Now that the "Hardcore" Fans Are Less Important, What Can We Expect Down the Line?

[erasmus777]

I wanted to capitalize on CA's recent board presence to discuss modding support (namely, to suggest that in lieu of mod tools, CA could help with small things, like they helped Darth with the BAI). I wanted to be as fair as possible, so I was reviewing what Kieran had said so far.

To make it short, I stumbled on a particularly juicy morsel that I missed the first time around. Perhaps I'm just late to the party, but the message was so clear, I'm not sure why it hasn't had a more prominent place in the forum's discussions. So here it is, along with the quote to which Mr. Brigden is responding:

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

Quote:
However this is the TWC. A place where the dedicated player,s, mod creators tend to congregate. Most of us know our TW games and mods backwards. We know when we have the real goods or a botched attempt. The new marketing strategy by Sega/CA has done serious damage to our TWC gathering, Our main platform, mods for the TW series has suffered a serious set back with the way ETW has been coded and released.

[Kieran:]This is a fair point and one we'd like to address. Games need to be marketed. This involves doing articles and the like for the greatest majority of your potential audience. The vast majority of the TW audience are not represented here. As defined in your post, this is a place for those who are our 'hardcore'. To survive and grow commercially CA needs to sell its games to more people. This does not mean we 'dumb down' or 'market to the lowest common denominator' but it does mean we have to spread our focus. In so doing we naturally have less focus on the other groups, including the hardcore. We might not always talk, but we do listen. It's our intent to do more with you guys, but it will never be enough.

First, I want to thank Kieran for his candor and for setting forth so clearly what many people here have sensed over the last year. I certainly understand that CA wants to expand its market share and that, in doing so, they need to appeal to more people. The gaming industry is going through a brutal period, so CA is naturally making sure that they have a solid foundation for growth in the future. That's business. Fair enough.

But it's important to those who continue to invest in CA's products--especially for those who frequent TWC's forums--to understand the subtext beneath the attempts to smooth things over.

Quite simply, the traditional fanbase is not as important as it once was. Changing their market focus is certainly CA's prerogative. I can't hold it against them if they believe that their money lies elsewhere. Business is business.

As Kieran spells out, what we want from a game is of decreased importance. Not that it's irrelevant, but it's not as important as in the past. That helps explain why the mods that people poured hundreds of hours into, that helped beef up sales and extend the life of CA's games for years, are acknowledged but treated implicitly as disposable parts of TW's legacy.

Essentially, there is no quid pro quo--the hardcore fans clearly can't expect the same sort of loyalty from CA that they have extended to CA. It's why for months Kieran never took the few minutes required to send along messages to the community that congregates here.

I don't want to portray CA as completely mercenary, as Kieran et al, are human beings and have feelings and may simply be driven by market forces and the man writing their paychecks. I've certainly been in work situations like that, so I'm willing to grant that possibility. Furthermore, as long as similarly-minded people continue to buy their games, CA will at least make some attempt to keep the "hardcore" fans happy, however meager those efforts might be.

However, for those of you who think that the core design of Napoleon: Total War is aimed at the same people that STW, MTW, RTW, and M2TW were, think again. It is not. Or at least it is not quite as focused on them. Kieran has been kind enough to make that plain.

With all that said, herein lie my questions for the rest of you (at last! ):

• Given the decreased status of the traditional fanbase, how do you think that will shape the future of the series?
• How do you think that will shape NTW?
• Will it come back to haunt CA?
• When Kieran says "It's our intent to do more with you guys," what do you think he's promising? More discussion? Specialized DLC aimed at the old fans?

Edit: Removed the underlining, etc.

[Pikemen]

This does not mean we 'dumb down' or 'market to the lowest common denominator' but it does mean we have to spread our focus

You seemed to skip this part...

[RuleBritannia]

I can just imagine they'll make "Rome: Total War 3" and make the enemies instantly rout if you click on them, because that's what the casual gamers want.

