Thanks a lot modders!

[Lord Chambers]

Wait a second, how is modding ruining the gaming experience he hasn't been able to have yet because of bugs?

The OP's post is like a big pile of misplaced anger rolled in some BS and deep-fried in irony.

 

[EdCase]

I need to start selling Fanboy hats on here. I would be rich I tell you! RICH!!


The game isnt a holy artifact.

Its not? Then why does my box look like a Bible?

 

[sir_woland]

It's now been over 3 weeks since I got this game, and I still am unable to play it. I have tried every fix I've seen on this site and the Civ 4 site, but none of them work.

But instead of, say, asking for assistance to solve your problems, you choose to take it all out on the modders?

With the latter, I am referring to the modding capabilities of Civ 4. Why Firaxis would choose to spend so much time implementing a feature that less than 10% of the people who play the game really care about, I have no idea.

The modificational capabilities of Civilization IV are actually much more than mere features. The whole game framework is designed on the principle of being open, flexible and malleable. It's not like it causes much extra effort to, for instance, have the thousands of alterable values in open XML files instead of hiding them into the source code.

But I've actually seen people that aren't going to play a single hour of Civ 4, and have only bought the game because they're going to mod it beyond recognition.

Oh really?! Boo hoo, that's terrible. As a matter of fact, I think such behaviour should be outlawed outright.

Look -- we have the possibility, we have the tools, we have the skills and knowledge, we have the enthusiasm... so why do you have a problem with that?

Seriously, if you're so interested in creating your own game, why not do just that and create your own game from scratch, instead of massacring one of the best franchises of all-time?

You're just being silly here. Modifying an existing game, even drastically, can never be compared to the effort required to create a game of similar magnitude from scratch.

And don't talk about massacre. The original game is going nowhere, it's still safely storaged on the silver discs and, as you said, gets played by the majority of players anyway.

Or better yet, since you think you can make a better game than Firaxis, how about "modding" us a patch, so that those of us who still can't play the game can actually play it?

Sure, why not, I'll just read your mind to see what your problem is in the first place and fix it. Don't call me, I'll call you when I'm done.

 

[Sirp]

Now all these bugs that people are complaining don't seem very hard to find/fix, so the only explanation for them is that Firaxis just didn't have enough time to rectify them.

Okay, try to imagine this situation: you're developing a game. It has some bugs that cause it to crash on your machine, so you fix them. It goes into QA. QA finds some more bugs that occur on their machines, but not all of the bugs occur on your machine. It's much harder, but you fix them too. You work hard, and get most of the features done, and all of the really bad bugs you find out.

Then you release the product, on time, on budget.

Then you get complaints from people about the game crashing on startup. It might display a black screen, or reboot their computer, or any one of many such strange happenings.

You can't reproduce these problems on the machines you have. You're not sure what's going on.

How exactly is this something that is 'not very hard to find/fix'? How would you go about fixing it?

I'm a professional developer, and this is the usual situation for problems that are very hard to fix. Only a few companies, such as Microsoft and Apple, produce software that works on 95+% of machines 'out the door' [1]. Microsoft does this by having more than two QA testers per developer. Apple does it by strictly limiting the hardware their software will run on to hardware they have manufactured. Neither of these solutions is really feasible for a smaller vendor.

Probably the biggest thing to 'blame' for the problems is the move to 3D graphics. It's more difficult to program 3D to work reliably, and considering previous Civ installments used little 3D, the programmers might not have had as much experience with 3D pitfalls as teams on other games (though they probably had experience from Pirates).

However I think a move to 3D was more or less inevitable due to marketing demands. (Personally I think sticking to 2D and reverting to a Civ 1 viewpoint would have been best, but I am willing to concede that too many people prefer 3D to ignore it).

