what's the highest difficulty level you've won convincingly at

[Legend]

Why not at the very least release an unlocked version of the GOTM after the deadline for submital have passed?

We do. Go to one of the Results pages, and at the top of the results table, there is a link to download the worldbuilder save file for the game.

Anyway, it's much more complex than that for those who already installed say the unoffical patch or the better AI patch in the root Civ IV BTS directory. And have renamed original copies of the Dll's with a different extension in the same directories.

Well, that's part of the problem: Over-writing the DLLs instead of installing them as mods. This would nerf trying to play multi-player as well, BTW.

The HOF mod team is actually fairly responsive to the community in trying to incorporate a lot of the bug fixes etc. The Included Mods section of their page shows that they include, amongst other things, Solver and Bhruics unofficial patches, and the BTS unaltered Gameplay mod, in addition to another few fixes that they have made themselves.

It doesn't have the "better ai" mod though.

[Ming]

Just reading these posts make my head hurt

It all pretty much proves that they didn't do the proper job with the game.
Whatever happened with "keeping your customer happy". I'm in the service business, and if I treated my customers like this, I wouldn't have many customers.

[joncnunn]

Legend, thanks for pointing out the results link. I'll probably try BOTM 14, 5, and 2 when I get to the Babylonians, Sumerian's, and Native Americans on my list.
I'm thinking though I'll still try RB's Epic Twenty-four - Pax Americana for when I play America since I like Roosevelt's traights much better than Washington. (That one may take a long time even for me.)
I've also already won as the Dutch (over here on Holiday Surprize in the AU), otherwise I'd be interested in that BOTM.

One minor "feature" I found on the page (I'm a programmer by trade); the dropdown there appears to be a list of all games of the month and not just the completed ones. The back end code validation though is obviously catching selections of non completed ones and reseting the selection to the most recently created one.

It's ironic that no version of Better AI is included in the Hall of Fame mod; Civ Fanatics is also their primary web site.
The last time I had checked (a long time ago) they weren't up to date with the unofficial patch, but I see their now up to date.

[Legend]

One minor "feature" I found on the page (I'm a programmer by trade); the dropdown there appears to be a list of all games of the month and not just the completed ones. The back end code validation though is obviously catching selections of non completed ones and reseting the selection to the most recently created one.

Thanks! I've fed that back to AlanH, and I'm sure he'll have it sorted within 24 hours.

It's ironic that no version of Better AI is included in the Hall of Fame mod; Civ Fanatics is also their primary web site.
The last time I had checked (a long time ago) they weren't up to date with the unofficial patch, but I see their now up to date.

The HOF mod team tend to go for bug fixes and improved interface over gameplay changes. :shrug:

[AlanH]

Thanks! I've fed that back to AlanH, and I'm sure he'll have it sorted within 24 hours.

Thanks, Legend. I did ... not that I can see what harm it was doing, other than to my reputation as a rubbish PHP programmer!

[joncnunn]

Verified fixed.

A couple of weeks ago I found a boundary error bug in an online survey from my State Senator's office. (Text field on the page either had a size one char too big or else the database char field's length defined one char too small.)

[Cort Haus]

Are there case studies of companies that have released games of the depth, variety and complexity of Civ, on the myriad of possible hardware combinations that is the PC, where all customers were kept happy?

The amount of playtesting required to identify all possible problems is inevitably vast, and presumably is economically impossible without the freely-offered time of voluntary and trusted enthusiasts. In the same way that motorsport cannot happen without the free time of marshalls these games required free playtesters.

Yet even with this free resource, bug-free games seem rare. I gather that most games don't make any money, so those that do have to make a lot of money to cover the others. I have no idea what the actual figures are, and to what extent we are being "ripped off", or whether perhaps the actual cost of making a bug free game is so high that nobody would actually buy it.

£0.02

[wodan11]

And that's why the player committee idea would be the best solution. It not only minimizes company resources, it provides the bug-free condition, plus makes a good portion of the customer base vested into the future of the game.

[Asmodeous]

And that's why the player committee idea would be the best solution. It not only minimizes company resources, it provides the bug-free condition, plus makes a good portion of the customer base vested into the future of the game.

Nothing provides the "bug-free condition". Such a thing is a silly, idealistic, utopian concept.

I don't really care how they test the games, they could have the beta of the game be open and out for free to the general public, and upon release the game will still be fairly buggy and at least a noticeable portion of the purchasing playerbase will have a product that they can't even launch because of a whacky computer configuration.

How big of a player committee pool are you talking about? Even if you have 1000 different people with 1000 different variations of hardware steadfastly reporting every issue they come across, when it releases you'll still have someone who's running the same hardware on a different OS, using an older driver, using a NEWER driver, using one slightly different piece of hardware, etc etc etc.

It's logistically impossible.

Me.

[wodan11]

Nothing provides the "bug-free condition". Such a thing is a silly, idealistic, utopian concept.

Nonsense.

There are bugs and there are tweaks / nice little improvements (such as improving AI ability to play).

In this case we're talking about both. But, in any event, it is certainly possible to achieve a bug-free condition. And that, I think, is what Ming is complaining about. The blatant errors that everybody agrees objectively should be fixed and weren't.

