Comparing Civ V to IVanilla or BTS

thbrown81

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For some reason I continue to be sucked into the Civ boards debate instead of a game of Civ. Oh well.

I repeatedly come across the perpetual argument that it is unreasonable to compare Civ V to BTS, but then the discussion gets lost because it is tangent to the OP of the thread. Personally, I think that game developers are creating a detrimental trend by creating the Main Title + 3-5 expansions then start over game plan. It seems unreasonable and exploitative to generate additional content for a title, then erase it and charge for it all over again when you "update" the series. Plus, eventually you may develop a product of such quality that it backfires on you. I'll use the Sims Series as an example. I haven't really read up on Sims 3. It could be a vastly better game than Sims 2. But I don't care. I've invested too much in Sims 2 to start over from scratch (and I NEVER paid full price for an expansion like most other poor saps). My Sims can go to college, work many different career paths, become a vampire, etc. So why would I start all over again? Just so I can switch between sims in different households on the fly? Same with Blue Ray. DVDs already give me great sound and picture, my kids can watch them in the car and we're almost at the point where everything will be streamed or downloaded. So I'm not starting over and rebuilding a movie library on BlueRay.

Which brings us back to Civ V. From a standpoint of bugs/ fixes, obviously it's unreasonable to compare a newly shipped game to a patched/ fine-tuned game. However, from a gameplay/ content standpoint, there is no reason to pull out quality gameplay elements other than greed and/ or stupidity. What is wrong with using the 15 years of improvements that culminated in BTS as a starting point? It's not like shipping the game with 34 Civs would leave none left for expansions. They could fill an expansion just retreading cut leaders from Civs 1-3. However, I'm fairly certain that the Civ V developers specifically sat down and decided 1) which elements of BTS to remove and then repackage in an expansion (I'll bet anything religion and espionage were selected) and 2) which Civs to pull from the initial release and sell as DLC. The latter part certainly concerns me the most. Which is Firaxis more likely to devote programming time to? Fixing game balance issues and AI problems or more leaders/ units and buildings to sell. It seems to me that Civ V could easily devolve into a CCG.

Honestly, I hope I'm wrong. I think, based on what I've read, that there is probably significant depth Civ V that hasn't been plumbed yet because the AI is too flawed and the sharpest Civ minds haven't logged enough game time yet. However, I still think it's entirely fair to compare Civ V to BTS from a gameplay/ content standpoint. If EA Sports shipped Madden 2011 with an improved franchise mode but removed all shotgun formations because, hey that was Madden 2010 and this is a different game, people would go nuts. And imagine if they "improved" the difficulty by giving the AI 13 players on defense and 5 downs? :deadhorse:
 
Your main thesis is a great point actually. I hadn't even really considered that before. Saying that the expansions of previous games shouldn't be included, and that 'of course content is coming later' is pretty much buying in to the idea that game companies should be allowed to nickel and dime us to death.

Interesting.
 
This is a problem in the game industry as a whole.

Expansions increase the level of play of a game. You get more value from buying "game of the year editions" than new releases. It's a paradox for sure.
 
FWIW, I tend to agree...

Professional software is different than gaming software, but I've been through multiple instances where we've taken existing software and released entirely new iterations, built on a completely different codebase and/or architecture --- but still serving the same market/need.

There are significant challenges porting features over in some of these instances. Ironically enough, some of the hardest things to port are features that were essentially kluges in the original implementation - but were so cleverly done, that even when the new architecture is tailor-made to support them out of the box - it's tough to get them done as well as the original implementation.

I have no idea how Firaxis goes about this - but we basically toss all existing features into 3 buckets:

1) Must have features that are very well received and however we port, the new implementation must work like the old

2) Desired features that have limited functionality/limited value in the original, and can be radically redesigned

3) Features that simply didn't work

For 1), it's a simple matter of engineering -- see how it works in the original, mimic in the next generation.

For 2), this is usually an instance where the predecessor base simply didn't support a good idea. Mostly engineering - but we also look back to the original implementation to essentially see if we just didn't capture the 'essence' of the original request. Sometimes its a re-working, sometimes its a fundamental redesign.

For 3), this is where we start at the beginning. If we still have the original business requirements, we'll dust them off and examine them with a fresh eye. If possible, we try to go back to the original requester. We never just toss something out unthinkingly -- we always try to make sure that it was just a bad idea no matter how it was implemented... not an area that could have worked, but didn't... for whatever reason.
 
firaxis will prolly introduce religion in a new expansion cuz the community wanted it. Then they look like saints cuz they listened to the community. Paradox Interactive does this all the time. They constantly remove features from sequels then re-add them in expansions because of overwhelming feedback from community.
 
firaxis will prolly introduce religion in a new expansion cuz the community wanted it. Then they look like saints cuz they listened to the community. Paradox Interactive does this all the time. They constantly remove features from sequels then re-add them in expansions because of overwhelming feedback from community.

I agree that when it pops up in the first expansion, this will be the party line, because they can't say "We took it out because we needed features for the expansion".
 
firaxis will prolly introduce religion in a new expansion cuz the community wanted it. Then they look like saints cuz they listened to the community. Paradox Interactive does this all the time. They constantly remove features from sequels then re-add them in expansions because of overwhelming feedback from community.

