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Ultimately it comes down to this. DO you believe they hired more people to do this, or not. I don't.
Well. I have been keeping a close eye on CA's Jobs page and twitter feed. I have seen overwhelming proof that they have been hiring massively over the past months. And still are today.
Any fool can make things bigger and more complex. It takes a touch of genius – and a lot of courage – to move in the opposite direction. — Albert Einstein
There is a very simple solution to this Preorder DLC "problem". Just add something new preorder gift, dont need big thing (and of course the Chaos faction is not preorder dlc just the 5th playable race at the begining). Then the warhammer fans dont be so angry, and more people will be preorder the game.
Then they lose money on the production of Chaos and also on the other free pre-order bonus you want. That's not a solution at all.
Thank you for clearing this up. I dont want to call my fellow gamers all that cynical because there have been alot of bad practice in the gaming industry( I personally believe the cause of that are the people with the money aka the publishers ). But to believe that a bunch of crazy nerds making awesome videogames are out there to get you and your wallet is just hard for me to even imagaine. Thank you for your awesome games CA, they are great.
OK let me get this straight Chaos were always intended to be in the game but not as a fully fleshed out playable faction, they would according to CA appear in the main game as an important ‘big opposition’ to give you a hard challenge towards the end of your campaign game and they appear even if you don’t have the Chaos Warriors Race Pack DLC.
So do you mean by the main game that Chaos would appear at some point in the trilogy even if you don’t have the Chaos Warriors Race Pack DLC or do you mean that they were always intended to appear in the first game but not as a playable faction?
You decided to make Chaos a fully fleshed out playable faction I presume some of that cost would be covered by the Chaos that will appear even if you don’t have the Chaos Warriors Race Pack DLC?
As we understood it each game in the trilogy was meant to be a standalone game has this changed? And if not does this mean that Chaos will also appear in the second and third game in some form?
If the could just let everyone who either pre order OR buy the game within the first week get the dlc everybody would be happy.
Also, I`m glad that the chaos warriors dlc is not the same as chaos deamons that will be the true enemy.
OK let me get this straight Chaos were always intended to be in the game but not as a fully fleshed out playable faction, they would according to CA appear in the main game as an important ‘big opposition’ to give you a hard challenge towards the end of your campaign game and they appear even if you don’t have the Chaos Warriors Race Pack DLC.
So do you mean by the main game that Chaos would appear at some point in the trilogy even if you don’t have the Chaos Warriors Race Pack DLC or do you mean that they were always intended to appear in the first game but not as a playable faction?
You decided to make Chaos a fully fleshed out playable faction I presume some of that cost would be covered by the Chaos that will appear even if you don’t have the Chaos Warriors Race Pack DLC?
As we understood it each game in the trilogy was meant to be a standalone game has this changed? And if not does this mean that Chaos will also appear in the second and third game in some form?
Let's put it like this: "Chaos" is more than just Chaos Warriors. The full horrors of the Realm of Chaos are coming later in the trilogy. The opportunity here was to bring a little flavour of that into the main game, primarily to be a big opposition in the late game. That would fit nicely in given the set-up.
Don't get me wrong, Chaos Warriors will be a tough nut to crack, but they are just the tip of the quivering tentacle of unfathomable madness that will arrive later...
Formal disclaimer: any views or opinions expressed here are those of the poster and do not necessarily represent the views or opinions of The Creative Assembly or SEGA.
But in order to do that with Warhammer content, it has to be split up into reasonable pieces in order to do all of it at a reasonable resource cost.
One question: Why did you not do this for Rome 2 Total War? I think you tried to put too much into one release for that one.
Thanks for the explanation though. You guys do a great job. But what you do is super-complex. Hence, a lot of bugs at release. That makes me hold off and not pre-order. But now that, as you say, I can "explore" my refund rights (and I really don't want to do that), I might start thinking about pre-ordering again.
One question: Why did you not do this for Rome 2 Total War? I think you tried to put too much into one release for that one.
Well we did, and while your mileage may understandably vary, Greek States, Pirates & Raiders, Caesar in Gaul, Wrath of Sparta, Black Sea Colonies, Imperator Augustus and all the other DLCs are of a similar model to what we're talking about here.
Formal disclaimer: any views or opinions expressed here are those of the poster and do not necessarily represent the views or opinions of The Creative Assembly or SEGA.
Well we did, and while your mileage may understandably vary, Greek States, Pirates & Raiders, Caesar in Gaul, Wrath of Sparta, Black Sea Colonies, Imperator Augustus and all the other DLCs are of a similar model to what we're talking about here.
I get it. But to me personally, factions in Rome 2 seemed pretty shallow at release. I'd rather have a smaller map (not a global one) in the beginning with fewer, but very varied, factions. With a lot of meaningful, working features that define each faction. More depth rather than breadth so to speak. I don't mind a game that is released in separate pieces. And I don't mind paying for each piece, if it means I pay more to have a better game. Warhammer factions and lore probably make it an obvious choice. But in my view, it should be the case for any TW game.
Well we did, and while your mileage may understandably vary, Greek States, Pirates & Raiders, Caesar in Gaul, Wrath of Sparta, Black Sea Colonies, Imperator Augustus and all the other DLCs are of a similar model to what we're talking about here.
