vbraun
Raytracing
Do you have any ideas on how they could improve the game so that you would not hate it anymore?
Sorry but I absolutely HATE Civ 4 !
- Thread starter Creosote
- Start date
Psyringe
Scout
GermanRuler said:
Have a look at the reviews, sales figures, or the polls on this site - Civ4 is not at all doing bad. On the contrary.
I agree that Firaxis would run into troubles if they didn't manage to fix the technical issues that currently marr an otherwise great game. But there's no reason to believe that. Civ3 had far more bugs (more in gameplay, but serious showstoppers nonetheless), and people didn't refrain from buying Civ4. Because Firaxis is known to support its games for a long time.
Psyringe said:
Just a note though - most polls and reviews are subjective rather than objective. I submit that early polls on how much people enjoy (or not enjoy) a game can be misleading from a gameplay enjoyment standpoint while the game enjoys a "honeymoon" period. Nearly all toys look good when it's still new and fresh in your mind. But what's important is just how good it will be a few months down the line, and I think we're in agreement on this point (though I think we disagree on when the product should already be in its "completed", pristine state =)).
Also, frankly, it will be next to impossible to see a bad review of Civilization IV in any major gaming website or magazine. These websites and magazines earn their revenue from advertisements. Take 2 (or Firaxis, but it's usually the publisher) pays for those ads. Putting up a bad review of a game, even if it deserves it, will likely mean that the publisher will pull its ads for all of its games - a huge revenue hit that no website or magazine will be willing to take.
Finally, Civ IV has released some official sales figures, which is an impressive 5 million copies sold (or $250M worth in gross revenue). Still, I must submit that the figure may also be somewhat misleading - sales figures often count those that have arrived at the stores but have not yet been actually sold to an end user. Also, these figures definitely do not count returned and refunded games. The high sales figures, however, definitely do pointedly show the need for the game to improve its technical performance (something that it should have been released with in the first place). If we follow the often used figure of 5% technical failure rate demonstrated in polls here in Civfanatics, poor Take2/Firaxis already has a quarter of a million disappointed users to deal with =).
Civilization is a marathon rather than a sprint. I agree that while it's on the surface looking good now for the franchise (which I attribute to the luster of brand name that is Civilization rather than anything Firaxis or Take 2 ever did), those responsible had better get their act together. A brand name can only get you so far.
Pbhead
Hail the Byzantines
I dont know how some of you dont like ![[civ4]](/images/smilies/civ4.gif "Civ4 [civ4]")
! I got the game and I have the worst computer to play it on(will change soon) But I still love it.1. The frame rate is SOO choppy it is impossible to desern what the AI is doing. I can hardly understand what is going on outside my(small) empire.
2. The game itself is taking ever bit of memerory my comp has, It hardly works, it freezes up, (sometimes even has what looks like a siezer) and killes my computer I even have to disconect all power to my computer to make it work again.
3. If the game get interupted it gets MAD. if I shrink it to check e-mail or even type up a paper (OR COME TO THIS FOREM) It will do a few things. It will not allow anything else to load or save. It will not allow me to see the text of the email. And when I get done doing whatever and get back to playing, it will still be mad, so much that it wont let me save my CIV games! And then because it is still mad at me for shrinking it for just a second,l IT WONT ALLOW ME TO EXIT!!!!! When It askes are you SUURE you want to exit??? If I click yes it will freeze and then I have to go through with the power cutting thing again.
4. I dont understand catapults now...
But the game is SOO cool I love it! It HARDLY works, but I LOVE it sucks the life out of my computer, just enough to hold on to existance, and dies if something else gets in it way, BUT IT IS STILL A GOOD GAME! I Still play it I NEED civanon! (PLEASE, NO one tell me about it or if it really exists)
Be happy you and your computer can actually do stuff without crashing!
Now if you excuse me I am going to...
jeremiahrounds
Prince
- Joined
- Nov 3, 2003
- Messages
- 404
Psyringe said:I wouldn't call it simplified. Concepts like corruption and pollution haven't been totally deleted, but transformed into concepts which are less annoying to the player (maintenance costs, city health). But they are still there and provide a challenge. Plus, there are totally new concepts like religion and civics (well, new to Civ anyways). In my opinion, Firaxis managed to produce a game which is more complex than its predecessors, without being more complicated. Which is not an easy thing to do.
I agree i wouldnt call corruption simplified either. I almost derailed my last prince game by expanding to fast into a vacuous continent. That never would have happened in civ3. In the civ ranking screen i had gold production -1 rival average 43. I had to go city by city just to get coins to have a shot at getting new science within 50 turns to get new improvements to end this gold crunch.
It might have started out as a simplifying effort however that inability to sustain expansion has made it more complicated.
