Is there still people playing civ 4?

[vincentz]

It's just like all the other requirements needed to play. You can't keep making games for old 3dfx cards.

But its not. Its not like all the other requirements. A game can play perfectly fine without internet connection (unless its a MMO ).
If Steam wasnt a requirement, but a volunteering way of keeping games updated, a way of socializing, a mod database, a hub for MP'ing and a gameshop with some nice discounts, then I bet everyone would love it.
The fact is that it IS all of the above, but it is being FORCED upon the player, which is why so many hate it.
Does it help against piracy? (which I guess is the reason for having it)
No. I honestly dont think it does.

 

[Antilogic]

Somewhat off-topic: I'm imagining there is going to be a lot of hate for the new SimCity, which requires an internet connection for play. Your cities are all stored on an EA server, as far as I understand--your save games aren't even on your computer, and losing a connection at any time takes you back to the menu screen. Oh, and future EA titles will all feature microtransactions, which I'm certain will raise even more ire than people not liking the DLC model.

There were a few good threads on this over in the All Other Games section of this forum.

 

[gps]

I'm imagining there is going to be a lot of hate for the new SimCity, which requires an internet connection for play.

Probably. But I would not necessarily call this hate. It's nothing personal, it's business. The companies offer something - and I (or we all) can make a free decision whether to buy or not based on the way of distribution, quality, content and copy protection. Sure enough Steam or online activation for me is a clear no-go.
Which actually brings me right back on topic: that's exactly one of the reasons why I still play Civ IV. Or why I rather buy a five year old Gold or Complete Edition of a properly finished and bugfixed game for a couple of bucks (e.g. just recently "discovered" Rome and Medieval 2 Total War) rather than paying full price to online-rent a game that is still in beta status and where I have no clue whether the developer really intends to ever finish it properly. It's a pity it has come this far, but I am not the one who made it that way...

 

[damerell]

for you, living in UK and possible in a big city, yes its not a problem.

I could live in the Outer Hebrides and it wouldn't be a problem. (The "always on" thing mentioned later would, but Steam doesn't do that).

In western world, not so big a problem, but for others its a huge problem.

I think you grossly underestimate the availability of mobile data in the rest of the world (or at any rate those bits of it where people can afford computers to play videogames on).

 

[Antilogic]

Probably. But I would not necessarily call this hate. It's nothing personal, it's business. The companies offer something - and I (or we all) can make a free decision whether to buy or not based on the way of distribution, quality, content and copy protection. Sure enough Steam or online activation for me is a clear no-go.
Which actually brings me right back on topic: that's exactly one of the reasons why I still play Civ IV. Or why I rather buy a five year old Gold or Complete Edition of a properly finished and bugfixed game for a couple of bucks (e.g. just recently "discovered" Rome and Medieval 2 Total War) rather than paying full price to online-rent a game that is still in beta status and where I have no clue whether the developer really intends to ever finish it properly. It's a pity it has come this far, but I am not the one who made it that way...

Yeah blah blah blah perfectly rational consumer stuff.

It's another thing when a beloved franchise is passed from one developer to another and ends up in a place where it's produced in a form that you don't want to purchase, and there's no way for the franchise to be rescued by a developer who could make good on it because of modern IP laws.

 

[vincentz]

I think you grossly underestimate the availability of mobile data in the rest of the world (or at any rate those bits of it where people can afford computers to play videogames on).

I lived 5 years in Thailand, so I dont think I underestimate.
And Thailand is developed with internet compared to its neighbourgs.

While most new games can be played on rather old computers (I played Skyrim with a 8800GS on high/ultra settings) I wouldnt be able to update it when I lived there. Most "wealthy" people have a computer, but far from everyone have highspeed internet, which is pretty much required to patch games. iirc some games (incl civ5?) needed to be patched in order to run (??).

 

[AdamCrock]

I miss the old days (so called "ancient times") when You could just go to shop -> buy a game -> play a game. Nowdays is neverending patch and DLC download marathon becouse developers release their titles bugged and underdeveloped so that they could score more cash for patches and DLC's. For example I'ts like many have said before that Civ 5 was nothing without Gods and Kings .... well go figure why I'm boycotting Civ 5 Still playing Civ 4

PS. And that SimCity saves stored on EA servers is ridiculous idea indeed .... so next thing "they" gonna take away is the privilege to store your own save game data on Your own computer .... oh that's rich ... no comment

 

[damerell]

I lived 5 years in Thailand, so I dont think I underestimate.

Google estimate over 1/3 of the population of Thailand have regular internet access, and expect it to rise to 90% rapidly with 3G deployment, which of course will be the nail in the coffin of dialup.

The National Statistical Office estimates the proportion of the population who have a computer (not "a computer on which one can play modern videogames") at 28%.

This is a non-issue. Sure, there are people out there with 14.4k modems; there are people out there with machines you can play Skyrim on. But they're not the same people.

I miss the old days (so called "ancient times") when You could just go to shop -> buy a game -> play a game.

You're living in a fantasy world. In the old days, you simply never got the bugs fixed. UFO: Enemy Unknown, which you mention above, has several unfixed bugs - some of them game-destroying.

 

[AdamCrock]

You're living in a fantasy world. In the old days, you simply never got the bugs fixed. UFO: Enemy Unknown, which you mention above, has several unfixed bugs - some of them game-destroying.

