Patch News!

Exavier said:
Like i said earlier... The Patch was completed in a far away land... You can no longer continue work on The Patch... The hammers were converted into 150 coin :P
*Declares war on "a land far away"*

We shall conquer the land far away and take the patch from their cold dead fingers!
 
im tired of these game companies taking forever to give their customer's support. they all know we will buy these games no matter wat cuz we are all weak ass fanboys, this is unbearable. I want to start my own company and eat my own words. Then i'll see how easy it is.
 
lol in all honestly most ppl wouldn't be this frustrated if they woulda said the Patch is in development... its because they said to expect it "soon" that is making everyone so frustrated.

Most games have to come out with a patch right after release to fix the bugs their beta couldn't catch. your dealing with a billion different combinations of hardware... it causes problems you can't see. give them a break...

At least they arn't like some games (Mainly MMOGs) that are patched every week or worse every cpl days, yes i have played a few of them... learning to play a new or modified feature every cpl days is a pain.
 
Psyringe said:
Please do not assume that your definition of "as intended" is everyone else's.

Do you really assume that a large amount of players should be able to max out the options on a newly released game? When people buy (for example) a new 3d roleplaying game, chances are that they can *not* play it on 1900x1200, full details, maximum view distance, 16xAA, dolby surround, without the framerate slowing down to a crawl, even on a state-of-the art machine. Yet all these options may be in the game, out of the box.

I have a minimal-spec machine and can't play standard maps. I can play smaller maps without any problems whatsoever though. Certainly the game works as intended for me.

I know I won't be able to change your mind, but please keep in mind that a reasoning like yours can only lead to developers *limiting* the options they give to their customers in order to prevent the frustration when maxed out options are too much for even a new PC. Like, for example, Morrowind, which limited the maximum view distance - so that if you wanted better graphics, you had to install a third party program, which in turn tended to crash the game from time to time. Sure, Firaxis would get less complains if they had limited map sizes more rigorously. But I prefer having more options, even if it may take a year or two until I can fully use them.
I like your reasoning. I have purchased games in the past in which some options were not available to me because of my system. I some cases, like RRT2, I could make trade offs in graphics options. I could have better graphics and a small slow game, or I could increase speed and/or map size if I reduced graphics options.

I like having options. If I want to use more of them, then I can upgrade my system to accommodate. And even if no system made can use every option, I like having the choice.
 
Psyringe said:
Your gaining of our world map was just a clever plan of our double agent. We want to overload your memory with it to slow you down. ;)


Ha! You fool! We're playing on a small map! BAHAHAHA
 
Psyringe said:
Your gaining of our world map was just a clever plan of our double agent. We want to overload your memory with it to slow you down. ;)
Is that why other people are experiencing slow games? I haven’t cared for your world map so mine works well.
 
So, does this mean we will get the thrown room, and advisors as was advertised by their marketing before I purchased it?
There is just as many stats as earlier version, but it is presented in a dull and boring manner...not enough "fun" things to coincide with them. I miss the advisors like in civ2 and there are a lot of ease of use GUI features in civ3 that are no longer. E.g. in civ3 hit F1 then double click the city you are interested in would take you to that city, now when you hit F1 you get the same info screen, but you have to exit it, then go search for the city on the freakin map...lots of annoying things like that have really taken civ4 a step backwards from civ3. I am REALLY hoping they will put in LOTS of much missed ease of use features that are missing and/or were incomplete for the initial release.
 
Nemo said:
So, does this mean we will get the thrown room, and advisors as was advertised by their marketing before I purchased it?

Strange, I've never seen them advertising this. Do you have a link?

Nemo said:
E.g. in civ3 hit F1 then double click the city you are interested in would take you to that city, now when you hit F1 you get the same info screen, but you have to exit it, then go search for the city on the freakin map...lots of annoying things like that have really taken civ4 a step backwards from civ3. I am REALLY hoping they will put in LOTS of much missed ease of use features that are missing and/or were incomplete for the initial release.

When you click on the city name in the list, then you can issue commans to the city with the controls in the lower part of the screen (build queue, draft, rush, set priorities). You don't even have to leave the list for it.

Also, the city's location flashes on the minimap, so the city shouldn't be that hard to find on the "freakin map".

I am REALLY hoping that people will start seeing the LOTS of features Firaxis has built into the UI. ;) I'm not saying it's perfect, it has some rough edges, especially the advisor screens could use some work imo. But there are also many good ideas already implemented. In any case, I have no doubt that the Civ4 UI will eventually be far superior to the Civ3 UI, because its functionality is open to modding (which wasn't possible with Civ3). Just give it a little time. The Civ3 UI also needed some time to be improved. Remember that not even sorting worked right in the city list when Civ3 came out? :)
 
Psyringe said:
Strange, I've never seen them advertising this. Do you have a link?



