5/5 say gamespot perfection now=graphical artifacts and crash known crash issues

[ombak]

Brother, power to you, and I back you 100%. But you aren't going to phaze the "Ivory Tower" sect of PC Gamers on this forum (or Apolyton). If it doesn't run, it's your fault. If you own a laptop, sucks to be you. If you say it should be backwards compatible with a low-graphics option, they'll ask "What next? Do you want it compatible on your Commadore 64?"

You're just preaching to a deaf crowd. But power to ya.

I've had tons of problems with games before. I'm lucky enough that I don't have major problems with with this one and can already play it.

That said, I see no evidence that this release has significantly more problems than any others. (Talking about bugs here - development problems, not publisher/shipping problems).

Your post seems to imply that games should not be released until they can run on just about any system out there. Unfortunately that's not feasible.

 

[Willem]

More than just a few glitches methinks

I've seen worse. Ever heard of a game called Pool of Radiance: Ruins of Myth Drannor by UbiSoft? It had a glitch in the install program. If it didn't work right, and you uninstalled the game, there was the risk of having your OS wiped out. Some people even had their hard drive fry because of it.

I don't deny there have been some problems, but most of them have been fairly minor. The only major issue was resolved within 24 hours. Most of the complaints that are happening now are from people that disregarded the basic requirements as outlined by Firaxis. "This sucks, Civ 4 won't run on my antique computer. It must be a crappy program!"

And so what if a few disks were mislabeled, and the tech tree was in a foreign language? That's not entirely the fault of Firaxis or Take 2. Some workers in the factory making the disks and packages screwed up. It happens all the time. It's called human error and didn't cause any real harm. It didn't even happen to all the packages, only some of them. Firaxis and Take 2 don't even own those factories, they just contracted out the work. Go ***** at the ones who put the final game together, they're the ones responsible.

As for the Direct X issue you mention Civ 4 contains routines that not even Microsoft has released yet. I'm not really sure where you're going with that one.

 

[kefka01]

The game being so slow that it's completely unplayable, on a system that far exceeds the minimum and even recommended requirements, is not a "minor" bug. Yes, all games will have bugs, it's inevitable, but very rarely to the extent that the game is not even workable. Like many here, I have played countless games over the past few years, bugs and all, but NONE of them have required me to spend hours and hours trying to tweak my system just to get the game to work at some acceptable level, especially when my system meets and exceeds every requirement. So please, don't pull the whole "if it doesn't work, it's YOUR fault" BS. People with a wide spectrum of setups are having huge problems - it's not like it's just some small isolated group of users.

I remember when Civ 3 came out, it also had MAJOR issues (ie, conditions for victory that were simply left out of the game). I also remember that just like now, most people on this forum defended the game to the death, as if it was perfectly acceptable that the game had massive fundamental problems. And just like now, it was fine because there was "going to be a patch." Why even bother to release a working game to begin with? Obviously every user in the world will be satisfied as long as it WILL work at some unspecified point in the future

 

[Willem]

People with a wide spectrum of setups are having huge problems - it's not like it's just some small isolated group of users.

Sorry, but it sure sounds like that to me. I've been prowling this board and Apolyton since the game came out, and now that the ATI thing is fixed the vast of majority of posters are only reporting minor problems. Aside from the people who don't have T&L compatible video cards of course. I'm not trying to be a fan boy here, I'm sceptical by nature which is why I'm holding off getting my own copy, but I'm seeing nothing to indicate that there are serious problems with this game. Just a few vocal people who insist that their isolated problems reflect the experiences of everyone who bought a copy.

 

[Mujadaddy]

But kefka01, "people with a wide spectrum of setups are" ALSO NOT "having huge problems" in some cases.

Do you think Firaxis was saying, "Well, it doesn't run at all, Screw 'em, they're addicts and they'll buy our crack anyway" ?? I'm sure that LOTS of people are VERY embarrassed that this has happened. I'm also sure that Bill Gates isn't crying about these glitches...he's playing Civ4 ontop of a mountain of money.

 

[Big Ev]

People have mentioned they have encountered no problems running on high end machines. I am running on a monster of a machine and I'm getting crashes left and right;

Athlon 64 X2 4400+
GeForce 7800GTX 81.85 drivers
2GB RAM

That should crush pretty much any game on the market and I am getting scrambled intro videos and crashes after 10-30 mins of game play.

Now I am on Win XP x64, but other games I have run smooth as silk, Doom 3, HL2, WoW, Dawn of War, and the list goes on.

 

[Willem]

Now I am on Win XP x64, but other games I have run smooth as silk, Doom 3, HL2, WoW, Dawn of War, and the list goes on.

I have seen people mention that they were having some problems with XP 64, but then I've also seen posters say it worked fine. So who knows, there might be an issue there.

 

[Shakes]

"Civilization IV performed fine on our test machines (which include both NVIDIA and ATI video cards), save for a couple of graphical artifacts that didn't impact gameplay. There's even widescreen support. However, readers on various forums around the net are reporting troubles with certain video drivers, especially with ATI cards. Firaxis is expected to release an update tonight addressing these issues." -gamespy review

Well at least they achknowlege the issues, but I find it curious they didnt have any crashes on any of their systems, it is plausible. However they do admit to a very evident (and verified) group of game stopping crash bugs, and that even they had graphical issues....but its still a 5/5.....perfect....top of the heap? Somewhere between here any there the truth lays, but I sure souldnt give the game more than a 3/5 in its current state.

That already says why they didn't downgrade the mark for graphical issues: they're minor and don't affect gameplay. As far as marking down for crashing, it would be pretty poor journalism for them to mark down for crashes based on hearsay they didn't see themselves.

 

[AKauhanen]

340 in the GENERAL FORUM
117 in the TECH SUPPORT FORUM

that percentage speak volumes....

And to my knowledge the game isn't yet even out in the rest of the world. So probably a very large part of the 340 in General Discussion are people from countries the game hasn't been released yet. Makes you think what would be the percentage, if there were no people from the rest of the world in General Discussion.


Does anyone know what percentage North Americans constitute in Civfanatics ?

 

[Ravinhood]

I wonder how many that have store bought systems like DELL and Hewyuk Packard and Comquack, etc are having issues and those that build their own systems like me are having none at all?

You guys ever flash your bios? Or do you even know what that is? lol

 

[SonicX]

The game should run fine, even for those who know nothing at all about computers.

I really wonder how these reviewers were able to play the entire game, not noticing any glitches, taking all those inch-perfect screenshots and videos. I want their review version !

 

[Willem]

The game should run fine, even for those who know nothing at all about computers.

I really wonder how these reviewers were able to play the entire game, not noticing any glitches, taking all those inch-perfect screenshots and videos. I want their review version !

Chances are they have good computers to play them on, with everything up to date. I'd hazard a guess to say that most of the people having problems are probably running the game on less than optimal systems. Not all, but most.