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

[IceTorque]

That is not what i was saying. Whacker was asking what the best way to bring thing to our attention would be as we do not like petitions, that is what i was responding to. Please do not take my words out of context or to say things they don't. I was just saying what the best way to bring any issue that is very important to the community to our attention, not just specifically this one.

My apologies, grats on your new job, and kudos for joining in this and other discussions.

I think it's the decision to move away from the niche market to the broad market.

Thats understandable and is necessary for bigger and better future TW games, but I think the average age for gamers is around 24 yrs old and getting older, I for one need more mature, realistic and challenging gameplay to keep me interested. My 12 yr old son tried RTW and immediately exploited the greek phalanx with his cavalry by simply circling them and charging in when they changed direction and raised their spears while doing so. He got bored very quickly and did'nt play it ever again.

He's 14 now and is a leet gamer, much quicker to find exploits and flaws in games than I. Imo if they want to attract a broader/younger customer base they really need to listen to the old hands on here because that is exactly what the younger gamers want too. i.e. they aint dumb and they need more than great graphics.

I doubt that is true. I thought the rationale for not patching M2TW to Kingdoms standard was because the code had diverged two much between the two products - it would be too much work.

I don't see much of a difference between Kingdoms and the earlier expansions. It is more substantial than MI and VI. BI was more attractive to me, because of the scale. But I don't think you can accuse CA of producing a cheap expansion - producing those four campaigns probably took a lot of work. (As did rebalancing the combat.).

I have a half finished mod for M2 that has a full size map (1021x1021) has Ireland, wales, norway, sweden, saxons and normans added. The mod is about half finished and took me about 4 weeks of my spare time roughly 100 hours work, and yes for me this was a lot of work, but for a professional game studio I think it would be relatively simple and not too difficult to produce those four small campaigns in Kingdoms. Though it was probably a very small team producing it, so yeah the poor buggers probably worked their rears off, and my cheapskate comments was certainly not directed at those that actually make the game, but to those bean counting suits that make these controversial decisions.

As far as the code being too diverged from the original. Well, this may be true, but I cannot discern any noticeable difference between M2 and Kingdoms as far as AI, cohesion etc are concerned. My main attraction to the xpacs was not so much the new content but more for the improvements and bug fixes to the original game.

The answer is obvious - it is the heavy handed Org moderators who are to blame.

Wow, you actually do have a sense of humour......now please go bang your head on the floor until you are forgiven

[Zenicetus]

Code divergence can't be the issue. Kingdoms started with the M2TW battle engine code, so all that has to be done is to apply the same changes to the M2TW battle engine. What CA obviously considered to be too much work was rebalancing and debugging it. This is the bind you get into when you are still fixing battle engine mechanics in the expansion a year after initial release and the deadline to end-of-life the product is approaching.


That's because you aren't particularly concerned with battle mechanics. In all the previous games, improvements to the battle engine were incorporated into the main game.

Well, not defending CA here.... but the last expansions before Kingdoms for M2TW were BI and Alexander for RTW. Both of those were non-overlapping in time period and unit types with the original game, so it didn't expose any issues with rebalancing the original RTW units or adjusting the AI.

I think that's where CA boxed themselves into a corner with Kingdoms. They released an expansion that covers the same time period and uses many of the same units as the original game. This inevitably begs for comparison with the original game, and people will (rightly) gripe about not extending those changes to the original game. This didn't happen with BI and Alexander; they only had to debug and playtest one game, not two.

The lesson there (IMO) is -- don't make an overlapping expansion, unless you're absolutely sure you have the resources to rebalance the original game at the same time. Otherwise it's best to take the non-overlapping approach that BI and Alexander did. Just my opinion.

[Whacker]

Respectfully to Odin and Ramses and others, petitions absolutely can and do work very well, when they are properly managed and executed. As for being "brute force", I'd somewhat disagree, as when they are done well they are powerful tools with elegant execution. Even then, sometimes "brute force" is what it takes to get a developer/publisher to move on an issue that would otherwise be ignored or dropped.

