Ex Total War Developer Exposes Rome 2 DISASTER

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[@thunderbagel3886]

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."

[@MrBell-iq3sm]

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.

[@p1971cuda]

@@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.

[@MrBell-iq3sm]

@@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.

[@p1971cuda]

@@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

[@MrBell-iq3sm]

@@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.

[@patrol2omega]

The removal of war speeches was a HUGE downgrade for Total War games. The quotes during the loading screen as well.

[@davidfinch7407]

When the French were described as "Ass-Weasels" by English generals in Medieval 2, I fell in love with Total War. Imagine what they could be like in Warhammer! (I mean the speeches, not the French.)

[@JB-ue6lf]

@@davidfinch7407😂

[@Legion12Centurion]

@@davidfinch7407 Well the Bretoonians are kinda like the french... maybe Karl could call them silly stuff.

[@srzar]

💯

[@firingallcylinders2949]

Divide Et Impera has them

[@lochstockrevolver]

10 years later… smells like some sort of signed NDA when he walked out

[@Kvs-vf9nt]

It probably was. I'm glad he still speaks about it. Because damn everyone blaming this one guy was just bullsh*t imo.

[@g00gleisgayerthanaids56]

​@@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.

[@skitkjell85]

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.

[@00yiggdrasill00]

​@@skitkjell85if you really believe that then you haven't been paying attention for the past ten years.

[@GovnaBuckingham]

@@skitkjell85 warhammer is a totally separate dev team

[@Reaper1911-]

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.

[@Icarus47249fd]

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.

[@thesecondsilvereich7828]

The definition of insanity is buying the same game over n over again

[@chocho6766]

​@@thesecondsilvereich7828and expecting different outcome 😭

[@ElBandito]

@@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.

[@matex600]

While starcraft 2 had insane ai in 2010 that trumps every total war combined

[@cavalr1002]

Is it really 10 years ago now!!? Jesus Christ mate, you didn't have to make me feel that old.

[@shammy8703]

12

[@jere9maz]

Takes about that long now for truth to be told

[@hohenstaufen2345]

Wanna feel even older? That game was my childhood game when i was lile 10-11. Im an adult since 2 years now

[@caiooca5793]

They should just keep the dates to themselves, no need to this to us.

[@ltdowney]

And I played over 1000 hours of Rome 2… it was that long ago, yeesh.

[@EnglishInfidel]

"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.

[@Edax_Royeaux]

They locked off SPARTA for pre-orders only.

[@fellforit]

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.

[@Geometrys]

I’m still a slave because Rome 1 was so good as a kid

[@ade9597]

@@Geometrys play RIS for Rome Remastered and all your wishes will be granted.

[@loowick4074]

Yeah rome remastered is basically rome 1 with ugly UI but better textures. I think it'll be a great modding bed.

[@ade9597]

@@loowick4074 just look into RTR: Imperium Surrectum

[@satzbau9185]

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.

[@shinsenshogun900]

The Absolute State of Creative Assembly these days

[@rafale1981]

I read that in a heavy scottish accent

[@fartz3808]

''these days'' more like since 2008 on. 16 years now. Golden age ended with post-Medieval 2!

[@AdamRusiecki]

I've read it as ASCA No pan here 😢

[@oneill6291]

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.

[@loowick4074]

Should have given up since rome 2 buddy.

[@oneill6291]

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.

[@alekssavic1154]

The sad thing is there are little bits of good ideas in their newer titles. Personally I think a lot of people missed out on a solid game with Three Kingdoms because it's not a setting western audiences have much investment in (diplomacy is a huge step up from any other TW game, and there are some neat new features and balance ideas that I wish we could get in a Empire or Napoleon 2). Troy looks (and sounds) great, and tried to play around with the economics even more (idk if I like that system though, I didn't play enough of that game to have a solid opinion). Rome 2 and Attila are both decent games now, it's just a shame their reputation was ruined by the state they both launched in. From what I've seen Thrones actually has decent sieges, although I never actually bought that one and I don't really have any intention to at this point. The problem is CA's management seems to be incredibly toxic and they (or maybe SEGA) insist on trying to keep up this annual launch cycle that prevents subsequent games from actually improving on their predecessors and puts too much strain on devs' abilities to wrangle their pretty ancient engine into doing what they want it to.

