The Release Sucks!!!!!!!

[azzaman333]

I have played the game for at least 10 hours, free of any problems. I dont understand why your all complaining so much. Let's see you make a bug free version of civ4. The first patch is going to come out fairly soon. Take2 cant afford not to, because word of mouth will quickly scare people from Civ4. Most posts in this thread are pointless. Why dont you people who are complaining go get a job and improve your bloody computers. It's not my fault you cant play.Moderator Action: Language - warned.
Please read the forum rules: http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=422889

 

[Ravenlock]

It's kind of like seeing De Niro's name attached to Analyze That, or Showtime, or Rocky and Bullwinkle, or Great Expectations, or...Wait, nevermind. Bad comparison.

Heheheh. Or Sean Connery attached to The Avengers. Yeah, I understand.

I really hope the patch supposedly coming this week clears up all the major issues. (1) because it would make these forums a nicer place to be with less of the anger and whatnot, but more (2) so people can start really digging into a great game.

 

[Ravenlock]

I have played the game for at least 10 hours, free of any problems. I dont understand why your all complaining so ****ing much. Let's see you make a bug free version of civ4. The first patch is going to come out fairly soon. Take2 cant afford not to, because word of mouth will quickly scare people from Civ4. Most posts in this thread are pointless. Why dont you people who are complaining go get a job and improve your bloody computers. It's not my fault you cant play.

...And you're not required to read this thread - you could go play the game instead of harping on people. I don't think anybody said it was your fault the game was broken for them.

I'm very firmly on the "calm down, wait for a patch" side of things, but these folks aren't complaining to annoy you, they're upset that they can't play the game.

And "get a job and improve your bloody computers?" Bad form. Plenty of people with jobs spent their money on things like food, and insurance. Not everybody can toss around the money for upgrades at the drop of a hat.

 

[A.J. Caesar]

I have played the game for at least 10 hours, free of any problems. I dont understand why your all complaining so ****ing much. Let's see you make a bug free version of civ4. The first patch is going to come out fairly soon. Take2 cant afford not to, because word of mouth will quickly scare people from Civ4. Most posts in this thread are pointless. Why dont you people who are complaining go get a job and improve your bloody computers. It's not my fault you cant play.

If 4/10 people cannot even install the game or start it
If 5/10 people have crashes, slowdowns (~5 fps), bugs
I could think that there is something wrong in the release.

Even if your alienware extreme game machine can run the game smoothly, it does not mean that a lot of people are getting trouble with it!

The problem is that ( officially ) your alienware computer was not required to run the game!

 

[azzaman333]

If 4/10 people cannot even install the game or start it
If 5/10 people have crashes, slowdowns (~5 fps), bugs
I could think that there is something wrong in the release.

Even if your alienware extreme game machine can run the game smoothly, it does not mean that a lot of people are getting trouble with it!

The problem is that ( officially ) your alienware computer was not required to run the game!

I'll admit that some of my comments in my earlier post were a bi over the top. But my 1 year old laptop didnt even reach the reccomended requirements, and it still works fine. There are some lag issues, but everything else about the game is great. I'm sorry if anyone was offended by my earlier comments.

 

[big mazy]

making games is a labor of love, you don't do it to get rich or famous

uuuu,look at me...I'm Marg,I live in dream land,in the lolypop street...
hehehe..soory,but your comm just remainded me of this..hehehe
but,seriously,WHERE DO YOU LIVE?It's common knowledge that the gaming industry today is a gooooldddd mine,i'm talking some SERIOUS cash...
Do you think that Sid just gives a hug to his lead programers and a pat on the back?"...hey,man...thanks a lot,will call you when a expansion is next,just so you could help out...you know,for love..."If this was true games would follow the spirit of Open Source,but I think they are not exactly willing to give up on the golden guss...
I think this whole tread is only about disapointment not that much in the game,as in the people behind it...they most probably gave in to the presure and realesed it MUCH earlier than it was meant to be,and so we now have a bug-infested game that only serious expansion could fix...the game engine sucks,plain and simple...all that cpu on graph. and it doesn't look that much good!!!
For example,the same man did remake of Pirates! and it's great game..very well balanced looks and performance...So,the question remains"Why did he srew up this much whit civIV?"

Yes I'm playing the new mod Anno Domini

yeah,me to is sticking with civIII,heard about anno domini,but just to big for my dial-up....

