C3C Redux: Six months with no patch.

[grommit5]

Well, maybe to YOUR Nobel/Settler level games it does not seem game-breaking. But for the more serious player (the big Firaxis supporters/fans) it is a different story altogether.

If I DO ever give Civ 5 a try, it is NOT going to be through a purchase in a store over a counter-top table. I assure you that (Unless something really changes in the future).

Just because I prefer to play at Noble why does that mean I'm not a Firaxis supporter and appearently in your mind not a serious player? I take my game very seriously I just prefer a more relaxed style. And while I consider myself a CIV supporter more than a Firaxis supporter I have every version of Civ since the original Civ I DOS. So I think I've been supporting Firaxis just fine.

That said I agree with the sentiment that an OFFICIAL patch would be preferred over an unofficial patch/mod/update (whatever you want to call it) and Firaxis should support its customers which it seems they don't. Still I will probably but Civ Rev and most definately will but Civ V when it comes out. Sounds more like you are the one that doesn't support Firaxis.

 

[JesusOnEez]

@r_rolo1

What with just buying a house, and getting a new and much more demanding job, and starting a self study degree, my time with CIV has gone from 12+ hours a week to a couple of hours, so SGing is out of the window at the moment. I'd love to have a game (or even start one...I have ideas), but I wouldn't be able to guarantee staying for the long haul.

Now, if ChrTh pulled his finger out and started up again, I might think again.

 

[Willem]

Fact is, Firaxis have released a good number of patches for each iteration of CIV at a not unreasonable rate, and arguably it's unreasonable to expect them to release patches every few weeks/couple of months when they're clearly polishing Rev and making a start (hopefully) on Civ V, which I'll be buying the minute it hits the shelves knowing that, like CIV, it'll have years of support and improvements to follow. There's no such thing as a game with no bugs, even after numerous patching, and especially with a game as mathematically complex as CIV, you simply cannot expect there to be no bugs. Sure, some you can live with, some you can't...wait until the next patch, and while you're waiting, take a look back at the bugs they have fixed over the last few years and say, "Thank you Firaxis."

There's certainly no denying that Firaxis has fixed alot of bugs when the game was still considered a commodity, but they've been developing a tendency to abandon games when they feel they've made as much money as they can from it. The did the same to Civ 3 and it looks like they're repeating themselves with 4. The same thing happened with Pirates and Railroads as well, but of course those were both dud games and a bit more understandable. The Civ line however is their bread and butter and it doesn't make for good policy to have two games in the series left dangling in the end, which it's beginning to appear is being done with Civ 4.

 

[obsolete]

Another thing I don't like how even if they DO patch, it seems the LOOKS is more important than PLAYABILITY. E.G. Ohh, we removed the Glance-Tab in the last patch, because we thought it looked ugly.

OKAY! So the current civ players are forced to go through a tedious process, just so POTENTIAL customers won't be scared away by a menu that doesn't look all spicy.

Hmm!!!

 

[SenhorDaGuerra]

Another thing I don't like how even if they DO patch, it seems the LOOKS is more important than PLAYABILITY. E.G. Ohh, we removed the Glance-Tab in the last patch, because we thought it looked ugly.

OKAY! So the current civ players are forced to go through a tedious process, just so POTENTIAL customers won't be scared away by a menu that doesn't look all spicy.

Hmm!!!

As much as i appreciate you walkthroughs and find them very entertaining, if the game has become unfun for you, just stop palying!

I've been doing some thinking. I paid about £20 for Civ vanilla. then a further £20 for Warlords. Then a further £20 for BTS. So, in all, £60 on average i play about 12 hours per week. Quite a lot you say... well not really.

Back in my FPS days, i bought Farcry for £35. I completed it in around 10 hours. I Bought FEAR for £30. I completed that in about 9 hours. Prey cost me £25 and i completed that in 6 hours.

For my PS2 i bought Prince of Persia for £30 and finished it in 5 hours. I bought XIII for £30 and finished that in about 15 hours.

On the PS3 i bought Heavenly Sword for £45 and finished it in 7 hours. Devil May Cry 4 cost me £45 and i completed it in 8 hours.

