Jon Shafer Leaves Firaxis

[lemmy101]

Personally if I'd put my heart and soul into making a Civ game with brave changes and not just repackaging the same formula with a few tweaks, and then had a large chunk of the forum community say nasty things about not only the game, but about me personally. I think I'd quit. How soul destroying that must be.

The automatic assumption that he was sacked is pretty nasty, really. Civ 5 made money, the majority of the complaints have been about the game being unfinished, and the comments of the design are purely opinion that is very much divided and open to debate, as well as things that were said about Civ 4. Unless there's more to the story there's no reason whatsoever to assume he's been sacked, but there's every reason he'd feel the need to clarify that given what this place and 2k games forums have been like.

I wish him the best of luck and hope whatever he does next his audience are a little more level headed and reasonable.

 

[Ikael]

I have nothing against the guy, but bring back Sorensen, for the love of God.

Also, one can never know how much personally responsible he was for the game's shortcomings: things like the unfinished-nes of the title or the focus on simplification and "new audience" seems more to me like premises that Firaxis imposed on the guy.

Still, there was some horrible, horrible core game mechanics that should have never seen the light of day like the same tile yields for every single hex. The mere fact that the whole diplomatic system has have to be completely redone speaks volumes about the (low) level of game design.

 

[TrailblazingScot]

I have nothing against the guy, but bring back Sorensen, for the love of God.

Also, one can never know how much personally responsible he was for the game's shortcomings: things like the unfinished-nes of the title or the focus on simplification and "new audience" seems more to me like premises that Firaxis imposed on the guy.

Still, there was some horrible, horrible core game mechanics that should have never seen the light of day like the same tile yields for every single hex. The mere fact that the whole diplomatic system has have to be completely redone speaks volumes about the (low) level of game design.

Totally agree, though I'd prefer Brian Reynolds working with Soren Johnson. And that 1upt thing...too extreme a solution to the problem of stacks of doom that made it impossible for the AI to be anything other than hopeless at war.

If it is true, as posted earlier in the thread that he is only 24, from a below-average University, he actually did pretty well. The game was enjoyable for a few play-throughs, had some nice ideas and can be polished up to become half-decent. But given we had just feasted on Civ4/BTS, CiV, didn't feel like a step forward - the MP felt like going back in time to Civ3. How much that was due to unrealistic time constraints, Firaxis will never tell us and from past history, will never learn.

 

[generalwar]

That's so true.

You shouldn't give that much responsibility to somebody that green.

He's too young to be the leading moderator of 19-year old franchise.

 

[hennord]

Totally agree, though I'd prefer Brian Reynolds working with Soren Johnson. And that 1upt thing...too extreme a solution to the problem of stacks of doom that made it impossible for the AI to be anything other than hopeless at war.

Brian Reynolds working with Soren Johnson... What a dream team that would be
CIV2 og CIV4 being by favorite versions.

The stack of doom issue: I think a proper solution would be to introduce a penalty on stacks with more than about 6 units. From there on there should be an exponential decrease in effectiveness for each unit in the stack. This way a large stack would still be stronger than a smaller stack, but a lot of strenght would be lost due to ineffectiveness.

In effect you would go for smaller stacks.

 

[Moosezilla]

I can wait. Civ VI will come. Hopefully with a money back guarantee and complete in the box.

 

[CivFanaticMan]

I can wait. Civ VI will come. Hopefully with a money back guarantee and complete in the box.

hopefully they have a beta, too.

 

[sterben]

Can we really honestly say that Civ IV Vanilla was that great out of the box? I've gone back and played Vanilla and well, it sucks compared to what Civ4BTS became.

In fact, comparing Civ IV Vanilla to BTS is most likely a template of what is to come for Civ5. Take a look at the most recent patch -- while I concede that there are still balancing issues and even some "fun," funtionality, and interface/(lackof) information issues still there -- the latest patch has just begun to address what is needed.

We can sit and whine about how the game was released too soon, or how it's not like CivABCD, or we can make our will known.