In terms of pre-order value I think many consider chaos warriors to be a lot more important than the Greek States, mainly because like you (CA) have mentioned yourselves the factions are less numerous but much more diverse and detailed in the Warhammer universe.
Also I'm curious about why you decided to fully disclose this DLC now before we know really anyhing about the 4 base-game factions? Whereas the CW has their whole (I assume) roster done as well as details regarding their playstyle + another legendary Lord. Is it because you haven't finished the 'layout' so to speak of the 4 base factions yet?
I just wanted to take the time to say to CA: what you wrote makes sense, but (as you can see already) don't expect most of the people complaining to suddenly accept what you are doing (and I'm talking mostly about people on YouTube and Steam forums). It's all wasted time and effort.
You can't tell the raging mob to calm down: most of those people are not freaking out because of the DLC, they are using the DLC to have an excuse so they can freak out. We've all seen this movie a million times already.
This whole situation is a huge non-issue for anybody capable to have the minimum amount of patience one is supposed to have in life. 99% of everything else I'm seeing is vague rethoric over unexplained principles and a lot of nerd rage.
Also I'm curious about why you decided to fully disclose this DLC now before we know really anyhing about the 4 major factions? Whereas the CW has their whole (I assume) roster done as well as details regarding their playstyle + another legendary Lord. Is it because you haven't finished the 'layout' so to speak of the 4 base factions yet?
I don't think they are going to say it out loud, but my bet is because they knew well in advance this mess would happen. Now that they announced the whole thing with all the details, they won't have to bring it up times and times again in the next months, and people will chill out faster.
I don't think they are going to say it out loud, but my bet is because they knew well in advance this mess would happen. Now that they announced the whole thing with all the details, they won't have to bring it up times and times again in the next months, and people will chill out faster.
It's possible yeah, however I think this would have gone over a lot smoother had they waited a while longer before we knew more about the 4 base races that come with the game. I mean right now a lot of people are getting the feeling of "Why do they give us so much information on a DLC when we have next to none on the main game"
Leaves a bit of a bad taste in your mouth and its easy for doomsayers to draw conclusions that this was finished well before the release of the game (considering we have it near fully detailed with in-engine footage)
I dunno, I'm just curious as to why they didn't wait. I know they had to reveal it sooner or later but in this case I think waiting would have saved them a lot of stress from the community.
Let's put it like this: "Chaos" is more than just Chaos Warriors. The full horrors of the Realm of Chaos are coming later in the trilogy. The opportunity here was to bring a little flavour of that into the main game, primarily to be a big opposition in the late game. That would fit nicely in given the set-up.
Don't get me wrong, Chaos Warriors will be a tough nut to crack, but they are just the tip of the quivering tentacle of unfathomable madness that will arrive later...
I am beginning to understand that the Chaos warriors are only a small flavour of what is to come but you keep using the term “main game”, what is the main game?
Perhaps I have simply misunderstood what CA mean by a trilogy, normally a trilogy is composed of 3 equal parts and the main game would mean that trilogy however I get the impression that when you say the main game you mean the first game?
As a side note I think part of the problem is that people do not fully understand myself included the overall concept behind the trilogy and how a DLC like the Chaos warriors is really only a minor addition to this overall concept. Without the context everything is taken out of context so I think a good start would be to make that more clear and people can then better appreciate what your doing.
When comparing culture packs from the previous tiles (Rome II & Attila) with Races in WARHAMMER. WARHAMMER Races very likely to offer a lot more value & variation.
A WARHAMMER Race DLC has Legendary Lords. Legendary Lords have specific quest chains with a number of quest battles that unlock legendary items and weapons. You get access to units that vary a lot from other races thus you get access to a truly fresh gameplay experience.
Culture packs did offer some new variation, uniqueness and extra replay value. But not to the extent a WARHAMMER Race has the potential to do.
Any fool can make things bigger and more complex. It takes a touch of genius – and a lot of courage – to move in the opposite direction. — Albert Einstein
Complainers think they are fighting for consumers rights but they are just causing us harm. CA will get wiser, instead of giving us free faction on release day they will simply sell it as DLC later on and none of us will be any wiser.
Well we did, and while your mileage may understandably vary, Greek States, Pirates & Raiders, Caesar in Gaul, Wrath of Sparta, Black Sea Colonies, Imperator Augustus and all the other DLCs are of a similar model to what we're talking about here.
The difference is that all of the above mentioned dlc were released AFTER launch (expect greek city states)
People are angry about dlc 6 month before the games is even launched.
I say again: Making chaos free for everybody the first week after release will make everyone happy and will ensure that you get lots of people buying at launch to get chaos. Win win for all.
All very reasonable and fair, makes perfect sense but...£49.99. 50 quid. For the base game. You can't afford a fifth base game race on that kind of moolah? Did you know the game was going to have this ludicrous price? This would all seem fair, if the development budget had been assigned on the assumption that this would be a normal £30 game.
£40 would be silly, a TW first, but £50's taking the ****.