[@oneill6291]

@@alekssavic1154 Absolutely agree with all of that. And I also liked the direction they were starting to go with diplomacy in Three Kingdoms.

[@gonavygonavy1193]

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.

[@d.cirovic1695]

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.

[@danielallan8061]

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.

[@sea_triscuit7980]

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?

[@QuisUtDeus828]

Yup. I don't care about Rome. I don't care about the future / alien type Warhammer. A big thing for me is the setting of the game and I'm a medieval guy. I enjoy games in that setting even if they're maybe a little less good. I can't stand the Warhammer theme, so even if gameplay is amazing it just won't be fun for me.

[@evanblack20]

They pushed me into the arms of paradox and I’m not looking back

[@thisguy7083]

Paradox is going the same way

[@informitas0117]

Public trading = the beginning of the end. At least Paradox is actively panicking to increase quality after steamers like cityskyline 2, Life By You and Imperator.

[@curfuffle7420]

@@informitas0117 Don't forget Vic3 as well.

[@evanblack20]

@@informitas0117 they’re still working on imperator

[@raymondacbot4007]

If you like battles more than the grand strategy like me it’s still a hole to be filled

[@DirkusTurkess]

This was my first and last pre-order.

[@bravozero6]

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.

[@TheTM1Channel]

This is a really interesting insight into what happened behind the scenes. However my main issue with R2 was the overall design philosophy. In the leadup we were promised an immersive experience. What did we get instead? Idiot mechanics like (I think it was called) "Imperium", where you could not garrison troops at critical positions on the map... the way you could in R1, because during the Roman period, as we know, troops (especially in small units) were never, ever commanded by junior officers. You had counter-intuitive, brain dead development dynamics like the way a fishing dock (which provides both food and jobs) would increase unhappiness in a settlement, because, sure, that makes... no logical sense whatsoever. And worst of all, we ended up with "Champions" and "Spies" and whatever the other one was which were so unrealistic that the only type of "immersion" it provided was if you wanted to be part of a Marvel movie. Then when people raised this on the TW forums they would be shut down for fabricated reasons by the fanboy moderators. I'm not at all sure whether CA management understands how much that can make people detest a company. Anyway, that was me, who had followed and bought the TW franchise religiously until then, done with it. I haven't bought a TW game since, I haven't played R2 since. I've played a bit of R1 occasionally, but for me CA burnt their bridges in multiple ways. I can't see a cent of mine ever darkening their doorstep again.

[@JasperCarrot-rp5tb]

Few designers are aware of the difficulty of implrementing features this is why cross project meetings are necessary. Some resent the grounded opinions of developers and often stop inviting them to these meetings with the inevitable outcome! This is common in all sectors of software engineering.

[@smkeybare]

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.

[@loowick4074]

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 🎉🎉🎉🎉

[@g00gleisgayerthanaids56]

Did they ever? Feel like soldiers at your command? The lack of autonomy and required micromanagement has always been immersion breaking for me.

[@mcsmash4905]

@@g00gleisgayerthanaids56 people are trying to make old total wars appear like something they are absolutley not (simulators)

[@rawbird5341]

Went from a sim to rts

[@mcsmash4905]

@@rawbird5341 total war was never a sim game

[@NatalieBall-mw5nz]

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.

[@user-om2wm4hi5r]

I have low expectations for CA...but holly fire this low. Hople people see, read and stop buy CA products.

[@woodwyrm]

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?!??!?

[@KhalDrogo493]

I knew the art design clowns have their head up on their asses.

[@6millionLiesRememberHolodomor]

It's quite easy to understand, it's to immerse with superiority

[@rbarnes4076]

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.

[@g00gleisgayerthanaids56]

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?

[@mscapeh4451]

original staff is what made rome 1 and medievial 2 good nowadays ca just try to comercial scam gamers

[@Drayran]

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.

