Dennis Shirk acknowledges fan disappointment and Civ5 development problems

[Zyxpsilon]

The one wish I have is that the reason for the layoffs would be made public...

Pre-determined & contracted staffing assets for a specific number of tasks *expired* as planned. Speculative? Or nothing but the reality of any workplace?
As a deduction, protecting the predictable profits of shareholders but *not* eventual product quality or provisions for further development.

I challenge anyone in authority at Firaxis or 2K to just try contradicting me on such an assumption, officially or otherwise.

Businesses are run for efficiency reasons while the personnel slot is an expense that lowers the bottom line. Saved any money on it, they got *more* profits for investors and not employees' paychecks to hand over.

What's public is that people lost their jobs and went home having been promised a career worth investing energy, knowledge & dedication to duty for a salary.

And, i'll say it again --even here--; What a Mess.

 

[Louis XXIV]

It happens in every business. The question is if it was done to ensure enough profit to continue as a viable business or if it was done to enlarge an already healthy expected profit.

 

[Zyxpsilon]

It's the latter and here's the proof all the way down in Catch the latest updates.
But you might also want to glimpse at a related twist in staffing assignment -- if anything it gives an idea how serious they are with development phase_S.

 

[Medopu]

He meant worked with no problems in a technical sense, which it did. The only reason there were any issues was because Firaxis decided to prioritize DRM over making a quality product.

.

That's not even close to similar. For one, years are purely cosmetic in civ. The DO NOT IMPACT THE GAMEPLAY. You can (and should) not think about them with respect to gameplay. On the other hand, map scale very much affects gameplay.

Oh my god!!

That was just an example. You honestly think Civ4 is a realistic simulator? Macemen beating tanks, units being able to heal (that is borderline ARCADE gameplay)?
Thick head man.

Moderator Action: please stay civil in your discussion - attacking another user is unacceptable.
Please read the forum rules: http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=422889

 

[deanej]

Oh my god!!

That was just an example. You honestly think Civ4 is a realistic simulator? Macemen beating tanks, units being able to heal (that is borderline ARCADE gameplay)?
Thick head man.

It's a LOT more realistic than civ5. On the macemen beating tanks, I've always thought that the solution to that problem is to give an automatic win if a unit has > x% odds (like in civ rev). As for healing, what's wrong with that? Wounded men get better and reinforcements arrive. Civ4 doesn't have units transmorgifying into boats, archers firing over the English Channel, or leaders who will betray you the first chance they get.

Trying to force tactical combat on a strategic map has far-reaching implications. It's the reason for the low tile yields. It's the reason the city maintenance mechanic (they only mechanic that has ever worked at curbing ICS) was abandoned in favor of a seriously broken happiness mechanic (with the return of building maintenance). The developers had to make sure cities never became any good because then there would be too many units on the map.

 

[Janig]

I appreciate both the acknowledgement and its reiteration here, thanks. With regard to trusting Shirk: he is a marketing guy, there was never much trust. With regard to the future and reintroducing good features I dont expect anything. I hope Civ5 will get better, I hope the AI will be drastically improved, but whether it will is speculation and Shirks word means nothing.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

To be fair, I doubt those are the type of 'core functions' that he is alluding to. I would take it to mean bare basics that make the game function, not necessary extras like UI and smooth out bugs that make it possible to play well.

This is not logic. It's the opposite of logic. UI is not an extra. If you're going to make UI an "extra", then the following are extras too:

- All sound and music
- Video cutscenes
- Diplo screen
- Playing the game at all.

If they feel that UI isn't a core function they're ignorant. UI is a key component in every game; it is literally how you interact with the game you're playing. How can you call this an "extra" and still pretend you have an argument about it?!

Also, are you trying to say that the game running free of bugs/at all isn't a core function? Care to give us some logic to this statement or are you just defending the designers for fun?

He meant worked with no problems in a technical sense, which it did. The only reason there were any issues was because Firaxis decided to prioritize DRM over making a quality product.

