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If an indie dev needs Epic/CCP money to complete there game, then I get the appeal.

Ubisoft and SEGA do not need extra cash.

True, but Epic can afford it because A. their service in regards to the consumer is absolute garbage and B. its being funded by Fortnite money.

In regards to point A, Steam has come a very long way and offers quite the service to consumers in regards to convenience, they handle a lot of aspects and you can build a whole community only based on what Steam provides. The cut is bigger for publishing on Steam, but as of now, Steam is much more user/consumer friendly. Plus it has a far larger market. Publishing on Epic is worth it because you recoup costs through the exclusivity deal, but if you don't reach an audience, what kind of future do you have?

To point B, once Epic has a captive market for users or Fortnite is no longer the next hot thing, this might become unsustainable, unless they keep their platform so bare bones (currently people go to Steam to use as a forum for games released on Epic with 1 year exclusivity) that they can keep doing it. That is a big if.

To add to Disciple of Fate's point on the issues with early sales, don't forget that most games are like films, they expect and need to make the bulk of their income within the first few months of release. Whilst Epic gives them a golden handshake to guarantee profits from sales up to estimated values; that's only the developer/publishers estimations as agreed with Epic. It doesn't mean that the game might suddenly prove supremely popular and sell like crazy. However if the market sees it go on 75% sale they might all wait for the next sale. So now your mega-selling game stalls in sales and you lose out. Of course you can't prove this might have happened, its just a chance.

I believe it was also the attitude Epic had, that it was their store and they'd do what they'd like and didn't show even basic respect to the developers. That's a risky thing when they want your game exclusive to their site; when they are paying you big golden handshakes (read - have huge money reserves so even if yo utake them to court they can block you for decades) etc... Epic's attitude is almost child-like in some ways - a childlike situation with vast wealth.

 H.B.M.C. wrote:
If an indie dev needs Epic/CCP money to complete there game, then I get the appeal.

Ubisoft and SEGA do not need extra cash.

Plus the bigger publishers already get a bigger cut based on how well sales do on Steam. This is them just squeezing margins to their fullest effect.

And Ubi has the hide to lie about Steam being greedy and unsustainable.

 H.B.M.C. wrote:
And Ubi has the hide to lie about Steam being greedy and unsustainable.

well atleast ubisoft doesn't willfully destroy studios to paoch developpers

I think part of the problem is this practice of selling to Epic at the last possible second. If they announce these things well in advance then I would just shrug. Now its a a game you might look forward to coming out in 3-4 months on your preferred platform and suddenly having the rug pulled out from under you (perfected by Phoenix Point and Metro Exodus). It leaves a bad taste. What I'm really curious to see is how many Epic exclusives have the balls to release full price on Steam a year later. Some bigger titles coming up this year I believe.

Epic is deliberate in getting these contracts signed late. They are using Steam to advertise the game and to also use steams own metrics to judge popularity of games - then they swoop in with a golden handshake that most developers find very hard to avoid. Getting guaranteed sales profits AND a bigger percentage cut AND a bonus to make the game exclusive for one year. These add up to not just big numbers, but guaranteed numbers in an industry where even a popular well selling game can still fail to yield enough profit.


Epic's movement is very aggressive and fuelled by a vast wealth of Fornite. Plus right now they don't seem to care as much about actually profiting off their store. Partly because their whole advertising campaign is instead of putitng money into TV and Facebook and massive ad campaigns; they are instead putting it directly into buying out popular games. They are basically buying customers.

Sure they lose some disgruntled ones, but by and large the bulk of people whine a bit and then move on and just get Epic anyway. There's only a very small percentage who resist outright.
Heck they could lower that percentage a lot more if they made their store a higher rated product in line with Epic's budgets.

I know Epic is deliberate, I mean on the side of the developers and the publishers. Because they catch the flak for it, Epic doesn't, because people who already dislike Epic won't move over because of that one game going exclusive.

My problem is that Epic is terrible in regards to the costumer (and all the hacking problems and the lack of care from Epic, the oopsie declaration that Epic still copied your Steam files to send as data). They have the piles of money, but seemingly just don't care about using it to develop a product attractive to me as a costumer. If Epic wasn't so shady in how it operates I wouldn't have that much of a problem if it offered a better option over Steam, but it just runs on burning money instead of an actual offer.

