Anything on the patch we was supposed to get three weeks ago?

[Gorgameth]

Not a good incentive to keep working on patches or tell us what's going on is it?

Agreed. But the current situation is also a good incentive towards never buying another product from that company, and making sure these people find themselves without work.

Basically, everyone is saying this: If you treat me respectfully, I'll treat you respectfully. If you shove crap at me, then you may expect me to shove it back at you.

Mr. Thamer has been taken the time to come and give us some feedback, and that is extremely commendable. I hope he can also take everyone's feedback and bring it to his superior.

A messenger bearing terrible news is not a bad messenger, therefore punishing him for his actions will only mean that we will no longer receive the many terrible messages the company wishes to send us.

Just my opinion...

 

[Solver]

And by the way, while not every screwup 2K makes is Firaxian fault, one has to admit that the contrary is also true. If a patch is ready but not being released in a situation like this, it's 2K fault. But if the game has bugs related to the game not working how it should, it's of course Firaxian fault. Most of the problems so far have been coming from 2K though...

Admittedly, with Oblivion out in 3 days, I am not very surprised that getting the Civ4 patch released isn't high on their priority list.

 

[jack_flash]

Yeah, here's the word. installed the patch and the damn game still freezes my computer and forces me to reboot.- And my system is and overkill as far as the minimum req. go.

 

[Dudy80]

wait, theres a new patch out above 1.52?

 

[Utherhimo]

nope there will be no more patches they have a lame expandition coming out truely lame! I am sure it wont fix anything and milk thier cash cows (us), so dont buy the expandition and teach them a lesson. Funny my game doesnt even have any text after the lasted patch lol sad before the patch i could at least play the game now its broken, good way to make me spend my money somewhere else!

DONT BUY THE EXPANDION! this is the worst game for bugs and is ten times the size of a little game called WWIIONLINE: Beyond Europe they patch every 6 weeks while the game actually works! the have great costumer support too unlike this sorry game.

I was once a loyal costumer to the civ series but ummmm till they fix the game its over....kiss kiss you arent getting another dime from me.

 

[Gogf]

Wrong, I assure you that there will be another patch to Vanilla Civ4.

If the patch caused this problem, you can just reinstall your game and then not repatch is.

 

[danielcg]

Yes, there should be another patch for Vanilla Civ4 very shortly and will be considered to be final unless there is "MANY" minor bug or few major bugs. New patch should be out by my birthday -- April 8 or earlier. I don't have any major issues with patched Civ4 but however, only one major bug (only affect quicksave but I can still save the game by normal way) and one minor bug that involve tooltip popup during selection popup (only in high quality mode).

You should not demand or complain about new patch quickly. New patch SHOULD BE out very shortly, I think.

 

[zx1111]

Three weeks have passed after the Firaxis insisted that they have finished the patch and submitted it for final QA and release... They continue to say that "It will be very soon " in January, Feburary and now in toward end of March..
And we do not see the da*n patch.
From this what is evident to us is that..

1) They lied to us. Actually they have no patch at all until releasing announced new expansion. All their resource and priority are tied to new expansion pack. They are too busy to pay attention to trivial and free stuff like patch...
QA excuse is just made-up story for diverting our attention and complaint from Firaxis to 2K games.
If you want patched game, pay money and buy expansion pack. Don't complain on that. It's capitalism!!

2) They didn't lie to us. The supposed patch was actually done. But they have too many bug and problems, so it bounced back from QA to Firaxis to fix.
To fix all the problems, firaxis needs anothe month or two... and QA procedure which will take another 2-3 weeks ( may be longer if there is another game to do QA and to be released for 2K games)
So you will not see the finally fixed game patch in this month or in April. It will be at least early May or more like June as I had predicted. It is because the Exapnsion is now announced they must concentrat on the all-important EXp. pack instead of fixing the patch.. it is bottum of the priority and no one in Firaxis will pay much attention to it....

My 2 cents for that it will be June.

 

[Dudy80]

I highly doubt it will take till june, im going to say it will be out by the end of March or in early April but i could be wrong.

 

[Gogf]

Firaxis did not lie. The patch is in final testing and will be released in a short period of time.