I know those bugs well indeed but it's just one game. You may be right about less support in pre-steam times, but there are two sides to every coin. The good side about pre-steam times was that the dev's put more effort to make their end-products polished and ready to go (not requiring You to pay multiple times for the same game - by getting necessary expansions to make it playable), the bad side was like You've said less support, some bugs that never got fixed but those cases were not common. Nowdays it's the opposite situation You got Your support : patches and expansions are flowing like rivers but why the need to fix so many issues ? it's like I've said - products are released underdeveloped - in my reasoning it's either : developers are hard-pressed by deadlines or they want to beat the competition by releasing their games before them etc. it's all about the money really

 

[gps]

You're living in a fantasy world. In the old days, you simply never got the bugs fixed. UFO: Enemy Unknown, which you mention above, has several unfixed bugs - some of them game-destroying.

Sorry, to disagree, but I am playing video games since '82 or '83 or so. I've been there, I've seen it. And yes there were examples were bugs never got fixed properly - just like today. But also games were less complex in those days (which does not mean they were worse than today) and the companies knew it was difficult for them to correct bugs and if they screwed up their games they would not sell. So - unlike today - companies in those days actually took QA a bit more seriously and made some efforts to properly test their games and make sure they worked. Besides from the time CDs were used for distribution of games (which started in the early nineties or so) there were game magazines with CDs containing demos and - guess what - the newest patches and bug fixes. Before that for really bad bugs you could actually send paper mail to some of the companies and sometimes got back disks with bug fixes.
All this is hardly comparable to the situation today were each and every game is released as soon as it's halfway beyond alpha status - and it's always a lottery whether a game will ever be fixed properly or not.

 

[damerell]

So - unlike today - companies in those days actually took QA a bit more seriously and made some efforts to properly test their games and make sure they worked.

Do you mean like Jet Set Willy (1984) which as released was impossible to finish owing to bugs? Serious QA there.

(And, no, that's not "just one game". Superior's Beeb games always proclaimed "playtested to completion". Why? Because it was a selling point, relative to some other players in the market, that the game had actually had enough QA to make sure it could actually be completed.)

 

[gps]

Do you mean like Jet Set Willy (1984) which as released was impossible to finish owing to bugs? Serious QA there.

Yeah, I guess a lot of people noticed and complained about that bug...
And there were official Pokes announced to fix it.

http://mdfs.net/Software/JSW/Docs/faq/remakes.htm#bugs

 

[AdamCrock]

Here's something to cheer You guys up

 

[damerell]

And there were official Pokes announced to fix it.

I remember them from the time, not that I had a Spectrum. But... companies took QA seriously in the 80s? I don't think so. At least these days when you buy a videogame it's likely that someone has played it to completion.

 

[Mec AntiKythera]

Which actually brings me right back on topic: that's exactly one of the reasons why I still play Civ IV. Or why I rather buy a five year old Gold or Complete Edition of a properly finished and bugfixed game for a couple of bucks (e.g. just recently "discovered" Rome and Medieval 2 Total War) rather than paying full price to online-rent a game that is still in beta status and where I have no clue whether the developer really intends to ever finish it properly. It's a pity it has come this far, but I am not the one who made it that way...

My thoughts exactly. I'll leave that pre-ordering gamble to someone else.

 

[gps]

I remember them from the time, not that I had a Spectrum. But... companies took QA seriously in the 80s? I don't think so. At least these days when you buy a videogame it's likely that someone has played it to completion.

We are talking about a time where most games never ended. You had three or so lives and played until they were gone. Until that the games just got harder or faster or cycled. And you brought up JSW yourself - bad luck. That's one of the games I really played to death, translated and even had most of the game database decoded so I was short of starting to program a level editor. The game had exactly 4 (in words: four) bugs preventing you to finish the game - which was one of the biggest games of it's time (256 rooms). I can asure you the risk for JSW players to get struck by lightning was higher than to ever really finish this game without cheating, so those were rather theoretical issues.

http://www.worldofspectrum.org/infoseekid.cgi?id=0002589

"Additional info: This game has know errors" - you can click through hundreds of other titels on the page whithout that remark.

So if this is your best example to come up for how bad QA was in those days... Can you tell me any other game of the last ten years that had only four or less bugs? If you can I believe everything you said...

 

[Civinator]

Here's something to cheer You guys up

That´s a nice explanation!

 

[Jouzou]

Yeah, lots of people - myself included - still play Civ 4. Mainly because once you learn the game, it's almost impossible to stop playing.

 

[KinesongPayaso]

got civV
played for a bit, then went back to 4. Its just not the same. Not enough visible numbers in V to be crunched

 

[damerell]

Can you tell me any other game of the last ten years that had only four or less bugs?

Neat redefinition there. Can I tell you any game of the last ten years that didn't have four bugs which made the game impossible to finish? Yes; just about all of them, and certainly any game as notable now as JSW was then.

Like I said, it's no accident that Superior could boast as a selling point that they did enough QA to make sure games could actually be completed (and Superior's "Repton 2", for example, is every bit as hard for the player to finish as JSW would be if it wasn't buggy). If you think QA was better in the 80s, you're living in Adam Crock's fantasy world.