Jon Shafer on Civ5- mistakes made, lessons learned

[joncnunn]

I'm going to split the difference between these on the SP vs MP:

When first released, SP is much more important than MP. People will try SP first and if they don't like it they won't even try MP.

However, a game with a thriving MP community has a lot more staying power. Eventually in SP you'll have figured out the best thing to do in every situation against the AI. Humans will continue to come up with new things.

 

[ellgieff]

I'm going to split the difference between these on the SP vs MP:

When first released, SP is much more important than MP. People will try SP first and if they don't like it they won't even try MP.

However, a game with a thriving MP community has a lot more staying power. Eventually in SP you'll have figured out the best thing to do in every situation against the AI. Humans will continue to come up with new things.

But does that staying power have any financial benefit for the developer/publisher? Unless they're selling subscriptions, long-term multiplayer interest becomes a drain on the company, particularly from a support (and/or infrastructure) perspective.

I get that a designer would love to have their game playing by millions for a very long time, but that doesn't pay the bills.

disclosure: I got over online multiplayer back in the days of bbs door-games. Nothing I've seen since has convinced me that online multiplayer has changed significantly.

 

[joncnunn]

Firaxis doesn't pay for the servers in which people play old Civ IV games; so there's no ongoing cost to them to current ongoing Civ IV multiplayer games. Civ V isn't on their servers either and that authorization check on game start is also against Steam and not a Firaxis server as well so whenever they'vd decided they've made the last patch they'll be no further expenses associated with it.
(This isn't a facebook app or a massive multiplayer game where all games are hosted on their own servers.)

 

[gunslinger6792]

Reading that kind of hurt to be honest. I used to love civ5 until I decided to play civ4. After playing civ4 I can see why people say its a superior game. Civilization is a thinking persons game and civ5 got stripped of a lot of the components that make civilization what it is. I get that he was trying new things which is good but I also think he let his personal likes and dislikes rule his decisions. I don't think he realized that civilization has a strong following with very strong ideas of what makes the game. It was like he sat there and thought ohhh this is nice and then didn't anticipate what the problems could be. I find it most ironic that he's making a game with components very similar to older civilization games instead of Civ5. I just pray that whenever the devs get around to making a civ6 they pay attention to what worked and what didn't.

 

[s1ngl3play3r]

His greatest crime imo is that he turned Civilization into a board game, where ai "backstabs" you when you are "winning" because ai also wants to "win" which eliminates the concept of immersion and ruined the game for me. This was intentional and this was his idea if I remember correctly.

 

[Polisurgist]

His greatest crime imo is that he turned Civilization into a board game, where ai "backstabs" you when you are "winning" because ai also wants to "win" which eliminates the concept of immersion and ruined the game for me. This was intentional and this was his idea if I remember correctly.

Right, I mean, what's an opponent for, if not to help you win the game?

 

[Irkalla]

That is only one opinion, stated as an extreme. Here is another.

Single Player is the philosphical, historical, and financial lifeblood of any game like this. It is what attracts players. It is what sells copies.

Multiplayer is an option ignored by the vast majority of Civ players and all it does is add bloat to game and un-necessary me-vs-you arrogance to the forums. I have not heard one single MP based addition that ever did one single thing to improve my Single Player experience. Without keeping Single Players happy there wouldn't be a community as a whole in the first place.

But I tell you what, if you back down from your seeming insistence that multiplayer is the only real deal, I will back down from my insistence that you waste the developer's time on things that will never affect the vast majority of players in our community.

I've given you no reason to make any reasonable individual so belligerent as you, so back the hell off. I never insisted that multiplayer is the only "real deal." But nice strawman you've got there.

Fact is, I get tired of playing against braindead AI's that have no concept of the rules of the game. I want real challenge, real strategy, real intrigue, real backstabbing, real pride in victory and real pain in loss. Not this artificial difficulty crap that Firaxis tried to give us.

For young children and those that might be under the influence or otherwise not having the capacity to plan and execute things at a high level, the Civ 5 AI is a perfect fit. But for people like me that enjoy real things and competitive environments, the Civ 5 AI is absolute bollocks, and it will never measure up to a real player. You have no right to want to deny us that.

We've played with the braindead AI enough. We've played through every civ many times. We've seen all sorts of strange maps. The attraction to this game lessens for us every day. It's time for a proper multiplayer to keep this game alive.

 

[leif erikson]

Moderator Action: There is much passion about this issue. Please keep the discussion civil, do not get personal and be respectful or the thread will be closed.
Please read the forum rules: http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=422889

 

[eris]

I've given you no reason to make any reasonable individual so belligerent as you, so back the hell off. I never insisted that multiplayer is the only "real deal." But nice strawman you've got there.