Indeed that's why I don't quite get their plan either. I get the whole idea of poaching games and trying to secure a large userbase. But their aggressive nature seems to upset developers, publishers, competitors and customers. They are only winning because of vast wealth that lets them be cheaper and more profitable to use.

However how long they can maintain that is questionable. At some stage their store has to turn a profit; at some stage fortnight will step aside fro another mmo of the year etc... At some stage the bubble bursts. With all the bridges they keep setting on fire it just seems a very short sighted strategy.


I think the developers/publishers just get offered a LOT of money right at the time when they are hoping to recoup their massive game investment. It's when all the cards are on the table and they are at their most vulnerable. When fears of minor errors proving to be game breaking for too many of the population that it tanks launch sales; when reviews are critical to getting good launch sales. When they've got all those costs breathing down their neck and concern for if they'll cover those costs let alone profit enough to continue working on the game or even have enough to start a new game or new addon content etc..

At that time someone walks in and basically says "sell on my store for 1 year exclusive and I make all those worries go away". The only cost is a small portion of your user base will complain loudly on the steam forums that you won't be selling on for a year anyway.

Honestly, if people would be hold responsible for what is in essence a bait and switch, then i doubt their strategy would work aswell.

Also they treat AAA games more preferential then indie games, as seen in some exemples.

Im not a Steam fanboi, but I like having all my games in one place - in this case that place is Steam because Steam was first to the table and really the only major option for the longest time.

I'll probably claim the free copy on Epic, but realistically I'm just going to end up buying it on Steam anyway.

chaos0xomega wrote:
Im not a Steam fanboi, but I like having all my games in one place - in this case that place is Steam because Steam was first to the table and really the only major option for the longest time.

I'll probably claim the free copy on Epic, but realistically I'm just going to end up buying it on Steam anyway.

Probably be in the same boat, depending on how bored I am with WH2 and 3K when this releases.

Not Online!!! wrote:

 H.B.M.C. wrote:
And Ubi has the hide to lie about Steam being greedy and unsustainable.

well atleast ubisoft doesn't willfully destroy studios to paoch developpers

That's Bethesda's bag. That's how they picked up Arkane and a couple others (allegedly)

nels1031 wrote:Probably be in the same boat, depending on how bored I am with WH2 and 3K when this releases.

Truthfully, Troy doesn't hold much interest for me. If they'd gone full on mythological I'd be far more interested than this ahistorical nonsense approach they decided to take.
Its puzzling that they want to take critters but just make them normal units, but still run around with demi-god style heroes that can crush entire formations.

If I'm bored with WH2, I'll honestly just find something else rather than pick this up.

Voss wrote:

Not Online!!! wrote:

 H.B.M.C. wrote:
And Ubi has the hide to lie about Steam being greedy and unsustainable.

well atleast ubisoft doesn't willfully destroy studios to paoch developpers

That's Bethesda's bag. That's how they picked up Arkane and a couple others (allegedly)

This is almost industry standard at this point, given that you can level the same accusations at EA and 2K. Game development really seems to be a gak industry to work in, it really needs to unionize.

Voss wrote:
Truthfully, Troy doesn't hold much interest for me. If they'd gone full on mythological I'd be far more interested than this ahistorical nonsense approach they decided to take.
Its puzzling that they want to take critters but just make them normal units, but still run around with demi-god style heroes that can crush entire formations.

If I'm bored with WH2, I'll honestly just find something else rather than pick this up.

Agreed, this approach is so terrible. Like the Cyclops, don't they realize how much even an elephant skull weighs? How can anyone effectively function with that thing stuck on their head? I'm still holding out hope for a legit Bronze Age TW game.

 Overread wrote:
Epic is deliberate in getting these contracts signed late. They are using Steam to advertise the game and to also use steams own metrics to judge popularity of games - then they swoop in with a golden handshake that most developers find very hard to avoid.

Which is no doubt why Steam recently amended its agreement with publishers to penalize companies that go for this.

Well didn't take long....

My take away from that video is that its supposed to be the "truth behind the myth", yet those characters are fething Space Marines. I'm not sure what truth there is to that

I can barely tolerate giant Karl Franz in Warhammer, here it seems to be giants galore.

