Rome 2: Total War

With everyone complaining about how its terrible right now, just remember how terrible Empire was when it first came out. After things were addressed with that, it became pretty good. Yeah it sucks that they released it now with these bugs in it, but I think that's less CA's fault and more of SEGA's fault. I'm sure it will become great with time.

Ascendant Justice wrote:Im still a little irked that I have to pay 8$ to play as Sparta though....

well if you pre-ordered it you wouldn't need to...

Well not everyone is dead set on whether or not they want a game, now are they?

Those people who are too indecisive to pre-order can hardly complain when they don't get access to pre-order exclusive content. Honestly, it's fairly nice of them to allow regular buyers any access at all to the content.

Which is probably another one of those "on disc" related dlc's. (Yes im aware that its a digital copy)

Rotaretilbo wrote:Those people who are too indecisive to pre-order can hardly complain when they don't get access to pre-order exclusive content. Honestly, it's fairly nice of them to allow regular buyers any access at all to the content.

Guess the people who were too decisive and pre-ordered Colonial Marines have no reason to complain. They took that risk.

Nice strawman, that.

I was bored so why not.

Rotaretilbo wrote:Nice strawman, that.

Maybe, but it does raise a point that the video game industry has been shifting more towards a model which shafts consumers. "Pre-order a game you don't know you'll like for this content, or never get it/pay more for it!". I'm not saying it's entirely bad, and I understand how the pre-order content is used as an incentive to pre-order; I just find myself in disagreement with it.

Anyways, I might pick this game up later; I just started playing Rome:Total War again recently (spurred on by those extra history vids actually).

I've always felt that preordering games is fucking stupid in most cases cause it is a gamble. You are paying $60 dollars for a game that you are HOPING will be as fun as you think it looks or was hyped to be.

If I was a preorderer I probably would have preordered Colonial Marines, Halo 4/Reach, and WarZ.

I would have been completely fucking shafted on some of those games and just disappointed in others.


Not releasing actual content and holding it back for the preorders in the form of a faction sounds like shit to me, but I don't really know shit about Rome so I won't make real judgements on that. Preorder bonuses should really just be skins and that's it. Maybe a funny weapon for singleplayer games but actual content is shit.

Its more glaring when its locked content like a playable faction or a character as that effects gameplay more. Some people also like to have a game and not have some sort of DLC hanging overhead making them feel like they have missed out or your not playing the full game.

Of course then Publishers and developers complain when people turn around and buy used games but if you're already depriving people of features with a new full priced game the incentive for buying a new full priced game is much less. Then theres steam which offers games for like 50% off 4 months after their release.

also, bringing up colonial marines is NOT a straw man argument. they DID offer pre-order bonus content and people DID get shafted. it is a worst case scenario, but the possibility and the reality of companies lieing about their games to garner pre-order's and threatening to withold game content with that IS a problem. that is EXACTLY what the argument against pre-order exclusive content is about. you shouldnt need to pre-order games to get the full game, especially if you do not know if you will like the game or not.

bonus content like an extra unit or something like that, thats fine. but an entire faction in a game is extreme and you shouldnt be paying 1/4 the price of the game a second time just to unlock that

Day 1 DLC isn't as big a deal as people make it out to be (and while we're on the subject, demos are a thing of the past).

Gearbox specifically created an amazing looking gameplay video with the express intent to mislead their consumer base, then diverted all funding for said game to another game while lying both to the customers and their producers about what the game was going to be like.

Rome 2 had some bugs in it at launch, just like every other Total War game has had at launch; the developer never lied to the consumer about the game, embezzled funding, or otherwise tried to scam anyone. They even made a pledge to patch the game weekly until the bugs were fixed.

Implying that Rome 2 is "another Colonial Marine" is like saying that a soy burger is the same as fillet mignon because both are food and both at least taste somewhat like beef.

Rotaretilbo wrote:Day 1 DLC isn't as big a deal as people make it out to be (and while we're on the subject, demos are a thing of the past).

