Irritated and disappointed

[jpharper]

Wife and I own all of the Civ games for PC. We play Civ 4 regularly and have since it came out. Nothing we enjoy as much as a good game for the two of us over a few weekends together.

Wife's birthday was last week so I went out and bought Civ 5 for her... She was so excited when she got it... She suggested we load it right up and start a new game together. Imagine her (and mine) disappointment when no HotSeat game availability. She is so disappointed, I am now sorry I even bought the game. We even tried to install it on another machine and play local area LAN game between us but alas... You can not do that on the same account with STEAM and it wont let you create another account with same game.

I reviewed the box (had to get a magnifying glass out) and the back of the box states "Community & Multiplayer". Wish it had labelled it "Community and Online" as that would have atleast given us a clue that there was no hotseat. In today's software world where certain things are taken as a given, Every game I have purchased (and that is a lot of games as I have been gaming since 1993/94) hotseat has always been included when the back of the box states multiplayer. I reviewed a few of the boxes of games that I have that do not include hotseat and all of those boxes stated either "Internet connection required for multiplayer" or specifically "Community and Online Play" under the "Multiplayer" heading. The CIV 5 box reads a little different and, in the way it's worded, does not give any clue that there is no hotseat. GRRRRRRRRRRR If nothing else they should have stated under the "System Requirements" Internet connection required for multiplayer !!!!

Many Thanks to Mr Meier's Company for spoiling this experience for me and my wife. If I could return the game to the store without a restocking fee... I would but alas they will not take it back as it is opened. I can not believe that they did not consider things like this in the developement phase. Why they made the choices they did I do not know. I only know the game is a severe let down for us.

For those of you who have not bought the game for your families, Expect to lay out some serious cash for multiple copies of the game if you want to play the game with members of your own family.

Sincerely,

John Harper

 

[SuperJay]

That sucks - I'm sorry you had a disappointing experience. (Really; you're not alone, there.) A lot of people were in the same boat, and assumed hot-seat mode would be included out of the box. Firaxis had admitted prior to release that this was not the case, but obviously many consumers don't do a ton of research online prior to purchasing the latest iteration of their favorite game franchise. (And we should, clearly.)

The possible good news is that Firaxis is supposedly considering implementing a hot-seat mode in future updates. So you and your wife may be able to share a copy of the game eventually, but to my knowledge there aren't any details available on that enhancement.

PS: Lucky you, having a wife who plays Civ! Congrats on that if nothing else.

 

[Ray Patterson]

This is probably the worst thing I've heard about Civ V so far.

Not because I play a lot of hotseat. I think I've played 1 hotseat game of Civ IV. But some people want to play a PC game in a social way together, and once you do, it's precisely what you expect from a game.

The really bad thing is that programming hotseat must be the easiest thing the developers would have to do. Omitting this shows more than anything Firaxis doesn't give a crap about its customers.

 

[lschnarch]

If I remember correctly, Jon Shafer himself announced PBEM and hotseat functionality to be released around one month after release.

Hmm....

 

[Falk]

My first impulse was to write that this was known and you could have found out about it on the interwebs. But then again, it's really odd how Firaxis makes the product casual-friendly, but then doesn't include a feature that is important to many casual gamers (aka family people) and even fails to clearly state it on the box. Casuals usually don't do as much online research as I do.

I understand your anger. It's just another Firaxis/2k fail.

 

[Brawndo]

lol, the tone and structure of that post sounds like it belongs in a Usenet group from 1991. I love how he signed it

 

[Gelvan]

PS: Lucky you, having a wife who plays Civ! Congrats on that if nothing else

+1

lol, the tone and structure of that post sounds like it belongs in a Usenet group from 1991. I love how he signed it

+1

PS: yeah I know "+1" isn't very usenet group-ish but I've never used that +1 thing before and you two have just made a complete true statement.

 

[Mark Havel]

If I remember correctly, Jon Shafer himself announced PBEM and hotseat functionality to be released around one month after release.

Hmm....

I hope they didn't made a Creative Assembly promise... They told us about a multiplayer campaign with Empire Total War and as far as I know, it's still not available.

 

[AriochIV]

I don't think the lack of hot-seat functionality is an oversight... I think they want to try to make you pay for two copies of the game.

 

[Lazy Knight]

Dear Mr Harper,

You can play LAN modus with one copy of the game.

Moderator Action: But technically it is against the terms of the EULA. Instructions removed.

 

[PieceOfMind]

If I remember correctly, Jon Shafer himself announced PBEM and hotseat functionality to be released around one month after release.

Hmm....

All I ever heard/read was that it the modes pbem, pitboss and hotseat were all planned for release later, but we were never given an ETA and never given a promise.

I had to make the decision to buy civ5 knowing that these features may never make it to the game.

However, taking the pragmatic view, considering that 2K and Firaxis will be using this game as a revenue stream, it would make a lot of sense for them to meet (eventually!) the expectations of the multiplayer community. I consider it a very unlikely scenario that Firaxis drops these features.