 Disciple of Fate wrote:
My take away from that video is that its supposed to be the "truth behind the myth", yet those characters are fething Space Marines. I'm not sure what truth there is to that

Nothing, honestly it feels Like the game Design Team was Split into 2 parties but non could pull through their vision Leading to a game that is
"Weder fisch no vogel"
Aka neither Fisch nor bird , basically it Lacks a vision too historical for a total war age of mythology (which i would looooveeee) not a Bronze age total war ( which i would also looooveeee)

Basically sega dumped this in epic to replenish their rubles, screwed their Fans over for their little con job aswell and have once again shown that their quality controll is arbitrary as all hell....

Not Online!!! wrote:

 Disciple of Fate wrote:
My take away from that video is that its supposed to be the "truth behind the myth", yet those characters are fething Space Marines. I'm not sure what truth there is to that

Nothing, honestly it feels Like the game Design Team was Split into 2 parties but non could pull through their vision Leading to a game that is
"Weder fisch no vogel"
Aka neither Fisch nor bird , basically it Lacks a vision too historical for a total war age of mythology (which i would looooveeee) not a Bronze age total war ( which i would also looooveeee)

Basically sega dumped this in epic to replenish their rubles, screwed their Fans over for their little con job aswell and have has once again shown that their quality controll is arbitrary as all hell....

We say neither fish nor meat (vis noch vlees)
I think part of it is that they put CA Sofia on it, which is basically a very green studio with only one(?) RTW2 DLC under its belt. That might explain the impression that it was divided into two games, as it seems to pretty heavily copy aspects of Three Kingdoms (to cut corners?).

I would absolutely love either a full on fantasy or historical version. Perhaps once this game is heavily discounted and heavily modded by fans to be a normal historical title, I might give it a go on Steam, vanilla looks awful. What has me worrying about this is that it seems to be a direct copy paste job of Three Kingdoms romance edition. I hope these types of hero units aren't going to become the new normal, I would like to have full on historical titles in the future.

 Disciple of Fate wrote:
My take away from that video is that its supposed to be the "truth behind the myth", yet those characters are fething Space Marines. I'm not sure what truth there is to that

I can barely tolerate giant Karl Franz in Warhammer, here it seems to be giants galore.

See, I don't have a problem with it in Herohammer since, well, its such a big part of the experience and doesn't make any pretense at not being fantasy. Spearman #5 just doesn't stand up to anybody with an actual name.
But when the tagline behind a semi-historical game is 'the truth behind the myth,' AND they're drilling down to play rock/paper/scissors with Light, Heavy and Medium infantry, its really out of place.

Gameplay trailer:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DaOUxusiV5Q

biggest changes- trying to make Medium Infantry distinct (in the brief video they just look bad, they get massacred by heavy and outmaneuvered by light) and a focus on new terrain types- Mud (which is obviously bad for heavy infantry) and Long Grass in which your light units (or pokemon) can hide.

Also a first look video
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pSxFSZpTeJE

This has Achilles stat card (at about 2:05)...
Absurd, even when compared to Warhammer heroes (even though the damage number looks like its calculated differently than Warhammer- units are about 100 damage, Achilles is 1200, but the breakdown doesn't match up to the number shown)

And yet Achilles still looses against hector as above shown in the heroic duel ability he has to force one...

Voss wrote:

 Disciple of Fate wrote:
My take away from that video is that its supposed to be the "truth behind the myth", yet those characters are fething Space Marines. I'm not sure what truth there is to that

I can barely tolerate giant Karl Franz in Warhammer, here it seems to be giants galore.

See, I don't have a problem with it in Herohammer since, well, its such a big part of the experience and doesn't make any pretense at not being fantasy. Spearman #5 just doesn't stand up to anybody with an actual name.
But when the tagline behind a semi-historical game is 'the truth behind the myth,' AND they're drilling down to play rock/paper/scissors with Light, Heavy and Medium infantry, its really out of place.

My only problem in Warhammer is that the characters are physically gigantic, sticking out head and shoulder over the normie humans. I don't have a problem with them being OP, because magic, magic items and real gods.

