Alarming silence of Firaxis

[White Elk]

When did you send them your question, White Elk?

Wodan

It was within a reasonable timeframe.
I have still had NO response so they have well entered the UNreasonable timeframe.

 

[Duuk]

Nice to hear from a Firaxian. It would be nicer if it was an "official" announcement, but I'll take what I can get.

 

[White Elk]

The thing about an unofficial response is that it can be pure BS and there is no repercussions for it. Alexman unofficially told us a patch was coming soon but that turned out to be false and the eventual patch was bogus. Now Jon Shafer unofficially says a patch will come but not for some time. WTH does it matter what they say? I do appreciate that they have something to say for a number of reasons. But with unofficial speak what the frack does it matter. Anything can be said unofficial like. Should we be sheep placated by a lions diatribe? WTH!?! Alexman gave us shite for taking his words to heart. And now Jon comes along with less committal words and we are to take these as words of truth and pacification?

The 3.13 patch did not only NOT fix BTS but it broke it further. And not only that but BTS was to be a fix for the unfixed Warlords and they even fracked that up. firaxis is fracked and I dont have much faith that they will recover. I now assume that I purchased a piece of sh*t which will never be righted. So be it.

 

[Wodan]

Hunh. I've had quite a lot of fun playing with 3.13 and Bhruic's patch. I purchased a quality product that I enjoy quite a bit and have been well repaid many times over... by far this is a better value than most any other form of entertainment I partake in, from TV to movies and even to frisbee golf (which is nominally free but you still have to buy the discs).

Wodan

 

[jray]

From my own perspective, I'm happy with BtS. Firaxis was responsible for making it moddable enough so that someone like Bhruic could fix most of their bugs. So you gotta give 'em some credit. But from the perspective of someone who's not a regular in these forums, or a computer newbie uncomfortable with unofficial patches, then yeah, I agree that Firaxis really dropped the ball. Without Bhruic's unofficial patch, and given the low quality of Firaxis/Take2 tech support, those folks are left stranded with a broken game.

 

[Öjevind Lång]

Hunh. I've had quite a lot of fun playing with 3.13 and Bhruic's patch. I purchased a quality product that I enjoy quite a bit and have been well repaid many times over... by far this is a better value than most any other form of entertainment I partake in, from TV to movies and even to frisbee golf (which is nominally free but you still have to buy the discs).

Wodan

Try books sometime. Reading can be quite enjoyable. And I have yet to open a book and start reading, and just when I'm immersed in the story the pages go blue and then it says: "FZZT!" and the pages wink out and I learn that I can't read that book anymore until a book technician has repaired it. I've never had to contact a publisher and ask them when they are going to publish a patch for "Pride and Prejudice" or "The Tin Drum."

 

[Wodan]

Actually I read all the time. My wife complains about it.

Wodan

ps and Yes, I spot logical fallacies all the time. With a book, we KNOW the author can't issue a "patch". So, we gloss over that sort of thing, either consciously or subconsciously.

 

[warpstorm]

I just wish I knew if it was all their doing or 2K. Either way they sold out.

Well, since Firaxis is completely owned by 2K, I guess they did sell out. Literally.

 

[Wodan]

Geez. Anybody who is employed has sold out. Get over yourself.

Wodan

 

[Emperor_Norton]

And I have yet to open a book and start reading, and just when I'm immersed in the story the pages go blue and then it says: "FZZT!" and the pages wink out and I learn that I can't read that book anymore

I have, I think three times, had the experience of reading a book only to find that a signature has been repeated (and another omitted.) Orders of magnitude different from how often there are problems with electronic media, but it can happen.

 

[Öjevind Lång]

Actually I read all the time. My wife complains about it.

Does she suggest you play a nice computer game instead?

Your talk about how you "spot logical fallacies all the time" is disingenuous. Nobody would accept that a book was issued in such a crappy shape as many computer games are. If you don't like the author's "logic", that's another kettle of fish.

P. S. I'm very grateful to Jon Shafer for posting the information that a patch will be upmcoming at some time, but I think it's too bad of Take 2/Firaxis not to supply information of that kind on their official websites. And they don't reply to mails with such questions.

 

[Commander Bello]

From my own perspective, I'm happy with BtS. Firaxis was responsible for making it moddable enough so that someone like Bhruic could fix most of their bugs. So you gotta give 'em some credit. But from the perspective of someone who's not a regular in these forums, or a computer newbie uncomfortable with unofficial patches, then yeah, I agree that Firaxis really dropped the ball. Without Bhruic's unofficial patch, and given the low quality of Firaxis/Take2 tech support, those folks are left stranded with a broken game.