I think Puzz also said it best, and is what I truly suspect is the reason behind CA stating they won't listen; it makes them look very bad. Petitions also tend to draw quite a bit of the silent majority out of the woodwork as opposed to simple threads, which carry different weight and connotations. The other major issue that is key is that petitions and organized movements by gamers tend to be suppressed heavily. I'm not the least bit surprised that this happens at the .com, those are official forums and nothing can be said or done there that casts too much of a negative light on anything related to CA or the publishers. What does get annoying, as econ so pointed out, is when the modship at the Org and Twcenter gets too heavy handed towards legitimate forms of criticism, and efforts by the gamers with a genuine concern and good intentions that tend to get trashed by the fanboys, trolls, and paid shills. When the overall "mood" at the two major fan sites tends to take a dive, I'd think that'd be a telling message that CA and Sega would do well to heed. Further, while Puzz is right about CA possibly taking action against the Org and TWcenter, I think that would be a final "nail in the coffin" so to speak that would truly drive a very, very large chunk of their existing and possible future customer base away. A mod that I respect here once used the phrase in another thread that "CA bashing is a cancer that is eating away at the Org", to this I can only respond that I politely disagree. First I don't feel that what's occuring here is bashing at all, by and large the comments in this thread and others are well stated, delivered, and supported. Second, I think that the figurative "cancer", which I equate to the general dissatisfaction, is a symptom, not a cause.

I want nothing more than to have my good old TW games back, but I'm sick and tired of the dumbing-down mass-marketing ADD-appeasing path that the games have been taking, the shoddy support, major bugs, and lack of patching, and being treated like a criminal with facist DRM. The only way to get this message to CA is for those of us who are like minded to keep repeating our message until CA listens or we get tired/silenced, and vote with our wallets.

[Noir]

I agree with everything you say Whacker except for this:

What does get annoying, as econ so pointed out, is when the modship at the Org and Twcenter gets too heavy handed towards legitimate forms of criticism, and efforts by the gamers with a genuine concern and good intentions that tend to get trashed by the fanboys, trolls, and paid shills.

I have been many times critical of CA and the newer games and seen others being too here at the org - as long as that was expressed in a concise, polite and impersonal manner, all such posts were left in place. I can't speak for TW centre as i dont frequent there, but there isn't such a problem at the org as far as i can see and also econ21 was being to my understanding ironic.

Noir

[TinCow]

The other major issue that is key is that petitions and organized movements by gamers tend to be suppressed heavily. I'm not the least bit surprised that this happens at the .com, those are official forums and nothing can be said or done there that casts too much of a negative light on anything related to CA or the publishers. What does get annoying, as econ so pointed out, is when the modship at the Org and Twcenter gets too heavy handed towards legitimate forms of criticism, and efforts by the gamers with a genuine concern and good intentions that tend to get trashed by the fanboys, trolls, and paid shills. When the overall "mood" at the two major fan sites tends to take a dive, I'd think that'd be a telling message that CA and Sega would do well to heed. Further, while Puzz is right about CA possibly taking action against the Org and TWcenter, I think that would be a final "nail in the coffin" so to speak that would truly drive a very, very large chunk of their existing and possible future customer base away. A mod that I respect here once used the phrase in another thread that "CA bashing is a cancer that is eating away at the Org", to this I can only respond that I politely disagree. First I don't feel that what's occuring here is bashing at all, by and large the comments in this thread and others are well stated, delivered, and supported. Second, I think that the figurative "cancer", which I equate to the general dissatisfaction, is a symptom, not a cause.

I would like to point out that this thread is now over 150 posts, almost all of which are critical of CA. Of these, only 3 posts have been removed for being out-of-line and all 3 of them were by one person. His first post advocated software piracy and his other two made personal attacks on another poster. I think, all considered, that we have been extremely fair and impartial in the Citadel for a long time now. We mainly crack down when people start flinging insults and being inconsiderate to others. Surely that is not such a bad thing.

[Whacker]

I have been many times critical of CA and the newer games and seen others being too here at the org - as long as that was expressed in a concise, polite and impersonal manner, all such posts were left in place. I can't speak for TW centre as i dont frequent there, but there isn't such a problem at the org as far as i can see and also econ21 was being to my understanding ironic.

Perhaps we are getting a bit offtopic, but I would offer this in response.

