How important is the List for cIV for you?

[Nikolai]

As the title indicate, I'm wondering how important the List is seen. The reason is, that I loved the first List, and is working on the new one for cIV, and think it's fun to make it. But I have noticed of course that besides DC and me, few has made much effort to complete their part of the List... Lots of ideas are posted and that is good, but without any help and enthusiasm, this project is doomed to go slow forward and maybe won't be completed before it's too late for us to have any impact.

I know, Firaxis is reading according to themselves, and I have no doubt they do, but there's much proposed here and elsewhere I'm sure, so a List is much to help for them.

And I know, many people think the List isn't going to be looked at by Firaxis. I disagree with them, both because I think the reasons for the ideas last time weren't implemented(or more correct: they were, but not in the way and to the extent some people hoped) has good reasons, and because I trust the people making this game want to make a game that will be liked, reccommended, sold in large enough quantities etc.

So, what do you say? Is the List important?

[wrylachlan]

Timing

I think that the reason the list has sort of, how to put this?: faded away... is because the moderation/compilation wasn't done at a time when it needed to be. I mean we discussed combat back and forth in the Spring pretty heavily and got to the point where everyone's suggestions were on the table, those who could be persuaded one way or the other were, and everyones positions of the issues were essentially solidified. If at that point the list had been compiled into a logical breakdown, i.e. some people like stacking, some don't, etc., the discussion could have continued in a more focused manner with those in favor of stacking discussing the particulars and those against discussing the particulars of a non-combat solution.

As it was, the discussions faded away because of lack of moderation, and now you get people popping in to make points that had already been heavily debated (see hex/octagon thread). For those of us who had been in on the early discussion this is pretty tedious.

I may be in the minority, but I don't think the list should be a straight up list of quoted idea posts, but rather a summary/synthesis of the ideas with active voting, discussion etc untill the summary/synthesis represents the groups best, most popular ideas in an easy to read format. Then any new discussion could reference that as a basis.

[Trifna]

Personnally, I intend to make a summary of the enumeration of ideas if I have the time for it.

It don't give to the List an incredible importance, but I think it may bring a few things to Civ4, or perhaps whattever game may come later. It is a way to see how we can modelize history. It does not ask THAT much time to my modest person, so... why not. It's interesting.

I don't believe that any fancy idea will be incorporated though. I think that Civ is a game for any newbie, and is meant by Firaxis to be very straightforward. So big huge models and complicate plans aren't for cIV.

What can fit with cIV from the List:
Ideas that are easily understood, not micro-managing, efficiently representing in a general way a fun reality.


PS: I'll try to finish it during next week ("lecture week", no school). I think we should put out a preliminary version, and simply add later new material in yellow writing or something.

[wrylachlan]

Just to add on to what I was saying earlier, I think the thing that would bring discussion and interest back to the compilation of the list would be to take this monsterous list of ideas and through discussion/polls put them into an order of importance.

It would serve a couple of purposes:
1) The board would become more active as people attempt to defend the importance of their ideas.
2) There would be a greater order to the final list, and Firaxis could get a better idea of what is truly important to the fan base.
-------------------------------------------------------
P.S. In relation to the summaries, I think its important for the summaries to include important arguments against a particular idea... sort of pro/con. That way when someone reads an idea in summary he doesn't jump right to making an argument against the idea that people have already made.

[Brent]

Well, The List isn't as important to me as Real Life, but I do spend a lot of my online time and also a lot of my attention here. It would be sad if it was abandoned. It would leave a big empty place for me.

I'm glad I've had the opportunity to be one of the more active participants, even if not so constructive. I regret having been unable to participate in the old List.

It is a lot of fun to participate and be able to hope to have some influence on something.

It sounds like it would be fun to be a threadmaster, but I think as soon as I were to be depended upon, I would wind up unreliable.

I hope Civ4 will at least be highly influenced by the as yet unused ideas from the Civ3 list, and I think if much more from the Civ4 list will be used, much of it will have to wait for Civ5.

