Civ3: (In)Complete

[SirPleb]

Why not? At the point of repeating myself. It's easy. It costs Firaxis a few thousand dollars a week for each senior programmer.

I'll repeat myself too. They have a cheaper alternative which could be used to do a better job.

Even if it was to say thay could only do some. I don't think any of us are so niave to think that Fraxis can fix all the bugs EASILY (why would they have noit done this by now if that were the case).

It depends on your definition of easily. They can make a huge improvement in Conquests which would satisfy the majority of people at a cost of $15,000 in a two to three month time frame. I wouldn't call that hard. As to why they haven't done it, that's a more difficult question. I've seen lots of reasons given but to me they aren't good reasons.

I would like Firaxis to put out another patch fixing the major bugs that are left once Pirates is shipped (they have nobody to do this job right now, they are totally used up) in two months.

If I knew they would at least look at this in 2 months I'd be happier.

I'm surprised warpstorm, you sound like you know a bit about this stuff. You should not raise false hopes like this. Firaxis didn't budget ANY time to patch Conquests. You don't have to be in the industry nor a programmer to see how silly that was. It is a safe bet they've way under-budgeted what they'll need to do post-release to support Pirates. Their next budgeted endeavor will come first, fixing Pirates (which they haven't planned on sufficiently) will come second, just where would you hope they'd fit Conquests into that? Hoping that Firaxis will finally fix Conquests because they finally have nothing more urgent to do is pointless, it won't happen.

 

[Ramalhão]

Firaxis will lose a lot of reputation if C3C remains unfixed. There are lots of people here blaming all bugs in this game.

I lost my will to play C3C due these bugs. Is it good to play knowing that:
- barbarians just attack in two directions?
- you cannot make submarines because they can create a war?
- most of civilizations you will see in your game are from America?
- AI never uses army?
- AI always know where are all resources, even those "unknown"?

Also, AI in Civ3 series should be much better. There's a lot of games (even older than Civ3) with much better AI. As far as I know, AI doesn't take much time in processing.

I prefer games that higher levels are harder due better AI, not just giving bonus to AI. If you create a "level" in editor, no bonus to AI not to you, the game is very easy. It's not too hard to find AI programmers. But most game companies are prefering 3D instead of better AI.

 

[genghis_khev]

You should not raise false hopes like this.

I'd just like to clarify myself.

I HOPE they will but I BELIEVE they will not! I do KNOW however if we all say nothing then that is EXACTLY what will happen!

 

[warpstorm]

I agree, SirPleb. I think that they should have taken you up on your offer (and that they still should). It would have been far cheaper than doing it in-house (or even if they had contracted it to the original person they had lined up to support it - they did have a patch budget).

Ramalhão, I agree that the first 4 of the 5 things you listed should be fixed. The fifth I don't mind as it makes the AI a little better (even though it is a cheat). I would rather see SGLs working like they used to.

Your assumptions about AI are 180 out however. Good AI takes a bit of processing power and good experienced games AI programmers are very scarce.

Just out of curiosity, what games do you think have better AI than Civ3 (please don't include Chess - that is a given)?

 

[Mr. Do]

A few thousand dollars a week for a senior programmer? I hope that is an exaggeration!

 

[bonscott]

A few thousand dollars a week for a senior programmer? I hope that is an exaggeration!

Hardly. Just 2nd level computer support usually will net you over $1000 a week. A senior programmer should be making at least $50-$75 an hour if not much more if they are really good (even with the IT bust).

Just out of curiosity, what games do you think have better AI than Civ3 (please don't include Chess - that is a given)?

I think that Galactic Civilizations has an excellent and advanced AI. About the best I've seen in a strat game. AI can and will change it's strategy depending on what you do. BUT, it will still do stupid things and you can use a formula to beat it 95% of the time on the hardest level. AI programming still has a long way to go.

CIV 3 does have some pretty good AI though.

 

[warpstorm]

A few thousand dollars a week for a senior programmer? I hope that is an exaggeration!

Not in the least. (This is why SirPleb's offer was a real bargain)

I think that Galactic Civilizations has an excellent and advanced AI. About the best I've seen in a strat game. AI can and will change it's strategy depending on what you do. BUT, it will still do stupid things and you can use a formula to beat it 95% of the time on the hardest level. AI programming still has a long way to go.