Supporting modding would no-doubt have been a significant effort, however they would probably have gotten back alot of the time they spent on that by being able to leverage the modding capabilities themselves. Rather than have a $100K salaried senior developer write things like map generation scripts, and UI-control scripts in C++, a 'junior' developer could do it in Python. Future expansions to the game could be developed relatively cheaply by leveraging the modding, with relatively little expensive C++ development.

-Sirp.

[1] Microsoft is an easy target to criticize, but in fact compared to smaller software vendors that write Windows applications, their desktop software is actually fairly reliable.

 

[Duelingground]

Try my strategy game

So you're the one I have to blame for the hours I've spent playing Wesnoth?

J/K man, I found Wesnoth by accident one day while searching the web for soemthing I have since forgotten, and though I haven't played it for quite some time, it brought me much enjoyment.

Vivat, sir.

 

[Phoenix_56721]

Yes, I would like to thank the Modders for all their hard work, It is really appreciated by most of us!!!!!!.....

 

[Sorceresss]

Posts like the one the Original Poster made have to be against the Terms of Service of this web-forum somehow...Maybe they need to add another clause in regards to blatant misinformation made plausible by stupidity.

I t's bad enough people are bad mouthing Civilization 4. Then they bad mouth the general community here on CFC's forums. Now they're bad mouthing the people who make the Mods? Change the civic to Police State, and lets start shutting some of these guys down. I'm beginning to feel a little war weariness here.

Reading this makes me proud to be a Canadian.

The OP's post is like a big pile of misplaced anger rolled in some BS and deep-fried in irony.

Another Canadian?

 

[bky1701]

I am going to use to logic of the original poster here for a second:

I’m really pissed off they added so many Civs… if there were only 2 or 3 the game would be so bug free!!! Think of all the less time needed to model the leader heads, make the unique units and research what skills to give the leaders! How dare they allow us to play so many civs, only some people like to play China; why waste time making it a civ?

[/Broken Logic]

 

[upstart]

i love how every single person who has a problem he/she sees with the game, they need to make a thread about it. like its a brand new thought that nobodys ever come up with before. out of 1000s of posts on many boards, ive made like maybe a dozen threads of things/ideas/thoughts i thought 'thread-worthy.' anyways i notice this person has only 1 post and never replied back so its prolly one of the other complainers with a new account making it seem like theres more ppl with probs than there really is. how very trollish of him/her.

anyways thanks firaxis for not locking up your code into huge encrypted archives so that nobody can even see how its made or modified and then coming out with an expansion that is actually just unlocking stuff thats mostly already there!

 

[rd_syringe]

The OP is right. Very few Civ IV players are modders. It's a minority of the userbase. Personally, I've never, ever touched any Civ mod. I prefer the original games.

 

[Mujadaddy]

I need to start selling Fanboy hats on here. I would be rich I tell you! RICH!!


The game isnt a holy artifact.

I have a hat that fits you perfectly --- an 4$$|-|AT !!!

Oh man.... I'm waiting for my warning on that one

Moderator Action: And you get it.
Please read the forum rules: http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=422889

 

[upstart]

I have a hat that fits you perfectly --- an 4$$|-|AT !!!

Oh man.... I'm waiting for my warning on that one

hehe. well im still privately wondering what the definition of trolling is..obviously flagrantly calling ppl with opposing opinions 'fan-boy'/'fan-whore' without anything else to add doesnt count as trolling since ive seen it fly so many, many times on here..oh well.

 

[Mujadaddy]

hehe. ..obviously flagrantly calling ppl who haven't had tech problems with Civ4 'fan-boy'/'fan-whore' without anything else to add doesnt count as trolling since ive seen it fly so many, many times on here..oh well.

Fixed.... Exactly the point of my haberdashery post...

 

[Fredric Drum]

Hey dude, as a modder, let me speak up here. I'm well aware that a small percentage of the users will be making mods. However a much larger percentage will be *playing* the mods. There's almost fifty available for download from this site alone.

