Patch v3.13 change list

[Rince]

I've just finished my first camapign of BtS and I want to begin a new campaign. Should I wait until the patch is released or is the new patch going to be saved game compatible? Thanks in advance

How about playing some quick games on small maps? That's what I'm doing to kill time.

Rince

 

[Ethric]

So your argument is that because "nearly everyone" made the same personal expectation that you did, that doesn't make it a personal expectation? Not a very convincing argument. You admit that you know Alex has no control over the release date, and then turn around and base your expectation off the assumption he does. Otherwise, why would you have an expectation that it'd be released this past week?

Because that's how his statement read. Just because he isn't the one with the big red release-lever doesn't mean that we automatically assume everything he says or apepars to say is rubbish. He made a statement about unfortunately not being able to realese this week, and it is very easy to read into this that it will be forthcoming shortly. Either he didn't fully realize how it would read, or he meant it to read that way but unforseen events have occured. Either way an update would be appreciated. Whichever way it was, I'm sure most here would be forgiving if only it was explained.

I and I'm sure many others have seen time and again how forgiving the majority of the forum-crowd are about all sorts of delays and mistakes as long as we feel there is communication. But when things are left hanging, speculation and sulking accrues at an alarming rate

 

[Zenon_pt]

That's because there's no Israel/Hebrew civ. Dublin isn't Celtic, it's Irish, and the two are different. The Celts as they are in Civ4 don't represent the modern Celtic nations, neither do the Egyptians represent modern Arabic Egypt (hence no Cairo).

In that case Alexandria shouldn't be in Egypt! But in Greece.
Alexandria isn't an Egyptian city! Was found by Alexander. Only in Ptolemaic Egypt time that was considerate as an Egyptian city (ok greek)!!! And Egypt are represent by 2 kings ! ok 1 king and 1 queen! But Pharaoh!!! Only in ancient Egyptian there were Pharaoh! Not in Ptolemaic Egypt! They were more rulers kings than pharaohs!!!

 

[Wodan]

Interistingly, I just found out that there actually is a Portuguese municipality called Macao - although I doubt that the devs thought about that one when they put the name in the list, it seems quite small. However, purists might find reconciliation in the thought that there's a Portuguese Macao (and a Chinese Macau) in reality as well.

Well, if we're going down that road, there's a Paris, Virginia USA and just about every other european city somewhere in the U.S.

Wodan

 

[MagisterCultuum]

"Pharaoh" means "the king's house." The rulers of Egypt were pretty much all "kings" (obviously not using the English word but an Egyptian or Greek equivalent), whereas the ruling administration or dynasty was technically "Pharaoh." The term was, however, used metaphorically to refer to the head of the kings house, i.e., the king. As far as I know that tradition may well have lasted into the Ptolemaic era, even if it was less common or only used by the Greeks' Egyptian subjects (but what do I know? thats only a guess)

 

[eoc]

this is the 2nd weekend now, how many weekend should I wait for?

 

[Keitosha]

this is the 2nd weekend now, how many weekend should I wait for?

Valve Time!

It also applies to Firaxis it seems.

 

[Wodan]

I don't think you get what I'm saying. I know perfectly well that Alexman has no influence on the release date. And that he (or anyone else) is not obliged to keep us updated on anything.

All I'm saying is that a company shouldn't create expectations and then silently not fullfill them. They can either create the expactation and deliver or they can create it and not deliver but give out updated information. Or they can just not create it in the first place. All this would be fine with me.
Firaxis/2kGames (and I really don't care who is responsible) chose to do neither and that just raises frustration.
So why am I posting this? Well, first of all I wouldn't mind that updated information I mentioned above. Secondly, it might help them to prevent this bad PR next time.
And it *is* bad PR. That *you* don't mind doesn't mean everyone agrees with you. And as far as I know you're not their only customer.

(And don't give me that "personal expectation" BS, nearly everyone was expecting a release this week after he explicitely said they didn't manage it last week).

Edit: Or, to make it even more clear to you: I am communicating to Firaxis&Co that I, as their customer, am not satisfied with how they handle this. Since they don't have their own forums and we all know they read this and I am sure I'm not the only one, I post it here.
Whether Firaxis&Co act on this or take it into account is entirely their decision and not yours. I have as much the "right" to voice my opinion as anyone else.

You have a point. However, taken to its logical conclusion, this and other vociferousness has the opposite effect.

To some extent, controversy can be good. It increses awareness, it increases attention to the product. As long as it doesn't get out of hand, companies often like to have this. I'm not saying they purposefully do negative things, I'm saying that when it happens it's not necessarily negative for the strength and growth of the game community and sales.

What happens, though, is that active company presence costs time and money. They have to carefully consider what they say and how. Think about how much internal discussion and attention a simple press release takes. Now, multiply that by X times for something such as a public forum. This can spiral out of control and take a tremendous amount of time, effort, and money in terms of overhead costs.

