LEAKED: Total War’s Total Decline - Developer Exposé

The fall of Total War explained, from current and former Creative Assembly developers themselves.
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[@Volound]

added this to my total decline series, as the crowning jewel of that 3 year project: kzbin.info/aero/PLlmEEm6A0j5BqZmcDFQHFJeS64-Mg2uAH

[@macdarby9926]

Now that Jeff is back on the blacklist, I really hope we get a no holds bar burial in the old style of Legend of Total War in the coming days.

[@obi-wan3916]

Are you in touch with Reynold Sanity? I watched his rome 2 video back in the day and it's crazy how on the money he was back then

[@AlexanderTheGoodEnough]

If at the end of the day they're deferring to the "money men" in the organization, then I would suggest hitting them where they're focused. On the stock price of SGAMY. So, for those who have the know-how and a trading account with margin, I'd be curious to find out how interested other's might be in starting to build short positions against this underlying. Won't be easy, its traded on OTC markets as an ADR, is HTB, and has no options available to trade. But a grass roots interest from their player base attacking them where it would hurt them most may just put enough fear in them to really listen instead of doubling down on their course of action. What could be more terrifying than a player base losing interest in the game they made to play a greater game against them? one where those players could recoup all their sunken costs in this IP?

[@BloodwyrmWildheart]

So a (positive) thread featuring your video was posted on the WH3 Steam forum and someone literally replied to it with this: "Zeek's a shill, all right- for Truth and Justice. If he says this Mr. Volound is disreputable, I don't need to see his little video." ...I'm not even kidding. *These* are the kind of people we're up against. Forget about the _actual CA employees,_ a no-name shill said you're wrong, therefore you're wrong. 🤡

[@wolfensniper4012]

​@@BloodwyrmWildheartwho tf is this Zeek anyway? a Community manager?

[@RichHistoryHistorian]

I think CA trying to get you taken down so openly, has been one of the best eye-openers for the community.

[@muharibaldunya2200]

They deserve all the backlash for robbing us from our childhood game:(

[@joncarter3761]

Same here mate.

[@ZennZennster]

As far as I can tell, he's the only one they've tried to take down despite the whole community having tons of heavy critique. Wonder why.

[@godoforder1828]

How did they try taking him down? I need to know this story

[@BloodwyrmWildheart]

@@godoforder1828 DMCA copyright takedown, despite being fair use compliant. Volound made a community post on it.

[@LegendofTotalWar]

Great video! I don't need to add anything because you covered it all.

[@1perspective286]

You really are a legend man.

[@Justjoey]

Content creators are now playing real life TW against CA suits and I love to see this alliance

[@bernhardterblanche7905]

Factions though? What are the thoughts? Is it an Empire vs. rotting husk Nurgle type deal or are we going more 'Slaanesh overreaching' vibe vs. the stoic dwarves? Poll!

[@LewisJohnsonIII]

Thoughts on a open source crowd funded war scape engine too compete with CA? Star citizen for total war.... Ish

[@wedgehead3603]

If they hadn't tried to copyright strike you I wouldn't have known you existed. Great job all around CA. You have a new subscriber.

[@Volound]

streisand effect is beautiful sometimes.

[@pompeythegreat297]

They are scared he's exposing their bullshit.

[@Tomezilla514]

Join the pack!

[@OiMitch]

Me too hahaha

[@notwhatitwasbefore]

Yeah just done the same thing

[@alexjohnson5249]

Something that’s really disgusting to me is that CA is still charging full price for games that are 10 yrs old. Even Warhammer I, a presumably obsolete title to II and III, is $60 + dlc…

[@DaleWrecker]

It'd be obsolete if you didn't need them to unlock content in 3.

[@alexjohnson5249]

I said presumably because it is the exact same game. You’d think older entries in a series would receive a price cut. Immortal Empires always sounded ridiculous. Why would I want MORE of a bad game?

[@DaleWrecker]

According to multiple stores out there in the world it seems there's a trilogy bundle coming out next month which would make the base price for all 3 games be the price of just one - and then you can consider sales on top of that. So it seems there's a sort of price cut coming. Although Rome 2, which is older even, is still full price so.... But even disregarding that, the whole issue with the success is that there ARE plenty of people who want more of it. You wouldn't want to have the possibiltiy of playing a complete world-wide historical TW?

[@konstantinkunz2256]

@@DaleWrecker Which you sadly do not need anymore. Now you need it only for unlocking the I content in II. All the I&II DLC content could now be instead just bought in III directly.

[@DaleWrecker]

@konstantinkunz2256 still need them to unlock their base factions in IE. You cam buy the dlcs directly, but the base games are the only the way to unlock the original launch factions.

[@LegendaryAbysss]

The people coming out to share this information are commendable and principled. Good on them for caring enough to share this - holding this disrespectful company accountable and saving millions of dollars for people who may use that money for better games or other things they enjoy in their lives. Let’s call these people… amazin. Thanks for taking the time and risk to put this together and shinning light on this.

[@Volound]

the unsung heroes of the game industry. anything we can do to make it easier for them should be done.

[@GnohmPolaeon.B.OniShartz]

@@Volound Well, they could form new studios and I'd buy their games wantonly like I do with most deserving games developers. But thats not safe, and a lot of these games devs are drones, not artists. They need to learn to self sort and stay out of huge companies. This cycle is nothing new and we keep falling into it. The consumer can't force a companies decisions, all we can do is withhold money and complain... occasionally lodge suit but we can't sue on behalf of devs. Clearly, plenty of people at CA still care. I'm just generalizing.

[@aaronharkins4331]

@@VoloundI hope they do get competition or enough of their titles bomb for them to stop burying their heads in the money. Pharaoh was the straw that broke this camel’s back. It’s insane they thought they could reskin Troy and make it accurately represent the collapse because they thought it would be “easy”. There’s plenty more Egyptian history that they could have gotten away with that on. It’s so shitty because in past games the research has been great or at least good. This time it’s like they read a couple sentences on Wikipedia, made some bullshit game mechanics and called it a day. That’s what happens when you take on a unique time period thinking it will be “easy”. I hope they get a collapse of their own, then they’ll learn what a collapse means. I’m so fed up.

[@alliedatheistalliance6776]

@@Volound I wonder how many of them there actually are? I suspect they cover a lot of the game development, if not all. Put it this way. I see a strike, say they work at a fast food restaurant. There are fry cooks, servers, cleaners.. they have the whole restaurant, minus a couple of scabs, some middle management and the CEO. They could run a restaurant themselves without skipping a beat. If they want another CEO, well it's easy for them to promote a competent manager from within, or hire externally. They are even coming in with trade secrets from a major company, if they are careful to skirt IP laws. The only thing missing is property and funding, but remember that funding comes from customers. Customers who wanted to buy a product but didn't get offered anything worth buying.

