Jon Shafer joins Stardock to work on elemental

[Venereus]

Nono, I meant that Shafer did a lot of AI coding for BtS. The AI improvement in BtS was one of the biggest praises for the expansion.

You're right in that making good AI is harder in a 1upt game over a stacks game.

Wasn't that the Better AI they got from a modder?

 

[Quintillus]

Kind of disappointing that this doesn't appear to have done much to quell the trolls. But glad to see that he did leave for greener pastures rather than being forced out, and hoping that long-term we'll see that this works out well both for him and Stardock. Especially if 2K Games forcing out Civ5 early did have a significant impact on Civ5 being flawed, I can see this being a good all around, except for Firaxis. But if Firaxis is already being bossed around by 2K Games, they might not be able to do much to improve either way.

That one is funny.



So, where is the info?



This one I love.

That article sure did have a lot of errors. Looks like Big Download could benefit from hiring an editor.

That's an absolute truth: Civ V appeal Civ 3 fans for sure... <snip to avoid flamewar>

Not so fast. I'm a Civ3 fan and I've yet to buy Civ5 nor do I intend to anytime soon. There's a lot of Civ3 fans who are sticking with Civ3; I haven't noticed a dropoff in Civ3 forum activity here.

 

[Fistalis]

Nono, I meant that Shafer did a lot of AI coding for BtS. The AI improvement in BtS was one of the biggest praises for the expansion.

You're right in that making good AI is harder in a 1upt game over a stacks game.

Wasn't that the Better AI they got from a modder?

Ya i'm not sure where Celevin got his info from but I don't believe its factual. According to Alexman, jon's espionage ect had to be cleaned up by the rest of the programmers before it was fully implemented into BTS because jon wasn't very astute at programming at the time.

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showpost.php?p=9958636&postcount=19

 

[Ayt]

The gaming industry is serious business, I play my games with my elitist face on and I must be satisfied by products of vintage gaming quality. Serious business I say! None of this jesting is acceptable indeed! *monocle pops out*.

*nods head and strokes evil lap dog in agreement*

 

[Isikien]

Interesting

Man was pretty shrewd for holding out at Firaxis for so long. Looks like he had this one planned.

 

[DarkSchneider]

It's sad that so many promising empire building games have turned out to be debacles recently. I am worried that the less polish Civ/Elemental get, the more likely people are just to play first person shooters. Personally, I hate the genre, but big first/third person shooters have an undeniable amount of production value behind them. On the other side of things, high-level strategy games have gotten to the point where I could personally design better games than what is coming out. How did this happen?

But the most mystifying part of the Civ V debacle is how much they could have easily ported over from Civ IV. Even if it was impossible to port code efficiently, the concepts behind Religion, Civics, etc were already complete. Why cut them out?

 

[Greybriar]

Yes. What did he do in them, Greybriar?

I have no idea what Jon did to be credited with those games. I wasn't even aware he was credited with all of them until I read about it at MobyGames.

 

[The Turk]

TRAITOR!!!!!

 

[lschnarch]

Poll #1
80.159% "actually voted" for limitations on tiles.
62.33% "actually voted" for NOT-1UPT.

You cannot argue this poll either way. If you're argument holds true that the amount of units on one tile is a fundamental error in the gameplay of CiV, then how different would it be had they just proposed a limit of 8-10 units on one tile.

Seems that you actually support my assumption that most people voting for "1upt" are actually against the SoD as you point out that most people voted for limitations.

And there is an obvious difference between 1upt and xupt.
Like the SoD, 1upt is an extreme solution.

In many cases, extreme solutions are not best solutions, even not good solutions, either.

This poll is a moot argument.

Yet, it was brought up by you. So, where's your point?

Poll #2

790 people voted yes, period. 76% would win a presidental re-election.
If you want a recount, go recount it.

Come back to me in a month with all their "true answers" catergorized into meaningful statistics. Until then, you cannot call this evidence. It's called confirmation bias.

I don't have to.

It was you who linked a poll indicating that the support for 1upt meanwhile is no longer as strong as you think it might be.

Finally, I would suggest that we conduct a new poll on whether people like 1UPT or SOD. If I win, then my argument is validated. I believed and still believe that the majority of players like 1UPT.

As having said above already, you seem to support my point.
People voting for 1upt are actually voting against the SoD.

Well, Shafer saved Civ 4 with his work on the BtS expansion. That expansion made Civ4 shine.

Now I seldomly comment here anymore. Today I have alot, because all this Civ5 bashing need to be countered with reason from time to time.

No further questions. Your witness.

 

[AriochIV]

Stardock is a joke. Shafer is a joke. Sounds like a match made in heaven.

 

[rkade8583]

I vote against the SoD and anything that kills it, from making units expensive to flat out 1upt, is cool with me.

 

[Me,myself,and,I]

Stardock is a joke. Shafer is a joke. Sounds like a match made in heaven.

Stardock? A humbug uncle?!?
But in all seriousness what makes you say Stardock is a joke?

 

[bryanw1995]

I think Shafer was a genious in most of the design decissions in Civ V, must say I love the guy. To me he is the new Sid. Bugs, too hurried beta testing for some balancing issues, poor AI and terrible multiplayer stability is the issues with Civ 5, not the brilliant new ideas of gameplay.

PS to the poster: Get back to Civ 5 now after the newest patch and play multiplayer. Single player is no fun in Civ4 either....

