"More patches are on their way"

[lockstep]

2K Greg confirmed at least that much in the 2K Civ5 forum:

"Jon's departure from Firaxis has not impacted our plans to continue to support and improve Civilization V as we have been since release. More patches are definitely on their way!"

 

[zulu9812]

Good. I was worried that Mr. Shafer's departure meant that 2K were done with ciV.

 

[lietkynes]

2K Greg confirmed at least that much in the 2K Civ5 forum:

"Jon's departure from Firaxis has not impacted our plans to continue to support and improve Civilization V as we have been since release. More patches are definitely on their way!"

I don't really think we needed confirmation about that, of course more patches are coming.

 

[Ahriman]

For all that Civ5 is getting slammed on these forums, it has had huge sales figures and critical acclaim. Most buyers aren't as hardcore as we are.
Its an immensely profitable product line that they're going to try to get extra profit from with DLC and expansions.
Why wouldn't they continue to support it? Cash cow. The main development costs were upfront, the marginal costs are pretty low compared to the upside of continued sales.

 

[Toucanator]

Godspeed on new patches, this game needs it.

 

[Duuk]

For all that Civ5 is getting slammed on these forums, it has had huge sales figures and critical acclaim. Most buyers aren't as hardcore as we are.
Its an immensely profitable product line that they're going to try to get extra profit from with DLC and expansions.
Why wouldn't they continue to support it? Cash cow. The main development costs were upfront, the marginal costs are pretty low compared to the upside of continued sales.

Um. No it doesn't.

Civ5's initial reviews on "major game sites" were ok-to-good. But then again, ANY major release by ANY studio gets ok-to-good on the pro game sites. Proof: Check the reviews of "Elemental: War of Magic". The game is quite possibly the most broken game of the last 20 years, and the average "game reviewer" score is 3 1/2 out of 5.

Civ5 sold 1 million units initially, but poor word of mouth on the game is killing the longer term sales outlook. Over its complete run, Civ4 sold over 4 million units (not counting expansions). To see what that means, go to your local Best Buy or other "game retailer". Check how many copies they have displayed of Civ5. Check how many they have of Civ4 Complete. Notice how those are similar. 90+% of all game purchases are actually the "quiet" kind. The people that buy the game at a store and never, ever login to the forums to vent. Most of Civ5's initial sales went to the fans of the series who either pre-ordered or made a special trip to the store to pick the game up release weekend. I'd *kill* to see the number of sales that have been achieved at the +30 and +60 day window mark. Essentially, Civ5 is like a failed Hollywood summer blockbuster. Good opening weekend, but absolutely no staying power.

DLC *is* bought mostly by the casual gamer, and not "We the Hardcore". But check out the ladder board from the "Civ5 Stats" own webpage. The game is simply not being played, which means that DLC won't be purchased. Example: If they released a downloadable expansion for Civ4 with some nifty stuff for $5 or $10, I'd wager heavily it would outsell the next Civ5 DLC. People still play Civ4 years after release. Civ5 is a ghost forum except for people analyzing the death and catastrophe that is Civ5. With the exception of Dale, who seems to be defending his own part in the Civ5 process, nobody of note seems to be defending Civ5 with anything except, "Well it has potential, if they fix it."

Cash cows only give milk if they can be milked. Civ5 seems to be bleeding fans. How many of the 1,000,000 units sold are still playing the game 90 days later? Half? Likely less, since many players purchase a game, play it to "beat the game", then move on to other stuff. And even hardcore Civ players that get excited about "one more turn" have put the game on the shelf and hope for Civ6.

 

[Crispin]

God I hope you are right. It may ruin a civ6, but they just don't deserve another penny for that mess they call civ5. Its really odd how cowardly gaming review sites are against certain companies\games.

 

[Celevin]

Um. No it doesn't.

Civ5's initial reviews on "major game sites" were ok-to-good. But then again, ANY major release by ANY studio gets ok-to-good on the pro game sites. Proof: Check the reviews of "Elemental: War of Magic". The game is quite possibly the most broken game of the last 20 years, and the average "game reviewer" score is 3 1/2 out of 5.

Civ5 sold 1 million units initially, but poor word of mouth on the game is killing the longer term sales outlook. Over its complete run, Civ4 sold over 4 million units (not counting expansions). To see what that means, go to your local Best Buy or other "game retailer". Check how many copies they have displayed of Civ5. Check how many they have of Civ4 Complete. Notice how those are similar. 90+% of all game purchases are actually the "quiet" kind. The people that buy the game at a store and never, ever login to the forums to vent. Most of Civ5's initial sales went to the fans of the series who either pre-ordered or made a special trip to the store to pick the game up release weekend. I'd *kill* to see the number of sales that have been achieved at the +30 and +60 day window mark. Essentially, Civ5 is like a failed Hollywood summer blockbuster. Good opening weekend, but absolutely no staying power.

