Ex Total War Developer Exposes Rome 2 DISASTER
ฝัง
- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 22 มิ.ย. 2024
- This is the biggest creative assembly and total war news in a long long time.
Full Post: / total-war-rome-ii-and-...
FPS Channel- / @resonantreports
Podcast - / @resonantsdeepdive
Strategy - / @resonantstrategy8081
Shorts Channel - / @resonantshorts
======================================================
Business Enquiries- contact@resonantvideo.co.uk
Join The Discord, Play with me-
/ discord
Join The Steam Group!- steamcommunity.com/groups/reso...
Follow me on twitter- / resonantyoutube
Join my Subreddit, Give me your ideas/memes - / legionsofresonant
Like my Facebook page-
resonantgami...
Production Music courtesy of Epidemic Sound: www.epidemicsound.com
Royalty Free Music by audiomicro.com/royalty-free-music (for videos that make use of music tracks)
Sound Effects by audiomicro.com/sound-effects (for videos that make use of sound effects) - เกม
This quote from McKinlay's statement is my favorite: "My view is that the continued success of the franchise is better explained by the patience and goodwill of its players than it is by the stewardship of Total War’s management."
If the Total War players had put their foot down earlier, we would have had better games, but most consumers have neither taste nor self-respect.
@@MrBell-iq3smdefinitely; last years Warhammer, hyenas and pharaoh controversy seems completely forgotten now that CA have released a passable DLC that has been spliced into 3rds to make it seem cheaper. It helps that there is barely anything that even comes close to resembling total war, CA has no real competitors in their niche market.
@@p1971cuda I think the competition is on the rise. I loved Empire and Napoleon Total War for example, and now I am looking forward to Ultimate General: American Revolution, hoping that the game will be great, and the studio expands the setting. If CA released an Empire 2 I wouldn't touch it.
@@MrBell-iq3sm yeah it's out on steam rn, I was thinking of getting it soon. I will say though it isn't too much of a competitor. People love spectacle and while UG has the tactics of the older Total wars it doesn't have the spectacle that made TW so popular. Can't wait for Total war Empire 2 with George Washington and his wooden teeth giving him +5 melee attack. lol
@@p1971cuda Maybe, but TW was usually a rather shallow experience outside of warfare. The economy tended to by not very deep, politics was a sidenote and diplomacy was a mess. Perhaps games that are more fleshed out will take over the TW niche. I know many players started with TW and later preferred Paradox games.
10 years later… smells like some sort of signed NDA when he walked out
It probably was. I'm glad he still speaks about it. Because damn everyone blaming this one guy was just bullsh*t imo.
@@Kvs-vf9nthe is still accountable for lying through his teeth to the entire community. Blacklist ca devs, former and current and boycott creative assembly, thats all we should be doing. Otherwise theyre just going to keep doing the same crap.
I'm going to play Shogun 2 and remember the glorydays. Those were the days, boys! We'll never see its like again. Warhammer ruined all of that.
We can see where CA is going by looking at Warhammer Total War. Three of the same games in a row and all of the games lacking in AI, full of bugs and no further development to a game, just releasing a new game at a higher price with the exact same things.
Ai learning has advance so much, is it that hard to implement a 'ai' learning style that gradually improve the skill of the AI through generations. Self-driving cars use the same method.
The definition of insanity is buying the same game over n over again
@@thesecondsilvereich7828and expecting different outcome 😭
@@Icarus47249fd Mate, Total War AI is not the same as current "generative AI". TW AI is just a set of parameters that are hard coded.
While starcraft 2 had insane ai in 2010 that trumps every total war combined
Is it really 10 years ago now!!? Jesus Christ mate, you didn't have to make me feel that old.
12
Takes about that long now for truth to be told
Wanna feel even older? That game was my childhood game when i was lile 10-11. Im an adult since 2 years now
They should just keep the dates to themselves, no need to this to us.
And I played over 1000 hours of Rome 2… it was that long ago, yeesh.
They pushed me into the arms of paradox and I’m not looking back
Want to correct you that the siege AI was only coded for *large* city maps, so that when siege battles happen on the newly rushed small city maps (pretty much any player's first siege battle), the AI would not work since it wasn't coded for them yet.
