Will you be upset with game bugs or an incomplete game?

[Davor]

This is for those who will be buying Civ V and say right now they say they are dieing and can't wait for the game to come out. So now we are only a few days away from release, will you be upset if the game has bugs or is an incomplete game?

The trend lately is to release games that are not ready. For a few companies, I can find this forgiving because they are a 2 man show. But for a company like Firaxis I find this unforgivable. Civ IV was released too early because for lots of people the game was unplayable. Most had to wait for the 3rd patch for the game to be playable.

We always have talks on wanting a game NOW. Lots of times we have a game now, we complain because of bugs, and saying the games were released way to early and shoudln't have been released at all.

So what about Civ V? Just say the game is bugy. I am hoping it's not the case, but lets just say it is. Would you be upset? Or would you be happy the game is out and you can play now and always patch it later.

Or would you rather wait another month or two instead of another 4 or 7 days, and let Firaxis tweak out the bugs, so we have a perfect game when it is released.

For me, I am leary, Firxis in my eyes have a tarnished record. The release of Civ IV was very poor and should be a big embaressement for them. I am hoping this is not the case, but with alot of games being released and needing patches all the time to make it a good game, you can see why I am leary.

If the game is buggy, then the game should have been released months ago if we are going to be paying for a beta product.

So would you rather have Civ V now, and buggy, or wait till it gets fixed. Again, I am not saying this is the case, but just curious as to what people think.

 

[Ahriman]

Would you be upset?

No, I love bugs! Delicious.

Foolish question.

But more to the point, the game is already done/gold, it was a few weeks ago.
The wait now is just for the street date, as boxes are distributed

We get the Gold version. If they delayed the unlock for a few days for some reason, we'd still be getting the same game.

 

[Silverwave]

Really, at this point, I would rather have it now (or, well, the 21st) with little bugs here and then and be playing while waiting for a patch than not playing at all!

 

[sghiminini]

Same here

 

[rastak]

Well, if it's like Elemental War on Magic I'll be irate.......a few bugs or issues though won't bother me a bit.

 

[Davor]

Well, if it's like Elemental War on Magic I'll be irate.......a few bugs or issues though won't bother me a bit.

How bad was Elemental War on Magic? I don't know never played the game. So is this a double standard then? Any game except Civ has to be perfect on release but Civ can have bugs as long as we can play now and patch later?

How come this is not good for other games?

 

[Tylerryan79]

As long as the game runs, and I can play it, I will be happy. If there are graphical bugs, say like the black city walls, I wouldnt care at all. They will fix stuff like that with patches asap. Id only be pissed if I was unable to play the game.

 

[sghiminini]

Who said anything about perfect? I never minded small bugs and day 0 patches for any games I play.

Are you here to attack the game? Seems so after reading your recent posts..

 

[rastak]

How bad was Elemental War on Magic? I don't know never played the game. So is this a double standard then? Any game except Civ has to be perfect on release but Civ can have bugs as long as we can play now and patch later?

How come this is not good for other games?

Crashes left and right, severe memory leaks, terrible balance issues and some general lack of polish. Some magazines called it a "disaster". Stardock is commited to fixing it and I'm sure in the end it will be good. Civ V looked very good to me in the playthrough at 2k so I'm not worried.

 

[IdleEnergy]

I doubt it will be perfect, but I'm not worried that it will be unplayable.

 

[Abremms]

How bad was Elemental War on Magic? I don't know never played the game. So is this a double standard then? Any game except Civ has to be perfect on release but Civ can have bugs as long as we can play now and patch later?

How come this is not good for other games?

Elemental was unplayable without the day 0 patch. with the day 0 patch, you could play it but it wasn't fun. now, 3-4 patches later, its actually shaping up to be a pretty sweet game. the foundation was always there, they just failed at the polish. give it another 6 months at this rate and it will be a truly stellar title.

unfortunately, a bad launch stays with you and the damage is already done for Elemental.

I'm not too worried about Civ V. it will have bugs, but with the complexity of modern games its impossible to get every bug through in-house Q&A, have a couple hundred (if they even have that many) people looking for bugs vs. the thousands who will install the game in the first week.

my advice is to just be patient, don't expect miracles and don't freak out if you do run afoul of a bad bug, Firaxis is a good company, report it and have faith it will be fixed in a timely manner.