Great news. Stardock will have a superteam now. I have great respect for the Frog, Shafer and Kael as game makers/designers of turn based strategy. This is world class league. Oh holy cow, these three guys developing Galactic Civilizations 3 together would be dynamite!
__________________

yeah, stardock is really making waves right now.

I don't think shafer will work on galciv3, however. they're planning to put him on an "unannounced" new game after his elemental work is done.

 

[bryanw1995]

I'm finding it fascinating how much the upper bodies are talking on the Stardock forums. For Civ5, we have to go through HR. I like 2kGreg a lot, but sometimes you want to hear stuff right from the designer's mouth. What would the opinion of Shafer be if he constantly talked with fans on the official forum, or this one? Would we chase him away or look at him in a better light? Why didn't he, was it his decision or did corporate tell him not to?

nobody from the civ team posts on here (that we know of), just some community members who are also alpha/beta testers. either they're confined to the official site or they were told not to post as themselves here I would assume. clearly stardock's official forums are better than 2k's.

speaking of 2k, anybody want to give odds on how much longer they stay around? I think that by 2014 they're bankrupt or part of another company.

 

[bryanw1995]

Really, I think the three of them each cover their weaknesses quite well.

Brad's a great AI coder, but gets stubborn sometimes, and sometimes his ideas lack a little.

Kael brings the soul in spades and is a good team manager , but isn't good with AI

Jon is good at filling in the other stuff, and has talent with modding.

I have high, high hopes for GalCiv 3- it will use the Elemental Engine, by the point they begin work SD should have the rest of the kinks out, and Space 4X games are easier to design well then fantasy TBS games.



This is another aspect of how 2k is ruining/ruined Firaxis in my eyes. Big studios can ruin good developers with the pressures of making money in the short-term over the long-term. SD, like Valve is easier to take a long-term approach due to Brad's self-funding.

hmmm, I wonder if jon has some ideas from his final frontier mod that might get into galciv3? I wouldn't mind that at all, FF was by far my favorite civ4 game. for the last year or so I played civ4 probably 75% of my games were FF.

 

[bryanw1995]

Yeah, it could definitely be one or the other. I like the ambiguity, actually. Either way, I think it's pretty hilarious coming from Jon - it shows he can have a sense of humor about either the end result of Civ 5 or the way he's been villified for his role in it, both of which are probably necessary for his own sanity.

I agree. I think that a post like that (and our response to it) shows that 2k could have helped their cause a lot by just letting the designers interact with us a bit. It's very easy to vilify somebody you don't know, but when you see it's somebody whom you've talked with (and is a likeable guy to boot) you're more likely to say "jon, why don't you try making the ai not suicide 50 units into my catapult barrage" instead of "jon shafer has ruined the civ franchise forever b/c his ai sucks!!!!". food for thought 2k greg or elizabeth if you're reading this.

 

[bryanw1995]

No, you don't have to. You choose to. And then apparently you choose to blame other people for your own decisions.

I'm not sure how that was related to my point about your lack of direct experience with Elemental versus Ricardo actually playing and enjoying the game, either, but it's not important.

As others have pointed out, I think Jon will do well at Stardock because his role is more specialized. But then, I'm one of that rare breed who dislikes Civ 5 in its current state but doesn't want to burn Jon at the stake.

great, I choose to, but unless I block him I'll see his posts when I read the forums. not sure why you're defending him, however, maybe you should let him talk for himself?

 

[FatCatAttack]

1upt and getting rid of the hideous stack of doom still remains the best decision of all time. Like someone else already mentioned the caustic nature of this forum is what keeps people from posting and gives off a false consensus. That's why Civ V design decisions constantly win anonymous polls even though reading all the Jon Shafer hate fanfiction has another impression.

 

[Venereus]

1upt and getting rid of the hideous stack of doom still remains the best decision of all time. Like someone else already mentioned the caustic nature of this forum is what keeps people from posting and gives off a false consensus. That's why Civ V design decisions constantly win anonymous polls even though reading all the Jon Shafer hate fanfiction has another impression.

There are reasons forum polls are not to be trusted. One of them, the fact that they misrepresent people's opinions and beliefs with their arbitrary options. In this case, if people just say they like 1UPT, there are things to consider. Do they simply think it's good as it is implemented in Civ V? (It's not). Do they think it's problems are just because of bad AI and hope for the programming to eventually be able to properly deal with it? (It won't). Are they even aware of the theory that places 1UPT as the root of all evil in Civ V? (Probably not). Talk about "false consensus"...

Food for thought.

 

[Thormodr]

Stardock is a joke. Shafer is a joke. Sounds like a match made in heaven.

Yeah...

Because Firaxis and 2K games are so credible these days...

At least Stardock owned up to their debacle of a game release...

They offered refunds to any people that were dissatisfied with Elemental's disastrous launch. They also promised 2 free expansions to any people that stuck with them.

They then have proceeded to hire excellent talent to fix the game. Kael, Stern and Shafer being the most notables. They put their money where their mouth's were.

Everyone makes mistakes as we're all human. What you do to correct the mistakes is what's really important.

Stardock is doing all the right things. Firaxis, not so much.

As far as communication goes as well, it isn't even close.

Stardock certainly isn't perfect but they seem to be getting their act together unlike Firaxis.