Solver: After all you have said about the game, will you buy it immediately, or wait and look what the others are saying?
Yin 26: This is an easy question: Last year, I had posted a thread about something I called a "Civer's Edition," which would contain extra goodies, including a "Making of Civ 3" movie, etc. While we don't know all that will be in what Firaxis is calling the "Limited Edition" box, Kelley from Firaxis has said it will have the movie, a nicer manual, etc. I am a collector of sorts and will jump at the chance to buy that Limited Edition. My Dragon Edition of Ultima 9 still sits proudly (well, Origin kind of boffed that effort) near my desk. Yes, this is a kind of "Shiny Box" syndrome I talked about earlier, but I find behind the scenes stuff too hard to resist.

I am delighted at that decision to release a special edition since now I have every reason to get the game and start work on the bug list ASAP. My only advice to Firaxis: PLEASE look at how Origin messed up their Dragon Edition, and try to avoid similar mistakes. Thank you!

Solver: Markos keeps chasing on you telling everybody you want to change how everything works. Who's right here?
Yin 26: Once again, he has some valid points. And so do the others who say something like "Firaxis is a company. Not our personal game-manufacturing plant." What I think I fail to make clear often enough is that the primary thing I want to change is the level to which Firaxis interacts with the fans. Now don't get me wrong. I'm not talking about simply hanging out on the forums to make us feel some cheap thrill. They shouldn't waste their time on that.

What they SHOULD do, in my opinion, are a couple of things: 1) Make the beta process a bit (or a lot) more transparent and accessible to the fans. I think Firaxis has been trying to do this but hasn't run with it yet for some reason. I look at other companies that depend heavily on the community to craft a great game, and then I look at Firaxis, which tends to work in a shroud of mystery. Are they really listening? Do they really want our input? Do they put a premium on early feedback from the beta team? These are all important questions to me as a fan. 2) As I said earlier, Firaxis does a lot of great things, but their relative and perhaps systematized quiet cuts both ways: They can keep out the 'noise' and focus on the game, which is all we really care about in the end, but that also means they don't take enough time to show off what they rightly should and keep us in touch with the process. For example, Jeff Morris delivered almost EXACTLY what we asked for on the 4th (?) SMAC patch. Man, that should have been hyped more! Tastefully, of course. But it was silent. And I was personally rather disheartened that Firaxis didn't position itself to get more credit for that considering it was a major reflection of Firaxis' commitment to the community.

So I'm not out to change the industry.

Mark13: What is your take on Markos' attitude toward Firaxis?
Yin 26: I've always held Markos and Dan in the greatest respect, even as I disagree with them fairly often. One thing I always try to remind myself is that Markos and Dan must maintain a warm and fuzzy relationship with developers at all times if they want the juicy interviews, exclusive screenshots, and all that stuff. I understand that and respect it.

However, knowing when it's o.k. to admit that something failed or should have been done dramatically better only seems fair, especially in the face of a game being abandoned by the company. I'm speaking here about Activision and not Firaxis, of course.

However, he is passionate about these games, and who can fault him for being zealous at times? He also likely has some personal relationships with the people behind the games, and that also makes him lose some objectivity. At least the gaming companies know that Markos and Dan will do their utmost to shine the light on the good things, and in the end that probably does more good than not when we all want the latest info. After all, it's not as if Markos goes around closing or deleting threads that are critical. Doing that would be the end of Apolyton, so I think he's generally quite fair.

Solver: You have got many ideas about Civ 3 yourself. Do you believe Firaxis are listening to you, and all the Apolyton crowd, checking almost each day, or not?
Yin 26: Easiest question so far: Absolutely. Firaxis HAS listened, IS listening and WILL listen. I can't be sure, but I think it's fairly obvious that Apolyton has had profound impact on Civ 3. As I said, I only wish that was more obvious to all of us. As for listening to me personally, I think Firaxis sees me as just another poster, and that's how it should be. And, yes, I think they check the boards almost each day.

Stefu: The Civ3 List is an impressive piece of work. Likewise, the Essential Civ3 List simplified the best ideas and suggestions into a simple yet elegant document. Where did you get your inspiration for them?
Yin 26: As an important point of clarification, I came up with very, very few of the actual ideas. Far from it. What I did do was lead the effort to recruit "Thread Masters" to collect and format feedback on specified topics from the community. I then in turn took that massive amount of data (nearly 500 pages in Word format!) and tried to put it all together, often after major re-formatting to make it as useful as possible for Firaxis. The Essential Civ 3 List wasn't my doing, however, but I greatly respect the work that was done on it.

