Patch

[Adamal]

All of you people complaining. No one said you can't complain. You're just doing it in the wrong place. This isn't the official support site for civilization. If you want to get some grease send an email to the official techsupport email on 2k's website. Otherwise your squeeking in the middle of nowhere, where no one that can help you is going to hear you. This place is for community support where people like you are just trying to help another gamer out.

 

[Hot Fury]

Duly noted Adamal. I tend to think that this forum is, at the very least, somewhat appropriate for complaints about Civ. If the forum was called porkfanatics.com, or lintfanatics.com, or corpulentgothchickfanatics.com, or antiestablishmentarianismfanatics.com, then I might not vehemently disagree with your sentiment.

I have a strange suspicion that the devs are aware of, and have perhaps perused this forum. Therefore, I officially deem it appropriate.

It's purpose is to help fellow gamers? Okay...

HEY FELLOW GAMERS, DON'T BUY THIS GAME IF YOU HAVEN'T ALREADY. TO THOSE THAT HAVE...DRINK HEAVILY, LOOK AT PICS OF FEMALE NAUGHTY BITS, EAT CHUNKY MONKEY, LISTEN TO ZAMFIR.

There. I helped.

 

[seebs]

All of you people complaining. No one said you can't complain. You're just doing it in the wrong place. This isn't the official support site for civilization. If you want to get some grease send an email to the official techsupport email on 2k's website. Otherwise your squeeking in the middle of nowhere, where no one that can help you is going to hear you. This place is for community support where people like you are just trying to help another gamer out.

I disagree entirely. Complaints can be very helpful to other gamers, and even to the Firaxis people, because they let us come up with better-researched bug reports.

 

[Adamal]

I disagree entirely. Complaints can be very helpful to other gamers, and even to the Firaxis people, because they let us come up with better-researched bug reports.

There is nothing wrong with discussing issues. That is very helpful and definitely belongs here. However whining doesn't help anyone, except it does help blow off some steam.

 

[vannibombonato]

It's possible to state you've got technical problems without blowing it out of proportion. I have a problem with the lack of documentation in the programming side of things, but I don't make it out to be like that's on par with having my leg amputated or going hungry.

For the record:

Right - "I just bought the game and <error description ensues> Has anyone else seen this? Does anyone know how to fix it?"

Wrong - "I just bought the game and it doesn't work! I have waited so long for this game and it's buggy and it's crap and it sucks! Why can't I play? "

Hey genius...maybe you don't realize one simple thing: we don't have ONE problem...we have a thousand different ones.
It's not that there is a strange bug in the game...it's that i can't load it, if i load it it reboots, if it don't reboots it runs at 2 fps, if it runs at 2 fps i have no sound, if i have sound than it reboots again...etc. etc. etc.
I spent 50 dollars on something that simply does not work AT ALL.
And of course, my system is WAY OVER RECO SPECS.

It's clear that there's nothing to practically do...because the game was simply released 2 months at least before it was finished. And when i say finished, i mean finished WITH bugs. But THESE ARE NOT BUGS...a car that doesn't turn on don't have a little problem that can be solved in a couple of months....it simply is not a car, as this simply is not a game. It's a not finished DVD full of coded lines.

Now...why do we post?
It's very simple, man: i know that i won't be able to play this game until a few patchs are released...i realize that very hardly the level of problems i have can be solved by tweaking my pc for 8 hours...so i post because i hope that somebody will go to Firaxis/Take2 telling them "HEY GUYS, WORK AT NIGHT, BECAUSE THERE ARE THOUSANDS OF PEOPLE OUT THERE THAT SAY THAT THEY ARE NEVER GOING TO BUY A GAME FROM YOU AGAIN...THEY KEEP ON SAYING THAT THEY'LL RETURN IT AND DOWNLOAD IT FROM P2P, THEN PLAY WHEN THE PATCH COMES OUT".

Thats why we are making this mess...because the level of problems we have can only be solved when the game is finished. That is, with a patch.
And yes...i wrote what i think to the developers.

Vanni

 

[zsc]

True, there are many problems associated with this game, but not everyone are experiencing the same set of problems. Some people get black terrain, some get CTDs, some just get lags.

And I disagree with you that there's nothing to do, there are many people who have gotten their game to run due to the work of other members who are constantly trying to find ways to fix the issues instead of sitting around complaining about game. I, for one, got a lot of help from those people and was able to get the game running, though it was lagging, and this was before I upgraded my video card. I was able to play the game for hours using my current specs and an FX5200 card, a card that many people have.

And people arent saying that you cant post your opinion about the game, just not in this section. There are other sections in this forum, this one is called "technical support".

Since the search is off, there're constantly new threads every few minutes asking about the same problems. How is posting your complaints here, in the technical forum, going to help people with issues that have already been solved? For example, there are many threads asking about how to turn of movies because wonder movies keep crashing the game. You know what, that problem was solved like the first day after the game was released, around the first few pages of the section. But because people keep adding new, non-technical threads, we're on page 24 already. And did I mention that the search is off? Complaining in this section only adds to the problems. It's fraustrating enough that people can't get their game to work. If you're expecting them to go through 24 pages of threads with many of them containing 100's of posts, how do you expect anything to get done around here. And someone mentioned that Firaxis people are constantly monitoring these forums, doesnt that mean that they're aware of the problems already. If they have to waste their time reading non-productive posts like this, the patch isnt going to be out for a while.

