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Technical mishaps plague major new PC game: Is 'Civilization' doomed?

That was a good read.
 
i understand that people want/need to make money, but marketing and sales is really killing the gaming industry by pushing more hype than quality gaming, especially in the pc areas. im not just pointing at Civ4, but plethora of other trashy half assed games that have been released in the past 2-3 years. i just hope the pc gaming industry can change itself before it really goes under. i think the console industry has already hit bottom with its endless line of unninovative products and what is essentially the same games over and over again.
 
I agree however I think with quite simply the name "Civilization", if in a few years time (try 4 or 5 like with Civ3 ---> Civ4), then people will still buy into the franchise, no matter what reputation Civ4 has right now.

Considering we haven't even seen the first patch yet, I think it is a bit early to say it is doomed. Same thing with Civ3/PTW/C3C. It took a couple of patches to get the balance and game right and from there, all that was said was good.

Let's not mention the PTW release tho :p

Edit: And what game released in the last 2/3 years has not had a patch released for it? Well I can think of one. EA's Cricket 2004. Yep! No patches. The game was so ridden with bugs it goes down, along with Master of Orion 3, as the worst release and post-supported game ever!
 
I think PC games are still well and alive. But of course, Civ4 has a lot of problems, it just crashed me on again, for no reason.
 
Hmmm, i think thay rushed the game just becouse people wanted it so bad. I don't know if the bugs were in the beta tests, but if thay were how did thay pass onto the final version???? I guss this will be another unsolved mystiory.
 
This is probably mildly breaking the NDA, but the problems that people are having with not being able to play were not seen by the beta testers. They would have screamed loud and long if they had (the testers are among the most vocal people on this forum). It is really hard to fix bugs that you aren't aware of.
 
In 2 months well after the first patch, no one will care and few will remember that there was a problem.
 
Yep ... I bet that when Civ5 comes out, people will bash it for its bugs and lament why they couldn't make it as good on release as Civ4 was. ;)
 
The above article said:
The average gamer spends about half an hour configuring their PC to work with a game.
Click to expand...
Just 30 minutes? :crazyeye:

Kelley Gilmore said:
Designing a PC game to run perfectly on all of the different hardware/software configurations available today is extremely challenging...particularly for a game as big and complex as Civilization IV.
Click to expand...

Well Kelley, other PC software houses manage to put out bug free games. Also, 'a game as big and complex and Civ4' is disingenuous. Yes, Civ4 is complex, but its rules system has no bearing on its crappy 3D performance whatsoever. Civ4 is actually an extremely simple game in this respect; far simpler than, say, DOOM3, which runs at high framerates flawlessly on my machine, unlike Civ4, which does not.

No amount of transparent and irritating marketing & PR style quotes can cover up the blatantly obvious fact that Civ4 was rushed out of the door and very poorly tested. Yet, it's still a fantastic game. I can't wait 'til it's fixed.
 
alco75 said:
Well Kelley, other PC software houses manage to put out bug free games.
Click to expand...

Which one? As an experiment, name one then go to their forums and find out if they needed a patch. (Not Doom3, lots of issues on release).
 
Did people Bash civ 3 here? I don't think so.

I think that the big winner in all of this will be Microsoft's AOE series.
 
wpiman: People bashed Civ3 big-time when it was released. We had the first patch within a month. ;)

And while I didn't beta-test Civ4, from my previous beta-testing experience, I am certain warpstorm speaks the truth. These bugs were *not* seen by the beta testers. I remember when Civ3 Conquests came out, there were bugs we testers hadn't seen.
 
warpstorm said:
Which one? As an experiment, name one then go to their forums and find out if they needed a patch. (Not Doom3, lots of issues on release).
Click to expand...
Okay, bug free is an exaggeration, but as you well know, Civ4 at release is a lot buggier than the majority of other titles at release. (And D3? It ran perfectly on my (current Civ4) machine from beginning to end, unpatched.) But like they said, Civ4 will be fixed and everything will be fine. With patience.
 
A good reading.
I'm really happy to see that they talk about a patch, but didn't mention a release date.
I think every game has bugs, but not so important ones like in civ4. Or maybe with cossacks 2 --> loved the previous games, but cossacks 2 was really a half finished game. I'm still a bit disappointed to have bought it.
I really hope they will fix that with civ4.
 
Civ 3 was considered the worst release of all the civilization games.

Problem is people don't remember what a disaster that Civ 2's release was, or that Civilization 1 was so unstable that if you tried to run it on Windows 3.1 and got to the computer age, the screen would freeze, and you'd have to uplug your computer, because even the power button wouldn't work. =/

I have a Radeon 7500 and suffer from the occasional crash, the black terrain and cheshire cat bugs. Yet I still manage to love the game. Probably because I know there will eventually be a stream of patches coming over the course of the next year to remedy any and all issues that I have. Just like with every other Civilization game.
 
wpiman said:
Did people Bash civ 3 here? I don't think so.
Click to expand...

Go to the Civ3 forums and check the old threads. Civ3 received a lot of bashing. Look for threads about the corruption system, about the AI (specifically it's knowledge of the map), about the number of included civilizations, about the perceived lack of "flavour" ("no council?!?"), and about its not including many features of SMAC (global diplomacy and government options for example). And these are just the topics I remember from the top of my hat. There were many more. I remember many people claiming that Civ3 was "no true Civ" and going back to Civ2.
 
>Master of Orion 3

the most fun i had with THAT game was uninstalling it the next day after buying it and playing frisbee with the CD's
 
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