Creative Assembly Business Practice Discussion Thread (Rome II)

[alQamar]

Actually we had that in Rome 1 and we have it in Rome 2 (and previous TW games) too, if you host a single battle you can change between the more arcadey mode or the more realistic mode of battles. However this does not affect the campaign, and that is where the pain of streamlining hits the most I think. Giving two options, in addition to the difficulty we already have would be a smart a Solomonic solution. Good thing you mentioned it, baptistus.

[alQamar]

Imho this should set a warning for Total War Arena
http://www.metacritic.com/game/pc/th...scrolls-online

the score diversity reminds much of Rome 2. All players today only hypocritical ?

[Super7700]

some racing games/flight simulators find a good way to solve this problem with two modes : arcade / simulation.
You can imagine an arcade mod for a total war with less parameters to manage, shorter battles, instant transport ship , instant diplomacy ect..ect... and a simulation mode with more parameters, more things to manage, no instant transport ship ect...
Why to not do something like that ? everybody will be happy.

That's definitely a very good suggestion, though you just have to wonder whether CA would be willing to put in the extra time and money into creating two versions of their game.

[Radzeer]

That's definitely a very good suggestion, though you just have to wonder whether CA would be willing to put in the extra time and money into creating two versions of their game.

And it's not even just two versions, but two versions with target audiences vastly different in size. Not to mention that the programming effort would need to be greater for the audience which is the smaller.

I think the way it turned out was a calculated loss by CA (as far as the direct revenue stream is concerned).

[iWarsaw]

Theres no reason to make two different versions of Total War. You make a good total war and everyone will play it.

The idea of making different play styles of a total war game stops it from being a total war game. Thats not a proper solution. Just make a better game thats more user friendly.

Starcraft. Its a easy game to play but its hard to master.

[baptistus]

It is not "two versions", it is only two game mode, nothing more: it is the same game, but with less parameter for one mode. Again, racing games already do it WITHOUT ANY PROBLEM. they don't have to make two games, it don't cost a lot money, they only delete some parameter to one mode to make it more "arcade" or more "simple".

For example diplomacy in rome 2:
-you have to send an agent before to be able to start diplomacy with a faction
-instant diplomacy

transport ship:
-you have to wait one turn and it cost money
-instant transport ships with no cost

so no you don't create a harcore mod, you create a game AND you delete/adjust some parameters to have a more arcadey mode. Some flight simulator do it too ! it doesn't mean they did an arcade game AND after that they decide to create a new version with more parameter especially for the hardcore gamer, it doesn't wortk that way. You create a game with parameters AND you delete/adjust some of them to have a normal/arcade mode.
So no it is not two versions of a game to developp.

[alQamar]

Warsaw is right somehow. But Starcraft is also aimed to be an E-Sport game, which Total War is not - even not as most of the players only play the single player or only multiplayer campaign. So certainly like in every sport it may be easy to play Starcraft but it needs a lot of profession to get close to the 100%.

what baptistus is saying is a good solution from my players point of view and I think it would not be very much work for CA to implement it a second realism for the campaign, so we are not demanding them doing the work twice as doing two games. I certainly do not see a reason why we have 2 sort of battle physics (arcade and realism mode) but not having some sorts of different campaign realism, too. In my humble opinion a more realistic and complex campaign mode would even favour the many people that are currently interested into things like DeI and also would expand the borders of modding. Just imagine if there would be a realism mode including more cities and and an arcade mode with the amount of cities and settlements we have now. I think that would be just marvellous.

[m_1512]

Imho this should set a warning for Total War Arena
http://www.metacritic.com/game/pc/th...scrolls-online

the score diversity reminds much of Rome 2. All players today only hypocritical ?

I have honestly never seen the point of Metacritic. The idea is like considering an equation "x apples = y oranges" and using it to measure grapes, tomatoes, and chickens. Using Business Math to calculate scores does not account for all factors.

Sorry for the wee bit deviation of course.

[alQamar]

Well I understand your point, but I think in former times metacritics was really a good thing. Sure that somehow you may compare apples and oranges but perhaps this should not be used to compare games to each other at all but every game that is rated there stands for its own. Having a look over the all time high scores I recognize that games, which received a good scoring from official scoring aswell as a good scoring from the users were indeed good games. The question is why people now tearing apart the reliability of score in either way so basically there are two groups giving too low scores and other scoring 10/10 just to outweight the overall score.

Why I actually posted that here, is because it happened the same way in Rome 2 plus it seems not to be easy to earn a good reputation via metacritics today. Why I brought TW Arena into this is because I think that a TW MMO might aswell lead to a lot of controversies on metacritics just like Elder Scrolls Online did.