Fact is, I get tired of playing against braindead AI's that have no concept of the rules of the game. I want real challenge, real strategy, real intrigue, real backstabbing, real pride in victory and real pain in loss. Not this artificial difficulty crap that Firaxis tried to give us.

For young children and those that might be under the influence or otherwise not having the capacity to plan and execute things at a high level, the Civ 5 AI is a perfect fit. But for people like me that enjoy real things and competitive environments, the Civ 5 AI is absolute bollocks, and it will never measure up to a real player. You have no right to want to deny us that.

We've played with the braindead AI enough. We've played through every civ many times. We've seen all sorts of strange maps. The attraction to this game lessens for us every day. It's time for a proper multiplayer to keep this game alive.

You were doing well until you got to "For young children" etc.

Of course you want to play the way you want to play. Of course the AI is nothing like playing against people. I understand that you have explored the game to its limits. I do not deny any of that. However...

"It's time for a proper multiplayer to keep this game alive." seems blind to the fact that the game is not dead for many people, only to you and others with similar play values. You still seem to paint the issue as if only one portion of the user group mattered. Yours.

We both matter. I won't go into which portion of the user group is larger, which will provide the most return on investment over time. That is a business decision neither of us get to make. But I will insist here in the forums on mattering as much as you do.

Please enjoy the way you play without belittling or ignoring the way other people play and enjoy. As illustrated, extreme statements on either side just make things worse between Civfanatics and hide any points being made. What a bad idea, worse than any mistake ever made by the devs. Worse even than my clumsy, inefficient, but thoroughly enjoyable game play.

 

[Irkalla]

You were doing well until you got to "For young children" etc.

Of course you want to play the way you want to play. Of course the AI is nothing like playing against people. I understand that you have explored the game to its limits. I do not deny any of that. However...

"It's time for a proper multiplayer to keep this game alive." seems blind to the fact that the game is not dead for many people, only to you and others with similar play values. You still seem to paint the issue as if only one portion of the user group mattered. Yours.

We both matter. I won't go into which portion of the user group is larger, which will provide the most return on investment over time. That is a business decision neither of us get to make. But I will insist here in the forums on mattering as much as you do.

Please enjoy the way you play without belittling or ignoring the way other people play and enjoy. As illustrated, extreme statements on either side just make things worse between Civfanatics and hide any points being made. What a bad idea, worse than any mistake ever made by the devs. Worse even than my clumsy, inefficient, but thoroughly enjoyable game play.

It will soon grow old for you, too.

Perhaps I wouldn't have jumped on the defensive if you hadn't have led your cavalry charge with the "oh no multiplayer will somehow totally ruin the single player experience!!~" thing.

We both deserve enjoyment out of the game. I still fail to see how having multiplayer, like any decent game, ruins your singleplayer experience.

Perhaps it takes away from making singleplayer better? Fact is, singleplayer crowd has already gotten the moon and stars. It's time for us to get something, too.

 

[gunslinger6792]

It will soon grow old for you, too.

Perhaps I wouldn't have jumped on the defensive if you hadn't have led your cavalry charge with the "oh no multiplayer will somehow totally ruin the single player experience!!~" thing.

We both deserve enjoyment out of the game. I still fail to see how having multiplayer, like any decent game, ruins your singleplayer experience.

Perhaps it takes away from making singleplayer better? Fact is, singleplayer crowd has already gotten the moon and stars. It's time for us to get something, too.

This isn't true for civ5 but with other games that have multiplayer the multiplayer becomes the most important factor. This can begin to ruin games case in point a lot of your action/shooter games have gone away from having good singleplayer campains to solely focusing on multiplayer. without rambling any longer on my end I think he's afraid as am I that if the devs focous on multiplayer the single player will suffer greatly.

 

[Camikaze]

Sure is funny how everything changed when Ed came in the door, though.

Useful to remember that the Vanilla design team consisted of Ed Beach, Scott Lewis and Jon Shafer. The G&K design team consisted of Ed Beach, Scott Lewis and Anton Strenger.

 

[kaltorak]

I have been complaining about this since release. As of today, it's my only remaining complain about civ5

 

[Irkalla]

Useful to remember that the Vanilla design team consisted of Ed Beach, Scott Lewis and Jon Shafer. The G&K design team consisted of Ed Beach, Scott Lewis and Anton Strenger.

So I was wrong on this, eh?

Funny, when Ed hopped in the saddle, it was made out like he was new. Perhaps this was to satisfy our need for blood?

Or is Mr. Strenger the secret ingredient?

 

[Camikaze]

It would seem logical to conclude that there were factors other than the personalities involved at play that impacted on the quality of output.

 

[Irkalla]

It would seem logical to conclude that there were factors other than the personalities involved at play that impacted on the quality of output.

Nah, it was obviously Mr. Strenger.