Jon Shafer joins Stardock to work on elemental

[Drakarska]

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!
__________________

I'm afraid I have to disagree with you on this, as I do not consider him a genious. Innovative ideas, certainly. Poorly implemented, definitely. IMO, I don't really consider him the new Sid ( to use your term), if anyone has a shot at that lofty title, it would be Kael. Additionaly ( again IMO), Jon works well in a team enviroment, not as a lead. Also, all the problems you mention fall under the Leads perview and as the Lead, he should have done something to address those issues.

I have, and it still is one of the most disappointing online experiances I have had the misfortune of playing. I also thoroughly enjoy the SP mode of all previous itterations of Civ until V. It just holds no real fun factor for me, and I have really tried hard to have fun with it.

Let's just say I will be wary of purchasing EWOM and GalCiv 3 after my disappointment of Civ V. Kael is the one big saving factor for those games, hopefully he can keep Jon reigned in to produce what has potentially a chance to be a couple of great games.

 

[Tridus]

You know that's not true, so why act like you're the only rational holdout around here? Do you think you're gaining credibility or respect by belittling everyone else?

And yes, I'm glad Jon's joining the Stardock team. That probably means he'll be moving into my neck of the woods sometime soon, seeing as how Stardock is located about 15 minutes away from me. Wonder if I'll see Jon out at the bar someday? I'd still love to have a beer with him sometime.

Anyone know if Elemental has a demo version? I might have to check this game out at some point.

Congrats, Jon! And welcome to Michigan - hope you brought your mittens!

Don't think the demo is out yet, and a demo of the pre 1.1 version would have been really bad as the game was at that point anyway. 1.1 is improved, and with Kael now in control it looks like things will continue to improve.

You have to admire Stardock's commitment to fixing it, though it doesn't make up for a poor initial release.

 

[Luckystrike77]

I'm afraid I have to disagree with you on this, as I do not consider him a genious. Innovative ideas, certainly. Poorly implemented, definitely. IMO, I don't really consider him the new Sid ( to use your term), if anyone has a shot at that lofty title, it would be Kael. Additionaly ( again IMO), Jon works well in a team enviroment, not as a lead. Also, all the problems you mention fall under the Leads perview and as the Lead, he should have done something to address those issues.

I have, and it still is one of the most disappointing online experiances I have had the misfortune of playing. I also thoroughly enjoy the SP mode of all previous itterations of Civ until V. It just holds no real fun factor for me, and I have really tried hard to have fun with it.

Let's just say I will be wary of purchasing EWOM and GalCiv 3 after my disappointment of Civ V. Kael is the one big saving factor for those games, hopefully he can keep Jon reigned in to produce what has potentially a chance to be a couple of great games.

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

If the budget wasnt good enough, or they where pressed on time by the publisher, I really understand that multiplayer came second to make the core game as good as possible. Multiplayer could be fixed later. I can't imagine Shafer wanted mp to be so unstable, or the multiplayer lobby so lacking compared to Civ4. MP games are great in Civ 5 when not people drop all the time because of bugs or whatever is causing it. Unfortunatly you have to be very patient, playing lots of games before you can have that great experience of a whole game working from times to times. I'm glad I'm a patient guy.

 

[Aristos]

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

Nonsense.

Who do you think you are fooling?

 

[Drakarska]

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

If the budget wasnt good enough, or they where pressed on time by the publisher, I really understand that multiplayer came second to make the core game as good as possible. Multiplayer could be fixed later. I can't imagine Shafer wanted mp to be so unstable, or the multiplayer lobby so lacking compared to Civ4. MP games are great in Civ 5 when not people drop all the time because of bugs or whatever it is causing it. Unfortunatly you have to be very patient, playing lots of game before you can have that great experience of a whole game working from times to times.

Saved Civ IV? Maybe I am misinterpreting your context, as I do not consider him saving anything. He was part of a team on BTS, not the Lead. But I do agree with you that BTS definitely put a shine on Civ IV.

We could go around in circles on the MP aspect of V. The point being that it is pathetic and I shouldn't have to wait for "the optimum" right conditions in order to play.

 

[LegioCorvus]

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

Yesss... What you're saying is completely logical...

Saved Civ4. Because the vanilla game was completely unplayable for 2 years.

If you excuse me, I'm going to bow out of this thread. The crazy seems to have seeped in.

