Another Open Letter to CA on the State of Total War (Dec 14 2023)

[TheVenge]

I have considered -- and ultimately hesitated -- numerous times in the last two months whether to craft a follow up to my first Open Letter, but I find today's blog post from Roger Callum simply too obvious a moment, and so here we are. Regarding the post itself, Mr. Callum: very classy, sir, and thank you. For my part, I never wanted an apology from CA for its various missteps in the last 2 years, but I did want to see an acknowledgment, because one cannot fix what one cannot name. Nevertheless, again... thank you.

However, I believe you left out two important topics in your letter.

The first missing topic is 'what CA is doing to address *old* issues in Warhammer III', not just the ones that have emerged with recent content releases. I am one of those that finds Warhammer III to be a superior experience in general over the previous Total Warhammer releases, but there are *dozens* of quality of life bugs and issues that have yet to be resolved, and these are just the ones I have started to catalogue. Some are maddeningly simple fixes, such as the "building upgrade" notification bug where the player has buildings -- and the funds -- to upgrade, but the End Turn button is staring you in the face. That one has been around since the game launched in Feb 2022! There are even some issues have followed the game from Warhammer II. Is it any wonder that some players have walked away in frustration from that, especially those like myself who were captured by CA's very public vision of a complete Warhammer experience and/or have been buying every release and DLC since the beginning in 2016? As for me, I'd prefer a massive cleanup effort for a while to polish this game back into the shape that vision deserves, over more content -- but better yet, can we have both?

The second topic that is missing from your letter is the recognition that CA needs to heal or otherwise enrich its relationship with its content creator partners and community. In addition to some rankling posts/missteps by members of your own staff... there is at least one content creator that many of us would like to see come back into the fold, and while I won't mention him by his YouTube channel name, I think we know who that is. Even the content creators that have remained seem to be in a dejected state. These content creators are probably the most visible wing of your player community, and have communities of their own. Assuming there are no unreasonable demands involved, I would like to see CA mend those partnerships and get this community flowing again as it was in the days of Warhammer II, and I am sure I'm not alone.

A final note before I close: the above is meant constructively. Many of us have been disappointed and perhaps even angry in the last couple of years, but most of us recognize that if CA fails, we all lose. Thank you (again) for your time and consideration, and a Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays.


PS - a very personal and emphatic thank you for the simultaneous multiplayer campaign in Warhammer III (finally)!

[Dismounted Feudal Knight]

It can't have been because of these threads but it is opportune timing that CA made their big announcement two months after the first thread, on the mark.

There are plenty of skeptics who see it mainly as a 'oops our hands were caught in the cookie jar' response, they knew things were failing and they knew they needed to take radical action out of sheer business survival instinct. The most compelling take is that we're looking at the upside to a long cycle in which CA needs to do something big to get over recent missteps. They do good for a game or two, and then it goes back to what we know as the status quo. Well, time can only tell where CA will be going.

I've seen more consistent calls for competition and I do hope a company can pick up on it eventually. It might not be good for CA's personal bottom line but it would be very good for the market to see what could be in a spicy, perhaps a little rough because it's new and under budget, but ambitious and well-crafted take on the formula. High modding potnetial would be a bonus of course...