CA response

[craziii]

he is actually defending EA and battle front. to be beyond hate or care, why would he still be here? shouldn't he be out of here in a heartbeat in search of a game worth his precious time?

[Totalheadache]

he is actually defending EA and battle front. to be beyond hate or care, why would he still be here? shouldn't he be out of here in a heartbeat in search of a game worth his precious time?

The really original "if you dont care why are you posting here" line.

Really? Perhaps I come here just to give people a little dose of reality or answer some rubbish that gets posted or perhaps it's so that just maybe someone might read and think twice about pre-ordering or blindly buying a CA product...

And actually for whatever the reason it's absolutely none of your business..

p.d and actually EA do make good games just they also pursue arguably crappy pricing/dlc policies. Here's angry Joes rant on EA and battlefront so you know what am I talking about...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g8vR-I3ccCA

[HigoChumbo]

ca must make a clone of EU4 because higo insists! I dunno how to respond to that degree of self importance

I'd ask you to refrain from distorting my arguments, since I have never said that. I said that if someone were to copy the other, it should be CA the ones copying some features from Paradox. I never said that "CA must make a clone of EU4".

why do you keep on trying to cut up the tw game into pieces when it is the sum of all it's part that is magical?

So if I buy a very expensive Ferrari and equip it with cheap tires, am I not allowed to point out that the car itself is so much better than the tires even when the car does indeed need tires to move? Is it nonsensical to state that despite that, the tires are the worst part of the whole and that the overal product would improve immensely if I used higher quality tires instead?

Please.

do you honestly see paradox style diplomacy working in a tw game? where the ultimate objective is to conquer?

Yes. I like to conquer. I just don't like my conquering to be a meaningless cakewalk. To me, it's a lot more fun to be able to negotiate with France just to get Rousillon from them after a really bloody and hard war than conquering the entirety of Gaul in 10 turns with no challenge at all.

The campaign map gives battles in TW cohesion and narrative, and it so happens that I find the narrative in Europa Universalis so much more interesting. It's more fun, in my opinion, to conquer when you see a window of opportunity than to just keep going forward endlessly steamrolling all your enemies with no consequences at all.

I really don't mind people liking certain aspect of games like you do higo, but it gets on my nerves when people claims so n so devs are better with nothing to back it up.

Again, stop twisting my arguments. I never said Paradox is a better developer. I said that a certain aspect of their games (campaign, diplomacy) is, in my opinion, much better than those same aspects in TW. I also said that Paradox does not have a chance to compete in CA's field of expertise due to a lack of resources and experience.

which is why I honestly don't understand the hate ca is still getting from some posters. the buyers have at least 2 options right now and plenty of time to make up their minds.

I don't get why you constantly label discerning opinions as "hate".

Voicing one's concerns about a situation one does not like is not hating, it's caring.

he is actually defending EA and battle front. to be beyond hate or care, why would he still be here? shouldn't he be out of here in a heartbeat in search of a game worth his precious time?

I don't preciselly like EA, and I don't like some of the things they did to Battlefield or most of what they are doing to Battlefront, but that said, it's undeniable that the pre-order dlc for Battlefront is much more reasonable than the pre-order dlc for Warhammer. Just a couple of emotes and three alternative flavour weapons.

As I've previously said, what CA has done here would have been the equivalent to making Boba Fett the pre-order bonus for Battlefront. And again, not even that would have been an issue if they had the confidence of their customers and knew they were ultimatelly going to get a great game.

Could someone explain to me how CA intend to pay for the fifth playable faction (Chaos Warriors) in the first game? Apparently they never budgeted for the Chaos Warriors.

I guess they will pay that with the income they get from the pre-orders. Not preciselly the most expensive and resource-consuming part of the game. And they have recycled some already made assets from other factions (like the trolls, or the humans).

Seriously they're making good games for a dying platform, with minimal profits, and you want to complain about how you don't get to play as Chaos unless you buy a goddamn DLC.

The platform is dying precisely because it has always been a relatively more niche genre (compared to shooters, for instance), and therefore the whole industry is shifting away from it in order to catter to a more casual and profitable public. CA is following that same trend which made strategy a marginalized genre in the first place, so let's not dress them yet with the beaten up lamb costume. Now, if they were making actual niche games because those were the games they want to make, giving more importance to fulfilling a cohesive creative vision over just trying to catter to as wider an audience as possible (as they have just recognized above) in order to maximize profits, then we would be talking about a different story.

I don't think they have minimal profits when they have been recycling the same game since 2009 and when their last major release sold more than two million copies, making it the highest-selling TW ever.

[Tankbustaz]

The really original "if you dont care why are you posting here" line.

Really? Perhaps I come here just to give people a little dose of reality or answer some rubbish that gets posted or perhaps it's so that just maybe someone might read and think twice about pre-ordering or blindly buying a CA product...

And actually for whatever the reason it's absolutely none of your business..

p.d and actually EA do make good games just they also pursue arguably crappy pricing/dlc policies. Here's angry Joes rant on EA and battlefront so you know what am I talking about...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g8vR-I3ccCA

EA makes substandard games that they maximize profit from with their DLCs. Battlefield 3 onwards has been a :wub: that made CA focus more on consoles with predictable results.
you cannot hold the moral high ground over CA having a unsavory policy about their games and go ahead and say that EA/DICE makes stuff better.

