Graphics and flavor

RazorOutlaw · Post by **RazorOutlaw** » 2006-06-26 12:57am

Bear with me as I organized cluttered thoughts. For five years now I've been enjoying the Total War series a great deal. There's been three games released in that series so far: Shogun, Medieval, and Rome.

I'm sure some of you must have seen advertisements for Rome: Total War, as Creative Assembly (CA) really got that publicity machine rolling. They had fancy graphics, doctored photos, and stunning videos to whoo the crowd.

Without getting into details, the company made a few misteps in dealing with the fans ("these bugs are caused by mods!", deleting posts criticizing the game, and generally shutting down fan-company relations) after the game was released. Coupled with the dour relations, the game just wasn't quite at the level people expected especially because of the hype. It wasn't even as moddable as promised, and that was kind of bad for everybody because the gameplay allowed for a variety of historical settings (including the Napoleonic era and a Hellenistic era mod for a previous Total War title)

I visited a particular forum that was referred to a "lion's den" by the CA staff. They did not like the place, and the fans did not like them. Again, trying to skirt a massive information overload, the arguing between fans supporting the company and fans criticizing the company always brought up the same points.

Those criticizing CA brought up these points:
1) The skins in the game were made by proffesionals, and they are terrible compared to fan made skins.
1a) Most mods fixed problems found by fans

2) Graphics aren't everything
2a) CA is more concerned with graphics than good gameplay

Flavor

I can't even begin to describe the nitpicking regarding the skins. I'm pretty ignorant of Early Western Civilization, especially in the areas regarding troops. They would harp on the lack of research in this game (which was a pretty raw point for the "historians" who play the game, as CA said they researched their game very well) because the troops in the game didn't really look like their historical counterparts.

A counter-argument to this nitpicking was "What does it matter if the skins aren't 100% accurate, the gameplay is more important."

Most people said "Because it adds atmosphere" or some other thing about historical integrity. I agree to a point, but this complaint about the skins popped up in damn near every discussion. CA made piss poor skins, we don't like this, etc.

Well, is historical accuracy important in skins? CA apparently came pretty close to other accredited depictions of classical era troops. But to put this in perspective, the way a Roman Legionnarie was depicted in Rome: Total War is like portraying a WW2 U.S. Ranger without his proper equipment. The look was similar, but not exact. But should that make or break a game for people? Could crying over unit depictions really be a legitimate complaint or just arguing about preference?

Graphics

At first people generally were distracted by the graphics for Rome: Total War. The original 2D sprites that moved back and forth during a battle were gone, and in its place was a fully 3D infantry man to be torn, cut, or blown away by a fireball.

The irony is that many people pointed to the flashy graphics of Rome: Total War (compared to the previous titles) as a sign that CA was pandering to the lowest common denominator. 2D sprites ain't pretty to look at, but 3D graphics are. It's funny that they should complain about eye-candy because yet another argument used against CA is that the graphics were not good at all. Recall that the argument was made that CA's skins were not historically accurate. Well to some, they weren't put well enough together. Modders were way ahead of a proffesional company in terms of quality, even rounding out the jagged edges on the original skins.

Alright, so my game doesn't have the best graphics compared to others. But compared to most games of this genre, it's graphics are pretty damn good. Isn't it just petty to criticize a game for not having the level of detail an FPS has? (and yes, someone actually brought this up. like an RTS could run with graphics with those kinds of details)

Honestly, I have a hard time (even after a year) sorting the more legitimate complaints from the absolute petty ones. Those who continue to criticize the game hide behind the shield of "improvement" but frankly I find a lot of them to be petty ty[es who jump inbetween "Well I was completely disatisfied with my game and it is crap, crap on CA 4eva" to "I just want to help by pointing these things out!"

Comments and verbal beatings are appreciated.

Stark · Post by **Stark** » 2006-06-26 01:14am

So the game was hyped out the ass with hot graphics, and when they both disappointed some people and were inaccurate that's not so bad? If they hadn't wanked out their graphics people wouldn't have had an issue.

Not that I care: R:TW graphics are fine. The stupid skins were absurdly dodgey, though, like the Imperial Republic troops and the c2500bc 'Ptolmic' troops. Ugh.

Ypoknons · Post by **Ypoknons** » 2006-06-26 04:20am

Though to some degree the complaints are deserved, the whiners also forget that CA created the only game of its class: the only 3D wargame stimulating tactics on a scale far closer to actual warfare than anything that has come before.