DLC *is* bought mostly by the casual gamer, and not "We the Hardcore". But check out the ladder board from the "Civ5 Stats" own webpage. The game is simply not being played, which means that DLC won't be purchased. Example: If they released a downloadable expansion for Civ4 with some nifty stuff for $5 or $10, I'd wager heavily it would outsell the next Civ5 DLC. People still play Civ4 years after release. Civ5 is a ghost forum except for people analyzing the death and catastrophe that is Civ5. With the exception of Dale, who seems to be defending his own part in the Civ5 process, nobody of note seems to be defending Civ5 with anything except, "Well it has potential, if they fix it."

Cash cows only give milk if they can be milked. Civ5 seems to be bleeding fans. How many of the 1,000,000 units sold are still playing the game 90 days later? Half? Likely less, since many players purchase a game, play it to "beat the game", then move on to other stuff. And even hardcore Civ players that get excited about "one more turn" have put the game on the shelf and hope for Civ6.

If we remove your personal speculation from the post, it stays as "Civ5 sold 1 million units". While we can assume DLC hasn't been making them much money, we don't know that for certain. For all we know they have sold 500,000 units of each DLC. For all we know they only sold 1,000 units of each DLC. You're right in your logic, but the evidence isn't there. All that we can say is everything before your but, which is "1 million units in 3 months".

I'm in the "It has potential if they fix it" crowd. I believe that the mistakes made are very hard to correct, but I also believe that there have been some changes from Civ4 that were absolutely needed to make. It just might take a few patches and an expansion to work out.

 

[CivFanaticMan]

I have begun to doubt patches. Maybe they can actually pull it off, but I have huge doubts that patching will make the game more enjoyable for the majority of the CivFanatics fan base.

 

[Left Foot]

I have begun to doubt patches. Maybe they can actually pull it off, but I have huge doubts that patching will make the game more enjoyable for the majority of the CivFanatics fan base.

This. As far as I'm concerned, patches are there to tweak and fix existing content (or add some minor content). What this game desperately needs is an expansion, the corresponding BTS for Civ 5.

 

[SHaW1986]

i for one am relieved, im happy that they havent given up on this... oh, and, GO HAWKEYES!!!

 

[nokmirt]

Go hawkeyes is right!!! Nice to see someone from Iowa on here. I am happy to hear things will continue to be worked on. The game has issues, thats for sure. Fix the AI diplomacy! The AI should remember when it talked to you last.

I was playing and the AI asked me to go to war with another civ. I said no!

On my next turn I changed my mind. So I contacted the same AI civ, and asked it to declare war on the civ it wanted me too.

It told me that we have been through this before and the answer is still no.

Please change this. Even if the AI does not want to go to war now, at least have it give a different reason, ok? Thank you!

 

[wolfblue]

DUUK

very well written and as accurate as can be without hardcore statistical information. to deny it is simply an attempt to hide from the reality.

myself and 5 or 6 friends wanted civ 5 so bad that one of our group extended his vacation in the states long enough to pick up a release day copy and bring it to us in Korea. We were eager to all get the game and start playing online games against each other. He passed the game around and we were all eager to play civ5 and had already prejudged it the best civ ever.... but after a few hours or days with each player the game took up residence in his old games bin never to be spoken of again. We were so disappointed we ended up ordering 5 copies of Civ4 complete and we have been playing it religiously.

I would love to see statistics that tell me if overall CIV4 sale trends notched up a bit as CIV5 sale trends crashed.

will patches fix this? no... i think not. the problem with CIV5 at this point goes beyond crappy layout and incomplete AI. Its quite possible that expansion pacs will advance CIV5 as much as warlords and BTS advanced CIV4. if this happens Civ5 may come into its own in the coming years but no matter how good i doubt that it will be able to shake off the stygma of a substandard game.

its more likley that Firaxis will pull a Microsoft and simply overhaul, upgrade and revamp the game and release it as Civ6

in which case the question is... what will be overhauled to make civ6? civ4 or civ5?

 

[bryanw1995]

Um. No it doesn't.

Civ5's initial reviews on "major game sites" were ok-to-good. But then again, ANY major release by ANY studio gets ok-to-good on the pro game sites. Proof: Check the reviews of "Elemental: War of Magic". The game is quite possibly the most broken game of the last 20 years, and the average "game reviewer" score is 3 1/2 out of 5.