... my point is, that compared to many games out there, the replayability of Civ far outweighs the cost of being "loyal" to firaxis. they have produced a game that has given you far more than the £60 overall that you paid for it. I certainly did not get the same value for money in those games listed above. Especially considering i have played 10-15 hours a week on and off for about 4 years (sometimes i do need a break).

Sure the game has flaws, but its not like the bugs on GTA4 for the xbox360 where the game crashes and claims the "disc is unreadable" then you lose the previous hour of missions you just did.

If you push any game to the limit, you are bound to find bugs and flaws in it that you can exploit. and I think that if you find these are more of a hinderance to enjoyment, then maybe its time you gave it a rest, because frankly you are just going to get more wound up every time.

Every game has its expoits, In one of the Football Managers (2002 i think) you could buy a player called Orri Freyr Oskarsson who had crap stats but always scored you 40 plus goals and could almost single handedly win you the Champions league, especially if you played with the other bug in the game known as the "looney midfielder" tactic.

In ISS 98 (international superstar soccer) on the N64 if you took a shot from a certain angle, you were guaranteed to score.

basically, what im saying is, for the £60 you paid for the complete package, you have definately had value for money. You probably even had better value for money than games like Morrowind or Final Fantasy which boast up to 500 hours of potential gameplay.

Probably the only 2 games to rival Civ (for me anyway) in terms of replayability are Football Manager and Pro Evolution Soccer (multiplayer).

6 months and not patch... still having fun.

that is all.

 

[JesusOnEez]

If you push any game to the limit, you are bound to find bugs and flaws in it that you can exploit. and I think that if you find these are more of a hinderance to enjoyment, then maybe its time you gave it a rest, because frankly you are just going to get more wound up every time.

Every game has its expoits, In one of the Football Managers (2002 i think) you could buy a player called Orri Freyr Oskarsson who had crap stats but always scored you 40 plus goals and could almost single handedly win you the Champions league, especially if you played with the other bug in the game known as the "looney midfielder" tactic.

I agree. It's pretty much what I was trying to say to obsolete in that every game has bugs or exploits.

To obsolete I'd like to add that if you can name any game that's bug free after it's supported life, I'd be very surprised.

 

[King Flevance]

I wouldn't say this game has had years of good support. There were problems in Vanilla (sure 1.52 shut up most of the vocal minorities complaining that the game specs were wrong - me included.) But then Firaxis said "Hey, if you want any of the gameplay fixes, you must buy warlords." Which I didn't. From the sounds of it Warlords had all kinds of problems with the features introduced. So Firaxis said "Hey, if you want the fixes you must buy BTS." Which I did but BTS offered a whole lot more than Warlords ever dreamed of. And now they are probably about to say "Hey, if you want to see a better version of Civ, buy Civ 5." Yeah, well..... no. I'm done. Civ was a title I dearly loved and has anymore turned into the guy who waves candy in front of a kid and then says he can't have it. Actually worse, but that analogy will take while to type out. SO, like Firaxis, I will just abandon this anology. I ain't making any money off it anyways. Send me 5 bucks and I will type it out for you via PM. Hehe.

I will buy CIv 5 when complete comes out even then I may wait for patches. I can mod Civ 4 to how I want it. I may even wait for 6. I must say that I do love the open availability for modding introduced for Civ 4. I can get a few more years out of it because of that. First, I plan to get the standard game up to par to where I think it should be. Unlock some of this potential and all that. As well, I plan to make a Mech Warrior mod at some point. (Hoping I can find some additional 3-D modelers with spare time.) Civ is basically going to have to make it without me for while. They have made enough money off of my nestalgia I hold for it. When I spend my money I want quality not promises especially from businessmen. I consider myself a businessman and Firaxis has became a shady business partner. You can say all software has bugs, rah, rah, rah. But I own other software. I have other business partners and Firaxis has now made enough bad decisions to lower their rank. The open availability granted by 4 was a dangerous tool to feed people when you plan not to support your products. I do not plan to pay them for future installments because of this either. If they want to hand over source code for my money, they need to show me why Civ 5 (or 6) is worth my money. They don't get my hard earned cash for being Firaxis.You know what I really loved was Microprose. Firaxis hasn't really earned crap in my eyes. The company changed at that point right there.

