Has Civ finally Jumped the Shark

[komodo]

I really wanted to like Civ5 having played since Civ1. In my opinion Firaxis fell into the same quandary that SimCity realized a few years ago. Their game had become so complex that adding new content to an already complicated game reduced the ability to attract new users.

I think where the game designer went wrong was to completely remove areas that the community basically liked, as opposed to making them options in the game setup. Sure religion, corporations and espionage weren’t perfect, but I still liked them. I believe some of these elements should have been made options in the setup. This way a user could decide how complicated he/she would like their game to be. Perhaps this is too difficult in the AI programming. Ideally more effort could have been made redesigning these elements to be quality features in the game.

I don't believe the game has been dumbed down, but it has been scaled back considerably. It no longer has the epic feel for me. I give the designer credit for the better look of the game and the one unit per tile change. I just feel they jumped the shark in an attempt to attract new purchasers. Hopefully the wonderful modding community or future add-ons can restore the greatness this game had.

 

[heartCORE]

I read (i think it was here) that they found traces of religion code in game.
The concensus was, they HAD a working religion...feature...it just got removed....

As per civ game, wait till a few more patches or a few more x-packs roll in =)

 

[Ranbir]

Civ is a big game, anytime they make changes it must be hell to balance. Imagine trying to balance V if it had all the stuff that 4 ended up with at BTS stage.

 

[Windsor]

Don't know if Civ have jumped the shark, but they do talk about Civ5 on Jumping the Shark #37

 

[Pratputajao]

This kinda stuff is really getting tiresome. Ok, we know there are people who dont like the game. We get it! But do we really need to keep repeating the same basic posts over and over?

I think it is obvious that the majority of fans like the game but, as usual, a very vocal minority is trying to make this look like a failure. Go back and play 4 if this is so bad.(not really, just tired of seeing the negativity) Personally this is not an either/or situation- they are both good games, play them both.

Is 5 perfect? Nope. However neither was 4 when it first came out. I dont like everything that is in the game, but I certainly like it more than I did 4 when it first came out. I am finding this game much more fun at vanilla than I found 4 at the same point. However, I didnt stop playing 4, I grew to like it and now love it. I will continue to play it alongside 5. I feel lucky to have 2 good (quite differant) civ games to kick around in.

Give the game a chance to grow on you a bit before claiming it is "the end of Civ" (ala the fonze jumping the shark) there is MUCH to come- Mods, and at least 3 expansions (given the record for the last 2).

This is not a bad game folks.

 

[Drawmeus]

I mean we can talk about specific issues if that's what you want... for Religion, they didn't like that it overly simplified diplomacy. Diplomacy in IV came down to "I'm friends with people who share my religion, enemies with the rest" for many players, and they wanted to fix that. When they removed that aspect of religions, they found that they had basically removed the whole durned thing.

 

[JohnRM]

There is no reason to believe that it would not be easy to come to a compromise. If another nation is the same religion as you, you should gain a diplomacy benefit of say 1 of 20 or even 1 of 25. It wouldn't guarantee that this other civilization would be an ally, but it would help somewhat. Something could be worked out, but I think the real issue would be that it would have to be substantial enough (meaningful enough) to be worth putting into the game. I suspect that if they had a system and removed it, it was because it wasn't worth the space it took up.

I will say this, however. This game has a lot of potential, but it is a huge mess right now. It needs a lot of work. There is little doubt in my mind that Firaxis has delved right into the mud with just about every other developer out there in being more interested in punching out a game quickly to earn a profit than it is in taking the time to put out a quality product that meets or exceeds its customers expectations. For this reason, I've had a policy for many years of waiting until at least six months after launch to purchase any game. This is the second time (Mafia II being the other) this year that I've made the mistake of obtaining a game on opening day with a third on the way (Black Ops). It just doesn't make sense and I cannot justify doing it anymore. Developers are sticking it to the customer by making them find bugs for them and making them wait months on end to have them fixed, if ever. They save tons of capital, reap the profits, and we're still paying more than ever for these games.

 

[SuperJay]

No, it hasn't.

 

[Mr.Misfit]

Civ is a big game, anytime they make changes it must be hell to balance. Imagine trying to balance V if it had all the stuff that 4 ended up with at BTS stage.

Mhmm, not necessarily. I mean, who really cares about BALANCE? Give me a good game, it doesn´t necessarily have to be balanced.

And yes, ciV jumped the shark.

 

[Vlade Divac]

Have threads complaining about CIV 5 jumped the shark?

I vote yes.

 

[SuperJay]

Have threads complaining about CIV 5 jumped the shark?

I vote yes.

This, a thousand times over.

I wish we had sub-forums for people who are just fine playing the game and want to talk about it, and people who hate the game and want to complain.