In summary: "Fuck you consumers, I don't want you to know what this game is like before buying it because we'll lose sales if you don't like it. Thanks for your $60, suckers!" Even if it explains it, I don't understand why we should be putting up with it as consumers. Compare it to buying a car without giving it a test drive first. I won't really go into Day 1 DLC, I don't like it but I don't see any big problems with it.

Rotaretilbo wrote:
Gearbox specifically created an amazing looking gameplay video with the express intent to mislead their consumer base, then diverted all funding for said game to another game while lying both to the customers and their producers about what the game was going to be like.

Rome 2 had some bugs in it at launch, just like every other Total War game has had at launch; the developer never lied to the consumer about the game, embezzled funding, or otherwise tried to scam anyone. They even made a pledge to patch the game weekly until the bugs were fixed.

Implying that Rome 2 is "another Colonial Marine" is like saying that a soy burger is the same as fillet mignon because both are food and both at least taste somewhat like beef.

If you are arguing that the comparison is invalid because the end products were of different quality (one good, one bad) then you are missing the point. Why should consumers be forced to take a gamble to get 'special' content?

Also, I request that the thread be split; last several posts have not been about R2:TW.
EDIT: Derp double post

Kasrkin Seath wrote:In summary: "Fuck you consumers, I don't want you to know what this game is like before buying it because we'll lose sales if you don't like it. Thanks for your $60, suckers!" Even if it explains it, I don't understand why we should be putting up with it as consumers. Compare it to buying a car without giving it a test drive first. I won't really go into Day 1 DLC, I don't like it but I don't see any big problems with it.

If allowing people to test drive a vehicle cost the dealership a lot of money, or more accurately, cost the manufacturer money that would otherwise have gone towards production of the vehicle, and then almost always resulted in fewer sales, I guarantee you that it wouldn't be very popular among dealers either. It sucks, but demos are literally a lose-lose for developers. They cost development money to make, and the only time they increase sales is when they trick the consumer, which is obviously not what we want anyway.

Kasrkin Seath wrote:If you are arguing that the comparison is invalid because the end products were of different quality (one good, one bad) then you are missing the point. Why should consumers be forced to take a gamble to get 'special' content?

Why should developers be forced to produce extra content that costs money without seeing any return for it? Things like pre-order special content and Day 1 DLC are often things that otherwise wouldn't be in the game. They are things that the developers work on after the game has gone off to be prepared for launch, which are only justified to publishers because of their potential to bring in extra profit.

This feels a lot like a false sense of entitlement to me. We are not entitled to special content just because it exists. If developers take the time and resources to make a few extra things for the game which would not otherwise have been included, and want to see a return for that, I don't see the problem. Likewise, if developers want to reward players who effectively invest in their project by pre-ordering, I don't see the problem. Pretending like the developers are somehow denying us the content we were entitled to by rewarding people who took a risk and gave them money before they got the end product is ridiculous. It would be like complaining to the bank that someone who has banked with them for longer than you has accrued more interest than you.

Rotaretilbo wrote:

Kasrkin Seath wrote:If you are arguing that the comparison is invalid because the end products were of different quality (one good, one bad) then you are missing the point. Why should consumers be forced to take a gamble to get 'special' content?

Why should developers be forced to produce extra content that costs money without seeing any return for it? Things like pre-order special content and Day 1 DLC are often things that otherwise wouldn't be in the game. They are things that the developers work on after the game has gone off to be prepared for launch, which are only justified to publishers because of their potential to bring in extra profit.

This feels a lot like a false sense of entitlement to me. We are not entitled to special content just because it exists. If developers take the time and resources to make a few extra things for the game which would not otherwise have been included, and want to see a return for that, I don't see the problem. Likewise, if developers want to reward players who effectively invest in their project by pre-ordering, I don't see the problem. Pretending like the developers are somehow denying us the content we were entitled to by rewarding people who took a risk and gave them money before they got the end product is ridiculous. It would be like complaining to the bank that someone who has banked with them for longer than you has accrued more interest than you.

