Starting to feel a lot of sympathy for Civ5 devs

[Thormodr]

I feel a lot of sympathy for the devs because they made the best turn based strategy game in years and everyone here is complaining incessantly about it.

The best in years? Really?

Well, I guess everyone is entitled to their own opinion.

Even the people that profess to loving the game acknowledge it has some serious issues.

 

[UKScud]

I feel a lot of sympathy for the devs because they made the best turn based strategy game in years and everyone here is complaining incessantly about it.

Seriously? Best in years? What games have you been playing?

meh...I guess when I reread the phrase "turn based" you could just about be right...but only because the others weren't up to much either. [I'm thinking of Empire: Total War here. My opinion, others might think differently]

Look, Civ5 is not a work of art the developers are donating their time towards. It's a product, made by people who are getting paid a fair salary, that [in my case] I bought on the basis that the Civ franchise has a record of excellent games for over 20 years. I was expecting, and fairly I think, that the quality of the product would be better than it currently is.

I certainly don't think that I or any of the other critical posters here are being "mean" or "unfair". We are just consumers who have come to expect a certain quality of product.
I'll agree with you on the fact that probably the majority of people don't "care" or do not see that the current practise of releasing unfinished games damages future game releases.

However, I am absolutely certain I know next to nothing about the games industry, but it seems to me that if the developers are just little monkeys that jump around at the command of the money people then the reputation of studios like Firaxis is meaningless, and the practices of their 2K overlords means everything.

When Civ6 inevitably comes round [or will it?] if it is produced by Firaxis or 2K I, for one, shan't be buying it based on reputation.

 

[jpinard]

The more I learn about the game and the code (which I DO NOT understand in any meaningful way) the more I am FIRMLY convinced that Civ5 was a rush job...pobably owing to budget concerns.

It doesn't make my experience any less 'blah' but I am beginning to feel more inclined to overlook the endless faults/omissions from the game in the light of the duress that the dev team probably experienced. Lay-offs, tight schedule, etc. It looks like they really WANTED to put all the stuff in there thta people have been missing but just ran out of time and money, which is sad. I know it would break my heart to work on something for 5 years and then have to release it in sub-obtimal format because of 'business' stuff [this is assuming that that is what happened].

Being a crass, ivory-tower elitist I can have a secret soft-spot for comments such as "Civ deserves the guy who went to Harvard, not the guy who went to Towson" [not an actual quote, but an existing sentiment I've seen expressed] and other unfair personal swipes at Shafer (a guy I've never met in person...probably true for most people here). I truly believe in blaming the guy in charge but to imply that he isn't up to snuff intellectually is not only a bit personal (and unnecessary) but is also totally beyond our ability to assess. I agree that it looks bad on paper but that doesn't mean that he wasn't up to the job and/or that it was the reason we have the product we have today.

I dunno. I'm still disappointed with the game for many reasons (and the list is GROWING! I didn't expect that to happen....) but I'm beginnign to think we should try to mentally cut the guys a little slack here and there. I get the impression that they weren't working under the best conditions.

I's cut them some slack if they'd actually comment on the state of the game and what they plan to do for us. Otherwise their silence is insulting. It's not like this was a game we all picked up for $5 in the bargain bin.

 

[Bad Brett]

I'm not questioning Shafer's ability as a game designer, I'm questioning his ability to design Civilization... Simple because he turned it into Panzer General.

The AI plays to win... I thought I would enjoy that, but somehow it really kills the game. I have just eliminated two AI's with my army and begin producing coloseums to increase my happiness. What happens? Three AI's team up and attack me. No problem, I had a decent army and was able to defend all my cities without too much work. I played like this for maybe 30 turns, and they still didn't manage to come close to any of my cities. But they still wouldn't discuss peace.
Often there are constant wars going on. You know that you're going to fight your best friend eventually. I eventually quit the game when I traded away one of my four resources of incense, only to discover that all four of them got traded away, which caused unhappiness.

The point is that almost every aspect of the game except the combat is flawed. Shafer clearly wanted to focus more on combat and less on the "SimCity" feeling.

 

[Achilleslastand]

I'm not questioning Shafer's ability as a game designer, I'm questioning his ability to design Civilization... Simple because he turned it into Panzer General.

The AI plays to win... I thought I would enjoy that, but somehow it really kills the game. I have just eliminated two AI's with my army and begin producing coloseums to increase my happiness. What happens? Three AI's team up and attack me. No problem, I had a decent army and was able to defend all my cities without too much work. I played like this for maybe 30 turns, and they still didn't manage to come close to any of my cities. But they still wouldn't discuss peace.
Often there are constant wars going on. You know that you're going to fight your best friend eventually. I eventually quit the game when I traded away one of my four resources of incense, only to discover that all four of them got traded away, which caused unhappiness.

The point is that almost every aspect of the game except the combat is flawed. Shafer clearly wanted to focus more on combat and less on the "SimCity" feeling.

Dont insult Panzer General like that..........