Fall of the Samurai pre-order clans out today

[Gen. Sherman]

Rome 2 total war language translation pack 5€ . Because its awesome playing your game on your language!!!!. By buying this package you get a 0,001% discount on the montly subscription fee to be able to play online!

Ugh... (Shudders)
This sounds almost believable.
I am just waiting for Europa Barbarorum 2, I believe it'll be the game CA should make if they can keep to their principles.
I have no problem promoting the EB team's work whenever the opportunity looks good. They make most of the typical complaints that you get from a big company product disappear.

[Huberto]

I don't get the complaint that 'they're already on the disc'. You're buying a licence, and the plastic of the DVD - not the content itself.

At some point "adding more to the game" becomes "slicing up the game and selling it piecemeal at inflated costs".

Complaining about something because it is already on disc is just another way of looking at the problem you've identified in your second quote. That is, pre-release game content is developed and added to game files and then is locked down (whether it's on a disc or a server somewhere) to be sold later, separately as DLC. This becomes problematic when when the point is reached of "slicing up the game and selling it piecemeal."

With the Fot$ "bonus" clans this question has a different twist, because CA's defense for selling the clan DLC separately in the first place is that they are not integral to the game experience. So basically they are fluff, fill....garbage. Created by the developer as garbage and now sold separately at a premium price.

I can't think of a better way to insult your fan base.

If it's just garbage, why are you selling them at $5 a pop?

If it's not garbage, then why did you carve it out of the main game to be sold separately?

[Kraut]

[FONT=Calibri][SIZE=3]Lots of people screamed for the release of the pre order clans as DLC, why ill never know because as has already been pointed out they are just re coloured units.

Yes, I did so too, when the Sendai Clan was presented as a rather strange TWB-bundle unlock. Thatīs why I do not complain now:

I wonīt complain. This is exactly what I asked for: "Release the clans as DLC and stick a price tag to it, then I will consider buying it or not"
...

Now with that price tag, I am a little disappointed...

[emotion_name]

I also wouldnt buy into the idea that they are priced as such because thats what the pre order price works out as for those who did indeed pre-order FoTS, simply because they were also labelled as "PRE-ORDER EXCLUSIVES". Not so exclusive now are they?

[-iceblade^]

I'm glad that this has been done, because I'd love for more factions.

Not for $20 for all 4 though... That's 66% of the game's list price

[Humble Warrior]

With the Fot$ "bonus" clans this question has a different twist, because CA's defense for selling the clan DLC separately in the first place is that they are not integral to the game experience. So basically they are fluff, fill....garbage. Created by the developer as garbage and now sold separately at a premium price.

I can't think of a better way to insult your fan base.

If it's just garbage, why are you selling them at $5 a pop?

If it's not garbage, then why did you carve it out of the main game to be sold separately?

You have a great logical sense. I must admit I feel sorry for CA sometimes (especially if it`s not their fault). they can`t win, but then again they do put themselves into these situations. people did ask for them, but they didn`t realise they would be so expensive for tat. A bit like the blood mod, really.

Personally, I was never interested in something so transparently obvious.

[Yarkis de Bodemloze]

SEGA needs money after their fiscal fiasco last year. They know who they can milk. Slowly but surely I am saying goodbye to the TW series.

[-FrOzeN-]

This is just sad, I'd say that for all four clans with new units and something that actually made them special compared to other clans, 3,49-5 would be ok. But paying 3,49 to change "FALSE" to "TRUE"? No way.....
Sorry but I wont buy another TW game until one that actually is moddable comes out. I.e. when the community releases things like this with a reasonable price tag (free).
Also take a look at CD Projekt RED and their DLC policy (and what it has led to).

If I could stop the world from buying any of your DLCs I would do it. If only to show you that it is the wrong to do. Please go back to releasing a full game followed by expansions. Or change the DLC prices to something reasonable (so you wont have to pay almost as much for the DLCs as the friggin' game)

Damn I miss the days when game developers actually tried to hide their greed...

[KingIzzystero]

I am someone who used to own everything total war related. Then CA did the Napoleon thingy and since them my TW collection is missing.

