Civ 3 what is this the beta version?!

[Gandalf The Grey]

Seriously, is this just the beta version or something? I saw about 10 things that were not right in the first 5 minutes of play.....My reply texts are below the box they are supose to be in, random start on the world map and many others, not very professional to release a product with this many problems....i would have rather waited longer than feeling the dissapointment i felt today....seems like a fun game but it won't truly be great till about the 3rd or 4th patch, thats a shame....but that seems to be the hallmark of the videogame industry....

[cassembler]

Yeah the only bug I kinda noticed is that the game freezes my computer (total crash- not recoverable) before I even get to see the starting movie.

Just a small bug though...

[LordTerrin]

straight up man.... I bought the game... and it's running pretty well, but there are just so many things that the game doesn't explain well enough, or small errors that just annoy you... they need to put out the 1.01 patch SOON.

[Sarxis]

1.01 patch?

Actually, this is version 1.07f

It almost seems like someone screwed up and sent a build that wasn't the actual gold version. Several game balances and complete bugs are here, not to mention some of the latest things Firaxis stated as changes (such as The Manhantan Project being a small wonder; and the 100,000 point cultural victory being lowered to 80,000) aren't in the release version.



I am just more interested in how long it will take them to get us the first patch.

[WyattMax]

The "Text-Below-the-screen" Bug , is WinXP only as it seems, the text works fine in Win2000 and Win98SE with me

Same problem, with text turning purple, WinXP only problem.

[dsteckel]

Yeah, this definitely feels like a Beta version. It's pathetic to read all the bugs reports posted here already, when the game's been out less than a week!

Guess we know what the "f" in "1.07f" stands for!

There are some great concepts introduced in Civ3 that I really enjoy, but I am sorely disappointed at the release of such a buggy product. After waiting six years for Civ3 to improve on Civ2, I would have been content to wait a little longer for a decent game.

And I wouldn't have spent the extra money on the limited edition either, given the chance to do it over!

The text-below-the-screen is not a WinXP issue for me. It happened on my computer with WinME and WinXP, and I believe it's the Intel 82810 chipset that's responsible. Playable, but it's a pain to read the Civilopedia or get through deals in the Diplomacy screens (all the response options aren't visible).

Right now, I'd settle for Civ2 re-released with better graphics and improved AI.

Dar Steckelberg

[Aitara]

This shouldn't be rocket science.

The game should be playable out of the box on any machine bought in the last 3 years or so, without the user having to make any system modifications.

The current situation is unacceptable and Infogrames should apologize for rushing out a product that so many people seem to be having so many different problems with.

[samsmithnz]

I disagree with EVERYTHING you guys say. If you worked in the software industry (as I do), you'd understand. These guys worked to a deadline and released what they understood to be bug free. I don't believe for a minute that Firaxis would release Civ 3 with ANY KNOWN bugs in it. I fully support Firaxises decision to keep the beta in house, otherwise we'd have this situation 100 fold.

Saying that this is "unprofessional" and "unacceptable" is a rude slap in the face for these Firaxis guys who have worked long and hard to bring you a top product. Stop looking at the little things, and have a bit of understanding until the first patch is released!

Rock on Firaxis guys! Keep up the good work, I know you're trying hard!

[dsteckel]

Excuse me, samsmithnz, but I *do* work in the software industry as a developer and tester.

Keeping the beta in-house, if that's what they did, was a huge mistake in my opinion. They should have contacted some of their more rabid SMAC fans, had them sign an NDA, and sent them a beta copy. A lot of these bugs may have been caught and fixed, or at least documented, well before release.

I've just started posting bugs as I find them to this forum, and I hope everyone else does as well. Civ3 is a great and ambitious design, but the current implementation is poor, and after spending $60 on the Limited Edition solely based on my previous experiences with Sid's games I am disappointed.

Your statement that Firaxis would release Civ3 without any known bugs in it makes your claim to be in the software industry highly suspect. Every program of any complexity has bugs in it, and any developer or tester worth his salt knows that.

Which leads me to assume you're either a manager or in marketing.

Just kidding. But seriously, many of these bugs should have been caught and addressed. I find it hard to believe that none of their playtesters played without building fortresses or without attempting air superiority missions.

The tester's job is to identify as many bugs as possible, ensure the more annoying or severe ones are fixed and triage the others as time permits. The tester is the customer's best friend, and right now I feel like the guy whose best friend just stole his girl!

Dar Steckelberg

[samsmithnz]

Originally posted by dsteckel
Excuse me, samsmithnz, but I *do* work in the software industry as a developer and tester.

Ah, so you'll know what I'm talking about then.

Your statement that Firaxis would release Civ3 without any known bugs in it makes your claim to be in the software industry highly suspect. Every program of any complexity has bugs in it, and any developer or tester worth his salt knows that.

I still disagree. Any developer with interity would not release a project with known bugs in it (without at least documenting them as you mentioned earlier, I admit this is acceptable). I've always tryed to produce quality solutions, and although I've been in the industry for a relatively short time (2 years), I feel this is achievable. I'm sure that the Firaxis developers fixed all the bugs that the testers found, so perhaps the testers were not independent enough.

Which leads me to assume you're either a manager or in marketing.

Hahaha, neither and I'll never be in marketing, I'm a programmer through and through.

But seriously, many of these bugs should have been caught and addressed. I find it hard to believe that none of their playtesters played without building fortresses or without attempting air superiority missions.

I still think having a closed beta is the best practise, but I agree that having a couple of 3rd party players come in (I mean they wouldn't even have to pay them!) under a non-disclosure contract would have been acceptable.

