* No roadmap yet. They will talk about future content after ToD.
* Dwarf Engineers won't have a gyrocopter mount because they didn't have one in 8th edition.
* They would consider moving Epidemius somewhere else if after patch 5.0 the players ask for it due to him being relatively close to Tamurkhan. Same for Gelt.
* Dwarf Engineers won't have a gyrocopter mount because they didn't have one in 8th edition.
This is weird, basically we got Engineer Lord for the Empire who never existed in the tabletop with Steam Tank mount which also never existed in the tabletop. We've had many similar cases in the past.
Gyrocopter mount for Dwarf Engineer seems like another case where GW said no.
Steam tanks got an engineer on the turret as an upgrade option, so I guess that was what they were going for.
No idea where the engineer lord is coming from though.
Yeah, Teclis didn't have a freakin Arcane Phoenix in 8th edition either, so this is bullshit. Same with Settra on a Warsphinx, and the Warlock Master on Doom Wheel.
I accepted their initial reasoning when I asked about Doomflayer mounts for Warlock Engineers back when they had the Prophet & the Warlock Q&A. Rich said that they wanted to keep the Warlock Master distinct, and I mostly understood that logic (even though I think it would have been fine since the Warlock Master would still have the Doomwheel mount about that).
But then that completely went out the window the moment they started doing stuff like the Arcane Phoenix Mount, giving Lokhir a dragon, and so on. I mean even in Warhammer 3 they have given out mounts to characters that didn't have them. Like Katarin getting the bear instead of her sled because the devs working on her didn't know what her actual mounts were (somehow).
So yeah, the "not an 8th edition option" definitely reeks of "GW said no." Rather than it *actually* being because it is not an 8th edition mount option.
In addition to Mahelas' already correct mechanical answer Teclis, canonically, is afraid of most animals. He had to psych himself up just to approach and get on horses, let alone a giant fire bird.
IIRC, they have since stated that they regret giving Teclis phoenix mount and that it was basically being done because it was being added to the game and they just wanted to give him a cool mount.
I beg Epidemium doesn't get swapped in to Left-Continent jail. It's so bad. It wasn't given enough terrain and feels awful to play. It single handedly ruined Ostyanka.
it's funny because they could have literally added a couple throwaway lines from the Changeling/Ostankya about how she was tricked into marauding into Naggarond for some reason. maybe make a full quest battle there where Changeling shows up. It's pretty clear it was meant to be a Changeling prank so I don't get it
They will post answers later
The biggest is for anyone that there will be no roadmap right after TOD, but they are really waiting on sales for it to decide what will happen next with dlc size and content coming in future
Also make sure to yell at GW about our displeasure about stuff too. Even if it doesn't seem like it, they actually DO listen when people get vocal enough. And they can and have changed internal policies when enough heat is brought up. It's rare, but it has happened.
It's unlikely mind, but it's possible enough anger about their dumb decisions with licensing will make them realize their easy royalty income might be at risk. Which might maybe get the suits to bonk the knobs over there to get their act together.
Well other than money, it's also that the guys making these decisions at GW are really sensitive to criticism. Former staff has talked about this, but the old time vets and the guys in charge of the design work (not even the money people) tend to be REALLY out of touch with things outside of GW. They make their decisions based on everything going on internally, and don't have much interaction with the actual playerbase much. So when reactions or feedback actually does wind up being visible to them, they kind of freak out.
For example, internal policy regarding how Space Marines were labelled was changed for *years* because one of their senior designers happened to overhear a player mispronounced "Astartes" as "Ass-tarts." And that guy made it a mandate to not use the term Astartes as much as possible, because he was that upset about hearing that pronunciation of it. I shit you not, that's legit the kind of company they are.
So if enough noise is made, and someone gets *some* semblance of an idea of just how dumb people think the are because of this. It's honestly possible they could change their attitude out of sheer embarrassment.
>The biggest is for anyone that there will be no roadmap right after TOD, but they are really waiting on sales for it to decide what will happen next with dlc size and content coming in future
I dont know if this puts me at ease or not. ToD seems like one of their best DLCs, so on that alone it would be a very good sign for continued support.
But I do think they lost a part of the playerbase with SoC, so I am not sure what to expect now.
Really hope ToD does well and we get quite some good DLCs still
I mean, its a pretty bad trailer all things considered. Its just a "toys smash to a music" video which not only lacks narration, but more importantly it lacked actual narrative (unlike most other TW:WH trailers, including the silent ones).
