Bad news: Next patch on hold

[warpstorm]

I agree with CC. Competition is a good thing and ED won't be it. Don't get me wrong. I really liked ED when I bought it the first time years ago and I'll definitely pick it up (if only for nostalgia's sake - thanks for the link Antrine - they just got a new customer). But it isn't really a competitor for where Civ is and is going.

Unfortunately, the days of competition are waning as the major publishers are consolidating. If only internet publishing were actually viable...

 

[kokoras]

CyberChrist i couldn't agree more with what you said about the need of some competion.Unfortunately the only game that tryed to get in the market Call To Power has failed -I bought it played it for a while and then fortunately Civ3 came out!-The game you are talking about i do not know,but the point you have mentioned is realy important for every product.I don't think that Atari-Firaxis would continue on following the same polity if they knew that another product of the same type is on the market.On the other hand i like that Civ is the only one that exist because it has a history of its own.So what realy bothers me is that Atari-Firaxis have only got griped on the fact that they have a ''unique'' product,and forgot completely and deliberately the objective which sould not be other than continue on creating a great-complete and ''healthy'' game.

 

[Sukenis]

I love you warpstone, but I must say I completely disagree with you on everything you are saying right now.

Right now more computer games are released than you can shake a stick at. What makes me pick which game to buy is the reputation of the company putting the game out. I will buy a Blizzard game with ease because I know that it will be a solid playable game out of the box. I also know that issues that come up will be patched in short order. At times this has delayed games. I have been annoyed at this, but always satisfies in the end.

Prior to Civ 3 (original way back when) I felt the same about Firaxis/Sid products. Since then, their name has become less and less of a reason to purchase a game.

This boils down to some basic assumptions/principles of economics. It is far most costly to attract a new customer than to retain current ones. Resources should be priorities into maintaining current products and customers so that in the future, revenues will be generated from the said customers. Failing to support bugged products will cost more in future sales than delaying the release of other future products.

I have yet to purchase a Firaxis/Sid products since the release of the Civ series. I have bought each expansion with the hopes that the current expansion will bring about a patch to fix the bugs with the software, and every time I have been let down.

Yes, I play Civ 3 very often and enjoy most games. This does not mean that I will be purchasing Pirates (which looks like a good game) though. Right now I do not expect it to be released in a solid playable state and as such I will not risk the money to purchase it.

On a side note, when was the latest SCAM patch release? I will need to get that when I get that.

 

[LordKestrel]

I will buy a Blizzard game with ease because I know that it will be a solid playable game out of the box. I also know that issues that come up will be patched in short order.

You must have never played Diablo 2. I believe it was almost two full years before a much needed patch came out, although they had been promising it for 20 months or so. It still didn't fix everything that was broken, and is the sole reason I shy away from Blizzard games these days.

The Civ franchise is heading that way. There are a number of issues that need to be fixed, and the longer that Firaxis waits, the lower my confidence in them goes. I'm somewhat satisfied with Conquests these days, but there are still huge bugs that they haven't resolved, and it doesn't sound like they will.

 

[Sukenis]

Why do you think companies release buggy products? Why do you think they stop patching at some point and don't continue until the game is "perfect?"

Do you really think that all of the game companies are stupid, and purposefully shooting themselves in the foot doing these sorts of things, rather than bumping back release dates?

Blizzard. They still support all their games from Warcraft to Warcraft III. They also put games out late (up to 18 months). It works.

Even SMAC was support well past the "bargin bin" time for SMAX. It was not until Civ 3 that the "love for the game" atitude started to go away.

 

[Sukenis]

You must have never played Diablo 2. I believe it was almost two full years before a much needed patch came out, although they had been promising it for 20 months or so. It still didn't fix everything that was broken, and is the sole reason I shy away from Blizzard games these days.

The Civ franchise is heading that way. There are a number of issues that need to be fixed, and the longer that Firaxis waits, the lower my confidence in them goes. I'm somewhat satisfied with Conquests these days, but there are still huge bugs that they haven't resolved, and it doesn't sound like they will.

I bought Diablo 2 and enjoyed it for a good while. I also bought the expansion the week it was released. The bugs with Diablo 2 we for the multiplayer version with people hacking the game. These were fixed in short order (from my perspective). The rune issue took longer than I would have liked, but rune words not working did not effect game play like running into a sub and having the entire world declare war (from MPP). I currently do not play Diablo 2 for other reasons that have nothing to do with patches.

