Still a number of highly annoying bugs and issues in civ 3. Yet I understand they won't be producing any more patches. As one forumer said "they already have your money, why should they bother".

Why should I expect any better support for civ 4? If civ 4 patch production stops because the suites don't see any more money in it, yet are already are working on civ 5, thats a kick in the (fill in blank with whatever) But it seems thats what they did with civ 3. So is probably what one would expect for civ 4.

Maybe I should get that Galactic Civilizations game. Last time I checked they promised continued support and even a free expansion. If they lived up to that, thats a great thing for a consumer and fosters loyalty and increased chance of purchasing future product. Plus it means customers are more willing to buy a game when it first comes out and not wait to buy to see if some patch expansion comes out to be bundled with the product. Meanwhile the price of the product drops like a stone.

In short, truely supporting your product and your customers and not screwing them with patch expansions or abandoning patching altogether is a long term investment in your bottom line (as in more money for you guys in the long term) Plus is the decent and right thing to do. (you suites understand such concepts don't you?)

In short, one thing you can do for civ 4 is continue to support civ 3.

That's why people love Blizzard. Starcraft was released in 1997. its expansion pack in 1998 and the last patch was released last year. It's not called "final patch", if they decide to do another patch, they'll surely do.

As I wrote before, Civ3 was half game, PTW was the other half and C3C was the expansion pack. I knew some people who became very furious because multiplayer was released only in PTW instead of coming in vanilla version. And several people here didn't bought C3C because they already bought an expansion pack and don't want to spent more money. And thousand players look very furious because C3C still have some annoying and unfixed bugs.

At least Firaxis learnt a lesson: Civ4 will come with multiplayer ;). I wish they forget that stupid idea of "final patches" - if there's bugs, they must be fixed.

The thing that people forget is that making patches costs money, lots of money. Many thousands of dollars that has very little return on investment. ROI is what those people who are giving you money to make games for them (Firaxis, unlike Blizzard, is not self-funded, but relies on investors (Take2 in the case of Civ4) to give them the money to make games) want to see for every business decision you make. It is their money after all.

Look at this from Take2's perspective for a second. Let's say that you give Firaxis money that you expect them to build Civ4 with. Do you want them to spend that money paying workers to fix Civ3 which is owned by Atari, a rival in the business? I didn't think so.

Civ 3 sold big though didn't it? I believe any patch costs dwarfed profits, especially when they nearly "scammed" people with expansion patch. I mean they should have either given PTW to original civ3 owners as a free download or conquest as a free download to PTW owners. Instead of dicking around with people.

Its only understandable that they abandon civ 3 patching if a majority of profits was already spent on it. Considering how well civ 3 seem to sell that seems unlikely. As far as returned investment, the returned investment comes in the form of loyalty and trust of your target audiance, which can directly translate into money come next version of a game. Don't be suprised if what you did with civ 3 effects your bottom line with civ 4.

Arguing that patching is expensive as a reason to abandon it is like the pharmacy industry arguing developing drugs is why they need to charge so much. When in reality the money they spend in development is dwarfed by, advertising costs, bribing politicians, direct sales pitches to doctors, maybe even the money they spend on their ceo (damn ceo's get too much) and certainly dwarfed by huge profits. Plus many drugs do redundant things to existing drugs yet sometimes carry hidden risks that they work hard to cover up. Ok this isn't the pharmacy industry but I'm just trying to show that things like patch costs can be very much relative.

Nobody forced you to buy any expansion. If you feel that way put your money where your mouth is and don't buy Civ4. That's the only way that the people who control the purse strings will get your message.

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nuts

but thats business :rolleyes: they are just out for your money

Maybe if we ask really really nicely they won't release ANY patches for Civ 4! :D

but thats business :rolleyes: they are just out for your money

Bad business, if they suffer sales loss next game because of how they treated people previous game. Theres a reason many of us wait to buy games and PC games prices often drop like stones shortly after coming out. Its disillusioned players waiting for the other shoe to drop.

I certainly will be thinking twice about getting civ 4, depending on reviews and stuff. Odds are I'll only buy it when its complete with all expansion patches on the discount bin, if the reviews are good. Unless we can get some assurances from the companies that they won't do this kind of crap with civ 4, maybe even proving it by investing a little more into civ 3.

