Anybody Else Worried About Purchasing Civ5 On Release?

Aramel said:

That is not what is happening. You will note that the steak comes with everything it used to come with. The fries are still there, as is the salad, as is the water. And it is all the same price. However, today the restaurant has started offering shrimp along with the steak, for an additional price. In response, you storm out of the restaurant in a fit of rage. Do you see what is wrong with this picture?

Civ4 had 18 civs. Civ5 will also have 18 civs, but there is also shrimp you can buy. And this is an outrage?

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This is exactly true.

The Steak Meal is still there, still includes everything it used to, it still costs the same.

Its just that they also offer a side of shrimp for a few bucks more. Or a rock lobster tail or similar.

On another note: Even day 0 DLC is not 'taken out of the core game'. Most of the time, it's paid for in order to give exclusive preorder bonuses (which help drive preorders, which are really important for retail stocking in the modern games industry). It's not a case of "they had this stuff, but they took it out and are now charging". It's a case of "They added in optional extra content, paid for by you, or the marketing value it gives". I reject the idea that this is in any way a "rip off", or that this makes civ 5 "incomplete" in any real way.

bjbrains said:

On another note: Even day 0 DLC is not 'taken out of the core game'. Most of the time, it's paid for in order to give exclusive preorder bonuses (which help drive preorders, which are really important for retail stocking in the modern games industry). It's not a case of "they had this stuff, but they took it out and are now charging". It's a case of "They added in optional extra content, paid for by you, or the marketing value it gives". I reject the idea that this is in any way a "rip off", or that this makes civ 5 "incomplete" in any real way.

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Do you have the impression that pre-orders are driven at the moment?
Or, to be more precise, that people being informed about the variety of pre-order options are more intrigued to pre-order?

I would bet that they are.

There's a bit of Pavlov's Dogs to any modern game release.

Commander Bello said:

Do you have the impression that pre-orders are driven at the moment?
Or, to be more precise, that people being informed about the variety of pre-order options are more intrigued to pre-order?

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The promise of exclusive rewards definitely drives the public to preorder in every game I've ever followed.

You still refuse to acknowledge that civ4 has more than one leader for some civs. In the analogy, it means the salad and fries are now half the size they used to be.

deanej said:

You still refuse to acknowledge that civ4 has more than one leader for some civs. In the analogy, it means the salad and fries are now half the size they used to be.

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Except that now civs mean more, because they have more variation (2 UU/UBs), and unique bonuses instead of 2 traits from a common pool. As well as more unique AI with the addition of 'flavors' to help define them.

bjbrains said:

The promise of exclusive rewards definitely drives the public to preorder in every game I've ever followed.

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Personality type has a lot to do with this, especially what motivates people and what paralyzes them.

I would contend that more people are motivated by free stuff and are prepared to act on that motivation than are paralyzed by the lack of complete info.

Personally I find it very hard to make a decision (or even make a judgement) without all the facts whereas others make decisions/judgements first and discover facts later; at which point they either shrug, ignore/warp the facts to justify their decision/judgement or most likely get angry (but never at their own impulsiveness!).

I am reminded of the frustrations Spock faced every time Kirk forced him to make an estimate based on incomplete information.

From my perspective, the base game will be playable with none of the DLC content. There will be 18 civs which are far more unique than they used to be and thus there will be a lot of variety. I don't need to be fully aware of bonus content to know that I will buy a version of the game.

And since, for me, the literal cost in dollars will probably mean more than the ephemeral value of an additional civ, it will probably be whichever option is the literal least expensive.

deanej said:

You still refuse to acknowledge that civ4 has more than one leader for some civs. In the analogy, it means the salad and fries are now half the size they used to be.

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Actually, I refuse to acknowledge that slapping a new leaderhead on an existing civ is the same thing as adding a new civ. I'd wager the 18 full body leader portraits, including authentic (well, semi-authentic) languages took more time and money to produce than the 26 Civ4 leaderheads.

The general point is you just can't shift the terms of the debate from civilizations to leaders. We were talking about civs. But wait, you say, Civ4 had more leaders. Yes, but Civ5 has more traits and uniques. But wait, what about techs, or unit types, or tiles on the map? That kind of debate never goes anywhere, if once you lose it you can just talk about something else.

Point: balancing 2 UU/UB and a unique bonus is a lot easier than balancing 8 traits that have to be combined together, plus a UU. The work that most modders can't duplicate is in the leader heads. for some this will mean more (SPers), for others, leader heads are irrelevant as diplomacy has nothing to do with the leader head in MP.

This has to be compared when taking the cost of the DLC into account. It is the leader heads that cost so much to make, but most MPers don't want that, so to an MPer, DLC civs need to be cheap. To SPers, well, they can get fleeced for more money.

I wonder what percentage of players 2k and Firaxis expect to be MP?

I know they are supposedly improving multiplayer (something they've been saying since Civnet...a rather easy promise to keep from that perspective.), but really, Civilization is perhaps the last hold out of a singleplayer mostly game.

YoHo said:

I wonder what percentage of players 2k and Firaxis expect to be MP?

