Civ 5 Testers group ... AKA I HATE YOU GUYZ !!!

[PPQ_Purple]

You have made one huge mistake right there.
You said:

As a customer, I disliked steam. I just dislike the idea of extra programs running. However, from a producer's standpoint, steam is wonderful.

Note the underlined. That is where that phrase should have ended. Right there.
As a customer, you or I should not be required to care what the producer things or feels.


In a free market, everyone has a role to play.

The producer's role is to provide us with a service fitting our standards.
Our role is to look at a product, decide if it fits our standards and if it does buy it.


There is absolutely no reason for the customer to lower his standards just because he can justify it with the fact that it will help the company.
There is absolutely no reason for the consumer to care for the welfare of the company at all.
In fact, it is in the interest of the consumer to want to bleed the company dry so that he can get as much benefit out of the product as it is possible with as little cost as it is possible.

 

[hbar]

Actually, at the risk of putting words into Valkrionn's mouth, I believe he's planning on pursuing a career in game design and development, so he's probably thinking as both at this point.

Anyway, as a customer, I like steam. I think it's a good service, and I like having a centralized marketplace. I like the fact that it has an offline mode, and that I don't need a disk to play. I like the fact that I can download and play the games I purchased anywhere, with just my login. I understand that some people don't like steam, although I'll never understand why.

Unfortunately, my computer is too weaksauce for Civ V, so my wallet doesn't get a vote

 

[Valkrionn]

You have made one huge mistake right there.
You said:


Note the underlined. That is where that phrase should have ended. Right there.
As a customer, you or I should not be required to care what the producer things or feels.


In a free market, everyone has a role to play.

The producer's role is to provide us with a service fitting our standards.
Our role is to look at a product, decide if it fits our standards and if it does buy it.


There is absolutely no reason for the customer to lower his standards just because he can justify it with the fact that it will help the company.
There is absolutely no reason for the consumer to care for the welfare of the company at all.
In fact, it is in the interest of the consumer to want to bleed the company dry so that he can get as much benefit out of the product as it is possible with as little cost as it is possible.

No, that was not a mistake. Go right ahead and refuse to buy the game; It is your choice. My point was that in this case (ie: Steam or no Steam), the benefits for the producer so outweigh the negatives that it does not matter if they lose a small fraction of their consumer base. It flat out does not. They make so much more money from steam distribution that the few who will refuse to purchase it have no effect. For that matter, most of those who say they won't get it because of steam are full of , and will end up getting it regardless.

The only reason I disliked the idea of steam is because I had no other games running it. It makes patches easy to grab, it makes it possible to chat with other people while playing the game, it makes it easy to switch the game from PC to PC, it really adds a lot to your gaming experience. And as I said: Get used to it. I guarantee you, there flatout will NOT be enough people refusing to use steam and similar products to deter publishers from switching over.

Steam, Impulse, and other apps are the way of the future. Get used to them, or get used to not playing games at all; Even when pirated, you need to emulate steam.

As I said before, take my words for what you think they are worth.

Actually, at the risk of putting words into Valkrionn's mouth, I believe he's planning on pursuing a career in game design and development, so he's probably thinking as both at this point.

Anyway, as a customer, I like steam. I think it's a good service, and I like having a centralized marketplace. I like the fact that it has an offline mode, and that I don't need a disk to play. I like the fact that I can download and play the games I purchased anywhere, with just my login. I understand that some people don't like steam, although I'll never understand why.

Unfortunately, my computer is too weaksauce for Civ V, so my wallet doesn't get a vote

Yes, I am, and I am.

Steam is a good service. My issue was just that I have no other (installed) games that use it, nor do I buy games often enough to make use of the market.

 

[Jester Fool]

Stardock uses something quite similar to steam

Superficially. With Impulse, once you activate your game you can *delete* (if you wanted to) Impulse and still play the game you just bought. With Steam, you cannot delete it or else you won't be able to play. Big difference. Plus, the EULA that you're forced to agree to is pure evil. Read it because I sure did. No thanks.

