Creative Assembly Business Practice Discussion Thread (Attila)

[GussieFinkNottle]

Still gonna nag you about it, remove the word 'chav' from the OP or get reported. This is not trivial. You (I hope) wouldn't use a racially prejudiced slur, so don't use a socially prejudiced one.

[Cope]

Medieval 2 is basically a reskinned Rome, by those standards...

Except in Medieval's case there were major graphical upgrades and largely revamped campaign and battle mechanics. Let's not also forget that it was an entirely new period.

By contrast, Attila looks like Rome II + Family Tree + new unit skins.

[Avehand1]

I love it how you brush off Attila as if though he was a horse riding idiot, when in fact he was one of the main instigators of the migration era, thanks to his hordes displacing hundreds of thousands of tribesmen to look for refuge in the WRE

[Butan]

Attila looks like Rome II + Family Tree + new unit skins.

Lets not forget the UI, a wonderful work that is worth every penny they will ask for. Its very unfortunate that noone succeeded in modding them on Rome 2, most moddable Total War game

[Magister Militum Flavius Aetius]

That's not how it worked Avehand. Migration Theory is far more complex than the 19th Century Textbook definition you gave there.

[Anna_Gein]

And?

That's doesn't oppose the point I'm making,
which is Attila has no relation to Rome 2 in terms of you don't need to own Rome 2 in order to play Attila.

Since the two game will share data, it sounds only natural that improvement made for latter would be introduced to the first.

[Caligula's_Horse]

I'd say that seeing as CA is the one making the game, they have a right to name it whatever they want. The fans aren't entitled to the series; if you don't like it, don't buy it, and stop whining.
The name doesn't really bother me all that much either way. I care about the game being good; they can misleadingly name it 'yurt construction simulator' for all I care so long as the game itself is enjoyable.

As for Atilla himself, he was no minor figure. While his empire didn't survive his death, his conquests redrew the political situation and nation's borders, and either killed off or displaced very large groups of people. At the time he was active, he and his hordes were very much boogie men used to frighten the "civilized" world.
I usually lump him together in the same category as Alexander the Great, in fact (if less of a military genius). They both built a massive empire that came crashing down like a house of cards the minute they weren't around, complete with breakaway territories and warring successor states. No one would call Alexander a nobody, despite his bloody work being little better then Attila's, other then perhaps the military side of things being better handled.

[Causeless]

Except in Medieval's case there were major graphical upgrades and largely revamped campaign and battle mechanics. Let's not also forget that it was an entirely new period.

By contrast, Attila looks like Rome II + Family Tree + new unit skins.

Attila has a different art style and big graphical upgrades, too, with normal mapping and more particle effects and so on. The nature of hardware advances means that the difference between Rome and Medieval 2 are bigger than Rome 2 and Attila, in the same way that PS3 games looked fantastically better than PS2 ones but PS4 games aren't THAT much better than PS3 ones.

And it's several hundred years after Rome 2... If you are going to call Attila the same as Rome 2 because the Romans still exist, you may as well call Medieval 2 the same as Attila because the Eastern Roman Empire (Byzantium) still exists... All the factions are new either in name or culture, all the units are new, there's new music, new sound effects and voice acting...

And battle mechanics? What did Medieval 2 change there? The battles were pretty much the same, features-wise, just with all new units and mechanical changes mods could make. Attila has mechanical changes, new units, but also more emphasis on fire, settlement damage lowering morale, and so on.

On the campaign side, Medieval 2 added merchants and crusades, and a lot of research due to the games large time-frame. Attila also does a lot, however - CA stated that the tech tree, if the player focuses in one area, would actually extent a few hundred years ahead of the game's timeframe, and it has new mechanics such as siege escalation, scorched earth, and re-introduces stuff like the family tree.

I still don't see how Medieval 2 can deserve it's own game while Attila supposedly cannot.

[The Roman Republic]

Since the two game will share data, it sounds only natural that improvement made for latter would be introduced to the first.

Are you intentionally not comprehending the point I'm making.

These 'improvements' are not going to be ported over. And why should they, it's a new game.

Were the BITW features ported back to RTW? Were the ATW ported back to RTW? Were the M2TW graphical enhancements ported back to RTW? Were the NTW features ported back to ETW?

,

Medieval 2 is basically a reskinned Rome, by those standards...

How can you even say that when clearly it isn't on so many levels.

-It brought out a new graphical overhaul
-A new system in settlement building in terms of castles or cities
-Brought more diplomatic gameplay and tactical in terms of the new agents
-unit visual upgrade system (which if I'm sure has not been seen since)
-and loads more, like in-dept character traits, new battle maps etc etc

[texoman81]

Attila has a different art style and big graphical upgrades, too, with normal mapping and more particle effects and so on. The nature of hardware advances means that the difference between Rome and Medieval 2 are bigger than Rome 2 and Attila, in the same way that PS3 games looked fantastically better than PS2 ones but PS4 games aren't THAT much better than PS3 ones.