10 years later I still want to find the absoloute donkey that thought having 3 out of 4 settlements being unwalled was a good decision. Ca has ben doing thos garbage system for a decade now.
The idea that the company that brought out Medieval 2 could bring out a turkey like this is entirely unshocking. CA have been acting like they're owned by venture capitalists for a long long time now. I went from religiously buying their titles to not even looking at them, over time, and I still don't feel drawn to try any of their latest offerings. It's a shame, they had so much going for them, and then they got greedy.
I’m still a slave because Rome 1 was so good as a kid
@@Geometrys play RIS for Rome Remastered and all your wishes will be granted.
Yeah rome remastered is basically rome 1 with ugly UI but better textures.
I think it'll be a great modding bed.
@@loowick4074 just look into RTR: Imperium Surrectum
Rome 1 and Medieval 2 are goated-- and Warhammer Total War is a masterpiece, regardless of controversy. Shogun 2, that Viking one, that Chinese one, Empire even, the latest Egyptian total shidshow-- couldn't care less. Will continue to play good games and put hundreds of hours into their oldest titles (and Warhammer) and not buy a single new title because you already know they're gonna be dogwater.
I've given up on CA at this point - Will never support them again. Unless or course in the unlikely scenario that they get their shit together.
Should have given up since rome 2 buddy.
Well I did have a lot of fun with Warhammer, although I realize the amount of success that had was absolutely no good for their integrity. In fact Rome 2 was my first total war so there was rose coloured glasses there for a long time. I didn't really experience the brilliance of the older games.
The Absolute State of Creative Assembly these days
I read that in a heavy scottish accent
''these days'' more like since 2008 on. 16 years now. Golden age ended with post-Medieval 2!
I've read it as ASCA
No pan here 😢
I actually remember talking to some of the guys who worked on the game on the TWC forums back before release. They actually seemed really sincere. Makes you wonder if they were sincere in what they knew but a lot wasn't communicated to them from above.
I think I'll be waiting for Medieval Total War 2 remastered or Medieval Total War 3 until I'm 80 years old... It's sad because that's what so many people who play Total War are asking for... But gotta make that Games Workshop money right?
Shogun 2 and Napoleon are some of my favourite TW games to play without mods, so it's always interesting to hear more about how and why CA then went so badly wrong with Rome 2.
Button stat modifiers and health bars was the nail in the coffin for me.
The soilders you command don't feel like individual mortals anymore.
CA when they have to make good maps and fine tune unit interactions and battle dynamics 😴😴😴
CA when they have to add an arbitrary powerscaling bar/button on the campaign which just adds stats to units 🎉🎉🎉🎉
Did they ever? Feel like soldiers at your command? The lack of autonomy and required micromanagement has always been immersion breaking for me.
@@g00gleisgayerthanaids56 people are trying to make old total wars appear like something they are absolutley not (simulators)
Went from a sim to rts
@@rawbird5341 total war was never a sim game
This was my first and last pre-order.
I for one, forgive him. Given the more and more I learn about CA since it was bought by Sega the more all of this makes sense. He didnt know and then when asked by the higher ups to talk about his part in it, he did what any of us would have, talked up the part he knew was good and how it is technically supposed to work together with the other features. I sat for hours in utter disbelief on release day of Rome II. Absolutely stupefied at the clown show I was watching unfold. Still think it is a dumpster fire and only play older CA games. They have since lost themselves in fantasy land where they dont even use animations that fit the units. Gunners no longer reload. Collision and individual soldiers finding themselves in any number of situations is long gone... Hope Mr McKinlay, despite my curses and calls for his proverbial head at the time, is doing very well. Maybe designing his own game from the ground up.
He deserves no sympathy, he knowingly mislead the entire consumer base. Coming out of the closet 10 years later just to say "sorry guys, it actually wasnt me or the poor devs, it was these big shadowy corporatists all along!" They had no game, no real product, no real testing, but he still came out with all that bullshit... anything him or any of ca's employees (current or former) work on, should be completely blacklisted from the entire consumerbase, same with EA and all those shitters.
Well put.