When you click on the city name in the list, then you can issue commans to the city with the controls in the lower part of the screen (build queue, draft, rush, set priorities). You don't even have to leave the list for it.

Also, the city's location flashes on the minimap, so the city shouldn't be that hard to find on the "freakin map".

I am REALLY hoping that people will start seeing the LOTS of features Firaxis has built into the UI. ;) I'm not saying it's perfect, it has some rough edges, especially the advisor screens could use some work imo. But there are also many good ideas already implemented. In any case, I have no doubt that the Civ4 UI will eventually be far superior to the Civ3 UI, because its functionality is open to modding (which wasn't possible with Civ3). Just give it a little time. The Civ3 UI also needed some time to be improved. Remember that not even sorting worked right in the city list when Civ3 came out? :)


My god...I honestly never knew that! If it was in the manual, little tidbits like this REALLY need to be emphasized! Wow...I'm all giddy now. Seriously! That's a damn useful thing to know!
 
Borgholio said:
My god...I honestly never knew that! If it was in the manual, little tidbits like this REALLY need to be emphasized! Wow...I'm all giddy now. Seriously! That's a damn useful thing to know!
Yea. Check out the manual. It has many other ‘little’ tidbits like this.

I actually like the new interface. It took a little getting use to. But now that I have, I find that it is quite useful.
 
jdurg said:
2): Firaxis/Take Two has NEVER said 'a patch will come out on the xxxxx'. They have only stated that they are working on a patch and that it has been sent to QA. That does not guarantee that it will be out this week, next week, the week after, or any other certain date. It just means that the programmers have finished with their work on Patch 1 and that it is now being tested. If you'd like, you can still whine and demand that they release the patch now, but if you do and they do indeed rush the patch out before extensive testing I GUARANTEE you'll be even more pissed.

I agree with the rest of what you put in this post but didn't quote it all to save space. The only thing I saw that I actually disagreed with was 2. Firaxis has never posted a time of release. This is true and people can't put blame on them making statements of release on patch dates and not fulfilling them. So to that, I still credit your entire post.
I however, would like to bring up in the topic 'where I left off in the other patch thread'. I have stayed out of this one because I counted it as a mirror thread and stayed in the original though it seems most people came to the new one.

Firaxis has shown little support to its customers. Yes, some people's game worked fine even flawlessly. But those of us with issues have been tossed in the dark and had no choice about it. To me, we have been crapped on. They took our money, our game didn't work, 3 WEEKS later (actually 2 weeks and 5 days) they have Dennis post the nonsense he posted.
I don't hate Dennis, he did as told, but the information was far from helpful. That patch was posted originally on these forums by a member that got off the phone and the tech support mentioned a patch. Which is all beloved Dennis did. AFTER 3 WEEKS of our game not running. So they put 'shortly' on the 'update' and now it makes all of us who need this patch a MONTH after buying this game look impatient. This isn't even words out of Dennis's mouth I would bet. More as the 'official' post meant to reach us. It may be from Dennis, whether it is or isnt is besides the point.
The point is this was not an update. It was telling us what we already knew. I am upset that in a month's time they don't know when it will be fixed? Why in the name of all that is good was this game on the shelf if they dont know when it will be ready? Even roughly. Crap, I gotta retype this stuff due to 2 patch threads. :crazyeye:

OK just so that my post avoids disection as much as possible let me clarify my veiws on different arguements.

1)IF they release a 'specific date' they will get bad press and lose sales as a result. - Well, thats the price you pay when putting out a game a considerable amount of people have issues with running. So they lose sales? I am happy someone else is warned about the problems people are having as the reviews will NOT give you this insight and anytime someone post bad things about precious Civ 4 we get brow beat and told to leave the forums and mods asked to delete our 'worthless' post.
They need bad press out there right now, Lord knows they have plenty of good press. Granted the game is great at its full potential. But how about some 'Buyer beware'? Not just in general but in concerns to this game specifically. All of us who bought the game since day 1 and it didn't work people just LOVED telling us we should have researched. Yet, having the game I cant find any place where it would have helped. AND BELIEVE ME I HAVE LOOKED. Besides, arent we the ones buying Civ 5 and not the press. We should be addressed before the press. The 'perfect world' thing I know but still dammit!
2)IF they release a 'specific date' we get mad they were wrong if it is delayed. - OK there is some serious logic in this. I can see why they would be hesitant to do it here. But that doesnt get them a free pass out of it. I have seen alot of people use 'safety dates' like for instance you estimate when a patch will be done if a moderate amount of problems go on. As in estimate in some 'push-backs' This way if you do need to push it back a few times its ok. If not your early and Botta-Bam! Good press. See that little switcharoo?
Then you post this 'safety-date' on the site and follow it up with 'if anything changes it will be posted here' As it stands we dont know if the patch is coming tomorrow, Saturday, in a week, another month. We have no idea. All we know is they have a patch and thats it, which we knew this on week #1 and here it is week #4 with the same information, no real updates. This is very insulting.
Firaxis actually released to its paying customers 'We will get to it when we get to it' I dont know about you guys but when I pay for something, I would like a date, this answer will not suffice. But, Take 2 has me by the jangle bells and know it, so I am told 'accept it' by the majority fan-base. Which is all I can do, but it doesnt put Take 2 or the majority fanbase in the right for doing so and that is my point.

