I pledge to not buy Civ 6 until it is released

[TheMeInTeam]

I look at it this way: the last 3 Civilization games (not counting BE) were fantastic to me, so I trust the track record and want to preorder. Yes, I even was happy with Civ V on release. There were some balance issues, but I didn't get good at the game fast enough to run into them before it was patched / expanded out. And the issues with Diplomacy didn't come close to ruining the game for me, either (but I'm glad it was improved).

Being happy with false advertising on release is why this market suffers.

Civ V vanilla release advertised things it did not provide (MP).

Civ V vanilla release had numerous examples of the in-game UI lying to the player about what would happen given a command, or the consequences of that command.

These are not the marks of a game one could reasonably assign a title like "fantastic". UI lies on basic questions like "is my city growing" or "will ordering this unit to attack actually cause it to attack" are not minor quirks. Having a game mode you allege support (MP) then not supporting it is not okay.

If failure to meet stated standards is "fantastic", then the overwhelming majority of games are "fantastic", and using the term has no meaning.

 

[ombak]

Kings Quest V didn't have any unwinnable bugs. If you couldn't beat it, you just missed a puzzle item along the way.

I'll have to agree with Ryika on this one.

One of the problems with Sierra was they had notorious unwinnable situations in games - it was kind of a feature of that sort of adventure game. But when bugs become more common, it could be impossible to tell right away whether it was a bug or you missing something that had stalled progress.

As I said, we don't have that data. How could we? Who would do any sort of study on the matter and how could such a study actually be executed? It's impractical at best and the people that could benefit from the knowledge of such an experiment would not be the ones that would be able to pay for it.

But the truth is the cost of waiting is essentially nothing but the time spent to wait, and the rewards are potentially very high if we can put a stop to things like day one DLC and bonuses if nothing else.

So, I agree it would be difficult to do research. But the more important point I'm trying to make is that this idea that "the cost is low and the benefits are potentially huge" is baseless. How do you know the potential benefits are huge? What makes you think that the benefit you think would be huge is on the table and just needs this kind of behavior to be implemented?

It's like saying, well, standing on the corner asking nicely for a million dollars is something that costs you very little and has potentially huge results. Sure... and what's the likelihood of those huge results you've assumed? That they are potentially huge is irrelevant, the issue is how likely they are and whether this behavior even increases those chances at all as opposed to moving companies in a different direction.

 

[Fromage10x]

Standing on a corner asking nicely for a million dollars has a HUGE cost in time and effort. Not an apt comparison.

This is about not buying a video game early.

When confronted with a situation where we must make a decision and the results of that decision are unknown and unlikely to be known any time soon, we have to use a lot of guesswork. Whether you pre-order or not is one of those situations.

The fact that I don't know if it will have an effect is a shame. I would love evidence one way or the other so I could know if it was worth waiting...but seeing as the cost is just waiting for a video game for a bit longer, I'm ok with not knowing for sure it's going to work

 

[m15a]

Kings Quest V didn't have any unwinnable bugs. If you couldn't beat it, you just missed a puzzle item along the way.

I'm not talking about the typical unwinnable game scenario, like where you missed a puzzle or did things in the wrong order. That's not a bug IMO. I'm talking about the game just not being able to continue. If I had the same problem that I've seen mentioned online (likely but it was years ago), the issue is a pop-up message error that comes up during a cut scene and prevents you from proceeding. So, an actual real bug.

 

[thecrazyscot]

Being happy with false advertising on release is why this market suffers.

Civ V vanilla release advertised things it did not provide (MP).

Civ V vanilla release had numerous examples of the in-game UI lying to the player about what would happen given a command, or the consequences of that command.

These are not the marks of a game one could reasonably assign a title like "fantastic". UI lies on basic questions like "is my city growing" or "will ordering this unit to attack actually cause it to attack" are not minor quirks. Having a game mode you allege support (MP) then not supporting it is not okay.

