Have They (Firaxis) acknowledged anything to anyone?

[-EFD-Hitless]

-EFD-Hitless,

I feel your pain. I thought I should start that way. But, I do have to ask, have you tried installing 1.09 and then Harks patch. Before I did this I was having issues all over the place. CTD, massive lag, locking up the system hard, you name it I have had it happen on many different setups.
Now with Harks patch I can at least play the game. When It does start to lag a little I save and close the app, check my local machine process and restart the app.
I understand you may be playing multi player and I have no idea what problems exist there. I have not tried it with Harks patch. Although weekend after next we are planning on a huge game with 8 people at my place. So I will be able to test it out then.

EDIT: man I can not spell to save my life

We have installed the 1.09 patch and Harks patch. 1.09 didn't correct much at all. Harks patch does allow the game to run longer before the issues start up. My hats off to Hark for helping many to play the game BTW ! But, I hate having to turn the game off and reload or change my resolution everytime it starts to lag and freeze. I just wanted the game to work like it is supposed to.
P.S. Good luck with your multiplayer game. For us it seems to multiply the problems! If you get crashes and other issues check your system log and maybe we can compare the different system errors that we have gotten when running the game multi-player.

 

[TheJediMaster]

(EDIT Quote Attribute - opps sorry Blu & Jedi ...) TheJediMaster
"It could take like a bizillian years to come out and I'll be the only guy on the block who doesn't have it"

Of course there lay the root problem in the Industry. They know this feeling prevails amongst many, the numbers refreshed as a new load of keen gamers grow into the game each year. Whatever is said in Public or privately to friends, watch the Internet shopping for the early release - never mind what was said to friends about "never again do I buy early".

Its life .... thats why I doubt we will ever break this endless poor quality first release. Game makers know it, I dont blame them as such, its a business not a charity. Does not stop me being annoyed, but I am pragmatic enough to understand the realities.

Regards
Zy

Don't worry about the mixup...

You are right in saying that the chances, right now, of it changing are slim. I'm a free market capitalist to the core, so I know that trying to "enforce" standards on the gaming industry will not help. The only sure fire way to get the quality to improve is if the customers start demanding it. Eventually enough of us gamers are going to get fed up with poor quality in the industry. When enough of us make noise, then the developers will have to redo their production and distribuition system.

Until then, you have two options:

1. Wait 1-3 months after a game's release to ensure you play a game all patched up and good to go.
2. Play console games.

Maybe the second option will scare the PC developers the most. I'm not sure. The type of software I write is MIS stuff (Payroll/Inventory Databases and Web/Win Forms which have to be accurate 100% of the time). So it is very foreign to me to even think about releasing anything which isn't stable or doesn't fulfill everything that is promised.

And even more inportant is the fact that the hardware end of a computer hasn't changed much in the past year. After the 4.0GHz archetecture wall was hit by Intel and AMD, game developers can't expect us to get new and better hardware to cover their mistakes and bugs. The techology just isn't out there. And it is a bit crazy to expect everyone who wishes to play your game to have to have the bleeding edge tech.

Eventually, gaming developers will have to come up with more quality code...but only after we, as consumers demand it.

 

[warpstorm]

2. Play console games.

Maybe the second option will scare the PC developers the most.

Most of them would love to get a good console development contract. The money is so much higher there than the PC market if you don't own one of the big MMOs.

 

[White Elk]

It's bad enough to have to upgrade PC's in order to play new games (though I won't complain about the improvements which create the upgrading). But having to purchase new machines just to continue gaming has caused me to abandoned console gaming after the PSOne. And although I would very much like to continue in the tradition of Zelda.. I dropped Nintendo with the DS. Perhaps if console units had the option for upgradable parts and didn't require the dumping of entire units into our landfills; I would consider console gaming once again.

I sure hope Firaxis doesn't ever consider making a move to consoles only. For then I would abandon the one game I favor over all others.

 

[Darkness]

I have official un-installed the game and I'am done with it. I even went to Best Buy the other day to get my kid a new game. While I was there looking I saw 3 different set of parents pick up Civ4. I let them know I already bought it with 4 of my friends and I does not work correctly on any of our systems. They all put it down and moved on to something else.

May I suggest we all pick up our pitchforks and torches and run to the nearest store to set up baricades and follow your shining example in chasing people away from the game...

The fact that the game doesn't work for you is very regrettable, and the fact that you only get an automated response to your emails can mean two things. Either Firaxis is just too busy, or they don't care.
I personally hope it's number one, (and I expect it to be so) but I don't know that for sure.
Who can reasonably claim that those three people you chased away from the game would have had the same problems (or similar) that you had? I don't think any of us can...
What I am trying to say is: Yes, you had misfortune with this game (and Firaxis could've treated you better), but what you just did was just petty revenge. Now if your next post is going to state that you "just wanted to warn them", then please don't bother. I will not believe you.