You forget some DLC is literally locked content, RTW2 literally just makes the Faction unplayable, A similar faction lock happened with Shogun 2 and someone inevitably hacked the files, changed one line of code and was able to play as the locked faction (among other unplayable ones by design) without paying a cent extra. Theres nothing wrong with Day one DLC provided your getting something new developed outside the game and not unlocking a feature on your disc.

Using the Car Analogy if you bought a car for full price cash, drove it home and decided you wanted to listen to the radio, You click the button and it tells you "You did not buy the limited edition of this Vehicle please insert your credit card for access to the Radio" The Radio is in the car but will refuse to work unless you rip out the radio and start messing with it or pay extra. Even if the terms of your car contract does not include having a radio it still would come off as extremely greedy.

I actually don't care about demos and I am in favor of preorder bonus content. but not when that content is as expansive as an entire race in a game. dont try to tell me that they finished that one in the intervening time between the end of development and the games release.


you are the only speaking in straw men here Rot, you are arguing for small bonus content that none of us are against. if you are going to defend an entire portion of a game being locked out for pre-order bonus, defend that, not what the rest of us have no problem with.


and as for the devs trying to make a little extra money by doing that extra work, unless you are talking about self-published indie games, if you think any of that money gets back to the dev team you have a MASSIVE misunderstanding of how the actual entertainment and game industries operate, and why both are currently having a lot of trouble despite raking in record amounts of money every year.


also, NOBODY ever said that Rome 2 was another colonial marines. what we said was that in a world where game publishers DO lie about their products it is prudent to be skeptical of the final product of a game before buying it. People pre-ordered and then were disappointed and they did not get their money back. This is a possibility with any game and it doesn't take a stretch of the imagination to imagine a publisher using a locked portion of a game as a marketing gimmick to boost sales on a sub-standard product.

We have the ability to look back at Rome 2 and Colonial Marines with the knowledge of how both games turned out. but (hypothetically) imagine that both games released on the same day, had similar locked-out day 1 content (which I know they don't this is hypothetical), and in this hypothetical situation you have thoroughly enjoyed both games marketing campaigns and are excited for both. you pre-order both of them. how are you supposed to know that you have just been screwed out of $60 because of a dishonest marketing campeign? does this hypothetical situation seem like a fair one?

keep in mind I know what I just said was hypothetical and NOT HOW THINGS ACTUALLY TURNED OUT VIEWED FROM OUR CURRENT PLACE IN TIME. But if all you had been missing out on in that hypothetical version of colonial marines was a special rifle and a marine skin or w/e, maybe you would have waited 2-3 days to see if you liked the game before pledging $60 and being stuck with it. That pre-order gamble at least means that people who are loyal and want the game day-1 get a little bonus perk... but it isnt penalizing the people who want to wait, but who are still spending the same amount of money.

the existance of games like colonial marines is what makes me wary of getting any game on release day or seeing a midnight showing of a movie, I don't have the extra money to spend on something that I don't enjoy. if all companies were honest and there wern't publishers out there literally just trying to make a buck, that would be one thing. but this is the real world, and it pays to be a bit skeptical.

Another huge patch notes list has been released today as has the ability to opt in for the patc3beta via steam. If anyone cares.

dragoon9105 wrote:You forget some DLC is literally locked content, RTW2 literally just makes the Faction unplayable, A similar faction lock happened with Shogun 2 and someone inevitably hacked the files, changed one line of code and was able to play as the locked faction (among other unplayable ones by design) without paying a cent extra. Theres nothing wrong with Day one DLC provided your getting something new developed outside the game and not unlocking a feature on your disc.

Using the Car Analogy if you bought a car for full price cash, drove it home and decided you wanted to listen to the radio, You click the button and it tells you "You did not buy the limited edition of this Vehicle please insert your credit card for access to the Radio" The Radio is in the car but will refuse to work unless you rip out the radio and start messing with it or pay extra. Even if the terms of your car contract does not include having a radio it still would come off as extremely greedy.

