Why put out an unfinished game?

[PieceOfMind]

It's hard to take anyone seriously who claims civ5 is dumbed down from civrev. Either they haven't played civrev or they have a seriously warped understanding of what dumbed down means.

Also...

not a fear of new, not a "hate" of different, not a rejection of change.

Just that Civ5 is such a breach of the tradition compared to the trajectory from 1 to 2 to 3 to 4.

So they hate the different trajectory. It's a rejection of a change they don't like, or a fear of the new way they've done things. It's all wordplay.

I've yet to see an argument with any depth that demonstrates civ5 is no longer a civ game. It's just that many people don't like the new direction it took and/or the problems with its current state (some imbalanced strategies, bugs, performance issues etc.)

 

[Jharii]

It's hard to take anyone seriously who claims civ5 is dumbed down from civrev. Either they haven't played civrev or they have a seriously warped understanding of what dumbed down means.

Or the third option, to grossly exaggerate to try to prove a point.

 

[ohioastronomy]

There is a clear Civ Rev influence on Civ 5, most obvious in the interface. And the pre-release interviews clearly indicated that they were aiming at a more casual crowd. I think that's what the prior poster was getting at; we're all better off if we try to interpret people according to what they intend, rather than scoring debating points.

 

[Jharii]

There is a clear Civ Rev influence on Civ 5, most obvious in the interface. And the pre-release interviews clearly indicated that they were aiming at a more casual crowd. I think that's what the prior poster was getting at; we're all better off if we try to interpret people according to what they intend, rather than scoring debating points.

It is a much better suggestion to speak as to your actual intent rather than leaving it open to speculation and misinterpretation, thus avoiding all potential confusion. You can hardly blame anyone for taking the literal interpretation of a statement (it is the internet after all), but you choose to. Whatever.

And if you re-read his statement, his intent was very clear. But as PoM mentioned, it's really hard to take someone seriously when they take those kind of liberties.

 

[Anthropoid]

My intent is to try to understand (a) why this game seems to have polarized the CFC community so dramatically; (b) provoke dialogue and offer commentary that might inform 2K/Firaxis on how to mitigate some of the Love It-Hate It polarity with subsequent patches/expansions/DLCs.

I have not played the game, and won't buy it for a long time if ever, so I speak from the standpoint of an outsider looking in, not someone who has tried it.

I see many of my online acquiantances and friends saying various things about how many elements in Civ4 have been taken out, or simplified, and I moreover, see many people using phrases that I think are safe to generalize as "dumbed down." I don't see how CivRev has anything to do with it? The comparison point I'm referring to, and to which all of the users I'm synthesizing in my appraisal refer to is Civ4. If Civ5 was intended to be a sequel to CivRev, then why not just call it CivRev2?

I've yet to see an argument with any depth that demonstrates civ5 is no longer a civ game. It's just that many people don't like the new direction it took and/or the problems with its current state (some imbalanced strategies, bugs, performance issues etc.)

I certainly did not mean to argue that it is "no longer a civ game" clearly it is. The publisher who owns the copyright and brand call it that, so it is; no matter what anyone else wants to argue, it is a fact that Firaxis and 2K have defined this as "a civ game."

But that doesn't mean it represents a clear continuity with the preceding games in the series. My understanding is that, there seems to be a pretty clear consensus (by both Pro- and Con-Civ5 'factions') that it does not represent a clear continuity with the preceding games.

As you put it PieceofMind "new direction it took and/or the problems with its current state."

My goal here is, to the extent it is possible in this format (not to mention depending on how receptive they are) channel the discussions toward providing feedback to 2K and Firaxis. There has been a lot of polarity about the game, and I don't think either faction should discount the legitimacy of the other. But we should also, as fellow Civ Gamers, try to work together to reach a consensus about what the publisher MIGHT do with future releases to satisfy more of everyone.

