Reality Check

[Hormagaunt]

The more improvements they can actually fit into V that make it a good game, the better the outcome/financial outlook (and thus probability of production) of civ VI.

The result of that will also be that they will point to the success, however small, of the game and say "see, people prefer the new way" and they will continue on, making it more "streamlined" and more "new player friendly".

 

[AlpsStranger]

The result of that will also be that they will point to the success, however small, of the game and say "see, people prefer the new way" and they will continue on, making it more "streamlined" and more "new player friendly".

And the alternative is oblivion.

 

[lschnarch]

So my honest question to people that claim that Civ5 needs to tank so Civ6 can come out is: do you really think that is the most likely outcome? Or do you admit this has a touch of wish-thinking?

I honestly don't see how anyone thinks that the suits will OK a Civ6 months after getting taken to the woodshed on Civ5. For my part I think we'd see something like a PS3/360/PC Railroads or a PS3/WII/360/DS/PSP/PC Pirates! sequel. I don't think we'd see Civ6 this side of 2020, frankly.

As having an economic background AND being a customer, I have to say I don't care about a potential Civ6 at the moment. Sure, I would love to see it come if it were according to my expectations, but that is something for the far future.

I pay my money at a given moment in time to receive a game which is worth my money in that moment. If it is not worth my money, I will complain.
If my complaints make others not buy it, honestly, the better.

There is no point in excusing a bad state of a product in the hope that future iterations will become better. Why should they become better, if people "excuse" and buy anyway?
If the developers want to "save" the franchise, they shall save the current product. Better yesterday than tomorrow.

For sure I will not say: "For the sake of a thing which may not come at all, I will drop my critique and pretend that the product is currently decent."

If this attitude means that Firaxis goes out of business, I honestly don't care even for the tenth of a second. They've got my money for Civ2 and Civ3 (and both expansions) and Civ4 (and both expansions)..
None of these products was free of flaws.

But upto and *not* including Civ5, they were decent and made me buy the next version.

This won't happen anymore, unless they drastically increase the quality. And not in 2 years. In 2 months.
I won't be sitting here and waiting and hoping for hte better endlessly. They've messed up, they have to clean the mess. And they don't have much time left, or another customer is lost.

That's my message for the "deciders".

Once again: "excusing" the poor state of the product will only tempt them to do exactly the same with the next iteration: low budget, release nevertheless, let the customer's find the errors, fix what post sales budget allows to fix, leave the customer with the rest in whatever state it will be.

But issue new DLC every month.

Sorry? How in the Lord's holy name can anyone even just think this would be beneficial for the customers?

If I were holding the purse strings I would promptly call the lead designer into the office and explain to him that I was putting the flagship back on course. I would hire a new lead and choose a team to go into the forums both here and on 2k to apologize and do damage control. They would announce that the game was going back to its roots and that the bugs, wonders, and tech tree would all be fixed by the end of the month. If that was not possible then we would add some of this asap. Once the dust had settled and the company had earned back the trust I'd bring back the team that was let go if they are still around, and have them work on the expansion.

This. 1000 times this.

An official apology is more than overdue. Not issuing it clearly shows disrespect for the customers.

And I am not talking about a guy named "2k Greg". He doesn't mean anything.
I expect an official apology from Sid Meier, followed by an announcement of the product manager and lead designer what has been identified as weak spots, how and when it will be corrected.

Toyota's CEO (or was it the chairman?) officially excused on behalf of the company for the quality problems. And he is a guy much superior to a Sid Meier.

 

[AlpsStranger]

Toyota's CEO (or was it the chairman?) officially excused on behalf of the company for the quality problems. And he is a guy much superior to a Sid Meier.

You want revenge, you don't want a better Civ5 or a Civ6. All you want is a perp walk to gratify your own anger.

You want to see it all burn down because the direction they took the series offended you. That is purely psychological and is not constructive in any way.

There are only two paths out of this.

1) They fix it( and it will take more than months. It will take at least a year.)
2) The series is over.

That's it. If you create enough negativity to bring number 2 about, then that's what you'll get.

If you prefer number 2 then stay the course, but don't pretend to be anything other than a barbarian on a rampage.

 

[Asterix Rage]

Civ0.5 is joke! You don't know yet ???

Firaxis doesn't deserve to own a such good franchise

Don't buy it. Few good torrents allow you to get a try before...
(I know it is not legit but Firaxis act as a thug. So...)

Moderator Action: This forum has zero tolerance for encouraging/advocating video game piracy.
Please read the forum rules: http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=422889

 

[lschnarch]

You want revenge, you don't want a better Civ5 or a Civ6. All you want is a perp walk to gratify your own anger.

You want to see it all burn down because the direction they took the series offended you. That is purely psychological and is not constructive in any way.

