Total War: Three Kingdoms - the next major historical Total War title set in ancient China

[karoliner]

We need another videogame crash let all this shit burn.

 

[tabacila]

Motherfuckers haven't shown the 'historical' mode yet and it's just a little over a month to release.

 

[A horse of course]

Because it's a minimum-effort throwaway gimmick "feature" meant to minimize complaints from historyfags up until their Day-1 sales.

 

[Parabalus]

 

[Rahdulan]

Interesting that only content creators blacklisted by CA are offering anything resembling criticism. Hmmm. Must be nothing, I'm just paranoid.

 

[razvedchiki]

well non existent ai is not a new thing for total war games.

 

[A horse of course]

Interesting that only content creators blacklisted by CA are offering anything resembling criticism. Hmmm. Must be nothing, I'm just paranoid.

In fairness, some of the non-blacklisted ones have brought up reasonable criticisms. There is definitely a race to the bottom in sucking dick though. That Cody Bonds guy who appeared around the time of Thrones of Britannia was announced is blatantly gunning for a marketing job.

 

[fantadomat]

well non existent ai is not a new thing for total war games.

Back in the day it was serviceable,i don't remember it being that retarded.

 

[A horse of course]

I go back and play the older titles now and again. They all have their share of issues. Napoleon, for example, is probably the easiest game in the entire series due to the 100% suicide rate of AI generals who think they're expendable light cavalry. Medieval 2 still has siege reinforcement bugs. Amphibious landings are still constantly cocked up in the latest Rome 2 patch. I've seen plenty of Ashigaru conga lines in Shogun 2. Bridges and river crossings can baffle large armies in Attila, etc etc.

The major issue for me is that CA cut or streamline features with the promise that it will improve the jankiness we were willing to put up with in exchange for variety and/or depth. Yet this has never, ever materialized. Take Warhammer I. There was a whole crock of shit about how the identical, copypasta, one-wall sieges in Warhammer would be easier for the AI to handle and lead to more exciting battles. Total bullshit. Several years, a sequel, and hundreds of dollars later: Units refuse attack orders because one dude in the target of 120 is stuck on a wall. Catapults can't target certain towers on various maps. AI cannons will demolish their own fortifications. The gates keep opening and closing and can't be attacked in melee. The pathfinding fucks up constantly. Attackers flee through defenders and reform in the city center. Invisible hitboxes on the buildings prevent you from clicking your own units from various angles. The AI will place spearmen at the gate and then face them in the wrong direction or issue a move order and break their charge defense the moment the gate breaks. You can blow a hole in the wall and the AI will sit there whilst you wipe it out with handgunners. The AI displays equal or even worse logic than in the largest and most ambitious city maps from Medieval 2 or Attila, and the sieges are just as boring to play - probably worse, in fact, with even fewer options and less map variety. Based on Darren's video we're seeing pretty much the same thing except at least we have big cities and fortresses back, though I haven't seen the slightest indication of any interesting siege equipment or techniques.

 

[Tigranes]

Rome 1 bridge crossings
ETW release version armies standing still dying to cannons

Sieges are like playing against a particularly unintelligent 5 year old in every single TW

At some point I realised the historical eye candy isn't enough. CA simply embraced it and said that's how they make money.

 

[Aemar]

Interesting that only content creators blacklisted by CA are offering anything resembling criticism. Hmmm. Must be nothing, I'm just paranoid.

I believe this Darren dude worked for CA a couple of years ago, so he may know an extra thing or two about this game besides obvious facts.

 

[Lone Wolf]

Worked for them, left, criticised them harshly in a video immediately after leaving, got blacklisted, launched Republic of Play channel.

Most of his criticisms are fair. I share some of the concerns about 3K, but not many. For example, he wants a larger number of units in a stack. I think a larger number of men per unit would achieve that 'epic' feel he's after, without compromising the balance of complexity/fun. And number of men per unit is something most TW games have been able to mod in (Napoleon was the only one with stack sizes of up to 40 units).

The stuff he says about the ease of the battles I'm not concerned about - CA acknowledged that the balance was fucked to highlight the characters for the press.

The gullible AI is hopefully something they iron out for release. I know their track record in this regard is not great.

 

[mwnn85]

I don't have any confidence in CA/Sega to release anything of interest.
They can't even fix old bugs and quirks - they only seem to make it worse.
I bet you'll need top end hardware to run this turkey with all the glitches in it.