I hope the lists that have been done will be finalized and submitted. Maybe all the lists that haven't been done should be lumped together. I think it would be great if more people start contributing more. I don't think anyone would say I don't contribute enough, I know my ideas are not largely mainstream.

I have noticed the indication that Soren was here a few times apparantly just viewing our ideas, and that is good.

There are things that I wanted that did end up in Civ3, I'm not sure if I ever let my voice be heard or if other people voiced the same opinions that I had.

I looked forward to the later stages of The List that I thought were coming, but I guess real life or something else concrete got in the way.

I would like all of our ideas to be available to Firaxis, butI do think it is better to have the voting and such. I would have no regrets if I am outvoted on everything.

It would be great to have more activity going, although I like having felt as significant a part of The List as I have.

[Maquiladora]

Maybe the list isnt drawing as much interest because,

1) a lot of people who made the first List dont like civ3
2) they didnt like civ3 because a lot of the List was read but ignored
3) they dont think another List is worth the effort
4) all the people who actually like civ3 arent really aware of the List?
5) if you asked me who was the leader or biggest contributer to the current list i couldnt think of anyone for either
6) could be the layout of the different subjects all over, i dont know
7) i get the impression its too late now anyway or its going too slow, dont know which

[Trifna]

Anyway, the main issue to me is that the List was made to put every single idea in, while only those that are straightforward, userfriendly, fun and so on have anything to do with cIV. The rest seems like mere distraction.

[Addled Platypus]

I did not discover the list until maybe a month ago, so it will be important to me until i read through each part of the list.

It might be old to others, still new to others.
I just took over Regional and City menus, and If pepople have the pm turned on, I am in the process of conntacting them to further discuss there ideas.

It is never to late, just lack of action

"excuses are not action"

Platypus Rex

[Maniac]

I don't consider the List for Civ4 important because I seriously doubt it will be a good game. I considered Civ3 a step back compared to SMAC, and I fear Civ4 will continue along the road Civ3 has taken. Certainly seeing Soren Johnson's "Simplify, Simplify, Simplify" mantra. My idea of fun is "Choices, Choices, Choices!". While admittedly SMAC had too many options in certain fields (eg too many hardly used base facilities & special unit abilities), Civ3 had way too little. Perhaps the situation improved with the expansions packs, but with basic Civ3 you were very restricted in possible strategies to play and win the game, while with SMAC you had various strategies you could take with the various factions.


That being said, IIRC Soren Johnson told once that it's best to take only a couple aspects of a game, and significantly improve those, while leaving the rest more or less the same. With that in mind, wouldn't it be a good idea to let everyone make their top three list of things they would like to see improved or new in Civ4, and put all those individual opinions together in a top ten list of most popular ideas? With a newsitem about such an initiative, it could give some more advertisement to the Civ4 forum. IIRC something similar was done for Civ3.

For example my top three would be something like this:
1> Easy moddability and a civ2/EU2-like event language for great scenario creation
2> SMAC-like social engineering & government
3> can't really tell: 3D hexagon worldmap, quantifiable resources, religion, on-the-map trade routes...

[Locutus]

I'll be the first to agree Civ3 was utter ****e. However, consider Civ1 & 2 as well. And consider also that their entire programming team walked out halfway through the project. That's a good excuse -- still an excuse, but a valid one. Consider further that they apparently already had a playable version of Civ4 last February and the release is probably still a year away. Finally, consider that Soren Johnson is lead designer (IMO he's by far the most talented game designer at Firaxis, with the possible exception of Sid himself). From what little info we have, Soren certainly seems to have learned some lessons from Civ3.


The reason why the List is not too important to me is exactly because Firaxis already had a working version of the game last February. I'm sure there are many areas in which the List could make an impact, but most major design decisions (stacked vs single combat, PW vs Workers, squares vs hexagons, religion, civics, unit experience/upgrading, etc) were already made before the List efforts even started. Face it, the Civ3 List was excellent, but this time you were simply too late...

