Thanks Brad

[dojoboy]

It's obvious there are those here who have no history w/ Brad Oliver, or Aspyr for that matter. And, I don't mean just buying their games, but actually familiar with the extra efforts they do for nothing but in support of the mac gaming community.

If my mechanic whose been doing great work on my cars for years made a snafu, I certanily wouldn't blow up at him.

Now, I realize wiglaff's perception appears to lean more toward the business model applied here. I think. It's a little skewed because of his choice of vernacular.

C) Call you back, and ask you for your help in fixing your TV.

I doubt a tv repairman would just fix a tv w/ out first getting feedback from you on what the pronblem is. Also, any good doctor is going to enlist the help of the patient in dtermining the best course of treatment. Aspyr is doing what applies to their industry.

Options A & B really aren't worded well for this discussion, because everyone here knows how to install and start-up a computer game. I think.

 

[vilemerchant]

I thought you guys would all be so overjoyed that you're playing on a mac that noone would really care that the game doesn't actually work? Death to windows! Mac FTW!!

 

[yvovandoorn]

I don't think it has to do with the OS X 10.4.7 update as the sound issue, for example, can be replicated under 10.3.9 with QT 7.1.2. I will admit I have no history with Brad, however this could've been avoided if the game had been tested on a wider variety of systems (he could've even had some of the people on this forum test the game) not to mention that any company *should* be a member of ADC Select or higher which pre-releases 10.4.x builds (and soon 10.5 builds) to members to test for compatibility.

So I truly understand both sides of the... coin... shall we say, unfortunately I do think that Brad and his team need a better testing methodology at the same time the personal touch to, no-offense, avoidable problems we all are experiencing is a way to go.

 

[lateralis]

I wouldn't normally pipe in to a thread such as this but, as a developer myself, I feel compelled.

while Brad probably had some say in the release date, I seriously doubt he could simply call up the CEO and say "sorry, we're not releasing this week because 10.4.7 came out and I need some more testing time."

the machinations of a large company revolve around more than just one guy so he's doing what he can to make the situation right. if anyone tells me that they have NEVER gotten a piece of buggy software, for which they payed money, I'm calling you a liar. and if you're a windows user you are DEFINITELY a liar (or you never pay for software, which means I could call you something else).

developers REGULARLY get the **** end of the stick by executives, marketing, advertising... they pick a ship date, which they hope is reasonable, and then they try to stick to it. so it didn't work out so well this time. when's the last time windows crashed on you and the guy who ACTUALLY WROTE THE CODE gave you a personal message and tried to make it right? that's what I thought.

I seriously doubt anyone is trying to imply that we don't expect our money's worth but to have THIS much contact and help on a game that has been in wild for less than a week is nothing short of phenomenal in the effort department from brad. many would think "whew, it shipped. time to crack open the champagne and go on vacation" but brad is doing what he can to make our enjoyment of the game everything it can be, even in the face of what must be a total shitstorm of bad PR and broken software updates.

good for him and shame on you.

 

[yvovandoorn]

I wouldn't normally pipe in to a thread such as this but, as a developer myself, I feel compelled.

while Brad probably had some say in the release date, I seriously doubt he could simply call up the CEO and say "sorry, we're not releasing this week because 10.4.7 came out and I need some more testing time."

Very true, however 10.4.7 builds have been available for 3-4 months now via ADC, with the proper test beds in a large company you speak of, they could've been atleast aware of the issue and produced some sort of patch or workaround by now. Yes deadlines are a pain (I deal with them as well), however in a proper testing environment some of these problems (such as the sound problem) could've been detected and on their way to becoming fixed.

the machinations of a large company revolve around more than just one guy so he's doing what he can to make the situation right. if anyone tells me that they have NEVER gotten a piece of buggy software, for which they payed money, I'm calling you a liar. and if you're a windows user you are DEFINITELY a liar (or you never pay for software, which means I could call you something else).

I am sure we all have received buggy software (hell 10.4.7 non a was buggy ) however at the same time its almost embarrasing to get problems fixed by not being aware of them and having the community beta test and some reinstall Mac OS X on multiple times on their machine to see if its working or not. In a proper dev environment you could have multiple netboot images hosted on a Xserve with various 10.4 builds and boot into each one with a single machine and rule out if the problem is there or not, instead the community has to do this.

developers REGULARLY get the **** end of the stick by executives, marketing, advertising... they pick a ship date, which they hope is reasonable, and then they try to stick to it. so it didn't work out so well this time. when's the last time windows crashed on you and the guy who ACTUALLY WROTE THE CODE gave you a personal message and tried to make it right? that's what I thought.

