Jon Shafer leaves Firaxis!

croxis said:

All in 3 months? I don't think so.

Click to expand...

But Civ 5 had the pre-existing customer base of 3.5 million, thats the point and 3.5 million have not rushed to buy it.

Plus how many more copies of Civ 5 do you think are there to be sold?

Time makes a huge difference. A game that has been out for five years is obviously going to sell way more than a game that has only been out for a few months. A lot more people will eventually buy Civ V, but haven't gotten around to it yet. Maybe they're waiting to upgrade their computers. That's why I didn't buy it right when it came out.

Guardian_PL said:

The important bit - "not including expansions"

Click to expand...

Not really. That just means even more base copies sold, since they are required to be able to run expansions.

markantony said:

But Civ 5 had the pre-existing customer base of 3.5 million, thats the point and 3.5 million have not rushed to buy it.

Click to expand...

And how's that different from Civ3 to Civ4 transition?


P.S.
Funny thread:
http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=130507

Ok, it's time for people to stop thinking their way to see through life is the right or the only one.

Most people, since Civ 5 was launched, criticized the game.

Other people defended the game with arguments like "it's selling well" and "look at steam, there are 50k people playing it right now".

The truth is, all of these are falacious arguments that have no use in this discussion.

If you have a forum full of fans that can't agree whether the game is a success or not, then IT IS NOT. Period. Doesn't matter if it's selling well (haven't thought of about the possibility of people being fooled into buying the game with all those good reviews that mentions no bugs?) or if people are playing it (if I buy a game, I'll freaking play it even if it doesn't excede my expectations. Hell, my money is gone anyway, I'll try to find something in there to salvage).

So, now that the directly responsable for Civ 5 to be the way it is have just left the building without warnings, people still try to find "answers" and questions about "why" he left.

I don't care if you like the game or not: the game isn't unanimous in a way that has never seem before. Yes, Civs 3 and 4 also had their share of problems at launch, yes many people were disappointed with them but the reasons of the disappointment were different. Civ 5 disappointed people in its very core of gameplay, things that can't be fixed with patches.

No matter how many patches they launch, the people that were disappointed with Civ 5 won't come back and say "now it's a good game!". Diplomacy is so broken that looks to be beyond repairing; the whole game became a mindless wargame that doesn't incentive interactions between civilizations because 80% of those interections will result in war and the later patch showed that there's still a lot of tunning time before we can really enjoy a Civ 5 playthrough with the same feeling if that will be possible. I'll repeat: feeling. I don't wanna play Civ 4, but I want to have similar feelings about my game in progress: I wanna have long term allies that won't betray me all of a sudden; I wanna have long term enemies that I know for sure I can't count with; I wanna have a plan for my civilization that won't be screwed by a wrong display of the tooltip or civilopedia. Right now the only feelings I have are: 1) expand as quickly as possible cos the AI will mindless do the same. 2) crush all neighbors before they crush you. 3) conquer the world.

Or if I don't wanna make any wars: 1) don't expand or you will anger someone. 2) give your neighbors anything they want, even if it will lead to a war with another civ, doesn't matter as long as your neighbors are standing between you and them. 3) build some military anyway cos your neighbors will betray you when you are close to whatever victory you're after. 4) when your neighbors betray you, easily obliterate the invading forces with your tiny army, giving you confidence to just conquer the rest of the world with it. 5) conquer the world before you achieve any victory you're after.

That's simply ridiculous. The buildings can all be renamed to "Gold 1", "Gold 2"... etc. "Unit xp 1", "Unit xp 2"... etc. "Culture 1", "Culture 2"... etc. It's annoying to have so few buildings and that they are anything but unique.

This game is pathetic. That's why Jon Shafer left Fireaxis.

"That's your opinion, many people say otherwise". Yes, but many people agree with me. It doesn't matter if the minority agree with me, it doesn't matter if we are only 5% of the people in a forum or customer base, the fact is no company likes when their game displeases anyone so much that even being a huge fan of the series having bought the 3 last versions of it in a country where the game simply wasn't launched at all and that arrives with such high taxes that I end up paying double of its real price (that's one thing that I like about steam, I can finally pay the real price of a game), such a person have reasons to just think that the game is pathetic.

Again, doesn't matter if you love this game, the fact is that many doesn't. And your proof, for you that have asked so many times in this forum "show me the numbers of the people who doesn't like the game", have just arrived: not even Fireaxis liked the game, possibly not even its lead designer. It doesn't matter how many copies the game sold, it matters that part of the fan base is annoyed.

The first really good news since Civ 5 was launched and the first act that brought to my heart the respect I used to have for the company.

So, good riddance to Jon Shafer and long live to Fireaxis and Civ series.

Civilization III sold 2 million copies.
Civ IV sold 3 million (including mac).

This info is from wikipedia, so figure out yourselfs how it can be trusted.

bryanw1995 said:

I think that it's very likely that he had significant conflict with upper management and decided that he would take a very large reputation hit if he didn't leave. many here already complain about him, but in my experience it's much more likely that 2k was pushing him to adhere to an arbitrary time schedule and he was pushing to make the game "finished" or at least "more finished".

Click to expand...

That is what i think too.

Well, call me a hater if you wish but somehow I don't think that "A lot more people will eventually buy Civ V, but haven't gotten around to it yet." Christmas time (now) is the last big influx, the next will be after DLC milking, when Complete editions will be finally released. Amazon user reviews are pretty powerful tool.

jacyp said:

(...)Right now the only feelings I have are: 1) expand as quickly as possible cos the AI will mindless do the same. 2) crush all neighbors before they crush you. 3) conquer the world.