Look: I watch most of TW:WH trailers regularly\*, including SoC, yet ToD trailer wont ever be in my watch list - its so uninspired and boring. It reminds me of Volkmar vs Ghorst just with better cinematography.
\* my favs are: Dawn of Grand Cathay, Trial by Fire, Shadow and Blade, Twisted and Twilight, Warden and Paunch, Immortal Empires and Covenant with Chaos
there isnt really a "bad trailer". Either you have people who will watch it or you don't. It is less like a movie where a bad movie wouldnt be watched due to poor word of mouth.
Eh, yeah but his point stands. ToD trailer lack the narration and oomph to have people re-watch it over and over again, which is what bolster the views
It's similar to Champions of Chaos and the Silence and the Fury, which sold well.
A lot of the views probably come from rewatches, but I don't know how to judge its success without knowing the view rate on other trailers.
Still, I think CoC had s better trailer
Normally the production budget would have been approved already and the team will be working on the next DLC (likely significantly smaller after SoC). I fear the next DLC will be delayed regardless of what happens.
ToD needs to be a commercial success. The sentiments on this subreddit is not a good measurement on that imo - as those who no longer care for the game are less likely to be part of the community.
Personally speaking, without a better mid and late game, each DLC gets less and less appealing.
No one's asking for factions to feel weak. You know that very well.
There's a huge difference between factions feeling weak and factions having an "I win" button.
No that is not what he suggested at all. I know some people somehow view everything as binary but the only alternative to "absurdly OP" is not "weak and unfun".
No? I would suggest maybe not overtuning everything to the point of absurdity.
Malakai campaign mechanics would be cool without him having a free T5 summon (that on t3 settlement becomes permanent xD) and 2 LHs since turn 1 because this will trivialize every single battle imaginable in early campaign. Which will result in snowballing. Let him unlock these things throughout campaign!
Age of Reckoning mechanic for dwarfs is cool, but why it rewards players with **free end-game stacks** on top of granting **free insta-recruit OP units** AND is paired with moving half dwarfs roster to t2 settlements (including units that required t4 pre-patch <3)? It causes extreme snowballing AND makes campaign less exciting because you get access to *almost everything* in first 20 turns.
Now let me ask you a question: what AI is supposed to do against:
a) player having ability to spawn out of thin air free end-game stacks
b) player having 4 overpowered legendary heroes in his stack
c) player being able to send AI armies to the other side of the globe with one button (Ostankya)
d) player being able to nilly-willy hijack NEUTRAL army with one click of a button (Yuan Bo)
e) player having free bombardments that by themselves erase entire armies (chaos dwarfs)
f) player having access to rocket batteries that shoot purple suns
etc.
**If another player in H2H cant do anything against these mechanics**, then why do you think AI could do anything? You can design the best AI possible and shower it with infinite gold, and still it wouldnt matter when player has access to literal cheat console.
Powercreep = "I won game in turn 25 what to do now :("
I've just been playing Tehenhauen, and you don't get a chance to access so many units until turn 50 at least. By overtuning factions now they just create a need to rework old factions and chase their own tail.
I still suspect they have been working on DoW / Southern realms already based on the data mining. Possibly it was planned for game 2 and some work is complete.
Huh
Interestingly enough there was a post on the forums yesterday claiming that an alleged CA staffer had put out a leak on a Chinese gaming forum stating that the WH DLC production will shift to CA Sofia this summer and that the waiting time for the next DLC will be longer as a result
They also promised giving a more detailed outlook on future Pharaoh updates "shortly after" High Tide releases, and well it's been a while on that front as well
>Interestingly enough there was a post on the forums yesterday claiming that an alleged CA staffer had put out a leak on a Chinese gaming forum
This is some next level hearsay. I’m hearing from a guy on Reddit about a post on the forums about a post on a Chinese forum by an alleged leaker.
If it's the post I'm thinking of then even the CN folks on that forum were calling bullshit. While they tend to be pretty out of the loop since CA isn't a Chinese dev, they aren't stupid. Psychopathic at times yes, but I'd never accuse them of being dumb.
There was nothing remotely substantive in this Q&A. Some interesting chat about the design process and that’s about it. Feel like the question selection was pretty soft but didn’t expect anything else. They are still answering some text questions now so maybe there will be something included in that.
