My 5 cents on Shogun 2

[BOFH]

Greetings dear Total War worshippers.

The reason why i post here is quite simple, i read too much
in this Forum over the last week and that pissed me off or just made me sad.
no offense by the way, you guys are cool

Anyway, I play TW since 2003 and loved it from the first second.I was always into games like Civilization
or Masters of Orion.Also played Starcraft LAN and CS.Medieval:Total War was my first game of the
series.When i remember now it felt like they made that game out of everybodys Strategy gamers
dreams, exept the AI. Come on, you know what i mean.The first is allways the best!
Since then i have played every Title and Addon they dropped on the market up to and including Empire.

I never used any mods because i wasnt aware of their existence, so you can guess i was quite
impressed, when i found this site about 2 weeks ago.Instantly started to test some mods for Kingdoms.
Especially Stainless Steel is something i wish i have had years before.The Total Convertions are
awesome too like Third Age mod or Call of Warhammer mod.
Yes, thats really impressive, but the question is WTF is this guy talking about,right?


I just want to share my humble thoughts with the community about modding and developer support.

Why dont they give us modding tools?
Why is the Ai still crappy?
Why did they made fools of us with Napoleon?
Where does Shogun2 lead us to?
Will there be another TW?
And why do I care?

This Forum and logical reasoning gives us the clear answers.

What do you think was Viking Invasion?
Its a MOD for Medieval and it wasnt even good if you dont like Vikings.Yet I bought it.
I dont know about TW game engine compatibility with different era mods and how SEGA codes
their games but I played them,a lot and I also know human greed and companys pressure to succeed.
If anyone had been able to MOD Empire to lets say a full WWI or maybe..... a Napoleonic War
in a appropriate amount of time at a decent quality with map editor and maybe with build in Tools to
import content easily,
do you really think Napoleon: Total War would have happened?
do you really think Shogun2: Total War would have happened?

Shogun2 maybe in a year with major improvement to Empire, but i bet they would have went straight
to WW1 with tanks and airplanes.Im sure they have that in their desk waiting how Shogun2 sells.
Its making money selling mods as DLCs and ADDONS,and sometimes ADDONS as a Whole new game.

Could you imagine a modder charging 9.99$ for a mod like third age?I bet they put months of work in this
one if not years.Even more important they put their hearth and blood in it their FREE time, and still have
to earn a living, just to realize a gaming experience for everyone nobody else would ever give us.

SEGA would sell this one as a standalone for 29.99$ then bring an ADDON giving you maybe 2 or 3
more factions and some minor stuff for 6.99$
1 Month later the next ADDON Fellowship campaign "CAN YOU DESTROY THE ONE RING?" for 12.99$.


I dont say boykott their games, Medieval II was worth beeing called improvement so was Empire.
They brought TW on a next lvl and make sure SEGA doesnt go broke.But what really pisses me of is
the way the company does its PR and how they treat you modder in the end.I dont see any respect
from the company towards most of your requests or desires.A thread here where an offical stated
something about Empereor or Napoleon looked like:
"OMG they really have spoken to us, what has happened?"
"But release of tools mid of 2011 related to how shogun2 sells" speaks a clear language to me.
The problem is, here talking fans,admirer of this game to buisness people.You guys speak a
different language.
When you say "modding tools" they hear "hacking tools".And when you say we want more community
mods to be made they hear"We want to buy less of your official DLCs".This community and fan support
is just an expense factor in this case that doesnt provide any resonable income, yes might even lower
it, from their sight of view.

They will give you what is needed to clean out their bugs, and improve gameplay in a minor way
but not too much that you could jump ahead like making a close to perfect WW1 or something else
they still can sell to you, so no mapeditor, no modell importing.period

And are allready doing a lot of sweet talking like here:
http://www.pcgames.de/Shogun-2-Total...uetzen-816132/

its german sorry couldnt find it in english, the headline is

"Developers want to actively support Modder"
and then
"Mods are important for Total War: Shogun 2 The Creative Assembly will support the hobby programmer
so energetic and even offer workshops. Moreover, it is with the community tools now available, relatively easy to create mods."


