New Interview from E3 - Spoony Experiment

[Krill]

Is this the frankenstein group that Shirk was talking about, where the beta testers work?

 

[Rub'Rum]

A good crusader does not let his guards down

 

[Mercade]

I see Spoony's interviewing techique has improved since the Kristanna Loken incident.

Anyway, that there is no espionage is no suprise. However it sounds almost like you can pirate trade routes, like you could in call to power. That would be fun at least.

Really? When seeing a video interview, I'd prefer if the interviewee is doing the talking and not the interviewer.

As to no espionage, I'm not going to miss it.

 

[Lillefix]

Really? When seeing a video interview, I'd prefer if the interviewee is doing the talking and not the interviewer.

As to no espionage, I'm not going to miss it.

I'm not saying he's good. I'm saying he's done worse. But yeah, he did talk a bit too much.

 

[Rub'Rum]

I'm not saying he's good. I'm saying he's done worse. But yeah, he did talk a bit too much.

You can tell they are really passionate about their games though. As for him talking too much, I dunno, he talks too much even in his videos when he's alone talking to the camera (40 minutes galore!). Still, if he doesn't talk, what's going to happen anyway? We get the re-hash scripted stuff that the E3 booth people are told to tell them. It seems by really talking about the previous games and his experience he has a better chance of getting some different reaction than if he just goes "hey can you tell us what's new about combat? answer: duuuh hex grid, one unit per tile bla bla".

 

[Lillefix]

That is true. I don't think the Shirker would have revealed anything groundbreaking, but I felt he was almost saying something new when he talked about traderoutes. I have kinda hoped for traderoutes that can be pirated like in CTP, so when he mentioned that we have to think about where we're going to put the roads because of trading, my hopes rised a little. But we haven't seen any visible trade routes yet, so perhaps not. I miss the caravans.

 

[Ituralde]

That is true. I don't think the Shirker would have revealed anything groundbreaking, but I felt he was almost saying something new when he talked about traderoutes. I have kinda hoped for traderoutes that can be pirated like in CTP, so when he mentioned that we have to think about where we're going to put the roads because of trading, my hopes rised a little. But we haven't seen any visible trade routes yet, so perhaps not. I miss the caravans.

If you watch the gameplay videso you should look closely at the small transparent box in the lower left that shows the values of the tile the mouse hovers over. On several occasions, when the mouse cursor is above a tile that contains a road it says "Trade route!" in that little box. Which leads me to the conclusion that you can pirate those trade routes by positioning a troop on the road tile. Combined with the changes to the road system this should finally put some more emphasis on roads and the pillaging/blockading of them.

And on the DLC issue. I have never bought a DLC in my life and abhor the system, but if I'm honest well-priced* additional Civs might just buy me over. It hinges on the price, but I would love to get my hands on new Civs before the expansion comes out!

*Make it 2$ or 2€ for one Civ or 5$/€ for two max and I'm a happy man!

 

[ukcivfan]

On espionage, good - always had it off on civ 4 BTS. Makes the game better it not being there.


On DLC - I am pretty unhappy with this - I wish they would just charge me more and give me the full game! On principle I would rather pay more for an expansion pack then constantly be paying out small £2 ammounts. When I buy an album - I want to understand it as a complete unit. Not constantly buying in singles! Same with computer games.

Also I am pretty annoyed at not being able to aviod steam. I only really play Civ these days so I have to "infect" my computer with an unecessary programme :-(

 

[Sueff]

If there will be DLC nations, does anyone know how this works in multiplayer? I usually play MP and don't care much for SP (maybe a few games when it comes out to get a strategy going) so if I let's say bought me 10 more civs for the game I can never use them unless everyone else I play with/against has them, too? That would kinda suck.

 

[Dunkah]

Only thing that I would be worried about is buying a Civ or two or three, and then having 2K come out with an expansion and having to pay for the Civs twice because I want to get the rest of the content.

That would piss me off!

 

[Lillefix]

Only thing that I would be worried about is buying a Civ or two or three, and then having 2K come out with an expansion and having to pay for the Civs twice because I want to get the rest of the content.

That would piss me off!

They've more or less already done that twice, in Warlords and Play the World.

