thbrown81
Warlord
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?
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?