Is CA incompetent when it comes to polishing their games?

[Fuzzynut]

It seems like they simply can't finish up with any idea, or polish a single mechanic enough to pass for perfection (actual perfection being impossible to achieve). In almost every iteration there are minor and sometimes major issues with the mechanics and implementation in their games. You can be certain that you can have a good time with the game usually, but once the facade of newbiness is lifted you can see how transparent and lacking a lot of the mechanics are.

Multiplayer - they have yet to fix 10 year old issues like dropping for wins, unable to create a reliable ladder, allowing you to level up your general and units in a non-match ranked game to bring into ranked games O.o
Singleplayer - strange ability/tech trees that make you wonder if anyone played the game, AI still making grade-school maneuvers like stacking 4-5 generals in one army, the inability to use agents properly, etc
STILL NO MODDING TOOLS
Slow patches consistently throughout the series, often requiring modders to correct for the community

Has CA proven to you yet that they simply do not know how to finish up a good thing? Do I need to give more examples? And, now they are turning me into a troll.

[Obi Wan Kenobi]

Is CA incompetent when it comes to polishing their games?

simple answer, yes

[Fenwayb]

yes is an understatement

[Pesticide]

yes is an understatement

[Achilleslastand]

Yes i believe they are incompetent as well as incapable.
The proofs in the pudding........they talk a big game but rarely back it up with action.
The issues with the last 3 titles are proof enough for me.
If they want my hard earned $$ in the future they will have to earn my trust and respect which i just cannot see them doing anytime soon.
I have no use for the CA/sega partnership anymore....
Im sure selling out to Sega has put a nice chunk of $$ in your pocket but in the meantime you are losing fans left and right and you dont even seem to care.
Congrats.....

[-FrOzeN-]

I wouldn't mind if they did a few things wrong...as long as they released the modding tools and let us fix it for them (which they forgot in the last three releases.....)

[Lord Baal]

The short answer, yes.

The moderately long one, no because they want to (I think, at least the old CA), but more because of stupid release dates imposed by SEGA. I know that there's no such thing as a perfect release, but if they do had the time to a proper beta (even a open one), they could bug hunt a lot more before release. Also they could experiment with new mechanics as supply and naval transports, instead of the rinse and repeat once a year cycle they are stuck now.

[emotion_name]

Hmmm, good question!

Some good answers as well!

NTW, to me, has been there best release on the warscape engine, despite what they trump in interviews about S2TW being the most stable release! Patches fixing things, well, its well documented that CA forget about there older titles as soon as a new one hits the shelves, and in S2TW case 2 of the patches have broken more than they fixed, requiring another quick hotfix or whatever to undo there previous efforts.

On the other hand, where MP is concerned, you could argue they are new to it, they themselves openly stated it was the very first TW game (S2TW) to have a dedicated MP team working on it, im sure given time (and maybe a few more releases) they can get it close to what the majority of the community want - that being the thigns you listed and a bit more also.

The AI, to me at least, is the best vanilla AI that CA have managed to create, and shows they are moving in the right direction, yeah it still does some stupid things but by and large its a great improvement over older TW titles.

The modding tools issue is one that will never go away, unless they do release some, which i highly doubt they will. If they were going to give us the tools, they would have done it for NTW after promsing them for ETW and seeing the backlash they received for not following through. Its been 3 TW games since they said they would release some (ETW,NTW,S2TW) and still no sign of them, so i would say that particular ship has sailed and wont be returning.

That said, will it stop most people buying there future titles? Me it wont, maybe not release day anymore (once bitten, twice shy and all that) but i love the games too much to not play them anymore, despite there faults. Its for this reason CA will prob never get "on track" (for lack of a better phrase), as they know we got the itch and they got the fix, regardless of how mediocre it is!

[Fuzzynut]

Agree with you, and you seem to have bit better history of the games than I.

Like I said though, you can certainly enjoy the game, and hell if you can overlook some of the issues and are okay with that, than ya, this game is friggin awesome.

