Warhammer Total War: Warhammer III

[Tyranicon]

What I don't understand is why companies with professional PR/marketing/community teams still fall face-first into these kind of things.

It's almost like the people that work in those departments have no idea what they're doing, are underpaid liberal arts majors, and generally regarded as useless.

Imagine being so useless that you fail to normally communicate with kids and autists about video games. Literally all you need to do to be considered an EXCELLENT community manager by the community is to be familiar with the game (ie. play it), have a bit of a of thick skin so that you can handle banter and shitposting, and have some semblance of a spine (oh no, is that where the problem lies?). You could probably just hang a recruitment poster on the forums, saying you're hiring from among the fans, and then just pick from the litter of applications.

Standard corporate hiring practices in action.

Although, I should probably be more generous to the actual rank and file since this fiasco seems like it was generated by the higher ups. Your standard marketing intern or community manager don't have any power at all. They just translate what their bosses say.

 

[fizzelopeguss]

I remember that ginger cunt they had doing the marketing in the run up to Rome II.

Looked like a right middle class/studenty twat.

 

[Average Manatee]

What I don't understand is why companies with professional PR/marketing/community teams still fall face-first into these kind of things.

It's almost like the people that work in those departments have no idea what they're doing, are underpaid liberal arts majors, and generally regarded as useless.

Imagine being so useless that you fail to normally communicate with kids and autists about video games. Literally all you need to do to be considered an EXCELLENT community manager by the community is to be familiar with the game (ie. play it), have a bit of a of thick skin so that you can handle banter and shitposting, and have some semblance of a spine (oh no, is that where the problem lies?). You could probably just hang a recruitment poster on the forums, saying you're hiring from among the fans, and then just pick from the litter of applications.

Quotas for minorities have to be filled to keep Blackrock investors happy, and those people can't be put in positions involved in actually making the game, so...

 

[d@k4l]

For context, this is in reference to a reply by Clown Assembly's PR guy to a user who questioned their apology on the steam forums:

What a clusterfuck.

 

[Fedora Master]

 

[Lacrymas]

Making better games would be a good start.

 

[tabacila]

I loved the part in the original post where they said that you can't criticize without offering solutions.
I guess the next step is CA making their code public and posters having to point out what should be changed in case they want to complain about a bug?

These guys aren't clowns, they're the whole circus.
I mean they even suck at following their own method of dealing with criticism by waiting for it to blow over. All they had to do is tell the community people to let the autists rage in peace and don't engage in any thing heavy handed.

 

[Lacrymas]

The problem with waiting for it to blow over is that now almost nobody bought Shadows of Change or Pharaoh, so it's starting to affect their bottom line and they feel forced to engage with the outrage.

 

[thesecret1]

Pharaoh has shit sales and shit reviews and it got them spooked. Probably think they may be next on the chopping block when SEGA decides to cut costs. I mean have you see the player numbers Pharaoh has? It's pathetic. Hyenas was supposed to bring in the money, but it got axed, and I don't know if they even have any games in the works now. Probably will try making Medieval 3 as a shitty reskin of Pharaoh or even WH3, hoping the name will be enough to make people buy it and keep them afloat.

 

[tabacila]

Honestly it doesn't look to me like a "our shit ai'nt selling" response.
Sure the company is on fire because that money sink shooter and their top franchise performing badly, which will inevitably raise tensions.
But this seems more like some exec screaming at the community team to "fix" people memeing on CA's trash fire. And since generally the community team has the emotional intelligence of a discord mod, this is what you get.

PS: Pro tip, you're not gonna get banned for off topic threads if the off topic thread pleases the masters:

 

[Fedora Master]

Probably think they may be next on the chopping block when SEGA decides to cut costs.

Good.

They made a Warhammer Total War, they already peaked.

 

[Gromoer]

how’s TW Reddit doing? Is CA Grace still around there? I’m curious about how she’s handling the current dissent

Pharaoh has shit sales and shit reviews and it got them spooked. Probably think they may be next on the chopping block when SEGA decides to cut costs. I mean have you see the player numbers Pharaoh has? It's pathetic. Hyenas was supposed to bring in the money, but it got axed, and I don't know if they even have any games in the works now. Probably will try making Medieval 3 as a shitty reskin of Pharaoh or even WH3, hoping the name will be enough to make people buy it and keep them afloat.