So, what happened here is that people have inferred something from a statement Alexman made. At worst, Alexman was imprecise, in which case Firaxis is guilty of not spending enough internal time and attention on review of the exact wording that Alexman was to use. That's at worst.

Ultimately, by jumping all over Firaxis for this, it ensures that in the future they will spend a large amount of time and attention for any future posts. This in turn will limit the number of posts, if not eliminate them altogether. So if that's what we want, we should keep complaining.

My point is that we have to assume part of the blame. We inferred things. As I said, at worst, Alexman had imprecise wording. We took it from there.

Wodan

 

[obliterate]

"Pharaoh" means "the king's house." The rulers of Egypt were pretty much all "kings" (obviously not using the English word but an Egyptian or Greek equivalent), whereas the ruling administration or dynasty was technically "Pharaoh." The term was, however, used metaphorically to refer to the head of the kings house, i.e., the king. As far as I know that tradition may well have lasted into the Ptolemaic era, even if it was less common or only used by the Greeks' Egyptian subjects (but what do I know? thats only a guess)

Yes. During the Ptolemaic era the ruler was still called Pharaoh all the way until the death of Cleopatra.

 

[Ethric]

As I said, at worst, Alexman had imprecise wording. We took it from there.

That's the worst you can think of? Nah, maybe he was imprecise or maybe stuff has cropped up unforeseen, but, within realistic boundaries, at worst is way worse than either of those.

 

[Wodan]

What, you think he purposefully mislead us? Get real.

Wodan

 

[JFLNYC]

You have a point. However, taken to its logical conclusion, this and other vociferousness has the opposite effect.

To some extent, controversy can be good. It increses awareness, it increases attention to the product. As long as it doesn't get out of hand, companies often like to have this. I'm not saying they purposefully do negative things, I'm saying that when it happens it's not necessarily negative for the strength and growth of the game community and sales.

What happens, though, is that active company presence costs time and money. They have to carefully consider what they say and how. Think about how much internal discussion and attention a simple press release takes. Now, multiply that by X times for something such as a public forum. This can spiral out of control and take a tremendous amount of time, effort, and money in terms of overhead costs.

So, what happened here is that people have inferred something from a statement Alexman made. At worst, Alexman was imprecise, in which case Firaxis is guilty of not spending enough internal time and attention on review of the exact wording that Alexman was to use. That's at worst.

Ultimately, by jumping all over Firaxis for this, it ensures that in the future they will spend a large amount of time and attention for any future posts. This in turn will limit the number of posts, if not eliminate them altogether. So if that's what we want, we should keep complaining.

My point is that we have to assume part of the blame. We inferred things. As I said, at worst, Alexman had imprecise wording. We took it from there.

Wodan

Wow! That's some of the most tortured "reasoning" I've seen from any of the Firaxis apologists. Your argument, taken to its logical conclusion, is that we should all be quiet so as not to bother Firaxis. They already can't be bothered hosting their own forum. Now you're saying we should keep quiet so as not to bother them further.

Let's look at the original statement:

We are done with the patch, but unfortunately we will not be able to release it this week as we had hoped. Believe me, I know how hard it is to wait, so here is the list of changes in the meantime.

First and foremost, Firaxis started this little hubbub by starting this thread. No poster here deserves any "part of the blame." We are all customers of Firaxis. Without us, they have no business. If they don't want to spend the resources to deal with customer support and service, they've got no right to be in business. They already save resources by not hosting their own forum. How indulgent are paying customers expected to be?

No one is "inferring" anything. Look at what he said: "We are done with the patch, but unfortunately we will not be able to release it this week as we had hoped." He didn't said we're "close" to being done. He said it's "Done." He didn't say that, despite it's being done, you'll have to wait X period of time. He said they had hoped to release it last week. Any expectations created were the result of that one sentence. If something is "done" and they hoped to release it last week, there is a clear implication that it will be released very shortly. Any inference taken from that implication is entirely justified.

At the risk of repeating myself, I'll say again what I said earlier. This self-congratulatory shell game -- "We have it, but you can't and, by the way, tell us if it's worth the wait when you can quantify neither the worth nor the wait" -- is a model for how things should not be done.

These last two patches have been handled ineptly, in one way or the other. This is business, not a frat house meeting and Firaxis' handling of these last two patches are been distinctly poor business. There are things which can and things which cannot be avoided. A number of bugs in any computer software cannot be avoided. But the poor handling of these patches by Firaxis could have and should have been avoided. It's simply poor business and no amount of apologies and rationales for Firaxis' behavior can change that.

When something is poorly handled, it's right to hold accountable those responsible. The more we engage in "La Di Da" apologizing, the worse the situation is likely to become.

 

[MrCynical]

What, you think he purposefully mislead us? Get real.

