Half Done Game

[Ivan the Kulak]

I'll take that bet. How much are you willing to lose? Seriously. A month's pay? If the SDK is released before 2 years from the release, you pay me. OK?

Based on the newly released info, I guess I'll have to eat crow and admit I was wrong. Warpstorm, you are obviously in the know about some of this stuff. I'd ask for some more details, but I know you can't talk, Maybe someone should corner your king unit in MP and start pulling its fingernails, lol.

Seriously, though, I do have reservations, based on my experience with the release of civ3. I will not be running out to buy the game right away, though I will be avidly following the forums and watching to see the comments made by other players on the game.

 

[warpstorm]

Seriously, though, I do have reservations, based on my experience with the release of civ3. I will not be running out to buy the game right away, though I will be avidly following the forums and watching to see the comments made by other players on the game.

Seriously, I'd suggest that anyone who has reservations follow this course.

 

[Commander Bello]

[...]
Seriously, though, I do have reservations, based on my experience with the release of civ3. I will not be running out to buy the game right away, though I will be avidly following the forums and watching to see the comments made by other players on the game.

Definetely the same for me.

Have you guys noticed that the AI-SDK is to be released short after the game? Well, this won't be a concern for most of the community, but it means a limitation of the announced "complete" moddability.

So, this will be the first attempt to get double money from the game.

Furthermore, that reminds me to the release of vanilla Civ3. Didn't they promise to have MP in? I am pretty sure it was announced to have, at least over here in Europe.

Then, I am pretty sure that at beginning of next year there will be the first rumours about an expansion now containing additional 3 nations and providing the 2nd set of leaders for those nations which don't already have 2 of them.

I mean, come on! At least the 2nd leader should be a MUST for all nations out of the box as it reduces the usability of certain nations, playwise.

Not to mention the reduced set of units and the limited size of maps. These are restrictions, we already know about.
And then we have to learn about all the flaws which will be in the game. There may be many, there may be only a few. The point is, there will be some. Unfortunately, in a game of that complexity you won't be able to avoid any flaws.
Nevertheless, I quite well remember the poor state of the initial C3C. It made me stop playing the game after some weeks until patch 1.12 was released.
About the poor history of patches for C3C I don't have to loose more words, I'd assume.

Oh, and do you remember how proud they mentioned that "dozens of beta-testers" had checked the game? After all the mess of out-of-the-box C3C suddenly we learned about that certain things just were added after the beta test.
OMG. After your test drivers had checked the new 7-seats van, you decided to make it a Porsche like sports car?

I know, a lot of fanboys now will scream: "Don't judge a game that isn't released yet!"
My answer just is: "Look at the history and don't praise a game, that isn't released, either!"

After all: There seem to be some good ideas in Civ4. If they work satisfactory nobody knows.

Let's be calm and spend our money after the first 2 patches have been released. That should be the case prior to Christmas, anyway. And it would make a point they just cannot ignore.

 

[Nobody]

"Look at the history and don't praise a game, that isn't released, either!"

The History of Civ??? The greatest game ever. Part one was great, Part two was even better, part 3 was Fantastic, Conquest one of the best add ons. Sure every family had a black sheep but PTW has a pretty box. Civ 4 will be fantasic even if it sucks, it will be great.

 

[warpstorm]

Definetely the same for me.

Have you guys noticed that the AI-SDK is to be released short after the game? Well, this won't be a concern for most of the community, but it means a limitation of the announced "complete" moddability.

So, this will be the first attempt to get double money from the game.

Where have you seen that they will be charging for this? I find that extremely unlikely as there are probably at most a thousand people who are likely to ever use this. The margin just isn't there.

The AI SDK is the least useful modding piece to the average user. The Python and XML portions (which have to be included if they've gone that route) will allow most any mods that you would likely see in the near future. They only things that wouldn't be possible is removing the AI and replacing it.

Having made SDKs in the past they problem isn't making the; it's making them clean and documented such that the users never have to bug you about them again (since I imagine that Firaxis will not be answering every question that comes up about it).

CB, I didn't think you were a spreader of FUD. I guess I was wrong.

 

[Ivan the Kulak]

Well, I for one hope the AI is moddable through python scripts. Seems a shame not to do it that way. Having a bunch of check boxes to control AI behavior really isn't going to cut it.

As far as having "clean, documented" code, I really don't think that's so much of an issue. Half the fun in messing about with things like this is trying to figure out exactly how they work. I wouldn't expect Firaxis to provide that kind of support for any code, it's not as though they plan on offering detailed tech support for whoever does a DyP mod for civ4.