Well... you see... the issue with this explanation is... you said that with the allocated resources you could do 4 races for the game... fair.... and to do a fifth race would take more resources and you would operate at a loss, as such you allocate it to a separate team that starts on it parallel to the main game's development and also at a separate cost, again, fair.
But, here comes the caveat. If that were the case, then the main game would have focused on those 4 races, but the fifth race IS in the main game... so you've worked on it with the main resources, so as to not be at a loss when say, the improbable case of no one buying the dlc would happen. So where is that paralel work? As I see it it's quite perpendicular.
They are admitting that the preorder to get chaos playable is to get more money. But they are also admitting that it's a marketing strategy to get more sales, sales that they need to operate with benefits. They also mention how this strategy might not be the best one if preorder dlcs are perceived by players so badly and they ask what would be a more reasonable option for both parts. Personally if they are being really honest about it and they are telling the truth and they need this stuff to cover their losses and get money (for their workers and future games to keep the company going) then I don't have a problem (if that's the real reason and it's not for money grabbing because **** you)
Interesting posts. I'm happy that you found time to post them and that you feel that you're being honest with us. That's definitely good. An intelligent discussion is always better than ranting and raging. Here's my two pence worth.
I'm a long time player of the series. I was a long time loyal customer. I've bought all your games including Attila. Attila will be the last though. This isn't just because of the Chaos DLC, although that has contributed to it.
You say that it's not possible for budgetary reasons to fill the game with the same amount of content as your earlier games (all of the factions in games like Rome and M2TW became unlocked after defeating them) and you need to sell it to us piece by piece. Fair enough. That's your position. I can't see your bank balance -so I will have to accept that.
The important thing though, for producers of products is to not only think about their costs and profits but also what customers can afford to pay . I know Business management 101 - but it needs to be said.
Personally, it's not possible for me for budgetary reasons to buy the extra content as DLC. I do not consider the price to quality/novelty ratio of the ones you've been trying to sell me since Rome 2 as worth it. Secondly, because they're no longer coming with the base game, this has a knock on effect, I struggle to consider the base games as giving value for money. Couple that with the fact that Rome 2 took 1 year from release to become playable and Attila CAI still contains many of the bugs that plague Rome 2 - I currently find the price you charge for your content to be beyond my purse.
There is something else you guys don't seem to be quite understanding about this "Chaos DLC" issue. To be perfectly honest, as we're being honest here, this is a discussion not a rant -I still feel a lot of resentment towards your company concerning the state of Rome 2 at release. I'm going to ignore that emotion. I'm going to be rational. My rational brain tells me, I allowed myself to be hyped by the marketing of Rome 2. I was suckered into buying the game as a pre-order. I was very angry about the state of the game I received. I felt cheated and fooled - i decided I wouldn't be cheated again. And I hoped your company would recognise how poorly that particular marketing startegy was received by your player base and NOT do it again.
Three years later, and here you are doing it! Repeating it! You write that you like pre-orders because the help create a "buzz" and "hype" about your new games - do you not see how that can make your customers resentful at best? Your company is repeating the marketing strategy - an important faction being sold separately and included in the pre-order bait - that so many of us were suckered by, as though you have learnt nothing from the Rome 2 debacle? You can talk about the economics of it till your blue in the face- but what you seem to be either willfully or cluelessly overlooking is the psychological impact such a policy has.
So, in a nutshell - this the DLC policy and the pre-order policy does 2 things. Forget the economics, the pre-order DLC policy antagonises the customers who pre-ordered Rome 2 because it appears to show that your company isnt actually listening to us (if you were you wouldn't have even considered doing this) . And you DLC policy, personally, makes your games unaffordable for me.
I wish you the best of luck in the future. I'm afraid, I'm no longer one of your loyal regular customers.
The difference is that all of the above mentioned dlc were released AFTER launch (expect greek city states)
People are angry about dlc 6 month before the games is even launched.
TW games are CA's property. They can not sell it, give it away, or sell it in pieces if they want. No one outside of the owners of CA (including CA employees) have any "rights" concerning CA's property.
If people are "angry" then that shows they have some expectation of how this property that belongs to others should be sold. They should not have expectations - since they have no "rights" concerning this - rather they can accept it as offered or refuse to buy it.
Then again I speak as an American Libertarian and realize that many in the world do not share my beliefs concerning private property. Still .. that's my two cents on this.
Also I'm curious about why you decided to fully disclose this DLC now before we know really anyhing about the 4 base-game factions? Whereas the CW has their whole (I assume) roster done as well as details regarding their playstyle + another legendary Lord. Is it because you haven't finished the 'layout' so to speak of the 4 base factions yet?
The thinking (however wrong!) was that we are of course going to talk extensively about all the playable factions in the next 6 months, and so getting the pre-order up early means that as people see a bit of information or reveal over the next 6 months that they finally think "yeah I'll preorder", it will be there and ready for them to take advantage of.
That point will be different for everyone of course.
With hindsight, while there's been loads of info on Empire and Dwarfs already, absolutely we should have put out more detail, otherwise yes the impression is that Chaos Warriors are more 'complete' at this point, which isn't necessarily correct.
We are pulling some stuff together at the moment to illustrate the rosters of the playable races, will absolutely get to showing them off soon.