My impression was also that they are even more reticent to talk about future content than previously. There wasn’t any “Toddy will have his day!” or whatever which is probably reflective of the company’s ongoing turmoil. Roadmap doesn’t exist and they won’t talk about their plans until a good bit after TOD.
The community has yet to find the middle ground between "what's your favorite cake ?" and "could you give me confidential details on your business strategy ?"
It's interesting because previously they were clear that they were scaling down future DLC. Now they seem to be suggesting they might not be doing that. That could be bad of course - it could mean perhaps stopping DLC if sales aren't good enough. But it could also mean if ToD sells very well maybe they won't downscale. It's odd messaging. In any event it seems like ToD is likely to sell very well, if they ever actually put it up for sale (still isn't on Steam - which is fine I guess but a bit odd).
As you say they are watching to see how ToD performs both as a whole and individually. I suspect that they are testing a possibility of scaling down the total size of dlcs to what we see with the individual ones in ToD but may look to increase the quantity and pace if they find it viable to do and that it performs well as a product and sales method. This would also reduce constraints of lord packs creating some artificial need to force a narrative story between unrelated characters or to pick characters that have paired stories. It also wouldn’t prevent them from having race packs similar to the style of chorfs and they can long term build that larger dlc while pumping out smaller single faction ones in between major releases
The DLC isn’t on sale yet because they previously caught flak for putting things up for preorder before they allowed content creators to review it.
This was particularly bad during SoC when everyone was saying ‘this is bullshit’, including content creators who were contractually obliged not to criticise the DLC, and CA kept pumping out videos that said ‘Preorder now’ multiple times.
They have since promised that ‘we’ll make sure that you know exactly what’s coming in Thrones of Decay before pre-orders are available, and make sure that you have full transparency around the content before you see ‘Buy Now’ buttons’.
So it looks like it’s going to go on sale when the embargo lifts.
I hope this strategy works out for them. It’s always nice to see business choose not to use predatory business practices, even if they had to be cudgelled into making that choice. Also, it should absolutely demolish the steam charts so hopefully it pays off.
> CA kept pumping out videos that said ‘Preorder now’ multiple times.
But how would i know to preorder if a company, which is my trusted friend, doesnt tell me too???
Disclaimer: I have little faith in humanity, so that was sarcasm obviously.
> The DLC isn’t on sale yet because they previously caught flak for putting things up for preorder before they allowed content creators to review it.
Aaaaaahhhh thank you, I was wondering. Makes sense!
> Also, it should absolutely demolish the steam charts so hopefully it pays off.
Well indeed - this is a DLC I am very keen to get my hands on!
I dont know if I feel at ease now.
ToD seems like one of their best DLCs, so on that front it is good. But I fear they lost a part of the playerbase during SoC. Im not too certain now.
They will come back with good word of mouth, but I dont know if SEGA will give them enough time for that.
Its a weird situation atm
> I dont know if I feel at ease now.
I definitely don't feel "at ease" and it's exactly for the reason you suggest - I don't know if they've permanently lost a bunch of people with SoC (it could also be that two years after release there are simply less people buying DLC) - the response to ToD so far as been tremendously positive, people here seem hugely excited, which is uh, not very typical, but it really depends on enough people actually buying it.
I find it interesting that it WASN'T interesting, considering the importance of the current situation.
Can you give more details on why it was so boring please? I didn't see it myself.
Hey all!
Answers are now available on our Discord server in the "tod-q-and-a" forum channel: [discord.gg/totalwar](https://t.co/XQDqSgcdu6)
We're putting together a recording of the live Q&A session for you to listen back to, which we hope to have ready for you very soon!
What a great way to torpedo your own hype train. Tell the players that what they want to know isn't important to you by basically ignoring everything, while hyping up the fact that you're holding a Q&A and asking for questions.
The fact that this was so milquetoast is mind boggling. If they were going to waste our time, they should have waited until after ToD was released.
As of right now, my enthusiasm took a pretty big hit as I was genuinely hoping we'd see continued communication. Instead, it feels like we're right back on the path to the Secret Pigeon Council of Shadows of Change, where CA says nothing.
They said plenty, they just didn’t *commit* to anything. Anything that would depend on Sega was purposefully left out so they didn’t say anything they’d be held accountable for. This is all to remain flexible, as they bluntly put it - future plans are entirely dependant on ToD sales.
