What took so long?

[Capt Dizle]

And I thought I had heard everything. Here we have a native Greek moderator translating Firaxispeak into English, the jest of which is "Don't buy our expansion pack!"

I do so hope Coracle is reading this.

[Capt Dizle]

Given the fact that Jeff has stated that he and Firaxis are not interesting in hearing what I have to say, I guess I'll by God ignore the royal summoning.

My application as a beta tester wasn't accepted. They don't feel they need my help. And apparently, my money either.

[TCO]

Originally posted by jimmytrick
Firaxis PR ace Jeff Morris strikes again.

I'd rather have somebody tell it like it is. Than play the PR game and **** me afterwards.

[TCO]

Originally posted by jimmytrick
Given the fact that Jeff has stated that he and Firaxis are not interesting in hearing what I have to say, I guess I'll by God ignore the royal summoning.

My application as a beta tester wasn't accepted. They don't feel they need my help. And apparently, my money either.

Come on jt. You're on of my favorite posters. Don't ruin it now. Nobody cares if you are a beta tester. I'm not either. Stick to the features of the game. I enjoy listening to your pithy and intelligent comments about the game features. But complaining about not being a beta tester? Sheesh. That's got nothing to do with...anything!

[Capt Dizle]

GP, you are 100% correct about that. I am pithy and intelligent.

and you're right about the beta testing too...

[Capt Dizle]

Actually, I don't know what the hell a pithy is.

?

[TCO]

Me neither. But at least I look gooooood....

[Ogie Oglethorpe]

Pithy = Type of helmet worn by African explorers

Sheesh and here I thought you both were men of the world

[TechWins]

Jeff,

Guys, the only thing you achieve by repeatedly raising the same point over and over again for months on end (let alone insulting us or the game over and over again for months on end) is earning a spot on our ignore list.

So our "complaints" that we have raised just put us on your ignore list. First off, is that supposed to be a threat? I don't think too many people are all that afraid not to have their post read by yourself, at least I hope not. Secondly, does this mean that issues about the game should not be read by Firaxis? Granted some of the "complaints" aren't well worded in terms of properly getting the point across, but that doesn't seem like much of an excuse to me. You have to remember that customers are always right. The screaming, idiot of a customer is just as important as the patient, understanding customer. For you to ignore any customer is wrong. Last but not least, you're lack of recognizing the faults in Civ3 is terrible. Honestly how can you not realize the faults in Civ3 and in the process in which Civ3 was released? I can understand how you could proud of your game, but to not realize it's faults is pure stupidity. Actually enough you very well may have already realized the faults of the game but the lack of mentioning them to the public can't prove that. For now a lot of us see you as a blind, greedy person (not trying to make a personal attack there, either ). Unless you can realize the importance of each customer I'm sure our views will remain the same.

I haven't seen a point raised by jimmytrick or coracle that wasn't raised in a much more reasonable fashion by someone else.

There is a very good reason for this, too, and you can refer to my point of the lack or recognizaton you have towards Civ3's faults.

Thinking you can force Firaxis into implementing a feature through your unpleasantness on some forum is ridiculous.

We're not here for you, buddy. We're not here to be pleasant to you and make you happy. You're supposed to be here being pleasant to us giving us reassurance about the people behind the product. Again refer to my point about the treatment you should use towards customers.

I've said it before but I'll repeat it here. The only real power you have as consumers is to either buy or not buy the game.

Whoa there! You have to be kidding me, right? We are the consumers; we posses the power; we have your pay checks in our wallets. You are at the mercy of us, and once you forget that oh boy are you screwed. Remember that the only real power you have is to persuade us to buy your game. Let me tell this you you are doing one hell of a job.

A 'dear john' mumble here just can't compete with the ‘love letter’ you wrote to us in our royalty checks.

