Have They (Firaxis) acknowledged anything to anyone?

Here is my only problem with posting, whether its on this site or any other site...

Great, awesome, do it here, do it there, just please, please, put something up on your official site that says...

"Hey guys and gals, we know X, Y, and Z problems are occuring, we just released a patch that we hope helps alot of you. For those of you still encountering problems please contact such and such a site or email and we will do our best to help. We also are aware of A, B, and C issues and are working diligently at this moment to fix them. They will be soon but I cannot give a time at this moment. When we have an ETA to be announced on the next patch it will be posted here and on your favorite Civ fansites. Please remember these dates will be "estimated" arrival times and may shift a little. Thank you very much for playing!"

Posting here, or at Apoly, CivNet, or anywhere else is nice. Doing interviews, whether official or not is awesome, great, super, fantastic! Now please, please update the actual OFFICIAL site with some much needed info. Otherwise I must assume one of two things. You are fixing the issue but dont care to tell us for whatever reason (to which I will reply thanks alot for the suspense, thats what I needed for Christmas...more silver hairs!). Or you arent fixing the issue and your surely not going to tell us (thanks for nothing!).

The reason for putting something official, even if its generic normal crowd control is......its good generic normal crowd control. At least it gives us something to hang our hats on. Plus! It actually lets us know that there is a real effort in the works, without having to go to page 12 in a google search.

I know its a bit grumpy...but the above post was meant to hit home a little =)
 
the problem is we aren't talking about 0.01%, it is closer to 25%-50% that couldn't play the game at all (or were seriously hampered by show stopping bugs) for any extent of time(not including the disks being mislabeled). People in this situation feel RIPPED OFF. They don't care that somebody spent 110 hours in a week testing it, that's what the QA is paid for. If the consumer can't get a working product, they should get their money back.

We pretty much gave developers a license to steal by buying into the claim that software can't be returned because it MIGHT have been copied....

in my opinion.

Pat

gilfan said:
I can't help laughing out loud when I see someone complain about the QA testing on some game. I work in the video game industry, and I can tell you these complaints are bull****.


1. EVERY hit video game gets more man-hours of play time in the first week after release than in the entire development cycle. 50,000 people buying the game and playing it for a week is greater than 50 testers working on a game for months. Not to mention that the game was only close to it's final release form for probably a month or so before going gold. It is absolutely impossible to find every bug in today's PC games. "Pong" can ship without bugs. Today's new releases for PCs can't.

2. The testers cannot possibly replicate the millions of combinations of hardware, software, and system settings that are possible. They can check a couple hundred if they are lucky, and cannot spend hours on each one.

3. Some bugs are found, but aren't important enough to stop shipment of game. If the game crashes on .01% of systems, it doesn't necessarily mean you stop shipment for another month and piss off the other 99.99% of the people who are eagerly awaiting the game's release.


I've personally seen qa testers put in 105 hour work-weeks. Not 105 hours in a two week pay period... in ONE WEEK, for weeks or months at a time. Lay off game developers and qa testers, I guarantee they work harder than 99% of the people you'll ever meet.
Click to expand...
 
Sorry Nabweb, but it really does sound like you are pulling stats out of thin air. Truth is that they have sold millions of copies of the game already, and we seriously don't know how many of those millions are having true 'I can't even play the game' troubles. I reckon it might be between 1-5%, which is actually pretty standard for most new computer games, but I certainly think that-had it been more than 10%-people would be burning Soren effigies outside of Firaxis HQ. As to the official website, you really can't blame Firaxis for that-it is completely run from Take2, and I will freely say that they have REALLY dropped the ball on the Official Website, because its info is weeks behind the real state-of-play.

Yours,
Aussie_Lurker.
 
patweb said:
the problem is we aren't talking about 0.01%, it is closer to 25%-50% that couldn't play the game at all (or were seriously hampered by show stopping bugs) for any extent of time(not including the disks being mislabeled). People in this situation feel RIPPED OFF. They don't care that somebody spent 110 hours in a week testing it, that's what the QA is paid for. If the consumer can't get a working product, they should get their money back.

We pretty much gave developers a license to steal by buying into the claim that software can't be returned because it MIGHT have been copied....

in my opinion.

Pat
Click to expand...

While its easy to think your numbers are close based on this site or any fan site for that matter, I actually tend to think its more in between the 0.01% and 25% you mentioned. The reason being is there would be a much larger backlash than is present here, and the game would not still be selling well which it is btw (word of mouth both in the internet community and normal RL communities is not something to snicker at anymore). In addition, reviews being biased is a problem, but Civ IV has recieved way too many good reviews to be coincedence or plain bribery.