Remember in the civ2 text files, you were told to mess about with things at your own risk. That's documentation enough for me.

 

[Commander Bello]

Where have you seen that they will be charging for this? I find that extremely unlikely as there are probably at most a thousand people who are likely to ever use this. The margin just isn't there.

The AI SDK is the least useful modding piece to the average user. The Python and XML portions (which have to be included if they've gone that route) will allow most any mods that you would likely see in the near future. They only things that wouldn't be possible is removing the AI and replacing it.

Having made SDKs in the past they problem isn't making the; it's making them clean and documented such that the users never have to bug you about them again (since I imagine that Firaxis will not be answering every question that comes up about it).

CB, I didn't think you were a spreader of FUD. I guess I was wrong.

Beg your pardon?
FUD? What's meant by that?

About charging for the SDK:
Do you expect it to be downloadable for free? I don't think this is very likely, either.
Nevertheless, as I already stated, this is one of the most minor concerns for the vast majority of the community.
But, if they are going to release it shortly after the initial game release, then we may assume that they did use it by themselves for their programming. If so, I don't see much reason to have to make it clean. Nor do I see much reason to have to wait for weeks until a proper documentation is available.

 

[warpstorm]

FUD = Fear Uncertainty & Doubt

The act of trying to scare people by presenting data that you do not know to be true to gain your ends (in this case to cause people to think worse of Firaxis and not buy Civ4 immediately).

I fully expect it to be free. I would be greatly shocked if at this point with all the documented times that they have said it'll be coming for free, that it will.

Like I said, when I make an SDK for internal use the documentation is often sketchy (okay, in some cases non-existent). Due to time constraints (getting my current game done for example), I often leave out a lot of stuff that I assume people know or can figure out. In any case, they can walk over to my desk and ask for help if needed. When Soren releases the AI SDK, you won't have the luxury of walking over to his office and asking how a certain section works. Firaxians can, so they don't need it to be polished (or even written at all) to get the game out. They just need to ask Soren. They also have the luxury of looking at all of the source code, which I assume, the purchaser won't. The purchaser will likely get a set of header files and some instructions on how to call stuff in the Firaxis provided dlls and how to replace the AI dlls with your custom ones. They almost definitely won't get the full source to Civ4.

 

[warpstorm]

Oh yeah, like my friend Bill reminds me often, AI is never done, you just run out of time and have to ship the game. I assume that Soren will be tweaking the AI up until the last day before code freeze. Trying to keep the documentation up to date on a moving target is hard.

 

[Doc Tsiolkovski]

I mean they only did two leaders for what 10 out 18 civs or something...Honestly I could grab a book on practically any of the Civs and have a list of most of the leaders.

I highly doubt finding several possible leaders for all Civs would have been the slightest problem. As much as finding 30 suitable Civs.
Yes, sure, it is harder to find a second Aztec leader.
But then, they have Mali and Hathsepsut and Louis XIV in CIV - so their "historicians" seem to do a great job.

But, if its like in Civ3, I say you grossly underestimate the disc space and $$$ the artwork for animated leaderheads requires. You are aware that the leaderheads are about half the space a Civ3 installation requires?
Would you rather have the artwork money spent for really cool units, or for some redundant leaderheads?


But then, I'm only saying that in the hope Firaxis doesn't dare to come agin by with a first expamsion containing nothing but some non-working features, minor tweaks and a couple of new Civ/leaders.

 

[sir_schwick]

[QUOT=DocTsiolkovski]But, if its like in Civ3, I say you grossly underestimate the disc space and $$$ the artwork for animated leaderheads requires. You are aware that the leaderheads are about half the space a Civ3 installation requires?
Would you rather have the artwork money spent for really cool units, or for some redundant leaderheads?[/QUOTE]

Exactly. Drop the animated leaderheads and use the resources on things that matter.

 

[warpstorm]

...except that to sell a game there certain levels of production value that are expected. If Civ doesn't live up to these it will go the way of the rest of the turn-based genre i.e. no sales and end of franchise or scaled back production values and raised prices (they can't pass the developement cost onto as many customers). Look at what happened to the wargame market (what used to be the biggest part of the turn-based market). They catered to the hardcore elite, putting realism and complexity ahead of things like animations. Nearly all of these shops have closed down. SSI, gone. Talonsoft, gone. Avalon Hill, gone. You can't even get the stores to put them on the shelves anymore. This once thriving genre is nearly dead. A critically acclaimed game in the genre is lucky to sell 30000 copies. This isn't enough to pay for the development in the USA. (To give it credit, the new wargames are better and better each year, but everyone who is making them is slowly going broke or making them on the side and have a day job).

