Holy S***! NO Multiplayer Until Spring!

[SITS]

What I like about MP is the sense of community it can give - also it forces you to think about your game carefully otherwise you get your ass whooped.

[TCO]

Originally posted by tniem


But if he needs to install it on all of his student's computers than he needs permission. That or make it required to purchase the game to enter his class. I would love a professor to require us to buy a video game instead of a text book. It would be cheaper and as long as it was educational it would be a lot more fun.

But of course.

[TCO]

Originally posted by CapTVK


Or why not try out FreeCiv ( www.freeciv.org ). The open source version of civ offers full multiplayer support and has decent AI (well, it's certainly agressive ) . That the source code is included will also be a big bonus. You can show bits of the code in your report.

I do suggest playing it on Linux or with an X-windows manager. The windows version is a bit sluggish in isometric view (flat view is faster).

Are you seriously suggesting tryibg to get a large group of students to use Linux? That's a non-starter. The experiment will have enough complexity without bringing in OSes that people don't normally use.

[korn469]

Bleyn

i have an unstable and slow internet connection from my home so tc/icp isn't an option for me and i do not have the patience to play PBEM in civ3, so civ3 not having MP won't effect me too much, but there is a large group of players who do participate in MP

if firaxis doesn't include MP (this isn't confirmed and could be untrue) then it will effect them, possibly they won't even buy civ3, but the real question to me is why wouldn't firaxis include MP?

MP has been a standard feature of computer games for many years and while there have been many recent single player only games released (the sims, tropico, max payne for example) i can only think of a single recent game that released a MP add on pack and that game was S.W.A.T. 3 here is a pc.ign review of it and of it's expansion pack

Albeit some slight AI problems and a lacking manual, there's not much that SWAT 3 is missing -- except for multiplay support. This game screams for multiplay, especially co-operative play. This would have added almost infinite replayability to the game, but the single player game stands up really well on its own. Although the maps stay the same, almost every mission is different because the enemies and hostages are randomly placed throughout the environment. This does give SWAT 3 a lot of replay value, but not as much as if you could hook-up with your buddies and team up.

It's by far the best of the up until now lacking SWAT series, and it would rank right up there with Rogue Spear if it had multiplay out of the box.
__________________________________________

Perhaps the best thing about the Elite Edition is that all of these upgrades are completely free to SWAT 3: Close Quarters Battle owners. All you have to do is spend some time online downloading the patch.

what i am worried about is that civ3 is being pushed out the door...hopefully besides missing MP hopefully the single player in civ3 will be solid yet when you are rushing a game then mistakes are bound to pop-up...will a buggy civ3 that doesn't have MP really go over with the fans in a highly competitive game market?

SMAC and CtP together only sold about a half a million copies from what i read (about 250k each) and then CtP2 sold only about 40k copies...will civ3 without MP just completely outdo them?

will this pressure to get the game out by christmas harm the game? if civ3 doesn't have MP then the answer is yes

will this pressure to get the game out by christmas harm the game besides not having MP? we do not know this yet

but if anyone tells me they are not rushing the game out the door to make a christmas deadline then explain to me why civ3 wouldn't have built in MP?

i want the best civ experiance ever that Sid promised, and not a rushed unfinished civ3 is that too much to ask for?

[Steve Clark]

Uber: If it wasn't for the "cooperate" world, there wouldn't even be a Civ3 with its thousands of person-hours of programming and artistic resources. You can always play FreeCiv.

[Steve Clark]

korn: Wasn't an October release planned for quite awhile ago, even though it wasn't public? I manage software projects and there's always a time-table that you are working at. If you say that an October release of Civ3 with bugs mean it was rushed. How about a Feb 2002 release that has bugs, would that have been rushed too? Or how about a July 2002 release? While I don't really care when Civ3 is released, to say that it was rushed because it won't be perfect, seems a little myopic to me. I mean, it's going through at least a 5 weeks beta testing cycle , that's more than what alot of other products go through, isn't it? MP (and their plans for it) will probably require a 5 months development and testing cycle. There's no reason not to put out a SP version and then dedicate the resources to make and test the best MP version possible.

[Gatekeeper]

Everyone:

If the delay in implementing MP on Civ III becomes reality, I will not shed a tear. I buy games primarily for their SP aspects — at best, MP capabilities are a secondary concern, perhaps even tertiary. If the SP is stable, enjoyable and replayable, I'm more than happy. Everything else is icing on the cake. But that's just me.

Secondly, I happen to be an Apple Macintosh owner. So if Civ III does ship with bugs for Windows users, odds are Macsoft will have time to correct those before releasing the Mac version. It pays (sometimes) to have a port come months to the Mac platform after being released for Windows.

CYBERAmazon

[- Groucho -]

Civ MP is such a huge investment of time that I've never been able to make it enjoyable.

They already have my money over at Chips 'n Bits so it is pretty obvious that my purchasing decision won't be affected by MP.

[TechWins]

I for one might not buy civ3 if civ3 doesn't include MP. To me it will be a matter of principle but even the power of civ3 SP might entice me enough to buy civ3.

Even though, I don't think the post is legitimate until I find some "real proof". I sure wouldn't mind seeing that e-mail of yours Mr. Pleasant. Regarldess of what the e-mail says, though, I won't believe it until Firaxis declares to the public that civ3 will not include MP. Not to say that Mister Pleasant is lying, it's just that I'm very skeptical on this as well.