Having said that, something is a bit off with the testing. Strategy games, even with graphics like Civ IV, should in no way be this stressfull on todays or yesterdays PC's. Not even close. Harkonen's posts make it even more clear. The issues that Civ IV has are pretty dam obvious ones and it looks like his "stop-gap" measures, while brilliant, arent exactly programing brain surgery. They should have been fixed well before release.

So it brings us back to the old "Hmmm, I wonder why they released a bit early??"

/thinks for a moment

/hums Jingle Bells

/light bulb goes off in his head

/punches Santa Clause in the face
 
Aussie, I am basing my opinion on the only stats I have so far.

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=147891

Hopefully, we will see a better turnout to prove it out.

However, I still believe it is way over 0.01%.

Madmaligor,

again, you may be right. Also, one thought. This is a TURN BASED GAME. I have played Doom3, Alice, Tron, C&C Generals, Rollercoaster Tycoon 3, Sim City 4 and 10's of other games flawlessly. The last game I had any trouble with on my rig was D&D Pool of Radiance (2)...

So the situation for me is atypical.

RE: Backlash. Who are people going to complain to? Forums like CIVFANATICS are the only public access to complain (unless you count someone going to the news or something? or their congressman, or the BBB)…

Anyway,
Pat
 
Pat..

Agreed, its atypical for alot of people. Waaay to many people. But the reason I think the percentage of problems right out of the box is more in lets say the 10-15% range is that were talking about a percentage of a percentage.

In other words its much more likely a person who has problems will come here than a person who doesnt. So the numbers will be skewed by a large margin. But we know that there is also a certain number of people who have problems and dont even know it, as well as those who have problems and go elsewhere.

But...your poll data, or my suggested changed poll are still usefull, in that they do provide a good look at the variables. Plus they can be interesting in seeing where patches or mods/fixes have been more or less useful or influential in correcting those variables. There is also something to be said for a fansite that has such a high margin of unsatisified grumpy customers.

Believe me, if there was an official forum for Civ on the official web site, the grumpiness would be much more magnified. CFC moderators have been vocal about how bad it is. Really, its not all that unusual. But its a reason Civ IV doesnt have a forum, and its actually a good thing not a bad thing. Too much official time is wasted in trying to listen on forums sometimes. I say let fan sites like CFC, or Apoly deal with it. Just listen, and actually make posts ON your OFFICIAL sites that reflect you have been listening.

Its not Rocket Surgery or Brain Science.....=)
 
Aussie_Lurker said:
Sorry Nabweb, but it really does sound like you are pulling stats out of thin air.
Click to expand...
I was about to say nearly the same thing. Though I was gonna say those numbers were pulled from somewhere else if you get the drift. lol

Who knows what the numbers are. I only know that I see that far more people can play the game than can't. Just look in the GOTM, SG and MP forums at the various fan sites. I think ticked off people have blown this way out of scale.

But even if it was only .0001% who couldn't play; people should still report their difficulties and expect a reasonably rapid response. Not a personalized letter of apology, but some sort of feedback that the problem is being resolved. I think we got that, by a quick release of the patch and by Firaxian postings here. A little hard to find it was.. but it was here to be found. Even so I think it should have been more, and I'm a bit disappointed that take2 didn't keep us informed on the official website for this game. Isn't that the point of an official website? Or is it really just about marketing?
 
MadMaligor
Well, as many have said (and me too), I see the situation as follows:

Point 1
Sid either felt old and tired or for some other reason he decided to put Firaxis under Take2 "mapped out to the highest bidder" (c) civ4 hints. Why not EA at least??

I was planning to replace civ4 logo with "Take2's Civlization IV" during loading with my fix. Something kept me off it. Fortunately.

I didn't face civ3 Vanilla (started playing with C3C 1.25), so I don't know how buggish it was. Those who faced told it was. I think they avoided technical problems with civ3 just because it is harder to get in trouble with 2D engine. This might be one of the reasons for releasing civ4 just for the feeling of "compele series", not for for the reasons of another exciting game - they just felt they're going off the track with their own management/coding. It became exciting inertially for gameplay we all actually have since civ/smac. BTW, russian forums mostly talk not about technical problems, they mostly talk that it's same civ1 we had in DOS in terms of gameplay.

Point 2
I think they knew they won't make it up to Christmas sales (e.g. middle of Novermber) with all those bugs. Probably they overestimated their budget or something else. I don't know if it was a long-run issue or something instant has struck Firaxis by head causing this problem... So they have released it in late October just to make 10-year-old-faithful-community to beta-test it. With my fix it worked even better for them...