[@henryplumb7459]

@@alliedatheistalliance6776 Issue here is that they cannot, legally speaking contracts in these companies tend to forbid them from producing games and/or development that could compete with them. Even so far as stretches to developing indie games from industry employment. There's specific criteria for developing games in your own time while working for a games company thats big, some are chill and just require to be in-the-know in case it's going to compete with a future-planned product, but it can range to "ANY AND ALL THINGS MADE IN SPARE TIME CANNOT BE RELEASED TO PUBLIC" type stuff. Given the Golden Goose formula I feel CA ascribes to the latter, would be interesting to hear from an ex-CA on the term of the contract (if said contract doesn't NDA clause the terms that is)

[@CozzaPerks]

Years ago I wanted a Lord of the Rings TW. Now I'm 100% convinced that they would f*** it up by extorting every little penny they could from the players. To the point I hope they dont get the rights to it with TW in its current state.

[@yvindlavold5741]

Starting Factions: Gondor, Iron Mountain Dwarves and Lothlorien elves Preorder DLC: Mordor DLC 1: Aragorn with unit pack DLC 2: Rohan Faction pack (45 usd) DLC 3: Nazgul with unit pack DLC 4: Isengaard Faction pack (50 usd since costs are now up) DLC 5: Monsters of Middle-Earth unit pack (no eagles, trolls and spiders available at launch) DLC 6: Dol Amroth (Gondor reskin) and Erebor (Iron Mountain reskin). The blood pack is now also been made available for purchase

[@trickyfoxx6941]

​@@yvindlavold5741lmao this is great

[@Meritania]

It’s why I don’t want Medieval III, Victoria 1 or Empire II right now either, they’re going to be shite in CA’s current state.

[@Paulderak]

That's what Medieval 2 DAC AGO is for, go play it.

[@TheXNuahs]

And yet, if they could get the rights to produce LOTR total war, that is the best game that extends the life of the battered and abused corpse of total war with the least amount of effort on their part. The game would be shit but likely commercially successful as they can reuse everything from Warhammer total war with a reskin. It's the exact same marketing strategy that made Warhammer commercially successful - sell copies off of the brand hype and excitement of seeing the brand come to life in interactable 3D model form and sell DLC that adds models/skins. The only other brand that might fit the bill is a more fantasy focused Game of Thrones (from a world building perspective rather than diplomacy) It should be undeniable at this point that an attempt at Medieval or Rome 3 would be a dismal failure in every way imaginable. The only mildly interesting thing left in the series is the fantasy units, considering every decent mechanic has been completely stripped

[@notgoddhoward5972]

Volund going for morale shock victory. "Our men are wavering 🌊 🌊 🌊"

[@doltBmB]

Volound's fear aura.

[@carloreytansiongco8741]

Volound rescuing defecting forces, hiring them, and launching them unto the unsuspecting but horribly neglected flank of a bloated and old empire.

[@giganticbrittle]

Moral shock victory too ;)

[@macdarby9926]

Brutus saying that they have had inadequate tools and a creaky codebase for over 10 years, confirms what we already knew but it still doesn't make it any less shit. I hope there is some competition coming CA's way for OUR sakes.

[@doltBmB]

there's ultimate general american revolution, I can't really think of anything else

[@ne0nmancer]

I'm just waiting for Paradox to come out with their Total War style game so i can jump the fence

[@macdarby9926]

@@ne0nmancer Me too brother, me too

[@TeamSpectator]

​@@ne0nmancerparadox is just as bad. Every paradox release has been worse than the last. The DLC strategy is the same aswell. Just look at the list for EU4

[@Tom_Quixote]

Even with crappy tools they could still make good games if the management made good decisions, which of course they don't and won't.

[@skywalker6119]

Imagine if they'd put half of Hyena's resources into just developing a new engine between 2016 and now.

[@Meritania]

It shows you where Sega’s priorities lay. It’s not even about the finished product, they’re just paying for and profiting from hype.

[@The13thRonin]

bUH tHeN hOw WoULd tHEy ImPrESS TWiTteR?

[@TheManofthecross]

or upgrading the one they have now.

[@SmoughTown]

Thanks for this coverage Volound - only recently found your channel, but really appreciate your deep knowledge of the series and CA itself

[@Volound]

oi smough. i saw your comment and meant to respond the other day when i got to my PC. and cheers, always nice to hear that kind of thing, thats always been my goal. hopefully i saved you a bit of money on DLC lol. keep killing it over there.

[@SmoughTown]

@@Volound Hahah thanks dude, Shogun 2 on my to buy list this month because of yourself! Keep up the quality coverage my man.

[@MrVictor1227]

Your Lore videos are Great

[@SmoughTown]

@@MrVictor1227 thank you my friend! Much appreciated

[@jasonkurtrix357]

@@Volound At this point, we might walk over to paradox ask them to make RTS for us.

[@SplendidFactor]

The theme in all of this: Lack of competition.

[@potatoeater9499]

Let's hope manor lords opens the floodgates for using total war mechanics in other games.

[@yugatrasclart4439]

​@@potatoeater9499that ultimate general game is coming out soon as well

[@MedeivalWarfare]

@@yugatrasclart4439what’s the name of it?

[@joemama2455]

HOI4 imo is a fantastic game that i believe is a form of competition....i feel like if the DLCs are ended and a HOI5 comes out it kills total war

[@BloodwyrmWildheart]

I'd reiterate it as lack of *motivation,* and competition can be a good motivator.

[@monkofdarktimes]

Don't call it a grave. Call it a Future they choose

[@Franangrsheim]

It's irritating how corruption has to infect every aspect of life.

[@RemusKingOfRome]

That's how it works - look at the Catholic church etc. look at any institution, the good people leave, the criminals move in.

[@ElectronicShredder]

"Clunky as hell to work with" devs crying a river with their salaries and comfy office with AC, meanwhile the modders go BRRRRRR for no money

[@Alejandro-hl5zc]

At this point it's more of a "coomsumer" problem than anything else. They have gotten away with using ROME II reskins for ten years. This is sad and insane.

[@The13thRonin]

100% this. The scumbags enabling them are just as bad, if not worse.

[@luka188]

@@The13thRonin The enables are worse, because the only reason we are dealing with this garbage, is because those scumbags exist who continue to enable them. Without these scumbags, this would never happen. So indeed, the real problem are them. Those developers are just doing what they know they can get away with. I don't excuse that, nor do I condone that, since it is disgusting, however, at least in a world without the zero backbone cheek spreading enablers who love getting filled up by CA's crap and always turn their wallet over to get more of it, CA wouldn't be able to sustain this crap since they'd be making no money and have no market.

[@fall190]

It wasn't even a good basis. Rome 2 was a fucking disaster.

[@funkwolf]

This is not just CA, this is the stereotypical state of the triple A video game industry. It is infested by business--suit-like people looking to get rich from the massive popularity of video games. Marketeers and investors calling the shots who don't have a single creative cell in their body. Over working and demanding ridiculous things, instead of having the people who are passionate and knowledgeable about games d what they know to do. I mean look at Diablo 4, absolute disappointment.

