How Could CA Improve their Relationship with the Community?

[bigdaddy1204]

Ooh! Brutal! And true.

What's your opinion on Attila? I'm playing as the Western Roman Empire. It's considerably harder even than the Roman campaign in RTW:BI. I had to think a bit about the DLC aspect of the game; I have the Viking Forefathers DLC which was released on day one, although on recollection I didn't pay for it - I had already pre-ordered. I haven't paid for any of the Attila DLCs (although I may go for Last Roman or possibly the desert kingdoms at some point). In Rome II, I pre-ordered and got the Greek States, but I also paid to download the Wrath of Sparta, the Black Sea colonies, and the Blood & Gore. I didn't buy any of the other DLCs, including Caesar and Hannibal, nor the beasts of war and any others I missed.

[Napoleon Complex]

Uhh...

I'm on the fence with Total War in general, if only because I can't really justify it to myself these days. I've not completed a campaign in years now. Still... as I still enjoy loading up a game and playing the odd battle now and then I'll throw my two cents in.

I figure, if you really want to get people on board, show us people playing through a campaign. Not a script, not one isolated battle, show us the game on the campaign map. Like a pre-release Lets Play. It doesn't have to go all the way through, I just want to see enough to get an idea of what goes on in a normal campaign game. If I see that and decide "Yeah, that looks cool, these guys have something to show!" then I'm not only more likely to buy, I am almost guaranteed to, DLC troubles or not. There's more than enough material in a single campaign to justify the game's price tag (how long does your average TW campaign last compared to most game's single player modes? There are probably more hours in TW games than there are in Skyrim) and as long as those campaigns are engaging, authentic and provide a reasonable challenge without hitting us on the face with a frozen kipper, I reckon the vast majority of gamers will be happy.

Best part of that is it shouldn't be too expensive. Unlike the stuff that went into Rome II, which I can only describe as a marketing blitz.

[Fredrin]

Ooh! Brutal! And true.

What's your opinion on Attila? I'm playing as the Western Roman Empire. It's considerably harder even than the Roman campaign in RTW:BI. I had to think a bit about the DLC aspect of the game; I have the Viking Forefathers DLC which was released on day one, although on recollection I didn't pay for it - I had already pre-ordered. I haven't paid for any of the Attila DLCs (although I may go for Last Roman or possibly the desert kingdoms at some point). In Rome II, I pre-ordered and got the Greek States, but I also paid to download the Wrath of Sparta, the Black Sea colonies, and the Blood & Gore. I didn't buy any of the other DLCs, including Caesar and Hannibal, nor the beasts of war and any others I missed.

I'm mostly quite a fan of Attila. They added a fair amount of feature richness to the campaign side and the added challenge makes for an interesting game, even if a lot of that extra difficulty is derived from contrived mechanics such as the Empire Corruption penalty to income or the Great Power diplo penalty.

Lugotorix, a member of this forum, wrote a great review of The Last Roman (here). Although I liked the attention to history and some interesting roleplay/narrative elements, the expansion didn't really do it for me. I find battles way too fast in Attila and having played a lot of Rome II (despite not getting much of a kick from it) the whole formula felt tired by the time I played TLR. Attila did borrow heavily from its predecessor after all.

[craziii]

^ Scarily familiar

Except it missed the final step:

7. Ignore all the lessons of the last thing-gate, rinse and repeat for all future titles while pretending it doesn't hurt sales revenue at all

didn't want to be a jerk but the entire point of that comic just flew right over your head at million miles per hour.

[craziii]

Uhh...

I'm on the fence with Total War in general, if only because I can't really justify it to myself these days. I've not completed a campaign in years now. Still... as I still enjoy loading up a game and playing the odd battle now and then I'll throw my two cents in.

I figure, if you really want to get people on board, show us people playing through a campaign. Not a script, not one isolated battle, show us the game on the campaign map. Like a pre-release Lets Play. It doesn't have to go all the way through, I just want to see enough to get an idea of what goes on in a normal campaign game. If I see that and decide "Yeah, that looks cool, these guys have something to show!" then I'm not only more likely to buy, I am almost guaranteed to, DLC troubles or not. There's more than enough material in a single campaign to justify the game's price tag (how long does your average TW campaign last compared to most game's single player modes? There are probably more hours in TW games than there are in Skyrim) and as long as those campaigns are engaging, authentic and provide a reasonable challenge without hitting us on the face with a frozen kipper, I reckon the vast majority of gamers will be happy.

Best part of that is it shouldn't be too expensive. Unlike the stuff that went into Rome II, which I can only describe as a marketing blitz.

pre order for bonus. don't play when it unlocks. watch some live stream on twitch and gets to ask questions in real time or watch some campaign vids on youtube. now you can either start playing or opt for the refund. voila.

[MissRarity]

Disband, kickstart a new ''total-war'' ish game, perhaps in WW1.

There. Easy.

[Col. Tartleton]

There's no point trying to cater to our community, we've shown ourselves more than willing to burn our bridges with CA over the past several releases.

Yep. This forum is a perfect example of why there's no benefit to having any dialogue with a community.

