3 months in - too much indignation

[zuraffo]

1. It's 3 months in for you, but for someone who just bought the game it's new rage. And they should be allowed to vent their frustration.

2. Your concern is valid, however, you are pointing your gun at the good guys. What is polarizing the community? Indignant fans? WRONG! It's the bad product. You see, if Civ5 turns out to be good, majority of the fans will be talking strategy, not venting their frustration, and when it turned out to be bad, it is polarising because now Civ5 cease to become the common thread that binds us together but has become the issue! And everyone has different opinion on an issue. That's what is polarising the community.

3. Where is the developer/publisher in all this? They don't care. They have not made any indication that they know how serious is the problem. New patch even made some of the guys who never did crash a lot now crashes a lot. Can you say adding insult to injury?

4. If we have a game which is largely playable, moderately enjoyable, and we have some ideas to improve it, the type of discussion you want will be meaningful. If for nothing else through the discussion we might discover different playing strategy. However, Civ5 is WAY beyond that point. It's NOT playable, unendingly frustrating, and honestly I can't think of anything "strategic" to discuss about.

5. Jon has left the company. His involvement is over. Some fans are probably just over zealous in defending the franchise by calling Civ5 Shafer 5, but we all know it's still Sid Meier's Civilization 5. And I don't encounter Shafer 5 a lot, and I consider it rare enough to be irrelevant until YOU brought it up.

Yeah I am disappointed too. I'm just frustrated by all the "Shafer 5" shenanigans. For example, I might write something like "You know, moving units is really tough in this game." or, "I hate having to balance smiles and frowns throughout the game," or "the user interface is clunky," "burdening maintenance costs makes the game less fun and its tough to right the ship once it's sinking in the red."

Then all of the sudden some guy comes on there and is like "We are not going to take it anymore! Shafer 5 must end now. Say NO to Shafer 5. We have seen the game and we are not happy. All these fanboys are living in the past man and we are going to set them straight."

So now, because I wrote I don't like unit movement or am disappointed overall with the game, I feel like I am in the 'nutjob camp' of video game extremists. It knocks all conversation off center and we lose focus on what the actual issues are.

We're not protesting the IMF, have a little perspective on the forum you are posting in. In the meantime, all the angry gamer posts serve to polarize the forums and divert from anything meaningful that may get honed in on. You know, some people are Shafer friends. Now they are hurt and insulted because you keep attacking the guy personally. Because of the extremists, maybe they will choose not to contribute to the game anymore and we are losing Civ resources and ideas. One thing the game doesn't need less of is resources and ideas.

Maybe I just need to use my ignore button more. I think that is the solution. I also like my idea of a subforum "Civ 5 - What Went Wrong?" It won't do much to eliminate the nutjob extremist posts but it will organize some common thread themes a little better.

 

[jjkrause84]

I agree that people go overboard....but I have to admit that it has ALWAYS been moe fun to come here and talk about Civ5 than it is to actually play it (for me) which should seriously say something.

 

[Jenarie]

this forum was a nicer place until few years ago.

Some of the forums are still friendly.
Go hang out in Game of the Month or Hall of Fame and people are pretty nice.

Overall I'd say this is a great forum but will admit it has been negative lately. With cause, yes, but at some point we have to move on and either play some other game or enjoy what there is for what it is even if it isn't perfect. And we shouldn't forget that Civ IV is still there for those who are unhappy with CivV.

 

[joyous_gard]

LOL! I don't what I was thinking last night. Maybe we would all join hands and sing Kum Bai Ya or something.

Yeah new owners of the game are going to have problems. I am not really looking for new problems, but when something bugs me I usually post about it, see what other people think. Coming on here is a replacement for playing the game.

If it's agreed that the game is a dog, and if most of the reasons why it's a dog have been established and written down, shouldn't we try to figure out what led it so far off the rails? I used to play Ultima Online, I was just in their UHall and their devs are starting to poll their site to determine what should be implemented. Ultima is an aging franchise. It has a different revenue stream than Civ though. Ultima is monthly subscribers who don't really want any changes. Ultima needs to maintain the monthly subscribers and I don't think they are really looking to steal the WOW crowd. The players have been aging with the game and have different needs than 10 or 13 years ago when they first started playing. Maybe Civ needs to investigate how they put out their game.

