Fall of the Samurai pre-order clans out today

[♘Top Hat Zebra]

Let me just say right now (And I think I speak for all of us, surely?)

Craig, I am NOT mad at you. Not at all. I think you're a great guy, and you have far more patience than I do, to be able to put up with all this hate. Im not mad at Lusted, and Im not mad at any other CA rep here. You guys are all great, and you've never been anything but helpful.


I am, however, quite angry at CA, and, by extension, SEGA.

[SomaaTheLion]

Let me just say right now (And I think I speak for all of us, surely?)

Craig, I am NOT mad at you. Not at all. I think you're a great guy, and you have far more patience than I do, to be able to put up with all this hate. Im not mad at Lusted, and Im not mad at any other CA rep here. You guys are all great, and you've never been anything but helpful.


I am, however, quite angry at CA, and, by extension, SEGA.

I agree with you Top Hat Zebra. Personally I'm not mad at any CA representatives (including Craig, Lusted...) but I'm mad at CA and Sega for this.

[legoras]

Full game = 30 euro
4 normal clans = 14 euro..

NO THANKS!!

[Jungle Rhino]

Full game = 30 euro
4 normal clans = 14 euro..

NO THANKS!!

The sad irony is that I (and probably most of the people here) would have paid 40 euro for the basic game - it is a standalone release after all. Then happily paid 4 euro for the additional clans (1 euro each)

30+14 = 40+4

CA would (theoretically) get the same amount of money, and nobody would feel ripped off.

As it was - thanks to Amazon brutally undercutting everybody (I have no idea how that works) I only ended up paying £16 for FotS - which was far too little.

This whole issue is far more complex that it appears. CA/Sega want to sell us the basic game as a loss leader - this nets them a large customer base and cuts a lot of the profits out of the distributors. the real honey for the devs comes from the DLC that goes out through Steam with much lower overheads compared to retail distribution (i.e. Steam takes a smaller cut).

So I can see why CA did it this way - but in actual fact what they need to do is grow a pair and tell Amazon to go stick it where the sun don't shine, and jack up the price they sell to online retailers. Trouble is that Amazon has too much power and everybody is scared of it. Amazon's response could be to pull distribution of ALL Sega products.

Couple all this with cross border sales and currency variations *waves at Australia* - in short - the computer games industry is totally FUBAR.

What the customer wants is the least of anybodies worries...

[Arilon]

I can only agree, price tag is a joke due to reasons already mentioned.

I am afraid the next TW Title will be a free 2 play beta version.
If you want more than one faction... DLC
If you want a long campaign... DLC
If you want MP... DLC
If you want more MP/SP units... DLC
If you want whatever... DLC

Call it "Modular Total War - A new era has begun"

[162eRI]

LOOL next step, we gonna have to pay for bug fixers and new patch! In the end, to have the complete game, we gonna have to pay 44€! (and even worst if you want to play Shogun 2 and Rise of the Samurai...). This is madness... and thanks to steam, we can't even sell our game (European countries condamned Steam for that, but it seems they don't care...) It's all about "how to make more money"...

[Plumo]

I think CA knows that it is expensive, and they silently recommend us to buy it during a steam sale. Ofcourse they can't say, as their SEGA overlords are in dire need of cash.

Anyone remembers opening descr_strat with notepad and moving factions from unlockable/nonplayable to playable ?
Those were the days...

[muy]

So i got asked 'then why did you buy it?'

i just bought the new clan packs in blind faith because i thought the previous clan packs were great.

ikko ikki added new units, MP retainers, a new religion, new npc's, a campaign map experience that was completely different from all the other clans.

hatorri added new units, a clan that was very different from all the rest (not as different as ikko ikki, but still).

even if you did not play these clans, their added changes were noticable even if you played against them.

now, these 4 new packs add ... a different starting position and a different uniform color. if you pay for the 4 clans and play a traditional clan, nothing changes. they also add nothing to MP.

CA probably spend more money on doing the artwork (for steam) and/or trailer's of these products than on the content of these expansions !

so far my rating for the expansion clans.

ikko ikki 9/10 (near perfect)
hatorri 7/10 (good, nice)
the new ones -1/10 (student examination papers were empty and he got a -1 for spelling his name wrong)

i can only hope that CA makes up for this joke by adding content to the 'empty box' we bought. extra european nations with their own ships and units might be an idea CA <nudge nudge, wink wink> for content to the clan packs...

[last_name_left]

thanks to Amazon brutally undercutting everybody (I have no idea how that works)

They're offshore (Channel Islands), so have had a different (more lax) tax regime. Scam. What you save in RRP you lose in tax receipts - and guess who makes up the difference? ?Yep - everyone else! Scam./

[Totalheadache]

I think the bigger picture here is not the overall cost which is a joke but and i'll put into bold no new units.

That's the most depressing and sad thing about it..

Also what I find rather irritating is their blatantly "we dont care, people are stupid and will buy it way of thinking".

They need a good ass whipping well in particular the head honcho Mike Simpson.

So Craig or Jack pass onto him mine and many others disgust.

P.S And I am not buying into the "we dont have time or budget bs". Stop wasting your time with gimmicky e for pre-pubescent twits...or cabrones who think playing on palm tops/android is cool. It isnt.

[Steph]

I don't really mind a DLC with no unit.
We can mod units.
The DLC for NTW have units, but we could do the same or better.

What I'd like is a DLC with contents that we cannot edit ourselves: like a new gameplay features (offshore bombardment), or a modified campaign map.

