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

[gunnergoz]

These forum topics are now dominated by the posts of people with an axe to grind since the game does not work for them to some significant degree. That's fine as far as being an outlet for frustration but it does little to motivate the game producers towards altering their priorities about patching vs expansion pack, since it seems that they've already made up their minds about the degree to which customers are negatively affected by the game's present state.
My experience in other situations like this is that the developers eventually stop posting updates because each time they come to the forum is like putting one's hand into a hive of angry wasps.

 

[Gorgameth]

My experience in other situations like this is that the developers eventually stop posting updates because each time they come to the forum is like putting one's hand into a hive of angry wasps.

And my experience from other situations where the developpers interact a lot with their customer base, release beta patches, and work hard to get their products working have instead proved quite the opposite.

If you stand by your product, believe in it and truly want to solve your customer's problems, the customers see it, and will work with you to solve it.

Of the last ten games I've purchased that I've had problems with, I've never felt so ignored then with the Civ 4 developers. When I've had problems with other games, I've installed their patches. If it didn't solve the issue, I then contacted their tech support, or read their forums and posted.

Yes, I've had canned responses, almost every tech support out there seems to use it. But they actually seem to read your email and send you the appropriate response. They don't have only three different messages they alternatively send you, until they start back with message #1. If you posted on their forum, they usually reply quickly.

If the customers see the developpers are actually trying to help them, giving updates, proposing solutions, then people do not become angry. But if you read this forum, you'll find out that people's problems and complaints are mostly being ignored by the company. Without the fans here helping each other, where would people be?

Being ignored by those that dished out this incomplete game is what causes people to become angry and disrespectful. And it may also just be what will prevent people from buying any more software until they get it right. And I am sure others will do the same.

 

[Utherhimo]

yeah i agree i will wait till the 3 expandition pack is collecting dust in the bargian bin before I actually buy anymore from the civ4 game till i can play it with menu lettering actually being there which disappeared in 1.52 truely sad.

there is no patch why would there be a patch when they are already moving on with expasion packs? the expacks are the patchs. duh. make you pay more money to play the game as it should have been before it even came out.

one game that loves its customers and patches a lot while listening and communicating to its player base WWIIONLINE Battleground Europe while being much much much smaller.

 

[alexti2]

Well I can only judge from my personal experiences, and I've certainly had at least 1 in 5 games that were unplayable, never mind just having major problems.

You may want to check your computer, OS and drivers. 1 out of 5 seems to be extremely poor ratio. If that doesn't help, don't choose Misfortune 3 in the next life

From my personal experience, it's very rare that the game doesn't work at all (in fact I never had such a game). I don't think I have any game with major problems either. Lack of good gameplay is another story though. That happens more often.

 

[zx1111]

According to this thread, Sullla has been involved in testing the latest patch.

I know that Sulla and someones here did beta-test some patch while ago..
But we have no reason to believe that it is THE patch Firaxis will release....
Or they have any plan to release any patch whatsoever, for the time being...
The Thamer's last words are a month old (before patch is rejected) and now that can't be trusted anymore...
I strongly suspect that they abandoned patch release plan altogather after rejected by Take 2 QA..
Because they are so busy to do Exapnsion, they don't have much spare time and resource to fix it again and finish and release it before new expansion come out.
If they are working on it again, they should have hinted or leaked some expected date by now... But they are keeping grave silence for more than a month.... Bad omen...
And even if it can be done in one or two month before Exapnsion come out, the patch will become obsolute within one or two months.. Too short lifespan.. it is just waste of time and efforts...
So They put the patch on the shelves after beging rejected. Now, They are doing nothing on it and chances are slim that they will do anything to fix the (rejected) patch of the original Civ 4 even after release of Warload expansion... Why bother to kick already dead horse?

CONCLUSION: Abandon all your hope of new patch on original Civ4.
There will be no further patch .. onward and forever..
If you want better working Civ4, wait till July or Aug. and buy Warlord expansion.

