Is Gods and Kings what Civ5 should have been as released?

[Louis XXIV]

Added each civ with a unique ability is the step forward. That requires consideration of each civ from scratch. Adding voice actors for the civs is a new addition. That requires compiling the resources for civs where they are starting from scratch. Having full leader screens that loads separately from the game as a whole requires recreating them from scratch.

Yes, they could have kept the old civs and their artwork and just gave them traits by leader (a direct copy and paste from Civ4). In that case, they could add new civs like Polynesia without having to recreate the old ones. But they didn't do that. All artwork in the game was created from scratch, which takes time, effort, and money.

 

[Buccaneer]

I would easily say that high-quality civs that we got for Civ5 vanilla plus DLCs were worth far more than all of the civs we got for Civ4+xp. The PC gaming market has changed considerably since 2005 and be thankful that they are still working on improving the game, however they have to pay for it.

 

[salaminizer]

I think Civ5 design was as honest as a new iteration can be (considering they planned the DLC in advance), so I believe that the expansion as it is (adding back religion) wasn't in the original plans, especially when you consider that the original designer is gone.

 

[Ninja2]

The truth is that this is how the gaming industry works in the present.

It's no secret that games get released in a semi-final state, for some games it's just more final than for others. Think of it as I do: For each game you may pay full price at release, which grants you a beta-test pass. You help make the game better and enjoy it before those, who do not wish to pay full price. Same with any DLC, you either buy them immediately for a beta-test chance or wait, if you are not willing to shell out the cash. At a later point in time, inevitably a GOTY edition gets released for most games with significant DLCs (ME2 being the exception it seems) or there is a STEAM bundle bringing the price for all the content to let's say 30$.

Now there are two kinds of people:
1) People who pay 45$ at release and 5-20$ for each DLC or expansion, bringing their total to let's say 100-120$.
2) People who pay 30$ total some two years later for everything.

This is how it works for pretty much every game, even games without DLC (and there wont be many of those) go through significant patches. It is completely up to you whether you choose option 1) or 2) above. Do you want to beta-test the game for 60-100$ or do you want to wait for "release" and buy it then for significantly less? Just imagine that release date is in fact start-of-paid-beta day and GOTY-release date is the regular release date.

QFT. Savvy consumers choose option 2.

 

[craig123]

except its not a fresh approach its holding things back and making you pay to add them back in later on

they take civilizations out to make you pay to get them back later they take religion out and make you pay later to get it back etc

ea sports games dont remove teams and make you rebuy them at a later time after the release of the game

you can take a fresh approach like they did with hexes and the combat etc and still keep the stuff that you had from the previous generation

its the removing stuff you had and intend to have just to sell it to me in bits and pieces that i dont appreciate

Wow, this is seriously misinformed. You think they could have "kept" the civilisations from Civ4? How? I assume you've seen the difference between the leader screens in Civ4 and Civ5? And the fact that each leader speaks in his own language? And that each civ has its own music? I'll remind you that Civ5 vanilla has the same number of civs as Civ4 vanilla. Or were you expecting them to remake all of the 30-odd civs from BtS for the vanilla game?

Also, you do realise that Civ5 was built from stratch (including a new engine)? It's not like EA Sports Game 2012, which is just EA Sports Game 2011 with a few new players and an extra couple of features. It takes several years to make and is then supported for several more. And yet you prefer the EA approach of "give us $50 for the same game you bought last year, but this one now has '2012' on the logo instead of '2011'"? You seriously think that's better value than a brand new Civ + Expansions + DLC?

 

[Buccaneer]

Or were you expecting them to remake all of the 30-odd civs from BtS for the vanilla game?

Yes, the rants thread (and to some extent, various G&K posts) demanded that Civ5 should've been built upon every feature BtS had. They, however, failed to realize that half of those features didn't work well and Civ5 introduced new features that Civ4 was incapable of implementing.

 

[thadian]

except its not a fresh approach its holding things back and making you pay to add them back in later on

they take civilizations out to make you pay to get them back later they take religion out and make you pay later to get it back etc

this. civ4 vanilla felt like a sham when its expansions simply returned to the series what it already had in civ3 but was taken out of civ4 just to be resold - this doesn't make the games different, it simply takes content out of them, minimizing the value to the customer. When BTS came out, i was happy of course but a little upset that the final civ4 was basicly civ3 complete converted into civ4, and i fear the same with this - look at the end product of any civ game and the "complete" version of each game has most of the same: warlord/general, spy/espionage, corporation/religion, several wonders and civ's all presented as NEW but actually most of the civ's have been in every game and aren't new.