Civ Rev is crap in my eyes. It takes all the areas I think Civ is good at and runs in the other direction. I don't have A.D.D. and I don't like games that cater to it. I like atmosphere and depth to strategy games. It's why I play them. Not to drool over how hot Clepatra or Isabella is. We need some Catherines from Civ 3 in the mix. Muahaha.

Anyways, as far as this patch is concern, meh. I don't care. But I personally mod the game so I honestly don't even know where the core is even sitting at really anymore. I never play it. I do appreciate the work other modders put into it. One day, when I feel my mod is safe to be uploaded without alot of updates I plan to do so and give thanks to all other modders out there for aiding me in my goals with the game. Just tyo see how it will do. Although, the masses are probably going to have ventured on to the sequel, I didn't make my mod for anyone other than me and a couple friends really. But hopefully I can offer some to anyone lse in my same position. If not, ah well.

Que sera sera.

@Willem:Good points on Pirates and Railroads. Buy Port Royale or Railroad Tycoon 3 and get a better game IMO.

 

[Balderstrom]

Compared to a lot of games, which might get 'one patch' - maybe two if yer lucky.
Firaxis has actually been pretty consistent with vanilla and the 2 expansions.
A lot more so than the developer on the Mac side has been.

Are we due for a final patch before Civ IV? Yeah we are. But its certainly not stopping me from playing and modding til then ;-)


Wheres my spearman, I see a high horse.

 

[Napalm102]

I've been doing some thinking. I paid about £20 for Civ vanilla. then a further £20 for Warlords. Then a further £20 for BTS. So, in all, £60 on average i play about 12 hours per week. Quite a lot you say... well not really.

Back in my FPS days, i bought Farcry for £35. I completed it in around 10 hours. I Bought FEAR for £30. I completed that in about 9 hours. Prey cost me £25 and i completed that in 6 hours.

For my PS2 i bought Prince of Persia for £30 and finished it in 5 hours. I bought XIII for £30 and finished that in about 15 hours.

On the PS3 i bought Heavenly Sword for £45 and finished it in 7 hours. Devil May Cry 4 cost me £45 and i completed it in 8 hours.

I wholy agree that Civ games always provided high replayability and generally provide more hours of fun/per dolar spent, but with some of the titles you have listed above to be really fair you have to consider multiplayer component.

For me personally the top 3 games, with the best value were:

Civ IV - The actual game time can probably be counted in weeks. And after all of this I'm still having fun.

Half-Life 2 - More specifically counter-strike, and team fortress made this game worth alot more then the vanila original.

Quake 3 - Many mods out there, including my favourite weapons factory arena. It probably cost me a GPA point when I was at university

But you are also right of course, a lot of these games you buy and play through once and that is it.

 

[SenhorDaGuerra]

@Napalm102

OK, i didnt take the multiplayer aspect into it, which is becoming increasingly popular these days, especially with FPS games and now with XBox 360 and PS3 going online. but that still requires some sort of subscription to an ISP and more money spent, albeit indirectly, on the game. Civ has no such requirements, unless you are an avid online player, for replayability.

but multiplayer is a fair point.

 

[Willem]

@Napalm102
but that still requires some sort of subscription to an ISP and more money spent, albeit indirectly, on the game. Civ has no such requirements, unless you are an avid online player, for replayability.

It's rather silly equating an ISP account with an additional expense for a game. People are are going to be connected to the Internet regardless of whether they're playing a game or not. And Civ 4 has an online component too you know, which many people make use of. You can apply the same logic there as well.

 

[qwertz]

They could just copy 95% of Bhruic's code (I don't think Bhruic would have anything against it), add 2 lines on their own (just so they can say they did something) and make the patch offical. This would cost them less time than it costs you to read this sentence and it would already be some progress and they would at least show that they are sill caring about the game.

