the money I paid to get a copy of the BETA! was nothing more than a pre-purchase. They owe me the patch because I paid for it 6 months ago.

Noneless, I think we all know that if CA/Sega didn't patch there would be a lot of customers who wanted their money back. I can tell you I wanted my money back 6 months ago.

I won't have this problem next time.

[Yun Dog]

That said, I will never buy another game on release day. It took me a few times to learn my lesson. Now I'm going to wait until a game gets a couple of patches. I'm going to listen to the forums when people say a game is unplayable. And most importantly I'm going to save my money. In fact if I wait long enough I might even be able to get the game on sale. So not only will I get a game that works, but I will pay less for it than the poor schmucks that had to have it on the release date.

If enough people do this then what will happen? For starters games may not reach #1 in sales. The profitability of releasing incomplete games will decrease and badly needed cash flows will come in a trickle rather than a flood.

I realize if enough people do what I suggest it might hurt game developers, but given the choice of sticking it to them or letting them stick it to me I choose to stick it to them. Do they deserve better? They don't think we deserve better.

Yeh I rarley buy games on release now, having said that I think if you do 'listen to the forums' then your going to be playing very few games, because whatever the game youll find a heap of 'Buggy unplayable beta' threads of guys crying cause the game wasnt made the way 'they wanted'

That said, Im going to be thinking long and hard about buying the Kingdoms Add on , in fact it may be the first TW title i dont buy, and should the developers continue on the who needs gameplay - look at all the fruit line of development - M2 will prob be the last TW for this black duck - I mean really when the battles are laughable and teadously frustrating because the AI cant find its own shoelaces and most the units dont work as intended??? Then the strategy could be defeated by 'the angry german kid' - this isnt the game it used to be - for me anyway

and the late game is so boring/frustrating/sameness its like the into movie - once youve played it once, its unlikely youll suffer it a second time

maybe with the patch I will be able to spark my interest enough to get past the frustration - I guess what Im saying is... powerup Generals - has confirmed my fears