They can even try “back 2 tha roots” sauce or something. But the crowd is going to be much more sceptic this time.

 

[Tyrr]

how’s TW Reddit doing? Is CA Grace still around there? I’m curious about how she’s handling the current dissent

Was that the one crying about sexy 3K mods?

 

[Sunri]

she left a long time ago
She/her. Lead Community Manager at
@PayloadStudios
(ex CA, Jagex). MCV #30under30.
@Official_GDC
CM Summit Advisor. LGBTQ horror writer, rep:
@hannah_litagent

https://twitter.com/graceblaise?lang=en

 

[Tyranicon]

Community managers were a mistake.

 

[Elttharion]

how’s TW Reddit doing? Is CA Grace still around there? I’m curious about how she’s handling the current dissent

Pharaoh has shit sales and shit reviews and it got them spooked. Probably think they may be next on the chopping block when SEGA decides to cut costs. I mean have you see the player numbers Pharaoh has? It's pathetic. Hyenas was supposed to bring in the money, but it got axed, and I don't know if they even have any games in the works now. Probably will try making Medieval 3 as a shitty reskin of Pharaoh or even WH3, hoping the name will be enough to make people buy it and keep them afloat.

They can even try “back 2 tha roots” sauce or something. But the crowd is going to be much more sceptic this time.

The main subreddit hates CA and is in open revolt. Most of the CA shills fled to the total warhammer sub, that one is much smaller and generally positive towards CA and the game.

 

[Fedora Master]

 

[BrotherFrank]

Have warhammer license and a permit to print money.
Have a fanbase willing to just throw money at you if you keep giving them the same tepid reheated meal they like.

Somehow fuck it all up because execs want to chase higher returns for investors, heaven forbid you have a stable profitable revenue stream.

Bravo CA, just bravo at this disaster entirely of your own making whilst still having the balls to gaslight fans AND go on a banning spree including modders, all the whilst hiding behind steam's skirt when called out on it and making pathertic excuses like how they have to do all those bannings because they are forced to by steam's rules (bullshit).

 

[Tyranicon]

They could feasibly make a few changes to the Warscape Engine to allow it to run 40k battles. People are so hungry for a largescale 40k battle simulator that it wouldn't take much.

A few Imperial Guard regiments, Orks, Chaos cultists. Add in spess mahrines and their spikey counterparts for the second installment. Additional races further down the line.

Tone it down with the pricing, set it at $40 USD or less. Let people know the campaign is more limited in scope.

This is the reskin they should've been working on tbh.

 

[Fedora Master]

Warscape can't handle shooting, so no.

 

[Tyranicon]

Warscape can't handle shooting, so no.

Isn't line shooting what the current version was made for? There's regiments of guard that straight up do line formation shooting not too different to what you'd see in Empire, Napoleon or any other TW game with firearms.

From what I've seen of shooty units in Total Warhammer, it wouldn't take too much work.

 

[BlackAdderBG]

Warscape can't handle shooting, so no.

Shooting guns is the only thing Warscape can handle what are you talking about.

 

[Lacrymas]

Warscape can't handle shooting, so no.

Shooting guns is the only thing Warscape can handle what are you talking about.

Not entirely true. The problems with guns in this engine is that behind the scene they are arrows and units shoot through each other.

 

[BlackAdderBG]

Warscape can't handle shooting, so no.

Shooting guns is the only thing Warscape can handle what are you talking about.

Not entirely true. The problems with guns in this engine is that behind the scene they are arrows and units shoot through each other.

Not true at all, Shithammer is not the only Warscape game. In pre-Rome 2 games guns where nothing like bows, just load Empire and pair Indian bowmen against any Line Infantry and see for yourself.

 

[Caim]

They could feasibly make a few changes to the Warscape Engine to allow it to run 40k battles. People are so hungry for a largescale 40k battle simulator that it wouldn't take much.

A few Imperial Guard regiments, Orks, Chaos cultists. Add in spess mahrines and their spikey counterparts for the second installment. Additional races further down the line.

Tone it down with the pricing, set it at $40 USD or less. Let people know the campaign is more limited in scope.

This is the reskin they should've been working on tbh.

Just make a larger scale Dawn of War I. Not the squad based thing that DoW II was or the pseudo-MOBA of DoW III, just Dawn of War but... big.

Dawn of War I was recent back when 4e was relevant, and there's been so many new units added to the game there should be ample choice for armies.