There are only two paths out of this.

1) They fix it( and it will take more than months. It will take at least a year.)
2) The series is over.

That's it.

Call it whatever you like.

Toyota has become too self-confident because of their past successes. They didn't put enough energy into their quality assurance, one thing for which once they were famous.
With their excuse they at least have officially admitted to be aware of having failed.

Firaxis has become too self-confident because of their past successes. They didn't put enough energy into their quality assurance.
Up to now they have not acknowledged to be aware of their problems.

That's the difference.

To the second part of your statement:
With the current path, for sure it will take a year to fix all the problems. I severely doubt that then there will be much fans left. Sure, some will stay, regardless of anything. Some will stay if they see at least some kind of improvement.
And some will leave, if they don't see *enough* improvement.

I really doubt that Firaxis has a full year left.
The problem for them is that many *old* fans, who have bought any version, are up the barricades. They are endangering their reputation, and that is what they are living from.

And as I've said in the previous posting: If they don't repair quick enough, then let the series die.
I for my person don't need to spend my money and than having to wait and to hope and to beg for repairs.
If my brand-new TV set is broken and won't be repaired in time, the manufacturer has lost a customer. For sure I won't buy a new set and hope that that one will be better, or the process out of a sudden will be improved.

After all, they don't allow me to "patch" my initial installment of money over the course of a year, either.

 

[AlpsStranger]

@Ischnarch- Look, I don't mean to be overly hostile to you. I'm sure we'd both have been perfectly happy if Civ5 had been an uncontroversial success, and I'm sure we'll both be happy if Shafer pulls a miracle in the next few months. One is in the past and the other is exceedingly unlikely.

I'm not saying you don't have the right to be offended, I'm simply talking turkey about the realistic results of a 'fan revolt.' I'm not saying fans aren't justified in revolting, I'm just saying that they should be aware of what will happen.

The difference in me and a lot of other posters really doesn't boil down to our opinion of the game. In another thread I said I considered it to be a 5-6/10(In Gamespot terms, mind you), which is higher than some would give it but couldn't be considered high praise by any stretch of the imagination. The real difference is what I think the appropriate response is.

Which do I care more about, is what I ask myself. Do I care more about my 'rights as a consumer' or the fate of the Civilization series? I've chosen the latter and you've chosen the former, and I think that is what this all boils down to. It doesn't mean you're wrong, but it does mean that you have decided you'd rather burn the series down than be taken advantage of as a consumer.

I don't even deny that the 'consumer rights' position is probably more noble and honorable than my own. I simply take the pragmatic 'What will happen if we do X versus Y' approach, which is really what this thread is about.

I think if the community offers the Devs constructive feedback and patches up some of the holes with unofficial patches we can get this entirely back where it should be. This, to me, is a far better outcome than driving home some point about who pays the bills at Firaxis. Is this fair? No, not really. It's totally unfair to us. On the other hand, it has a better real outcome than the alternative.

 

[j51]

All of the worst forecasts made gleefully on this forum came true. The game barely broke even, it's $5 on Steam every other weekend, patching stopped after the first few months, the SDK was never released and they just crapped out a few minor DLCs in a bid to break even.

I haven't played yet (Mac), so I don't know about the game's actual quality, but from what I gather, patching hasn't stopped. Also, it's only been two months, not several.

 

[ezwip]

You are right Alps and I think that what some of us are upset about is that it's not difficult to fix. It's like they're sitting there flipping us off and have people waiting to ban us and warn us for asking what the heck the holdup is. It shouldn't even have been an issue modders fixed it up lickedy split but we're still waiting on 2k. J-Christ 2k cut and paste.

 

[smellymummy]

when civ 4 came out it was the same thing, the difference now is there are more upset people that can post. what this means is, when civ4 came out the amount of people who can access the internet was nowhere to the amount of people who can access and post today.

the negativity will go away and then it's a period of patching, improvements and expansions, and just like civ4, it will turn into a great new game. why people get all flustered because some individuals who have the ability to post "this game sucks" is beyond me. their posts are meaningless and don't help anything in any way whatsoever

 

[Sullla]

AlpsStranger, are you seriously suggesting that it's the duty of the fans to support the Civilization series regardless of the quality of the products? That's rather nonsensical, if you'll excuse my saying so. I've been playing various Civ games for the past decade, but that's because I found them to be fun and entertaining, not because of some sense of loyalty to the brand. If I thought the games were not fun, I would simply move on to something else. Just like any other product. I don't find Civ5 to be a fun or interesting game, so I have moved on to other things. It's not that complicated.