I don't really care how they test the games, they could have the beta of the game be open and out for free to the general public, and upon release the game will still be fairly buggy

So, you would agree that having a "patch" system is preferable? That way, once the customer base begins playing (which is a vast number of people greater than beta tester numbers), the missed things can be fixed.

and at least a noticeable portion of the purchasing playerbase will have a product that they can't even launch because of a whacky computer configuration.

That issue is somewhat irrelevant to this discussion. In any event, 99% of hardware issues are resolved by the hardware manufacturer.

How big of a player committee pool are you talking about?

Infinite. As many as care to participate. There would be a volunteer team running it and performing the coding which could be as few as a couple and as many as a dozen people.

It's logistically impossible.

How so? It currently happens here on this very board, as well as CFC and others. Mods allow any and all players to report bugs and suggest other changes, which the mod designers investigate and decide how and if to change their code.

[Ming]

The one problem you would face is "ego". Everybody would want "THEIR WORK" to be the official unofficial latest update... and there would be serious disagreements on what needs to be fixed. I remember having some "discussions" with people on whether something was a feature or a bug

I think you would end up with multiple groups all claiming to be the one eveybody should use.

[Asmodeous]

But, in any event, it is certainly possible to achieve a bug-free condition.

Have we? Can you direct me to a single game that such was the case?

So, you would agree that having a "patch" system is preferable? That way, once the customer base begins playing (which is a vast number of people greater than beta tester numbers), the missed things can be fixed.

I think it's practical not really preferable. Software companies don't have a lot of options, so it definitely does make it the most practical option to create the software so that it's at least playable, and if the fanbase exists, you patch out the major issues, and then leave it to them once its true "income cycle" has come to an end.

I think it's pretty silly that people complain about the situation being that way when they've gone through great pains to set up the market to be that way in the first place.

That issue is somewhat irrelevant to this discussion. In any event, 99% of hardware issues are resolved by the hardware manufacturer.

That's assuming it's actually a hardware issue and not a software issue that simply arises on certain forms of hardware due to very minor differences in their architecture. In cases like with BioShock erupting violently on newer nVidia cards, it was obviously a hardware/driver issue.

Infinite. As many as care to participate. There would be a volunteer team running it and performing the coding which could be as few as a couple and as many as a dozen people.


How so? It currently happens here on this very board, as well as CFC and others. Mods allow any and all players to report bugs and suggest other changes, which the mod designers investigate and decide how and if to change their code.

It currently happens, but, and of course with all due respect because I am quite happy that you guys put in the work you do, to claim that you're even remotely nearing "bug free" is rather ludicrous.

Improving the product? Certainly, by leaps and bounds. "Bug free"? Not in the slightest, software has become far too complex for something like that to be truly feasible in this day and age.

Me.

[joncnunn]

Hum, it's been a long time since I saw a game that appeared to be bug free. Civ III wasn't either. Even after the last Conquests patch came out, it was better to be playing on the AU mod due to the AI only loading armies with one unit.

SMAC had a bug where the human also got the reduced expenses of the AI on the top two difficulty levels. (I didn't buy Crossfire so I don't know if that was fixed there.(

Both Civ II & SMAC had an AI behavior bug where if you wanted your cities to be immune from nuclear weapons / planet busters all you had to do was move all defenders one tile outside the cities.

Civ II also had a bug that if you turned on automated workers you could irrigate lands that you couldn't with the manual irrigate command.

Sim city 2000 had a bug on their scenarios that if you reload a saved scenario it's now no longer a scenario.

Elite has a bug in the algorithm that places stars resulting in some systems being outside of range of all other stars. (You could only get there by using the inter-galactic drive; and I hope you had enough cash on hand to buy a new one since that's the only way you'll leave either.)

[joncnunn]

I can name quite a few non gaming software that does appear bug free. This doesn't mean that they are in fact bug free, just that if there are any bugs in them I haven't discovered them.

All versions of Quicken that I have bought (under the version of windows that was out at the time that version came.)

Open Office, MS Word, MS Excel. (All versions I've had)

[wodan11]

The one problem you would face is "ego". Everybody would want "THEIR WORK" to be the official unofficial latest update... and there would be serious disagreements on what needs to be fixed. I remember having some "discussions" with people on whether something was a feature or a bug

I think you would end up with multiple groups all claiming to be the one eveybody should use.

Firaxis would sanction only one group.

Have we? Can you direct me to a single game that such was the case?

Can you state a single game where it was tried and failed?

I think it's practical not really preferable. Software companies don't have a lot of options, so it definitely does make it the most practical option to create the software so that it's at least playable, and if the fanbase exists, you patch out the major issues, and then leave it to them once its true "income cycle" has come to an end.

What does "leave it to them" mean? That sounds an awful lot like the player committee I am advocating.

It currently happens, but, and of course with all due respect because I am quite happy that you guys put in the work you do, to claim that you're even remotely nearing "bug free" is rather ludicrous.

Seems to me you're taking a very liberal definition of the word "bug." We need to talk the same language before we can achieve any consensus.

Improving the product? Certainly, by leaps and bounds. "Bug free"? Not in the slightest, software has become far too complex for something like that to be truly feasible in this day and age.

The key is a continual feedback-improvement mechanism.

The main problem with getting bug free is that improvements tend to be included as well as bug fixes, and improvements introduce new bugs.

But again we need to agree on the definition of "bug" before you and I will interpret what the other is saying in the same way.