Though I have posted in the "Civ is Dead . . ." thread, I take that to be largely humor. I also posted in the "I Have Hope" thread and I do. I hope that in patches, expansions, etc., they can salvage this situation by increasing the total number of users who are clearly satisfied, and reducing the number who are highly dissatisfied. While I would tend to lean with my friends who do own the game and are in the "Anti-Civ5" camp, I also recognize that, swinging the pendulum way back in that direction is likely not going to be a solution either (although providing user's options to swing it for themselves might be good ideas, to the extent that it can be operationalized).

I realize that a sizeable fraction of you seem to feel 'there is no need to salvage anything' because you like it just fine. My point is simply that: another sizeable fraction disagree quite strongly. The best option for 2K and Firaxis going forward, is to try to accessorize/modify/expand the game to appeal to the optimum fraction of both of those two segments. At present, they have put out a game that has polarized the users and it would be foolish to just leave it that way and forge ahead focusing completely on the "Pro-Civ5" segment and leaving the "Anti-Civ5" segment alienated. If nothing else, the fact that people are still playing and modding Civ4, and still participating in this site would suggest that the "Anti-Civ4" segment is not just going to "go away."

Perhaps this poliarization was in some sense necessary to push the envelope and pioneer new directions (a point which the "Anti-Civ5" segment are likely to debate quite strongly, but no need to get caught up in that) but the fact remains: by polarizing the user base, the publishers are not optimizing their market penetration, and worse yet, they are creating arguably unnecessary tensions and rifts in the user community which threaten to undermine the fiscal success even among those who would otherwise love the new direction.

Clearly no game is going to satisfy everyone, and were it a completely new game, the fact that a sizeable chunk of users were highly disgruntled could I think quite reasonably be dismissed in various ways, such as, why didn't you do your homework and decide not to buy it? or just don't buy another game like it, or try some other game.

Civ5 is a sequel to one of the longer running game series and as such, I don't think it is quite so reasoable, either from a social or a business standpoint, to dismiss the disgruntled 'traditionalists' quite so readily.

 

[PieceOfMind]

There is a clear Civ Rev influence on Civ 5, most obvious in the interface. And the pre-release interviews clearly indicated that they were aiming at a more casual crowd. I think that's what the prior poster was getting at; we're all better off if we try to interpret people according to what they intend, rather than scoring debating points.

The whole thread is bound to be mere debating points. CivrevCiv5 may have borrowed some interface and art ideas from civrev (which I've said in the past, and well before civ5 was released) but those are mostly good things. The likening of civ5 to civrev in the sense of dumbing down is completely missing the point. Even with the alleged lack of depth in civ5's strategies (which I'm still learning about), civrev still has not even half of that. It didn't have many options to customize, all the difficulties were easy, the leaders spoke simlish (which I might add is about the most offensive gesture Firaxis have ever made to their players - those leaders would have been far better off staying silent with text), and the list could go on. Even Deity in civrev was arguably easier than King in civ5.

Civrev has serious problems as a game if it's compared along side any game of the main series. The only context in which people will ever give it credit is by saying 'it's a console game so I hold it to different standards'. I would seriously suggest that a lot of the people who are quick to judge it as being a civrev offshoot have in fact never played civrev. After all, just about everyone deriding the design of civ5 freely admit to not liking console games.

 

[evrett37]

I dont think its that big a stretch to think that Firaxis had pieces of a Civ:rev sequel lying around and decided to combine them with CiV. Its also important to note the youth of the lead developers which also trends towards consuls vs pcs gaming.

 

[lschnarch]

Civrev may have borrowed some interface and art ideas from civrev (which I've said in the past, and well before civ5 was released) but those are mostly good things.

Just wanted to save this.
Sometimes our errors reveal more than we want.

 

[PieceOfMind]

Anthropoid, with all due respect it's going to be hard to make much worthwhile discussion about the pros and cons of civ5 with someone who hasn't played it. And I'm sorry, I didn't mean to suggest you accused it of not being a civ game - that is more something that people like Thormodr and his followers tend to argue with their bolded signatures.

