SirPleb
Shaken, not stirred.
I also want to say "hang in Commander Bello". I think that some of your posts have become emotional, and that some sound hostile. Perhaps you could tone that down a bit. But even if not, that's ok with me. It is clear that your disatisfaction is from a love of the game and frustration with Firaxis.
I think that frustration with Firaxis at this point is well founded. C3C was released with serious flaws. The first official patch took a very long time to arrive. It had flaws. The process of getting to this first patch showed disorganization and a disturbing willingness to tinker with game mechanics instead of addressing problems. The MP community has IMO been shafted, they pretty much had to buy C3C and its patches to get some of what they had a right to expect in PTW. Expectations of new features were raised after C3C's release which are unlikely to ever be seen. The current version of the game has problems remaining which were addressed in PTW and have reappeared. New features in C3C have large game balance issues which must be addressed before some players will find the game as much fun as PTW. There are numerous new small bugs which are rarely mentioned by any of us anymore because other pending issues are even more important. And indications from Firaxis are that the amount of effort allocated to address remaining bugs and balance issues will be far less than what is needed, i.e. that we may never see most of this stuff fixed.
Given all that, it is not surprising to see frustration and the emotional reactions which go with it.
Should we try to suppress the emotional reactions? Many people seem to think they do no good, that being nice to Firaxis and being reasonable will get better results. I know that is how things should be. But it seems to me that being nice and being reasonable has accomplished almost nothing so far. Perhaps if Firaxis sees that there is significant amount of dissatisfaction with their work even among fanatics, they'll realize that they are jeopordizing future business and perhaps they'll take action.
I think that frustration with Firaxis at this point is well founded. C3C was released with serious flaws. The first official patch took a very long time to arrive. It had flaws. The process of getting to this first patch showed disorganization and a disturbing willingness to tinker with game mechanics instead of addressing problems. The MP community has IMO been shafted, they pretty much had to buy C3C and its patches to get some of what they had a right to expect in PTW. Expectations of new features were raised after C3C's release which are unlikely to ever be seen. The current version of the game has problems remaining which were addressed in PTW and have reappeared. New features in C3C have large game balance issues which must be addressed before some players will find the game as much fun as PTW. There are numerous new small bugs which are rarely mentioned by any of us anymore because other pending issues are even more important. And indications from Firaxis are that the amount of effort allocated to address remaining bugs and balance issues will be far less than what is needed, i.e. that we may never see most of this stuff fixed.
Given all that, it is not surprising to see frustration and the emotional reactions which go with it.
Should we try to suppress the emotional reactions? Many people seem to think they do no good, that being nice to Firaxis and being reasonable will get better results. I know that is how things should be. But it seems to me that being nice and being reasonable has accomplished almost nothing so far. Perhaps if Firaxis sees that there is significant amount of dissatisfaction with their work even among fanatics, they'll realize that they are jeopordizing future business and perhaps they'll take action.