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trexmeyer wrote:
Why are the Steam reviews so bad?

Early on, it was getting review nombed by Chinese Steam members who were upset about how CA handled the pre-release previews in China. And I know there were some early bad reviews from people with technical issues. Other than that, I don't know.

Eumerin wrote:

trexmeyer wrote:
Why are the Steam reviews so bad?

Early on, it was getting review nombed by Chinese Steam members who were upset about how CA handled the pre-release previews in China. And I know there were some early bad reviews from people with technical issues. Other than that, I don't know.

What did they do that the Chinese didn't like?

AllSeeingSkink wrote:

Eumerin wrote:

trexmeyer wrote:
Why are the Steam reviews so bad?

Early on, it was getting review nombed by Chinese Steam members who were upset about how CA handled the pre-release previews in China. And I know there were some early bad reviews from people with technical issues. Other than that, I don't know.

What did they do that the Chinese didn't like?

Apparently they gave prereview copies to the 'wrong' streamers in China- relative unknowns rather than popular ones. Or at least that was the going theory of the second hand translations of third hand posts on Chinese social media on the TW forums.
But it kicked off with review bombs of TW2 in the week or two before TW3 came out, so it was clearly motivated by something other than the finished game. Mostly finished game, anyway- I have a feeling lots of people won't think this finished until Immortal Empires is live, at the very least.

CA also tends to get review bombed as of late. It started back when they added women into Rome 2; but it also happened when Norsca broke Warhammer 2 and they had to rebuild the entire faction and thus didn't release them at launch for Warhammer 2. They were upfront about it but people still got salty and the "cool" thing to do is to review bomb.

Add that and the issue with China and also the normal "it doesn't work on day 1" complaints which range from actual technical launch week issues that are typically patched out within the first week or two; to those who suddenly find out that their PC can't run the latest high end RTS game (which isn't surprising as RTS games like TW Warhammer hit systems harder than even some very visually pretty FPS or adventuring games).


So some of it is just normal new game release stuff; some is review bombing and some is the issue with past releases and somewhat of a negative culture CA has wound up with (kind of like the GW haters).

There's also those who "hate" the whole "why 3 games" thing.


And then yep some people only want the Immortal Empires map, however anyone who watched Warhammer 2 already should know that IE will be a later release not a launch week release.




Overall my impression is that the game has some launch issues and perhaps also some optimising issues. Things that I would expect CA to fix in the coming weeks. Otherwise I wouldn't worry too much about the reviews and would expect them to steady out into a net positive. It's a shame that review bombing has become a thing and it walks the line between legitimate complaint and abuse.

Yeah nah it was the streamer thing.

Review bombing only really works providing people actually give a gak about those peoples opinions. Its the same as the amazon LoTR thing.

 Olthannon wrote:
Review bombing only really works providing people actually give a gak about those peoples opinions. Its the same as the amazon LoTR thing.

I think a lot of folk look at the ratio of positive to negative reviews. If the bombing is really crazy it'll be obvious that the reviews are skewed because of it, but if it's something like a "positive" game gets dropped to a "mixed" game, then some folk might not notice it's been bombed and just assume it's a mediocre game and not look into it any further.

Since its pretty normal for a CA game to get review bombed and be buggy at launch most people really won't care. Its not going to hurt a Total War game's sales. Maybe some other developer, but not CA.

Amazon LOTR has some basic lore issues based just on the trailer, so I'm not sure that comparison is a good one.

I don't think the reviews will have that much of an effect on this game, fortunately. This is something that players have been anticipating since the release of the first game. The success of the first game showed that CA could do the setting properly, and guaranteed that a lot of people would get al three games. The success of the second game showed that the first was not a fluke. Mortal Empires showed that the overall plan of a massive three game interconnected campaign would work. It's at that point that the third game started to be all but guaranteed to do well. Can they still screw it up? Sure. But the track record on this specific project is very good. Further, the ability to link all three games adds an extra layer of security for CA. Even if the base game itself ends up unpopular, the success of Mortal Empires is a pretty strong suggestion that Immortal Empires will be worth the cost of the game.

 Grey Templar wrote:
Since its pretty normal for a CA game to get review bombed and be buggy at launch most people really won't care.

I don't think "most people" know that. I sure didn't know that and I'm probably a bigger fan of TWW2 and 3 than "most people"

Review bombing isn't going to affect the people who are intimately familiar with the franchise and have been checking forums and youtubers for weeks leading up to release, it'll affect the many people who are on the positive side of ambivalent and apathetic toward the game, and those sorts of people make up a significant chunk of sales if they get pushed far enough to hit the buy button.



