Espionage

[Wiglaf]

Originally posted by Willem


He's been blowing that trend the past couple of days however.

Sounds vaguely sexual.

[Proteus_MST]

One should assume that fans make good playtesters and discover things that playtesters not connected to civ in such a way wouldn´t detect.

As for Marathon:
If I could decide between having Civ BtS in the end of August, with the issues fixed that will be fixed with the next patch (which might include the balancing of the poison water mission in marathon) and having BtS released at the time that it was actually released, with the problems we have now,
I might definitely go with wan early release

Especially if you take into account that there are lots of releases of games that are buggier than BtS

[nbarclay]

Originally posted by Wiglaf
It is mostly true that Firaxis does not playtest its games. Firaxis first asks fans to program AI, scenarios, etc .. then it asks fans to test the game. This is my point. Firaxis is lazy. Their input in BTS is dwarfed by the fans.

What Firaxis has really done is blend together the strongest advantages of both closed source and open source software development models. Firaxis used its ability to demand money for its software in order to pay a professional team to develop the original software and then continue to improve it. But Firaxis also opened the door wide (albeit not all the way) for people outside the company to work to make the software better. I regard that as a Very Good Thing.

I think you're looking at the wrong parts of the picture. What you need to ask yourself is, would BtS be a worthwhile expansion pack even without the fan content? To me, the answer is a definite yes. So I don't view Firaxis as lazy just because they included a lot of work done by fans on top of the work they did themselves.

In regard to the testing done by fans, how familiar are you with the concept of beta testing? It is a fairly standard procedure in the software industry to have a limited number of users test prerelease versions of software (known as beta versions) so they can help find any problems that might have been missed by the in-house testing procedures. I consider it unfair to accuse Firaxis of laziness just because they follow a standard, widely accepted practice to help reduce the number of bugs in the version sold to the general public. And if Firaxis was able to develop a closer relationship with some of its beta testers than is usually the case, so much the better.

[Wiglaf]

Most companies do employ closed beta testing. But rarely do the testers also design many key features of the product, like the AI and the scenarios.

Look, BTS is good. It is a success. But the playtesting has problems, that is all I meant to say, and Firaxis is lucky it has fans that can basically make expansions (and good ones, at that) for them. The evidence of their laziness is the flaws in Blake's AI and a few other obvious glitches, like espionage or any of the other bugs I mentioned in Solver's AI thread.

[marvinkosh]

The poisoning mission being vastly more potent on slower game speed is simply a problem with scaling. The espionage system is basically a new part of the game, so it's not surprising to find a problem with it just after release. It's not surprising to find any kind of bug with any game several days after release when the number of man/hours spent playing it has increased by a factor of perhaps a hundred thousand

[nbarclay]

Originally posted by Wiglaf
Most companies do employ closed beta testing. But rarely do the testers also design many key features of the product, like the AI and the scenarios.

Look, BTS is good. It is a success. But the playtesting has problems, that is all I meant to say, and Firaxis is lucky it has fans that can basically make expansions (and good ones, at that) for them. The evidence of their laziness is the flaws in Blake's AI and a few other obvious glitches, like espionage or any of the other bugs I mentioned in Solver's AI thread.

If all you would say is that the playtesting has problems, I would agree. Then again, testing always has problems when a program is as big and complex as BtS.

What bothers me is your use of words like "lazy," as if the people at Firaxis were supposed to be gods who can pull everything you could possibly want out of thin air while never making a mistake. In the real world, even when people work hard, they do not always have time to do everything that it would be nice to have done. And in the real world, even when people work hard, they sometimes make mistakes and don't catch them.

When I look at the arguments you use to support your claims that Firaxis is lazy, I regard your position as unfair and illogical. Basically, your accusations fall into three categories.

1) Firaxis made extensive use of fan content and fan testing. I view both of these as positive things that helped make BtS better than it would have been otherwise, and that do not in any way disparage the work the Firaxians put into BtS themselves.