[@McHobotheBobo]

This is, in a word - capitalism

[@stefankatsarov5806]

@@McHobotheBobo Noting diferent in comunism. Replace the greedy bisnesman whit a greedy party representative. In bouth cases the workers and ppl whit actialy knoledge and passion dont have a vote and the company sufers.

[@KickinRadTopHat]

The soulless marketers and VC ghouls have weaseled themselves into positions of outsized influence in so many industries, gaming is just one of the most obvious examples. Imo this ultimately creates worse outcomes for basically everybody except the marketer ghouls as the goal of the business becomes generating the most profit while delivering the cheapest product possible. Corners are cut, creativity is flattened, and the whole operation becomes more about nickel and diming the customer than delivering a product that people actually want to buy. How can anyone be surprised when so many of these business school types proudly don’t know anything about anything unless it involves making money in the short term? These people, at best, need to be kept on an extremely tight leash and never allowed near the creative process.

[@pompeythegreat297]

Yes

[@BloodwyrmWildheart]

Those suits are just another form of tourist, as far as I'm concerned. You've the political kind, and now the greed kind.

[@kolam8571]

Imagine if they decided to put the money they flushed down the Hyenaslatrine into a new Engine that could handle a massive scale Mediveal3 or Empire2 they would drown in money.

[@insiainutorrt259]

Read some tolkien... they are the corupted evil peoples the almost orcs... they can only destroy.... nothing else not even for themselves... are you also one ... how would you know?....

[@YeraBlizzadHarry]

That’s what just blows my mind. I’ll never understand how these clowns No so little about business.

[@Bigelnobod]

The route of going super highly detailed individual heroes and soldiers as well as kill animations are perfect for marketing. But in terms of gameplay, the real time battles still consist of tiny army representations. In fact, average army sizes have gone down even if you compare Warhammer Games to Rome1/Medieval 2. Why havent they made an engine yet that supports battles with army and map sizes for tens of thousands of soldiers? Enhance the gameplay instead of going with absurd level of model detail that is useless in terms of gameplay.

[@insiainutorrt259]

@@Bigelnobod game only looks ''good'' when zoomed in so close only one tonail is visible on screen... But actualy playing(zoomed out) has been getting worse and worse... its just silly... its all like a monty python thingi

[@cookiecola5852]

I petty any TW fans/veterans that is willing to throw another nickel at CA even if its just for the cause of supporting them

[@akiramasashi9317]

Imagine running a game company that spends more time, money and human resources on damage control than actually making games.

[@conradm4943]

If a game like EU4 had real time battles I would never touch a total war game newer than shogun 2 ever again

[@theseb1979]

Ever since I discovered CK3 I have no desire to start a game of TW. Love EU4 too.

[@Continental27995]

​@@theseb1979The same! And I actually think that beyond the Warhammer games, there was no real progress in the last TW's combat. After hundreds of hours in everything until Attila, I can't force myself to fight the same battles with revamped skins. E.g. melee weapons are functioning the same way for over a decade, without any change, modification or even experimental expertise.

[@BloodwyrmWildheart]

Though to be frank, I get the feeling Paradox would screw the pooch on real time battles.

[@spiderknight9893]

I don’t think it would be as fun as everyone thinks it would be.

[@hmp01]

@@spiderknight9893 i bet you dont know why you wrote that comment, maybe to sound smart, or different. Theres no real reason for it to not be fun if you like rts games :)

[@MelkorGG]

This was interesting, thanks for sharing (to you and the devs speaking out). Hearing about their 'Gestapo' methods between youtubers is something I have not thought of before, but it really helps to make some weird conversations with CA's partner team make a lot more sense.

[@shiitechannel9875]

You were smart for getting off the sinking ship early, haha

[@GAMER123GAMING]

yo melkor

[@deciduouspineapple5130]

holy shit volound even had Meklor peeking his head out from his content retirement home

[@MelkorGG]

@@deciduouspineapple5130 🤣 I am always peeking out, always watching, just rarely comment.

[@VanadzorImSirac]

​@@MelkorGGwhen are you returning

[@user-xq1et8cz1i]

Bruh… what happened? They had everything for a while and then they just got rid of it all…

[@BloodwyrmWildheart]

All the wrong people are calling the shots.

[@murtumaton]

"The brand managers are running the company! Shameful display!"

[@Nasmr1]

Perfect video. Incredible that developers themselves are talking about how it's just all tech debt reskins from the Rome 2 engine, with great effort to add even the most basic of things. Exactly what we've been saying and warhammer fans incredulously write these complaints off because it had big monsters! (Large elephants with more mass.) It had magic! (Shogun bombardment.) It had whole new races! (reskins) Also man I'm jealous I didn't think of the Tyrion "I'm denying your honors existence" clip. Perfect touch.

[@dishonorable_daimyo1498]

right on point with the war elephants, ive pointed that out so many times and they always get dumbstruck when they didn't even think about it. More so with naval bombardments, people just forget about the 2010-2012 era.

[@dogehkiindogeborn5339]

Elephants are funny since that's what modders use to make monsters and dogs in Med2

[@Nasmr1]

@@dogehkiindogeborn5339 seeing the mumakil and trolls implemented in the third age mod for medieval 2 back in the day made me acutely aware of how they did it in warhammer. I don’t understand how so many of the fans weren’t able to see it either!

[@Person01234]

This is the problem with volound. "Herpa derp TW WH players are the real problem!" as if we aren't suffering the same problems you are and the bad guy isn't CA and it's garbage management. TW WHII managed to be a pretty decent game DESPITE the problems with modern CA, which is why people liked it. Much like shogun 2 they managed to cobble together something that felt semi-competent. Do we like the fact that they removed mechanics? No. Do we like the simplifying and arcadifying of the game? No. Do we like that it constantly feels like the engine is hanging on by a thread? No. But the game is relatively solid even if it's follows CA's shitty downward trend. They dropped the ball with WHIII and the game has been crapped on since the beginning, not just with the recent price hike in DLC, the final straw for many that that may have been. Name me a problem you have with CA's historical offerings of late and I can almost guarantee people have the same problems with the warhammer games. Nobody (except the fanboys who would defend them whatever they were making) is "writing off" the problems and people who like TW WH are not the problem. CA is the problem.

[@bobloerakker7010]

I think it also has to do with the fact that GW killed the old world with the end times. I was willing to forgive CA a lot because of that, but the prices are way too high.

[@TheKipchak]

Social Justice? Oh thank God. I was afraid they were wasting money on pointless bullshit😒😒

[@BloodwyrmWildheart]

"Get woke, go broke" literally in action.