It would be like selling a chess set without the rooks, bishops or knights, forcing each to be purchased seperately. A player who does not own those pieces would simply play the game without them which gives them a major starting disadvantage at the start because of out-of-game influences. thus, the worse player who owns better pieces would beat a better player without money and i see no strategy in this.

in strategy you normally do not use "extra-dimensional resources" that exist outside of the context of the strategy to gain an in-game advantage. for example, if we are playing monopoly and i offer to bum your girlfriend a cigarette or a real life dollar for boardwalk - i should not even be allowed to make this offer.

 

[Buccaneer]

thadian, I think your analogy is very incorrect and way off-base. Every software product can be improved upon with time and resources, but many have not while Civ4 and Civ5 did dedicate the resources to do so. I would easily and defiantly say that the initial releases of Civ4 and Civ5 were emminently and completely playable (which you cannot say for a lot of software releases) for many people, while Civ3 was not. Despite the workings of such pieces upon release, they were all there and every non-patches since then have been optional bonuses.

Civ5 does not have the luxury of EA, Bethesda or R* where consoles can generate 90% of the revenues. We should be lucky that strategy games for the PC is still a viable market, however they have to keep the revenues flowing. The alternative would not to have a PC release which is what we have seen in a lot of titles in the past several years.

 

[thadian]

no, the alternative is to stop being predatory, which is what i feel the model is. the initial releases were playable even if stale, boring watered down versions of the game you already know with 2 new mechanics and 9 missing mechanics and being upgraded from 34 civs to 19.

I have said before that if the DLC model gave you a vanilla game with 26 UP FRONT options to choose from, your game let you put 18 of them in your game UP FRONT. You will get the content you want without being forced to own the content you dont want (trade songhai for korea anyone?)

You would still have the option to buy the other 8 civ's and they could still release a few DLC civ's over time without getting this kind of criticism. this is because the player had full control of their product up front and are driving towards more options while the current model gives you not the product you want to buy but the one they want to sell you.

Now, if they would do this with the DLC model, i would sit down, shut up, edit my signature and be happy that i can get the product i WANT (out of a big hand offer) with the ability to upgrade it from there out of the other hand i didn't choose up front. this would make me feel less robbed when babylon or korea comes out and i say "america sucks i want korea instead, why is korea, a third world nation so powerful but the united states are a first world powerhouse and the worst civ in the game! America should have been the high power DLC. Do i say

lso a first world powerhouse is worse than Songhai, which was hardly an "empire" and more of a "kingdom". And if i could have had these kind of choices up front, i wouldn't have even thought of why are third world nations so much more powerful than first world ones because i would have had up front the civ's i WANTED, giving me a hand of control in my product.

 

[craig123]

It would be like selling a chess set without the rooks, bishops or knights, forcing each to be purchased seperately. A player who does not own those pieces would simply play the game without them which gives them a major starting disadvantage at the start because of out-of-game influences. thus, the worse player who owns better pieces would beat a better player without money and i see no strategy in this.

What a terrible analogy! Truly awful.

 

[nokmirt]

thadian, I think your analogy is very incorrect and way off-base. Every software product can be improved upon with time and resources, but many have not while Civ4 and Civ5 did dedicate the resources to do so. I would easily and defiantly say that the initial releases of Civ4 and Civ5 were emminently and completely playable (which you cannot say for a lot of software releases) for many people, while Civ3 was not. Despite the workings of such pieces upon release, they were all there and every non-patches since then have been optional bonuses.

Civ5 does not have the luxury of EA, Bethesda or R* where consoles can generate 90% of the revenues. We should be lucky that strategy games for the PC is still a viable market, however they have to keep the revenues flowing. The alternative would not to have a PC release which is what we have seen in a lot of titles in the past several years.

I see his point as far as the fact that the vanilla games were missing much content. Then the customer has to pay money for each new expansion with added content, that pretty much we knew would be forth coming, because it existed in the previous game.

So he is saying they squeezed money out of the customers, which is true. But that truly is the business world these days. Sell your product in stages. In this case a civ game has three. From a corporate POV, they realize consumers will buy the vanilla version, then they keep them in anticipation until they can stand it no longer. While thats going on they wet the consumers appetite with DLCs (a new marketing strategy based on steam). Then finally they spring a new expansion on them with content we know they will be begging for that existed in the prior civ title CiIV.
Religion/espionage, a few new things to bolster the game and catch as much interest as possible.

During the market strategy for CiV prior to release, firaxis stated that they are making a simpler user friendly game (they posted a video showing new features of the game etc, and that they wanted to draw in new players), to draw in a new generation of civ players.