With that said, from your previous post I will respond on two points:

1. Regarding the polarisation of the community. Actually I could have reasonably predicted this well before the game was launched. The fact is that civ4 with its expansions were exceptionally successful and popular with the fans. Whenever this happens in any series, there is likely to be a large number of people who become disappointed or disenfranchised after a sequel to that highly successful iteration, if only because of the enormous expectations placed on that sequel. This is a simple result of a statistical theory. It doesn't necessarily explain away the reasons for why those people feel disenfranchised, but it certainly predicts there's a high likelihood it will happen to many.

With that, the polarisation of the community comes about because there are a lot of people disappointed with the game. Some of them come to the forums and exaggerate their complaints (and for some, this is done repeatedly in many threads) to the point where even people who would usually be critical of the game end up in a position where they are practically defending it, and those who enjoy the game will tend to exaggerate their praise in order to try and restore some sort of balance. A polarising effect is not so much a result of the state of the game, but a result of human nature or just how forum communities work. I'm sure people who frequent other forums (especially games forums) are familiar with it.
Of course, I admit I am no expert so the above is only my opinion.


2. As to whether civ5 has taken a 'new direction'. I would argue it hasn't really (well, only partly from civ4). It has deviated separate from civ4 in many of its most visible gameplay features e.g. players are quite quick, to note the absence of religion, espionage, sliders, and other very visible things... even diplo modifiers. Many of these features were not essential to 'civ' gameplay, but they were certainly much enjoyed by its fans. Actually, espionage in particular was one area where there were a lot of people who didn't care much for it, and I would still argue that espionage was one of the least polished (because of how tedious it was to use in gameplay) features of civ4bts.

If you look at civ1, and then civ5, you will see that everything is basically still there:
Several leaders leading civilizations from 4000bc in a tilebased turnbased game, collecting yields from tiles, putting beakers towards research and hammers (shields) towards production of buildings and units, including wonders, the various victory conditions that require different approaches, and so on.

There are still many similarities between civ4 and civ5 anyway, but in general it is far easier for anyone, no matter what their judgement of the game, to spot the differences than to spot the similarities. Perhaps this is because the similarities are just taken for granted - I don't know.

Just wanted to save this.
Sometimes our errors reveal more than we want.

Well I'm sure from the context it would have been clear what I meant to say, but thank you for pointing it out nonetheless. I was typing my response very quickly.

As for your implication, you're wrong. It's a typo.

 

[Venereus]

Well I'm sure from the context it would have been clear what I meant to say, but thank you for pointing it out nonetheless. I was typing my response very quickly.

As for your implication, you're wrong. It's a typo.

"Civ V" turned into "Civrev" is too big a miss to be a typo, that's a lapsus for sure. If it has implications or not, depends on how much you believe in Freud.

 

[PieceOfMind]

What you see is coloured by your own perceptions, Venereus. Speaking of implications, the fact you're having to narrow in on an admitted typo says a lot about the quality of your argument.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

I see many of my online acquiantances and friends saying various things about how many elements in Civ4 have been taken out, or simplified, and I moreover, see many people using phrases that I think are safe to generalize as "dumbed down." I don't see how CivRev has anything to do with it? The comparison point I'm referring to, and to which all of the users I'm synthesizing in my appraisal refer to is Civ4. If Civ5 was intended to be a sequel to CivRev, then why not just call it CivRev2?

. How many of them even knew the intricacies of IV, since they're telling you that V is dumbed down? In reality, they're not very different:

- You still are choosing between farms/mines and a more commerce/gold based tile improvement early on, with more options that are viable later
- You still have options that empower specs or cottages/trading posts
- You still have to balance opportunity cost between units/wonders/structure
- Expansion rate is still held in semi-check, and in both iterations there are ways to completely blow by the mechanics stopping you.
- Military survival is still top priority
- Other victory conditions still largely abuse AI stupidity rather than being balanced

Tell me how this is dumbed down? The single biggest problem with BOTH games is that they were never completed. V still has a chance.

