Lets ask Creative Assembly for a patch

[removeduser_040219]

Ojf and Century X got my mind running on this idea. Anyways my proposal is to ask CA for a patch for RTW. Should this idea be feasible figuring out what we want on the patch would be stage one, stage two would be actually contacting CA and politicing with them about it. Forgive my technical ignorance I'm just a computer sales consultant, i know what works best, hows to measure that and what not, but i lack intricate knowledge of programming. I do indeed understand that the limitation we face are "hard coded" which is why CA must be involved.

Anyways the two core components of the patch would be:

1. Multi thread compatibility (hopefully up to 16, future proof for a decade)
Parallel computing is here to stay and any application that can't utilize it is one its way to obsolesce


2. Added scalability beyond Huge so you can play with potentially tens of thousands of soldiers. Being the rapacious man i am i couldn't resist asking, i would love to see real size battles


(Optional) 3. SLI support, alternate frame rendering makes a difference but pales in comparison to real SLI utilization

What we need to know to determine viability (should we even ask) is:
A. Estimate on how long it would take create
B. Financial Cost

What CA will care about:
A. Precedent: every game that CA has done could now reasonably ask for a another patch years after release
B. Cost in time and money
C. Sales Impact on new and upcoming titles aka Empire Total War


Sources:
http://www.twcenter.net/forums/showthread.php?t=171488
http://www.twcenter.net/forums/showthread.php?t=166666 (Image)

[martyr]

i'll give you the answer:


no.

[rory o'kane]

If you're upscaling the battles, how about upscaling the cities too?

I'd love to do this, but I'm going to be cynical and agree with Martyr and say it almost certainly won't work...

[zznɟ ǝɥʇ]

Been tried many times, no. CA's patches don't usually change or remove hardcoded things, just balance the game. Alas...

[rory o'kane]

have people actually done that though? asked for a list of things?

[tone]

I highly doubt whether they'd be at all interested....I wouldn't be surprised if they're already working on an RTW2, and obviously upgrading the current RTW would seriously affect sales of any sequel.

[removeduser_040219]

Fuzz, could you tell of us of previous attempts that have failed? i didn't think it would work out with CA and the hard coded parts but has this been tried before. And at the very least we could get the game developers at CA to tell us how to get more scalability out of the game. If you'll kindly look at your RTW box there are literally 20000 soldiers on battles potrayed on the box and i believe the battles were larger in some of the previews/

[zznɟ ǝɥʇ]

Fuzz, could you tell of us of previous attempts that have failed? i didn't think it would work out with CA and the hard coded parts but has this been tried before. And at the very least we could get the game developers at CA to tell us how to get more scalability out of the game. If you'll kindly look at your RTW box there are literally 20000 soldiers on battles potrayed on the box and i believe the battles were larger in some of the previews/

I just recall seeing the occasional topics every few months where someone says they emailed CA asking for a patch, created a petition for a patch.. etc.. nothing doing. I don't know any specifics, but I guess you can call me an old skeptic.

As tone said, any patch now would just cut into their sales with the next games in the TW series.

[Oberbefehlshaber]

I highly doubt whether they'd be at all interested....I wouldn't be surprised if they're already working on an RTW2, and obviously upgrading the current RTW would seriously affect sales of any sequel.

Ha, RTW 2...... please, thats laughable, the only reason they remade MTW was because the engine sucked so bad CA was not able to get their vision across. Therefore they remade it using the RTW engine. Id say a remake of shogun is more likely

[century x]

Then make RTW 2 with the Empire total war engine. It's completly new.

Jesus just the though of RTW 2 makes me the happiest person in the universe.

[Oberbefehlshaber]

Ill admit that a RTW2 would be nice but i dont think CA would look good as a developer if they kept second guessing their games and making remakes.

