Civilization 5 Rants Thread

As much as I hate to admit there will probably in the future ... in the next 5-10 years or less

1: Console Games
2: Mobile Games
3: Social Network Games

PC Games will be reduced to a niche market, if not already.

OOC: So what I might do is buy the best video card I can for my PC, upgrade the RAM to 24 GB and the CPU to a core i7 970 and make my PC last as long as possible.

And overpriced DLC's. There were days when games were "complete". There were no patches and no DLC's. A single bug in the final version was a disaster. Now there are games like Fallout:New Vegas and Civ5. Disasters. I like F:NV and it's getting a new patch in a few days. Civ5...still a disaster. There were days when DLC's were free (not full expansions). Then some ******** publisher started selling them. And retards were buying them. And 80% of the gaming world jumped into that bandwagon and now is fueling the publishers greed. Want a full game for 50$? Fat chance. Pay 150-200$ for a full version. Oh...wait! New idea! Developers should sell patches for $$$! Only 9,99$ per patch! It's a great deal! Thank God for developers like Valve and ArenaNet...
 
And overpriced DLC's. There were days when games were "complete". There were no patches and no DLC's. A single bug in the final version was a disaster. Now there are games like Fallout:New Vegas and Civ5. Disasters. I like F:NV and it's getting a new patch in a few days. Civ5...still a disaster. There were days when DLC's were free (not full expansions). Then some ******** publisher started selling them. And retards were buying them. And 80% of the gaming world jumped into that bandwagon and now is fueling the publishers greed. Want a full game for 50$? Fat chance. Pay 150-200$ for a full version. Oh...wait! New idea! Developers should sell patches for $$$! Only 9,99$ per patch! It's a great deal! Thank God for developers like Valve and ArenaNet...

It is enlightening (and depressing) to look around the game industry.

Let's look at Blizzard for example. Back in the days of Diablo I and II, Blizzard was still a middle market company that put out products that were good and were highly moddable.
Fast forward 10 years later. Blizzard is no longer a middle market company. It's now AAA and it shows. Diablo III should be released sometime in the next year. Diablo III looks streamlined in many ways, will not support modding at all, region locking for playing and will churn out a large amount of DLC ala WoW. *Ugh*

Thankfully Runic Games looks to be filling that void. The guys who designed Diablo I and II founded Runic Games and have gone back to their middle market roots and will be releasing Torchlight II in a couple of months.
They stepped up to fill a void that was there in the action RPG market. Highly moddable, no region locking, LAN play and no crap DLC.

Civilization 5 is no different. Firaxis used to be that middle market company that put out quality products and expansions. Now that they've gone AAA, that's all changed.

Hoping some middle market company steps up and makes a Civilization style game again. Fill that void in the historical turn based strategy market. By gar, it's been awhile.
 
If the gaming industry continues to go down the drain I might just leave my basement at once and socialize!

Lol. Very true. Maybe Civilization 5 is good for something after all. Besides a paperweight if you happened to buy the boxed version that is. ;)
 
And overpriced DLC's. There were days when games were "complete". There were no patches and no DLC's. A single bug in the final version was a disaster. Now there are games like Fallout:New Vegas and Civ5. Disasters. I like F:NV and it's getting a new patch in a few days. Civ5...still a disaster. There were days when DLC's were free (not full expansions). Then some ******** publisher started selling them. And retards were buying them. And 80% of the gaming world jumped into that bandwagon and now is fueling the publishers greed. Want a full game for 50$? Fat chance. Pay 150-200$ for a full version. Oh...wait! New idea! Developers should sell patches for $$$! Only 9,99$ per patch! It's a great deal! Thank God for developers like Valve and ArenaNet...

I've heard the producers of farmville are about to have an ipo. An ipo for a company that all they do is make freakin farmville. Sadly this is the state of gaming. Angry birds is the most popular game among all my friends.

People just don't care, it's like conversation. Real dialog between people, even over the phone, has been replaced by ims and texts where "lol" is a mouthful. People want short condensed everything and have really short attention spans. And they want to be constantly entertained even if it's by crappy apps. I used to play world of warcraft but quit, not because of the state of the game, but of the player. No one had patience anymore. The new games reflect that.

Even some of my favorite new games, like Mass Effect 2, reflect that. It's an awesome, awesome game, but you can see it's incredibly streamlined and straightforward, to keep your attention. It's an easy game to play and figure out and once you've beaten it you lose interest.

I still play civ4, I'll never lose interest there. I think that there will still be good games, they will just become harder to find. You'll have to play more demos, do less pre-orders, and read more reviews to get good ones. Kind of like movies today. Most suck so you wait a couple weeks or get them on netflix in six months.
 
Sounds like Civilization 5's latest patch hasn't helped much. The AI seems to have devolved somewhat so that the game feels more like a mud wrestling match instead of a turn based strategy game. :eek: Lol.
 
