RS2 Beta 6.0 Feedback Here

[dvk901]

I would like feedback from people concerning the new map as opposed to the one we were using. It would be best at this stage to make decisions, rather than having me do all the work of setting this up and then deciding we don't want to use it.

I would like for each person with a passion, and some with no passion, to take their favorite faction\s and go thru and make suggestions regarding what buildings should be in various cities, what armies they might have and where, population, etc. This will help a lot.

Also, if someone knows how to use the kill character cheat, I would appreciate it if they would kill all of the 'Slave' faction's named characters and see what happens.....

[tone]

How playable is the campaign at the moment?

[wynofthetim]

Just turned it on for the first time and was going to give a campaign a proper go
but was left wondering which factions ARE ready for testing?

Also i noticed a couple of things. I might be insulting by suggesting you could have forgotten these but im working on the principle that it's better to mention them and be wrong then risk them being not fixed.
*The free greeks and free peoples are selectable as campaigns- even have there won little blurb (which is cool). Surely they'e not playable? and they are both individual colours on the mini-map and on the main map. Just thought they were going to be the same colour as 'slave'...
*The map for the free factions shows a larger map on the select campaign screen. i assume its mugdus magus or whatever the larger version of our map is. Wouldnt bother saying that except for the fact that the mini-map is the same map (well obviously smaller but the writing is still there)
*I'm assuming Pontus isn't completely done yet as the barracks, and if i'm not mistaken, the whole tech-tree is roman. even down to the names of buildings - i mean the names of units are pontic but apart from that...
*Also, the intro video for the game and for each campaign; are we losing them as they have little use to RS. I mean in time we COULD replace them if we got someone who owned and was skilled at using a program to video RS (on a low graphic capture mode preferably for video size, i say capture mode as we'd want decent looking scenery and men, so setting on high in game but we'd want low video size so the video would have to be a little... fuzzy? anyway...) but i wouldnt say that's as higher priority as say the remaining factions, unit cards and, well, you know all the stuff that makes the game WORK


ANYWAY i decided to give up on campaigns till i heard the word here on who i COULD play as. But i still wanted to see some of the new units in action.
i got a CTD.
and the show_err did nothing. i got no message about the error after the game closed itself. How does show_err work? i mean SHOULD it of told me what went wrong? i really dont know :S
What i was doing was kind of silly really but i wanted to REALLY test out the new seleucid and parthian units so i made a battle on a tuscan bay. Put a huge carthaginian city to defend with palisade walls (was going to put parthia inside the walls so no point in having large walls to defend, right?) selected all of the units, bar only onagers i think, for parthia (not me) and selected all the non foot units, bar seige equipment for seleucid (me) on loading the battle it CTD'd

[dvk901]

Did everything turn into water and the units died?

OK...several things. This is a B-E-T-A. That means...not for the general public. Therefore, all the factions are visible.

Pontus doesn't have 'Roman Barracks'...they have incomplete barracks descriptions because none have been written for them.

The intro-video plays because you don't have -nm in your shortcut.

Some Custom Battles may not work because of the map change. Try another one...report accurately what one's DON'T work. Also, if you get CTD's report every possible bit of information you can about what you did leading up to that CTD. Units, (what units, and I mean EXACTLY what units), factions, map, city, region, etc....If you get a CTD with a faction in custom battles, load the same factions again, and then load only one unit from each faction and test. Do this with BOTH factions until you find the unit that's causing the CTD. Write things down if you have to.....this all has to be ROCK SOLID before this version ever gets released.

I'm depending on you guys to TEST...I cannot possibly do it all for every faction.

[wynofthetim]

"C:\Program Files\The Creative Assembly\Rome - Total War\RomeTW.exe" -nm -show_err

actually i do...
and yes i assumed as much i only really included the things about the free peoples due to the whole map thing... nevermind.
does this mean were testing battles and not campaigns for now? if so ill give it a go tomorrow when i have more time. sorry to be annoying

[dvk901]

Not annoying. It just gave me an opportunity to lay some perimeters for what I want in testing. And yes, the map is nowhere near complete.

[pseudocaesar]

Im just gonna throw this out there, im not a fan of the new textures. The farms etc is just to over the top, i prefer the standard MM textures.

[cherryfunk]

I kinda prefer the old textures too... at first I liked the new ones, but they seem a bit too loud and distracting to me now...