I will say once again that I play Civ 3 Conquest and enjoy it. I am not saying the game is trash and should be thrown out with the garbage. I am saying that it is not what I expected it to be and Firaxis lost a lot of the "goodwill" I had when the original version was released, and even more when PTW was released. I will not spend my money on their products without first researching the game completely first. This is the same as I will not buy a CD until I have heard and listened to it many times first. The industry in general can not be trusted, and those within the industry who can be trusted are true diamonds in the rough. Sid games used to be that diamond and no longer are.

And one last note to Trip, I am an auditor and can explain to you why Enron was not really "wrong" with what they did and how the employees & other stockholders are just as at fault as the executive were. I can do this because I am within the industry and see things from the industry point of view. Does this mean that the high ups in Enron are not greedy !@#$ who are guiltless for what they did? People must take responsibility for their actions, and I feel that the Civ team is not doing such. Maybe you do and maybe you have more industry insight that me. This does not change how I (along with other consumers) see the situation.

 

[Jon Shafer]

Quite a response to my posts.

But they're all civil, which I appreciate. I enjoy a good discussion as long as everyone can refrain from name-calling and that sort of thing. *Ahem*

Give me some time, I'll respond to everyone who responded to me eventually.

First post that caught my eye, so I'll go for this one first. Also addresses some of the other things I've read:

Blizzard. They still support all their games from Warcraft to Warcraft III. They also put games out late (up to 18 months). It works.

Even SMAC was support well past the "bargin bin" time for SMAX. It was not until Civ 3 that the "love for the game" atitude started to go away.

Blizzard is in a position quite different from most companies in the industry. Look at how successful Starcraft was. That company is a goldmine if I've ever seen one.

The problem is that very very few companies find themselves in Blizzard's position. They don't have megablockbusters with every one of their major releases, selling 3+ million copies. Civ 3 sold well, but Firaxis has only released a couple products since it was founded, and SMAC/X didn't do all that great. Certainly didn't have the notoriety of something like Starcraft or Warcraft III. Civ is their shining gem.

As I explained before, Firaxis was hurt really badly when Brian and Co. left, which also hasn't helped things. Working off an old code base, etc. etc. I'm sure that everyone at Firaxis would love to tweak and work on their products until they were perfect, but that's simply not possible. Civ 3 is based off the code of a million different things and a million different people. This is why Civ 4 is being built from scratch - the dev team learned their lesson. I'm sure everything will be very well documented and such from now on. Civ 3 is a product that's lived long past its expected death date - that is, the code structure and all of the flaws are catching up with it. Modifying things for Conquests was a great challenge, and as Jesse said, trying to fix one thing messed up 20 others.

Finally, on a more personal note. No, I'm not a Firaxis or game industry apologetic. I simply know how things work and am doing my best to be realistic with things. As I said before, I'd like to see all of the bugs fixed as much as everyone else - I've played this game for literally thousands of hours. I feel the same way as many others do - I believe that Civ 3 has run its course, and fixed or not, I think it's time to move on.

I can't wait for Civ 4, and I'm optimistic about what it can be. I would like everything to be dedicated to that right now.

Civ 4 won't have the obsolete code base, won't have the development issues, won't have all the problems which plagued Civ 3 from the get-go. A fresh, clean slate. MP built in from the start. A new designer and a committed team of developers. I would rather see what's possible in Civ 4 than wallow around with Civ 3 forever.

 

[Harrier]

And one last note to Trip, I am an auditor and can explain to you why Enron was not really "wrong" with what they did and how the employees & other stockholders are just as at fault as the executive were. I can do this because I am within the industry and see things from the industry point of view.

Typical view point (from high earning company executives and recruited third party legal proffesionals) - lets put the blame on the employees - who do not really know what is going on.

Well done - Sukenis.

P.S.

I know a lot of (independant) auditors that do not support your viewpoint.

Are you working for a corporation (and therefore tied in to a corporate belief set) or ( are you truely an independant auditor).

If the latter your remarks are more credible.

 

[Sukenis]

Typical view point (from high earning company executives and recruited third party legal proffesionals) - lets put the blame on the employees - who do not really know what is going on.

Well done - Sukenis.

P.S.

I know a lot of (independant) auditors that do not support your viewpoint.

Are you working for a corporation (and therefore tied in to a corporate belief set) or ( are you truely an independant auditor).