You have the relationship between developers and player base completely reversed. It's not the duty of the consumers to support the developers of the Civilization series. Rather, it's the duty of the developers to win over the support of the customer base with each new iteration of the series. If they can't do that, well, tough beans for them. Life is too short to waste it on mediocre to bad games. Honestly, why should we be the ones responsible for rebalancing games and creating unofficial patches? That's their job! We paid them our money! It's ridiculous.

Put another way, would you go out and purchase dozens of copies of Master of Orion 3 or Sim City Societies just to "keep the series alive"? I would hope not!

 

[lschnarch]

I'm not saying you don't have the right to be offended, I'm simply talking turkey about the realistic results of a 'fan revolt.' I'm not saying fans aren't justified in revolting, I'm just saying that they should be aware of what will happen.

I am neither talking about a "fan revolt". At least not in an organized way.
Yet, I see that is is coming as many fans are already "revolting" individually. I'm one of them, for sure.
But that is something anybody has to decide for himself. As you, I am providing my point of view and often (admittedly, sometimes I am even to angry or maybe frustrated to do so) I try to back it up with my experience from the game.

Which do I care more about, is what I ask myself. Do I care more about my 'rights as a consumer' or the fate of the Civilization series? I've chosen the latter and you've chosen the former, and I think that is what this all boils down to.

Unfortunately, I don't see how the one could be isolated from the other.
As I (and many others even before me) have tried to point out:
If Firaxis is allowed to go away with their current attitude, chances are low that this attitude will change. Just because there wouldn't be any reason for them to change.

After all, they want to make money. If they can make money with less effort and less caring, then they will make money with less effort and less caring.

I think if the community offers the Devs constructive feedback and patches up some of the holes with unofficial patches we can get this entirely back where it should be. This, to me, is a far better outcome than driving home some point about who pays the bills at Firaxis. Is this fair? No, not really. It's totally unfair to us. On the other hand, it has a better real outcome than the alternative.

Honestly, I think that even the general forum is swimming in suggestions where and how to improve. Or at least with posting pointing out what is noticed as being flawed.
The intonation may not be the most friendly one, but I could tell you stories about how I am dealt with by customers...

I don't see missing "support" for Firaxis. After all, any complaint about whatever individual point is picked finally is some kind of "support".
It literally means: "Hey guys, look here! You've done something I am not happy with!"

And as I have said some weeks ago already:
If *I* were in charge at Firaxis, I would hire some students just to browse the forums and to make lists what are the complaints.

You would then have something like:
"Sucks" = 54.464
"bad" = 32.596
"Diplomacy" = 3.664
"unbalanced diplomacy" = 1.503
"missing diplomatic option in X" = 395
(these are just examples, but you get the picture)

And so on.
The first two items would just give you the awareness that fans are unhappy.
The other items would lead you to *where* the problems really are sitting.

And then of course I would especially browse for postings of well-known modders, as those typically have quite some experience in technics, balancing, and whatnotever.

And I would churn out patches (if not savegame-breaking) as soon as possible, and might it even be any other day. After all, that was one of the advertising points for Steam, no?
That way I would (try to) ensure my fanbase that I am dealing with their concerns.

But the way it is right now?
Better hope that the next patch really improves things on a large scale.

Long story short:
They better improve as much as soon as they can. If for whatever reason they fail to do so, then they've lost.
Remember, whatever we allow them to skip right now they will skip in the future, too.

 

[Rusty Edge]

I have something to say that I think is important. I don't want this to be a discussion of Civ5's quality as we have the entire rest of the forum for that.

Imagine that you are holding the purse strings at Firaxis/2K and you are looking at the proposition of a Civ6 after Civ5. All of the worst forecasts made gleefully on this forum came true. The game barely broke even, it's $5 on Steam every other weekend, patching stopped after the first few months, the SDK was never released and they just crapped out a few minor DLCs in a bid to break even. Now, you're not a big gamer, you don't really understand most of the community complaints about Civ5 and don't really care to. You're more interested in keeping your Ferrari/trophy wife/summer home by prudently deciding what projects to allow. All you really know is that Civ5 was a flop. Everything else is a detail below the level you work at.

So my honest question to people that claim that Civ5 needs to tank so Civ6 can come out is: do you really think that is the most likely outcome? Or do you admit this has a touch of wish-thinking?

I honestly don't see how anyone thinks that the suits will OK a Civ6 months after getting taken to the woodshed on Civ5. For my part I think we'd see something like a PS3/360/PC Railroads or a PS3/WII/360/DS/PSP/PC Pirates! sequel. I don't think we'd see Civ6 this side of 2020, frankly.

Please don't use this thread to argue about whether Civ5 is good or not and discuss the premise as stated.

I already put in a request to Firaxis for a Wii motion plus compatible Pirates! when the sytem enhancements came out. I think it's a good idea.

Even so, I'm a Civ Fanatic. I care about the series more than anything. I'm still looking forward to the finished version of Civ V vanilla, and an expansion that includes privateers Hannibal, and Spain. I'm not ready to look to Civ VI.