Formal disclaimer: any views or opinions expressed here are those of the poster and do not necessarily represent the views or opinions of The Creative Assembly or SEGA.
All very reasonable and fair, makes perfect sense but...£49.99. 50 quid. For the base game. You can't afford a fifth base game race on that kind of moolah? Did you know the game was going to have this ludicrous price? This would all seem fair, if the development budget had been assigned on the assumption that this would be a normal £30 game.
£40 would be silly, a TW first, but £50's taking the ****.
30 BP for new release? You have been living a good life over there. We had been paying 90 AUD for decades in OZ. I still think content wise it's worth the price.
I get it. But to me personally, factions in Rome 2 seemed pretty shallow at release. I'd rather have a smaller map (not a global one) in the beginning with fewer, but very varied, factions. With a lot of meaningful, working features that define each faction. More depth rather than breadth so to speak. I don't mind a game that is released in separate pieces. And I don't mind paying for each piece, if it means I pay more to have a better game. Warhammer factions and lore probably make it an obvious choice. But in my view, it should be the case for any TW game.
Well said, Mithras. I couldn't agree more and - thank Sigmar - CA have been stressing the whole "deep not wide" thing incessantly since announcing Warhammer. Like you, though, I would really like to see this design philosophy carry over to the historical titles, perhaps even be taken further
I am beginning to understand that the Chaos warriors are only a small flavour of what is to come but you keep using the term “main game”, what is the main game?
Perhaps I have simply misunderstood what CA mean by a trilogy, normally a trilogy is composed of 3 equal parts and the main game would mean that trilogy however I get the impression that when you say the main game you mean the first game?
.
That is a good point, when we say 'main game' here we mean the first game in the trilogy, the one that will be released in April next year.
We haven't talked yet about how the trilogy will exactly work together, but we will in the future.
Formal disclaimer: any views or opinions expressed here are those of the poster and do not necessarily represent the views or opinions of The Creative Assembly or SEGA.
As they asked for feedback, other options/actions they can or could have taken:
- If you preorder= offer one Race/paid DLC from first game of trilogy, at user´s election, for free. Announce first DLC being chaos warriors in feb or march so people don´t get the idea that is cut out, and they can select it anyways. In this case each one could get their preferred race for free. Hopefully they will do something like this for next 2 titles.
- Offer Chaos as a free 5th race, and no preorder bonus. As a sorry guys, we will not do this ****** business practices anymore. There is still time for this. I´d probably insta-preorder if they did change their mind, going against my rule of waiting for reviews/youtubers. Sounds inconsistent, since I get exactly the same as if I preordered right now anyways, right? Well, it isn´t. If you don´t understand why it isn´t you don´t understand 95% of the **** thats going on.
- Preorder bonus = some days of access to each race when they come out so you can get a taste of them for free. Again, announce Chaos Warriors as first DLC a few days before/after release.
- Offer season passes and make preorder bonus=price reduction for season pass or early access to new races/DLC or... well, nothing. Again, announce CW later. Some problems with this though: CA loves to feed slowly to keep hype up (which i don´t like since it promotes less comunication and less informed users), and you need to tell more or less what they will receive or people will get mad.
- Preorder bonus = early access to the game as beta tester. This would be a win-win for them and for us users and many very succesful games are going this route (E: D, StarCitizen,DayZ...more or less all Crowdfunded games).
- Offer demo. We know they wont, they went with youtuber´s early enough review. I think this is a good enough step and a good compromise. Is much easier to control 20 guys than a demo out in the open. which brings me to next point:
- MORE INFO. Welcome to crowdfunding times! Less hype PR strategies. As others have said, you don´t have the street cred any more. We take lack of info as "the release is gonna suck, they are screwing us over" not as "wow, they know how to hype... lets preorder!". And it makes it less flexible for them to react to this surges of hatred for community since "it was not in our original info release schedule". You screwed it up and lied to us BIG TIME with Rome 2. Now is time to pay for that, and make amends. I truly thought this had changed when they started telling us their reveals schedule some months ago. Sadly it just faded and they are back on promoting hype on an angry community.
- Really make DLCs worth 15$. Hopefully the IP (extra units, mechanics per Race), charactersd RPG,... already take care of this. But wrath of sparta, greek states, pirates&raiders.... those are NOT worth 15$, at least for me. Wrath of Sparta was the closest one, but it ended up being such a copy-paste fest it makes me lose trust in CA and this game overall. Again, you are paying now for your previous sins.
- Again, MORE INFO! but to your fans directly, not to handpicked chosen webs, youtubers (yeah, I am looking at you untrusty pcgamer). They seem to think having a meeting with some press, setting an embargo and some weeks later releasing info gives them visibility. I tend to disagree with this vision. More live streams, answering real time questions from fans... would be better. I have to admit they are very open to interviews by fans in conferences, etc. Just take one step further.
And since this is long enough already, i am gonna stop. Hopefully this gets read and is useful.
You say that it's not possible for budgetary reasons to fill the game with the same amount of content as your earlier games (all of the factions in games like Rome and M2TW became unlocked after defeating them) and you need to sell it to us piece by piece. Fair enough. That's your position. I can't see your bank balance -so I will have to accept that.
