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O.K., assuming the "October 2001" date on the latest ad really holds up (God help us all if it does), where must Civ 3 be right now? Let's work this backwards:
Sold: In stores by the end of October, let's say.
Gold: Obviously to go gold, you need at least a few rounds with the publisher...so assuming two weeks (?) to copy the master CD, get it into boxes, and deliver to stores, the final gold candidate would need to be ready by early October, which means most of September would need to be open for the 'kick the CD back to Firaxis for some fixes' process, right?).
Beta: So if September is mainly dedicated to polishing things up and getting the Gold CD ready, August MUST be the last and only time to run this game through complete Beta testing, and there's really no time to do major art changes at this point unless you want to risk last minute changes breaking other parts of the game, etc.
CONCLUSION: Assuming the screenshots we have seen represent late Beta work, we are in big trouble. Further assuming that a major beta effort should be or is nearly underway and we have heard NOTHING about it also tells me we are in big trouble.
DO NOT, I REPEAT, DO NOT PRE-ORDER CIV 3 IF YOU VALUE YOUR TIME AND MONEY. Pick it up on the cheap around April when the first few patches will also be patiently waiting for you.
Sold: In stores by the end of October, let's say.
Gold: Obviously to go gold, you need at least a few rounds with the publisher...so assuming two weeks (?) to copy the master CD, get it into boxes, and deliver to stores, the final gold candidate would need to be ready by early October, which means most of September would need to be open for the 'kick the CD back to Firaxis for some fixes' process, right?).
Beta: So if September is mainly dedicated to polishing things up and getting the Gold CD ready, August MUST be the last and only time to run this game through complete Beta testing, and there's really no time to do major art changes at this point unless you want to risk last minute changes breaking other parts of the game, etc.
CONCLUSION: Assuming the screenshots we have seen represent late Beta work, we are in big trouble. Further assuming that a major beta effort should be or is nearly underway and we have heard NOTHING about it also tells me we are in big trouble.
DO NOT, I REPEAT, DO NOT PRE-ORDER CIV 3 IF YOU VALUE YOUR TIME AND MONEY. Pick it up on the cheap around April when the first few patches will also be patiently waiting for you.
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