[Huberto]

The rationale that making the game easier will appeal to more buyers is "sound and fury signifying nothing." That is nothing but an excuse for poor craftsmanship, coding and design. Do grappling hooks, no CAI retreat and the melee bug attract casual gamers? Of course not. If CA they made the AI better it would attract more casual gamers, not repel them. A player could even scale up in difficulty and challenge as he won battles. The only coherent argument CA has come up with along these lines is the passive/agressive CAI argument. But surely that could be a simple choice of option boxes to click.

[Zipzopdippidybopbop]

This arguement still doesnt explain why the game isnt more modding friendly. Although CA want to expand to a greater fanbase and treat us as expendable, why do they make the game hard to mod, and give us no major assistance?

[Huberto]

This arguement still doesnt explain why the game isnt more modding friendly. Although CA want to expand to a greater fanbase and treat us as expendable, why do they make the game hard to mod, and give us no major assistance?

Right you are.

[Steeltrap]

When Kieran says "It's our intent to do more with you guys," what do you think he's promising? More discussion? Specialized DLC aimed at the old fans?

Not wishing to be a pedant, but I think it's important to knock this on the head right now.

Keiran is promising NOTHING.

I've commented before on how slippery this guy's language is. Look at it closely.

"It's our intent". Well, that means nothing.

Politicians all talk about being 'committed' to things. Why? Because it sounds like they're going to do something without providing a single fact to which they might be held. If journalists were more professional and exacting, they would say "what exactly does that mean you will do? By when?", but they don't.

Marketers, advertisers and politicians speak the same language. The purpose is to reassure their market and/or create a certain impression without ever in fact promising to deliver anything. 'Climate change' is a great illustration of this. Politicians the world over will talk about how 'committed' they are to addressing climate change, but do you get promises of what will be delivered by when to what effect and at what cost?

Nope. Too hard. [for those who point to Kyoto as a rebuttal, that did involve targets, yet how often do you see reports on which countries met those targets, how they did it, and how much their doing so achieved the stated goals of the whole exercise? Never. Not once in mainstream media reports on Copenhagen did I see a single 2 minutes on this, yet it's the best indicator as to how effective similar 'promises' might prove in future]

The idea is to reassure the public that they (polliticians) have it in hand while ensuring they do not make any definitive statements that might alienate any significant group (except the group that insists on definite action, and there they are relying on the fact that a large proportion of voters assume 'greenies' are just unreasonable thus can be ignored as chronic complainers). Politicians get away with this because most people in developed countries want to believe things can be 'fixed' without any diminishment of our luxuries/standards of living.

Don't fall for the same thing here. Kieran is promising nothing. He's making a statement that appears to indicate the members of this forum will not be ignored (avoiding alienation and providing reassurance) without creating any concrete obligations on his part against which he might be measured in future.

Usual smoke and mirrors. Lost of people will fall for it, just as they do in politics, advertising and marketing the world over.

Cheers
p.s. sorry for length of post; this issue of misleading language/lazy interpretation is a pet hate of mine (not pointing fingers at anyone, btw)....

[RuleBritannia]

The rationale that making the game easier will appeal to more buyers is "sound and fury signifying nothing." That is nothing but an excuse for poor craftsmanship, coding and design. Do grappling hooks, no CAI retreat and the melee bug attract casual gamers? Of course not. If CA they made the AI better it would attract more casual gamers, not repel them. A player could even scale up in difficulty and challenge as he won battles. The only coherent argument CA has come up with along these lines is the passive/agressive CAI argument. But surely that could be a simple choice of option boxes to click.

Well-said, but it all boils down to one fact: CA is under the false impression that casual gamers prefer a game that's easy as possible over a game that's even slightly challenging.

[Whiskeyblind]

I would like to add a few Questions to this topic.
When did you (not you personally), anyone become a hardcore TW player?
Was after you where a casual gamer an wanted more from the game?
So by this we all started as casual gamers, an progressed to hardcore, or somewhere in between.
Just a thought.