Odd, I searched about for a while trying to find out if the Greek States Culture Pack was preloaded on the disc or a download, and every indication is that it requires a code which is used to download the DLC. That said, it wouldn't surprise me if one of the first patches added the DLC to the installed game pending the key to unlock to make things faster and more efficient for everyone, but I can't find any actual evidence that the Greek States Culture Pack was actually included on the disc. As such, your entire argument completely breaks down.

Mr.Inferior of the two Admins wrote:I actually don't care about demos and I am in favor of preorder bonus content. but not when that content is as expansive as an entire race in a game. dont try to tell me that they finished that one in the intervening time between the end of development and the games release.

As far as I can tell, the Greek factions are in the game whether you buy the DLC or not. The main thing the DLC seems to provide is a unique campaign for each faction, as well as the ability to play these three factions. And in the two months between the game being "finished" and the game actually launching, especially if the considering that the campaigns were probably considered and at least partially worked on during development, it is hardly farfetched for the developers to set up three campaigns in an existing engine with existing art assets.

So no, doesn't really hold water.

Mr.Inferior of the two Admins wrote:you are the only speaking in straw men here Rot, you are arguing for small bonus content that none of us are against. if you are going to defend an entire portion of a game being locked out for pre-order bonus, defend that, not what the rest of us have no problem with.

Perhaps I'm missing something. It was my understanding that we were talking about the Greek States Culture Pack, which is what I have been defending. I wasn't aware of any other paid DLC or pre-order bonus content in the game.

I'm also confused as to how you could possibly construe P's comment as anything but a textbook strawman. I make a comment defending pre-order rewards, he attacks my point as though it somehow applied whatsoever to the situation with Alien: Colonial Marine. I'm not sure if it could be any more cut and dry while being relevant to the discussion. Aliens: Colonial Marine wasn't a travesty because it had pre-order rewards. It was a travesty because it's entire marketing campaign was built around outright lies and flagrant deceit. It might have been compounded by the pre-order rewards, but they were not the root problem with the game; the root problem was that the "gameplay" demo they showed at E3 and PAX was prebuilt on an entirely different engine with assets that everyone at Gearbox knew would not be in the game.

Mr.Inferior of the two Admins wrote:and as for the devs trying to make a little extra money by doing that extra work, unless you are talking about self-published indie games, if you think any of that money gets back to the dev team you have a MASSIVE misunderstanding of how the actual entertainment and game industries operate, and why both are currently having a lot of trouble despite raking in record amounts of money every year.

I am quite familiar with how the game industry works, and with how poorly developers are compensated in the deals they strike with publishers in order to get funding in the first place. That said, even if they're only getting a fifth of the overall profit, compared to the publisher's four fifths, as appears to be the case with third-party developers, they're still getting something. It's bad out there, but making it out like developers literally don't see any of the profit is pretty unrealistic. Simply, if developers saw none of the profit, they wouldn't be able to stay open. While I wouldn't doubt that some developers do rush into short-sighted deals where the publishers gives them a lot of cash and in exchange the publisher gets all the proceeds, you're acting like the entire industry operates like this, and that's wholly untrue.

That said, last I checked, Creative Assembly is owned by Sega, which is an entirely different model. Any profit that Sega sees, Creative Assembly technically sees, because Creative Assembly is technically part of Sega. And I have to imagine that Sega's directors and VPs take into account financial success of CA games when determining CA's budget. It's probably not as much as it should be, but I can't imagine that CA is starving for money, considering that they actually had the extra marketing funds lying around to do the thing I linked earlier, and I can't imagine that Sega would actively cut funding on one of its biggest IPs.

Mr.Inferior of the two Admins wrote:also, NOBODY ever said that Rome 2 was another colonial marines. what we said was that in a world where game publishers DO lie about their products it is prudent to be skeptical of the final product of a game before buying it. People pre-ordered and then were disappointed and they did not get their money back. This is a possibility with any game and it doesn't take a stretch of the imagination to imagine a publisher using a locked portion of a game as a marketing gimmick to boost sales on a sub-standard product.