I seriously doubt anyone is trying to imply that we don't expect our money's worth but to have THIS much contact and help on a game that has been in wild for less than a week is nothing short of phenomenal in the effort department from brad. many would think "whew, it shipped. time to crack open the champagne and go on vacation" but brad is doing what he can to make our enjoyment of the game everything it can be, even in the face of what must be a total shitstorm of bad PR and broken software updates.
good for him and shame on you.

Yes I praise Brad for what he is doing and getting involved with the community, however I stand by the fact that half these problems could've been detected or avoided. Brad hopefully has some sort of multiple machine test bed where he should be able to test out builds of his machine. It truly isn't that difficult with a Mac to have the ability to boot into multiple OS X versions and see if the game acts differently in that environment. Apple makes this pretty easy with NetBoot.

So yes you are right its great that developer is communicating with the users using the software, but really using the 10.4.7 release is almost a BS excuse only because Apple releases these builds on the their ADC website and I am pretty sure that any development company is willing to fork over $500 per year for the ADC Select membership which includes Software seeding (aka access to the latest Apple pre-release software).

 

[chicagodan]

I agree with Lateralis ... look, this product was released the last week in June. That should be a big red flag to everyone that Aspyr DESPERATELY wanted the product out by the end of the quarter, which yes, ends June 30th. The development team had a drop dead date and they hit it ... by taking some major short cuts, such as not testing it on later Tiger releases. Don't blame the developers, blame the beancounters.

Aspyr is not alone. Anyone else try NFL Head Coach from EA? Total piece of crap obviously rushed to market without testing to hit a June deadline. I don't blame the developers in either case, I blame the execs who cared more about meeting release dates than getting a gold master product that deserved the designation.

But at least in the case of Civ IV, it's possible to get things right. EA won't do a damn thing to compensate the Xbox and PS2 users who bought their crappy game and returned it the next day. That's a case where a class action suit needs to happen.

For the record, I have an iMac G5 2.1 Ghz and yeah I have the sound issue but don't really care about that ... what bothers me is that I like to play big games with lots of civs on a huge map and I'm at about 1650 ad and the game takes more than 2 minutes to advance to the next turn. Is this issue ever going to get addressed or do I need to boost the ram and overclock the X600? I need some guidance.

One final question -- is there any way to get Civ IV mods to work on the Mac version? Could I do something tricky like make the Civ IV directory shareable within Virtual PC so that the .exe files will work?

 

[lateralis]

let me just clarify fully my position -

am I upset that aspyr released a buggy game? -- YES
do I wish it didn't happen? -- YES
do I think that EVERYONE at aspyr could have worked together to avoid it? -- YES

was I making a comment about wiglaff acting like Brad is completely responsible and belittling him and his work? -- YES YES YES

 

[AlanH]

One final question -- is there any way to get Civ IV mods to work on the Mac version? Could I do something tricky like make the Civ IV directory shareable within Virtual PC so that the .exe files will work?

If the mod uses a .exe it's most likely an installer for a bunch of graphics and/or Python and/or XML files.

If it's an installer then you need some way to persuade it to give up its contents so that you can drop them into your Civ4/CustomAssets/ folder. That may be possible using Virtual PC to run the installer into a shared folder on your system.

If the mod itself uses a .DLL - a Windows executable file - then there's no way it will run with the Mac version, as the Mac version will have no software interface that can communicate with it.

 

[Lagermane]

The way I see it, it's like this...

It's pretty obvious there's been a foulup on Civ4. I don't pretend to know exactly what or why, but my guess is that it was rushed out the door too fast without proper QA work and beta testing. If that's so, that would perhaps be more of a corporate decision than a programming one.

Aspyr has in the past had a good record, so I am willing to give them the benefit of the doubt. This is a black mark on them, but they have plenty of time to fix it. If this becomes usual for their new releases I won't be pleased, but since it isn't typical of them I doubt it would be.

I don't see a whole lot of reason to thank Brad for the code, since the game is riddled with bugs and he's paid for his work, which in this case I can't say I'm thrilled with.

I DO see a reason to thank him from coming onto the forums and spending time filling people in, asking questions, and basically providing more of a helpful and human presence than Aspyrs Customer Service people have mustered. He doesn't have to do it and he isn't paid to, I'm sure. Thank you, Brad, that's made this a lot more tolerable for me personally, and I appriciate the time you've put in.

My expectation is that in a month or two, after a patch flurry, Civ4 will be running just fine, and this will all be a memory. I can wait a few months; like I said, Aspyr has generally done well by me in the past, and I'm trusting they'll take care of me this time.