 

[Old Dood]

I just want this new version TO WORK!

I like some of the new aspects of the game.
(Hexes, Single Unit per tiles, etc)

However, I cannot play the game I am use to.
That is a Epic Game on a Huge Map!
I do not care if my game takes two weeks to finish.
It is about the journey to me...

I been trying to save not just every turn but, many times during a turn and to no avail...
Crash...crash...crash...

This is getting real old...real fast.
I also want a patch that I can download and ADD MYSELF.
I do not care for these online update things....
I never liked my PC to 'Phone Home' for anything.

I have been playing Civ since the first game ever came out.
I am not a tech savvy player or a moder.
I simply enjoy the journey of the long/large games I like to play and I cannot do that now.

EDIT: Ohhh Gawd...My sig is OLD...Those are not my PC specs anymore...haha!

 

[lschnarch]

Tell me how this is dumbed down? The single biggest problem with BOTH games is that they were never completed. V still has a chance.

Would you mind to explain what makes you to believe a company which has not completed the last games will do so now?

That is one of things which are so confusing in all these defensive rants:
"Ah, don't tell me about that error. Civ4 had it too/similar/worse. But in 3 years, then..."

Obviously, Firaxis just refuses to learn from the past. And still the current problems are just swept under the rug, stating that somewhere, somewhen the future will be bright.

 

[ohioastronomy]

. How many of them even knew the intricacies of IV, since they're telling you that V is dumbed down? In reality, they're not very different:

- You still are choosing between farms/mines and a more commerce/gold based tile improvement early on, with more options that are viable later
- You still have options that empower specs or cottages/trading posts
- You still have to balance opportunity cost between units/wonders/structure
- Expansion rate is still held in semi-check, and in both iterations there are ways to completely blow by the mechanics stopping you.
- Military survival is still top priority
- Other victory conditions still largely abuse AI stupidity rather than being balanced

Tell me how this is dumbed down? The single biggest problem with BOTH games is that they were never completed. V still has a chance.

You're playing both of these games at a high level. It's also relevant how long it takes people to get to that degree of understanding. For Civ 4 it took most of us a pretty long time to be able to consistently win at the higher difficulty levels (if nothing else, trial and error on what sort of armies could get tossed at you, or how religions worked, etc.) For Civ 5, by contrast, the much simpler mechanics made it far quicker to identify the relevant issues - I discovered the horseman =win approach on my second game because the AIs annoyed me. The Civ 4 analogs were not remotely as easy and having them fizzle hurt you a lot more.

It may be that they're similar once you have invested hundreds of hours in both, but that doesn't give them the same degree of interest. It's dangerous to design games around what the very most talented players can do with them. I wonder if that's the issue with Shafer - he may have been too good a Civ player for his own good.

 

[taylor_cu]

Why would 2K and Firaxis put out a game with all of the bugs and problems the game has? How could they not notice? Granted the patch did fix a majority of the bugs, but there are still problems ( Like multi-player for example ).

It is cause we are at pc games swindle age. It is proved that gamers tolerate all kind of game seller swindles. So, they just abuse cause there is not retaliation.

 

[vandyr]

Why is it that the all the fanbois whine?

Delicious irony.

 

[Anthropoid]

