Brigden Response to Game Flaws

[random_samurai]

I haven't seen a thread about this yet, so here:

http://shoguntotalwar.yuku.com/reply/710375/t/Open-Letter-to-CA-SEGA-Fans-Whoever.html#reply-710375

Read from it what you will.

[AnsbachWolf]

The features we intended to include upon release are all there

Lol, guess we can stop mentioning the lack of naval invasions as a problem with the game.

[Abel12512]

Thanks for posting it here

[Anacapa]

A troubling post. When you play a country like Britain or the Dutch the intro talks about France establishing a presence in India. We know this would never happen as the AI does not move troops over water.

Something is contradictory.

[LtChambers]

A troubling post. When you play a country like Britain or the Dutch the intro talks about France establishing a presence in India. We know this would never happen as the AI does not move troops over water.

Something is contradictory.

Duh, Eurasia is just one big continent. Hasn't AI France ever reached India over land in one of your campaigns?

Brigden's response is interesting but largely rhetorical and woefully late. He mentions that the "minority" are having certain problems and/or those with certain hardware configurations. It would be nice if he actually quantified what the "minority" is; in the case of naval invasions, everything I've seen makes me pretty certain that the minority is 100%. Also, which hardware configurations are having which errors? Why isn't there a sticky enumerating these configurations if they have really been pinpointed as problematic? At least that would give peace of mind to players with those configs so they could go play something else while waiting for a patch.

[random_samurai]

I don't see how he's touting completion when we see the "New Royal Heir" message, but it doesn't even mean anything and doesn't exist at all. This on top of naval invasions make no sense if they were truly "done".

[MyKingforahorse]

hehe.... being in IT project mgt I can read between the lines at the reply regarding the faction heir and family tree.

Essentially he was right....it was dropped at a project level. That project level just happen to be a month or two before it went gold.

[madwullie]

They clearly discovered a problem with the naval invasions and removed that functionality just before release. Unless they'd always planned to release it without them and patch it afterwards, which I guess is what he is implying in his post.

[Kracker Jack'D]

if the game doesn't work then it isn't finished. end of story. i understand that they worked hard on it and they really hope/wish it to be great, but bottom line is that they didn't test the game properly. if they would of played one campaign to about half way through then they would of realized it. e.g. (from my my 3 campaigns that i've played) ai naval invasions, fort battles and all that nonsense, when light units put into skirmish mode they fall back out the way of approaching troops but when they stop they are facing the wrong way, when i made peace with france as gb two of my armies were pushed off their land and were put onto a small island where i couldn't get them onto a ship so they were lost, boarding acitons, CTD's, the list goes on and on. these are all gameplay issues that make the game unplayable and hence unfinished. after my 4th attempt of the game i decided that i can't play this game till properly patched or modded. i'll stick it out, cause i know the potential is there. but it'll probably be a couple months till i play it again, and i definatly won't by a tw game on release again.

[cpt_acid]

if the game doesn't work then it isn't finished. end of story. i understand that they worked hard on it and they really hope/wish it to be great, but bottom line is that they didn't test the game properly. if they would of played one campaign to about half way through then they would of realized it. e.g. (from my my 3 campaigns that i've played) ai naval invasions, fort battles and all that nonsense, when light units put into skirmish mode they fall back out the way of approaching troops but when they stop they are facing the wrong way, when i made peace with france as gb two of my armies were pushed off their land and were put onto a small island where i couldn't get them onto a ship so they were lost, boarding acitons, CTD's, the list goes on and on. these are all gameplay issues that make the game unplayable and hence unfinished. after my 4th attempt of the game i decided that i can't play this game till properly patched or modded. i'll stick it out, cause i know the potential is there. but it'll probably be a couple months till i play it again, and i definatly won't by a tw game on release again.

Considering I knew many of the flaws after 20 turns of the GC and I'm not even talking about crash issues, I don't buy any claims they make about testing.

Hell I figured out a reinforcement bug in turn 2, not THE reinforcement bug, but one at sea where your ships pile into each other since they enter the screen full speed and then drop sail as soon as you can control them. Minor issue, but easy to fix and obvious, on turn, two.

Exactly. Most of the issues you casually mentioned there ARE NOT PLATFORM RELATED and COULD NOT POSSIBLY SLIP BY an extensive beta testing and double QA.

I noticed most of those, and a few on the side, by the and of my first short campaign, so I find Kierens inspired speech reaching for our souls, more then a bit condescending.

CTD and the like technicalities aren't worth mentioning cause they're just going to retort something like "Oh, yeah, that's perfectly normal, every game has them, they are an industry standard nowadays...". It's impossible to prove but it is my impression that this game has more than its share of these. But I wouldn't even notice them if AI did something sensible once in a while.


I only wanted to read they're excuse for lack of AI naval transport cause I cannot fathom its mysterious disappearance, nor think of an excuse however fantastic it may be

[SigniferOne]

What I would stress, and relevant to your later point, is that it is a minority of people experiencing these issues. That minority is naturally more vocal as they have good reason to be. However just because it is a minority does not mean we take the issues any less seriously. We are working as hard on this as if it were all of our fans experiencing issues.

I love CA to death, but I really don't understand why they keep insisting that the crashing problems happen to a small number of users, who are statistically insignificant and whom they intend to placate with fixes only out of the goodness of their heart. That's not the picture that I am getting on these forums, where more than half of all members are either frustrated to the point of quitting or are approaching that point, and where a single 'my game works' post is instantly swamped by voluminous responses to the contrary.