No but the statement:

We are done with the patch, but unfortunately we will not be able to release it this week as we had hoped.

very strongly implies that the patch would be out the following week. Even if that was not the intention (in which case that statement was extremely poorly phrased), if they are actually paying any attention to this thread they would know that is how it has been (very reasonably) interpreted.

It's a pity, but communication wise we're back to square one. The whole point of an estimated ETA is that it is at least vaguely consistent with the actual time the patch shows up. As argued in the previou thread, most people understand the term "estimate", and so there wasn't that much complaint when it didn't appear in the predicted week. We got a change list, and a hint it would be out the following week, which is OK, these things happen.

Tolerance began to ebb somewhat over the following week, but it didn't seem that unreasonable for the patch not to show up till the Friday evening (usual patch time). For the patch not to show up then, and for there to be absolutely no official comment on that is yet another communications blunder from Firaxis, since it is now clear that we do not have the faintest idea when the patch will show up. We're back to "when they feel like it" again.

Firaxis are not good at meeting deadlines, or even the vaguest of suggested dates (I have to be blunt - to be unable to meet an ETA which gives a week's leeway each way, is far more time than you could conceivably need, and that they made themelves is utterly pathetic). I actually thought they might be getting somewhere on this communications thing, but yet again its fallen apart. I know there are till people making apologies for Firaxis; for a long time I played that game in these kinds of threads myself, but I'm sick both of making and listening to excuses for them.

We should at the absolute minimum have had an update from Alexman as to what they are playing at. This patch took forever to make, and is taking still longer to test (and thanks to this apparent delay in testing you may be sure that people are going to crucify them if there are any bugs in it).

 

[Ethric]

What, you think he purposefully mislead us? Get real.

Wodan

No Wodan, I didn't say that Wodan, but your highlighting of "at worst", Wodan, made me question your imagination, Wodan.

And ditto what the two above posters said

 

[KrikkitTwo]

OK in an attempt to clarify for alexman and Firaxis assume that This is his statement


"The 3.13 patch is Not ready for release yet, but in the meantime here is a list of changes. Unfortunately, we don't have the release date yet."

There everyone is happy... this seems to be all he attempted to say
the poll should have been good changes? Yes/No/what is BTS

 

[JFLNYC]

Except that's not what he said. And, if what he said is not what he meant, he's had plenty of time to clarify it.

 

[IamJohn]

Yes, because he spends as much time on here as we do? He's paid to work, not update a small percentage of the civ4 community, if he can every once in awhile, but I hope you don't expect him to be giving a play-by-play account of what's going on.

 

[KrikkitTwo]

^ Well it seems to be what the case is. I think we should just not expect the patch to be released before Thanksgiving... if it comes out before then, we can be pleasantly surprised... but what we should expect is a late November patch release.

 

[MrCynical]

OK in an attempt to clarify for alexman and Firaxis assume that This is his statement


"The 3.13 patch is Not ready for release yet, but in the meantime here is a list of changes. Unfortunately, we don't have the release date yet."

There everyone is happy... this seems to be all he attempted to say
the poll should have been good changes? Yes/No/what is BTS

Krikkitone, since you have nothing to do with Firaxis it doesn't really help a lot if you make up words to put in Alexman's mouth.

1)That isn't what Alexman said.

2)Even if that is what was intended, even the most cursory glance at this thread would indicate that is not how it was interpreted (or indeed seems a reasonable interpretation of it).

3)A clarifying update should have been given - there is really no excuse for there being no comment by Friday evening.

4)Alexman has been on the forums recently (indeed today), so why is there no official comment?

In any case the point of this thread, as discussed in its precursor, is to give at least some clue as to how long we would be waiting for the patch. In what at first seemed an unusual piece of communication, Firaxis gave us a vague (if ludicrously distant) ETA, and an update with the change list. For a few weeks we actually seemed to be getting somewhere, but to say "we didn't actually mean that ETA, despite the fact we made it, and that this had already dragged on for weeks, and we won't give another" is not acceptable.

I have been very tolerant of Firaxis' snail pace patching in the past, but after the debacle of 3.03, and the ludicrous amount of time this patch is taking, my patience is running very thin.

Well it seems to be what the case is. I think we should just not expect the patch to be released before Thanksgiving... if it comes out before then, we can be pleasantly surprised... but what we should expect is a late November patch release.

I seriously hope you are joking. If that were the case I would suggest we see if some of the other modders can help Solver to implement all relevant changes from the list in his unofficial patch. Solver's efforts since BtS's release have put those of Firaxis to shame. Firaxis' current excuse is testing. Since testing for 3.03 didn't even last a few minutes, it isn't credible testing for 3.13 would last a few months.

 

[Legal_My_Deagle]

OMG THERE ISNT A PATCH ALREADY LETS ALL RISE AGAINST FIRAXIS FOR THIS INJUSTICE

Civfanatics has gone in to anarchy!