Civ5 sold 1 million units initially, but poor word of mouth on the game is killing the longer term sales outlook. Over its complete run, Civ4 sold over 4 million units (not counting expansions). To see what that means, go to your local Best Buy or other "game retailer". Check how many copies they have displayed of Civ5. Check how many they have of Civ4 Complete. Notice how those are similar. 90+% of all game purchases are actually the "quiet" kind. The people that buy the game at a store and never, ever login to the forums to vent. Most of Civ5's initial sales went to the fans of the series who either pre-ordered or made a special trip to the store to pick the game up release weekend. I'd *kill* to see the number of sales that have been achieved at the +30 and +60 day window mark. Essentially, Civ5 is like a failed Hollywood summer blockbuster. Good opening weekend, but absolutely no staying power.

DLC *is* bought mostly by the casual gamer, and not "We the Hardcore". But check out the ladder board from the "Civ5 Stats" own webpage. The game is simply not being played, which means that DLC won't be purchased. Example: If they released a downloadable expansion for Civ4 with some nifty stuff for $5 or $10, I'd wager heavily it would outsell the next Civ5 DLC. People still play Civ4 years after release. Civ5 is a ghost forum except for people analyzing the death and catastrophe that is Civ5. With the exception of Dale, who seems to be defending his own part in the Civ5 process, nobody of note seems to be defending Civ5 with anything except, "Well it has potential, if they fix it."

Cash cows only give milk if they can be milked. Civ5 seems to be bleeding fans. How many of the 1,000,000 units sold are still playing the game 90 days later? Half? Likely less, since many players purchase a game, play it to "beat the game", then move on to other stuff. And even hardcore Civ players that get excited about "one more turn" have put the game on the shelf and hope for Civ6.

how about providing some sources? even the 1 mil units is questionable. what's your source for that? thread topic # 27, or did you actually find it written some place reputable? the 4 million for civ 4 vanilla seems a bit high as well, I've seen speculation ranging from 3-3.5 million, but that was also not sourced.

edit: http://www.civ4.com/news2.htm

from reading that (article references ~ 5 million copies of civ1-3 sold as of jan 2005) it seems unlikely that civ4 vanilla sold 4 million all by itself. obviously no reference to civ4 sales however.

 

[nokmirt]

Let Civ 5 have two expansion packs added and like five years of modding and patches. Then let's talk about how good it is. This game is an infant, it will grow up! Mark my words!

 

[Gamemaster77]

Civ5's initial reviews on "major game sites" were ok-to-good. But then again, ANY major release by ANY studio gets ok-to-good on the pro game sites. Proof: Check the reviews of "Elemental: War of Magic". The game is quite possibly the most broken game of the last 20 years, and the average "game reviewer" score is 3 1/2 out of 5.

First of all, thats just wrong. You clearly didn't do ANY research. Civ5 has had great reviews on major gaming sites before and after release. Below are the reviews of the first 5 websites that show up from a simple Google search of "Civ5 review".
Joystiq Review: The game got 5 stars out of 5
IGN Review: The game was ranked as outstanding with a 9 out of 10
PC Gamer Review: The game got a 93 percent score
Gamespot Review: The game was ranked 9 out of 10 by critics and 8.2 out of 10 for users.
G4TV Review: The game was ranked 5 out 5 stars. Users gave it 4.3 out of 5 stars

Civ5 sold 1 million units initially, but poor word of mouth on the game is killing the longer term sales outlook... Essentially, Civ5 is like a failed Hollywood summer blockbuster. Good opening weekend, but absolutely no staying power.

This is also a lie. Poor word of mouth is doing nothing to the game. This is a chart of the sales of Civilization 5 over the first 10 weeks: http://gamrreview.vgchartz.com/sales/43507/sid-meiers-civilization-v/. As you can easily see during the first week it sold about 200,000 copies. But the sales went down about 5.5 times by the sixth week. However, it is normal for sales to go down much. Even Call of Duty: Black Ops for the PC went down even more than civ5 by about 6.5 times on the sixth week: .

Over its complete run, Civ4 sold over 4 million units...90+% of all game purchases are actually the "quiet" kind. The people that buy the game at a store and never, ever login to the forums to vent. Most of Civ5's initial sales went to the fans of the series who either pre-ordered or made a special trip to the store to pick the game up release weekend.

Many of this could be true; however, you don't site ANY sources. This makes your statements much less believable. You are just giving blanket statements powered by your own opinion.

DLC *is* bought mostly by the casual gamer, and not "We the Hardcore". But check out the ladder board from the "Civ5 Stats" own webpage. The game is simply not being played, which means that DLC won't be purchased.

First of all I think you even named the website wrong. You are most likely referring to Civ5 players. Again, that shows not much research done. The top 5 players have played 40, 105, 46, 101, and 48 games respectively. That is a total of 340 games played by just the top players which is definitely are large amount.