 

[Dunkah]

Yes but at least both of those editions had extra stuff in them that would justify the money spent. Spending money on a specific civ. Then have it come out in an expansion would be paying double.

 

[kaltorak]

Who says it will be overpriced DLC? The CGI Art work for a new civ costs alot of money and time to produce, so selling it for $10 would hardly qualify as overpriced.

You must be joking right? If 10$ for a civ would be right, games would cost 1000$
If they really sell dlc which is only 1 new civ, it should cost 0.50-1. Probably they would sell it for 1

You can't compare drawing some art, recording a new voice and editing an xml to adding new functionality.

 

[need my speed]

But 0.50 would still be overpriced. Even 0.01 would be, but well...

 

[BobDole]

But 0.50 would still be overpriced. Even 0.01 would be, but well...

Is it technically overpriced in comparison to the entire game? Yeah, sure...but if it's 50 cents I don't think anyone will have a problem anyway...(it won't be that cheap though).

I'm hoping the pricing is fair. If they're looking for something crazy like $10 per civ then I'm just waiting till there's an expansion/compilation of extra civs for a discount. And I'd still rather just have them make expansion packs.

 

[PieceOfMind]

The way Shirk said "my lips are sealed" made me cringe. You are indeed looking at things very optimistically if you think there is no hidden agenda there. Obviously this was a question he had not prepared well for because his response was very telling. He was probably quite embarrassed afterwards that he had sort of let out such a secret.

2K/Firaxis obviously have something up there sleeves relating to something like DLC and they are waiting for the right opportunity to reveal it. I can't blame 'em for having a defined schedule for how they want to release info about the game and when to announce things like DLC.

It's very true it's not a confirmation of civs being DLC. For example, it might be that official scenarios that include a new civ will be DLC (just like the way the extra for the deluxe edition were described - the Babylon civ being only one of the mentioned features for such a bonus).

If they decide to release DLC, you can either buy it or support the work of modders who do the work for free and you get their mod for free. If they don't let us mod civs, then,... I guess a lot of modders and civfanatics are going to be rather upset, possibly more than the anti-steam crowd.

 

[Gre_Magus]

Sorry, double post.

 

[Gre_Magus]

If they don't let us mod civs, then,... I guess a lot of modders and civfanatics are going to be rather upset, possibly more than the anti-steam crowd.

I'm sure you'll be able to mod civs. But it would be very difficult for a modder to recreate the full screen, animated glory of an official civ, and hence, 2k would have a market for DLC civs. It would probably be trivial to create a Babylonian civ with the exact same traits, city names, and even unique units and buildings as the official "deluxe" version, but unless someone copied the files, it would be much harder to create a Nebuchadnezzar leader head that spoke Babylonian (or Arabic or whatever they have him speak).

Two questions come to mind:
1) Will the leader screens be rendered in game out of discrete assets (making it easy to mod simple things like putting Napoleon in Bismark's office) or will they be prerendered movies (which would theoretically make it possible to mod in custom movies generated in any number of ways, including live action?)
2) How will the "special abilities" be coded? Will modders be able to create whole new abilities just with XML or will they be hard coded somewhere in the DLLs?

I don't think we have the answers to these questions, but they would have a big impact on what modders can do with civs.

 

[Commander Bello]

2K/Firaxis obviously have something up there sleeves relating to something like DLC and they are waiting for the right opportunity to reveal it. I can't blame 'em for having a defined schedule for how they want to release info about the game and when to announce things like DLC.

Of course Firaxis/2K are planning for DLC.
Else, they would not have announced this in their press statement and Shirk would have gladly trumpeted "There aren't any plans for this".

They are thinking about the release of DLC, this is just a matter of fact.
And now tell me, how much DLC has been available for Civ3 and Civ4?

And how likely it will be that the planned DLC for Civ5 will be free of charge?

 

[PieceOfMind]

Gre_Magus, I agree it's a big IF at the moment, but not being able to mod civs is something I'm prepared to say is a possibility.
Correct me if I'm mistaken, but I don't recall seeing any official word yet that civs will be moddable. This despite it being officially said (or implied) that DLL modding will be possible.