Creative Assembly Business Practice Discussion Thread (Attila)

[Garbarsardar]

In order to facilitate reasonable, intelligent discourse and keep the forums clean, Moderation Staff have decided to create a single thread where all user concerns about Creative Assembly's business practices vis–à–vis Total War: Attila can be discussed. Please keep discussion civil; the Terms of Service, as always, remain in full force. Moderation Staff reserves the right to merge any threads or posts relating to the topic into this thread and to cull any posts deemed unnecessary. Questions and concerns about Moderation practices should be directed to a Moderator or Administrator, or posted in the Moderation Commentary Thread.



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[AnonMilwaukean]

I am sure there will be preorder deals near release date just like with rome 2.

Like I said before, Attila may very well be to R2 what N:TW was to Empire. Who knows?

But I'm pretty sure that I'd have to be under the influence of something, at this point, to pre-order the very next TW game after having pre-ordered R2.

This time around, far safer to wait and see, at least in my opinion.

[Mr.X]

I would wait for a discount on steam. The game looks like a modded Rome 2, but the thing I'm excited about is the campaign improvements, and I really really hope we will see some improvement on the sea battles, even though they were a smaller part during that era.

[Ishan]

Buy it on Steam sale, it will go on sale in June if not sooner. And by that time it will have a few patches, so it will be semi-playable.

This. Saying no\yes to things won't change anything now. The die is cast!

[Karnil Vark Khaitan]

This. Saying no\yes to things won't change anything now. The die is cast!

"ne et tu Ishan"

But yeah It is way to early to say yaa or nay!

[WoollyMammoth]

As I was politely pointed here in another topic.

1. Find it odd that CA releases EE, after having to wait almost a year for it to be bugfixed, only to announce it's Attila is to be released 6 months later. So basically when you buy a CA game play value is 6 months?
2. How does CA expect there to be long term commitment to a title with practices like that?
3. Why not put family trees in an expansion for Rome II instead of Attila, when so many people asked for it. Why not take a Paradox Interactive approach and build on the longevity of titles with expansions such as CKII and EUIV? Attila for a fair price, could have been a great expansion for Rome II, improving on that game.
4. The marketing on Attila is revolting. Quite a number of things that have been ignored and said it would not happen the last year and a half, now all of a sudden is possible. New graphics for sea and land will make the game and more beautiful and more optimized. CA wants to add fires everywhere, yet one of the main sources of lag the last year and a half was smoke from fires. Is CA overreaching itself too much?
5. Are YouTube commentators reimbursed/ paid to fly out to presentations? And if yes, if they do not provide positive reviews are they banned from further engagements? Is CA using a press bridle/ paying writers to write articles/ comments?
6. Has all this been calculated in before hand (profit/ loss margins), and were the numbers even so that this course was taken?
7. Was CA aware of/ working on Attila, and things such as the family tree to be in Attilla, when Rome II was released?
8. Why were customers not told that in a future Rome like total war game family trees would appear again? Was CA afraid of unsatisfied customers if they would have announced that earlier?
('family tree' being one of the most requested features for Rome II after release, and one which CA was consistent of that it would not appear any time soon, however at the release of Attila did not want to dissapoint the fans as they are so important. The fans, customers, wanted the family tree in Rome II. A similar situation with the unit cards (and how the notices are displayed.))
9. What is the multiplayer community expected to be for RomeII? And will the release of Attila influence this in anyway? Will the multiplayer community become too fragmented? Not everyone has or wants to spend the money on multiple games taken place in Roman Times released by the same publisher. (especially if it takes a year after release to be up to par in an EE edition (which is almost right away obsolete again)).
10. The strategic map announced for Attila was already announced more or less for RomeII, this is not a 'new' feature as such, and was dumbed down for RomeII at release. Will the same thing happen with Attila? Should CA be more careful what to show in pre-alpha releases, and state more clearly the odds of those features getting into release? Not only based on what is shown, but how presenters pitch the product? (e.g. customer expectation management).

I will not pre-order Attila nor buy it on release, and probably a year or more after on sale somewhere, if ever. Several TW games continue to have bugs, which CA does not fix, while still selling the game. I don't see Attilla to be any different at the moment. When I first played a total war game it was magic. That magic is gone. Replaced with the negative experience of things like Empire, Rome II and follow up Napoleon and Attila (which in the trend of CA's renewal business model one can't even play as Attila?). Attila looks awesome, but so did Rome II on pre-release alpha.

Judging by the very tempered reception of the release, I'm not the only one that is completely lost on the product promotion and development of CA.

The presentation of the game itself looked awesome. Credit where credit is due. However pre-alpha presentations and demo's have left people excited before, with not getting the same results on release, and leading to day one apologies from CA, and a year and 15 patches later the (almost immediately obsolete) EE edition. Is development going faster (in a business model) than fans can keep up?

[Huberto]

Plus rep for using vis-a-vis in a sentence.

[Erus]

I distinctly remember similar statements being made following Empire and into Napoleon. I probably will not pre-order unless they offer something up that I consider worthwhile (like they did with the Greek States on Rome 2, much to my annoyance) and I am somewhat optimistic that Attila will end up being what I had wanted out of Rome 2. Only time will tell.