Not totally true. The percentage of players even visiting these sites is very small. The majority of players go buy the game, install it and play without even knowing about sites like this. People installing mods are in a small minority of hardcore players.

 

[screwtype]

With the latter, I am referring to the modding capabilities of Civ 4. Why Firaxis would choose to spend so much time implementing a feature that less than 10% of the people who play the game really care about, I have no idea.

"So much time"? What do you know about how much time was spent on moddability? For all you know, it might have been less than 1% of the total time spent on development.

I think major bug fixes should be a higher priority than that.

And what evidence do you have that these bugs would not have snuck through regardless? Answer: none.

Your comments are ignorant, ill-informed and just plain illogical. "I can't play the game, therefore the modders are at fault". Yeah, that makes a lot of sense, I don't think.

 

[Rexflex]

Not totally true. The percentage of players even visiting these sites is very small. The majority of players go buy the game, install it and play without even knowing about sites like this. People installing mods are in a small minority of hardcore players.

And what is your source for these statistics?

 

[bky1701]

hehe. ..obviously flagrantly calling ppl who haven't had tech problems with Civ4 'fan-boy'/'fan-whore' without anything else to add doesnt count as trolling since ive seen it fly so many, many times on here..oh well.

Fixed.... Exactly the point of my haberdashery post...

Yeah.. unfortunately it seem like you can say anything as long as it’s negative..

 

[kuldiin]

I wish the map editor was as easy to use for stupid people like me as it was in Civ3

 

[Sadan01]

It's now been over 3 weeks since I got this game, and I still am unable to play it. I have tried every fix I've seen on this site and the Civ 4 site, but none of them work.

Have you posted your technical problems in the tech sub-forum? Scuse me for not checking before I posted, but honestly, I can't be bothered. So I thought I'd ask if you had. And if so, what kind of "fixes" have you received? Direct me to those threads if you dont mind. I'd like to read the problems you are having.

Now all these bugs that people are complaining don't seem very hard to find/fix, so the only explanation for them is that Firaxis just didn't have enough time to rectify them. So I ask myself, why didn't they have enough time? I've come up with 2 reasons:

1. Take-Two rushed them because of the GTA Hot Coffee mod incident.
2. They didn't have their priorities straight when creating the features of the game.

Point 1 may possibly be valid in terms of the publisher wanting the game out the door ASAP (no one wants a game delayed, including publishers and gamers alike). As far as the hot coffee mod goes, GTA:SA was re-released regardless so that mod couldn't be used. In terms of publicity, bad publicity can be good publicity. At least for Rockstar Games it always has been good publicity.

Point 2 is plain and simple CRAPOLA! The features of Civ4 had been publicised for quite some time before the game was on the shelf. Even though it may have been possible that Firaxis wanted to include more "features" than was shipped with the product but didnt have time to implement (maybe a refinement to a certain advisor screen etc), it does not mean that they didnt have their priorities straight when creating the Gold Build of Civ4. I think for the most part, it has been well executed.

With the latter, I am referring to the modding capabilities of Civ 4. Why Firaxis would choose to spend so much time implementing a feature that less than 10% of the people who play the game really care about, I have no idea.<SNIP>

Do you buy many games? Do you read about the games industry regulary? One of the main things ALWAYS asked for when a developer is creating a game is the TOOLS to extend the game, by gamers. This prolongs the game in terms of YEARS, not days, weeks or months, and it surely would continue the game selling for the developer/publisher. In terms of the Civ genre, it is a perfect genre to allow players to mod the game to their liking. For reference, look at some of the excellent, and I mean EXCELLENT, mods that were released for Civ3. Some of them were simply outstanding.

When a developer releases tools to allow players to create their own "stuff" of that game, I look it as being a big THANKYOU from the developers to their customers.

Just make sure you don't download any mods from these (or any) forum seeing you are so against them. I presume that based on your numbers, less than 10% of the entire CivFanatics community will download them

I think major bug fixes should be a higher priority than that.