@@NatrajChaturvedi Thank you sir. I know I sometimes there are Real people on the other end of my posts. I know I have been a proverbial arse myself more than a few occasion. But I can see his humility here and genuine sincere remorse for all that happened, and we now know was clearly not in his control. I also know that I have on a few occasions in my life, under incredible pressure, folded like a lawn chair. Again glad he is doing well and found the time to write that all out for us. I bet that was incredibly cathartic for him. I will climb down from my soap box now. Do hope you and your family are doing well, where ever in the world you maybe! God Bless
Everyone needs to apologise for the vitriol directed at Julian.
He should have released this during the Shadows of Change debacle
I'm glad that the competition for CA is rising, be that games like Knights of Honor II or Ultimate General: American Revolution.
I have sunk so many hours into this game over the years. It may never have been the game we wanted in full but in the end there was still a fun game here, well for me anyway.
Hopefully ca puts out another good historical game, I don't think I can handle 40k. All this demon demon bullshit . I'm a totalwar war die hard fan I'm reaching the limit of being sick of warhammer...
Total war found a new consumerbase that is much larger, much hungrier for product, and is already primed to be abused by games workshop. CA would be complete fools to not ride the warhammer train into the ground. If you want a historical title, make it yourself or look to a different dev team. Ca is never going back.
Software developer for 40 years, 13 years in management.
When Rome 2 came out I figured that there was a real management mess at CA. But the post by McKinlay is beyond anything I've seen. And I've seen some REAL doozies. I feel sad for the programmers/artists/QA working there. They deserve a LOT better!
As with most things, when you see a software release disaster, you don't have to look far for who to blame. It is always management. Most folks I've worked with want to do a good job and communicate issues. But when management ignores that, it is at the entire company's peril.
Your logic falls apart when used in any other industry... its not always just the leadership, the leaders cant do anything, cant make a product at all. A ceo walks into a restaurant and says customers arent getting in and out fast enough, he sees the chicken sandwiches take the longest to cook so he instructs the cooks to take 3 minutes off the cook time. Nevermind the risk of salmonella... who is actually at fault here? The correct answer is both. Yeah your boss can make up stupid shit but its on you if you follow through with it and serve up subpar, unfinished products/service. The nuremburg defense is literally bullshit, why do you people eat it up so easily?
Sean Murray is an absolute exemplar for game developers, launch was terrible granted but he stuck by his product rather than just taking the money and running like everyone else does, now look at the sheer amount of content in NMS and he's never asked for another penny.... the games been financed all these years by sales of the game and the content updates are insane.
Ill never forget the Siege of Carthage gameplay demo. Simply the best of what was supposed to come of total war. Instead we went to china and never came back.
I have low expectations for CA...but holly fire this low.
Hople people see, read and stop buy CA products.
rule of thumb if any product is subpar its not the work forces fault. its the fault of non workers, CEOs. those who make demands and have final say but don't do anything themselves. And likely know little to nothing about the product they produce.
Isnt that the shit abusers say?
"Sorry, its not my fault i crapped out this steaming pile of shit instead of holding myself accountable and ensuring my product is up to standard, my boss, he is just a real dick rider, oh yeah, thanks again for feeding my family and keeping the roof over our heads for the last 10 years! Hope you enjoy the next steaming pile of shit, because, man, our bosses, they just dont know anything at all..."
"Hey yeah, sorry your chicken is undercooked, the ceo says we gotta pump the grilled chicken out faster, so i just did it and i dont care if you get food poisoning, tip please?!" And youd fuckin give it to em, wouldnt you.
No, subpar services and products are not simply the work of a fuckin mustache twirling saturday morning cartoon villain, its not scrooge mcduck squeezing out every last drop of profit so he can swim in a golden coin filled swimming pool. Its top down for sure, but the employee who is fine with pumping out a crap product or service is culpable and just as accountable for it.
His statements are alarming, and I do believe there is serious issues going on with trust and working relationships within CA. However, I would like to hear leadership’s point of view on things because I’m sure it’s not as simple as “greedy leadership was too pushy, and then blamed everyone else.”
Nah it's always the "higher up" problem many studio ruined because of that
@@chocho6766 could very well be the case, and it probably is. But I’d like to hear why it was exactly. Budget reasons, inexperience, cut throat business practices? Being at the leadership level myself (in a different field) I’d like to know what was driving the leadership to act the way they did.
He blamed the design team more than any for pushing new features (work for his team) late in development. Management was too one-sided in their support of designers in that regard and games suffered on release for it.
