Have They (Firaxis) acknowledged anything to anyone?

[warpstorm]

You REALLY wanna see the artwork some programmers make? )

C'mon you are generalizing there. Some programmers can do art.

 

[Psyringe]

I don't know. I was just responding to the OP's question has anyone heard anything from Firaxis about a single issue. I have this forum in my fav list - along with several others I found a while ago doing google searches for Civ forums. Maybe they want to 'spread the wealth' among the many online forums...

The makers of QT3 are known to have good personal relations to many game developers. They are also known to be both fair *and* honest in their reviews, which is something you don't find everywhere. I still remember their preview of MoO3 - while other sites, like Apolyton, where still praising this game, QT3 were the first to write the sad truth. Boy, did they get slammed for that in the MoO3 forums. And boy, were they right.

Anyways, QT3 is a very respected site. That said, I *do* find it a little irritating that Soren regularly posts there, but seems to spend very little time in the semi-official forums for his game here. But that's upon him to decide, obviously.

 

[Chieftess]

C'mon you are generalizing there. Some programmers can do art.

Wanna see my art? It's stick-art.

Last time I tried to do 3D... it looked like one of those warped paintings...

 

[warpstorm]

...but seems to spend very little time in the semi-official forums for his game here.

Would you come here after the solid month of flaming that has been going on here?

 

[White Elk]

Wanna see my art? It's stick-art.

I awanna see your art

 

[warpstorm]

Yeah, CT, release your Civ4 stick-art mod. That'd be awesome.

 

[Aussie_Lurker]

Yeah, I agree with you, Warpstorm. I have felt personally ashamed at the level of flaming which has occured here at civfanatics (and I MEAN CFC. Apolyton quite intelligently set up a 'Post Positive' and 'Post Negative' thread in their forums and-even in the negative thread-you would be suprised at how CIVIL everyone is there). I mean I know there have been problems with the game on certain systems. Hell, for the first week I was one of them. Yet some people started talking about the developers like they were HITLER or something, or that said developers were simply hell-bent on destroying the franchise. I mean, seriously, wasn't that just going a little over the top? So, yes, I am not in the least bit suprised that the Firaxians are keeping their distance lately and, quite frankly, I am suprised that Sirian still sticks around-though I notice he sticks to the threads where intelligent debate is occuring (like the excellent 'Have they Killed the Fun for Warmongers' thread).

Yours,
Aussie_Lurker.

 

[Natronomonas]

No, Firaxis doesn't acknowledge anything. The bugs just magically fix themselves.

(-2 points if you didn't catch the sarcasm)

Well thus far, it's been the forum-goers that have fixed, or at least improved, the major memory leak bugs from what I can see... many thanks to them. At least, from the comments I've read here, Firaxis are working on incorporating the ideas from these fixes into a future patch.

It seems that some of the Moderators are getting contacts from Firaxis from the Sticky threads, "submit crash reports" etc, but an official comment, directly to the forums linked to from their own Tech Support pages would be nice.

 

[Natronomonas]

Would you come here after the solid month of flaming that has been going on here?

Well, perhaps with some comment things might have calmed down a bit - I think it was more people felt left in the dark, as Take2 Tech support never replied and Firaxis didn't seem to have comment. People felt like they'd bought a dud game and no-one was willing to accept there was a problem. At least, after having seen the Soren comment, and seeing the Crash Report stickies turn up, I can see that something is being done. If they'd been a bit more pro-active I think it would have helped them no end - you can say that they should be coding/fixing or whatever, but you need to tell people that's what you're doing!

Yeah, CT, release your Civ4 stick-art mod. That'd be awesome.

Complete with the trippy 3D stuff : )

 

[Kolyana]

Wanna see my art? It's stick-art.

Last time I tried to do 3D... it looked like one of those warped paintings...

Does your art take 5 minutes to load, stutter so badly you think your hardrive is about to fail and then Crash to the Desktop?

 

[Commander Bello]

[...]

Did you locate some data which allows you to make that statement?

Hmmm... the overall quality of the game, as far as certain technical issues are concerned?

 

[DrJambo]

I've had almost no technical problems with CIV whatsoever. At most one or two CTDs in 6 or more games. Conceivably, the majority of players are experiencing the same and it's only the more vocal minority who're having major issues. Now, this is not to say there aren't issues on some players' setups, it just implies that it's not always as simple as blaming devs over perceived "buggy" products. There's so much than can cause problems in a modern PC system - RAM being one of the major culprits.

