Warhammer 3

Причём уничижительный рейтинг для Warhammer 3, а с тем и Total War Pharaoh туда же, есть моё особенное удовольствие, так как, ещё до начала ревью бомбинга, написал предельно отрицательный отзыв в обсуждениях на то, что сейчас творят студия и издатель с серией, — которую я очень люблю и давно кстати — и от чего мне местные Адепты натурально посоветовали умереть: причём быстро и мучительно одновременно. Желательно от противопехотной мины.

Разумеется это всё было за то, что я совершил, по современным меркам, самое злостное из возможных преступление — против очередной зумерской веры в бренд и в корпоративные товарные знаки. Может даже опубликую как-нибудь эту запись. Правда, она на Английском языке. Ну или статью делать.

В общем и целом, просто приятно чувствовать себя правым наперекор всему и несмотря ни на что.
Вот, некоторые кусочки этого Holy War с англоязычными Адептами:

What can I say.
People are purchasing lots of different stuff, but that doesn't mean anything specifically. Just like it's not correlating with my opinion somehow or disproving it.

If people want to buy Addons for full-price, just like Thrones of Britannia, — which wasn't even properly supported — or a minor fraction update for almost half of the full-game price, just like upcoming Chaos Dwarfs — they may have it. I am not even against it, as anyone can clearly see from my comments, 'cause people do what they want, and I am not taking this from them.

But all of those changes nothing. It's basically and technically the same game since ETW. Evolution of the series had stopped since Shogun 2 TW. The best period was in-between of Medieval 2 Total War and Shogun 2 Total War. The games that had been made till that time had built or truly updated the TW series «game chassis» and since then, we are, basically, riding the same «car», but in a different colours. Rome 2 Total War — as the last game that I wasn't irritated with — and Napoleon Total War were the pinnacles of what you can do with the current game design and engine, without pushing it to far beyond its own capabilities, where things are getting ugly. Just like, for example, implementing air units, which aren't working properly in this game on a current engine. Or artillery. Or any advanced ballistics.

Anyway, when Atilla was released, as a Hard Mod standalone add-on for the original Rome 2, it was pretty clear, at least for me, that the game had stopped working properly, because it was incapable of constructing and maintaining what it wanted — more intense and complicated gameplay, where you have tribes, barbarians, where you need to use active diplomacy, build up the foreign relations and fighting for money, with crisis and international events etc. And, as a result, the game, core gameplay features, barely sustain such pressure. Why? Because, originally, the TW wasn't made, programmed to do so. In fact, all that economy, diplomacy, city or army building and planning game mechanics have too simple and almost rudimentary implementation. Click this, click that and you're playing it right. Previously, it was OK, due to the fact that the original gameplay had a much slower pace and the game, actually, didn't truly pretend that it's serious Strategical Wargame Simulator(tm), and initially it was much simpler and more fun oriented.

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We are talking here about the money. As I had mentioned, I am perfectly understanding why a company has certain intentions and reasons to keep going the way they are going. It was my last quote, that the game had become a money-making machine. And CA, just like Sega, for sure likes this.

But I am the Player. And I had or may have at least a completely different interest or standpoint. I want the game to be entertaining. Innovative from time to time. And I wrote my post from this position.

CA may do whatever it wants, but I am not going to support it or buy their products, until they will do something new and review the game series.

And DoW is somewhat another case. Relic had made brilliant things, including one of my favorite games of the youth, just like DoW Winter Assault and Dark Crusade. Then they decided to change the direction and rework the game into Company of Heroes, to, as they probably believed, follow the trends. And I wasn't satisfied with the result. Just like I had never loved the CoH. Then they decided to revive the old series and go back to it's roots. But, again, the problem is that time had passed and the game hadn't enough content, just like a little bit cartoonish, 2D, Unity(tm) design, and colour scheme had ruined the emersion, and Relic reputation was already somewhat damaged at the moment, so... nobody had believed in the game. Nether do I.

Still, I would say, that the main reason why DoW3 had failed was the visual design, which was pretty terrible for the game with the original grim setting, just like 40000k has. And yeah, no Chaos forces from the start... That was an awful decision.

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As I said previously, my key point is outdated and dysfunctional — as I believe — game mechanics and the game engine. Bringing in new factions won't change it, besides the fact that there are already a lot of them. Just like realizing the new game if it will be, technically, the same game as ETW. Just like a hypothetical new game doesn't change the current situation.

Also, I cannot even imagine how this 40000k would work, how modern day military tactics can be implemented in the such gameplay (my thought is, that TW series can't past itself beyond WWI technological epoch). How they would even make this due to the fact, that their game engine, basically, cannot visualize complex and workable environments, and everything we actually have is some barren maps with ugly trees, lame and, sometimes, illogical and crazy landscapes, and wannabe castles, fortresses.

It cannot sustain even the pretty primitive, and poor dystopic Medieval concept and image. For my taste, it's absolutely impossible to use it to visualize all the mechanical monstrosities that we have in 40000k. All those hive or industrial worlds, futuristic and pretty miracle cities of Eldar or any other, as I had said previously, complex and fancy environments.

P.S. Я был хорош, да.