Plus, I don't have nearly as much time for discussing games on the Internet than I had 2, 3 years ago. And when I do, I prefer to be more efficient and stick to discussing things that I can be fairly sure will actually make a difference, as is the case with the CtP2 Source Code Project

Edit: dammit, you DanS'ed me

[Maniac]

Originally posted by Locutus
Edit: dammit, you DanS'ed me

Sorry. I accidentally pressed on Tab followed by Enter somehow, which led to the post being submitted before it was finished.

[Locutus]

Originally posted by Maniac
That being said, IIRC Soren Johnson told once that it's best to take only a couple aspects of a game, and significantly improve those, while leaving the rest more or less the same. With that in mind, wouldn't it be a good idea to let everyone make their top three list of things they would like to see improved or new in Civ4, and put all those individual opinions together in a top ten list of most popular ideas?

If you do that, focus on stuff that can still be realised, considering that they almost certainly already made most/all major design decisions. E.g. a hexagon world map is not gonna happen anyway. We don't know how combat will work, but asking for stacked combat is pointless now: either it's already there, or it's not. Also, we know the game will be extremely moddable (with Python and XML and everything), no point in 'demanding' that.

If moddability is an issue, be more specific: open up the AI, have loads of events, make the UI moddable as well, release the 3D art models, etc. For other features: government, religion and trade are probably examples of areas where changes could still be made if a good alternative/addition to whatever Firaxis came up with themselves is presented.

[Trifna]

Personally, I think that a List that could bring more would be one emphasizing SIMPLE idea. Players are not all the type of person lurking around here on Apolyton forums. And I'm pretty happy since it means that everyone can get a glimpse and see something interesting in history, society, technology...

So I think that we should make it simple. Even if we have this "Bible of Civ Ideas", it's all only data. So I think that the orientation should be towards things that are simple to add and/or do alot with little energy from the player.

This includes a SMAC-like or equivalent social system. But it does not include supporting the troops with a super-mega-realist system that's very fun for hardcore strategists, but not straigth to the point. A more "all-in-one package" support system must be found instead.

[Brent]

Well I like Civ3. I think it is overall better than Civ2. I wouldn't mind the graphics being more like Civ2. I definately prefer the Civ3 Editor. I prefer the packaged scenarios from Civ2. I prefer the selection of civs and the way they work in Civ3.

If people don't like Civ3, I would say give them another chance to do what is desired efor Civ4.

Sadly, I do think it is best to weed out the ideas that wouldn't work, including probably most of mine, from the final list, but I do have more new ideas I want to post, maybe others would disagree with me about which of my ideas would work better than others of mine.

I agree about "Choices" being better than "Simplify". Actual gameplay strategies aren't the type of choices I care most about, but I would welcome them still.

Yes, we should agree on what we think are the most important areas for improvement, but we should also submit our other ideas for the designers to choose from themselves.

Maniac's choices:
1> I agree about easy modability, but I like modding in Civ3 better than in Civ2.
2> Definitely sounds good, but not super important to me.
3> Out of those I would choose religion, and we know they're working on that anyway.

I surely hope the Civ4 list will automatically have weight for Civ5.

I kind of would prefer approximately equal changes throughout the game over just a few aspects, but that's just me.

About modding, I just hope it's intuitive and doesn't require any programming knowledge, at least for the things I want to work with. AI and Events sound like good foci for modding.

They are already focusing on Religion, which is good, and I guess their focus on Civics is related to Government, and I guess that's good too. It's good that we should still be able to affect these areas. Trade I don't have any ideas about, but what they've come up with in the past is fun.

[hexagonian]

I posted the stuff that I'd like to see fixed...(inclusion of stacked combat, reduction of tedious worker tasking with efficient grouping commands, elimination of infinite rails, and the addition of multilevels of TIs)

Why bother repeating myself over and over? It's all in Firaxis' court anyhow.

If civ4 does fix the stuff that I'd like to see fixed, then I'll get it. If not, I'll play something else. After all there are plenty of choices out there, even among older games.

I heartily agree with Trifna...

K.I.S.S.