Rob Zacny

Episode 315: Fixing Franchises

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Things can change quickly. One day all of your fans are happy, the positive reviews flow like wine, and phrases like "a return to form" are bandied about by critics. Then, when you least expect it - BAM: hit by a bus called "Rome 2" and it's back to the bottom. Time to look for yet another "return to form". Rob, Fraser, Rowan, and Troy "The Horse Lord" Goodfellow talk about series that have fallen off the horse, gotten back on, fallen again, shot the horse, and built a glue factory. No cows (or horses) are sacred and Rowan drops a truth bomb about Alpha Centauri that we all needed to hear.

 

Listen here.

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Some of you guys had perfectly explained why Total War feels so uncomfortable: because of fear of hitting "Next Turn" button. Same goes for battles, of course: the game constantly taunts you with the autoresolve button which saves you 15 minutes of your life (5 of which is loading and 10 is seeing how impotent is AI without a numerical advantage) by killing a hundred more people.

 

EU4 is a good example of a good sequel. EU3 become bloated after all of those DLCs. All those systems where tacked on existing ones, not so much integrated into the systems. Remember national focuses, provincial decisions, religious decisions? Those features existed in a vacuum, no one remembers them. Others were made lighter and less micromanage-ish. Exactly to escape fan backlash devs had kept some of obscure nation-specific mechanics like Chinese factions. EU4 feels a little bloated after Common Sense but I hope they integrate all this development stuff better so that I don't have some Burgundian city as 10 times better province than London.

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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.

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Total War is strange; they have a basic formula, turn-based map + real time combat, but each game re-shuffles little design concepts and the AI never improves.

 

I'm really excited for Warhammer: Total War though. The fantasy setting will make it easier to enjoy silly AI, and hopefully it will allow them to throw in some interesting mechanics. RPG faff could be thrown in, like fireballs and heroes, it could turn out really fun!

 

As for the cycle of Civilization and other 4X: none of them come out hitting hard, it's always an iterative sequel or spiritual successor. I feel like, for a new or young player, it must be a great time to start playing 4X games, but everybody else is hanging out for something groundbreaking. It's so strange too since, because 4X games abstract so much, graphics are not as big a limitation, yet we only have DW:U and Paradox pushing ahead.

 

Modern 4X and RTS seem to be looking to the past, yet when those classics were released they were forging ahead with exciting ideas. I guess developers (and gamers) are searching for a chess-like formula that stays timeless, but I think modding is essential to achieve that, just look at Counter-Strike! That game never changes, it's like a sport now. I'm happy for a new MOO, but I'd like to see more crazy games like Dominions and new ideas. 

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Cool episode theme. The extremely high praise for Attila is rather confusing to me though. The game currently has a 67% score on Steam. I just don't think the hosts have spent enough time with the game to realize all the problems it has. I mean, all it really is, is a semi fixed Rome 2. They took Rome 2 and added back SOME of the countless features that were lost. There's a few new things in there too I'll admit.

However, just adding things to a game isn't good enough. They have to be done well and work well together and lot of the mechanics just don't work well together. They added immigration, but does anyone actually know how it works? Disease spread seems to be broken or explained incorrectly. Defensive siege escalation is broken because it literally never happens. The AI simply will not lay siege and assault a well defended city so you literally never get to see siege escalation which was a major selling point of the game. The way Food and Public Order work is illogical and unintuitive. You get food shortages in provinces even though your empire has a food surplus. Razing and Client States are broken mechanics. Half the map or more ends up razed and useless. Diplomacy is as terrible as ever. The Huns cheating is completely over the top and frustrating. Corruption is insane. Character traits are terrible. The massive fertility drop across the entire world makes most of the food buildings pointless and actually hurts the most fertile regions the most including historical bread baskets like Egypt. Character and army customization is completely uninspired and boring. Politics is boring and static. The family tree is poorly implemented. Go back and play Barbarian Invasion. I think you'll like it more than Attila.