It was too concerened about war (where it was very aggressive, to the point you could lead it by the nose).

It doesn't appear to take any of the other alternatives to victory.

 

[Mr. Do]

Well, even if this thread turns out to just be a bunch of guys hoping for something that we already know will never happen, at least it's convinced me to apply for the computing job I wondered about earlier

 

[warpstorm]

In ten years or so you can be a senior programmer too.

 

[SirPleb]

they did have a patch budget

Thanks, that is interesting. I'd been assuming there wasn't since one didn't get visibly used. I don't expect you can say more on that subject so we can only speculate as to what happened. Anyway it only matters as a curiousity, doesn't change where we are.

 

[player1 fanatic]

Anyway, as far I understand, the problem for Civ3 patching was a lack of programmers.

Firaxis has just finite number of programmers and they are very badly needed for next project (Pirates).

When it gets released, few will stay for Pirates patch support and many will move to Civ4 (next money-maker).

Now, at the time of release of Pirates, Civ4 will not be in so late stage of development, like Pirates were at time when Civ3 patching stopped (to need full-crew of Firaxis programmers).

So, I could see possibility of Civ3 patch, considering that Firaxis staff never said that they will never do any more patches for Civ3.
Game companies usually do say when they don't want to do no more patches anymore, while Firaxis only said criptic "on-hold".


Anyway, if I'm wrong, I would realy like that someone from Firaxis makes a post with definite declaration that there will be no more Civ3 patches ever.

 

[Sickman]

Anyway, if I'm wrong, I would realy like that someone from Firaxis makes a post with definite declaration that there will be no more Civ3 patches ever.

I would really like that someone from Firaxis makes a post with define declarion that there WILL BE more Civ3 patches.

Otherwise my support of any Firaxis games stops here...

 

[HellboundHeathcliff]

They aren't gonna say anything one way or the other. Give it up. They have our money and need to pretend to support the next project until it's final expansion comes out. Then they'll drop support for that just as they did for this.

 

[player1 fanatic]

Well, at least then they should say plainly that they dropped support for this game (instead "patch on-hold").

I could respect that.

 

[HellboundHeathcliff]

I think they have a politician advising them.

 

[warpstorm]

Then they'll drop support for that just as they did for this.

Of course they will. Everyo0ne moves on eventually. To be honest though, I think they support their products better than most small developers.

 

[Breunor]

Of course they will. Everyo0ne moves on eventually. To be honest though, I think they support their products better than most small developers.

This is my opinion also, although I'm in the minority. I also think the AI here is pretty good.

As far as hiring outside help, I'm not sure how easy it is. I don't work for a software developer, but I know that when we hire outside programmers for anything, the total cost is FAR higher than the just the cost of the outside programmers. The actual owning company still must test, validate, etc. all of the work done by the outside firm. Firaxis would be liable for anything done in the code by outside programmers.

They can't simply just pay somebody, accept the work done, and pass it on. That's just not realistic.

Breunor

 

[microbe]

They can't simply just pay somebody, accept the work done, and pass it on. That's just not realistic.

Yeah they can't, but how much test did they do anyways? I still remember the joke of patch 1.20.

The community is testing for them.

 

[SirPleb]

The actual owning company still must test, validate, etc. all of the work done by the outside firm. Firaxis would be liable for anything done in the code by outside programmers.

They can't simply just pay somebody, accept the work done, and pass it on. That's just not realistic.

In this case they actually can do that if the developer takes the right approach. I'm confident that help is available from the Civ community to test more thoroughly than has been done on any release of Conquests up to this date. And that Firaxis would be able to observe that being done and see that it was an organized and trustworthy process. More so than what they've used themselves so far.

The proposal I made to them pretty much requires that they be able to see the result as trustworthy without having to test it themselves - if that didn't happen they wouldn't have to accept nor pay for the work.

 

[warpstorm]

Yeah they can't, but how much test did they do anyways? I still remember the joke of patch 1.20.

The first couple of patches were actually fairly heavily tested (I'm not sure on the last couple - I wasn't involved) before they were released. Both by beta testers and Atari's testers.

You have to remember, testing fixes exactly zero bugs. The best it can do is discover them. At some point, someone has to decide that it is good enough to ship. In the case of patches, this is often when a specific subset of the known bugs are fixed.