Gameplay=Coolnez?

[Hellenes]

Ive read a lot of people posting here about how having trivial dumbed down features in the game is justified by the "gameplay" excuse, however is it so?
Are the dominant dumbed down beliefs (like the "egyptians" in 270bc) that strong that affect "gameplay" and have impact on sales?
Will any perspective customer say "where are the elephants with cannons Im not buying this game"?
I rezally doubt it....

[the_mango55]

I don't understand the question

[Lusted]

Will any perspective customer say "where are the elephants with cannons Im not buying this game"?

No, but having cannon elephants is definitely a nice marketing feature, and adds something more unique into the game.

[Korinthos Hoplites]

No, but having cannon elephants is definitely a nice marketing feature, and adds something more unique into the game.

Hmmm, I don't think so

[Hansa]

No, but having cannon elephants is definitely a nice marketing feature, and adds something more unique into the game.

Bah, id rather see the order knights of St Lazarus, fighting Sacarens with knights who are infected with the horrible leprasy bug, thats adding something unike to the game, think of the disgusting skins, now thats a marketing feature, historically correct aswell. Combat bonus, ''strikes fear and disgust among enemies, causing them to throw up'', combat minus ''strikes fear and disgust among allies, causing them to throw up'' .

[Matty_P]

lol, oh the knights of st. lazarus!

that'd be fun.

[DougyM]

Let me ask the history nuts their opinion on what i think.

Lets say CA scrap MTW2 monday morning, they walk into their office and think "god dam, we are such idiots... obviously a couple history buffs on a random internet forum know more about marketing a game than us award winning multi million selling game developers"

So after a couple years we get the next TW game.

History total war.

The game features 12942214412421412 factions since thats how many little tribal guys and barons and countries that existed during the medieval time.
We also have 100% realistic uniforms for our 345325325235235 units, yes you cant tell who your men are becuase basicly all the filthy buggers wore a shade of dirt.... but its realistic!
We have also collected 343141324214 authentic and true to the period accents for all the factions and units, yes! finaly you will be able to tell if your unit of longbows comes from st. edwards street or grand buckingham sqaure!!!
Get this!!! not only will you be able to call a crusade using authentic religious figures you get free with the game! but you habe plenty of time to make some babies with your already inbred family members in the game becuase we also made the game so historicaly accurate that soldiers march at real world speeds accross the campaign map!!!
Indeed, we also improved the AI so much that you would think we had Dr stephen hawkings crushed and cremated then sprinkled into every history total war disk!!!

Now we know what your thinking!!!

"why the ****** would i buy this pile of *******?"

honestly.... we dont know either but the history nuts are better than us at marketing games so blame them!

Reccomended retail price: 234535235325 pounds to help cover the costs of our staff spending the last 4 years researching and coding all those features!

So basicly in short.... ill take the whacky and fun Elephants with big bloody guns on them over History any day of the week.

(you might think this post is shocking and way exagerating things... but its got a line of truth running all the way through it)

And hell, if you want a short answer that doesnt take the **** out of you history nuts...

If you list me 5 games that are considered "classic" games by the gaming community and press that all have history over gameplay... ill never ever question history ever again.

[Vanquisher]

LMAO, thankyou Knight Yellow you've made my day
I wish I could have put it better. :tooth:

BTW, what the hell are you doing up at 5:30am?
Not that i'm guilty too

[Darsh]

Let me ask the history nuts their opinion on what i think.

Lets say CA scrap MTW2 monday morning, they walk into their office and think "god dam, we are such idiots... obviously a couple history buffs on a random internet forum know more about marketing a game than us award winning multi million selling game developers"

So after a couple years we get the next TW game.

History total war.

The game features 12942214412421412 factions since thats how many little tribal guys and barons and countries that existed during the medieval time.
We also have 100% realistic uniforms for our 345325325235235 units, yes you cant tell who your men are becuase basicly all the filthy buggers wore a shade of dirt.... but its realistic!
We have also collected 343141324214 authentic and true to the period accents for all the factions and units, yes! finaly you will be able to tell if your unit of longbows comes from st. edwards street or grand buckingham sqaure!!!
Get this!!! not only will you be able to call a crusade using authentic religious figures you get free with the game! but you habe plenty of time to make some babies with your already inbred family members in the game becuase we also made the game so historicaly accurate that soldiers march at real world speeds accross the campaign map!!!
Indeed, we also improved the AI so much that you would think we had Dr stephen hawkings crushed and cremated then sprinkled into every history total war disk!!!

Now we know what your thinking!!!

"why the ****** would i buy this pile of *******?"

honestly.... we dont know either but the history nuts are better than us at marketing games so blame them!

Reccomended retail price: 234535235325 pounds to help cover the costs of our staff spending the last 4 years researching and coding all those features!

So basicly in short.... ill take the whacky and fun Elephants with big bloody guns on them over History any day of the week.

(you might think this post is shocking and way exagerating things... but its got a line of truth running all the way through it)

And hell, if you want a short answer that doesnt take the **** out of you history nuts...

If you list me 5 games that are considered "classic" games by the gaming community and press that all have history over gameplay... ill never ever question history ever again.

wow my dream game, I hope CA listen you. :tooth:

[CIaagent11]

So basicly in short.... ill take the whacky and fun Elephants with big bloody guns on them over History any day of the week.