Empire was the first disaster for the series, but it wasn't a disaster because of bad ideas and design. Empire had great ideas and design, it just wasn't able to get them all to work and it failed on a technical level. Rome 2 on the other hand was a failure at a fundamental design level. It's like it was made by a different team. They threw everything out the window and simplified and minimalized everything.

I know CA can make great games (Alien Isolation) and innovate, but with the Total War series they are lost in my opinion. The series should be improving with each successive game, but I don't think it is. For every feature gained one is lost. They're just treading water. They just throw everything out the window every couple games instead of iterating.

I'm cautiously optimistic for Warhammer. I don't have much interest in the Warhammer universe and after years of broken releases I can't muster much excitement for new Total War games. I asked CA about doing an alpha and/or beta and they said no so their ethics haven't improved.

Also, Ardennes Assault is not really that great. It's not bad, but its nothing special. It's very short, extremely overpriced, linear despite having a strategic map. The Germans literally don't attack on the strategic map. They just sit there and wait for you to destroy them. It's not dynamic at all. And at least half of the battles are basically just skirmish battles. The mission design was much better in the first game. The story and characters are just painful to listen to.

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Small correction to what Rob said:  Sega does likely have two more major source of income from games - they have both license to Hatsuno Miko games and they got Atlus (Persona and more important Persona 5 which likely give them rivers of money) outside from all other income from their other bussiness.

 

You guys joked about Sonic in a Total War game, but...there is a precedent for that...ever heard about of Sonic  & All Star Racing Transformed? (http://store.steampowered.com/app/212480/) it feature several character from different games from Sega... and Total War is there!! Look the screenshot below in the spoilers

ss_ada4e016c095d4ea586b5cc9a8683d7feeb68

 

But there is more! I think that even Futebol Manager is there! not sure if Company of Heroes is also there or not.

 

To make things even get even "spooky" or just plain weird, know Persona: Dancing All Night? Sega had just add Hatsuno Miko to it, which make me joke to a friend that this maybe mean that we might be step away from Total War joining as dlc character or even see a Space Marine dancing XD.

 

But let´s get back on the topic:

 

One thing I remember see Philip Kollar say on twitter (but I am not 100% of context) was the strange event where a game, which had a positive view, suddenly start begin hated for not very clear reason, he was talking in Dragon Age Inquisition. But I wonder how this kind of effect suddenly cause negative reaction to overblow without actually something real to fill it, I suspect that this have a lot to do with grief over a past title (people still upset with Dragon Age 2 in this case, might look down on Inquisition). This might be also lead to a even more strange cycle where you have games: A, B, C and D - A is considered good, B is launched but get hated, but by time C is released, B might suddenly got popular again, while C became hated. Finnaly when D cames around, now C might became considered good, while D is rejected, and so on.

 

What I think happend in Rome 2 is that CA felt, despite learning the leason after Empire, that they need to outdone Rome 1 in everything, because otherwise people woundn´t accept, because of their own expectations after years of the Rome 1 and all mods and expansions after it. I am still on team Rob and Troy that Attila was very good (not without flaws) and I think that now with Warhammer they are quite free from that and even showed the first positive sign: they are trying to keep it more focused (with now only 4 armies instead of everyone, like other Warhammer games, like Mark of Chaos), which make sense since it will be based in the End of the Times event and each part of the trilogy will be focused in other factions (from what I understand). 

 

Know other strange advantage they might have? you guys know that Game Workshop is closing the Fantasy Battle and moving it to the Age of Sigmar version, right? this might be one of the last games based in the original  setting...fans mights really enjoy it simple because they migth hate the new setting....there is no turning back, End of Times event result in the destruction of the original setting...

 

CA still fine or better saying, their still in a much better place that Heroes of Might and Magic (more of this later), they also got the advantage that they are pretty much only ones doing that kind of game. King Arthur got very close, but they never fixed the bad camera controls (which killed the game for me) along with other annoying stuff, King´s Crusade simple wasn´t interessing for me. Unicorn games where meh, I think they tried have a more realistic battle system, but their games aren´t simple engaging,  XIII Century is just a bunch of bad puzzle type of battles. Their other titles had confusing names - Real Warfare 1242 (which sound like a bad call of duty game subtitle) and Real Warfare 2, both got very bad reviews on steam (much more that Rome 2 or Attila) and are pretty much the same game with the same engine and same plot.