 

[ogmoir]

FUD = Fear Uncertainty & Doubt

You should be careful when using rare acronyms. I thought you meant "F-d up disinformation".

I agree about the leaderheads. They are not important at all, and modding leaderheads for new civs is a pain in the rear end. Static pictures would be enough of a graphical representation of the leaders, and the indication of willingness to accept a deal could be achieved by other means. Wonder movies I can deal with, since they are cool.

 

[warpstorm]

FUD is hardly a rare acronym. It is a common business tactic. Just google it if you don't believe me.

Here is a very good site that tells more about FUD than anyone cares to know: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FUD

 

[ogmoir]

Ok, it seems to be quite wide-spread. I guess it's just the distance to the English-speaking world on my part.

I painfully remember getting laughed upon years ago in one of my first internet chat experiences when I asked what the heavily-used "LOL" meant. Even though I consider myself fairly proficient in English, the cultural differences continue to hamper my language use and comprehension. But back to the subject.

 

[Doc Tsiolkovski]

Haven't ever heard that term either. That one is really not used in German, unlike many other English abbreviations. Heck, we're spoiling our language with tons of anglicisms - but this one isn't in use.
In fact, the tactic is borderline illegal here anyway; if a company is considered responsible for such a Schmutzkampagne, it'll hurt them more than they'd gain.

Back OT: I agree with Warpstorm, of course. You cannot sell a game with substandard animations and no eyecandy anymore. So anything included must be done properly - but nobody who cares for animations will really care if there are 26 or 36 or 512 leaders available.

 

[CyberChrist]

I fully understand about the hard times of the strategy industry - everything seems to be going FPS or at least RTS these days. One of the best strategy games in production (Stars! Supernova) had to shut down due to lack of interested publishers and the world lost a potentially superior space strategy game.

However, if strategy game publishers are going to continue to disappoint the fans of the genre (us among others) by following a moneymilking scheme consisting of uncomplete and hastily made bugridden first releases, followed by multiple suspect and equally bugridden add-ons that are all ultimately left unfixed (because they "'have' to move on to the next project to survive") - then it is hardly surprising if sales are dropping.

Btw, I fail to see what 'discspace' has to do with anything. No room for all the stuff on 1 CD? Hey, release it COMPLETE on 2 CDs. I am sure most of us wouldn't even mind paying $1 or $2 extra to cover the added production costs .... if it meant we could avoid insultingly weak add-ons.


Anyway, despite all my misgivings I do think Civ4 is looking/sounding better than expected these days, so I am (no doubt naively) crossing my fingers for the quality of the final product.

 

[Doc Tsiolkovski]

Btw, I fail to see what 'discspace' has to do with anything. No room for all the stuff on 1 CD? Hey, release it COMPLETE on 2 CDs.

Or DVD. I'm referring to HD space. And half a giga more does bother me, seriously. State of the art laptops ship with 40-60GB, and I for example have split that in 3 partitions (progs, data, linux).
And, I also hate installation times of >30 minutes.

 

[Virote_Considon]

Or DVD. I'm referring to HD space. And half a giga more does bother me, seriously. State of the art laptops ship with 40-60GB, and I for example have split that in 3 partitions (progs, data, linux).
And, I also hate installation times of >30 minutes.

Agreed. It seriously worries me that civ 4 isn't going to fit on my PC already. My memory's running low, and with the memory it takes to add an extra 8 leaderheads, they could be adding extra leaderheads for any scenarios that are bound to be shipped with the game, eg. Adolf Hitler in a WW2 scenario, as opposed to in the epic game, where I have noticed there is a huge split in people who want him in or not, and could affect sales either way.

In fact, I'm more for just 1 leaderhead for the game, so long as all the traits are different and the civs completely varied, as I have already noticed from one of the preiveiws some leaders have the same traits as other ones (Temujin- Nappolion springs to mind!)

 

[The Guardian]

Has anyone noticed any similarities between civ IV and "Civilization - Call to Power" ? Civ IV seems to be a beefed up version of Call to Power. Maybe it's just the 3D graphics that make it seem "similar". It was initially mentioned that moders would have a great deal of flexibility with Civ IV, has there been any evidence of this and what sort of flexibillity are they talking about. Mention has been made of a limited number of unit types and civilizations. Will we be able to create more. What kind of editing will be available? I haven't seen anything definitive regarding this either.