I know this is a Civ site, so all discussion is welcome, but it'd be really nice not to have it all in the same place. Especially given that it's 2-3 basic complaints over, and over, and over, and over.

 

[Svest]

Do you really think its fair to compare a base game + 2 expansions to just a base game? Of the three things you mentioned, religion, corporations, and espionage, only one of them was in the base CivIV.

Also, just because they cut a couple things that were present in previous games doesn't mean the game was scaled back. They also added a number of features to replace them. The function of religion in the game was basically replaced with city-states. It wasn't scaled back, just changed.

 

[dannythefool]

I read (i think it was here) that they found traces of religion code in game.
The concensus was, they HAD a working religion...feature...it just got removed....

As per civ game, wait till a few more patches or a few more x-packs roll in =)

They've always said that they started with the Civ IV engine and went from there so there may well be old Civ IV code there, I think some people found more traces in the XML files.

But I'm actually hoping for a religion DLC. Should just be a bit more varied than Civ IV's boring religion system that dictated diplomacy way too much...

 

[Darkhon]

I HATE to admit this, but even Civ II test of time had more appeal to me.

This game is PRETTY, like Sim City Societies and Spore is pretty.

It is also boring/repetitive and not brilliant like those games.

They should have made it more mod friendly, and unfortunately DX11 quality graphics don't seem mod friendly to me to the non artist. I think the mod community is the only though who can save this game and make it essentially a better version of CIV IV instead of a pretty broken thing.

 

[Raider]

One thing I know for sure is that this game has a ton more issues with it than Civ 4 when it first came out. I most certainly didn't have so many issues with Civ 4 when I bought it on opening day. Civ 5 is a mess at this state in so so many different ways.

To all the people who say shut up and play the game, I doubt you can say that this game is perfect. If you can, you are simply delusional. And since there are things in this game that need fixing, what's wrong with people who feel strongly about it posting their opinions on the forums dedicated to the game?

Additionally, judging by the number of threads and complaints, this is definitely not a question of "small but vocal minority." There are serious issues with this game, and a large portion of paying customers are dissatisfied. Combine this with the fact that it's virtually impossible to return a computer game, like you would any other product you are not happy with, and you have a recipe for a large number of vocal dissatisfied customers.

 

[Cilpot]

I support a subforum for complainers. Aren't there enough threads for this?

 

[marioflag]

One thing I know for sure is that this game has a ton more issues with it than Civ 4 when it first came out.

Are you sure?
I remember very well that the game crashed on nearly an half of ATI owners and there was a big majority of people experiencing out of memory errors. Civilopedia was half made and there were lot of bugs which were squashed only after 2 big patches.

The game right now has a lot of bugs but isn't even remotely near to how civ4 was released.

 

[SuperJay]

One thing I know for sure is that this game has a ton more issues

I love how you start with "I know for SURE" and then go directly into quoting purely anecdotal 'evidence.'

To all the people who say shut up and play the game, I doubt you can say that this game is perfect. If you can, you are simply delusional. And since there are things in this game that need fixing, what's wrong with people who feel strongly about it posting their opinions on the forums dedicated to the game?

No, it's not perfect, of course not. Most of us didn't expect it be, though.

What's wrong with the complaining? The histrionic tone and the utter ubiquitousness of it. Okay, you're mad, great. NOW WHAT? What's the forum gonna do for you?

Additionally, judging by the number of threads and complaints, this is definitely not a question of "small but vocal minority."

It absolutely is a small but vocal minority. Look at the poll threads - there was something like ten times the amount of people who click "Thumbs up for Civ 5" over "Thumbs DOWN for Civ 5."

Plus, they're forum threads. One person can make 40 of them. People don't even try to commiserate together, everyone just starts their own whaaaaambulance thread.

There are serious issues with this game

Like what? It's a functioning software product. Install it and it runs. Do you even look at the sales numbers, the review scores, the user surveys, anything? Design choices you disagree with are not "serious issues." Somebody made a game you don't like, that's all. I'm sorry you bought it before trying it out. I'm sorry that money is gone and you can't get it back. I'm sorry you don't like a video game. But I don't know what else to do for you.

I'm also sorry for ripping into you, in particular, as an individual. I don't mean it personally, I'm talking about everyone making these complaint threads. We don't know each other and I'm sure you're a cool person and we'd probably get along great. You just happen to be the one I ran across while on a tear.

 

[cdcuase]

The whole gaming industry seems to have jumped the shark. Simplified games that give the player an easy sense of accomplishment are very fashionable as of late.

I'm not sure when the trend started, but it seems to me that complex gaming peaked around the time period Moo3 came out.

 

[paradigmx]

Perfection is achieved, not when there is nothing more to add, but when there is nothing left to take away.
- Antoine de Saint-Exupery