 

[Jester Fool]

For that matter, most of those who say they won't get it because of steam are full of , and will end up getting it regardless.

No I am not and no I will not. You know, principles kind of thing. You are exactly correct about ddl though, just not that Steam will win out in the end. I bought quite a bit of dlcs for some games I own. I purchase WAV files from the UK. I love digital distribution. Steam + CiV = no sale ever. I love Firaxis but despise 2K.

 

[Valkrionn]

Superficially. With Impulse, once you activate your game you can *delete* (if you wanted to) Impulse and still play the game you just bought. With Steam, you cannot delete it or else you won't be able to play. Big difference. Plus, the EULA that you're forced to agree to is pure evil. Read it because I sure did. No thanks.

I haven't used Impulse, may have to check it out now. Granted, the whole Elemental thing is a big reason for me to not check anything by Stardock, but hey.

And yes, I know about the EULA. There's a reason that I didn't use it up until Civ5.

No I am not and no I will not. You know, principles kind of thing. You are exactly correct about ddl though, just not that Steam will win out in the end. I bought quite a bit of dlcs for some games I own. I purchase WAV files from the UK. I love digital distribution. Steam + CiV = no sale ever. I love Firaxis but despise 2K.

I never said any specific person would. However, fact remains that the majority who claim something will not stick to it. Case in point: MW2 boycott.

I also never said steam would win out; I took pains to say "Steam and products like it".

 

[Sjru]

There maybe a reason for the absurd big amount of complains, and the big amount of crashes CiV is suffering now.

It seems they've fired many devs from the quality assurance team.
Although is a old new (From July), I think somebody should give it a shot.

Spoiler :

http://kotaku.com/5582531/layoffs-hit-civilization-v-creators

.

On other notes: It seems that some very-annoyed users are willing to file a complain or a sue against 2k, check out this 2k-forums post:

Spoiler :

http://forums.2kgames.com/forums/showthread.php?t=88969&page=83

EDIT: There is also a thread here that list some (If not all) of the issues some users have: http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=384268

Also there are some users arguing that the testers teamd hasn't done right their job. Go defend yourself, Valk!

 

[Jester Fool]

I never said any specific person would.

Just making a point (specifically that some of us still practice honesty).

However, fact remains that the majority who claim something will not stick to it. Case in point: MW2 boycott.

I find it disturbing that you probably are correct.

I also never said steam would win out; I took pains to say "Steam and products like it".

I stand corrected.

 

[Valkrionn]

There maybe a reason for the absurd big amount of complains, and the big amount of crashes CiV is suffering now.

It seems they've fired many devs from the quality assurance team.
Although is a old new (From July), I think somebody should give it a shot.

Spoiler :

http://kotaku.com/5582531/layoffs-hit-civilization-v-creators

.

On other notes: It seems that some very-annoyed users are willing to file a complain or a sue against 2k, check out this 2k-forums post:

Spoiler :

http://forums.2kgames.com/forums/showthread.php?t=88969&page=83

EDIT: There is also a thread here that list some (If not all) of the issues some users have: http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=384268

Also there are some users arguing that the testers teamd hasn't done right their job. Go defend yourself, Valk!

That layoff has absolutely nothing to do with the Civ5 release, and everything to do with exactly what they said: Restructuring, and moving on to other projects.

I cannot read anything relevant on the first page you linked; Posts are in spanish.

And the second link, with issues, is not a list of bugs. It's a list of issues people have.

Seriously. Out of 161 issues, I saw 7 things I would count as bugs. Others were things people want. Some of which I can agree with, others of which are quite ridiculous. The people demanding them have no idea what would be involved. Case in point: Selection of units across multiple tiles to move them en masse. Sure, would be nice... But would take a huge rewrite of the movement system to do it effectively. I can think of half a dozen ways to game it, but none that would be A)Easy to use, and B)Work well, and fast.