 

[Banira]

Now if your next post is going to state that you "just wanted to warn them", then please don't bother. I will not believe you.

I think the poster did warn them..

 

[Darkness]

I think the poster did warn them..

Yes, but I never said he didn't. I just questioned his reason...

Was it because he's such a nice guy? Or just to deny Firaxis some money?

 

[Sorceresss]

[rant] I have had NO problem running CIV IV from the very start, and with graphical settings at maximum quality...

...but I have read so many complaints on this forum concerning all sorts of very frustrating problems experienced by other (unlucky) gamers...

...that I would do the same as -EFD-Hitless. If I am near anybody who is considering the purchase of CIV IV, I will give them a fair warning :

"This game has been more or less a nightmare for a significant minority of consumers. Caveat emptor."

A "civ fanatic" I never was. I purchase games, I try them out for awhile, and then I move on. I don't feel that I have to "push" CIV IV to naive consumers who can very well spend their Holiday-time $$$ on quite a few other products, with less risk.

But I do not blame Firaxis. I believe Take 2 pressed the developer too hard for a pre-Holiday season release. [/rant]

 

[warpstorm]

Or just to deny Firaxis some money?

I'm sure it was the latter. This oddly enough lessens the chance of fixes getting made. If a game tanks in the marketplace, patches do not come nor do sequels get made.

 

[warpstorm]

Either Firaxis is just too busy, or they don't care.

Firaxis has about 50 people working for them, mostly artists and programmers. Would you rather the programmers spend their time fixing bugs or being on the phone all day?

 

[Natronomonas]

Yes, but Take2, the publisher, also helps provides tech support / communication for the game. Neither company have been especially great in either regard of late IMHO.
Plus, if they're selling a game in the millions you'd expect them to have some reasonable communication channels.

 

[EdCase]

Yes, but Take2, the publisher, also helps provides tech support / communication for the game. Neither company have been especially great in either regard of late IMHO.
Plus, if they're selling a game in the millions you'd expect them to have some reasonable communication channels.

Has this game sold in the millions ?

 

[warpstorm]

Has this game sold in the millions ?

No. From what I heard the first run wasn't even a million disks.

 

[Sahkuhnder]

Perhaps this may be something to consider. Imagine for a moment that Christmas was in May. Do you think that the game version that would have been released next February or March would have had as many problems as the current one does?

Nobody wants to release a buggy product, and I can only believe the programmers did the best they could within the time allowed to them. But the time appears to have been a bit less than was really needed to work through the inevitable problems a project of this size is bound to have. The Christmas season waits for no one, the short sighted bean-counters call the shots far more often than they should be allowed too, and thus a not quite exactly ready for prime time product can be pushed out the door without anyone really being happy to do so.

The only thing to do is to report the actual problems to Firaxis so that they can be addressed in future patches and try to keep the complaints that merely vent frustration, without actually helping to fix any issues, to a bare minimum. This may also encourage them to keep us all posted better on the progress of their efforts to address the crash/bug issues that we do report.

 

[Vael]

Well, now that a Christmas patch is out, I wonder what the haters will pick to whine about this round.

 

[Natronomonas]

No haters here, just people that want to play Civ... without bugs. Hopefully the 2nd patch will let that happen : )

 

[Aussie_Lurker]

Yeah, couldn't help but notice how-for the greater part-the tone of this thread has been very intelligent and level-headed, whether from those who are complaining about or those who are defending Firaxis. I get the sense that the vast bulk of the true whiners have simply disappeared now that they have vented their spleens-almost EXACTLY the way they did in the early months of Civ3 .

Yours,
Aussie_Lurker.

 

[Zydor]

Firaxis are out in force on the main 'new patch' thread below, looks like Communications was addressed as well as the Huge Update (geeez its more like War & Peace than a Patch ).

Nice to see, it will take a lot of steam out of the past hassles. Well Done to Firaxis

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=149195

If early reports continue in the same vain - given that there are bound to be some issues - cant avoid that - the Title of this thread will have been answered.

Regards
Zy

 

[Halberd]

Yes, well done to Firaxis.

Maybe they've not had time to communicate - the jump in version number to me suggests a lot of long hours.

Can't wait to get home from work and give it a go!

 

[Great_Scott]

Merry Christmas my fellow Civvers and Merry Christmas to Firaxis. Personally I only had a slight problem mid-late in the game with the game crashing on v1.0... I truly feel for you lot that still have issues. I hope things all work out now with the new patch... wow, it'll be like a corny ending to a movie

Note.. this is a massive thread and i've only skimmed over it while the patch is downloading... check out a memory fix by Harkonnen, it sped up my game thinking time with 1.09, even on high settings.... and I've seen alot of claims that it's helped alot of crash to desktop errors.

He seems to know his stuff... and he's confident his patch will work on all future versions... that and.. has everyone set their paging file size in memory setting to a high, appropriate amount?