Steam Review Bombing

[Kyriakos]

Afaik Victoria III is still (majority) negatively reviewed (?). Of course it was an utter failure at launch.

 

[Siptah]

Afaik Victoria III is still (majority) negatively reviewed (?). Of course it was an utter failure at launch.

It sits at mixed reviews (67% positive). I expect that 7 will sit at something similar a year from now.

 

[AD1730]

Afaik Victoria III is still (majority) negatively reviewed (?). Of course it was an utter failure at launch.

Yeah, still mixed reviews overall, which goes to show how critical launch is. In my opinion, that game is finally to the point where it is better than its successor, but first impressions are critical and Victoria 3 failed there.

There's also the whole thing where the game director for Vic 3 has a penchant for going out of his way to piss off longtime fans of whatever franchise he's working on. But, that's a story for another day.

 

[Kyriakos]

67% looks bearable on the surface, but since it is binary (no rating) one would need to examine percentages of those who have played hundreds of hours (Vic3). I did play for only 10 hours, a year or so ago, and back then it certainly sucked ^^
I went to steam and read - among others - this rather underwhelming positive review: "this game isn't even as bad as some people say"

 

[TheGrayFox]

Yeah, still mixed reviews overall, which goes to show how critical launch is. In my opinion, that game is finally to the point where it is better than its successor, but first impressions are critical and Victoria 3 failed there.

There's also the whole thing where the game director for Vic 3 has a penchant for going out of his way to piss off longtime fans of whatever franchise he's working on. But, that's a story for another day.

Gotta love Wiz

I'll admit I still haven't tried Victoria III because it's launch was so bad and the direction of the game seemed opposite to what I'd want in a sequel to II. Seems Civ VII followed in their footsteps

 

[AD1730]

67% looks bearable on the surface, but since it is binary (no rating) one would need to examine percentages of those who have played hundreds of hours (Vic3). I did play for only 10 hours, a year or so ago, and back then it certainly sucked ^^

I think Paradox is learning. How they are approaching EUV's development looks different. Looks like it will be more fleshed out and they learned from Cities Skylines 2 that the performance needs to be there.

 

[misesfan]

It sits at mixed reviews (67% positive). I expect that 7 will sit at something similar a year from now.

I dont think that the review scores will get better when it launches. The poor review scores are coming from those who are most inclined to be the most rabid fans (spending $100 plus for advanced access) - I don't think it gets better this Tuesday. But who knows? Post-launch support may be really good.

 

[Kyriakos]

Tbh all that matters for the EU games is that the Byzantine Empire's borders look good ^^
At least Paradox gave up on trying to push Byz out. Back in the day they were carpet-banning everyone who spoke about it in their forum.
Anyway, if Civ7 goes the way of Vic3 it will be difficult to resurface. Then again (although it was a very different time) Civ4 was mocked to no end at launch.

 

[AD1730]

Gotta love Wiz

I'll admit I still haven't tried Victoria III because it's launch was so bad and the direction of the game seemed opposite to what I'd want in a sequel to II. Seems Civ VII followed in their footsteps

I think it's worth a try now. At launch basically every economic system played the same (basically communism from Vic 2). Now, there are differences between them, as there should be. The power blocs (Vic3 version of spheres of influence, added in DLC) add another layer of gameplay that I've enjoyed.

I'll never be a big fan of how they changed the military operations in Vic3 though, particularly naval ones. I understand that they were trying to get rid of micromanagement, but they went too far in my opinion. Navies had far too much impact on that time period to not allow the player more control. Whether you like the game or not is probably dictated by whether you can get past the changes to the military system.

 

[Hajee]

In a development that should surprise nobody, Civ 7 is getting review bombed on Steam (Mostly Negative). But I'm having a great time, so who the heck cares?

its is really review bombing? sure there are some un-serious reviews.

But, imo this is the worst Civ game at launch and deserves negatively.

While the concept of Ages are fine. reduce 9 eras into 3 ages sure. But why have a crisis to end each age? why cant crisis exist during the ages? open trade routes creates a high chance of plague, discover more independent states creates chances of the "Sea People" going crazy. How come after an age stuff resets? why are my armies moved, towns gone, projects I was working on non existed? why is my neighbor not the same? why is every map two continents, where is my Pangaea Map?

Does civ 7 do some nice things sure, but like one review said 1 step forward 2 steps back.