[m_1512]

Well I understand your point, but I think in former times metacritics was really a good thing. Sure that somehow you may compare apples and oranges but perhaps this should not be used to compare games to each other at all but every game that is rated there stands for its own. Having a look over the all time high scores I recognize that games, which received a good scoring from official scoring aswell as a good scoring from the users were indeed good games. The question is why people now tearing apart the reliability of score in either way so basically there are two groups giving too low scores and other scoring 10/10 just to outweight the overall score.

I'll use an example here, not promising it is the perfect one through. Consider we both are selling apples, my apples are shiny and yours are healthy. We invite some apple reviewers to see ours. Out of the five people, four like the shiny apples and only one likes the healthy ones. Here metacritic will assign scores according to their reviews and my shiny apples win hands down. You see where I am going with this? To win, I simply tweaked the apples to appear appealing at first glance/short usage, and got a excellent review score. Whereas even through you focused on good aspects, you did not get the score because the review was for short duration and your benefits appeared in long term. So, because of the score, the next people who come to sell them will focus on getting a good score, rather than focusing on the apple itself.

Metacritic score is a mathematical aggregation of all game reviews. Official reviewers only play the game for some time before listing what features it has, and assigning the scores according to what features are available and appealing at first sight. Sadly, this makes a trend where companies would aim for getting good reviews and the focus is taken away from the product. For this, I have always been a critic of metacritic.

[alQamar]

Yep you are absolutely right here. The methods how metacritics score work is not very objective in any direction. Still I think it was more reliable in the past. Your example with the apples is a great one. I want to remember the incident of Shogun 2, when the reviewers got antialiased DX11 supported versions, so rating also the beauty graphics, then the game - at least for a time - was released without those functionalities. For Rome 2 we may field the much reworked screenshots and stuff, compared to how the game really looks like maxed out. Your critics about metacritic are very fair and I enjoy our discussion about it. By the way did you check the all time score so you also get an idea why I think it was a more reliable quality indicator for the consumer in the past? http://www.metacritic.com/browse/gam...l/pc?sort=desc

[m_1512]

Thanks, I like a good focused discussion too, very conducive to thoughts. Coming to the point you made, I am not commenting on past effectiveness of metacritic, but the very concept itself. I meant that metacritic as an internal quality metric is instrumental in setting up a wrong trend. If allowed to continue, soon game companies will kiss goodbye to the products and focus on some number on a website.

Further, the rating itself is not very accurate for two reasons. One, game reviewers are themselves not infallible and most would only play a token part and give the game a rating. I know what you will say, "You don't need to eat an entire jar of caviar to know it's good" but games are not caviar and they are more in line with books and the saying here is, "Don't judge a book from its cover, or the first few chapters". Second, a simple math formula is applied for all the ratings provided to the game by the reviewers, which does not even consider if the review is fair or the reviewer even knows what the game is exactly about.

[alQamar]

Thanks, I like a good focused discussion too, very conducive to thoughts. Coming to the point you made, I am not commenting on past effectiveness of metacritic, but the very concept itself. I meant that metacritic as an internal quality metric is instrumental in setting up a wrong trend. If allowed to continue, soon game companies will kiss goodbye to the products and focus on some number on a website.

Further, the rating itself is not very accurate for two reasons. One, game reviewers are themselves not infallible and most would only play a token part and give the game a rating. I know what you will say, "You don't need to eat an entire jar of caviar to know it's good" but games are not caviar and they are more in line with books and the saying here is, "Don't judge a book from its cover, or the first few chapters". Second, a simple math formula is applied for all the ratings provided to the game by the reviewers, which does not even consider if the review is fair or the reviewer even knows what the game is exactly about.

That's right , and I have to admit your point is so clear that I do not have anything essential to add to your statement. Perhaps we might discuss further on the communication thread Kubee made. I have stated two recent examples, what do you think about them?

[riskymonk]

With all this raving over rome 2 moving out of its beta phase and finally being a game that they can enjoy, it makes me wonder if they have stopped to think to themselves "the game is £30 now yet I paid full price on release and couldn't play it, that means those who buy it now will have a playable game even though they paid half the price"

All this gratitude and thank yous and "I'll be buying DLCs now" will be seen by other gaming company's. We're our own worst enemy.

Hopefully once this hype dies down people will remember that this game was built with consoles and tablets in mind and to target the wallet of the causal/arcade audience

[GoTW Kubee]

lol

[Humble Warrior]

With all this raving over rome 2 moving out of its beta phase and finally being a game that they can enjoy, it makes me wonder if they have stopped to think to themselves "the game is £30 now yet I paid full price on release and couldn't play it, that means those who buy it now will have a playable game even though they paid half the price"

All this gratitude and thank yous and "I'll be buying DLCs now" will be seen by other gaming company's. We're our own worst enemy.