@@RM-cv4tl Greed. Entitlement. Insecurity. Like it does pretty much every bad leader.
Like AJ says, someone just fired that guy halfway.
When devs rely on modders to fix all their issues.
Rome 2 now is working game, but that's it, when I was little I imagined how great Rome 2 will look like and how many improvements they are going to make which never happened.
CA set the trend of releasing unfinished games with Empire. I'm amazed how good Shogun 2 was between the disastrous Empire and Rome 2 releases, CA is anything but consistent.
It usually lower and mid tier managers who got the best grasp on operations and have to deal with both upper management, tight budgets
and keep employees satisfied whilst still having to get good products out.
I have been trying to get back into this one. But, it doesn't scratch the itch of the original.
For traditional total wars i prefer attila and shogun 2. what suprise me total wars rome 2 lose against shogun 2and attila especially main campaign
Seriously, this is 'eckin insane!
A camera that buffs your unit, just because _management_ wanted the game to look _cinematic_ !?!? WHAT IN THE NINE HELLS OF BAATOR IS GOING ON?!??!?
The removal of war speeches was a HUGE downgrade for Total War games. The quotes during the loading screen as well.
I personally loved this game when I played it. I'm still hooked on Atilla at the moment and have like 2000 hours of campaign modes.
Someone just needs to buy the whole company, shake up the management and go back to the core, making good games.
I have read the letter yesterday and I encourage everyone to take the time to read it
I am holding my
Norwegian caviar now
I'd prefer to hear from a programmer about a game than a corporate PR bullshitter any day.
Joey Berry joined at this time.
I really love Pharao (timeperiod is exactly my alley) and love the mechanics in it. But even then i can see that that direction for the historical titles is just bad. And then it feels like they want to throw the sofia team under the bus by completely overwhelming them with work and later blaming the games state on them.
The ai still dont work
I feel bad for this guy, at least he was TRYING to fix stuff, but I'm not really playing any Creative Assembly games outside of Medieval II and the original Rome: Total War game. I am having a blast over in Manor Lords.
I’ve got a personal soft spot for Rome 2 as it’s the reason why I’m now a PC gamer, I did wait year so I did miss the god awful launch but Rome 2 gave me 500+ hours of fun
I'd like to see Angry Joe's reaction to this.
His reaction vid to Rome 2, which I think became pretty well known, was one of the most hilarious videos I've ever watched. And this guy featured in it prominently.
Looks more the problem were huge socoal differnces at creative , upper class snobs brougth up in NY or london that dont have a clue and wants only the next fix or party
Exactly, its such a simple and stupid narrative that it actually holds no water. Theyre culpable and no fuckin nuremburg defense is going to fuckin cut it. "We were just doin our jobs" yeah yeah yeah, weve all heard that before...
I remember teutoburg Forest.
Rome remembers teutoburg forest.
Do you?
What Julian said is almost certainly true. As a former developer myself, I have always hated how 'reviewers' and gamers demonise creative professionals. Development is organised chaos right from the start, to expect otherwise displays supreme ignorance of how developmental complexity scales poorly with time management. Release dates are usually set in stone, because the publisher has committed millions in marketing and will sue the developer if they release late, no you can't just change them. Armchair criticism is easy, but rarely insightful.
Yes, you can just change release dates, many studios have delayed games for better or for worse, but thats neither here nor there. Guessing your rigid, uncreative thinking is a big reason why youre a "former" developer, and not a current developer working in the industry. Hating the very demographic youre trying to sell shitty, unfinished products to? Lol youre a complete joke.
This was the game that taught me why it's stupid to pre-order.
That trailer they released was the reason why everyone hated the game. It was too epic in scale and unfortunately the battles don’t play that way.
"Because of great sales, they took most devs off the game before they could patch it"
Remember, ultimately we can only blame ourselves as consumers; just like dlc culture, pay to win, loot-crates, etc. Don't buy games just because you like the franchise because this is how they treat us.
Ah, a classic story that plagues gaming. Execs being out of touch and greedy. I swear the entire industry could use a serious management reshuffle.
