Firaxis: Patch coming next week

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HounddogLGS said:
Last time I checked they either put the acitivation codes on a sticker on your computer case or on a card with something to the effect of "DON'T LOSE THIS NUMBER" in big bold print.

If I'm not mistaken, the original poster pointed out that he bought XP as an upgrade. Therefore he would not have the stickers you are pointing out.
 
MERV GRIFFIN said:
Forgive the triple message. The software made me think I was still doing it the first time. WEBMASTER: I tried to delete the first two duplicate messages, but could not locate how to do it. I must say that this is some out-of-date software you're using if I can't figure it out. Should be right up front if a messager wants to delete his message. Standard nowdays.

Merv-- I would give your system a thorough overhaul. Between your game problems and your posting problems, I think there are a lot of problems there. None of us are having the problem with the forum software.

Simple registry defrags and spyware checks are amazingly effective..
 
MERV GRIFFIN said:
Forgive the triple message. The software made me think I was still doing it the first time. WEBMASTER: I tried to delete the first two duplicate messages, but could not locate how to do it. I must say that this is some out-of-date software you're using if I can't figure it out. Should be right up front if a messager wants to delete his message. Standard nowdays.
CFC uses vBulletin 3.5.0. AFAIK the latest vBulletin is only 3.5.1, and vBulletin is just about as good as you can get for forum software. 'Tis not a software issue, Thunderfall disabled message deleting ;).

On topic - yay patch! If only I actually have Civ4, but it only comes out here next week :(
 
I have the ati9500pro and i dont get the "ati errors" ive been reading about. I went ahead and expanded that file like their ATI fix says, i figure id rather that stuff sit on my hd expanded then get extracted everytime i play. It didnt seem to speed anything up, not even an inch.

IMO, when they said "we had multiplayer in mind from the begining", what they ment was a game that would be like civ3 mp, sluggish. It feels like c3c mp is on, all the time, even in singleplayer. But i think that whatever this first fix is gunna be will take care of it, or at least take a big chunk out of it.

What i have happen to me, is during the wonder movies video is great, but the audio skips the audio for 3 seconds, every 3 seconds. Before you start posting about soundcards, cpus and whatever, It continues to play the other civ sounds, music, ambience, Everything else plays totally pristine. I usually run winamp while i play, and it doesnt skip there at all either, so its not my hardware. If it was my cpu or ram, winamp would be skipping like a little girl in pigtails.

This game is like an RPG. You cant expect it to be flawless. Even the game systems that release RPGs have ended up releasing a second print, or having updates to download. And they knew exactly what kind of hardware everyone would have.

Well thats my two cents, keep it or commit a federal offense and throw it in the garbage! All i know, is the more i play civ4, the more i dont miss the vikings as much.
 
I have the ati9500pro and i dont get the "ati errors" ive been reading about. I went ahead and expanded that file like their ATI fix says, i figure id rather that stuff sit on my hd expanded then get extracted everytime i play. It didnt seem to speed anything up, not even an inch.

IMO, when they said "we had multiplayer in mind from the begining", what they ment was a game that would be like civ3 mp, sluggish. It feels like c3c mp is on, all the time, even in singleplayer. But i think that whatever this first fix is gunna be will take care of it, or at least take a big chunk out of it.

What i have happen to me, is during the wonder movies video is great, but the audio skips the audio for 3 seconds, every 3 seconds. Before you start posting about soundcards, cpus and whatever, It continues to play the other civ sounds, music, ambience, Everything else plays totally pristine. I usually run winamp while i play, and it doesnt skip there at all either, so its not my hardware. If it was my cpu or ram, winamp would be skipping like a little girl in pigtails.

This game is like an RPG, theres so much information in it. You cant expect it to be flawless. Even the game systems that release RPGs have ended up releasing a second print, or having updates to download. And they knew exactly what kind of hardware everyone would have.