A lot of members of TWC have been here for a long time, they will not blindly preorder CA games with good reason.

[Totalheadache]

EA makes substandard games that they maximize profit from with their DLCs. Battlefield 3 onwards has been a :wub: that made CA focus more on consoles with predictable results.
you cannot hold the moral high ground over CA having a unsavory policy about their games and go ahead and say that EA/DICE makes stuff better.

A lot of members of TWC have been here for a long time, they will not blindly preorder CA games with good reason.

Erm Dragon age origins/Fifas and bf4 wasnt that bad in my opinion. And I never took any moral high ground, if you actually read what I said I said CA were as bad as EA but at least EA put more money into updating their engines and improving their graphics/sounds etc.

Yes Fifa arguably is another case of milking a title with each new year not much added. However I played both Fifa15 and Fifa16 and I do think the latest an improvement. Cost me around £20 with a cd key...and I know I will get 100hrs at least enjoyment.

Yep you can easily sink that into a TW but you are faced with performance issues/bugs having to use mods etc etc so it isnt plain sailing. But therein lies another discussion and yeah I think the base games from CA are mediocre in quality and have been since Napoleon (needed Darth mod), Shogun 2 (ok but lacked AA at launch which was a complete joke), Rome2 (again needed months to be playable, Attilla again needed some mods and suffers from bad sieges still in terms of huge framerate drops..

I could go on but suffice to say I know I can pay around £20-£30 for Fifa and not have trouble playing this for x hours after release. Again it's a different engine. BF4 was the same for me...a few hitches but relatively plain sailing.

And for arguements sake lets not use EA lets use the witcher3. A game done right!

[craziii]

I'd ask you to refrain from distorting my arguments, since I have never said that. I said that if someone were to copy the other, it should be CA the ones copying some features from Paradox. I never said that "CA must make a clone of EU4".

if that is how you think, I am ok with it. like I already stated, I am ok with people like you who make specific claims about certain aspects of the TW series. everyone is entitled with an opinion as long as it is reasonable. in this case, you like the diplomacy in the EU series and wants TW to be more like it. How can I argue with an opinion?

So if I buy a very expensive Ferrari and equip it with cheap tires, am I not allowed to point out that the car itself is so much better than the tires even when the car does indeed need tires to move? Is it nonsensical to state that despite that, the tires are the worst part of the whole and that the overal product would improve immensely if I used higher quality tires instead?

Please.

but "you" equip it with the cheap tires, wth is the point of pointing out the cheap tires? what is the point of this example? this would only make sense if your super expensive ferrari sells with the super cheap tires.

Yes. I like to conquer. I just don't like my conquering to be a meaningless cakewalk. To me, it's a lot more fun to be able to negotiate with France just to get Rousillon from them after a really bloody and hard war than conquering the entirety of Gaul in 10 turns with no challenge at all.

The campaign map gives battles in TW cohesion and narrative, and it so happens that I find the narrative in Europa Universalis so much more interesting. It's more fun, in my opinion, to conquer when you see a window of opportunity than to just keep going forward endlessly steamrolling all your enemies with no consequences at all.

that just means you dislike the campaign portion of the tw series. you want more provinces, you want more longer battles, wars with breaks in between etc. kinda hard to do in tw games since you need space for the cities/settlements, space between them for the army stacks to march, etc. the biggest difference between the eu campaign map and tw campaign map is the movement of army stacks in tw vs eu's entire armies. the entire map of rome 2 was designed to accommodate the CAI and it's control of stacks. this is no longer just a simple dislike of diplomacy. I remember an old complain of sieges after sieges for medieval 2. you either cram loads of cities onto the map or make a huge ass map. I seriously don't want longer end turn times.

Again, stop twisting my arguments. I never said Paradox is a better developer. I said that a certain aspect of their games (campaign, diplomacy) is, in my opinion, much better than those same aspects in TW. I also said that Paradox does not have a chance to compete in CA's field of expertise due to a lack of resources and experience.

there is no twisting, I am glad you made it as clear as possible. paradox simply cannot compete I am just glad you aren't one of those that thinks your opinion is the only opinion. if that is your opinion, than my previous statement wasn't even aiming at you.

I don't get why you constantly label discerning opinions as "hate".

Voicing one's concerns about a situation one does not like is not hating, it's caring.

I have been on this forum for a long time now. they are hate, not opinions. the forums always have harsh criticisms, but since rome 2, we get these self styled social warriors popping up. every single thread in that forum had them posting the same crap over and over again Ad nauseam. the worst thing, they migrate to every new forum that opens up for new tw games

I don't preciselly like EA, and I don't like some of the things they did to Battlefield or most of what they are doing to Battlefront, but that said, it's undeniable that the pre-order dlc for Battlefront is much more reasonable than the pre-order dlc for Warhammer. Just a couple of emotes and three alternative flavour weapons.

As I've previously said, what CA has done here would have been the equivalent to making Boba Fett the pre-order bonus for Battlefront. And again, not even that would have been an issue if they had the confidence of their customers and knew they were ultimatelly going to get a great game.