And it's several hundred years after Rome 2... If you are going to call Attila the same as Rome 2 because the Romans still exist, you may as well call Medieval 2 the same as Attila because the Eastern Roman Empire (Byzantium) still exists... All the factions are new either in name or culture, all the units are new, there's new music, new sound effects and voice acting...

And battle mechanics? What did Medieval 2 change there? The battles were pretty much the same, features-wise, just with all new units and mechanical changes mods could make. Attila has mechanical changes, new units, but also more emphasis on fire, settlement damage lowering morale, and so on.

On the campaign side, Medieval 2 added merchants and crusades, and a lot of research due to the games large time-frame. Attila also does a lot, however - CA stated that the tech tree, if the player focuses in one area, would actually extent a few hundred years ahead of the game's timeframe, and it has new mechanics such as siege escalation, scorched earth, and re-introduces stuff like the family tree.

I still don't see how Medieval 2 can deserve it's own game while Attila supposedly cannot.

Attila is simply Barbarian Invasion 2. Comparing it to M2 makes no sense, M2 improved total war in almost every aspect. AI was greatly improved. More playable factions. Most moddable TW to date. Greatly expanded the role of religion introduced in BI. Graphics are greatly improved. Each soldier in a unit is no longer identical to the others. Castles as a separate settlement type. Settlements can be renamed. Crusades and jihads added. Guilds system implemented. Thats just off the top of my head. While it is obviously built on the same engine as Rome I, it was well worth the price and most people did not feel cheated when they bought it. At release the game functioned as intended (was not a beta) and received almost unanimous praise from critics. The jump in time and therefore change to everything in the game is greater than BI 1 & 2. BI one added as much if not more than BI 2 will. Most of what they are adding should have been there in Rome II and can't even be called new or added. The only innovations of BI2 is dynamic fire and abandoning settlements. That does not warrant a new title and sure doesn't deserve to be compared to Medieval II. Yes Medieval II was just a mod of Rome I but it was well done and only the second title off that engine.

the problems with Rome II and BI II come down to the fact that CA has gotten lazy and has continued to use the same engine since Empire. TW1 and TW2 were each used for 2 games each. TW3 has now been used for 6 stand alone games and much more dlc/expansion for each game than before. To disguise the fact that they continue to sell us mods of empire, they tried to add improved graphical elements like animated faces, death animations and huge cities that grow on the map. Since the engine is dated and still 32 bits, they have limited resources available and had to cut feature to make room for the new ones. Now they are promising to bring back some of these cut features but makes me wonder what going to be cut next. Add to all this the amount of deceptions and outright lies coming from CA and it creates a very unhappy fan base. Rome II had the biggest budget of any TW game. They should have created a new 64 bit engine and built a game that lived up the the prerelease hype. Rome II would have easily sold 5 million copies.

[Causeless]

My point is, Attila adds plenty to be it's own game. It's bringing back a load of features and implementing new ones.

I'm not saying Medieval 2 is a reskinned Rome. My points is that it's not - to say that would be dumb - I'm using Reductio ad absurdum to show that Attila adds enough to be it's own game.

[Humble Warrior]

My point is, Attila adds plenty to be it's own game. It's bringing back a load of features and implementing new ones.

I'm not saying Medieval 2 is a reskinned Rome. My points is that it's not - to say that would be dumb - I'm using Reductio ad absurdum to show that Attila adds enough to be it's own game.

Perhaps, if what we are told is true, but should it be?

[Abdülmecid I]

My point is, Attila adds plenty to be it's own game. It's bringing back a load of features and implementing new ones.

Umm, aren't you the guy who complained that Jack lied about guard mode? How do you know that what CA claims are true? I mean CA said this is a totally new game, so obviously what they'll reveal will point out that it's going to be a really new game. It's a logical fallacy, while common sense dictates that it's just an expansion.

[Huberto]

Perhaps, if what we are told is true, but should it be?

What we are being told isn't worthy of a new game, only a cut-rate expansion. TWA's "new" features are check-the-box peripheral improvements or reintroducing old features-- to make a new game to meet CA's business plan.

Sure there are aspects of the "new" game designed that address some of fan's complaints about TWR2, without actually updating R2. That's a key component of the business model. Be seen to be improving the game, at the cost of one new game to purchase per year. Moreover, we're still being asked to fund 32 bit games designed on the "Warscape" engine for crying out loud.

Look at the critics' reaction to Alien: Isolation if you want to see a real-time example of how the business plan plays out for CA. Critics love Alien: Isolation. For the first three hours. CA is going for that 90% metacritic score. What critic has time to play it over the twenty hours it's designed for? So what I'm hearing is that it's very good but should be designed to last for six hours not twenty. CA/SEGA has stretched the game to 20 hours to justify the $50-60 price tag.