I so agree.

Also I want people to stop bothering the Egyptians were called Egyptians in RTW.
Shure, they were ruled by greeks at that time. But they were still egyptians.
And that is pretty fine historical.

[Siddyus]

No, but having cannon elephants is definitely a nice marketing feature, and adds something more unique into the game.

Reminds me of the cheat opliphants. lol

[Lusted]

Well for the gamer who knows nothing of history, they are going to say "OMG! Cannon eles! Sweet!""(i know several people who have said this)

[Vanquisher]

Will any perspective customer say "where are the elephants with cannons Im not buying this game"?

And who are these potential customers? Being a student of business myself I know that (in fact it is obvious), that a wide market range is targeted for a product to ensure sales success and at least some people that enjoy the product. As a gamer who is biased towards historical gameplay, you are not thinking about all the other members of the general public that will buy the product. Do you not think that after a youngster sees that you can catapult cows and fire cannons off of elephants, that they will be interested? Also ask yourself, what is the point in selling games that aren't focused on gameplay? If you want ultra realism, go and buy simulators. The total war series was not created in the aim of making a perfectly historically accurate representation of warfare, if it was I can assure you it would never have got past the first release witht the reputation it has today.

For your poll, I have answered yes for the sake that I play games for the enjoyment and the gameplay, (not that realism isn't always a factor) just that I deem gameplay more important as do most other gamers. I will tell you now though, that the results of the poll will mean absolutly nothing apart from tell you how many people who were interested in the thread prefer gameplay.

[JANOSIK007]

In much the same way I could argue that historical accuracy improves gameplay.

[the_mango55]

I posted this in another thread, I think it is a brilliant observation, and it is as good as I could ever put it. its from the .org

Right from the start with Shogun, CA has provided historically flavoured strategy games not historical simulations or hardcore historical wargames. I'm a realism fan, but sometimes I think using realism as a stick to beat CA is like criticising the Rolling Stones for not playing jazz.

[Hodor]

Yeah, didn't Shogun even have the Sword Saint, a guy who could singlehandedly take down an army?

Personally, I'd like to see "exotic" units like cannon elephants to add interesting flavor to the battle, but it shouldn't be possible (or even a good idea to begin with) to create huge armies of cannon-armed pachyderms (as a Brutii player in RTW, you could just use Velites gladiators as the main unit of yours armies, which looked a bit ridiculous).
IMO, it would be best if these units weren't even avaible as a regular unit (i.e. mercenary or mission reward only), and be very expensive to recruit and keep up.

Edit: To further elaborate on that, I always saw MTW as a bit of a "Gotta catch 'em all" unit collecting game, alway hunting for provinces wth unique local units.

[Caius Britannicus]

I posted this in another thread, I think it is a brilliant observation, and it is as good as I could ever put it. its from the .org

Right from the start with Shogun, CA has provided historically flavoured strategy games not historical simulations or hardcore historical wargames. I'm a realism fan, but sometimes I think using realism as a stick to beat CA is like criticising the Rolling Stones for not playing jazz.

I completely agree. Its beginning to get annoying how many times I see people bashing CA for historical inaccuraies.

[God-Emperor of Mankind]

Will any perspective customer say "where are the elephants with cannons Im not buying this game"?

No however these units provide the factions with diversity and that does make a game fun.
Knowing that I can pick any faction and feel that there is something unique about them.
That is good gameplay.

[Lee1026]

The game features 12942214412421412 factions since thats how many little tribal guys and barons and countries that existed during the medieval time.
We also have 100% realistic uniforms for our 345325325235235 units, yes you cant tell who your men are becuase basicly all the filthy buggers wore a shade of dirt.... but its realistic!

Quit using a strawman, please. As many faction as Europa univsalis would be sufficient.

Get this!!! not only will you be able to call a crusade using authentic religious figures you get free with the game! but you habe plenty of time to make some babies with your already inbred family members in the game becuase we also made the game so historicaly accurate that soldiers march at real world speeds accross the campaign map!!!

Actual time compression (ala Europa Univeroplis) would do quite well, actually. People age realistically, and armies get raised and marched in realistic time. But you can still get though a entire game in a few weeks.

Reccomended retail price: 234535235325 pounds to help cover the costs of our staff spending the last 4 years researching and coding all those features!

Considering that games are realistic are avilible for rather low prices, I failed to see your point there. All of the history geeks around here are bsically asking for Europa Univeroplis realism combined with total war style warfare, pretty much. Hell, we would even accept RTR level of realism.

[alanschu]

Quit using a strawman, please. As many faction as Europa univsalis would be sufficient.


Actual time compression (ala Europa Univeroplis) would do quite well, actually. People age realistically, and armies get raised and marched in realistic time. But you can still get though a entire game in a few weeks.


Considering that games are realistic are avilible for rather low prices, I failed to see your point there. All of the history geeks around here are bsically asking for Europa Univeroplis realism combined with total war style warfare, pretty much. Hell, we would even accept RTR level of realism.

I love EU2, but I wouldn't call it a realistic game.