I believe that in a couple of months, Civ5 will have ironed out its rough spots and we'll look back at Mr. Shafer and think: "Ohhhh! This is what he had in mind!"

I've always disliked this comparison.

I agree that CivIV Vanilla was worse than BTS; the game gradually got better and better until we had a really good game on our hands.

The problem is, instead of building upon everything they did to improve vanilla Civ4 into BtS, they (Firaxis, or Jon) threw out just about everything and seemingly started from scratch with Civ5.

An analogy would be trying to make the first wheel. You might start with a square, work your way to a triangle, and maybe end up with an octagon. Then, when you hand it off to your son, instead of building upon the octagon and finally ending up with a circle, he tosses it aside and starts anew with a rhomboid! Of course, I'm quite biased; my version of Civ5 would have been CivIV BTS with Civ5 graphics, hexagons, and 1UPT (with an AI to handle it). That would have been an awesome game, in my opinion.

I have hopes that Civ5 will indeed continue to improve, and there are fantastic aspects of it, but it was a still a disappointment coming off the tails of a great game. It will likely be a while until I trust Firaxis enough again to purchase one of their games on release. I give my best wishes to Mr. Shafer on his future endeavors, but I hope that his moving on will have some impact on the continued improvement with this game.

 

[Nitram15]

I agree with you sterben.

 

[mva5580]

Personally if I'd put my heart and soul into making a Civ game with brave changes and not just repackaging the same formula with a few tweaks, and then had a large chunk of the forum community say nasty things about not only the game, but about me personally. I think I'd quit. How soul destroying that must be.

The automatic assumption that he was sacked is pretty nasty, really. Civ 5 made money, the majority of the complaints have been about the game being unfinished, and the comments of the design are purely opinion that is very much divided and open to debate, as well as things that were said about Civ 4. Unless there's more to the story there's no reason whatsoever to assume he's been sacked, but there's every reason he'd feel the need to clarify that given what this place and 2k games forums have been like.

I wish him the best of luck and hope whatever he does next his audience are a little more level headed and reasonable.

Didn't you request to be banned a short while back, because you were fed up with this community? And yet, here you are.

Your opinion means nothing.

Moderator Action: do not attack other users - if you cannot discuss another users opinion instead of attacking them personally, please refrain from responding to them
Please read the forum rules: http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=422889

 

[HaloisOverrated]

I wish there was more information on Why he quit.

Hi guys- long time reader, first time poster. I have a friend who works for Firaxis and he told me that Shaefer left because he was offered a job out in San Francisco and there were no hard feelings about him leaving. I asked him if it was a political decision or a controversial announcement, he said nope- people like Shaefer get job offers all the time when games are successful.

Hope this helps!

; )

 

[Broken Hawk]

I wish there was more information on Why he quit.

Probably to hang out with Frogboy.

 

[Ikael]

Personally if I'd put my heart and soul into making a Civ game with brave changes and not just repackaging the same formula with a few tweaks, and then had a large chunk of the forum community say nasty things about not only the game, but about me personally. I think I'd quit. How soul destroying that must be.

Thing is, I do agree with many of the fundamental "general directives" of Civilization V: simplification doesn't necessary leads to swallowness, and as much as I loved Civilization IV, I am of the opinion that shaking the formula is necessary in this saga, for one of its charms is choosing which thing goes on or gets out in order to properly represent the human history (like this time, where CS were introduced yet religion got out). Thing is, in the end, the final design of key gameplay elements leaved too much to be desired.

 

[lemmy101]

Didn't you request to be banned a short while back, because you were fed up with this community? And yet, here you are.

Your opinion means nothing.

Moderator Action: do not attack other users - if you cannot discuss another users opinion instead of attacking them personally, please refrain from responding to them
Please read the forum rules: http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=422889

Yes I did, so that and I quote 'I wouldn't be tempted'. And I didn't get banned. And I got tempted. I'm sure you can guess the rest of the story.

 

[President]

Didn't you request to be banned a short while back, because you were fed up with this community? And yet, here you are.

Your opinion means nothing.