[dsteckel]

Well, then we'll agree to disagree.

I believe a good programmer can write bug-free code that passes unit testing, but once all the parts are integrated there is bound to be a whole slew of issues. Especially when it comes to something as complicated and ambitious as Civ3.

I hope Firaxis will revise their beta policy if it's strictly in-house. I really believe giving up a couple dozen free copies to volunteer testers under NDA would have saved them a lot of flak.

Happy coding!

Dar Steckelberg

[CheeseWhistle]

I'd just like to say that it seems to me that 75% of the bugs reported seem less like bugs and more like changes to the gameplay dynamics. Let's face it folks, this game is a redesign and a rewrite. Civ 3 has its own subtle qualities. I feel like people should spend more time with the game before complaining so vigorously. Within hours of its release, these boards, and others, were filled with wailing and nashing of teeth. I, on the other hand, have just chosen to play the game and learn its new dynamics. I have a few complaints, but not many.

And for those that can't get past the opening movie, or have other catastropic errors, obviously my comments are not directed toward you. It sounds like Firaxis is working hard on a patch and your proplems should be addressed.

I love this game!

CheeseWhistle

[Slunko]

Well,

Maybe some people actually wants to give a "rude slap in the face for these Firaxis guys" as samsmithnz so nicely put it. I'm a programmer myself (not in the entertainment field) And after seeing Civ3 I really don't know if I should laugh or cry. The installation was a breeze (A bit chubby relative to previous versions but no big deal) Then the fun part begins. The intro movie plays fine, and when the app tries to switch video mode again the screen gets all scrambled due to Civ3 ignoring any valid refresh rates set for the screen. The application ignores all common key combinations for exit (such as Alt-F4, ESC etc) so where it should've been perfectly possible to restore the screen
I have to reboot. Half an hour and two reboots later I manage to get it working (some editing of .ini files and the registry were necessary which leaves Joe User in the cold.) The wonderful main menu shows up with all of its labels out of sync with the buttons, leaving some labels invisible and others in the middle of two buttons. This combined with the excelent "paint button blue on first click and do something useful on the second mouseclick" adds to the general feeling of using great quality software (tm).
I choose all normal settings on a regular world map and begin playing. The graphics looks all slick and I get in a little better mood, until I move the mouse to the right edge of the screen ...tick....tick...tick....tick, two seconds later the map scrolls. (Dual 550Mhz Celeron, Gf2 MX and plenty of RAM)
Extreme sluggish UI is the melody of the day and every dialog, even the minimal terrain info window is pestered with a good 2 second overhead. The UI has more pitfalls than the slowness however, many things seems to only be accessible via hotkeys (I like it that way actually, dunno about Joe User) The great library however is a real ***** to open, no hotkeys here. If you want to know what to build next for example you have to exit the city manager, open the great library, search for your thing, return to city manager and then build it. With every action taking seconds (even browsing about in the great library is this slow) just waiting for dialogs in this little operation can weight in at 20 seconds. There's more about the UI however, how about not being able to see all nations in the foreign manager, just some random 8 nations, totally empty advisor dialogs etc., etc.)
Where there's smoke there's fire. I've only scratched the surface and already seen more crap than a man can take in a day. I really don't want to see how messy this is deeper below (I bet $1000 that the source is real nasty).
I create my first couple of cities and all is well. Glancing over at my neighbours I notice that they're expanding like the best ICS (weren't they supposed to stop this, not make it part of every game). I also notice that the computer are cheating in this stage, less pop. penalty for building settlers etc. During this phase I also notice that the starting locations are all wrong and that the world map is very inaccurate.
Tired of micromanagement I later switch some of my workers to Automatic mode. Bad thing to do, in two turns they've managed to destroy 5 irrigrated tiles and begun building mines. There were equally good uninproved tiles to mine, but they had to choose the already irrigrated tiles. Later games confirm that this is always their behavior. I turn the automatic feature back off and start controlling them manually again. (The manual labor this implies in empires with 20+ workers is great fun!) Meanwhile the AI's are busy producing excessive military units whose sole purpose is to walk in and out of my nations borders, excusing themselves once in a while, when
I order them to leave my territory. What's even more annoying is that once most of the land is already taken, the AI had to build colonies in totally wortless jungle areas in the middle of my nation (Extremely annoying!!).
However this didn't matter all that much because maybe half an hour later when the new meet Babylonians invite me for a diplomatic chat the whole game crashes.
After trying three games more I've come to the conclusion not to play this game
anymore until it's out of "beta" and is playable (in half a year or so).
This is really a shame. I've loved the whole Civ series and this game could have been so much more, now it stands in my bookshelf as a reminder not to ever buy anything branded Firaxis or Sid Meier anymore. It's time to leave Civ and find something else to play.

*sigh*

[dsteckel]

Yow! Man, that hurts, Slunko! Sorry to hear about the bad experiences.

I have to wonder if this and other peoples' technical difficulties are a consequence of their in-house beta testing (samsmithnz, do you remember your source for that info?). With a more diverse beta tester group they would have had a more diverse hardware base to test on.

Best of luck, Slunko! I hope Firaxis releases a patch soon to alleviate some of that.

Dar Steckelberg

[yin26]

Yes, the testing was in-house. I raised all living hell about it months ago when there was still time to fix it. The answer was:

"Public Betas/Alphas are really only helpful for compatability testing since we can't filter all the feedback efficiently."

"Just because you can't Blue Sky everything doesn't mean you should give up."

I will make no comments beyond that ... as I already have 1,000,000 times.