What do Civ Fans want? Beats me. I'm not sure the producers know either, and so they are following the cookie cutter new game release model. Hype it up and hope for the best. Get friendly companies to put out bogus GOTY press releases. Maybe they need to view the series as different from a cookie cutter new game and revisit what the fans want from a civ game. What made the series a success. Maybe they need to keep some documentation on what works when designing a Civ game and what doesn't work. No point reinventing the wheel.

If they don't want to spend money developing the game, then they need to start thinking of new ways to get a decent product out to market. It's a niche game in a genre (TBS) that gets less attention than other genres (FPS, MMORPG, RTS).

I am not recommending anyone do their work for them, but maybe they don't even know how to produce or sell the game. The target audience feels like it's set to "anybody" and maybe that isn't a good target audience. They could shoot for a particular audience and understand that they won't get everybody and just try to get that audience. Using that model, they don't have the potential to earn as much, but maybe it's more realistic and could win over other gamers based on positive response from the target audience.

How would you guys sell the game? Have a year long open beta? That might not be realistic. Isn't it better to get outsiders money so the company has more money to produce a better game?

To me it's established that the game is not good. I don't think there is any reasonable argument contradicting that - that's why I advocate a subforum of Civ V -What Went Wrong? I am tired of having the same threads where one guy says "Man this game is a dog and here's why" and then some guy comes on and says "I don't know. I am a really busy professional. Civ 5 fits my needs perfectly. I couldn't imagine any possible better game." Then the next guy comes on and says "What the hell is this fanboy even saying? That's not even a rebuttal to the OP." I guess that's all forums are good for though. Some opinions are worth more than others though. I am not saying mine is, but some people's are worth more than others. Some people's opinions have actual information in them as opposed to "Well, given my busy schedule, I need Civ 5 to be just the way it is. What a great game."

I don't know if Civ V is going to get better or not. That really isn't what my focus is. I think we're all better served if we try to figure some new approaches to design and implementation. What makes Civ different from WOW or Assassin's Creed? Maybe Civ marketing and release has different needs than those games.

LOL. I don't want to hit send on any of these posts, but hopefully someone can use some of the ideas and put them into a better presented package, so I hit "Post Quick Reply." Kum Bai Ya my lord, kum bai ya.

 

[AfterShafter]

I've frequented more than a few gaming forums in the 12 years I've been forum going, and until recently, this was easily the most serene, civil, constructive, and in general mature forum I've participated in - for gaming forums, at least. Seriously, coming from Gamespot and TeamXBOX and places like that, this place was like a splash of cold water and I refreshingly found myself having to curtail my more abrasive posting habits.

But recently I've found this place scarcely better than Gamespot System Wars, full of buzzwords and almost a gang mentality concerning disagreements concerning games (or game, in this case). As I tapered off of on Civ IV over the past two years I started posting here less and less frequently, and over the past six months have hardly posted at all - and the change here is night and day from what it was my first few years here. Sadly, a lot of older members seem to be jumping right in on new trends too.

I do hope most people who outright hate the game and have no intention of contributing to it in any constructive way (yes, developers took suggestions directly from this forum on more than a few occasions during the lifespan of Civ IV) will move on sooner or later rather than continue blowing it far out of proportion and hindering actual positive discussion. Positive discussion - as in, not necessarily saying the game is great, but rather than saying "IT'S GARBAGE - TRASH IT!" figuring out how it can be improved and how to explore the potential of a unique game in the Civ series. Instead, I really am reminded of gamespot where a game that gets 8.5 is treated as utter garbage that one shall forever regret playing should one be unfortunate enough to give it a try - the atmosphere of hyperbole and exaggeration of negatives with the complete downplaying of positives and potential is just irritating, and it seems to be thriving here these days.

 

[SuperJay]

FWIW, I enjoyed this post, JG.

And for some odd reason this made me literally laugh out loud:

Some people's opinions have actual information in them as opposed to "Well, given my busy schedule, I need Civ 5 to be just the way it is. What a great game."

