PETITION: Delay Civ 4 Until Easter...Please Sign!

[Alex]

Originally posted by Myrddin
Most of the patch requirements on CivIII were play balance issues not bugs

Balance issues are best picked up through extended testing by experienced players, which CivIII did not have. Civ IV on the other hand is being tested by the absentees from this board and so should be much better on first release.

Will it be better if they spend another 3 months testing it? Not noticeably - so don't delay the release

Now this is a well-thought and sensible post.

[Harovan]

Originally posted by Myrddin
Most of the patch requirements on CivIII were play balance issues not bugs

True in numbers, but generally false nonetheless. Here is why:

Game developers usually have at least three categories of bugs:

A) Bugs leading to crashes. Least number, highest priority.
B) Bugs affecting gameplay - game features not working at all or not working as intended. Medium number, medium priority.
C) Minor issues like imbalances. That's what you are talking about. These are most numerous, but have the least priority.

Vanilla Civ3 in its earlier patch levels still had a lot of issues of category A and B. A prominent example was the "last settler on a ship" bug. If a civ had no city left, but still a settler on a ship, and you sunk that ship, the game crashed. It was fixed, if I recall correct, only in one of the 1.2x-ish patch, perhaps 1.21. There were much more such issues, some concerning graphics adapters, drivers, but also in-game situations. Only the last Civ3 patch level 1.29f had no known issues of category A left, at least not to my knowledge. Note, that most of the category A bugs are never mentioned in patch notes, for whatever reason. So it was with the bug mentioned by me too. But I am sure, many of you will remember it.

Since with plain Civ3 most of the heavy bugs (A) had been fixed, Play the World is a classical example of patches dominated by category B. It was the multiplayer expansion of Civ3. Unfortunately, online MP did first not work at all, and later very badly. All PtW patches mainly tried to improve the multiplayer part, without remarkable success as I may add. Multiplayer in the MP expansion did not work. You can hardly call this "mostly a balance issue".

Of course, both in Civ3 and PtW lots of balances have been done also in the patches. However as long as bigger issues are present, this is secondary. Believe me, one bug leading to a crash outweighs several hundred balance issues in the developers books, and in their working schedule.

Your statement is true only for Conquests. All C3C patches were merely balancers, mainly of the corruption formula. The real bugs in C3C, even some of those already found in the beta test, have never been fixed and are in the game until now.

Balance issues are best picked up through extended testing by experienced players, which CivIII did not have. Civ IV on the other hand is being tested by the absentees from this board and so should be much better on first release.

You are right, Civ4 is tested by the best people Firaxis could possibly get.

Will it be better if they spend another 3 months testing it? Not noticeably - so don't delay the release

No, it will not be better with more testing. But testing is only half of the work. The more important work is fixing the bugs and issues found by the testers. Something, that has been conveniently forgotten in C3C.

I am not calling for a delay by all means.

But the game should be released, when the list of known bugs and issues is empty. I.e., all bugs and issues are not only found, but fixed!

If this goal is achieved in November, fine with me. If it takes until next summer, fine with me too.

But if the game is released in November with a huge lot of remaining issues, I will be seriously upset.

[yin26]

Bravo!

[Aro]

Originally posted by Myrddin
................
Civ IV on the other hand is being tested by the absentees from this board ..............

Who?

[Harovan]

Absentee? Perhaps he means Coracle.

[Adagio]

[Spiffor]

*pants*

[SpencerH]

Originally posted by Sir Ralph

True in numbers, but generally false nonetheless. Here is why:

....

But if the game is released in November with a huge lot of remaining issues, I will be seriously upset.

Yep

Hows about the first bug that I think most of us noticed on (or in some cases before) the day the game was released, that the fighters didnt intercept.

[Zoid]

Originally posted by yin26


This is hilarious. I'd be flattered if I didn't know how this is likely to turn out, but here it goes:

What does it mean to you to be "Yined"?

...readies himself...

Well, my definition of "Yined" would be: "to run into the barrage of criticism from yin26 regarding Civilization and get royally pissed by it"

[Zoid]

[q=Sir Ralph]The real bugs in C3C, even some of those already found in the beta test, have never been fixed and are in the game until now.[/q]

And those bugs are...?

for a really good post

[theDragon]

I am already wetting my pants in anticipation, and I would not be mentally healthy if they were to back up the release date any further. I will be happy to download a patch or two just to start playing the game for a month or two.

God even my girlfriend knows how bad I want it, and for all the whinning about waiting she would more than likely go down to Firaxis and tear someone up if they delayed it

[Aro]

Originally posted by theDragon
...............I will be happy to download a patch or two just to start playing the game for a month or two.

Exactly what I think.
My vanilla Civ III crashed as soon as installed, but I restarted the game and did something different... And It worked! Eventually, crashed again, and again, I just reloaded and played. Oh, good times... I was playing America, and the Iroqs were running over my borders all the time, till I crushed them! I had fun, and I was happy, folks.

I want Civ IV right NOW!

[Harovan]

Originally posted by Dr Zoidberg
[q=Sir Ralph]The real bugs in C3C, even some of those already found in the beta test, have never been fixed and are in the game until now.[/q]

And those bugs are...?

for a really good post

You might go back a page or two in this thread, there I listed some of them (by far not all, though). All of them affect the AI. For singleplayer, Conquests is a big step back compared with PtW. For multiplayer it is alright.

[Zoid]

Ah, found it! Must´ve been reading this thread sloppy I never noticed any of those bugs actually, partly because I went straight from Civ3 vanilla to C3C, partly because I´m not very attentive to details in gameplay...

[Xorbon]

The stupid barbarians in Conquests are pretty hard to miss! Especially if you play the 'Three Sisters' mini-scenario.