If failure to meet stated standards is "fantastic", then the overwhelming majority of games are "fantastic", and using the term has no meaning.

You obviously care about different things than many civ players. I don't care that MP was buggy (and still is) in Civ V. It's completely irrelevant to me whether or not MP is even in the game, let alone in a playable state. Why would I care if an advertised feature which I wasn't going to use didn't work properly? Doesn't impact me in the slightest.

In fact, I would prefer Civ to remain a purely SP game. Then there would be less focus on balance patches to make civs more equitable. In SP having OP civs is all part of the fun.

That means, though, that a game that is terrible to you may very well be fantastic to someone else, because they care about different things. MP and SP are essentially two different games anyways.

I do recall there being bugs, but none of them rendered the game unplayable for me, so they were relatively minor irritations.

 

[player1 fanatic]

The side discussion about Sierra adventure games has nothing to do with quality or bugs.

Most of early adventure games had hard fail states if you miss something during the game. This was intentional design decision and not a bug.

This is also the reason why peopke later adored Lucas Arts adventure games, like Monkey Island series, since they got away from such failure states completly making this genre of games much more accessable.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

You obviously care about different things than many civ players. I don't care that MP was buggy (and still is) in Civ V. It's completely irrelevant to me whether or not MP is even in the game, let alone in a playable state. Why would I care if an advertised feature which I wasn't going to use didn't work properly? Doesn't impact me in the slightest.

Evidence of dishonesty from a developer/publisher combination suggests that there is no reason to believe they would abstain from such dishonesty on things you happen to care about in the future. Rewarding dishonesty sends a poor message indeed.

And let's not mince words, Civ 5 was actively dishonest about its MP, and never put in a plausible effort to get it functional as-advertised despite major commercial success.

A non-doormat market would penalize dishonesty, typically.

"I don't care about false advertising because it happened not to impact me in this case" is a non-argument. Firaxis/2k lied to you and you took it on the chin, coming back for more.

That's your prerogative, but it does things to the game market that make it worse for me. As a result, I don't like that behavior. It's irrational, and it (in a dilute sense) damages my experience.

I do recall there being bugs, but none of them rendered the game unplayable for me, so they were relatively minor irritations.

City starving down when the game says it will grow isn't minor. Unit moving into danger instead of attacking when the game says it will attack isn't minor. Being incapable of selecting the unit you want because the game forcibly selects other units is not minor.

What civ 5 taught the player, especially early in its cycle, is that you can't trust its user interface to provide you with accurate information. In a strategy game, rather than being minor that is pathetic. You're supposed to be using said UI to make choices based on the information presented. That's part of the core gameplay of the genre.

In contrast to amazing tactical AI or perfect balance, UI and MP are things that better-quality games get right, routinely. So why the fail state in civ 5? Why the false advertising wrt MP? Why do we believe it will necessarily be better for civ 6?

 

[thecrazyscot]

Evidence of dishonesty from a developer/publisher combination suggests that there is no reason to believe they would abstain from such dishonesty on things you happen to care about in the future. Rewarding dishonesty sends a poor message indeed.

Firaxis knows that its fanbase is primarily SP. Sure, if they'd like the whole franchise to crash and burn they could lie about their SP games (because, let's be honest, SP and MP are two separate games). If the message Firaxis got from me purchasing their game is that the state of MP doesn't matter to me, well, they're correct. As long as the singleplayer side of things works I'm going to purchase civilization games regardless of how broken the MP is. As will most of their fanbase.

And let's not mince words, Civ 5 was actively dishonest about its MP, and never put in a plausible effort to get it functional as-advertised despite major commercial success.

A non-doormat market would penalize dishonesty, typically.

Not caring =/= doormat. If the singleplayer were a disaster then you'd find that the civ market is anything but a "doormat" market. I'm impressed you've restrained yourself from throwing "sheeple" in as well.

"I don't care about false advertising because it happened not to impact me in this case" is a non-argument. Firaxis/2k lied to you and you took it on the chin, coming back for more.