 

[sabrewolf]

oh my oh my, you guys are negative

be happy what you've got so far. 30-50$ for an addictive game like civ4 is a bargain.
two patches were released before important holidays so that people would have a good reason not to spend too much time with their mother-in-laws and annoying uncles... that's already more than we can expect.

fact is that civ4 works for the vast majority of people. just 6 months and only 2 patches after release it's more stable than civ3 was after 2 expansions and countless patches...

and whether a patch is released or not (i'm hoping yes), the expansion pack is schedules for july... so latest by then you'll have your last fixes

so to all negative influences: stop whining and flaming firaxians who take their time to look in here! if you're not happy, go play another game and come back after 15hours when you've finished it twice and are bored with it and you'll suddenly enjoy civ4 again

cheers

 

[Gorgameth]

There are lots of games out there that give the same good thrill Civilization used to provide. I said used to. And thanks to Civilization IV, these games now have a better chance of taking the market.

The game may work for many people, but there's an unacceptably high number of people who can't play it, because the game isn't stable enough. When Firaxis manages to correct their problems, if they do it early enough, then I may eventually consider purchasing their expansion, but until then, they can forget it.

There are plenty other companies are there that value their customers and actually take the time to release working products. But understand that people feel pissed off and cheated by a company more interested in making a quick easy buck then building a strong customer base.

 

[Philips]

oh my oh my, you guys are negative

be happy what you've got so far. 30-50$ for an addictive game like civ4 is a bargain.
two patches were released before important holidays so that people would have a good reason not to spend too much time with their mother-in-laws and annoying uncles... that's already more than we can expect.

fact is that civ4 works for the vast majority of people. just 6 months and only 2 patches after release it's more stable than civ3 was after 2 expansions and countless patches...

and whether a patch is released or not (i'm hoping yes), the expansion pack is schedules for july... so latest by then you'll have your last fixes

so to all negative influences: stop whining and flaming firaxians who take their time to look in here! if you're not happy, go play another game and come back after 15hours when you've finished it twice and are bored with it and you'll suddenly enjoy civ4 again

cheers

Yes, where else can you find something that crashes every twenty minutes for that amount of money!

Who wouldn't have fun with that? What a bargain!

 

[exhile]

If the patch is released now or within the week, they care about the game and the product they make.

If they release the patch before the expansion pack, they care only for your money.

It's that simple. If the latter occurs, don't buy the expansion pack! period.

The Civ 4 name has gone up in smoke. I can't believe Sid would let this group of programmers, let alone these two companies make this game. Just horrible.

It's been more than 4 months since they released a patch. It was less than a month since they released the first patch to the second.

It's all about money out of your wallet and into their hands.

 

[Robert Plomp]

This thread receives a 9/10 for mindless whining
It's a amazing how some people can come with complete posts while they have no clue about the facts and the truth!

There will be a patch, it's being tested right now, like Firaxis already stated.
Who would work for months on a patch and then not release it?

And about the game: civ4 works amazingly well. Perhaps it doesn't work on some systems, and of course it's not really nice if you have one of those systems, but it works on majority of the systems. And of course only those who have a faulty system are being seen complaining in these threads. The others are playing. (except me, who's posting this currently )

The most immature childish whiner of the year award goes to the whiners in this thread

Moderator Action: Its comments like this that invariably get threads closed.
Please read the forum rules: http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=422889

 

[wurm657]

To All Posters on Both Sides of the Argument:
Is there ANY way we can conduct ourselves in a way that won't get these threads shut-down?
-Knock off the savage flaming of everyone you disagree with
-Quit telling other people what they do and don't know or understand
-Stop the cursing and moronic abbreviations of curses (honestly, I curse like a trucker in everyday RL but this is not the place for it)
-Almost 100% of the people posting are NOT lying or trying to lie
-Let's quit starting numerous threads about this one topic (the Patch) and try to keep this ONE open

I'm no happier than any other customer being treated the way we are...and I really am developing a strong dislike for Take 2. I've already been accussed of chasing off Thamer because of my response to the pitiful "The patch got bumped for more important things" post, but I don't think he was lying.
There are valid points on both sides of this issue; and the patch issue is important, so let's try to converse on the topic rather than just flame and ask the same questions over and over OR flame and post how boring it is to see these posts.