I think the best person to talk about dlc is TB. even he was on the fence about pre order dlc. even if he denies it, he is about as fair of a reviewer as possible, unlike crappy ass AJ who just does videos according to the vocal few to generate views. TB was like it is free if you pre order, but you are force to pre order. but with steam refund and reviews coming out 1 week before release date? isn't the forced to pre order part negated? , shouldn't we be over joyed that something as significant as the chaos faction is now given to us for free?

about EA and battlefront https://www.reddit.com/r/pcmasterrac...nt_new_vs_old/

Please.

edit: damn I kinda wish this forum got a stub that shows when a post gets deleted by mods. kinda ruins the flow of conversation when a reply post just disappears.

@total I replied but I crossed the line it seems. I honestly don't know how to reply to you without being snarky or mocking so I will just move on.

[HigoChumbo]

but "you" equip it with the cheap tires, wth is the point of pointing out the cheap tires? what is the point of this example? this would only make sense if your super expensive ferrari sells with the super cheap tires.

The point of the example was to prove that it's completelly legit to point out the parts of a product which are weaker, even if they are necessary to understand the product as a whole. You were asking that why did I insist on judging the campaign and the battles of TW separately.

Battlefield 3 onwards has been a :wub: that made CA focus more on consoles with predictable results.

BF3 was a pretty solid game, which improved upon BF2 on almost every single aspect. My problem with it was that it could not be modded (specially considering that BF2 had some of the best mods I've ever played), the higher focus on casual audiences and that they actively cut off some key features which were already present in BF2 to be made a selling point of later games (for instance, the squad system).

It also had some weird business practices (like giving people who bought the premium version preference in queues over those who bought the normal game).


BF4 though struck me as nothing but an attemp to attract Call of Duty players, so I guess you can imagine my opinion on it.

that just means you dislike the campaign portion of the tw series. you want more provinces, you want more longer battles, wars with breaks in between etc. kinda hard to do in tw games since you need space for the cities/settlements, space between them for the army stacks to march, etc.

I just talked about the diplomacy, which would be perfectly adaptable to TW. Never said I want more provinces (as a matter of fact, I wrote somewhere that I'd like them to try to make a fully real time strategy game with a large, yet smaller scope, something in the lines of a larger Cossacks 2 in 3D and some empire management).

there is no twisting, I am glad you made it as clear as possible. paradox simply cannot compete I am just glad you aren't one of those that thinks your opinion is the only opinion.

Well, if they had the resources and expertise CA has, I imagine that they'd make a TW-like game that I would enjoy a lot more, since I like harder, more strategic, slow paced games. Right not there is a medium sized company which makes what I consider to be a better campaign than TW (Paradox - EU4) and a tiny studio which makes battles I enjoy more than those of TW (GameLabs - UG:Gettysburg), so it would not be so unthinkable that a minor studio could pull off a great TW-like game, that probably a lot of people here would prefer over TW, even if it didn't initially reach the somewhat high production values TW games have lately.

I have been on this forum for a long time now. they are hate, not opinions. you even have the obsessive ones, borderline crazies imo. the forums always have harsh criticisms, but since rome 2, we get these self styled social warriors/trolls popping up. every single thread in that forum had them posting the same crap over and over again Ad nauseam. I count about 5 posters who are still doing it after 2 years. if that isn't crazy I don't know what is. the worst thing, they migrate to every new forum that opens up for new tw games

I keep critizising CA hardly for Rome 2 and I hate neither them nor the TW franchise. I complain precisely because I feel like one of my favourite franchises ever is becoming the Call of Duty of strategy games, and I don't like that.

shouldn't we be over joyed that something as significant as the chaos faction is now given to us for free?

It's not so simple. The fact that they are offering such a juicy dlc strikes me as an attempt to pull off a Rome 2. Even with Steam refunds, I think it's a pretty valid concern to fear they might not only be trying to sell a game which might launch in a poor state, but also that they are actively trying to bypass the generalized sentiment of caution that Rome 2 generated and which led to many fans advocating for not pre-ordering and waiting for proper reviews. The dlc would not be such a problem if they had built a reputation of consistently releasing good games and therefore enjoyed the legit confidence of the customers, but after Rome 2, they just don't, so this struck me as a really foul move.

[Tankbustaz]

How did BF3 improve stuff?
you didn't even have missiles on fighters and had to grind them out.
compare it to BF1942 where you could drive aircraft carriers.

[craziii]

The point of the example was to prove that it's completelly legit to point out the parts of a product which are weaker, even if they are necessary to understand the product as a whole. You were asking that why did I insist on judging the campaign and the battles of TW separately.

that was a really poor example if that was what you were trying to convey. I honestly don't see how EU style diplomacy would work in a TW game. But I 100% support better diplomacy. at least we agree on the direction

I just talked about the diplomacy, which would be perfectly adaptable to TW. Never said I want more provinces (as a matter of fact, I wrote somewhere that I'd like them to try to make a fully real time strategy game with a large, yet smaller scope, something in the lines of a larger Cossacks 2 in 3D and some empire management).

I just explained on how it isn't adaptable in my previous post. please explain how you think it is adaptable.