At this point I just wish someone just take the best of the original games and essentially remake it, whether that's OpenTotalWar or even something proprietary.
> The Risk-style global map, family tree and political titles, 3D battles (using either sprites or 3D units), the memorable agent videos.
> Even the minimalist battle UI & unit cards were perfect.
> Make the units actually fight in a realistic way; each unit should ideally be comprised of individual soldiers each with their own status, that can fight somewhat independently.
They shouldn't be standing there, thumb up their arse, watching their pals get chopped up like in Total War for the last 15 years or so.
> Maybe add in the city/castle + unit training mechanics from Medieval 2.
> Could split each region up into small hamlets and major cities like in Empire.
> Maybe add in a technology tree.
> Time period could be from the dark ages all the way up to Renaissance.

Is Oriental Empires any better? Sengoku Jidai Gold? Something like Crusader Kings doesn't have the battles even if it excels in other areas.
There's also a few old ones on GOG like Imperial Glory.
There doesn't seem to be anything out there that quite does what the originals did.

 

[A horse of course]

For the record, correct me if I'm wrong but Darren was only ever a marketing guy for CA, even after the promotion (he failed his first interview for a coding position iirc). That said, he was a longtime TW youtuber before he joined and his most of his criticisms were pretty spot on, plus the stuff he mentioned in the drunkstream wasn't really related to being a designer - for example pointing out that he complained about certain things and was told "lol nobody will care, we can just fix them some other time if we have to" is pretty damning. The fact he worked in such a position for several years gives him a reasonable insider's perspective even if he can still be criticized for speculating about exactly how much work X or Y feature would be. Also, he is in contact with other CA developers and has claimed they agree with some of his points.

 

[LizardWizard]

"lol nobody will care, we can just fix them some other time if we have to" is pretty damning.

I imagine this is how the Norsca clusterfuck was rolled back for 8 months

 

[A horse of course]

"lol nobody will care, we can just fix them some other time if we have to" is pretty damning.

I imagine this is how the Norsca clusterfuck was rolled back for 8 months

The sad thing is CA turned out to be right. Darren got really pissed in the drunkstream because he said "the community" made him look like an idiot at CA as they didn't raise a stink about the shitty sieges etc. until way after release. I don't think this is entirely fair as even in my positive review I mentioned how shit sieges were and how they would only get worse with repetition, but Darren has mentioned in another livestream CA's concept of "the community" is basically reddit, as it's easier for them to just look at the top rated comments in the subplebbit than sieve through their own official forums (yes, he really did say that). One of reasons the subplebbit hates Darren so much is that he specifically called them out as cocksuckers who enabled CA's laziness.

 

[Raghar]

For the record, correct me if I'm wrong but Darren was only ever a marketing guy for CA, even after the promotion (he failed his first interview for a coding position iirc). That said, he was a longtime TW youtuber before he joined and his most of his criticisms were pretty spot on, plus the stuff he mentioned in the drunkstream wasn't really related to being a designer - for example pointing out that he complained about certain things and was told "lol nobody will care, we can just fix them some other time if we have to" is pretty damning. The fact he worked in such a position for several years gives him a reasonable insider's perspective even if he can still be criticized for speculating about exactly how much work X or Y feature would be. Also, he is in contact with other CA developers and has claimed they agree with some of his points.

Darren originally thought he'd get into QA and possibly have some influence on design and coding. They told him, you'd be doing marketing, then after half year we would send you to QA. Well, he did marketing, he was skillful at that position, and they though he forgot about that. Then he came at them and said, well what about that moving him to position he wanted... They gave him rise in salary instead. Few days later he rethought his position, how little influence he had on WH/Rome II development, and left.

Disgruntled he did his live stream, nickpicked everything, get bad blood from CA, and deleted that video. Which I didn't save, but it was interesting. He should go into details, and also go into experience with CA, which would get him into trouble for revealing private stuff that happens internally in CA, but it would be interesting. And the stream would be deleted for something really juicy.

From what I seen when I did some investigation of CA, they are like that company from Dilbert, go to job at 9, leave at 17, and have pause for lunch. The trouble is a normal game development company is unlikely to behave like that. Game development is creative activity, and developers tend to have theirs period when they do lot of stuff in short time, and they wasn't able to do anything because of lack of inspiration period. Especially shortly before release.

Yea of course not overworking employees is important, but it's very unlikely in normal company to look like CA before important release. (Actually I no longer remember if I did that before release of WH2, or ME, or Tomb Kings DLC. Considering I'm not doing it for large official study of game companies behavior, it doesn't matter.)

 

[fizzelopeguss]

Hate hero units, special abilities, tiny max unit stacks, battles that last 30 seconds after taking 10 minutes to load... Even on SSD.
Loathe the graphics over everything attitude, especially when the graphics are shit in a bloated engine with perhaps the worst AA implementation I've ever seen.

These games are shite now.

 

[tabacila]

FYI CA did a live let's play of 3K:

 

[Rahdulan]

Big Dong.