 

[vannibombonato]

True, there are many problems associated with this game, but not everyone are experiencing the same set of problems. Some people get black terrain, some get CTDs, some just get lags.

And I disagree with you that there's nothing to do, there are many people who have gotten their game to run due to the work of other members who are constantly trying to find ways to fix the issues instead of sitting around complaining about game. I, for one, got a lot of help from those people and was able to get the game running, though it was lagging, and this was before I upgraded my video card. I was able to play the game for hours using my current specs and an FX5200 card, a card that many people have.

And people arent saying that you cant post your opinion about the game, just not in this section. There are other sections in this forum, this one is called "technical support".

Since the search is off, there're constantly new threads every few minutes asking about the same problems. How is posting your complaints here, in the technical forum, going to help people with issues that have already been solved? For example, there are many threads asking about how to turn of movies because wonder movies keep crashing the game. You know what, that problem was solved like the first day after the game was released, around the first few pages of the section. But because people keep adding new, non-technical threads, we're on page 24 already. And did I mention that the search is off? Complaining in this section only adds to the problems. It's fraustrating enough that people can't get their game to work. If you're expecting them to go through 24 pages of threads with many of them containing 100's of posts, how do you expect anything to get done around here. And someone mentioned that Firaxis people are constantly monitoring these forums, doesnt that mean that they're aware of the problems already. If they have to waste their time reading non-productive posts like this, the patch isnt going to be out for a while.

Many good points indeed...but:

1) True that some of the problems can be partially solved through suggestions coming from the forum: this was very useful indeed to help many people at least play a little bit.

2) Regarding the usefuleness of this forum, i frankly think that if i was buying the game today, IF my problems could be solved i could easily find the solutions within the first page of this forum. After all...the solutions are more or less always the same. After those 3-4 things that one can do...either the game begins to work, either it won't until patch is released.

3) The point you make on Firaxis monitoring the threads i think is very wrong.
It is OBVIOUS that the problems are so many, and so randomic, that there is something BIG, BIG, BIG, wrong with the coding, and it is OBVIOUS that they knew it when releasing the game. There are so many different combinations that gives problem, that it's clear that they knew about it, and simply have preferred to release it anyway. I mean...it's not that this game doesn't work with 1 specific video card. This games potentially don't work with all video cards that are on the market...not mentioning mother boards, etc.
I believe that, whether there are thousands of different specifics ways the game crashes, the originating problem is (or are) very concentrated. That is, there must be 2-3 big coding issues that generates 2.000-3.000 different crashes depending on each system specifics specs. But posting 2,000-3,000 different crash logs is not useful i guess...the problem is so big that it's i think very easily spottable. Clearly it's not easy to solve (they would have already done before releasing), but i don't think Firaxis need any more log...i think they know exactly where the problem(s) are, and i think they knew when they released the game (that is, if they have more than 5 pcs on their offices, which i believe they have).

And, one important point on the patch: as i said, obviously Firaxis knew that the game wouldn't work with 5-10% (my guess) of pcs meeting the specs. My guess is that, if they released the game in this state, it's because THEY KNEW THAT IT WOULD HAVE TAKEN LONG BEFORE SOLVING THE PROBLEM.
You know...one case is when a bug miss your QA, the community spots it, you solve it in 3 days and you release a patch.
Another situation is when you have a commited release date, you find your game 90% complete and you forecast 2 months for getting that last 10%.

I think this was the case, and that is why i would have been very surprised to see the patch coming out in the first weeks...i mean...if it was a 10 days working time they clearly would have waited (because they knew the problem was there).
If they didn't and preferred to have thousands of angry consumers...unless some of Firaxis programmers takes out a rabbit from the hat, i think that the patch could still be far, far, far away.

Ciao,

Vanni

 

[Fibber]

And someone mentioned that Firaxis people are constantly monitoring these forums, doesnt that mean that they're aware of the problems already.

Great way to Beta test the game. Release it unfinished, then read the forums.

 

[zsc]

Not all the fixes that people came up with solved the same/similar problems on other systems. I suggested that people update their Bink, Miles Sound, and Python files which was mentioned on another Forum, it worked for some and not others. People have mentioned many many possible fixes ranging from firmware updates, Bios updates, modifying INI files, etc. And of course, they work for some and not others. Overall there are more than just 3 or 4 things you can do to try to fix the problems.

When you imply that the game potentially doesnt work with ALL the video cards, are you aware that there are many people who are able to play the game? I'm one of them. However, I should point out that others with similar video card as me, meaning same chipset, are experiencing major problems.

 

[TheBarnacle]

i agree memory leak a major problem play for more than an hour and game moves like molasses

i'm hoping we're all correct that it is a 'fixable' thing (mem leak).

and my limited tech knowledge suggests...maybe? b/c i can be rolling "ok" with 10-15 fps. then sometimes, after a certain time, or after the leader heads, it can pin down to 5 or even 1 fps.

HOWEVER....if i center on the ocean tiles, the fps jumps up. though never back to 15. it's only slightly better than over land. so i don't know if that's leakage or merely a factor of the rendering.

either way, it SUCKS to have to play a game only partially (low graphics, low sounds, etc.) b/c of this.

 

[Padma]

Moderator Action: Thread closed.
Please read the forum rules: http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=422889

There is a patch thread (or two) in the General discussion forum. This thread is doing no good in Tech Support, other than as a place for people to whine at each other about how good/bad their game is.