My intent wasn't to imply that the overly harsh modship has been constant or that any forms of dissent were silenced. Specifically in the Citadel there have been period of ... "flux", where the heavy-handedness has reared it's ugly head, most of those occured around the initial game release and the subsequent patches. Many people have expressed their opinions in an acceptable manner, the problem that I've had is that there have been more than just a few threads that started well and had excellent discourse, that were summarily closed after one or two posts by trolls attempting (successfully) to derail the thread, rather than just deleting posts and/or handing out warning points. Like I said, it's not a constant thing nor is it... "excessive", but it's happened more than a few times to the point where it's been annoying and left a bad taste in my mouth. I realize the mods are human, but some of what's occured was just blatantly unreasonable in my view.

/shrug

[TosaInu]

Hello,

There are no problems with voicing critics. Apart from the problem that there are problems.

If someone wants to do bookkeeping and list the people who posted and expressed their concerns, so to show x% wants this or that fixed because; that's good.

Perhaps it's also good to list what is well. Feedback is not only negative, but also positive.

[Noir]

Fair enough Whalker,

i can't deny personal experiences especially when i wasn't present - this is off topic indeed and before leaving it on my part behind for good i would say that i find the .org moderation fair and impartial indeed; i have been cautioned twice so far - both times fairly, and with proper explanations. I never had a critical post that was concise, polite and impersonal deleted or even cautioned.

Back on topic Noir!

[Whacker]

I would like to point out that this thread is now over 150 posts, almost all of which are critical of CA. Of these, only 3 posts have been removed for being out-of-line and all 3 of them were by one person. His first post advocated software piracy and his other two made personal attacks on another poster. I think, all considered, that we have been extremely fair and impartial in the Citadel for a long time now. We mainly crack down when people start flinging insults and being inconsiderate to others. Surely that is not such a bad thing.

Whoops, perhaps I should expand some on my statements.

What I should have said was when I meant suppressed, I meant mainly by CA, for the reasons that Puzz and I stated. CA is pretty ruthless at the .com forums, which is why I have always avoided them and others seem to as well. Even here at the Org and Twcenter, as evidenced by several CA rep's posts, they've tended to (in my view) attempt to "suppress" significant issues that have gained momentum in the forums. The save/reload bug for RTW and the deplorable responses by CA is the poster child for this in my view.

As for the Org and Twcenter modship supressing things, I would tend to lean towards agreeing with you about generally being fair in relation to threads and issues. However, I stand by my previous statements, there have been more than a few threads that would have been excellent that were summarily closed when they should have been left open. Again as I stated in my response to Noir, it hasn't been excessive in my view, but it's happened enough that I and others have noticed.

Also I'll throw this out here just for discussion's sake. While I completely reject Lusted's "we listen to threads but not petitions" response, if one were to accept his statements as gospel, then closing even a few threads is essentially cutting off a not-insignificant chunk of our communications with CA and trying to get the message across. Of course I don't really agree with this form of logic, but again based on what's been said it's worth considering.

[Odin]

Also I'll throw this out here just for discussion's sake. While I completely reject Lusted's "we listen to threads but not petitions" response, if one were to accept his statements as gospel, then closing even a few threads is essentially cutting off a not-insignificant chunk of our communications with CA and trying to get the message across. Of course I don't really agree with this form of logic, but again based on what's been said it's worth considering.

For the readership of the thread let me preface this by saying Whacker and I share a mutual respect for one anothers approach and tact to posting. As Bob Dylan once said "we always did feel the same, we just saw it from a different point of view"

@Whacker I've spent plenty of time here at the org as a poster, and time at TW center as a casual observer. While my opinion of moderation at both sites has declined a lot recently, to be fair I find it hard to find an awful lot of fault with modderation of threads here at the org. TWcenter is a different animal, but at the org, tin cow is right they allow a pretty consistant soapbox.

As far as Lusted's comments if you were to step back and look at it from his point of view he really has no win position. We can all speculate as to the decision making process at CA/publisher,and business practices but in all honesty I find that his commentary and participation to be a refreshing engagement to the populace as opposed to a blatant retreat.

What I find lacking in your well thought out posts is the fact that you made the choice to purchase MTW2. You know how the pc gaming industry works, and you also know that games, expansions and even patches are never 100%. That is the current business model, and you are supporting it (I did see your pick of the discs for the tw games you posted, I think that was you).

