Paying for our patch

[Catman]

Does the coming release of CIV IV:Warlords mean that we are essentially buying our still needed patch?

 

[Bungus]

Heheheh Civ 4..

 

[Spastic Primate]

Does the coming release of CIV IV:Warlords mean that we are essentially buying our still needed patch?

What do you mean "WE" Kemosabe? A couple of things will have to happen before that company gets another dime from me.

1. A solid patch that addresses the CTDs and memory issues.

2. A long wait to see what others think of the expansion pack before I jump into this again.

The game is currently collecting dust on the shelf and no longer taking up valuable space on my hard drive. If I want that much frustration I will work overtime at my job and get paid well for it.

I have since moved on to Galactic Civlizations II. Stardock knows how to communicate with customer and keep them coming back for more.

Below is an example from their forum of how Stardock views its responsibility to its customers.

"We don't like getting yelled at by customers who run into some problem any more than you like running into problems. And we especially get no joy out of people making forum posts that ignore the stickies proclaiming the game is buggy. Let me put it like this, if the game crashes on you, we consider that unacceptable."

"Ever buy games where the developer pretends a given problem with their game doesn't exist?

Wish they'd just admit to a problem and fix it? Well here's our list of problems that we've encountered and some of them are going to sound pretty obscure but if they affect you, better to know. We plan to address these by release:......

That's all for now. We'll keep updating this. Hopefully we haven't scared anyone off. We have found from our non-game software that the best policy is to treat customers as partners. "

"Most of these issues won't affect anyone (they certainly didn't come up during the beta and there were thousands of people in that). But they will likely affect someone and we want to make sure they're taken care of."


Civ IV has the potential to be a great game but until something is improved my copy is an expensive coaster.

 

[Thasis]

I love the game. I don't have a great computer and I still love this game. Modding, and playing, and modding again, and then playing again. No matter how slow it gets (which isn't that slow) it's always fun. I don't see why everybody is always *****ing.

 

[Kael]

Does the coming release of CIV IV:Warlords mean that we are essentially buying our still needed patch?

I haven't seen any evidence that the 2 things are related.

 

[azzaman333]

Just because they have annouced an expansion pack which we all knew was going to happen doesnt mean they cant be bothered making a patch for the current version.

 

[Philips]

I haven't seen any evidence that the 2 things are related.

The chief programmer for Civ IV posted a message shortly before the announcment of the expansion saying that the patch was delayed because the QA people had moved on to "other priorities".

 

[Philips]

I love the game. I don't have a great computer and I still love this game. Modding, and playing, and modding again, and then playing again. No matter how slow it gets (which isn't that slow) it's always fun. I don't see why everybody is always *****ing.

The reason people complain is that many of us who DO have great computers (and the knowlege to maintain them) have to deal with frequent crashing, not just slowdowns. We also have to deal with a company that has decided that denial is the way to deal with bugs in it's software.

 

[Kael]

The chief programmer for Civ IV posted a message shortly before the announcment of the expansion saying that the patch was delayed because the QA people had moved on to "other priorities".

I was reponding to the expansion and needing to "buy our patch" as being unlinked. There hasn't been any evidence that this is the case and every indication that the two events (the patch and the expansion) aren't one and the same.

Firaxis is a company with finite resources. And even though we would love to say that new projects shouldn't be begun as long as their is a resource constraint on existing projects it usually isnt that simple. Be that a law firm who still accepts new clients when their current attorneys are busy, a builder who is starting a new house while trying to finish up the old one, or a software company trying to give the best support to their released project as well as working on the next one.

Add to that the sad fact that all complex software has bugs. No matter how many patches, or how many years it has been out there are still some situations that will cause crahses or some platforms that it doesnt run well on. Good software companies try to get as close to perfect as possible, all the while knowing they can never reach that mark.

Of course to the users effected by those bugs it is a huge deal, and they have a right to be frustrated. It is really for each person to determine for themselves how they feel about the support Firaxis has given their product.

Personally I see that they are releasing patches, meaning that they are supporting their product and fixing the issues that they are aware of and able to (not denial as you suggest). That doesn't mean 100%, but they are trying. They have also released tools and documentation to the community for modding, which is awesome. So personally I think they have done an excellent job.

