No further patches for M2TW or Kingdoms (update: Kingdoms patch announced)

[TheLastPrivate]

There are very few companies that seem to actually follow up with customer service patches and support - namely Blizzard, which I credit their success with their continuous support/patches of their games.

Really, I think CA has potential to be a megamonster in the industry by their own rights, they just don't play up to it for some unknown reason - probably involves money and in-group politics.

[icek]

Really, I think CA has potential to be a megamonster in the industry by their own rights, they just don't play up to it for some unknown reason - probably involves money and in-group politics.

And I think it involves the lack of ability. You all need to take into consideration the fact that they could not knew how to make ai better and fix those bugs.

[pevergreen]

There are very few companies that seem to actually follow up with customer service patches and support - namely Blizzard, which I credit their success with their continuous support/patches of their games.

Really, I think CA has potential to be a megamonster in the industry by their own rights, they just don't play up to it for some unknown reason - probably involves money and in-group politics.

They still patch Warcraft 3 even though they dont need to. Subtle Balances. That dedication (and the huge tournaments that still go on for it) is beautiful.

[Prodigal]

Dunno about this, I'm more of a "does it run" player, if it does that's enough for me. Sure there are bugs but nothing that crashes out of the game & that's pretty much good enough for me.

Since stw I've played every TW game to death & beyond, and that amounts to alot of enjoyable hours killing & being killed.

Thing is that I can really only play these games for just so long, (essentially until I've exhausted every faction & all the different things I can think of to do). Based on this I'm happier knowing that CA's resources are being put into the development of the next release, rather than tweaking the current game.

[FactionHeir]

Thing is that I can really only play these games for just so long, (essentially until I've exhausted every faction & all the different things I can think of to do). Based on this I'm happier knowing that CA's resources are being put into the development of the next release, rather than tweaking the current game.

It will still come out unfinished though, so I don't quite understand your point

[rvg]

CA has just lost a customer. Me.

[Zoring]

Shame really considering how i have to fight armies made up of literally nothing but Artillery and Millitia Crossbowmen in my Teutonic campaigns and pikemen which are still really really really broken in the ass.

[Stuie]

Well at least they pushed me off the fence as to whether or not I should buy Kingdoms.

[Prodigal]

It will still come out unfinished though, so I don't quite understand your point

Was looking at it from the position that "it does what it says on the packet"

Issues such as suicidal generals, ranged melee etc. can be construed as simply game balance, not an outright bugs.

But, I've just been reading that during the Teuton campaign the alliance between Danes & Nowegians does not allow you to use the unique units, and that, no matter how you look at it is a 100% pure gold bug which needs to be fixed.

I can't see how they can simply omit a whole freaking feature from a quater of the product and expect customers to smile happily and go about their buisiness.

[lancelot]

Dunno about this, I'm more of a "does it run" player, if it does that's enough for me. Sure there are bugs but nothing that crashes out of the game & that's pretty much good enough for me.

Since stw I've played every TW game to death & beyond, and that amounts to alot of enjoyable hours killing & being killed.

Thing is that I can really only play these games for just so long, (essentially until I've exhausted every faction & all the different things I can think of to do). Based on this I'm happier knowing that CA's resources are being put into the development of the next release, rather than tweaking the current game.

Dont take this as a personal attack but do you enjoy buying stuff that is half-broken? because that is what you are doing.

And more to the point, its not about how serious the bugs are or are not, rather that CA is laughing at us (or rather- you) for being suckered into buying an unfinished product and/or getting away with not fixing said product before they abandon it to get more money out of a fresh new bunch of suckers...

Tweaking is what you do when you have a bug free game and play around with it. Most people are asking for fixes, which is a whole different ball game.

[Csargo]

I can't say I'm surprised by this, but I'm hopeful that ETW will be better. Though I won't be surprised if it isn't.

[SenseiTW]

Hi guys,

First of all apologies for the delay in a response on this. We have been working behind the scenes and talking to the CA OZ development team about the situation but I wanted to be clearer on where things are before posting.

Each of our titles has a scheduled development time on which we can work on them, and we did not anticipate the few issues that surfaced with Kingdoms after release. The Oz team have since begun work on a new project, which is why a previous post stated that at the present time there are no scheduled updates in the pipeline for Kingdoms.

We are however listening to your concerns, examining the issues in question and are currently looking into ways to support you to the fullest extent with the resources at our disposal.

Thanks,

Mark O'Connell
(aka SenseiTW)

[sapi]

Thanks for the update.

I doubt many of the serious issues with the current engine could be fixed in a patch, at any rate.

[alpaca]

Hi guys,

First of all apologies for the delay in a response on this. We have been working behind the scenes and talking to the CA OZ development team about the situation but I wanted to be clearer on where things are before posting.

Each of our titles has a scheduled development time on which we can work on them, and we did not anticipate the few issues that surfaced with Kingdoms after release. The Oz team have since begun work on a new project, which is why a previous post stated that at the present time there are no scheduled updates in the pipeline for Kingdoms.

We are however listening to your concerns, examining the issues in question and are currently looking into ways to support you to the fullest extent with the resources at our disposal.

Thanks,

Mark O'Connell
(aka SenseiTW)

This is not aimed directly at you Mark and I want you to know I'm usually pretty civil in my comments and lately defended you guys who come visit the forums and actually talk to us (breaking the self-imposed silence of your management which I'm thankful for) but this is not an understatement, it's an insult.
I know that you probably can't really talk about it freely, but make your chief read this.