Civ 3, 4, 5 where all about empire building to stand the test of time. In civ 6 it became how can I min max to get victory. civ 7 is no different, more so about how i can win a game of civ.

I just wish the Devs went back to the roots of civ. I want a grand 4x historical game that is solely built around the idea of empire building where victory is never a concern it just happens. One more turn didnot exist in 6, and i dont beleive it will in 7

 

[AD1730]

The poor review scores are coming from those who are most inclined to be the most rabid fans (spending $100 plus for advanced access)

I've wondered about this too. Is the type of player who spent more for early access + extra content different from the player who chose to wait a few days? We'll see.

 

[Core Imposter]

Yeah, I don't think the success/failure of this game will be determined at launch. The success/failure will be determined by DLC sales. But, launch can certainly have an impact on that.

If publishers and developers haven't figured out that having a smooth launch is more critical now than it has been any time in the past 15 years or so, they need to. Gamers are ready to lash out at anything that they feel is unfinished and exploitative. They have been burned too many times at this point.

I was around for the Radio Shack early computers, the Tandy line, 40-45 years ago. I was there playing the original Doom with my boys using a joystick before PlayStation was released. I still have a cabinet filled with games on discs and some of the computers used to play them. On operating systems older than Win 98.

I can tell for fact certain, without picking on any single developer or company, releases are never finished products. Civ IV came out in, I think, late 2005 and I waited until spring of 2009 before buying the complete edition which included Colonization and some mods. On disc. I've played over 10,000 hours never logged by Steam and I had exactly one glitch before turning the graphics down a notch on my ordinary non-gaming laptop. Playing marathon games on massive maps without a stutter.

Fifty-sixty years of gaming teaches you a thing or two. You either wait some years until the product is finished and clean of bugs and then buy it for a fraction or otherwise you pay a ton more to be a beta tester. And there is nothing wrong with either option, it is fun to be part of the forum community, whining and witching over all the woes. It is part of the experience.

One thing for certain, it is not the developers, the designers, the people who build the game who should bear the brunt of the heat you feel when the game is published unfinished. It is the corporates, and they have profited off this model so nothing is going to change. The reactions today mirror those of a quarter century past and a quarter century future.

You have two choices. Neither is wrong if the game is good. Let's just hope the game is good.

 

[trev1972]

With regards to 'too much going on'

I watched some play throughs. With the quests and the 'explore at this point' directive, and the need to balance paths for when the age ends.. does anyone else feel the game is far more curated now than it used to be. And that it is far less about 'playing how you want to play'?

 

[AD1730]

I was around for the Radio Shack early computers, the Tandy line, 40-45 years ago. I was there playing the original Doom with my boys using a joystick before PlayStation was released. I still have a cabinet filled with games on discs and some of the computers used to play them. On operating systems older than Win 98.

I can tell for fact certain, without picking on any single developer or company, releases are never finished products. Civ IV came out in, I think, late 2005 and I waited until spring of 2009 before buying the complete edition which included Colonization and some mods. On disc. I've played over 10,000 hours never logged by Steam and I had exactly one glitch before turning the graphics down a notch on my ordinary non-gaming laptop. Playing marathon games on massive maps without a stutter.

Fifty-sixty years of gaming teaches you a thing or two. You either wait some years until the product is finished and clean of bugs and then buy it for a fraction or otherwise you pay a ton more to be a beta tester. And there is nothing wrong with either option, it is fun to be part of the forum community, whining and witching over all the woes. It is part of the experience.

One thing for certain, it is not the developers, the designers, the people who build the game who should bear the brunt of the heat you feel when the game is published unfinished. It is the corporates, and they have profited off this model so nothing is going to change. The reactions today mirror those of a quarter century past and a quarter century future.

You have two choices. Neither is wrong if the game is good. Let's just hope the game is good.

I understand what you're saying. But, I don't think any modern gamer would say that on the whole games are as polished/finished at release now as they were 15-20 years ago. The digital marketplace allows a type of behavior that simply could not exist in the old disk-based paradigm.

 

[Chuy1530]

I think it’s a symptom of steam having an either/or system for the review. I would have some reservations giving the game a full thumbs up with the UI issues, but overall I do like it. So I probably won’t review it on steam for a while till that’s fixed, and I figure many are probably in the same boat.