You again make fair arguments supported by a fair degree of logic, but my friend I dont see any ownership taken by gamers. A lot of us here have been around the bloc on many games, this is hardly a new circumstance and expecting CA to change a business model (which they may or may not be contractually obligated to enforce) negates your power as the end user, and devalues your critiques of thier practices.

[Whacker]

For the readership of the thread let me preface this by saying Whacker and I share a mutual respect for one anothers approach and tact to posting. As Bob Dylan once said "we always did feel the same, we just saw it from a different point of view"

Who is this Odin jerk that keeps quoting me!??!?! (/sarcasm, just in case others don't get it)

@Whacker I've spent plenty of time here at the org as a poster, and time at TW center as a casual observer. While my opinion of moderation at both sites has declined a lot recently, to be fair I find it hard to find an awful lot of fault with modderation of threads here at the org. TWcenter is a different animal, but at the org, tin cow is right they allow a pretty consistant soapbox.

Indeed my friend, you are probably right, it's just that most of what I was basing my statements off of was the first 6 or so months of the Citadel's existence, I haven't really been reading this subforum regularly for a good while now since I gave up on M2TW. I can't really remember what the old MTW and RTW subforums were like in terms of this issue, much less STW, so the Citadel is really all I can honestly comment on in good conscious. It's not that I'm trying to slam or take jabs at the mods, my point is that I think this is a valid concern that should be taken into account. I guess what I'm trying to politely say is that things can be viewed differently through other's eyes, as you've well said earlier.

As far as Lusted's comments if you were to step back and look at it from his point of view he really has no win position. We can all speculate as to the decision making process at CA/publisher,and business practices but in all honesty I find that his commentary and participation to be a refreshing engagement to the populace as opposed to a blatant retreat.

Same here as well, it's a Good Thing© and even almost a necessity that we have CA participation here. One also has to offer at least a begruding respect for folks who stick it out in the face of adversity. Of course we as a whole could also do better to ensure that our opinions, good and bad, are well and politely stated/supported to make their lives easier.

The one area that I do somewhat disagree with you in is Lusted/CA's position. The logic and reasoning that has been presented in the past as to why petitions are "ignored" was garbage, to put it bluntly. While I do appreciate Lusted's direct response to the question I posed, it was somewhat aggravating to see the response regarding threads as opposed to petitions; the very same concerns (which we debunked) apply to threads as they do petitions organized here. (I'm also trying to avoid focusing on any individual CA employee) Thus you can start to see some of the frustration that at least I personally, and I imagine others as well, are having in working with CA on this. Of course they could just haul off and ignore us, but I don't think that they are, that's not a good business choice.

What I find lacking in your well thought out posts is the fact that you made the choice to purchase MTW2. You know how the pc gaming industry works, and you also know that games, expansions and even patches are never 100%. That is the current business model, and you are supporting it (I did see your pick of the discs for the tw games you posted, I think that was you).

You again make fair arguments supported by a fair degree of logic, but my friend I dont see any ownership taken by gamers. A lot of us here have been around the bloc on many games, this is hardly a new circumstance and expecting CA to change a business model (which they may or may not be contractually obligated to enforce) negates your power as the end user, and devalues your critiques of thier practices.

Ahhhh.... now you see through my hypocrisy. You are absolutely correct, I did buy M2TW, not too long after it was out either. Call it blind hope, call it a last stand, call it desperate late-night drunk call, call it whatever you will. I wanted so hard for it to be all that MTW and RTW both were with the best of both, and I had to see it for myself (the demo was worthless). As I'm sure others would laugh and point out, the track record was definitely against me. Fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice, shame on me; fool me three times, what the was I thinking? This was/is my last CA product purchase, until such time that the TW games get back to their roots and stop catering to the largest common denominator. One won't see Kingdoms (or at this stage Empires) in my game collection until these changes are affected.

Lastly, yet again you are absolutely right, we as the gamers and supporters must take ownership and responsibility for our actions. It's just a really hard lesson to learn for some of us who've been with the TW games for so long, and want our old games back.

