Civ 4, a failure made successful by money and absence of community

[Sorceresss]

I apologize to anyone that felt offended with my very first post it was not really my itention. It's just very frustrating to not know what a fu** is going on with many of us

Nobody was offended. It was just that your very first post was a little too...cynical.

Cynical : from the ancient Greek "k[y]nos" = a barking dog.

 

[Jecrell]

Were exactly did I insult anyone? Calling me a dumba** is an insult, disagreeing with someone in a assertive manner is only an insult to people who can't take criticism like you. Perhaps instead of getting yourself in trouble by calling people names you should re-read my post and come up with an intelgent, thought out rebuttle that I can get my hands around. My opinions about Civilization 4 and the gaming industry in general weren't ment to bring out the trolls in people, but rather to trigger an intelgent conversation about the topic which up until your post was doing just fine.

Xguild, I have nothing but respect for you and your opinions. However, at this point you really have to question which posts are worthy of reply. In this case, it was not a good idea to really step down from your soapbox and talk to the heckler. The point is that most people are trying to ignore the hecklers in the audience and listen to your debate and arguement. So, for advice in the future -- don't step down to their level.

In my opinion -- the thread is labeled to get the very attention of these hecklers rather than getting the community together. For the most part, there are still people on these forums that do not consider Civilization IV a failure in any sense of the word. It is to these words people are most offended, and likely where most of this heckling is coming from. And to that I must agree with the hecklers that you are alienating a large portion of the community.

 

[pjdodd]

I agree with the orignial post.

I would add 3 things:

1) Once Games companies have your money from a purchase, THEY DO NOT GIVE A TOSS ABOUT WHAT PROBLEMS YOU HAVE. They will never apologise, admit liability, give refunds, or do any other action that yields no financial reward. The only solution I have found that works is not to buy the game on first release. Wait until it's fixed and the price drops.

2) Over-positive reviews have been common online and in magazines for a long time. Remind one day to recall the list of UK games reviewers who went on to get jobs at companies whose games they "objectively" reviewed...Anyway, buyers beware. Assume a game is buggy, slow, crap, awful, frustrating and nasty until you read otherwise from many sources.

3) Using terms like fan-whore against a Civ-Fanatic are neither funny nor clever. Attack the point being made not the person making it.

 

[butlerj1982]

A few points to make.

First, the whole "what if a car didnt work perfectly" doesnt really apply. The standard is what is acceptable in the ordinary course of the trade or business. For example, the law firm I work for represents several research facilities. They are constantly buying chemical reagents to facilitate their experiments. One in maybe three or four they buy simply doesnt work, and they have to find another one. This is detailed in the contracts; similar to Firaxis not selling without a EULA, the chemical companies wont sell without imdemnification, simply because, very like the computer industry, there are so many variables in the human / primate body that it cannot be expected to work perfectly all of the time. Similar to computers; there are different standards for different products.

Second, I do not understand the people who shell out $60 and do not take into account the fact that the risk isnt there. You sign an agreement agreeing to take the product as is. You sign an agreement agreeing not to holder the developer liable for their product. Civ IV is not a basic right, they can impose any terms they wish on the sale.

So, of course, your next statement is "Thats exactly what im saying! The gaming community needs to stand up and *demand* better quality!".

Alright, but at what cost? As it stands now, I do not mind shelling out $50-60 for games like Civ IV or AOE III; i buy 4-5 $50-60 games a year. This is acceptable, and the games seem to run on a majority of systems. Have you heard of the concept of diminishing returns? It tells us that as you invest more and more into something, you get less and less return. Meaning the first 1000 hours you spend testing, you'll find, say, 100 bugs. The next 1000 hours, since you've found alot of them already, you'll find considerably less for the same expense, and so on. I think it is completely unrealistic to expect prices to stay the same but for testing costs (which would be required to release a "perfect" game) to sky rocket.

To Eyes of Night, i suggest you get a clue before you genaralize an entire class of people as "scumbags". Furthermore, it exists in almost every other industry. I doubt any attorneys would "line up" to sue the game companies at all; all you could recover would be your $50 for the game (there is no damage to you personally). Also, there is a causation problem (how can you prove the game caused the problem? how can you prove its the games fault that it wont run?). Lastly, in every industry there are disclaimers of risk all the time. The computer indstury is by no means the only one to have it.

Bottom Line: lets keep games relatively cheap and not require too much.

