Energico

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About Energico

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  1. Episode 315: Fixing Franchises

    I completely agreed with this episode. I've always loved Total War since Shogun 1, but I've been scared off of Attila after reading its basically Rome 2 Redux. Call of Warhammer, the Medieval 2 mod you guys were referencing, is utterly amazing and a true work of art, so hopefully CA reference that mod when they design TW: Warhammer. The sports games are absolutely part of this discussion also. I own Madden, FIFA, and NBA 2K, and I can barely get myself to play the first two due to the decreasing amount of control you have over the experience. Yes, there is customization in terms of initial rosters/teams/sliders, but once the game is in, you better hope that the progression and development system works or your game will be completely unrealistic and unbalanced within 5 game seasons because you have 2-3 superstars in every draft or prospects don't develop properly. This is my issue with 2K15, in which I am constantly annoyed by their removal of the ability to edit players' attributes or force trades once you've started a mode, which they had in as late as 2k13! I sold 2K14 and went back to 13 purely because I could massage the entire league as the seasons progressed, using my NBA knowledge to make sure certain players progressed/declined properly, make necessary trades to fix the AI's insane moves and to actually create teams strong enough to compete with me. This was necessary not because I wanted to win 10 championships by making myself the lone superpower, but because I wanted to not win 10 championships because I'm much better than the AI at constructing title contender. 2K, along with EA, have removed features like that because they've tried to increasingly monetize the experience with these in-game currencies that you earn by playing, meaning that you could abuse the system easily if the old customization options were still there. I'm sure it is making them truckloads of money, as casual fans won't dive as deep as I want to, but I play sports games for the dynasty aspect of building a team and running it for years, much like a strategy game. So this increasing lack of customization in the name of more $$$, along with their feeling that they can't have enough game modes (which of course means less time spent on the primary modes), has forced me to only buy these games every two years, or at least when they are on major sales. I'm starting to think franchises like Total War and Civ may be ripe for that treatment too.