Hi Dave,
Appreciate your post, and just to say that we expect not to repeat history, but yes we have to prove that.
I do need to point out that on the above quote though that Mike is not saying that.
Mike's saying that when looking at the content we wanted to do, only a certain amount would fit into the scope for the game, and that's why we made the design decisions we did.
The content is so fundamentally different from previous games in terms of volume, fidelity and technical composition (certainly original Rome and M2TW) that we wouldn't be able to draw a comparison.
Formal disclaimer: any views or opinions expressed here are those of the poster and do not necessarily represent the views or opinions of The Creative Assembly or SEGA.
That if all this had been said either in conjunction with the pre-order announcement, or even prior to it... there would have been no need for more to be said.
If there's a plus to be had from what's happened, it's the knowledge that a little transparency and discussion with the people who buy the game - goes a long way. There is a relationship that can be cultivated, not just through how awesome a game is, but by being communicative and thoughtful. Here's hoping that that's something we can look forward to, as well as an awesome game
I stick by what I said earlier though.. thanks for the feedback.
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The thinking (however wrong!) was that we are of course going to talk extensively about all the playable factions in the next 6 months, and so getting the pre-order up early means that as people see a bit of information or reveal over the next 6 months that they finally think "yeah I'll preorder", it will be there and ready for them to take advantage of.
That point will be different for everyone of course.
With hindsight, while there's been loads of info on Empire and Dwarfs already, absolutely we should have put out more detail, otherwise yes the impression is that Chaos Warriors are more 'complete' at this point, which isn't necessarily correct.
We are pulling some stuff together at the moment to illustrate the rosters of the playable races, will absolutely get to showing them off soon.
Thank you for the response. I can definitely see where you're coming from though I can't help but feel you could have had a bit more faith in the community.
As you say it was revealed as a pre-order incentive yet I'm confident many, many people were pre-ordering anyways. Releasing this later on (EDIT: by later on I mean closer to the release of the game when we would have had more info overall on the other races too) would have served both sides better, CA gets more hype generated through an additional faction and the community doesn't get the impression DLC is more 'valuable' to disclose before the base game factions.
Anyways on a more positive note I was already going to pre-order this game prior to the DLC reveal. I think that what you have done by showing off more actual gameplay and releasing more information prior to release is a very, very good trend and I definitely hope you continue with it. The same with allowing reviewers and youtubers to play the game early to get us a look at it before purchase.
Definitely looking forward to seeing that roster info for the other factions too
It's possible yeah, however I think this would have gone over a lot smoother had they waited a while longer before we knew more about the 4 base races that come with the game. I mean right now a lot of people are getting the feeling of "Why do they give us so much information on a DLC when we have next to none on the main game"
Leaves a bit of a bad taste in your mouth and its easy for doomsayers to draw conclusions that this was finished well before the release of the game (considering we have it near fully detailed with in-engine footage)
I dunno, I'm just curious as to why they didn't wait. I know they had to reveal it sooner or later but in this case I think waiting would have saved them a lot of stress from the community.
Seeing how similar things went in the past, I think it would have had the same exact amount of backlash if they announced Chaos later on, or even more.
The "you are selling DLC 6 months ahead of release" some people keep on saying is not a sound argument (because, frankly, when they announce something is completely irrelevant, as long as the same exact thing will happen and you will have well enough time to think about the purchase in both scenarios), it's just the way the present situation happens to lend itself to criticism.
If they had announced Chaos Warriors one month before the game came out, the rethoric would probably have been "you lied to us for all this time, there were 5 races ready but you led us to believe they were 4, and now you bribe us with a pre-order to have the full game". And on top of that, this whole debacle would be happening when the game is just launching, so the effects on sales would be much worse.
Comments
Well. I have been keeping a close eye on CA's Jobs page and twitter feed. I have seen overwhelming proof that they have been hiring massively over the past months. And still are today.
viri non urinat in ventum — Anonymous Roman
TOTAL WAR FORUM: TERMS AND CONDITIONS
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0 · Disagree AgreeThen they lose money on the production of Chaos and also on the other free pre-order bonus you want. That's not a solution at all.
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0 · Disagree Agree- Report
0 · Disagree AgreeSo do you mean by the main game that Chaos would appear at some point in the trilogy even if you don’t have the Chaos Warriors Race Pack DLC or do you mean that they were always intended to appear in the first game but not as a playable faction?
You decided to make Chaos a fully fleshed out playable faction I presume some of that cost would be covered by the Chaos that will appear even if you don’t have the Chaos Warriors Race Pack DLC?
As we understood it each game in the trilogy was meant to be a standalone game has this changed? And if not does this mean that Chaos will also appear in the second and third game in some form?
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0 · Disagree AgreeAlso, I`m glad that the chaos warriors dlc is not the same as chaos deamons that will be the true enemy.
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0 · Disagree AgreeLet's put it like this: "Chaos" is more than just Chaos Warriors. The full horrors of the Realm of Chaos are coming later in the trilogy. The opportunity here was to bring a little flavour of that into the main game, primarily to be a big opposition in the late game. That would fit nicely in given the set-up.