[DirtyACE]

I almost completely understand where Kieran is coming from, and I think most people who have experience in working for a business will acknowledge that's how things go sometimes. However, here's what I don't quite understand. Why has CA decided to make ETW much less accessible for mod makers? If the hardcore players want a more intense experience, then that's where the modding community comes in. I'm not sure how that would hurt CA in any way, unless they simply don't want players to be spending too much time on any one of their products. So that when a new game comes out, their customers would be buying it instead of continuing to play one of their older titles because the modding community has extended that life those products ten-fold.

[erasmus777]

You seemed to skip this part...

Fair enough, but not appealing to the LCD or "dumbing down" doesn't preclude that the common denominator has changed or that the mean referent for IQ isn't different.

[erasmus777]

Not wishing to be a pedant, but I think it's important to knock this on the head right now.

Keiran is promising NOTHING.

I've commented before on how slippery this guy's language is. Look at it closely.

"It's our intent". Well, that means nothing.

...

Cheers
p.s. sorry for length of post; this issue of misleading language/lazy interpretation is a pet hate of mine (not pointing fingers at anyone, btw)....

Great observations and I certainly can't criticize you for length

[Pro-opera Jungian]

Everyone-It's just a game.

I'm sorry, but everyone makes such a big deal out of these 'unfulfilled promises' and all that rot, when in the grand scheme of things, it's not that important. Erasmus, in your first post you talked about how CA is betraying the loyalty their fans showed to them-might I respectfully ask, when have a lot of the people who share your views on TW ever show CA loyalty? You criticize Empire on minor issues, despite the fact it was a whole new engine and would thus have problems, you have been criticizing Napoleon these past few months even before you hardly knew what the game was going to contain and still don't. If you don't give them your loyalty, why do you expect them to give it to you? I fully recognize your frustration in the sense that the 'AI should be more realistic' or 'the sieges can improve' but keep in mind, it's just entertainment. In a previous post, a user compared this to corrupt politicians-if we should be up in arms about an issue like we are here, it should be about politics, not TW.

The simple fact is, no matter how much all of you criticize it, no matter how much you bash CA, you still buy the game. Why? Because while it's easy to criticize, in the end, CA makes the greatest RTS games on the market. Critiscism is all you ever do, bashing the game before it's been released. This happened back in October, when there was hardly any information released yet. You criticize it now and yet you have not played one turn. You are entertained by CA's products they provide, and then question the manner in which they provide it. So I would reccomend you either cease this criticism or find some other game to play.

I'm sorry if this sounds harsh, I do not intend it to be so, all I'm saying is that we should wait until we've actually played the game before we tear it apart. I would urge you to cease this rampant criticism, for as Benjamin Franklin once put it
"Any fool can criticize, condemn and complain and most fools do."

[JayMac]

I am not a "hard-core" gamer. But when I found this forum and all the mods for RTW (which I had stopped playing), it was like a whole new world. It was because of all the mods that this "casual" gamer bought M2TW, the kingdoms expansion and ETW. I don't think I am alone on this. If CA really wanted to sell its product to more people, you would think that they would not only be more supportive of the "hard-core" modders, but would actually pitch them as a selling point. "Buy our game and you can have endlessly different gaming experience."

Just my two cents.

[aeoleron9]

Haven't we always known that CA tries to walk a line between hardcore and casual? To be blunt, hardcore fanbase was NEVER the only market CA was reaching for, we just like to think we are.

And I agree with Huberto, this casual vs hardcore thing should not be an excuse for overall poor quality. But here's the problem, did CA ever used it to justify all the problems in ETW? IIRC, No. They only mentioned it when talking about the passive/aggressive CAI, which as you admitted, was a valid argument.

In fact, by opening a thread like this, WE are the ones using this issue as a scapegoat for the problems with ETW. But as many have noted, melee BAI, boring sieges and lackluster mod support are not exactly the product of catering to casual fans. On the contrary, if they fix these issues, it would probably attract many more casual gamers.

[Steeltrap]

Everyone-It's just a game.