Moderator Action: do not attack other users - if you cannot discuss another users opinion instead of attacking them personally, please refrain from responding to them
Please read the forum rules: http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=422889

It's very typical of a weak man to disregard another's opinion by bringing up a Red Herring. You represent all the people who attack Jon Shafer and the developers quite well, because you fear people who have things to add to this community rather than detract from it like the viruses you are that must be eradicated.

Moderator Action:
the post you quoted already contained my advice. This post is absolutely and utterly unacceptable on this forum, if you cannot post in a civil(ized) manner, do not post.
Please read the forum rules: http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=422889

 

[RedRalph]

Probably got tired of all those whining "fans" on a certain forum.

Dont blame him...people are spoiled and ungrateful. I really like CiV and I hope they continue this style.

May be the problem is not Jon Shafer or Soren Johnson but Firaxis...
How much influence has a leaddesigner at Firaxis in reality? Can he - for example - say "let´s get rid of these ugly 3d-graphics that only use a lot of pc-power and offer nothing to the game but minor graphics with a small number of polygones" and this will be done?

 

[Dida]

I was never a fan of Jon since he got hired to lead Civ5. I mean, the kid is only 24 years old, fresh out of a below average university, and was given the job to LEAD a 20 year old franchise that was at its peak of development with Civ4-BTS??

Totally agree. This is a kid without much experience designing any game whatsoever. I don't see how he got hired to design a major title like Civ. Btw, Towson University does sound like a TTT and he was a history major.

 

[taylor_cu]

Can we really honestly say that Civ IV Vanilla was that great out of the box? I've gone back and played Vanilla and well, it sucks compared to what Civ4BTS became.

In fact, comparing Civ IV Vanilla to BTS is most likely a template of what is to come for Civ5. Take a look at the most recent patch -- while I concede that there are still balancing issues and even some "fun," funtionality, and interface/(lackof) information issues still there -- the latest patch has just begun to address what is needed.

We can sit and whine about how the game was released too soon, or how it's not like CivABCD, or we can make our will known.

I believe that in a couple of months, Civ5 will have ironed out its rough spots and we'll look back at Mr. Shafer and think: "Ohhhh! This is what he had in mind!"

child and ridiculously optimistic.


Moderator Action: If you cannot participate other than to attack people personally, please don't post.
Please read the forum rules: http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=422889

 

[Warlock]

Guys, look at Starcraft 2. This game was being developed for much much longer time. The community was whining and cursing Blizzard for postponing the relase date all the time. Before the launch, Starcraft was beta-tested by a huge number of fans for several months and when the game was relased it was a great success and only a few mostly balance-oriented patches have been realeased so far.

On the contrary, in case of Civ 5, the time between the public anouncement and the release date was unusally short and the game was not discussed much with the community. And if I am not mistaken, Jon did not communicate with the community after the release date at all. I dunno how long the game was really developed but obviously it was not enough. The same applies to insufficient and underestimated beta testing. And last but not least, methinks Civ 5 is a much more complex game that Starcraft 2...

Anyway, I was still surprised by a lukewarm acceptance of CIv 5 by the community caused by unfinished and oversimplified game. I do not want to say that CIv 5 is completely bad. There are still good things and ideas in the game. Especially the hex tiles, the new combat system and city states are features which deserve to be used and further developed in future Civ versions.

I hope that Civ 5 can still be a good successor of Civ 4 one day but it will definitely need a lot of time and effort from the development team which have to be reflected infuture expansions (needed changes are too big to be done in patches). I also hope that all the above mentioned ideas will no be negated in the future Civ versions.

 

[BCAgamer]

I wish good luck to Jon Shafer, and hope next time he won't get as in over his head.
But more seriously, I am disappointed with Civ 5. I agree with many of the comments here; It was released incomplete. However, I hope that Firaxis will rapidly release patches for Civ 5 and hopefully give it some general improvement. Perhaps by the time an expansion pack or two are released, the game will have fewer bugs and have a solid gameplay and interface. I personally think they focused a little too much on graphics. It may look nice, but if it doesn't play nice, you can't call it nice!