That said, a couple random thoughts from reading your post.

I think Firaxis knows what works and what doesn't in regards to releasing a Civ game. In this case, I suspect they just didn't have the time and resources to do so. Civ5 didn't have to get the reception it did, but I think it would have taken a lot longer in development to release the concepts it includes in a game that was built to manage them effectively.

A couple recommendations to Firaxis:
- Don't keep treating your fans like idiots. Don't let 2K's Marketing treat your fans like idiots. Gamers aren't slow children. We will see through your "big wet sloppy kiss" nonsense instantly. Many of us have been with you for 20 years; show that devotion and loyalty some respect by treating us like adults.
- Own up when you realize you've gone wrong.
- Stop with the DLC nonsense. Four bucks for a bad map is ridiculous; you're insulting our intelligence again.
- Don't rush releases. We can wait. I know you probably can't help this and you're at the mercy of your Take Two overlords.
- Communicate with people. Releasing a shoddy product and then smiling for the cameras and spouting vague nonsense about how great that product just make you look disingenuous.
- Bring back Baba Yetu.

 

[Ddude97]

I agree that people go overboard....but I have to admit that it has ALWAYS been moe fun to come here and talk about Civ5 than it is to actually play it (for me) which should seriously say something.

You summed up my thinking as well

 

[cf_nz]

- Don't keep treating your fans like idiots. Don't let 2K's Marketing treat your fans like idiots. Gamers aren't slow children. We will see through your "big wet sloppy kiss" nonsense instantly. Many of us have been with you for 20 years; show that devotion and loyalty some respect by treating us like adults.

With all due respect, a lot of the indignant whining on this board (and others) doesn't really go far in supporting that gamers aren't "idiots" or "children". If you want to be treated like an adult, act like one.

 

[SuperJay]

With all due respect, a lot of the indignant whining on this board (and others) doesn't really go far in supporting that gamers aren't "idiots" or "children". If you want to be treated like an adult, act like one.

I do, but thanks for the advice.

Do you truly believe that people being angry over a product not delivering what they were told it would are completely childish, immature, and idiotic?

In my world, being an adult means standing up for yourself. If a car company sells me a car with three wheels, I'm going to be angry with that company - even if the four other cars I bought from them were gems that I enjoyed driving. I'm going to demand the fourth wheel immediately. I'm not going to waste my time offering "constructive feedback" to the manufacturer about how that fourth wheel could look or what kind of tire it might have or how cool the rims could be. I'm not going to take up auto engineering on the side so I can fix that three-wheeled car on my own. You are the business, I am your customer; I paid full price for a working car, period.

If this sort of thing makes me immature and childish in your eyes, I'll endeavor to bear it somehow. In my mind, that's holding a company accountable for the products it sells. Obviously that is not a perspective that many consumers share when it comes to video games. I'm just as passionate about Civilization as anyone else (if not moreso), but the fond memories of the last 20 years do not cloud my judgement to such a degree that I am blindly forgiving of the company that sold me an unfinished product this time around.

 

[cf_nz]

That wasn't specifically directed at you BTW.

Do you truly believe that people being angry over a product not delivering what they were told it would are completely childish, immature, and idiotic?

Yes, to a degree, but it mostly depends on how they express it. I don't think getting angry over a computer game is particularly rational behaviour and I've been taught that adults are calm and rational, children are emotional.

 

[SuperJay]

Yes, to a degree, but it mostly depends on how they express it. I don't think getting angry over a computer game is particularly rational behaviour and I've been taught that adults are calm and rational, children are emotional.

Indeed. And you'll notice that I express my anger in fairly measured terms, and encourage others to do the same. I do not think anger is inherently rational or irrational, or that being angry automatically means you cannot be simultaneously rational. You appear to define rationality as lack of emotion; I disagree.

A child expresses its anger in temper tantrums. You seem to be saying that this particular forum is filled with temper tantrums. Your perception, of course - subject to your own biases - but I'd agree that there is childish behavior displayed by both the so-called haters and fanboys, certainly.

PS: If you truly believe that all adults are calm and rational, you are in for a really big surprise.

 

[cf_nz]

PS: If you truly believe that all adults are calm and rational, you are in for a really big surprise.

