Have They (Firaxis) acknowledged anything to anyone?

[Duuk]

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.

You mean it was worse before?

I got called a racist and a bigot in my 3rd ever post here. That's impressive to me.

 

[Sorceresss]

You mean it was worse before?

Much worse. Believe me : it is quite tame now.

What might have you said to attract the labels of "bigot" and "racist" ?

 

[Duuk]

Much worse. Believe me : it is quite tame now.

What might have you said to attract the labels of "bigot" and "racist" ?

That the Iroquois were best represented in Civ4 game terms by the barbarian state.

Check the "No Korea?" thread.

 

[Sorceresss]

[I said t]hat the Iroquois were best represented in Civ4 game terms by the barbarian state.

Ummm... If I were a Iroquois, I might consider that unsavory.

I am going to check out the thread you just recommended.

 

[perky_goth]

Offtopic: Why i hate Ajax? because it deletes unfinished posts. Frack.

since i am not going to write it again, i just want to make a quick point. the fact that game developers work 105h per week for months is the actual problem. that's not working, that's grinding, it's impossible to follow procedures or write good documentation. since game developers can be replaced as soon as they drop dead (wish i was kidding), and that gamers buy games regardless of problems and bugs, this is not going to change anytime soon.
REGARDLESS OF DEVELOPERS' INTENT, most games have showstoppers. if it sells the same, why should companies care either way?

about the percentege of people with crashes... don't forget to add up the much bigger number of PCs where the game is painstackingly slow. thanks, Harkonnen.

I'm new to this forum, but I can tell you that the level of hostility in general discussion here seems a bit... intense.

so am i... but as far as internet discussions on a heated topic go, this one is extremly light.

 

[Duuk]

Ummm... If I were a Iroquois, I might consider that unsavory.

I am going to check out the thread you just recommended.

If I was an Iroquois, I'd be proud of what my civilization DID accomplish.. and not be offended when someone pointed out that my culture didn't have bronze working.

No matter how "politically incorrect" it may be to say it, the native americans were an inferior culture at the time of English settlement.

 

[Sorceresss]

No matter how "politically incorrect" it may be to say it, the native americans were an inferior culture at the time of English settlement.

I do not care about political correctness, but I think your "inferior culture" statement is problematical.

I'm a "cultural relativist" (like Sapir & Whorf, who studied the "American Indians") :

I do not judge other cultures as being inferior from the biased Weltanschauung of another culture's mind-set & preferences.

 

[Duuk]

I do not care about political correctness, but I think your "inferior culture" statement is problematical.

I'm a "cultural relativist" (like Sapir & Whorf, who studied the "American Indians") :

I do not judge other cultures as being inferior from the biased Weltanschauung of another culture's mind-set & preferences.

I judge them to be inferior based on the fact that the Europeans had guns and ocean faring ships and the natives did not.

Ergo, inferior.

 

[Sorceresss]

Forum rules oblige me to stop answering you.

Moderator Action: Thank you
Please read the forum rules: http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=422889

 

[Padma]

Moderator Action: Duuk - Cease the threadjack.
Please read the forum rules: http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=422889

 

[Duuk]

Sorry. You're 100% correct. Shouldn't have been in this thread.

 

[Sorceresss]

Sorry. You're 100% correct. Shouldn't have been in this thread.

Ahhh...Those Firaxis geniuses : so hermetic & esoteric...

 

[White Elk]

Heres what you really said Duuk...

So, unless you have some stunning evidence that one of the NORTH amerian tribes was anything but a backwards useless group of stone age (and pre-stone age) cultures, I suggest you refrain from discussing it further.

And yeah, that is the sort of stuff thats fits the label of bigotry and racism!


Edit: Sorry all, this topic got me heated and in the time that it took to get my words across in the coolest way possible I missed the moderator action etc.. Also I forgot where I was and a PM would have been better than further threadjacking. Please delete this post as you see fit.

Edit2: Link removed as OP has edited the post.

 

[Sorceresss]

@ White Elk : Did he really write that ?!

I may not add anymore on the subject : it is a thread on Firaxis.

 

[Thalassicus]

Taking quotes out of context usually isn't a good idea, and that's a pretty heated thread.

Anyways, it's hard to have the best of both worlds. If Take 2 was like Blizzard, they wouldn't ever give definite release dates, and even estimated dates would be pushed back several quarters. It results in a very sound product, which is one of Blizzard's trademarks, but then people are frustrated because a game keeps being pushed back from the date when it's said to release.

For example, I think World of Warcraft trailer said it would come out in Summer 2003, when, in actuality, it was released near the end of 2004. StarCraft Ghost is another example. Everyone knows they does this, so it's accepted by the community by now, and now they avoid any specific dates until a few months before the game goes gold. "It's done when it's done."