Even if your game runs perfectly okay without any CTDs whatsoever (admittedly a huge stretch already), your game still doesn't work fine, because the AI is completely broken and all European factions are but carbon copies of each other. There's nobody on these forums that can say that "my game works perfectly fine", and that "problems happen to a small subset of other users".

[anonymous_joe]

I love CA to death, but I really don't understand why they keep insisting that the crashing problems happen to a small number of users, who are statistically insignificant and whom they intend to placate with fixes only out of the goodness of their heart. That's not the picture that I'm seeing on these forums where more than half of all members are either frustrated to the point of quitting or are approaching that point, and where a single 'my game works' post is instantly swamped by voluminous responses to the contrary.

Even if your game works perfectly fine without any CTDs whatsoever (admittedly a huge stretch already), your game still doesn't work fine, because the AI is totally broken and all European factions are complete carbon copies of each other.

Because they're a business. I've known a few games developers from my old WoW guild (too many wasted hours argh ) and it's easy to forget it's a job. It's like football (soccer if you're a yank ) we all play for fun, but the pros play for... money! It's an easy oversight.

They don't want us all petrified that the game is a bug-riddled abortion, because no-one will buy it.

And I reckon that's an honest enough post, and as honest as you could ever expect to see.

[D.B. Cooper]

I love CA to death, but I really don't understand why they keep insisting that the crashing problems happen to a small number of users, who are statistically insignificant and whom they intend to placate with fixes only out of the goodness of their heart. That's not the picture that I am getting on these forums, where more than half of all members are either frustrated to the point of quitting or are approaching that point, and where a single 'my game works' post is instantly swamped by voluminous responses to the contrary.

Well, how many people are on this forum? Out of this, how many people have bought ETW and are voicing their problems? A few thousand perhaps. And how many people bought the game worldwide? I'm guessing hundreds of thousands or more. Are you really saying TWC is an accurate indicator? You can't necessarily condemn a game just because a relatively small amount of people are making a lot of noise about the problems.

[AnsbachWolf]

Well, how many people are on this forum? Out of this, how many people have bought ETW and are voicing their problems? A few thousand tops. And how many people bought the game worldwide? I'm guessing hundreds of thousands or more. Are you really saying TWC is an accurate indicator?

So the non-members aren't having problems?

[Anacapa]

So the non-members aren't having problems?

Apparently. And non members are seeing France and Britain invade India.

Re-reading Brigden's comments, his post is disingenious.

[SigniferOne]

Well, how many people are on this forum? Out of this, how many people have bought ETW and are voicing their problems? A few thousand tops. And how many people bought the game worldwide? I'm guessing hundreds of thousands or more. Are you really saying TWC is an accurate indicator?

Absolutely. It is a cross-section of the entire ETW market. The bigger the forum, the better the cross-section, and TWC is the biggest TW forum in the world. At launch there were 1000 visitors here regularly (it nearly crashed the server). Now there barely are 600. Does that not say something? The silent majority is quite eloquent.

[WeardLan]

At launch there were 1000 visitors here regularly (it nearly crashed the server). Now there barely are 600. Does that not say something? The silent majority is quite eloquent.

Too busy playing the game to post on a forum?

[N1437]

Well, how many people are on this forum? Out of this, how many people have bought ETW and are voicing their problems? A few thousand perhaps. And how many people bought the game worldwide? I'm guessing hundreds of thousands or more. Are you really saying TWC is an accurate indicator? You can't necessarily condemn a game just because a relatively small amount of people are making a lot of noise about the problems.

On this point, I expect TWC is a reasonable indicator: 600-1000 people is more than statistically significant. When doing political polls for a population of millions, 500-1000 is usually the range of people they get, and that's considered to give a reasonably reliable indication of the views of the entire population. So I'd say that the fact that the great majority of people here seem to be having problems suggests that the great majority of all people who bought ETW are also having problems, even if we make some allowance for the possibility that people who have problems are more vocal about it at the moment (although I'm frankly surprised by how vocal the other camp can be).

OTOH, people shouldn't be upset if they feel Brigden is being less than straightforward in his post. OBVIOUSLY they can't admit that the game was rushed out the door, or otherwise released with significant known issues. I thought his post was a good one, given the constraints it was written under.

[Gaius Baltar]

I also posted this on the .Org.

I have to challenge Kiernans statement ... "that it is a minority of people experiencing these issues". From my own observations here at the .org, on twcenter and the official forums, a large segment of the consumer base is having stability issues that effect all operating systems and computer designs. It is clearly a software issue. This could be as high as 40% of the customers.
The stability must be improved before any patches relating to gameplay are released, or any attempt to "patch" the experience will be futile.
I wont even bring up the lack of a meaningful AI (naval invasions), battlefield and campaign map bugs that technically cripple this game. Or the clone armies, cannon producing native americans, etc, etc. STEAM was a poor choice for software distribution.:wall:
I can sum up my whole ETW experience in one word..
Fraud:furious3:
We were lied to about the game design by CA/SEGA, we were lied to by the reviewers about the playability, and we have been lied again to about the technical/playability issues that have arisen now that ETW has been released.
Where is accountability? Programming? Design? Marketing, the community? - all have failed here in what appears to be a deliberate fashion.
You all should read the book "The Best Way to Rob a Bank is to Own One".

[erasmus777]

I also posted this on the .Org.

I have to challenge Kiernans statement ... "that it is a minority of people experiencing these issues". From my own observations here at the .org, on twcenter and the official forums, a large segment of the consumer base is having stability issues that effect all operating systems and computer designs. It is clearly a software issue. This could be as high as 40% of the customers.

If you're drawing conclusions based on a sample drawn from internet forums, you need to seriously rethink some things.