3)IF they release early the patch may not be great. - Indeed take your time.
 
King Flevance said:
Firaxis has shown little support to its customers. Yes, some people's game worked fine even flawlessly. But those of us with issues have been tossed in the dark and had no choice about it. To me, we have been crapped on. They took our money, our game didn't work, 3 WEEKS later (actually 2 weeks and 5 days) they have Dennis post the nonsense he posted.
...
3)IF they release early the patch may not be great. - Indeed take your time.
Your highness, if you don’t like the company then don’t buy their products.

Software is complex and is getting more so. Most games, and a lot of other software, does not work on all systems when first released. Doing so is getting more and more difficult. With software, there is always the unexpected when it hits the market. Software companies know this and plan for it. But the time it takes for a fix is often unpredictable.

The company that I work for used to use older equipment and software. We would only purchase it after the bugs were worked out. We couldn’t afford to have systems down when our customers needed them. But now our customers want the features in the newer equipment and software. We now have a lot of cutting edge stuff. We also have had to improve our installation and testing process. But now matter how much testing we do on our tech and development systems we still see unexpected problems when it goes to the production system. As a result, every project has to have a back out specified in case of problems that can’t be resolved by a set time. These problems often are the result of something done in production that we weren’t aware of. We actually pay for the equipment or software before we start installing and testing it. The vendor provides support when we have problems. Sometimes we have a problem that takes more than a month to get resolved.

If you want to avoid the problems, then wait to buy the game until it has been on the market awhile. I happen to know that Civ 3 works well. Maybe you should try it until Civ 4 works better.
 
Goosse said:
Your highness, if you don’t like the company then don’t buy their products.
And where did I say I couldn't wait for another Take 2 release?

With software, there is always the unexpected when it hits the market. Software companies know this and plan for it. But the time it takes for a fix is often unpredictable.
I hate to break it to you but I don't think Take 2/Firaxis planned for this. No doubt I am sure Firaxis knew what was gonna happen. There was NO support page on CivIV.com until a week AFTER release. This was simply an email addy they gave for EVERYONE to use and I still have not gotten a reply to date. And those 'nifty' quick fix 3 links were added around week 2 after the forums had been posting them for 2 weeks. I don't see the battleplan they had.

If you want to avoid the problems, then wait to buy the game until it has been on the market awhile. I happen to know that Civ 3 works well. Maybe you should try it until Civ 4 works better.

OK this sums up the body of your post.
I am stating the poor customer service here. Let me pull out a couple lines of your post that actually had a small amount to do with my post.

We couldn’t afford to have systems down when our customers needed them.
Well, look at that you put your customer first.
But now our customers want the features in the newer equipment and software. We now have a lot of cutting edge stuff.
Eh...kinda ditto. I don't exactly know where this went.
As a result, every project has to have a back out specified in case of problems that can’t be resolved by a set time.
The tech support dont even know what week of the year it will be finished? This is OK with your boss?

First off, what kind of company is this? It obviously isnt a game development company and therefore makes it highly probable this situation has no relevance to my previous post. I am saying "They have told us squat in a month's time" Had the tech support phone guy not said anything to a member of this board this would have been 'news' for the first time in 3 weeks. So 3 weeks go by, and people that pay money dont know WTH is going on and get 'no support page' <--that was added after the first week of release. With 1 email address for EVERYBODY that bought the game. No 'auto-troubleshooting-FAQ-mail' or anything just send it in and you hear nothing for 3 weeks until Dennis makes his glorious announcement.
After a month they havent been able to estimate a date so I have an IDEA of when it will be? Overshoot. At least then I know within that time. If it is over a week from now, I would like to uninstall this thing and do a fresh install when the patch is released. I learned how to estimate at 5 by Curious Greorge or something similar. Sesame Street teaches estimation. It doesnt have to be precise. Even put 'we are estimating' before hand to back it up.

Somehow it seems you dodged the entire point of my post yet quoted it to boot. My point is no real support has been offered in a sufficient manner.
 
Back
Top Bottom