Originally Posted by
craziii
s1 + m1 were 2d risk style maps, super simple as each province = 1 tile. rome1 and m2 gave us 3d maps and hundreds of tiles per province. warscape engine gave us few thousand times that or more and the biggest reason why empire was such a huge mess for 6 months after release. what else can ca do?
If they made such a huge conceptual change as going from a Risk map to what we have now, I don't see why other large conceptual changes for the campaign are so unthinkable. It's not like just making small, conservative tweaks for the current system is the only feasible option. From where they are at now to the extreme of making the game full real time there is a HUGE array of middle ground concepts.
I am almost 100% sure ca has reach it's limit unless they come out with a better cai.
CA has not reached their limit, their "engine" (to simplify) has. If I have a truckload of minor and major changes that could be implemented in a TW-like game, I'm sure the proffessional creative designers at CA have had a zillion of much better and cooler ideas. The problem is that their vision is most likely vastly held back by the technical limitations of their rather old and unimpressive "building blocks" (the "engine") and by the prospect of having to sell as many games as possible to a majorly casual gaming audience, as well as profit and creativity not always going hand by hand.
carbon copy? and here I thought you liked the campaign map. total bummer? you need to have some realistic expectations.
And I thought you had got to a point in which you were actually reading my posts. I said I like a) the SIZE of the campaign map and b) the artistic design of the campaign map. In the other hand, I said that the mechanics are lazy and uninspired and essentially just a carbon copy of previous games, yes, and that despite the game looking good, it also looks really similar to the previous games.
It is perfectly realistic to expect a new game to do something else than just copying and re-naming the mechanics of an older game, specially for games as different conceptually as Warhammer and Rome2/Attila. If someone who does not find the game as good as it could be feasibly achived is sticking to opposite argument to justify this stagnation, that's not being realistic, that is being conformist. I for once have lived in a time in which not all games were like Call of Duty, and I honestly refuse to give in, swallow my opinion and just say that I'm totally fine with the product of corporations turning the entire industry into CoD-like milking machines.
Plenty of new-gaming concepts are yet to be explored, it's not like the industry has already done everything it could have done... the problem is that being creative and ambitious is often not as profitable as just selling the same crap over and over again, knowing that your junkies are going to buy it anyways.
you want completely new everything it seems. that is why I called it a pipe dream.
That's what I'd ideally want, but I I'd completelly understand and be okay with just going forward a few steps at a time... just picking one mechanic, changing the name and tweaking a few numbers is not walking forward... it's standing still turning around in circles. Yes, the view changes, but you are definately not getting anywhere that way.
The bare minimum for me is managing that the experience of a new game is not just
fundamentally the same as the previous one. And again, specially if we are talking about games so different as Warhammer and Rome2/Attila. There is some new stuff in Warhammer that I look forward to play with, but most of it are minor changes. Even the major features they are implementing (mostly in the battle map), such as flying, strike me as workarounds for adapting old, existing mechanics instead of actual new stuff.
there are no completely original game designs in 2015.
That's nonsense. Unless you consider that making a plane was not a huge revolution just because birds had been flying for millenia when that happened. I, for instance, have yet to see a full real time, slow paced, large scale TW-like game in which there are no separate campaign and battle maps but rather everything happens in the same full 3d map. And I assure you that there are plenty of much more conservative concepts whose implementation I'd consider moving forward. It's not like I'm going to be accusing them of being conservative just because they don't release exactly the weird, niche, very specific game I'd personally want to see... or if they don't do extreme stuff as turning TW into a 3d person action game or a MMORPG... but really, what they are doing now is just taking baby steps in a 200m sprint race and calling it running forward...
I personally want future total war games to keep the good features of the older titles, I am sure most would agree with me.
Most people are afraid of change. That does not mean most people are right.
"New" for the sake of "current" being boring and uninspired as boring and uninspired gets.
Ca took away the defend button from rome 2 and attila units, that has annoyed me to no end.
You hardly can call that implementing a fresh, new concept.
point out a freaking AAA game sequel with 100% new game design and new engine. I will gladly concede this point if you can.
World of Warcraft, GTA 3, Warcraft 3, Rome TW, Mario 64, The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time...
I never asked for a 100% new game design, nor I set the condition for a game to be new in the development of a new engine (although for TW it might be the requirement at this point), so I hope you don't reply with cheap arguments such as
"but WoW uses the same engine as Warcraft 3" or
"WoW copied features from other games" or
"but the battles in Rome were the same as the battles in Medieval" or
"the only new thing GTA 3 did was to remake an old concept in 3D". The fact is that those games were a huge leap forward in their respective franchises.
Consider my bird/plane example above. Not because the Wright brothers just copied what an animal had been doing since before humans walked Earth that makes that achievement less revolutionary. I say this just in case you say something in the lines of "yes, but there was this 1993 games nobody played which had that feature you are calling revolutionary". This might be a case similar to sequels such as Dawn of War 2, which essentially took a lot from Company of Heroes and other games, but which in effect was a completelly different game from its prequel, Dawn of War 1. And I'm not going to get in a debate about which of the two is the better game.
The fact is that revamping franchises with unconservatisequels is not only feasible, but also already proven to work wonders in many cases.
we are talking about the campaign map, not the features. focus please. if you think tw games are not fun anymore, stick with FTL. no one can stop you.