(Marking by me)

Being an old critic of Firaxis, first I have to say that I appreciate the announcement of another patch to come. I can even accept that they don't give any time estimate right now.

What I am still unsatisfied with is the poor quality of their patches.
Meanwhile, there is in addition some disappointment about the way in which they perform their communication with a quite active fanbase, which is also poor, to say the least.
Therefore, I take it as an effort to improve that Jon Shafer gave us a tiny bit of information.

Now to the statement above:
I always thought that the moddability of Civ4 was both, good for the modding community AND good for marketing, as they can always "duck and cover" behind this.
Taking into account that 3.02 was heavily patched by the community (Solver) , 3.03 having been a piece of sh*t which they just left available, even after the problems were known and 3.13 once again a subject to heavy improvements (and again, those were needed, man!), one could take the Firaxis' approach as statement of disrespect for the paying customer.

Therefore, I do not think that we as people who actually have paid their salaries have any need to express thankfulness.
They have issued a game which admittedly is fun to play and we did pay for it. The patching history of them is poor, to say the least. Even more annoying, they have not improved in this area since the times of C3C.

But once again, let's take Jon Shafer's statement as a shy attempt to improve and hope for the best. As now there is no immediate need to release another "quick" patch, they have every chance to improve their score.

It will be up to them what they are going to do with that chance.

 

[Rvil Plum]

Can I suggest that admin please lock / close this thread, otherwise it's just going to get dug up and refreshed over and over again by the same people - thanks.

Regards - Mr P

 

[V. Soma]

What I cannot take from any Firaxian is the words:

we have no time to peek in here often at CFC

Man, It takes ca. 10 mins to make a post - maybe less (5? 3?).

I understand though, we all say small lies in life...

The most easiest is to say "I have no time"...
It is so common we don't even consider it as a lie...
Instead we translate it: "I don't want to do it", "It is not important"...

What my hope is that this might change and for Firaxis
it will be IMPORTANT, they will WANT TO do it - to get into contact with the fans

With all this said, I welcome Jon appearing here

 

[grumbler]

And so the bashings start again ... you know, I can totally understand why the Firaxians would prefer not interacting with their "fans" here anymore.

 

[theKurgen]

And so the bashings start again ... you know, I can totally understand why the Firaxians would prefer not interacting with their "fans" here anymore.

I'm sure that would be a lot easier for them if their patches were of some kind of quality instead of crippleware

 

[V. Soma]

where was I bashing?

 

[grumbler]

I'm sure that would be a lot easier for them if their patches were of some kind of quality instead of crippleware

I wouldn't call the patches crippleware. I suspect that a lot of people don't even notice the bugs left.
I'm actually quite happy with the current state of the game (3.13 + bhruic).

In any case, the quality of the patches and some Firaxians posting here (in an inofficial capacity and on their free time) are separate issues to me.

 

[grumbler]

where was I bashing?

Well, as I read it, you called Jon Shafer a liar and insinuated that he didn't post because he doesn't think it's important or didn't want to do it. Maybe it's just me, but this seemed a little rude.

Imagine you're waiting for a colleague or a customer at the place where you're working to do a simple task for you, that you know will only take a few minutes. When you ask him about it after a few days, he says he hasn't found the time yet.
Would you then proceed to tell him: "I know this would only have taken you a few minutes, you just didn't want to do it."?

Obviously, it's not exactly the same situation, but I still think even on these boards some common courtesy is called for if you expect any sort of constructive communication.

 

[r_rolo1]

Too bad that Firaxis/Take2 is still a null entity in terms of communication with the costumers.... Yeah, we had communications from Shaefer and alexman, but they are programmers and not PR ( and that sometimes showed... )... It is not their job to communicate with the costumers/fans saying anything. If they came here to give news , IMHO it was more because of their fan heart than anything else... The employer of Jon and of Alex is supposed to have a PR departement for that kind of stuff, but until now it is as good as if it didn't existed ( Just look as the CivIV.com site.... last Firaxis/Take2 update there is the annoucement of the 1.61 patch ).....

I'm not saying that I don't apreciate the effort of the Civ IV programmers that came here to give news ( thank you BTW ), but simply it isn't their job..... Why do Firaxis/Take 2 pays for a web page advertising Civ IV just to let it inactive for 2 years, when even a trainee could make a small weekly update? Or why does the tech support responds to all the undocumented requests of help with a " Post a screenie" even if we're talking about MAF or OOS ( showing that they didn't even read properly the complaint ) ? IMHO this is just bad PR and in today's world software companies can't live only of the " hear say" thing.....