Empire: A Step Too Far

[Ibram]

MODS: If this needs moving elsewhere, apologies!

Hey guys,

We recently did an interview with Jamie Ferguson over Shogun 2, however an interesting quote came out of it regarding Empire: Total War which I thought I'd share with you guys:

Strategy Informer: Not to preclude the possible success of the game, but it's been very well received so far, possibly the best Total War game to date... as you say sticking to Medieval Japan as allowed you to dive deeper than you have in the past. Do you think if this does do really well, is there a lesson to be learned here? Does Depth beat Scope?

Jamie Ferguson: It's a difficult balancing act - I don't think you can say there's one formula for success, and if you do start saying that, it precludes you from going and exploring certain avenues. If you don't explore them then you won't find out what's good and what's bad. With Empire we certainly learnt a lesson there - to do a revolutionary game with a brand new engine, new graphics set as well as doing the entire world at the same time was probably a step too far.

On the other hand, if you look at Napoleon, we still have a very large map there with a very large part of the world, and it's still a very good game. So I wouldn't say that scope is not something you should include, but I would say it certainly made us more aware of what we can achieve, and that sometimes less is more.

You can read the news peice we did on this here. And the interview (which is in two parts), here and here.

Enjoy!

[TheEschaton]

You know, the silly thing is that they're taking a marketing lesson to heart as a production lesson.

If they'd fixed and added what they promised to deliver in E:TW and made N:TW an expansion, it would NOT have been a step too far.

But they wanted to make more money by splitting one game into two, so they could charge more for the expansion. Apparently, this strategy worked, because he's not saying that they learned it angers the gamers or anything, but the lesson he's taking from it is incorrect. It should teach them to split their games' content up into series of similarly-themed full titles, but instead it is inspiring them not to think as big as they used to.

The scope of E:TW is what makes it so great. Only a game with such scope could actually prevent a lover of the Civilization series of games from buying Civ IV or Civ V simply because he doesn't have time for that AND E:TW. I passed on Napoleon because - sorry - it was once again a little game, focused on a little piece of history, meaning it doesn't allow gamers to see what kind of World-changing effects their actions could have. To a gamer who understands systemics and the basics of chaos/complexity theory, such a game is simply no longer interesting.

Won't be purchasing Shogun II either.

[YoungGrognard]

To be fair to CA / Sega, they did make NTW a fair bit cheaper than Empire.
And, they did have an expansion for Empire, it was the special units and the Warpath campaign.

And, Napoleon did have its own expansion, it had the special units and the Peninsula campaign.

I don't hold it against CA for making Napoleon a separate game.

I think Napoleon is to Empire what M2TW is to Rome. It fits with the model of Revolution, Evolution.

And since Empire got a bad rap in some ways, they wanted to make a break from it. I am on CA's side in this particular issue.

[jimboy3100]

EMPIRES:

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

NAPOLEON

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

CHOICE IS YOURS

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

[Ibram]

Well you're right in the sense that this was a bit of a marketing foul-up, but who's in charge of marketing?

Remember... the same people who changed the name from S2:TW to TW:S2 are the same people who decided that Napoleon was going to be its own game, instead of a stand-alone expansion - which was what the developers had intended. CA, bless them, may have the best intentions at heart and generally make really good games, but they are no longer 100% in charge of their own destiny.

People want more, much more. Big maps(bigger than Empires-Maybe a world map), lot of complexity, more and more things plus better graphics and those stuff they added on shogun 2.

You seem to have not read the quote properly - Despite them being well into the current generation of Total War games, Empire still taught them their limits. Sure, it would be great to have a game on the scale you suggested, but there's a difference between what they (and us) want to do, and what they're physically able to do.

[jimboy3100]

I agree with TheEschaton... Most people do.
Napoleon is just a small part of Empires, with a bit better battle graphics. That's all.
You can finish a game in 3-4 hours.
Shogun is even "less" game, they just include 3d campaign map that rotates and you can play a battle with only a bit better graphics plus lightnings and that stuff.
Worth buying? No... You will still finish a game in 3 hours.

What people want?
People want more,much more. Big maps(bigger than Empires-Maybe a world map), lot of complexibility,more and more things plus better graphics and those stuff they added on shogun 2.
Talking with many fans,i believe that most people keep playing only the empires game because they "feel" it like a big game,they feel like ruling regions in the world, not just playing a small campaign.
Religions, Trading, technology tree, low region loyalty can be improved plus many more technics like in civilization 2 (talking with the ministers).

Hope we wait in time to see real total war improvement, i want this much because Empire was the greatest series ever.