[Ramses II CP]

Regarding petitions, I certainly agree that a well run petition can often garner results, the trouble is finding one that is well run. The only ones I can recall involved hosting a webspace for people to reproduce emails that they sent on to the company in question. This has the doubled effect of bringing new people to the party with well reasoned, intelligent examples and also proving, within the limitations of the medium, that either a few very, very dedicated people were writing a lot of emails from different addresses, or there were a lot of complaints. It's great for PR too, as you can pick and choose the best material to put up front and/or sent out to news sites.

My basic point is that, from the corporate perspective, you have to figure that any raw list of names is probably at least 50% BS. I mean, why not make up names? Email addresses are free, website accounts are free, etc. One truly dedicated person could, in theory, account for dozens of new names every day.

A forum, by it's very nature, is more of a community. We have some knowledge of each other, and it would be very difficult to fake being a dozen different people on a forum. If a good number of people take the time to debate a game's flaws, and whether or not it's smart to continue buying from a particular developer, you can be reasonably sure that number of people actually exists and are dissatisfied with the product. If those people go on to send clear headed emails with their complaints, well, your average corporate lackey at least has something to show his boss, right?

One more thing, regarding moderation. IMHO we're guests here. We should behave like it. If you're uncomfortable with your host's requests there are plenty of other places to be a guest where you can do and say anything you want. Picking a fight with a moderator is a lot like charging the Mongol Horde with an exhausted unit of peasants.

[Nebuchadnezzar]

I would have to disagree Ramses II, its no surprise they don't like petitions, no organization whether private or government likes to see a petition because it throws peoples dissatisfaction directly into their faces. Its blunt and direct and just cannot be indefinately ignored. If they don't respond the list grows and becomes more vocal. But I am sure that their preferred method is by mail addressed to Kris Kringle and deposited down a disused mine shaft in rebel held Ghana.

When someone demands action from a local government its almost always begins with a petition.

Yes, its possible that petitions may be abused or spiked with false entries but this is no more likely to happen than with any other petition thats why every petition must contain a contact means so that it can be verified. Off course not every entry needs to be verified, only a small but random group to determine approx overall validity.

[Papewaio]

After the RTW petition, The Shogun announced that CA would no longer consider petitions, and the org moderators blocked futher attempts of players to organize petitions.

Not true. Me, myself and I started a petition on the thirty-first of May on the two thousand and sixth year of our lord AD.

I'm pretty sure that the year 2006 falls after 2004.

Petitions like anything else here are allowed if they remain civil.

It is the failure to meet expectations that makes people angry. Advertised features that are marketed and then not meet and refused to be patched is a ready way to fail to meet expectations.

[Husar]

Hello,

There are no problems with voicing critics. Apart from the problem that there are problems.

If someone wants to do bookkeeping and list the people who posted and expressed their concerns, so to show x% wants this or that fixed because; that's good.

Perhaps it's also good to list what is well. Feedback is not only negative, but also positive.

Words of wisdom.

Some things are annoying because we allow them to annoy us.

[sapi]

One more thing, regarding moderation. IMHO we're guests here. We should behave like it. If you're uncomfortable with your host's requests there are plenty of other places to be a guest where you can do and say anything you want. Picking a fight with a moderator is a lot like charging the Mongol Horde with an exhausted unit of peasants.

Except this Mongol Horde doesn't fight back

As always, if anyone has any issues with the moderation here, they can raise it with any of the staff - in public or in private - and it will be looked at. I'll also extend that offer to doing the same thing at TWC, should you also frequent there; neither of the major fansites are in the habit of suppressing sentiment that is somewhat anti-CA, solely for that reason.

The only things we enforce are the rules, and as long as everyone here keeps up the civility and maturity that is such a hallmark of this forum, there's next to no chance of this thread being closed (barring the banhammer needing some exercise, of course )

[SpencerH]

Two short points:

A lot of us here have been around the bloc on many games, this is hardly a new circumstance and expecting CA to change a business model (which they may or may not be contractually obligated to enforce) negates your power as the end user, and devalues your critiques of thier practices.

Despite my reservations when the demo came out, I expected that SEGA's ownership would have an effect on the final product, so I purchased M2TW. I expect that others felt the same way. OTOH, I'll look at Empires but unless I see a complete reversal of gameplay I wont buy it since I definitely didnt get my moneys worth from M2TW (which I could only stand for 50 turns or so).

