14 DAY TRIAL // Total War: Rome II was a very ambitions game when it launched in early September, with information coming from The Creative Assembly and various pre-release events suggesting that it would keep the core ideas of the series and would add a range of new features to the Ancient world strategy experience.
Unfortunately, the game, despite a huge number of very cool ideas, suffered on launch heavily, both from technical problems, ranging from incompatibilities to limited performance, and from issues linked to gameplay.
I was sparred most of the hardware-related issues, but I put the game away after I reviewed it for about 10 days in order to allow the development team to correct the most glaring bugs via one or two patches.
Developers at The Creative Assembly then admitted that a long beta period should have taken place in order to make sure that most problems were eliminated before a large group of fans had access to Total War: Rome II.
It’s unclear whether the studio will use this model for their next big projects, but I applaud the acknowledgment and wish that more companies did the same.
The biggest AAA titles are ambitious and complex enough that even extensive bug hunting can leave some problems linger only to lead to dissatisfaction among the fan base after launch.
Of course, betas require participants, but most well-known series have devoted fans who will be more than willing to take part.
Betas that actually test the game and its mechanics, rather than simply serving as demos for those who go though some hoops, are a great way of linking developers and communities and allowing important information to flow between the two.
The Creative Assembly has worked hard since Total War: Rome II was launched to fix all issues that the fans talk about on the forums, but I would have loved to see all these resources devoted to new content and future expansion.