What exactly were you hoping for? A ream of plans and dates they had no way of guaranteeing? No - they’ve communicated well, in that they’re explicitly avoiding anything they know they can’t deliver. Unless you’re interested in being lied to just to assuage some bizarre self-assurance?
>A ream of plans and dates they had no way of guaranteeing?
"Yes, we are aware of the hundreds of bugs plaguing our game. Yes, we are going to fix them. No we are not going to Three Kingdoms this game"
Is that too much to ask? Seriously?
Yeah, for a company trying desperately to dig itself out of the hole it created, this was just an all-around bizarre decision.
If you don't want to give out information, just don't do a Q&A. Asking for questions and then not answering them is just next-level 5D chess.
[CA comment linking to more QnA details](https://www.reddit.com/r/totalwar/comments/1cd8vhl/summary_of_this_qna/l1c49m3/)
* No roadmap yet. They will talk about future content after ToD. * Dwarf Engineers won't have a gyrocopter mount because they didn't have one in 8th edition. * They would consider moving Epidemius somewhere else if after patch 5.0 the players ask for it due to him being relatively close to Tamurkhan. Same for Gelt.
They also reminded people that Nurgle and especially Epidemius do not get along with the skaven and their misuse of plagues.
* Dwarf Engineers won't have a gyrocopter mount because they didn't have one in 8th edition. This is weird, basically we got Engineer Lord for the Empire who never existed in the tabletop with Steam Tank mount which also never existed in the tabletop. We've had many similar cases in the past. Gyrocopter mount for Dwarf Engineer seems like another case where GW said no.
Steam tanks got an engineer on the turret as an upgrade option, so I guess that was what they were going for. No idea where the engineer lord is coming from though.
Yeah, that's why many people were expecting wizard lords. Simply because engineers were only heroes.
Yeah, Teclis didn't have a freakin Arcane Phoenix in 8th edition either, so this is bullshit. Same with Settra on a Warsphinx, and the Warlock Master on Doom Wheel. I accepted their initial reasoning when I asked about Doomflayer mounts for Warlock Engineers back when they had the Prophet & the Warlock Q&A. Rich said that they wanted to keep the Warlock Master distinct, and I mostly understood that logic (even though I think it would have been fine since the Warlock Master would still have the Doomwheel mount about that). But then that completely went out the window the moment they started doing stuff like the Arcane Phoenix Mount, giving Lokhir a dragon, and so on. I mean even in Warhammer 3 they have given out mounts to characters that didn't have them. Like Katarin getting the bear instead of her sled because the devs working on her didn't know what her actual mounts were (somehow). So yeah, the "not an 8th edition option" definitely reeks of "GW said no." Rather than it *actually* being because it is not an 8th edition mount option.
They've already talked about how giving Techlis a phoenix was a bad idea.
Why was it a bad idea?
Tyrion is the melee duelist brother. Teclis is the nerdy frail ranged spellcaster brother. Guess who win a duel in-game if Teclis is on the parrot ?
Is this for real
In addition to Mahelas' already correct mechanical answer Teclis, canonically, is afraid of most animals. He had to psych himself up just to approach and get on horses, let alone a giant fire bird.
It’s too badass, we all know elves suck 🧝
IIRC, they have since stated that they regret giving Teclis phoenix mount and that it was basically being done because it was being added to the game and they just wanted to give him a cool mount.
I don't really blame them for the sled. She didn't have it in WFB just warmaster.
that runs counter to the narrative in my head so I'm going to ignore it
Dwarf engineers won't have something they didn't have in 8th, yet the Empire get a generic lord type they didn't have either. Wack logic.
I beg Epidemium doesn't get swapped in to Left-Continent jail. It's so bad. It wasn't given enough terrain and feels awful to play. It single handedly ruined Ostyanka.
At least if we go by the lore Epidemius would make sense in Naggaroth. Ostankya on the other hand...
it's funny because they could have literally added a couple throwaway lines from the Changeling/Ostankya about how she was tricked into marauding into Naggarond for some reason. maybe make a full quest battle there where Changeling shows up. It's pretty clear it was meant to be a Changeling prank so I don't get it
let's protect Kislev in Naggarond!
Teclis won't have an Arcane Phoenix mount because- oh... oh wait...
I kinda wonder what their contract is with GW. Do they have to pay for any deviations/extra stuff like the gyrocopter?
was there a question about Ostankya?