If the latter your remarks are more credible.

You might misquote me. I said I can explain it, not that I agree with it. I do not work in the public accoutning industry and do not believe that a person can ever be an independant auditor. As such, I work in a position that does not require me to claim I am "independent". I am hired by companies to go through the books of various "partner" corporation to make sure they handled finances in a proper manner. I am in no way independent and try not to make anyone think that I am. I work for the person who pays my check (or pays my company who pays my check).

All this aside,the point I was trying to make (and appear to have failed to make) was that people within an industry tend to rationalize the why and forget that others who put out the money are left behind. I spent $100 on a product based on a company name. While I have gotten what I feel is $100 worth of time out of the product, I do not feel that the company name lived up to the standards I set. Maybe this is my fault for setting the bar to high, but non-the-less, my standards were not met.

Will I buy Civ 4? I do not know. That is not an issue of how good the game is or what the price is. As I get older, I spend more time with my family and on work and have less time to play game on my computer. It now is down to "is the time spent playing the game more well spent elsewhere?" At this point, I do not expect it will be. If by that time I am a high up executive, then $100 will be a drop in the bucket and I will get it anyways though so maybe this is a moot point with me.

 

[CyberChrist]

...It now is down to "is the time spent playing the game more well spent elsewhere?" At this point, I do not expect it will be. If by that time I am a high up executive, then $100 will be a drop in the bucket and I will get it anyways though so maybe this is a moot point with me.

Ah, we hit the real nerve of the problem with buggy programs and whether not fixing these products will hurt future sales of a new release from same company.

Money is not the issue - time is.
People in generel do NOT care so much about the initial money they pay for a product, if only the product gives them hours/days/weeks/months of entertainment. But they DO care about having to spend frustrating amounts of time on a buggy product (perhaps even more so if holding out for a patch to fix these problems that never comes). If that experience leaves them feeling that they have been wasting their time then they WILL think again before investing their time in another product from the same company.

Now I don't personally feel that my time with Civ3 have been wasted at all (even though there has been many frustrations due to the bugs), but my confidence in Firaxis have been damaged nevertheless (never had any confidence in Atari/Infogrames to begin with so nothing to damage there ).

Once burned twice shy - multiple times even more so.

 

[kokoras]

Reputation is a hard thing to achieve,but it is way to easy to lose it,and once you lost it i doubt it will return.At this point Atari-Firaxis isn't considered for good a reliable company.All their future efforts sould be concentraded only on this fact,to regain their reliability.

 

[warpstorm]

kokoras, Atari-Firaxis is not a company. There is Atari and there is Firaxis. They are two separate companies. Atari contracts Firaxis to make Civ (and other games, like Pirates) for them. They give them X amount of money up front and X amount of time to make the games. If the game sells at a level such that Firaxis can pay back the up-front money that Atari gave them, then Firaxis gets a profit. Note that Firaxis only gets a small percentage of the sales price when computing this.

Industry wide 90% of games do not meet this level of sales and the development houses don't get any money other than the up-front money.

Also note that the up-front money isn't usually paid in full at once, but is tied to meeting milestones. Miss a milestone, miss a payment.

Like Trip said earlier, Blizzard is in a nearly unique place in the games industry (to be fair there are a few others there, id for example). Their previous hits lets them sock away enough money that they can bankroll their own games. This means that they can set their own schedules and content. Most games companies do not have this luxury. They have to ask a publisher for the funds to make the game. This makes them beholden to the schedules and desires of the publisher. This is the case for Firaxis. They don't have that runaway hit yet.

In addition, in the case of Civ, Atari owns the IP rights to Civ. If Firaxis (or anyone for that matter) wants to make a Civ game they have to do it with Atari as the publisher.

 

[guyfamous]

In addition, in the case of Civ, Atari owns the IP rights to Civ. If Firaxis (or anyone for that matter) wants to make a Civ game they have to do it with Atari as the publisher.

I have been an owner of stock in most of the companies involved in Civ 2 and Civ 3. Warpstorm is correct Atari is a separate entity and should be treated as such.