Don't blame any single dev. They don't have much influence nor knowledge over the entire project
Vouland’s vindication continues
This was the last Total war game I purchased at full price. I think I have only bought one since then at bargain bin price and never really got into it. Not a big fantasy strategy fan so Warhammer fantasy didn't appeal to me. To be honest I probably would have enjoyed an Empire 2 or WH40k much more than what they created.
Some important parts:
-After the disaster of Rome II, creative Assembly leadership promised to tackle the problems.
But when the brave developer complained about the same issues occouring during the Attila development, he got his mouth shut.
-They wanted to implement a feature that units can positioned inside a walled settlement. (ATtila TW)
Probably because of his complaints, this nonsense got canceled.
I never purchased a CA game after Rome 2. Im still a bit raw about it my favorite time period totally F up. Played the mods but still core issues mods can't fix.
Wow. Explains a lot about Empire as well.
AND THEN (I still play Rome 2 by the way) they go and make games for WarCraft 40k.... Pharaoh is kind of meh (a bit upgraded Troy?) I hope they will make Total War Empire 2 :)
I remember seeing this guy when Rome 2 was released. Specifically the interview about the AI. He looked like a corpse... and that's never good. Overworked and just "Couldn't care less..." attitude thanks to it.
i remember playing rome 2 for the first time....the horrible experience lol...and then the city fights...mid way during the first time doing a city battle I quit and didnt play it for years...tried again with new mods and patches and got a little further...quit again and have never played since then
warhammer is cool mp but the campaigns are so linear and like rollercoaster rides...not much room for doing what you really want...youre stuck in your area and stuck having do the same strategy...if you want to do it different play a dif faction...older games didnt have that you could be anyone doing anything...
now i play all the older total war games with heavy mods like darth mods...empire, shogun 2, napoleon, rome 1 unmastered with heavy mods, barb invasion with heavy mods....all the new ones just suck horribly
I honestly don't fully believe what he says. He has the incentive to downplay his mistakes and shift the blame to the company, but one thing for sure, CA is really a mess.
He was honest with his bias though. Placing the blame mainly on the leadership of the design team for asking him for what he know he can't deliver. When I read it, it explained a lot of differences Shogun2, Rome2 and 3Kingdoms. The latter games have way more features but Shogun2 was the better game because it was the most polished. CA definitely put more priority into design than programming, and as a programmer he was unable to deliver what they asked for and left.
Are these past bugs or present ones? Rome 2 is my favourite game. I think things are ironed out now. In the case of Empire Total War, it was indeed very buggy when i first bought it in 2009, crashing all the time, I think because of the Large Area Addressing bug, but that was resolved.
Past bugs. All the worst bugs have been removed with and since the release of the Imperator edition. Julian's article details this too. That after the f#$% up of a release and most of the design team moved on to the newest project, the programmers among the dev team could actually do what they wanted to do before the release: quality control and bug-fixes for the shoehorned in features. He contemplated sabotaging it (sort of) because the community had gotten it into their heads he was fired before the patches started rolling out, explaining why the game was in an improved state. He left some time into Attila's dev cycle.
I wasn't a huge fan of it when it came out but, later I enjoyed RTW2 alot. The game was too easy on any difficult below very hard but the Ai doesn't really stand up so the only way to make the game harder is give the enemy better resources.
We only got one point of view about the problem. We must hear the leadership side of things to have a clear view of the story. Could be the heads of the company pushing the project leadership for more game features even though the engine could not handle them properly. And what was the idea behind more game features??? Well it could result in more sales and hype for the game. Just a simple speculation in the end we will never know....
P.S. I liked Rome 2 but I liked Rome 1, medieval 2 and Empire TW better, but the top game that they made for me is Alien Isolation. I know that some people will not agree with me because it is a totally different game...
What a throwback. I watched that angry Joe review so many times loool
It's like amongus we thought he was the imposter 💀
if he was "low level programmer" then why would leadership be talking to him. his bosses would talk to other bosses.
he should have started his own company i think many workers from CA would have joined him
why they mention it now?
NDA period has passed, and he can safely say these without getting sued to hell by CA and SEGA.
The devs dont want the shitstorm at ca to follow them to new jobs, if youre smart you wont buy games that these devs have worked on.
I would like rome 2 if you could trade regions.
I preordered this...on disc! And can I just say it was very disappointing. Still bummed thinking about it
dont be surprised if the next total war games are africa: total war and middle east: total war or something like that...
