Talk:Empire: Total War

ETW relies on Lua scripting

Just google for it; e.g. [1]. Though you may argue that hackers' forums are incompetent/unreliable, or the demo is not a game release. --4th-otaku (talk) 20:31, 2 March 2009 (UTC)

It's not a hacker forum its a mod forum but I don't think this is notable enough to be mentioned in the article. Ace blazer (talk) 05:16, 3 March 2009 (UTC)

This should be treated only as an explanatory for the Lua-scripted categorizing I've made. And modder do is a kind of hacker (cf. cracker). --4th-otaku (talk) 14:45, 17 March 2009 (UTC)

XP/Vista

Will this work on XP? Amazon just seems to have it listed as a Vista game. Please answer quick, am thinking of ordering!! :D SGGH ^ping! 21:08, 3 March 2009 (UTC)

This really isn't the place for such discussion—we're not a forum—but yes, it's designed for both XP and Vista. -- Sabre (talk) 21:12, 3 March 2009 (UTC)

Is it confirmed about the Campaign Multiplayer going to be released after release in a patch? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.42.176.149 (talk) 00:36, 5 March 2009 (UTC)

For questions like these you should really try a forum dedicated to the game rather than Wikipedia Jom (talk) 16:10, 3 April 2009 (UTC)

Naval Tactics Age of Sail and Naval Combat Critisicm

I understand that Wikipedia articles shouldn't include tips and tactics on Game. The topic, the New Naval Combat Engine was criticised in the review as being Chaotic and hard to control many ships. To avoid POV there should be links that mention somewhere the historical context of Naval Engine. I added a link to Line of Battle article in Wikipedia for those that might be influenced. Alternative take on the combat is that you cannot micro-manage combat and CA, obviously took a design choice of giving players limited controls simulating the era. I thought of adding links to topics such as wind guage also, but I thought maybe this could be common sense reason you are limited. I've noted some comments on the review via google as critism being taken out of context. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 199.208.239.141 (talk) 18:45, 5 March 2009 (UTC)

Crashes and other difficulties

For such a high-profile game with enormous amount of praise from critics and with large sales figures, the game seems to be very unstable and unpolished. An unusually large (in my opinion) number of people seem to be having fundamental game-breaking problems such as crashing, freezing, distortion of text/graphics, performance issues on high-end PCs, and inability to even start up the game. These issues have been further aggravated by its distribution service, Steam, which apparently has been having problems with downloading, installing, validating, and patching the game. I myself have not bought the game yet, but I am getting discouraged reading the forums. (9000 posts in Support Forum only in the first week of release?) PC game launches are generally shaky with plenty of technical problems, but this seems a bit too much, even though further patches are reportedly on their way.

So my question is whether or not this is in the least bit unusual, and if this is worth mentioning in the article? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Spiritaway5177 (talk • contribs) 20:32, 13 March 2009 (UTC)

Its only worth mentioning if it has been covered by reliable secondary sources on the issue. Forum posts do not count for this or are considered representative of a game's community, and what sources we do have only point to a minority of users having problems. As such, per undue weight guidelines, problems are briefly mentioned, but not given any major coverage. -- 21:49, 13 March 2009 (UTC)

"Secondary sources", such as gaming sites and magazines, are paid by the program developers for adversitement space. As such, they are not impartial in reviewing a game and may even face a conflict of interest in doing so, as a poor review may generate less advertising money for future games/projects. Forum posters are impartial, and a high volume of repeated issues must be mentioned in the article. The article as it stands does not reflect the views of a large percentage of the public which purchased the product. As it stands now, the article only cites the reviews from companies who recieved money from the game publisher for advertising. 87.238.116.162 (talk) 09:40, 14 March 2009 (UTC)Frank 14 March 2009

