C3C Redux: Six months with no patch.

[Willem]

The Complete version of Atari doesn't have that bug ( I don't recall facing it after using it atleast.... )

The complete version would be something of a rewite of the code since it would include all the XPs and all the patches together. So maybe it was possible to fix there but not with existing versions. I definitely recall one of the devs, Trip I believe he called himself, coming to one of the forums and mentioning the problems they were having with it, among other things. I believe he was also the one who mentioned that there would be no further patches for the game since they were already working on Civ 4.

 

[brandon1965]

I'll finally chime in.

There will never, ever be another patch for BtS, and I will not pay full price for Civ5 (although I'll probably buy it once the price comes down).

I can't reward a company this dumb.

Being dumb really has nothing to do with it. It's a case of simple economics. If the company's total profit would be less by investing in another patch than it will be by not releasing another patch, there will be no further patches. That's just a smart business decision. When the fans of the Civ series wise up and stop rewarding Firaxis after the last two incarnations of the series were never finished, then and only then will their business practices change. That being said, I am one of those who will probably buy Civ 5 the first day it hits the shelves in the dim hopes that those business practices have changed. It is sad that a game series with such potential is left incomplete and an extremely loyal fan base is so unappreciated but that is how economics works.

 

[Occurance_one]

I think its less economics and more company structure. Firaxis is now under the guild of 2K games so patching isn't very streamlined. Blizzard on the other hand doesnt have to go through loops to patch a game, and also the games mentioned (diablo, SC) for a while were some of Blizzard's only available games (and not to mention quite popular still). Blizzard probably has alot more staff to handle this, and even has their own online service bnet. If Firaxis was as well off as Blizzard (and independent) I'm sure we'd see patches faster and more thorough patches. However, instead we see pressure from the parent company to finish newer products, with less time and resources on previously finished products. Granted I do think their last patch was rather sloppy, but I still think this definitely isn't entirely their fault. All I hope is we get a new patch though....

 

[brandon1965]

I think its less economics and more company structure. Firaxis is now under the guild of 2K games so patching isn't very streamlined. Blizzard on the other hand doesnt have to go through loops to patch a game, and also the games mentioned (diablo, SC) for a while were some of Blizzard's only available games (and not to mention quite popular still). Blizzard probably has alot more staff to handle this, and even has their own online service bnet. If Firaxis was as well off as Blizzard (and independent) I'm sure we'd see patches faster and more thorough patches. However, instead we see pressure from the parent company to finish newer products, with less time and resources on previously finished products. Granted I do think their last patch was rather sloppy, but I still think this definitely isn't entirely their fault. All I hope is we get a new patch though....

Hmm, you said it was "less economic" but then supported that with reasons of economics. Not trying to sound rude but ALL business decisions are ultimately economic in nature.

 

[King Flevance]

Being dumb really has nothing to do with it. It's a case of simple economics. If the company's total profit would be less by investing in another patch than it will be by not releasing another patch, there will be no further patches. That's just a smart business decision. When the fans of the Civ series wise up and stop rewarding Firaxis after the last two incarnations of the series were never finished, then and only then will their business practices change. That being said, I am one of those who will probably buy Civ 5 the first day it hits the shelves in the dim hopes that those business practices have changed. It is sad that a game series with such potential is left incomplete and an extremely loyal fan base is so unappreciated but that is how economics works.

This is where IMO the lack of intelligence (for lack of a better word) comes in. To go over the details of this post of the post:

It's a case of simple economics. If the company's total profit would be less by investing in another patch than it will be by not releasing another patch, there will be no further patches. That's just a smart business decision.

This could only be considered smart if the game in question is not in need of another patch. ANd most things the patch would fix are minor problems.(Which Civ 4 is in need of one as many gameplay aspects and mechanics are broken, officially) Neglecting this support of your software when it is in such bad shape, is bad business practice when it comes down to it. Arguing that the game patch would cost an extensive amount to patch is a feeble arguement as well. As I see it preventative measures could have been taken to ensure this patch was not needed. (Better QA quality) Civ 4 and warlords were rushed out of the gate to cover the costs that 2K had spent on the franchise, as well as to most likely cover their butts for the GTA:SA lawsuit. I still believe this was a stunt 2k pulled to milk the Civ franchise fans for every dime they are worth to cover their own screw ups. Of course Civ was not the only franchise they used to do this with either. Especially, with this Ea takeover at hand now, I can easily see them pushing out a crap Civ 5 to make a little more money to drive stock up.