Well, if they had the resources and expertise CA has, I imagine that they'd make a TW-like game that I would enjoy a lot more, since I like harder, more strategic, slow paced games. Right not there is a medium sized company which makes what I consider to be a better campaign than TW (Paradox - EU4) and a tiny studio which makes battles I enjoy more than those of TW (GameLabs - UG:Gettysburg), so it would not be so unthinkable that a minor studio could pull off a great TW-like game, that probably a lot of people here would prefer over TW, even if it didn't initially reach the somewhat high production values TW games have lately.

hmmm, you basically want ca to create a game similar to paradox games with ca's resources. I think I am catching on you want a paradox game with ca production values. dream on higo

I keep critizising CA hardly for Rome 2 and I hate neither them nor the TW franchise. I complain precisely because I feel like one of my favourite franchises ever is becoming the Call of Duty of strategy games, and I don't like that.

I hope you know that was not directed at you. like I stated, harsh criticisms has always existed, nothing wrong with legit criticisms.

It's not so simple. The fact that they are offering such a juicy dlc strikes me as an attempt to pull off a Rome 2. Even with Steam refunds, I think it's a pretty valid concern to fear they might not only be trying to sell a game which might launch in a poor state, but also that they are actively trying to bypass the generalized sentiment of caution that Rome 2 generated and which led to many fans advocating for not pre-ordering and waiting for proper reviews. The dlc would not be such a problem if they had built a reputation of consistently releasing good games and therefore enjoyed the legit confidence of the customers, but after Rome 2, they just don't, so this struck me as a really foul move.

but we got proper reviews with attila. the ca response clearly stated that they are doing the same thing as attila with warhammer. so what is the real reason? do you even have one?

[HigoChumbo]

How did BF3 improve stuff?

Vastly improved gameplay which feels a lot more fluid and less robotic, destruction (new over BF2), visuals, immersion... not to mention the by far best sound design I've ever heard in a game.

It was also a step back in some areas (squads, modding, business practices), but that does not take away the undeniable advances quality-wise.

compare it to BF1942 where you could drive aircraft carriers.

Go play Battlefield 1942 today and tell me if you can endure the pain for more than 5 minutes. I know. I couldn't.

please explain how you think it is adaptable.

I don't see why it isn't. What EU4 does is to essentially emulate the balance of powers diplomacy which dominated the era. When France or Spain where the dominant powers in Europe, they didn't just pick a "stack" and conquer the entire continent... they had to fight hard wars just to make tiny territorial gains. For instance, this is what France got from Spain after 40 years of constant, devastating war:



In Total War they would have got the entire peninsula in 10 turns without loosing a single battle. So it's pretty much a matter of making things harder, of making the AI behave more consistently and reactive, of making survival, supremacy and stability the goals and not just steamrolling over everyone.

Alliances and coalitions work great in EUIV and I just don't see why such a system would not work in a TW game. The AI knows for the most part how to band together against threats and how to exploit temporary weaknesses.

But there are plenty of other features that I (and for all I know, a lot of other people as well) would love to see imported, such as manpower. And I can't think of an easier to implement thing. The only problem here is that casual players (the core of the TW fanbase) would notlike/understand the system.

hmmm, you basically want ca to create a game similar to paradox games with ca's resources. I think I am catching on you want a paradox game with ca production values. dream on higo

Not really. I'm not fond of such oversimplifications. I want a deeper, more strategical and tactical TW game which imports many elements from Paradox games, but many others as well. That does not mean I want EU4 with shiny graphics, which I don't.

There are elements from plenty of other games which I'd like to see in TW, not just Paradox. Features from Anno 1404, Cossacks 2, UG:Gettysburg, Rise of Nations or even Black&White 2 fit in grand-scale, tactical strategy games. If I said, for instance, that I'd like CA to copy the amazing sound design Battlefield 3 has, that does not mean I want CA to turn TW into a shooter... So pretty much the same with Paradox games.

but we got proper reviews with attila. the ca response clearly stated that they are doing the same thing as attila with warhammer. so what is the real reason? do you even have one?

There were reviews of Rome 2 one day before launch claiming that all the major bugs had been already fixed. The situation has not really changed, to be honest. The major websites released their reviews 2-3 days after launch.

I appreciate the gesture but in a time in which it's very hard to come by a trustworthy review website, the whole deal is pretty much meaningless. I'd rather wait a few days to see the general vibe of the players and judge by watching some actual gameplay.

In any case, Attila is pretty much an expansion, far from the relevance Rome 2 had (or Warhammer will have). So let's wait and see.

The real reason I already explained in detail in my previous post and I find it quite legit, even when I'm not claiming to be in posession of the undeniable truth.

[frenchyvinnie]

I don't see why it isn't. What EU4 does is to essentially emulate the balance of powers diplomacy which dominated the era. When France or Spain where the dominant powers in Europe, they didn't just pick a "stack" and conquer the entire continent... they had to fight hard wars just to make tiny territorial gains. For instance, this is what France got from Spain after 40 years of constant, devastating war:

And we should have gotten much more from you dastardly spaniards!