Yeah, it sucks they weren't in at release, but at least you can all be thankful they didn't lead us to believe they would be. It is something they've been entirely honest about.

 

[Haig]

lol, the tone and structure of that post sounds like it belongs in a Usenet group from 1991. I love how he signed it

This was spot on!

 

[stormerne]

John I'm so sad that your kind intentions and plans went awry. You're a lucky man (like me) to have a Civwise wife. It must have felt like a smack in the face to find this out.

When perhaps, like me, you have been playing hotseat games since the mid-90s, you might have reasonably expected its availability from the start. If you were a software designer, like me, you might have understood how little it takes to make a single player game into hotseat game unless the game's underlying architecture is badly designed (certainly easier than making it MP online).

All I can say is that patience may bring you rewards, and meanwhile you can play Civ4. There are some good things about Civ5 - it has some potential at least, even if it takes a couple of years to materialize. I hope you'll both revisit it (and here) from time to time. Best wishes!

 

[lietkynes]

Wife and I own all of the Civ games for PC. We play Civ 4 regularly and have since it came out. Nothing we enjoy as much as a good game for the two of us over a few weekends together.

Wife's birthday was last week so I went out and bought Civ 5 for her... She was so excited when she got it... She suggested we load it right up and start a new game together. Imagine her (and mine) disappointment when no HotSeat game availability. She is so disappointed, I am now sorry I even bought the game. We even tried to install it on another machine and play local area LAN game between us but alas... You can not do that on the same account with STEAM and it wont let you create another account with same game.

I reviewed the box (had to get a magnifying glass out) and the back of the box states "Community & Multiplayer". Wish it had labelled it "Community and Online" as that would have atleast given us a clue that there was no hotseat. In today's software world where certain things are taken as a given, Every game I have purchased (and that is a lot of games as I have been gaming since 1993/94) hotseat has always been included when the back of the box states multiplayer. I reviewed a few of the boxes of games that I have that do not include hotseat and all of those boxes stated either "Internet connection required for multiplayer" or specifically "Community and Online Play" under the "Multiplayer" heading. The CIV 5 box reads a little different and, in the way it's worded, does not give any clue that there is no hotseat. GRRRRRRRRRRR If nothing else they should have stated under the "System Requirements" Internet connection required for multiplayer !!!!

Many Thanks to Mr Meier's Company for spoiling this experience for me and my wife. If I could return the game to the store without a restocking fee... I would but alas they will not take it back as it is opened. I can not believe that they did not consider things like this in the developement phase. Why they made the choices they did I do not know. I only know the game is a severe let down for us.

For those of you who have not bought the game for your families, Expect to lay out some serious cash for multiple copies of the game if you want to play the game with members of your own family.

Sincerely,

John Harper

It's very sad to read this, companies should not release unfinished games, but sadly they do. You have every right to be mad at Firaxis/2K.

 

[lschnarch]

All I ever heard/read was that it the modes pbem, pitboss and hotseat were all planned for release later, but we were never given an ETA and never given a promise.

Must have been in this article, which got changed afterwards (and it was Shirk, not Shafer):

[Updated Response]

Dennis Shirk: We are going to have basic multiplayer options at release, and then are going to be adding a number of new modes in the weeks thereafter. We haven't hammered down exactly what will release when, but when everything is finalized, we'll be making a big announcement, because we're really excited about all the options Civ players are going to have.

Shack: Since you're using Steamworks, will you be including any matchmaking?

Dennis Shirk: We're not going to be shipping with matchmaking, but it's something that everybody started asking for. That is something we're going to be looking to include with our package in the future

I am pretty sure the original version was something like: "We were surprised that fans requested hotseat and PBEM [my comment: yeah.. really a big surprise! ] and will add this around one month after release"

 

[JLoZeppeli]

Dear Mr Harper,

You can play LAN modus with one copy of the game.
Moderator Action: But technically it is against the terms of the EULA. Instructions removed.

I'm sorry, I tried but it does not work, thanks...

 

[Lazy Knight]

Let me rephrase it then:

I can play LAN modus owning just one copy of the game.

 

[Revoran]

The reason they didn't put "Internet connection required for multiplayer" on the box is because it's not required - you can LAN.

If anything they might put "Multiple copies of the game required for two players to participate in multiplayer."

Console gamers already deal with having to have multiple copies of the game to run multiplayer exercises - 1 for each person playing and I don't see it as horrific.

I understand if you're annoyed because you assumed that feature would be in (and hell, it probably should have been in), but you really should have done the research.

 

[Geddy]

I'd say John Schafer won't have the time to release a Hotseat patch within a month of release as he is busy patching the game and trying to save his reputation, which currently lies shattered in the ruins ofCivDumb.

 

[Kryhavok]

I am attempting to install on wife's PC with the same Steam account. If you don't hear back in <6 hours, that means it worked