Does Creative Assembly monitor mods like RS2?

[Paladin247]

I just finished my Roman campaign having turned the world to red. I think I'll wait until 2.2 is released to start anew.

Was wondering if we know whether CA monitors mods like RS2? If RTW2 is on their agenda, it's difficult to imagine doing anything better game play wise than RS2. I mean certainly they could upgrade the graphics, AI and engine to take advantage of modern graphics cards and multi-core processors. Then add some of the doodads from Shogun like naval combat, etc.

RS2 tho plays very well within the RTW limits and those named and numbered legions are just an extremely attractive feature. You really get attached to those guys; I did anyway. I've played vanilla RTW, RTR, EB and SPQR as well, but favored RS2 probably because of the legions.

So does anyone know if there's any history of CA adopting features from the more popular mods? Just wondering.

[Jean=A=Luc]

I heard that CA has a special division of employees who sit in a secret bunker monitoring the out of popular mods.

[Chevalier IX]

I just finished my Roman campaign having turned the world to red. I think I'll wait until 2.2 is released to start anew.

Was wondering if we know whether CA monitors mods like RS2? If RTW2 is on their agenda, it's difficult to imagine doing anything better game play wise than RS2. I mean certainly they could upgrade the graphics, AI and engine to take advantage of modern graphics cards and multi-core processors. Then add some of the doodads from Shogun like naval combat, etc.

RS2 tho plays very well within the RTW limits and those named and numbered legions are just an extremely attractive feature. You really get attached to those guys; I did anyway. I've played vanilla RTW, EB and SPQR as well, but favored RS2 probably because of the legions.

So does anyone know if there's any history of CA adopting features from the more popular mods? Just wondering.

CA has definitely stated in the past that they both look at mods and enjoy them as well .At the end of the day they are just as excited about the product as we are so it makes sense that they too would like to try out some of the amazing mods on display from the community. As far as taking influence from them, it has been said but nothing official. It does say something though that they hired a modder from this very community, so clearly they see the talent on display.

[dvk901]

It is my understanding that CA does pay attention to mods and modder ideas. It would surely be in their best interest to do so, as a TON of background work would've been done historically by a mod such as EB. And, just to see what people like and don't like about their products.

[century x]

CA does look at mods. In fact they play them, but the question to ask is if they are really paying attention.

Just because they play some of these mods does not mean they are going to make a consideration to make future games more mod friendly.

If they would have done that then games since Empire total war up until Shogun 2 would be very moddable. But what did we get, we got games that are barely if not at all moddabe.

[Ferdiad]

They have mentioned playing mods like EB and such in past interviews.

[century x]

They have mentioned playing mods like EB and such in past interviews.

Exactly.

[dvk901]

LOL

[Sharpe]

If offered, would modders/mod-teams volunteer to contribute content to a new game? For Free?

[dvk901]

For RomeTW2, yes.

[century x]

For RomeTW2, yes.

Could not have said it better

[rory o'kane]

Absolutely.

[Spartan198]

For RomeTW2, yes.

Absolutely.

Would said modders be happy knowing CA would be getting paid for their work, though?

Not trying to be a downer, but I find it highly unlikely CA or Sega would accept such help for that very reason. My memory is vague, but IIRC, the EB team once offered a long time ago to contribute to development of RTW free of charge and CA turned them down. Don't get me wrong, I'd be quite happy if individuals such as dvk, Tone, or DBH, who do what they do out of love for the game and the source material, found their way onto CA's development staff, but I just don't realistically see it happening.

[Smerka]

Rome 2 will probably be unmoddable like their latest games (Empire, Napoleon and Shogun 2). So with that in mind I feel like CA don't like people modding their games.

[Ferdiad]

It would probably be the greatest nod to a Mod dev if his work was asked to be included in a game or his advice wanted. Even better if they got hired like Lusted did

[Ferdiad]

You and I have very different definitions of unmoddable.
http://www.twcenter.net/forums/forumdisplay.php?f=1550
http://www.twcenter.net/forums/forumdisplay.php?f=1551
http://www.twcenter.net/forums/forumdisplay.php?f=1432
http://www.twcenter.net/forums/forumdisplay.php?f=1434
http://www.twcenter.net/forums/forumdisplay.php?f=1071
http://www.twcenter.net/forums/forumdisplay.php?f=1073

[Paladin247]

Not to be wading amongst the elite moders of our esteemed RS2, and I mean that with complete sincerity, I wouldn't know what to do with a line of C++ if it was floating in my breakfast cereal, and what you've accomplished here is really astounding. But getting CA to release more modable products is not what I meant to ask altho that's what we'd all wish they would do.

It would be wonderful if they did so and unleashed the talents herein, but the post was more along the lines of what might they adopt if they were so inclined? Have we seen them take substantial capabilities manifested within these mods and incorporate them into new products?

Perhaps I have not framed this with great prose, but you get the idea.

[Smerka]

You and I have very different definitions of unmoddable.
http://www.twcenter.net/forums/forumdisplay.php?f=1550
http://www.twcenter.net/forums/forumdisplay.php?f=1551
http://www.twcenter.net/forums/forumdisplay.php?f=1432
http://www.twcenter.net/forums/forumdisplay.php?f=1434
http://www.twcenter.net/forums/forumdisplay.php?f=1071
http://www.twcenter.net/forums/forumdisplay.php?f=1073

All those mods are just tweaks to the AI, a bit of balancing and units which don't feel that different to rest. Look at RS and EB and how much freedom the modders have that provided a major overhaul from vanilla Rome like Buildings. traits, scripts and graphics. I see a lot of praise for darth mod on empire but it's not like once you have played it you can't go back to vanilla like how RS2 is, where the vanilla just feels wrong.

[Mediaeval]

I fully agree with this. I would see any Rome 2 being very close in character to RS2. The key challenge is how to get the richness of a mod such as RS2, with simple intuitive gameplay for the man on the street, who constitutes the highest proportion of buyers. I imagine the full RS2 player guide would have be pretty thick!

The other thing I would like to see is uniform packs and an editor for all TW games, which allows players to add modded uniforms and troop types to a master-sheet with uniform cards displayed pictorially, from which players could select those they want in game for each faction. This would avoid mod clashes and overloaded unit menus (a very good mod was made for the old Combat Mission game which did this exceptionally well)

[Ferdiad]

The Great War is well on its way to becoming a Total Overhaul.