Are journalists covering BE required to only ask bland/uninteresting questions?

[Westwall]

It's like they hate making money.

 

[x2Madda]

civ4 is the last civ game made by the players for the players. the good old days will never return.

Quoted for truth.
That said Civ4 was not well received on release either and needed expansion packs to bring it up to snuff.

Civ3 is kind of a black horse in the series as it started the trend now known as 'Civ base games are rubbish'. Civ2 was very well received on launch but since then this pattern of the base game being pants has kind of become a running gag for the series.

To get back on topic, the publisher is usually in charge of promoting the product. They can usually manipulate the media but only for so long.

When Civ:be was coming wasn't it great? so many media outlets were excited and so hyped for this new exciting departure for the series!

Then the game released to huge negative backlash from gamers and look at how the same media outlets, like Rock, Paper Shotgun whom sang it praises, were now saying "yeah it is kind of pants actually".

Face it, gaming journalists are in a business of making money and biting the hand that feeds you never ends well. So they dance to the tune of publishers in order to get those exclusives that keep the sale figures high. I will say the publisher probably put the questions to the journalists to ask, while being very clear not to stray too far from those set questions.

You don't see many questions on multiplayer being dead or on what parts of the new diplomacy system are going to probably get ignored, or how any of this is going to stop games being finished in 250 turns or less because 2k (the publisher) are trying to sell you a product and want to focus on all the good things so that is why the interviews are all 'samey'.

 

[Gorbles]

No video game is made by the "players".

 

[Westwall]

Good video games are made by the players.

 

[Gorbles]

I'd repeat what I just said, but it's rather futile. Perhaps if you could give examples of video games made by people who were game players and not developers, that would get the discussion somewhere.

As it stands, you're simply repeating a truism and expecting it to hold up to scrutiny. Which, by the definition of games developer, isn't going to hold up. Especially as "gamer" is nothing but a hobby. And "games developer" covers various aspects of design and implementation, most of which gain absolutely no benefit from playing video games.

 

[poom3619]

We need someone to define the word "players".

As I pretty sure Jon Shafers (Civ5 head dev), or SimCity (2013) dev or anyone who try to reboot/clone the game they love (with or without Kickstarter or other crowdfunding) and end up with something between mediocre to miserable are also gamer. But they will not be counted among the rank of player for "validity"

tl;dr : Bad dev is no true player, by someone's definition.

Good video games are made by the players.

Only two sensible sentiment I get from how ambiguous "the player" in this phrase is that the developer didn't testing the game themselves, or the dev didn't take feedback from "the player" and improve the game accordingly thus causing player help "making" the game.

That, or maybe I think you mean "the player" is equivalent of "good video game dev"

Actually, I am trying to understand what you're saying.

 

[SupremacyKing2]

Good video games are made by the players.

Uh no! Making a good video game requires first and foremost excellent coding skills. If you can't translate your ideas into computer code that works, you don't have a game. You also need good graphic designers who can make the animations, intro videos, background art. You also need musicians who can make the original music for your game. Making a good video games requires a lot of people which is why you also someone who can manage projects, set deadlines, provide resources, and manage people. You also needs lots of money. Being a "player" does not make you a good game designer.

 

[Westwall]

Yes it does.

All those other things you mentioned are merely prerequisites to being a game designer.

A good one should still be a player.

Hence why Reynolds made SMAC and M&M made BE.

Anyway, this is going off-topic so let's just leave it at that.

 

[SupremacyKing2]

Yes it does.

All those other things you mentioned are merely prerequisites to being a game designer.

A good one should still be a player.

Hence why Reynolds made SMAC and M&M made BE.

Anyway, this is going off-topic so let's just leave it at that.

My point is simply that you can make a good game if you are a good designer but not a good player, but you can't make a good game if you are good player and not a good designer. Of course, being both a good designer and a good player can help.

 

[Barathor]

... you can make a good game if you are a good designer but not a good player,
but you can't make a good game if you are good player and not a good designer.

Bingo. Though, I would maybe replace the words "make".

Having all of your concepts match the finished product isn't always the case due to time, money, and other restraints of reality.

 

[Gort]

It certainly helps if you understand how to play the game you're designing...