[Fredrin]

didn't want to be a jerk but the entire point of that comic just flew right over your head at million miles per hour.

Don't worry man, I got the whole "fickle mob" jibe. My point was, when pushed too far, that mob mayn't be as fickle as some at SEGA HQ might like!

[Fredrin]

Yep. This forum is a perfect example of why there's no benefit to having any dialogue with a community.

I'd be interested to know when there did exist dialogue with the community in the case of CA and TW games. I started following forums just before Rome II and it seemed mostly to do with the awful release state, questionable game design and shameless DLC-milking that burnt the bridges with the community, rather than them being inherently anti-developer.

[DavidtheDuke]

I'd be interested to know when there did exist dialogue with the community in the case of CA and TW games. I started following forums just before Rome II and it seemed mostly to do with the awful release state, questionable game design and shameless DLC-milking that burnt the bridges with the community, rather than them being inherently anti-developer.

This forum has been like this since Rome 1 at the least, since I've been here before even then. CA pretty much every game releases what feels like something just coming out of alpha. I'm used to it by now, but the forum is always getting new people who are flabbergasted by CA's latest unimaginable bugs.

[Fredrin]

This forum has been like this since Rome 1 at the least, since I've been here before even then. CA pretty much every game releases what feels like something just coming out of alpha. I'm used to it by now, but the forum is always getting new people who are flabbergasted by CA's latest unimaginable bugs.

It's a pretty sorry state of affairs when premature releases and shady practices basically preclude much civil interaction between developers and community. I'd hazard a guess the devs themselves aren't too keen on it either, but it's the decisions of senior execs that lead to it happening in the first place.

[Napoleon Complex]

pre order for bonus. don't play when it unlocks. watch some live stream on twitch and gets to ask questions in real time or watch some campaign vids on youtube. now you can either start playing or opt for the refund. voila.

Not a bad suggestion. I think I'll do just that.

[DavidtheDuke]

It's a pretty sorry state of affairs when premature releases and shady practices basically preclude much civil interaction between developers and community. I'd hazard a guess the devs themselves aren't too keen on it either, but it's the decisions of senior execs that lead to it happening in the first place.

That's what I"ve concluded over the years. I don't think I've ever seen a CA rep or dev say exactly what happened with Rome 2's siege AI, for example. It obviously didn't work and any TW dev rep had to have known it was completely busted. But all we got was a "sorry, woops" by the head guy and nothing didn't have to change at all. I do think they have a giant blind spot though since they don't let community members do closed beta tests. It'd help alot, but maybe the community isn't he majority of their purchasers, either.

I always go back to this philosophy: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ezyjsaLUrpg

Like I've posted before, Devin said what I've thought for a few years wrt to CA: We're not actually the target audience, we're just a minority of the most dedicated.

[hep]

The thing that I can't understand is that they've obviously invested in a community team, servers to run a forum, equipment to make rally point videos etc. so they have the intention to build good community relations, but they don't really seem to be doing anything positive with it.

If anything this community management only seems to make the community more angry than if there was no community engagement at all. I actually think they would have better public relations if they stopped doing community engagement altogether.
Surely it's better to ignore people by default, rather than be seen to be actively ignoring people?

It wouldn't surprise me if they've managed to turn away more people than they've brought in.

They have the equipment, they have the staff, they have allocated funding towards community management. The only reason I can think that this isn't working is because the management is making poor decisions regarding community engagement.
They seem to see the community stuff as a way of advertising only, anything that doesn't directly create sales is a waste of time. Hence why we see videos of that bloody bag instead of answers to questions.

If you go on the official forums and ask "which are the playable races in the game?" a member of staff will have responded within a few hours because that is a question that plays into their advertising, which means they are allowed to answer, even when it is buried in some random thread, but if you ask them a non advert friendly question you don't get an answer, or you get an "I'll look into it".

I think there is some very poor management decisions being made, at CA, by someone or some people that don't really understand or see the benefit of creating a community, but know that they should be creating a community because it works for other companies.
It wouldn't surprise me if that same person or people was behind the decision to launch rome 2, empire etc. unfinished, because there seems to be a lot of similar "short term benefit" decisions from CA rather than working towards the long term security of the company.

Maybe sending the senior management on community management training would be a good start, followed by allowing the community team more freedom to engage with the community.

[HigoChumbo]

The thing that I can't understand is that they've obviously invested in a community team, servers to run a forum, equipment to make rally point videos etc. so they have the intention to build good community relations, but they don't really seem to be doing anything positive with it.

It's not so much about investing in good community relations than about having a shiny store window to showcase their games and keep people hyped about them.

[Fredrin]

That's what I"ve concluded over the years. I don't think I've ever seen a CA rep or dev say exactly what happened with Rome 2's siege AI, for example. It obviously didn't work and any TW dev rep had to have known it was completely busted. But all we got was a "sorry, woops" by the head guy and nothing didn't have to change at all. I do think they have a giant blind spot though since they don't let community members do closed beta tests. It'd help alot, but maybe the community isn't he majority of their purchasers, either.

I always go back to this philosophy: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ezyjsaLUrpg

Like I've posted before, Devin said what I've thought for a few years wrt to CA: We're not actually the target audience, we're just a minority of the most dedicated.