[Huberto]

This. Saying no\yes to things won't change anything now. The die is cast!

Well it's useful for people to register their thoughts, regardless. If TWA amounts to glorified TWR2 DLC and the fanbase picks up on that and registers its dissent, perhaps next time CA will offer something like this as DLC inside the main game instead of pretending it's something completely different and trying to get full price for it.

[JackDionne]

Will CA’s Attila be a “make or break game”, for them?
I was wondering if CA drops the ball on Attila similar to Rome II would they be able to bounce back.
We are all hoping they produce an excellent product that goes without saying but if they don’t, were does that leave them? The only difference this time I will not have wasted any money because I am not pre ordering it and from what I can see there does not seem to be many vets who will be pre ordering as well.
If “Attila” does not meet our expectations as a community will CA still have enough revenue to continue with a new project? It will be interesting to see.

[Coleus]

Will CA’s Attila be a “make or break game”, for them?
I was wondering if CA drops the ball on Attila similar to Rome II would they be able to bounce back.
We are all hoping they produce an excellent product that goes without saying but if they don’t, were does that leave them? The only difference this time I will not have wasted any money because I am not pre ordering it and from what I can see there does not seem to be many vets who will be pre ordering as well.
If “Attila” does not meet our expectations as a community will CA still have enough revenue to continue with a new project? It will be interesting to see.

That depends on whether you agree that they dropped the ball on Rome II. The release was catastrophic but the subsequent patching more than saved the game. I expect that Attila will follow in a long line of superior expansions to original titles.

[DisgruntledGoat]

Drop the ball with Rome II? Rome II was a success, it was well reviewed and sold well (and continues to sell well). It is an exaggeration of this "hardcore fan" community that it was a disaster that has irreparably hurt the company. TW games have become more mainstream with each release and have therefore have become more and more of a success. Attila is not a make or break game.

[Sharpe]

Drop the ball with Rome II? Rome II was a success, it was well reviewed and sold well (and continues to sell well). It is an exaggeration of this "hardcore fan" community that it was a disaster that has irreparably hurt the company. TW games have become more mainstream with each release and have therefore have become more and more of a success. Attila is not a make or break game.

Yep. Pretty much this.

Rome 2 sold amazingly. As will Atilla.

[kronpas]

Drop the ball with Rome II? Rome II was a success, it was well reviewed and sold well (and continues to sell well). It is an exaggeration of this "hardcore fan" community that it was a disaster that has irreparably hurt the company. TW games have become more mainstream with each release and have therefore have become more and more of a success. Attila is not a make or break game.

Despite the hate CA deserves, this post makes sense

But IMO the extremely hardcore vocal minor is actually quite important as they dig into every single missing detail to tell CA whats wrong with their game, something which the more casual ones will not realize or simply discard as "incompetence" then throw the game to the trash bin without any feedback whatsoever. The return of family tree, more 'traditional' UI are examples.

[PlPs]

I trust CA, they will not drop the ball. Like DisgruntledGoat already said, Rome 2 was a success and I believe Attila will be well too.

[Causeless]

There's no make or break, a single game isn't going to do that. Whether Attila is a massive failure or a huge success, CA will just go on.

[Cope]

Drop the ball with Rome II? Rome II was a success, it was well reviewed and sold well (and continues to sell well). It is an exaggeration of this "hardcore fan" community that it was a disaster that has irreparably hurt the company. TW games have become more mainstream with each release and have therefore have become more and more of a success. Attila is not a make or break game.

It was a complete disaster from a player's perspective, but a success from a corporate perspective. What irritates the "hardcore fan" community is the fact that CA can release half-baked, poorly designed crap and still make record profits.

The fact is that Rome II sold exceptionally well for two reasons:

1. It was riding the "Total War" wave which was formed by CA's excellent releases in the past.
2. The time period (Ancient Rome) is very accessible and popular. Thus when you combine the great name of TW with the epic nature of antiquity, you create exceptional potential to make money.

Back to the point in question, Attila is not a make or break game. The TW reputation is still good (even though it was obviously dented by Rome II). If however, they mess up Attila like they did Rome II, I think that the long term effects will definitely show for whatever game they release subsequently.

[Huberto]

The fact is that Rome II sold exceptionally well for two reasons:

Reading SEGA's corporate reports, it's clear TWR2 sales were disappointing.

For example, see page 20 of this presentation:
http://www.segasammy.co.jp/english/p...e__final__.pdf

"Although domestic [i.e. Japanese ] sales remained strong, overseas sales of new titles were weak....[we] launched several new titles including Total War: Rome II..."

To answer the OP, no - Warhammer and Alien are far more make or break. Those are new titles, this is glorified DLC and can't be expected to sell well.

[Causeless]

Reading SEGA's corporate reports, it's clear TWR2 sales were disappointing.

To answer the OP, no - Warhammer and Alien are far more make or break. Those are new titles, this is glorified DLC and can't be expected to sell well.

What are you talking about? TWR2 were HUGE, it was their biggest game. It managed 6 times the pre-orders of Shogun 2 and sold 1.13 million units in about half a year.

[Greve Af Göteborg]

I think that a lot of people that were burned by Rome 2 won't buy Atilla.