Do you agree with Will Wright? Is Civ 4 too daunting?

[conmcb25]

Originally posted by Solver


Yep, and all depends on what you compare it to. If you compare Civ4 to Sims, then just about any 11 year old could play the Sims alright, but any random 11 year old isn't guaranteed to understand Civ4.

Yep, and my 11 year old understands it, he just has some problems with some of the finer points.

On the FPS games, since we are talking about that, I am NOT going to play Oblivian, even though the 13 year old has it and loves it. I just don't like FPS games. I dont want to take the time to learn how to twitch properly But that is just me. I do not think CIV is too daunting, CIV is a game for strategy gamers, it is not a game for everyone.

And I have seen a whole bunch of new posters posting around here. Those new folks are coming from somewhere

[Bkeela]

I'm quite angry that Will Wright should take it upon himself to disparage Civ IV. The game's depth and complexity is captivating.

I don't mind Wright's games, but after a few weeks of play I grow bored. There is no depth at all, and my fear for Spore is that it will have a beautiful veneer but little staying power - except for gaming retards.

[Colon™]

Well, I think he's right that too many sequels suffer from the "more is more" syndrome that often result in excessive micromanagement or a muddling of the core mechanisms that made the original so engaging. MOO2 is a good example of the former.

[Martinus]

Originally posted by Urban Ranger


I think Will Wright wants to develop SimCiv

"Play a Sim in an empire that is going to stand the test of time! Start as a slave, work hard, move up in the ranks, and you too may become emperor one day. (yeah right).

"If you don't get pop-rushed first, that is."

Actually Firaxis and Firefly are developing Civcity: Rome.

http://www.1up.com/do/previewPage?cId=3149250&did=1

[Locutus]

Originally posted by Imran Siddiqui
UR is right. Civ isn't about appealing to the masses! The masses don't want to play turn based strategy. So the question is, what is Wright trying to achieve by saying Civ4 is too daunting? The only other possible explination is that it should be simplified.

I never said Civ is supposed to be about appealing to the masses, and never did Will Wright. In fact, that's his whole point: the games of today don't appeal to the masses, none of them. They all cater to different niches. Except Sims, that's the only full-fledged video game that seems to attract a mass audience. It might not appeal to us, but we are a niche, not the mass market. That's what Will is talking about: he sold 58 million copies by appealing to a different audience, to a very large group of people that the gaming industry is completely ignoring but that still has a lot of money to spend.

He's not saying Civ must start appealing to that audience as well if Firaxis knows what's good for it, but Civ is an example of something that just doesn't appeal to that audience. If hypothetically Firaxis would want to appeal to a mass audience (which theoretically they might but realistically they don't), they should start designing completely different games that are absolutely nothing like Civ but a lot more more like the Sims or Tetris or whatever. His message is not really intended for Firaxis (and certainly not its fans), but there are many other game designers and publishers out there for whom the thought of selling 60 million copies is a wet dream -- they should be taking Wright's advice to heart if they're really serious about realising that dream. That's not something us hardcore gamers want to hear, but again, we are a niche.

[Solver]

Main problem with games like Doom and other FPS games is that it seems to give a lot of people headaches, that's a complaint I frequently hear from non-gamers and quite often from gamers (but strategy or RPG gamers) as well.

Motion sickness is one annoying thing. Fortunately I don't get it - the only game to give me severe motion sickness was Quake2, but only when I was watching someone play, and not playing myself. Weird stuff.

We had to learn all that stuff as well a long, long time ago, but we (or at least I) saw it as a challenge: a goal to reach, something to strive for and to perfect as much as possible. A lot of people just see it as a chore.

And that's the difference between us computer nerds and "normal people". We wanted to perfect our computer skills since the time we started working with computers, most people, for better or worse, just want to get their work done and deal with the computer as little as possible. Then again, it pains me how most people are having such a hard time using a PC, given that, if they dedicated to learning it a bit, they would indeed be able to accomplish things far easier. Oh well...

Thankfully, as Imran says, most games are niche. Like it or not, the market for a computer game at the moment isn't as big as the market for a reality TV show. A game that sells a million copies is a success, a game that sells two million is a great success for sales. Then there are even more niche games, such as Paradox games - they're also aimed at the strategy fans, but even a smaller part of them.

I don't think there's anyone really who would play all sorts of games. Many people will play numerous genres, though. I'm a strategy fan first and foremost, but will play certain FPS games (not UT-style though) and RPGs like Oblivion.

Yet another thing to remember is that the "hardcore" fans of each game are an even smaller part of the audience. Civ4 sells a million copies. Out of the million people that played it, you can safely bet that most just played the game for a while, say, two months, and put it away. People like us, who keep playing the game for a longer time, and even posting about that, are few. If you take that there's a thousand active Civ4 posters, you get 0.1% of total copies sold thus. Even if you assume that only one in ten people who keep playing for a long time actually post on the boards, you get a figure of 1% being the hardcore group.

In the same way, interestingly, what may seem to us to be the main features of the game are, in fact, lost on most of the audience. Take the AI. I think it's safe to say that more than 50% of Civ4 players will never play at anything higher than Noble, and probably about 90% won't go to Monarch.

[marvinkosh]

Will Wright needs to practise what he's preaching.

Specifically, The Sims 2 needs a way to review all those little tips that pop up, instead of having to reset all game tips just to see one of them again.