Jeez you can't expect me to believe this junk. I am sure that the management knew about a lot of these issues. The Kalmar Union not working is not something you can overlook if you try it even once (judging from what I hear anyways). They just decided that they don't care because people will buy it anyways. Then they decided that they wouldn't need a patch afterwards because simply put, you already have our money.
If what you say was true and you "didn't anticipate the few issues that came up with kingdoms" you should seriously fire your project manager in down under as soon as possible because he's definitely not up to the job.

This is the last drop, I won't buy another game from CA until I am 100% convinced that this totally arrogant and disparaging company policy changed. A lot of us aren't stupid you know, so don't try to sell us bullshit as truffle-pâté
And I hope some more people from the community will arrive at similar conclusions about buying Empires.

[Daveybaby]

Thanks for the heads up.

...and we did not anticipate the few issues that surfaced with Kingdoms after release... at the present time there are no scheduled updates in the pipeline for Kingdoms.

Firstly I do find it incomprehensible that there was no contingency set aside for a patch to kingdoms. IIRC every TW release to date has required at least one patch, so the decision not to plan for one for kingdoms is frankly baffling. In fact can't think of any strategy game (going back to the civ/moo days) of any kind of complexity that didnt require patching - there is so much stuff that can only get noticed once you have thousands of people playing the game repeatedly.

Secondly I, for one, think that the need to patch kingdoms is actually secondary to the need for a further patch for the main campaign - the game just doesnt provide any kind of a challenge for an even halfway competent player, even on the hardest difficulty. While i will concede that rewriting the strategic AI is off the cards, it would be nice to at least make the AI offer some kind of challenge by fixing its invariably bad economy - even if all you do is give it financial bonuses on hard and very hard.

Go on - just sneak a few config variables in there for us to play with:
ai_econ_bonus_easy 1.0
ai_econ_bonus_normal 1.0
ai_econ_bonus_hard 1.5
ai_econ_bonus_vhard 2.0

We wont tell anyone. Promise.

[Slug For A Butt]

Each of our titles has a scheduled development time on which we can work on them, and we did not anticipate the few issues that surfaced with Kingdoms after release. The Oz team have since begun work on a new project, which is why a previous post stated that at the present time there are no scheduled updates in the pipeline for Kingdoms.

Does this insinuate that you get X time to work on a piece of software, and after X time is up the software gets released whether it is ready for release or not? Also, that starting work on a new project takes precedence over correcting the issues prevalent in the existing software, purely because you have pre-scheduled your programmers without verifying the integrity of their work?
If this is the case as you seem to insinuate, I feel vindicated in my decision to no longer blindly buy TW games on release as I always used to. Kingdoms will probably be a second hand buy as will all my games in the TW series since the M2TW debacle.
This is NOT CA bashing, this is me reading between the lines and stating my feelings.
It is such a shame as no other game stirred me in the same way as the TW series.

[candelarius]

Hi guys,

First of all apologies for the delay in a response on this. We have been working behind the scenes and talking to the CA OZ development team about the situation but I wanted to be clearer on where things are before posting.

Each of our titles has a scheduled development time on which we can work on them, and we did not anticipate the few issues that surfaced with Kingdoms after release. The Oz team have since begun work on a new project, which is why a previous post stated that at the present time there are no scheduled updates in the pipeline for Kingdoms.

We are however listening to your concerns, examining the issues in question and are currently looking into ways to support you to the fullest extent with the resources at our disposal.

Thanks,

Mark O'Connell
(aka SenseiTW)

Thanks for a written reply to our concerns, but, you still didn't answer if you plan on making a patch for Kingdoms or not. How about commissioning Unspoken Knight to release another one-dev unofficial patch? I'd be happy with that...or how about a "hotfix" to solve the major issues? Finally, the "resources at your disposal" were willfully misallocated...you should have planned on at least one patch for Kingdoms, and should have at least some people who are not working on new projects to fix the existing ones. Please consult with the Higher Ups, and advise them that making new games is nice, but, nobody will buy them if they stop supporting their games properly.

[Stuie]

Each of our titles has a scheduled development time on which we can work on them, and we did not anticipate the few issues that surfaced with Kingdoms after release.

Oh come on! Name one game or expansion you guys have released that did not require a patch. Thinking that there wouldn't be any issues with the software upon public release is just crazy.

Any decent development house would plan for some level of support after a release.

[Tafferboy]

Each of our titles has a scheduled development time on which we can work on them, and we did not anticipate the few issues that surfaced with Kingdoms after release. The Oz team have since begun work on a new project, which is why a previous post stated that at the present time there are no scheduled updates in the pipeline for Kingdoms.

So, I take it there was never any intention to support the game any further once it was released since that's considered past "schedule" and all resources became committed elsewhere. Considering their own track record for previous games, it is unbelievable how staff can say they "anticipate no issues" for this one. As in m2tw, I wonder how some of the bugs even made it past testing or if CA chose to ignore them thinking they could get away with it. Advertising features like Khalmar union and Welsh reinforcements in the game, using them as selling points, and then refusing to fix the broken features is sheer arrogance and highly insulting to customers who paid to see them included. And to date, of course, not a damned word on Securom. The company has lost all credibility with me.

[fallen851]

So happy I didn't buy M2TW. RTW was enough to turn me away. Now I get to play EB though!

[redriver]

I always knew RTW was their last greatest product.. it's the only TW game me ever purchased/played anyway. and I'm not regretin' it :P

[IrishArmenian]

Disappointing, I was hoping for some bug fixes and maybe the building files.