 

[Biz_]

warlords/bts ruined civ4 from a balance standpoint

it added some 'features' that were nice, but the core strategy for human v human matches was much worse

 

[ainwood]

Moderator Action: Keep it civil, please.

 

[joyous_gard]

His new job sounds like something I would give an intern: "Test this out. Tell me what you like, what you don't."

His new interview still has that kid in a candy store feel "I am a huge fan of strategy games, so I get to work on them."

I didn't appreciate his forum post because Civ 5 is is a streamlined dog. I guess his argument is that he didn't want it that way but head designers don't have much say in how the game plays.

I'm still glad he's off Civ. Do you think he would play Civ V? Would he buy Civ V if he didn't know about the game? I doubt it.

His forum post reminded me a lot of these mockups which came out shortly after the release of his game as head designer for Civ 5.

 

[Drakarska]

warlords/bts ruined civ4 from a balance standpoint

it added some 'features' that were nice, but the core strategy for human v human matches was much worse

I'm not sure I understand your complaint here. Are you referring to strats used in IV vs BTS? If so, one would have to change strats in order to accomodate the additional content from BTS.

 

[Padje Dog]

BTS did some things, things that were unknown to either myself or others.

Civ V transformed two things into one thing. That one thing now looks to be expanded upon in multiple ways.

I think the future is bright.

 

[bryanw1995]

Very bad analogy.
Not only is Football a sports in which it is the team which makes the difference, it is a sport at all. In sports, you have to deal with your opponent and the moment.

In game designing, you have literally years of time and no opponent blocking your progress.
Apparently, Mr. Shafer didn't realize almost any of the problems due to his core decision of going with a (failed) attempt to mimic Panzer General.
Exactly these problems were discussed even before release here in this very forum. (And, btw, the advertised "fronts in the countryside" are still not there - fighting is still about cities)

Mr. Shafer may be a good coder, but given the current evidence, he's not a designer.
At least not for a Civilization type game. Just because he obviously doesn't understand this kind of games.
But these are the games I am interested in. So the conclusion still is obvious: I won't buy a game in which Mr. Shafer has played a significant role in designing. Just because I don't trust him anymore.

Ignorant (to make use of your words) is not to look at the evidence which assumedly rest on your harddisk.


The design of the combat system has obvious influence on how cities work.
Going for the falsely so-called "1upt" required low production, by that only a handful of buildings, by that limiting the choices for builder-type gamers.
It had obviously consequences regarding the way the cultural expansion works, which avoids production related hexes as long as ever possible.
It had obviously consequences regarding the way in which tile improvements work.
And so on, and so on.

You're kidding, aren't you?
In the first poll, 64% of voters actually have voted for NOT-1upt.
In the second poll, which was started early after release (guess why?) and which was resurrected a fortnight ago, we see that there is quite a shift in the voting.
When the poll was bumped, it had around 800 voters with 80% voting for 1upt. Now we have around 1000 voters and 76% are in favour of 1upt.
Which means that the 200 additional voters after Dec. 21st were in favour "only" by 60:40.
But, if you read what people have written, you will see that quite some of the "yes" voters actually are advocating something which clearly is not "1upt". There are all kinds of suggestions for stacking: stacking of workers, stacking of ranged and melee type units, limited stackind and whatnotever.

So, having had a short look at your "evidence", it doesn't look so strong anymore.

and if you look at the 37 votes between dec 25 at 5 am and dec 27 at 3:33 pm you'll see that 87.118 % chose 1upt. see how I did that?

I suspect that many civ5 fans have either departed these forums completely or headed over to other sections. general discussions looks to generally be a ***ch fest these days, turning many people off. if anything, a 60-40 split recently highlights even more how popular it is b/c most of the voters are generally anti-civ5.

 

[Luckystrike77]

and if you look at the 37 votes between dec 25 at 5 am and dec 27 at 3:33 pm you'll see that 87.118 % chose 1upt. see how I did that?

I suspect that many civ5 fans have either departed these forums completely or headed over to other sections. general discussions looks to generally be a ***ch fest these days, turning many people off. if anything, a 60-40 split recently highlights even more how popular it is b/c most of the voters are generally anti-civ5.