Sorry, what was that about nobody calling Rome 2 another Alien: Colonial Marine?

Ascendant Justice wrote:The game is total garbage at the moment until CA fixes the mountain of problems that are present with almost everything in the game.

Nocbl2 wrote:I've heard the same, which is unfortunate considering how hyped it was and all.

As always with these things, the demos were fucking spectacular but the end product turns to crap (read: Halo Wars, Spore)

Ascendant Justice wrote:Sounds a lot like Aliens Colonial Marines to me.....

Rasq'uire'laskar wrote:Sounds like Diablo 3 to me.

Here's how this argument evolved:

• Multiple people say that Rome 2 is absolutely terrible. It is repeatedly compared to games which were miserable failures, one going as far as to say that it is another Alien: Colonial Marines.
  
• I defend the game, citing that while it has some bugs, it's not nearly as bad as people are making it out to be, taking the time to contrast it with Alien: Colonial Marines. The people that complained about the game admit that it isn't as bad as they initially made it out to be.
  
• AJ brings up that he is upset that he had to pay for the Greek States Culture Pack, citing that it was unfair that because they weren't certain enough about the game to pre-order, they didn't have free access to what was otherwise a pre-order reward.
  
• I point out that it isn't really fair to complain about not winning because you were too scared to play.
  
• P immediately whips out a poorly contrived strawman in which he tries to imply that my statement extends to instances like Aliens: Colonial Marine, where the developers actively, intentionally, and grossly mislead their consumers. The only way his argument makes any sense is if you assume either that Rome 2's launch and Aliens: Colonial Marine's launch are similar in context because Creative Assembly also actively, intentionally, and grossly mislead their consumers, or if you do not fault Gearbox with their fraud and instead place full blame on the consumers who dared to support a product that looked good from an otherwise reputable developer with no indication of how terrible the game would be. Now, I assumed the former for two reasons. First, other people in this thread had already made the exact same assertion. Second, the latter is absolutely ridiculous, and I couldn't reconcile anyone absolving Gearbox of that atrocity. Given that I had already addressed the former, I saw no reason to take time to respond to P's post in any depth.
  
• Multiple people begin to blindly hate on both the pre-order model and Day 1 DLC. Many of the complaints are inherently founded in ignorance to how the system works. P's comparison of Rome 2 to Aliens: Colonial Marine is defended.
  
• I drop some links in the hopes that people might watch them and come to understand why their complaints are misfounded.
  
• Somehow, these links have the opposite effect. Posts become even more bitter and angry towards the systems in question than they were before, still without any actual foundation.

In an argument that literally started as people calling Rome 2 another Aliens: Colonial Marine and complaining about the Greek States Culture Pack, I think it is hardly a stretch of the imagination to assume that subsequent complaints about locked content, Day 1 DLC, and the pre-order model are at least partially directed at Rome 2.

Mr.Inferior of the two Admins wrote:We have the ability to look back at Rome 2 and Colonial Marines with the knowledge of how both games turned out. but (hypothetically) imagine that both games released on the same day, had similar locked-out day 1 content (which I know they don't this is hypothetical), and in this hypothetical situation you have thoroughly enjoyed both games marketing campaigns and are excited for both. you pre-order both of them. how are you supposed to know that you have just been screwed out of $60 because of a dishonest marketing campeign? does this hypothetical situation seem like a fair one?

I'm not even really sure what you're trying to say here.

If we're assuming that, in this hypothetical, the only shortcoming of the hypothetical Aliens: Colonial Marine is that it had locked out content at launch, then I frankly don't see the benefit of using Aliens: Colonial Marine, a game that is notorious for an intentionally and flagrantly dishonest marketing campaign. In a hypothetical situation where both games do the same thing, the only reason to use Aliens: Colonial Marine as one of the titles it to attempt to artificially inflate your argument because of the negative stigma that Aliens: Colonial Marine already has associated with it. How are you supposed to know that you were screwed over by dishonest marketing? You weren't. Does this situation seem fair? Absolutely.