Now I could have forgiven you for all of the rest of the comments you made, but on this one you crossed the line. You are completely implying that you could careless about the situation at hand, because all that matters is that you already have our money. I don't care what kind of rehashing you are trying to perform right now. You realized you made a mistake with that comment, and now you are trying to somewhat justify it. It doesn't work that way, either. You could really careless about the game, you could really careless about the consumers, but we all now know that you sure do care about the money.

Before I read this statement I had no doubt in my mind that I was going to buy this game, however, now I feel quite the contrary. I seriously doubt if I will buy this game, and that is mostly from spite. Hey, you're game isn't going to be anywhere near as good as some other games coming out this fall. Actually let me reword that, this isn't your game. All you are doing is pissing off a bunch of fans and screwing over the hardworking programmers, artists... out of the money that should be all theirs.

Good luck.

[MarkG]

isnt it amazing how people understand whatever they would like to understand?

So our "complaints" that we have raised just put us on your ignore list

the key word in the sentense you quoted is "repeatedly". let me bold that: repeatedly

You're supposed to be here being pleasant to us giving us reassurance about the people behind the product.

and i thought developers' job was to.... develop. i now realize their actual job is babysitting fans

You are at the mercy of us, and once you forget that oh boy are you screwed

that's what he said. if you believe that with civ3 firaxis forgot who pays their wages, then stop buying their games. end of story

[FrustratedPoet]

I can't see what all the fuss is about what Jeff said.
So Firaxis are more likely to react to sales figures than the opinion of a vocal minority of their consumers on an internet forum?
Big surprise.

As Jeff said:
The only real power you have as consumers is to either buy or not buy the game.

It's our only power, but in a consumer-driven society this, of course, is the ultimate power.
If very few people buy PtW then Firaxis will either change the way they make games to appeal to the section of the market they have missed, or will go out of business altogether (maybe not quite out of business, but you get the point).
If lots of people buy PtW then Firaxis will most likely, and rightly (what better indication is there?), view this as some kind of confirmation that, although some people are not happy with the game, it nevertheless enjoys a large body of support and that they are on the right track.

Money can cheer louder than any fanboy and rant louder than any troll.

[MrWhereItsAt]

Originally posted by Jeffrey Morris FIRAXIS
The only real power you have as consumers is to either buy or not buy the game.
Jeff

Don't say that! There are so many here who need to believe someone is listening to them.

I can hear the bubbles breaking now.

[Scouse Gits]

Suffice it to say that I shall NOT be buying anything from Firaxis in the foreseeable future if ever again. I strongly suspect that unless I am misreading the sentiments on these boards the majority of Apolytoners are going to give it one more chance - I hope they are not too greatly disappointed.

SG[1]

[moomin]

Why wouldn't you give them one more chance? We've all learned by now to wait for the results of the Poly jury to come in before we start spending, right?

Perhaps PTW will be all we hoped for in Civ3, with the worst faults - those that have been pointed out thousands of times at these boards - fixed. Why should you not buy an enjoyable and rewarding game of a type you like then?

But what Firaxis has done is to make a lot of their fans very leery of their next offering - it'd better be good or we won't be buying it. Is the bite they're taking out of the Sims market demography enough to compensate for that? I dunno. I suspect the can't really afford to entirely alienate the entire old fan base.

[Harovan]

Originally posted by Jeffrey Morris FIRAXIS I've said it before but I'll repeat it here. The only real power you have as consumers is to either buy or not buy the game. A 'dear john' mumble here just can't compete with the ‘love letter’ you wrote to us in our royalty checks.

I'm usually not among of those, who rant at Firaxis, but this one has p*ssed me royally. What a PR disaster! Comes right next to the way Infogrames acts. While I highly appreciate Sorens and Mikes work, I am shocked about this arrogant way to deal with customers. And yes, I will try to show my displeasure in the way Mr. Morris obviously appreciates.

And Mark: No, the developers should not be babysitting fans. But their PR manager also should not try to p*ss them off.