Well, good luck challenging that. Wikipedia is built on secondary sources, not forums by any anonymous person with an Internet connection. We only report the published views by the perceived experts in the field: in the case of video games, the industry journalists. That's not going to change unless a whole load of core Wikipedia policies and conventions are torn down. Your opinion on whether the companies have received advertising money is also nothing more than theory and speculation, invalid for removing a whole bunch of sources considered reliable for a good few years. -- Sabre (talk) 10:58, 14 March 2009 (UTC)

I don't know if game industry journalists are paid behind the back and I am not interested, but most of them either did not experience serious problems or failed to mention the numerous bugs/crashes. However, IGN did do a "post-mortem interview" where the CA representative acknowledges and defends the game's instability and performance issues. I still think this doesn't cover the scope of the problem among customers sufficiently, (e.g. IGN reader average is 6.9, etc.) and I think Wikipedia videogame policies are slightly flawed in accurately reporting on the casual gamers' reception.

Still, should I (or anyone) add some info about the post-release "Techincal Problems," while citing the IGN interview? Spiritaway5177 (talk) 22:10, 14 March 2009 (UTC)

The IGN interview doesn't warrant the technical sort of stuff to being covered in any depth than it already—it is only one question among many, where the answer is essentially "we're working on it"—but there are some valid points within the interview in general. I've integrated the reference in. -- Sabre (talk) 22:50, 14 March 2009 (UTC)

Omg you integrated it in? Forshizzle? Why isnt a whole chunk of this article revolving around these stupid crashes and problems. Oh thats right- Wikipedo rules. Yeah whatever. Enjoy your site that will never be respected in the real world because of stupid byzantine rules that ignore reality. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 72.205.33.223 (talk) 17:20, 16 March 2009 (UTC)

Wikipedia is not a video games review site. End of story. If people want to read reviews and opinions by random people it isn't as if they are impossible to find. But Wikipedia is not the place for them. --Escape Orbit ^(Talk) 17:55, 16 March 2009 (UTC)

This seems to raise an important point on forums. At this point in the games release it is likely that reviews were written by journalist chosen by the games manufacturers, who, although not actually in the pay of the game manufacturer, would not have been selected if they were considererd unlikely to give a positive review. It is likely that if problems persist with this game then the reviewers will eventually publish material to this effect and this material would be available to reference as a secondary source. I do not believe that careful media control by an accomplished commercial organisation in the early stages of a game release is particularly suprising or contentious but it clearly must be taken into account when preparing this article. To go back to the point on Forums, these are a rapid guage of actual experiences with the game and, although effectively annonymous, it is logical to suggest that once a sufficient volume of forum posts point towards the same issue then these would be considered of sufficient weight to justify coverage and it is reasonable to assume that they indicate the experience of a significant number of people using this game. As there is no truly neutral measure of overall satisfaction with the game at this point any statement that these views represent a minority is as likely to be a personal opinion as any other statement. Given that the current article is very pro the game I feel that reconsideration of the level of emphasis given to current technical issues is warranted. --GeneCrash (talk) 19:49, 28 March 2009 (UTC)

See my above comment. Wikipedia is not a games review site. It is not the job of editors here to gauge when forum posts reach sufficient notability. Forums attracts those who wish to complain. Those happy are more likely to spend their time on the game itself than frequenting forums. So forums are not a valid way of determining customer satisfaction. Nor is it editors responsibility to speculate about the neutrality of reviewers without any evidence. --Escape Orbit ^(Talk) 20:12, 28 March 2009 (UTC)

(edit conflict) What he said essentially. Your opinion on the nature of the reviewers is unsubstantiated and irrelevant. Wikipedia is not a place to publish people's own thoughts on a subject, it is only meant to contain the information from those considered experts in the area; in the same way we don't publish what any random person thinks of the actual historical period Empire is set in, we don't publish what any random forum poster or otherwise unknown internet person thinks of any game on this site. Credentials and due editorial process in sources are paramount to the successful operation of Wikipedia. -- Sabre (talk) 20:20, 28 March 2009 (UTC)

