Bad news: Next patch on hold

[DrSpike]

Well we'll all buy Civ4, let's be honest. I might consider downloading the expansion when it comes though, since paying for a game that may never be finished is always painful.

[Paddy]

of course we will buy Civ 4

ahh just as we will buy gruddy pizzas at 3am after a night on the grog

[smellymummy]

all i have to do is load up a good buccaneer movie and i can feel the incredible dying edge of my seat anticipation for pirates. i can see it already, bug free, fun, addictive, with endless replaying value against an AI that will outwitt me every game.

it could happen

as for the civ3 patch

'i'm sorry for making promises' (i just like to mislead you fans)

'we have bigger projects' (so please preorder a copy)

'fixing only made more problems' (the intern suicidal rate is getting worryingly high)

'civ3 complete' (hehehehe, don't expect the on hold patch for this baby either!)

[Antrine]

Well, I do not know how much character this shows, however as a determined CIV 2 fan, I would not, did not buy CIV 3 until Conquests! Am I better off? Did I get screwed anyway? Gee, one might wonder....

[Theseus]

All the more reason to spread the word on the AU Mod... especially now that we've got Armies partially solved.

And I STILL think they should hire alexman!!

[player1]

Originally posted by Theseus
All the more reason to spread the word on the AU Mod... especially now that we've got Armies partially solved.

And I STILL think they should hire alexman!!

I feel realy sad when I think AI army usage can be solved by just changing one line of code.




Maybe when Civ5 gets out we could get source code for C3C and fix bugs outself?

But 99% of gamers would not care about that.

[DrSpike]

By the time Civ5 comes out we wont need it. That's the new projected date for the next patch.

[Antrine]

Gosh guys, I sure feel better now...

[MrWhereItsAt]

Originally posted by Paddy the Scot
of course we will buy Civ 4

ahh just as we will buy gruddy pizzas at 3am after a night on the grog

Touché, I think.

[Petrus2]

Well, as a new member making a first post, I may as well step into an emotional issue!

I won't defend any software company for buggy products, but let's remember a few key things (in no particular order):
-A company, ANY company, has to pay its workers and make a profit. Thus, a software company can not spend forever patching a product but does have to move on at some point in time.
-Let's face it, Civ 3 in all its guises is a darn good game. Perfect? Nah. But how many hours of entertainment have you had for your investment? Anyone on here probably has MORE than gotten their money's worth.
-Did you wait for reviews of Civ 3, PTW, or C3C? Or at least wait til it was out for a while to get a price cut? (I didn't on Civ 3 but did on the two expansions, getting them for roughly half price after they were on store shelves for a while).
-Most gamers aren't picking apart the nitty details that those here do. A company can't focus on polishing the cannonball for the Expert Experts, it has to focus on its core market.
-Firaxis does in fact do a much better job than most companies when it comes to value of the product as well as patches to fix bugs (not to mention listening to the fans)
-Patches/bug squashing is not a trivial exercise.
-Will you buy Civ 4? What do you REALLY think?????

I've learned a ton by reading the threads here, and finally joined. In the next few days I'll get around to being a paying member. The insight of the players on this site amazes me at times.

You guys (and ladies?) are a smart bunch of gamers, but I'd suggest you look at the flight sim market. The flight simmers were such pains in the *ss that they wouldn't be happy with ANYTHING. Always flaming about shortcomings of "how fast the Mustang banks", or whatever. And now the market that was once busily producing titles is lucky to have one quality product a year. So continue to push for what you want, how it could be better, and point out bugs. But don't let negativism over a few smaller things ruin your day!

Petrus

[sabrewolf]

i think it's just a great shame firaxis didn't accept sirpleb's (CFC) offer to bugfix... virtually for free!

imho it's absolutely feeble. they say they don't have resources for continuing the work, but when they get it offered on a silver plate, they just say "no can do".

but nonetheless: no game ever has kept me going as much as civ3x has and therefor, i'm sure i'm going to but civ4... as long as it isn't RTS (which has been confirmed that it won't be )

[player1]

I think the real problem here is that both original Civ3 and PtW were better patched then C3C.

In fact, C3C introduced new bugs in some parts of Civ3 that worked before like AI use of armies or barbarian behavior.

If there were no these things I would say, good for them lets make Civ4, but leaving game with such bugs is just bad.

I mean, you play original Civ3, have challenging barbairans and AI use of army, then you upgrade to C3C and these thing stop working.


P.S.
Lucky, all around C3C is good product so I wouldn't go back to original beacuse of these few bugs.
But anyway, they are pretty irritating.

[Kuciwalker]

Surely it wouldn't take long to release a patch that add two characters to one one of code (-1 to army movement for purposes of comparison).

[player1]

I think it has more to do with the stubborness of todays gaming industry.

No one in the right mind would spend a money on whole alpha, beta, final patch cycle just to get few changes in game code.

You do a big tested patch or no patch at all.


P.S.
I hope I'm wrong in this case.

[Petrus2]

What I would like to see as an industry "standard" (and yeah, the word Standard when applied to this industry is actually pretty funny, if you think about it!) would be for the "final" patch to be in two parts.

Part 1 adds in anything new, makes the game play adjustments, fixes previous bugs, etc.

Part 2 ONLY fixes new bugs. No new game play. None. Nada. Cause we all know each addition will increase the chance for new bugs.

When the company issues the Final Patch, they plan resources for both parts, knowing the Murphy lives and new bugs will exist.

IMHO