A plea to MTW2s game designers

[cipher88101]

First - I love this game so don't take this the wrong way designers. Your the best, but I'm pleading with you for some additions.

How about an expansion pack that addresses some game mechanics? That would be worth buying. I don't mean just patching the two handed weapon issue either. Actually adding to the combat, after all, thats what it's really all about right?

Just a list of some ideas

-Bring back the RTW feature that has fighters falling from the battlements during a siege. Oh, and when you do, make sure and model at least 10 different animations of them falling. Hollywood has some really great examples..."Excalibur" comes to mind. Bring back damage to people that have 10 tons of wall fall on them. I personally don't need any gore, but I hate to see a guy just walk away after he gets hit with a chunk of falling tower.

-Animations: these new battle animations are a wonderful addition, though they don't always work out right (the famous finishing spear move to the ankle is my favorite - and many of you will know what I mean). That, I can live with, but PLEASE add several dozen more combat animations per troop type and don't make them so long. A simple spear thrust and then move on ("300 battlescene anyone?). If you added 10 different animations of some quick stabs or slashes and their victim’s believable responses, the game would be absolutely reborn.
Picture this:
- A fighter takes his final hit and falls....on his side.
- How about if a downward sword slash spun it's victim around before he fell and that was it. No need for the attacker to ALWAYS finish off his victims ankle! In the meantime, that attacker gets killed 'performing' an animation.
- Never saw anybody impaled on a pike yet or fall off a horse like you would see in the movies. I could come up with alot of different finishing animation concepts on my own so I know a talented group of developers can blast this out of the water, no sweat.
- Imagine how cool it would be if attackers/defenders were knocked from the walls during the battle, if the defenders would throw rocks down on the battering ram and crown a few attackers, defenders that have the ability to push ladders off the walls (dare I wish for that to happen with attackers still climbing?), or kill an enemy as he was leaving a siege tower and see him fall off or just die there on the ramp.
- And I am going to applaud the day when I can see a combatant take an arrow to the chest and fall and later when I scan the battlefield, there he is with an actual arrow in his chest. I mean isn't that coding something like If, then...else? Seriously, I know it's more complicated than that, but it would be awe inspiring to look over the battlefield of a hard won victory and see spears and arrows sticking up at different angles.

A point in case, if you look at the aftermath of a RTW/RTWBI battle, the carnage is somewhat believable, but not as well done graphically as MTW2. Whereas, if you look at the battlefield after a MTW2 battle, it's an insane amount of uniformity...with hundreds of horses with riders still on them in the same position, foot sticking up in the air, guys that get hit from behind fall on their back and guys hit from the front fall on their front and that means there are hundreds of guys dead in the same position. We need more animations, more immersion please. After fighting several hundred battles, I have seen 2 animations for kill moves of spearmen. Gone are the sounds of metal on metal like in RTW when swords clash. The 'din' of battle should be even louder with everyone in 60lbs of metal beating on each other.

In fact, you could call it the "Total Immersion Combat Pack" and I would gladly put my money down for that. I would pay your company $20 for just 10 more finishing animations per troop type and the ability to shoot a guy off a ladder!

[sicărius]

if you really wnat this to happen you'd be better off emailing ca/sega, but it will almost certainly not happen now.

you can be sure that nothing like an add-on will happen for med2.

[Sokar Rostau]

Correction, you can be sure there won't be an Expansion. Kingdoms is an add-on.

If Kingdoms were an Expansion the permanent Stone Forts, Boiling Oil, "controllable" Reinforcements and at least some of the new units would have been added to the GC. Kingdoms added nothing to the original game, all it is is a box of new, shorter but decent, campaigns.

[cipher88101]

True that

Well, somebody will eventually make these features in a game. To be completely honest, I'm getting a little tired of the game producers that don't go the extra mile. Most of the time they are trying to sell you on game with catch phrases and general wording that in the end is just a sad excuse for features they could've put in, but wanted to rush it out the door and make back some money.

As far as MTW2 is concerned, they took more away than what they added in my opinion. They could've done just a few of the things I said earlier plus what Sokar points out and the game would've been much better. You don't have to be a designer to see that these features should've been in the original release and they had to have thought of them. I like Will Wright's theory on game development...make it what it's supposed to be and then release it, but then again, he is going to be an icon after Spore. Hopefully that ups the bar that devs need to meet to make our money.

Bottom line, the bugs, patches needed, and things that should've been in MTW2 must have to do with the title being sold to another company just before release. Either that, or we all need to demand more for our money. This becomes more obvious when you see that both of you that have replied have 'settled' for what we got because of the reality of the game business. And your right, it most likely will not happen.