Well thats my two cents, keep it or commit a federal offense and throw it in the garbage! All i know, is the more i play civ4, the less urge i have to play c3c.
 
upstart said:
these ppl are not real gamers ... if ppl cant spring for a 50 dollar video card(or less) then they should stick to classic games and leave the prettier newer games to those who will.

This continues to be the heart of the idiocy for many. First off, many of the people with problems are laptop people or otherwise can't just "spring 50 bucks" to fix the problem.

But more important continues to be the "gamer" crowd insulting long-time Civ players with such ignorance. While it may be your aspiration in life, believe it or not, many Civ players have *no interest whatsoever* in being included in the "gamer" crowd. In fact, many of us play Civ precisely because it is (or used to be) different than "gamer" games.

If you don't understand why there is whining from these people, then you probably just hopped on the Civ IV bandwagon and don't get the legacy of the Civ franchise. Many people have been loyal to Civ for *years*, and in my view they are entitled to voice their displeasure with the decision to move the game more towards "gamers" than ensuring that all the loyal fans would be able to play on their laptops or whatever.

And just to add as disclaimers: I am not trying to offend gamers. I have nothing against them, I don't consider myself better than them in any way, I'm just offering a different perspective. Nor am I trying to insinuate all players of Civ IV now have to be "gamers". The great majority of the old Civ community will move on to Civ IV, it just would be nice if they patched the game to allow the laptop/non-T&L crowd too as well.
 
Willem said:
And it has been shown that the 7500 can be be made to work properly if the AGP speed is turned off. Of course that slows down the game and introduces strange colour into the terrain, so it's a debate as to whether it is actually working. But at least the black terrain and cheshire cat leaders can be eliminated. That's simply impossible with non-T&L cards, no matter what you adjust. As for the 5900XT, there's probably some setting on that one as well since I haven't seen very many people, in fact none personally, that have been experiencing that problem. And I've never claimed that there wasn't some other issue that might cause these symptoms.

The simple fact remains: All non T&L cards have these problems, only a few of the T&L capable cards do. Ergo, the condition is primarily a result of not having a card that is T&L compatible. Simple logic there, it's not a brain twister by any means.

Sorry, but not that simple. I have a Radeon IGP 320M. Apparently No T+L. I Have all black terrain.

But my leaders heads also come through beautifully and are well animated framewsie. No Chesire cat issues.

If it is a T+L issue, how can i have one T+L related symptom and not the other? :confused:
 
Willem said:
There'll also be alot of angry people when they realize that the patch doesn't fix the problems they're having because of their crappy hardware.

the game doesn't work now with hardware meeting and exceeding their requirements. sure some people without t&l will be angry, but no more so than those of us with midrange hardware that meets the requirements that firaxis put out having to listen to people tell them to buy a new computer. and i can't imagine that anyone even beta'd hotseat, or they would have noticed the trading bug.
 
GoldenWheels said:
Sorry, but not that simple. I have a Radeon IGP 320M. Apparently No T+L. I Have all black terrain.

But my leaders heads also come through beautifully and are well animated framewsie. No Chesire cat issues.

If it is a T+L issue, how can i have one T+L related symptom and not the other? :confused:

I am also very confused. I have an Intel 82865G which appears not to support TL. I get the chesire cat effect but I can see some terrain.

Most of the terrain is black regardless of having been explored, however I can see terrain round the edge of the screen. (and in world builder mode).
I played one game for a while and the illuminated terrain increased considerably although apparently randomly. The water stayed black. I know others have got this effect.

So if this problem is that some video cards (like mine) cannot render these graphics can anyone explain how I can see some? This looks like some other kind of software problem to me. Is there a collection of problems here? However I know nothing of these things; so have probably missed something.
The opening movie also works fine for me BTW.

(Dell P4 3GHz 512MB)

Thanks to anyone who can explain this to me.
 