[@GreatWolfGrimnar]

What really caused me to see just how rotten CA is, and I’m surprised more people aren’t bringing this up, is almost immediately after the SoC pricing and RB’s tone deaf community response, right as the community’s anger was really starting to flare up, they immediately started making posts about how awesome and talented their devs are, basically using them as a shield against the outrage. That legit made my skin crawl

[@starbreeze7249]

"It's a small team" "They work really hard, you should support them!" to justify their overpriced and lack of content within the DLC. Truly no shame at all lol

[@Pilps]

This is so beautiful to relish in real time. I can only imagine what Volound is feeling. Pure I told you so bliss 😂

[@THENemesisXX99]

"Most people looking at influencers like yourself or Arch would simply typecast you and ignore it. They are absolutely tone deaf." Right from the developer's mouth. Get that quote out there and everywhere. Given the mountain of sycophants on reddit, discord and youtube. Be they consumers or youtubers.

[@bretonfou7046]

They won't care

[@trixie2558]

Volound is the one guy you thought was just a contrarian asshole before meeting him but then you listen to him for once and what he says makes total sense and then everyone else comes out and reinforces that and it turns out he's actually a good guy.

[@s2korpionic]

Unfortunately the TW subreddit is intent on making sure that perspective lives.

[@crushcommando8637]

yeah the only thing i've heard about him before this whole thing started is that he supposedly shits on anyone who likes a total war game after Shogun 2, and is/was a pro russia bootlicker for the Ukraine war. Don't know how much truth is to either, but i enjoy legendoftotalwar who also takes CA to task so good on em.

[@jlea]

Nope, he's just a sad loser. But CA is also shit, so no sides to pick here.

[@holyleech2159]

Hate to burst your bubble but he is absolutely an asshole, just because he is right about CA does not change that.

[@harveyohare]

​@@crushcommando8637not supporting zelensky doesn't make you pro russian

[@tomm9963]

My favourite combat animations were from Med 2. Had the right balance of kill moves alongside Rome 1s combat

[@squidmanfedsfeds5301]

Med 2 more importantly had a more dynamic melee combat, hits could be blocked or the guy could get a kick in the stomach before he attacks staggering him, as well as light quick attacks and heavy attacks It isn’t just attacks all the time it’s two “guys” fighting and trying to stay alive, using blocks and feints and safe quick attacks to get their enemy

[@tomm9963]

@@squidmanfedsfeds5301 Yeah exactly. I used to love watching knights go up against militia units and watch these common blokes try and survive the knights with kicks, blocks, dodges. Watching them get the odd kill was great, always found myself rooting for them

[@ZonsoAvalune]

Med 2 melee combat was terrible though! Melee units would take absolute ages to fight so they only way to finish a fight was to spam cavalry charges and ranged attacks. Sieges absolutely LIMPED along. Melee units with two handed weapons were almost useless because they couldn’t defend and attack at the same time, so almost never hit anything unless they were striking at the back of a unit. Honestly the only TW game I play anymore is Rome 1 because of this.

[@Bigelnobod]

As Reynold Sanity pointed out with Empire 2 and Rome 2, the cinematic effect of kill sync animations wears off after seeing it a bunch of times and at the same time you loose the flexible, realistic and unpredictable system of free interaction between individual soldiers/models (like 3 soldiers ganking up on a single one, or one soldier resucing another who is gets beaten down).

[@tomm9963]

@@ZonsoAvalune Medievals combat was only slow if you did frontal attritional fights. If you were able kill the enemy general then flank with cavalry battles ended pretty quickly

[@breadbaskets2772]

CA and Paradox competing with eachother to sell as much shit DLC as possible

[@Toshiro_Mifune]

completely different. stellaris dlc, (apart from a couple of questionable dlc prices) just adds years to the base game to the point it is absolutely clear now, that the vanilla game would not be economically possible to release in the state it is now. I have not regretted any ck2 or stellaris dlc to this day, but i have regretted many tw ones.

[@BloodwyrmWildheart]

@@Toshiro_Mifune Paradox is one of the only game companies to absolutely flood their releases with unnecessary DLC that should be in the base game. Those who defend that practice only do so because they are boiled frogs.

[@tennoki]

One thing is that it took THIS much to finally break the community, and that's deeply worrying. I fear that old CA will never return. The general sentiment I've seen from those shills is that their best case scenario is my worse case scenario, a reversion to Warhammer 2 era CA Every time I see a "They need to get fix Warhammer 3 to get it as good as Warhammer 2" or a "I've been buying everything for the last X years, but NOW this crosses the line", I realise that CA will return to massive profitability even if they fall far short of its 10 year old games. The financial incentive has been moved from creating Total War to milking Games Workshop customers, who are happy to overpay for the usual Warhammer stuff We'll never get good Total War again because CA is owned by SEGA, and they've clearly established since "Total War: Warhammer" that a product that's the WORST Total War ever but the best Warhammer product is good enough to rake in cash so hard that they are SEGA's most profitable studio

[@JakeTheRipper]

I wonder how CA will attempt to mitigate further correspondence from current employees. Would be interesting if someone leaked their countermeasures for this.

[@shreksnow1918]

I’m completely dumbfounded that we don’t have a competitor to Total War or an open source Total War clone at this point. There’s PLENTY of Age of Empires clones, C&C clones, there’s even a couple games that have the same style of gameplay as Bungie’s old Myth games, and various others. You’d think by now we’d have something that does what Total War does with a slightly different spin on things. Especially now that Total War is going downhill and something that at least does what the older Total Wars did competently would be able to find success.

[@ElKingED]

There is a new project that goes by the name of "Project Renaissance" that is aiming to do a medieval 2 spiritual sucessor. There are develogs on KZbin, the channel's name is Broken Rampart Interactive.

[@shreksnow1918]

Thanks! I’ll definitely be sure to check that out. Hopefully we get spiritual successors to some of the other games. If the engine is heavily moddable then we’ll be able to see all kinds of cool Total War styled experiences in it. I will be sure to check that out👍

[@Toshiro_Mifune]

@@shreksnow1918 i wouldn't get my hopes up for this one.

[@Latinkon]

Not to mention that _Civilization_ has more direct competition than _Total War_ in the form of games like _Humankind_ and _Old World,_ plus upcoming titles such as _Ara: History Untold_ and _Millenia._

[@Warmaker01]

4:51 "A big change in personnel" and "...the original tlaent isn't there anymore... It's not the same company." This is what I've been saying so long. Just look at how long it's been from the glory days of Shogun 1 (2000) and Shogun 2 (2011). That is a long time. A lot of big hits in between, CA was at their peak. The people that made that possible are going to be mostly gone given enough time. Retirements, promotions, just changing scenery. You can't look at a dev studio name and think just because they're good now will mean they stay great like that. It's just the name. What made the games great were all the people that worked on it. BioWare, Blizzard, DICE, many others used to be fantastic long ago. But time goes on and the ones that made the magic leave one way or another. Now those studios got issues.. Edit: As for all the problems together, there's no saving it. Total War needs to die. This very niche aspect of gaming needs a hard reset as the only show in town ruined itself.

[@phantomjoker5]

CA is doomed

[@denishrg9843]

Good, they deserve it

[@josephkato6678]

Karma, they dug their own graves.