Don't get me wrong, Chaos Warriors will be a tough nut to crack, but they are just the tip of the quivering tentacle of unfathomable madness that will arrive later...
Formal disclaimer: any views or opinions expressed here are those of the poster and do not necessarily represent the views or opinions of The Creative Assembly or SEGA.
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0 · Disagree AgreeOne question: Why did you not do this for Rome 2 Total War? I think you tried to put too much into one release for that one.
Thanks for the explanation though. You guys do a great job. But what you do is super-complex. Hence, a lot of bugs at release. That makes me hold off and not pre-order. But now that, as you say, I can "explore" my refund rights (and I really don't want to do that), I might start thinking about pre-ordering again.
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0 · Disagree AgreeWell we did, and while your mileage may understandably vary, Greek States, Pirates & Raiders, Caesar in Gaul, Wrath of Sparta, Black Sea Colonies, Imperator Augustus and all the other DLCs are of a similar model to what we're talking about here.
Formal disclaimer: any views or opinions expressed here are those of the poster and do not necessarily represent the views or opinions of The Creative Assembly or SEGA.
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0 · Disagree AgreeI get it. But to me personally, factions in Rome 2 seemed pretty shallow at release. I'd rather have a smaller map (not a global one) in the beginning with fewer, but very varied, factions. With a lot of meaningful, working features that define each faction. More depth rather than breadth so to speak. I don't mind a game that is released in separate pieces. And I don't mind paying for each piece, if it means I pay more to have a better game. Warhammer factions and lore probably make it an obvious choice. But in my view, it should be the case for any TW game.
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0 · Disagree AgreeIn terms of pre-order value I think many consider chaos warriors to be a lot more important than the Greek States, mainly because like you (CA) have mentioned yourselves the factions are less numerous but much more diverse and detailed in the Warhammer universe.
Also I'm curious about why you decided to fully disclose this DLC now before we know really anyhing about the 4 base-game factions? Whereas the CW has their whole (I assume) roster done as well as details regarding their playstyle + another legendary Lord. Is it because you haven't finished the 'layout' so to speak of the 4 base factions yet?
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0 · Disagree AgreeYou can't tell the raging mob to calm down: most of those people are not freaking out because of the DLC, they are using the DLC to have an excuse so they can freak out. We've all seen this movie a million times already.
This whole situation is a huge non-issue for anybody capable to have the minimum amount of patience one is supposed to have in life. 99% of everything else I'm seeing is vague rethoric over unexplained principles and a lot of nerd rage.
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0 · Disagree AgreeI don't think they are going to say it out loud, but my bet is because they knew well in advance this mess would happen. Now that they announced the whole thing with all the details, they won't have to bring it up times and times again in the next months, and people will chill out faster.
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0 · Disagree AgreeIt's possible yeah, however I think this would have gone over a lot smoother had they waited a while longer before we knew more about the 4 base races that come with the game. I mean right now a lot of people are getting the feeling of "Why do they give us so much information on a DLC when we have next to none on the main game"
Leaves a bit of a bad taste in your mouth and its easy for doomsayers to draw conclusions that this was finished well before the release of the game (considering we have it near fully detailed with in-engine footage)
I dunno, I'm just curious as to why they didn't wait. I know they had to reveal it sooner or later but in this case I think waiting would have saved them a lot of stress from the community.
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0 · Disagree AgreeI am beginning to understand that the Chaos warriors are only a small flavour of what is to come but you keep using the term “main game”, what is the main game?
Perhaps I have simply misunderstood what CA mean by a trilogy, normally a trilogy is composed of 3 equal parts and the main game would mean that trilogy however I get the impression that when you say the main game you mean the first game?
As a side note I think part of the problem is that people do not fully understand myself included the overall concept behind the trilogy and how a DLC like the Chaos warriors is really only a minor addition to this overall concept. Without the context everything is taken out of context so I think a good start would be to make that more clear and people can then better appreciate what your doing.
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0 · Disagree AgreeA WARHAMMER Race DLC has Legendary Lords. Legendary Lords have specific quest chains with a number of quest battles that unlock legendary items and weapons. You get access to units that vary a lot from other races thus you get access to a truly fresh gameplay experience.
Culture packs did offer some new variation, uniqueness and extra replay value. But not to the extent a WARHAMMER Race has the potential to do.
viri non urinat in ventum — Anonymous Roman
TOTAL WAR FORUM: TERMS AND CONDITIONS
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0 · Disagree AgreePeople are angry about dlc 6 month before the games is even launched.
I say again: Making chaos free for everybody the first week after release will make everyone happy and will ensure that you get lots of people buying at launch to get chaos. Win win for all.
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0 · Disagree Agree£40 would be silly, a TW first, but £50's taking the ****.
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0 · Disagree AgreeThey are admitting that the preorder to get chaos playable is to get more money. But they are also admitting that it's a marketing strategy to get more sales, sales that they need to operate with benefits. They also mention how this strategy might not be the best one if preorder dlcs are perceived by players so badly and they ask what would be a more reasonable option for both parts. Personally if they are being really honest about it and they are telling the truth and they need this stuff to cover their losses and get money (for their workers and future games to keep the company going) then I don't have a problem (if that's the real reason and it's not for money grabbing because **** you)
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0 · Disagree AgreeI'm a long time player of the series. I was a long time loyal customer. I've bought all your games including Attila. Attila will be the last though. This isn't just because of the Chaos DLC, although that has contributed to it.