Or if I don't wanna make any wars: 1) don't expand or you will anger someone. 2) give your neighbors anything they want, even if it will lead to a war with another civ, doesn't matter as long as your neighbors are standing between you and them. 3) build some military anyway cos your neighbors will betray you when you are close to whatever victory you're after. 4) when your neighbors betray you, easily obliterate the invading forces with your tiny army, giving you confidence to just conquer the rest of the world with it. 5) conquer the world before you achieve any victory you're after.

Click to expand...

This is golden, dear sir. That's exactly how it is, unless you're an eight year old playing on Warlord setting.

jacyp said:

If you have a forum full of fans that can't agree whether the game is a success or not, then IT IS NOT. Period...

Click to expand...

Not really. The moment forums start getting empty is actual sign that game is not success. As long as forums are busting in activity it's sign that game is doing well.

Even any new DLC content is sign that it is doing well. You don't make DLC if player base is not big enough to buy it. Although it's early to look from this angle, since all DLCs till now were pre-planned in advance (Spain/Inca was preorder bonus for some).

fantsu said:

'bout time.
They have to do something to get this trainwreck fixed.
I see this as an great way to pump-up the morality of rest of the developers.
Maybe they now start fixing the game instead of milking the cow for a while.

This is most centairly a good thing for us players, soon we will have more polished game with true civilization feeling around.

One of the best x-mas presents we can really get.

Click to expand...

I couldn't agree more. Unfortunately someone has to be the scapegoat and it was pretty obvious he'd be the one. Now let's hope they right this ship and get back on course.

This is a testament to the failure that is CIV 5

They took design decisions to make a CIV game that could sell more games to the casual players and let down the grognards.

Here´s to CIV 6!!

Most people, since Civ 5 was launched, criticized the game.

Click to expand...

Not really, just a bunch of really vocal and obnoxious whiners.

If you have a forum full of fans that can't agree whether the game is a success or not, then IT IS NOT.

Click to expand...

People will always whine and moan about any change in a series. Maybe the decision to change formulas period is not a good one.

Moderator Action: No need to insult those who don't like the game.
Please read the forum rules: http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=422889

Well, I read through page three and just got bored, we are all so SMART!! Now here is my smart guy opinion:

I think it is good that Mr Shafer left. I didn't like his interviews. They all sounded like "I'm a kid in a candy store!!" News of the day: "Video game enthusiast gets picked to run a video game." They should have made it a Reality TV series.

As some say, maybe he was the only person on a depraved team of corporate game producers out to make the computer gaming world... JUST LIKE CONSOLE. His departure still lets us see the direction Firaxis wants to take the series.

In another thread a guy mentioned this basic conflict (paraphrased): "They limited roadbuilding and implemented 1UPT. Those two ideas are in conflict with one another and lead to a crappy user experience."

It takes a person with vision and depth to identify and address this ahead of time.

Mr. Shafer's resignation was exciting and is likely the most exciting thing that will happen to me regarding Civ this week.

Lone Wolf said:

Finally, the infamous creator of Shafer Dumbed Down Consolization 0.05 is being punished!!! Yay!!!

Click to expand...

Meh. Civ4 Colonization was ok to play. I'd list that proudly on my resume (if I'd written it).

joyous_gard

His departure still lets us see the direction Firaxis wants to take the series.

Click to expand...

You're projecting your fantasies here.

SuperJay said:

The players who criticize the game (like my colleagues here at CFC) are extremely unlikely to figure into personnel decisions at a company like Firaxis.

Click to expand...

What about that guy who can kill us with his mind? He seems pretty influential.

If only the game reviewers would resign too that would be sweet.

The problem for me, other than the nonsense diplomacy and lack of empire building is the 1upt.

This was apparently a major leap forward for the series and a good deal was made of this. So why did they not bother to code the AI to be able to use it?

lolno said:

joyous_gard


You're projecting your fantasies here.

Click to expand...

Lolno.

joyous_gard said:

What about that guy who can kill us with his mind? He seems pretty influential.

Click to expand...

Ahriman? Naw, he just brow beats you with GRE words and wildly circular logic until you submit and go curl up in some corner in the fetal position!

( I say that with the utmost respect, Ahriman)

Think people have read too much into this. The game is a commercial success, the fans are still buying the DLC, and there will be at least two expansions and each one will rope in new customers as well as get more money from previous customers. It's not a "failure" just because people on a forum of dedicated civ gamers hate it. Don't forget when Civ IV came out it was this site that featured a ton of fans who were saying that Civ IV was fatally flawed, had ruined the game, had raped their childhoods, was ahistorical, lacked immersion, bugged, etc. And with each expansion there were several complaints, Warlords was called a ripoff with too little content, easy scenarios, few gameplay changes, weak traits (Protective and Imperialistic), lame civs with fantasy leaders (people screamed about Brennus of the Celts and Ragnar of the Vikings). BTS was called gimmicky, espionage a joke, siege weapons too nerfed, etc. The presence of vocal detractors will surely follow every release of a product called CIV, a bunch of rabid fans will do that.

In short, Shafer's leaving is no kind of indictment of Civ V, good or bad. Shafer left for reasons unknown, they will always be unknown.