[@The13thRonin]

It has been doomed for decades. The community consistently failed to gatekeep the franchise. If you love something, you protect it.

[@AliothAncalagon]

I always used to say that inertia is an underestimated principle. People, and in this case corporations, think that they don't have to worry about certain problems since they are only crawling forwards one small step at a time. The reputation might get worse, but this change is sooooo slow, isn't it? But what they always seem to forget is the simple fact that once things have finally got in motion they are also difficult to stop again. Julius' statement reminds me very much of this. A cable of steel may appear unbreakable. Up until the very moment it suddenly snaps.

[@thelonecookie3592]

Stuff like this makes me believe that Manor Lords will cause waves enough to revive the Real Time Battle genre and bring fresh competition into the ring. People are tired of CA's antics.

[@Toshiro_Mifune]

i wish but from what i read, people are already screeching at the dev to not give too much focus on battles, same thing they did with tw and now we have absolutely convoluted campaigns with mechanics that make no sense, because people wanted a more campaign driven game. It's been my main arguing point with tw normies since Empire released. I don't understand with so many massive grand strategy games with extensive campaigns, people chose the one that had battles as a focus and the map was there to arrange your theater of war, to make "more like civilization".

[@stefankatsarov5806]

That game is more of a city bilder than a battle sumilator.

[@BloodwyrmWildheart]

@@Toshiro_Mifune Probably because the games that focus heavily on campaign have comparatively garbage combat and vice-versa. We've yet to see one that can weave both together elegantly.

[@squidmanfedsfeds5301]

@@BloodwyrmWildheartatilla might be the best blend, medieval 2 has great campaign and the most realistic melee combat so it could be a contender as well

[@IslamistSocialist371]

manor lord is primarily a city building, the real time battle is just a feature. it might be isn't as flesh out as total war

[@sfulibarri]

As a software dev the bits about each game being a fork of a previous one and the engine never actually being abstracted from the ongoing pile of spaghetti explain SO MUCH about the state of the recent games. Like its one thing that the company shifted to centering their revenue around the DLC model but without addressing the tech debt they eventually are in this situation where they literally can ONLY produce reskins that get marketed/sold as new games. Very sad.

[@chaz32]

Sofia tried their best but there are some glaring problems with Pharaoh - the Civil War and Diplomacy systems are not joined up at all. It's possible to negotiate a painstaking non-aggression pact with a faction who immediately abandon it the following turn as usurpers despite a positive attitude toward the current High King. Also, plopping out random 7 stacks and 11 stacks at the northern edge of Turkey is an awful shoe-horned campaign mechanic... dire straits. The pathfinding in battles with the extreme unit size is broken as well.

[@Greenfeld13]

Whats funny too about the matched combat in the "spectacle of warhammer III" Is that theres a bug where most matched animations made in previous games dont trigger now! Lmaooo

[@AdrianOkay]

I'm downloading this video because it may get taken down faster than I can watch it

[@CapitalTeeth]

This video only confirmed what I already assumed. That TW suffers from something that killed or stagnated many game franchises time and time again: The people who are actually passionate about their work and want to make a good game are shoved to the wayside, and all decisions are made by the soulless 'money men' who only see the game as an investment.

[@EmersusTech]

When I cracked open Rome I, I noticed right away that you couldn't save the game. There was literally no way to save it. Also, if a certain ship went to Hispania (modern Spain), it would "stick". I asked CA about it and they said because I had a laptop, then they didn't support my graphics card. End of conversation. Amazingly, within a little while the patch came out and fixed my "ship problem" and I believe the Save as problem. I looked at all the people who supposedly playtested this game and I thought, "Did they really never save a game...like...ever?" Although I loved the TW games of the long past, the last one I purchased was Attila and that was it. This warhammer style is just not for me.

[@deciduouspineapple5130]

Volound is a reversal of "The Boy Who Cried Wolf". For years, he's shit on all the bad stuff that's been releasing or happening within and without the influence of Creative Assembly. He's ranted to others the shitty shared engine, the slow death of the real-time tactics, the eclectic evolution of the HUD, the un-moddability of their games, the controversies, the music, the units, the maps, EVERYTHING. He's been screaming his poor lungs out about all this shit for so long, saying: "Look at this! Can't you see that most of these half-baked slideshows are inferior to games released in the Early Aughts? Shouldn't we expect more, and BETTER, from those who make our games?!" Nobody cared, and some even tried discrediting him as nothing more than a bullshitting troll. Now after so many years, only after overselling some shitty DLC and releasing a pharaonic stinker, are the TW fans starting to wise up. Everyone's starting to say the EXACT SAME SHIT that this random KZbinr's been saying for YEARS. And only now, as their opinions begin to meld with his, can his critiques be considered legitimate. It may have taken more time for the fanboys of TW to admit he was right than it probably took for Sofia to make Pharaoh. What a joke! Hopefully this story will have a better ending, and result in better management and quality control, and... Y'know, not the death of the entire brand and/or company.

[@FoodDipFan]

A lot of TW (ex) fans have always agreed with Volound's takes on the series. It's only the Total War (Warhammer) subreddit that finally decided that they're tired of being sold Rome 2 for the millionth time.

[@_Azurael_]

I had hoped that Knigths of Honor would be able to pop off with Sovereign and be a decent threat to TW... Unfortunatly they stuck too mutch to the original game design and that severely limited them (like only having 9 character slots, meaning a maximum of 9 armies, realisticly less because you need other types of characters for the empire to actually work)

[@FlyingFrogSquad]

"Because he's the hero Total War deserves, but not the one it needs right now. So we'll copyright strike him, because he can take it. Because he's not our hero. He's a silent guardian, a watchful protector. A 200 APM CHAD."

[@adamm2091]

To quote the archer you ordered set pitch on fire from Stronghold: "Let it burn"

[@Im_Anthonyy]

It is SO IMPORTANT that people understand the 2nd statement u talk about in the start "Reliance on DLCs" Every time i talk about them releasing pieced up core content as DLCs, everyone copes with excuses and sides with CA, now we have the EVIDENCE and CONFIRMATION that they indeed planned the DLCs as we will release whats left of the base game later and they will pay, it wont he EXPANDED CONTENT as a DLC should be, it IS THE CORE GAME divided so it can be "pedaled as " Money for old rope"

[@toddfromwork8931]

Ong. People are doing the same thing here with p*radox and their soulless, exploitative DLC model. Nothing but copes. If they don't respect me by making a good product and marketing it fairly, I'm not giving any of them my money.

[@New_Age_Drifter]

This entire video interview not only vindicates those of us that have been calling CA out for a while, but also embarrasses all the fanboys that have been defending them for the same reasons they should've been called out in the first place. Bravo my guy. Edit: I'm already 20 mins into the video. My. God. We were right about absolutely everything. Not even exaggerating. It's really as bad as we thought and then some.