This is why I don't buy from Paradox until at least 2 "expansions" are released.
 
Thank you for posting this. What has been amazing me reading this forum is how many people are going 'yeah, it's pretty crap, but it'll all be fixed in the next (or the next after that) expansion'. Incredible.

Trouble is yes, we have Firaxis (or 2K more properly) milking brand loyalty to its limit here. But a lot of these people will actually pay for the expansion - even though it might just approximate to the game they expected to play in the first place. Rinse and repeat.

[And I don't apply this to the Civ4 expansions - I think those were fairly proper on the whole.]
 
I played Civ 4 vanilla quite a bit, then my interest in computer games waned and I didn't do much with the various sequels. I'm curious what they added, to be truthful.

But even if you're comparing vanilla Civ 4 with Civ 5 it's still not favorable to the latter.
 
Seconded. This have been argued to death. I hope we can finally leave that dead horse alone.
 
Thank you for posting this. What has been amazing me reading this forum is how many people are going 'yeah, it's pretty crap, but it'll all be fixed in the next (or the next after that) expansion'. Incredible.

Trouble is yes, we have Firaxis (or 2K more properly) milking brand loyalty to its limit here. But a lot of these people will actually pay for the expansion - even though it might just approximate to the game they expected to play in the first place. Rinse and repeat.

[And I don't apply this to the Civ4 expansions - I think those were fairly proper on the whole.]


All of you need to take some economics classes.

Firaxis is not a non-profit entertainment aimed at your happiness. It is a game developer looking to make money. The industry is the way it is for VERY clear reasons and there have been bibles written about it. You aren't adding anything to the discussion except unrealistic whining.
 
AS I've said in multiple threads, I'd much prefer a comparison between CiV and Civ III. I think those 2 are more related in terms of being wholesale changes from the previous version and generating a lot of controversy.
Civ IV, While having many changes from Civ III is still very clearly based in the same fundamental concepts as Civ III.
 
All of you need to take some economics classes.

Firaxis is not a non-profit entertainment aimed at your happiness. It is a game developer looking to make money. The industry is the way it is for VERY clear reasons and there have been bibles written about it. You aren't adding anything to the discussion except unrealistic whining.

There's no call for being rude here.

Developers can make money without milking their player base. Shockingly, many actually put time and effort into their products (here's looking at you, Blizzard) and make sure the game itself can stand solidly and is not being culled of necessary content so expansions can be created. There's no excuse for releasing a game that has so little content compared to it's predecessors that even the game's supporters are saying it'll take a few years for it to get good.
 
All of you need to take some economics classes.

Firaxis is not a non-profit entertainment aimed at your happiness. It is a game developer looking to make money. The industry is the way it is for VERY clear reasons and there have been bibles written about it. You aren't adding anything to the discussion except unrealistic whining.

Excuse me? And in what way does this contradict what I said? Reading comprehension problems perhaps?
 
All of you need to take some economics classes.

Firaxis is not a non-profit entertainment aimed at your happiness. It is a game developer looking to make money. The industry is the way it is for VERY clear reasons and there have been bibles written about it. You aren't adding anything to the discussion except unrealistic whining.

People who are getting more air and less product in the box have a right to take note of it.
 
I personally like the way the civ games aren't re-hashes of the previous year. I feel so ripped off with like Madden games basically beefing up the graphics and updating the rosters (which are still out of date when the game releases anyway....) but every year, they expect us to fork over the price of a new game for something that could have been an add-on.
 
All of you need to take some economics classes.

Firaxis is not a non-profit entertainment aimed at your happiness. It is a game developer looking to make money. The industry is the way it is for VERY clear reasons and there have been bibles written about it. You aren't adding anything to the discussion except unrealistic whining.

Revisit this thread when you discover a better civic than Serfdom to live by.

Just because SOME of the giants in the industry can't find a way to turn a profit without breaking what should be a single game into multiple pay DLCs/expansion doesn't mean we should just bend over and take it.
 
Revisit this thread when you discover a better civic than Serfdom to live by.

Just because SOME of the giants in the industry can't find a way to turn a profit without breaking what should be a single game into multiple pay DLCs/expansion doesn't mean we should just bend over and take it.

Every single major major game franchise and most of the minor ones use this model. What games have you been playing?

Even Xcom 2 was just a reskin and HP buff for the aliens. You could still throw grenades under water!
 
Excuse me? And in what way does this contradict what I said? Reading comprehension problems perhaps?

Anyone who describes a voluntary purchase of a product for which you could gain ample information about "milking" deserves all the "milking" they get. Computer gamers complain and complain about poor game quality, but they keep buying :):):):) games. Gamers heal thyselves!

There are a ton of complaints in here that are basically "Why doesn't Firaxis develop the game for free."

Clearly with the budget they had a lot of people find the game unacceptable, yet they also hate the idea of having to pay more than about $40-50 for the game. There is simply not a way to have more development time for free. Firaxis is not a charity.

So you either:

1) live with a higher base price for games
2) stay with the current release system and buy expansions
3) don't buy computer games that aren't made by blizzard or for consoles.

Civ 5 has very inelastic demand. They were going to sell roughly the same number of copies as long as the game didn't bomb in reviews. So what exactly is the incentive for them to cram the development full of cash? People need to be realistic.
 
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