I owned shares of Microprose until it was sold to Hasbro. Hasbro believed it could make a profit producing and selling computer games, but failed miserably. They are also the owners of Wizards of the Coast and controlled the Dungeons and Dragons licensing. A few years ago (after I had purchased stock in Hasbro), Hasbro decided they weren't suited to selling computer games and gave up. This was soon after the Civ2-Test of Time disaster (lets repackage a four year old game, change the graphics, and destroy any goodwill the Civ community has with us). Hasbro sold the IP rights to all of their computer and board games to Infogrames (later Atari) for them to use and (in the case of the D&D licence) abuse. The control of Civ and D&D licenses continues with Atari.

Firaxis is a private development company with no publicly traded stock. Although that is a better situation in terms corporate control, it is very difficult in terms of funding projects. Sid has a very good reputation so he doesn't have as many problems, but the lack of resource availability is not a surprise to me.

I was looking forward to the patch this month to fix some of the problems we are all having and it's unfortunate that the patch is delayed. If past performance is a gauge, I believe that Firaxis will continue to support C3C and will have a final patch later this year. It's unfortunate that the community has lost so much faith and spends so much energy bashing Firaxis. I will keep playing C3C and I'm looking forward to purchasing Civ 4 the day it's released. No goodwill lost here.

 

[kokoras]

Warpstorm i know that Atari is a different company from firaxis,one is the sponsor the other the producer,ok...when i say that Atari-Firaxis has lost their reputation i mean that Firaxis has lost it's reputation as far as their capabilities to create a good game.Because Firaxis created in the last two years two major-buged games PTW-C3C,and they didn't seem to care about creating an expansion which sould be a complete game.If they didn't have the time or the money to do it then i say that Atari which is the sponsor of the game has done nothing more than to continue on putting pressure on Firaxis for their productivity without take in considaration the level of the product.So Atari has lost also it's reputation becuase what they did was only for the profit,(which by the way is the wrong polity,they ''tricked''us once,for how long do they think people will spend their money on bad products).
So,both have failed,
-FIRAXIS- because they sould refuse to create something if they believed that the result wouldn't be the one that they would have wanted to be (no time,no funds) ,or if everything seemed to be ok they sould just create a good product.
-ATARI- Because they are the sponsors,they sould care more about the product from which they are gaining from.

 

[Kemal]

I was looking forward to the patch this month to fix some of the problems we are all having and it's unfortunate that the patch is delayed. If past performance is a gauge, I believe that Firaxis will continue to support C3C and will have a final patch later this year. It's unfortunate that the community has lost so much faith and spends so much energy bashing Firaxis. I will keep playing C3C and I'm looking forward to purchasing Civ 4 the day it's released. No goodwill lost here.

Actually, I was under the impression that the community, at least a large portion of it, is and was spending energy on trying to get C3C to become a better game rather than focusing on and bashing the things promised but not completed in the game.

Now, while Firaxis has had plenty of time to implement fixes of bugs long known and detected by the community, they decide the patch to fix them suddenly won't come after all. That's IMHO not a good way to support a game, nor a group of people who have tried their best to suggest what might be improved/fixed or not.

Whether the way the videogame market works leaves them with no other option doesn't change my view of Firaxis breaking a promise here to its customers of fixing C3C for them in a final patch. And again, that is really a disappointment.

 

[HellboundHeathcliff]

Why don't we start bashing the programmers who left to form thier own company knowing full well that thier leaving would trash the civ3 development. The more i read i read this thread, the more i feel betrayed by them.

 

[Jon Shafer]

I'll repeat what I wrote earlier in response to this:

Warpstorm i know that Atari is a different company from firaxis,one is the sponsor the other the producer,ok...when i say that Atari-Firaxis has lost their reputation i mean that Firaxis has lost it's reputation as far as their capabilities to create a good game.Because Firaxis created in the last two years two major-buged games PTW-C3C,and they didn't seem to care about creating an expansion which sould be a complete game.If they didn't have the time or the money to do it then i say that Atari which is the sponsor of the game has done nothing more than to continue on putting pressure on Firaxis for their productivity without take in considaration the level of the product.So Atari has lost also it's reputation becuase what they did was only for the profit,(which by the way is the wrong polity,they ''tricked''us once,for how long do they think people will spend their money on bad products).
So,both have failed,
-FIRAXIS- because they sould refuse to create something if they believed that the result wouldn't be the one that they would have wanted to be (no time,no funds) ,or if everything seemed to be ok they sould just create a good product.