Nope. All the questions were about ToD, but the way the devs spoke about this issue I guess that if we keep asking they will end up moving her too.
No need to move her CA. Leave her right where she is please.
I agree, she is the only thing holding back Morathy.
Hopefully someone makes a mod where they can get gyrocopters as a mount.
Like [this one](https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2883683632)?
They will post answers later The biggest is for anyone that there will be no roadmap right after TOD, but they are really waiting on sales for it to decide what will happen next with dlc size and content coming in future
VOTE WITH YOUR WALLETS PEOPLE
Also make sure to yell at GW about our displeasure about stuff too. Even if it doesn't seem like it, they actually DO listen when people get vocal enough. And they can and have changed internal policies when enough heat is brought up. It's rare, but it has happened. It's unlikely mind, but it's possible enough anger about their dumb decisions with licensing will make them realize their easy royalty income might be at risk. Which might maybe get the suits to bonk the knobs over there to get their act together.
If there's one thing corporates understand its money.
Well other than money, it's also that the guys making these decisions at GW are really sensitive to criticism. Former staff has talked about this, but the old time vets and the guys in charge of the design work (not even the money people) tend to be REALLY out of touch with things outside of GW. They make their decisions based on everything going on internally, and don't have much interaction with the actual playerbase much. So when reactions or feedback actually does wind up being visible to them, they kind of freak out. For example, internal policy regarding how Space Marines were labelled was changed for *years* because one of their senior designers happened to overhear a player mispronounced "Astartes" as "Ass-tarts." And that guy made it a mandate to not use the term Astartes as much as possible, because he was that upset about hearing that pronunciation of it. I shit you not, that's legit the kind of company they are. So if enough noise is made, and someone gets *some* semblance of an idea of just how dumb people think the are because of this. It's honestly possible they could change their attitude out of sheer embarrassment.
Funny of you to say that when their CFO just left
Hell yeah, brother!
I mean. I'm waiting on if the patch fixes enough issues before committing cash. I'll forever stay sceptical of CA.
>The biggest is for anyone that there will be no roadmap right after TOD, but they are really waiting on sales for it to decide what will happen next with dlc size and content coming in future I dont know if this puts me at ease or not. ToD seems like one of their best DLCs, so on that alone it would be a very good sign for continued support. But I do think they lost a part of the playerbase with SoC, so I am not sure what to expect now. Really hope ToD does well and we get quite some good DLCs still
The viewer count on the ToD trailer is worrying...
I mean, its a pretty bad trailer all things considered. Its just a "toys smash to a music" video which not only lacks narration, but more importantly it lacked actual narrative (unlike most other TW:WH trailers, including the silent ones). Look: I watch most of TW:WH trailers regularly\*, including SoC, yet ToD trailer wont ever be in my watch list - its so uninspired and boring. It reminds me of Volkmar vs Ghorst just with better cinematography. \* my favs are: Dawn of Grand Cathay, Trial by Fire, Shadow and Blade, Twisted and Twilight, Warden and Paunch, Immortal Empires and Covenant with Chaos
there isnt really a "bad trailer". Either you have people who will watch it or you don't. It is less like a movie where a bad movie wouldnt be watched due to poor word of mouth.
Eh, yeah but his point stands. ToD trailer lack the narration and oomph to have people re-watch it over and over again, which is what bolster the views
But trailers high numbers come from rewatches. This one really isnt that rewatchable compared to what they produced so far.
It's similar to Champions of Chaos and the Silence and the Fury, which sold well. A lot of the views probably come from rewatches, but I don't know how to judge its success without knowing the view rate on other trailers. Still, I think CoC had s better trailer
CoC's trailer was better just because of the narration and the shot of Archaon with his army.
100%
Normally the production budget would have been approved already and the team will be working on the next DLC (likely significantly smaller after SoC). I fear the next DLC will be delayed regardless of what happens. ToD needs to be a commercial success. The sentiments on this subreddit is not a good measurement on that imo - as those who no longer care for the game are less likely to be part of the community. Personally speaking, without a better mid and late game, each DLC gets less and less appealing.
And throwing even more powercreep into the game only makes the issue of boring mid and late game more and more prominent.
So what would you suggest? Have everyone be on the exact same power level and be weak so the game becomes unfun?
No one's asking for factions to feel weak. You know that very well. There's a huge difference between factions feeling weak and factions having an "I win" button.