Corkmaster said:
I am also very confused. I have an Intel 82865G which appears not to support TL. I get the chesire cat effect but I can see some terrain.

Most of the terrain is black regardless of having been explored, however I can see terrain round the edge of the screen. (and in world builder mode).
I played one game for a while and the illuminated terrain increased considerably although apparently randomly. The water stayed black. I know others have got this effect.

So if this problem is that some video cards (like mine) cannot render these graphics can anyone explain how I can see some? This looks like some other kind of software problem to me. Is there a collection of problems here? However I know nothing of these things; so have probably missed something.
The opening movie also works fine for me BTW.

(Dell P4 3GHz 512MB)

Thanks to anyone who can explain this to me.

I don't know Cork, but lots of things are a little weird and suggest that T+L is not the only problems here, or even the true no. 1 problem. Your experience, like many other people's, with the map revelaing in a different area, my leaderhead thing, etc.

I have been told that not only does my comp not have T+L but it can't emualte it or fake it either...how can I see leaderheads than? Someone, PLEASE explain this to me. So far everyone has related missing leaderheads to T+L...well it ain't, plain and simple, at least in my case. So for those so arrogantly sure that not having T+L is the end all be all answer to black terrain and the chesire cat...try again.
 
Dark Helmet said:
Your patch is too litte, too late.

I was having the 'Failed to Initialize' error that so many others have been getting. So I decided to follow the step-by-step instructions provided at the Civ4 website to "fix" this problem...you know, the instructions that tell you to uninstall Civ4 and my ATI drivers and the reinstall them in a certain order.

Well, I got the point where I uninstalled my ATI Uninstall Utility and rebooted. Guess what popped up when windows came back up?

"Hardware has changed since Windows XP was installed on this computer - Please Re-Activate WindowsXP".

..I have no internet at home. And much like Firaxis and their patch - I too am "feverishly" working....to find my WindowsXP package containing the information I need to reactivate.

So, congratulations! You fixed my problem! I need not worry about Civilization 4, because I cannot even reach the desktop!


I will never forget nor forgive what you did. You shipped an incomplete product to your loyal consumers counting on them buying it because it was a trusted brand...and they did. Atari did the exact same crap with Masters of Orion 3. I never got my money back from them, and I doubt I will get my money back from you. Now that you got your cash from our pockets - you will patch the game to completion and hope people forget what you did - or run out of cash and blame low sales for not being able to make the game what it should have been all along. It's ok - Atari did that exact same crap and got away with it, I am sure you can too.

I have serious doubts anything Firaxis does from this point forward will be able to redeem them in my eyes. And be assured, I will tell anyone I see looking at buying your game to stay away.

Wow, you're a real special person. :rolleyes: What are you? 12?
 
I'm just hoping that the patch doesn't make the game suddenly not-work for me. I've been one of the fortuneate, and quiet, ones who have had the game working since day 1. Only a few random moments where the small map in the bottom right corner got graphically corrupted. Anyway, these are my specs:

Intel P4 Northwood 2.80 GHz @ 2.94 GHz. (No HT).
1Gb Corsair PC3200 DDR SDRAM. (Sadly, my MB limits it to PC 2400 speeds).
MSI-845 Ultra-ARU motherboard with latest BIOS.
eVGA GeForce 6800 128 MB AGP video card running stable at 400/800 (core/memory).
Seagate Barracuda 7200.9 120GB Hard Drive on an ATA133 connection.
Sony 10x DVD-ROM drive.
Soundblaster Audigy 1 soundcard.
Linksys Network card.
Liteon CD-RW.
Sony 8x DVD+/-RW.

Windows XP Home Service Pack 2 with latest updates.
nVidia 81.85 videocard drivers.
Soundcard drivers all up to date.
All drivers updated and hard drive defragmented.

