The day the forum died

[riskymonk]

TW is dead, I agree. Having said that R2 and Atilla haven't been great games, M2 was the last great game and even that was very arcadey with the bright colours and lack of historical accuracy. At least without mods.

The dark atmosphere of M1 was amazing.

Name 1 total war game that was historically accurate.

[Humble Warrior]

Give us 1 decision throughout the history of mankind, that benefited 100% of the people the decision was forced on.

Morale of the story, every decision has its pros and its cons. Some people benefit, some don't.

Stop pretending to come across as somebody who's ill informed and who believes their thoughts and what they think is the right approach will work GURANTEED.

Your obsession with me was funny at first, but now is disconcerting. Over several weeks you`ve been following me around and trying to bait me into circular stupid arguments with you. You have even several times contacted me on pms in an obsessive manner when I`ve clearly said my piece and wish you to bother me no longer.

I`ve tried to be easy on you, but you won`t let go and it pisses me off, no doubt as you intended. You seriously need to look at your obsession with me before I contact a moderater about you.

[Ataegina]

- ETW ....... abomination.......
- CA double-face saying they support modding when in fact every new entry gets worse and even lock stuff that was unlocked to re-sell as dlc (wich was in mods months before)
- Game butchered to dlc and pricing hike for the core game
- Game is broken, well DLC creation trumps fixing (CA learned with WB for sure)
- Atilla perfomance and issues still and never will be fixed
- Public statements to their consumers are beyond insulting, its like slap your face hard, pull every insult on the books, call you a dumbshit and steal your wallet for more dlc bs
- Interactions with community went from informative in the past to goofy like circus play (amateur lvl 9000) can be fun but not anymore after years of being insulted....
- The censorship force on TW official community is strong......... when criticism is erased ASAP and people banned for legit complaints, its a bad sign.....

and more... at this point any CA TW game is a thing for an 80% off steam sale and thats it.

[Majorien]

Yes, the forum is slowly dying. Because modders are gone.

Let's have a look on Attila, wich is not a bad game (extension ?) at all. There is NO MODS wich are dealing with historical scenarii. Just two (2...) overhauls concerning balancing and units textures. , NO HISTORICAL MODS ARE EVEN PLANNED !! Is it because Attila is unmoddable ? Because the forum didn't "create" an another generation of modders ? i don't know. But what i do know, is the reason of the forum activity : new mods.

[Lugotorix]

Yes, the forum is slowly dying. Because modders are gone.

Let's have a look on Attila, wich is not a bad game (extension ?) at all. There is NO MODS wich are dealing with historical scenarii. Just two (2...) overhauls concerning balancing and units textures. , NO HISTORICAL MODS ARE EVEN PLANNED !! Is it because Attila is unmoddable ? Because the forum didn't "create" an another generation of modders ? i don't know. But what i do know, is the reason of the forum activity : new mods.

There's a ton of historical mods planned and already released; Origo Europae/Karling/ Justinian mod / The Dark Ages with multiple time periods.

[Majorien]

There's a ton of historical mods planned and already released; Origo Europae/Karling/ Justinian mod / The Dark Ages with multiple time periods.

Karling seems to be stopped. Origo, wich was a great idea, is just a startpos modification, hard to compare it with IB for instance for the same timeframe. You're right, i forgot Justinian.

[Abdülmecid I]

The "it's the forumites fault' explanation ignores the fact that the forums of much older games have quite a large traffic and I'm not talking about the Hosted Modifications sub-forums, despite the fact that many have reacted very negatively at their release. So, what happened? The whiners of the past were more reasonable than their present counterparts? Or the fans of TW games used to be more persistent? The truth is that the Warscape games quickly lose their appeal, due to a variety of factors, the most prominent being the lack of moddability and the lack of depth. They're not as immersive, apparently. A typical example is the continually decreasing importance of characters. Traits, retinues, families, all of them have a smaller presence since Empire. You can't really role-play with a faction leader that appeared out of nowhere, has an unhistorical name with spelling mistakes and develops his character based on a pyramid-like list of traits.

[Lord Dakier]

The funny thing is that Divide et Impera for Rome 2 and Darthmod for Empire actually made both those games more enjoyable than any iteration of Total War I've played with the exception of Rome Total Realism and Third Age Total War I suppose. Sure both those games upon release was awful and after being fully patched they became fairly stable and fixed, but the 2 modding groups really changed them both.

I'd argue Total War has begun to lose it's appeal more so down to not trying out new mechanics. Crusader Kings 2's micro-management, families, plots and pretty much what makes the game what it is inside a Total War game would be truly magnificent. I remember back in Rome 1 and Medieval 2 days there was AAR's all around as your characters had stories and proper traits which would build a sense of their character, now they just feel like pre-assigned bonuses or penalties and the selectable traits differ with us asking is he our family member or not. Should we better his character or his servitude to the nation. Being able to directly control your non-families traits was a pretty big flaw in Rome 2 I always thought.