Definitely worth the repost. Devin's analysis is one of the most astute out there by a long shot.

The question I was left with is this: even though we are probably in a minority, how small does that minority have to be before it's written off as insignificant? A small amount of well-placed investment in a few key areas could work wonders in recouping trust from the community and loyal followers from quality game design. I feel that it's CA's gross ignorance about its fanbase and pressure from publishers that prevents it from spending in those areas where it would see a great return on investment.

As a rough example, let's assume that the average customer spends $100 on games and DLC over the course of the whole trilogy. In that time, the trilogy attracts 4 million customers (not unlikely given Rome II's 1.5m).

Even if that minority only constitutes 5% of customers, that is a loss of $20 million. Is that acceptable? Is it even acceptable to *risk* losing that amount of revenue? That amount could probably finance at a year or more's development of another game!

[Ichon]

There is a marketing truism that the best marketing and hype is the worst thing you can do for a poor product. Rome II at launch was a poor product. However after several patches Rome II was mostly fixed and so everyone who purchased or spent much time playing after that point had an overall positive experience. It was the people most hyped about the launch who felt the most betrayal and are now reacting to the pre-order announcement as well people who've never played a TW game but abhor the ever increasing DLC that publishers and developers implementing.

In that regard CA's marketing team did a great job with Rome II generating hype and was let down by the rest of the studio or particularly the AI team and lead designers. However the community management since seems to believe behaving as normal without acknowledging any stumbles is the best option and in that regard I think they are wrong. Rome II's failure was relatively well publicized and 100s of youtube videos are easily accessed online so that anyone can easily look up CA's past history. Building a reputation for poor releases is bad enough but adding other crappy practices and displaying general disregard for the most devoted fans seems a bad idea and a bit of a different direction than the most successful franchises are moving.

The only thing in CA's favor is that every once in awhile they produce a pretty good game that mostly resets the whole cycle and brings in enough new customers plus a few extra to more than replace those pissed off enough to abandon the franchise.

[HigoChumbo]

Building a reputation for poor releases is bad enough but adding other crappy practices and displaying general disregard for the most devoted fans seems a bad idea and a bit of a different direction than the most successful franchises are moving.

I wonder what would happen sales-wise if they actually went "hey guys, release is next week and regretfuly, as we've grown used to with almost every Total War release, the game is going to come out of the oven a bit buggy, but we promise that we will work hard on it post-release as usual to fix inconsistencies as soon as possible. Now, for those of you guys who despite this warning decide to put their faith in us and buy the game now when the edges are still a bit rough, therefore supporting further development, here is a free Chaos dlc to reward your trust. We really appreciate the vote of confidence."

I for once would completelly comprehend the situation, even when it would be exactly the same as it is right now, only with a change of wording and attitude on CA's part. In general, I don't think their reputation would suffer as much as if they instead just used their signature strategy of hiding the fact that the game is broken and recycled behind an avalanch of cool trailers, overhyped previews and misleading interviews which achieve nothing but to create a sentiment of disappointment towards the studio when the game comes out. If there are already some fans today who despite CA's dishonest practices and robotic approach to the community still claim that they are going to buy as many of their products as come out just to support the franchise because it's one of a kind... just imagine how many more people would do the same if they gave an impression of being a friendly, close, sincere and transparent developer.


I would really like to know what are the actual reasons why they fear an honest approach to the community so much.

[Huberto]

I'd be interested to know when there did exist dialogue with the community in the case of CA and TW games. I started following forums just before Rome II and it seemed mostly to do with the awful release state, questionable game design and shameless DLC-milking that burnt the bridges with the community, rather than them being inherently anti-developer.

Yes. There was a huge falling out with CA in 2009 over ETW, due to it's terrible state at release, and the promises/marketing of that game. Of course the community manager was at the forefront of hyping the game pre-release. Post-release there was also tension because of the lack of promised mod tools and the reluctance of CA to continue to patch the game (it was moving on to NTW announced in 2009). Empire also marks the beginning of overpriced DLC, Steam and other business practices that have annoyed some people in the community.

Things got a bit better after NTW, and CA brought in a new community manager around the time of Shogun 2 who spent a lot more time here and elsewhere sharing company perspectives about the game and listening. Mod tools also arrived (for Shogun 2). However with Rome II -- both the extended, misleading PR campaign and its shockingly bad state at release, wrecked that relationship. To CA's credit, it spent a year patching TWR2, but if anything the DLC has gotten worse and Attila now seems forgotten.

CA's community managers are in a tough spot. It isn't easy to defend the indefensible, and the business practices seem as atrocious as ever, so they do rally points and maybe post on the official forums which I understand are heavily censored (?) They basically need the next game to be a success to rebuild the bridges that, as you point out, have been blown by the company's actions.

[HigoChumbo]

~ I've merged the two "trust in CA" threads because the arguments were starting to converge in the same point and it's more convenient not to have so many different threads on what's essentially the same discussion. We will probably do the same in a few days and join this with the sticky "CA business practice discussion thread" to keep things tidy and easier to keep track of, so be advised. ~