I have to say HT..., GREAT GAME!!!

[stephen]

I went out and bought Empire Total War, because I saw it on TV, and it looked cool.

I get home, pop it in the PC, and it takes me on a ride. (but not the good kind)

You CANT play the game offline without being logged in to STEAM, you CANT keep it from auto downloading patches, and when you try and install the game onto your PC, it trys to download the game FROM STEAM, taking about 2 hours to do so.
After visiting Sega, and Steam's forums, its obviouse that they havent done, and have no intention of doing anything about it.

I thought I had problems with Vista and duel core on here, but DAMN, you guys are doing it right!

(3 and 1/2 hours, and im STILL downloading crap from STEAM, lol)

Thanx for the great game guy's, ill try very hard not to stray again, lol.

[AWwrgwy]

Take it back.


wrongway

[doomed]

Take it back i went through what your going through last year when it came out and i bought it. If you ever do get it downloaded and able to actually play it before steam client crashes  or someone isn't hacking it that day to keep you from playing then you will be really upset when 99 out of 100 games will result in a never ending crash to desktop that you cant get past or some other weird bug that wont allow you to finish it.

Of all the patches steam released only one worked for me and it was great and fun game for about 4 days till they released the next patch and i have not been able to play a full game since.
I will never buy another sega game etw game or game that rides off steam client for my troubles.

[mechanic]

Strange, i've played empire total war alot and i never had any troubles. After installing it I had to update which took about 25 minutes and since then been able to play without a problem. I'm running widows XP, maybe Vista is different.


but on topic, yeah, great game HTC, you are one of teh few developers I still have respect for.

[bravoa8]

I just got Empire Total War yesterday haven't had any troubles I have to say their installer is complicated but,the game is awesome!

[-tronski-]

Napoleon Total War is a better game than Empire, consider Empire to be almost the beta of Napoleon. Empire has a larger scope (ie India and North America) but Napoleon runs better, smoother and <more> trouble free.

..and you can play Empire Total War offline through steam

 Tronsky

[wrag]

Steam is NOT my fav software!

Tried WarHammer 40K II.

Steam did things to my system I did NOT want!

Windows Live did too!

After an uninstall you may find games that worked before may have problems!

Also Steam and/or Windows Live takes your saved games and put them on THEIR servers without asking permission or at least I never saw them ask me for permission!

NO thanks!

Furthermore IF the only way I can play a game is with either one installing itself on my machine then NOPE!

I wont buy it!

What happened to gamers anyways?

They used to through a fit when MS or someone, anyone, tried to do this to em in the past, but now many people just allow this stuff to invade their computers and make changes.

Was a time when gamers screamed about it and refused to purchase this garbage?

Guess it part of the change thing?

[doomed]

ETW works for some dont for others im a others. I have 3 friends that also bought it 1 can play no problems 1 cant play it at all and 1 has problems such as i have. we all have xp.
From the reading the total war forums it seems like a crap shoot whether it works or not or at least that was the issue several months ago i haven't read it for a while and gave up trying to play even longer ago.

[Gaidin]

Why would anyone want a game that is single player that you cant play without being connected to the NET?

[Motherland]

You CANT play the game offline without being logged in to STEAM,

Not sure what you mean by this... but you can certainly play ETW offline. In fact, ETW is what I play if I can't get on AH for internet reasons.

you CANT keep it from auto downloading patches,

Why would you want to do that?

and when you try and install the game onto your PC, it trys to download the game FROM STEAM, taking about 2 hours to do so

You obviously did something wrong... not surprising based on the rest of your post.

(3 and 1/2 hours, and im STILL downloading crap from STEAM, lol)

What kind of connection do you have? Even if for some reason it's forcing you to download the entire game, I can't imagine how it would take 3 1/2 hours...
It took me about 20 mins to download the NTW demo (like 4 gigs or something).