This game did not work from a technical sense on release and in many phases of gameplay does not work in a technical sense now. Don't lie; it makes the game look better than it is and smooths over problems that need to be fixed before it comes anywhere near the jokes/praise it's gotten.

 

[King_Course]

You cannot resolve this because units are integral part of strategic game, and there is no way you can treat whole map as a battlefield. They haven't been able to develop a simplest chess playing engine this way, as we all know. Units don't even interrelate with tile properties. I haven't yet seen an archer tendentiously using hills to dominate the battlefield. Instead, they will more likely jump into the water and commit suicide.
Programmers were not doing anything in tactical combat programming. It is a fact. The approach is sterile and so are the results (expectations).

What is a fact? First you claim that there can be no good A.I. on the scale of the whole map, next you come up with the archer example that is so easilly seen as a bad move that it can be no amazing feat to fix. Go on hill, don't go in water? You think we should dig up Albert Einstein and clone him and maybe, just maybe, he will know what to do?

What is a fact? That it cannot possibly be done as you start out saying, or that the programmmers just never did it as you end up saying?

And we all know computers can't play chess, and can't learn to play chess??? What are you living in a make believe world or what? The rest of us aren't living in your make believe world ok?

 

[rschissler]

Trying to force tactical combat on a strategic map has far-reaching implications. It's the reason for the low tile yields. It's the reason the city maintenance mechanic (they only mechanic that has ever worked at curbing ICS) was abandoned in favor of a seriously broken happiness mechanic (with the return of building maintenance). The developers had to make sure cities never became any good because then there would be too many units on the map.

A lot of truth to this and I don't know how it can be fixed, a serious flaw to the 1UPT concept. Of course some people will say: "So what, just deal with it, this isn't Civ IV." It's almost like the developers should start over, and work on Civ 6 instead.

 

[dexters]

So despite fan claims of layoffs (of unknown units) hurting the game, the biggest challenge appears to have been the 2 month stop in testing for Steam implementation.

We would have gotten at the very least December patch version of the game at launch if it wasn't for the delay.

2 months is a long time for beta testing, usually 2-3 versions are released in such a period.

A lot of truth to this and I don't know how it can be fixed, a serious flaw to the 1UPT concept. Of course some people will say: "So what, just deal with it, this isn't Civ IV." It's almost like the developers should start over, and work on Civ 6 instead.

Post March update, the model works much better. Tile bonuses and location directly effect type of buildings you can build inside the cities. Mints add tremendous gold, stables add a ton of extra production on cattle title, horses and elephants allow for extra happiness buildings.

It's probably where Civ needs to go in terms of city specialization, to focus the specialization back into buildings in conjunction with tiles

 

[Louis XXIV]

He did say that the layoffs were detrimental to the morale and productivity of the team, but I agree the delay was the bigger problem.

 

[rschissler]

Post March update, the model works much better. Tile bonuses and location directly effect type of buildings you can build inside the cities. Mints add tremendous gold, stables add a ton of extra production on cattle title, horses and elephants allow for extra happiness buildings.

It's probably where Civ needs to go in terms of city specialization, to focus the specialization back into buildings in conjunction with tiles

Yeah, but...

More production, more gold, and more happiness, mean more units, but the current map under 1UPT can't really handle more units. It just creates more of a logjam.

 

[Camikaze]

This is not logic. It's the opposite of logic. UI is not an extra. If you're going to make UI an "extra", then the following are extras too:

- All sound and music
- Video cutscenes
- Diplo screen
- Playing the game at all.

If they feel that UI isn't a core function they're ignorant. UI is a key component in every game; it is literally how you interact with the game you're playing. How can you call this an "extra" and still pretend you have an argument about it?!

Also, are you trying to say that the game running free of bugs/at all isn't a core function? Care to give us some logic to this statement or are you just defending the designers for fun?

The first three things you listed there are probably not what he meant by 'core functions'. Without a good UI, functionality is limited, but it isn't non-existent, so I doubt it's the type of thing Shirk was talking about. I mean, sure, complaints about the UI are valid (although I don't think it's as bad as you do), but I'm just saying that I doubt that type of thing was what Shirk was referring to. The UI on release and to this day is functional, regardless of whether or not you think it is good.

