Worst review ever for PTW?

[sumthinelse]

Computer Gaming World says PTW isn't even worth $3.

http://www.gamers.com/game/1144751

Users disagree (user reviews below the CGW review) and give PTW higher marks. You can write you own review on their website.

CGW score: 2/10

Average CGW user review: 7.4/10

Personal opinion: I have already had $30 worth of fun with PTW, although some things were disappointing.

Zoave, are you at CGW now?

 

[Arc-Lite]

PTW is probably worth the $30 just for the expanded editor options. The additional units, and the cool mods like Tethurkans.

I am disappointed the Firaxis keeps releasing garbage and needs several patches to fix it. Example when PTW was originally released it didn't have multi player capability. (Or so I was told)

 

[Akka]

I would rather call this review the best one of PTW so far. Perfectly reflect the "quality" of the game.

 

[Isak]

Quoting Mister McDonald in the review
Lag in a 2D strategy game with seemingly meager bandwidth requirements is an indication that all is not well at Casa Firaxis. This should have been a pretty rudimentary implementation of network code;

Ho-hum! Another wanna-be game developer reviewer, out to prove that he has absolutely no knowledge of programming whatsoever. Which of course is fine by itself, if only that type of reviewer would refrain from making 'informed' observations like this.

At least it looks like the users are setting things straight for him, but that's probably just the sort of stuff he feeds on...

 

[Sultan Bhargash]

I can't really say that I could disagree with either people who like PTW and think that "despite the kinks its worth it" or those who wrote this scathing review. After all, you read the box, you buy it thinking you are getting playable, MP, and you aren't. It has been a bit of a disaster.

Die hard civ fans as most of us are may have biased blinkers on, I suspect the truth lies closer to the 2 rating than the 7. I would have paid 30 dollars for the Scandinavians, Arabs, and Celts, but is that fair to people who expected Firaxis to live up to the legend?

 

[warpstorm]

Originally posted by Arc-Lite
Example when PTW was originally released it didn't have multi player capability. (Or so I was told)

That's strange. I clearly remember playing a few MP games when it came out. Yes, it was laggier, but playable. Don't believe everything you are told.

 

[AdrianH]

I agree with Sultan. I mean, right there on the front cover in red and white is says "Multiplayer." This expansion wasn't about new maps, civiliations, and mods. This expansion was for multiplayer, plain and simple.

Plain and simple, it doesn't work. I'm not saying I could do any better (I stopped programming with LOGO), but my Atari 2600 offered a better response time than this game. What I think is so funny, is the comment by the reviewer:

Well, there's the fact that the Multiplayer mode doesn't work. That's right: I defy anyone to complete an online game without a single crash. It's simply not possible. Hard and soft crashes dog every session, with no noticeable triggers outside the mere act of connecting.

This is so true, its painful. I guess I'm happy that the reviewer got screwed out of his $30 too. You can put lipstick on this pig all you want, but it's still a pig.

 

[warpstorm]

I played online games without crashes both before and after the release and after the latest patch also.

 

[Sultan Bhargash]

You played them all the way to conclusion?

 

[warpstorm]

Well, none of them lasted much past the end of the ancient era or early middle ages thanks to my war-mongering 'buddies'.

 

[wtiberon]

I love the single player additions though even though I still cannot play the MP due to a NAT Router (grrrrrrrrrrrrrr) Was it worth the 30 dollars...definitley...am I upset that I can't play MP...definitley. I would have appreciated if they had solved these problems before I bought it or at least posted a warning on the box.

 

[Sultan Bhargash]

Right Tiberon- I will never forgive or forget that first night that I was expecting to find MP bliss and all I got was crashes and cursing in the foyer.

And I still haven't had MP fun outside of PBEM, whatever, Warpstorm (who may have a better computer? personal internet? connections?) says...

 

[warpstorm]

Tiberon have you done port forwarding? I have a NAT and I got it to work doing that.

 

[Sultan Bhargash]

In English please!

 

[AdrianH]

warpstorm-

You should do us all a favor then and donate your computer to the PTW developers. From what I've read by reviewers, gamers, and my own personal experience, you have the only version of PTW that runs flawless, even before you patched it!

Maybe they can learn something from such a super computer, cause the rest of us can't seem to get the thing to work in an acceptable manner?

 

[warpstorm]

PTW (in fact any game that uses DirectPlay as its messaging) needs to have port 2302 open. This will allow you play direct IP games. To host direct IP you also need 13139 and 6500. If you are using GameSpy (the default) you need to open a bunch more ports:

6667 (IRC)
3783 (Voice Chat Port)
27900 (Master Server UDP Heartbeat)
28900 (Master Server List Request)
29900 (GP Connection Manager)
29901 (GP Search Manager)
13139 (Custom UDP Pings)
6500 (Query Port)
2302 (DirectPlay)

How do you do this? It depends on your router. RTFM. LinkSys are trivial. Just go to http://192.168.1.1 and follow the directions. Note that you are poking holes in your firewall to do this.

 

[warpstorm]

I wouldn't say flawless, before 1.08f it was very laggy, but I still played it.

 

[Sultan Bhargash]

Wow. Do you think they could make a version of the game where I don't have to do all that work for myself?

 

[sumthinelse]

Originally posted by warpstorm
LinkSys are trivial. Just go to http://192.168.1.1 and follow the directions.

Some people can have a "looser firewall" for some of their computers that have games and less important stuff on them (no personal financial info etc.) so that if hackers do get in all you have to do is reinstall.

WS: I configured my Linksys firewall to have a non-default IP address just to make it harder for hackers.

 

[warpstorm]

Originally posted by Sultan Bhargash
Wow. Do you think they could make a version of the game where I don't have to do all that work for myself?

Yeah, don't use a firewall and you don't have to do any of this

Seriously, would you really want a game to poke holes in your firewall itself?

Originally posted by sumthinelse
I configured my Linksys firewall to have a non-default IP address just to make it harder for hackers

I'm sure it's in the manual, but how do you do this and are there any bad side effects?