[Squid]

As much as I'd love a patch, it isn't going to happen, and certainly not for the first thing you mention in your OP. I'd be reasonably sure that making RTW multithreading capable would be a major overhaul to the game engine. If we could ever get them to patch RTW I'd want the AI upgraded to the alex AI, or better yet made modable ala M2TW, fully capable of supporting BI specific features that currently cannot be used with RTW/Alex, add all events, conditions and console/scirpting commands from M2TW that would work with RTW, change how ancillaries are handled to match M2TW, increase various hardcoded limits (i.e. pop levels, unit size, buildings, number of settlement levels, etc).

Hmmm . . . so I guess what I'd like is basically M2TW but keep it as modable as RTW.

[Arnspac]

I did send a message to CA asking simply if they would be open to suggestions/requests to make the game less 'buggy'. Never did receive a reply, not even a thanks for your interest. Not wanting to dash your hopes as I too wish to see this made better...but................

[removeduser_040219]

Ah, i see, another futile effort. Well thanks for everyone's participation, at least we tried. One last thing, why aren't the developers and programmers of RTW part of our community? You'd think if they if they had any passion for their career they might play their own game??? :hmmm:One the other hand they made a pretty sick game as it is and the developers that made RS make up for CA's apathy any day.

Edit: Its good we have some CA people (Thamis) participating on the boards.

[icydawgfish]

This is my PM to one of the CA members (Thamis) who posts on the boards. It was a few months ago, but I think it's a fairly solid no.
________________________________________________________________________________


Hi!

I'm not answering you as an employee of the Creative Assembly. This is a personal opinion.

I absolutely agree with you! I didn't work on RTW, and I have no idea why things went as they did, or why this hasn't been dealt with in a patch. Nobody is working on Rome anymore, so it won't get changed.

Wait for Empire... ;-)

Jan

Quote:
Originally Posted by icydawgfish
I'm no modder and I know your probably a busy man/woman so you may not have time to anwser this and if you don't, I won't be angry as I understand. But my question regards the RTW engine. Why is it impossible to get around the hardcoded limits? Or why hasn't a way to do this been released? RTW was released in 2005 (I believe) so it's probably not selling much any more, so what's the harm in releasing the internal coding and how to get around it to the public? The hard coded limits severely limit what a modder can do and as a result, creativity goes to waste. Again, why hasn't the "code" for lack of a better word been released or a method for getting around the hardcoding? I don't mean to come off as rude and if I did, my sincerest apologies, but this question has been on my mind every time I see the phrase "Impossible, it's hardcoded" or a similiar phrase.

Sincerly,
IcyDawgFish

[icydawgfish]

There's a few but they mostly contain themselves to the E:TW boards.

[icydawgfish]

I beg to differ. I played M2TW at a friend's house a few times and I was let down. Most of the factions were carbon copies and my favorite faction, the Byzantines had for the most part ahistorical units, and the battles weren't as fun. It felt as if the units in M2TW lacked mass and in battle they didn't have cohesion.

[Oberbefehlshaber]

I beg to differ. I played M2TW at a friend's house a few times and I was let down. Most of the factions were carbon copies and my favorite faction, the Byzantines had for the most part ahistorical units, and the battles weren't as fun. It felt as if the units in M2TW lacked mass and in battle they didn't have cohesion.

I agree with you. It seems to me that CA hardly puts any effort into skining their units. look at the mods out there compared to vanilla RTW and vanilla MTW2

[DR. Hobo. PHD.]

I agree with you. It seems to me that CA hardly puts any effort into skining their units. look at the mods out there compared to vanilla RTW and vanilla MTW2

well couple of things to consider:

they have a time limit and budget restraints, we dont.
they have to make thier units look good on a broad spectrum of PCs. we dont have to.
we spend a weak making one unit, im sure if they did that they wouldnt be in bussiness long

[removeduser_040219]

Dr hobo, all this is true, but if the RS team had a budget and got paid...
Respectively We're lucky to have all these good developers who are happy to devote their unpaid time to RS