How is this acceptable?

[Pietato]

did you even read what I posted?

I said,"and firaxis is one of the few companies that does listen to the fan base, and does improve the game from the feedback. Yes it is a big problem for those who have the game wont run, and firaxis has answered and is looking into those problems."

All you do it blind defend and pretend these issues are minor. They are not. The sooner everyone faces that, the sooner the game is fixed. Also it will hopefully mean mistakes like this will not happen again. Because honestly, this game is currently a beta.

 

[rawrkitty2]

Ai is crap.
Ai in EVERY GAME is crap.

Honestly - this game's MP despite its bugs is very fun, try playing against humans and you'll find a lot more enjoyment, i've played 200+ hours already, and i love the game.

It has its issues, but i still love it and it was worth my money.

 

[Ravenholm]

So I've noticed this mentioned several times... Civ 5 unpatched is bad? I love that game... >.>

As for Beyond Earth, just some observations from me...

* I've had a number of games where the aliens swarm me like goddamn locust... They become a snore later, but early one they're a .

* How do people play with -90 health!? It seems like such a massive disadvantage... I like to keep my health well in the positive.

* I actually rather like some of the added interactivity... The quest system for one, especially quest decisions with buildings... Even little things, like the changing profiles for leaders, I actually enjoyed that. Whatever you think, it's still more than Civ 5.

Now, there's definitely a lot of room for improvement, but I still enjoy the game... At the very least, it's a reskinned Civ 5, and that's what I was expecting, and so that's what I'm enjoying getting so far.

 

[prideaux]

How can a player maintain his self-respect and indulge in Beyond Earth at this point? I don't want this to be a troll thread, but I must admit, it is difficult to separate out the question from the consequent criticism if there is no satisfactory answer.
Moderator Action: Implying that those who play CivBE can not have self respect is trolling.
Please read the forum rules: http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=422889

Beyond Earth is full of balance issues. Endemic balance issues. The AI is crap. The aliens are a snore; you can sleep on them. The health system is a snore. The world has less interactivity than Alpha Centauri; not that it's easy to beat SMAC in that department, but try thinking of what more than which this game is interactive. On top of that, the game is aesthetically dead. Miasma and aliens are impediments, nothing more. Ecological damage is not even a thing. Leaders are boring, not just that, but the AI is bad in exactly the way it was bad before, which everybody knew about.

These guys own a very valuable IP in the Civ series, and I want Civ to be the best it can be. That's not going to happen when players pre-order from a company with known late-comer patch practices. Remember Civ V, and how it wasn't even a game until G&K? Both of which you paid for?
What's that about fool me twice?

But my question is one of time. How can someone defend any behaviour of taking the game seriously in this state?
I do honestly expect to gain some insight in a deeper way to recreation, the game industry, or other things, but that point about not wanting to let Firaxis get sloppy is my highest motivating factor.

how is this different than any other CIV in the last ten years? All the other games up to this point have all been made better through mods and community involvement. That is not say the devs didnt make good games to begin with but they made games that had a strong backbone and then used community feedback to make them the memorable games we have today. How is that any different than what we have now?

I dont for one minute apologise for supporting and having fun in this game so far. That does not mean that it perfect, that does not mean I believe devs should be condemned for it... Civilization games are long term investments, I always get them and play a few games and wait a few months for them to become fully patched and balanced. These are things that cant be done in a testing environment, the game is far too huge, far too unscripted and human beings are far too unpredictable to test every likelihood.

I just dont see how criticising the fan base of those players who CAN look passed its current shortfalls, helps makes the game better? CiV was greeter way less political than this game and yet look at it now. Its brilliant.

 

[Kutuzov]

how is this different than any other CIV in the last ten years? All the other games up to this point have all been made better through mods and community involvement. That is not say the devs didnt make good games to begin with but they made games that had a strong backbone and then used community feedback to make them the memorable games we have today. How is that any different than what we have now?

