Change back to EA or Activision CA??

[NowBiN-QuwaRZ]

Hi all, - I was thinking, after reading the Stormrise thread, - all the stuff mentioned about SEGA,

well isn't this why the Total War games are becoming, not 'shite' per say - but less quality and more unfinished each and every time.

Let's take Shogun Total War, - published by EA and turned about to be an awesome game, almost flawless for it's time.

Then Medieval Total War, published by Activision - another amazing game with real depth, and, it was finished.

Then Rome - which is where Activision really excelled in publishing since the game was a HUGE success.

This is where everything starts to become.. well you know.

Medieval 2: Total War, published now by SEGA - a good game, but very unfinished and full of buggy game play, like the age/turns ratio. Many units missed out because of the time delay, etc.

The Expansion: does little more to improve, also looks unfinished and doesn't address bugs from the previous game.

- Now Empire/Stormrise: and again, unfinished - and full of bugs.

It just seems that Creative Assembly did so much better when they were with Activision/EA. Perhaps they could change back?

[Lebowski]

Sega is no worse then either EA or Activision.

EA being the worst of the worst. Look what they are doing to the Battlefield series.

EA is not the same company they were a few years ago.

[God-Emperor of Mankind]

Activision screwed up Rome beyond belief with their "only 2 patches" rule.
Overall, both EA and Activision today are one of the worst publishers you can have if you want to make a good and original game.

[Humble Warrior]

Activision screwed up Rome beyond belief with their "only 2 patches" rule.
Overall, both EA and Activision today are one of the worst publishers you can have if you want to make a good and original game.

yea, actually that was a bad sign since CA tends to need more than just two patches and there`s always room for improvement in an even completed game.

[NowBiN-QuwaRZ]

But you tell me now - was Rome/Medieval not the best in the series?

[Slaists]

But you tell me now - was Rome/Medieval not the best in the series?

RTW was full of bugs upon release. It's the extensive community mods (like Europa Barbarorum and RTR) that gave RTW "life". I myself bought another copy of RTW a month ago so I could play EB 1.2 on it.

MTW I liked much better upon release than RTW.

MTWII was really crappy, true...

I have not made my mind up about ETW yet. I sure looks like a very promising platform + I see tons of expansion opportunities. So, as long as they fix the bugs + improve the AI, this could very well be their best game.

[Flavius Silvanus]

There is a good article in this months Game Developer about the rise of Atari leading to the rise of Activision, EA, and lastly 3D0. I didn't realize the Atari 2600 was around for 14 years.

[Nikodemus]

IF they have the money, they "should" distribute their own games and therefore effectively off-siding this whole "deadline" thingy + make even more money

and then just hire world class AI + Beta test guys; build the world largest slingshot and then conquer the universe...

[TWSeriesDeadToMe]

As someone who truly enjoyed the original MTW and got heaps of replay value out of it, I just wanted to add a note about the following statement:

Then Medieval Total War, published by Activision - another amazing game with real depth, and, it was finished.

As long as they didn't want to play the game via historical accomplishments. Again, I don't know if they ever finished that particular set of victory conditions, but if they did, they certainly didn't hop to it.

Now, I agree with a lot of what you're saying, but I don't see the wheels of time moving backwards on this one and wearing rose-tinted glasses and pretending that CA didn't have an issue with timeliness of applying fixes prior to Sega coming into the picture isn't going to paint a proper picture of the circumstances as they are now, to my mind anyway.

[Stalins Ghost]

Thing must be really bad if you guys want to see a return to the days of Activision and the 2 patch rule

In an ideal world where funding wasn't an issue they'd go independent, and release via Steam and Impulse only (being the only decent online models imo), eschewing a major retail release. But that wouldn't go down with the old school crowd now would it

[MrChris]

You will be hard to find a good publisher who will really respect the wishes of the developer, especially during the economic climate

Valve can go it alone and make good games because they have Steam generating them huge amounts of money, they also use EA as a publisher for their retail games; but EA can have no say whatsoever in terms of pushing releases etc (except for the console ports they do)

Its highly unlikely CA would ever be in such a position unless they formed a closer relationship with Steam or maybe Stardock/Impulse (perhaps even Blizzard with their billions - but still Activision/Blizzard situation hehe)

EA have shown that they can be good natured people to work with, and then at other times show themselves to be complete , as have Activision

[Kinjo]

Sega is fine, Creative Assemble is the one that needs to get their act together.

[Stalins Ghost]

If the likes of Starcraft or TF2 are anything to go by, even developers renowned for delivering "finished" games never truly finish supporting them - and that's something the decision to go with Steam, and hopefully SEGA will allow for.

[SirVulf]

I have to say that EA has gotten a lot better. I was no proponent of their release policies from a year ago, but they're getting better with treating their staff like humans.

Mentioning the Battlefield series isn't exactly recent... and I agree... they were pretty bad around that time... but give EA a break... they've improved quite a bit. They're getting more innovative titles, thinking out of the box, and they're treating their staff better.

How do I know this... because I have friends in low places who've worked for them.

[Shadow8]

EA is the Nazi Germany of game publishers.

[ZKnight]

Are you guys kidding? EA is the worst and are a prime example of everything that is wrong with PC gaming.

EA put in a 3 install rule or whatever the most insane DRM they had into Spore. All their games are DRMed to crap and I refuse to buy them. I bought ETW because it only uses Steam and does not install windows rootkits into my computer without my consent or use the you only get X number of install for this game rule like EA games.