The business strategy is fairly clear. Marketing switches target groups, intially it corners new and old players alike, especially new, because of a simple learning curve needed to play, an easier vanilla version of the game. Then they switch targeting to the traditional civ gamers, who have playing these games a very long time. However, now the new vanilla players who are quite used to CiV by now are very curious about the expansion. Even though many have misgivings about adding content to this new game they love. Curiosity and anticipation of consumers equals sales. It is really quite genius. This is how I see it. This is capitalism at its finest.

I do not think it is necessarily wrong, as long as I can use what I paid for already. I bought all the DLCs, and I should be able to at least use DLC civs, if not civs and scenarios, which would be far better, with the new expansion pack. If this was not the case I would feel cheated, do you see what I mean?

 

[Buccaneer]

I believe Civ2 had promised multiplayer but didn't get it until the third expansion pack (if I got my timeline right).

 

[AbsintheRed]

So he is saying they squeezed money out of the customers, which is true. But that truly is the business world these days. Sell your product in stages. In this case a civ game has three. From a corporate POV, they realize consumers will buy the vanilla version, then they keep them in anticipation until they can stand it no longer. While thats going on they wet the consumers appetite with DLCs (a new marketing strategy based on steam). Then finally they spring a new expansion on them with content we know they will be begging for that existed in the prior civ title CiIV.

I can live with this, but only if they eventually release another expansion pack
A real XP pack where they actually take the civilization series one step further, not only readd functions and civs which could have been implemented in the first place...

 

[nokmirt]

I can live with this, but only if they eventually release another expansion pack
A real XP pack where they actually take the civilization series one step further, not only readd functions and civs which could have been implemented in the first place...

I can only imagine that they will have a third expansion. Interestingly enough, I also believe there will be another period of DLCs for G&K, before the third expansion. Which is more than fine by me.

 

[AbsintheRed]

I can only imagine that they will have a third expansion. Interestingly enough, I also believe there will be another period of DLCs for G&K, before the third expansion. Which is more than fine by me.

Agreed, we will most certainly get DLCs for Gods and Kings. And it's perfectly fine
But please let there be a proper 2nd expansion pack at the end of this second DLC period
(btw, when you write 3rd expansion, you mean 2nd expansion, right?)

 

[nokmirt]

Agreed, we will most certainly get DLCs for Gods and Kings. And it's perfectly fine
But please let there be a proper 2nd expansion pack at the end of this second DLC period
(btw, when you write 3rd expansion, you mean 2nd expansion, right?)

Yes, I meant 2nd expansion of CiV. Oops!

 

[SammyKhalifa]

I can live with this, but only if they eventually release another expansion pack
A real XP pack where they actually take the civilization series one step further, not only readd functions and civs which could have been implemented in the first place...

So you think that the vanilla civ should have had all of those additions right out of the box? No other older version of Civ (even the beloved, sacrosanct IV) was able to do this. But even if they did, the game would have taken two years longer to come out (likely without many of the changes we've seen because of customer input). I think many people would be surprised if they went back and played the original retail Civ II-IV pre-patches and expansions. Especially III--time seems to have dulled memories as to how bad that was out-of-the-box.

If one thing disappoints me about this expansion, it's that they seem to be listening to the player input TOO much. It seems more set on adding things gone from the last version (albeit re-worked versions of those) instead of going in new directions.

 

[AbsintheRed]

So you think that the vanilla civ should have had all of those additions right out of the box? No other older version of Civ (even the beloved, sacrosanct IV) was able to do this. But even if they did, the game would have taken two years longer to come out (likely without many of the changes we've seen because of customer input). I think many people would be surprised if they went back and played the original retail Civ II-IV pre-patches and expansions. Especially III--time seems to have dulled memories as to how bad that was out-of-the-box.

If one thing disappoints me about this expansion, it's that they seem to be listening to the player input TOO much. It seems more set on adding things gone from the last version (albeit re-worked versions of those) instead of going in new directions.

No, my point was not this: "could have been implemented in the first place"
It's just a fact. And I agree that this is true for all civ titles (and most games released nowadays)

My point was this: "A real XP pack where they actually take the civilization series one step further"
I meant more or less the same thing you said in your last sentence

 

[SammyKhalifa]

No, my point was not this: "could have been implemented in the first place"
It's just a fact. And I agree that this is true for all civ titles (and most games released nowadays)

My point was this: "A real XP pack where they actually take the civilization series one step further"
I meant more or less the same thing you said in your last sentence

Haha, yeah, sorry about that. I guess my reaction was more to the general thrust of the thread than to what you were saying.

That all said, I'm interested in seeing how religion or espionage work in this version, over CivIV, where they DID always felt "tacked-on" and added just for the sake of adding something.