Can CA recover from Rome 2 ?

[stackero]

I think the TW franchise is over.

Firstly, they guys who made Rome 1, and medieval 1 & 2, are not the same guys who made Rome 2. Neither is Creative Assembly the same company it was a decade ago.

Secondly there is the fallout from releasing what is a very very bad game in such a terrible state. The player base is in uproar, and I don't think the real fans who have been with TW since the beginning will forgive CA this time around.

There have been comparisons with Empire. However I believe that Empire was a very good game once it was rescued by the modders. But I don't think there is a modder out there who is going to be able to save the twitching corpse that is Rome 2.

Last thing is, Where could the TW franchise go from here anyway? What other historical periods haven't already been done. A 20th century TW would never work because by that time warfare had changed. TW was supposed to be about leading armies and units and formations. If you want 20th century warfare you might as well play company of heroes, or call of duty.

I'll remember the early TW games fondly. I played hotseat campaigns for M2TW on this forum for years. But I'm done with TW. Rome 2 was the last straw.

P.S. It's obvious where the big budget for Rome 2 went. Bribing reviewers on gaming sites to lie through their teeth about haw bad Rome 2 is.

My friend, you don't know the half of it.

[Man o' War]

It'll probably recover but it's catering for a different fan base.

I know many of my friends and myself are going over to the Paradox series.

[stackero]

It'll probably recover but it's catering for a different fan base.

I know many of my friends and myself are going over to the Paradox series.

Understandable, but the future of Rome 2 isn't finish being written.
I have great doubts, but you never know for sure. Did I hear someone snicker?



'The great questions of the day will be decided not by speeches and majority votes... but by iron and blood' -Otto Von Bismarck
'In strategy, the longest way round is often the shortest way home' -B.H.Liddell Hart

[Tim_Ward]

As to the question of the thread, I don't think the question is framed properly. The question should be "how much damage does Rome 2 do to the reputation of CA and the Total War brand" and the answer is quite a lot. It won't be overnight, it won't cause the next game to flop but I suspect the sales of the next game are going to be lower than they would have been had Rome 2 been a quality release. If they keep releasing games in state like this, they're ed eventually.

You people talk a lot of about causal players with such contempt, but it's really the hardcore fans that are the ones who are going to keep coming back after a shoddy release because they're invested in brand. Your causal player will just pick up this Total War thing to see what it's like, find that a) the game can't be made to run at more than 20 FPS for love nor money and that b) looks like turd and c) No actual wars happen because the AI is so passive, and they aren't going to come on the forums to or read about how CA are going to patch it every week until it's fixed - they're just going to put the game down, chalk it up to experience and not bother with it or any other Total War games again.

[Radzeer]

As to the question of the thread, I don't think the question is framed properly. The question should be "how much damage does Rome 2 do to the reputation of CA and the Total War brand" and the answer is quite a lot. It won't be overnight, it won't cause the next game to flop but I suspect the sales of the next game are going to be lower than they would have been had Rome 2 been a quality release. If they keep releasing games in state like this, they're ed eventually.

You people talk a lot of about causal players with such contempt, but it's really the hardcore fans that are the ones who are going to keep coming back after a shoddy release because they're invested in brand. Your causal player will just pick up this Total War thing to see what it's like, find that a) the game can't be made to run at more than 20 FPS for love nor money and that b) looks like turd and c) No actual wars happen because the AI is so passive, and they aren't going to come on the forums to or read about how CA are going to patch it every week until it's fixed - they're just going to put the game down, chalk it up to experience and not bother with it or any other Total War games again.

Regarding the highlighted part: I'm not sure. I wish it was like that because that would force CA to return to catering to the core, but it could be that future titles would simply be mediocre half-fantasy, half arcade/FPS junk, which may still be enough to bring in more profit than what the core provides. Maybe CA/SEGA (I used to think of them as separate but not anymore) had some focus groups or whatnot and saw that the core would not expand as fast as they want their profit grow. What if a casual player who never played TW before (hence no basis of comparison how much deeper those titles were) buys the game, clocks in a hundred hours of mediocre fun, moves on to something else but comes back for the next title to have the next 100 hours?

Remember: if CA caters to the core, they need to patch the game to the death and develop content with substance. If they cater to the casuals they just need to invest as much as to have them come back for the next title. And there are many more casuals than core players. Plus a core player needs time to become a core player, while a casual is born every minute.

It has been a month since release. The resistance from CA to even remotely address questionable gameplay components most people hate (flag, magic, torching gates, no family tree) implies that there will be no such change, and now they go for the minimum patching to cater for the casuals.

[super_newbie_pro]

Regarding the highlighted part: I'm not sure. I wish it was like that because that would force CA to return to catering to the core, but it could be that future titles would simply be mediocre half-fantasy, half arcade/FPS junk, which may still be enough to bring in more profit than what the core provides. Maybe CA/SEGA (I used to think of them as separate but not anymore) had some focus groups or whatnot and saw that the core would not expand as fast as they want their profit grow. What if a casual player who never played TW before (hence no basis of comparison how much deeper those titles were) buys the game, clocks in a hundred hours of mediocre fun, moves on to something else but comes back for the next title to have the next 100 hours?