Gameplay wise, CIV for me has been a great purchase. Immediately I think back to Civ 3 and what it was like on release. Although maybe more technically stable than CIV, it contained so many gameplay bugs. These persisted right through to C3C and were far more serious and detrimental to the game than CIV's gameplay bugs. To name but a few of Civ 3's horrors:

Bugged barbs.
AI trading techs on your turn.
Too fast tech progression - a result of quickening AI research pace at higher difficulty levels rather than slowing player's pace. Spaceships were launched at ridiculously early time periods.
AI civs self-destructing due to excessive pop-rushing and drafting during war. No-one remember the 1 pop cities littering the modern era!
MPP causing neverending war in the mid to late game.
Movement onto the same square as a sub causing war.
Buggy forbidden palaces.
Too many resources, then too few.

These were massive problems which made me shelve the game for around a year and only when C3Cs came out did I actually play for prolonged periods. CIV surpasses this in every way.

 

[Psyringe]

Would you come here after the solid month of flaming that has been going on here?

As I said, I undertsand that Soren (and other Firaxians) have been reluctant to show up here during the flame wars. At this stage, there was little they could have done. They would just have been easy targets for people who wouldn't listen to them, but just wanted to vent.

However, the flame wars have cooled down considerably now. Now is the possibility to show up here, talk about the game, explain design decisions, and meet people who actually listen to them and are able and willing to understand them (although they may not share the same opinion). This is a chance that shouldn't be thrown away imho.

Also, in case of Soren, I don't think your argument really applies. If he did stay away from CFC because of the flame wars, why did he then go to QT3 and answer in "The Soren Johnson lynching thread"?

 

[Natronomonas]

"The Soren Johnson lynching thread"?

Wow, there was actually a thread called that? I guess I might feel a little put out if I found a thread was named after me like that!!

Doctor, while I concur that

"Now, this is not to say there aren't issues on some players' setups, it just implies that it's not always as simple as blaming devs over perceived "buggy" products. There's so much than can cause problems in a modern PC system - RAM being one of the major culprits."

this is a possibility, the wide variety of systems experiencing problems, including those fully stress-tested such as my own, suggests problems with the game design. People playing RAM intensive games such as BF2 have no problems with that but problems with CivIV. The fact Soren has admitted that they are working on the memory issues suggests that they've recognised the problem and are working to fix it though, so hopefully new purchasers in upcoming months will simply install, patch and never realise what us early adopters went through : )

 

[MrCynical]

Actually Soren did briefly appear in the "Does the AI have preknowledge of the map" thread yesterday, and has acknowledged that issue, so Firaxis do ocasionally say something.

 

[Padma]

Yes, they do visit us, but they rarely post. I am actually ashamed of the behavior I saw in these forums over the first month or so after the release. It would have taken a lot of *full-time* moderators, not just the five of us who volunteer our free time, to keep the lid on the flaming and trolling that was going on. We did our best to deal with the most egregious examples, but the overall tenor of these forums remained very ugly. I don't blame them for not posting.

Those of us who have been around since (at least) Civ3 know what a good relationship we have had with Firaxis, and it hurts to see that relationship soiled by the violent, infantile lashings-out of immature posters. Believe me, Firaxis wants to know what problems people are having, so they can be fixed. But who wants to wade through thread after thread of name-calling and worse; things that would get you a punch in the nose, or worse, if you said them in person?

[/rant]

Sorry, but I've been holding that in for the last six weeks of trying to be polite to assorted trolls, flamers, and other idiots, in hopes they might just be new to posting on forums....

 

[Dtry]

I totoally agree with you Padma.

 

[-EFD-Hitless]

I know Padma has been around and means well. But, I can't blame people for buying a product, just to find out it is defective, incorrectly printed from the "Game Disk" "Install Disk" mistake, and the French Tech tree on top of that. And be forced to wait over a month now with no correction to anything, not even a comment on when the fix is coming, not even an email other then an automated mass mailer. The really sad thing is the only fix comes from a general user, not from Firaxis or Take2. Yes, I'm new to the forums, like many on here complaining are, but, the only reason most of us are here is because the game will not work, trust me, I would rather be playing! I personnally am getting tired of checking the Civ4 web site EVERYDAY to see no change at all. No comment, no reason, I would rather them write something like "We have learned the game works on some of your systems and not on others, for those that it works for - Have Fun! And, for those that it does not, Tough Luck were not doing anything about it! At least then I know I can put the game on the shelf and never think about it again.

 

[warpstorm]

There is complaining and there are death threats and flaming. Big difference.

 

[m15a]

i've been avoiding the general civ4 boards for the most part (for reasons listed above). anyway, i'm totally confused . . isn't there an official patch available? and wasn't there comments about issues (including the tech tree) within two days of the products release?

maybe i'll stay off the boards a little longer, no offense to the regulars and definitely no offense to the mods.