So, the truth was revealed 10 years later. I still remember the hype when RTW2 was announced. Oh, how times have changed.
Still, they fixed the broken game, and it is fun now.
Rome 2 was the point where I just stopped buying Total War games. Never once felt tempted to return.
It's 10 years later don't expect things to have changed for any better I think Rome 2 was too big to fail I played hundreds of hours in Rome 2 I did enjoy it guys and I'm not trolling but hardliners liked Medieval 2 more but anyways believe what you may
I remember smelling the rotten leadership culture when R2 was being promoted, as we "interacted" with CA. When they couldn't communicate to us, then how on earth could they communicate internally? 🫠 Huge respect to the people on the ground for making it into a classic after launch and its 16 patches. CA's "leadership" should be an example of what not to imitate.
Games like this make me love mount and blade so much more !
Bots going crazyyy
I still put almost 800 hours into the game.
I am a fan of everything Rome
i am not sure rome 2 was a fail
Rome 1 is my favourite game of all time still never bought Rome 2. I'll buy it one day when its £1 on steam.
Rome 1 Remastered, Medieval 2, the three Warhammer games, love them, put hundreds of hours into them. Any of their new games moving forward? Avoid them. Not worth it. Only getting worse.
But i like rome 2
With mods it's okay.
But they still charging 50$ for that old ass game
Its release state and 2 years after it were unexcusable.
reeks like a guy just trying to pass the buck. pretty clear just from his own statements that him and ca are equally to blame.
I didnt find Rome 2 that bad. It was mainly just too easy. Atilla felt like a proper Rome 2. Actually challenging and a continuation of the time period. Rome 2 was a lot like Shogun for me. More power fantasy vs challenging strategy title. A lot of players cried Atilla was "anti-player" and all this bs but really you can tell theyre just being babies as they want that power fantasy feel. The mechanics are challenging, but once you understand them its not that difficult. Its wild some people wont bother to read whats buffing/debuffing then go as far as to cry the game is "anti-player".
Thing is I remember all the shit from the fans that I saw being squarely aimed at CA, yes the AI was the worst part but it was not by any means the only one, this sounds like cope and trying to pass the buck onto someone ales, without taking accountability and play the victim.
One of there big things was the cities with multiple capture points and that came to nothing and that the interview I remember the most them bragging about how amazing the city/siege maps would be
Maybe it's cause I just woke up and had this playing in the background... but it took me a few minutes to realize that this wasn't a video of Resonant coming out as Julian McKinlay. Just a video with a lot of quotes by him at the start.
CA was always a shameful Display top to bottom and everyone was doing their job right, was fired , other examples than R2 : MTW2 developers back then did an awesome job and replace them all , instead of build on the success of MTW2 and R1, they simple did not invest much on new engines, always count on players loyalty to make the fast buck, Shogun2 an awesome game yet to make a simple veteran unit full stats , was an grind of time for new players yet never bother them to fix it , until clans made cheat mods to correct mistakes that the CA suppose to fix , they made their money, then jump on the next trick game for the next fast buck again.
Explains so much...
I love Rome 2, after all the BS it ended be solid. With all the mods it’s an excellent game now… thankfully
I stopped buying and playing any title from Total War past Attila. I also use mods a lot to make AI smarter. I won't buy any new Total War until it becomes a historical title without any fantasy bullshit in it, based on old mechanics that were fun and working AI. That means I won't buy any new Total War again. 😂😂
Atillas ai has actually dramatically improved. They dont just mob choke points anymore begging for a rear charge. Now they'll have a portion of units as a rear gaurd prepped to defend against it. Its pretty cool
disastrous launch of Rome 2 ? When ? Rome 2 is a good game and a lot of players play this game. Of course it's far from perfect but also far from being a disaster
Still I love Rome 2
Why desister its a good game
It is now the better of the total war games out there for historical. The modders really saved it, but it was also improved quite heavily and still is. So hats off to CA for that
At 2:50 then don't say anything ffs. I know this is supposed to be sympathetic, but geeze.
Why do all of this now? Why start talking about Rome 2 now rhat rome 2 is pretty much completely forgotten by gamers outside of hardcore TW fans? Why didnt he post this letter covering his ass the month the game came out?
It's known as total disaster now.