How do you guys think how long till the demo will come out?

Hopefully not too long after release. I don't like pre-release demo's. The game kinda gets picked apart even before it is released.


Now a beta test would be interesting. You listening Firaxis?

Hopefully not too long after release. I don't like pre-release demo's. The game kinda gets picked apart even before it is released.


Now a beta test would be interesting. You listening Firaxis?

Yea that be great :lol:

I would devote all my waking hours to beta-testing. And that would be about 18 a day.

Although I am not sure how long I would sustain life.

I would devote all my waking hours to beta-testing.

I'm on board with this.

Me 3.
I need to see if they realy did ruin it forever before I buy it.

Beta testing is not what it's cracked up to be. 90% of the builds crash constantly, you can never finish a game, and because the code isn't optimised until the final phase the slowness is excruciating. You may think it'd be fun, but it's painful. Oh and not forgetting that until the final build parts of the game are missing. I remember the Civ4 beta test builds, right up till the end half the graphics were missing / concept art. And you couldn't get to the modern age till the last couple of builds (due to constant crashes and save corruptions).

I've beta tested a game before, it wasn't all that bad. Well, at least until the memory leaks started to happen...

There isn't an industry standard for what constitutes a beta test. Some of them occur in different phases of development than others. Sometimes the beta is a totally finished product and the only objective of the test is to balance the power level of disparate game elements and smooth out difficulty curves and such.

Beta testing is not what it's cracked up to be. 90% of the builds crash constantly, you can never finish a game, and because the code isn't optimised until the final phase the slowness is excruciating. You may think it'd be fun, but it's painful. Oh and not forgetting that until the final build parts of the game are missing. I remember the Civ4 beta test builds, right up till the end half the graphics were missing / concept art. And you couldn't get to the modern age till the last couple of builds (due to constant crashes and save corruptions).

Dale is spot on here. I beta Tested for Cities XL (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cities_XL). The Beta's improved as they went along, but at first, they had terrible memory leak issues. You couldn't play for more than an hour or two at a time.

I was on CitiesXL too. Man, that was a complete waste of time. :(

I was on CitiesXL too. Man, that was a complete waste of time. :(

They had so many things going for them... An Active SC4 fan base, loads of ideas, a mmo... But they screwed it up so bad... Square buildings? Lame.

Sorry for the OT. ;)

I worked on testing for several mods for Dawn of War (mods there are essentially 100% reworks like FFH is for CIV) and I have to agree.

Beta can range from a 90% done game and up to an almost unplayable concept with mostly placeholder art and unfinished code.


If you have supreme luck, you might get into a situation where you are allowed to participate from start to finish and play the thing as it grows thou. Now that would be something.

I recall hearing something about a beta within the next few months.

I think there'll be a demo a few weeks before release. Late november/Early december if there's no delays.

Dale is spot on here. I beta Tested for Cities XL (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cities_XL). The Beta's improved as they went along, but at first, they had terrible memory leak issues. You couldn't play for more than an hour or two at a time.

That's the one I beta'd, and yeah, I kind of gave up after week or two of memory issues, and realizing how un-Sim-City-like the game was.

I sort of hope they have an actual Beta instead of what most companies do now: "Prepurchase and get access to the Beta!" which is in essence a glorified demo of the game. There's only so much you can change when your game has to go gold a couple of days after the beta starts.

OT here but wow, did you guys never play CityLife? It was absolutely wretched, hardly even playable, I prefer simcity 3 over that pile of crap. And then Cities XL, same developer same garbage product. You should have known better :old:

OT here but wow, did you guys never play CityLife? It was absolutely wretched, hardly even playable, I prefer simcity 3 over that pile of crap. And then Cities XL, same developer same garbage product. You should have known better :old:

I got a free key from the SimTropolis comp, so I used it as I was curious. What can I say? :)

But yes, it would be awesome for Maxis to make a SimCity5 (a TRUE city simulator, not a society simulator).

Back on topic, I think a demo will be available after release.

I got a free key from the SimTropolis comp, so I used it as I was curious. What can I say? :)

But yes, it would be awesome for Maxis to make a SimCity5 (a TRUE city simulator, not a society simulator).

Back on topic, I think a demo will be available after release.:agree: Hmmm. What would I rather have? Civ 5 or a SimCity 5?
There will be a demo I think.

Oh, god, if the Civ5 demo is anything like the CitiesXL demo, I'll probably cry. I really wanted it to bring back my SimCity glory days where I played SC3K instead of doing my homework, but I didn't even play it for 30 minutes before deleting it off my hard drive. But I have faith that Firaxis will deliver. Didn't they put out a demo a few weeks before Civ4 was released? Or was that the Mac version and I have my versions mixed up...

Have to agree with Dale. Having worked on several closed betas, you have to get used to the game crashing. But I've always liked figuring out problems, so testing something to find what caused the crash can be enjoyable.

However, I don't think that Civ5 will have an open beta. I can't remember Firaxis ever holding one. Anyways, the rampant speculation is usually fun.

Heh, I never realized I hadn't posted with this account before.

If there's a civ 5 beta that crashes constantly, I will be quite happy. It means that as long as the devs listen to the testers, those crashes won't occur in the final version.

If there's a civ 5 beta that crashes constantly, I will be quite happy. It means that as long as the devs listen to the testers, those crashes won't occur in the final version.

As opposed to a Civ5 Beta that doesn't crash constantly? Or is it basically that you'll be happy if there's a beta regardless of the quality? :)

I'd suspect there will be a demo either shortly before or slightly after game release. There was with Civ3, Civ4, and Civ4BTS (times two) before. I might actually try the demo prior to making a purchasing decision - kinda wish I had done that with Civ4.

Never beta-tested a game myself. I've paricipated in the open betas of Windows 7 and Office 2010 (still doing that one) and from what I've seen they're pretty solid products even in beta. But I suspect Microsoft intended it to be that way. OTOH, those aren't as exciting as games, and I don't plan to upgrade to the final release of either of those.

Hey i'm beta testing Starcraft 2 right now :P But Blizzard waits forever to do beta testing so their games are practically finished by the time beta begins.

When I was testing Star Trek Online? What a crash-fest.

It was amazing STO crashed so much. The content in the beta was very limited. That game should never have been released in its current state.

Looks like Civ5 wouldn't become much better then Civ4 for me...

Civ3 is still the best... ;-9

As opposed to a Civ5 Beta that doesn't crash constantly? Or is it basically that you'll be happy if there's a beta regardless of the quality? :)

I'd suspect there will be a demo either shortly before or slightly after game release. There was with Civ3, Civ4, and Civ4BTS (times two) before. I might actually try the demo prior to making a purchasing decision - kinda wish I had done that with Civ4.

Never beta-tested a game myself. I've paricipated in the open betas of Windows 7 and Office 2010 (still doing that one) and from what I've seen they're pretty solid products even in beta. But I suspect Microsoft intended it to be that way. OTOH, those aren't as exciting as games, and I don't plan to upgrade to the final release of either of those.

Pretty much!

But seriously, I guess what I meant to say is that if beta testers find so many ways to make the game crash, it will be better for us in the end as we will hopefully not have to deal with those crashes.

On the topic of Beta participation: its not fun. You play the game, try to make it crash. You write reports. You repeat, 8 hours a day...etc
I haven't beta tested games, but I have done QA for software. If a real beta is anything like the QA work I did, its not very much fun. Yes you get to work with civ 5 before release and you get to affect the final product, but its not all fun and games (har har!)