Dan the Man? Where for art thou?

[VoodooAce]

Whatever happened to Dan?

Can we not get ANY kind of feedback from Firaxis? So there will be a patch next week? What will it address?

Will be interesting to find out, I guess.

 

[VoodooAce]

I would llike to add that, if you work for Firaxis, admit to it if you reply here.

I'm getting pretty suspicious of some of these guys in here with 2 posts saying we should ease up on poor, poor Firaxis.

'it's not a show stopper, it's a patch stopper'. What???? It's a stopper, on a game that's been out a month, has no patch, and NO COMMENT from Firaxis.

 

[Mike C]

He came on to post a brief sarcastic message to scold one of the posters who said the game was half-baked and implied the poster was being "unconstructive".

Geez, it seems as if we are not even allowed to complain anymore since the Firaxis thought police has decided that we are not worthy of dirtying Sid's name by telling people there are bugs in the game.

 

[Dan Magaha FIRAXIS]

Just for the record, please see

http://apolyton.net/misc/chat/civ3/civ3ai-1.shtml

About a week after the game was released we confirmed that we were working on the first patch, and we have been working on it steadily ever since. Additionally, I've posted in numerous threads (both here and Apolyton) where I knew that an issue was going to be resolved in a patch, and made that clear.

As for when the patch is going to be finished, Jeff's comment about the patch release was that if all went well the patch could be available as early as next week. However, it's entirely possible that testing could cause the patch to "reset" (restarted after a fix is made).

I can tell you it will be a pretty substantial update, but not much more than that.

Dan


P.S., for the record, I have never (nor has anyone else from Firaxis, AFAIK) made any statements that people don't have the right to complain or voice their opinion on this or any other forum.

Of course the game has bugs. Every major piece of PC software (game or otherwise) in the last decade has shipped with bugs of one sort or another, that's just a fact of modern software development. You just do your best to address them as quickly and as completely as possible and that is exactly what we are doing.

 

[ironfang]

Wahoo!! A reply longer than 3 lines! Yeah! [dance]

Now, if we can only get the replies to the 7,000,000 real questions and not to the less than 1% based on PR... :enlighten you would definantly see ALOT happier customers.

ironfang

 

[Smash]

Thank you.

I am quite interested in what is being tweaked/changed-etc.
any teasers?

Fairly substantial sounds big.

 

[Selous]

well im sure they would HAVE to fix the air stuff ..... hopefull be able to take out shipping with air ... fix the lose entire army when city turns to baddies side .... and with some luck .... multiplayer ... but i want the other's done first

 

[godot]

Originally posted by Dan Magaha FIRAXIS

I can tell you it will be a pretty substantial update, but not much more than that.

Dan

I am not as irate as some about the bugs and limitations of CivIII, but I do wonder about the Firaxian attitude displayed by Dan's response. Why couldn't he say more than what he did? Why all the secrecy about what they are working on for the patch?

You would think they would want their fans (happy and disgruntled, both) to know what's going on. I would even be satisfied with an explanation as to why it is that they can't disclose any helpful/hopeful information about the patch.

 

[Northstar5757]

Give Dan a break, I'm angry just like the rest of you but firaxis is obviously not going to state anything specific as to when the patch will come out and what will be changed. Plus i could be wrong but I'm guessing Dan isn't a head honcho at firaxis which doesn't afford him the luxury to divulge any information he sees fit.

It was such deadlines that messed the game up in the first place. It's obvious to anyone that the sole reason for all these problems is the game was rushed (as someone mentioned earlier certain files were labled under Moo2....) Take as much time as you need to get the patch out as long as it works.

The one thing I'm angry about is that nothing is mentioned at all on their website about the patch, if I didn't know about this board I'd be in the dark. But I guess it would be very bad press to talk about patches when they are selling tons of copies each day.

 

[Franklyn]

Maybe Dan's keeping his mouth shut to delay the inevitable flood of the "why didn't you include THIS in the patch?!?" threads. Besides, his silence gives everyone more time to keep up the "Why won't Firaxis say more?!" rants.

 

[Vinc]

Guys, if you want a patch soon, let them work, and don't complain!!