 

[Acken]

My point is simply that you can make a good game if you are a good designer but not a good player, but you can't make a good game if you are good player and not a good designer. Of course, being both a good designer and a good player can help.

Being able to design, code etc goes without saying but I still think you need to be good at your own game too.
Especially for strategy/tactical games which rely a lot on balance and numbers. Or you need close relations with people that are at the least.

Not really saying that's not the case for civBE. I don't know how it goes there. But the result of civBE 1.0 showed a real lack of balancing. Still do. Also all videos and livestreams are really at a basic level. Bert hasn't changed this and I find it disapointing they're not using the expansion to show they're working hard on fixing problems with the base game. We'll see at release but my sentiment is that it will end up being cool features added on a weak base. Virtues don't seem to have even been touched to fit the new mechanics or to fix balance !

But to be honest even though I find civ5 bnw a way better game it's still an unbalanced mess with nonsensical stuff in it. So it's clear that while they do a bit of patching it's not their priority.

 

[GenEngineer]

Balance is a product of difficulty in many ways. As the difficulty rises, the importance of each imbalance gets magnified as every advantage needed is important, while at the lowest difficulties, it's irrelevant because everything works perfectly well. The simple fact is that the devs, both for BE and Civ5, are more focused on ensuring balance at the level most players play at, not the highest. As the people who are most likely to be on places called "Civfanatics" are those that play on higher difficulties, the effects of imbalance are a lot more pronounced.

 

[Acken]

So most players find specialists to be balanced ?

Right.

 

[GenEngineer]

Most players here? No. Most players in overall number? Don't give it half as much thought as the people here, because it's not as important.

It's like any game with a competitive scene. On a casual level, most anything goes and is considered acceptably equivalent in balance, but once you get to a higher level, competitive play starts imposing bans and such to improve balance.

 

[SupremacyKing2]

Being able to design, code etc goes without saying but I still think you need to be good at your own game too.
Especially for strategy/tactical games which rely a lot on balance and numbers. Or you need close relations with people that are at the least.

I agree that strategy games definitely require a lot of balancing. But that requires a deep understanding of the mechanics which every good game designer should have, regardless of how good they actually are at playing the game. So, a good game designer does not necessarily need to be good at winning their game, they just need to understand how their game works. Also, everybody has different play styles. One designer might be really good at winning with a warmonger strategy. That does not mean they can balance a peaceful strategy. That's why the game also needs a big enough testing group so that you can test as many different play styles as possible.

I would also point out in one of the let's plays (I think it was BAStartGaming), Dave McDonough was very good at handling the aliens because he understands the Alien AI since he programmed it. So that is an example of how the devs do understand their game mechanics. And obviously, the aliens are behaving the way the devs want them to. It just might not fit with what some players expect or want.

 

[Acken]

@supremacy: Yeah I don't disagree with what you're saying. Which is why I added that if they have someone on their team that is good it also works.

But when it comes to BE my feeling is still that there is no communication between someone able to criticize the balance, whoever that is (a closed group, their QA, their fans) and the people in charge of coding/designing it. 1 Month to go until we get the same specialists, wonders and virtues

Regarding aliens I don't find them unbalanced. I just don't like their design, I don't agree with the core decisions taken. But that is an entirely different and more subjective subject. Balance is about keeping the design but make it work in the big picture.

 

[Ryika]

Well, they take in some balance-concerns from the community at least, but it's more like "The community has said this is op, let's do something about it." - and then some choices are made, based on ... I don't know what. The Wonder-Patch is the perfect example - they knew that "players didn't like them", came to a conclusion that I just can't understand and now wonders are even less powerful and more expensive than before.

To be fair though, in other situations they have reacted "better" - free techs as Traits for example. But then of course Academies are still insane. Overall it's very hit-and-miss, does not seem like the infrastructure to make the people who design and code understand the issues and the possible solutions is really working that good.

 

[Westwall]

The Wonder-Patch is the perfect example - they knew that "players didn't like them", came to a conclusion that I just can't understand and now wonders are even less powerful and more expensive than before.

This was my experience with wonders post-patch.

It's a mess.

 

[Acken]

And it's the only thing that happened in 9 months.

It's just... I don't know if they're unaware or think it doesn't matter.