If we're assuming that, in this hypothetical, Aliens: Colonial Marine also ran it's awful marketing campaign, then I'm not even sure what the question is. How are you supposed to know that you were screwed over by a dishonest marketing campaign? By comparing the game with the "gameplay" footage that was marketed. That's obvious. Does the situation seem fair? How is this question even relevant? In this hypothetical, there are two situations, one of which is unfair, and one of which is simply unfortunate.

And if the implication here is that Rome 2 somehow had a dishonest marketing campaign, well, that appears to be wholly untrue. I've spoken with about half a dozen people who all purchased Rome 2 either before or on launch. Each has told me that anything that was shown off in a gameplay trailer was also present in the game. Period. Not one could name a feature which was in a gameplay trailer which was not in the game. Not one could name an art asset or a graphics quality or an audio asset or a gameplay mechanic that the gameplay trailer showed off that was ultimately not in the game. A couple noted that there was at least one feature that some people might not realize were in the system (I assume because of poor UI design; I don't recall which at the moment, but I can ask if necessary), but there none could actually name an instance where gameplayer trailers lied to players about what was in the game. Their biggest complaints are about the bugs, especially the multiplayer syncing bugs. Bugs which the developer has pledged to fix by patching the game every week until the issues are resolved.

Mr.Inferior of the two Admins wrote:keep in mind I know what I just said was hypothetical and NOT HOW THINGS ACTUALLY TURNED OUT VIEWED FROM OUR CURRENT PLACE IN TIME. But if all you had been missing out on in that hypothetical version of colonial marines was a special rifle and a marine skin or w/e, maybe you would have waited 2-3 days to see if you liked the game before pledging $60 and being stuck with it. That pre-order gamble at least means that people who are loyal and want the game day-1 get a little bonus perk... but it isnt penalizing the people who want to wait, but who are still spending the same amount of money.

As best I can tell, as far as Aliens: Colonial Marines was concerned, all you were missing out on was a weapon and a couple skins. And even then, you weren't necessarily missing out on them, as they were also included in the Collector's Edition, which you could buy after launch. But, once again, you're ignoring the deeper issue here. Even if Aliens: Colonial Marines had straight-up moneygrab Day 1 DLC and half the campaign was locked content unless you pre-ordered, the fundamental reason that Aliens: Colonial Marines was such a bad game was because of the dishonest way in which it was marketed to look like an amazing game. Frankly, I'm not even sure where you're drawing these comparisons from. The chief complaint from people who bought Aliens: Colonial Marines was that they pre-ordered a game because it looked amazing, and they were delivered a game that would have been medicore at best a decade and a half ago. The chief complaint from people who bought Rome 2: Total War, in the context of this argument, at least (since the launch bugs seem to be a much more prominent complaint), is that they didn't pre-order the game and, as a result, had to pay a few extra bucks (less than a sixth of the retail price, which is quite different from a fourth) for the pre-order bonus content. These are entirely different sides of the pre-order system!

Mr.Inferior of the two Admins wrote:the existance of games like colonial marines is what makes me wary of getting any game on release day or seeing a midnight showing of a movie, I don't have the extra money to spend on something that I don't enjoy. if all companies were honest and there wern't publishers out there literally just trying to make a buck, that would be one thing. but this is the real world, and it pays to be a bit skeptical.

And that's perfectly fine. My point was simply that people who choose to play it safe can't complain when they don't get the things that other people took risks to get. This is a you-miss-100%-of-the-shots-you-don't-take situation; you may not take those shots because you're god awful at basketball or because you watched that video where that college player badly broke his ankle, but you can't then turn around and complain that you don't get drafted by a major league basketball team as a result. And people who choose to play basketball can't complain if they suck at basketball or break their ankle, unless another player's flagrant foul was the cause for said broken ankle.