[wangrin]

Modding :

Modding is still alive, for newest title such as Attila as well as much olders like M2TW.
But the range of TW games to mod is greater, years after years, spreading modders in a lot of different projects.
Moreover, overhaul mods need time to create, 1 year is a quite short period.

Even if some old modders retire, new one still appears.
But I think that attracting new talents and help them to leanr modding (from modeling to db modification) is a vital task.

Modding TW game increase in complexity, needing to learn to use new tools, new processes.
How many modders have used TWS2 Assembly Kit to extend or create campaign maps ?
How many modders have used TWR2 Assembly Kit to create new buildings or new ships ?
Not that much I think.

Should we blame CA for creating more complex games, I don't think so.
Looking at creating units and the game handle them, CA do great effort to create a quite good system from the (bugged) ETW to TWR2 and Attila.
Replacing old file system by db tables was great too, as this system is more efficient (performance).


Modding Support :

Since TWS2, CA offcialy support modding, releasing Assembly Kits.
This is not perfect, of course, as CA support tools only for the current TW game and stop support for older ones.
This is not perfect because tools rarely allow to handle the wide range of modding needs, such as Campaign Map Tools.
But, saying that CA doesn't support modding is denying reality and facts : CA release modding tools, and useful ones.


Finally, the most limiting issue is the game design : poor diplomacy, Hollywoodish battle gameplay, etc.
Several threads discuss about features that should/could/would be add to Total War :

• Features from other games you'd like to see in Total War
• TOTAL WAR: EMPIRE 2 Proposed Gameplay
• A not so common wish list for the next total war UPDATED 23-10-2014

New release hype :

Activity in the forum generally increase when CA announce a new TW game.
After release and several month of activity, forum gradually return to a more quite activity.

I don't know what will be the effects of Warhammer announcement.
Will it increase inscription and activity here ?
Will it attract new peoples, more attracted by wargame than history ?
Difficult to tell.
But, at least, CA was clear, they will not support modding for Warhammer (read that they will not release Assembly Kit nor likely help modders by releasing documents such as LUA commands or DB tables schema).

[Insert Username Here]

at this point any CA TW game is a thing for an 80% off steam sale and thats it.

So long as they keep up their crappy DLC policy of chopping off factions that should have been there at the start to sell a few months later like they did in Attila and are now doing with Warhammer.

[Lionheart11]

Ok I have read all posts and can agree with them, I also see the modding debacle for modders. For me the main problem seems like they are slowly ignoring there long term fans, they went for a streamlined game and tried to sell that but it backfired on them. It feels like the demography of the game has changed, previously the game had a feeling it was made for a mature 18-25 ages group or even some adults, now the game feels like it's directed at the 12-21 age group. I am not paying out that age group at all , I'm just trying to describe what I see.

It think R2 set a new example of trash that will sell or dishonest practices, the game feels boxed in, limited and lacking in long term playability, take the 6 building slots that is limited for example..

[Walrusjones]

And the constant replacing of old units to eliminate options, passive AI's that don't want to conduct diplomacy, and simplified battle mechanics that focus more on appearances then depth.

What we need is a huge generation of modders trying to make something similar to a New Darthmod, until one of them succeeds.
The mods that make CA look the worst to the largest audience are the ones they will have the most incentive to compete with, as those are what they need to compete with in order keep the silent masses happy, rather then us contributors, those who discuss their work in public channels. What we need to do is to reach a point where the mods most played by the silent masses are those that focus on depth, and legitimate tension, rather then content vomiting and map painting.

As long as the struggle between CA and its modders to trump one another finds itself keeps focused on the total of content, and its flashyness, CA is going to continue drift away from the long term fanbase.

[Rorarii]

Yeah, Attila sales and steams player use stats should tell CA that their path is wrong. Warhammer, targetting a younger audience might reverse that, if marketed correclty. Their next historic Tw will probably be Med3 and it will probably be like Rome2 / Attila, NOT like M2TW (different developers) .. so most historic TW gamers won't be fooled by pre-orders, nor flashy lights, and will wait for it's release and reviews ... sigh!! back to M2TW and it's mods .. oh! that reminds me, I'm currently ENJOYING a game of modded CIV5 .. bye!

[Regvlvs]

For all the complaints I am still certain that Empire is my absolute favorite TW game. In terms of play hours it has every other game (at all) I've ever played beat (2000+ not counting modding time). Partially this was because I couldn't play MII after returning my college laptop whereas Rome and Empire ran well. But that is ok the diplomats were driving me mad.