 

[Gorgameth]

And of course only those who have a faulty system are being seen complaining in these threads.

I find it sad to see comments like this, obviously meant as an insult and without any valid facts whatsoever. As I've already said, my collegues and I have tested the game on our store demos, which have been working fine. They don't have any problems with playing other games. All benchmarking utilities say they work fine. So to claim they are faulty is to lie, to everyone, in an attempt to lower the game's problem and try to put the blame at someone else.

Of these store demos, less than half of them had no problems with the game, patched or unpatched. This is an unacceptably high number. Last time I've seen that much problems when I've decided to install beta software from Microsoft.

The object here is to put the blame where it currently is, and tell the company what it is we truly do not like about their attitute. Because they don't reply to emails except to send you their misguided technical instructions. If I listened to them, I would have had to rewrite drivers and rewrite the operating system, because no matter what the problem is, it is not theirs they seem to think.

So I agree the insults need to stop. But I believe it is important for people to keep on telling how they'd like Firaxis and Take 2 to act for us, their customers, to be happy. I believe they need to hear what it is we dislike, and how what they are doing is insulting to us, and enrages more and more people.

 

[wurm657]

So I agree the insults need to stop. But I believe it is important for people to keep on telling how they'd like Firaxis and Take 2 to act for us, their customers, to be happy. I believe they need to hear what it is we dislike, and how what they are doing is insulting to us, and enrages more and more people.

I concur 100%.
I also forgot to mention that this whole thread may be better served (and managed) if it was moved to "General Discussions" as it has very little to do with tech now. Just a thought.

 

[V. Soma]

patch is here!

1.61

downloading right now!

YEAH!!!

 

[wurm657]

Let us know how it goes!

 

[Craterus22]

I find it sad to see comments like this, obviously meant as an insult and without any valid facts whatsoever. As I've already said, my collegues and I have tested the game on our store demos, which have been working fine. They don't have any problems with playing other games. All benchmarking utilities say they work fine. So to claim they are faulty is to lie, to everyone, in an attempt to lower the game's problem and try to put the blame at someone else.

Of these store demos, less than half of them had no problems with the game, patched or unpatched. This is an unacceptably high number. Last time I've seen that much problems when I've decided to install beta software from Microsoft.

The object here is to put the blame where it currently is, and tell the company what it is we truly do not like about their attitute. Because they don't reply to emails except to send you their misguided technical instructions. If I listened to them, I would have had to rewrite drivers and rewrite the operating system, because no matter what the problem is, it is not theirs they seem to think.

So I agree the insults need to stop. But I believe it is important for people to keep on telling how they'd like Firaxis and Take 2 to act for us, their customers, to be happy. I believe they need to hear what it is we dislike, and how what they are doing is insulting to us, and enrages more and more people.

I especially liked the bolded part...

Also, instead of locking threads - what about banning users or moving the threads to a "rants" section?

 

[exhile]

So, patch 1.61 was released. I was wrong about "they". I guess I will be buying the expansion patch this summer. Whiners like myself will shutup now; however, I might be back whining in a month or two.

Thanks to "they" for responding.

 

[Philips]

I was right at the point of giving up. I will still wait before buying Take2 software, even if this works, but getting the patch out is a step in the right direction for this company.

 

[Robert Plomp]

I find it sad to see comments like this, obviously meant as an insult and without any valid facts whatsoever. As I've already said, my collegues and I have tested the game on our store demos, which have been working fine.

My comment is not meant as an insult.
It's just tells that majority of the people/systems have no problems running civ4. Of course those who can't run the game make their voices heard on the forums. That's why you read that many complains when you browse the forums. Those who can't play complain on the forums. Those who can play are playing.

I just said that to make clear that it's not like Firaxis has released a buggy application that doesn't work on almost any computer.

 

[Philips]

I just said that to make clear that it's not like Firaxis has released a buggy application that doesn't work on almost any computer.

Then what is it like?