[@heathclark318]

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.

[@g00gleisgayerthanaids56]

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.

[@NatrajChaturvedi]

Well put.

[@heathclark318]

@@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

[@panenka7656]

I'd prefer to hear from a programmer about a game than a corporate PR bullshitter any day.

[@rawpotatofella9654]

Everyone needs to apologise for the vitriol directed at Julian.

[@GovnaBuckingham]

We can understand he wasnt an upper level dev making any decisions but you dont need to apologize when he said they were making all those improvements to the ai in the interview when the game was totally unplayable at that time. He worked with CA before he knew who he was dealing with.

[@andeve3]

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.

[@TacoTomtheBomb]

I still cannot accept how ugly the unit cards are.

[@selucusptolemy3149]

He should have released this during the Shadows of Change debacle

[@park1699]

maybe he had a NDA and it only ended after shadow of change was release

[@Beery1962]

The idea that No Man's Sky was not the game the developer promised is a myth, and it is complete nonsense. Sean Murray tried to warn people that NMS was not the game people were hyping it up to be. Public hype destroyed the NMS launch: the developers had nothing to do with it, and actively tried to curb it. Many people were even convinced that it was going to be a multiplayer game at launch, and Sean Murray made multiple statements to the effect that it wasn't, all to no avail.

[@liammorris1018]

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.

[@kirishima638]

An exemplar for game developers?! Murray lied and lied and lied. He couldn’t stop running his mouth, building expectation no product could ever reach. And then he very sensibly went into hiding to avoid accountability. Exemplar my arse!

[@TheWeejohn96]

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

[@MrBell-iq3sm]

I'm glad that the competition for CA is rising, be that games like Knights of Honor II or Ultimate General: American Revolution.

[@emanuelalfred1565]

Hey, how is Knights of Honor 2 these days? I’ve been kind of following it a bit when it first released with plans of getting it during a sale. What are you enjoying about it so far and how does its current state compare to the release state?

[@seanwalters1977]

Ooooh I forgot UGAR released. Thank you for the reminder!

[@MrBell-iq3sm]

@@seanwalters1977 You're welcome. It's not finished yet, but you can purchase it and play the early access version.

[@MrBell-iq3sm]

@@emanuelalfred1565 I haven't played the second one yet. I only played the first game, but from what I know KoH II is underrated and has a lot to offer.

[@MithridatesOfficial]

@@seanwalters1977 UGAR isn’t quite there yet.. has potential however. They should change the controls to match Rome 2 and people would play the shit out of it.

[@ucfj]

Don't blame any single dev. They don't have much influence nor knowledge over the entire project

[@DustinBarlow8P]

This is one of my favorite games. I did wait for a bundle with all the DLC 3 years after launch. When he says "It is possible to ship a title while not knowing the state of it". I can absolutly believe that, game company managers and execs are freaking shady. You may work there and your only job is to make art assets. You create your art assets, than the manager tells you to send them to him, and HE will put them into the game. You have no idea what the game looks like you just keep getting told to create the assets and send them up the chain.

[@SomeIdiotLUL]

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...

[@g00gleisgayerthanaids56]

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.

[@yogat.5892]

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.

[@Account.for.Comment]

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.

[@breeve12]

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.

[@VSharKS72]

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

[@gabxp3095]

Total war needs to go back to more historical games. I feel like people would enjoy an empire 2. Or maybe even a wwi or wwii type game.

[@canemcave]

this is very typical particularly when there are a lot of "management" hires, everyone is a manager and everyone has its own silos. The other model is to put everything on a big bucket and let people sort it out themselves. Finding the right or latest information around is next to impossible.

[@SuperDaxos]

Creative Assembly's managers care only about money. In the entire field of engineering in general, everyone knows that if you give engineers enough time and resources, they will create spectacular things. It's pretty much almost managers that limit these people. In gaming this is even a bigger issue

[@Baconbits16]

Anyone looking for a new Total War game should check out Total Resistance: Conflict set in the modern era. The indie devs are putting CA to shame, but they need more support & awareness.

