pay to beta

[enoeraew]

This game feels like it was made for the "mod" community to finish...which of course is the evil "pay to beta" philosophy many many many game co. are running by these dayz..I expected better from Sid...by now this should be art for him...lets not even mention the forum mods who should have warned us EVEN if they were under contract...for the sake of the game...10yo gamers will never play civ because it will never run on the computers in the study hall/detention room...or like civ 3 did on my crusty, sand-molested laptop for forgetten aboriginal children in the australian wilderness

[Gray_Lensman]

I didn't pay to beta! I finally got wise and waited to see the forum comments instead of the depending on the biased review/previews. I had suspicions that this was gonna be a huge disappointment, and so far it seems to have met and exceeded my negative expectations.

Kind of a shame. I use to buy "Sid Meier's" products as soon as they hit the shelf, but they have overused his name and failed to live up to the higher standard that his name should have required.

I'll continue checking into his products, but gone are the days of paying to beta any of his games...

[Robert]

Why is this a beta game?
I'm playing the games and all is going very well.

There were some problems with some ATI video cards, but that's not a problem with the game but with the computer configuration. This has already been addressed.

And there are always bugs in a game.
civ IV has just a few, no major ones. And in fact I didn't even run into any bug so far.

Don't be silly by naming this game a beta.
It's a gold release and a very good one.

[Egbert]

Interesting. We read the same forum yet I have a positive expectation for this game. I intend to buy a copy this weekend.

[Acidyl]

I bought it and having a high-end pc with nvidea card, I haven't encountered any crashing bugs.

It's a great game, to bad the ATI card problems and others are currently burning it.
Hope they can fix it soon so people at least can take an opinion based on playing the game, not on seeing it crash ... or worse, having read on the internet of how it crashes.

[Robert]

Originally posted by Acidyl
It's a great game, to bad the ATI card problems and others are currently burning it.
Hope they can fix it soon so people at least can take an opinion based on playing the game, not on seeing it crash ... or worse, having read on the internet of how it crashes.

It has already been fixed. Read the news overhere on poly or on civ4.com.

there's a detailed manual on how to fix the problem.

[Yolky]

Originally posted by CyberShy
There were some problems with some ATI video cards, but that's not a problem with the game but with the computer configuration. This has already been addressed.

I think people are thinking this should have been addressed before release. Nothing worse looking forward to a game to play then they fix it afterwards.

[Robert]

It's a driver issue. Not an issue with the game.
But since Firaxis uses the latest technology the problem becomes aware when you try to start the game.

[mmm_ok]

I think you may be over-reacting with the whole "pay to beta" thing.

As a computer programmer myself (not at Firaxis unfortunately), I am continually surprised by how users use the stuff I develop in unforseen ways (or with bizarre setup / config).

Also, it is simply not possible to test every single configuration. Yeah, your washing machine isn't as buggy as Civ IV, but your washing machine only has to interface with an electrical socket and a water pipes. Civ IV has to support an unimagineable variations in setup.

Take a deep breath, have fun with Civ, then download the patch next week. Problem solved.

[wilebill2]

This is game is in better shape than 90% of the new releases. The problems are few and minimal. The ATI card problem is easily fixed. There is a memory leak reported by some (I have not seen it) that only becomes of concern with huge maps towards the end of the game, probably fixed in first patch. Other than that, Civ IV works fine. I have had no problems with my ATI Radeon 9600 Pro. Why do you think it's a beta?

[yin26]

Coming from one of the most difficult to please members of the Poly community, I can tell you that this game, out of the box, is absolutely worth playing. Of course, I do see many places where its seem quite obvious to me the game was pushed to the public a few months earlier than planned. I will cover some of these issues in my review.

However, I promise you that even if you buy the game now, you'll still be working on new strategies and still learning some of the great new game mechanics long after the first patch or two comes out. Of course, I have *always* advocated waiting until the X-pack or the bargain bin if you are the kind of player who absolutely can't stand less than fully polished games. I understand this. I live and breath this. But I took a chance on Civ 4, mainly because of my faith in Soren, and (yes, issues aside) I'm having a great time.

[Stuie]

Plus it WAS addressed prior to release - the correct version of DirectX was included as part of the installation. Keeping your drivers up-to-date is your own problem, not Firaxis or Take2's.

[yin26]

By the way, here is an awesome, really intelligent critique of Civ 4 (from Gamespot User Review):

are you kidding me???
awwww, come on... how can anyone call this TURN-BASED crap a great strategy game??? It's TURN BASED!!!!!

personally i fail to see how the *** this thing could be included in RTS anyway. After all RTS is supposed to stand for Real-Time Strategy, which should mean that th egame IS NOT a TURNED based game!!!

but i guess if you have a great many people that just love to micromanage everything, then you should get high reviews for this CRAP... maybe Firaxis should learn that it's the 3rd millenium and make a REAL, NON-TURN BASED game.... now that would be a great improvement over the past 3 versions of this game.

sorry guys, but i lost interest in turn based games a long time ago..... turned based gaming is so LAST DECADE.

But i di dmanage to sell it on Ebay for a little more than it cost me so... the game wasn't a total right off LOL

Yes, I guess the patch should fix this TBS thing ASAP! How did that get by QA?!

[ayronis]

Best review ever!

Nice find Yin

[MortVader]

what a moron..