I dont for one minute apologise for supporting and having fun in this game so far. That does not mean that it perfect, that does not mean I believe devs should be condemned for it... Civilization games are long term investments, I always get them and play a few games and wait a few months for them to become fully patched and balanced. These are things that cant be done in a testing environment, the game is far too huge, far too unscripted and human beings are far too unpredictable to test every likelihood.

I just dont see how criticising the fan base of those players who CAN look passed its current shortfalls, helps makes the game better? CiV was greeter way less political than this game and yet look at it now. Its brilliant.

Agreed. It's an unpopular view but I do really think that we are going to have to put up with this more and more in the future if we wish to play sophisticated strategy games like this on our PCs. I am willing to do this and have done so for several years now. This is not the only game designer that does this.

If we decide that we're not going to support developers to make games and sell them to us in stages, we're likely to see developers shift over to making their money from console games where they don't have to worry about making a game playable on an almost infinite number of differently configured PCs with lots of different operating systems, graphics cards, CPUs, hard drives, etc, etc, etc. to choose from.

Idealism is great for getting the moral high ground and posturing on discussion boards. It's not going to get us better PC games because the developers are making them for profit.

 

[tzaari]

and firaxis is one of the few companies that does listen to the fan base, and does improve the game from the feedback.

Those with a complaint are 10 times more likely to voice the complaint than people who are happy with the game, proven over and over with all types of surveys.

Yes, they do listen fan feedback when that might just add their sales, like when they are selling a new game. They might even add stuff (lets make a funny thing and name the end game mech as Giant Death Robot!) but that does not make them one of the few that listen fan base. What makes a company good in serving their fan community is the service after you have bought the game, aka fixing the bugs.

They literally took 1 year minus 6 days to fix Civ5 multiplayer trade bug, bug that practically broke the whole trading system in multiplayer games. In the case you don't play Civ5 multiplayer and don't know about it, it made possible for a human player to accept their own counter offers like it was the original for any deal.

That is pretty much all you need to know about firaxis listening fan feedback. They listen it when it is convenient.

And if you understand just how many different configurations of computers and software there is, a company could NEVER test every one, before release, they would never get to release the game.

There will always be people who complain about a new release, because it does not live up to the preconceived notions, or expect it to run on their old machine.

and 2000 complaints is a statistical non event, within a world wide release.

Yes it is a big problem for those who have the game wont run, and firaxis has answered and is looking into those problems.

The problem is not in obsolete hardware, granted that old hardware it might cause stability issues. However even old hardware does not cause bugs in the game, save game corruption or continuing stability issues in old games that should have been patched long time ago.

Firaxis is looking into current problems in a week old game that is probably going to get couple of DLC:s in near future, but that is only the minimum you could ask for a new release. What divides Good companies is what happens long after the release. Do they still hear the fans and fix bugs regularly? Do they leave game killing bugs in game?

 

[tzaari]

Agreed. It's an unpopular view but I do really think that we are going to have to put up with this more and more in the future if we wish to play sophisticated strategy games like this on our PCs. I am willing to do this and have done so for several years now. This is not the only game designer that does this.

If we decide that we're not going to support developers to make games and sell them to us in stages, we're likely to see developers shift over to making their money from console games where they don't have to worry about making a game playable on an almost infinite number of differently configured PCs with lots of different operating systems, graphics cards, CPUs, hard drives, etc, etc, etc. to choose from.

It is true that you see this from many designers, but it is eventually a flawed business model and it is surely a flawed consumer behavior to support it.

If we make conscious decision to continue buying games from makers who do not meet basic quality standards like fixing bugs, then we are not going to get sophisticated strategy games very long. It is far more easy to make games that look sophisticated but are actually just a bit more than hollow shells with neatly figured exterior.

Now I don't say that Civilization-series games would be that yet, but like prideaux wrote earlier, game has not advanced very much in last decade in AI design. We still have similar 'cheating' AI playing by its own rules and bonuses to keep after human opponent.