Point 3
A lot of reviews on or before release date, millions of sales before actual reviewas by gamers... I call it "instant sale" mode. Cat in the hat. That cat was golden for years, so why should it become paper-made now? Those were thoughts of those who bought it... (mine too)

Point 4
My fix has spread far and wide. Most fan-sites have it in their news section, and I think this situation makes Firaxis very happy. They don't post it on their site since this will degrade their reputation for those who haven't yet bought the game, but once they buy - they will inevitably find the solution. So, "we are good, oh we're bad...? oh - you found the link.. ok... we are still good at our official site and you don't have reason to blame us since you can play".

I don't blame Firaxis for such behavior, it was much predictable, so I just observe the situation as I usually do in the life. I had many kind words here and there, and it's nice point in my bio to get hired anywhee (I was targetting CryTek yet before the fix). I mean the fact that Firaxis haven't bough the fix (just yet or if never will) does not hurt me 'cause it wasn't the reason to write it, not primary at least.

Local conclusion
Frédérick Raynal, the author of "Little Big Adventure" (LBA/LBA2) said: "I'll make LBA3 before I die" - that happened after he sold his company (Adeline Software) to Sega (and the latter was eventually acquired by DreamCast). Anyway, I haven't heard about his team ever since... It looks like same thing has just happened to civ5/smac2. Probably this was obvious still 1.5 years ago when civ4 creation has started. So all that modding was added for the sake of increased lifetime of civ4 - the last of series. I don't like to be pessimistic, but only such outcomes fits every point described above into a logical sequence of events.

Global conclusion
That's about entire game industry today... Epic Games have created the most beatiful game ever: Unreal1 (for my taste). No changes since than... They don't even have shaders in UT2004... 2004... Just because it sells well. On the other hand, textures overload even 1Gb configs. Id software has created a great engine, but couldn't make doom3 a big sight - all was in dark and bump wasn't visible until you knew it's there. Quake4 was like an add-on to Doom3, even blood was the same, and same darkness on most monitors. That's like "having shadows" boosts sales, no matter if those shadows are seen only in main menu... Even Blizzard (for my taste) had its peak at StarCraft. Keyword here is "had". Only FarCry was some spark in the darkness during last years, hope not last from them...

Meta conclusion
Everything good appears when industry is born. Music: starting classics ending pop; art: starting masterpieces, ending... p*rn; physics: starting with a lot of conceptual theories, ending with extensive development based on those theories; computing: same as physics; games: fill in yourself if you are ~10 years with them...
 
Harkonen -

I agree with you almost completely, especially on the release pre christmas thing and the community beta test.

With two exceptions...

I think the reviews are actually pretty reflective of the fact that Civ IV is a darn good game (IMHO). There are way more than enough post release reviews to be correctly critical or complementry. The problem is I think, is that most reviews are now either gameplay centrist or content centrist because (or both), and as you have suggested, the industry is becoming too accepting of error in the bug department. However there is something to be said for the growing complexity of games, but that doesnt justify the lack of comment on a reviewers part. In fact the only reviews I truly trust are those who make a note of the bugs and give some form of feedback from the developer as to an awareness of problems. Everything else is taken with a grain of salt so to speak.

Secondly, Civ 3 has a bad rap I feel is pretty undeserved. With the two expansions and some of the mods out there it was a pretty darn fun game. The "Stack of Doom" (or Death) and the army function did make for an almost sure win on most difficulties. But anything that can be controlled by the player or not used by the player if it is a crutch or easy win factor I dont neccessarily blame on the developer.


I do sadly agree with you that this may indeed be the last Civ for a while. At least the last Civ worth a dam. You can definately see room for an expansion or two and you can bet the development is occuring right now, but with the community mods and 1 or 2 expansions that will probably be it.

I will be ok with that...so long as Sid starts work on Colonization 2....hehehe ;)
 
For the record, I wasn't claiming civ4 was only giving problems to .01% of people. I was just making the point that just because a bug is found, it doesn't mean you stop shipment of the game until the bug is fixed. The publisher has to decide if the bug is serious enough to delay shipment by another 2-4 weeks, pissing off customers and costing millions of dollars.

Most PC games ship with dozens of known bugs in the QA database that aren't serious enough to justify not shipping the game.
 
Yeah, but CTD and reboots for more than a few customers must surely qualify as something that's serious enough to not ship the game, not to mention the extensive graphics problems.