 

[Ravenlock]

Firstly, reading your posts would be SO much less painful with just a little attention paid to proper spelling or grammar. Really, it'd be a kindness if you'd look into that.

uuuu,look at me...I'm Marg,I live in dream land,in the lolypop street...
hehehe..soory,but your comm just remainded me of this..hehehe
but,seriously,WHERE THE F""" DO YOU LIVE?It's common knowledge that the gaming industry today is a gooooldddd mine,i'm talking some SERIOUS cash...
Do you think that Sid just gives a hug to his lead programers and a pat on the back?"...hey,man...thanks a lot,will call you when a expansion is next,just so you could help out...you know,for love..."If this was true games would follow the spirit of Open Source,but I think they are not exactly willing to give up on the golden guss...

Video game publishing is a gold mine. The managers at EA, for example, they are making tons of money churning out mindless sequels to their various franchises.

Video game programming, on the other hand, is a good way to get yourself laid off after making an excellent game, or horribly overworked and underpaid - EA would be a good example here as well. You don't sign on to be a video game programmer looking for riches or fame, unless you're an idiot. You do it because you love gaming and want to write games. It's a little like working in theatre, that way. 3% of the people are making ungodly amounts of money, the rest are in there because of passion.

So no, I'm not living in some fantasy world - the fantasy world would be the one where rewards were equally distributed to parties who deserve them. Here in the real world, great development teams get laid off all the time when somebody decides they aren't producing anymore. For reference, see the entire history of Vivendi Universal.

I think this whole tread is only about disapointment not that much in the game,as in the people behind it...they most probably gave in to the presure and realesed it MUCH earlier than it was meant to be,and so we now have a bug-infested game that only serious expansion could fix...the game engine sucks,plain and simple...all that cpu on graph. and it doesn't look that much good!!!
For example,the same man did remake of Pirates! and it's great game..very well balanced looks and performance...So,the question remains"Why did he srew up this much whit civIV?"

yeah,me to is sticking with civIII,heard about anno domini,but just to big for my dial-up....

(1) The developers most likely had no choice as to when to release the game; they hardly ever do. Publishers make those decisions. Developers just try to get the game ready for whatever date has been set.

(2) Clever of you to claim "only serious expansion" could fix it before you even see the patch. Oh wait, no, that's not clever at all. Nevermind.

(3) The graphics look fantastic in my opinion, the opinion of most players, and the opinion of just about everybody who reviewed the game. So I think you'd be in the minority on this one. The gameplay changes are great as well, and so far Civ IV looks like a much less micromanagement-focused, much more open strategy game than Civ III. If you don't like the changes, that's fine, but again you'd be in the minority.

Okay, I think that's everything. If we're going to continue this, again, please - I know there's no spellcheck button but at least read it before you hit submit, eh?

 

[blue3c]

wait no spell check, what is that button with the abc and a checkmark???

The game is great. When you can play it. If it weren't for that mem leak and the whole ctd thing. Oh yah I especially love the lock to black screen with no way out except the power button. I love that sound my hdd makes when I do that.

So being in the industry, who is incharge of testing. Who is it who fixes the mem leak and the problems I just mentioned. Who sets the min and rec sys requirements??

You seem to have insight here that I for one would like to hear.

 

[Ravenlock]

wait no spell check, what is that button with the abc and a checkmark???

The game is great. When you can play it. If it weren't for that mem leak and the whole ctd thing. Oh yah I especially love the lock to black screen with no way out except the power button. I love that sound my hdd makes when I do that.

So being in the industry, who is incharge of testing. Who is it who fixes the mem leak and the problems I just mentioned. Who sets the min and rec sys requirements??

You seem to have insight here that I for one would like to hear.

...Is there a spellcheck button? Seriously? I'm in the advanced interface and don't see it. If there is, then big mazy has no excuse and I take back my concession to him.

I'm not in the industry, I just make it a point to follow the news of development teams that I like (both independant and under bigger roofs like Vivendi), read interviews and such, and I find it sad how often great dev teams get shafted by unrealistic release dates, or in the worst cases laid off right after producing their games. Vivendi is particularly bad about this, Tribes: Vengeance being their most recent victim. Could've been a great game if they hadn't ditched the whole team instead of allowing them to support it.