Please try not to double post in the future.

~Sher Khan

[Shazbot]

Nothing against the opening poster, but I don't see any of these additions being worthwhile. Yes, it would be nice to have a few more animations, or bodies falling from the ramparts, but time could be better spent elsewhere in the game.

[Miraj]

Considering the glaring flaws and limitations of the M2TW these "pleas" for more animations is downright ridiculous. Not just the content of the request, but the fact that you're naive enough to even think that CA cares.

[Skyline Pete]

All those animations and what have you that you speak of all take up CPU and GPU resources.

I running a fairly high spec computer and I get moderate slow down when there's more than 5k troops on the screen in combat. It'd be even less if you wanted all these whizzbang animations and the like.

It'd be great though.



One last thing. I do see riders fall of their horses, happens very rarely though. Try a quick battle with just one group of pikemen and one group of cavalry. Zoom in just as the horses hit and you'll see some of the men get catapulted over the pikemen.

[pwijnands]

I couldn't care less about how much moves each troop type can make. The animation is as flawed as can be. I'm so sick and tired of having elite two-handed troops taking 15 minutes to defeat a militia unit when they are on the walls. They should rip them to shreds and not poke the militia units by holding their sword at either end of the sword and pushing it. A sword has a cutting edge for a reason.
If one thing has to change it has to be the lack of unit cohesion and shuffling back of troops that are engaged in melee. Nothing bugs me more then having 4 or 5 troops walking in advance of the rest of the troops causing either: the entire unit goes into combat mode and slowly shuffles forward while the forward members die. Or: the advance guys running through the enemy, getting seperated and die.
And another thing that needs to be fixed is the town square system. How ridiculous is it that a handful of guys keep fighting when they had the rest of their unit utterly destroyed, have routed back to the square 10 times and who no longer have their general. Anyone heard of surrendering?

[cipher88101]

Well, I can understand that many of you are more concerned with the issues of the game, bugs and glitches etc..., my point was that the same 1-3 animations are boring to the point that you find yourself not zoomed in watching the combat like you do when you first get the game, but I still do with RTW. So you really feel that adding more animations would not improve the game? The point being a plea to improve the gameplay, fixing the bugs is another issue all together. There are plenty of people making their plea for that resolution. Like I said before, if they would just add more, shorter animations to the game and maybe allow ladder climbers to not be invulnerable, I would willing pay $20 for it and I'm sure alot of others would as well.

The reason that only a few men are moving forward to fight at a time is because of these animations and the room required for them, so if they are going to be included, why not make them (more) worth watching? The fact that CA will in all likelyhood NOT make an addon like this is reflective of the industry, not my personal lack of realization of the reality of the industry. The point was worth posting and asking for, there is no reason to get offensive just because you don't share the same view.

As far as being called naive or ridiculous, you should worry less about flaming other posters who have a legit request and realize that you are no better than I, so saying my oppinions are rediculous while you clearly voice your own is hypocrytical. Just because it is a fact that the industry does not have a financial interest in further additions to this game does not give you the right to basically say 'it's not going to happen so don't be stupid for asking'.

Oh, and yes I have seen those guys fly off of their horses if they hit archer stakes and some pikes. Thats a good point, that makes all horsemen sport a whole 2 animations. Woot. See the point I'm trying to make?

Also, there are some talented Modders working on new animations so that is a start.
http://www.twcenter.net/forums/showthread.php?t=144923

[Garnier]

I agree that more shorter realistic animations would be wonderful, but I think eventually mods will do this. It's possible to mod the animations in M2TW.

[Duke4747]

All of those animations sound great! I just don't see them happening anytime soon lol.

[kbibs89]

What I think needs to be done is a release of a moder's pack. We spend up words to 50$ for the basic game and 30 to 40$ on the Expansion. for halfass fixes to things that should have been taken care of before the game was ever released and the expansion's not even an expansion but just and add on like said above.

No what we need is for the designers to release is a resource pack for modders. Something that has and uses the same software that the original designers used in making the game. They did this with Morrowind/Oblivion, Age of Empires, Never Winter Nights and probably many others I cant think of. what it did was turn a great game/s in to something beyond anything that the original designers could ever have hope to achieve. We pay all this money for a basic "vanilla" game when the people who really MAKE the game do it without addaquite* software (*sorry cant spell*) for free!

So my hat go off to the great modders out there that make the games what they are. You, and everyone else, knows who you are.

thanks for your time
~bibs~