The thing is, if you're a developer you have to set some kind of estimate for when you're releasing the product. Then when you're approaching that deadline and it has a few bugs that have eluded testers for months, but it's otherwise finished, what do you do? Either you have to push back the release date, or patch the problems after release. Most companies out there take the second approach, since it lets the majority of people start playing the game sooner. Blizzard is the only company I can think of off the top of my head that makes it their priority to delay the release if the game if it has bugs, but they can afford to, with the size and dedication of the fan base.

On another note, public forums generally don't work, unfortunately. SimCity 4's official forums, for example, or the ones for Battle.net were never as good as the ones on Simtropolis or WorldofWar.net. It's usually just easier to have fans create, moderate, and compile ideas on their own and draw from that.

 

[Commander Bello]

I think, some of you have missed the point in the posts above.

Regardless of whatever percentage of buyers were (and, unfortunately, are) facing problems, the problem for me seems to lie with the cause.
Were most of the problems caused by some missing "comma" in the source code? From what I've read so far, I don't think so. Many of the technical problems were related to graphics, in one or the other way.

For a certain reason emphasis has been laid on the design for the small game. This relates to map sizes, unit numbers and so on.

Taking the above into account, I severly doubt that Firaxis/Take2/whoever was not aware that problems were to be expected. Nevertheless, they issued the game - in Germany even some days before the "official" release date. Out of a sudden, the game appeared on the shelves, and was available, at October 24th (iirc), while anybody was eagerly waiting for November, 4th.

Sure, Take2 pushed them forward for the north american market, yet in Europe nobody expected it to be released earlier, nor was anything alike being announced.
If they'd issued it at the "original" date, November 4th, at least the infamous ATI-bug could have been avoided.

To make a long story short:
The played with the fire, as we call it in German, and they lost. And then, they didn't take proper action. Proper action in this context would have been to acknowledge their error, to post it on their internet pages, and so on. Others have described it in more and better details above.

Being known as a Firaxis critic, I have to state that I absolutely appreciate Thamer's active appearance here and would like to encourage not only him to repeat this as often as possible.
Nevertheless, there still are issues, and the pure announcement that they will be adressed doesn't qualify for anything to reply to with "xyz rocks!"

Many people not only have bougth the game and thus have paid the monthly cheque for Firaxis' employees, they also have upgraded their systems (spending even more money), hoping to be enabled to play this game.
This shows quite some addiction and commitment for (to???) the game, and if there would be any meaning in the word "loyalty" then Firaxis would do whatever they are able to do to fix it ASAP.
Additionally, if I may state that, as they seem to have ignored Harkonnen completely, this seems to be ... bold or at least ignorant. At least for my - as a pure spectator's - point of view.

Resume: Firaxis, you have an eager and very committed fanbase. Don't take it for granted they will stay so, if you do not show them some commitment as well.

 

[gilfan]

Additionally, if I may state that, as they seem to have ignored Harkonnen completely, this seems to be ... bold or at least ignorant. At least for my - as a pure spectator's - point of view.

There are plenty of reasons for a company to not use a "patch" written by a fan. For instance, financial liability, legal liability, the unknown state of his programming skills, and the fact that they already had their own programmers working on performance optimization. If I were a producer at Firaxis, I'd probably forbid my programmers from even LOOKING at what he wrote, to help protect the company from possible future lawsuits by said fan.

 

[Natronomonas]

Don't take it for granted they will stay so, if you do not show them some commitment as well.

I certainly hope someone from Firaxis read that. I've sent them a couple of emails along similar lines... not through tech support, through the "fan events" or public relations (or similar) email address on the Firaxis website.

 

[alexti2]

There are plenty of reasons for a company to not use a "patch" written by a fan. For instance, financial liability, legal liability, the unknown state of his programming skills, and the fact that they already had their own programmers working on performance optimization. If I were a producer at Firaxis, I'd probably forbid my programmers from even LOOKING at what he wrote, to help protect the company from possible future lawsuits by said fan.

If that's true, they're truly paranoid. The author has offered them to sell his patch. I would imagine it should still be possible to buy rights to some software and not get sued in the process.

 

[warpstorm]

If that's true, they're truly paranoid. The author has offered them to sell his patch. I would imagine it should still be possible to buy rights to some software and not get sued in the process.

This is America (at least here where I am (and Firaxis)). Anyone can sue for any reason if you have the money to pursue it. If his code reverse engineered DirectX to do its thing (and from his description it does), they would be open to a lawsuit from Microsoft if they used it.