*goes back in a corner eating smelly cheese and drinking wine*

In more seriousness, I totally agree with your post regarding EU4 VS TW. I tend to see Total War games as being a bit more "arcady" than their Paradox counterparts. Less diplomacy, less management, more action and battles. EU4 requires more finesse and tends to stick a lot more to real hisorical events.

Doesn't mean any system is better than the other though. They simply offer different types of fun, and I personnally enjoy both of them!

[Costin_Razvan]

All I'm gonna say is this about CA's response:

[craziii]

I don't see why it isn't. What EU4 does is to essentially emulate the balance of powers diplomacy which dominated the era. When France or Spain where the dominant powers in Europe, they didn't just pick a "stack" and conquer the entire continent... they had to fight hard wars just to make tiny territorial gains. For instance, this is what France got from Spain after 40 years of constant, devastating war:



In Total War they would have got the entire peninsula in 10 turns without loosing a single battle. So it's pretty much a matter of making things harder, of making the AI behave more consistently and reactive, of making survival, supremacy and stability the goals and not just steamrolling over everyone.

Alliances and coalitions work great in EUIV and I just don't see why such a system would not work in a TW game. The AI knows for the most part how to band together against threats and how to exploit temporary weaknesses.

But there are plenty of other features that I (and for all I know, a lot of other people as well) would love to see imported, such as manpower. And I can't think of an easier to implement thing. The only problem here is that casual players (the core of the TW fanbase) would notlike/understand the system.

you do realized that the map you posted supports my reasoning as to why it would never work in tw? while it works perfectly for the EU(the entire country is a single focal point, with the ability to raise armies any where) series since countries in that game can be divided up into tiny parts because it doesn't really have focal points like the settlements in the TW games. hell, if we take focal points into account. every single settlement in a tw game is the equivalent of a country in the EU series. just to emulate the scale of map you posted in TW terms on the campaign map, it would require the entire campaign map of tw games for just 1 country and it's peripheries. CAI handling army stack movements across few hundred(thousands if you include other countries) cities on a 3d map like tw games, do that across the entire Mediterranean? for all the countries/factions in a tw game? calling it a pipe dream is a huge understatement. There is a reason why tw games resorted to campaign choke points and impassable terrain. care to take a guess?

Not really. I'm not fond of such oversimplifications. I want a deeper, more strategical and tactical TW game which imports many elements from Paradox games, but many others as well. That does not mean I want EU4 with shiny graphics, which I don't.

There are elements from plenty of other games which I'd like to see in TW, not just Paradox. Features from Anno 1404, Cossacks 2, UG:Gettysburg, Rise of Nations or even Black&White 2 fit in grand-scale, tactical strategy games. If I said, for instance, that I'd like CA to copy the amazing sound design Battlefield 3 has, that does not mean I want CA to turn TW into a shooter... So pretty much the same with Paradox games.

don't take this the wrong way but I can day dream too, be whimsical etc.

There were reviews of Rome 2 one day before launch claiming that all the major bugs had been already fixed. The situation has not really changed, to be honest. The major websites released their reviews 2-3 days after launch.

I appreciate the gesture but in a time in which it's very hard to come by a trustworthy review website, the whole deal is pretty much meaningless. I'd rather wait a few days to see the general vibe of the players and judge by watching some actual gameplay.

In any case, Attila is pretty much an expansion, far from the relevance Rome 2 had (or Warhammer will have). So let's wait and see.

The real reason I already explained in detail in my previous post and I find it quite legit, even when I'm not claiming to be in posession of the undeniable truth.

did I mention rome 2? I brought up attila. why bring up rome 2? why is attila an expansion? it is a full game. what criteria did you use to relegate it to just a measly expac? rome 2 had professional reviews 1 - 3 days before retail. attila had plenty of twitch streams in the month before release. they were 100% play throughs with zero cuts. and plenty of youtube channels got a review copy 1 week before retail. or are you saying 1 week of streams and youtube fan reviews is not enough for you to decide?

and if that doesn't do it for you, what will? especially with the steam refund in place now. we, as gamers actually got the deciding advantage over ca now with steam refund. how could they pull off another rome 2 with the refund in place and 1 week of fan reviews? do tell, I am waiting with my pop corn ready.

[Woody0]

Some problems I see with the response from CA.

Pre-orders used to be more important for the devs and retailers. Retailers would get a good idea of what they needed to stock. Publishers would get a good idea how many games needed to be produced.(CDs, cartridges, packaging, etc) With the digital distribution these things are no longer an issue.

For publishers I guess it could be used to instill confidence in their product and maybe lead to more money being put into developement. My guess this is not the case in the majority of situations. Once they set the budget for production the most likely thing to change is reducing the budget not increasing it. Why put more money into something that is already selling with out needing to invest more money?

The Chaos DLC stands to increase revenue more post release then it does for giving it away as a pre-order bonus. Give it away for free to 10,000 customers increases revenue by $0.
Sell it to 10,000 customers increases revenue by $100,000 if sold for $10.

When the production of a product's budget is planned the expected profit is also planned. Which means the DLC and base games budgets are expected not to exceed the revenue generated. Taking the paragraph directly above into account, it stands to reason I increase the likely hood of making money and recouping cost for the DLC if I sell it post release.