Remember: if CA caters to the core, they need to patch the game to the death and develop content with substance. If they cater to the casuals they just need to invest as much as to have them come back for the next title. And there are many more casuals than core players. Plus a core player needs time to become a core player, while a casual is born every minute.

It has been a month since release. The resistance from CA to even remotely address questionable gameplay components most people hate (flag, magic, torching gates, no family tree) implies that there will be no such change, and now they go for the minimum patching to cater for the casuals.

I hope you're wrong ... they promised to correct the situation in the coming years !! coming years = number of years. If they can do 3 patches in 1 month, in several years, they can redo our game .. 12 months x 3 = 36 patchs ahahahaha ... or not ahah :/

[stackero]

Regarding the highlighted part: I'm not sure. I wish it was like that because that would force CA to return to catering to the core, but it could be that future titles would simply be mediocre half-fantasy, half arcade/FPS junk, which may still be enough to bring in more profit than what the core provides. Maybe CA/SEGA (I used to think of them as separate but not anymore) had some focus groups or whatnot and saw that the core would not expand as fast as they want their profit grow. What if a casual player who never played TW before (hence no basis of comparison how much deeper those titles were) buys the game, clocks in a hundred hours of mediocre fun, moves on to something else but comes back for the next title to have the next 100 hours?

Remember: if CA caters to the core, they need to patch the game to the death and develop content with substance. If they cater to the casuals they just need to invest as much as to have them come back for the next title. And there are many more casuals than core players. Plus a core player needs time to become a core player, while a casual is born every minute.

It has been a month since release. The resistance from CA to even remotely address questionable gameplay components most people hate (flag, magic, torching gates, no family tree) implies that there will be no such change, and now they go for the minimum patching to cater for the casuals.

Elegantly and accurately stated. got to rep ya if not too soon.



'It is better to be criticized by a wise person than praised by a fool' --Eccl. 7:5

"We're surrounded. That simplifies the problem."- Attributed to Lewis B. "Chesty" Puller, USMC

[Tyso3]

For all you 2 million people. Sega claimed that RTW2 had 6X More pre orders then any other total war game, this led to the 2 million figure.

This was also spoken BEFORE release, hint hint.


Considering the PR fakeness of the alpha footage, you can either take Sega on their word for 2 million sales or believe the stats that are available (These stats may not be correct, however without any other stats from sega to counter them, there is no basis for them to be untrue. I call habius Corpus on sega!)

[Turbo]

Depends on how quickly people forgive and forget. I lost all trust in CA after the Empire disaster and all the PR shucking and jiving (aka lying in my opinion) that went on. I now wait until I read the reviews from the users on TW and metacritic, not the paid reviewers, before I buy anything.

You know, until people stop purchasing their games, Creative Assembly is going to continue to play you for a sucker and release broken games. Brand loyalty is the dumbest type of loyalty. At least make them earn your business going forward and make them keep patching the game until it works as advertised. The community came together with Empire and we forced a very reluctant CA to eventually patch the Empire AI. It can happen again.

[Humble Warrior]

Depends on how quickly people forgive and forget. I lost all trust in CA after the Empire disaster and all the PR shucking and jiving (aka lying in my opinion) that went on. I now wait until I read the reviews from the users on TW and metacritic, not the paid reviewers, before I buy anything.

You know, until people stop purchasing their games, Creative Assembly is going to continue to play you for a sucker and release broken games. Brand loyalty is the dumbest type of loyalty. At least make them earn your business going forward and make them keep patching the game until it works as advertised. The community came together with Empire and we forced a very reluctant CA to eventually patch the Empire AI. It can happen again.

You and I are in agreement.

[Huberto]

Depends on how quickly people forgive and forget. I lost all trust in CA after the Empire disaster and all the PR shucking and jiving (aka lying in my opinion) that went on. I now wait until I read the reviews from the users on TW and metacritic, not the paid reviewers, before I buy anything.

You know, until people stop purchasing their games, Creative Assembly is going to continue to play you for a sucker and release broken games. Brand loyalty is the dumbest type of loyalty. At least make them earn your business going forward and make them keep patching the game until it works as advertised. The community came together with Empire and we forced a very reluctant CA to eventually patch the Empire AI. It can happen again.

Yes agree 100% we shouldn't buy their stuff anymore. And yes, back in 2009-2010 we held CA/SEGA's feet to the fire and forced them to keep working on ETW longer than they wanted.

But...and this is a BIG but: ETW was an ambitious game in concept floated to the public on a pack of lies.As such it made sense to try to "fix" it to the point where it was playable because the underlying game was a solid concept.