[@JLE8811]

I have been trying to get back into this one. But, it doesn't scratch the itch of the original.

[@danielomar9712]

I can forgive No Man's Sky for having a messy release , and a gradual patching to turn into an actual game I cannot forgive CA , a AAA game , to have a disastrous , rushed , messy , unorganized crap that was Rome 2 , and then CONTINUE to refuse to learn

[@Doomer35]

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.

[@Tinywars]

I remember that dude. HE said on video that the games AI was the best it’s every been.

[@Edax_Royeaux]

At the end of the day, that Dev was knowingly lying when he spoke those words about the AI. Even if it is industry standard, that still doesn't absolve him. I bought a product based on false advertising.

[@Lord.Kiltridge]

My first Total War Game was Shogun released June 2000. I played thousands of hours from then through Shogun II. Rome II was IMO the first Total War that I considered the campaign to be unplayable and every TW game released since was just as unplayable for exactly the same reasons.

[@Jkaninteangemittnamn]

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

[@g00gleisgayerthanaids56]

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...

[@benusmaximus3601]

How the game was received at launch matters for naught in 2024 - the game was fixed, eventually, and is now a wonderful thing to enjoy...

[@mango2005]

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.

[@AidanDracole]

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.

[@RobertFletcherOBE]

Great video. When you work in a hierarchy responsibility *always* flows upwards. Leadership is always responsible for the work of their team. and upper management is always responsible for the final quality of the product. If you find yourself blaming an individual outside of management they're more than likely a patsy.

[@lorenzofedrizzi8825]

I have read the letter yesterday and I encourage everyone to take the time to read it

[@JD96893]

I enjoyed this game, but the AI really kept me from getting the most out of it. It was just another 50 hour AA game instead of a massive rts sandbox experience with hundreds of hours of gameplay. Because the AI was so fucking frustrating.

[@AR___Arts]

hey bro its maybe a disaster but its make lot of good memories for me

[@deandip4961]

Crazy since Rome 2 I think still has my most hours played. Shoutout to everyone involved with its creation

[@akk-nd3vj]

if he was "low level programmer" then why would leadership be talking to him. his bosses would talk to other bosses.

[@erivej]

I think they could have done a TW from 1453-1700. Renaissance Kingdon Wars is ok but doesn't have that TW playability

[@manuelkong10]

it's NOT the "coders" fault if the company is too dumb to send out a PR guy to do the interviews----or too lax to COORDINATE the message with the coder doing the interview.... He HAD to have had SOME Kind of input as to what the game was Supposed to be before giving the interview and he HAD to have had SOME Kind of permission to do said interviews from the people in charge.... It seems the public has a hard time understanding that these games are something like a Movie production, All Kinds of things are shot during production but in Editing, characters can be cut almost entirely out of the film....ENTIRE SCENES are cut out.... An actor does all his work for the movie but doesn't actually know which scenes will be used or which shots or takes will be used At All..... Notice when actors give interviews about about their latest movie, they talk in these Totally Vague terms and if asked, they often say, "I haven't seen it yet"....they understand that in editing the movie can change quite a bit. At least the movie studios have enough sense to Coordinate the message

[@GameMakerRob]

I don't think you can compare this guy to Sean Murray except for the presumed lack of pr knowledge.

[@RM-cv4tl]

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.”

[@chocho6766]

Nah it's always the "higher up" problem many studio ruined because of that

[@RM-cv4tl]

@@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.

[@mauriceprins2852]

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.

[@guillemmoreno5522]

@@RM-cv4tl Greed. Entitlement. Insecurity. Like it does pretty much every bad leader.

[@merricc5218]

why did he wait 10 years to speak out for it?

[@TrifectaMonkey]

NDA most likely

[@yaldabaoth2]

It's easy to bash CA (deservedly so) but this is one person speaking out blaming everyone else and he has personal interest to do so. It's interesting but I would suggest not believing this to be "the truth". Not without receipts and further investigation.

[@AnimeFan-dl4qd]

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.

