Do developers listen to us?

[HamaticBabylon]

Do the developers making Civ 4 listen to our suggestions? Do they include this suggestion in the game? Are you stratified with the current development and flavor of the game?

What say you?

 

[warpstorm]

Yes, they listen, but they are making THEIR game, not yours. They take all input and decide what THEY want to build. There is no way that they could include everyone's suggestions. It is literally impossible since so many of them contradict each other. Instead (according to his GDC speech over a year ago), Soren took a snap shot of the forums and what people liked and disliked from Civ3 and the suggestions listed, and looked them over before designing this game.

Am I satisifed? Sure. I don't realistically expect them to build MY game. I'm not paying them that kind of money.

 

[EdwardTking]

Do the developers making Civ 4 listen to our suggestions? Do they include this suggestion in the game? Are you stratified with the current development and favour of the game?

What say you?

Yes, they do!!

In an online chat with the developers after Civ3 first came out, I made a number of suggestions. I suggested a Naval civilisation trait that would have better early shipping abilities and they introduced Seafaring. I suggested a Prolific high birth rate civilisation trait and they introduced Agricultural. (I also suggested an Orderly trait which wasn't picked up on.) Now it may well be that they were already thinking along those lines or that others had made similar suggestions, so I am not seeking to clam any credit; but I am sure that there is value in coherent cumulative constructive feedback.

Remember listening to feedback from enthusiasts of earlier versions has limited value. We die off or depart into the world of too busy with hard work or marriage and children. So I also think that they must listen to feedback from retail outlets as to what they would require and from people who don't buy Civilisation or who have bought it and do not rate it.

I suspect the reality is that they are correctly told that the next generation of games are expected to be: Real-Time and/or 3D; and that if Civ4 was neither, it would not be bought by newcomers and so not stocked and so not bought.

 

[tcjsavannah]

Yes, they do, as feasible and practical as it is for them to. I think most people here understand that, too.

 

[Avayaman]

probably for this game. Firaxis must realize by now that their main bread and butter would be the hundreds of thousands of civ addicts. they simply cannot afford to not listen. other games do not have such a huge following nor a storied history. A lot of our ideas do not coincide with gameplay of course, as we point out isolated points that balance out somewhere

anyway, firaxis also realized that they need to add to these civ addicts and maybe are introducing some other elements as well (RTS-unit promotions?) and balancing all these things would be the trick!

 

[Aussie_Lurker]

I believe that Firaxis is one of the MOST responsive game producers I have ever seen. Not only do they have a fairly good record of incorporating the ideas of fans into the game-they also have public chat sessions around the time of every game, expansion and patch release. That is a pretty good sign for the future of the Civ franchise IMHO.

Yours,
Aussie_Lurker.

 

[ThERat]

defenitely yes, it can only be a win-win situation for them, if they listen to all of us.
I guess the ability to highly mod Civ4 stems from the knowledge that there is a huge fan base, that is willing to mod.

I am happy they put up with all our complaints, but we all just want an even better experience than C3C.

 

[Kenric af Grashen]

Yes you just have to look at egypt and they've changed Cleopatra

 

[Sullla]

Don't know about these boards, but the Firaxians definitely have made a lot of changes in response to fan interaction in the past. The final patch for stand-alone Civ3 (1.29f) changed the way that the tech rate worked after Soren and company heard about our Epic Four competition at Realms Beyond. I also know that some of the AI programming was changed around a bit as a result of the RBE2 Succession Game. So while I don't know about this specific case, I think it's fair to say that Firaxis is listening to fan input and taking it into account.

 

[Own]

The only things Firaxis looks at here at CivFanatics I think is the bug reports and cIV ideas and suggestions.

 

[Chieftess]

Read awhile back where Soren said something to the effect of, "Our compilied list of suggestions is larger than the New Testament!". They do listen.