While we are on the Greek City States dlc/locked content subject, the dlc in fact adds several new units that are added to other existing factions as well.  

And maybe I WAS a bit harsh in comparing TW to A:CM, I was rather frustrated at not only feeling like the game was pushed out the door, but also fearing for the developer's integrity.  

I guess where the comparison came in is that I felt like A:CM was based around a well loved sci-fi universe, and because of that, it seems like the devs knew that it would generate a "sufficient" profit in preorders and day 1 sales (JUST by the name "Aliens").  Similar to how Ensemble Studios kinda slapped the word "Halo" onto a certain RTS game because they knew it was a popular series.  Because of this, its like they only had to put a half assed effort into the final product.  

I didn't want CA to...be the same way, by grabbing the famous "Rome Total War" title, and using that to rush something to completion status without polishing it all the way.
However the weekly patches, and the massive change logs with each one are sort of renewing my faith in them.  It does still seem like someone was secretly poking CA with a pointy stick, going "is it finished yet? Is it finished yet?"  

Im still against the...locked content and/or day one dlc thing though.

EDIT: sorry if some of my posts tonight don't really make a whole lot of sense, Ive had a bit of beverage tonight haha.

I think my problem is that I am arguing something completely different to what yall are arguing. I'm arguing entirely from the position of skepticism before you see user reviews of the game with the end result not really mattering at all. In my argument Colonial marines and Rome 2 can be replaces with Game X and Game Y and it wouldnt matter as long as one was good and one was bad.

in my hypothetical argument colonial marines still had all the issues that happened as well as increased pre-order content, to make both games equivalently tempting to get in pre-order to not miss out on content (like locking grenades for only pre-orders or something). I probably should have just gone with Game X and Y as my examples to make things less confusing.

I didn't mean that rome 2's marketing campeign is anywhere comparable to colonial marines, I meant that from the consumers POV you cant tell who is being flagrantly dishonest, and that LARGE pre-order bonuses have the potential to be used as a tool in a dishonest campeign. the pressue shouldnt be on consumer to gamble on the outcome, the pressue should be on the developers to put out a quality product that deserves its pre-orders. again, I am absolutely fine with pre-order/ premium content. I used my golden lancer in GoW 2 proudly.

Ill concede on the straw man thing, I was viewing everything from the pre-launch point of view, but compairing rome 2's final product to colonial marines WAS a straw man. I didnt think thats what people were saying, but you've convinced me.

also honest mistake on the 1/4 the price thing, I thought it was $15 bucks for the pre-order content, $8 isnt that bad, but I still worry about say 1 DLC being used dishonestly in the future.


in the end all of my arguments are really not about THIS game at all, I just don't want to see it become a problem in the future. so Ill concede that Rome 2 isnt bad, you win. but I will still argue the potential for abuse of DLC till the sun comes up

I'm so happy!
This is just like the epic debates we used to have around here!

Ascendant Justice wrote:While we are on the Greek City States dlc/locked content subject, the dlc in fact adds several new units that are added to other existing factions as well.

Still, I have to imagine that a few art assets aren't too hard to come up with. If the Greek factions were entirely absent from the game and then were Day 1 DLC, complete with unique campaigns, an entirely new unit set, and everything, I could believe that it was content withheld. But because most of the groundwork was already in place, it seems more like content that we might not have otherwise seen.

Ascendant Justice wrote:And maybe I WAS a bit harsh in comparing TW to A:CM, I was rather frustrated at not only feeling like the game was pushed out the door, but also fearing for the developer's integrity.

I guess where the comparison came in is that I felt like A:CM was based around a well loved sci-fi universe, and because of that, it seems like the devs knew that it would generate a "sufficient" profit in preorders and day 1 sales (JUST by the name "Aliens").  Similar to how Ensemble Studios kinda slapped the word "Halo" onto a certain RTS game because they knew it was a popular series.  Because of this, its like they only had to put a half assed effort into the final product.