Just making a point (specifically that some of us still practice honesty).

I find it disturbing that you probably are correct.

I stand corrected.

Yes, a minority will stick to their guns. All power to you. However, I don't see it as 'probably' correct; I am correct. The vast majority will buy the game anyway, regardless of what they may have said. It's happened before, it will happen again.

 

[Valkrionn]

Part of what I've been working on between classes lately has been released. Keep in mind, I didn't spend much time on this. Product of a few hours, mostly figuring out syntax. I've been slammed by class.

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?p=9685559#post9685559

 

[Calavente]

Valk... On the whole pirate /bug/reactivity/test...etc I kinda agree with you.
even if I hate steam (on principle) I will probably buy ci5 even with a steam account once my PC is updated and some interesting mods appear on ci5. (well, if my wife agrees with me spending a lot of time on "another stupid game").

But, on you jugement on the "issue thread" I disagree :
-some are unreasonnable demandes.
-some are balance issues made by people that IMO are still fixed into the cIV way and have not adapted yet.
BUT
-some are playability demandes, based on former cIV capabilities (information...Etc), useful things that existed in cIV that eased the way to play and disappeared.
-some are balance issues(or fun-factor issue) (like the hills all producing the same output. I can't say if those complains are legitime or not, but one has to take them into account and answer, even to say : there is a difference but not in output, more in....whatever.)
-some are civilopedia demands/information demand : If in FFH or RifE or other mods, one accepts easily that the pedia is wrong or incomplet, that should never happen on a paying game. It is not a bug that could have been "hidden" to the tester. It is information on the way the game works. That should be straitforward. Either it is misinformation that is unforgivable, either it writes what was intended but it doesn't work... and thus is a bug, more forgivable, but a bug.
-some are bug.

So your declaration of "only 7 bug", while technically right, is on the whole wrong IMO, as those others aspects are still worthwhile issues or complaints.

 

[Wauthan]

Recently got a chance to try out Civ 5. The game felt a bit weird to tell the truth. Like the mechanics would make a lot more sense if the scale was smaller, so to speak. The combat mechanics in particular seemed more appropriate to battlefield tactics rather then defending a whole country.

I would have preferred a "zoom in for the battlefield view of stack-to-stack combat" feature instead, if the stack of doom was the problem. Or perhaps simply a limit (logistics?) on how many units you could put into one stack. The auto-transport ships feels very odd. The ocean is not the barrier it used to be.

The economical part, and city building in general, felt like a nice improvement from Civ 4. Everything is clearer and more at your fingertips. Confusing to have so many resources though. Made strategical colonizing almost a no-issue. All in all I think the game has a lot of modding potential. Especially since you could easily give the impression of the game taking place on a smaller scale.

Animated leaders is just plain goofy though. If you're going to go through all that trouble you might as well have made them chronistic (no high tech in bronze age, no bronze age in high tech).

Ah well... Civ 4 started out kind of poorly. Perhaps one or two expansions will polish Civ 5 to the point where I will buy it.

 

[Calavente]

I like your Space-Hamster

 

[Valkrionn]

Valk... On the whole pirate /bug/reactivity/test...etc I kinda agree with you.
even if I hate steam (on principle) I will probably buy ci5 even with a steam account once my PC is updated and some interesting mods appear on ci5. (well, if my wife agrees with me spending a lot of time on "another stupid game").

But, on you jugement on the "issue thread" I disagree :
-some are unreasonnable demandes.
-some are balance issues made by people that IMO are still fixed into the cIV way and have not adapted yet.
BUT
-some are playability demandes, based on former cIV capabilities (information...Etc), useful things that existed in cIV that eased the way to play and disappeared.
-some are balance issues(or fun-factor issue) (like the hills all producing the same output. I can't say if those complains are legitime or not, but one has to take them into account and answer, even to say : there is a difference but not in output, more in....whatever.)
-some are civilopedia demands/information demand : If in FFH or RifE or other mods, one accepts easily that the pedia is wrong or incomplet, that should never happen on a paying game. It is not a bug that could have been "hidden" to the tester. It is information on the way the game works. That should be straitforward. Either it is misinformation that is unforgivable, either it writes what was intended but it doesn't work... and thus is a bug, more forgivable, but a bug.
-some are bug.