I wouldn't call it a belief. Let's just say that in theory adults should be calm and rational.

I do not think anger is inherently rational or irrational, or that being angry automatically means you cannot be simultaneously rational.

True, it's most certainly not a black and white situation and it is entirely possible to remain calm and rational whilst being angry.

 

[Doctor Phibes]

I think the OP has a good point. I think there is a kind of 'Indignation Parabola' here, a bit like the Chick Parabola. Or it could be summarised as Expectation->Indignation->Resignation. That's not necessarily a positive outcome, actually.

But I hope there might be positive outcomes, because Civ5 could actually be seen as an interesting exercise, even if a failure as a grand strategy game. And I've seen a lot of calm and rational discussions on this forum (by others who have gone beyond indignation) about, for example, whether 1upt can ever be made playable in this context (My view is no, I'm for limited stacking as I think it's the fastest way out of the fix, but others have made a good case for decoupling tactical space from strategic space. I think that sounds great, but it's not going to happen any time soon, I think - it's really a different game.)

But regardless of the specifics, it's hard to say how many people in the Resignation phase have faith that the game can be built on and how many are walking away. The feeling that all that Firaxis is interested in is milking the DLC market and that they don't care at all about dedicated Civ fans suggests to me a tilt to the latter, just as that also fed the Indignation phase. A game company doesn't get long-term committment from an established fanbase unless it is seen to reciprocate that committment.

But I'm done getting annoyed about that too, I just feel a bit sad now. It'll take a lot of changes to get me to play this game again.

 

[Poke]

I've only just bought it and had my first run through, so I'm not making any judgements on the gameplay as yet on whether the changes are flawed or not, I'm just wondering why it needs such a high end PC to play well.

Turn cycling takes just as long as a BTS RoM game, neither are taxing my CPU that much, though strangely early game takes the same amount of time as later game, so no idea whats going on there.

The graphics, well, apart from the water and oil, which just seem to be the old environomental bump maps (early 2000 games had it, weird Civ4 didn't), the world map, the part your staring at for most of the game, looks as though it could be made of tiled sprites. As you zoom in and out there isn't much, and it's barely noticeable, foreshortening and parallaxing of the hills and mountains - the camera angle doesn't even change like in Civ4, it's just a straight zoom. Seems like such a waste, and I can't even remember if the battles take any advantage of it

 

[Doctor Phibes]

The graphics, well, apart from the water and oil, which just seem to be the old environomental bump maps (early 2000 games had it, weird Civ4 didn't), the world map, the part your staring at for most of the game, looks as though it could be made of tiled sprites. As you zoom in and out there isn't much, and it's barely noticeable, foreshortening and parallaxing of the hills and mountains - the camera angle doesn't even change like in Civ4, it's just a straight zoom. Seems like such a waste, and I can't even remember if the battles take any advantage of it

OK, it's OT, but I agree, and I'm surprised that the ingenious zoom system in Civ4 hasn't been bemoaned more as another sadly lost feature. I thought that the best and most flexible solution to mapping in a game of this type I've seen - coupled with the FOV slider you get in the Civ4 Bug mod, it adds a lot to the game experience, zooming straight out from the inside of a city to the globe view is terrific, if a bit dizzying. And, yes, Civ5 graphics are pretty charmless.

 

[Zechnophobe]

So, I whinged pretty bad after buying the game, discussed why I didn't like it, and then eventually stopped reading the forum.

I think the real issue that people are missing, is that those who are angry about the game not being good enough, are not always the same people over and over again. We keep getting more people who like/hate the game, and want to be vocal about it.

What is really happening, it seems, is that we just have a cycle that repeats whenever a new vocal players joins the community, or acquires the game. As for myself, I was literally hostile about the game after I'd played it. I tried to like it, because I've loved every civ game until it... but just couldn't. It was betrayal.

Back then, a month or so ago, the game had about 60% approval rating by people on this forum. Surprisingly low. if it was like 80%, the 20% would be marginalized. But it isn't. Whenever I check up on the forums here, I see about 5 new threads bemoaning the game, from people whose name I don't recognize, and about 3 new threads asking people to stop complaining, also generally from names I don't recognize.