As for being bug free, don't all games have bugs? The game running is certainly a core function, but being completely and absolutely bug free would seem rather stringent as a criterion. When Shirk said that they were trying to get the core features up and running, I would assume that that doesn't amount to a claim that it was bug-free.

 

[jjkrause84]

Post March update, the model works much better. Tile bonuses and location directly effect type of buildings you can build inside the cities. Mints add tremendous gold, stables add a ton of extra production on cattle title, horses and elephants allow for extra happiness buildings.

It's probably where Civ needs to go in terms of city specialization, to focus the specialization back into buildings in conjunction with tiles

Getting better, absolutely. Still totally illogical.

Why can you only build a circus NEAR the horses? Surely horses can travel to other cities for use in their local entertainment. Likewise with mints...mints are not built on gold/silver/nickel/etc. deposits to be "close to the source".

 

[Louis XXIV]

I think they were more commonly in ancient times. Actually, this is relatively confirmable, I would think. Where were Macedonian coins minted after Amphipolis?

 

[Mongoloid Cow]

Coins were usually minted close to the raw source of gold, silver or whatever. Sometimes they weren't - states have minted even though they lacked any nearby sources, and there were also "travelling mints". As far as gameplay goes, though, I reckon Firaxis made the right choice.

You could look at it this way for a realworld perspective - it's not exactly practical to transport heavy raw gold or silver a considerable distance just to press coins out of it. You're better off doing it as close to the source as possible.

 

[nokmirt]

I don't care as long as they know the AI needs to be fixed and they fix it. The rest will fall into place.

 

[Medopu]

It's a LOT more realistic than civ5. On the macemen beating tanks, I've always thought that the solution to that problem is to give an automatic win if a unit has > x% odds (like in civ rev). As for healing, what's wrong with that? Wounded men get better and reinforcements arrive. Civ4 doesn't have units transmorgifying into boats, archers firing over the English Channel, or leaders who will betray you the first chance they get.

Trying to force tactical combat on a strategic map has far-reaching implications. It's the reason for the low tile yields. It's the reason the city maintenance mechanic (they only mechanic that has ever worked at curbing ICS) was abandoned in favor of a seriously broken happiness mechanic (with the return of building maintenance). The developers had to make sure cities never became any good because then there would be too many units on the map.

sorry if you were insulted I definatley didn't mean to.

Yes Civ4 is more realistic than Civ5 I wasn't attacking that aspect, It's just that when you criticize civ5 you shouldn't point Civ4 as something optimal, because it obivously isn't.
It's good, better than civ 5, just in no possible way realistic.

When you imagine a battle, you imagine there were casualties and if you fought with your army in another continent for example and if you get half of your army killed, I can't Imagine them simply go back to full squad miles and miles away from your civilization in the middle of a desert if you wish so.


Also agree with city maintenance Civ4 had it nice way but it was far far from perfect. I think they should build on that.

I also don't think they should ditch the global happiness because it can coexist with city maintenance. I imagine the global happiness as a sort of "civilization stability". So I think there is no need to throw that Idea out of the window, just add on the concept and I think over time, there might come up something good.

But I still want better AI before anything else gets fixed.

 

[zergrush]

This is what I expected after having spent 40 hrs playing the game and shelving it, sadly this is not going away and 2k are not the only ones rushing games out way before they are ready.

 

[zarakand]

Yeah, but...

More production, more gold, and more happiness, mean more units, but the current map under 1UPT can't really handle more units. It just creates more of a logjam.

They should tie army size to happiness with a social policy. Some civilizations despise having a large army, others take a lot of pride in it. As you get a HUGE army there should be a SEVERE effect on your economy. Some kind of game play mechanic like that would help I think.

I'm basing this thinking off of the constant talks about the Pentagon budget being so high and wasteful. I'm not trying to start a political discussion but just how this might relate to game play with social policies.