Example: If they released a downloadable expansion for Civ4 with some nifty stuff for $5 or $10, I'd wager heavily it would outsell the next Civ5 DLC. People still play Civ4 years after release.

Your "example" is not really an example at all. It is entirely and purely speculation.

People still play Civ4 years after release. Civ5 is a ghost forum except for people analyzing the death and catastrophe that is Civ5. With the exception of Dale, who seems to be defending his own part in the Civ5 process, nobody of note seems to be defending Civ5 with anything except, "Well it has potential, if they fix it."

Again more lies of yours. As of now the civilization 5 discussion forum has 212 people viewing it and the civ4 forum has 181 people viewing it. Look below for details.

Spoiler :

Also if you take a look at the first page of the Civ5 General Discussion Forum, only three topics out of forty-five have a clearly negative purpose. Before you go go saying there aren't many positive one's either it is because most people don't go on just to say how much they love the game. They go on because they have questions or want to share experiences. You may have to zoom in but if you look at the picture below, you could tell Dale has no posts on the front page so you can clearly see he is not the only avid "defender" of Civ5.

Spoiler :

Cash cows only give milk if they can be milked. Civ5 seems to be bleeding fans. How many of the 1,000,000 units sold are still playing the game 90 days later? Half? Likely less, since many players purchase a game, play it to "beat the game", then move on to other stuff. And even hardcore Civ players that get excited about "one more turn" have put the game on the shelf and hope for Civ6.

Notice the question mark in your post? You are guessing how these people have reacted and if they are still playing or not. No poll or anything was taken. Again, throughout your whole post there has only been speculation fueled by opinion, lies, and non-researched facts. So there you have it, I just debunked your entire post and clearly it is invalid.

 

[SHaW1986]

DLC is only sold to casual gamers? well i may not be as hardcore as some but im not just a casual gamer as ive been playing civ for 10 years (started playing 2 on psx, anyone remember that gem?lol) and 5 isnt the "death" of civ, i mean sure it has its problems, but so did 4 to start out with, lets see where this goes, ok? i feel like we're at a crossroads right now considering shafer is gone, we can see from here on out what was his ideas and what wasent, if the problems were his fault or not.

 

[Strobe]

Totally disagree.

Both releases have major problems but they are not the same type of problems.

Civ 4 had major technical bugs and I couldnt even play through a game on release, but i played it for hours every day anyway, I had the one more turn feeling and so much to learn and try out.

CiV works fine for me and I have not had any major problems stopping me playing the game, I'm not saying there are not major bugs but it is much better than Civ 4. In fact I would say the patches have been quick and addressed the technical and obvious faults quite well.

However I only played 3 games because it is simply a poor game that has no one more turn feeling, this is the major difference between the releases.

 

[aziantuntija]

Civ5 is a good game, i like it. Altough, im still having crashes after the major patch (wich btw was big improvement to the overall game experience) and the small hotfix so that needs to be fixed.

So IMO the game is great and i belive it only keeps on improving once we get some patches and expansions.

EDIT: I just dont get these people that hate the game and belive that nothing cant possibly save it but STILL keep on crawling in civ5 forums and preaching like a maniacs. If you think that all hope is gone then whats the god dam point in doing so? If some people likes the game im pretty sure you cannot just make them hate it by bashing it in these forums.

 

[wolfblue]

@gamemaster77 - i think you use facts as figures just as poorly as duuks lack of them.
its equally wrong to totally ignore the fact that there is a very vocal and supported group of people who simply cant stand the game and feel betrayed by civ5. sure some people just cant adapt to the new style and others are on a bandwagon but it still remains that a significant portion of the fan base is dissatisfied with CIV5 whether you personally like it or not.
dispite your opinions on the thread heading i think it is a safe bet that a larger percentage of the people on the civ5 boards are expressing negative or less than positive views on the game than those in the civ4 boards

I remember when CIV4 came out many people thought it was absolutly marvelous. yes there was a vocal group of people who disliked it essentially because it was not civ3 and because the release was buggy but the hate was not as widespread and polarized as it is for civ5.

also note stability bugs, on an otherwise well liked game is much easier to patch than fixing a simply poorly thought out product. Civ4 patches fixed bugs. civ4 expansions added to a game that people already felt was great. what many people in the civ5 community are saying is that they concede that civ5 is sub-par and they just hope that future patch/expansions will make it enjoyable. but civ5 is not poor in comparison to civ4 it is simply a singularly lacking game.

@aziantuntija your certainly entitled to your opinion and I believe you genuinely like the game. however, if the only people talking about it were those who are gushing with love for it I dont think there would be such a hustle by firaxis to correct mistakes.