That is an interesting theory PieceofMind, and it may be true. Indeed I can see how it is hard for me to meaningfully debate the point given I haven't played it. Still, liking it and disliking it are ultimately a matter of opinion, and based on what I've read, I'm pretty confident I would not like it at all. The direction I wanted Civ4 to go in was more like War in the Pacific, i.e., extremely detailed, extremely fine-grained, extremely realistic. I realize that was never going to happen, though, with sufficiently robust machines it still could happen with Civ4. I gave up on Civ4 after a couple years when it became obvious that maps beyond say 100 x 100 tiles were prohibitive for machines without extraordinatry procesing power. As much as I enjoyed 1, 2, 3, and 4, I eventually found it impossible to suspend disbelief in a game with a map of an entire planet where "A warrior" or "A worker" occupied an area that must have been 100 to 200 miles on a tile-side. To me, a game that didn't focus the game engine down to the level of say 20 or 25 mile-wide map segments (for strategic!) and perhaps 500 feet wide segments on randomly generated tactical battle maps (imagine the "fort battles" in "Pirates!" but souped up and with an AI that could really challenge you). With the engine I dreamed of (until those dreams were crushed by Civ5 *whimper* ) combat would only occur when units were in the same strategic map tile, and indeed might never occur if one side was running way or trying to evade the other . . . *sigh* anyway, I've always been more of a hex-map strategy and tactics wargamer so I still can't quite understand why I was such a Civ fandude for so long.

But, back to your hypothesis. It would be interesting for a grad student from Consumer Psych, or IT or something to do their Ph.D. on that hypothesis. I imagine you could test it: look back at forum archives for a number of games that are fully developed and basically "done" and which were either prequels or sequels of other games (Fallout2-Fallout3-FalloutNV; Morrowind-Oblivion; Civ2-3-4-5, etc.) and test if your hypothesis is correct: is their more polarization on forums when a game makes a change, but then it proves to be highly popular in the long-run just the same?

 

[TheMeInTeam]

Would you mind to explain what makes you to believe a company which has not completed the last games will do so now?

That is one of things which are so confusing in all these defensive rants:
"Ah, don't tell me about that error. Civ4 had it too/similar/worse. But in 3 years, then..."

Obviously, Firaxis just refuses to learn from the past. And still the current problems are just swept under the rug, stating that somewhere, somewhen the future will be bright.

I'm not trying to defend V at all. It is an incomplete mess. Do I hope it will be fixed? Absolutely. I'll try to lend a hand where I can. Do I think it will be? I don't know. All I know is that IV has no hope while V still does. I am *not* trying to use that as an argument to defend V (I'm confused where you think I did so).

I just want this new version TO WORK!

This is exactly why I advocated against graphics whoring since I started playing civ IV seriously. It's a travesty that people who try to play this game at a good clip have to spend more time waiting for the interface/between turns than they do actually playing. It is the #1 reason I don't play V as much as IV, and even in IV it was an issue that caused me to play less than I might have.

You're playing both of these games at a high level. It's also relevant how long it takes people to get to that degree of understanding. For Civ 4 it took most of us a pretty long time to be able to consistently win at the higher difficulty levels (if nothing else, trial and error on what sort of armies could get tossed at you, or how religions worked, etc.) For Civ 5, by contrast, the much simpler mechanics made it far quicker to identify the relevant issues - I discovered the horseman =win approach on my second game because the AIs annoyed me. The Civ 4 analogs were not remotely as easy and having them fizzle hurt you a lot more.

This point can be thrown back at you. Do you think that your experience with previous civ games has no bearing on the rate at which you adapted to civ V? I'd guess that it actually had a very significant impact precisely because many of the basic tradeoffs are similar.

I would argue that if anything, V's mechanics are less simple because of 1upt. The AI doesn't adapt well to it, yet, but that doesn't mean the game itself isn't complex. Early rushes were overpowered in IV vanilla too (you'd think they'd NOT repeat this error, among many other repeats such as interface issues and fake difficulty ). I don't see how playing V at an elite level is materially different from playing IV at an elite level; you still analyze your options for ROI and cost/benefit, and you still have a similar # of choices to make. It might be a little easier to win, but when you look at the "what difficulty level do you play", there aren't too many people boasting deity .

 

[Anthropoid]

I realize that the huge step "up" on the graphics-load from 3 to 4 was probably one of the most populars aspects of the game. But to me, that was one of the main aspects of the beginning of the "descent." It used to be a "strategy game." Then it became a bit more of an interactive cartoon. Now it seems to have taken an even bigger step toward interactive cartoon.