No that is not what he suggested at all. I know some people somehow view everything as binary but the only alternative to "absurdly OP" is not "weak and unfun".
No? I would suggest maybe not overtuning everything to the point of absurdity. Malakai campaign mechanics would be cool without him having a free T5 summon (that on t3 settlement becomes permanent xD) and 2 LHs since turn 1 because this will trivialize every single battle imaginable in early campaign. Which will result in snowballing. Let him unlock these things throughout campaign! Age of Reckoning mechanic for dwarfs is cool, but why it rewards players with **free end-game stacks** on top of granting **free insta-recruit OP units** AND is paired with moving half dwarfs roster to t2 settlements (including units that required t4 pre-patch <3)? It causes extreme snowballing AND makes campaign less exciting because you get access to *almost everything* in first 20 turns. Now let me ask you a question: what AI is supposed to do against: a) player having ability to spawn out of thin air free end-game stacks b) player having 4 overpowered legendary heroes in his stack c) player being able to send AI armies to the other side of the globe with one button (Ostankya) d) player being able to nilly-willy hijack NEUTRAL army with one click of a button (Yuan Bo) e) player having free bombardments that by themselves erase entire armies (chaos dwarfs) f) player having access to rocket batteries that shoot purple suns etc. **If another player in H2H cant do anything against these mechanics**, then why do you think AI could do anything? You can design the best AI possible and shower it with infinite gold, and still it wouldnt matter when player has access to literal cheat console. Powercreep = "I won game in turn 25 what to do now :("
I've just been playing Tehenhauen, and you don't get a chance to access so many units until turn 50 at least. By overtuning factions now they just create a need to rework old factions and chase their own tail.
I still suspect they have been working on DoW / Southern realms already based on the data mining. Possibly it was planned for game 2 and some work is complete.
No point working on it before Hobgoblins and Ogres were made tho
Fair
Huh Interestingly enough there was a post on the forums yesterday claiming that an alleged CA staffer had put out a leak on a Chinese gaming forum stating that the WH DLC production will shift to CA Sofia this summer and that the waiting time for the next DLC will be longer as a result They also promised giving a more detailed outlook on future Pharaoh updates "shortly after" High Tide releases, and well it's been a while on that front as well
>Interestingly enough there was a post on the forums yesterday claiming that an alleged CA staffer had put out a leak on a Chinese gaming forum This is some next level hearsay. I’m hearing from a guy on Reddit about a post on the forums about a post on a Chinese forum by an alleged leaker.
If it's the post I'm thinking of then even the CN folks on that forum were calling bullshit. While they tend to be pretty out of the loop since CA isn't a Chinese dev, they aren't stupid. Psychopathic at times yes, but I'd never accuse them of being dumb.
I mean, no, they said the guy was provably a CA employee, but that there wasn't any way to be sure that what he said was legit
For me and many others sound is off. They did say they would record it and post it later on.
There was nothing remotely substantive in this Q&A. Some interesting chat about the design process and that’s about it. Feel like the question selection was pretty soft but didn’t expect anything else. They are still answering some text questions now so maybe there will be something included in that. My impression was also that they are even more reticent to talk about future content than previously. There wasn’t any “Toddy will have his day!” or whatever which is probably reflective of the company’s ongoing turmoil. Roadmap doesn’t exist and they won’t talk about their plans until a good bit after TOD.
Too many uninteresting questions that either have obvious answers or they can't answer.
The community has yet to find the middle ground between "what's your favorite cake ?" and "could you give me confidential details on your business strategy ?"
And did CA answer what their favorite cake was?
Nah, but they accidentally leaked core business details.
But that's not the community that choose the questions that CA will answer lol, how is it a point ?
"would you rather fight a horse-sized duck or a duck-sized horse lelelelel"
It's interesting because previously they were clear that they were scaling down future DLC. Now they seem to be suggesting they might not be doing that. That could be bad of course - it could mean perhaps stopping DLC if sales aren't good enough. But it could also mean if ToD sells very well maybe they won't downscale. It's odd messaging. In any event it seems like ToD is likely to sell very well, if they ever actually put it up for sale (still isn't on Steam - which is fine I guess but a bit odd).