Psyringe
Scout
Zinegata said:
Yes, there can be a honeymoon period. There can also be initial disappointment, e.g. because of expecting too much (due to marketing hype), or because of the lack or change of features (sequels are especially prone to such effects). Civ3, when it was released, received a lot of criticism: no multiplayer, no editor, no scenarios, corruption woes, no spy units etc. Even if there are honeymoons, even if there are people who change their mind after a while, people are not totally blind to a game's flaws. Civ4's gameplay has been very well received. If people gave it high marks just because of a honeymoon phase, then why don't other games get the same very high marks - they should have honeymoon phases as well?
I agree, however, that the true quality and long time appeal of Civ4 can only be estimated at this point. In my estimation, Civ4 will have tremendous long time appeal.
Zinegata said:
I've seen no evidence yet that this rumoured ad pulling actually ever happens - after all, it would hurt the game's publisher as well. The main purpose of ads is not to subsidize games magazines, but to attract customers. A publisher that gets game A slammed, and then pulls ads for game B (which might even get a good review), cuts off its nose to spite one's face. Furthermore, a vendetta with a games magazine is unlikely to yield good reviews in the future.
Take MoO3 as an example. It scored about 60% on average across all reviews - an abysmal result, despite being published by Infogrames/Atari, which was a huge advertising power at that time. If your theory were true, then this could never have happened.
Also, Civ4 received not only good, but mostly *great* reviews. No one forces a games magazine to write a great review. Even when you do think that slamming Civ4 might have cost them ads, then they still could have safely ranked the game in the lower eighties. Even, say, 78% wouldn't have been a disaster - but Civ4 constantly scores 90-95%.
So, I don't think that Civ4's great reviews can be negated that easily.
Regarding our third point (sales figures), I agree that they are impressive, and I also agree that the technical issues that cropped up will have to be solved. However, seeing that the main gripe of critics are only technical issues (which I expect to be solved), and that Civ4's gameplay is generally very well received, I think the future of the series looks bright.
vbraun said:
If you asking me (the original poster) then yes!
-Go back to the 2D graphics, this is a board game, and all this zooming and stuff for some archaic naff mini animation just is ridiculous. Plus it eats up computer resources. I wish they had given an option of 2D or 3D.
-Improve the clarity of info presented on all screens including the main screen. I find it really hard to see what squares have resources, have been improved etc. The whole thing looks so lacking in contrast.
- Provide a decent tutorial and manual, that Tutorial is a joke. I may not be the sharpest of people but I've played all the previous Civ games and yet find Civ4 extremely confusing and complex, really does need a more extensive Tutorial.
- From what little I have gleaned Civ4 pushes you to fewer cities, a smaller civilization, but I thought it was building an empire?
I've spent several hours puring through Sulla's excellent Walkthru that I came across. Superb work by a real enthusiast. It certainly helped me understand many of the concepts of Civ4 that I was struggling with but after going through it still didnt leave me with any urge to actually play the game. I am just left with this personal feeling that Civ4 is at best a very average game, a worse looking and overly complex version of Civ3. I know you can't please everyone! and Civ has been pleasing me since the release of Civ1, but I just can't stand the game, for me its a very pale shadow of the previous itterations.
Psyringe said:
It's not that there's no evidence - it's more of the case that the ads are never pulled in the first place. The game magazine simply does what the publisher wants. It's a sad fact of life, but the honest truth of the matter is that a company is controlled by the people paying for its bills. For game magazines (well actually, this applies for any media outlet - tv, print, radio, or online), ads constitute the bulk of the revenue, so the people placing the ads have a lot of control over what is being published. In other words, one does not bite the hand that feeds it, and game magazines are no exception.
I'm not saying that this happens always though - there are some media outlets which are fiercely independent. However, unless those outlets have an alternate source of revenue (such as subscription or circulation), those outlets are either doomed to close shop or to transition to new management more pliant to the advertiser's wishes.
Psyringe said:
Not really. They key really is the answer to the question "Who is bigger?". The publisher, in the gaming industry, is the bigger of the two entities in almost all cases. In their point of view, pulling ads from one magazine is of no consequence. They can simply place the ads in another magazine or website.
If there is but one major gaming magazine that controls the majority of gamer viewership, then the situation would be different. The publishers will be the ones who will have to bend over backwards and keep the gaming magazine happy, or else their game will never be promoted. However, there simply isn't such an entity today - the viewership of gamers is spread out among a wide variety of websites, and most gamers often choose to consult multiple sources.
I'm not saying that having the game magazines become more powerful than the publishers would be perfect either though - as the proverb goes power corrupts, and an inequity of some sort will always exist in the system. My previous post was meant to just show how the inequity exists now.
Psyringe said:
That's because I don't think you can get anyone to testify it was a good game in the first place =). There are some cases (which perhaps I should have mentioned in my earlier post) where the game is simply so bad that a magazine can go back to the publisher and say that there is no way they can publish a good review, because if they do so they will lose all credibility. You don't bite the hand that feeds you, but you don't let that same hand push you off a cliff =).
Also...