I don't know the exact release date, but it looks like it's going to be the next patch that fixes things - and I don't know how many weeks that will be, but at least a couple of months after release before a playable (out of the box/ using Firaxis patches) game.
 
There have been enough bugs identified on this and other boards to cause an instant Red Light in most game companies Release process, it didnt need the Community to point them out, I am certain they knew most macro issues. Its a difficult and hard decision when viewed from the Commercial aspect when to Release, that I well, well, understand. However drop the ball with too many latent hassles and you stock up trouble - potentially serious trouble - for future releases, Customer Trust disappears - the latter is not a happy prospect for advance sales paying for good Beta program costs aka V5.

Unfortunately it appeared to be a "Fortress Firaxis" Strategy in dealing with the substantial wave of justified, and at times very angry responses. There was little attempt by PR/Marketing/Customer Relations to deal with it. Informed comment from Vendors can very often smooth troubled waters from "Livid of Kansas" bringing it down to "Still hurt, but well ok as long as you deliver" from ... wherever. The silence, and no attempt to talk to what is a substantial part of their User base that was clearly very angry, was wrong - and still is wrong. The assumption that is made - rightly or wrongly - is that they are hiding, that bandwaggon starts to roll, and in a short space of time they loose the PR battle, which they did, and still are.

The next key point will be Xmas day / Boxing Day when little johny opens his xmas gift of Civ IV, and it dont run..... Then wading into the fray will be agrieved relations/friends who bought it, embarassed and angry that they dissappointed the recipient. The modern age is such that many dont complain, they just toss it in the bin, and mutter never again.... A good response PR/Customer relations/Support can resolve huge tracts of all that, I hope they do so in future.

Civ IV is the game of the decade from my viewpoint, please Take 2 / Firaxis dont drop the ball outside the design office and test lab a second time, that really would be fatal .....

Regards
Zy
 
Certainly anecdotal evidence suggests there's a not insignificant percent of people who are having crashing problems, but the point I was trying to make with my second point is it is incredibly difficult to find and evaluate small percentage crashes like that.

Let's say just for argument's sake that 3% of computers have intermittent crashing problems with civ4. That's a small but significant percent, and in my experience, enough to account for the amount of complaints on the forums. Let's also say for argument's sake that there were 60 permanent QA computers used for testing. Sure, they tested more configs than that in compatibility testing, but compat testing isn't exhaustive... it's "install the game, launch it, run through 5-10 turns". Btw, 60 is a pretty huge number as far as QA goes.... most qa teams are much smaller than that.

So, 60 computers, 3% of computers have intermittent crashes, so 1.8 qa computers have intermittent crashing problems. That's incredibly difficult to track down, and it could easily be that only 1 computer in all of qa gets the crashing issue. One could easily dismiss that as an aberration, and the true scope of the issue may not become clear until after the game ships.
 
I received my English Tech Tree in the mail! I filled the form out when it first was put up and a second time in Mid November. I received it now, December 16th.

From Take-Two Interactive Software
INC
2750 Barrett Lakes Blvd BLDG #2
Kennesaw, GA 30144


^_^


They are sending them!
 
Update, I doubled my physical memory to 2 GIGABYTES and can now play a standard size map with no graphic issues. that was the only change I made that created a vast difference in game play.

I don't have the CTD problem, but Harkonens fixed raised the playability time from 1-5 minute to 10-15 minutes (before my screen was so corrupted that I had trouble finding the save game button).

I am still using his patch, so I don't know what my experience would be without it :).

Thanks again all.
pat
 
MadMaligor said:
Having said that, something is a bit off with the testing. Strategy games, even with graphics like Civ IV, should in no way be this stressfull on todays or yesterdays PC's. Not even close. Harkonen's posts make it even more clear. The issues that Civ IV has are pretty dam obvious ones and it looks like his "stop-gap" measures, while brilliant, arent exactly programing brain surgery.
Click to expand...
In fact, Harkonnen's fix is akin to brain surgery because he didn't have source code or any access to internal documentation. But you're right, fixing those problems with source code (which Firaxis has) is not exactly high-end programming...
 
I'm new to this forum, but I can tell you that the level of hostility in general discussion here seems a bit... intense.
 
Duuk said:
I'm new to this forum, but I can tell you that the level of hostility in general discussion here seems a bit... intense.
Click to expand...

I disagree. The intense November flame skirmishes have dissipated. The climate is quite temperate now. Most people are discussing the fine, arcane points of CIV IV, with civilized restraint.

:sleep:
 
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