And then the wheel turns, and the cycle repeats itself.

No matter of your general approval of the game, I think it is safe to say this hasn't been a spectacular release.

 

[joyous_gard]

So, I whinged pretty bad after buying the game, discussed why I didn't like it, and then eventually stopped reading the forum.

I think the real issue that people are missing, is that those who are angry about the game not being good enough, are not always the same people over and over again. We keep getting more people who like/hate the game, and want to be vocal about it.

What is really happening, it seems, is that we just have a cycle that repeats whenever a new vocal players joins the community, or acquires the game. As for myself, I was literally hostile about the game after I'd played it. I tried to like it, because I've loved every civ game until it... but just couldn't. It was betrayal.

Back then, a month or so ago, the game had about 60% approval rating by people on this forum. Surprisingly low. if it was like 80%, the 20% would be marginalized. But it isn't. Whenever I check up on the forums here, I see about 5 new threads bemoaning the game, from people whose name I don't recognize, and about 3 new threads asking people to stop complaining, also generally from names I don't recognize.

And then the wheel turns, and the cycle repeats itself.

No matter of your general approval of the game, I think it is safe to say this hasn't been a spectacular release.

I agree with what you said regarding the cycles. If you are here for a few cycles in a row, it starts to wear on you. People's concerns and complaints are justified, we should try to maintain civility.

Someone mentioned the other forums on Civfanatics. Yeah they are pretty cool. I like the walkthrough games. Those are pretty entertaining.

 

[joyous_gard]

Eh. I think you guys are posting in the wrong forum. This is General Discussion.

Try here if you dont want general discussions, but rather work on ideas, suggestions and development :

http://forums.civfanatics.com/forumdisplay.php?f=119

Note : I'm not trying to discuss that this thread discussing whether discussing should be discussed in general discussion or discussed elsewhere cannot be discussed in general discussion.

thanks for the link

 

[TheMeInTeam]

This game has flaws in its basic controls and UI, TERRIBLE flaws that are repeats of problems from previous games mostly. It also runs poorly on-or-above spec. The weak gameplay 101 elements are what truly holds this game back. Fighting the UI is never fun in any game. Why can't ANY version of civ ever created...notice that?

 

[joyous_gard]

This game has flaws in its basic controls and UI, TERRIBLE flaws that are repeats of problems from previous games mostly. It also runs poorly on-or-above spec. The weak gameplay 101 elements are what truly holds this game back. Fighting the UI is never fun in any game. Why can't ANY version of civ ever created...notice that?

Well, that is something that they/we need to document and make sure it gets attention during development. I hope that the institution of Civ catalogs problems to be avoided. Lessons learned, so to speak. Write it up, put it on a DVD. Something, just so it's there and the next round of developers will have some history to go by.

User Interface seems like something that should be easy to implement, but when you are working on a ton of other stuff, you are just happy that "Oh good the build times are showing up for the buildings and units." User Interface to me is like the grade school assignment of "Write How to Make a Peanut Butter and Jelly Sandwich." It's really easy to visualize but tough to get right.

What is a gameplay element?

One reason I think UI and controls gets overlooked is that after we get used to the controls not acting right a few times... we train ourselves not to do whatever it is that causes them to go wrong. Then, after we are trained, we kind of forget that it is ridiculous that we have to make sure to press B and then bombard in order to avoid our catapult from moving up to the city walls and ending it's turn. Or when my units stop in a city I think "Oh yeah, that's right. That's what they do when I do that. How silly of me." Then, inevitably, some time later, you do it the "natural" way and your units get put out of position or fortified somewhere and you're just like "Why did I do that? I know the controls don't do what they are supposed to. That was so dumb of me."

UI - I trained myself not to queue. I know it's a terrible pain and not worth the aggravation. So I might think "I'd like to queue here. Oh, that's right. Nevermind." I am frustrated by it, but I just work around it and it ultimately gets overlooked.

Towards the end of my time in IV, I was using bug, so it's hard to separate what was IV and what was Bug. Bug added a ton of good stuff though that was lacking from IV and I could never go back to IV UI after using BUG.