The bottom line is that right now there is a whole slew of people unable to play at all or playing this game on a diminished level. These are people who paid for this software, they are customers, in every sense of the word they deserve a little respect and support from Firaxis and their fellow gamers who aren't having problems.
In my humble opinion at the very least their should be an acknowledgment of the problems not to mention potentially an apology for their customers from Firaxis. Instead what we got was more or less a complete denial from the head of marketing who said, and I quote, "Designing a PC game to run perfectly on all of the different hardware/software configurations available today is extremely challenging...particularly for a game as big and complex as Civilization IV. We do a tremendous amount of testing before we release a game, and try to test on every conceivable configuration (including laptops). For the most part, Civ IV is running well for most folks...and any issues that have come up since the release have been addressed and fixed by our team. It's difficult to reach perfection...but we'll never stop trying!"
I don't know about you guys, but as far as I know non of the issues that have come up have been fixed!! People found "work arounds" for a small number of the things involving relativly complex set of instructions that the average non-computer litterate person probobly couldn't follow. These however didn't come from Firaxis, they came from the fan base and they were resolutions for 2-3 issues that were resolved on the 2nd or 3rd day of release. Then they were posted on the main website as the sole thing anyone needed to do to fix the issues with this game. The rest of the problems haven't been addressed at all and we have no way of knowing if they will be addressed in the patch since there has been absolutly no official word whatsover about the patch.
What we have right now is a bunch of anxious fans, hoping... praying that whatever there technical issue is it will be addressed in the patch. It's a game of chance for most of us and we seem to have absolutly no power to ask for anything since the game is getting overwhelmingly great reviews and a large chunk of the fan base is going on record excusing these issues claiming that "This is an acceptable level of bugs". Perhaps that's true, but as fans of the game and as fellow gamers, i think their has to be a better sense of comradery because although many people are not experiancing problems with this game, they may do so with the next one that comes out. I think people would appriciate a level of support from their fellow gamers, rather then the response most of us have gotten which is for the most part "Shut the F up, no one gives a crap about your problems, oh and by the way ... hahahah ... My game works "perfect".
I think most gamers don't see the clear line that they have created for game developers with their complete absence of loyalty to the gaming community. By excusing developers failures and not sticking with their fellow gamers, we are creating an industry of excuses. It's true that many of you out there aren't having any problems and the game runs great for you, but by excusing the obvious issues with the game that other people are experiancing your opening the door to poor quality in future games.
It's sad, but we can all look forward to an industry that's going to continue to decline in quality. Not so long ago games that were released with issues were shunned by the gaming community with a single breath and the bad media would litterly put companies out of business. The result was a fear by developers and publishers to release bad product, knowing that the cost of doing so would be severe. Today, there is absolutly no fear, they can put out buggy untested games and we swallow the bull**** and call it ice cream, this not just coming from the many online magazines but from the actual gaming community.
What's worse is that game reviews these days are litterly for sale. After all if you have a website like gamespot.com and you have a HUGE Civilization 4 add on the front banner of your website which you are collecting top marketing dollar for, how could you possibly give the game anything but a steller review.
I'm disgusted with what's going on with this industry, not just because of the complete absence of quality, but because there is absolutly no gamer community anymore, just a bunch of loan wolves that do and say whatever they want with abosulty no thought whatsover. In fact we can expect more of the same in the future.
In my humble opinion at the very least their should be an acknowledgment of the problems not to mention potentially an apology for their customers from Firaxis. Instead what we got was more or less a complete denial from the head of marketing who said, and I quote, "Designing a PC game to run perfectly on all of the different hardware/software configurations available today is extremely challenging...particularly for a game as big and complex as Civilization IV. We do a tremendous amount of testing before we release a game, and try to test on every conceivable configuration (including laptops). For the most part, Civ IV is running well for most folks...and any issues that have come up since the release have been addressed and fixed by our team. It's difficult to reach perfection...but we'll never stop trying!"
I don't know about you guys, but as far as I know non of the issues that have come up have been fixed!! People found "work arounds" for a small number of the things involving relativly complex set of instructions that the average non-computer litterate person probobly couldn't follow. These however didn't come from Firaxis, they came from the fan base and they were resolutions for 2-3 issues that were resolved on the 2nd or 3rd day of release. Then they were posted on the main website as the sole thing anyone needed to do to fix the issues with this game. The rest of the problems haven't been addressed at all and we have no way of knowing if they will be addressed in the patch since there has been absolutly no official word whatsover about the patch.
What we have right now is a bunch of anxious fans, hoping... praying that whatever there technical issue is it will be addressed in the patch. It's a game of chance for most of us and we seem to have absolutly no power to ask for anything since the game is getting overwhelmingly great reviews and a large chunk of the fan base is going on record excusing these issues claiming that "This is an acceptable level of bugs". Perhaps that's true, but as fans of the game and as fellow gamers, i think their has to be a better sense of comradery because although many people are not experiancing problems with this game, they may do so with the next one that comes out. I think people would appriciate a level of support from their fellow gamers, rather then the response most of us have gotten which is for the most part "Shut the F up, no one gives a crap about your problems, oh and by the way ... hahahah ... My game works "perfect".
I think most gamers don't see the clear line that they have created for game developers with their complete absence of loyalty to the gaming community. By excusing developers failures and not sticking with their fellow gamers, we are creating an industry of excuses. It's true that many of you out there aren't having any problems and the game runs great for you, but by excusing the obvious issues with the game that other people are experiancing your opening the door to poor quality in future games.
It's sad, but we can all look forward to an industry that's going to continue to decline in quality. Not so long ago games that were released with issues were shunned by the gaming community with a single breath and the bad media would litterly put companies out of business. The result was a fear by developers and publishers to release bad product, knowing that the cost of doing so would be severe. Today, there is absolutly no fear, they can put out buggy untested games and we swallow the bull**** and call it ice cream, this not just coming from the many online magazines but from the actual gaming community.
What's worse is that game reviews these days are litterly for sale. After all if you have a website like gamespot.com and you have a HUGE Civilization 4 add on the front banner of your website which you are collecting top marketing dollar for, how could you possibly give the game anything but a steller review.
I'm disgusted with what's going on with this industry, not just because of the complete absence of quality, but because there is absolutly no gamer community anymore, just a bunch of loan wolves that do and say whatever they want with abosulty no thought whatsover. In fact we can expect more of the same in the future.