 

[Zertez]

I think in the case of the supplies, it is one thing knowing one out of a batch maybe bad, but they usually dont know which ones are bad I hope. If they knowingly sold a faulty unit, it wouldnt look good on them. Software companies know some games are unfinished and have faults, they just take the risk and hoped to have a patch soon after the game is released. MMO companies are notorious for releasing an expansion with the high end zones unfinished, they hope to have it completed by the time players advanced to it. Question is, do you think Take2 pushed and released the product unfinished with a lot of bugs, personally I think they did but understandable if some believe they didnt. I dont really fault Firaxis as much as I blame take2 for slacking on testing and forcing the developers to release it before it was done.

 

[Gustomucho81]

My copy works fine, and that all I care. If youre bitter that your copy doesnt work than do something else with your life. Im sure you can think of something constructive you can put your time and mind to and quit posting $h!tty annoying threads

PS. We dont have any rebuttals because we dont feel we need debate with idiots.

This is the kind of attitude the OP is talking about, MY copy works, I don't give a damn about you.

Nice work buddy, how much Firaxis is paying you to be so ignorant, why don't you go post somewhere else and leave threads like this for people with problems ?

Of course we all do something else since we CAN'T play the game, you think we stay in front of our computer every second waiting and cursing for the patch? NO, we play different game, and try to comeback to Civ4 only to get a buggy experience.

I am glad for you, your copy works, like the OP said, try to think farther than your OWN being. Community means something, and if you want to be a lone wolf just don't come here and cause more problem than you solve.

 

[Gustomucho81]

Bottom Line: lets keep games relatively cheap and not require too much.

Funny, I prefer to pay 5$ more for a game that works than pay and not being able to play.

If they can't test the game they put out in the market its not my problem, plus WHY didn't they make any PUBLIC BETA TESTING? Cost is minimal, impact is maximal.

Like the OP said, 5 years ago a game with bug would be shot down by game critics, now they are buying their way into critics.

More and more games are released when they should be beta testing instead, it is true, and if you can't relate to this you are one lucky person.

 

[Dairuka]

now they are buying their way into critics.

Don't forget to put on your tin foil hats. I hear they can also read your mind! Oh, and never fart! They track their prey by the smell.

 

[onedreamer]

So, the conclusion must be that the game is either incompatible (at the moment) with certain hardware specs and because of that make certain aspects of the program buggy (as such, the problem is NOT primarily a bug in the game) or your computer software configuration is wonky (which isn't nessecarily your fault as this kind of thing is very sensitive and has numerous aspects that could cause the problem). The first can only be partially be fixed by the developer, and the second one is out of their hands entirely.

A game incompatible with certain hardware specs is a faulty product which deserves to be addressed at least in the press, with the acknowledgment on the side of Take2 (not really Firaxis) of the problem. The computer software configuration is totally not relevant. What are talking about ? Configuration of Windows ? What can you configure in Windows apart the image on your desktop ? Nowhere on the box of the product that the OP bought it is written that the game may not run under certain hardware specs or software configurations. Also if it's really a problem of software configuration as you call it, the devs are still entitled to fix it and this problem shouldn't be out of their hands AT ALL. When you release a software and specify certain minimum requirements, then this software must work on these requirements. If it doesn't then you have to fix the problem, whatever it is. However to fix a problem you must first acknowledge it, and I think the main point of the OP and of any player that is having problems with Civ4, is exactly that neither the developer and especially the publisher acknowledged the worst problems that are striking a good part of the gaming community, such as the one of the crash to desktop or system reboot.

 

[onedreamer]

I acknowledge that the game isn't flawless. but what did you expect? A perfect game on the first frickin' release?

well OMG... of course we do, what did you think.
Now if I go out to buy a whatever you want new product... a car ? a freezer ? What should I expect ? That it won't work because it just came out ? I jump on my car but the accelerator is missing... no problems, according to some guys here I should go to the first mechanic and pay money to have my car fixed.
Well... no, it doesn't work like this. When we buy a product we expect it to work. And if it doesn't we, the customers, have the rights to demand (yes, demand) the manufacturer a fix. This doesn't mean we can be arse about it, whine like children, pull out a gun and shoot someone or stuff like this, but it does mean that we can expect a flaw to be acknowledged and fixed in a proper way and time. And believe me an apologize sometimes won't hurt too.

 

[southjerseyrisi]

The bottom line is that right now there is a whole slew of people able to play without any problems.