I would also claim that different computer configurations are not so big problem that is seems. Why? Because game designers can freely set the minimum system configuration. Also this problem has existed since stone age and everyone owning a PC and playing games with it should know about it.

Idealism is great for getting the moral high ground and posturing on discussion boards. It's not going to get us better PC games because the developers are making them for profit.

You forget that companies keep on observing each others business models. Therefore there is still value in consumer behavior. If you don't like the way one company is behaving, then you find one that is evidently better and give your money for that one..

I like Civilization games enough that I probably buy Beyond Earth eventually, when it is cheap enough. By then company has of course already made break-even in developing costs. (Or I might not buy it at all, if I keep hearing about multiplayer stability issues.)

In meanwhile I will buy games in full price from companies that I know will support their fans. Thus those companies that I think do things in right way will get the best profit. The point is that you can as a consumer still decide how much company makes profit by your basic consumer decisions.

 

[Joch]

If we make conscious decision to continue buying games from makers who do not meet basic quality standards like fixing bugs, then we are not going to get sophisticated strategy games very long. It is far more easy to make games that look sophisticated but are actually just a bit more than hollow shells with neatly figured exterior.

Ah yes, the old boycott strategy. It has never worked, never will. If consumers stop buying games like Civ5 or Civ:BE, the result will not be more hardcore strategy games, which are a niche market, AAA developpers will just move on to a more lucrative market.

I would also claim that different computer configurations are not so big problem that is seems. Why? Because game designers can freely set the minimum system configuration. Also this problem has existed since stone age and everyone owning a PC and playing games with it should know about it.

I presume you have never worked in the Game industry? designing for PCs is a nightmare. Everyone has different hardware, OS, software, all with different drivers, some may have technical issues which have nothing to do with the game. It is impossible to test all combinations. Technical issues on launch are a given.

You want to be sure you have no technical issues? easy, design for a platform where everyone has the same hardware, that is why you saw the move to platforms like the Xbox, Playstation, etc.

I like Civilization games enough that I probably buy Beyond Earth eventually, when it is cheap enough.

You mean you don't even own the game? How can you give an informed opinion on it?

 

[Pietato]

The people who own the game yet cannot even get it work have an informed opinion, I am sure...

Even without the crashes and bugs, the game is imbalanced and kinda soulless. It is like a basic shell, before everything is added on and fixed.

 

[tzaari]

Ah yes, the old boycott strategy. It has never worked, never will. If consumers stop buying games like Civ5 or Civ:BE, the result will not be more hardcore strategy games, which are a niche market, AAA developpers will just move on to a more lucrative market.

There will always be companies making strategy games because there is market for them. They may not be AAA developers but who cares about what size the developer is if their product is good and they make enough profit to keep on making games?

Please correct me if I remember this wrong but for example Civ5 has sold something around 21 million copies and Civ4 sold around 6 million. That is big enough market for any developer to be interested. AAA developers might have more resources to use but if they do not produce quality in both games and support for their products, then I go for smaller developers. Unlike big developers, small developers simply have to take notice of the feedback they get and take action accordingly. If they don't, then they don't exist very long. But if they do prove to be competent in both, they can grow and therefore you get more quality games.

I presume you have never worked in the Game industry? designing for PCs is a nightmare. Everyone has different hardware, OS, software, all with different drivers, some may have technical issues which have nothing to do with the game. It is impossible to test all combinations. Technical issues on launch are a given.

You want to be sure you have no technical issues? easy, design for a platform where everyone has the same hardware, that is why you saw the move to platforms like the Xbox, Playstation, etc.

I have not worked in game industry but I am aware of the problems with different hardware/software although, I rarely have those problems myself these days since I update my PC regularly.

