A Plea to CA for a new engine instead of a soon next Total War game. DX12 may deal the cards anew for Rome 2.

[Tim_Ward]

Oh, stop saying Rome 2 is "arcady" or for "arcade kids", you utter cretins. It seriously grinds on my nerves.

Arcade games are:

1) Fun
2) Polished
3) Compulsive
4) Fast paced
5) Hard

Rome in it's present state is none of those things. You could sort of argue 'fast paced' for the battles before they slowed them down, but the campaign is utterly glacial. The AI's do nothing except move armies around at random, there are no options for controlling public order in a newly conquered province but leaving your army there so it's just a case of slowly and laboriously moving conquering provinces from AI empires that, fundamentally, don't want to play the game. I don't know what arcade games you guys have been exposed to, but none of the above describes them.

Yes, they've striped out features and complexity - the reason for this is simply budget and time, not pursuing a mythical audience of 14 year old boys and CoD fratboys who would never touch a Total War game no matter how fast they made the battles. Complex systems take a long time to develop and test.

This happens time and time again with franchises. Deus Ex. Dragon Age. Supreme Commander. They developers declare they're going to "widen the games appeal" by "streamlining features", it's all . They're just cutting corners so they can get the game out sooner and cheaper.

Also, games become more technically advanced, more and more of the development time and budget goes on graphics, physics and the game engine and less is left over for developing the games core systems. This is why games have become more simplistic over the years and, although this isn't really a criticism you could aim at Rome 2, tend to have less content. In fact, you could see Rome 2 as an example of a technical complex game warring with a large amount of content for development time; neither really works out well and what suffers is the game systems themselves, and testing.

Rome 2 just badly made and badly designed and most of all badly in need of another 6 months development. "Arcade" isn't some synonym for "bad".

[Humble Warrior]

Oh, stop-Blah.

Yea, right. Even though you know the game`s bad (and I saw you switch from praise to scorn) you still have to come here and insult everyone.



Hint: just cos your definition of arcade is different to everyone else don`t mean you should scream in their faces like a baby.

[Tim_Ward]

(and I saw you switch from praise to scorn)

It's called revising your opinion in the light of new facts, Humble. Try it some time, you might like it.

[alQamar]

Considering that they are aiming for those stupid 12 year old arcade kids, who have no idea what words like 'fun' and 'immersion' mean and only care for quick and easy wins, this seems to be true. Now they don't even have the need to build anything.

But they will lose some sales, no doubt. Oh well, they don't care. They are going the COD way, just build and release arcade games in an endless tirade without much difference between all of them, that keeps their pockets full.

Oh, stop saying Rome 2 is "arcady" or for "arcade kids", you utter cretins. It seriously grinds on my nerves.

Arcade games are:

1) Fun
2) Polished
3) Compulsive
4) Fast paced
5) Hard

Rome in it's present state is none of those things. You could sort of argue 'fast paced' for the battles before they slowed them down, but the campaign is utterly glacial. The AI's do nothing except move armies around at random, there are no options for controlling public order in a newly conquered province but leaving your army there so it's just a case of slowly and laboriously moving conquering provinces from AI empires that, fundamentally, don't want to play the game. I don't know what arcade games you guys have been exposed to, but none of the above describes them.

Yes, they've striped out features and complexity - the reason for this is simply budget and time, not pursuing a mythical audience of 14 year old boys and CoD fratboys who would never touch a Total War game no matter how fast they made the battles. Complex systems take a long time to develop and test.

This happens time and time again with franchises. Deus Ex. Dragon Age. Supreme Commander. They developers declare they're going to "widen the games appeal" by "streamlining features", it's all . They're just cutting corners so they can get the game out sooner and cheaper.

Also, games become more technically advanced, more and more of the development time and budget goes on graphics, physics and the game engine and less is left over for developing the games core systems. This is why games have become more simplistic over the years and, although this isn't really a criticism you could aim at Rome 2, tend to have less content. In fact, you could see Rome 2 as an example of a technical complex game warring with a large amount of content for development time; neither really works out well and what suffers is the game systems themselves, and testing.

Rome 2 just badly made and badly designed and most of all badly in need of another 6 months development. "Arcade" isn't some synonym for "bad".

I don't agree with the kids audience. Our clan average age was 25 with over 30 members back in 2004 (Rome 1) and a lot were 12-15 and not arcade kids. It may this changed for this generation but I would prevent this general insulting.

[omzdog]

Right but the understanding is that you wouldn't want an arcade game for your 2013 released PC.
I mean, different aspects that aren't interchangable, but literally calling a PC game worthy of the name arcade is insulting although arcade games are great if you have another quarter.

[omzdog]

Easy tiger... lion.
Some are out for the emotional pull.

[Humble Warrior]

Easy tiger... lion.
Some are out for the emotional pull.

Meh. Non arcade games are well polished and fun too, just not his definition of fun.

[pajomife]

New engine won't save the brand,the engine have nothing to do with bad game design.

[wangrin]

New engine won't save the brand,the engine have nothing to do with bad game design.

Game engine depend of game design, they are tied.
Game design is a kind of "specifications" (cahier des charges) and game engine is the final product.