Automatically Appended Next Post:

Eumerin wrote:
Amazon LOTR has some basic lore issues based just on the trailer, so I'm not sure that comparison is a good one.

I don't think the reviews will have that much of an effect on this game, fortunately. This is something that players have been anticipating since the release of the first game. The success of the first game showed that CA could do the setting properly, and guaranteed that a lot of people would get al three games. The success of the second game showed that the first was not a fluke. Mortal Empires showed that the overall plan of a massive three game interconnected campaign would work. It's at that point that the third game started to be all but guaranteed to do well. Can they still screw it up? Sure. But the track record on this specific project is very good. Further, the ability to link all three games adds an extra layer of security for CA. Even if the base game itself ends up unpopular, the success of Mortal Empires is a pretty strong suggestion that Immortal Empires will be worth the cost of the game.

I reckon there's a lot of people still out there who didn't buy TWW1 or TWW2, or bought them but never played them, that might be drawn into 3.

I definitely have friends who are interested in the TW:Warhammer series but haven't bought in yet because "their guys" weren't in the game, or they were waiting for the series to complete prior to picking it up.

So can we talk about what is not in the game? I’m thinking about Ind, Kuresh, Nippon, the dragon islands and the rest of Cathay. To a much lesser extent Araby and chaos dwarves as well, though I’ll leave them aside for this post. The map cuts off where these factions are located. I assume that means dlc to introduce theese factions with expanded maps? To my knowledge CA has never done expanded map dlc before. I genuinely thought we’d see them with the Cathay skinn, similar to border princes or kislev in ttw 1. But their complete absence makes me think we’re looking at a few years before mortal empire with the whole world present comes around.

Also as a side note, wasn’t naval battles supposed to be a thing in tww 3?

 Nerak wrote:
So can we talk about what is not in the game? I’m thinking about Ind, Kuresh, Nippon, the dragon islands and the rest of Cathay. To a much lesser extent Araby and chaos dwarves as well, though I’ll leave them aside for this post. The map cuts off where these factions are located. I assume that means dlc to introduce theese factions with expanded maps? To my knowledge CA has never done expanded map dlc before. I genuinely thought we’d see them with the Cathay skinn, similar to border princes or kislev in ttw 1. But their complete absence makes me think we’re looking at a few years before mortal empire with the whole world present comes around.

Also as a side note, wasn’t naval battles supposed to be a thing in tww 3?

I'm kind of expecting Chaos Dwarfs, Warrior of Chaos rework, Dogs of War and not much else. Maybe an Araby, I have my doubts over Ind and Nippon.

TWW1 in the end had 9 races. TWW2 added 6 races. TWW3 already has 8 (unless you want to group the chaos factions together).

So I'm expecting 2 or 3 new races and that's about it, and I'd be surprised if one of those isn't Chaos Stunties.

Though maybe CA will continue trying to milk it, I think it depends on their agreement and relationship with GW.

When the mortal empires come around it'll likely make the map as big as necessary to fit all the races they want into it.

There is a prototype map that has been found in the game files and CA confirmed was a prototype that contains areas such as Ind and Kuresh but not Nippon.

I imagine they will do as much stuff as they can that will make them money and that GW is happy with.

The map has been changed and adjusted and in 3 kingdoms was expanded

The Chaos Dwarf land is all there and currently home ot a much larger than normal AI greenskin faction so pretty certain they will be a DLC.

Then its all up in the air - more Daemon/Cathay/Kislev characters for use, same with Neferata and/or Nagash and maybe the Red Duke - a game start vid has been found in the files

Hoping for Chaos Dwarfs, Neferata, Dogs of War, Kuresh

 Mr Morden wrote:
There is a prototype map that has been found in the game files and CA confirmed was a prototype that contains areas such as Ind and Kuresh but not Nippon.

Those areas were there, but they had no detail like the rest of the map, so I'm half expecting it to be a blanked out area similar the the area north of the dragon isles existed on the TWW2 map but just had a cloud over it.

But yeah, all just speculation, it could end up a few different ways.

Also don't forget the map might be originally designed to have factions that perhaps didn't make it into the final designs for the game itself or its expansions. Perhaps due to time constraints, budgeting or other factors. Don't forget for forces like Nippon and Cathay, whilst CA have a lot of resources from GW, there's so little material out there in general that they likely have to do a lot more design work to get those forces fleshed out. At least compared to armies like Orks or Empire and suchlike.