My point is that as a developers should not set the minimum specs too low for then you will get more of those compatibility issues and bugs. Just set them higher, and if the game still works in older configurations that is only valued by players, but you don't need to actually provide support if you don't have the resources.

In my opinion it does not pay of to set the minimum as low as possible to get better sales numbers, because then those poor bastards with those minimum configurations will buy the game and will be disappointed. It might make sense in business point of view to sell that one product, but it is not a good way to get long period customers.

You mean you don't even own the game? How can you give an informed opinion on it?

How can one have previous experiences about Firaxis games, wait for a new game, then read reviews and other peoples opinions about it and draw the conclusion?

I have not claimed to own BE in any point. I didn't pre-order it or even buy it right after release because I had it mostly figured out how it might be. Couple of years ago I bought Civ5 on release and later its DLC:s, mostly in hope that they would fix the multiplayer and only to see that they had planned to release most of the games on those DLC:s. Later I followed how they react on the still broken multiplayer and they did not until the release of BE, and now people say the multiplayer is even more broken than it was already.

I have written mostly about consumer behavior and game marketing + rant about the statistics and business models of the game developers. It would be hypocrite to write that people should make informed consumer decisions, if I can't make them yourself.

 

[kingsbury]

At least I can play Beyond Earth on my computer because unlike Advanced Warfare it can run on things besides directx 11.

 

[Joch]

Please correct me if I remember this wrong but for example Civ5 has sold something around 21 million copies and Civ4 sold around 6 million. That is big enough market for any developer to be interested.

The numbers I saw for Civ5 were 5.9 million copies sold which puts it in the elite category in terms of sales. However, you have to remember you only get numbers like that if most of your customers are casual gamers.

The gaming market has completely changed over the past 15 years. In the late 90s, PCs were still the main gaming platform and only a small portion of the population had them. In 2014, PCs account for less than 5% of gaming platforms and currently, the biggest growth market is in games for tablets, i.e. I-phone, Ipads, etc.

You also have to remember that even though costs have skyrocketed in the past 20 years, notably for the State-of-the-Art 3d graphics everyone covets, the price for a PC game is still capped at the same $50-70.

Developpers only have two ways to go, 1): make a game with broad appeal to maximise sales and amortize costs, which means making games that appeal to casual gamers or 2) market games to a specific niche market, i.e. simulations, but keep a very tight lid on development/production/distribution costs.

Developpers of strategy games have another handicap since they have limited platform appeal. Most games knock off a Xbox/Playstation etc, copy which gives them access to a larger market.

So the Civ franchise is sort of stuck, it has to have broad enough appeal for casual gamers, while hopefully retaining the hardcore players, a difficult balancing act. Most successful games do it by being easy and entertaining for the casual gamer at low difficulty levels, but challenging (and moddable) to the hardcore player at higher difficulty levels. What that basically means is that you can expect future Civ games to follow the Civ 5 model.

Also don't forget there is no such thing as a garanteed market, the Silent Hunter franchise sold 1.5-2 million units, but submarine simulations are now dead.

 

[kingsbury]

but submarine simulations are now dead.

The best submarine simulation is to swim around a pool underwater going "ping.....ping....ping"

 

[m15a]

Firaxis is looking into current problems in a week old game that is probably going to get couple of DLC:s in near future, but that is only the minimum you could ask for a new release. What divides Good companies is what happens long after the release. Do they still hear the fans and fix bugs regularly? Do they leave game killing bugs in game?

I don't think I'm in the minority of gamers when saying I actually want to play games, and 4x games in this case - so can you give an example of a current company that is actually good and released a good (no known bugs that aren't actively and quickly being fixed) 4x game or even any complex strategy game? Because boycott all games isn't a reasonable option for most gamers.

 

[Drowsy Emperor]

There are few 4x games in general and as a rule they're poorly funded garbage. The strategy genre is not "where its at" (neither funds nor developer talent) and hasn't been for years.

