Ktulu
Warlord
I play PC games and "dumbed down" console games. Both formats have their advantages/disadvantages, some games I'd rather play on a pc others on a console. DLC is the same either way.
Is Civ 5 really "being dumbed down"?
- Thread starter hardcore_gamer
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nody
Emperor
I hate consoles and their controllers...a mouse and keyboard are the only controllers I want for any game. I'm sure I'm not the only one... am I?
IdleEnergy
Chieftain
- Joined
- Aug 27, 2010
- Messages
- 80
This is a new and interesting topic that has not been asked, opined upon, brought up and generally beaten to death 5 times a week for the last month.
Considering that the most popular PC game right now is WoW, I don't think the PC gaming industry has any reason to think that charging people to use a game they already bought to it's full potential is bad for business.
I mean, if WoW was free to play instead of $15 a month, there'd probably be 30 million + monthly users easy instead of the 12 million currently. So why does blizzard charge a monthly fee? Because 12 million people paying $15 a month is still a much greater amount of revenue than 30 million + little bits of advertising income. But it's a good thing. It encourages the developers to keep improving their game regularly instead of patching it a few times, releasing a few expansions and then letting it go.
As for civ V, if they have a constant revenue stream from DLC they are much more likely to keep improving the game, more often and for a longer time than they did with previous civs. Does it hurt your pocket book? Sure, but you get what you pay for. As a result. Civ V will probably be less likely to "go stale" than previous versions.
And for you people who say "I don't want DLC I full expansions." To me that just doesn't make sense. If you end up with the same amount of content after $50, you'd rather have to wait a year and a half or two to get it all, rather than getting pieces to keep the game interesting on a monthly basis? I'd rather have lots of DLC and not have to wait and buy an expansion.
What they should do, IMO, is to release all the DLC, and if they chose to make an expansion as well, allow the DLC purchases to credit towards your expansion purchase. In other words, if I pay for 90% of the content of the expansion through DLC, I should only have to pay for that other 10% instead of $50 for the expansion.
It will be interesting to see how they handle this.
I mean, if WoW was free to play instead of $15 a month, there'd probably be 30 million + monthly users easy instead of the 12 million currently. So why does blizzard charge a monthly fee? Because 12 million people paying $15 a month is still a much greater amount of revenue than 30 million + little bits of advertising income. But it's a good thing. It encourages the developers to keep improving their game regularly instead of patching it a few times, releasing a few expansions and then letting it go.
As for civ V, if they have a constant revenue stream from DLC they are much more likely to keep improving the game, more often and for a longer time than they did with previous civs. Does it hurt your pocket book? Sure, but you get what you pay for. As a result. Civ V will probably be less likely to "go stale" than previous versions.
And for you people who say "I don't want DLC I full expansions." To me that just doesn't make sense. If you end up with the same amount of content after $50, you'd rather have to wait a year and a half or two to get it all, rather than getting pieces to keep the game interesting on a monthly basis? I'd rather have lots of DLC and not have to wait and buy an expansion.
What they should do, IMO, is to release all the DLC, and if they chose to make an expansion as well, allow the DLC purchases to credit towards your expansion purchase. In other words, if I pay for 90% of the content of the expansion through DLC, I should only have to pay for that other 10% instead of $50 for the expansion.
It will be interesting to see how they handle this.
I agree with you. We shoudn't have to pay for DLC. If the developers and Publishers actually repected us as gamers they wouldn't have done this, but they see us as cash cows instead. So yeah we are stupid enough to pay for it.
Oh? We are given choice? So instead of paying $35 for an expansion pack which can include all DLC, now I have to buy them all seperately and could end up paying double in price? Since we don't know what the price scheme is yet. Most people are guessing $10 or more per DLC.
Also, what about in the future, when there is no more "patches" and only "updates or DLC" and you have to pay for it. So this DLC you do not want to get, because you don't care for the scenarios in there, or the Civs or techs or units added, but this DLC fixes the game. So do you buy it or not? Seems like they will have us by the "balls" as someone said before.
Not shure if this was a joke or not. I hate this "you are helping the enviroment crap buying digitally". If you want to help the enviroment, stop using the Fracking internet. Stop playing video games. You are using up electricity to do this. To produce electricity, alot of places especially in the US use Coal plants to produce it. So to save the earth stop using electricity. OOOOOO it saves paper. You do more damage to the earth by using up elcectricity all the time.