Let me translate again with my own words:
"We dont really care but we are watching you"

"Without Mods Total War :Shogun 2 is doomed thats why we need the community to finish our
half hearted produkt and are willing to show them how we want it to be done.They allready hacked
our game anyway, lucky we hardcoded the really important stuff this time!"



My prediction is if Shogun2 sells bad we will see WW1 or TW dying.
if it sells good there could be a ROME II and then WW1 or maybee 30 years war before, there were lots
of wars and our leaders keep supporting us with more wars right now, wars enough for 100 more TW
Episodes.I want to see Vietnam:Total War! and Irak:Total War!

On one hand I wish you would stop correcting their flaws in game develpement because its
their ing job!They get all the money for that half hearted produkt, and you are the ones who
"demand" to much, this is so sick....
Its a shame that SEGA does not concentrate on developing a much better AI but pushing
the series onward with lots of fancy stuff on the outside while the inside is still rotten.
But who cares about those few aging strategy freaks when the main crowd crys for fast paced,
low challenge, HacknSlash, melee masker?
I am SURE with the right modding tools this game series could be a frame for every possible scenario
from Cavemans to Star Wars.


About Shogun2 ive seen a Lets Play and read a few reviews.Im not going to buy and im not going
to play it.For me its just Empire in a Japanese robe.

Its a sad story, to bad im joining when its close to the end.
My TW gaming experience would have been much richer in any era with your modding art, people.
I feel sorry now for a great strategic gaming platform that gets raped by sales expectations
and companys greed!

Thats all for now some fedback would be nice, after all its just my opinion.

[Googoo24]

Where's the part about Shogun 2?

[mucea]

Where's the part about Shogun 2?

yes where is it

[Stellerex]

Where's the part about Shogun 2?

About Shogun2 ive seen a Lets Play and read a few reviews.Im not going to buy and im not going
to play it.For me its just Empire in a Japanese robe.

That's all you need to know about this bro's cool story.

[metenojo]

You come to late to the serie,the good days ard gone.

[Huberto]

The expression is two cents, not five cents. Now you see why.

[Humble Warrior]

The expression is two cents, not five cents. Now you see why.

Or two pennies if you live in Britain or are British or just wanna be different.

[kingwahwah]

Or two pennies if you live in Britain or are British or just wanna be different.

Surely its 1 penny and 1/5 of a penny.... with no commission of course.

[lawandorder82]

it is 2 cents not 5 cents

[Herim]

I'm not going to lie, TLDR.

[Dubh the dark]

All those cents must be adding up to a few million at this stage

[The Doubtful Guest]

That's a hell of a first post.

[Erwin Rommel]

Wow, inflation must have been really serious, instead of 2 cents now it has been ramped up to 5. I blame Obama.

[Daily]

Can't someone answer the man? Instead of arguing over something as stupid as cents...

Ok I will comment on the fact that you want a WW1 game. Do you just want if it for the hell of it since we are already almost there? Or do you want it because you really can see it working? I have thrown that idea away so far away by this point that I can't even imagine them making it. For me the 1700 is far enough and if they move higher up, they will destroy the series. Keep it in the sword, bow and spear era.

Now to the fact that you haven't even played the game. How can you say that Shogun 2 is Empire in a geisha outfit if you haven't? Well of course this is what you see when you look at the reviews and videos but still... For me it's the small things about the game. I like the details with the arrows, animations and so forth. I love the game and I will probably will be playing it for a while.

Stick with the older games my good sir. And this is the only point where I really resent your first post. How can you say the TW series is dead when we still have the older games which is still über great?