Turn based games have been a fringe thing for more than a decade, almost two decades, although they have held up better overall than the RTS genre which looked poised to take over but petered out in just a few years.

MOBA is the current "strategy gaming experience". I'm not interested in the genre, but that's where the "strategy" players are. Starcraft II is still doing its thing but that's an exception and probably won't last long after the last expansion comes out.

My overall disappointment in Firaxis is due to how simplistic the games they make have become. The new XCOM was a joke from a tactical point of view, Civ V is strategy "lite" at best (which is a pity because the production values are off the charts). Civ BE is just an interlude, a bit more milking of the Civ V cow.

I'm going to try Civ VI before I buy it (if at all) and then I'll know whether Firaxis is gone for good.

 

[beetle]

One definition for insanity is to keep the same behavior but expect different results...

I didn't pre-order it or even buy it right after release because I had it mostly figured out how it might be. Couple of years ago I bought Civ5 on release and later its DLC:s, mostly in hope that they would fix the multiplayer and only to see that they had planned to release most of the games on those DLC:s. Later I followed how they react on the still broken multiplayer and they did not until the release of BE, and now people say the multiplayer is even more broken than it was already.

You sir, are a quick study! I daresay that if the majority of civfanatics were so disciplined, Firaxis would have stopped with the paid beta release cycle, or have gone out of business.

Like everyone else who bough III early, I felt burned. But then I fell for the same trick with IV! I am happy to say I learned my lesson with V and waited almost a year. I can wait a year to play BE if that is what it takes to come out of beta.

 

[tzaari]

I don't think I'm in the minority of gamers when saying I actually want to play games, and 4x games in this case - so can you give an example of a current company that is actually good and released a good (no known bugs that aren't actively and quickly being fixed) 4x game or even any complex strategy game? Because boycott all games isn't a reasonable option for most gamers.

Paradox.

I don't say they are perfect but they are a light year better than Firaxis when it comes in support. Just have a look into their forum and compare it to 2K. In first one, some of the game developers are actually taking part in conversation. In latter, there is only moderators who desperately keep on telling people they are there only as voluntaries. Now I only keep on asking myself, why would somebody do that voluntary.

Paradox main problem is that they don't have the resources of Firaxis but regardless they are develop several grand strategy game series (Europa Universalis, Victoria, Hearts of Iron, Crusader Kings) all the while they stay in direct contact with their fans and keep on patching the games regularly. Some of the people working for them used to be people in forum who made mods, aar-threads etc.

Funny thing is that I got both EU2 and Civ3 in same time. I installed both but played Civ3 more at first, since it was much more easy to learn. However, I ended playing EU2 much more because when I had had enough of single player, I got into multiplayer group in Finnish game-magazine forums. (And we have been playing ever since. Just finished our third game with EU4. It started with 23 players. Something that I can only dream of in Civ-series )

Since then I have played most of the Paradox strategies and all of the Civilization-series games online, but there has always been more problems in Civilization-series even if they look like are somewhat simpler in mechanics.

 

[TLHeart]

All you do it blind defend and pretend these issues are minor. They are not. The sooner everyone faces that, the sooner the game is fixed. Also it will hopefully mean mistakes like this will not happen again. Because honestly, this game is currently a beta.

there is no humanly possible way to make a game for a pc environment that wont have issues with hardware/software. Too many possible configurations, that change daily.

that is why there are so few PC ONLY games... consoles are so much easier to program for since all the hardware is identical.

They are minor issues in the pc gaming industry, except for those individuals who are having the hardware/software issue.

NOthing will change so long as the consumer is unwilling to spend more than $50.00 US for a new game.

 

[tzaari]

The numbers I saw for Civ5 were 5.9 million copies sold which puts it in the elite category in terms of sales. However, you have to remember you only get numbers like that if most of your customers are casual gamers.

Okay, that sounds more like it. It was actually this news that I recalled: http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=524668 21 was the sales numbers for whole of Civilization-franchise.