Would it be possible to offer the player a choice?

[dvk901]

There was no 'Mundus' textures...there was only the RTW textures. I think you need to make a comparison between the RS1 map and the RS2 map. This map 'interprets' them differently. I heard no one say they didn't like them on the RS1 map, so perhaps it isn't the textures, but the map itself.

[pseudocaesar]

Like Cherry said perfectly...it was all like WOW OMG at first, but after a while you get over it and they actually dont look THAT good.

[dvk901]

Could you identify exactly what areas of the map via screen shots you have issues with. I can change the textures for certain areas as well.

[cherryfunk]

It's not the new map, it's the ground textures, the fields and grass and everything, they seem too busy and too dark compared with the original textures. I'm also prefering the vanilla RTW cities and boats now too. They're not as busy, they sort of blend better with the map. I'm probably in the minority on this, but maybe you could offer some instructions for those of us who want to switch back?

[wynofthetim]

i think the MM textures and the changed cities and boats add a huge wow factor to those converting from vanilla for the first time.
i know it blew me away.

But i see what you mean cherry, once you've played it for a while (in my case a long while) these fancy alterations start to become nothing more then distractions.

in my greek cities campaign on RS1 i had taken most of the east side of the greek peninsular (by greek peninsular i mean basically all areas south of Thessalonica) but macedon kept sending single boat fleets and blockading my ports, forcing me to send my fleets in spirals of attack to defeat these single unit fleets that kept appearing, so i decided to raise 4, possibly 5 decent fleets and spaced out between chalcis and lesbos so that no hostile fleets could get between them without me realizing.
With the new fangled ship image on the map setting them up this distance apart was difficult, possible but difficult and mildly annoying when i got it wrong.

I think having the map, city and ships textures as optional, like cherry suggests, would be nice but in my opinion it isn't worth breaking a sweat for.

[cherryfunk]

i think the MM textures and the changed cities and boats add a huge wow factor to those converting from vanilla for the first time.
i know it blew me away.

But i see what you mean cherry, once you've played it for a while (in my case a long while) these fancy alterations start to become nothing more then distractions.

That's exactly my reaction -- at first it's really amazing just to see something different. But having played XGM lately, I'm actually glad it has the old vanilla textures and models, because it's easier to see what's going on...

[wynofthetim]

similar view to cherry entirely. ive been playing vanilla recently (had to uninstall RS as it got faulty due to me fiddling. ive learnt my lesson. don't) and its easier to see what is going on... even if it IS a fair bit more bland. (and thats everything, not just the units)
I don't suggest we totally convert though. if it was one or the other i would stick with how we currently have it. but maybe have it as a preference so those who love it can keep it but those who feel its too much can lose it.

[rory o'kane]

i like the new stuff, but i'm up for it being optional - as long as it's the default setting in the installer, and you have to click to NOT install the new textures (i.e. uncheck a tick-box).

[dvk901]

I've changed one of the new textures back to the old one...'temperate_grassland_farm.tga'...or something. It seems to have gotten rid of the 'busy-ness' I think you're referring to. It also corrected a few areas where I thought it wasn't fitting in well with the other texturing. IMHO, it was actually the wrong color.

Go into an original RTW install, then to:

data\terrain\aerial_map\ground_types\

Copy that file into your RS2 directory of the same name.
Delete 'map.rwm' in the '~\world\maps\base' folder, and then restart.
It will regenerate the map with the old texture.

[wynofthetim]

firstly, you say "Copy that file into your RS2 directory of the same name" which file exactly?

also i want to test some stuff. Sorry as this is probably obvious to others but i want clarity here. which factions are ready for testing battle-wise? Seleucid obviously but who shall i make them face? parthia seems the obvious choice, any others?

[Drtad]

firstly, you say "Copy that file into your RS2 directory of the same name" which file exactly?

also i want to test some stuff. Sorry as this is probably obvious to others but i want clarity here. which factions are ready for testing battle-wise? Seleucid obviously but who shall i make them face? parthia seems the obvious choice, any others?

Armenia vs. Seleucids, relive the Siege of Seleucia on the Tigris! (Armos won, of course)

[rory o'kane]

i try to run the imperial campaign, and it just goes back the campaign menu. i deleted all the stuff in the files like you said... what's happened?