So with that configuration I've been pretty happy. I've learned through experience that when looking at the 'reccommended requirements' on the box of a game, ALWAYS make sure you exceed those requirements. I've never seen a game run well on the 'minimum' or 'reccommended' configurations. Remember, those configurations are what is need to play the game, not neccesarily what is needed to play the game comfortably. (That's something that is typically overlooked. Our definition of playable doesn't always meet what the distributor considers as playable).
 
This post isn't going to make me very popular with the true believers who think Firaxis is inherently blameless, but as an attorney, I want to point out that what Firaxis, 2K, Amazon.com, and all the other companies involved with the Civ IV release have done to us, the initial purchasers of Civ IV, is known to lawyers and judges everywhere as fraud, or at the ver least misrepresentation.

According to Firaxis' own minimum system requirements, all of the people posting to this thread should have been able to get the game to work. You shouldn't have to be a software whiz or a systems administrator to get a mass market game like this to operate on a PC that meets the minimum system requirements.

Can you think of another industry where it's acceptable to charge customers full price for a product that only works after several "patches" have been issued, if then? If Civ IV were a car, it would have been recalled by now.
Actually, scratch that, if Civ IV were a car, it never would have made it into production.
 
macsteve said:
This post isn't going to make me very popular with the true believers who think Firaxis is inherently blameless, but as an attorney, I want to point out that what Firaxis, 2K, Amazon.com, and all the other companies involved with the Civ IV release have done to us, the initial purchasers of Civ IV, is known to lawyers and judges everywhere as fraud, or at the ver least misrepresentation.

According to Firaxis' own minimum system requirements, all of the people posting to this thread should have been able to get the game to work. You shouldn't have to be a software whiz or a systems administrator to get a mass market game like this to operate on a PC that meets the minimum system requirements.

Can you think of another industry where it's acceptable to charge customers full price for a product that only works after several "patches" have been issued, if then? If Civ IV were a car, it would have been recalled by now.
Actually, scratch that, if Civ IV were a car, it never would have made it into production.

Your post highlights the differences between the software world and the real world. XP, if it were a car, would be the equivalent of the Pinto. Civ IV would have been recalled and fixed. All in all, the game is fine. I can't think of a game that I have bought that DIDN'T require a patch. Diablo did. Diablo II did. Did the Sims? I can't remember. It's become common in the industry, though, and that's why in the menus there is an option to check for updates.

A past debacle involved Front page sports and Football pro. They wound up offering rebates or something because the game was unplayable and unrepairable.

Now... as a lawyer.. you might have some interest in the Madden PSP problem. Now THERE is trouble..
 
macsteve said:
This post isn't going to make me very popular with the true believers who think Firaxis is inherently blameless, but as an attorney, I want to point out that what Firaxis, 2K, Amazon.com, and all the other companies involved with the Civ IV release have done to us, the initial purchasers of Civ IV, is known to lawyers and judges everywhere as fraud, or at the ver least misrepresentation.

According to Firaxis' own minimum system requirements, all of the people posting to this thread should have been able to get the game to work. You shouldn't have to be a software whiz or a systems administrator to get a mass market game like this to operate on a PC that meets the minimum system requirements.

Can you think of another industry where it's acceptable to charge customers full price for a product that only works after several "patches" have been issued, if then? If Civ IV were a car, it would have been recalled by now.
Actually, scratch that, if Civ IV were a car, it never would have made it into production.

I don't think you are a lawyer, otherwise you wouldn't be making absurd claims (unless ofcourse you are from the 'Sue first, ask questions later'-nation that is called the USofA...

Anyhow, if you want to compare Civ4 to a car, alright then; I think that the patch they are releasing soon can be compared to a 'recall', what is the point of having people send their boxes/cd's back if you can fix it with a little patch? Recalls in the car industry are a common occurence because several people have paid 'full price' for a car that didn't do what it was supposed to (even killing people, and I don't know of any games that needed 'patching' because people got killed or injured!)