The gaming market has completely changed over the past 15 years. In the late 90s, PCs were still the main gaming platform and only a small portion of the population had them. In 2014, PCs account for less than 5% of gaming platforms and currently, the biggest growth market is in games for tablets, i.e. I-phone, Ipads, etc.

You also have to remember that even though costs have skyrocketed in the past 20 years, notably for the State-of-the-Art 3d graphics everyone covets, the price for a PC game is still capped at the same $50-70.

It is true that PC:s share as platform has shrunk, but that is not the whole truth there. Yes there is now more consoles, tablets and smartphones but they are a new market. If you compare the actual numbers of PCs sold yearly, you see that the sales have been stable: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Market_share_of_personal_computer_vendors

Of course not all PC:s are used for gaming but then again not all PC:s are manufactured by the big companies. It is my experience that most of the hardcore pc-gamers either build their own configuration or order it from reseller that also builds PC:s. If I'd want to know just how big the gaming pc-market is, I would search for how many mid-priced to top end GPU:s Nvidia and AMD produce every year because that is the part most of PC gamers update regularly and that makes central part of new game PC.

Developpers only have two ways to go, 1): make a game with broad appeal to maximise sales and amortize costs, which means making games that appeal to casual gamers or 2) market games to a specific niche market, i.e. simulations, but keep a very tight lid on development/production/distribution costs.

Developpers of strategy games have another handicap since they have limited platform appeal. Most games knock off a Xbox/Playstation etc, copy which gives them access to a larger market.

So the Civ franchise is sort of stuck, it has to have broad enough appeal for casual gamers, while hopefully retaining the hardcore players, a difficult balancing act. Most successful games do it by being easy and entertaining for the casual gamer at low difficulty levels, but challenging (and moddable) to the hardcore player at higher difficulty levels. What that basically means is that you can expect future Civ games to follow the Civ 5 model.

Also don't forget there is no such thing as a garanteed market, the Silent Hunter franchise sold 1.5-2 million units, but submarine simulations are now dead.

I agree that developers have hard decisions to make, but these don't still mean they that they absolutely have to take shortcuts in game design to attract casual gamers, and certainly it does not mean that they should cut back on product support and patching.

The problem for me in Civ5 is that while I found the game entertaining, its flaws came up soon. Diplomacy, AI and other stuff you pick up when you have played the game long enough. For me that is normally the point when I go for multiplayer (or even before that) and arrange games with friends, but there Civ5 failed to deliver. It simply had too many bugs, too much instability and game-killing corrupted saves. It had all the elements you need to make a good multiplayer strategy game but the failings overcome good memories.

Silent Hunter is niche in niche of Naval Warfare games, whereas Civilization is much more higher in general category of Strategy games or 4X.

You sir, are a quick study! I daresay that if the majority of civfanatics were so disciplined, Firaxis would have stopped with the paid beta release cycle, or have gone out of business.

Like everyone else who bough III early, I felt burned. But then I fell for the same trick with IV! I am happy to say I learned my lesson with V and waited almost a year. I can wait a year to play BE if that is what it takes to come out of beta.

If I just had been quicker, I would have been saved for the last BNW multiplayer dissapointments. I found myself being hopeful that they actually had fixed the multiplayer when I first heard the new patch for Civ5. At least I did not go as far to start arranging a new large game.

 

[Pietato]

there is no humanly possible way to make a game for a pc environment that wont have issues with hardware/software. Too many possible configurations, that change daily.

that is why there are so few PC ONLY games... consoles are so much easier to program for since all the hardware is identical.

They are minor issues in the pc gaming industry, except for those individuals who are having the hardware/software issue.

NOthing will change so long as the consumer is unwilling to spend more than $50.00 US for a new game.

The launch issues impacted a lot of people. There is was inadequate testing done.

These issues aside, the game itself is still in beta, in terms of balance, gameplay, AI, immersion, etc.