TWR2 is a different creature all together. Rome II (and I've played it for 40+ hours now) is deliberately positioned as a streamlined fantasy RTS designed for a mass audience (and designed to run on consoles eventually). The point of Rome II is to be a bridge to the forthcoming MMO and Warhammer ventures of CA/SEGA. No amount of patching is going to rescue this game to a point where folks like us who love TW will love it.

And so, Rome II is truly beyond fixing, just as the Creative Assembly is now way beyond their own flagship Total War series. We need to let go of CA now, and encourage them, in every way we can, to let go of TW.

[empr guy]

CA is in no danger because you people pre order the game even when CA's own reviews and reveals make the game look like poop, instead everyones like "oh wow, that object has so many pixels, what a great game"; I mean forget about the actual game, THE UNITS HAVE FACIAL HAIR NOW!!!11111146346

Obviously people will get their moneys worth after they end the public beta test and release the actual game, but when you advertise all these cool battles etc. and the AI can't path find its way through an open field, it gets old after the n-th game in a row....

Honestly Napoleon should have been a bigger PR hit then the empire disaster because they pretty much changed everything people complained about, moved it up a few years, and sold it as a brand new game.

[Humble Warrior]

Honestly Napoleon should have been a bigger PR hit then the empire disaster because they pretty much changed everything people complained about, moved it up a few years, and sold it as a brand new game.

Great to see what I saw at the time. NTW was a further insult because ETW, the biggest and most expansive TW was still not fixed, but instead of fixing it, they just made a new version of Empire and sold that! And people fell for it! It wasn`t even an add-on to Empire which would have at least enabled Empire to make use of some of the changes. They abandoned Empire.

That`s why, I , to this day, refuse to purchase NTW.

Also, Huberto is right, we argued long and hard for the changes and updates to Empire, (harassed a lot of the way by idiots who kept saying Empire was fine), but it tok a whole year and no little effort. It was like pulling blood out of a stonme to get that final Patch (6.01 I think it was).

I`m not sure I have the energy to go through all that for Rome 2, why should we? CA should want to fix the game 100% anyway, yet, they will slacken off as soon as they sense people are not complaining any more. It`s a terrible situation. the only way to fix it is to simply not give them our money any more.

[Lord Oda Nobunaga]

^Yeah, Napoleon was way better than Empire and yet gets less credit.

[wulfgar610]

^Yeah, Napoleon was way better than Empire and yet gets less credit.

Probably because it was the least advertised....................beside Empire has pirates!

[wulfgar610]

If I remember, a document leaked from (or by) Sega seems to claim that Empire: Total War was sold up to 810 000 copies during 2008 fiscal year.
If peoples are able to read Japanese, they can look at this document : 200903_tanshin_20090513_final.pdf
For the same year, VG Chartz speak about only 478 571 copies, nearly half of Sega stats.

Sega sold 810,000 copies to retail, Retail then sold 478,571 copies for that year and remaining in following years. The compendium pack would have been another 200,000 units.

[beksibeksi]

I liked Napoleon, but honestly FotS was the best and most polished TW game ever released imo, that had an interesting history, gameplay, and all those other things I wanted from a TW game.

Empire I didn't like the gameplay or history. Napoleon I liked for the history but not so much the gameplay. Shogun 2 combat was boring imo and too simplistic. Rise was the same although a bit better on the history side. FotS was the best. It has gunpowder, melee, naval, and cool history.

[DramaBelli]

HUMBLE, I still try to understand who is the worst after-realease-game between Empire and Rome II, under many graphical sides Empire wins immediately. Under the side of AI mechanics it seems they can fight hardly in a engative way (the fact is that when empire was released I was not so involved and focused as now, following Rome since it was previewed and in development..ops is still developing) DESPITE OF THIS and even if I understand your coherent decision to not buy Napoleon I would suggest you to get this game. Empire was yes in a strong way abandoned in the hands of the modders BUT at present day you would try to play napoleon, it's really a better game than Empire as said and you should try it, in my opinion, just to make justice for yourself. The price now is really low and I think this way is a good compromise. Other fact: mods for Napoleon, give it a chance just for some excellent mods released for free like La Montee de L'empire, Masters of Europe (neverending work) and L'Armee as Painted, reproduced by PdGuru (the best unit pack ever released..CA should really consider the quality of these models). Said this, you know, we can agree about all ..what I say: now more than before...'cause me too sir, I've seen an horse pursuing the routing soldier with the holy back, kicking him with the legs)

[Tim_Ward]

Great to see what I saw at the time. NTW was a further insult because ETW, the biggest and most expansive TW was still not fixed, but instead of fixing it, they just made a new version of Empire and sold that! And people fell for it! It wasn`t even an add-on to Empire which would have at least enabled Empire to make use of some of the changes. They abandoned Empire.

That`s why, I , to this day, refuse to purchase NTW.

Huh. We agree on something.

[Duncan III]

nuts