 

Now a franchise that might be very close to begin lost or death is Heroes of Might and Magic, mostly due fan still cling in Heroes III, which made worst by all those years without a new title... Heroes IIII sucess somehow provoked a schism in the fanbase - you got lot of player which still cling to it, but never got in the rest of the series (either the Heroes games or strategy) and some which refuse to accept what happened (how New World Computing got screwed by 3DO and the whole lore/plot was a mess and by time Heroes IV they simple destroyed their original world) or what was (how Might & Magic mixed sci-fi and fantasy, since many people maybe never knew about this since Heroes games often don´t touch that part).

 

Ubisoft is trying hard to put thing back in track (but funny that now while Ubisoft kept the franchise as fantasy only the fanbased suddenly loves the sci-fi part..), Heroes V got better with a lot of hard work, by time of Tribes of East it became a good game. Heroes VI...is ok...but the campaign design is just terrible, also unlikely Heroes V it never got the same level of support or expansions. I really hope they strike right with this new Heroes VII...

 

Master Of Orion situation is made even more strange, because to be fair, the original setting was destroyed by MMO3, several classic races got killed (if I remember right, because one of the designer hated them) in the manual to be replaced with others which would be more "realistic" (or that was that designer thinked, but what he delivered was a mess that made zero sense and had zero of realism)...so this new game is a reboot too? a reboot of something which lot of people don´t even remember or ideas and concept that might not even work today...or aren´t simple different enough from all other space 4x games.

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Well, if any series has enough nostalgic fanbase to it, we now have crowdfunding to re-try in a way.  In fact I think that's the major push of kickstarter games... selling on promise of 'publisher abandoned franchises'.

 

Weird feelings on Warhammer: Total War because Games Workshop itself is facing some real life 'end of times' event :x... mhhahahahahaa XD

 

Also I wish the Three Moves Ahead staff were more experienced with some Koei strategy games like Romance of the Three Kingdoms cause that series took some wild variations (IMO peaked at 11 with power up kit).

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I have a slightly different problem with franchises. I tend to find however much i like a game there are only so many hours i can play it before i get bored. Changing the graphics, window dressing and side mechanics tends not to be enough for me.

 

Rome TW1 was my favourite game for about 2 years, i must of clocked over 100 hours. Medieval 2 was good enough, i played plenty, but then it sort of died for me. I think there are two reasons for this. First, i started to become unconvinced by simply reskinning the same system to different parts of history. For total war there is no major difference between the way napoleon managed his empire and conducted campaigns and the Japanese feudal warlords. Since when did Napoleon bother upgrading trade posts in cities? Makes sense for a Roman regional governor, not for the Duke of Wellington.

 

Second, i thought Shogun 2 was probably a good game, but having clocked up several hundred hours of the series it was still too samey for me to really get into it. For me, i think the franchise needs to make quite a few bigger changes to real me back in, I have to feel like I am playing a new game with a new idea on some basic level. 

 

The same thing happened with Westwood style rts games. After about the 4th outing, i couldn't keep going. When the the main piece of news from an early promo video for Red Alert 3 was that engineers could now cross water in a little boat I knew i was done with it. That's the big new idea?

 

I haven't bought into any combat missions games since Shock Force under similar logic. I think Barbarossa to Berlin is possibly the best pc wargame ever made, but i don't know whether i will be bored by the new offerings. Not because they are bad, but because they might not feel like a new enough experience for me.

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I have a slightly different problem with franchises. I tend to find however much i like a game there are only so many hours i can play it before i get bored. Changing the graphics, window dressing and side mechanics tends not to be enough for me.... Not because they are bad, but because they might not feel like a new enough experience for me.

