Just found another example:
this thread. There were about 190 voters (edit: sorry 150 voters), and from them only 44 did not say Civ4 is worse, while they were certainly
not saying Civ4 is better, but that they (40 of those 44) couldn't play Civ4 because of the requirements.
Interesting find again, especially because of the rather large number of voters. This indicates that the fanbase dropout due to raised requirements may really have been larger as shown in the polls in Civ4 GD.
Hi Psyringe, this poll is somewhat very,very dubious.
:thumbdown
Only 22 posters and none of them is known in the Civ 3 forums (at least by me). On the other side none of the posters alone in these thread, who at present prefer Civ 3 over Civ 4 has posted and voted in that poll.
Well, certainly there are Civ3 preferers which haven't been voting at this poll, as there have been Civ4 preferers who haven't been voting at this poll. As long as I don't see evidence for a systematic dropout (which I don't), I don't see why this makes the poll "dubious", or even "ridiculous"?
And than this -sorry- ridicoulus poll was made long time ago, when there was more interest in Civ 4.
But interest doesn't equal customer satisfaction, does it? While there certainly was more interest in Civ4 at that time, this wouldn't have kept the people disappointed by Civ4 from voicing their opinion. Also, the rather devastating TES4 polls that I used for comparison were also done when the game was still fresh. That didn't keep the fans pf the previous installment from voicing their opinion. So why do you see a problem with this in the Civ3/Civ4 comparison?
The only sense I see in this kind of Civ 3/Civ 4-discussíon is, that I hope that sometimes these threads are read by some people of FIRAXIS, who want to know what they have to improve for the next Civ release. And than
these only positive postings from Civ 4 -fans are not very helpful - even for these posters themselves (if they want to get something better).
It´s good to say what you like in Civ 4 and don´t want to be changed. But in my eyes it´s much more important to say what you don´t like and what should be improved, if you want something better. When I see Civ 4 I must say: They have to improve a lot
That's the difference between us. In my opinion, they have to improve very little, because - as strange as it may sound to you - Civ4 really met most of my Civ-related wants and needs spot-on. There are of course things that can be improved (Modding accessibility, lowering required specs, making artillery feel more realistic), and I readily named those, but all in all, for my personal tastes, Civ4 is very much "Civ as it should be". So from my perspective, writing my posts is as valid and helpful as it is from your perspective to write your posts, isn't it?
Whoa whoa there ,Im reading over this thing and missed a few shots. Heres where the confusion lies between us my friend. I thought you believed or claimed that 85 percent of the Civving population thought CIv4 was a better product then Civ3.
Yep, I actually believe it because I still haven't seen a better number. I'm not anal about the 15%, it could be 10% or 20% as well, or even less or more, depending on the distortion factors I mentioned in a previous post. I tend to believe that the disappointment rate was lower than 15%, based on the fact that dissatisfied customers are always more vocal than satisfied ones due to a variety of reasons, but since I cannot prove that assumption, I'll stay at 15% as the best approximation we have.
But the exact number isn't important (deriving it is beyond our possibilities anyways). What's important to me is that Civ4 did far better in keeping its fanbase than many other games of a popular series (HoMM4, HoMM5, MoO3, SimCity 4, TES4 ... to name a few), and that this can hardly be seen as "killing its fanbase". I actually still think that Civ4 did a very *good* job at keeping its fanbase, although I understand that your perspective looks different.
No your wrong. Civ3 s exceeding popularty is unprecidented, This relates directly to CIv4's unprecidented suckyness!
.Please don't turn the fact into a debate, theres nothing to argue, the facts speak for themselves.CIv2 never endured the quality of CIv3's craftmanship. Look at the boards they tell the story...
Hmm, may I suggest to *really* look at the boards? Especially on Civ3 GD when Civ3 was fresh?
I was there ... and I can tell you that Civ3 was bashed as soundly as some people bashed Civ4 later. Some reasons included:
- no multiplayer in Civ3
- no scenarios on Civ3
- no wonder movies in Civ3
- no animated advisors in Civ3
- only 15 civs in Civ3 (people were used to more from Civ2 and CtP)
- only one map level in Civ3 (as opposed to the 4 levels of Civ2 ToT)
- return to simplistic government system (many people hoped for the civic-like system of SMAC)
- return to "fixed value" units (some people hoped that SMAC-style freeform unit creation would find its way into Civ3)
- no meaningful global politivs (many people hoped for global politics in the line of SMAC's multilateral projects)
- corruption as a fun-destroying game mechanic
- settler-rushing AI forcing the player into "unnatural" behavior
- abysmal modding support for scenarios in Civ3, the editor didn't even allow the placement of starting positions, many features from the Civ2 ToT scenarios weren't reimplemented (including timed events which were IIRC never reintroduced until Civ4)
Remeber, I *like* Civ3. The reasons above don't represent my opinion, but they were all arguments that were lobbed against Civ3. Don't believe that Civ3 was received better than Civ4, I don't see any evidence that could back that claim up.
However, I agree with you that the ratio of people who returned from Civ3 to Civ2 was probably smaller than the ration of people returning from Civ4 to Civ3. However, I don't think this was due to an inherent "greatness" of Civ3 - the reason was that the people who were disappointed fell back to *many* games at that time. Some went back to Civ2, some to CIv2 ToT, some to CtP, some to FreeCiv, and very many to SMAC.
I heard a guy say here, " Well, why don't you compare gen discussion??" to Mirc when he gave ON THE SPOT evidence supporting my claim.
Why? cause gen discussion tainted and don't mean jack squat. its nowhere near the pulse of Civ4 health!
[...]
So to the the guy who asked Mirc on post (115) do you see now why Gen forums are not relevant to compare or in comparison to C+C ? Excellant!
I don't think you got my point. Just re-read my post. Also, which claim exactly *are* you making?
I grant you that the Civ3 modding is still very active, and I'm glad about that. I'm also a bit worried that the difficultyto access Civ4 modding may hamper the Civ4 modding scene to an extent where the longevity of the game is in danger. Still, I don't see why focusing solely on the C&C community (which is Civ3's greatest strength) should lead to the most objective result.
Now its hard to think back, but do you really believe that Civ2 was this popular so long after play the world was released?. Now Are you sure your scenaio fits so perfectly to whats happening today? after its been awash in doubt? I think you took a lame cliche to save a lil face but basing this comparison on a unrealistic context didn't help your deposition at all.
Having been there, I'm sorry to have to tell you that Civ2 preference, CtP preference, and especially SMAC preference lasted long after the release of Civ3. Just look at the many people who say that they liked Civ2, never got into Civ3, and now like Civ4.
I'm sorry, I *do* like Civ3, but I just don't see this incredibly obvious superiority in features and reception that you claim for it (with the one exception of the accessibility of modding).
I personally remember a lot complains about civ3 when it came out.