U guys say thad u tell the story as it is. Well the truth is thad if the game is a problem (and my god it has a problem!!) it shold be mentioned. http://shoguntotalwar.yuku.com/topic/51588/t/Post-patch-support.html here u can see hundreads of people who have reported thad they can not play the game. Devolepers admit thad there is a problem. Is't thad proof. It shold be mentioned for the respect of those people who demand justice. people a demanding money back. I wold do it myself but my english sucks as u can see. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 84.50.134.15 (talk) 17:33, 29 March 2009 (UTC)

Wikipedia isn't about the Truth^tm, its about whats properly verifiable to professional, reliable sources. As already stated, forum posts are not reliable sources. -- Sabre (talk) 20:48, 1 April 2009 (UTC)

Since Wikipedia isn't about the truth then it should stop presenting itself as a fact-providing machinery since following that statement Wiki in itself is nothing more than an opinion.

Flaws

Might there be a mention of the many flaws it had upon release? Like the way AI ships cannot transport units, so there are very few land battles in India or the Americas. Or the frequent crashes and memory leakages. On almost all TW forums it gets slammed.

So - anyone with too much time [;-)] might like to add this in.

Thanks. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.152.21.31 (talk • contribs) 21:37, 25 March 2009

It can only be mentioned if reliable secondary sources have commented on it. Personal experiences from playing and testing the game, or forum postings aren't suitable for this (see WP:V, WP:OR and WP:SPS for relevant guidelines). Only a few sporadic mentions have been made, such as this article and this interview; if the people considered experts for the area—in video gaming's case, the industry media—haven't given it any significant coverage, Wikipedia shouldn't either. The sources mentioned above warrant the mention of problems, as already in the article, but more indepth elaboration isn't appropriate with this level of critical commentary. -- Sabre (talk) 22:00, 25 March 2009 (UTC)

But surely something must be said if the Grand Campaign is ruined by something as simple as dodgy AI - and I am amazed that no major company has notices this - although I suspect that it is something to do with the massive advertising campaign that has been launched into many websites and magazines. Do you have any idea how this massive flaw has not yet been recognised by major reviewing companies? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.152.21.31 (talk) 21:29, 26 March 2009 (UTC)

They didn't see it as a massive flaw, just minor AI problems that some suggested could be sorted out in a patch. They certainly didn't regard any aspect of the game as ruined. -- Sabre (talk) 21:55, 26 March 2009 (UTC)

Well I would say that it is ruined - because enemies cannot transport armies via the sea, the Americas are reserved only for the player, GB and Spain, and France. India is always untouched. And the way they attack your bases. But anyway, enough of that. Can't there be some criticism using this review as the professional whatever? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.152.21.31 (talk) 08:36, 31 March 2009 (UTC)

That review has only cropped up in the last few days, I'd only noticed it recently. It is useful as a dissenting opinion, so I'll get around to throwing it in, but bear in mind undue weight: this is the only vaguely negative critical opinion out of around a pool of 50 reliable sources. -- Sabre (talk) 20:48, 1 April 2009 (UTC)

Understand that the reason why these so-called reviewing companies like IGN and Gamespot won't criticize games like Empire is that it recieves tons of advertising money from the same games that they "critique". Of course you don't bite the hand that feeds you and they won't point out game-breaking flaws or they'll lose their cashcows. If anything IGN and Gamespot and similar companies are just decieving people into buying broken products. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 202.138.162.6 (talk) 21:18, 8 April 2009 (UTC)

This has been brought up many times, regardless of what you may personally think about the validity of such sites, the fact is they are a Reliable source, hence they are used for their reviews. QueenCake (talk) 21:28, 8 April 2009 (UTC)

How about historical stuff? like St Petersburg existing or such. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 78.69.59.85 (talk) 22:29, 29 March 2009 (UTC)

Same thing applies, only if sources have commented on historical inaccuracies. And St. Petersburg was only founded in 1703, so a little leniency with game design is understandable for only six turns into the campaign. -- Sabre (talk) 20:48, 1 April 2009 (UTC)