As for the mods here, they've been pretty impartial most of the time but during the backlash against RTW they were overly protective of their relationship with CA. CA totally overreacted to the attempts to organize and voice our complaints and they incited the worst excesses. IIRC, CA were particularly incensed by the movement to publish our opinions at Amazon. IMO, the reason this thread exists, and may be considered helpful, is because CA's attitude/reaction to criticism has changed. Perhaps they're more used to it now.

[Odin]

Despite my reservations when the demo came out, I expected that SEGA's ownership would have an effect on the final product, so I purchased M2TW. I expect that others felt the same way. OTOH, I'll look at Empires but unless I see a complete reversal of gameplay I wont buy it since I definitely didnt get my moneys worth from M2TW (which I could only stand for 50 turns or so).

Well SpencerH with all due respect, you made a mistake then. As I have said numerous times before, the gaming insdustry has a pretty good track record of what to expect. Beta's, gold, prepay releases, user feedback, patches message board hero's (modders) etc. After the issues ith RTW did you conclude that MTW2 would be handled differently?

My point is that I have yet to see a user here ackonowledge (well one or two) that they made a mistake, and take repsonsiblity for not understanding the dynamics of the PC gaming market. That dosent absolve CA, sega or anyone of thier piece of the pie.

As for the mods here, they've been pretty impartial most of the time but during the backlash against RTW they were overly protective of their relationship with CA. CA totally overreacted to the attempts to organize and voice our complaints and they incited the worst excesses. IIRC, CA were particularly incensed by the movement to publish our opinions at Amazon. IMO, the reason this thread exists, and may be considered helpful, is because CA's attitude/reaction to criticism has changed. Perhaps they're more used to it now.

I read a lot of the RTW stuff, never bought the game because I dont like the period, and it had problems. As far as mods here, I think the fact you and I are having a discussion about thier practices without being warned or sent off ot the watchtower is evidence of thier ability to bend.

I dont think CA dressed themselves in glory over RTW, but thats yesterdays news, to be blunt perhaps thier reaction to the negative backlash worked, as from what I can tell the SecRom, and lack of future support has been fairly tame in comparisson.

Again, the business model is working, you own MTW2 after everything that went down with RTW.

[crpcarrot]

just to add my own reactions to the thread.

i gave up on TW when the save/load bug was discovered on RTW and CA's response to it.

i never bought any of the many expansions and gave my game away.

however when i heard MTW came out i was again hoping that CA would go back to its roots and indeed what convinced me to buy it was the many blogs and other material out there which seemd to indicate a return to the roots in terms of how the battles played at least.

anyway you are right i did buy M2TW but i wouldnt say the model is working 100%. prior to RTW i would have bought anything with TW on sight. so they did lose some of my money. i think its hard for them to judge the loss of revenue doe to that fact that RTW was aimed at a larger market and consequently the losses they made would have been covered up by all the new kiddies sales.

[Puzz3D]

Not true. Me, myself and I started a petition on the thirty-first of May on the two thousand and sixth year of our lord AD.

I'm pretty sure that the year 2006 falls after 2004.

Petitions like anything else here are allowed if they remain civil.

Ok right. It was at .com that they were suppressed.

[hrvojej]

I guess an apology on my part is in order. I am at least partially responsible that this thread has been slightly derailed towards discussing .org policies instead of CA policies. In fact, I saw the deleted posts as being about CA policy, but I understand that it could also be viewed otherwise, i.e. as a personal attack. It wasn't my intention to turn this into an issue and for that I apologize. I would like nothing better than for this thread to remain focused and on topic, as I obviously want to see something done about the whole mess with no further patches.

Cheers,

[IrishArmenian]

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

[SpencerH]

Well SpencerH with all due respect, you made a mistake then. As I have said numerous times before, the gaming insdustry has a pretty good track record of what to expect. Beta's, gold, prepay releases, user feedback, patches message board hero's (modders) etc. After the issues ith RTW did you conclude that MTW2 would be handled differently?

My point is that I have yet to see a user here ackonowledge (well one or two) that they made a mistake, and take repsonsiblity for not understanding the dynamics of the PC gaming market. That dosent absolve CA, sega or anyone of thier piece of the pie.

