I wasn't going to wade into this, but I feel compelled to give my opinions and observations from my point of view as a gamer, and a game developer.
First, just to get it out of the way, I'm one of those who runs Civ4 without issue now. I had a minor problem after install which I recognized as bad anti-aliasing. After setting my video card's AA to application controlled, I've had no further problems. I feel nothing but sympathy for those not so lucky. I hope you'll be able to play with the rest of us soon, and enjoy it as much a I have.
Moving on...
xguild said:
The bottom line stands. Game developers are getting away with creating buggy software. Year in and year out the games get buggier and the list of excusable "bugs", a standard created by the consumer (gamers) gets longer and longer.
My experience is different; I still vividly recall how much of a pain it was to play PC games in the DOS and early Windows eras. Like many other gamers, I learned to write boot disks just to make a game run, and had one for nearly every game. It was so bad, that I would never plan on actually playing a game the day I got it, as making it run typically took a couple hours.
It is my opinion that quality of games has increased steadily over the years (the MMO genre excluded, sadly). I believe a stable version of Windows in XP, and DirectX(as mentioned by another poster) are the primary reasons for that. There are things we deal with now that we didn't used to (syware and viruses, for example), but I think the overal quality has risen steadily.
But in spite of our advances, there is no doubt there are still problems. Many of the nay-sayers dismiss the variety of hardware configurations as an excuse, but it is nonetheless a fact. It is simply not possible to test every single hardware configuration. There are a nearly infinite number. Then, consider that different
software configurations on an otherwise identical system can cause bugs, and multiply nearly infinite software configurations by nearly infinite hardware configurations, throw in problems on the user end(viruses, spyware, poorly maintained machines, heat issues, out of date drivers, etc), and it quickly becomes apparent that there will never be software of any complexity that will run on every person's machine out of the box. It's not an excuse, it's a fact.
So we do the best we can. We test a great deal. But people will run into problems. Many will be user problems solved by a driver update or a good system cleaning, others will not. I absolutely agree that anyone who has a system that meets the requirements but can't play the game should complain. They have a right to. It was reasonable to expect it to work. Nearly every game developer I have been acquainted with takes pride in their work. We want you to be able to play our games. But there are productive ways to complain. Work with the game companies; describe your problem to them, give them system specs, send a dxdiag, whatever you can to help. Usually, the problem will get fixed as soon as they can. I wish I didn't have to say usually at the start of that sentance. However, development of patches is determined by the publisher. They own the game; typically they are the only ones that can decide to develop or release a patch. Sometimes they decide not to. But it is in their best interests to have their customers able to run the game, so usually things get fixed.
Sadly, software is often released with known issues. You have a right to be upset about that. But direct that ire where it belongs. The decision to release a game is made by the publisher, and the publisher alone. There has been times where I personally have argued extensively to delay a release to get rid of a bug, only to see it released over my objections. Yes, the developer introduced the bug in the first place. But the decision to ship with it comes from the publisher, in this case, Take Two. Not Firaxis.
I understand those who say that we as consumers are too accepting of flawed software. Please let game publishers know how you feel. I hope also that you understand that we who develop software are constantly trying to improve the quality.
Some have been upset with Firaxis for not commenting publicly on the problems. Be sure you've seen the latest, at
http://www.2kgames.com/civ4/firaxis_note_01.htm. I can understand the frustration many of you feel that it took this long for this note to come. However, I hope you take comfort in knowing help is on the way. I really hope it lets you play. Why did it take so long for them to say anything? I don't have the answer to that. However, my experience with the developer/publisher relationship, is that in most situations, the publisher will tightly govern what official things are said. It may not be so simple as someone from Firaxis just posting something on the internet. It likely had to be approved by Take Two first, and sometimes publishers are slow on such things. I know this probably doesn't make you feel any better, and I'm probably coming off like an apologist by now. However, I just want to impress upon you again, that if you're upset, the people you need to be complaining to are the people who make the business decisions and own the property: the publisher, Take Two.
The title of this thread is "Civ 4, a failure made successful by money and absence of community". I'm interpreting that as "Civ 4 should have been a failure, but succeeded because they bought off all the reviewers, and the community is accepting of it's problems, so it'll never improve." Feel free to correct me if I've got it wrong. I'd like to answer that first point.
Can money buy a review? While I do believe I've seen cases where advertising has nudged a score
slightly up from where it should be, it doesn't make business sense for a reviewer to completely sellout. For a reviewer to succeed, his/her opinion needs to be trusted. That trust comes when gamers agree with their observations. A reviewer who sold scores for money would quickly become discredited. I haven't seen a negative Civ4 review yet. Which is more likely: 1)Dozens of websites(major and minor ones) put their reputations and credibility on the line, giving a high score to an undeserving game for cash, or 2) Civ4 is actually a good game?
Again, I am truly sorry to those who haven't been able to play it. What I have found is the best Civ game I've ever played, and the best game I've played this year. I believe it does deserve those scores. It is a success because it is a
good game. Should widespread technical issues reuce a score? I think they should. Whether the issues with Civ4 are widespread enough to warrant that is another debate I won't get into. However, it seems a majority of reviewers don't think so. Hopefully the patch will fix your problems, and that this experience hasn't soured you too much on the game that you will be able to enjoy it.