 

I feel similar to this, none of the Total War games play extremely differently, I guess that was the major complaint between Civ V and Beyond Earth (though I haven't played BE myself).

 

Although, I think other genres might suffer more from this than strategy games. All of Ubisoft games, for example, have a similar formula; all COD games feature similar scripting; all MMOs follow similar progression; yet for some reason diminishing returns doesn't seem to have affected sales of any of these.

 

I think to some extent it might be a good thing, it gives some stability for companies who work on games.

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Valorian Endymion, good points about franchises stagnating without competition. I feel Total War is kinda competing with Paradox games - this must be the reason they're insisting on adding increasingly complex broken economy and diplomacy systems to their games.

 

And both Rome TW and Heroes 3 cast shadow over whole franchises. I hope Master of Orion 2 won't affect new Master of Orion as much. Heroes 5, for example, is a good game (at least after two expansions) but it would be always compared to older titles which had better campaigns and... I honestly can't name any other thing that was better in Heroes 3 - maybe music? Imagine being a developer for a franchise like this. It's enough to make a mediocre game to get good sales. Yet even if you make a really good game fans and critics will whine about good old games and find some special charm in witch's hut giving Eagle Eye skill.

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I believe that before playing Warhammer: Total War, Rob and other panelists MUST try out the mod they mentioned in this podcast which is called Call of Warhammer Total War. It has all of the things which latest Total War installments kind of lack, like great Diversity in gameplay between factions and constant challenge. It is also evident when you play it how much effort is put into this mod, and this could add to your enjoyment f it even more. So guys, c'mon and get your hands on the latest beta of Call of Warhammer(1.6 I believe), and let the Blood God Knorne get his tribute.

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has the Total War mod improved a lot in the past 3 years (i think thats how long ago it has been since i played it)?

 

I remember liking it, but feeling it was med total war with a different map and reskinned units.

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Small correction to what Rob said:  Sega does likely have two more major source of income from games - they have both license to Hatsuno Miko games and they got Atlus (Persona and more important Persona 5 which likely give them rivers of money) outside from all other income from their other bussiness.

 

You guys joked about Sonic in a Total War game, but...there is a precedent for that...ever heard about of Sonic  & All Star Racing Transformed? (http://store.steampowered.com/app/212480/) it feature several character from different games from Sega... and Total War is there!! Look the screenshot below in the spoilers

ss_ada4e016c095d4ea586b5cc9a8683d7feeb68

 

But there is more! I think that even Futebol Manager is there! not sure if Company of Heroes is also there or not.

 

Football Manager is indeed in there- a besuited man driving a car with a soccer ball shaped helmet spouting cliches. Company of Heroes 2 sends General Winter in a T-34. Just to really mash in as many odd gaming licences as they can there's a Team Fortress 2 character as well- Pyro drives a kart, while Heavy gets a hovercraft and Spy the plane.

 

It's actually a really fun kart racer, and it's visually stunning.

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Good topic and excellent discussion, which wasn't limited to strategy games. :P

 

I find that inconsistency in franchise iterations is mainly about the business model pursued by publishers these days.

 

Content appears increasingly to be 'left out' of initial releases and this seems tied to the publisher's interest in selling DLC or expansions.  Big publishers like SEGA look at 'games as a service' or free to play models and see how some of these titles are printing money.  The publishers notice how these games are constantly updated, with a steady flow of new content, and they look to broaden this model into traditional "packaged games" (SEGA's expression, I believe).  Paradox's additional content schedule for games like CK II and EU IV is an excellent illustration of this approach, in my opinion, and one that undoubtedly makes the 'base game' a lighter experience.

 

Also, as noted on the podcast, the demands of modern shareholder capitalism for regular and predictable earnings, with share prices dependent on quarterly and annual comparisions, only adds fuel to the fire. So the Maddens, Call of Duties and Total Wars get released on a clockwork schedule, and the overall approach and formula is seldom tinkered with.  We'll get boring, samey, stripped down games until we stop buying them. 