Could it be better? Yes. Could the patches have come quicker if they would have turned more resources on support and less on future products, probably. Could they have done a better job of testing so we wouldn't have run into the issues in the first place, yes (and the answer to this question is yes for all software from every company).

 

[Philips]

Since the 1.52 patch denial has been the only response until very recently. The "all software contains bugs so it is a crap shoot if a given program will run on your hardware" argument is nonsense. While it may may not be possible to remove ALL bugs, it is certainly possible to remove all MAJOR bugs. Other software companies seem able to do it.

But the issue is more than that. Other programs have had issues with particular hardware or drivers, but any decent customer service operation will make this information available. Even when there is no fix for a bug, there is often a work around. I might even replace the item of hardware in question if I knew what it is assuming that that is what it is. So, where is the support?

they don't really seem to be fixing much so far. The 1.52 patch was just Harkonens fix. The 1.08 & 1.09 just slightly modified the rules somewhat. I haven't seen a real effort to fix the program and only recently heard an announcement that there even would be a patch. Just rumors before that, and lots of PR people claiming that there were no bugs.

 

[Gogf]

It has been made clear that Firaxis is waiting for 2K to allow the distribution of the patch. Would it be better for them to sit around doing nothing while they wait for this or for them to start work on the expansion?

 

[Gorgameth]

It has been made clear that Firaxis is waiting for 2K to allow the distribution of the patch. Would it be better for them to sit around doing nothing while they wait for this or for them to start work on the expansion?

They could start working on the expansion, provided they immediately start working on the patch that would need to be released after the game hits the shelves so that people can play it.

Or better, they could "pretend" to release the expansion, publish the update, and then include it into the "released" software, and then really send it to the stores. People won't notice they're getting a patched software, but they'll sure be happy because the game will be working out of the box.

But I know, this is just make believe... 2K will do as it did for Civ 4, they'll release the expansion pack without sending it to Q&A... after all, if they can do it once, why wouldn't they do it again? Then... two months after that, they check their emails and realise "Darn, we have problems with the expansion" and they'll start working on a patch. At that time, Q&A will finally release the software update for Civ4, which obviously will not install on machines, because of the modified files that the expansion had installed.

But don't worry folks, this will only happen next June...

...

Ok, I admit, I see a dark future for everyone concerning this game...

 

[fjcardoso]

I don't think they will have problems with the expansion pack.

I think that the expansion will basically be an official mod, with some new core changes. They will need to text only the new core changes.

Also, I saw a lot of people complaining about their programmers, I dont think that its their fault, but for sure its QA people fault, or producers fault.

Maybe they launched the game knowing about the bugs.

 

[Philips]

It has been made clear that Firaxis is waiting for 2K to allow the distribution of the patch. Would it be better for them to sit around doing nothing while they wait for this or for them to start work on the expansion?

It has been made clear that much of what Take2 says is BS. Firaxis isn't waiting for anything because there is no such thing. Firaxis is just a trademark that belongs to Take2.

 

[wurm657]

Sent an e-mail to Take 2 support asking about the patch last week.
After 3 days I was very suprised to find a response...I truly expected none.
Not only did I get a response, but it was not a "canned" response...it was actually written by someone at Take 2 customer support! (You could tell because of a massive number of typos and spelling errors)
It was a pretty short e-mail (I really wish I had saved it to attach here, sorry folks) that simply and bluntly stated that Take 2 was not responsible for the release of patches, the game developers are (in other words, go talk to Firaxis kid)
This is NOT an April Fool's joke...that really was their response!
I think that should make it pretty clear to even the biggest fan-boy that Take 2 is an inferior company with no dedication to their customers.
Civ IV from start to finish has been a disaster and will continue to be. Take 2 knew they had a fan-base to exploit and knew they would take in money on the Civ name alone.
I think at this point, we can all expect that any patch that comes down the road will be buggy and probably make things worse.

 

[Philips]

That is really not a very good sign. I had been wondering why the fanboys seem to spend so much energy differentiating the Take2 & Firaxis names. If Take2 is going to claim that they are victims of the former owners of Firaxis who sold them a lemon, they might disavow any responsibility for fixing the game.

If that is the case, there may not be a patch at all.