When the fans of the Civ series wise up and stop rewarding Firaxis after the last two incarnations of the series were never finished, then and only then will their business practices change. That being said, I am one of those who will probably buy Civ 5 the first day it hits the shelves in the dim hopes that those business practices have changed.

This seriously amazes me when I see people say this. Especially, back to back. You yourself admit that nothing will change until people make the company realize their own mistakes. But then say "I hope they changed, here's my money." Civ isn't air or water. It isn't a neccessity in life, its a luxury. But anymore its turning into a chore that I have to shell out money for personally. "Let's see if they fixed my game yet. Nope. Ah I have to pay money for the next installment, here you go, I hope you fixed it." -Hope for a patch for 6-8 months- Rinse repeat.

It is sad that a game series with such potential is left incomplete and an extremely loyal fan base is so unappreciated but that is how economics works.

foolish is a word that better completes this phrase. I am loyal only to companies that are loyal in return. THAT is how business works. I was loyal to Microprose as I felt they were loyal to me. I have been foolish with Firaxis and they have made me pay for it. In business the foolish get taken advantage of, that's how economics work. The loyal are not always unappreciated.

Granted I do think their last patch was rather sloppy, but I still think this definitely isn't entirely their fault.

I understand where you are coming from but how I see it my business deal has fallen through on a couple occasions. Fault is not an issue here unless it was mine. (And part of it was for being part of the transactions.) The important thing to note is if fault lies on the other side as well. And it does IMO with 2k. And sadly for Firaxis and future deals with them really means a mutual deal with 2k as well and I can't afford that any longer. The good cop bad cop routine is really a seperate issue. In the end bad cop gets his way in this situation and good cop can live with that - not that he can do anything about it if he wanted to anyways in this circumstance.

 

[obsolete]

I'm just guessing, but I assume there won't be a well documented hard-copy book with Civ V either. I still have mine from Civ III... And I"ll probably keep that one forever too. Those were the days when I had a lot of respect for the company.

 

[occam]

The parts which can be the most time-consuming are QA and, therefore, publisher approval. The publisher doesn't approve any patches before it's spent some time in the publisher's QA department (yes, they do that despite developer's own QA) and the publisher is satisfied with that.

I could swallow this reasoning a LOT more easily if the QA phase added some value.

The culture not displaying -- that used to work! Where was the fancy publisher QA on that one! Patch often and bad patches are ok; patch rarely and they have to be good. At least ... not bad.

In short, if you really believe what you are saying, you would still conclude that Civ Fanatics are allowed to be screaming bloody murder over something.

 

[Freedom]

Honestly, most game companies suck at patching except Blizzard :/ I mean, hell, they still patch Starcraft and WC2. I'm no fanboy, I have my fair share of issues with Blizzard, but they are definitly one of the best when it comes to supporting their games (not necessarily when it comes to their players, though).

You know, the thing is, you goto Blizzard's forums and you will see the exact same thing you see here. For example, Warcraft III has gone without a balance patch in over a year now and fan-sites/their own forums have all but rioted every single day until Blizzard finally announced a new patch was in the works. They posted that claim last October claiming the patch would be out by the new year. Soon enough that date came up and Blizzard delayed it and delayed and delayed it.... til this day a patch has not been released on the public servers. I read "I'll never buy another Blizzard product if my life depends on it" daily. Diablo II --- same thing. The FE bug has never been fixed (a critical bug).... hammerdins need to be nerfed, etc.

Bottom line : People will never be satisfied. Firaxis is doing a decent job.

 

[Balderstrom]

@ Freedom,

It would be an entirely different scenario, if Firaxis hadn't given us an open platform for modding.
But they have. Most of the "issues" are fixable. In any game community there will always be ppl that mod and change/fix things. If the game supports it - which CIV does (More so than any other game I've purchased).

The ppl that have bought the game who notice game-breaking bugs, WILL either put up with it - or check out the game site's homepage for a fix. Firaxis/2K prominently advertise CIVFanatics and Apolyton.

 

[ICNP]

Yeah at least they are really open with the code and do help people to find the unnoficial fixes for anyone who cares enough about the bug.

By the way has anyone fixed that mistatement in the manual saying spies can see other spies and kill them?