BTW MESSAGE TO FIRAXIS: Although it's not everybody that likes CivIII, I just want to say that I really appreciate it. It's my first game from the Civilization series, and not my last if others come on the market. Thanks for making this great game. I am looking forward to that patch, but PLEASE, PLEASE give us the possibility to create good scenarios (writing events, place units/cities).

Just wanted to say how much I like CivIII to the creators

 

[aiya]

Thank you Dan! Keep up the good work.

Here's a thought, they're all keeping quiet because they're busying playing the game with the new patch, instead of answering to all the wining. At least that is more enjoyable.

 

[VoodooAce]

ok, now i'm lmao.

Leave poor, poor ol' Firaxis alone.

Godot said it best.

Then again, I dunno. I don't have a top-secret clearance or anything, so why should Firaxis bother with me.

Northstar, we all realize Dan ain't the CEO at Firaxis, and probably does what his boss says to do.

I'm not bitter with him, I'm bitter with Firaxis, more so now with the lame answer seen above.

Oh, and Vinc, Firaxis probably has more than three employees. I think it's well within the realm of possibility that they could fix the damn game AND tell us their fixing the damn game.

I wish there were a smiley-face icon for kissing @$$!!!!!!!

They ain't gonna send you a free game for a little peck on the ass, lol

I'll take the constructive criticism over the blatant ass kissing anyday....

 

[Dan Magaha FIRAXIS]

Originally posted by godot

I would even be satisfied with an explanation as to why it is that they can't disclose any helpful/hopeful information about the patch.

Well, for starters, because at any given time during the patch development and testing process, a bugfix may need to be removed because it has introduced new bugs that can't easily be resolved.

Therefore, we are not releasing any lists of fixes and feature enhancements until the patch has passed testing and has been signed off.

Dan

 

[dannyevilcat]

My lord, people... Why are you SO FREAKIN' UPSET?!! Before you hurry to reply and lambaste me for being a Sid groupie, hold up! Look, I've logged more Civ 2 time than any human being probably should have, although I'm relatively new in this forum, and yes I'm such a freak that I actually left work for a few hours to pick up Civ3 from the Electronics Boutique a mere two hours after I got the call it was in. Yes, I suck THAT much, but what can I say... Civ rocks.

But I've played the game ALOT, and I'm still having a blast, bugs or not. Am I kissing Sid's a**? No!!!!! I mean, damn, complaining at such volume must be exhausting!

And guess what... the patch IS coming, so why not just wait for it instead of demanding a 24 hour around the clock status report from Firaxis? Must you know everything about everything? Christmas is a month away... I'll bet you know everything you're getting, don't you?

Take a valium. But before you do... Let me brace myself for all the violent replies of disgruntled Civ fans. IT'S A GAME, AND A GOOD ONE! "Ahhhhh--not the face! Nooo-Naahhh!! It hurts...!"

 

[aznblader]

and you guys wonder why firaxis guys never post here with all the whining when someone DOES reply?

thanks for taking the time to keep us updated dan. it's appreciated!

 

[jc011]

Yeah, I guess we should be more appreciative...Keep it up Firaxis!

 

[Ghengis Brom]

I have, and I fully understand why Firaxis is not giving details on whats in the patch. As Dan stated, in process of developing software it sometimes necessary to change or entirely remove features which were planned or implemented in the beginning. Ultima Online is constantly releasing patches for their game and in the past had made a habit of promising or eluding to certain changes which never came to be. This did nothing but infuriate the player community. I'm just glad Firaxis announced they are working on the patch and gave a tenative release date. That's a lot better some other companies have done *cough* Origin *cough*.

 

[jc011]

Yes, I agree, they are not making any promises so there can be no dissapointments if it is not kept. I think they are doing a wise choice. We should just sit tight and be patient and wait a while.

 

[Craterus22]

I think the main point that people are making is that Firaxis has not provided any information on thier own website concerning a patch OR bugs.

An example that I suggested to dan was that the company should consider having a page listing all the bugs that they are aware of in the game.

This would save posters on this forum and people who send in e-mails to the company from collectively writing up detailed descriptions of the same bugs over and over again.

This would be a time saver both them and us (assuming of course that they read thier e-mail). I would have thought that after they read about air support for the 500th time they would want to list out the bugs they were aware of...