Sounds like Civilization 5's latest patch hasn't helped much. The AI seems to have devolved somewhat so that the game feels more like a mud wrestling match instead of a turn based strategy game. :eek: Lol.

Hey, I would actually approve of that!

If it were a mud wrestling match for women, that is! :lol:
 
The game plays fine on my computer, with only very minor (less than a few seconds) hold ups between turns. I'm speaking of a standard large continents map with the standard number of civs and CSs. This game requires a better computer to run on than does Civ IV. That's just the way it is folks, get used to it or get over it but jesus christ quit complaining about it.

Instead complain about something that might actually get fixed, like the deplomacy AI. I would really like to see that fixed.
 
The game plays fine on my computer, with only very minor (less than a few seconds) hold ups between turns. I'm speaking of a standard large continents map with the standard number of civs and CSs. This game requires a better computer to run on than does Civ IV. That's just the way it is folks, get used to it or get over it but jesus christ quit complaining about it.

Instead complain about something that might actually get fixed, like the deplomacy AI. I would really like to see that fixed.

Game optimization is always a good thing to rant about. Sins of a Solar Empire got a patch that improved an already well optimized game. Fallout:New Vegas is getting a big patch soon that will improve performance and optimize the game. Civ5? Mediocre graphics that require a powerfull PC. Weren't they making that engine with Nvidia? Maybe it's Nvidia's fault...they want to sell their powerfull and costly video cards. And for that the game needs to run sluggishly on other hardware. There was even a commercial on CFC main page about Nvidia a few days after Civ5 got released.
 
And overpriced DLC's. There were days when games were "complete". There were no patches and no DLC's. A single bug in the final version was a disaster. Now there are games like Fallout:New Vegas and Civ5. Disasters. I like F:NV and it's getting a new patch in a few days. Civ5...still a disaster. There were days when DLC's were free (not full expansions). Then some ******** publisher started selling them. And retards were buying them. And 80% of the gaming world jumped into that bandwagon and now is fueling the publishers greed. Want a full game for 50$? Fat chance. Pay 150-200$ for a full version. Oh...wait! New idea! Developers should sell patches for $$$! Only 9,99$ per patch! It's a great deal! Thank God for developers like Valve and ArenaNet...

First off, let me say I love Civ 5 so I'm just a tourist here. But I know how you feel with regards to patches. In my opinion, the best polished PC game to date was Bioshock.

Not only did it get 10/10 ratings, it had just ONE patch (1.1) ever released for all language versions, worldwide. Game never crashed once on me, had fabulous graphics and voice acting. Almost as if the genius who made system shock 2 had something to do with it......;)
 
Ramses II speaks arabic with egyptian accent, Darius speaks some other semitic language - it's kinda weird :confused:
 
I've heard the producers of farmville are about to have an ipo. An ipo for a company that all they do is make freakin farmville. Sadly this is the state of gaming. Angry birds is the most popular game among all my friends.

People just don't care, it's like conversation. Real dialog between people, even over the phone, has been replaced by ims and texts where "lol" is a mouthful. People want short condensed everything and have really short attention spans. And they want to be constantly entertained even if it's by crappy apps. I used to play world of warcraft but quit, not because of the state of the game, but of the player. No one had patience anymore. The new games reflect that.

Even some of my favorite new games, like Mass Effect 2, reflect that. It's an awesome, awesome game, but you can see it's incredibly streamlined and straightforward, to keep your attention. It's an easy game to play and figure out and once you've beaten it you lose interest.

I still play civ4, I'll never lose interest there. I think that there will still be good games, they will just become harder to find. You'll have to play more demos, do less pre-orders, and read more reviews to get good ones. Kind of like movies today. Most suck so you wait a couple weeks or get them on netflix in six months.

Like it or not Farmville is probably the most innovative 'game' of the last few years and it's probably the most played 'game' in the world aswell. I personally know at least 20 people who play farmville, 1 who plays Civ5 and 1 who plays my other game Starcraft 2. And that 1 person is me.
 
Paying a visit to the Planet Irata. Amazing how a 28 year old game still is better than Civilization 5. Much better multiplayer as well. ;)
 
Let's look at Blizzard for example. Back in the days of Diablo I and II, Blizzard was still a middle market company that put out products that were good and were highly moddable.
Fast forward 10 years later. Blizzard is no longer a middle market company. It's now AAA and it shows. Diablo III should be released sometime in the next year. Diablo III looks streamlined in many ways, will not support modding at all, region locking for playing and will churn out a large amount of DLC ala WoW. *Ugh*

Originally Blizzard North (formerly known as Condor) had quite a bit of autonomy, and it shows when you see Diablo 2. The game didn't even had a major upgrade in terms on graphics or any addition that was buzzwordsy yet it sold very well. By the time they were working on Diablo 3 things had changed, they could no longer work on any other project (nothing but Diablo, says Vivendi) and Diablo 3 had to be made Vivendis way and in no other way.