The historical inaccuries, perhaps from an overly conservative marketing department, are terrible, but for the market, it isn't that bad. Look at Rise and Fall - they have Cleopetra and Rameses together, Sargon II listed under 'Persians'. While some mods do improve on historical accuracy - RTR quite a bit, EB even more - I think time (2000+ years) and lack of uniformity in that era make hard to say "this is a proper late augustan legionaire with such and such a gladius." Today we have faster communication and machines that can turn out swords and armor that look the same, but in the past that was not so. The Romans would have more uniformity, but perhaps after a long campaign a legion would have all sorts of nonstandard equipment improvised on the field, and other armies would be worse off, especially militias. This does not excuse, of course CA for making Eygpt New Kingdom again, and the the whole "Chosen" swordsmen thing was quite strange, and a whole bunch of other inaccuacies.

What does it all matter? For gameplay purposes, not all that much. The Romans had cavalry a little too strong, perhaps, and the Ptolmies had better archers had historical, but not for ruined. But as a principle people should respect truth, and thus stay accurate to it, and in that the 'middle kingdom' Ptolmies, the bull warriors, do disappoint.

I believe we have seen the game in development since IIRC, 2002. At that time pixel shading and many modern techniques were still in their infancy, and HDR was pretty much a dream. At the release in 2004, Far Cry and HL2 were pioneering the modern generation, and though some things in RTW do look crude, recall the scale of the endeavor. Is there any game in 2004 which featured 2000 soldiers on a map routinely, and looked all that much better? I can't say I recall.

Post by **weemadando** » 2006-06-26 04:56am

If you want historical accuracy, fuck-off, go learn Latin and pick up any of the hundreds of academic books that are nothing more than a collection of letters between friends in the Roman army, or inscriptions relating to their lives.

If you want super-awesome graphics, then start a fucking mod program to quadruple the poly counts and add HDR effects.

Bitching and whining about minor trivialities such as doctoring screens (here's a hint - every fucking developer does it), lying in trailers (oooh, take another guess) and downright falsifying the details on gameplay (no hints...), then well, I can't see why you aren't in an asylum yet.

R:TW as things goes is an amazingly impressive game. Pandering the the LCD over graphics? I think not, the move to a 3d campaign map added IMMENSE depth to the gameplay and having 3d units with multiple animation cycles did make battles more engaging. And, shock horror, technology had advanced to the point where battles of comparable size to the original sprite based were now possible in a 3d environment.

Stark · Post by **Stark** » 2006-06-26 05:00am

Yeah, expecting a game called Rome: Total War to not be packed with nonsense is so unreasonable. Let's divide the republic into three factions for... well.. for no reason really. I better not complain or you'll get mad!

Ypoknons · Post by **Ypoknons** » 2006-06-26 05:28am

weemadando wrote:If you want historical accuracy, fuck-off, go learn Latin and pick up any of the hundreds of academic books that are nothing more than a collection of letters between friends in the Roman army, or inscriptions relating to their lives.

So if I want to play a WWII game where the Germans aren't armed with Tigers II's and Me262's during the invasion of France should I fuck off, learn German and pick up any of the thousands of books that are nothing more than a collection of engineering manuals, records, photographs and wrecked tanks?

You seriously can't take it that far and say historical accuracy counts for nothing to nobody. Edit - Getting pissed off by whiners is one thing, going all the way and saying nothing counts is another.

Post by **weemadando** » 2006-06-26 05:33am

I'm not saying it counts for nothing. But to be quite fucking fair, R:TW was historically accurate enough, that me, an Ancient Civilizations/Classics major could play it without being offended.

And btw as a History majory, I also play a lot of Flames of War which takes some liberties with historical timelines, but I play it anyway because ITS A GOOD GAME and the changes that have been made ARE FOR GAMEPLAY PURPOSES.

Ypoknons · Post by **Ypoknons** » 2006-06-26 05:37am

weemadando wrote:And btw as a History majory, I also play a lot of Flames of War which takes some liberties with historical timelines, but I play it anyway because ITS A GOOD GAME and the changes that have been made ARE FOR GAMEPLAY PURPOSES.

I agree. I would never not play a game because it takes liberalities, as long as the gameplay is good. For goodness's sake I'm addicted to Phoenix Wright, which takes balant inaccuraries with the legal system. We could quibble about the details of which changes were good for gameplay and which were not, but it's enough for me to say that the whiners are whiners but I would like to see more accuracy - what does Pharaonic Ptolmies have to do anything?

Stark · Post by **Stark** » 2006-06-26 05:42am

I'm not complaining: R:TW is neat. But it's not perfect, so there's always room for criticism... and the OP seemed a bit all over the place on marketing hype vs expectations.

Vanila R:TW is, frankly, substandard compared to the mods that are available, and I would never, ever play it again.

Flames of War is neat... but so many bits to lose.