I bought everything for Shogun EXCEPT THESE PRE-ORDERED UNITS (I have Saga as it came with my edition).

I am not buying this until it drops in price.

As a side note, expect another essay from CA explaining how good this actually is and why it is important.

[Dago Red]

So which company will rise up and make great war games with this general model (a little turn based, a little real time, a lot of modding possibility) and do it without shooting it's own community in the back of the head?

[Steph]

It's interesting to see so many replies from CA to our comments.

[Gen. Sherman]

It's so simple for CA. All they have to do is release their next title with these essential points (feel free to add more)

The pros from Shogun 2: advancement in MP, excellent vanilla functionality on release, expanded building and tech depth.

Then make sure whatever they release is as moddable as M2TW. They could even go as far as to make a DLC that does this! Oh my! Who would of thought that people would rather pay for that?!

Stop charging money for sorry DLC's that lack any real addition to the game!

Keep the total war elements that have made the games unique since Shogun1

It's not a big list, but for some reason it seems so easy to stray from.

[Humble Warrior]

CA\SEGA play a very dodgy game with us. They balance on a seesaw between trying to keep the fans on board, getting new people and wringing out as much money from us all as possible.

They`re afraid of losing one since then they might lose the other, but their greed keeps them playing the dodgy balancing game to eek out that extra cash out of us all. Right now they`re wondering which way to tip the seesaw...

If they`re not careful, they`ll fall off. And the ground isn`t soft.

[BubbaLou]

The Clan DLCs are all an utter joke - a simple startpos mod can duplicate the same thing for free (and many already had when CA launched them).

Look at Mass Effect 3 - BioWare blew the community up with the ending to a flagship product, and is making up for it by adding tons of new weapons, characters, maps, and more as free DLC. If you have the internets, you can get a bunch of awesome stuff - things that would not constitute a new game - for no extra charge. That's the support that's missing here, that's the reason why people are increasingly disgruntled with CA - Rather than get more value out of the same product, everything new that CA releases nickels and dimes you. CA's time would be far better spent patching and upgrading, rather than try to play modder-for-profit.

Frankly, the best thing CA's ever done with new content is the TEd Editor. That's how you get people happy and excited to play your game again - get more value out of the dollar already spent, not get more dollars. The price of incompleteness should be borne by the creators, not the customers.

[Anibal at portas]

this politic of the DCL is sell an incomplete game and then pay for what is missing.
no more DCL,no more incomplete games,No more scams.
also many players not buy never for internet and the DCl for discharge payment not can buy.
complete games and expansions is necessary.
the DCL must be free.

[Gen. Sherman]

In all honesty what I would prefer is for Shogun2 and all of it's content to be as moddable as M2TW purely for the fact that a modern engine such as that with the open mods would give it such staying power. On top of that there are at least 1 or 2 more potentially big DLC's they could make regarding Japan's history, and multiplayer could keep being improved upon within the current game. I'm pretty sure this is all wishful thinking but still.

I am someone who used to own everything total war related. Then CA did the Napoleon thingy and since them my TW collection is missing.

I bought everything for Shogun EXCEPT THESE PRE-ORDERED UNITS (I have Saga as it came with my edition).

I am not buying this until it drops in price.

As a side note, expect another essay from CA explaining how good this actually is and why it is important.

I'm right there with you on this.
This is how I've felt since Napoleon. I bought Empire, quite excited about it. I quickly found it's vanilla release state sucked bad, but still I had hope that they would tune it up and make it the wonder it should have been. (Which they kind of did... eventually) But in the midst of that Napoleon comes out leaving people like us standing there like, "what about Empire, that I waited for, and bought, and trusted would be made well."...too bad now buy this new improved version of the same thing, is the translated answer.

My main concern since then and still is that games are thrown out for top dollar, lightly expanded upon, and then cast aside for some other hyped up endeavor that will barely be tapped upon for it's potential, leaving any advancement the company or it's players put into it all but gone. This is not a stable strategy for creating or keeping loyal fans in any way. Make something solid, worth a damn, and not easily forgettable.

