I'm not even upset anymore by "1.0 stuff"

[AlpsStranger]

I don't mean to make excuses, I just think this is the new reality. The way games are on digital platforms and you can simply assume 99.5% of your users will have and apply the latest patch seamlessly, the proliferation of early access. etc. etc.

Since games are far from the days where what you got on the SNES cart/floppy is what you got, I think this is one of the nearly-inevitable negative side effects.

Yeah, as CivFanatics we instantly realize the units sell for too much, we are prone to seeing imbalances and issues almost immediately.

However, once the game is good enough to impress the other 99% of users, a profit-driven company is going to have an awfully hard time justifying delaying the release another 2-3 months to please the other 1%. And that's the issue. Release isn't some big catastrophic thing ( MMOs aside. ) It's an arbitrary point where they decide to pull the curtain back.

I'm not saying I like it at all, I'm simply saying it may be a price of progress. It helps that I feel that enough patching/expanding to satisfy me will be done in the long run, if not enough to satisfy some of you.

 

[rastak]

I don't mean to make excuses, I just think this is the new reality. The way games are on digital platforms and you can simply assume 99.5% of your users will have and apply the latest patch seamlessly, the proliferation of early access. etc. etc.

Since games are far from the days where what you got on the SNES cart/floppy is what you got, I think this is one of the nearly-inevitable negative side effects.

Yeah, as CivFanatics we instantly realize the units sell for too much, we are prone to seeing imbalances and issues almost immediately.

However, once the game is good enough to impress the other 99% of users, a profit-driven company is going to have an awfully hard time justifying delaying the release another 2-3 months to please the other 1%. And that's the issue. Release isn't some big catastrophic thing ( MMOs aside. ) It's an arbitrary point where they decide to pull the curtain back.

I'm not saying I like it at all, I'm simply saying it may be a price of progress. It helps that I feel that enough patching/expanding to satisfy me will be done in the long run, if not enough to satisfy some of you.

There are many factors in a software release including the publisher. In this case the development studio is owned by the publisher (I believe) but that doesn't completely change the dynamics. There is a project schedule and a release date. The development studio doesn't have however much time as they want in most cases. You get in what you can, meet the mandated date and try and deliver everything you can under those constraints. There is also a budget. It blows my mind, all the "these guys don't know what they are doing". I strongly suspect they are totally clueless.

 

[TruthfulCake]

There are many factors in a software release including the publisher. In this case the development studio is owned by the publisher (I believe) but that doesn't completely change the dynamics. There is a project schedule and a release date. The development studio doesn't have however much time as they want in most cases. You get in what you can, meet the mandated date and try and deliver everything you can under those constraints. There is also a budget. It blows my mind, all the "these guys don't know what they are doing". I strongly suspect they are totally clueless.

It has become a trend of sorts, accusing the devs of being incompetent. It requires no thinking to say "do the devs even test the game?" or "do they play their own game at all?" These have been repeated ad nauseam for a week now, throughout the many redundant threads complaining about the same things.

If they had an iota of sense, they'd know that had the devs not test the game, the game most likely wouldn't boot at all. There can and will be issues for each facet of the game included, and the game has many systems. The fact that people keep repeating the same issues means that the issues are contained and limited, proof that the devs did as well as they could during bugtesting. It is mind-boggling to even suggest that one exploit equals lazy developers

The sad fact is, a lot of the criticism can be on point and constructive, if they aren't punctuated by accusations toward the developers.

 

[Lucius_]

25 years ago, games came out and they were done. There were no more updates except for the rare occasion of purchasing expansions. Games were unbalanced, incomplete, with game breaking bugs, never to be fixed. Mind you, not all games, but most games had issues, occasionally serious issues post release that were never resolved. Even the mid 90's, a lot of the best games only ever became awesome classics because of community patches. People forget these things though. Thankfully, we have post release development and patches and don't have to worry about those problems from yesteryear.

 

[thecrazyscot]

Yes, people have serious rose-tinted glasses about the past. The current model of game release + significant patching is FAR superior to what it used to be.

 

[Mr. Shadows]

I'm fine with it. I bought the game on release fully expecting it to need fine tuning. Sure, once upon a time games didn't get updates. Frequently they stayed broken. Sometimes they were designed that way just to steal your quarter Year after year video games at large get better. There's no point in crying about the growing pains... that's all they are.

 

[alaric1112]

I agree. This game has a great foundation and I think they will Iron out the bugs and other issues.

 

[Zuizgond]

Yes, people have serious rose-tinted glasses about the past. The current model of game release + significant patching is FAR superior to what it used to be.