 

[bio_hazard]

Would you rather buy a fixed game in September, or buy a mostly working game in july, and have it patched in September? I really don't see the functional difference between those. just being practical here.

Unless you have no confidence that Aspyr can eventually patch it (I doubt many of us here worry for the long term), or the game somehow damaged your computer, I really don't see what there is to be so irate about, certainly not to the point of personally insulting either the developer or members of the community here. I'm glad the game is officially out for macs, and I look forward to getting it even though I know it won't work perfectly on my powerbook (PC version wouldn't work at all on my windows laptop).

Given how common it is to have problems in the first version of anything, and if you know you are the kind of person to get really pissed off, maybe its better to wait and check out what people are saying before you rush and buy something on the first day it comes out. Hey, I just saved you an ulcer!

 

[wiglaff]

I seriously doubt anyone is trying to imply that we don't expect our money's worth but to have THIS much contact and help on a game that has been in wild for less than a week is nothing short of phenomenal in the effort department from brad.

Someone from Aspyr told him to check these forums because it was evident that his product was not working properly.

Out of curiosity...if your brand new televison exploded on you, would you feel indebted to the cable guy who comes to fix it?

How about if he handed you a wrench and said "let's fix this together."

If my mechanic whose been doing great work on my cars for years made a snafu, I certanily wouldn't blow up at him.

Mechanics fix problems they didn't cause

I can understand not blowing up at Brad. But you people should get your head out of his ass and realize that you pay him. Realize he has a lot of reasons to make sure his product works. You are entitled to the product, and if you don't get it, you are especially entitled to people working to fix it.

 

[Welnic]

Never argue with a fool, people might not be able to tell the difference.

 

[wiglaff]

The fools are the ones out $50 who are masochistically thanking the person who took their money.

 

[wiglaff]

He doesn't have to do it and he isn't paid to, I'm sure. Thank you, Brad, that's made this a lot more tolerable for me personally, and I appriciate the time you've put in.

He is paid to program functioning games, not crappy ones. Aspyr and Brad have a vested interest in making Civ4 work. Why thank him for coming here and asking you to help fix the mess he created?

 

[Zaimejs]

Well I have experienced bugs in first versions of programs that I have purchased... the whole sound thing is just whack. I mean, that's such an obvious bug... one that everyone would notice (including MacWorld!). Random crashed on various systems are hard to replicate... but no sound... on pretty much any system? That's just wrong.

 

[wiglaff]

Would you rather buy a fixed game in September, or buy a mostly working game in july, and have it patched in September? I really don't see the functional difference between those. just being practical here.

Well it's advertised as a functional game. So you pay $50 with the assumption that it works, not the assumption (which could very well be untrue) that it might work in the future on your computer.

 

[lateralis]

wiglaff, I assume you are new here from you join date which would mean that you are unaware that brad has been coming here for YEARS. he may have been given a heads up that things were amiss this week but he has ALWAYS been a vocal member of this community and truly has made a HUGE difference. this is why he's getting thanked as much as the effort he's putting in right now.

Brad Oliver
Civ3/4 Mac programmer

Join Date: Jan 2002
Location: Glendale, AZ
Posts: 610

 

[Gatekeeper]

Heh. Well, I'll just read the game manual and go online for gaming strategies, maps and whatnot until Civ IV Mac is properly patched. At that point, I should be able to start on the highest level and kick some AI butt.

Gatekeeper

 

[wiglaff]

wiglaff, I assume you are new here from you join date which would mean that you are unaware that brad has been coming here for YEARS. he may have been given a heads up that things were amiss this week but he has ALWAYS been a vocal member of this community and truly has made a HUGE difference. this is why he's getting thanked as much as the effort he's putting in right now.

Brad Oliver
Civ3/4 Mac programmer

Join Date: Jan 2002
Location: Glendale, AZ
Posts: 610

A lot of times, on forums like this, I see people complaining, badmouthing companies such as Firaxis, Apple, or Aspyr ; but then, when a rep from that company responds on the forum, everyone suddenly bites their tongue. "Oh, sorry, didn't mean to be so testy," etc. Everyone starts kissing ass.

This is an effective means of PR but I'm sure Brad isn't just some PR plant (at least, not all the time). He seems genuinely interested in your platform and your game and might be nice enough that he is your friend. I don't know, maybe.

Point is, right now, he is really screwing up. Not only has he been a key developer in a crap project, he has also enlisted you all to help him fix his screwup.

He has done nothing that warrants any thanks with regards to Civ IV, which is what the original poster claimed.

 

[Gatekeeper]

Brad is one of three programmers on the Civ IV Mac project.