[jimboy3100]

Ibram i am very happy when i have these kind of conversations, i am happy that we can disagree because it means that we have our own personality.
Maybe my expression "more and more" was a bit excessive.
If i was SEGA's CEO consultant i probably would have done the same thing (smaller risks).
I think they are doing smaller and more confident steps, on the other way i am sure that if these steps would be a little bit "more", the profits would be better and the game more attractive,

[eugenioso]

to think upon the quote given on Empire total war, you know what game had a "brand new engine, new graphics set and tried to portray the whole world"? medieval total war. ok the whole world was not portrayed, but it didnt need to.

how was that game good? because they started nearly from scratch and improved the engine of Shogun. they included events, plague, famine, backstabbing and great AI, far better than any TW game to date. i still remember archers firing from far behind their lines, cavalry charging weak links in the army, and even encircling when necessary.

how was Empire a complete failure? they reworked the graphics engine only to make it look "prettier" and that is worthless. the AI was braindead. the diplomacy was broken. the battles were long and dull. it had tons of crashes (i cite the particular pathfinding bug which made me stop playing the game)

the problem nowadays is that, before, when the resources available to make games were less, that was when people made the best games of our generation and time. back then, the people who made games knew they couldnt focus simply on graphics to appeal to the audience, because the best graphics were ASCII or DOS based blocks. they needed to create enthralling games which entertained not based on how good the game looked, but for how good it played.

look at silent movies. back then there was not even color or sound except for some background music. actors could not say they felt sad through words, they had to do it through everything else: their facial expressions, their posture, etc. nowadays, if a character is sad they will literally say im sad. period.

this is the beginning of the end of gaming. it will come to be worse than ever before. we are already at the age of the Remake, of old games and movies being rebooted and released into unsuccessful movies, but they still sell tickets, because they only care about money. why do you think meet the spartans, disaster movie and all the remakes (NOT SCARY MOVIE! scary movie is god) keep getting funded, despite being obscenely bad movies? because people, who hope to see some of their favorite movies parodied, buy the tickets. and the moment the ticket is bought, then they say "hey moviegoers, fuc k you. we dont care if you think the movie is good, because its not, but also because you cant get refunds morons!"

[jimboy3100]

look at silent movies. back then there was not even color or sound except for some background music. actors could not say they felt sad through words, they had to do it through everything else: their facial expressions, their posture, etc. nowadays, if a character is sad they will literally say im sad. period.

this is the beginning of the end of gaming. it will come to be worse than ever before. we are already at the age of the Remake, of old games and movies being rebooted and released into unsuccessful movies, but they still sell tickets, because they only care about money. why do you think meet the spartans, disaster movie and all the remakes (NOT SCARY MOVIE! scary movie is god) keep getting funded, despite being obscenely bad movies? because people, who hope to see some of their favorite movies parodied, buy the tickets. and the moment the ticket is bought, then they say "hey moviegoers, fuc k you. we dont care if you think the movie is good, because its not, but also because you cant get refunds morons!"

Have you ever read the book "The Grapes of Wrath"(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Grapes_of_Wrath)?
Really great book, It reminds me the difference between reality and willingness.

In reality it is very difficult to make a step further, to do good games,movies,technology, etc...
Risks taken for making a remake, a simple trick, a copy, are much less than doing something really new and GOOD and profits are more sure.

The CA made great steps, every game was way better not only a remake.
When we see something working well we expect more and more things and we become excessive.

It is really hard to make a good game/movie/whatever.
We follow technics, for instance, in the silence movies everything was simple and new.
Nowadays we have to follow the horror films way if we make a horror film(Sure way!). We see what kind of horror film we wanna make and we follow the same technics as on the older movies(halloween/whitch/saw/zombie/vampire) horror films.

Sure thing is that there are so many movies been made the future will be only a remake.

We want more, they give us less...

I want empires 2 world map, they give me shogun 2 ,
Or maybe empires 2 would have been another "step too far" for them to give us so they can sell us all the remakes at first.

[A Demented Goldfish]

mtw + kingdoms was huge yet well polished, where are the poeple who made that?, probably locked away in the CA dungeon

[Imperator_OfRome]

Actually one of CA's best coders left shortly after M2TW i believe.

[grandpa]

I personally am very pleased with Empire...after its multiple patches, and the excellent mods that have risen from it. It is of greater scope, and even though it took several patches, and mods, IMHO it is still far more replayable than Napolean. So I agree that it is the scope that I enjoy most. I became a TW gamer playing Shogun, so as you may correctly assume, I am chomping at the bit. My only request from CA, would be to consider now that we are a second game, with DLC, since Empire release, to consider it now time to release the modding tools that the excellent modders out there need to edit the map. I think it would generate additional income for them, for a game that is now basically beyond any further developement. Nor do I think it would hurt sales of Shogun, as most of us here are die hard Total War fans. It would make an extremely nice Christmas Present for the fans. Happy holidays all!

[♔ brucedickenson♔]

Its good, but they should have stopped crapping themselves and just had a few people finish the damn thing!