Hopefully once this hype dies down people will remember that this game was built with consoles and tablets in mind and to target the wallet of the causal/arcade audience

Not on my side. I remain extremely cautious. I`ve seen CA give with one hand and take away with the other far too long to praise them just because they finally got the wheels running in the right direction. fact is i`m furious we had to wait this long with no apology and if it wasn`t for the fact I`m stuck with this game due to Steam and checking back I wouldn`t even be here. I`ve (and many of us) taken a lot of unfair crap here because I wanted a FUNCTIONING GAME from CA and I haven`t forgotten.

However, unlike many I am willing to say when someone has done something right as well as when someone has done something wrong (it`s why people get confused by me I don`t get polarised). CA has done right in their attempts to fix this patch and so I encourage that, however, you won`t see me buying any DLCs or factions until I see this thing is truly fixed and maybe not even then.

They owe the paying public and especially we who waited so long and whined until something was done about it. The squeaky wheel is getting the grease. We should not let up.

Truth to tell Ca won`t ever get the trust from me they once had.

[Modestus]

[daelin4]

Yeah you can now make a very game and about a year later patch up most of the TECHNICAL problems, and you're the world's best game developer.

Look up recency effect.

[Evan MF]

I feel as though lack of competition in the market, combined with clueless new staff they've brought in recently, who don't know what Total War is really meant to be about (not MOBA combat with special abilities etc), and old staff probably being fed up and bored of reiterating old themes, has caused Total War to really lose it's way in what it originally (appeared) to set out to do. A case polluted vision and loss of motivation. I don't think anyone, back in 2004, seeing the jump from MTW to RTW and the promise of the engine (there was even a TV program called Time Commanders which used the Rome engine on huge scales) to see Total War ending up as it has done. I think many of us envisioned a Total War by now that had much larger scale battles, more formational/strategic options beyond pushing 'special ability' buttons, with a much more emphasis on the physics engine and how it affects unit to unit combat dynamics. This is what so many of us were invested in when we started buying Total Wars years ago, and now Rome 2 has finally come and essentially shattered the dream once and for all. The game completely shuns any notion of formational-integrity, most battles end up a disorganised brawl the moment units engage, where you have to fire off special abilities left and right in order to stay in the fight - feels almost like a MOBA with regiments instead of characters. The upcoming Total War: Arena, actively promising more MOBAesque combat (3 unit armies, wtf?), is probably going to replace the Total War multiplayer scene entirely in the next few titles, as CA look to cut costs on the main game; it will assume classic multiplayer is redundant (only because you neglected it CA!). This is only a testament to how anti-Total War CA are now and where the franchise is going.

To answer the thread more directly, yes, CA sounds evermore like EA and is adopting more and more of EA's despicable practices. Not least DLC flooding, but ruining old, promising franchises. 'Streamlining' is the human face of it. A wrench to the soul is another way of putting it.

[Evan MF]

I wrote this in another thread but it's probably more suited to this one:

I feel as though lack of competition in the market, combined with clueless new staff they've brought in recently, who don't know what Total War is really meant to be about (not MOBA combat with special abilities etc), and old staff probably being fed up and bored of reiterating old themes, has caused Total War to really lose it's way in what it originally (appeared) to set out to do. A case polluted vision and loss of motivation. I don't think anyone, back in 2004, seeing the jump from MTW to RTW and the promise of the engine (there was even a TV program called Time Commanders which used the Rome engine on huge scales) to see Total War ending up as it has done. I think many of us envisioned a Total War by now that had much larger scale battles, more formational/strategic options beyond pushing 'special ability' buttons, with a much more emphasis on the physics engine and how it affects unit to unit combat dynamics. This is what so many of us were invested in when we started buying Total Wars years ago, and now Rome 2 has finally come and essentially shattered the dream once and for all. The game completely shuns any notion of formational-integrity, most battles end up a disorganised brawl the moment units engage, where you have to fire off special abilities left and right in order to stay in the fight - feels almost like a MOBA with regiments instead of characters. The upcoming Total War: Arena, actively promising more MOBAesque combat (3 unit armies, wtf?), is probably going to replace the Total War multiplayer scene entirely in the next few titles, as CA look to cut costs on the main game; it will assume classic multiplayer is redundant (only because you neglected it CA!). This is only a testament to how anti-Total War CA are now and where the franchise is going.

That's how I see the situation and where TW is headed.