Actually it's a perfectly valid position. They didn't lie to me about what I play.

That's your prerogative, but it does things to the game market that make it worse for me. As a result, I don't like that behavior. It's irrational, and it (in a dilute sense) damages my experience.

And in my opinion a greater focus on multiplayer makes the game market worse for me. See? We just care about different things. In other words, the market is homogeneous but instead has several sub-markets.

City starving down when the game says it will grow isn't minor. Unit moving into danger instead of attacking when the game says it will attack isn't minor. Being incapable of selecting the unit you want because the game forcibly selects other units is not minor.

What civ 5 taught the player, especially early in its cycle, is that you can't trust its user interface to provide you with accurate information. In a strategy game, rather than being minor that is pathetic. You're supposed to be using said UI to make choices based on the information presented. That's part of the core gameplay of the genre.

In contrast to amazing tactical AI or perfect balance, UI and MP are things that better-quality games get right, routinely. So why the fail state in civ 5? Why the false advertising wrt MP? Why do we believe it will necessarily be better for civ 6?

I don't believe all those bugs were universal, as I did not experience all of those. And yes, the ones I experienced were minor irritations.

I don't know why MP didn't/doesn't work well for Civ V (although it apparently works well enough for quite a few people) and whether or not it will work in VI has zero impact on my buying decision. Obviously it does for you, and that's fine - because I think it's clear we're different markets.

 

[Toulouse]

I will not pre-order Civ 6.

 

[Ricci]

Firaxis knows that its fanbase is primarily SP.

Firaxis knows they cannot market anything worthy of a modern game now a days without multiplayer capability. Ergo, they attached it there.. and never care again. Moreover, already mentioned a couple of pages back, these abominable pactices concerning mp diminishes big time any developement on the feature and it´s interest within the fanbase.
Anyhow, as I would admit most civ gaming is done in sp mode, i am not sure about most gamers not careing at all about mp.

 

[DJ_Tanner]

While I haven't played the game myself the internet seems to suggest that you're wrong.

Absolutely none of those are bugs. Most people just talk about the mouse, who if you don't save you can't beat the game. Its a puzzle piece that can be missed, not a bug.

 

[JimmyBanks]

Just watching FilthyRobots Twitch stream.

https://www.twitch.tv/filthyrobot/v/81531845

At around the 1:29:05 point he talks about the possibility of being invited back to take part in a multiplayer pre-release event. He also talks about the statistics showing that only 1 out of 100 people who purchase Civ play mulitplayer. 1% of the market.

I haven't seen any of the data but he states that the information came from someone at Firaxis.

 

[thecraftybee]

Just watching FilthyRobots Twitch stream.

https://www.twitch.tv/filthyrobot/v/81531845

At around the 1:29:05 point he talks about the possibility of being invited back to take part in a multiplayer pre-release event. He also talks about the statistics showing that only 1 out of 100 people who purchase Civ play mulitplayer. 1% of the market.

I haven't seen any of the data but he states that the information came from someone at Firaxis.

I can imagine that MP is a tiny part of the game base because it had never had much support from Firaxis. I purchased Civ V when it first launched and really liked it. But I stopped playing for a number of years until I saw a few videos, first by Marbozir and then Filthy Robot which got me interested in starting again.

I do not plan on pre-ordering Civ VI because I was very disappointed with BE. I do not want to reward Firaxis for releasing half baked content again. The cost of the game does not mean much to me, but I want Firaxis to get the message that I want a well designed and well balanced game when I do buy from them.

Then again, I have no sense of self control when it comes to getting things I want, so I will likely break this pledge! But I will try!

 

[Ryika]

If that 1% is a raw number then it's severely misleading though, considering that only 76% of all players ever found an ancient ruin, and only 23% every won a domination victory. And only 1% of all players ever won the Mongols Scenario.

6% of all Players also won a Multiplayer Victory which, to be fair, is an achievement that can be gained in less than a minute, even if you don't know how to do it solo, by having a friend join a game with you and leave immediately.

