Why I won't be buying Civ-BE (even though I have money to blow)

[kwidem]

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[Sonereal]

It's a repackage of the same game being sold again to rake in the cash and maximise profits before moving onto 6.

"Guys, I'm getting super tired the way you choose to spend your money. Cut it out."

I fail to see how even repackaging is a problem is people are willing to buy and derive joy from it. You, like all consumers, have the option not to buy.

 

[Cole98]

This is like Civ 4: Colonisation
It is pushing the engine to it's limits to make an interesting game
They want to see how far they can take the CiV Engine before they make a new one from scratch
Also unlike Civ4:C they have overhauled everything (Except for the Tile Shape) and they have a Unique Concept
I see no problem with it

 

[JokerJace]

I wouldn't go to the extreme of saying Civ is purely a singleplayer game. But no matter the stability, quality of matchmaking, lobbies and what have you, it's highly unlikely you'll have a good experience playing proper, multi-session Civ games with random unknown players the system matched you with. You don't have to look farther than the human component to find the problem in that case.

That is wrong.
Multiplayer in CiV has a lot of issues. At some point they luckily integrated the hybrid mode, which solved the problem of CiV MP being a real time strategy game. Which was complete ****. Yet most people still play it that way. :-/ And if I want to host a hybrid game, it never starts, because people are able to join the lobby, even though they don't meet the hosts content requirements and I have to kick people for at least 30 minutes. In my opinion it's quite an audacity that this has never been corrected. Add a few more minor things and the usability of session management is a complete DISASTER. And this is not because of the "stupid" users. And what is the problem with making a user friendly matchmaking system in the first place? It's nice that you can play with friends, but why make it virtually impossible to play with strangers?

It's absolutely not a priority, and it shouldn't be. Civilization never has been and (God willing) never will be an honest-to-goodness multiplayer-oriented game, and I hope they never spend any more effort trying to make it so than they already have. Such efforts will inevitably fail, and (if Civ V is any indication) make the core single-player experience worse for the rest of us.

They should not gear the game mechanics towards multiplayer. They should make the usability of the multiplayer game tolerable. That's all. And a little bit of multiplayer-orientation isn't that bad. Normally this is the only way to guarantee a certain standard of balancing. In singleplayer only games you often have some really broken things. For example I fear that people will not realize how terrible the Prosperity tree is until the competetive multiplayer players say so. This is mainly how Civ V got balanced after release. If you have a high amount of different choices and everyone on a certain skill level always makes the same choice... then you know something is off.

 

[m15a]

It's a repackage of the same game being sold again to rake in the cash and maximise profits before moving onto 6.

Do you really not understand that work has been put into the game to differentiate it from Civ 5 and that people are willing to pay for those differences? Do you think that people buying this game (including most of us on here) are total fools that don't realize that this game builds on Civ 5?

 

[Sonereal]

Do you really not understand that work has been put into the game to differentiate it from Civ 5 and that people are willing to pay for those differences? Do you think that people buying this game (including most of us on here) are total fools that don't realize that this game builds on Civ 5?

Link to video.

 

[JokerJace]

Do you really not understand that work has been put into the game to differentiate it from Civ 5 and that people are willing to pay for those differences? Do you think that people buying this game (including most of us on here) are total fools that don't realize that this game builds on Civ 5?

That's because we are fans. I guess it's up for debate whether this game should be a full-price product or not. Most of us will buy it either way. I think OP just doesn't like the setting and (this one I share) is frustrated about Firaxis not focusing on the real issues, like multiplayer and AI. Or at least one of that things.

 

[Minor Annoyance]

My take on it is that some people just hate feeling "left out" or "left behind" for whatever reason and have an urge to express their frustrations about why this is the case. OP's comments did not offend me, but neither did they persuade me to alter my own opinions. Perhaps the OP was eagerly awaiting a more traditional Civ follow on and was disappointed that BE is not what he was hoping for. I have had that sort of experience with other game firms and forums, so I can sort of relate.

That's fine, as long as it isn't like the Sim City forums where people say they are never playing again and then come back every day to say it again in any thread anyone starts.
I thought there was still stuff to enjoy in that game and wanted to discuss things but every thread was just filled with people beating a dead horse. A dead horse they dragged in just to make sure people are watching them beat it.