My opinion is that firaxis made a good decission moving Civ4 to a 3D environment, especially from a performance point of view. Modern 3D hardware is so efficient that it takes loads of pressure off of the CPU and Memory, leaving more CPU cycles for AI, overhead etc. Even a very modest system can run some very demanding 3D apps, just by installing the appropriate hardware. If they would have stayed with a 2D environment to allow older system to run it, they would have put themselves in a position were they would never be able to increase performance of the game, because they could never made full use of dedicated hardware.

Going back to cars, think of it like this; they moved from steampower to a combustion engine...Sure they are not going to able to help the people with their steamcars, but for the people with a combstion engine everything runs that much more efficient now.

Going back to computers, the only thing firaxis are faced with now is ironing a few incompatabilities out of their game and they should have a great game. If they were faced with making a 2D game, that runs slow on EVERY system, run faster they would have an impossible task ahead of them.

Not a single game/piece of software that has been released over the last few years, has been released without bugs. People saying that these games should only be released once they are 'bug-free' are talking crazy-talk, because a lot of these bugs only come to light once they have released the game. Testing a game for 2 years and then praying all the bugs are out is commercial suicide, and doesn't really benefit anyone, because the game will be dated before it's even released. This is one of the reason a lot of developers are moving to the console market, because in todays PC gaming environment there is just to much variety in hardware to cater for everyone.

I respect the fact that a lot of Civ player are of a more mature nature compared to your average fps-game-junky. As a result a lot of Civ players are going to want to play this game (it's the only game they play...!) on the PC hardware they have purchased for other purposes than gaming. Firaxis will not be able to help most of these integrated chipset/laptop users, because a modern game needs at least some hardware optimisation to run properly. That is a fact of life in the same sense that a Playstation will never be able to run your MS office or Quarck Xpress applications very well (if at all!).

(Oh, and to the original poster...shame on you for losing your Windows Serial/CD (even an XP upgrade comes with a serial number that has written on it in big letter 'Don't lose this Number!') and then blaming firaxis for your misery...that is really just not appropriate)
 
This isn't a case of fraud because nowhere did the developer say 'This game will work 100% on your system without any problems'. The legal world of the PC is a whole lot different than the legal world of everything else.

(Also, the car analogies don't really work here. If your car doesn't work properly you and/or other people can die. If a computer game doesn't work properly, nobody's health is at risk).
 
To add to my previous post, I own two PC's (athlon64 3400+, and AthlonXP 2800, both with 1gb of RAM), both equipped with ATI hardware (X800XT 256mb, and 9800pro 128mb), and the game runs fine on both. I didn't need to tweak anything, or reintall any drivers (both were up to date with 5.10 before installing Civ4). I have noticed a memory leak though, wich I hope they fix soon...(a program that crashes because it runs out of memory, and on reload uses a fraction of the same memory to run the same processes and display the same assets has a memory leak, as it is obviously not releasing any memory once it's no longer needed)
 
You guys are pretty off base with your legal analysis.

First off, it is exactly like a car. The legal system treats them exactly the same. The problem is in the transaction.

When you buy a car, the seller of the car waranties certain things. This is contained in section 2-300, et seq. of the Uniform Commercial Code (governing sales of goods in the USA). If the seller of the car warranties certain things, then you can recover for those things if they are defective. If the seller did not warranty these things (i.e. if the car was sold "as is") then you could not recover even if the car didnt run.

In the PC game realm, you signed a EULA explcitly disclaiming any liability. This is the same as if when a car manufacturer sells you a car, you agreed not to sue him no matter what. If you dont want to accept the EULA, you dont get the game; just like if you dont want to sign any contract, you dont get the benefit. Stop whining. There is no cause of action because youa greed not to sue when you bought the game.

In short: There is no difference between cars and software in the leagl system. However, there is a big difference between how transactions in cars are usually carried out and hte contracdt you signed when you installed Civ4. if you signed a similar EULA about a car, you would similarly have no cause of action.