2) The software has bugs. When software is as big and complex as BtS is, and is not so mission critical as to justify spending a fortune on verification and testing, it always has bugs.

3) Firaxis didn't make the AI as good as you would like it to be. It is not Firaxis' job to make a perfect AI. It is their job to make an AI that performs well enough that the vast majority of customers will enjoy playing against it. Beyond that point, it may very easily make more sense for Firaxis to focus its effort in other directions rather than investing in improvements to the AI that only a small percentage of players will really care about. Indeed, some of your ideas for "improving" the AI, such as having it poison water supplies more or use more privateers, are actually things that would probably make the game less enjoyable to me.

[=DrJambo=]

Originally posted by Wiglaf
Most companies do employ closed beta testing. But rarely do the testers also design many key features of the product, like the AI and the scenarios.

Look, BTS is good. It is a success. But the playtesting has problems, that is all I meant to say, and Firaxis is lucky it has fans that can basically make expansions (and good ones, at that) for them. The evidence of their laziness is the flaws in Blake's AI and a few other obvious glitches, like espionage or any of the other bugs I mentioned in Solver's AI thread.

Yeah, sure there are maybe one or two flaws in Blake's AI, but it's a whole heap better than Vanilla or Warlords for that matter! Some people are glass half empty types and others glass half full. I imagine you're the former.

Personally I like this developer fan-base interaction. I just wish other innovative games companies would do the same - e.g. Creative Assembly for one.

[MoonWolf]

I think this thread has grown out of propotions; what's currently discussed here should be in an other, new thread called "Is Firaxis lazy"? or something like that...

[Wiglaf]

What bothers me is your use of words like "lazy," as if the people at Firaxis were supposed to be gods who can pull everything you could possibly want out of thin air while never making a mistake. In the real world, even when people work hard, they do not always have time to do everything that it would be nice to have done. And in the real world, even when people work hard, they sometimes make mistakes and don't catch them.

Firaxis' AI was improved immeasurably by the work of one fan who didn't even work for the company when he released his mod. Either Firaxis is incompetent, or they just don't care that much about improving BTS on their own. I prefer to believe the latter.

[Shrapnel12]

Wiglaf = troller
And a very good one at that. He'll throw in some civil talk just to draw you in so you don't know whether to ignore him as an idiot or to give him a chance.

[Wiglaf]

Shrapnel12=Booboo head.

I'm glad you've introduced me to name calling. Now you've really elevated the level of discussion in this thread.

[nbarclay]

Originally posted by Wiglaf


Firaxis' AI was improved immeasurably by the work of one fan who didn't even work for the company when he released his mod. Either Firaxis is incompetent, or they just don't care that much about improving BTS on their own. I prefer to believe the latter.

If you want to say that Firaxis doesn't seem to care much about improving the Civ 4 AI on their own, I'm inclined to agree. They didn't do as much as I would have preferred to fix flaws in the Civ 3 AI either.

But it is not logically sound to look at one particular facet of the game that Firaxis isn't all that concerned with improving and say that they don't care much about improving the game as a whole. What Firaxis has done is prioritize and focus on things like corporations and the new espionage system that are glaringly obvious to all players instead of on tweaks to the AI that only hardcore players like us are likely to care much about, or even necessarily to notice.

[Wiglaf]

You're right about that. I just got annoyed when I found out they were relying so much on Blake for the AI. His work is incredible...but imagine if he had some useful help.

[Shrapnel12]

Originally posted by Wiglaf
Shrapnel12=Booboo head.

I'm glad you've introduced me to name calling. Now you've really elevated the level of discussion in this thread.

Hey, couldn't you say I was a good Booboo head? At least I complimented your trollness.

[Thrak]

BACK ON TOPIC

Whats the deal with having a spy in your city to counter enemy spies.

Does it have to be a city?
For example if you have a 3 square land bridge can you put three spies across it and catch the little beggers as they try to get into your territory?
If it's percentage based can you make for example a 3x3 square and do a pokemon on them?

If I'm honest this espionage malarky makes me want to isolate my continent and invest in some serious naval blockades.