Desync Reminder and Acknowledgement Thread

[HeroicSpur]

Dear All,

This thread is intended to remind CA of the pressing importance of resolving the desync issue. I would ask anyone who is affected by it to post here, regardless of your feelings on whether CA will answer.

The purpose of this thread is not to act as a platform for expressions of anger and hostility, it is clear that has got us nowhere, consider this more of a last petition, lest this issue be well and truly brushed under the carpet.

In light of the (not quite so) recent policy of selectively ignoring genuine requests for further information in respect of desyncs, and not so much as even mentioning desyncs in weekly updates, it has become increasingly apparent that the desync issue is unlikely to be resolved any time soon or at all.

This is a last effort to change that. I purchased Shogun 2 (x2!) exclusively for the purpose of playing the co-op campaign, and I'm sure many of you did too, or at least want(ed) to play the multiplayer campaign in some bearable capacity. It's not OK for this to go unresolved.

Even if you don't think CA will listen, post, at least to show that you care that you've been deprived (in all but name) of an advertised feature you paid for.


It has been said plenty of times, but to restate the issue:-
-Desync errors occur in a number of different cases, they appear more likely to occur in conducting some activities than others (e.g. diplomacy)
-The issue can be 'worked around' to a limited extent by transferring save games, however this is time consuming and tedious, both in transferring large files and having to save every turn/refighting battles etc. It is usually necessary to do this with increasing frequency after the first desync. There are occassions when transferring save games will not work around the desync.
-This makes the multiplayer campaign practically unplayable, a significant time investment can be washed away in an instant

[Remair]

I'll add my voice to this. I bought shogun 2 not purely for the co-op but it was a major contributing factor. A relative bought the game purely in order to play with myself and has not touched any other aspect of it. I bought the game at launch and since that time I have not yet managed to complete a single multiplayer campaign, every time we get so bogged down transfering save files that the game becomes unplayable.

And the official "solution"? Start a new campaign as soon as a single desync occurs. That is completely unacceptable, no other game would post that as a serious solution to a game destroying crash. With no further fixes in patches since the one accompanying RoS failed to solve the issue it seems very much like CA have written off the co-op, treating it like a gimick rather than a core part game.

And yes, I completely agree that CA and Craig's selective blindness when it comes to reading the multitude of requests for further information is unprofessional and unacceptable. When developers respond to jokes and side comments in threads but blankly refuse to even confirm they are still working on this issue it really makes me, as a customer, feel completely unwanted.

I have not purchased a single DLC, nor do I intend to purchase FoS. This is not a boycott, but simply that I will not spend any more money on a blatantly faulty product. If CA do fix this issue then overnight you will have my money for all DLCs and the expansion, until then... no. I have owned every single total war game since I was hooked on shogun when it first came out. I thought the savefile corruption in Empire at launch was disgraceful but at least you treated that as a genuine issue and repaired it.

So please, CA, Craig... Either confirm that this issue is still being worked on (preferably with some kind of timescale, or at least an estimate of how many people are dedicated to this project), or issue a full apology for advertising a broken feature and remove all reference of the co-op campaign from all your trailers/adverts/product-descriptions.

You used to be in my top 3 development companies of all time...

[Nicklaus]

Hi, thank you for the helpful post.
I just wanted to let you know we are still working on the MPC desync issue, which has been extremely tricky to nail down.
As we've said before, there are any number of things that can trigger a desync, and getting to the bottom of each case takes time. But any diagnostic information you (and everyone else in these forums) supply helps us to find the issues and resolve them at source. We're not ignoring these issues, we're just busy working on them.

[Remair]

Thank you Nicklaus. I can honestly say I am happily suprised by how fast you came back with a response. I am glad you are still working on it at least. As I said, if you do fix this issue then you will get my money for DLC and my gratitude Here's hoping...

[Dribbs]

Thanks for the response Nicklaus.
Most de-syncs that I've experienced have tended to occur when there has been multiple diplomatic activity.

[HeroicSpur]

I too really appreciate your post Nicklaus. After over a couple of months without a single word said in respect of the issue, you can probably understand why we were beginning to feel you had given up on us.

While the ultimate remedy is always going to be the fix, and hence we can only be so optimistic until that time (or until we have concrete knowledge of fixes), your acknowledgment has gone some way to restoring faith, thank you.

[lord_al]

Nicklaus,

I would like to make a suggestion that instead of pooling your resources in to new projects, DLC, expansions etc that you get more staff on the issue 9 months and the same answer or excuse whichever way you want to look at it.

If you have no staff experienced in this area you need to hire more. I would also like to hear your thoughts on pulling co-op from the features list until its fixed.

[HeroicSpur]

I am really just as annoyed as you Lord Al about desync, but removing co-op from their advertising is never going to be realistic, not to mention that that would be a decision of the publishers who are responsible for marketing. The same applies to staff allocation. I do agree with you in principle though.
As for getting a faster solution/getting CA to take it more seriously, that was the purpose of this thread, the more people who post, naturally the more CA will do. Demanding/suggesting they restructure their business/team probably isn't going to achieve that effect.

[Tobin]

I am also very dissapointed about the not working mpc. Bought the game most for playing with a friend but even nearly a year after release, this, a really big part of the game is totaly unplayable, that is bad CA!

But i understand that the problem is hard to fix otherwise it would ben fixed in some of the current patches. Hope you can solve it for shogun II. Just DONT release next TW title with unplayable, i dont understand 2 games in the row with the same gamebreaking problem. PLease at least fix it to the next title.

[huntermrg]

Hi all,

Just to say that i have the same problem, i tried many times playing this game in co-op with my friends and after turn 20 or 30 desinc... so im just playing the single player now.

One of the best things about this game was the multiplayer co-op CA and you failed to fix this issue, i just hope it will be fixed in the next patch, im the proud owner of a videogame shop called (EXTREMEGAMER) when my clients asks me if Shogun 2 is a good choice to play multyplayer i just say DONT BUY NOW WAIT UNTIL ITS FIXED, YES I SELL YOUR GAMES.