Your friendly neighborhood law student,

John Butler
 
macsteve said:
This post isn't going to make me very popular with the true believers who think Firaxis is inherently blameless, but as an attorney, I want to point out that what Firaxis, 2K, Amazon.com, and all the other companies involved with the Civ IV release have done to us, the initial purchasers of Civ IV, is known to lawyers and judges everywhere as fraud, or at the ver least misrepresentation.

According to Firaxis' own minimum system requirements, all of the people posting to this thread should have been able to get the game to work. You shouldn't have to be a software whiz or a systems administrator to get a mass market game like this to operate on a PC that meets the minimum system requirements.

Can you think of another industry where it's acceptable to charge customers full price for a product that only works after several "patches" have been issued, if then? If Civ IV were a car, it would have been recalled by now.
Actually, scratch that, if Civ IV were a car, it never would have made it into production.



You ARE aware as an attorney, that a small group of people have tried to sue video game developers almost every single time a game is released (every MMOG has had these threats) Yet not once have any of those lawsuits gotten past the "threat" stage.

No gamer has ever successfully...or heck, even unsuccessfully sued, a gaming company.

Its impossible.

If you arent perpared for software to possibley not work when you purchase it the day its released, your not only ignorant, but you obviously have never purchased an entertainment product before. Much less even purchased a video game before.

Zork didnt work right when I bought it.
Doom didnt work right when I bought it.
CivI didnt work right when I bought it.
Air Warrior didnt work right when I bought it.
Ultima 7 didnt work right when I bought it.
Ultima Underworld didnt work right when I bought it.
Daggerfall didnt work right when I bought it.
Quake didnt work right for MONTHS after I bought it. Online play was dredful. Then quakeworld was released, and every game after it made use of quakeworlds netcoding and prediction coding.
CivII didnt work right when I bought it.
QuakeII didnt work right when I bought it.
Warbirds didnt work right for ages, one of the first times I had to buy an all new PC to play a game (had to upgrade for quakeII)
Ultima Onlina didnt work right when I bought it.
World war two online had the worst release in the history of mankind. Took years for it to work right...it barely works right now.

The fact that civ IV falls right into the same category as every other classic game ive ever played (other than system shock 1&2...those were brillantly done without any bugs, unlike thief, which still wont play on my PC) is of no surpise to me.

The fact that ALL of these classic games had a major patch shortly after thier release that turned thier near unplayable games into pretty stable ones also means im not surprised at this with Civ4

Do you just not remember quakeworld? Or the quakeII point release? How about the CivII patch? Ultima online taking dozens of patches to work? This is par for the course mate.

If no one every sued the makers of Ultima Online...they wont sue here either. You just dont understand the nature of software, or the legality involved. Instead of acting like a scorned toddler and threating the developers, why dont you do something more constructive...like finding interesting things you can do with 6 feet of rope.


EDIT:

Infact....your lucky that Firaxis doesnt sue YOU.

They can sue you for damages. Liable, or defamatory (or INflammatory) speech, even on an internet forum, not run directly by the company, is still considered public. Hence why its called a "forum". You may have encouraged others to not purchase thier product on the basis of non-truths youve printed here in this forum.

They could sue YOU for that.

Old Man Murray got sued by Epic Mega Games for printing lies about some of thier games. They settled since it was just a comedy site, but the point was proved.
 
Dark Helmet said:
I will never forget nor forgive what you did. You shipped an incomplete product to your loyal consumers counting on them buying it because it was a trusted brand...and they did. Atari did the exact same crap with Masters of Orion 3. I never got my money back from them, and I doubt I will get my money back from you.

Sell it on eBay, that's what I did. I got 40 bucks for something that cost me 50. I lost 10 bucks and learned a lesson.

Civ 4 has ruined Sid Mierer's reputation for a lot of gamers. Someone at Firaxis should be fired and an apology should be offered... doing that would go a long way to making up for this mess. :mad:
 
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