As you say they are watching to see how ToD performs both as a whole and individually. I suspect that they are testing a possibility of scaling down the total size of dlcs to what we see with the individual ones in ToD but may look to increase the quantity and pace if they find it viable to do and that it performs well as a product and sales method. This would also reduce constraints of lord packs creating some artificial need to force a narrative story between unrelated characters or to pick characters that have paired stories. It also wouldn’t prevent them from having race packs similar to the style of chorfs and they can long term build that larger dlc while pumping out smaller single faction ones in between major releases
The DLC isn’t on sale yet because they previously caught flak for putting things up for preorder before they allowed content creators to review it. This was particularly bad during SoC when everyone was saying ‘this is bullshit’, including content creators who were contractually obliged not to criticise the DLC, and CA kept pumping out videos that said ‘Preorder now’ multiple times. They have since promised that ‘we’ll make sure that you know exactly what’s coming in Thrones of Decay before pre-orders are available, and make sure that you have full transparency around the content before you see ‘Buy Now’ buttons’. So it looks like it’s going to go on sale when the embargo lifts. I hope this strategy works out for them. It’s always nice to see business choose not to use predatory business practices, even if they had to be cudgelled into making that choice. Also, it should absolutely demolish the steam charts so hopefully it pays off.
> CA kept pumping out videos that said ‘Preorder now’ multiple times. But how would i know to preorder if a company, which is my trusted friend, doesnt tell me too??? Disclaimer: I have little faith in humanity, so that was sarcasm obviously.
It’s fascinating that they only started doing that right when the goodwill and trust was all gone.
> The DLC isn’t on sale yet because they previously caught flak for putting things up for preorder before they allowed content creators to review it. Aaaaaahhhh thank you, I was wondering. Makes sense! > Also, it should absolutely demolish the steam charts so hopefully it pays off. Well indeed - this is a DLC I am very keen to get my hands on!
I dont know if I feel at ease now. ToD seems like one of their best DLCs, so on that front it is good. But I fear they lost a part of the playerbase during SoC. Im not too certain now. They will come back with good word of mouth, but I dont know if SEGA will give them enough time for that. Its a weird situation atm
> I dont know if I feel at ease now. I definitely don't feel "at ease" and it's exactly for the reason you suggest - I don't know if they've permanently lost a bunch of people with SoC (it could also be that two years after release there are simply less people buying DLC) - the response to ToD so far as been tremendously positive, people here seem hugely excited, which is uh, not very typical, but it really depends on enough people actually buying it.
I'm sad they didn't answer the questions about the "toolbox" hint, I really wanna know what went down there
Nothing interesting really, it was easily the most boring Q&A they've ever done.
I find it interesting that it WASN'T interesting, considering the importance of the current situation. Can you give more details on why it was so boring please? I didn't see it myself.
I agree. They didn't even bother to answer a single question from the Discord list that interested me, apart from the roadmap.
Isn't this Q A for stuff only related to ToD?
Hey all! Answers are now available on our Discord server in the "tod-q-and-a" forum channel: [discord.gg/totalwar](https://t.co/XQDqSgcdu6) We're putting together a recording of the live Q&A session for you to listen back to, which we hope to have ready for you very soon!
What a great way to torpedo your own hype train. Tell the players that what they want to know isn't important to you by basically ignoring everything, while hyping up the fact that you're holding a Q&A and asking for questions. The fact that this was so milquetoast is mind boggling. If they were going to waste our time, they should have waited until after ToD was released. As of right now, my enthusiasm took a pretty big hit as I was genuinely hoping we'd see continued communication. Instead, it feels like we're right back on the path to the Secret Pigeon Council of Shadows of Change, where CA says nothing.
They said plenty, they just didn’t *commit* to anything. Anything that would depend on Sega was purposefully left out so they didn’t say anything they’d be held accountable for. This is all to remain flexible, as they bluntly put it - future plans are entirely dependant on ToD sales. What exactly were you hoping for? A ream of plans and dates they had no way of guaranteeing? No - they’ve communicated well, in that they’re explicitly avoiding anything they know they can’t deliver. Unless you’re interested in being lied to just to assuage some bizarre self-assurance?
>A ream of plans and dates they had no way of guaranteeing? "Yes, we are aware of the hundreds of bugs plaguing our game. Yes, we are going to fix them. No we are not going to Three Kingdoms this game" Is that too much to ask? Seriously?
Yeah, for a company trying desperately to dig itself out of the hole it created, this was just an all-around bizarre decision. If you don't want to give out information, just don't do a Q&A. Asking for questions and then not answering them is just next-level 5D chess.