If I want to increase pre-orders for something by giving something away for "free" the most likely thing to use is something already created using the initial budget. That is why you see some devs offering skins, digital art books, sound tracks and similar stuff.

At least every coporation I worked for if I gave them several budgets for different aspects of a product I would have to justify each and how much money each would bring in. In most cases each would be basically viewed and treated as seperate products. If part of my proposal was to give one of the products away for free to some customers the first question I would have to answer is,"Why?"

The second question I would have to answer for a modular product is, "Why not giveaway something already created with your initial budget?"

The response to the 1st question, "Why?" Being increase the content does not ring true to me. Simply because I would find it a hard sell to the people above me. I have to give them something that increases sales and profits enough to justify the extra cost. The increasing pre-orders does ring true and something I see people higher up getting on board with. More pre-orders means increased performance for Q4 and being able to say the game is selling well. Games selling well may result in more sells since it increases consumer confidence in the product.

The response to the second question, "OK, we will determine what we created already to use as a pre-order bonus." Again I find it hard to believe any other plan would be accepted. It keeps cost lower, from an executive point of view achieves the same goal and most importantly has seemed to worked in the past.

[pyj99]

The above post just convinced me to preorder the game as it shows a complete misunderstanding of economics

I think extremely positive that CA
1/ Assumes that their gamers are on average intelligent/educated enough to understand the business economics of games development
- even tho some knee jerking hate reactions may make us doubt that for some
2/ takes the time to layout the option

Preorder is very important in the gaming industry because it allows the company to lower its peak funding
- ie the maximum amount of cash it needs to fund the long years of gaming development without income

2 very important benefits
it gives a better Return on Investment on the project
it lowers the risk taken by the company/publisher

when you look at it in a static way - it may seem like the company ripping off its customers
BUT when you look at it dynamically - it is included in the business plan and allows them to get approval for a bigger budget

IF you do believe that the goal of CA is to be able to make the biggest - most advanced TW (while making a living)
Having DLC and preorder bonus is a very wise move and very beneficial for us as customers as well

Especially for Preorder DLC ! every TW fan should be happy that they make some
As a fan, you will get the game anyway, it doesn't cost you more, you get additional content in the DLC and you get a better base game

best

PS: btw that would seem a reasonable assumption taht CA employees are not money grabbing b....
as they could probably find higer paid job in boring IT if they were only interested in money

[Person012345]

what paradox games have you been playing? In all paradox games I've played all factions were playable from the start, and EU4 was playable and enjoyable from day 1.
OT: if they allow people to review the game before release, with enough time to cancel pre-orders, I'm okay with that.

Pretty sure in CKII you need to unlock different religions via DLC.

No need to go so high. A tiny studio such as Game-Labs has created a game (UG:Gettysburg) which, while far from perfect or from being called an amazing games, has battles that I've enjoyed way more than those of any TW I've played in the past few years. If what you are saying is that they can't achieve the level of complexity CA's got after 15 years of essentially making the same game again and again, then I agree, they lack the resources and the expertise, but games are not just about pretty graphics and cool combat animations. Games have to be enjoyable, and there are plenty of smaller games made by smaller studios which right now are more enjoyable than TW, even when they don't get absurdly positive reviews from sites like IGN or Gamespot.

I also often compare the wargame series to total war because the campaign (from airland battle and beyond) has some similarities and the battles are essentially what I would want TW battles in the modern day to look like. And Eugen manage to avoid crappy business practices. They ADD factions with each iteration, they expand the unit rosters with dizzying amounts of units each time and all their DLC is free. You know, actually free not pseudo-free if you preorder. And the base game is reasonably priced.

[Greasy Dave]

I've been watching how this thread has developed and I just wanted to add a couple of thoughts. I'm splitting it into 2 because they're separate issues, and it might be easier to read this way.

Part 1, the moral dimension

The CA guys have given us some kind of explanation for this action. You may or may not believe their reasons, and you may or you may not agree with the economics involved.

They've also offered us what on the surface seem to be reasonable options concerning their sincerity and our ability to judge both their sincerity and the product in terms of a refund policy etc etc.

The thing is, at the moral level none of the above matters for me. I'm not questioning the economics. I imagine they have a business plan that requires some income right now. I'm questioning the respect they're showing to me and their other loyal customers, the moral "honesty" they're showing or lack of it.

Believe me, this is written without anger or hate. It's being written rationally. It does involve a small amount of emotion, because respect and disrespect are emotional issues as well as rational ones. But morality and discussing morality can only be a rational endeavour.

Like many of you, I pre-ordered Rome2. You know how this goes. Debacle, unplayable for a year etc. etc. I stood by CA for a long time. They had a lot of goodwill with me. But by the time EE came out I was pretty annoyed by it all. The bottom line was, after Rome 2 was finally fixed and playable, a year after release, I recognised I'd been fooled by the hype and the lies surrounding the game's release, pre-order bonus and all of that. (We don't need to rehash it, the Rome 2 forum is full of it). But what upset me most was that they knew the state of the game when they released it.

Now, I am older and wiser. I've decided I won't allow them to hype me in the same way again. Fine. What's this got to do with moral honesty?