[@ghostface1304]

Had no idea it was this bad... Its so sad to see one of favorite game franchises in this state. I grew up with these games and my earliest memories of it was watching my older brother play the first Rome TW. I think these are the steps that CA needs to take in order to save this beloved franchise, in my own subjective opinion. Because despite Pharaoh's disaster lunch its not yet to late, but they need to act now. 1: Update the engine, it does not matter if it takes time or is complicated, it will be worth it in the end. Better graphics, bigger army size, bigger battlemaps and better movement of units ect. 2) Rehire, or atleast involve, the former employes in next installments.The ones who made the old games the gems they are. The talent who has the passion for not just making a moneymaker, but actual pieces of art. 3) Fire the people who has pulled the company in the mud, from top to bottom. This Rob guy clearly needs to get the boot. This is what happens when you hire a fancy suit who only sees a buisness. They destroy the very thing that is making money to make more money.... 4) Create a forum or some sort of interactive department within CA that the community can reach out to. Take feedback directly from the players. Do surveys and maybe even do special events. 5) The next big game should definitely be either Empire 2 or Medival 3. I advise them to do a Napoleon remaster aswell, the new film is coming soon and i think interest in that era of history will skyrocket. After this then consider taking the step to ww1. 6) Forget about short term money and DLCs for the time being. Ofc these games need to make money, but if you make a good game then it will result in good money. There is a reason why people go to the same resturants or buy the same product in the store over and over. 7) Let more people than 2 play a multiplayer campaign. Increase it to atleast 6 as a minimum. Look at paradox with Hoi4. Then you give an incentive for core players to get their friends involved with the games.

[@MadisonRamanamabangbang]

I still love and find it funny how they literally like made that "Pull out the stick without disturbing the others" thing like it would explain it and not read more like, you know, literally admitting that they like have spaghetti code and a fucked engine.

[@Witnessmoo]

It’s shocking that there is so few others competing in real time battles

[@Albukhshi]

The lack of Dev tool support brings up something I dealt with recently--the topic of animations in Rome Total War (the original one, not the remaster). I posted a comment about this a while ago, which will be reproduced. But to cut a long story short: not only are the current dev tools inadequate, but it seems that by comparing it to what devs were saying in 2004, a lot of continuity and old Dev tools were simply lost--that is, there isn't even a proper understanding of the how engines and the tools work--be they old or new. How can one expect to fix an engine or update tools, if they don't even fully understand how it all works? What follows is specific to the Rome Remaster, but I suspect it applies to modern Total War games. I think the 9th paragraph is the most relevant to this video: "If I may share some insight here--which I and a friend of mine discovered as we did our modding work for the original Rome (my mod isn't on Remaster: original): Feral apparently went into with just one boot on: they didn't know half of what all the code meant. I'm not even kidding: After six hours of working on the issue of animations using the notes Feral shared with us (via a skeleton converter script they gave), I and my friend ended up knowing more about how skeletons and animations worked than Feral did. Admittedly, we wouldn't have known that were it not for Feral's work. However, it doesn't paint a pretty picture. I mean, Here are some choice quotes about the skeleton files: "I'll be honest, I'm the sound girl, I don't know what most of this does" When I read the stuff below it, I wondered: "Why was the sound girl working on this, again? Most of this is animation/3d modeling 101". I'm not even kidding: I walked my friend through these and double-checked by using a known skeleton and animation. He was then able to walk me through the way the parameters were coded (since they weren't immediately obvious to me: I can code, but I'm not on my friend's level). And before anyone asks: yes, I talked to a contact on the matter: No, they didn't know what we learned--or at least, never gave away that they knew anything we discovered. And if they did know, why not share that stuff with Sound Girl? So if they did know, they weren't doing a good job communicating with each other about this. Yet here's the thing: near as I can tell, they didn't even know what to share. So, what I got out of this was that the people at Feral knew how to make the animations, the skeletons, and the models, and could do some limited stuff with the UI and pathfinding, but didn't know or understand the underlying theory behind how they were all supposed to work. They apparently didn't even realize descr_skeleton was the file the original devs used to make the skeletons the game actually reads, and that the game executable should have come with its own packer (you can find this hidden at theORG, from way back*). You could chalk this up to incompetence, but I think a strong case could also be made that they were only given the bare basics needed to do their job and that even CA probably didn't know half of what was going on. If the notes were lost, or simply neglected, why expect them to know everything about the executable? That was my friend's thought--he's a programmer: that for this to have happened, CA would have had to lose all or most of their continuity in programming with the time of RTW. I'm not going to tell you what I think specifically about which scenario is the more likely: incompetence or ignorance. But I can tell you that either way you cut it, it reflects very badly on CA (and by extension, SEGA): they're the ones who made the call that led up to this." *A guy named IIRC Edward Grassdycke; I'd find it and give it a link, but KZbin apparently treats any link I provide as spam.

[@QueenAleenaFan]

I would make an argument: If your plan is to only make one more game, it is immediately financial prudent to just press the old engine into service. TCA seems to want a money printer, however. Eventually a new engine must be forged so we get nine more years of free money. I'm not buying another CA game, ever. I'm looking to even the least similar competitors. Ultimate General American Revolution and Ancient Warfare: Han Dynasty are what have my eye for the moment.

[@Ideataster]

Was surprised to see your name crop up around this. Been following your videos since Shogun 2. Nice to see you still around!

[@luelee6168]

Thats what I've been saying for years. These triple A title companies need competent rivals to shake the sh*t out of them, compelling them to improve and do better.

[@NaturesFlame]

It'd be nice but that's not reality. Instead, reality is Microsoft buying Acti-Blizz, and the industry sees even less rivals. It will continue to be this way unless we give the government back the ability to destroy monopolies, and good luck convincing people of that. No, it sucks, but this is just reality now. Go indie if you really care. Buy AAA if you don't/just wanna ride the bomb. The future is consolidation, not diversification.

[@richard4888]

Reynold Sanity was the person who opened my eyes to the issues Total war has had, from engine to gameplay. His legendary ''It has never been about the campaign, it's about the battles'' quote still rings true to this damn day. You and him, Vorlund are kicking all kinds of ass

[@RambleOn07]

I actually disagree. The campaign is just as important to me, if not more important then the battles. The only reason to say that is because of how far back that CA has been lackluster with the campaign. If the campaign is insufficient, the battles don't matter. This is why I've played paradox games more then CA games over the past decade or so.

[@squidmanfedsfeds5301]

@@RambleOn07I agree with you I prefer the campaign and more paradox style games But it seems most total war fan’s especially new ones care about the battles more with minor campaigns, maybe I’m wrong but that’s what I see

[@RambleOn07]

@@squidmanfedsfeds5301 yeah, it's sad that people are willing to just accept disappointing products. It would be one thing if they were improving but they're just circling the drain. I'd argue that CA doesn't make strategy games anymore, they are just arcade games.