The Peninsular campaign DLC was much more interesting for NTW that the unit packs because of it: real content that we couldn't get otherwise.

[emotion_name]

Im wondering what the reaction would have been if they released these Clan Packs for free and charged for TEd (except those whose registered pre order key would allow free download of TEd of course)!

[Humble Warrior]

I think the bigger picture here is not the overall cost which is a joke but and i'll put into bold no new units.

That's the most depressing and sad thing about it..

Also what I find rather irritating is their blatantly "we dont care, people are stupid and will buy it way of thinking".

They need a good ass whipping well in particular the head honcho Mike Simpson.

So Craig or Jack pass onto him mine and many others disgust.

P.S And I am not buying into the "we dont have time or budget bs". Stop wasting your time with gimmicky e for pre-pubescent twits...or cabrones who think playing on palm tops/android is cool. It isnt.

This. Well said. I`d also deliver a healthy dollop of ass-whip to the marketing chaps and ladies.

Im wondering what the reaction would have been if they released these Clan Packs for free and charged for TEd (except those whose registered pre order key would allow free download of TEd of course)!

I think it`s safe to say that...

...most people would go berserk. If you think this and the blood mod charging was bad; charging for a 50% mod tool people have asked for for years would probably start a volcanic revolution.

CA\SEGA just need to make quality games and expansions and charge £30-£40 for them and stop with that. Enough of the itty bitty DLCs.

[Steph]

Im wondering what the reaction would have been if they released these Clan Packs for free and charged for TEd (except those whose registered pre order key would allow free download of TEd of course)!

If they release a paying campaign map editor for NTW, I'd pay for it.
If they release a DLC with a better campaign map for NTW, I'd pay for it.
If they release a paying equivalent of TEd for NTW, I'd pay for it

If they release a DLC with a few more units, I would not pay for it.

Here I'm speaking aobut NTW because I love the period, and I' have little interest in Japan so I didn't bought Shogun.

But it's not only the period that count, it's "does the DLC bring something modders can't?"

[162eRI]

Well, the fact is you guys are complaining but still, you are buying the DLC! If you want if to change, stop doing it.

I don't mind to pay for new content, we used to do that with expansions in the old days. I just don't like the fact that we buy unfinished game nowadays, and we have to pay every months for something that should have been in the game in the first place: unlock a faction => pay; have blood => pay; have a new textured map=> pay etc. Most of that could have been modded, but they won't permit it anymore, so they can make their DLC!

We used to have finished game, and we could buy expansions, giving to the game awesome new contents (units, gameplay, new features...) Now, we have unfinished game at the same price, and we have to buy DLC to have everything and the expansions became unfinished stand-alone where you hve to buy DLC one again!!!

[Hellenikon]

Frankly, i wouldn“t buy this dlc even if it was priced "correctly" simply because i am not interested in playing the same thing with other colours. These paid factions are clones of the existent ones, they have nothing worth spending extra cash on for your average joe (unless you really really like this time period or certain clan).

I find very sad that what once was the terrain of mods (unlock non playable factions and flesh them out to make them interesting to play => see ETW or NTW mods) now is becoming an exclusive prerrogative of overpriced DLC. I wouldn“t be surprised if in a few games from now on it is impossible for modders to add new units because CA will also reserve that privilege for their DLC.

The situation looks pretty bad for the modding scene of TW games.

[cherryfunk]

Craig, I am NOT mad at you. Not at all. I think you're a great guy, and you have far more patience than I do, to be able to put up with all this hate. Im not mad at Lusted, and Im not mad at any other CA rep here. You guys are all great, and you've never been anything but helpful. I am, however, quite angry at CA, and, by extension, SEGA.

I think we all appreciate Craig's honest efforts to keep us appraised of Total War's future and listen to our (sometimes silly or annoying*) concerns. So it must pain him most of all to have to feign positivity over something so asinine as charging 75% of a full expansion's price for 4 clone clans which are already in the game.

But he has to keep his mouth shut; that's often the price for taking a paycheck.

Obviously the guy determining the price has no idea what the DLC actually is -- he probably doesn't play the game and couldn't really care less about Total War. He's looking at a spreadsheet, sees the blood pack sold well at $5, figures these new "clans", whatever a clan is, should be priced about the same, and sets them all at $5 too.

All we can do is not buy the damn thing. Then, the next time there's a DLC being prepared, when they look at the spreadsheet and see a massive drop in sales from blood pack to clans, it'll tell them that $5 isn't always the right price.


*Siege bug

[priam11]

All we can do is not buy the damn thing. Then, the next time there's a DLC being prepared, when they look at the spreadsheet and see a massive drop in sales from blood pack to clans, it'll tell them that $5 isn't always the right price.*Siege bug

This.....a thousand times this. Don't gripe and moan about it. Well go ahead it is the internet but use your wallet. Either don't buy the DLC's outright or purchase them when they go on sale via steam.

Not sure if there is much of a message. Any purchase of these DLC's are profits to CA anyways. Everyone already has them (thanks CA for taking up that hard drive space yet again).We just cannot access them with out the price.

[Huberto]

No I say we should do two things about it. 1.) Don't buy it, obviously. 2.) Register your protest about it, right here.

Let's go for 1,000 critical posts!

[BubbaLou]

Lets just wait for the modding community to do the same thing as the DLC for free - clearly someone in the finance department forgot the TW community likes mods.