 

[Solver]

Manuals being printed on paper, they're hard to fix

 

[Willem]

By the way has anyone fixed that mistatement in the manual saying spies can see other spies and kill them?

Apparently someone's produced a mod that allows you to do that, or so I've read anyway. I haven't a clue who did it or what it's called though.

 

[whb]

Now that quite so many PCs are on broadband, I'm a little surprised that none of the games companies have decided to do a rolling beta -- allow the client to choose "only pick up release patches" or "automatically install testing patches", so that as Firaxis fix issues they are rapidly deployed to a very large user base who are generally not only happy to do testing at no cost, but even happier to be "in the loop" getting early materials from the developers.

 

[Duuk]

On a side note... it's tuesday, the traditional day to release patches.

I always check the forum, even though I already know the answer.

 

[Psyringe]

Now that quite so many PCs are on broadband, I'm a little surprised that none of the games companies have decided to do a rolling beta -- allow the client to choose "only pick up release patches" or "automatically install testing patches"

Stardock (developer of Galactic Civilizations) does this, and is quite successful at it.

 

[arstal]

Let's all start by once again showing our appreciation for Blizzard, the company that can keep on patching 10 years after release

At this point, I really understand how many of you are pretty pissed at the lack of a second patch. But remember it's not quite as simple as, say, taking the unofficial patch code and releasing that officially, even if that would be absolutely fine legally. The parts which can be the most time-consuming are QA and, therefore, publisher approval. The publisher doesn't approve any patches before it's spent some time in the publisher's QA department (yes, they do that despite developer's own QA) and the publisher is satisfied with that. Which is the difficult part - QA departments don't really tend to be overstaffed, and their instructions usually are to prioritize games that are about to be released or games that have just been released and need the first patch out fast.

While that may be a legitimate reason, why should consumers care about that instead of the end result? There are plenty of other competitors to Civ now, and customers are growing smarter. It may cost Firaxis future sales.

As for why you should patch when most copies are bought? Because those patches do build customer loyalty- look at how insanely loyal most Stardock customers are- that's all because they interact with the community and openly and honestly fix the mistakes they make. This makes people want to buy their next games. Paradox's lead dev was told when he signed on the most important part of his job was to interact in the forum, and his posts are in the thousands over there. Admittedly these are smaller companies, but it's a good practice.

Maybe Firaxis should get a better publisher- then again, with the EA buying Take-Two coming on, that will convince me enough that it won't happen, such that I'll be VERY reluctant to buy Civ V without proof that the game is being supported. I didn't have a problem with BTS, but that's because I DLed the unofficial patches. I'm sure Stardock would be happy to work with Firaxis- they helped to beta test each other's game- and Stardock has proven they can publish multiple top 10 PC games, so why not?

If Firaxis is on a x-game contract with Take-Two, do what Timegate did to Strategy First- release the same game 3 times to get out of the contract.

I'll say this, I bought each part of Civ IV first weekend. I won't be doing it with Civ V. I will be doing it on other company's games. There's a good reason for this.

 

[King Flevance]

If Firaxis is on a x-game contract with Take-Two, do what Timegate did to Strategy First- release the same game 3 times to get out of the contract.

They aren't though. Take 2 straight out owns Firaxis. Or perhaps more specifically (and dreadfully) the rights to Civilization. Our 2 choices are 1) Take 2 who obviously doesn't give a rat's rear end about the quality of Civilization beyond initial sales, or 2) EA. ABout the only other 3rd (and unlikely) choice would be if Activision swept in out of nowhere and took over 2k before EA could. That would be interesting but is freakin insanely unlikely.

 

[Solver]

Yeah, as noted, Firaxis is currently owned by Take2. They acquired Firaxis shortly after the release of Civ4 - so for Warlords and BtS release cycles they've had much less independence than for Civ4 vanilla.

 

[DrSpike]

Despite how some here want to spin potential difficulties the bottom line here is that a final patch was repeatedly promised (as with C3C) and it looks increasingly likely that again it will not be delivered.

It's actually a far worse state of affairs because BtS has far more potential than C3C ever did. Any posters thinking about acquiring Civ5 through non-standard means (because let's face it, one way or the other we'll all play it) are totally justified in my view.

 

[obsolete]

I just checked AGAIN today, still no official patch. Just like.. yesterday.. and the day before that... and well.... every day this entire year..... since last year.

So... again. Someone tell me WHY should I trust anything will be better with Civ 5?