what really matters......

lots and lots of ideas have been voiced - some crazy, some real monsters of promisedfun and complxity.

but let's be honest - wouldn't a bug-free civIII be the best of all Civ IVs?





whatever they implement in Civ IV - the thing I really, really, really really really want is

a game without bugs
a game that does what is promised in the last press conference before release (MP, anyone?????? PBEM??????)
a game that runs smoothly on even 'normal' PC, not only on top end machines
a game that STAYS the same in basic game mechanics (corruption????) from patch to patch
a game that fits the damned manual





I'd rather have a fixed Civ II MP right now than Civ3 out of the box, rather Civ3 with proper RCP than PTW 1.00, rather PTW with a proper fix for the PBEM load bug than C3C, rather C3C with all the bug fixes than Civ IV

what do you think?

I just felt this thread needed a bump
They really need to concentrate alot more on the testing phase(s). I agree with everything ye have said.
Could a mod sticky this please?

This is what I want most from Civ IV

Bugs aren't that much of a big deal I would much rather see a good game with good features.

carlosMM said:

a game that runs smoothly on even 'normal' PC, not only on top end machines

Click to expand...

I totally agree.

That was quite a bump.

I'm glad people like you aren't in charge of games. No innovation means no fun.

I agree that Civ3 deserved better than the really uncomplete and still bugged "Complete" Edition. And I am still angry that they did not fix many things.

But releasing Civ3 fixed as Civ4 is no good idea either. New concepts, new ideas, new graphics and...

... right of the box with even less bugs than Civ3 Complete. They should try hard and listen to their beta testers, not to their Microsoft Project schedule.

Quality of PC games have more and more become a non-important issue over years. I will not buy Civ4 the day it hits the shelves and the week where I read that it is awesome beyond belief. If then serious issues arise after the initial storm of enthusiasm, I will wait for it to hit the bargain bin and fort the patches and expansions.

I will no longer support unfinished Betas.

Longasc, how will you know? Only bugs would show up quickly, and not even all of these. Any design flaws would take longer to figure out. It sounds like you might end up waiting on the bargain bin no matter what. Your call, but what if the game is really good? You'd miss out on months of fun.

What do you think it would take to entice you to take a risk and buy sooner? How could Firaxis win your confidence?


- Sirian

I did not play Civ3 right after it has been released, because I was not so much impressed by Civ2. My love for Civ3 started a bit later, I was not a Civ player at the time of the initial release.

I have no problems with waiting. I am still playing Civ3 by far too much, there are other games out there, too. I will probably rush to buy Pirates (huge fan of the C64 game), but it is really up to the customer to ENFORCE better quality on release.

Firaxis lost some credibility, and there is nothing besides NOT rewarding them for releasing unfinished business. Civ 3 has been patched for years and two expansions by now and there are still issues, old ones that have surfaced again and so on (subs!). One can praise them for supporting a product this long, but they released two expansions and I really see no reason why patching bugs should not be mandatory.

They want me to buy their next game, too -> but I felt disappointed by Civ3: "Complete".


I wonder who feels more need to improve - Firaxis with QUALITY because of dropping sales or me with the mentioned months of fun lost. I am personally not interested in being some kind of Beta Tester for extended periods and paying for that.

There is a company named Ascaron, they released a really good game, Sacred, but they are still not done patching. The issues there are much more severe than with Firaxis and Civ3, but I am not going to buy anymore game from them!

But I will not buy Civ4 before having talked with some guys of the forum here. I think it is up to the customer to educate gaming companies to deliver real quality.

I know that software is not like a car and more complex and likely to have bugs, but I am not pleased by the low quality standards many games have on release.

Excellent post, carlosMM !!

I'd find it a lot funnier to have a game with no bugs at all and no design flaws than many innovations but filled with crap. You can't imagine how annoying it is to set up a PBEM game with C3C now : it leads to endless discussions about rules and tweaks, and every new game is played in a different way. Just have a look at the ISDG ruleset : many points there deal with C3C's errors, just like RBCiv. GOTM aren't for me anymore because things like RoP rape isn't dealt with.

Sirian, how could Firaxis regain confidence ? We all know they'll someday work on Civ5. Should they do a decent work on Civ4, I'd regain much confidence again. Simple as that.

No need to say I won't buy Civ4 if it lacks a decent multiplayer option. And because it'll ship later in France than in the US, I'll have time to lurk the first comments. That is, if I ever buy this game in French again !

I too will wait a bit to buy Civ4. I was not happy with the fact that Civ3 was released unfinished, i.e., no working editor. I will wait to hear that Civ4 has good capability for supporting modding before I buy it. As far as bugs go, every game will have these, no matter what. It is impossible these days to work them all out before the release date, that is the way the SW industry works now.