The problem with all this is that quite far into the development of Civ 3, the designer (Brian Reynolds) and the entire programming team from Firaxis left (and went off to create BHG, which released Rise of Nations). That meant that Firaxis had to hire an entire new group to take over and save the project from certain death. I don't know how much most people know about the game development industry, but doing that is akin to replacing the director, producer and writers and trying to end up with a movie that seems to make sense. Sure with a budget and time the movie could (and should) be great, but trying to come back from such a huge incident is difficult at best. Such an event often scraps projects or requires them to start completely over - a year of work down the drain.

And to make matters worse, Civ 3 was based off of Alpha Centauri.. which was based off of... So they were working with code that was 10 years old that someone else had written and had to make a game people would enjoy out of it!

If that's what people are talking about being "promises of MP" then they've lost grasp of reality. Firaxis lost tons of time and money because of that incident and had they used a patch to impliment MP it would have only gotten worse - especially considering the fact that few people ever download any of the patches, giving even less exposure (no game reviewer is going to write a new article about a game's PATCH!).

Since Civ 4 won't have any of that happening (we hope ), I have confidence that it will be a product far superior to Civ 3.

-ATARI- Because they are the sponsors,they sould care more about the product from which they are gaining from.

That's the nature of the publisher business. And that's the key here that everyone all around should keep in mind -

BUSINESS

If products don't sell well and people don't make money, then the game businesses fold and there are no more games.

There is the standard routine of devs shopping around to publishers with a product, the publishers give them money and a date - as WS said just above, this is often linked with how much is done by a certain date. If not enough is done (say, with Civ 3 after the entire programming team leaves), then Firaxis gets no money. Soren has to pay the bills like everyone else. Same goes for the people at Atari. Lately Atari has been in quite a hole and they too have to make a living.

A lot is to blame on the nature of the game business itself. Blizzard breaks the mold because of their success, just like Microsoft does or Standard Oil did (not perfect analogies but I'm not trying to say they overlap completely anyways). Everyone else is there trying to make a living and create games that people enjoy.

Yes, Firaxis promised a patch. Do you think they said that to screw people over? Or do you think they really meant it, and have tried hard to accomplish that?

When it comes down to it in the end, sacrifices must be made. Do we want Civ 3 unfished or Civ 4 to be an inferior product? There are no other options. You must decide which one to support.

I pick Civ 4.

 

[Jon Shafer]

Why don't we start bashing the programmers who left to form thier own company knowing full well that thier leaving would trash the civ3 development. The more i read i read this thread, the more i feel betrayed by them.

Well, no one really knows exactly what happened outside of Firaxis and BHG. All we know is that Brian and most of the programmers left with almost a year's work done on Civ 3 (about how much is on Civ 4, I imagine). I don't like to point fingers when I'm not in the know, but them leaving is a major factor in many of the problems with Civ 3 today. The current dev team has worked wonders making Civ 3 into a game that's playable, let alone fun and addictive.

 

[Antrine]

I vote CIV 4, with a teeny weeny cavet,
Now trust me on this, it's original,

Sub-license access to the CIV 3, to a select few of fanatic go getters, so organized to complete same; this at least so as to save face.....

And I do not want to hear about legal mumbo jumbo of what is possible. There is always a way....

With this, the crowds will return....

 

[Sukenis]

When it comes down to it in the end, sacrifices must be made. Do we want Civ 3 unfished or Civ 4 to be an inferior product? There are no other options. You must decide which one to support.
I pick Civ 4.

This is how we differ. I prefer to have to product that I have all ready paid for maintained and not have work done on a product that I have not yet bought.

Well, no one really knows exactly what happened outside of Firaxis and BHG. All we know is that Brian and most of the programmers left with almost a year's work done on Civ 3 (about how much is on Civ 4, I imagine). I don't like to point fingers when I'm not in the know, but them leaving is a major factor in many of the problems with Civ 3 today. The current dev team has worked wonders making Civ 3 into a game that's playable, let alone fun and addictive.

All I know about this situation is what has been said here. I would suspect that those who left did not leave because they were being paid too much, being given ample time frames to complete projects in, were given the creative freedom they wished to have, and so on. People tend to leave a job for a reason. Some reasons are good, and others are not so good. Anything about them is speculation that can not be proven or disproved so I would suggest that no blame/excuses are given/used regarding this situation. For all we know those who left did because they were pressured to put out a faulty product and would not do it. For all we know those who left did because they wanted more money and attempted to hold the project ransom and were forced to "resign".