That’s some interesting info. I do get the feeling that CA wants to make the complete world of warhammer. I suppose the prototype map indicates a desire to finish the world. Makes sense for them to focus on what’s represented on the tabletop though. Quite happy about the chaos factions l. Going to the chaos realms is the highlight of the campaign for me. I’m going to make a prediction. I think in... about three years time we will see a big warhammer water dlc. The big thing in it will be the inclusion of proper naval battles. It will include Cathays water dragon and nippon. It will be the last big dlc before the Imortal empires map gets released, tying the east of Cathay through Nippon with the west of naggaroth/lustria. It will be its own campaign map. Featuring the vampire coast and the nautical themed lords. Focusing on either finding specific items or holding on to certain islands to either shut out or invite chaos. Well, it is all just speculation but it is my guess.

Immortal empires should drop before any DLC. At worst it should be a few months.

Effectively the world _is_ finished. The empty spaces of Nippon, Ind and the Warhammer_Pacific would add a whole lot of nothing. There absolutely won't be another campaign focused on age of sail adventures in a big empty ocean never covered by any warhammer products at all, featuring factions no one ever played because they never existed beyond a few token ally/mercenary units in 3rd edition (and that only applies to Nippon, and the only reason that wasn't a fairly unflattering caricature was the complete lack of detail).

All they really need to do is take the ME map, add the Dark lands, mountains of mourn, and Cathay and then add the chaos wastes above the polar regions from Naggaroth eastwards to Cathay.

It would be cool if they did a spherical map, not so much because of wanting to circumnavigate the world but more to have things in proportion.

Chaos dwarves are pretty much confirmed, I'm sure I saw a tooltip about Hashut.

I unlocked Boris and leveled the Ice Queen to 50, but dropped the campaign. Might play Kislev as Boris.
The mechanics are neat, but there's almost too many for Kislev, that to do too little. Roster feels largely fine, but the Little Grom has a funky firing arc.

Cathay feels better in general.

Game runs fine. I think almost better than Warhammer 2 which is kind odd. I hate the campaign mechanics. It's vastly more annoying than Vortex.

Voss wrote:
Immortal empires should drop before any DLC. At worst it should be a few months.

Effectively the world _is_ finished. The empty spaces of Nippon, Ind and the Warhammer_Pacific would add a whole lot of nothing. There absolutely won't be another campaign focused on age of sail adventures in a big empty ocean never covered by any warhammer products at all, featuring factions no one ever played because they never existed beyond a few token ally/mercenary units in 3rd edition (and that only applies to Nippon, and the only reason that wasn't a fairly unflattering caricature was the complete lack of detail).

All they really need to do is take the ME map, add the Dark lands, mountains of mourn, and Cathay and then add the chaos wastes above the polar regions from Naggaroth eastwards to Cathay.

If its makes money there is no reason not to add content to those regions - Cathay had not much more and less than Nippon.

What's the basic tactics for playing as Tzeentch in campaign battles? I loaded up on horrors but battles seem really tough and I'm not doing much better than the autoresolve, the horrors get outranged by Cathay archers, and don't do damage fast enough to stop melee infantry walking over them.

Had a bit of luck moving units to the backline as barriers failed so they could rebuild the barrier, but it just seems like my DPS is too low relative to how quickly the opposition can drop barriers and start picking off entities.

I can resort to cheese like using Kairos to waste ammo, but I prefer not resorting to exploiting the AI.

 Mr Morden wrote:

Voss wrote:
Immortal empires should drop before any DLC. At worst it should be a few months.

Effectively the world _is_ finished. The empty spaces of Nippon, Ind and the Warhammer_Pacific would add a whole lot of nothing. There absolutely won't be another campaign focused on age of sail adventures in a big empty ocean never covered by any warhammer products at all, featuring factions no one ever played because they never existed beyond a few token ally/mercenary units in 3rd edition (and that only applies to Nippon, and the only reason that wasn't a fairly unflattering caricature was the complete lack of detail).

All they really need to do is take the ME map, add the Dark lands, mountains of mourn, and Cathay and then add the chaos wastes above the polar regions from Naggaroth eastwards to Cathay.

If its makes money there is no reason not to add content to those regions - Cathay had not much more and less than Nippon.

I mean... sure? _If_ it makes money

But you're rather hand-waving the time and money investment in entire new races, art, animation, background, etc. And the rate of return on DLC, which generally sell less than the base game. Given how CA quickly dropped race packs from TW2, I doubt very much they'd consider it worthwhile. Especially with no draw beyond 'these places exist on the map,' whereas chaos dwarfs have a history, background, army list, etc, along with a standing expectation they'd get done at some point. Truthfully, I'm not particularly convinced Cathay was worth their time.

Voss wrote:
Truthfully, I'm not particularly convinced Cathay was worth their time.