I didn't want CA to...be the same way, by grabbing the famous "Rome Total War" title, and using that to rush something to completion status without polishing it all the way.

Trust me, if developers waited until their games were perfect, or even up to their own standards, we'd never see good games release. While it always sucks for a game to be released too early, tragedies like all the content we missed out on in the original Fable, for example, because of overzealous deadlines, it also sucks for a game to stay in development for way too long and end up being a confused wreck because of all the alterations it underwent in a vain attempt at perfection. I mean, look at Duke Nukem Forever. That was a game that I guarantee was held back until it was perfect, and as a result, it changed hands thrice, changed engines at least that many times, and is utterly terrible after the first half hour of gameplay. At some point, both for our sake and for the sake of the developer and publisher, the publisher has to step in and say "we're launching this game". Often times, developers don't have the objective perspective to make that call. For a developer, a game is never really finished.

Mr.Inferior of the two Admins wrote:I think my problem is that I am arguing something completely different to what yall are arguing. I'm arguing entirely from the position of skepticism before you see user reviews of the game with the end result not really mattering at all. In my argument Colonial marines and Rome 2 can be replaces with Game X and Game Y and it wouldnt matter as long as one was good and one was bad.

in my hypothetical argument colonial marines still had all the issues that happened as well as increased pre-order content, to make both games equivalently tempting to get in pre-order to not miss out on content (like locking grenades for only pre-orders or something). I probably should have just gone with Game X and Y as my examples to make things less confusing.

I didn't mean that rome 2's marketing campeign is anywhere comparable to colonial marines, I meant that from the consumers POV you cant tell who is being flagrantly dishonest, and that LARGE pre-order bonuses have the potential to be used as a tool in a dishonest campeign. the pressue shouldnt be on consumer to gamble on the outcome, the pressue should be on the developers to put out a quality product that deserves its pre-orders. again, I am absolutely fine with pre-order/ premium content. I used my golden lancer in GoW 2 proudly.

I totally agree. Day 1 DLC, pre-order bonuses, and other things are dangerous. In the wrong hands, they can be abused. But rather than punish all of the developers pre-emptively, what we need to do is actively punish the developers that committed these abuses. I, for one, will not be buying Borderlands 3 whenever it is announced. I refuse to financially support Gearbox after what they did with Colonial Marines. And if enough of us follow suit, and if we're very vocal about it, publishers and, to a lesser extent, developers might catch on that the short term gains of taking advantage of the system to try and squeeze an extra dollar out of their consumers will have larger long term consequences. As consumers, we need to stop supporting both publishers and developers that take part in these kinds of activities, while rewarding those that do not.

In my opinion, Rome 2's Day 1 DLC wasn't just a money grab. Not an obvious one, at least. It seems more likely, to me, that it was content that didn't make it into the "final" game when it went off for certification and launch that CA really wanted to provide us. Let's not forget that they also released a fourth faction alongside the Greek States Culture Pack, which I'm fairly sure was free Day 1 DLC. CA seems like an honest developer, so those who enjoy the Total Wars series should support them. Gearbox has proven to be a particularly dishonest developer, and we should shy away from supporting them. Personally, I've decided not to purchase games published by EA unless they are the first installment of a new and original IP, because I refuse to support EA's repeated destruction of established IPs in sequels in the name of appealing to a wider audience.

Rasq'uire'laskar wrote:I'm so happy!
This is just like the epic debates we used to have around here!

Bah, one of the epic debates of old would have taken twenty pages for us to come to any kind of resolution, mostly because both sides would be too busy replying to the ignorants on the opposing sides to fully read the posts of the better debaters on the opposing sides. It was always so frustrating to have someone come in on my side of a religious debate and then spout absolute garbage nonsense. I'm sure RT felt the same way.

This was really more of a misunderstanding that anything else. Mr.Inferior of the two Admins was late to the party and missed the context of the original argument, and I completely misread what he was trying to argue.

Also, Extra History released another episode today/yesterday. It was awesome.

Tried to tell you Rot that you were reading it wrong lol.