Was the Age of Exploration Livestream Cause for Optimism, or Skepticism?

[Civinator]

After some minutes I switched off the video. You are talking much too fast for me. To listen to your machine-gun-fire-speech for me was a kind of torture and I had not the time to translate and understand most of the cascade of words you were using. The husky was nice.

 

[Gori the Grey]

One other small point. The crises don't always start on the same date. So they won't always represent a lost 1300 years. They will always represent a lost span of time, but not always that long.

 

[Trengilly]

After some minutes I switched off the video. You are talking much too fast for me. To listen to your machine-gun-fire-speech for me was a kind of torture and I had not the time to translate and understand most of the cascade of words you were using. The husky was nice.

That's what playback speed is for.

I rarely listen to a youtube video on original speed. I either speed them up or slow them down as necessary.

 

[Trengilly]

My biggest concern for Civ 7 is how unbaked so much of it appears to be.

They have repeatedly commented about things still being balanced, adjusted, or otherwise not fully implemented yet.

But this thing is supposed to release in less than 2 months and would need to be going gold for consoles . . . almost immediately.

I like the ideas, the focus on eliminating busy work and focusing on meaningful decisions, and trying to make all ages of the game compelling. But I don't trust them to do it justice.

Game systems and balance should have been done months ago! I worry that they are just going to release an unbalanced shell of a game and expect to gather information from players about how to improve or finish things.

And their history with Civ 6 also concerns me. I was so frustrated with Civ 6 . . . not because the game ideas were bad, but because nothing was balanced, AI useless, and game systems just a mishmash of things that didn't serve a whole and often were at cross purposes with the victory conditions. And the developers didn't seem to care. The classic example was when Chopping was totally overpowered . . . it was a major complaint . . . so what do they do? They add Governors to the game and make chopping even MORE unbalanced. And the AI was so bad that it literally couldn't win in many cases (I remember running tests, trying to let the AI win and the game would just drag on until time ran out because the AI was too stupid to achieve victory).

I felt they just threw as many things at Civ 6 as possible and it became an sandbox city/civilization builder game for casual players. Instead of fixing systems/balance they would just release a DLC with a new set of systems (again totally unbalanced and that the AI wasn't able to use).

I wanted to love Civ 6 . . . but ended up hating it and haven't played it in years.

Fraxis literally drove me away from the Civilization series and over to Old World . . . where game balance and tightly integrated game systems was a design priority.

I want Civ 7 to be a great game, I want to love and play it. But I'm certainly not pre-ordering and will wait to see how things are at release.

 

[Civinator]

That's what playback speed is for.
I rarely listen to a youtube video on original speed. I either speed them up or slow them down as necessary.

Thank you very much for that information. I was not aware of this option, as I am looking at youtube videos not very frequently and when I was looking at them, they were always in a for me understandable speed of speech.

 

[Emotional Husky]

Thank you very much for that information. I was not aware of this option, as I am looking at youtube videos not very frequently and when I was looking at them, they were always in a for me understandable speed of speech.

Sorry if it moved too quickly for you. This one of my videos was particularly speedy because I try to keep my videos shorter if I can.

 

[ColtSeavers]

Sorry if it moved too quickly for you. This one of my videos was particularly speedy because I try to keep my videos shorter if I can.

For the record, I'm fine your speaking speed, and I agree with most of what you have said there, too!

 

[stealth_nsk]

They have repeatedly commented about things still being balanced, adjusted, or otherwise not fully implemented yet.

But this thing is supposed to release in less than 2 months and would need to be going gold for consoles . . . almost immediately.

Most likely the build you see on streams is not the current build. It's a build which branched probably 2-3 months before the stream, tested separately, taking bugfixes only without any improvements for demo purposes. Current nightly builds should be much more advanced.

 

[Emotional Husky]

Newer builds will definitely iron out kinks. But a new build does not necessarily address the philosophical issues I have with what we've seen so far.

 

[Elhoim]

I don't care much about the potential mathematically variety of games, I almost always play with and against the same civs, and when I change them the game is almost the same.

 

[queenpea]

I don't care much about the potential mathematically variety of games, I almost always play with and against the same civs, and when I change them the game is almost the same.

I think you're in the minority there, but that's interesting. When starting a new game, I always choose random opponents. Would be interesting to know where the community lands on that.

 

[Elhoim]

Yeah, definitely on the minority, but I guess it kinda shows the minor impact of saying "31284 unique games!", that's just a bit silly. The game is not different if one of the 10 civs you are competing with is one or the other. I kinda agree that if you do 10 player games you know exactly which opponents you will face. I assume that due to the game structure there will be around 6 in your starting continent, so it creates some possible variety there.

 

[queenpea]

Yeah, definitely on the minority, but I guess it kinda shows the minor impact of saying "31284 unique games!", that's just a bit silly. The game is not different if one of the 10 civs you are competing with is one or the other. I kinda agree that if you do 10 player games you know exactly which opponents you will face. I assume that due to the game structure there will be around 6 in your starting continent, so it creates some possible variety there.

I get your point. I think the point he was making is that you will likely face the same competitors over and over making the game feels repetitive and predictable.

 

[Trengilly]

Most likely the build you see on streams is not the current build. It's a build which branched probably 2-3 months before the stream, tested separately, taking bugfixes only without any improvements for demo purposes. Current nightly builds should be much more advanced.

I'm still not comfortable about it.

Why are we still seeing old builds on streams? The game releases in less than two months and should have to go gold for consoles in a couple weeks.

Why use an old build if you should already be done? Anyway, as I said in my original post, Firaxis needs to earn my trust. I'm not giving them the benefit of the doubt.

 

[Zaarin]

Why are we still seeing old builds on streams?

Because having a build on stream that is as bug-free as possible is more important than having one that is up-to-date.

Why use an old build if you should already be done?

In modern game development, most games continue development pretty much up until the game drops--and, of course, beyond. "Going gold" is a relic of physical media and not terribly relevant to digital distribution.

 

[Siptah]

Because having a build on stream that is as bug-free as possible is more important than having one that is up-to-date.


In modern game development, most games continue development pretty much up until the game drops--and, of course, beyond. "Going gold" is a relic of physical media and not terribly relevant to digital distribution.

As far as I know, going gold still exists for consoles which want a feature-complete version for testing 2-3 months before release.

 

[Zaarin]

As far as I know, going gold still exists for consoles which want a feature-complete version for testing 2-3 months before release.

A game should definitely be feature-complete by 2-3 months out (or longer); most of what happens up until release would be polishing (which can be transferred to the console build via the now-industry-standard day one patch).

 

[Civinator]

A game should definitely be feature-complete by 2-3 months out (or longer); most of what happens up until release would be polishing (which can be transferred to the console build via the now-industry-standard day one patch).

So Civ 7 now should be feature complete.

 

[Archanist]

In terms of mechanics, likely. In terms of polishing assets, UI, AI, map generation, etc, maybe not.

 

[pokiehl]

In terms of mechanics, likely. In terms of polishing assets, UI, AI, map generation, etc, maybe not.

“Feature complete” refers to actual novel content: gameplay mechanics, leaders, factions, etc. Everything the base game will include is surely locked in now—way too late to add stuff.

The rest of what you’re referring to is overall polish which will continue all the way up to release and of course after.