[I WUB PUGS]

I'm never going to understand people wanting a WW1 TW type game. Essentially take the gameplay of ETW/NTW and boost the range and accuracy of troops significantly, throw in some pretty accurate rapid fire artillery and some machine guns and what do you have, a mass slaughter that existed during WW1 until the fronts ground down and trenches were dug. Now you have phase two where maneuver is non-existent and you use thousands of large caliber shells to pound positions for 30 minutes of your hour long battle and then you charge relatively unchanged emplacements only to be mowed down by machine gun and rifle fire.

I love the WW1 time period, it's a war that I have studied extensively and I don't see it working. For WW1 I play Toy Soldiers on my xbox (a WW1 themed tower defense arcade game).

Rome 2 is next regardless of what happens, they made plenty of money off of ETW and Rome 1 to keep making games for a while. I see a Rome 2 and maybe just maybe an E2TW that is far more expanded upon with Napoleon included and an XPack that goes into Victorian era, or they will default to a Medieval 3 which would be fine because despite the bugs, I think the series is on the right track.

[Grimstoned]

I wish we had more comprehensive modding tools. Support like Bethesda and Bioware gives for its games would be amazing. But CA and Sega seam to think they have a better business plan. Not sure I can blame them.. if your good at something never do it for free I have heard.

I loved being able to edit unit stats and little things myself. Don't understand the issue with that. Still it can be done but with much more difficulty.

[BunnyPoopCereal]

We'll we've had these discussions ongoing for years now, it just so happened that you have spoken your part late in the argument.

May I remind everyone its just business.

[BOFH]

Thread title was selected stupid!
So 5 cent is still too much, I didnt know it, thx for info.(no sarcasm,maybe a little)
Sometimes I get carried away, had to stop myself not to write more,sorry for straining your eyes.

@Herim
@Putasokinhet
I wish I would get 5 cent each time I hear this.

@I WUB PUGS
Would be like making a Empire with Medievil II Engine.I think Empire has not the engine to handle
tanks and airplanes in the awesome way I want it,strat map must be much more involved into
gameplay.
Your right WWI was mostly trench warfare with intermediate mass slaughter.And artillery bombardment
all night long.But there was strategy.The Gameplay gets more into develping the economy and providing
support, food,ammunition, to the troops frontline.Research new wartechs,who has the tanks first?
There is still cavallry.MG and other "high tech" weapons of that era like the improved arti you mentioned
must be implemented very carefully.The bombardment could happen via campaign map, damaging % of
troop or buildings.Then the charge is played out on battlefield with smaller arti like we know allready.
There could be homes battle siege,guerillia and rebells are still there for some quick action.
Here they should go the way of putting civilizations research and economy management more and more
into TW.

@Daily
I would love to see a WWI and I ask myself too is it really possible with the TW engine.
For reasons of gamengine,physics and budget.Not that im really into WWI era but I came up with that
writing my first post.A distant maybee final goal of this series could and should be CIVILIZATIONS:TW.
Not talking about Civ5,this one has failed as it seems(didnt play it) but the classic style.
And your right like I said I lost it a little, its still alive and I only play it again because of mods.
Here again my consideration to all modders.I have modded for WC3 myself I know how much work
it is.By the way it has a supplied map editor

@BunnyPoopCereal
Its business as usual.

[garudamon11]

Why is it 2 cents .... I mean ... why not 1 ... or 3 ... or 50, at least you CAN buy something with 50 cents but not with 2 cents

[Snizel]

In Australia, our lowest value coin is 5 cents. Silly Americans and British with their pennies .

And Total War hasn't been as good since Rome. Medieval 2 was great, although Rome had a special charm to it... I can't explain it but Total War veterans know what i mean (plus the mods were epic - Rome Total Realism and Darth Mod oh and Europa Barbarorum). Rome was such a different game to Medieval 1, but in a good way in my opinion.

Empire and Napoleon were not right for the Total War series. As someone else said swords, spears, and bows are what make a Total War game. I only played 6 hours of ETW and did not buy Napoleon. Empire was worse than Age of Empires III.

I'm glad CA have gone back to melee warfare with Shogun 2. I am really enjoying the game and i can't wait for Rome 2!