As I said, I hoped that SEGA would change what I consider to be bad trend in the direction of TW. Firaxis did just that after the debacle known as CIV3. CIV4 is a brilliant piece of gaming and their involvement with their hardcore base is (once again) great. There's no reason why CA cant turn this "trainwreck" around and produce a game for us as well as the players who enjoy shiny objects and flashes of pretty lights.

[Odin]

As I said, I hoped that SEGA would change what I consider to be bad trend in the direction of TW. Firaxis did just that after the debacle known as CIV3. CIV4 is a brilliant piece of gaming and their involvement with their hardcore base is (once again) great. There's no reason why CA cant turn this "trainwreck" around and produce a game for us as well as the players who enjoy shiny objects and flashes of pretty lights.

The same Civ IV that required patch 1.52 that attempt to correct memory leaks? oh wait, those were corrected by a modification by users for free first right? Yes you got a lot of new content with fraxis work, but that dosent negate the fact that your exampled company is guilty of the same business model.

Release a game, let end users report on bugs, patch and fix. The only difference is they kept fixing it (and it needed to be fixed, as I read it on some forums Civ IV wasnt a barrel of laughs for some.)

Yeah Fraxis kept support for Civ IV strong and stuck with it, I tip my hat to you nice comparisson.

[Meldarion]

It is the same with most new games being released. It is unfortunately a widely accepted fact that games have bugs upon release. The very least these companies can do is persist in ironing out the bugs, but for MTW II patches have been few and far between. As usual it comes down to the mod community luckily they do a decent job and through them MTW II is a very enjoyable game.

[Slug For A Butt]

Ok. My new car arrives next Wednesday. When I receive it and the advertised SatNav either is non existant or doesn't work properly should I complain or hope that some guy down the road will do his best to make it work somewhat like it should have in the first place? (That is what you asking modders to do).
I'm sick of hearing how the gaming industry is exempt from the rules everyone else has to follow, the only thing that makes them any different to any other industry is the fact that children are the driving force when it comes to sales. That is where TW has headed and they know their market.
All I can do is vote with my wallet with CA (which I already have), my car would go straight back to the shop and a refund would follow. Why can't I do that with M2TW?

[Whacker]

Ok. My new car arrives next Wednesday. When I receive it and the advertised SatNav either is non existant or doesn't work properly should I complain or hope that some guy down the road will do his best to make it work somewhat like it should have in the first place? (That is what you asking modders to do).

Absolutely, couldn't agree more. And still quite often the biggest problems are ones that we cannot fix ourselves, they're game code problems. Rebalancing units is one thing, but when doing that on top of broken mechanics, it becomes somewhat an exercise in futility.

I'm sick of hearing how the gaming industry is exempt from the rules everyone else has to follow, the only thing that makes them any different to any other industry is the fact that children are the driving force when it comes to sales.

Mostly correct, except about the children part. I was surprised to learn some time back that the largest contingent of gamers by far is males age 21-30. Really, it's something like 40-50%+ are in that category (including me).

That is where TW has headed and they know their market. All I can do is vote with my wallet with CA (which I already have), my car would go straight back to the shop and a refund would follow. Why can't I do that with M2TW?

I definitely couldn't agree more with you about the direction, but I'd question the second part. Do they really know their market? Do they know what their market should be?? I think they've got an idea of what they'd like their market to be, but I'd question if they're really reaching it. Just speculation of course.

And also, there are multiple key differences between your new ride and your new broken game. First and foremost, an improperly assembled and designed car could cause you and/or your loved ones to die fiery screaming deaths, I highly doubt a PC game could do that. Second, a car is a very straightforward physical thing, with documented and designed components and features. Your radio or Satnav not working is very black and white. With a game, you'll find often that the game's "features" and "components" are very poorly defined, and when they are it's very ambigious. Even the game manuals and in-game tutorials can often times be woefully inadequate, and a poor basis to judge on. "Why isn't feature x in the game?" "Why is component y not working right?" The answer is very easily "What you are asking for wasn't intended to be/isn't in the game.", or "You are really just misunderstanding it, it's working fine." Thus, while we'd probably agree that something is broken or missing, arguing that from a legal perspective (which is what it boils down to, in a sense) is very, very hard. You can sue over an incomplete or broken vehicle, it'd be extremely hard if not impossible to do so over a game.