Surely Cathays inclusion help drive sales in China and possibly other eastern regions.

 Nerak wrote:

Voss wrote:
Truthfully, I'm not particularly convinced Cathay was worth their time.

Surely Cathays inclusion help drive sales in China and possibly other eastern regions.

Has it? Many companies have made the mistake of trying to appeal to Asian markets and missed the mark. I don't know how many have been successful.

I don't know what it takes to make it in Asia, but it seems like Westerners often fail in that regard.

AllSeeingSkink wrote:

 Nerak wrote:

Voss wrote:
Truthfully, I'm not particularly convinced Cathay was worth their time.

Surely Cathays inclusion help drive sales in China and possibly other eastern regions.

Has it? Many companies have made the mistake of trying to appeal to Asian markets and missed the mark. I don't know how many have been successful.

I don't know what it takes to make it in Asia, but it seems like Westerners often fail in that regard.

Obviously the opposite is true as well. Don’t starve by Kleis most bought skins are chinese exclusive for instance. Riot games (makers of league of legends) success in China and Korea (in particular) has been enormous. So much so that it’s more economically beneficial for them to disregard the western audience concerning design decisions. Though that data is kind of old. Of course there’s many companies that’s tried and failed to establish themselves in the East. The opposite is true as well however. I don’t claim to have information about how well Cathay has influenced sales in Asia. But this is the first time I’ve heard about a Chinese incident with CA, the review bombing and such. So assumedly it’s had some sort of impact. Or I just haven’t been in the loop for the previous Asian releases. I mean even a review bombing shows people are worked up enough to care.

I don't think Cathay was intended to appeal to Asian markets. It was just a logical development for the game.

AllSeeingSkink wrote:

 Nerak wrote:
So can we talk about what is not in the game? I’m thinking about Ind, Kuresh, Nippon, the dragon islands and the rest of Cathay. To a much lesser extent Araby and chaos dwarves as well, though I’ll leave them aside for this post. The map cuts off where these factions are located. I assume that means dlc to introduce theese factions with expanded maps? To my knowledge CA has never done expanded map dlc before. I genuinely thought we’d see them with the Cathay skinn, similar to border princes or kislev in ttw 1. But their complete absence makes me think we’re looking at a few years before mortal empire with the whole world present comes around.

Also as a side note, wasn’t naval battles supposed to be a thing in tww 3?

I'm kind of expecting Chaos Dwarfs, Warrior of Chaos rework, Dogs of War and not much else. Maybe an Araby, I have my doubts over Ind and Nippon.

Araby repeatedly confirmed to not ever being included, apparently. Been asked about many times over past few years, devs have been very forceful in saying there is no intention to include them. Recently there was something else that suggested Ind and Nippon were not being worked on either.

chaos0xomega wrote:

AllSeeingSkink wrote:

 Nerak wrote:
So can we talk about what is not in the game? I’m thinking about Ind, Kuresh, Nippon, the dragon islands and the rest of Cathay. To a much lesser extent Araby and chaos dwarves as well, though I’ll leave them aside for this post. The map cuts off where these factions are located. I assume that means dlc to introduce theese factions with expanded maps? To my knowledge CA has never done expanded map dlc before. I genuinely thought we’d see them with the Cathay skinn, similar to border princes or kislev in ttw 1. But their complete absence makes me think we’re looking at a few years before mortal empire with the whole world present comes around.

Also as a side note, wasn’t naval battles supposed to be a thing in tww 3?

I'm kind of expecting Chaos Dwarfs, Warrior of Chaos rework, Dogs of War and not much else. Maybe an Araby, I have my doubts over Ind and Nippon.

Araby repeatedly confirmed to not ever being included, apparently. Been asked about many times over past few years, devs have been very forceful in saying there is no intention to include them. Recently there was something else that suggested Ind and Nippon were not being worked on either.

Andy Hall said it was unlikely they would get to them.

Andy Hall wrote:"We're never gonna say never because there should always be the opportunity to bring these new races in or new nations, but you know I've seen the road map and these nations aren't on there now. There's no plans to do them in the immediate or even long-term future. We've still go so much to do with Cathay. Honestly the stuff I've seen it'll curl your toes in the best possible way. [...] People are kinda desperately hanging on for one of these other nations. [...] Don't lose any sleep, it's not happening anytime soon. Probably never, I'm afraid.

https://www.reddit.com/r/totalwar/comments/sojlzi/andy_hall_on_khuresh_ind_and_nippon/

From an interview vid here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nOhfmyZ2UOA

~1:20:20


So, on principle, never say never, but yeah, no. Never.
Not even on the long term road map is pretty definitive for a finite term project like a computer game.