Point being, most development teams really do love their games and will try to support them if given the chance by the people they work for. They aren't always given that chance, but I see little reason to believe the Civ IV team won't follow through with supporting their game.

The minimum system requirements are BS, I completely agree. Either they need to mean what they SOUND like they mean ("you can play it with this", not "it will run but might be completely unusable") or they need to only put recommended requirements on the box. I really do wonder if some marketer wrote the min reqs for Civ IV - I can't imagine anyone who developed it thought it'd run okay with a Geforce4MX card, but I could be wrong.

I haven't seen evidence of the mem leak issue, but if it is indeed happening I would imagine it's probably pretty easy to plug. CTD's are more troublesome since they usually result from bad interaction with specific hardware, but hopefully they can eliminate enough groups of these bad interactions that for most people it'll work out.

It probably won't work for everyone, which is a sad but unavoidable fact of modern PC gaming. Again, if people are really upset about it, as I mentioned before, I fully recommend they take steps to return the game. It just bothers me that they come on here and act as though the developers personally attacked them by failing to track down whatever problem is plaguing them before release. I mean, let's put it in practical terms - do you think they don't want you to play the game they just spent years making? That they want you to return it and take your money back instead of enjoying it and spreading good press for them?

Hopefully the first patch will be brilliant. But before it arrives, the simple fact is that none of us know how much success they may be having fixing the game they tried to give us. *Shrug* I'm just an optimist, I guess.

 

[davidwchislett]

Goodness, we have a spell checker!

Well cover me in eggs and call me an omelette.


Actually, if I'm honest with myself, it’s my own silly fault that this doesn’t work on my computer, I read the requirement for T&L but because Age of Empires III works on my laptop when it too apparently requires T&L, I didn’t worry about. I thought that it must be some cunning trick that Intel had up their sleeves, that although the inbuilt 82852GM graphics controller states that it does not support T&L, Intel had some inbuilt software alternative, as their website hints (though it was lacking in detail).

However, evidently it was not to be. Instead, my soldiers are walking around on black nothingness and the opening video plays like a LP in a fighter-jet.

I don’t know whether or not to return the game, live with the blackness and the frankly revolting eyeballs and teeth thing, or wait and pray that Intel or Take2 come up with something.

 

[maartena]

If 4/10 people cannot even install the game or start it
If 5/10 people have crashes, slowdowns (~5 fps), bugs
I could think that there is something wrong in the release.

The problem is that you are completely WRONG about those numbers. The fact is that the VAST majority of players have bought the game, installed it, and are playing it and aren't even visiting sites like civfanatics or apolyton, unless they want some mods for the game.

You know as well as I do that someone will complain a lot sooner then praise. People that run into problems get angry, turn to the Internet to look for solutions and end up on forums like this to report their problems.

That doesn't mean though that 4 out of 10 people cannot install it, ot 5 out of 10 have problems, because that is definitly NOT the case. You just don't hear the people who have installed the game and are happily slaughtering their virtual neighbours.

Most people can actually play the game quite nicely, can't be found in the technical support forum because they don't need any, and are happily playing, discussing in-game topics, and building their new mods.

SURE there are problems with this game, I have a few myself that I want fixed, such as the slowness at the end-game and the choppy movies. But you are acting like Civilization is the buggiest game ever to be released.... and I think you just haven't seen enough of the game industry yet.

 

[davidwchislett]

Even if most people are thoroughly enjoying the game, there are still too many who are facing problems. I feel sorry for any developers reading this, they must try so hard, but are caught between vile publishers and justly bitter consumers.

 

[ollyheath]

I have played the game for at least 10 hours, free of any problems. I dont understand why your all complaining so ****ing much. Let's see you make a bug free version of civ4. The first patch is going to come out fairly soon. Take2 cant afford not to, because word of mouth will quickly scare people from Civ4. Most posts in this thread are pointless. Why dont you people who are complaining go get a job and improve your bloody computers. It's not my fault you cant play.

Surely you cant be above the age of 12? You play the game, fine, we're glad for you (at least, we were). Is it not clear form this forum that a VERY LARGE portion of gamers with decent machines cannot play this game at all, such a large portion in fact that it is blatantly obvious to anyone with even a small amount of intelligence that this game was released too early, and is not fit to be on the shelves. Not only that, 2k must have been fully aware of the problems considering how widespread they are, and released it purely for christmas revenue purposes. They are making a joke of the consumer, and the franchise.

