Please don`t pre-order.

[Lord Tirian]

How do i apply for that?

I'm not one, so I wouldn't know, but I don't think you can apply for it...

It's more like Firaxis is reaching out to well-known, established forum members who made a name for themselves in the community by either doing stuff like the podcasts or being creators of good, high-quality mods (especially design- & programming-wise).

 

[3of5]

It's more like Firaxis is reaching out to well-known, established forum members who made a name for themselves in the community by either doing stuff like the podcasts or being creators of good, high-quality mods (especially design- & programming-wise).

Then i don't think i'd qualify. Its ok, i can wait for release, no problem.

 

[SamBC]

Are we talking about CIV5 vanilla or CIV5 vanilla the release version?
I should try the latter some day - I think I still have the CD lying around somewhere.

Not that you could play it - on installation, it updates with Steam.

 

[Smith of Lie]

Not that you could play it - on installation, it updates with Steam.

Run Steam in offline mode?

 

[SamBC]

Run Steam in offline mode?

Wouldn't install a game. Not to mention that you wouldn't be able to register a game again when it had been registered even if you were online.

When installing from offline storage, even for a game you have on your account, it won't mark it playable until it's looked for patches, AIUI.

 

[Smith of Lie]

Wouldn't install a game. Not to mention that you wouldn't be able to register a game again when it had been registered even if you were online.

When installing from offline storage, even for a game you have on your account, it won't mark it playable until it's looked for patches, AIUI.

Huh. You learn something new every day.

 

[awesome]

I pre-ordered as a sign of trust. Now, I know that some of you would believe that it is highly idiotic, would chastise me for reckless spending, but I saw some other people in this thread who were like me. I trust Firaxis and 2k to deliver a high quality product, and did the same with Civ V and its ordering. Some are saying that they may sell-out with motives of profit in mind, but I do not believe that, with Sid still advising production and knowing how he designed things, the company is trying to negatively manipulate us with false promises. There are also people with the opinion that Civ V was crap, but it was brilliant in my own opinion too and in introducing the Civilization series to a whole new group of people. It is how /r/civ (referring to the reddit community for civilization) began to explode with people posting screenshots, videos, walkthroughs, and setting up multiplayer matches.

Nevertheless, I too see the issue in pre-ordering in that, despite the amount of trust involved, there is little power in the process to the consumer save maybe some general demand of the community to attempt inclusion of a feature.

So someone disagrees with how you spend your own money. So what? As long as it's not money you should be spending on other obligations, why does it matter what somebody else thinks?

 

[rastak]

Yeah firaxis has showed time and time again that pre-ordering is a trap.

It trapped me into the week I took off work for Civ V fun gaming dawn to midnight. Day after Day....that sure sucked......

 

[Makavcio]

Sid Meieir's Civilization is like sex. When it's good, it's fantastic, and when it's bad, it's still pretty damn enjoyable.

 

[stealth_nsk]

Surely patches did a lot to vanilla Civ5. Although I admit, the concept was very good. Unfortunately, as it was with other Civ titles, expansions weren't planned ahead and fit the base game not quite well. So, yes, vanilla Civ5 is still enjoyable.

 

[dashwinner]

Yeah...after Tropico 5 ("Trololol! You don't have a top-notch graphics card! You can't play it! HAHAA!") there's no way I'm going to pre-order anything again. Definitely will get this sooner or later, but probably when it goes on sale and/or once the major bugs in the original release (because you know there will be) have been ironed out.

Yup, Tropico 5 for me too. Don't worry, you're not missing out on much. I played it a grand total of 3 hours. It sucked away all the fun of previous tropico titles. It's such a massive disapointment. First, and last, pre order, ever.

 

[awesome]

Surely patches did a lot to vanilla Civ5. Although I admit, the concept was very good. Unfortunately, as it was with other Civ titles, expansions weren't planned ahead and fit the base game not quite well. So, yes, vanilla Civ5 is still enjoyable.

Civ5 at least has an excuse. The lead designer left/got fired/whatever after just about everybody said how much the game sucked and then a different guy was lead designer for the expansions. Most people think it's at least a decent game after the patches and expansions.

 

[Biologist]

The trend I've noticed is that PC games are now generally released half-baked and then upgraded to playability via hotfixes/patches/expansions. Some major recent examples are Rome II, Diablo III, Civ V (!), and Eador: Masters of the Broken Code World. If you pre-order, you're likely just going to wait a few weeks/months after release to have an enjoyable game anyway, although you'll presumably have some complementary DLC that you would otherwise have paid extra for. Whether this is worth it depends on whether the price tag for the base game drops during that time (e.g. via Steam sale).