In Troy they have none of that, it some guy (who could easily play in the NBA) in boxershorts in a skull mask casually killing dozens of people. Instead of making it into a special group, its one dude. Nothing in the Illiad ever pointed to this. The main characters were exceptionally skilled, but not 8 foot monstrosities doing this, they should have attached them to bodyguard units.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Not Online!!! wrote:
And yet Achilles still looses against hector as above shown in the heroic duel ability he has to force one...

Clearly Hector hit his weak spot for massive damage

 Disciple of Fate wrote:

Voss wrote:

 Disciple of Fate wrote:
My take away from that video is that its supposed to be the "truth behind the myth", yet those characters are fething Space Marines. I'm not sure what truth there is to that

I can barely tolerate giant Karl Franz in Warhammer, here it seems to be giants galore.

See, I don't have a problem with it in Herohammer since, well, its such a big part of the experience and doesn't make any pretense at not being fantasy. Spearman #5 just doesn't stand up to anybody with an actual name.
But when the tagline behind a semi-historical game is 'the truth behind the myth,' AND they're drilling down to play rock/paper/scissors with Light, Heavy and Medium infantry, its really out of place.

My only problem in Warhammer is that the characters are physically gigantic, sticking out head and shoulder over the normie humans. I don't have a problem with them being OP, because magic, magic items and real gods.:

Huh. I've honestly never noticed a size difference, except for races where there would be one (like greenskins) and for some reason, the Deathmaster. He did look like he was done on a different scale.



I will say these videos are absurdly pretty. Graphically, it looks good (though the big glowing boundary symbols for the deployment zones look awful).

But I do notice they they're playing the same battle. The CA one, however, has little set pieces in confined terrain and supposed maneuver chicanery, while the 'actual' battle in lionheart's video has two big deployment zones with very little space between them, and they just run across and clash. As is, since one video is heavily edited and the other isn't, I suspect the straight 'line up and fight' battles are more accurate to the game.

Here you cab see a pretty good Warhammer size comparison of Karl Franz and normal humans:
https://amp.reddit.com/r/totalwar/comments/4kcec5/height_difference/

As for the promotional material, I hardly trust it anymore. Both RTW2 with that misleading siege of Carthage and how Warhammer sieges were first represented versus how they actually were. With actual campaign streams I can accurately judge it.

 Disciple of Fate wrote:

As for the promotional material, I hardly trust it anymore. Both RTW2 with that misleading siege of Carthage and how Warhammer sieges were first represented versus how they actually were. With actual campaign streams I can accurately judge it.

There is that. I watch several different channels for campaign videos at every new game/ expansion pack. I generally feel I have a good idea what the game is like at that point.

But CA's videos? Their 'lets plays' are bizarre clipshows (Grom's was particularly bad. It showed very little gameplay, mostly just a series of battle cinematics interspersed with babble about the cooking screen). They used to do longer ones (though they tended to stop and skip forward to a preset save), but have largely stopped altogether.

To be fair CA just makes trailers - the proper gameplay videos are picked up from the youtube channels that get pre-release access. That's been the status quo for a while now form CA. CA makes a pretty luring trailer that's more advertising than informing; then the youtube channels do the opposite - more information than trailer. It's not as if we are back in the old days where information was in the monthly gamer magazine or nowhere. There's so many youtube channels now thaty ou can easily find several for a major game like TW Warhammer with a variety of styles.

 Overread wrote:
To be fair CA just makes trailers - the proper gameplay videos are picked up from the youtube channels that get pre-release access.

No, they don't just make trailers:
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC07F6mldAQNBJAUprv3Teiw/videos
This is all CA staff on their Total War Live channel.

This the video I just mentioned, and is from their main channel (which also has other videos)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QJgzT9Ta4n8
Its literally titled 'Grom Let's Play'
There is a similar one for Malus.

Markus Wulfhart, on the other hand, has a 5 hour Let's Play video on their main channel.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E0NGSHT5KsY

So, obviously, they used to do a lot more. No one is referencing the jokes that were game magazines. We're talking about the transition CA has made in the last year from long videos about gameplay to short clip shows.

Sure, but there is a fine line between a trailer that creates hype/interest and one that's misleading. I would put the RTW2 one firmly in the misleading camp and that was back when these previews by streamers/youtubers weren't that big yet. Given that CA has edged that line quite a bit, I hold off on judging content until, as you say, the more informative stuff comes out.