Customers like me, who feel they were seriously burnt by CA and have decided to take stand and not buy into their "buzz" and "hype" will have to pay extra if we wish to play that particular faction. OK. So what? I shouldn't expect anything for free, am I right? Sure, I don't expect a "gift" from CA. They screwed up. I paid the price. That's capitalism. And this wouldn't be an issue for me, except....

... CA are basically saying, those of you who are prepared to ignore how we titanically screwed you in the recent past, with a similar marketing model, those of you willing to play along with our marketing scheme and ignore the moral contradiction within it, well you're going to get something for free.

Seriously guys, how can you not see what's wrong with that? Sure, it's your choice. You can make your own decisions. But personally I find it deeply disrespectful. We live in a morally ambiguous world. There any many truths and many lies and many levels of each. But I personally endeavour to be honest in my interactions with other people, as I hope that they will be honest in return. I personally find CA's behaviour significantly lacking in moral "honesty" in this case.

Part 2, the spin dimension

Let me just add a couple of realistic notes about this "buy it and refund it if you don't like it" line. It sounds good, doesn't it. Taht's because they know it sounds good. It's supposed to.

This is the first line of every salesman. Seriously! This is basic sales 101. Whatever it takes, make the sale. Get your foot in the door, tell the customer what they want to hear and close the deal. I have no doubt that if you want a refund and you've only played 2 hours, you will get one. They know this but they're counting on human behaviour. The reality is that most of us, when we've bought something, unless it is truly broken, won't bother looking for a refund. We shrug it off and tell ourselves we won't be fooled next time...until we are. Sales psychology, nothing more.

Secondly, watching let's play vids and testing the game for 2 hours - again, it sounds reasonable. Well, I got suckered into buying Atilla - not because I thought I'd be able to get a refund but because of the Let's Play vids etc.

I don't want to waste time discussing the pro's and cons of Attila BUT what is true is that it takes 20 plus hours of hands on game play before you really can get to grips with a TW game and see where the bugs and faults are. Two hours of game play is not going to be enough. Similarly just watching someone else play...seriously, who has time to sit through a 20-40 hour campaign? And even if the reviewer spots bugs and comments on them, you still can't assess how annoying/ disruptive they are until you actually play and encounter them yourself.

Finally, ask yourself what review "score" would Warhammer TW need for you to buy it. For me it'd be 8.7 and above. However, another bit of psychology, ask yourself, if you've already bought a game and reviews come out that rate the game LOWER than that score, how low does the review score have to be for you to ask for a refund. For me the number is 8. For most people the number will be significantly lower than the first - see my first point - if a product has been paid for and isn't completely screwed up, people don't erturn them.

At the end of the day getting sales before the product is out is better for every manufacturer, always. And they will do everything they can to maximise that number.

The letters from CA were interesting. They seemed sincere. But bottom line they were marketing. Clever marketing, but marketing nonetheless. They wouldn't be anything else and we shouldn't expect anything else from this relationship - they're a company trying to sell us something.

thank you for takign the time to read this.

[Totalheadache]

+1 to above and have some rep!

[Abdülmecid I]

And here gamers realize that, oh shocker, companies have budgets and revenue projections. These preorder bonuses existing in the main game AT ALL is purely due to the goodwill of CA adding additional content to an original release. And the entire forum does nothing but . And then you all wonder why nobody comes here anymore.

So, companies have budgets and revenue projections, but CA releaseed the DLC due to... goodwill? Anyway, why Chaos was chosen as the pre-order DLC is obvious, if we take into account the previous TW titles and have some basic knowledge about marketing. CA considers pre-ordering as particularly important to her profits, more important, in fact, than the rest of DLCs, so they always use as a pre-order DLC the coolest, the most popular faction, second only to the "protagonist' (Rome, WRE, Empire for R2, TWA and TWW respectively). Consequently, in Rome II, Sparta and the rest of the greek factions were made DLCs, while in Attila we had the Vikings forefathers. It was a fortunate for CA coincidence that neither of these factions played a significant role in the political and military events during the time-periods their games concerned. It just happened that Sparta and Vikings are much more popular than the "antagonists", such as Carthage or the Huns, so nobody could complain that CA cut out an essential faction from the main game. It was the perfect mix, popular but not "essential". Unfortunately for CA, that's not the case for the WH universe, where, due to the lack of any "Sparta" or "Vikings", they had to cut out the second most popular faction, which is also the main antagonist, the Chaos hordes.

[Modestus]

I've been watching how this thread has developed and I just wanted to add a couple of thoughts. I'm splitting it into 2 because they're separate issues, and it might be easier to read this way.

Part 1, the moral dimension

The CA guys have given us some kind of explanation for this action. You may or may not believe their reasons, and you may or you may not agree with the economics involved.

They've also offered us what on the surface seem to be reasonable options concerning their sincerity and our ability to judge both their sincerity and the product in terms of a refund policy etc etc.

The thing is, at the moral level none of the above matters for me. I'm not questioning the economics. I imagine they have a business plan that requires some income right now. I'm questioning the respect they're showing to me and their other loyal customers, the moral "honesty" they're showing or lack of it.