They are. They are being fixed now with a patch pending. Firaxis will probably including more features into the product too and not just fix bugs.

Besides, the executable is off-limits in most cases due to IP so "patching" cannot be done by the community. Modding can be classified as additional components ADDED to the game without touching the exe.

In Firaxis's attempt to appease 6% of its customers, they have ticked off a much greater percentage than that.

Where's the proof to backup this "6%" figure?

Whatever happened to the good old days where, instead of people saying stuff like, "I don't like France's unique unit, it keeps beating me all the time so I'm gonna mod it out", they actually just played the game the way it was meant to be played?

Well that is your choice. I think someone where you live has enacted the Police State civic as according to that statement, we shouldn't have any choice to do what we want with the game? It is my right, with the tools available, to replace any unit, improvement, wonder, or tech I want in Civ4 (as long as I don't break the laws involving interlectual property - such as reversed engineering the exe files) if I believe that it would make the game "better". It is everyone else's choice to download my mod.

By the way, do you work for nVidia?

I personally don't care one bit about modding the game, and I know the vast majority of Civ 4 players also feel the same way.

Direct me to the poll on these forums where that question has been asked and EVERYONE has answered the question. It will be inaccurate anyway as I haven't answered any such question (so the poll in of itself is inaccurate). A vast majority is a load of BS as you have no idea if a "vast majority" feel the same way you do or not. Post FACTS or your own opinion, not BS about how "the vast majority" feel the same way.

But I've actually seen people that aren't going to play a single hour of Civ 4, and have only bought the game because they're going to mod it beyond recognition. Seriously, if you're so interested in creating your own game, why not do just that and create your own game from scratch, instead of massacring one of the best franchises of all-time?

Once again, it is their choice to mod parts or all of the game. And it is our choice to choose to download their mod to try it. This was huge with Civ3 as there were simply so many quality mods out there that focused on a particular part of history, or tried to simulate it moreso than vanilla Civ3/C3C. Why knock these people?

Just because the game doesn't work on your machine you instantly think that it is because of Firaxis and spending too much time on the mod-ability of the game? I would say it isnt the case. Who knows what the reason is as to why it doesnt work on your machine, and yeah, I know how frustrating it can be but simply saying that it is because of the modding components (or framework) of the game took too much time or was unguided, is simply in and of itself, an unguided opinion.

As the title of this thread is so aptly named, THANKS A LOT MODDERS FOR ALL YOUR WORK!!! IT HAS BEEN ALL GREAT STUFF!!!

 

[DemonDeLuxe]

Let's put this straight: Modders have done great things with CIV3 and will, I guess, do even more so with CIV4 - why, without DYP (CIV3) and RAR (C3C) i would have stopped playing CIV3 1 1/2 years ago.

And I have always appreciated Firaxis' policy to keep most files in an easily accessible format (this was true, IIRC, from CIV1 on, e.g. all plain graphics as simple PCX files). If it is now even easier to mod more complex things: wonderful.

HOWEVER, people who know a bit about programming know, too, that scripting languages (like python) are MUCH slower than compiled languages (like C++). MUCH! The same action takes 10-500 times as long in a scripting language. The question must be allowed: Was it worth the price? My guess is that Firaxis has gone a bit overboard with the "you can change EVERYTHING" approach.

I cannot help but feel that CIV4 is more or less only a framework. The game, nice as it might be, looks (for a CIV game) strangely unfulfilling. I get bored easily by it, I must admit. Is there the slight possibility that someone at Firaxis might have thought: "Ah, why bother with more complex things, more units, more techs etc. - just prepare an easily moddable thingy and we get those developer and graphic artist man-hours for FREE from the ever-willing modding community"? Just a thought. Somehow, I have the feeling that CIV4 is thrown out into the market as "bananaware" - it is to ripen at the customer. At the price of sluggishness...