As you can see here, so few posts, and in Steam, so many people using Chinese characters, this game isn't so popular among the old total war players, but it's in China.
The problem with comparing "old players" to now is that people move onto other pursuits, other platforms, they get old, have children, etc. The Steamcharts numbers are very high with this game and quite respectable in the hours when East Asia should be asleep. The TWC popularity question is different, has nothing to do with TW3K.
Yes. Anyone who wish to discuss the popularity of TWC can post a thread about it here.
Last edited by Leonardo; June 15, 2019 at 05:22 PM.
Under patronage of General Brewster of the Imperial House of Hader.
How to make Morrowind less buggy for new players - Of course every player may find it useful.
As I write this it's midnight in Europe and 5-6 a.m. Monday morning in China and there are 33,000 folks playing 3K according to Steamcharts.
I think the game is more popular than people here think. Like others said, Shogun 2 was very popular among Europeans and Americans, so why not 3K? From what I've seen it looks like a pretty interesting game, might pick it up at some point. As a European myself I'm quite interested in Chinese history.
The reasons this site will not gain popularity because of the game is because of two things. 1. is reddit. Like it or not but most people have moved onto reddit. I do browse reddit myself (and mod a sub) and I can tell you it's an absolute fest. Subreddits are always circlejerks but they do attract the more casual people, because reddit is already a very popular site. Forums like this one are dying because of reddit. I think reddit is a terrible site but I keep coming back to it for some reason. It's easy to make a sub about 3K and just let people post their memes. Most people seem content with that, with maybe a discussion about he state of the game once in a while.
Reason number 2 is the lack of modding in the recent titles. Like people said the recent games (3K included) are just not very moddable, unlike the older titles. The Paradox games all have huge modding communities and I can imagine many Total War players switched to those games too. (So did I). Mount and Blade is also a very moddable title, though we will have to see what Bannerlord will be like.
Last edited by Jansenfinn; June 16, 2019 at 05:34 PM.
Can't y'all use better metrics for your arguments? Yes, China is a big driver to why Three Kingdoms is breaking sale records. But arguing it's not selling here in the West is your own biases.
Why are we even using forum activity as a metric? Especially TWcenter. We're just not the same forum as we were back then. I lurked, I saw a huge drop-off in users after Rome 2. New blood matters and Reddit is absorbing most of them. Steam and the official forum is taking up the rest.
And for those who say Reddit is a giant meme wasteland - that's argument is irrelevant, new blood is new blood, so it doesn't change the fact it is sucking away any new blood. And that argument the Official Forum is dead, checking that forum looks plenty alive with tons of new threads made just for the past morning. So I don't get where that interpretation come from unless you're measuring by the 5.5k total threads against the 32k total threads for the Warhammer 2 forum which that means you're ignoring that Warhammer 2 has been out for 1.5 years versus 1 month.
As for better metrics, look at the Steamcharts. I'm so annoyed that I actually took the time to analyze the charts a bit. While I do have to conclude the "peak" time is markedly different from Rome 2 or Warhammer 2, the number does show Western Gamers are not just ignoring it. The peak times around Rome 2 and Warhammer is apparently 15:00 (which is 3PM EST - steamcharts does automatically display time based on your timezone). The peak time for Three Kingdoms is 10:00 AM EST (which apparently 10 PM in China), the 5 hours skewing of the peak time does probably show China. But the 15:00/3PM EST is still at ~40-50,000 users (which also means that's 3 AM China).
Three Kingdoms - https://steamcharts.com/app/779340#7d
Warhammer 2 -https://steamcharts.com/app/594570#All
Rome 2 - https://steamcharts.com/app/214950#7d
At 40-50k peak usages with a month after launch, that is in line with Rome 2 or Warhammer 2 (and all way, way higher than Thrones of Britannia) in its time.
Western Gamers are buying this game just fine. At least at the same levels as previous Total War games. So stop arguing nobody in the West is buying this game but China is buying so much that it makes up for it and then so much it's to the point of making new sales records. It seem more we are buying at the levels we have in the past, but China is driving the game to new sales records.
The reason why TWCenter is not reviving as much as it had in the past when a new game comes it is Reddit and other forum competing with this place. Not because the game isn't selling.
And let me tell you one more thing. I was here back in the Rome 1 days. I remember those days. I also remember so many members back them wanted and believed the next Total War game should be China.
That tweet probably settles the debate. Three Kingdoms certainly owns a lot of its success to its appeal on the Chinese and Korean audience, but it has also sold exceptionally well in the West, too. Although I am not interested in Chinese history, I agree that Europe again and again and again had become a bit tiresome. I'd personally prefer Central Asia/Middle East or the Americas just when the Europeans arrived, but China is a welcome change, I suppose. Let's hope however that the game's commercial success will not convince Creative Assembly to focus all its future games exclusively on China from now on!
I definitely expected that the sales success of TW 3 Kingdoms to translate / reverberate in the social media / forum aspect but this has not been the case for some reason. The game is solid, exceptionally beautiful in terms of art / UI, with great diplomacy and good core mechanics. I don't quite understand why it didn't catch on knowing that so many people clamoured for 3 Kingdoms ever since the sequel to Medieval 1 was announced - give or take 15 years ago!
It's a bit surprising and confusing.
Ja mata, TosaInu. Forever remembered.
Total War Org - https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/
Swords Made of Letters - 1938. The war is looming over France - and Alexandre Reythier does not have much time left to protect his country. A finished novel, published on TWC.
Visit ROMANIA! A land of beauty and culture!
Not really. New games have been less and less mod friendly. And as much i do think 3 kingdoms seems a good total war game... it does seem to me a rather boring Total war game at this point.
Unlike Warhammer II.
Which does have a better folowing on streams and such.
"The trouble with facts is that there are so many of them." - Samuel McChord Crothers
Wether a lot of people bought the game where ever in the world and are busy on Steam or Reddit or x-forum is not that decisive for the modding question. Where are the bigger mods? Could you give links? Are they in development? I'm not interested in Three Kingdoms (except they integrated southeast asia) and will not buy but I'm asking out of curiosity.
I think it's quite telling that the forum of TW 3 Kingdoms is not quite active. Very surprising.
Ja mata, TosaInu. Forever remembered.
Total War Org - https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/
Swords Made of Letters - 1938. The war is looming over France - and Alexandre Reythier does not have much time left to protect his country. A finished novel, published on TWC.
Visit ROMANIA! A land of beauty and culture!
Well, TWC is not representative of the Total War community, but the truth is that Three Kingdoms, despite its record on sales, experienced a dramatic decrease in players. Discussion about it has disappeared almost completely in the admittedly Warhammer-dominated reddit. According to Steam Chart, Three Kingdoms lost more players during the first months following its release than Warhammer I and II, Attila or even notoriously controversial Rome II. In what concerns the main factors behind this development, I suspect that its quality had been slightly exaggerated, while the Eight Princes DLC proved to be rather disappointing.
However, the primary reason, in my opinion, is the fact that many customers are not familiar with the politics of 2nd and 3rd century imperial China. Apart from armies looking identical, for the average Westerner, fighting with and against unknown warlords, whose names are a tad difficult to pronounce, is not as enjoyable as, for instance, role-playing as Wellington or Czarist Russia (despite the fact that the lack of diversity in armies is not less serious in vanilla Napoleon). All the above applies to modding, as well, at least regarding the majority of the forum's membership. The announcement of DLCs will probably reverse the trend, but only temporarily, in my pessimist opinion.