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

[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.

[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.

[alpaca]

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.

Yes I agree, the thing is however that it's hard for people (and I include myself here) to stop buying any non-blizzard games at all. It's a really harsh step to refrain from purchasing bugged and unfinished products exactly because, as you say, the whole industry is into it. That said, I personally have to admit that I was closing my eyes to the problem until maybe half a year ago (although I didn't buy too many games in general, only strategy games really).
You're right that my posts are maybe a bit anti-CA here - I am mainly talking about CA because the guild is a TW forum. I won't buy any more games on release, and I won't buy them at all until consensus on the respective fansite forums is that they're in a decently playable state.

[The_Baron]

At the end of the day, I suspect there is no chance that bitching about problems that have already been declared insoluble is going to greatly improve the situation. Requesting and suggesting to a Creative Assembly representative is one thing; being inhospitable and mildly insulting is entirely another. All we can really do with any possible degree of success is to politely suggest that Creative Assembly sort out its' priorities for the next Total War release (Empire: Total War) and hope they grasp the fact that a strong fanbase is imperative for a continued fan community.

On a lighter note, I dreamt of playing Empire: Total War last night after reading one of the Sharpe's books. How... expectant of me .

Kindest regards,


-Max

[Fisherking]

Patches to me are a double edged sword. If they just fixed the known problems it would be great. But I think most of the time and expense goes into the wish lists and things that work but not everyone cares for.

If they would just fix the problems I would be happy, but they seldom do because of the other crap and yes I mean crap that they wind up changing.

They should just set up a small shop in India to fix problems and it would hardly make a dent in budgets and leave the nice to have stuff to the moding community. After all it is mostly just nice to have stuff, or even unwanted stuff that they add in most of the patches.

Working 2 hand weapons, pike, spear wall, and being able to fight elephant artillery is more important than much of the other junk.

[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?