But still, given that that number is 6% there must be more requirements than just "Tried to join a multiplayer game." in which case the bad implementation has probably taken its toll.

 

[m15a]

Small correction: the statistic FilthyRobot mentioned was less than 1%, not 1% (so it could be 0.9% or 0.01%). It sounded like he tried to get more statistics but they wouldn't tell him.

 

[evanaurora]

If that 1% is a raw number then it's severely misleading though, considering that only 76% of all players ever found an ancient ruin, and only 23% every won a domination victory. And only 1% of all players ever won the Mongols Scenario.

6% of all Players also won a Multiplayer Victory which, to be fair, is an achievement that can be gained in less than a minute, even if you don't know how to do it solo, by having a friend join a game with you and leave immediately.

But still, given that that number is 6% there must be more requirements than just "Tried to join a multiplayer game." in which case the bad implementation has probably taken its toll.

Steam tells me that I bought 5 in April 2012, so I can't speak to most of these bugs being mentioned, obviously never having experienced them myself; that said, there are more reasons for me to not play multiplayer than "I tried it once and found it lacking" or something. I prefer single player because I like a more relaxed playstyle (I like playing on King difficulty rather than Immortal or Deity, as a rule), because I know limited people who actually play civ and even fewer who i'm on good enough terms with to play with them, because life existing means that I almost always can't play in a neat enough fashion to sit down and spend six hours playing (or, alternately, that I do do that, because chronic ill health, but I'm too tired/ill/what have you to want to do more than mess around with strategy on my own), because because because.

But will I at some point sit down and play a multiplayer game for six?? Sure! Not as a regular thing, but to try it out. Even if I love the experience, though, it will never be more than a thing that I dip my toe into every once in a while, because all the reasons above still stand. People play games for different reasons and multiplayer is a different experience than single player for more than just "bugs." 1% of players playing regularly and 6% having played and won ever makes complete sense to me, when you factor in a few percentage points for playing, losing, and cheerfully (or not) going back to single player. You probably don't have a much higher percentage of players than that getting into the game enough to feel like giving multiplayer a go, as most people DO buy the game for the single player experience.

Bad implementation might have affected it- I haven't had a problem with it, but I've only played.... a few? if that? games in 5 so I can't say for sure. However, it seems to me like a more simple explanation is "most people don't buy the game for multiplayer, and most people don't play the game extensively."

 

[Ryika]

Sure, I didn't say that multiplayer is for everybody or that there's a huge "50% of the overall playerbase"-multiplayer scene waiting to be unleashes. Obviously the majority of Civ players are and will always be Singleplayer-minded, unless the devs decide to completely change the game in the future - which of course they won't, because why would they?

What I'm saying is that that "(less than) 1%"-number is probably not "raw" data but has likely already removed certain players from the equation. Like those who started a Multiplayer game once, quit midway through and never went back for reasons that may be very different from "I am not interested in multiplayer". And that the number must also be seen in perspective with how many Civ owners must literally have stopped playing after 2 minutes or so.

 

[Aristos]

TMIT did not say that the existence or not of a MP component was the issue; he said LYING ABOUT ITS EXISTENCE is the issue. If some of you want to defend FXS practices, fine, your opinion, but please do not deviate from the main point: the marketing practices during the release time of Shafer's civ.

 

[Relinou]

I just want them to do little upgrades to the multiplayer. obviously stability, but I just want things like the ai actually talking to the players, and their portraits showing up.

 

[tedhebert]

After seeing all the action from august 3rd, I finally decided to pre-order today.

Game looks great, will buy it anyways, no matter what... Was waiting to have more info on what exactly the 4 DLC were going to be before going deluxe, but bought it anyways because, hey, I'll get them anyways, and this will allow me to get them automatically for (theoratically) cheaper (did that with witcher3, really liked getting the 2 expansions automatically)

Leap of faith for Fireaxis, but I think they deserve it this time around ;-)