Believe me, this is written without anger or hate. It's being written rationally. It does involve a small amount of emotion, because respect and disrespect are emotional issues as well as rational ones. But morality and discussing morality can only be a rational endeavour.

Like many of you, I pre-ordered Rome2. You know how this goes. Debacle, unplayable for a year etc. etc. I stood by CA for a long time. They had a lot of goodwill with me. But by the time EE came out I was pretty annoyed by it all. The bottom line was, after Rome 2 was finally fixed and playable, a year after release, I recognised I'd been fooled by the hype and the lies surrounding the game's release, pre-order bonus and all of that. (We don't need to rehash it, the Rome 2 forum is full of it). But what upset me most was that they knew the state of the game when they released it.

Now, I am older and wiser. I've decided I won't allow them to hype me in the same way again. Fine. What's this got to do with moral honesty?

Customers like me, who feel they were seriously burnt by CA and have decided to take stand and not buy into their "buzz" and "hype" will have to pay extra if we wish to play that particular faction. OK. So what? I shouldn't expect anything for free, am I right? Sure, I don't expect a "gift" from CA. They screwed up. I paid the price. That's capitalism. And this wouldn't be an issue for me, except....

... CA are basically saying, those of you who are prepared to ignore how we titanically screwed you in the recent past, with a similar marketing model, those of you willing to play along with our marketing scheme and ignore the moral contradiction within it, well you're going to get something for free.

Seriously guys, how can you not see what's wrong with that? Sure, it's your choice. You can make your own decisions. But personally I find it deeply disrespectful. We live in a morally ambiguous world. There any many truths and many lies and many levels of each. But I personally endeavour to be honest in my interactions with other people, as I hope that they will be honest in return. I personally find CA's behaviour significantly lacking in moral "honesty" in this case.

Part 2, the spin dimension

Let me just add a couple of realistic notes about this "buy it and refund it if you don't like it" line. It sounds good, doesn't it. Taht's because they know it sounds good. It's supposed to.

This is the first line of every salesman. Seriously! This is basic sales 101. Whatever it takes, make the sale. Get your foot in the door, tell the customer what they want to hear and close the deal. I have no doubt that if you want a refund and you've only played 2 hours, you will get one. They know this but they're counting on human behaviour. The reality is that most of us, when we've bought something, unless it is truly broken, won't bother looking for a refund. We shrug it off and tell ourselves we won't be fooled next time...until we are. Sales psychology, nothing more.

Secondly, watching let's play vids and testing the game for 2 hours - again, it sounds reasonable. Well, I got suckered into buying Atilla - not because I thought I'd be able to get a refund but because of the Let's Play vids etc.

I don't want to waste time discussing the pro's and cons of Attila BUT what is true is that it takes 20 plus hours of hands on game play before you really can get to grips with a TW game and see where the bugs and faults are. Two hours of game play is not going to be enough. Similarly just watching someone else play...seriously, who has time to sit through a 20-40 hour campaign? And even if the reviewer spots bugs and comments on them, you still can't assess how annoying/ disruptive they are until you actually play and encounter them yourself.

Finally, ask yourself what review "score" would Warhammer TW need for you to buy it. For me it'd be 8.7 and above. However, another bit of psychology, ask yourself, if you've already bought a game and reviews come out that rate the game LOWER than that score, how low does the review score have to be for you to ask for a refund. For me the number is 8. For most people the number will be significantly lower than the first - see my first point - if a product has been paid for and isn't completely screwed up, people don't erturn them.

At the end of the day getting sales before the product is out is better for every manufacturer, always. And they will do everything they can to maximise that number.

The letters from CA were interesting. They seemed sincere. But bottom line they were marketing. Clever marketing, but marketing nonetheless. They wouldn't be anything else and we shouldn't expect anything else from this relationship - they're a company trying to sell us something.

thank you for takign the time to read this.

Excellent post I posted this over in TW.com and I will just grab and post it here.

According to CA the Chaos DLC only adds a small flavour to the first game you can expect much more from Chaos later on in the trilogy, they did not intend for Chaos to be playable in the first game in fact it would seem they did not intend for them to make even an appearance in the first game.

And while the explanation from CA is an explanation it basically boils down to this …

Someone will pay for Chaos being both a playable and a non-playable faction in the first game and it will not be CA it will however benefit the first game because you will now have Chaos in the first game so its good for the player.

A reasonable position to have they are after all a commercial company and cannot add extra content for free however the problem that has arisen is caused by the fact that the Customer has no means to know if it is extra content, it is deemed to be extra content only because CA says it is which may be true or untrue.

Of course this is a problem that Customers have with all Developers but how it is perceived is mainly dependent on how the customer perceives the Developer, do they trust them? It should be quite clear to CA that a sizeable chunk of it potential customers do not trust them and that alone should be a worry.

Why did this happen? RTW2 is an obvious explanation, CA have lost a lot of goodwill over the years with poor releases and almost a complete failure to acknowledge this in time, there is a predictable pattern of first denial, then of fixing and finally abandonment once they have sold all their expansions and DLC with the usually sop to modding and platitudes about how they care for the community.

In this particular case there is also the fact that CA must have already allocated resources for Chaos to appear in the trilogy regardless if they wanted them to make an appearance in the first game and that only adds to the distrust.