 

[j51]

Quote:
Originally Posted by AlpsStranger View Post
All of the worst forecasts made gleefully on this forum came true. The game barely broke even, it's $5 on Steam every other weekend, patching stopped after the first few months, the SDK was never released and they just crapped out a few minor DLCs in a bid to break even.

I haven't played yet (Mac), so I don't know about the game's actual quality, but from what I gather, patching hasn't stopped. Also, it's only been two months, not several.

 

[ezwip]

Just like Colonization.

 

[scratchthepitch]

Just as an example.

If Atari hadn't killed MOO stone dead with #3, they'd probably be raking in $100's millions on it now. Short sightedness on their part cost them a fortune. Sure they could try to resurrect it, but sadly most people now remember the MOO series for how it died horribly instead of how great it was.

The same could happen with Civ, and if it does it's their doing. We will find something else, they will struggle to find another game capable of instant cash.

The Civ series died for me with Civ4. Had some hopes for 5, but between steam and the same old AI flaws I've seen written about, those hopes didn't amount to anything.

It's too bad since the series really had potential if they had taken the route of really improving the games, rather than just milking their customer's expectations with minor tweaks to the basic show.

 

[AlpsStranger]

AlpsStranger, are you seriously suggesting that it's the duty of the fans to support the Civilization series regardless of the quality of the products? That's rather nonsensical, if you'll excuse my saying so.

I'm not saying it's a duty, Sulla. You don't have to do it. I'm just saying what I think will happen if we don't.

I've been playing various Civ games for the past decade, but that's because I found them to be fun and entertaining, not because of some sense of loyalty to the brand. If I thought the games were not fun, I would simply move on to something else. Just like any other product. I don't find Civ5 to be a fun or interesting game, so I have moved on to other things. It's not that complicated.

That is perfectly fair, Sulla. I also appreciate the fact that you've been civil and reasonable on the forums through everything despite the fact that you are clearly disappointed. I sincerely do want to thank you for not going on a troll/bash frenzy like so many other players that shared your outlook.

You have the relationship between developers and player base completely reversed. It's not the duty of the consumers to support the developers of the Civilization series. Rather, it's the duty of the developers to win over the support of the customer base with each new iteration of the series. If they can't do that, well, tough beans for them. Life is too short to waste it on mediocre to bad games. Honestly, why should we be the ones responsible for rebalancing games and creating unofficial patches? That's their job! We paid them our money! It's ridiculous.

I'm talking about the reality of the situation. If you'd rather just leave the series behind there is nothing wrong with that. I've maybe been too harsh in calling you 'raging barbarians' but I think you see what I mean.

Put another way, would you go out and purchase dozens of copies of Master of Orion 3 or Sim City Societies just to "keep the series alive"? I would hope not!

No, but I would say that Societies and MOO3 were far worse than Civilization 5.

Sulla, you are a much more august member of the community than I am. That puts me in an awkward position. I've tried my best to respond sincerely. I will ask you a question in closing: Do you think my assessment, purely in terms of cause and effect, is incorrect?

 

[eviltypeguy]

I have something to say that I think is important. I don't want this to be a discussion of Civ5's quality as we have the entire rest of the forum for that.

Imagine that you are holding the purse strings at Firaxis/2K and you are looking at the proposition of a Civ6 after Civ5. All of the worst forecasts made gleefully on this forum came true.

Based on what criteria do you assert this claim? It's fine if you believe that, but it doesn't make it true.

Please don't use this thread to argue about whether Civ5 is good or not and discuss the premise as stated.

How can you possibly ask that of people when you start out with such trollworthy flamebait in your first post? You hypothesize an imaginary world that doesn't even begin to match reality, and then ask others to theorize what life might be like in that fantasy realm, but I'll not be a party to it.

So let's look at the reality:

* civilization v according to NPD press releases and other sources sold well, it did more than break even
* civilization v is still in the top 5 sellers on steam
* civilization v in the last 8 weeks of pc games sales remains, outranked only by final fantasy xiv online in the same time period for PC retail sales
* 2kgames has been very forthcoming about upcoming changes weeks before they release each patch

If you don't like the game, that's fine, I can respect that. But please be more objective in your approach.

 

[ezwip]

Do I care more about my 'rights as a consumer' or the fate of the Civilization series? I've chosen the latter and you've chosen the former, and I think that is what this all boils down to.

That's a disturbing comment. You are some kind of master troll. I bow to you sir.
Moderator Action: Accusations of trolling are seen as trolling itself here.

 

[nycguy]

I sense alot of unhappiness in this thread. Time to build a colloseum and theatre. Protest protest protest...u still ain't got no pancake mix.