In Civ 4 after all, you can look up the game hints at any time by looking in the Civpaedia.

Tell me which is more daunting for a newbie

[Epsilor]

I think a lot of us (myself included) are reacting more to Will Wright's connotation rather than his message. As a Civ supporter, it simply just rubbed me the wrong way that Civ was used on what I thought was the down side of a point he was trying to make. I do understand his argument; it was just the way that Civ was brought into his comments that concerned me, because I think that someone reading those comments in a vacuum would be less inclined to try Civ. Otherwise, he's certainly entitled to his opinion.

or just call me protective

[eris]

I can offer two anecdotal reactions.

One, two of my teenage sons picked up Civ4 as though it were nothing. One had some limited experience with Civ 3. However, the other one, who is 13 and happens to have some minor learning disabilities, picked it up right away. He even discarded the tutorial as boring and went into the game. Therefore "daunting" becomes a subjective term.

However, that second son plays Civ more like Sim City. He is very much a builder. He has little interest in the military part other than defense. He has not played to a victory condition or even finished a game. In many ways, he is not really playing Civ, he is playing some subset of Civ due to his limited Civ experience and skills. (The same might be said of me, for that matter!) The idea of plotting ahead for a 6000 year campaign is daunting to him.

I have another friend who is heavily into strategy games such as Risk, etc. He will not play Civ. He finds all the economic and diplomatic features daunting. He just wants troops to work with as he tries to outfox an enemy.

I found the "daunting" comment a little offensive at first, but now I am beginning to see where it has some validity. Maybe we are part of a niche market, which is possibly a good thing, really. Now that I have had this moment of introspection and realization, it's time to go play some Civ!

[Rommel2D]

Originally posted by Silver14
The original civ came out in the early 90's. The graphics weren't crude for the time.

Well, the only relevant difference I can imagine between I and IV is that the simple representations could be better at presenting a visual idea of what's going on in the game.

I'm not disputing his main point regarding most games, but he seems to have missed the boat when comparing the Civ versions. If PCs had been ubiquitous in the early nineties, I don't think the original Civ would have been the second coming of the Rubik's cube or anything...

[Imran Siddiqui]

Originally posted by Locutus
I never said Civ is supposed to be about appealing to the masses, and never did Will Wright. In fact, that's his whole point: the games of today don't appeal to the masses, none of them. They all cater to different niches. Except Sims, that's the only full-fledged video game that seems to attract a mass audience. It might not appeal to us, but we are a niche, not the mass market. That's what Will is talking about: he sold 58 million copies by appealing to a different audience, to a very large group of people that the gaming industry is completely ignoring but that still has a lot of money to spend.

He's not saying Civ must start appealing to that audience as well if Firaxis knows what's good for it, but Civ is an example of something that just doesn't appeal to that audience. If hypothetically Firaxis would want to appeal to a mass audience (which theoretically they might but realistically they don't), they should start designing completely different games that are absolutely nothing like Civ but a lot more more like the Sims or Tetris or whatever. His message is not really intended for Firaxis (and certainly not its fans), but there are many other game designers and publishers out there for whom the thought of selling 60 million copies is a wet dream -- they should be taking Wright's advice to heart if they're really serious about realising that dream. That's not something us hardcore gamers want to hear, but again, we are a niche.

But it's a totally flawed point from the get go. Games have NEVER appealled to the "masses" aside from sports games. As UR pointed out, the extention of his line of thought is dull, simplistic games that may appeal to the American Idol voter, but won't make any "Best Of" lists in 10 years times.

It's like Will Wright pointing to George R.R. Martin's books and saying they are too daunting, they don't appeal to the masses! SO WHAT?! That's not the point! That never has been the point and never will be the point of the fantasy book genre.

I think Wright's goal here is to say that these games are flawed because they don't appeal to the masses and that's because he doesn't "get" them. Otherwise, why bring it up?

[Locutus]

Originally posted by Imran Siddiqui
SO WHAT?! That's not the point!

That may not be the point to you, but a lot of developers and publishers feel very differently about that. In the end, the game industry is about making money, and making money means selling to the masses (no book publisher can survive on niche literature either, they all need their Harry Potters, their Dan Browns and their Nicky Frenches to stay in business). Finding new audiences is currently a major theme of discussion among game developers, just check out the GDC keynotes, Gamasutra news and features, GD magazine, etc...

[Schtix]

Civ IV was the first time I had ever played a Civilization game, and I loved how it took me at least a week to finally understand a bassline strategy, and figure out the first few objectives I needed to get before carrying on with winning the game.

I was suprised from reading what Will Wright had to say though. I've never really liked games that don't have many tricks, or little things you have to learn in order to really be competeable.

I'm an avid Sims player all the same though, because of the limitlessness it has, just like Civ IV.

Appealing to the masses can work both ways. The Civilization series is great because it's so different from other games, and takes time to learn. Halo is great because it's so easy to pick up and enjoy while still being challenged.

[Solver]

Thankfully, though, most developers don't just try to get as wide an audience as they can. Or else, indeed, games like GalCiv2, Europa Universalis and many others would never exist.

[Strategist83]

Please post a link to this Will Wright's article.

If he is complaining about Civ 4 being too complex then I have to disagree. In fact, I wouldn't mind if the game was even more complex. It's nice to have a challenge that requires you to think things through - and besides, the game can be played and enjoyed by people of all skill levels.