Yeah! If you take me for example. I like Civ 5 alot, have been a civfanatic for years. 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. It seems like people really got dissapointed of different and also valid reasons with Civ 5. Some because of Steam dependency, some because of bugs, multiplayer frustrations and bad AI. Many of those havent played the game so much because of these things, and some again are making up alot of other issues with Civ5 which really isnt issues at all, but good gameplay decissions. All this beecause of some, I agree, bad things. But come on, they havent given the game a fair chance yet. I'm not saying this is true for all the critical voices, but it's my overall impression

 

[SuperJay]

Do you think he would play Civ V? Would he buy Civ V if he didn't know about the game? I doubt it.

I was wondering that as well. Now that he doesn't work for Firaxis, I wonder if Jon will play Civ 5 for fun? It'd be hilarious (and more than a little invasive) if we knew his Steam ID and could look up his stats and amount of playtime. I'm guessing that he probably wouldn't play it much, but more because it was his job moreso than he thinks it's a bad game.

 

[Eskel]

Yeah! If you take me for example. I like Civ 5 alot, have been a civfanatic for years. 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. It seems like people really got dissapointed of different and also valid reasons with Civ 5. Some because of Steam dependency, some because of bugs, multiplayer frustrations and bad AI. Many of those havent played the game so much because of these things, and some again are making up alot of other issues with Civ5 which really isnt issues at all, but good gameplay decissions. All this beecause of some, I agree, bad things. But come on, they havent given the game a fair chance yet. I'm not saying this is true for all the critical voices, but it's my overall impression

For God's sake, what do you have on mind saying that civ 5 critics didnt gave game a chance????
Personally, I played over 120h of Civ 5, untill finally came to the point in which I stated it is a wasted time, as I haven't received from this game that amount of satisfaction I anticipated. I even played again Civ 2, Civ 3 and Civ 4 to check whether my feelings toward this game have solid basis. So please explain, what do you expect?!!! How can I give this game "more chance" than I already invested - wasted 120h of gameplay and about 50$ paid for this "entertainment"?

I hope all my opinions are quite well backed up with facts. So please just restrain yourself from calling me "hater" and my critic "bashing", and just accept that other point of view exists. Thank you in advance.

 

[JLoZeppeli]

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

If the budget wasnt good enough, or they where pressed on time by the publisher, I really understand that multiplayer came second to make the core game as good as possible. Multiplayer could be fixed later. I can't imagine Shafer wanted mp to be so unstable, or the multiplayer lobby so lacking compared to Civ4. MP games are great in Civ 5 when not people drop all the time because of bugs or whatever is causing it. Unfortunatly you have to be very patient, playing lots of games before you can have that great experience of a whole game working from times to times. I'm glad I'm a patient guy.

WTH?? Shafer is responsable for half of BTS, and one of the worst features was from his genius: EXPIONAGE! (And i bet Corporations too)...


That's an absolute truth: Civ V appeal Civ 3 fans for sure, but it was the first failure of the franchise, so i'm a bit worried that Civ 3 fans like so much Civ V....

 

[SuperJay]

I hope all my opinions are quite well backed up with facts. So please just restrain yourself from calling me "hater" and my critic "bashing", and just accept that other point of view exists. Thank you in advance.

Don't bother, man. This is just one of those situations where people need to discredit others to try and preserve the sanctity of their own opinions. It's not even worth wasting your time and energy over. Those posts used to drive me crazy, but now I just ignore that kind of thing. Whenever you run into "you need to give it a chance" or "think about it differently" or "you just wanted Civ 4.5" or "it's a new direction in the series," or tell you that you're "bashing" and that your opinion "needs to be countered with reason" (ROFL) you're running into someone who just doesn't have any better arguments or reasoning to back up their conviction that Civ 5 is a great game. Rather than letting that get under your skin, just ignore them and move on to the more worthwhile discussions.

 

[Celevin]

WTH?? Shafer is responsable for half of BTS, and one of the worst features was from his genius: EXPIONAGE! (And i bet Corporations too)...


That's an absolute truth: Civ V appeal Civ 3 fans for sure, but it was the first failure of the franchise, so i'm a bit worried that Civ 3 fans like so much Civ V....

I thought he was also doing a lot of AI coding, which was a big praise for BtS?

 

[JLoZeppeli]

BTS AI is good as Civ V, so not so good, the difference is made by the game rules; 1UPT is much more difficult to handle than stack, cause it works better on scenarios and limited troops, with scripted moves.... That's how hex games handle the problem.

So the quality in the AI code is the same, but the things requested to the Ai to do are more complex....

 

[Celevin]

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.