You say that it's not possible for budgetary reasons to fill the game with the same amount of content as your earlier games (all of the factions in games like Rome and M2TW became unlocked after defeating them) and you need to sell it to us piece by piece. Fair enough. That's your position. I can't see your bank balance -so I will have to accept that.
The important thing though, for producers of products is to not only think about their costs and profits but also what customers can afford to pay . I know Business management 101 - but it needs to be said.
Personally, it's not possible for me for budgetary reasons to buy the extra content as DLC. I do not consider the price to quality/novelty ratio of the ones you've been trying to sell me since Rome 2 as worth it. Secondly, because they're no longer coming with the base game, this has a knock on effect, I struggle to consider the base games as giving value for money. Couple that with the fact that Rome 2 took 1 year from release to become playable and Attila CAI still contains many of the bugs that plague Rome 2 - I currently find the price you charge for your content to be beyond my purse.
There is something else you guys don't seem to be quite understanding about this "Chaos DLC" issue. To be perfectly honest, as we're being honest here, this is a discussion not a rant -I still feel a lot of resentment towards your company concerning the state of Rome 2 at release. I'm going to ignore that emotion. I'm going to be rational. My rational brain tells me, I allowed myself to be hyped by the marketing of Rome 2. I was suckered into buying the game as a pre-order. I was very angry about the state of the game I received. I felt cheated and fooled - i decided I wouldn't be cheated again. And I hoped your company would recognise how poorly that particular marketing startegy was received by your player base and NOT do it again.
Three years later, and here you are doing it! Repeating it! You write that you like pre-orders because the help create a "buzz" and "hype" about your new games - do you not see how that can make your customers resentful at best? Your company is repeating the marketing strategy - an important faction being sold separately and included in the pre-order bait - that so many of us were suckered by, as though you have learnt nothing from the Rome 2 debacle? You can talk about the economics of it till your blue in the face- but what you seem to be either willfully or cluelessly overlooking is the psychological impact such a policy has.
So, in a nutshell - this the DLC policy and the pre-order policy does 2 things. Forget the economics, the pre-order DLC policy antagonises the customers who pre-ordered Rome 2 because it appears to show that your company isnt actually listening to us (if you were you wouldn't have even considered doing this) . And you DLC policy, personally, makes your games unaffordable for me.
I wish you the best of luck in the future. I'm afraid, I'm no longer one of your loyal regular customers.
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0 · Disagree AgreeTW games are CA's property. They can not sell it, give it away, or sell it in pieces if they want. No one outside of the owners of CA (including CA employees) have any "rights" concerning CA's property.
If people are "angry" then that shows they have some expectation of how this property that belongs to others should be sold. They should not have expectations - since they have no "rights" concerning this - rather they can accept it as offered or refuse to buy it.
Then again I speak as an American Libertarian and realize that many in the world do not share my beliefs concerning private property. Still .. that's my two cents on this.
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0 · Disagree AgreeThe thinking (however wrong!) was that we are of course going to talk extensively about all the playable factions in the next 6 months, and so getting the pre-order up early means that as people see a bit of information or reveal over the next 6 months that they finally think "yeah I'll preorder", it will be there and ready for them to take advantage of.
That point will be different for everyone of course.
With hindsight, while there's been loads of info on Empire and Dwarfs already, absolutely we should have put out more detail, otherwise yes the impression is that Chaos Warriors are more 'complete' at this point, which isn't necessarily correct.
We are pulling some stuff together at the moment to illustrate the rosters of the playable races, will absolutely get to showing them off soon.
Formal disclaimer: any views or opinions expressed here are those of the poster and do not necessarily represent the views or opinions of The Creative Assembly or SEGA.
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0 · Disagree Agree30 BP for new release? You have been living a good life over there. We had been paying 90 AUD for decades in OZ. I still think content wise it's worth the price.
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0 · Disagree AgreeWell said, Mithras. I couldn't agree more and - thank Sigmar - CA have been stressing the whole "deep not wide" thing incessantly since announcing Warhammer. Like you, though, I would really like to see this design philosophy carry over to the historical titles, perhaps even be taken further
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0 · Disagree AgreeThat is a good point, when we say 'main game' here we mean the first game in the trilogy, the one that will be released in April next year.
We haven't talked yet about how the trilogy will exactly work together, but we will in the future.
Formal disclaimer: any views or opinions expressed here are those of the poster and do not necessarily represent the views or opinions of The Creative Assembly or SEGA.
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0 · Disagree Agree- If you preorder= offer one Race/paid DLC from first game of trilogy, at user´s election, for free. Announce first DLC being chaos warriors in feb or march so people don´t get the idea that is cut out, and they can select it anyways. In this case each one could get their preferred race for free. Hopefully they will do something like this for next 2 titles.