I definately see see the flaws in Rome 2. The game just isn't as immersive as it might be. Attila has fixed most of those complaints for me.

Ultimately it it is my favorite series because there isn't really anything I know of like it. Other games that people compare it to like Civilization don't appeal.

[tgoodenow]

For all the complaints I am still certain that Empire is my absolute favorite TW game. In terms of play hours it has every other game (at all) I've ever played beat (2000+ not counting modding time). Partially this was because I couldn't play MII after returning my college laptop whereas Rome and Empire ran well. But that is ok the diplomats were driving me mad.

I definately see see the flaws in Rome 2. The game just isn't as immersive as it might be. Attila has fixed most of those complaints for me.

Ultimately it it is my favorite series because there isn't really anything I know of like it. Other games that people compare it to like Civilization don't appeal.

Only because Civilization lacks real time battles. When paradox or Civ makers come out with even the most basic real time battles CA is going to have a problem. Even if CK2 had battles with the graphical equivalent of Medieval 2, I would play it over the new TW anyday.

[Regvlvs]

The lack of real time battles is part of it but Civ games are also way too broad in timeframe. Heck I even thought Medieval II was too broad. Pick an era and focus.

[stevehoos]

Give us 1 decision throughout the history of mankind, that benefited 100% of the people the decision was forced on.

Morale of the story, every decision has its pros and its cons. Some people benefit, some don't.

Stop op pretending to come across as somebody who's ill informed and who believes their thoughts and what they think is right will work GURANTEED.

LOL, you stick with Stalin, Mao, and Pol Pot. Let us know how that works out, comrade.

Tolerance is perhaps the only decision in the dark catacombs of human history to benefit not just the majority. The very fact that you are able to post your opinions about anything on a message board is a blessing. Moral of the story: You unknowingly argue against your very right to express your opinion; what if your opinion falls into the category of those who do not benefit, what then? Is it unjust that we silence you? Should we deem you an intellectual, or put you in a labor camp for owning a watch? You don't know what you are talking about.

[Yudishtira]

And the constant replacing of old units to eliminate options, passive AI's that don't want to conduct diplomacy, and simplified battle mechanics that focus more on appearances then depth.

What we need is a huge generation of modders trying to make something similar to a New Darthmod, until one of them succeeds.
The mods that make CA look the worst to the largest audience are the ones they will have the most incentive to compete with, as those are what they need to compete with in order keep the silent masses happy, rather then us contributors, those who discuss their work in public channels. What we need to do is to reach a point where the mods most played by the silent masses are those that focus on depth, and legitimate tension, rather then content vomiting and map painting.

As long as the struggle between CA and its modders to trump one another finds itself keeps focused on the total of content, and its flashyness, CA is going to continue drift away from the long term fanbase.

On the contrary, if modders take CA's any old rubbish and turn it into a decent game, people will keep buying the rubbish because they can play the mod. The only solution I can see is if paid modding takes off, so that modders start getting market share off CA.

At least if people realize the game won't be playable until modded, they will not buy it for a few months till the mods come out, by which time it is on sale or at least cheaper, (possibly allowing them to also pay for the mod) and meanwhile hitting CA right in the profit margin where it hurts!

[King Athelstan]

The forum is quiet.

Have you ckecked out the hotseat section?

[wangrin]

And the constant replacing of old units to eliminate options, passive AI's that don't want to conduct diplomacy, and simplified battle mechanics that focus more on appearances then depth.

What we need is a huge generation of modders trying to make something similar to a New Darthmod, until one of them succeeds.
The mods that make CA look the worst to the largest audience are the ones they will have the most incentive to compete with, as those are what they need to compete with in order keep the silent masses happy, rather then us contributors, those who discuss their work in public channels. What we need to do is to reach a point where the mods most played by the silent masses are those that focus on depth, and legitimate tension, rather then content vomiting and map painting.

As long as the struggle between CA and its modders to trump one another finds itself keeps focused on the total of content, and its flashyness, CA is going to continue drift away from the long term fanbase.

Darthmod was mostly tweaking db to modify AI behaviours.

Some mods do a similar jobs, like Empire Realism / Napoleon Empire Realism, focusing on Battle Machanics to force a more historically accurate behaviour.

Some mods, like Napoleon Total War III add a Line of Sight system to NTW and several other interesting concepts.
One of them are multiplayer battlemaps based on victory points given by victory locations.
Contrary to CA system added (and then remove) to R2TW, occupying a victory point only give an amount of victory points, not immediate victory.
Such system, if handle by BAI could be interesting to help it to understand where are strategic locations.


The main issue is that CA is shifting its audience target.
The game is more and more "shiny", "superficial", "Hollywoodish".
It would not be a problem if we could still have the features we need to make "historical" game, but CA develop only the features it needs...