Most posts in this thread are pointless. Why dont you people who are complaining go get a job and improve your bloody computers. It's not my fault you cant play.[/QUOTE]

As for this, this is beyond stupidity. i have a job, a very well paid job, and i work long hours. My comp has a 64 bit 3.2 processor, a gig of RAM, and a 9800 pro, along with a 200 gig hard disk. I have all the latest drivers, i have followed all the 'fixes', and it wont even load the game. Are you still suggesting people go and get a job, upgrade their computers to get it to work? Well you clearly are a technician of some skill and perception. There are many people on this forum in exactly the same boat, and they are fully entitled to be furious and disillusioned. If you can play it fine, play it, dont waste peoples time with your pitiful drivel.

 

[DreamTheaterSFG]

indeed azzaman333, this is part of the issue. There no reasoning behind the issues. Theres people with top notch systems having issues, and theres people that dont even have the min specs req that can play smooth and well. Other issues is that the bugs are so varied, and the issues are through out so many system configs and pieces of hardware. It wouldnt be as bad if the problems where more isolated or even more narrowed down. But right now there all over the place, and so broad.

 

[Yahzi]

The game obviously has a memory leak. The longer you play and the larger the visible portion of the map is the sooner you run into problems.

Speaking as a professional programmer... memory leaks are just embarrasing.

I can't believe they let one ship. But by golly gosh, play for 4 hours on low graphics, and there it is. (Play for 30 minutes on high graphics and it becomes obvious).

The mislabeled CDs and typos aren't as annoying as the mounted Immortals. But the crashing on an GEForce 4 Ti is just annoying. I can play WoW and Planetside on this rig, for crying out loud, but I can't play a turn-based strategy game?

 

[Clown2TheLeft]

If 4/10 people cannot even install the game or start it
If 5/10 people have crashes, slowdowns (~5 fps), bugs
I could think that there is something wrong in the release.

Even if your alienware extreme game machine can run the game smoothly, it does not mean that a lot of people are getting trouble with it!

The problem is that ( officially ) your alienware computer was not required to run the game!

Uh...

My Alienware CAN'T run this game!

------------------
System Information
------------------
Time of this report: 11/4/2005, 04:30:13
Machine name: Clown2theleft
Operating System: Windows XP Home Edition (5.1, Build 2600) Service Pack 2 (2600.xpsp_sp2_gdr.050301-1519)
Language: English (Regional Setting: English)
System Manufacturer: Alienware
System Model: Alienware
BIOS: BIOS Date: 06/24/04 15:45:11 Ver: 08.00.10
Processor: Intel(R) Pentium(R) 4 CPU 3.40GHz (2 CPUs)
Memory: 1022MB RAM
Page File: 281MB used, 2175MB available
Windows Dir: C:\WINDOWS
DirectX Version: DirectX 9.0c (4.09.0000.0904)
DX Setup Parameters: Not found
DxDiag Version: 5.03.2600.2180 32bit Unicode




Later!

--The Clown to the Left
(edited to add specs)

 

[big mazy]

Is it not clear form this forum that a VERY LARGE portion of gamers with decent machines cannot play this game at all, such a large portion in fact that it is blatantly obvious to anyone with even a small amount of intelligence that this game was released too early, and is not fit to be on the shelves. Not only that, 2k must have been fully aware of the problems considering how widespread they are, and released it purely for christmas revenue purposes. They are making a joke of the consumer, and the franchise.

ollyheath,thank you...this is what I was talking about....
ravenlock,you must be joking..spellcheck...hahaha....go srew a goat!
Moderator Action: Flaming - warned.
Please read the forum rules: http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=422889

 

[blue3c]

you have a dual p4 system with xp home??? *blink blink*

 

[dave443]

the patch is probably a complete re-code of the game

 

[Ravenlock]

ollyheath,thank you...this is what I was talking about....
ravenlock,you must be joking..spellcheck...hahaha....go srew a goat!

Ummm, moderators anyone? Seems to me there are some rules that our friend mazy hasn't bothered to read, and not just ones regarding netiquette or common decency.

Yes, spellcheck, mazy. Some of us take people more seriously when they act older then eight.
Moderator Action: A report is fine - but please - no-one likes the spelling police.