[@squidmanfedsfeds5301]

@@RambleOn07 gotta agree with that with the especially Arcady mechanics in warhammer Generals soloing armies, the magic system, etc

[@Daniel_Jones]

imagine if Paradox gave us a medieval TW alternative. Paradox has some of their own issues but at the very least the competition would be good

[@javicoca]

I started playing the series a couple years ago, so I was on the fence when it comes to CA's role on everything that's wrong with the games (despite watching Legend's videos daily). Thank you so much for completely opening my eyes about the rot that is eating the company away from inside.

[@flyingpugs3678]

I have been watching your videos since 2020. You convinced me to get shogun 2 as my first total war game, instead of war hammer 2. I now also own napoleon and medieval 2, instead of the new sludge they are pumping out. Thank you for leading me on this path.

[@bregigele2456]

The general in the lower left corner definitely agrees with you

[@Liberty_Bull]

I went from never hearing the term "Tech Debt" before to hearing it the most in this video.

[@markusschwein3895]

Glad you stay on track and keep an eye out. Appreciate the time of Shogun 2 all the more. I think, I'll give it another go, not sure if it's Hattori, Shimazu or Takeda. Nostalgia kicks, it's bad.

[@MeRDied]

Thank you for showing us based Shogun 2 gameplay throughout the dissertation. Your coverage is irreplaceable.

[@kikijiki7745]

Yesterday I watched this video and It kept me wondering what if I could do something. My problem is I'm your "Average Joe" and have no idea what it takes to start up a game studio from scratch or the money to do so. Building a new gaming engine from the ground up takes millions from what I have read online, let alone a game to run on it. I ended looking up crowdfunding options to see what was possible. I have no connections to anyone in the gaming/business industry to pull from either. There are so many great ideas that have been put forward over the years to improve TW games that CA will just never use. I have several ideas of my own that I have talked about with friends but have never posted online. All I have got is passion for what TW games used to be and an urge to do something about it. Anyone else feel like this? Anyone else interested in doing something about it?

[@NaturesFlame]

As always, the problem is money. You gotta ask the people with money real nice and maybe they'll let you. If you let them makes some changes, of course. The solution is to take away the power from the people with money but, uhhhh, good luck with that.

[@currentcommentor8745]

I suspect one of the reasons behind the code debt is the failure of Empire. If you can't win with a big ambitious project in a new engine but have sales success with Rome attilla and most of what is built on it.

[@theflyingkaramazovbrothers6]

"AdmiralPrice was a hero. I just couldn't see it." Lol

[@Rexini_Kobalt]

bro is going scorched earth against CA now. keep fighting the good fight! 😂

[@tendertackle669]

What a beautiful shitshow. Thank you Volound, great work!

[@Left4Candy]

Would love to see Total War have a more "dynasty" mode aka Crusader Kings. Build tall, become a strong dynasty, have vassals inside of a kingdom, get claims on counties etc. That'd be lit

[@RAZZLE69DAZZLE69]

Thanks for making this series. Id love to see you and LegendofTotalWar have a chat about this subject. I feel for him and his channel.

[@jawsofwar]

Curious how much time would be needed for a non dysfunctional CA to make a new batte engine ? If any ex CA devs are able to answer

[@AkaRystik]

Management needs a shakeup, and the best way to make sure it happens is to alert the shareholders how poor a job management is currently doing. Also, the tech debt of TW suddenly makes the INSANELY long load times of TW3 make a lot more sense, even with a solid state the loading times are absurd.

[@HisRotundity]

Thanks for giving us all this information, I really appreciate it. A lot of stuff that a lot of people have suspected for many years, but had no way of knowing for sure.

[@kruall5556]

been a TW fan since 2003 i just want old CA back, FOTS was the last good TW game

[@cosmicplatano3185]

It’s insane I discovered your channel when I was still a kid and Rome 2 was about to come out. I remember the total war community had so much hope then even felt a bit on the come up. Now it’s shriveled up over the years. A sad way to go for one of my favorite childhood strategy games

[@Tom_Quixote]

Ah I remember Reynold Sanity's videos. Back then I had already been boycotting CA for ten years. Little did I know that they would never fix or move away from Warscape and the matched combat that screws everything up.

[@Farathriel]

TW engine has been inbred so many times that Warhammer 3 Immortal Empires is the ultimate Habsburg experience when it comes to the code management. It's like a damn jenga, you pull one out and pray the whole tower won't fall.

[@MrGedgeman]

@Volound this is genuinely excellent journalism.

[@macdarby9926]

Another banger Volound. Keep up the good work mate.

[@Scutum-ky2fx]

Its so reliving to hear devs in the teams saying EXACTLY what i have been saying for well over a decade at this point. So indie guys or paradox, start making a total war game thats the best damn game you can make.

[@user-mi4zw7qz8n]

This is basically giving me the impression that there is no hope for the immediate future. Even if they were to start taking these issues seriously, it sounds like it would take them years to get their **** together.

[@RemusKingOfRome]

Correct, nothing will change as long as kiddies keep buying their garbage. Move to Bannerlord, far, far better game, with a responsible company.

[@Scout887]

I lately tried three kingdoms and pleasantly surprised, interesting campaign mechanics, the battles (multiple soldiers can hit on one soldier like it should be) and the campaign and battle AI is also quite good. There are also no silly fighting animations, just good old plain combat like in Rome 1.

[@KickinRadTopHat]

I always liked 3k despite it being one of the lesser main line TW titles, shame it was abandoned so suddenly

[@Latinkon]

TW3K was my favorite Total War game post Shogun 2. Damned shame CA abandoned it.

[@Phier554]

Imagine that 100m on a new TW engine.

[@user-tb5re6zs2r]

Note to self, do not hire anyone who has previously worked at CA

[@johnbull1152]

The only thing shocking about this is some people are surprised.

[@DeadLikeMeJ]

@Volound Great video, already known most of it. What I am hoping is that more will come out and talk about what's going on now at CA - what we might expect to see, what happened post Pharaoh.

[@BohemianSnacksody]

Amazing video, must have taken ages so massive kudos to that. I'm massively behind the idea that the only way CA will change is with a challenger in the real time battles market, this is sad to me. I grew up about 10mins away from CA's HQ, they were a big local jobs provider and bought their games initially to support their growth before falling in love with the games. I think if we can't get a competitor to get into this market then I think we need to make one via crowd funding of the fans as the initual launch point. I'd happily chip on what i was gonna spend on future DLC and product to back a challenger. What do you think?

[@acp9569]

Spot on analysis. As a long term fan (shogun 1) I sincerely thank you for speaking out and sharing the feedback form the developers themselves. Cant imagine who disheartened they must feel too, to have to take the bold of going public. Situation just reached a head. Haven't bought a title i years, though ready to dish out the dough in a heartbeat for a genuinely good release...