I know they are supposedly improving multiplayer (something they've been saying since Civnet...a rather easy promise to keep from that perspective.), but really, Civilization is perhaps the last hold out of a singleplayer mostly game.

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Well, one of the ideas many people have been bandying about is that DLC is the modern way and all, and that the old timers need to get used to it...which suggests that the game and the model of releasing DLC is aimed at new, young gamers. And while I have no proof to back it up, aren't most kids in the Xbox generation and early twenties massively into MP? That would suggest to me that the 2K marketing department wants to promote the game mainly at the MP players, which suggests that a lot of the people will be MPers to at least some extent.

And if they are aiming it the young, who are normally poor, it would make sense to make DLC affordable to them, right?

Maybe we should compare CiV DLC to how EA released Sims expansion packs in the past?

Well, I don't think the multiplayer phenomena is particularly based on the young except that the young as a rule have the time and inclination to play video games and thus drive the market.

I don't think DLC really makes a difference either way. I guess though it depends on how they price.

Bungie/MS don't seem to have a problem selling map packs at $10-$20 a pop. Without an example of the cost of a single Civ DLC, or an example of what they would include in DLC at a given price point, its hard to know how well it would do. And even if we did know, it would still be hard, without playing the game, to know the value of an additional civ.


In general though, I don't see how they promote Civ V as primarily for MP. The very nature of the base game makes traditional multiplayer difficult.

Now, if the DLC is unique MP ready scenarios that play fast, that would be DLC aimed at MP and they likely will do that.
Or rather, they would make the maps and assorted ephemera needed for such scenarios the DLC.
Think Griffball or Big Team types in Halo. You need to pay for certain DLC for Halo 3 to play in the Big Team games.

But, at least on the surface, specific Civs doesn't seem to fit the needs of such DLC. Not directly anyway.

DLC will definitely come down to price. $2 for a leaderhead, and everyone will buy it. $10? Hmmm. That's what I want to know...

Right, but it's not just a leader head, that's my thing. Maybe it costs lets just say $10 for Babylon and you scoff. Then you play the game, realize just how unique each civ is and realize that in fact $10 is a pretty good value for a 19th Civ.

I doubt that $10 is a good value for a variety of reasons, I'm just saying you can't set a value on something you don't have full knowledge of.

The implications of the information that's been given about Civ V suggest that the value of each civ is more than it was in Civ4.

YoHo said:

Right, but it's not just a leader head, that's my thing. Maybe it costs lets just say $10 for Babylon and you scoff. Then you play the game, realize just how unique each civ is and realize that in fact $10 is a pretty good value for a 19th Civ.

I doubt that $10 is a good value for a variety of reasons, I'm just saying you can't set a value on something you don't have full knowledge of.

The implications of the information that's been given about Civ V suggest that the value of each civ is more than it was in Civ4.

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I can set a value on it, because I can compare it to other things in my life that I can spend money on. I do the same thing with my time. Is it worth it to spend £5 to get my car washed, or wash it myself? And then modding comes into the equation...as an MPer, I don't care about the leader head at all (nothing is realistically going to change that...but for other items, yes, your point holds), but the unique bonus?

Another point that might not have yet been aired is that a lot of MP games are teamers: now, if some civs are consider a requirement to have a balanced game, and those civs are DLC only, there are likely going to be problems playing CiV competitively (and by competitively, I mean anything other than a friendly knock about sort of thing). One solution that I see happening is that some bright spark creates a very basic MP mod that recreates the DLC civs, using the units and buildings that the UU and UB are based on as the graphics, and (re)introducing the civ specific ability. Question then becomes if this mod could get enough widespread attention to grab everyones attention, if enough people play it, then we have a new MP scene...which has been mutilated by 2K DLC practices.

It's not just a question of if the DLC is worth it, 2K need to consider if a little extra money from less downloads is worth the hassle of trying to stomp out alternative mods. But this is all speculation, until we know the mod and DLC policies 2K has in place. I just hope 2K aren't stupid, but I can't see a Publisher ever doing the smart thing, seeing how the brightest spark amongst them likely got an Social Science degree at best.

I have to imagine that 2k and Firaxis are well aware of the potential to mod in your own version of a Civ and are tailoring the value of DLC around that.

Either that or they're lying about the level of modding ability which I find unlikely. Bad Programming sure, Bad marketing possibly, but outright lies? not so much.

The unique abilities will almost certainly require the use of the SDK (or at least Lua) to reproduce. So it's going to take a specialized skill set to do it, it would probably be blocked from the mod browser, and it would be frowned upon on fan sites. You'll have to find it next to the pirated copies, which probably would have pirated DLC, so what's the point?

Disclaimer: I'm not advocating piracy here, I'm just stating an honest prediction of the future given the likely policies to be adopted by 2K and CFC.

I'm not going to advocate Piracy either, but at some point, you have to take a certain fatalistic attitude towards it. A software pirate is looking for any flimsy excuse. If these kinds of mod duplication are frowned upon, then the upstanding people of the community won't use them likely. The people that would use them are the people that would have stolen it anyway.
In either case we shall see. The best modders are as far as I can tell on the up and up and I'm sure therefore that the best mods won't run afoul of this.