D3-early-bone-screenshot1.jpg

Blizz North's Diablo 3 was going to take place on heaven!

We all know the rest, Vivendi accepted the protest resignations of the 4 leads, Hellgate London came and went and now most of the original team is working on Runic games. Currently no one who ever did any work on Diablo 1 or 2 is working on Diablo 3 (even catering or cleaning...).

ss13.jpg

Those rainbows play an important role in the new WoW expansion "World of Warcraft: Diablo3"


A major gaming company employs a few hundred employess, yet they release less games than companies that have 10 or so people. Sid Meier even commented on this saying that he prefered to work with smaller independent teams (not that he has lately), mainly because no one would utter the phrase "well that's the stupidest idea I've ever heard". A large team would had never comed up with revolutionary games like Space Invaders, Mario, Doom or even the original Civilization (they invade in rows?, why is a plumber fighting dragons?, why are there chainsaws on mars?, you just build stuff?, thats the stupidest thing I've ever heard!).

Videogames might be the one medium where investing more money and manpower on a project might not give you the best returns.
 
It is enlightening (and depressing) to look around the game industry.

Let's look at Blizzard for example. Back in the days of Diablo I and II, Blizzard was still a middle market company that put out products that were good and were highly moddable.
Fast forward 10 years later. Blizzard is no longer a middle market company. It's now AAA and it shows. Diablo III should be released sometime in the next year. Diablo III looks streamlined in many ways, will not support modding at all, region locking for playing and will churn out a large amount of DLC ala WoW. *Ugh*

Thankfully Runic Games looks to be filling that void. The guys who designed Diablo I and II founded Runic Games and have gone back to their middle market roots and will be releasing Torchlight II in a couple of months.
They stepped up to fill a void that was there in the action RPG market. Highly moddable, no region locking, LAN play and no crap DLC.

Civilization 5 is no different. Firaxis used to be that middle market company that put out quality products and expansions. Now that they've gone AAA, that's all changed.

Hoping some middle market company steps up and makes a Civilization style game again. Fill that void in the historical turn based strategy market. By gar, it's been awhile.

Interesting that they retain no staff to work on Diablo 3. That sounds ominous. But is it all so doom and gloom really. We are still getting games aren't we. And actually if you compare to prices from the 80s when video/computer games and systems were developing. Titles and hardware are relatively cheaper now than then, even if you factor in DLC stealth costs. And we get much more content now.

Anyway if you are interested in middle market games than keep on eye on the indie market. Most people (like me) aren't that clued up, so we go for the mass marketed stuff. e.g. I've never heard of Runic before. Just going to google them now.
 
AAA means ???

It's some bullcrap marketing tool for high budget games. AAA games are "elite"...don't know why. If a game is AAA - many people would buy it because it will get glowing reviews.
 
Random Civ5 Rant - MORE DLC?? Still?? Have they released any free content yet, outside of patches that actually fix the game?

(Psst... random recommendation: look to Double Fine Games as a small developer that consistently turns out high-quality, innovative, fun titles. They're best known for Psychonauts and Brutal Legend, but check out Costume Quest (a youthful Halloween trick-or-treating RPG!) or Trenched (alt-history WWI mechanized battle robots piloted by hirsute Marines!) as well.

Seriously, their games have kind of renewed my faith in the industry. Try them out sometime.)
 
And overpriced DLC's. There were days when games were "complete". There were no patches and no DLC's. A single bug in the final version was a disaster.

Don't paint the old days so rosy. Master of Magic and Master of Orion 2 had some *terrible* bugs that were never fixed. Entire stats were actually unused by the code in Final Fantasy 6. The potential for frequent bug fixes is one of the untarnished upsides of gaming in 2011.

But is it all so doom and gloom really.

Nah, some things have gotten better, some have gotten worse. I refuse to sink to their level of negativity. I only live once and being an uppity PC gamer isn't worth the emotional investment.

As for me, my biggest problem is first person shooter level design.

bitmx.jpg


I don't hate cling cover and I don't even mind health regeneration, but they really need to bring back the classic free-form level.
 
I'd just like to add my voice to the chorus of detractors of this game. I've honestly tried to give it a chance, but it isn't fun. It's boring, stupid and frustrating. If anything the latest patch has made it worse.

I have a lot of reasons not to like this game, but I'll spare you as other people have gone over some of the faults in more detail. I have to say two things even though they're been said before:

One: 1upt absolutely knackers this game, it turns movement into a logistic chore and leaves the AI completely indefensible and there is no way of redressing this problem short of completely rewriting what is obviously a core facet of the game engine.

Two: The poor performance of this game is criminal. This is a turned based strategy, how ridiculous is it that I can run a demanding FPS no problems but not a TBS? This game doesn't need fancy 3D graphics spun up on a thousand threads. All of the money invested in their bleeding edge graphics system with its underwhelming results has been a waste as far as I'm concerned. Performance + Gameplay > Graphics.
 
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