- Offer Chaos as a free 5th race, and no preorder bonus. As a sorry guys, we will not do this ****** business practices anymore. There is still time for this. I´d probably insta-preorder if they did change their mind, going against my rule of waiting for reviews/youtubers. Sounds inconsistent, since I get exactly the same as if I preordered right now anyways, right? Well, it isn´t. If you don´t understand why it isn´t you don´t understand 95% of the **** thats going on.
- Preorder bonus = some days of access to each race when they come out so you can get a taste of them for free. Again, announce Chaos Warriors as first DLC a few days before/after release.
- Offer season passes and make preorder bonus=price reduction for season pass or early access to new races/DLC or... well, nothing. Again, announce CW later. Some problems with this though: CA loves to feed slowly to keep hype up (which i don´t like since it promotes less comunication and less informed users), and you need to tell more or less what they will receive or people will get mad.
- Preorder bonus = early access to the game as beta tester. This would be a win-win for them and for us users and many very succesful games are going this route (E: D, StarCitizen,DayZ...more or less all Crowdfunded games).
- Offer demo. We know they wont, they went with youtuber´s early enough review. I think this is a good enough step and a good compromise. Is much easier to control 20 guys than a demo out in the open. which brings me to next point:
- MORE INFO. Welcome to crowdfunding times! Less hype PR strategies. As others have said, you don´t have the street cred any more. We take lack of info as "the release is gonna suck, they are screwing us over" not as "wow, they know how to hype... lets preorder!". And it makes it less flexible for them to react to this surges of hatred for community since "it was not in our original info release schedule". You screwed it up and lied to us BIG TIME with Rome 2. Now is time to pay for that, and make amends. I truly thought this had changed when they started telling us their reveals schedule some months ago. Sadly it just faded and they are back on promoting hype on an angry community.
- Really make DLCs worth 15$. Hopefully the IP (extra units, mechanics per Race), charactersd RPG,... already take care of this. But wrath of sparta, greek states, pirates&raiders.... those are NOT worth 15$, at least for me. Wrath of Sparta was the closest one, but it ended up being such a copy-paste fest it makes me lose trust in CA and this game overall. Again, you are paying now for your previous sins.
- Again, MORE INFO! but to your fans directly, not to handpicked chosen webs, youtubers (yeah, I am looking at you untrusty pcgamer). They seem to think having a meeting with some press, setting an embargo and some weeks later releasing info gives them visibility. I tend to disagree with this vision. More live streams, answering real time questions from fans... would be better. I have to admit they are very open to interviews by fans in conferences, etc. Just take one step further.
And since this is long enough already, i am gonna stop. Hopefully this gets read and is useful.
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0 · Disagree AgreeHi Dave,
Appreciate your post, and just to say that we expect not to repeat history, but yes we have to prove that.
I do need to point out that on the above quote though that Mike is not saying that.
Mike's saying that when looking at the content we wanted to do, only a certain amount would fit into the scope for the game, and that's why we made the design decisions we did.
The content is so fundamentally different from previous games in terms of volume, fidelity and technical composition (certainly original Rome and M2TW) that we wouldn't be able to draw a comparison.
Formal disclaimer: any views or opinions expressed here are those of the poster and do not necessarily represent the views or opinions of The Creative Assembly or SEGA.
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0 · Disagree AgreeIf there's a plus to be had from what's happened, it's the knowledge that a little transparency and discussion with the people who buy the game - goes a long way. There is a relationship that can be cultivated, not just through how awesome a game is, but by being communicative and thoughtful. Here's hoping that that's something we can look forward to, as well as an awesome game
I stick by what I said earlier though.. thanks for the feedback.
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0 · Disagree AgreeThank you for the response. I can definitely see where you're coming from though I can't help but feel you could have had a bit more faith in the community.
As you say it was revealed as a pre-order incentive yet I'm confident many, many people were pre-ordering anyways. Releasing this later on (EDIT: by later on I mean closer to the release of the game when we would have had more info overall on the other races too) would have served both sides better, CA gets more hype generated through an additional faction and the community doesn't get the impression DLC is more 'valuable' to disclose before the base game factions.
Anyways on a more positive note I was already going to pre-order this game prior to the DLC reveal. I think that what you have done by showing off more actual gameplay and releasing more information prior to release is a very, very good trend and I definitely hope you continue with it. The same with allowing reviewers and youtubers to play the game early to get us a look at it before purchase.
Definitely looking forward to seeing that roster info for the other factions too
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0 · Disagree AgreeSeeing how similar things went in the past, I think it would have had the same exact amount of backlash if they announced Chaos later on, or even more.
The "you are selling DLC 6 months ahead of release" some people keep on saying is not a sound argument (because, frankly, when they announce something is completely irrelevant, as long as the same exact thing will happen and you will have well enough time to think about the purchase in both scenarios), it's just the way the present situation happens to lend itself to criticism.
If they had announced Chaos Warriors one month before the game came out, the rethoric would probably have been "you lied to us for all this time, there were 5 races ready but you led us to believe they were 4, and now you bribe us with a pre-order to have the full game". And on top of that, this whole debacle would be happening when the game is just launching, so the effects on sales would be much worse.
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0 · Disagree Agree