Civ 4 is not a failure, it's a very good, challenging and highly addictive game that I've played for many, many hours both online and off with no problems at all.

 

[warpstorm]

What can you configure in Windows apart the image on your desktop?

Why not try a doing a little research? You might be surprised in how many different ways one machine may differ from another in just how Windows is set up.

 

[Uty]

well OMG... of course we do, what did you think.
Now if I go out to buy a whatever you want new product... a car ? a freezer ? What should I expect ? That it won't work because it just came out ? I jump on my car but the accelerator is missing... no problems, according to some guys here I should go to the first mechanic and pay money to have my car fixed.

This would be really nice. What's important to keep in mind though is that everyone's computer is different. Making sure it will work on everyone's is a tremendous task. (Take2 messed up but I don't think it's the end of the world.)

I think your car/freezer/etc analogy would work better if kitchen and road configurations could cause the product to not work. "We're sorry sir but this refridgerator has not been tested on gray tiles. We'll have a patch out in two weeks."

 

[Luthor_Saxburg]

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.

@Xguild, I'm impressed by the way you've exposed your opinion, without too much useless anger (just a little bit), unlike some other flaming comments I've seen around.

I DO agree with you, the pressure for profit and fast results have changed this industry. But not only this industry as well as many others. Priority now is fast over good, which is worrying, I think.

But in this case (unlike other type of goods), I found it easy to adapt. I will NOT buy Civ4 for a while. I'll wait for patches and patches and maybe even an expansion Pack before I buy it. I bought CivIII straight away and learned from it. So, next time, don't buy or don't buy immediately. If more and more people do this... well, maybe it will work.



NOTE: What suprises me is the anger level of (some of the) Civ4 threads... coming from Civ3 threads I wasn't used to this! Did the same occur in early Civ3 or it's just a different type of crowd?

.

 

[warpstorm]

Did the same occur in early Civ3 or it's just a different type of crowd?

Civ3 and C3C were just as bad. PTW was much worse.

 

[Frewfrux]

But in this case (unlike other type of goods), I found it easy to adapt. I will NOT buy Civ4 for a while. I'll wait for patches and patches and maybe even an expansion Pack before I buy it. I bought CivIII straight away and learned from it. So, next time, don't buy or don't buy immediately. If more and more people do this... well, maybe it will work.

If everyone did this...well...wouldn't it just cause the companies to go under before being able to make any fixes to their games?

 

[WarX]

I totally agree with the original poster, and with the second poster as well who labelled them .... well you know what he labelled them. Anyway, someone compared Civ4 with AOE3. Look at both communities, I bought both these games since Ive been playing them for years, and im a "FAN". But in no way does me being a fan of a game, or even of someone or something, means I will lie prostrate for them, and niether will I excuse them for a bad bad job they have done.

And just for the record, my PC specs surpass the recommended requirements by a huge margin, and yet the game still kept crashing for me. I did manage to fix it at the end by rolling back my drivers. So bottom line is that now im playing with no problems at all, but the fact remains that Firaxis has done a horrible job with this release. How many threads do we see about AOE3 not working out of the box? or constant crashes? How about other games such as Rise of Nations? How about Call of Duty and CoD2?

Anyways, it is useless replying to the FW's or FB's whatever you want to call them. But just remember one thing, when the day comes that a game you paid good money for does not work for you and many others right out of the box, and you get ignored by the development company, and get flamed by other people who would only repeat "the game works for us, so shut up", then remember that you are getting a taste of your own medicen. I certainly wont be there to help.

Maybe we should create a master list of such people so we do not help them a year or even 10 from now (just a joke, although the thought of it bring me comfort)

 

[Gustomucho81]

Don't forget to put on your tin foil hats. I hear they can also read your mind! Oh, and never fart! They track their prey by the smell.

Governor called, village idiot is missing.

You watch too much TV.

Moderator Action: Warned for flaming. --Padma
Please read the forum rules: http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=422889

Even without the bugs the game isn't worth 9/10, maybe a strong 8 but never a 9. If it was the first Civ, I could understand, but the way the game is made, it is a better game than the predecessor, but frankly there is nothing to be excited about this new game.

 

[warpstorm]

So, WarX, the drivers for your card are bad and you are blaming Firaxis for this? You should be screaming at your video card manufacturer for providing drivers that don't work.

 

[Dairuka]

Governor called, village idiot is missing.

The elected leader of a village would be called a Mayor.