Firaxis Vs. Fan

[Sildo]

I hear lots of different opionons on this and just randomly wanted to throw this out there, do you prefer Fan or Fraxis made content? This is assuming your looking at the best of both. I already posted this in the Creation and Custimization fourm, when someone pointed out it was not going to be unbiased, so I am now posting it here.

 

[warpstorm]

I will say both , but that is because I'm inside the sausage factory and have a very different perspective than most.

For the most part the fan art is better than the Firaxis or Breakaway art (sorry guys). This is not due to skill, rather this is because a fan can spend as long as he needs to get things right, to his taste. Firaxis and Breakaway artists were working under deadlines, as well as budgetary and artistic constraints. I know I spent more time on my terrain mod than I'd ever pay me to work on it. On the other hand, the content that came with the game is very tight; especially considering the time that they had to do it in.

I do not like most of the fan scenarios. They almost all suffer from the kitchen-sink approach to game design. More is not better. It is almost always worse. It leads to a jumbled design that isn't remotely balanced, paced, or in a lot of cases even strategic (sorry Martin, you put too much in there). The Breakaway-made Conquests are much better, as they are mostly tight scenarios (and I'm not saying that to suck up to you, Ed).

One exception is the quality of the fan maps (not the scenarios that are built upon them, the maps themselves). These are mostly very good. Having said that, the ones in C3C were pretty good (the main bad ones were the world maps that shipped with the vanilla game).

One important thing to note, the biggest fan mods are used by less than one percent of the Civ playing population. The rest of the people only use the stuff that is included on the disk. (The exception, of course, is the fan-created content that is included on the disks). This makes your poll very biased to start with by even putting it on this site.

 

[Minesweeper]

Yeah, I guess I'm apart of that 99%, I just enjoy mastering and trying out different stuff on normal Civ, but eventuallly if it get boring, I will move into mods. The player created scenarios on the disk are still great too.


Mathias

 

[Pentium]

I have evrything by Firaxis, except borders. I don't think I'll ever change anything else.

 

[Turner]

Why do I get the feeling that Warpstorm's post wasn't aimed at CFC, but at Firaxis/Breakaway?

 

[josephstalin]

I usually play mostly fireaxis. I downloaded several maps/mods, but mostly they were lower quality than from Fireaxis.

 

[warpstorm]

Why do I get the feeling that Warpstorm's post wasn't aimed at CFC, but at Firaxis/Breakaway?

You never know who might be reading

 

[Smellincoffee]

I prefer the terrain set I have to Firaxis'. They're basically the same, but Firaxis' water is too green. I use [someone's] corrected terrain -- found it here.

Edit: Removed name for user privacy

 

[Ansar]

The only different thing I use is Snoopy's Terrain for

 

[Nobody]

i use pretty terrin and my borders and roads are different that is all. I like that mod about the world in 1901. and i would like a real good ww2 mod. but that is all. I dont playing with the units. and the stuff that came with the game is just so good

 

[dannyevilcat]

I do not like most of the fan scenarios. They almost all suffer from the kitchen-sink approach to game design. More is not better. It is almost always worse. It leads to a jumbled design that isn't remotely balanced, paced, or in a lot of cases even strategic.

That's what killed scenarios for me too. I loved them in Civ2, and that was largely because of the limited unit space where every unit counted.

 

[aaglo]

I think I've said this before:
I like 'em all, but one thing conquers everything: Warpstorms watercolour terrain - It's like bringing atomic bomb to a game of rock/paper/scissors

OTOH, I have to say that I have to like the fan-created content, because I like to play fantasy mods. And to speak the truth, firaxis didn't actually focus on fantasy stuff (which I think wasn't their job in the first place).

 

[Drakan]

One important thing to note, the biggest fan mods are used by less than one percent of the Civ playing population. .

Just out of curiosity, do you know this for a fact or is it just an educated guess ?

 

[Padma]

Technically, it would be a guess. But it's a very well-educated guess.

Just look at the millions of copies of Civ3 that have sold, and then look at the few thousands of copies of mods that have been downloaded.

 

[Ginger_Ale]

It also depends on if you are talking about people that play mod X vs. people that play regular civ, or people that play any sort of mod vs. people that play regular civ. The latter could be much higher.

 

[zerksees]

I prefer Firaxis simply because I don't want to waste my time with the graphic interface of the game.