In a previous post, a user compared this to corrupt politicians-if we should be up in arms about an issue like we are here, it should be about politics, not TW.

The simple fact is, no matter how much all of you criticize it, no matter how much you bash CA, you still buy the game.
I'm sorry if this sounds harsh, I do not intend it to be so, all I'm saying is that we should wait until we've actually played the game before we tear it apart. I would urge you to cease this rampant criticism, for as Benjamin Franklin once put it
"Any fool can criticize, condemn and complain and most fools do."

I think the post about politicians to which you refer was mine. It wasn't about corrupt politicians per se, it was a comment about the language used by them, marketers and advertisers and its fundamentally misleading/disengenuous nature.

You are correct, of course, that it's just a game and, by inference, that there are more important things in life.

Incidentally, if you're not intending to be harsh, posting a quote that suggests that anyone who criticises, condemns and complains is a fool is probably not the way to go about it.

As for the level of aggro, it's simply a product of people feeling they were 'conned', not without some justification, wanting to vent. The denial of the easily identifiable flaws in the game by CA contributes mightily to this, as does the fact that they are not attempting to fix it while exhorting us to buy their next effort.

Cheers

[ray243]

Everyone-It's just a game.

I'm sorry, but everyone makes such a big deal out of these 'unfulfilled promises' and all that rot, when in the grand scheme of things, it's not that important. Erasmus, in your first post you talked about how CA is betraying the loyalty their fans showed to them-might I respectfully ask, when have a lot of the people who share your views on TW ever show CA loyalty?

Because the reason I want to buy ETW is due to all those promises they made? If not, I would not even bother with ETW and continue to play M2TW and RTW.

If CA couldn't improve, why the hell should I buy their new games?

You criticize Empire on minor issues, despite the fact it was a whole new engine and would thus have problems, you have been criticizing Napoleon these past few months even before you hardly knew what the game was going to contain and still don't. If you don't give them your loyalty, why do you expect them to give it to you? I fully recognize your frustration in the sense that the 'AI should be more realistic' or 'the sieges can improve' but keep in mind, it's just entertainment. In a previous post, a user compared this to corrupt politicians-if we should be up in arms about an issue like we are here, it should be about politics, not TW.

Loyalty has to be earned. Tolerating CA's will only tell them that they can continue to get away with all their and bugfest.

If people thinks that bad AI and game crashes are bad enough to make them stop enjoying the game, who are you to say otherwise? If I cannot entertain myself with ETW, how the hell do you expect me to view ETW as entertainment?

And on your point regarding the new game engine, frankly as a consumer, I don't care whether they are using a new game engine or an old game engine, as long as they release a game that isn't broken.

Yeah, so none of your points above are valid.

The simple fact is, no matter how much all of you criticize it, no matter how much you bash CA, you still buy the game. Why? Because while it's easy to criticize, in the end, CA makes the greatest RTS games on the market. Critiscism is all you ever do, bashing the game before it's been released. This happened back in October, when there was hardly any information released yet. You criticize it now and yet you have not played one turn. You are entertained by CA's products they provide, and then question the manner in which they provide it. So I would reccomend you either cease this criticism or find some other game to play.

Sorry, but I would hardly think that I'm such a fanboy to the extend that I will die if I didn't play a new total war game.

I won't call a game where the AI is totally useless as one of the greatest RTS on the market. CA isn't some infallable company, where every of their products is gold. Some of their products are a fun to play, while some of their products can totally frustrate people.

I mean I could always go back to playing M2TW and RTW if the gameplay of NTW is worse than the two games.

I am entertained by the good products made by CA. If you think that people here are fans of CA to the extend that they will buy any game made by them, then I would expect Stormrise to be huge success.

I'm sorry if this sounds harsh, I do not intend it to be so, all I'm saying is that we should wait until we've actually played the game before we tear it apart. I would urge you to cease this rampant criticism, for as Benjamin Franklin once put it
"Any fool can criticize, condemn and complain and most fools do."