So your declaration of "only 7 bug", while technically right, is on the whole wrong IMO, as those others aspects are still worthwhile issues or complaints.

Oh, don't get me wrong, there are issues in that thread that need to be fixed. There are some design decisions that I think were ridiculous (example: Most text is not dynamically parsed by the dll, but in the form of help text! This is why there are a few things that don't do what they say they do; The help text wasn't updated.), and others that I think were good ideas but implemented poorly (example: Not showing numbers involved with diplomacy. Had the potential to make it more interesting, but without more modifiers or any real way to tell attitudes, it just becomes a black box and frustrating.)

However, those aspects ARE being worked on. Actively so.So I do not consider them with bugs; The Civ5 release had maybe 3 major bugs, majority of which are fixed AFAIK.

Recently got a chance to try out Civ 5. The game felt a bit weird to tell the truth. Like the mechanics would make a lot more sense if the scale was smaller, so to speak. The combat mechanics in particular seemed more appropriate to battlefield tactics rather then defending a whole country.

I would have preferred a "zoom in for the battlefield view of stack-to-stack combat" feature instead, if the stack of doom was the problem. Or perhaps simply a limit (logistics?) on how many units you could put into one stack. The auto-transport ships feels very odd. The ocean is not the barrier it used to be.

The economical part, and city building in general, felt like a nice improvement from Civ 4. Everything is clearer and more at your fingertips. Confusing to have so many resources though. Made strategical colonizing almost a no-issue. All in all I think the game has a lot of modding potential. Especially since you could easily give the impression of the game taking place on a smaller scale.

Animated leaders is just plain goofy though. If you're going to go through all that trouble you might as well have made them chronistic (no high tech in bronze age, no bronze age in high tech).

Ah well... Civ 4 started out kind of poorly. Perhaps one or two expansions will polish Civ 5 to the point where I will buy it.

I think this game has a HUGE potential for modding. And yes... Let's just say we've thought about that smaller scale. Extensively so.

 

[Tarquelne]

Note the underlined. That is where that phrase should have ended. Right there.
As a customer, you or I should not be required to care what the producer things or feels.

As a non-sociopath I do however have the *option* to take other people's motives and desires into account when making decisions, and balance them against my own.

While a sociopath, for example, might feel absolutely fine about smashing a convenience store door to enter, shooting everyone inside and then grabbing a half-gallon of milk without paying for it, I (non-sociopath, remember) don't really have a problem with balancing other people's right to live and make-a-buck against my own.

Understanding someone has a legitimate motive for their act doesn't mean you have to like it. But it should mean that you can better judge how justified the act is, whether or not it's motivated by greed or simple self-interest, and what sort of response is most appropriate.

There is absolutely no reason for the consumer to care for the welfare of the company at all.

Sure. But I think it's a really good idea to be able to tell when a company does something because it makes basic business sense, when it's trying to shaft me, and when it's being generous. In the first case I'll keep my own decisions "just business", assuming I don't engage in irrational whims just because I can. In the second case I'll try to punish the company in any way that doesn't actually require much effort. And in the final case I'll cut them some slack as long as it doesn't cost me a non-trivial amount of money.

People *viscerally* react against injustice or unfairness. This is, I think, a good thing. As long as people do a decent job of distinguishing injustice from stuff they just don't care for... or about.

I'm not going to address your take on Steam, but IMO most people who don't like it are over-reacting, having mistaken a a basic business decision for malice, and over-stating Steam's actual downside.

 

[Valkrionn]

As a non-sociopath I do however have the *option* to take other people's motives and desires into account when making decisions, and balance them against my own.