 

[JokerJace]

That's fine, as long as it isn't like the Sim City forums where people say they are never playing again and then come back every day to say it again in any thread anyone starts.
I thought there was still stuff to enjoy in that game and wanted to discuss things but every thread was just filled with people beating a dead horse. A dead horse they dragged in just to make sure people are watching them beat it.

Well, Sim City deserved even worse than that. ;-)

 

[Minor Annoyance]

Well, Sim City deserved even worse than that. ;-)

Maybe the game deserved it, maybe the creators deserved it, but I don't think I deserved it, if it is having ever discussion derailed because I don't hate the game as much as someone else.

 

[Gort]

I've never understood this. I play MP VERY regularly with 3-4 friends, and I have never experienced significant lagging or crashes.

For the most part for me it's instability that's the issue. If I try to play outside of a LAN with my friends, people have such a lot of trouble connecting or staying connected that it's not worth the bother.

LAN or nothing, for this game. It's a pity.

 

[Ermak-]

I truly hope this game has terrible sales so that Firaxis can listen to custumers for once. MULTIPLAYER!! this is 2014 damn it!

 

[Eagle Pursuit]

I truly hope this game has terrible sales so that Firaxis can listen to custumers for once. MULTIPLAYER!! this is 2014 damn it!

You think you represent the whole of the customer base? Do you have any kind of data that indicates a majority of Civ fans want the game to prioritize multiplayer? I sure as hell don't want that.

 

[JokerJace]

There is no reason in the world not to enable the game as it is to be playable in multiplayer. And it's only reasonable to expect a minimum of usability, which wasn't there in Civ V. And if you don't care for multiplayer, you HAVE to care for a better AI. Unless you view the game as some sort of occupational therapy. And even though I don't have the data to approve that, I still think your typical strategy game player likes some challange. And right now that challange is neither in singleplayer, since AI still ***** nor in multiplayer, since it's simply not playable.

 

[MadDjinn]

You think you represent the whole of the customer base? Do you have any kind of data that indicates a majority of Civ fans want the game to prioritize multiplayer? I sure as hell don't want that.

I think the majority of the fans will back the concept that a feature of the game, regardless of what it is, should work.

Whether or not they actually want to use the feature is a different story.

Now, as per the OP and the very silly follow up post you quoted...

There is no chance that they'd equate poor BE sales with 'OMfG!!! we gotta go make multiplayer better!!!!'

 

[Acken]

Strangely civ5 mp works well when I play with friends. But it's horrible when playing with random people. Don't know if thats because they use 56K connections or Firaxis errors.

 

[JokerJace]

I think the majority of the fans will back the concept that a feature of the game, regardless of what it is, should work.

Whether or not they actually want to use the feature is a different story.

Now, as per the OP and the very silly follow up post you quoted...

There is no chance that they'd equate poor BE sales with 'OMfG!!! we gotta go make multiplayer better!!!!'

Actually there is a big amount of people that like to play multiplayer. But those people are typically not the same people that post in forums like this. I.e. they are not very vocal. I know a few competetive players that only care about game mechanics and nothing else.

 

[rastak]

You think you represent the whole of the customer base? Do you have any kind of data that indicates a majority of Civ fans want the game to prioritize multiplayer? I sure as hell don't want that.

He represents a tiny sliver. Anyway, I hope he comes back to let us know what he blew his money on since he was so kind to let us know what game he wouldn't blow his money on.

I am considering getting a second copy so my buddy and I can play multiplayer on my second machine but that's far from my primary concern.

 

[rastak]

Actually there is a big amount of people that like to play multiplayer. But those people are typically not the same people that post in forums like this. I.e. they are not very vocal. I know a few competetive players that only care about game mechanics and nothing else.

I remember reading some absurd percentage of people that actually ever play a single game of multiplayer. It was way smaller than I even expected.

 

[JokerJace]

Does anyone really disagree that they need to either improve the AI for 1UPT or make MP a better experience so this game stays challanging for more than 10 games? CiV became a routine so quickly that I seriously doubt Beyond Earth can stay interesting very long otherwise. Unless people really do only seek some occupation with Civilization games. In this case I misjudged the community.