No one can stop me from giving my own, honest opinion either. I'll play whatever games I feel like playing, thank you. That "the door is open" argument is quite childish and not preciselly an extranger to these forums, and I'd like to point out that there were a truckload of other users who would have told you to get the hell out of Total War if you wanted to play a fantasy game (such as Warhammer) in that identical fashion you are using.
cool features? brainstorm? like your paradox ideas? you want warhammer to behave like the EU series?
I don't think I ever said that. As a matter of fact, I recall saying somewhere that while I'd like many Paradox-like features to be implemented in Total War, they would mostly fit the historical franchises and not so much Warhammer.
and don't mind me for pointing this out, ca is never gonna implement your ideas.
CA is never going to make a fantasy game.
you want ca to look at your ideas? create a mod with your ideas and the mod has to be very popular, like EB of rome 1.
Sigh...
Should I just stop sharing my opinion just because I don't have the skills, the time or, most importantly, the least intention of doing that?
everything you can think of they already did by this point
Pst... a "plane" you say? for flying? Meh, that's already done.
you are NOT better than ca game designers or modders of the last 15 years
I don't know if you notice how contradictory the concept behind that sentence is.
whether or not the ideas become part of the game is up to CA. no one is going to risk millions on some unproven idea posted on some dingy fan forum. even tw warhammer is happening because of the warhammer mod, I would bet on it. the highly stylized settlement art we see in the video? ca got this idea from the lotr mod.
Have you considered that most modders are just regular fans who don't like the way in which the "infallible" professionasl at CA (in many case out of conservative constraints) have designed a particular feature, and are therefore much closer to my point of view than to yours? Do you think that if modders had the ability to do it, they wouldn't make vastly deeper changes to the game than just tweaking a few numbers and adding a few models and textures? Do you think the creators of Call of Warhammer didn't implement magic or flying because they decided it was the better option from a creative point of view? Do you think the flying system CA has shown us so far is the best a company of the size of CA can achieve?
If not, then please allow me to keep pointing out not only the huge number of ways in which the franchise could be adapted to fit my own personal tastes but also the huge number of ways in which the franchise could be irrefutably improoved in general.
you want real changes? changes like the above? be less whimsical, wishful, show CA it can work.
So, if I don't like the way the government is running my country, I have to become a politician and create my own party or otherwise just shut the feck up?
lesser option is to write very, very convincing, well thought out arguments.
Apparently in more than 10 years in TW forums and after thousands of (considerably longer than the average) posts I have never done that.
The best niche mod or the most convincing argument are not going to make CA make their game less casual as far as the vast majority of the audience remains casual, nor is it going to make them do a better effort with the engine as far as just selling the same recycled junk year after year remains profitable. That does not make my own tastes and ideas worthless. Most of the best mods we have seen since the very beginnings have consisted in making the game less casual, more complex and challenging, ever wonder why CA has never done that themselves? Let me tell you it's neither for a lack of resources nor a lack of good ideas, be it their own ideas or those they get from the community.
my honest opinion? alot of stuff that you wrote basically boils down to this: I want this in the game, make it happpen.
No wonder you say that seeing you have misunderstood most of the arguments I wrote in this thread. I have never said or implied "make this happen", I don't even have the slightest hope that CA will do what I write, not in the next 15 years, so consider that I might just be sharing my genuine opinion, an opinion I care about, and not throwing a whimsical tantrum just because I'm not getting a Nintendo 64 for Christmas as all the other cool kids.
do this: make a thread for every major feature/idea you want ca to look at. focus, sell that feature, detail how that feature would work in a TW game, not how that feature works in another game. that is 1 thread per major feature. I don't dislike passionate people. just gotta use it right.
"...and then convince the other 2 million casual customers that they want an unforgiving game with complex features such as supply lines... and when you are done go over to the SEGA headquarters and convince the businessmen in charge that making revolutionary games that niche gamers are passionate about even when that means taking a huge risk, investing a lot more resources, potentially loosing a huge portion of their customers and essentially making a lot less profit essentially for the sake of "art" is a better option than just exponentially increasing profits with relatively little risk and effort."
I believe you were talking about being realistic.
CA knows what some people here want. There have been zillions of ellaborated arguments about stuff like supply lines (just an example, not something I've talked much about), and I'd bet the creative staff at CA have had truckloads of brainstorming sessions in which they have discussed such features, and yet they are not in. So consider that, again, neither it is a lack of ideas nor that those ideas are not detailed enough. You yourself said that I can hardly pretend to be a better game designer than an actual, professional, learned game designer, so I honestly think that, as someone with no technical knowledge nor experience in making games, just outlining a general idea and letting proffessionals consider it and care about the details is more realistic than just telling them the specifics about what they have to do. And then again, I don't have the slightest hope that they consider my own ideas, given that not only they would appeal to a minor audience but also would require them to re-do the game from the ground up, so it's not like I'm trying to convince them with my arguments or something.
no one likes reading through an essay in a forum post. this will be my last long winded post.
That does not make said essays worse, less interesting posts, just as a highly profitable, uninspired, casual game design is not necessarily better and more interesting to play than a niche, complex, hard game just because most people will be overwhelmed by it.
Re: Orcs Campaign Playthrough
and the center of Skaven ship building... er deranged salvaging.
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