 

[King Flevance]

@Napalm102

OK, i didnt take the multiplayer aspect into it, which is becoming increasingly popular these days, especially with FPS games and now with XBox 360 and PS3 going online. but that still requires some sort of subscription to an ISP and more money spent, albeit indirectly, on the game. Civ has no such requirements, unless you are an avid online player, for replayability.

but multiplayer is a fair point.

Civ without internet = no patches at all. BTS out of the box was very screwy.

 

[r_rolo1]

They could just copy 95% of Bhruic's code (I don't think Bhruic would have anything against it), add 2 lines on their own (just so they can say they did something) and make the patch offical. This would cost them less time than it costs you to read this sentence and it would already be some progress and they would at least show that they are sill caring about the game.

The patch will have a new option for choosing map scripts ( the Refar's Random map chooser ), new scripts ( like Terra2 ) ... It will be a little bigger than Bhruic's patch

 

[Horizons]

I don't understand why Firaxis is risking its reputation by neglecting support for BtS.

Because all will be forgiven when a shiny new Civ 5 is trundled out of the lab.

I wonder if the real reason Firaxis has made a civ game for the powerhouse consoles is because those machines can download patches and updates over the internet. Normally developers have to go through console editions with a fine-tooth comb but I personally would find it hilariously funny if they left Civ: Rev in a similar state to the hopelessly defunct Civ3: Conquests or unofficially patched BTS.

 

[Horizons]

They could just copy 95% of Bhruic's code (I don't think Bhruic would have anything against it), add 2 lines on their own (just so they can say they did something) and make the patch offical. This would cost them less time than it costs you to read this sentence and it would already be some progress and they would at least show that they are sill caring about the game.

The fact that Firaxis didn't bother to do this proves how thoroughly lazy they are. Now that 98% of everyone who ever will buy BTS has already bought it they don't care. Sid must be the kind of lover in real life to be totally charming when he's dating you but once you've put out for him he treats you like you mean nothing to him. What a jerk.

 

[SenhorDaGuerra]

It's rather silly equating an ISP account with an additional expense for a game. People are are going to be connected to the Internet regardless of whether they're playing a game or not. And Civ 4 has an online component too you know, which many people make use of. You can apply the same logic there as well.

your right, thats absolutely true. point taken.

 

[Quotey]

It's slightly dissapointing with the lack of Firaxian participation in the community, but that's to be expected given the backlash post 3.13, and 3.02 (I think). Firaxis released beta patches for C3C, I think, so they could be tested here- perhaps 2K Games doesn't like this, but I think CFC could find LOTS of the bugs within a few weeks of beta release (and we did).

If you push any game to the limit, you are bound to find bugs and flaws in it that you can exploit. and I think that if you find these are more of a hinderance to enjoyment, then maybe its time you gave it a rest, because frankly you are just going to get more wound up every time.

I don't think anyone meant gameplay bugs- frankly, it's only the multiplayer experienced that could possibly be ruined by these bugs. If thre was, say, a bug to greatrly reduce distance maintenence (like RCP from C3) I don't think it owuld need to be patched out, as you can CHOOSE to abuse it. But these are game breaking bugs that you have no influence over. Say, the colony bug, worker capture bug, monument sabotage bug, etc.

And RCP is probably a terrible example.

 

[Kranden]

That's the basis of the entire argument here, isn't it? The thing is, that's a mighty simplified and short-sighted view of the issue. The truth is, Civ V has already lost sales due to company policy. How many, nobody can really say.
LM

yea right I'd bet 95% of people on these forums would rush right out and buy it.

 

[oranges]

yea right I'd bet 95% of people on these forums would rush right out and buy it.

Perhaps, but we also enjoy(ed) the benefits of Solver's and now Bhruic's patch. Not sure if the same could be said for far more numerous CIV players who do not frequent the forums. In any case, it should be common courtesy towards your customers to issue a patch for major bugs, such as the colony and worker capture cities, as soon as possible. There is simply no reason to alienate your fans by not doing so. If Bhruic can spend his free time to fix this and many more issues, surely Firaxis can spare one person for the time needed to do something similar.