ETW is actually a fantastic game.
Steam is actually a great service as well. I don't know what it was like originally, but in its current state it's a very convenient and useful resource.

[wrag]

Not sure what you mean by this... but you can certainly play ETW offline. In fact, ETW is what I play if I can't get on AH for internet reasons.Why would you want to do that?You obviously did something wrong... not surprising based on the rest of your post.
What kind of connection do you have? Even if for some reason it's forcing you to download the entire game, I can't imagine how it would take 3 1/2 hours...
It took me about 20 mins to download the NTW demo (like 4 gigs or something).


ETW is actually a fantastic game.
Steam is actually a great service as well. I don't know what it was like originally, but in its current state it's a very convenient and useful resource.

Gotta disagree with the Steam being a great service comment!

NO ONE should require I have that kinda software on my system for me to enjoy a game single player on my own machine.

Service?  You call software that comes in and takes semi-control of more then just the game you purchased a Service?

Not in my book of personal freedom and liberty.

This is MY computer, the software on it is obtained by me for my use, I decide if I want other software coming in and taking control.

I decide what settings will be used on my system and how those settings will be used, and WHERE my saved games will be saved, not Steam or Windows Live.

I don't have to buy or participate in such Service's, and I wont!

Sadly IMHO people that think their getting a good deal from such Services will probably cause them to continue or worse grow MORE powerful.

[ChickenHawk]

You CANT play the game offline without being logged in to STEAM, you CANT keep it from auto downloading patches, and when you try and install the game onto your PC, it trys to download the game FROM STEAM, taking about 2 hours to do so.

You CAN play the game offline.  Just set steam to offline mode and you can play it any time you want and no patches will auto download.  You don't even need your game DVD in the drive to play.

That being said, ETW will run so much better with the latest patch.  It was pretty much unplayable out of the box but I've not had any trouble with it since the last update.

And the best part is, you can still use all your game saves when you switch to offline mode, unlike Games For Windows Live. Another rotten, no good, invasive, intentionally complicated, inconvenient, slow piece of junk software Microsoft has vomited.  If Bioshock 2 wasn't such a great game, I'd wipe my computer and never touch GWFL ever again.

[Motherland]

Wrag, while I agree that I wish that Steam wasn't a prerequisite for any game...

I'd have it anyway if it weren't. It keeps track of who's online, in what steam supported game, automatically downloads patches so that I can just boot up Empire and play without having to sit and wait, it's got a nice repository for DLC (however cheesy DLC may be...), and I can talk to anyone of my Steam friends with text or voice no matter what they're doing whether I'm in TW or not by either bringing up the interface from my desktop or by hitting shift tab if I'm in a Steam supported game.

Really is a nice convenient service.

[wrag]

Wrag, while I agree that I wish that Steam wasn't a prerequisite for any game...

I'd have it anyway if it weren't. It keeps track of who's online, in what steam supported game, automatically downloads patches so that I can just boot up Empire and play without having to sit and wait, it's got a nice repository for DLC (however cheesy DLC may be...), and I can talk to anyone of my Steam friends with text or voice no matter what they're doing whether I'm in TW or not by either bringing up the interface from my desktop or by hitting shift tab if I'm in a Steam supported game.

Really is a nice convenient service.

My question is what else is it doing?  Do you know? Do you care? 

Others have said to put Steam in offline mode. 

That's nice but you have to go through an online reg and such first and that is where it grabbed my saved games etc....

Turned off online to find my saved games were gone and the games wanted Steam back ON to play em. 

Got interesting, and irritating, getting everything working again. 

Convenient or not with the OTHER things it did ..... 

AND there are other ways to find your friends and such online. 

NO THANKS! 

[Wedge1126]

The feature that stores your saves on Steam servers is called Steam Cloud. It's only available on specific games and in all the cases I've seen, can be disabled somewhere in the game's options. Steam Cloud is a feature that game developers choose to use. It isn't forced on them.