Save the earth my arse. gggggggggrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr.
Actually you are not well informed. Before DLC they use to be called Plug-ins which were free for us to download. Now all of a sudden they change the name, and now we have to pay for it. If you didn't want to get dragged into some sort of crazy argument, you shouldn't have commented.
Zhahz
PC Gamer
What's funny is people posting about game they haven't played when there are numerous previews and reviews from people who have played saying the exact opposite of the thing they're arguing about.
I'm not sure what to think about windmills and workshops and other similar improvements being made into city improvements instead of tile improvements.
Nationwide happiness/unhappiness bothers me also. These certainly can be National in scope but are very often city phenomena. I can see the folks in New Orleans or Detroit being unhappy due to local conditions while people in other cities are as happy as can be.
These 2 changes may be a dumbing down.
Only playing the actual game will make it known.
Nationwide happiness/unhappiness bothers me also. These certainly can be National in scope but are very often city phenomena. I can see the folks in New Orleans or Detroit being unhappy due to local conditions while people in other cities are as happy as can be.
These 2 changes may be a dumbing down.
Only playing the actual game will make it known.
I am curious. If people don't like the word "dumbed down" then what word would make you happy? Less thinking? Less complicated?
As for Civ Rev, in hind site now, I think it's one of the greatest games to ever come out. Yes I have complained about the simplicity of it. I complained about lack of options. But the Greatest thing about the game? It got my 9 year old son to love a game that "Daddy" loves dearly.
When I played Civ IV he never cared for it. Now that he played Civ Rev when he was 7, (Or was it 8?) he played a bit at first, but now he is so into it. He loves unlocking acheivements. (I think I finally got my answers why consoles have achievements now) I had to get a 2nd disk so we both can play multi player.
Now he is interested when I play Civ IV. Hopefully I can play Civ V. He is intererested in this game too. Yes it is a bit complicated for him, but he learns fast. Yes he makes alot of mistakes in Civ Rev, but he loves it. If it wasn't for Civ Rev, he would never be interested in Civ series. So Civ Rev was a great thing.
The reason it did poorly on the Console. Simple, most console gamers do not play strategy games, and that be turn based strategy games on consoles. Then again, blame Microsoft and Sony for not allowing developers use mouse and keyboard on thier consoles for games. (Then again that could be a good thing, since Civ would really be dumbed down, just like Oblivion was.)
As for Civ Rev, in hind site now, I think it's one of the greatest games to ever come out. Yes I have complained about the simplicity of it. I complained about lack of options. But the Greatest thing about the game? It got my 9 year old son to love a game that "Daddy" loves dearly.
When I played Civ IV he never cared for it. Now that he played Civ Rev when he was 7, (Or was it 8?) he played a bit at first, but now he is so into it. He loves unlocking acheivements. (I think I finally got my answers why consoles have achievements now) I had to get a 2nd disk so we both can play multi player.
Now he is interested when I play Civ IV. Hopefully I can play Civ V. He is intererested in this game too. Yes it is a bit complicated for him, but he learns fast. Yes he makes alot of mistakes in Civ Rev, but he loves it. If it wasn't for Civ Rev, he would never be interested in Civ series. So Civ Rev was a great thing.
The reason it did poorly on the Console. Simple, most console gamers do not play strategy games, and that be turn based strategy games on consoles. Then again, blame Microsoft and Sony for not allowing developers use mouse and keyboard on thier consoles for games. (Then again that could be a good thing, since Civ would really be dumbed down, just like Oblivion was.)
I pay for them when they come out yes! But why should we pay to gain a civ like Babylon, which should be there anyway? Official expansion packs we buy when they come out, we always have. But we should not need steam for that.
I do not agree, I have been buying physical copies for years. It gives me an excuse to go out and get some exersise, which is good for the heart. A few boxes of civ games does not even make a dent in all the trees that are wasted everyday. Junk mail everyone receives daily, dwarfs easily the resources they use to put a video game in a cardboard box. And the developers are not helping us by ripping us off. 10 bucks for an extra civ, it is crazy, especially since Babylon should be in the game from the get go, for free. Then the special edition, 99 dollars and no Babylon, unbelievable! What did Hammurabi do to deserve this, especially after he made 282 laws to benefit mankind! It is a bad omen, lol!