And so, TWA stretches what TWR2 should have been, adding some new artwork and gimmicks like climate change, fire and disease, and calling it a completely new game. Let's hope it's priced at $25-30 instead of $40-60. But we both know it won't be.

[texoman81]

My point is, Attila adds plenty to be it's own game. It's bringing back a load of features and implementing new ones.

I'm not saying Medieval 2 is a reskinned Rome. My points is that it's not - to say that would be dumb - I'm using Reductio ad absurdum to show that Attila adds enough to be it's own game.

readding features that were in most total war games is not adding plenty of its own. As i said before all that is new so far is dynamic fire and abandoning settlements. If that is worth the price of a new game to you, then go right ahead and buy Barbarian Invasion II. You might not have meant M2 is R reskinned, but the actually is. They both are TW2, but Medieval II was worth its price tag. If you had done any modding before you would know how similar they are under the hood. M2 wasn't held back by the engine because the engine wasn't that old and the engine hadn't been pushed to its limits because Rome I was more limited by the computers being used at the time. By simply increasing hard coded limits based on what most computers could handle the game became much better. In fact since CA likes to make maximum profit on minimum effort, they should do what many gaming companies are doing and rerelease M2 with improved graphics as well as increasing the hard coded limits to match what modern computers can handle. M2 with 50 factions, better ai, better graphics and small improvements all around would be great for modding. Not as good as a properly functioning new 64 bit engine with proper mod tools but better than the dated TW3 games we have been getting with increasingly limited moddablilty. 2 titles with the same engine is to be expected. 4 was even acceptable esp,ecially when you consider that Napoleon and Fall of the Samurai should have just been expansions. Making Rome II, on the same old engine when it had the largest budget and most hype of any TW game ever is simply inexcusable. And now to make it even worse they are selling Barbarian Invasion 2 as a 6th stand alone game with the same engine. They hype Rome II as the most moddabled tw to date when the reality is its the least moddable. Modding the campaign map is even possible in Shogun II now. Even with all the lip service they've given mods, including mod summit and mod awards, Mod tools are still in beta and the only new ability modders have gained is music.

[Causeless]

I don't know if what I've been told is true or not, but we don't exactly have any choice other than to believe it until the game comes out...

[texoman81]

I don't know if what I've been told is true or not, but we don't exactly have any choice other than to believe it until the game comes out...

of course we have a choice of whether or not to believe someone who has lied to us repetitively. Remember the unit editor that was supposed to come with Empire? what ever happened to it? they were caught using cut units in dlc. the horrendous condition of both Empire and Rome II at release. CA has completely lost credibility so to blindly believe them still would be irrational. I'm hope i'm wrong about this, but it seems like they consider Total War a dying series and they are simply trying to squeeze as much money out of it as possible before completely giving up on. People lie, number don't. Just compare the 3 total war engines.


TW1 (2000-2003) 3 years, 2 stand alone titles, 2 dlc/expansions
Shogun, Mongol Invasion
Medieval, Viking Invasion


TW2 (2004-2007) 3 years, 2 stand alone titles, 3 dlc/expansions
Rome, Barbarian Invasion, Alexander
Medieval II, Kingdoms


TW3 (2008-?) at least 8 years, 6 stand alone titles so far, 28 dlc/expansions and counting
Empire, Warpath, elite units East, elite units West, elite units Amercia, Special forces
Napoleon, Peninsular Campaign, Imperial Guard, Coalition, Heroes of the Napoleonic wars, Imperial Eagle
Shogun 2, Rise of the Samurai, Ikko-Ikki, Sengoku Jidai, Saints & Heroes, Hattori, Blood, Otomo
Shogun 2: Fall of the Samurai, Tsu, Saga, Oboma, Sendai
Rome II, Caesar, Hannibal, Greeks, Nomads, Balkans, Blood, Beasts, Daughters, more to come
Attila, ????


ps if you STILL believe everything CA says, i have to be really honest with you. I'm really a Nigerian prince and i have been authorized to sell you some oceanfront property in Arizona for the low low price of $50,000. Send it in unmarked $100 bills. If you act now for an additional $50,000 i will thrown in the Brooklyn Bridge. You have no choice but to believe me until you try to take advantage of this amazing oppurtinity

[LestaT]

If you don't trust CA then why are you still here ? I hope for an honest answer and not asking you to go away or anything.

[Cope]

I pretty much agree with Texoman about the Engine stuff.

Not only is it outdated, but it actually fails to competently perform what Total War requires of it. CA need to invest in a new engine for their next major release - something they've failed to do since Empire. My guess is that they just don't want to shell out for a new engine.

[LestaT]

According to Modding Summit report it's already in the planned though not sure when or which game.

TW future

Major axes of evolution are:

Increasing data size and complexity
Example : being able to process data using parallel threads, something that appears to be quite difficult to program

Evolving from 32 bits architecture to 64 bits architecture to solve memory addressing issues (NDLA : quite likely one of the biggest challenge today).
Supporting multi-OS : Windows,Linux (Steam OS).