Don't try and appeal to authority when you don't even understand why people are criticising NTW. You can write in a flowerly lanugage, but that does not hide the fact that you are still a fanboy that is hurt when someone criticise your favourite game series.

And frankly, just because he's Ben Franklin does not mean what he said is true. In my opinion, that is a stupid point made by Ben Franklin.


Grow up.

[Steeltrap]

Don't try and appeal to authority when you don't even understand why people are criticising NTW. You can write in a flowerly lanugage, but that does not hide the fact that you are still a fanboy that is hurt when someone criticise your favourite game series.


Grow up.

Just wishing to give some friendly advice to a fellow poster....your good points are somewhat cheapened by getting personal. It doesn't help, nor does it further the 'debate'.

Again, not telling you what you should/shouldn't write, just trying to be constructive.

Cheers

[Steve Holt]

I say we burn down CA headquarters for this evil betrayal, whose with me?

[erasmus777]

Everyone-It's just a game.

I'm sorry, but everyone makes such a big deal out of these 'unfulfilled promises' and all that rot, when in the grand scheme of things, it's not that important. Erasmus, in your first post you talked about how CA is betraying the loyalty their fans showed to them-might I respectfully ask, when have a lot of the people who share your views on TW ever show CA loyalty? You criticize Empire on minor issues, despite the fact it was a whole new engine and would thus have problems, you have been criticizing Napoleon these past few months even before you hardly knew what the game was going to contain and still don't. If you don't give them your loyalty, why do you expect them to give it to you? I fully recognize your frustration in the sense that the 'AI should be more realistic' or 'the sieges can improve' but keep in mind, it's just entertainment. In a previous post, a user compared this to corrupt politicians-if we should be up in arms about an issue like we are here, it should be about politics, not TW.

The simple fact is, no matter how much all of you criticize it, no matter how much you bash CA, you still buy the game. Why? Because while it's easy to criticize, in the end, CA makes the greatest RTS games on the market. Critiscism is all you ever do, bashing the game before it's been released. This happened back in October, when there was hardly any information released yet. You criticize it now and yet you have not played one turn. You are entertained by CA's products they provide, and then question the manner in which they provide it. So I would reccomend you either cease this criticism or find some other game to play.

I'm sorry if this sounds harsh, I do not intend it to be so, all I'm saying is that we should wait until we've actually played the game before we tear it apart. I would urge you to cease this rampant criticism, for as Benjamin Franklin once put it
"Any fool can criticize, condemn and complain and most fools do."

I assume when you say "you" in the above, you're lumping me in with another group of people to which you think I belong. If that's the case, I don't think I fit the bill you're describing. I actually agree with a lot of what you're saying and you're totally correct to remind everyone it's just a game.

In fact, if you wade through the threads here, I think you'll see that I haven't been too harsh on CA on any issue other than modding and customer service. Those are my personal bones to pick. I actually think ETW is a decent game, with reasonable CAI and some good features. I've written as much several times both here and at the official site. If you read what I wrote above, I think you'll struggle to find too many criticisms of either game. I could be wrong, but I think my OP may strike you as ranting because of the underlining and bolding, which definitely makes it look more ranty than it's meant to be. I guess it's more of an observation on CA's shifting market priorities.

Regarding loyalty, I would say that if you looked at these boards pre-ETW, you would be amazed at the difference in tone. Furthermore, I think that the fact that I've spent hundreds of dollars buying TW titles, hundreds of hours playing them, and hundreds more modding them for others (which keeps people buying, thereby generating money for CA) speaks for itself.

As a general observation, I think situations like this one turn small issues into big ones because companies like CA come to represent all the other corporate entities that have screwed us over and taken our money. It's all the worse because for many people, these are pretty tough economic times. So I have no doubt that there's some scapegoating going on, but it may not be entirely unhealthy. But that's another discussion.

But anyway, thanks for your thoughts and for your cautions. You've got some good ones of both.

Edit: I just got your screen name. Clever.