Dont confuse expansions with DLC-packs. They are not and cannot be the same. DLCs have to function in any combination there of, and as a consequence they CANNOT modify or replace the main executable or ruin the mods, so they can never bring any new features to the game engine and have to be limited to content only. Expansion packs on the other hand are cut-off milestones which DO replace executables and as a consequence can add anything new they like and that makes them worth my money. Whether they will include content from released DLCs is less improtant.
I agree and good advice!
It seems so. When reading the manual I was shocked how dumbed many things were. For instance, all food resources now give just +1f (fish +2f). In Civ4 there vere much larger varitety: cow gave food and production, sheep gave food and gold and so on. Perhaps the bigges dumbing is the diplomacy: you can't see international relations so diplo, which was the core of Civ4, is now virtually meaningless.
Like said in almost every review, Civ5 is more just a war game. 1 upt improves warring hugely, but is this enough? Civ5 will probably be very nice game, but after all dumbing I don't think it will be a classic like Civ4.
Like said in almost every review, Civ5 is more just a war game. 1 upt improves warring hugely, but is this enough? Civ5 will probably be very nice game, but after all dumbing I don't think it will be a classic like Civ4.
Tylerryan79
Emperor
After reading the game guide I have found that though the game seems like some elements have been removed, and thus removing complexity, this isn't the case at all. Everything seems to flow perfectly together, and fits perfectly! You can really get a feel for what the devs vision was, a streamlined and intuitive system, that still has strategy and depth to it. Nothing is there just to be there, but is like a puzzle, where each peice fits together perfectly! Game concepts are very easy to understand, and the amount of variation possible is huge. Everythig fits naturally together, no matter what your play style!
hehe, "streamlined" and "intuitiveness" are the most popular words among game devs charged with dumbing down the games 
Another one, mostly used by Microsoft's MVx's on their forum is "feature creep" 
I mean when in the world did you hear a console gamedev say "here's a dumbed down game, just for you, because we know you can't be bothered". They wouldnt want to imply you are stupid/lazy, but rather a fine savorer of streamlined experience
Its Marketing 101.
Back on topic, my feeling from game manual => plain vanilla, sugar free. I do not know how you can say it has not been simplified when it has, quite a lot actually. Had they not changed the map/combat it really would be disappointing. Too bad we have to wait 6mo for SDK.
Another one, mostly used by Microsoft's MVx's on their forum is "feature creep" I mean when in the world did you hear a console gamedev say "here's a dumbed down game, just for you, because we know you can't be bothered". They wouldnt want to imply you are stupid/lazy, but rather a fine savorer of streamlined experience
Its Marketing 101.Back on topic, my feeling from game manual => plain vanilla, sugar free. I do not know how you can say it has not been simplified when it has, quite a lot actually. Had they not changed the map/combat it really would be disappointing. Too bad we have to wait 6mo for SDK.
Looks like the AI is still pretty dumb. They cheat at higher levels even though we were told that they wouldn't have to because the AI would be "smarter".
While it would have been nice to have an AI as good as Galactic Civilization 2 or other much touted examples of AI, I'll take a so-so AI with boosts over feature-laden garbage with poor AI. Anyone who thinks more equals better needs to play Hearts of Iron 3, which surely rates in the annals of gaming hell only one step higher than Master of Orion 3.
That poster further back in this thread complaining about how food resources should have differing bonuses, should just quit Civ altogether and play HOI3, where you can spend 4 hours developing your Order of Battle for your 200-division army with 15 different division types, only to discover all that agonizing over light vs medium tank brigades was moot because your enemies didn't know how to garrison their borders.
stealth_nsk
Deity
No one said it wouldn't cheat. They just said the AI is smarter on higher levels.
tom2050
Deity
- Joined
- Oct 12, 2005
- Messages
- 5,516
Yes, everytime the developer says streamlined or 'more organic', those are just marketing words for dumbed down in a broad sense. Because streamlining something is in essence simplifying it.
Streamline
: to make simpler or more efficient <a system that streamlines the process>
Streamline
: to make simpler or more efficient <a system that streamlines the process>
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