 

[fantadomat]

The only cool thing that will come from this game is the soundtrack. They do throw a lot of money at those stupid trailers. Maybe it will sell well in Wuxia.

 

[LizardWizard]

Delayed 2 1/2 months... yikes

 

[razvedchiki]

what a lame trailer,shougun 2 had the best honorobru 1000 times folded better trailer

 

[tabacila]

Delayed 2 1/2 months... yikes

Wasn't it originally slated for release in fall 2018? I guess the reaction to their last media blitz wasn't what they were hoping for.

 

[A horse of course]

Here's the official word:

https://www.totalwar.com/blog/total-war-three-kingdoms-development-update

It’s been an incredibly busy and exciting time for us in the studio. We’ve been able to show you more of Three Kingdoms than ever before and taking the time to evaluate it thoroughly.

There are some revolutionary features going in and it’s looking really good. But we want to make sure it’s great. So we’re moving the release date to 23 May, 2019.

With Three Kingdoms, we set out to create a new level of complexity. As such, we need a little more time to make sure these systems deliver as intended and give you the Total War experience you’ve waited so patiently for.

Of course, the extra time won’t hurt when it comes to fixing those bugs that have been hard to nail down, getting the localisation just right, and adding additional polish to help it shine. We all know those little details make a big difference.

We’re lucky to be in a position to do the right thing for our games, and in this case it means taking the time to get everything ready for you. It’s more important to give you a game that you can enjoy to the fullest, rather than stick to a release date just because.

We know not everyone’s going to be happy about this, but ultimately, we believe this the best thing for the game and our players.

Thanks,

Rob

FAQ

• Will this affect/delay the upcoming WARHAMMER II DLC?

No, this will not have an effect on or delay the upcoming WARHAMMER II DLC, but this does mean that the WARHAMMER II DLC will now arrive before the release of THREE KINGDOMS.

• Why is it delayed?

As we said, we need a little more time to make sure that this is the Total War experience that you’ve come to expect and waited so patiently for.

• Will you fix this specific issue?

Right now, we’re not commenting on individual issues, but focusing on creating a high level of polish across the board.

• What do you mean by “polish”?

Polish means a whole bunch of things. Such as two consecutive specific battle animations transitioning smoothly, or making sure our language and localisation is executed to the highest standard, or ensuring that the lighting is well balanced across different types of weather and environment variables. We’re looking at the whole game and seeing what we can improve.

• How will this affect my pre-order?

The only thing that will change is the release date – your pre-order will still be valid and you shouldn’t experience any issues surrounding it. If you do have any issues or further questions, please contact SEGA support or your individual retailer.

And don’t forget, we’ll be showing you much more of the game before launch – to get started, check out our livestream schedule below:

全面战争：三国——开发更新
整个工作室现在正处在一个非常繁忙紧张而又刺激的时期。对于三国我们有比以往都更多的东西能展示给玩家，同时也在认真的对这些内容进行评估。

游戏中有许多看上去已经很棒的革命性新内容，为了确保这些内容的质量，我们决定将发售日期推迟到2019年五月二十三日。

我们在三国中加入了一整套新的复杂系统 ，也因此需要更多的时间确保这些系统按照设计正常工作，从而提供符合玩家期望的全战体验。

当然，更多的时间也会对修复减少各类bug，做好本土化以及打磨优化有所帮助。我们都很清楚这些能对游戏有多大的影响。

我们很庆幸我们能为我们的游戏做正确的选择，这意味着我们要花更多的时间确保给玩家的游戏品质万无一失。相比于不顾品质而严格遵守发售日期，给玩家喜欢并且完整的游戏体验更为重要。

我们明白不是所有人都喜欢这个决定，但是我们相信这是为了玩家和游戏所做的最佳选择。

• 这会影响/拖后接下来战锤2的DLC内容吗？

不，这不会影响或延后下一个战锤2DLC。不过现在战锤2的DLC会在三国前发售了。

• 为什么延期了?

如之前所说，我们还需要一点时间来确保这款全面战争的品质符合玩家的期待与等待。

• 你会修好某一个（特定）问题吗？

我们目前不对特定问题进行评论，我们的总体目标集中在高度打磨提升整个游戏品质。

• 我的预订会受什么影响？

只有发售日受到影响——你的预定都依然有效且不应该因延期出现任何问题。如果你有遇到问题或者疑问，请联系世嘉客户服务或者你的零售商。

• 你所说的打磨是什么意思？

打磨包括了很多内容。比如让战斗动画能顺畅切换，保证用语以及本土化能符合高标准，或者是确保光照在不同的天气和环境下的设定平衡。我们在审视整个游戏，查找哪里可以提升。

 

[Agame]

The "influencers" shat on the early access build so much they are delaying to fix it?

Hahaha.... as if a few months will make any difference.