Lastly, another big difference between your car and game is that your car is not going to have hordes and hordes of rabid, ignorant fanboys screaming louder than the marketing types that you are just dumb, it's working fine, it's the best thing ever, go whine somewhere else, kthx etc etc etc. Let them do the work for you. Why patch/fix something when it's likely that you can get away with it in it's current state, and the borg-like mass of fanboys can drown out any dissent? I'm exaggerating obviously in the case of the TW games, but I think the concept is perfectly valid and sound.

[alpaca]

Odin: The points is a bit more problematic really. The thing is that in my opinion buying M2TW was not a mistake when considering that I like the game and spend a lot of time modding it.
It maybe was a mistake if you consider the signal, because I could have tried to send a signal to the devs with not buying it. However I came to TW with Rome and I wasn't ready to take that step yet; my opinion about that changed a bit, hence I was very resilient to buy Kingdoms (and I didn't). For some of us it just takes a bit longer to learn their lesson sometimes.

Whacker: There are apparently some clearly broken components that had been advertised prior to the release of kingdoms. This is not right from a legal perspective - if you advertised a database server that contains a backup system and that backup system doesn't work and even worse you refuse to fix it, your customers will sue you, and they will have success before court.
The problem is that games are much too cheap to even warrant suing the developers unless you do a massive thing with thousands of plaintiffs it'd be turned down. It's probably not exactly critical features that are broken but nevertheless...
In general I agree though, with games you often can't easily discern what is really, technically broken and what is just designed in a way you don't like.

[Slug For A Butt]

And also, there are multiple key differences between your new ride and your new broken game. First and foremost, an improperly assembled and designed car could cause you and/or your loved ones to die fiery screaming deaths, I highly doubt a PC game could do that.
.

SatNav is going to consign me to a fiery screaming death? No, I just expect what I pay for and my car will be sent back if it is not what I am expecting, my plumber would be called back if he did a bad job and it was leaking, the gasman will fix his bad workmanship if my newly installed pipework is leaking etc...etc...
Why the hell can a software company not be held liable for their product?

[Odin]

Odin: The points is a bit more problematic really. The thing is that in my opinion buying M2TW was not a mistake when considering that I like the game and spend a lot of time modding it.
It maybe was a mistake if you consider the signal, because I could have tried to send a signal to the devs with not buying it. However I came to TW with Rome and I wasn't ready to take that step yet; my opinion about that changed a bit, hence I was very resilient to buy Kingdoms (and I didn't). For some of us it just takes a bit longer to learn their lesson sometimes.

In your case perhaps it wasnt a mistake. I came to TW at shogun and I didnt regret the time I put into the game, MTW came along and I bought it right away, my mistake as at the same time I was buying games from another company that was notroious for putting out almost finished games and getting feedback, yadda yadda.

However the simplicity of this is that one must understand that this is an industry issue , not exclusive to CA,and the easiest, direct and most fruitful way for the end user to affect the situation is by them assuming control over thier singular piece to the equation (that piece being the holy grail of the process).

Thats your purchase, once you give your money over, your pulled into the process. I remember playing Koei games on my SNES before message boards, heck i didnt even have a PC. Now its a right of passage to get a game and go seek out the official patchs and the community mods.

The simplicity of the process and the consumers role in it, isnt complex alpaca. Once you make the purchase it does become more problematic, but here we are years later with the TW series, do you think the cat is out of the bag yet?

If it isnt I'll let everyone in. Games are released today early with minimal testing (this is the main issue) because of fan sites, free mods, pre order, direct downloads, zealous flattering reviews, and solid sales. Hence you have issues, and they dont get corrected until after sales are made.

Very simple, the corrections are made after the games release, not before and this simple reality is all one needs to look at to understand the industry has parlayed the process into a nice business model.

Yet, through the haze there is the customer, and thier credit card or cash and thier willingness to go along. I dont propose that my solution is the end all be all, but it is the one solution offerred where the end user has 100% control, that makes it a no brainer IMHO.