And here's the rub, actually. While it's impossible to claim that something bad is good, it's actually fairly easy to claim that something mediocre or average is even good or great. Again, this is because reviews focus mainly on subjective issues, and the subjective by its very definition varies from person to person. If the person suffered a host of technical problems, chances are he's gonna write a bad review. If it's someone whose paycheck is being paid for by the publisher however, then he/she will most likely be more willing to overlook some of the things he/she didn't like and write a glowing review.
Really, I'm not a big fan of using subjective measures to gauge a game's performance. Why do you think that of all the three examples you cited, I used the words impressive (and in bold =) ) only in the sole objective measure - the sales figure? =)
Just beware of the wise words spoken about Battlecruiser 3000: "How good is a game that won't even run?" =)
Does it have good gameplay? Seems so. But I won't be able to tell since i still can't get the damn thing to work on my rig! >_< (and I'm waiting for my bonus to get the extra RAM cards >_<)
Dogzilla
Chieftain
Give it another try.
When I first got it, I was turned off by the graphics and interface. I stuck with it, and now I love it. Gameplay is more simple, and more complex. I miss Civ3 only because of the expansions and the great work done by the modders, and I'm sure Civ4 will have more of that soon enough.
Give it 2 solid hours and you will be sold.
When I first got it, I was turned off by the graphics and interface. I stuck with it, and now I love it. Gameplay is more simple, and more complex. I miss Civ3 only because of the expansions and the great work done by the modders, and I'm sure Civ4 will have more of that soon enough.
Give it 2 solid hours and you will be sold.
Charles 22
King
Dogzilla said:
Yeah I thought about writing to you yesterday, but didn't. I seem to be on something of a bright phase of my life, where I catch onto things quickly (or at least quicker than I used to). At first my very recent CIV2 and CIV3 play was somewhat frustrating in dealing with this game as the combination of that and the early game having no music put me into sleepiness to top it all off. After about an hour of messing around with it I went and ate and watched some tv. That took about an hour and I returned. I played the tutorial to see if it could help, and then I turned on the radio during the no music period and suddenly a lot of it started making a lot more sense. People just have to take a break and return to it another day, if that large a break is necessary. The gulf between CIV3 and this game is large enough that it's too discouraging for a good portion of the people to be able to absorb in one sitting. You have to take a break in order to get back into more of an openness towards it, having largely forgotten what was frustrating you before.
King Flevance
Deity
vbraun said:
Please tell me what I have to mod in the ini.
Psyringe
Scout
King Flevance said:Please tell me what I have to mod in the ini.
There's a line "AllowFlying = 0". Replace the 0 with a 1. Then load a game and hit Ctrl-F. Move the mouse to change your view angle. Turn the mouse wheel to move the camera forwards and backwards. Have fun.
It's not really useful for playing, but nice to have nevertheless. From time to time I just like to roam the countryside of "my" empire.
King Flevance
Deity
Psyringe said:There's a line "AllowFlying = 0". Replace the 0 with a 1. Then load a game and hit Ctrl-F. Move the mouse to change your view angle. Turn the mouse wheel to move the camera forwards and backwards. Have fun.
It's not really useful for playing, but nice to have nevertheless. From time to time I just like to roam the countryside of "my" empire.
Thank you SO much Psyringe. I cant wait to try this out.
incubuspawn
Warlord
- Joined
- Nov 8, 2005
- Messages
- 143
I love the graphics, welcome to 3d. The map world has come to life. I do not understand why it is confuseing however. Zoom out a little bit for a birds eye view if the 3d throws you off. Basicly north is still north, south is still south etc... I also love all the new improvements, it adds a new layer to an allready in depth tbs, not to mention further brings the world to life. The globe is no diff than before, except you can see it as a globe now and not just a flat map. ( ie now it is easy to see how you leave one end of the screen and come around to the other. )
Once you get used to the new elements, it is the same game. So your just frustrated and venting. Civ never was a simple game, so I am suprised how many people are intimidated by this one.
an interesting side note, although your workers have more to do, but you need less of them. I really like that no more worker armies
( imo with a worker army in civ three, Carthage and France was the top civs to play, france slightly better because you could force a golden age at a better time of the game to have one. Now your civ really is whatever civ you want to play and not be limited by your play style )
Once you get used to the new elements, it is the same game. So your just frustrated and venting. Civ never was a simple game, so I am suprised how many people are intimidated by this one.
an interesting side note, although your workers have more to do, but you need less of them. I really like that
no more worker armies ( imo with a worker army in civ three, Carthage and France was the top civs to play, france slightly better because you could force a golden age at a better time of the game to have one. Now your civ really is whatever civ you want to play and not be limited by your play style )
Psyringe said:There's a line "AllowFlying = 0". Replace the 0 with a 1. Then load a game and hit Ctrl-F. Move the mouse to change your view angle. Turn the mouse wheel to move the camera forwards and backwards. Have fun.
It's not really useful for playing, but nice to have nevertheless. From time to time I just like to roam the countryside of "my" empire.
Where is the ini hidden I can't believe i can't find it for this game!