 

[King of Prussia]

Yeah, still mixed reviews overall, which goes to show how critical launch is. In my opinion, that game is finally to the point where it is better than its successor, but first impressions are critical and Victoria 3 failed there.

There's also the whole thing where the game director for Vic 3 has a penchant for going out of his way to piss off longtime fans of whatever franchise he's working on. But, that's a story for another day.

I tried Victoria 3 out when it was free to try last year, and the UI was horrendous. While Vicky 2s UI isnt amazing, it was way better at communication and navigating than 3s. Their tech tree might be the worst ive ever seen. i dont see it ever recovering either tbh. It will be dumped like other paradox titles. They would need to vastly overhaul the UI, before you can even get into core design decisions. I havent even looked at EU5s, to see if its better or worse than 4s.

Wiz and Johan love drama. Its the only reason they do half the stuff they did on the forums(or design decisions), when i frequented them a long time ago.

Anyways, Im hoping Civ7 can improve their UI a lot in the next few months. Its not as bad as Vicky 3, but if they cant make it better, it doesnt bode well for long term support.

 

[Dale]

Hi Dale, not directly related to this topic, but since you follow this thread I'd like to ask whether Mohawk Studios ever thought about making another "Civilization like" game in the future? I think, Civ 4 was such an amazing game, and with Soren Johnson on board, I'm sure you would be able to develop a great alternative to Civ 7!
Certainly there are quiet a few old timers like me, who don't like the direction this franchise is going, and would be very interested in a Civ game without Civ Swichting and which feels more like a sandbox again! I guess Crowdfunding could be an option too! I'd happily invest some money in such a development and I'm pretty sure others would do so, too!

Hi there. Thanks for the vote of confidence, but I'm sure you understand I can't answer that.

 

[Alexander's Hetaroi]

No one is blaming you though, the blame rests solely with Firaxis. Not sure why you are taking offense on their behalf. You might not need a game to be simplified or streamlined but Firaxis and their publisher do because they want the game to reach the broadest audience possible, which in this case would be a much more casual console markets. At the end of the day, I'm not trying to stop you from being able to enjoy this series on consoles, all I'm doing is arguing that we on PC should not get shafted buying a historically PC first series at the expense of consoles as we have been.

I don't think lumping all consoles as the problem is justifiable. It's evident at least that the game has limitations due to the Nintendo Switch. And I'll be the first one to admit, as a Switch owner myself, that some games just aren't designed to be on the Switch. I'm not the biggest complainer when it comes to graphics, but I knew I couldn't even handle buying Hogwarts Legacy for it after seeing it played on other platforms.

Of course, the Switch 2 is coming out this year so maybe things will get better in that regard, and they could update the game for all platforms. Speaking of Nintendo, the first civ game was also released for the SNES as well, so it's not like Civ 6 was the first games released on a console.

 

[Dale]

Right, I agree that portraying Early Acess as advantage is silly, but you're making it sound like people paid 20 - 60 € more just for Early Access. That's heavyly unfair. Did they not recieve 4 personas? Will they not recieve about 8 Civs, 4 Leaders and bunch of NWs and WWs? We're literally disregarding all that and making it unfair price tag? Well okay then.

agree here: early access when not advertised is a con because its not advertised. it’s not a con because people willingly paid more for bonus content that isn’t actually the problem.

I believe both of you misunderstood me. My point is people are upset because they paid a premium price (pretty much at the top price asked for PC games depending on locality) for a product they feel does not meet that price at all.

 

[TheGrayFox]

I don't think lumping all consoles as the problem is justifiable. It's evident at least that the game has limitations due to the Nintendo Switch. And I'll be the first one to admit, as a Switch owner myself, that some games just aren't designed to be on the Switch. I'm not the biggest complainer when it comes to graphics, but I knew I couldn't even handle buying Hogwarts Legacy for it after seeing it played on other platforms.

Of course, the Switch 2 is coming out this year so maybe things will get better in that regard, and they could update the game for all platforms. Speaking of Nintendo, the first civ game was also released for the SNES as well, so it's not like Civ 6 was the first games released on a console.

Yeah you're right, there is absolutely a distinction between consoles and it's probably not fair to throw Xbox or Playstation under the bus for the technical limitations imposed by designing for the switch. However I will still blame devolopment for consoles particular devoloping a servicible UI for all platforms/controllers as the most likely reason why we got such a lackluster, uninformative, and basic UI though.