The correct way is to stay indie and publish on Steam or do your own digital distribution. You will make less money short term, but will have a strong following that will continue to buy your games. But this is not how studio/publisher CEOs operate. They want to get the crap game out now unpolished, get their yearly bonus, and they don't care what the reputation will be 5-10 years from now when they're gone.

[ThePianist]

My impression of EA mostly comes from three games: MOHAA, Command and Conquer: Generals, and Battle for Middle Earth I. In those ones the impression is excellent (but I never play online).

I never played enough of the Battlefield series (at the most, a few hours combined, for all of 1942/2/2142) since I never owned a copy. I really like the series from the brief times I played and I am aware of the multitudes of mods, but I don't know it in detail.

I did notice that Battle for Middle Earth was ruined in BFME II, where the style became totally un-Lord of the Rings. For one thing, the Elves had that effeminate slave unit (Elves with slaves?), and one of the voiceover was "Ow, I was merely resting" and another was "I was merely waiting my turn". Quite some dark connotations and I loathed it.

I think EA's best games were published when its logo made that noise, and said "EA Games!" then whisper "Challenge Everything". MOHAA is still EA's best product, the sheer quality of it, the long and detailed level designs, the music, the atmosphere, etc.

Since, at least once, I saw EA mess up a franchise (BFME II), I suppose I'll just take the opinions that I am reading.

UbiSoft also messed up several franchises.
-Rainbow Six, the 4th one was a horrible console port. The 5th one (Vegas) has the HALO shield for nowadays SWAT operatives. lol
-Splinter Cell, the 3rd one (Chaos Theory) was really good (except for the spooky Sam), the game had limited health, which is correct for a non-sci-fi FPS. The 4th one (Double Agent) took the HALO shield. A nowadays commando, no matter how well armored, cannot just take 10 shots, or perhaps 1 shot, and then hide for some seconds, then get shot again, and hide again, and get shot again, and this could go on indefinitely, with health going back to 100% each time.
-Ghost Recon: the GRAW wasn't messed up like the two previously mentioned franchises, but the tension is gone. In the original Ghost Recon, you had to carefully move around or you'd get shot in one second and die. It's even more intense than Rainbow Six. The tension is definitely gone in GRAW as you are made much more invincible, to accommodate the retarded reflexes from console players, because their console is slow, requiring one finger on the axis for up-down, and another finger on the axis for left-right, and have to awkwardly adjust in aiming, compared to the instantaneous point-and-click of a mouse.

So, with either the HALO shield (what is wrong with those people) of infinite health, or the dumbing down of the tension in Ghost Recon for the consoles, that's the ruining of all the Tom Clancy series.
Ubisoft used to be my favorite game publisher because of the Tom Clancy games, for their tension and realism, for getting killed with one shot, or at most two. And this on the easiest difficulty as well. And Splinter Cell, well, it's made for sneaking in the dark, so that if you have infinite health, where is the tension and the danger? You can merely get shot, hide, rinse and repeat. Ditto for Rainbow Six. It becomes a dumb shooting gallery.
The lame production of games to be for console first, then for PC.
So Ubisoft ruined all those franchises.
Their best days was 2003 and before.

Not sure about EA, since I never so intently played the Battlefield series as the Tom Clancy series. But I'll take other people's informational comments on EA. (which means, I have no idea what people mean by the comparison with nazi and communists. Could you elaborate on specific details about specific games? That would help increase people's knowledge)

CA should make their own company. A good product can be spread by mere word of mouth (like Mount and Blade).

[Archimonday]

Ultimately every developer would love to be an independent entity, free of the cloud of publishers, but in this time and day it is hard to get anything produced and sold on a large market without one. Companies like Valve have been very lucky in the fact that they are their own publisher, the success of their games has made Valve into one of the greatest game companies in the world, even if Steam is sometimes annoying.

[CivFan]

I don't think either Sega or CA are to blame for any mistakes or issues in the game. Sega gives CA a sense of security which allows them to take their time when making games. How long have some of these games been in development? 1-2 years? Let’s see just how polished a game you’re going to see when the developers haven't seen a pay check in 2 years.

As for CA they are creating great games. Sure there might be more reports of bugs or one or two problems with game play, but why is that. Because we have greater demands placed on them than ever before. If we didn't care about graphic we would have perfect AI if we didn't care about AI we would see perfect graphics. However we want everything perfect and we want it NOW!

If you don't want to see the same problems with this game re-appear in the next title or expansion maybe be a little less pushy about updates on progress or need for new content. All we can really do to help them is be patient and give them a little breathing room.

[Humble Warrior]

I don't think either Sega or CA are to blame for any mistakes or issues in the game. Sega gives CA a sense of security which allows them to take their time when making games. How long have some of these games been in development? 1-2 years? Let’s see just how polished a game you’re going to see when the developers haven't seen a pay check in 2 years.

As for CA they are creating great games. Sure there might be more reports of bugs or one or two problems with game play, but why is that. Because we have greater demands placed on them than ever before. If we didn't care about graphic we would have perfect AI if we didn't care about AI we would see perfect graphics. However we want everything perfect and we want it NOW!

If you don't want to see the same problems with this game re-appear in the next title or expansion maybe be a little less pushy about updates on progress or need for new content. All we can really do to help them is be patient and give them a little breathing room.

Can`t agree. Basically you`re blaming the customer\player for pressurising CA? They say `Yes we can` and took our money. If they can`t handle it, they shouldn`t do it.


p.s. Also glossy graphics is not important to me personally, MTW2 graphics would`ve done me fine. Gamplay and AI are what counts.