And, lastly, I don't dislike the game enough not to purchase future versions, I actually enjoyed my time with it, but some of these things are just silly not to fix for a company that you would think would be AAA by now.

I feel like CA is resting on past laurels, the SEGA excuse is tired for me, I don't give devs any slack when this is their excuse. If your publisher treats you like and force you to put out unfinished games with dodgy support, that is their problem. If your publisher forces you to stop something that endeared you in the eyes of the fans (mod support) so you can make an extra quick million, that is their problem, not mine. Deal with it, fix it. Stand up for your company and your product.

[Lord Baal]

Emotion_name, you speak with the true, here, have some rep, but don't you waste it all on the same place!

Deal with it, fix it. Stand up for your company and your product.

And get fired and replaced with some other minion that is eager to please, so the franchise get sinked... I don't think so pal. They can't stand up and fight because they can't, the franchise and the company is owned by SEGA, who I believe have a my way or the high way attitude towards this sort of things....

[rob-a-dogg]

And get fired and replaced with some other minion that is eager to please, so the franchise get sinked... I don't think so pal. They can't stand up and fight because they can't, the franchise and the company is owned by SEGA, who I believe have a my way or the high way attitude towards this sort of things....

Atleast if they got fired they would have some dignity and respect back instead of being wimps and letting some one else take a whizz all over your face and product while you grin and stuff nazi-gold and blood-diamonds into your potatoe sack wiht a giant dollar sign painted on the side.

When you create something, the excuse 'oh but now this other guy owns it so i have to do whatever he wants and screw the fans' is completely weak.

Even Blizzard is still coming out with patches to fix starcraft 2. They even released a patch weeks afterwards which updated the UI and icons for abilities like Stimpack meaning they weren't able to finish it in time.

Did starcraft 2 ship with a boat load of rediculous bugs? Nope, that thing was already pretty slick. The patches just made it better.

[nameless]

Did starcraft 2 ship with a boat load of rediculous bugs? Nope, that thing was already pretty slick. The patches just made it better.

I don't recall Shogun 2 coming out with a boat load of bugs.

MTW2 now THAT came out with a boat load of bugs.

And Blizzard is STILL fixing bugs in SC2 just as CA is STILL doing the same thing so cut the crap. Shogun 2 is far more complicated than Starcraft 2 itself is and there are still bugs in that game they've yet to fix.

Probably just not the money there to expend on the polish. So far Shogun 2 has sold 290,000 copies by the looks of things, where as something like Super Mario Bros will sell 40 million copies.

Consoles always sell a ton more than PC games.

Definitely yes. They need to push back their release dates and take a critical look at their products.

Yes because as we all know longer development times means better games.....

[Humble Warrior]

Has CA proven to you yet that they simply do not know how to finish up a good thing? Do I need to give more examples? And, now they are turning me into a troll.

I hate to say it, but in my time with TW and seeing things like the siege freeze AI bug STILL in the game, the only answer has to be `yes`.

They never seem to completely finish or correct what they started, no matter all the talk.

I`m about given up with trying with them. And, boy, have I tried.

[Caesar's Heir]

No, they are amazing at polishing the game, just look at that shiny armor, it must have taken hours to polish that for every unit...

In all seriousness, some things are good, some are bad, but SEGA is still making money, and if no one complains directly to SEGA, nothing will change. CA is looking to survive, but the consumer isn't on SEGA's payroll. If the consumer complains enough to the publisher, they might think that a better game = more profits.

[AlfonsoVIII]

Games are really complicated and I think they ran out of time because Sega wants money. Now they have the time to correct and test all bugs found and properly fix the game. Games take time to perfect and this game is very complicated, so its hard to perfect something in a short amount of time.

[Elmar]

Face it, the last time CA cared about polishing their Total War it was to stop kings from dying at 56.
They have been orphaning games to one extend or another ever since.