[Akaie]

In all honesty what I would prefer is for Shogun2 and all of it's content to be as moddable as M2TW purely for the fact that a modern engine such as that with the open mods would give it such staying power. On top of that there are at least 1 or 2 more potentially big DLC's they could make regarding Japan's history, and multiplayer could keep being improved upon within the current game. I'm pretty sure this is all wishful thinking but still.

Ideally, yeah.

Up until a few days ago I had this thought running through my head: 'TEd shows a precedent that CA can justify tools for some areas of the game. If they perceive TEd as a success, perhaps they will look at designing addition tools more oriented towards single player. Furthermore, if the Warscape engine will eventually be considered outdated, this precedent - that makes clear the profitability of officially propping up a modding community - will encourage them to apply foresight to a heavily moddable setup.'

Of course, being asked to pay $4.49 for a single clan does put such possibly naive hopes and dreams in utter disarray! I sincerely hope that, even if my modding-related hopes bear no fruit, this thread stands as a point of encouragement for projects such as ROTS and FOTS that bear a hefty amount of meat, perhaps even with a bit more polish ?

[BubbaLou]

In all honesty what I would prefer is for Shogun2 and all of it's content to be as moddable as M2TW purely for the fact that a modern engine such as that with the open mods would give it such staying power. On top of that there are at least 1 or 2 more potentially big DLC's they could make regarding Japan's history, and multiplayer could keep being improved upon within the current game. I'm pretty sure this is all wishful thinking but still.




I'm right there with you on this.
This is how I've felt since Napoleon. I bought Empire, quite excited about it. I quickly found it's vanilla release state sucked bad, but still I had hope that they would tune it up and make it the wonder it should have been. (Which they kind of did... eventually) But in the midst of that Napoleon comes out leaving people like us standing there like, "what about Empire, that I waited for, and bought, and trusted would be made well."...too bad now buy this new improved version of the same thing, is the translated answer.

My main concern since then and still is that games are thrown out for top dollar, lightly expanded upon, and then cast aside for some other hyped up endeavor that will barely be tapped upon for it's potential, leaving any advancement the company or it's players put into it all but gone. This is not a stable strategy for creating or keeping loyal fans in any way.

It's already been said that the game engine is now too complex to allow simple modding tools. You basically need to be Darth to understand the cryptic nonsense that allows for modding.

The decision to abandon Empire to the history books and make Napoleon - a simpler, working version of Empire - was, I think, the primary reason for the currently unsettled community. There were many things CA was supposed to be working on for Empire - DX11, Mod tools, multiplayer support - that were just... abandoned, for a 'new' game.

If you screw up, you put your man pants on and fix the problems. People paid good money for a 'complete' game to discover that it was not anywhere near ready. Nowadays, DarthMod Empire is what the game should have been. IMO, DMUC Empire kicks the crap out of Napoleon for replayablility, scope, and challenge, a testament to the efforts of the community to make good where CA abandoned their product.

Empire was also the start of CA's forays into the modding world, releasing 'Unit packs' (and later on, whole nations) for a small fee. The problem with this model is that modders have already done these things - Startpos mods and Additional units are nothing new, nor do they cost anything beyond the time to install them, so why are we paying more money for their incompleteness?

I fully agree - Hyping up a new game, patching it a bit, nickel-and-diming the community for arguably simple additions, and then moving on is a strategy to maximize profit, not replay value or interest. There already was a Blood mod when CA released the Blood mod - for a dollar 99 - and it was arguably more realistic, too.

Here's a picture to sum up the problem:

[Jungle Rhino]

It's already been said that the game engine is now too complex to allow simple modding tools. You basically need to be Darth to understand the cryptic nonsense that allows for modding.

That is a very weak excuse - modders like Darth are more than capable of taking dev tools and bashing them around to make mods - you don't need to wrap it up into a slick package with a GUI for usage by the wider public as they have with the map editor.

I suspect the real problem is probably due to licensing issues with libraries or 3rd party tools which are integral to the dev process that CA simply can't legally provide to modders. So in order to release something that modders could use they would need to do a lot of work.

Of course I am speculating wildly here - but it sure wouldn't hurt CA to be a bit more forthcoming with reasons other than "the game is too complex to mod" - which is just flat out patronising.

[VENNONETES]

That is damned true!