Has Civ 4 been abandoned by Firaxis?

[Targonis]

After the somewhat buggy release of the 3.13 patch for BtS, it seems that there has been NOTHING mentioned about Civ 4 by Firaxis. I would understand a lack of information about when the new bugs introduced in the patch would be fixed, but this complete lack of ANY mention of problems just seems like Firaxis has decided to abandon Civ 4 while they work on Revolutions.

If anyone has some information that shows I am wrong, I would love to hear about it, because right now, it feels very similar to the sudden end of updates for Sim City, where everything pointed to continued support until an absolute silence about the product settled in.

[ZEE]

I am not surpised at all by this. They did the same thing when Pirates came out, abandoned Civ (and much needed patch IIRC) to make that horrific game which has crashed and burned in a most disastrous way.

Ignoring your strongest fan base

Ignoring your strongest fan base to attract a NEW fan base

[Solver]

It's not abandoned. There will be another patch for BtS, in fact.

As you can see from the various information you can gather about CivRev, that's essentially a different development team from the Civ4 one.

[Willem]

Originally posted by Solver
It's not abandoned. There will be another patch for BtS, in fact.

It's good to see you mention that, I was having doubts myself. I'd love to see a really good last patch which also includes some new content or game addition. Something like we had when they gave us Marathon speed. I'm guessing BtS is probably going to be the last expansion, so it would be great if they gave us a nice going away present to tide us over until Civ 5 arrives.

[Modo44]

Originally posted by Willem
I'd love to see a really good last patch which also includes some new content or game addition.

Fixed.

Seriously, expansions are there for adding stuff. A patch should be about reolving existing problems, not creating new content (and possibly more bugs).

[Solver]

Adding Marathon was really a pretty unique circumstance. It's something that was easy to add. There are two major problems with adding features. First, graphics - very time-consuming to create, and thus graphics are always an important limitation of what can be done. So anything that requires new graphics is unlikely for a patch, if it's not some minor addition. Second, translation - if text is added it must be translated to all the languages for the patch release candidate.

Adding Marathon worked well because it's really straightforward to implement, requires no art and minimum translation, on top of being a simple idea. 3.13 did include new content in the shape of new events

Don't forget about all the mods, though. There are enough scenarios and mods, minor and major, coming up to keep you supplied with new Civ4 content for quite some time.

[Targonis]

I am not worried about new content in the slightest, but the lack of any communication about a fix for the patch is still pretty bad.

Solver, do you know if the next patch will show up within the next six months?

[Solver]

I've previously mentioned that, if I were in charge of the development process, I wouldn't give an estimated release date for the patch until maybe a few days before release. Right now, I wouldn't expect any public information about it until it's nearly ready. Marketing handles communication normally, and they just don't talk about things such as upcoming patches. Developers sometimes communicate on their own accord, but I'd be surprised if they do so now.

[Targonis]

Originally posted by Solver
I've previously mentioned that, if I were in charge of the development process, I wouldn't give an estimated release date for the patch until maybe a few days before release. Right now, I wouldn't expect any public information about it until it's nearly ready. Marketing handles communication normally, and they just don't talk about things such as upcoming patches. Developers sometimes communicate on their own accord, but I'd be surprised if they do so now.

I'm not asking for anything specific, but asking before or after May 15th is general enough where it SHOULD be fairly safe for them to answer, even if they expected it to only take 2 more months. It has been a while since 3.13 was released, so it seems a bit extreme to be forced to wait more than another six months for a fix for the bugs introduced.

[Solver]

Well, yeah. Though quite likely Firaxis doesn't even know precisely when the patch will be released, due to influence of the publisher - it's something explained in a writeup by Methos over at CFC.

From their perspective, there's no reason to risk anything by giving any estimate at all, and I wouldn't for the same reason. It's amazing how much crap you can get for that.

[Willem]

Originally posted by Solver
Adding Marathon worked well because it's really straightforward to implement, requires no art and minimum translation, on top of being a simple idea.

Well then, how about a new game speed called Die Hard? 3000 turns.

[Solver]

More like Die Before It Ends

[Theben]

Originally posted by Willem

Well then, how about a new game speed called Die Hard? 3000 turns.

How about Wham, Bam, Thank you Ma'am game speed. 50 turns.

[Nugog]

Originally posted by Solver
From their perspective, there's no reason to risk anything by giving any estimate at all, and I wouldn't for the same reason. It's amazing how much crap you can get for that.

We saw this kind of behaviour with the 3.13 patch for BtS - there was an indication given of release date, and then it ran late.

The posts here and elsewhere were not overly complimentary - I would not think they would do this again.....

[Targonis]

Originally posted by Nugog


We saw this kind of behaviour with the 3.13 patch for BtS - there was an indication given of release date, and then it ran late.

The posts here and elsewhere were not overly complimentary - I would not think they would do this again.....

I am not looking for a specific date, or even a close guess. I just want a really outside expectation for it, like, "before Sept 2008". It could come out in March, but if the date is really far off but is really in the works, that would be a positive.

My own feeling though, is that there should have been a quick 3.14 patch to at least restore the culture display for city improvements. That should have been something that could be done without risk of error within a week, including QA.

I am somewhat tired of these big patches that make people wait month after month after month for a fix when it was a SIMPLE fix that was fixed within 24 hours of the bug report being confirmed. Sure, it would require the publisher to do more, but it would also improve sales if it was the norm rather than the exception. People enjoy seeing a fast turnaround time between when a bug is found and when it is fixed and available to the player.