 

[tokala]

Bugs are unavoidable. The question is only how many, how frequent and how severe.
I would be much more upset about shoddy gamedesign or a AI that is too smart for it's own good, because THAT would have been avoidable. (Looking at you, Empire:Total War )

 

[thungrim]

I've never known a bug free perfectly balanced game. So to me it all depends on the severity of the bugs and imbalances. I remember I bought Civ3 at release and I was furious after a week.

Civ4 on the other hand I loved playing from day 1, but even that had bugs.

 

[Boris Godunov]

Elemental: War of Magic has had probably the most disastrous release of the year, compounded by some fairly inept PR moves from Brad Wardell and the Stardock team.

But that isn't really the norm these days. I think most games actually do work very well upon release, and most post-release patching is for game balance issues or more isolated and minor bugs rather than game-breaking ones.

I'm sure there will be some hiccups with Civ 5, there's bound to be. But I expect them to be pretty minor. If it is like EWOM, I'll be very unhappy, definitely.

 

[Pyrofox]

I'm positive I'll be having fun 99% of the time even with bugs and honestly, this is a game I'm going to be playing for years. I'm going to get my moneys worth out of the game even if it's riddled with bugs at launch. Hopefully Firaxis don't take a fortnight vacation straight away though.

 

[Stile]

I've never known a bug free perfectly balanced game. So to me it all depends on the severity of the bugs and imbalances. I remember I bought Civ3 at release and I was furious after a week.

Civ4 on the other hand I loved playing from day 1, but even that had bugs.

I agree. Civ4 was acceptable. Civ3, where large parts of the game such as aircraft were unusable, was unacceptable.

 

[nargulok]

As others have said, the way the game industry is, no game is released without bugs. They could spend an additional year and still have a bugs that slip through the cracks.

So far with game play that I've seen, there doesn't appear to be any bugs that would be game breakers. 2k Greg has 80 hours game play, I'd say the game is ready. Will there be bugs? Certainly, but that is always expected.

I was fine with Civ 4 on release day.

Now some games have more bugs than others but the ones that have more are due to new/poor developer companies but I'm confident that Civ 5 will be in good shape as Firaxis and Sid Meier has a good/experienced history.

 

[Silverwave]

I had some thinking of horror just now.

What if, in a near future, companies start to make us pay for patches? They did it with DLC, making us pay for things they could have put in the game in the first place, or add it in later patches.

I'm scared!

 

[VirginiaRounder]

I agree that some bugs are inevitable. As long as the big ones get patched in a reasonable amount of time, I think it's acceptable.

 

[Zhahz]

For me, I am leary, Firxis in my eyes have a tarnished record. The release of Civ IV was very poor and should be a big embaressement for them. I am hoping this is not the case, but with alot of games being released and needing patches all the time to make it a good game, you can see why I am leary.

How was Civ IV a poor release? I had the game the moment it released and was playing it with few or no problems and having a blast.

Civ 5 looks great in every video I've seen. There have been a ridiculous number of previews, player hands-on, and interviews. The lead designer seems to be really in touch, well spoken, and very bright. Everything about Civ 5 oozes great design and quality. Despite what some conspiritists thinkg, big pubs can't control this much media or player feedback. If the game had performance issues or major bugs, it would've been mentioned by now. The few extremely minor comments about noncritical things have always had the "this is an old preview build" qualifier. The one major early distress about lack of diplo info/screens was squashed.

I expect a clean launch. There could be issues with release day activation or patching due to the mulitple versions of the game but even that is something that's commonplace these days and should go off without a hitch. Steam has been around a while and been there, done this - it's not like it's a new one-off distro system that's untested.

So yeah, given all that we know, I 'd be upset by major bugs or whatever since I'm not expecting that at all.

I'm a programmer. I've been playing PC games for 20+ years. There's reality too. No game or piece of software has ever shipped entirely bug free and there is almost always something you could tweak or add.

Putting Civ IV and Elemental in the same thread is just wrong. Elemental is one of the worst game releases I've experienced. Buggy, nonstop crashing, weak, weak and simplistic design, lacking features, crappy UI, horrific in-game help/info/pedia thing, weak graphics, and more. The ONLY good thing you can say about Elemental is that Stardock will continue to work on the game and after months of redesigning and paid beta testing it will most likely end up being decent. But even that is pushing it - the design is that crappy. GalCiv2 was rough around the edges but they didn't have to mutilate it to make it a good game, just polish, clean up, and add a few things. Elemental needs almost a complete overhaul.