I was inspired most directly because Brian Reynolds made a comment something to the effect of: "Back when I was making Civ 2, some guys on the Net made a list of suggestions that really proved helpful. Where are you, Yin?" He also went on to say that such a list would be right by his computer as he was coding the game.

Wow! You can't get a much clearer invitation than that to help get the community's voice in front of the designer in a powerful way. Brian's biggest concern was that he'd get tons of e-mails regarding ideas instead of having something coherent to work from. Well, the List and the Essential List did just that, I think, in an unprecedented way.

Of course, Brian's leaving Firaxis put quite a cloud on the whole effort for a while, but it seems we still managed to make a profound difference with those lists. As far as I'm aware, we have Chris Pine, Firaxis' AI guru, to thank for actually printing the stuff out, tabbing it and passing it around. Otherwise, we might have done all that work for nothing. In the future, I'd bind and tab the thing myself and Fed-Ex it to Hunt Valley.

By the way, Markos and Dan opened up their site to me by adding a List forum. Without that, probably nothing could have been done. So we all owe them thanks for supporting us in that way.

Solver: How much time work on the lists actually took?
Yin 26: I can only say for sure that my portion of the work went over 300 hours! Sure, some of those master mod guys (Wes) or guru game dissectors (Vel) are probably laughing at that tiny number, but for a guy with 2 jobs and a young daughter, it was a stunning effort for me. I was lucky my primary job was slow for a while. Of course, some of the Thread Masters came along and picked up major slack just when I had nothing left to give, and it wouldn't surprise me if they put in similar or more hours. All told, Apolyton donated well over 1,000 hours JUST to getting the ideas in an organized document! Amazing.

And keep in mind, the debates about what the format should be, what topics should be debated, and the actual discussions about the ideas themselves, etc., took countless hours on top of everything else. I simply can't even begin to guess the total number of hours from the entire Apolyton community spent reading and posting just for the List. 5,000? 10,000?

One of the most difficult things was to keep leadership over such a number of equally passionate Thread Masters and posters. And it was often a case of hot and cold. Sometimes we'd debate almost anything, and it seemed the "real" work would never get done. While at other times, some Thread Masters even quit part way in when it was no longer fun but WORK, which I totally understand, but that left me wondering if I should quit the project or just run it solo. However, I was determined to keep the process as democratic and as inclusive as possible. The more the List looked like "Yin's work," the less it would be taken seriously. But doing that over the Net at times seemed a nightmare, and I was often tempted to make unilateral decisions or walk way when I got lambasted, say, for choosing one numbering system over another (true story!). I remember going through that little drama between meetings while on an overseas trip. Fun.

MarkG: Do you regret working on the Lists?
Yin 26: I think you can see it was my proudest achievement as a lowly fan. To have overseen what surely represents the greatest gaming feedback effort EVER is a great thing. And as I said, I am CERTAIN that more than just a few of our ideas have influenced Civ 3. Would I do it again? I simply don't think I have that kind of time since I have been promoted at work a few times since then, but all of us involved in that effort can know that at the very least we took a window of opportunity and made a Herculean strive for Civ 3's success when it counted most.

Solver: Which of the civ games have you played, to see a basis for your pessimism :)?
Yin 26: While I'm not a particularly good player compared to some others, I've played Civ 1 and Civ 2 to death but started to check out other things when ToT was coming out. SMAC interested me for a while until I realized the infinite missile bug would keep me from playing on HUGE maps, which is what I wanted at the time. I tried to FORCE myself to play CtP and CtP 2, but I failed each time. And I still owe an apology to Wes for not trying out his latest mod. Sorry. I'm sure he turned the game around, but I couldn't rekindle any interest. And while not a 'Civ' game, per se, I tried Europa Universalis to no great success. I simply found it overly cluttered and confusing, though the fans themselves organized quite well to make the effort worthwhile for anybody caring to do the homework. Of all those games, Civ 1 and 2 were the best by far.

Solver: Of these 3, pick one choice, that needs enhancement/further developing : graphics, AI, multiplayer
Yin 26: Good question. Well, I'm assuming graphics have already been greatly updated. We just need to see the results. Of the remaining two, the obvious answer for me is AI. For all the promise of resources and culture, etc., if the comp can't handle it, we'll be back at square one. I realize, however, that there are still great limits to what can be programmed and, in the end, the only way to get a truly challenging opponent is to play another human being. But I didn't choose MP simply because TBS in MP format is too cumbersome. Some people are still playing SMAC games from over a year ago! I admire that kind of staying power, but I lose interest when a game runs longer than a week! Let me just say, though, if Firaxis is truly working on some never-before-seen MP solutions, I might change my answer. =)

Still, I think AI development is the key to taking the gaming industry to a new level, and I can only hope that Chris Pine has been in the trenches.

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