While a sociopath, for example, might feel absolutely fine about smashing a convenience store door to enter, shooting everyone inside and then grabbing a half-gallon of milk without paying for it, I (non-sociopath, remember) don't really have a problem with balancing other people's right to live and make-a-buck against my own.

Understanding someone has a legitimate motive for their act doesn't mean you have to like it. But it should mean that you can better judge how justified the act is, whether or not it's motivated by greed or simple self-interest, and what sort of response is most appropriate.



Sure. But I think it's a really good idea to be able to tell when a company does something because it makes basic business sense, when it's trying to shaft me, and when it's being generous. In the first case I'll keep my own decisions "just business", assuming I don't engage in irrational whims just because I can. In the second case I'll try to punish the company in any way that doesn't actually require much effort. And in the final case I'll cut them some slack as long as it doesn't cost me a non-trivial amount of money.

People *viscerally* react against injustice or unfairness. This is, I think, a good thing. As long as people do a decent job of distinguishing injustice from stuff they just don't care for... or about.

I'm not going to address your take on Steam, but IMO most people who don't like it are over-reacting, having mistaken a a basic business decision for malice, and over-stating Steam's actual downside.

Extraordinarily well stated.

 

[PPQ_Purple]

A company is not a human being. It does not have any emotions. So why should we care about it?

Why should I give a dam if the company earns a little more or a little less.
There is nothing osteopathic about it. It's just common sense.


By your logic, one should wish for the prices of milk and bread to rise to a million dollars a peace so that the cows and the bakers are extra super duper happy.

 

[EugeneStyles]

There is absolutely no reason for the consumer to care for the welfare of the company at all.
In fact, it is in the interest of the consumer to want to bleed the company dry so that he can get as much benefit out of the product as it is possible with as little cost as it is possible.

Your understanding of the market is laughable. If you enjoy the products that a company makes, then it absolutely is in your interests for the company to do well.

Let's see if I can put this simply... Let's say a company makes product A, for which you are the only potential customer. Let's say that the product is worth $100 of entertainment to you (I would have to say Civ IV has been worth WELL over that for me), and the company needs to make $30 profit on the product in order to produce a second product B, which would also be worth $100 of entertainment to you. If their cost is $20, they need to sell it for $50.

If you, knowing that you are their only customer, hold out and say that you will only pay $20 for it, then one of three things will happen: a) The company will sell it to you for $20, you will gain $80 of utility, and they will not make product B. b) The company will not sell it to you, you refuse to pay more than $20 (despite the fact that it is worth $100 to you), you gain no utility, and the company still does not make product B. c) The company does not lower the price, you fork over the $50, the company makes product B, and you buy it for $50 as well, and you gain a net utility of $100.

Granted, the actual situation with Firaxis, Civ, and Steam is much more complicated... Marginal cost for each copy sold is almost negligible, thus every copy sold after recouping inital costs (which are high) is pure profit. That's one of the reasons games go on sale for so cheap on Steam - if the initial costs have already been recouped or written off, every additional copy they can sell at any cost is a good deal to them. But regardless of the complexity, it's still silly to say that the well-being of a company that makes a product you enjoy is completely meaningless to you.

 

[PPQ_Purple]

The well being beyond a certain point is unimportant.
What difference does it make to me, the consumer if the company earns 1 million or 10 million?
I am not against them earning money like you seem to think.

But I am against them doing things like not having a proper beta or using ubi soft DRM because they wanted to earn MOAR.
And that is what is happening right now with a lot of games.



There is a huge difference.


That is why my examples, as idiotic as they sounded were right on. This has nothing to do with doing well and everything to do with cutting costs and simply squeezing every cent they can out of the consumer base.

 

[hbar]

What is a proper beta? How many games (other than MMOs, which need a beta for tech/network reasons) actually have a beta?

I'm not being snarky, I just really want to know what you are thinking. Obviously you feel strongly about it, but I just don't understand.