I want to reiterate: While Firaxis is waiting for QA on the patch, should they do nothing or get to work on the expansion? Clearly they should start work on the expansion.

 

[zx1111]

They said that they submitted it for QA at end of privious month.
Assuming that they told the truth, there are three possibilities.

1) It is waiting for QA testing. But patch has lower priority than newly released game QA testing, it is repeatedly pushed back to end of wating queue.
This is not so probable. March is not so busy season for game industry like Winter Holidays or Summer vacation times. There are not so many game to do QA in this season. So waiting time should be very short (no more than 1-2 games in queue)

2) It is under QA testing, but it takes longer time than expected.
It is not so probable too.. Most of the problem that this QA is addressing is hardware or network related compatiblity problems. It can be tested within few days. QA does not test game play/balancing issue which takes longer to test. Such testing is done in Firaxis and already adressed enough in previous release and patch. QA just ensures that The game will run as designed without problems like CTD or lock up or glitch or conection loss in given plaforms.

3) Last possibility is that the patch has undergone the QA test and *FAILED* to pass it. So it bounced back to Firaxis already. I think that is is most probable case. bacause Civ 4 had so many problems and compatibility issues in release time (much higher than averge of release-quality games) that you can not address and solve all the problems in such short time. So It is highly probable that the patch submitted to QA have quite a remaining problems noyt yet solved.
In this case, we must wait for another month or two so that they sort out and solve the problem. And then re-submit it for QA again. In this case you are advised to abadon any hope that you will see the patch in any days in March or April.
.

 

[MrCynical]

What Thamer said strongly seems to indicate that it's the first of these cases, since he said is was still waiting for the QA, who were busy with something else (I'd put a fair bet on Oblivion, which must be due out sometime round now).

 

[Dudy80]

yea oblivion comes out tuesday, but i still think were gonna get a patch with in the next few weeks.

 

[Philips]

Personally, I suspect that the patch was not begun until recently. Right about the time that all these PR people changed the spin from "the problem is your computer , not the game" to "the patch will be out soon". There wouldn't have been so much effort put into denying the need for a patch if one was in the works.

I think Thamer was saying what he was told to say, just as any other employee does the job they are assigned or finds new work.

 

[danielcg]

If QA ever reject newest patch as "FAILED" status and return failed patch back to Firaxis for more fixes, Thamer will post the reasons here. If QA does not complete "testing" the patch then Thamer will not post anything here right away.

I do NOT need to get new patch badly because I don't have any major issues with Civilization IV at all (only minor problems I have encountered at all).

If you have GeForce 6800 Series, try to get Forceware 84.12 to 84.20, Get December version of Direct 9.0c and get XML Parser Update(s).
Also, turn off anti-aliasing but leave aniostropic filter on.

 

[Solver]

There WILL be another patch. Ideas that there won't are, just that, ideas.

 

[netbjarne]

The new patch will be released at April 22, 2006 - and it will update Civ4 to version 1.3

It will fix all acknowledged problems.

How come I know that? Well, thats clear. April 22 is exactly four months since the last patch release AND - its my birthday.. Coincidence? - I think not

As for the version number, thats easy - its the third major patch since the 1.0 release of the game, hence version 1.3

Pure logic

 

[Solver]

Version 1.3 would be quite a step back, given that the second patch is version 1.52 .

 

[netbjarne]

There WILL be another patch. Ideas that there won't are, just that, ideas.

And the Earth is flat! (though, it depends on game settings ;-))

Got any proof a patch is comming?

 

[senwiz]

OMG!!!!!!!!! Some people in here whine more than EQ users, and I thought that was hard.

Thamer gives us an honest update, which I appreciate, and gets slammed for it?? People, it's a game that we play.

You want to whine??? How about they change the price from free to $20 a month, and they won't say anything about patches. You just get to find out when the downtime for the servers are.

Seriously...This is stupid. The patch will be out when it's ready. Personally, I would rather them take the time to test the patch, then throw something untested at us.

Thamer, thank you for the update. Personally, I find it very refreshing that someone would come here and give us a honest update. At least, we know that the patch is coming, something I never knew in EQ or EQ2. I appreciate our honesty, and you have achieved a respect from me that no developer gets from me normally.