Bringing the discussion back to Civ BE, I don't feel inclined to pre-order. Not just because of reservations about pre-order in general (mixed experiences), but also because I'm not sure of the product. The idea seems good in theory, but I'll wait for some reviews and LP vids to decide whether this is a full-fleshed game I can sink 1100+ hours into, or just a really elaborate mod/ standalone DLC that I should pick up when it goes on sale.

 

[cpm4001]

Yup, Tropico 5 for me too. Don't worry, you're not missing out on much. I played it a grand total of 3 hours. It sucked away all the fun of previous tropico titles. It's such a massive disapointment. First, and last, pre order, ever.

Yeah, all unbiased reviews (that is, not by ultra-fans/Kalypso-paid reviewers) I've read have said that most of the fun and just plain goofy "mentalness" of the earlier Tropicos is gone from installation 5. Which sucks.
Now, I don't think Civ:BE is going to end up like Tropico 5; everything I've seen looks like they're doing a good job on it . However, still not going to take chances - I'll wait for reviews to come in from multiple different quarters before buying it.

 

[Makavcio]

Spoiler :

The trend I've noticed is that PC games are now generally released half-baked and then upgraded to playability via hotfixes/patches/expansions.

Well, the problem with games these days is that it's extremely easy to patch/fix/change games. Back in the days when Internet was a novelty and we used to run Civ from FDD, the game had to be ready in order to be sold.

The best example of what is going on today is Paradox Interactive. When the game is launched, beta tests begin. All their games are imbalanced to the point when by using a single trick, you can achieve insane thing. Then they rush to fix it and screw it up even worse. Another step is to let people come up with solutions on their forum and implement some of them alongside a paid dlc that also implements some new completely broken mechanisms. Within 48 hours a hotfix is released so that people who bought it can at least run it. Two or three days ago, a new expansion for EU4 was Published. It's called Res Publica and even though it changes only some very specialized aspects of the game, some of the most basic ones got broken along the way.

Testing games is a long process and it's also cumbersome for developer's account. While they could be already making money, they are still spending it on making their colorful thingie playable. Early access is a scam designed to circumvent this problem by simply announcing that a piece of poo is being released, instead of the standard story about mistakes and errors.

Just like in my post hanging a little higher, I preorder only the games I know I will like even though they can end up far below what they could have become. If Civ:BE is just a lousy mod for Civ5, I'll be ok with it because I WILL enjoy a lousy mod for Civ5.

This being said, I must join OP here but with some reservation and further comments.
Preordering games isn't a bad thing. The problem lies with preordering games that are unpredictable. We have a pretty good idea what CivBE is going to be. People like myself who preordered Europa Universalis IV also knew what they were getting themselves into, ie. paying for becoming an alpha tester for a screwed up magnificent idea. If you know what you are doing, it's ok, but if you were told by some website that some guys are making something and it's going to be he best thing ever, don't come anywhere near it. So:

tl;dr
it's ok to preorder things when you can be fairly certain about its quality and sometimes you can reach a decent enough level of certainty, just like in the case of Civ:BE or Europa Universalis 4 (yes, being sure that the product is going to be a steaming pile of poo also counts).

 

[Stigmatus]

 

[Lord Shadow]

What's your point, Stigmatus? Neither Beyond Earth nor Colonial Marines were the first in offering preorder bonuses. And they're far from unique in that regard.

Colonial Marines sucked, yes, and?

 

[Stigmatus]

and no reason t opreorder BE. It can flop or Firaxis could go full Creative Assembly. CivV was near-unplayable after release.

 

[Lord Shadow]

Neither Colonial Marines nor Creative Assembly are remotely related to Firaxis.

But anyway, the most prudent stance is "wait and see", as many have established, and usually is for any game.

 

[Lord Tirian]

Colonial Marines sucked, yes, and?

I think there's certainly concern that the industry as a whole moves towards incentivising pre-orders in conjunction with hyping it up and suppressing pre-release reviews in order to have a market where the publisher's PR becomes more important than actual reviews.

In addition, the need for incentives encourages chopping up the game into DLCs to hold ransom for the pre-orders.

Such a market shift is not in the favour of the customer and Colonial Marines was a good example of what happens when the PR/hype/previews are very dissimilar to the final product - especially when pre-ordering and just buying it on release are effectively equivalent in the age of digital distribution.

And that's why I'm honestly conflicted about pre-ordering Civ:BE. Not because of Firaxis: for over a decade, every game I got from them fulfilled or exceeded expectations and their pre-order DLC is sane (I don't really want it, but it's a neat extra) - I'm more than happy to help boost their statistics to say "yes, please support this studio, let it make more games like that". Yet, I condemn the pre-order culture as a whole.