[@oreo507]

What a throwback. I watched that angry Joe review so many times loool

[@valentijnbarendse9044]

Someone just needs to buy the whole company, shake up the management and go back to the core, making good games.

[@arkadiuszjuszczak565]

I've spent money on this game when I hadn't a lot of it. I was really disappointed.

[@rpersen]

Not fair putting all the blame on one person alone.

[@Peanutcat]

People need to stop cracking out on copium. Anyone who's bought a single title after Rome 2 is a gullible fool.

[@starbepus121]

Slavic magic has proven to do way better

[@muaddibszaman5007]

Everyone knew before Rome 2 that AI will be bad, because CA sacked the only 1 person that new how to create AI on this engine before they started Rome 2. Everyone who interested in Total War knew it. How can you be even surprised lol.

[@guardiansoulblade2673]

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.

[@Daxter250]

as long as they don't completely change the engine they are using, not much will change. dunno why they even went with that stupid ass rome 2 engine with all it's shortcomings compared to the previous engine to begin with.

[@markfreeman4727]

this seems accurate the guy who made fallout one (as in he made the first game and the IP as a whole), left fallout 2's development because of incompetent management and decisions constantly being made for him without his input or knowledge at times. Sounds like the same thing happened to total war

[@gerardoliveras430]

I never bought a game again from CA after Rome II, and never will.

[@deividaszubLT]

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.

[@Jonnybravo589]

It was everything. We all knew it was not just crap AI, they stripped everything down and nothing was better than its predecessor

[@emperoroak7331]

Without DEI mod, or Para Bellum mod, Rome2 isn’t complete

[@Valvadosworkshop]

I haven't played it in 10 years anyway. In my memory it is one of the best games ever. I also played through the rome campaign of the first rome total war in 2005 in my twenties. I loved it. Rome 2 was even better though.

[@hohenstaufen2345]

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.

[@skynet1234567890]

The ai still dont work

[@wrk101]

Rome 2 is great now. Unlike from what I heard about the launch years ago. With the hours that people have played it recently on Steam, disproves what the naysayers say about it now.

[@nanookrubsit]

in over 10 years, no man's sky is the only game steam ever refunded me. xD

[@pyroparagon8945]

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?

[@IslamistSocialist371]

because CA blackmail him and told him not to do it , for 10 years

[@notani3533]

Like AJ says, someone just fired that guy halfway.

[@tibersulla2305]

What got me was Shogun 2 "sure after releasing such an awesome game they can't possibly fuck it up right?", yeah well, I pre-order it like a chump and got faceplanted into the mud like I fucking deserve... Worse still I did the same again with Cyberpunk "CDProject super trustworthy, released Witcher series, surely they will deliver".... At least both of these games got eventually fixed, but don't be an idiot like me, DON'T EVER PRE-ORDER GAMES....

[@viktormilosevic8172]

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.

[@pattonmaynard7214]

I was a loyal CA guy until Rome 2 came out, then I switched to Victoria 2 @ HOI

[@thomaseriksen6885]

I think they got real nervous when screwed the pooch with empire, so when the cut content napoleon went marginally better they got stuck in a loop of denial and refusal to take the ample criticism to heart. Result was an even worse launch for rome2 tw and ever since they just loot the fantasy nerds as it's more money for less effort

[@MithridatesOfficial]

They need to make Rome 3 and have it led by someone who actually listens to their team.. game could be legendary.

[@user-xd9sm8xl8g]

just think about how fun and enthralling Rome 1 was compared to Rome II, if you liked it that's great. But to me all the fun and life from Rome 1 was completely gone in Rome II

[@kafon6368]

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.

[@manuelkong10]

People NEED to be FIRED at CA and the company taken over by somebody grown up

[@osros]

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.

[@j.clayton7672]

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.

[@g00gleisgayerthanaids56]

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.

[@fn8382]

I am holding my Norwegian caviar now

[@unitor699industries]

he should have started his own company i think many workers from CA would have joined him

[@pdog6565]

This makes me glad I did it play it till years after its release.

[@TvTv-sj4cs]

why do you take this guys word for granted? he lied to community and got burned for it