Yeah, why have a finished game at release when you can buy an unfinished version and wait 2-3 months before it's enjoyable. So much better!

 

[Gorbles]

Yeah, why have a finished game at release when you can buy an unfinished version and wait 2-3 months before it's enjoyable. So much better!

Literally proving most of the posts in this thread. Good job, man.

 

[knightblaster]

It's surprising that people are surprised by this in 2016. It's simply how things are done. You release when the game is close to being ready and you have the desired release window. The availability of online patching means that the rest of it is done once the game is released. It's just how things are done in 2016, and it isn't all bad -- but it does mean you have to be realistic, as a consumer, and understand the market well enough to realize that the games are all pretty much released this way today. If you do not like that, you can always purchase them 6-12 months post-release based on user experience, mods/patches and the like, down the road.

 

[Pico 22]

Yeah, that's the way things are done nowadays. It's the same with cars. I just bought a new one and it handles strangely because one wheel is missing, but I was promised that it will be available by the end of the year and anyway, it's a rear one and I got used to it. Also, the back seats are not yet in but that does not matter because there is just one door. The seats I will get in spring but I will have to pay extra for the door.

There are some other minor issues but I must say that the car looks absolutely great.

 

[TehJumpingJawa]

Nothing wrong with the early access model...... So long as it's promoted as such.
...And you don't charge £50!!

 

[Mesix]

Growing pains are part of the reasons why I wait a few months after release before I pick up a new game. I also like to plan my activities to ensure that I will have time to play. An added bonus is that generally within 6-8 months there will be a Steam Sale so that I can get 25% to 50% off the list price.

Patience is a virtue!

 

[knightblaster]

Growing pains are part of the reasons why I wait a few months after release before I pick up a new game. I also like to plan my activities to ensure that I will have time to play. An added bonus is that generally within 6-8 months there will be a Steam Sale so that I can get 25% to 50% off the list price.

Patience is a virtue!

To me that's sensible, if you know you don't want to be a part of the growing pains that are present in all new release games today. It isn't sensible comparing games to cars, where people would lose their lives if they were released that way. Games aren't life-threatening, aren't regulated, etc.

 

[Amrunril]

Since games are far from the days where what you got on the SNES cart/floppy is what you got, I think this is one of the nearly-inevitable negative side effects.

I don't even think it's negative. I'd rather have a game with balance issues now and a patch in a few months than have to wait those few months to play the game at all.

 

[Siptah]

Everybody had access to information that suggested very strongly that it would be like this on release. If you bought it nonetheless, you thought you could live with this state the game is in. I'm in this group and it's a lot of fun for me to play despite the (previously known issues). So if you knew you wouldn't like the release version, why did you buy it? Forgot to do research on the game? Didn't believe the available Info? Fell for marketing phrases? In any case, despite what the industry does and whatnot, it seems to be your fault as a mature consumer if you feel tricked buying civvi and that it was a waste of money.

 

[Cuneiform]

Nothing wrong with the early access model...... So long as it's promoted as such.
...And you don't charge £50!!

Civ6 is a fully functioning game and is certainly not Early Access grade material, to compare the two things is ridiculous.

I think some peoples chief complaint is that at the moment it's not as difficult or challenging enough as they would like it to be. With a game as complex as Civ6, that was always going to be an evolving process and not something that was going to be perfect straight out of the box.

 

[WiseGreen]

Games today are bigger, so there will be more issues/bugs, that's how programming works. And it's not like games of yore were "better" in this aspect because they would not have that many patches - quite the opposite, they would never be patched unless there was an expansion coming or the game have massive crashes, and the patch would be hosted (hidden) in an impossible-to-navigate website, it would take forever to download at 56kbps, and you'd probably only suceed at installing it after 10 tries because there was this necessary workaround or specific configuration you only found about after 30 minutes of hunting for answers on pre-Google internet. And this was the good case scenario - more often than not, you found a bug, you better learn to live with it.

 

[Zuizgond]

I can't believe people are OK with the current design of releasing unfinished products. And the reason is : it's how things are done in 2016? So next step is : we only design the graphics with some quick AI code and 99% of people won't see the difference. For the rest, the community will mod it and everyone is happy because... it's 2016 and developers have to meet the release date, no matter if the game is not ready.

 

[thecrazyscot]

I can't believe people are OK with the current design of releasing unfinished products. And the reason is : it's how things are done in 2016? So next step is : we only design the graphics with some quick AI code and 99% of people won't see the difference. For the rest, the community will mod it and everyone is happy because... it's 2016 and developers have to meet the release date, no matter if the game is not ready.

It's almost like you ignored every post before yours.