[@cryptoyt756]

3:30 "open rebellion" phrasing was hilarious to me

[@beziek]

Oh... I feel bad that the first youtuber I saw "attacking" CA was actually just doing it after community absolutely boiled and yet I didn't see you before now. You got my deepest gratitude for fighting from beginning when it wasn't as easy as now to make one of my favourite franchise alive again ❤

[@perafilozof]

Thank you very much for your hard work and effort to make this video and for making sure the word gets out. I rode the same wave as you did when it comes to CA's Content Creator Program but I left on my own after a few games as I didn't see the point anymore and I lost interest in all new Total War games which started going down hill post Shogun 2, and also Shogun 2 already showed the team back than at CA just couldn't keep up with their community and engine tech debt. The only way forward for Total War games is to split ways with the current decision makers at CA and bring back old timers who still have the passion required to keep this franchise moving forward instead of milking it to its death.

[@Daddywaah]

CA were quoted as saying the fans had no entitlement to having an opinion on the Steam forums just because they bought CA's game. It's time to make CA realise they are not entitled to our money just because they made a game.

[@Ionenkanone1]

As a former fan the truth hurts and hard at that but what to do other than moving on, I guess.

[@FlickCODM]

I'd like to know what their UX/Product team is doing? It's part of their job to be focused on research and feedbacks in order to improve the product further for the user base. To me it seems that this whole department is failing. It's nice to see perspective of one side which are the devs, but on the other hand there are many more aspects to cover since it's still a business. I understand the business side of things and that the business has to make money, but there should still be at least some principles applied. I hope that with their "newest" title income drop off they'll start managing the company the way it should be. I love to see how "marketing posters" just aren't enough anymore. Just give your community something they want. I've been battling with the WH community for a very long time over how bad the game (both campaign and battle-wise is). I have enjoyed 3k's combat - you can judge me for this, but at least the units were dying when they clashed and charging cav felt like a charge. Pharaoh feels completely arcady - nearly even more than WH3. I really liked @Serious Trivia's take on what the new title should be: " my top choice for a total war title would be based on the mongols. We get a wide spread of cultures from east Asia to Europe and even Middle East, India and North Africa. You also get a range of weaponry going all the way to early gunpowder. Pharaoh was the wrong direction where you have just infantry some chariots. The game would be much more fun with more options not less." This would hopefully satisfy both the historical and WH community (bcs of unit variety). All I want is just a proper challenging campaign and battles that don't feel like mortal combat. Seeing half naked no armour unit take 6 volleys of arrows and 5 hits with a sword on top of it is just ridiculous. They can take their time, but I'd like to see CA do the job they're supposed to, which is drop a game that's worthy, not trying to overbuzz bellow-mediocre products with marketing. Hopefully Paradox - that's actually doing a great job - will include real-time combat soon. Just look at their dev diaries on Vic 3 where you can literally buy the game and all it's future DLCs for the price of WH3. Of course the development of it would turn out more costly, but I wouldn't mind paying the price.

[@FlickCODM]

Also Sid Mier/Paradox games with all it's DLCs are cheaper than WH3 and all the DLCs you're forced to buy in order to gain a full access to the game, which is ridiculous. That spend hundreds on a new fantasy plastic figure that I can paint is hard to argue with tho... Good target audience to squeeze the money from.

[@joaotome9957]

As a new game developer, if its possible, why did you developers joined CA in the first place? What made it appealing and how did it shatter when you found it was a bad workplace? I have been looking to work in several gaming companies but with the amount of stories comming out from Rockstar, Blizzard, even CA (isnt even surprising with the quality dip on their recent games), Ubisoft, etc. How can I indentify a good solid gaming company to work for based on your experience at CA. Kind regards and best of luck to those still present at CA and those that have left hopefully to something better.

[@aWinterCrow]

I think you can't. This video may make CA sound like a hellhole but it really wasn't and some of my fondest memories are from my time there. I've joined other studios since with different degrees of... Satisfaction. Even if you can speak to other devs, quite often the experience from one team to another will be massively different. Even within the same team. Try to get a read during interviews. They're trying to determine if you're a good fit for the studio, but so are you. Try to join projects you're passionate about (though don't expect to be able to choose much early on), maybe that'll help.

[@MrCattlehunter]

The cracks started appearing in Shogun 2 (well, I also skipped Empire), then when they revealed Rome 2 with stuff like regions where you can't control what you get to build in them, capture-the-flag mechanics, missing family tree, etc., it was obvious they had completely given up. And then of course after launch we find out their curated gameplay reveals were literally just lies, not that that should be surprising, I suppose. They've been carried purely by Warhammer's strong aesthetics after that.

[@TiGGowich]

I've personally never quite understood the money argument. So many organizations are doing this where their service or product is complete garbage, but they spend vast amounts of money on marketing the product/service as something that gets perceived as of higher value. You see this with brands like Nike a lot where the shoe that comes out of some factory is worth 10 p, but as soon as they put the Nike logo on it, they can sell it for $90+. The problem with doing that of course is that the underlying value proposition does not exist. Maybe this is fine for something simple as a shoe... but for a video game? Perceived value is just that... "perceived." It is an illusion and people will eventually wake up to it. I know the shoe example is kind of random, but I like to use Nike as an example because I have had a pair of running shoes from them that I bought in 2008 and I have been using it for 15 years now... there is nothing broken, the shoelaces I never had to replace, the soles are fine, the material is completely intact, there is no problem with the shoe dissolving, holes, or glue slowly giving up. It was just an amazing shoe. A high quality product that I paid $120 for. But it was worth it. I've had them for over 15 years. They argue that they are consistently making good money despite everything being broken... ok sure. But has nobody ever considered how much more money they would be making if they didn't have a completely broken engine that requires hordes of human capital to even get anything from it, how much money they would make if instead of paying people to promote their garbage and making cute vlogs and videos etc., if they oh idk... just MADE A GOOD GAME? I don't understand why so many companies seem so utterly broken. A good game produced using a good engine will make them a buttload of money... it's not rocket science. They say that change is risky and expensive... but you know what is even more expensive? Losing customers due to apathy, a raging fanbase that boycotts your product, an engine that is already on the brink of collapse and will ultimately fail... From my experience, good games get the recognition they deserve. Total War is not a good game anymore. And they will not be able to keep getting away with producing steaming piles of garbage.

[@MPJ784]

The thing is, Paradox is doing a good job (for the most part), mannerlord is city building but it will lauch (as it seens) with the foundation to compete in the future, and Ageod with field of glory is slowing getting there (seens they are learning from paradox). And this Pharaoh Lauching may get then in a bad position. Depends of what CA will lauch next.

[@logoncal3001]

Paradox is doing a mediocre job. They can do good when they want but when they dont.. Vic 3 happens.

[@Continental27995]

As gready as Paradox is, atleast their platform approach ist working, though for EU4 f.e. most of the last DLCs were shit (except LotN, and I hope King of Kings will be good), but nevertheless the game works. Compare that to the chaotic situation of TW. You have Warhammer, Saga and "real" titles getting released every second year for 60+ and DLCs while there is neither a long term replay value nor innovation (except more arcade). Atleast the Sagas could have been one platform with 20/30$ DLCs as campaigns as they're anyway build in the same architecture.