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has the Total War mod improved a lot in the past 3 years (i think thats how long ago it has been since i played it)?

 

I remember liking it, but feeling it was med total war with a different map and reskinned units.

They added many new factions, units, and unique gameplay mechanics. For example Sylvanian have necromancy(on strategic map ofcourse) and Dance macabre tactical map ability which empowers all of their undead units just like in Warhammer FB lore.

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@Arathain - Yeah, I heard that the game is very fun.

 

@Gatazhk - Very good points

 

There is also the fact, that things often have to be "left out" simple because during the production it wasn´t possible to implement them (or they simple didn´t worked or it was need more time to make them work) and to keep the whole production (and costs) at realistic levels to avoid a developmente cycle of hell or a feature creep. The problem I felt is that people did jump in in dlcs without figuring out what business model would work for them* (and instead used something that worked in really different game) without much trasparency/communication, think how early on they where much smaller (which I guess have lot to do with early limitations on internet to avoid huge downloads) and now each company is moving toward more content packs.

 

 

* Early dlcs for Dawn of War II where just skins, that made and had little sense or use or improved anything (specially in Retribution, where things get very repetitive and an actual new faction could helped), now keep in mind that skins (or customes) kind work fine in Dynasty Warriors (at least for me, I confess have bought a couple dlcs for it).

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Also I wish the Three Moves Ahead staff were more experienced with some Koei strategy games like Romance of the Three Kingdoms cause that series took some wild variations (IMO peaked at 11 with power up kit).

I've read (or heard?) Troy mention that they are often thinking about doing an RTK episode and would love to, but somehow never get around to it. (Note to 3ma: do it already! Devote some summer time to RTK 11 and tear into it.)

 

I don't have anything intelligent to contribute to the discussion, but I would like to say that I wish there was the option to listen to an unedited version of the podcast (minus any legally necessary embargo-related edits). I really prefer 100% real conversation to the edited stuff, even if it's inefficient or a mess.

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Doing an older Romance of the Three Kingdoms game as been on the "to do" list for a long time. Troy is quite fond of the series. I think if enough people bombard him on Twitter (that's @TroyGoodfellow, friends), maybe he'll get the hint.

 

As for the getting the unedited audio -- back in the day I used to do a lot more editing, but now it's really down to a bare minimum. The only time I do anything in a normal show is take out any overly long pauses as well as remove any "oops" sections, like when Skype drops the call. You really don't want to hear that. This week it was five minutes of people wondering where Troy went, where they were in the conversation, and Rowan got up to order a pizza.

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Good, fun episode. Especially when the heretic opinions started flushing in.

I still like TW Rome II a lot, but I will not defend it here. Makes no sense.

"Fixing a franchise" is such a game publisher topic though? Very abstract. Very high level marketing/sales suits topic.

I do not think, there could be an agreement (between whom, btw? Journalists? Gamers? Developers? Publishers? All together?!) WHAT about a franchise is seen as 'broken'.

It is my firm believe that game developers - the worker drones of this industry - always try to make the best game they can. It is the economic circumstances, the (public IPO) company pressures and the company decision level floor meetings which decide what game we - customers - are getting? I don't think Relic really wanted to make a gazillion tank skins, or Codemasters where eager to strip features (yes, I too am one of those people who own 6 out of 6 Codemasters official FIA Formula 1 games. Each years edition felt like an expensive patch, rather than a new game).

What interests me most about this topic, are companies like EGOSOFT (X-Series, space game), who make only ONE title, doing the same thing for decades, again and again, and land a complete flop (their latest X-Rebirth). Customers turn away, when the reputation is gone. How do you regain their trust? How do you continue, as a company, if you are a one-trick pony and the pony forgot that trick? Publishers/Devs like Blizzard or even Paradox can work on their games for years, thanks to their business structure and fanbase. And the kind of dramatic changes a company like Blizzard is willing to do (Diablo 3, pre-release AND post-release) is quite amazing to watch.

 

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