I've never really experienced this problem, having been mostly a console gamer up until two years ago and even now more of a bargain-bin buyer! By the time I get hold of most games, just about everything is as fixed as it's ever going to get...

But I must say I agree with the principle of this thread. The problem is getting worse (look at the recent release of Rome: Total War) and we as consumers have done little to date to discourage it. We need to stand against year-long post-release beta sessions - and we need to do it together!

As a principle, 100,000 consumers are more likely to find bugs and design flaws then 100 beta testers. This is the primary reason I wait at least two months before buying any game. This leaves enough time to fix the easy stuff that was found by 'consumer testing' and to read honest reviews. In general some companies purposely do a bad job to save money and others have to deal with the complexity of these games. Civ is not perfect, but Firaxis is hardly one of the bad guys.
--------------------------------------------------------------
On to the original premise of this thread: What CIV really needs?

carlosMM said:

a game without bugs

Click to expand...

As long as it runs well after the first or second patch I am cool. It should run out of the box, but I expect some bugs.

carlosMM said:

a game that does what is promised in the last press conference before release (MP, anyone?????? PBEM??????)

Click to expand...

That makes sense, but Sirian can probably explain the economics behind it.

carlosMM said:

a game that runs smoothly on even 'normal' PC, not only on top end machines

Click to expand...

Completely agreed. Civ is not a FPS and is not aimed at console jockeys. Preseumably we CFCers and other civ players want gameplay more than pretty units.

carlosMM said:

a game that STAYS the same in basic game mechanics (corruption????) from patch to patch

Click to expand...

Completely disagree. When you are dealing with new and innovative concepts sometimes they just fail miserably and need to be changed. Differential Sea Movement was a major change but very beneficial to play. I hope that CIV further developes innovative features that worked, like Culture and new Specialists, and add a few more. The ones that worked can be developed further in patches or Civ 5. Innovation in a series has to role forward with many failures and some successes.

carlosMM said:

a game that fits the damned manual

Click to expand...

I understand your frustration, but from what I understand they print those manuals way ahead of time. That is another reason I wait a couple months, although I think I am buying roughly the same product the people bought on day one. Am I right Sirian?


A functionality I would like to see is the ability to change game mechanics. Mostly I would want the ability to simplify or complicate a particular mechanic. It is hard to explain, but imagine being able to add several types of culture(if it was developed further), or have a special combat system, etc. This might involve opening too much fo the code up.

Like Sir Schwick said, lots of consumers will find bugs that the beta testers and in-house testers can't find. Would you rather wait another year for each title and pay 50% more for less bugs?

As far as press conferences goes, Firaxis has learned from that. Their solution (and it is the right one, IMHO) is not to tlak about it till near the very end of development. People mistake wishful thinking (on the developers' part) for promises and when the developers have to cut stuff near the end of development (and they always do) they (the fans) feel like a promise has been broken. Yes, this means that you won't get any news on Civ4 till the very end.

To get good bulk printing prices the manuals are usually sent off for printing roughly 3 months before a game ships. A lot can change in that time frame. Consider that for C3C that meant that the manuals were sent off for printing 2/3s of the way through the development.

In other words the only time they could change something would be before teh manuals are printed, so they can't tell you anything for sure before that time, sounds logical.

No, the continue changing things after the manuals are printed, the problem is that the manual doesn't reflect any changes made to the game after it was made.

I'd easily take a buggy game with some killer features. You can always put out a patch for bugs, but you can't put out a patch that adds something totally new (at least it doesn't usually happen that way).

Not to be contrary. That's just me, personally.

Here is a model that has probalby already been debunked, but might be interesting. Maybe the first versions of the game(before the correct manual can be printed cheaply) is just the software and reference posters. They could then, as a function of registration, get the manual when it was complete later for free. Also, this would lead greater value to Gold editions, that would include expanded manuals with fan strategy guides and more info.

Some games from Matrix used a model where they had an accurate pdf manual at release and a discount on getting Kinko's to print one up for you if you need hard copy (I do).

In the UK it seems almost standard not to provide hard-copy manuals with games now - Out of my collection of 20-odd PC games, I think I have one hard manual - the rest are pdfs. But the pdfs still have errors in them...

The idea of releasing with a pdf and then providing hard copies later sounds fine to me (although I can see distributors and retailers using this as an excuse to charge extra for the manual, if done in certain ways). However, I have another idea.

There's a bit of a complaint going on in the Civ3 forums about the lack of AI programming, something which, like the manual, can't really be done until after the game is complete (or close to it). Why not delay the release date by three months (but try to keep completion of the main features restricted to a set date!), so that manuals can be printed properly and AI programmed more effectively?

Yes, there may be some economic reasons that stand against this. But the gamers deserve more.