[fluxcapacitor]

This thread is humorous. You're all getting all kinds odpissed off over something your read in a forum for chrissake?! I dunno, I guess I'm another for the "let's-wait-and-see-what-Firaxis-has-to-say" camp...

[Mister Pleasant]

Even though, I don't think the post is legitimate until I find some "real proof". I sure wouldn't mind seeing that e-mail of yours Mr. Pleasant. Regarldess of what the e-mail says, though, I won't believe it until Firaxis declares to the public that civ3 will not include MP. Not to say that Mister Pleasant is lying, it's just that I'm very skeptical on this as well.

Not that I'm obscessive about privacy . . .

I forwarded the email to Markos. He can check to see if I'm legit. Everybody who is curious should spam him about it. I'm suprised he hasn't posted in this forum yet. BTW, Markos, I forgot to mention that I go by Mister Pleasant around here in my email.

[Inverse Icarus]

Originally posted by GP


Are you seriously suggesting tryibg to get a large group of students to use Linux? That's a non-starter. The experiment will have enough complexity without bringing in OSes that people don't normally use.

#1 Linux 0wns.
#2 they have win32 binaries.

[korn469]

i still am waiting to see if this proves legit, and while i don't think you are dishonest Mr. Pleasant i want confirmation from firaxis...for all i know somebody could of hijacked your account

If you say that an October release of Civ3 with bugs mean it was rushed. How about a Feb 2002 release that has bugs, would that have been rushed too? Or how about a July 2002 release? While I don't really care when Civ3 is released, to say that it was rushed because it won't be perfect, seems a little myopic to me. I mean, it's going through at least a 5 weeks beta testing cycle , that's more than what alot of other products go through, isn't it?

Steve Clark

you might have a point there, except for there is a real reason they are rushing it, and that is christmas...i never said i wanted civ3 to be perfect, but MP is a standard feature on today's games and to not include MP in civ3 when it hits retail means they left out a significant feature, when you buy a computer from Dell they include a keyboard and a mouse because they are standard features, and MP for civ should be a standard feature...all of the recent great strategy games came with MP as a standard feature

they built civ3 on the SMAC code, and SMAC included MP...so why take it out? what special new MP features are they going to add? using the SMAC code as a foundation they could have easily put in at least lan and PBEM...this is a step down, and there must be a reason for it, and the most obvious reason seems that the christmas deadline hurt civ3

Apolyton: Are there any plans for a public beta test? What determined your decision?
Jeff Morris: There were a lot of plans, but time and resources constricted the options. Public betas serve as valuable sounding boards for a game, but their true value is in compatibility testing. It basically allows us to skip a patch. The trick with public betas is that you release something late enough that allows the player to get a good idea of what the final game will play like, but early enough to incorporate the fixes. An open public beta was originally planned, but that window I was describing never really opened.

i have a feeling they were rushed to get civ3 out by christmas to the detriment of the game and so far they have sacrificed MP to do that, or at least i hope that is the reason, if they think that civ3 is so valuable that players are going to play an extra 20 or 30 dollars to have the privledge of having standard features then i think that this is a bad omen...so hopefully nothing else has suffered just for a few more holiday sales

in all likelyhood i will buy civ3 but i am a fan who likes to play games (not including M.A.D. at all coupled with 100% effective SDI is enough to make my stomach turn, and if i don't buy civ3 that would be the reason why)...plus i also go into this knowing what i'm getting into, i guess other developers like blizzard (i own every blizzard game since warcraft2) have spoiled me but i truly believe that:

Striving for quality is never short sighted!

i would really like to hear what some of the civ2 and SMAC MP players think about this development (or lack there of) if it does turn out to be true

[hexagonian]

It could very well be a patch, instead of an expansion pack...

When CTP1 was released, it did not have PBEM, but was patched in 6 months later. This same discussion happened in the CTP2 forums when Activision said that they would not be including PBEM because they could not get it to work with the new diplomacy system. Most of the platform for CTP2 was similar to the CTP1 one - which made a lot of people mad because they could not understand what the problem was. Yeah, Activision said they would patch it in, but poor sales prevented that from happening. (as was stated earlier in this thread)

If Firaxis is basing the platform on the SMAC system, then the expected good sales should get them to continue work on getting multiplay up quickly - and I think that sales will be very good. But, if Firaxis is going to use this as a ploy to boost later sales with an expansion pack, then a lot of people have every right to be ticked off at them. But face it, we here are the hard-core gamers who will not make up a huge percentage of the people who buy the game.

What it does boil down to is getting the game out before the Christmas season - and from a corporate standpoint, I cannot fault them. Firaxis has had several years to get this all together, and I suspect that the game will have a lot more good than bad in it, but it is sad that it will not be included in the initial package - as some kind of multiplay is standard for these types of games.

[tniem]

Korn said it best. It is not the fact that MP is not going to be included, I probably won't play that much at the start anyways, but is the fact that it means Firaxis and Infogrames has basically shoved an unfinished game down our throats. I find that insulting and will lead me to think about purchases of Civ III and Sim Golf. And if Infogrames does the same crap with their other titles, I will think about MOO3.

For me I can handle no MP but the thing is that they promised me the best civ ever with some new MP features. Neither of which they will be doing if these rumors turn out to be true and so all I can do is let them know how mad I am with my pocketbook. And being a college student I can use the extra $50.