I think in large part yes, there is a dysfunctional element in project management at CA that prevents them from successfully polishing their games. Anyone who ever perused the files will see remnants here and there. Code discipline is rather lax, oversight even more. Patches famously break almost a much as they fix and minor fixes never got implemented at all.

All this seems exacerbated by the new 1 game a year regime, which seems much too fast to stand by old products. I point at the shameful abandonment of ETW. Nine months after release we relied on a single coder working in his spare time to fix stuff. Really?! Kudos to that guy whomever he is, but that ain't CA/SEGA standing by their product.
Too much talent was working on NTW when ETW still needed their love. The whole "expandalone" mess that NTW ought to have been is another pointer to managerial foul ups and panic. Given that ETW might have mightily benefited from improvement by way of "expand-alone" it is a really severe lack of commitment that they then went to a stand alone product with NTW when they could've stood by their earlier foul up of ETW in this fashion. NTW came out looking relatively polished only by virtue of it being ETW 2.0 (lol @ early NTW version numbers)

Is it lack of time? Well, that is self inflicted, is it not? Lack of money? Apparently there is enough going around for a shiney office for their console brethren, who do not exactly have a stellar record of success either. If you have spare dosh floating about the office, they might have tried flinging it in the direction of the games in dire need of support and fulfilling commitments made to the customer.

They could stand by their products... but haven't. They have failed us too often to be "oops" moments. It is ill will every bit as much as inability.

[nameless]

Is it lack of time? Well, that is self inflicted, is it not? Lack of money? Apparently there is enough going around for a shiney office for their console brethren, who do not exactly have a stellar record of success either. If you have spare dosh floating about the office, they might have tried flinging it in the direction of the games in dire need of support and fulfilling commitments made to the customer.

They could stand by their products... but haven't. They have failed us too often to be "oops" moments. It is ill will every bit as much as inability.

I had thought that now that Duke Nukem Forever had come out people would understand the limitations and things that comes when making a video game in an industry that's always upgrading every hour.

Face it, no developer will ever have enough time or money or resources to complete the game as they see fit.

Even Blizzard is still coming out with patches to fix starcraft 2. They even released a patch weeks afterwards which updated the UI and icons for abilities like Stimpack meaning they weren't able to finish it in time.

CA and everyone else are no different, deadlines exist for a reason, just because you take 15 years making a game doesn't make it great.

Blizzard is their own company so they have control over how they do things but at the same time they maintain realistic goals and deadlines. Yes Starcraft 2 took a very long time but no where near Duke Nukem Forever.

And given how indepth Shogun 2 was I'd say they did a damn good job for one of the most complicated games in the world.

[caffeinatedspade]

If you think CA have been incompetent with Shogun 2 I suggest you take a ride in a time machine and buy Test Drive Unlimited 2 on release day. THAT was incompetence.

Half the game didn't work and what did work was filled with bugs, but you would only be able to find that out if you managed to make it past the start menu.

[wulfgar610]

Probably just not the money there to expend on the polish. So far Shogun 2 has sold 290,000 copies by the looks of things, where as something like Super Mario Bros will sell 40 million copies.

Serious strategy war-games just don't sell that well, you guys should be glad for what you get.

The computer age is democratizing the World I.Q.

http://gamrreview.vgchartz.com/game/...n-2-total-war/

Napoleon sold much the same, with Empire selling twice as much. So TW might even come to an end.

[Caesar's Heir]

Probably just not the money there to expend on the polish. So far Shogun 2 has sold 290,000 copies by the looks of things, where as something like Super Mario Bros will sell 40 million copies.

Serious strategy war-games just don't sell that well, you guys should be glad for what you get.

The computer age is democratizing the World I.Q.

http://gamrreview.vgchartz.com/game/...n-2-total-war/

Napoleon sold much the same, with Empire selling twice as much. So TW might even come to an end.

I thought I read somewhere that S2 sold over 600,000 copies...