Good! If more people did that instead of hanging out at a fan site counting the minutes till release of the next title maybe the suits would take quality more into account.

One thing I should bring up, this is Take2's first Civ game. As far as they are concerned anything else happened to Atari, or Hasbro, or Microprose as they were respectively at the helm when those games were made. Not to them. Why should they invest in someone else's game?

Its still a firaxis product isn't it? They invested in someone elses game enough to buy the title rights from them.

No, Take2 owns the exclusive rights to make Civ games. They contracted Firaxis (as did Atari and Hasbro before them) to develop the games for them. Sid Meier was not able to buy the rights to the Civ series even though he was one of the co-developers (along with Bruce Shelley of the Age of Empires fame) of Civ1 at his old company Microprose.

Take2 pays Firaxis to make Civ4 for them. Although it would make no sense, theoretically, they could hire anyone to do it.

The thing that people forget is that making patches costs money, lots of money. Many thousands of dollars that has very little return on investment. ROI is what those people who are giving you money to make games for them (Firaxis, unlike Blizzard, is not self-funded, but relies on investors (Take2 in the case of Civ4) to give them the money to make games) want to see for every business decision you make. It is their money after all.

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For the record, I have no issues with C3C, and am glad I bought it. I think the final patch does the job.

But truthfully, if a company releases unfinished dump, and then refuses to fix it, under "as is" clause, then they will cause their market to lose faith in them. A pattern of unfinished dump would only make it worse.

Of course CIV is like a drug to too many for it to die, but the market won't be a sucker forever.

I don't believe in this "patch costing lots of money" garbage. If you charge $55 for a half-assed version of the game that has no multiplayer support, like they did with Civ 3 in 2001, then you'd damned well better be expected to patch it up.

Charging upwards to $50 (total for two expansions total) for a few more maps, units, and rules files is downright exhortion. So really how hard is it to tweak a few bugs that should have been solved in the first production go-round? It's not like fans are asking them to redo the game.

One such awful example of such an "as is" policy is Lords of the Realm II by Sierra. It was a great game that suffered from nasty bugs that weren't properly addressed in its first patch or the later expansion (which was $30 bucks plus a $45-50 for the original game).

The Result: A German interfaced & unworkable multiplayer model, a broken map editor, video driver issues, and crashes every dozen turns or so. All this because they refused to support the game! Haven't purchased a Sierra product since. This kinda crap is exactly what True Purple is talking about.

An average mid-level programmer in the Baltimore area (where Firaxis is located) costs a company in the ball park of $2000 a week (note that I said costs, not gets paid). A good one (the kind you want to fix nasty, subtle bugs) costs more. If fixing the bugs takes more than a couple of weeks, you are starting to talk real money. (Remember that Firaxis doesn't get $55 dollars per game sold, but significantly less; none till they make back (at pennies on the dollar) the front money given by the publisher).

I don't imagine that there will be any more civ3 patches, which is too bad, C3C could use some fixing. Civ3: Complete was released with a major bug in which the C3C and PTW editors cannot find resources on some systems, you have to copy files around manually to edit terrain and such. As far as costs and stuff goes, this has alot to do with company policy and dedication on the part of the programmers, more so than money. I have a game that I still occasionally play, released in 2000, that was patched to an unsatisfactory level and then support was dropped, however; 2 of the programmers/designers spent months on their own producing another extensive patch that really improved the game, mods are still being made for it. As pointed out, companies like Blizzard provide far better support than Firaxis, they patched Diablo for years. We will have to see if civ4 follows the path of civ3, released undone and with bugs, needing 5-6 patches before it is regarded as "finished". Unfortunately I suspect this will be the case.

As much as I'd wish for a final Civ3 patch, you really cannot say the Firaxis' policy was bad. They shipped a lot of fine patches that did actually work and adress the really important issues, and lots of minor ones.
Compared to most other games, that's great...
Also, they as well cared for the localized versions; and that is really a rare issue (like PanzerGeneral3, which never got a working patch for the French/German versions - and we're not talking about a minor ingame issue, but an inevitable CtD).
I'm in fact quite happy with C3C 1.22.
Now, if they'd stopped at C3C 1.00, we would have a reason to complain.

I agree with Doc. We should be happy, some other games haven't got the support we got. It is not the best of all time, but it was good. Think about it. They make no money with patches.