[pajomife]

New engine won't save the brand,the engine have nothing to do with bad game design.The engine have four years and the game is much worst than the first one.

[alQamar]

New engine won't save the brand,the engine have nothing to do with bad game design.The engine have four years and the game is much worst than the first one.

Well if you consider that the engine hasn't it strengths at sieges and melees but gunpower units which it was made for you clearly see the reason why FOTS was a big "advantage" in performance because they introduced those units again.

It is arguably wether this was planned or just a welcome escape out of the performance and pathfinding / blobbing trap which did not harm Shogun 2 that much. Also the fights in NTW were 1v1 not unit related hack and slay like in Rome 1. But I cannot remember any pre Shogun 2 TW where dead bodies caused heavy CPU loads.

While I see it is beautiful to watch machinimas vids you could laugh at the engine when it comes to battle closeup without short cutscenes and 1v1 battles are totally displaced (chariots / elephants) resulting in performance drops unit skating and bumping and many more artifacts. For a game of 2013 this is beyond reasonable.

[Modestus]

No expert but people should read this first.

http://www.giantbomb.com/profile/mic...y-work/101529/


And the one quote I find particularly interesting is this.......

This is also one of the biggest drawbacks of game engines, as they homogenize the games which are built. A game engine built for first-person shooters may not be the best to use for a racing RPG and your choice of engine may in the end hamper your creative expression.


For a very long time I have been arguing that the game engine because of its limitations is dictating the design of the game so rather then having a vision and using the engine to achieve that vision CA have instead been forced to shape the vision to suit the engine.

Obviously every tool has its limitations but I would also argue that Warscape in particular was first and foremost created to allow CA make Total war games more easily and efficiently this has in my opinion meant it is even more limited in what it can do. Ask it to create a more complicated environment such as you would want for RTW2 with walls, siege engines , ladders and so on and it will struggle and I think this is exactly what we are seeing with RTW2.

A game engine that was totally inadequate for the task and a company pretending that it worked.

[88HaZZarD88]

there is no hope , the series is dead

[General Maximus]

No expert but people should read this first.

http://www.giantbomb.com/profile/mic...y-work/101529/


And the one quote I find particularly interesting is this.......

This is also one of the biggest drawbacks of game engines, as they homogenize the games which are built. A game engine built for first-person shooters may not be the best to use for a racing RPG and your choice of engine may in the end hamper your creative expression.


For a very long time I have been arguing that the game engine because of its limitations is dictating the design of the game so rather then having a vision and using the engine to achieve that vision CA have instead been forced to shape the vision to suit the engine.

Obviously every tool has its limitations but I would also argue that Warscape in particular was first and foremost created to allow CA make Total war games more easily and efficiently this has in my opinion meant it is even more limited in what it can do. Ask it to create a more complicated environment such as you would want for RTW2 with walls, siege engines , ladders and so on and it will struggle and I think this is exactly what we are seeing with RTW2.

A game engine that was totally inadequate for the task and a company pretending that it worked.

That is exactly what happened with CA. Just as an engine built for FPS shooting games cannot be used properly for car/bike-racing games without severe problems, a game engine built for 18th/19th century gunpowder era mass firefighting battles cannot be used to depict melees without having problems. That is what CA did - they managed to pull off somehow with Shogun II but it all fell apart when they tried to use the engine meant for muskets, sabres and cannons to create a game about spears, swords, arrows and javelins.

And again what you said it true - their design is dictated by their pathetic engine. It is like a set of people wanting to build something on a mountain, they will either dig off the whole mountain until it becomes plain, or they will go lazy and just dig a valley in between and try to go through it. CA could've made a better engine, yet that engine bites off their own masters and dictates what they can do with it and what they cannot.

Also, +rep

[omzdog]

When I was their age, I was too busy playing Rome1 to care about games like Rome2.

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

[Humble Warrior]

I remember we were part of an online team game. We were all about 25 - 35 +. We generally vetted out anyone younger because they were stupid. But once we discovered that one of our number was 14! We were shocked, he was very mature for his age. We kept him on, still he was a rare one.

I do believe that in some cases you can have pretty young people in a group and they`ll mature up in a group environment of older players.

Mostly, they don`t and get kicked. Impatience is usually the key. It`s why we now have a 3 month testing phase. Weeds out most kids.

[VINC.XXIII]

But once we discovered that one of our number was 14! We were shocked, he was very mature for his age. We kept him on, still he was a rare one.

A fellow modder of mine is just 17, and he have a very good approaching of history and get completly what features make a good mod. He have been feeded-up with EBI also...
I think at contrary dudes of 14 years have more chances to become decent players that don't support the actual decadence of C.A. Playing at MTW2 and RTW1 mods, they will see by themselves how consistant can be a game.

[omzdog]

Haha, weed... kids.

[♞Rogue General♞]

Voted yes. Get your sh!t together, CA.

[alQamar]

updated the Q&A from thoughts I got as feedback from the TW community and extended my OP plea while trying to keep a balance between a wall of text and reasonable information why I am so eager to get rid of this current Warscape engine at all. I hope you still appreciate it in the current state I am open for hints (even spellings etc via PM)