How to sell Civ 3

[yin26]

If the overall sound is: "We are being forced to cut things we'd normally have in the game," then I think you can't fault people for going a half-step further in thinking: "My God. With all that hacking going on, surely something ELSE, something truly important to all of us...like decent AI or lack of killer bugs...is suffering, too."

Now, is that a necessary conclusion to make? No. Is it a logical one? Given the history of the gaming industry and the fact that Firaxis is doing some awfully strange things this time around (they always had a demo before), it is certainly cause for caution.

Of course, the optimist types will say: "Hey, that just gives them more time to do the stuff that REALLY counts!"

I hope they are proved right.

[Rhysie]

Originally posted by yin26
Agreed, but given the overall direction (no demo, no low resolution, no public beta, etc.)... Of course, I hope it all proves to be a bad mix up.

I don't think no low resolution is a cutback, I think its a valid design decision.

Think about it, they want to cram so much onto the screen that on low resolution it either doesn't all fit on, or it looks really cruddy. Now, you might think they should still include the low resolution mode... But I disagree... Many people have their computers on lower resolutions, and so would end up playing the low resolution version... A lot of computer users would then look at bits missing off their screen and cruddy low quality graphics and think the game is rubbish, without realising they need to switch up to the higher resolution to get the good stuff.

[MarkG]

Originally posted by Rhysie
I don't think no low resolution is a cutback, I think its a valid design decision.

Think about it, they want to cram so much onto the screen that on low resolution it either doesn't all fit on, or it looks really cruddy. Now, you might think they should still include the low resolution mode... But I disagree... Many people have their computers on lower resolutions, and so would end up playing the low resolution version... A lot of computer users would then look at bits missing off their screen and cruddy low quality graphics and think the game is rubbish, without realising they need to switch up to the higher resolution to get the good stuff.

now that you say it, i think that's exactly what happened with ctp1/2 and all the talk about it's interface

[yin26]

Like I said, you have to consider the OVERALL impression these cuts are making. Even if each is a 'solid design decision' in itself, they seem rather unusual decisions to make with no explanations made.

THUS: Firaxis should have been explaining itself this entire time on its official site: Why no low resolution? "We have made this decision because..." Why no demo? "We have made this decision because..." etc.

And if each of those decisions has a decent answer behind it, like the one you have for resolution ("It would have meant we would need to design two completely different control screens for every level of information displayed"), then I think any reasonable person would try to agree.

At the very least, we would take comfort in knowing that we understand the decisions being made and aren't left second guessing random emails and unexplained cuts from the game.

[MarkG]

Originally posted by yin26
Like I said, you have to consider the OVERALL impression these cuts are making.

so the problem is in the IMPRESSIONS that people get from how things are made public....

[korn469]

so the problem is in the IMPRESSIONS that people get from how things are made public....

nope if MP doesn't make it into the game (i still think this is a hoax) at release i will still have a problem with that

the problem is not impressions but quality, i will have a problem with a low quality civ3...if civ3 is high quality then i will have no problem with it

[MarkG]

Originally posted by korn469
nope if MP doesn't make it into the game (i still think this is a hoax) at release i will still have a problem with that

hold on, if they come out and say "here's SP in october, you can download MP for free in March cause it's not ready now" you'll have a problem with that?

the problem is not impressions but quality, i will have a problem with a low quality civ3...if civ3 is high quality then i will have no problem with it

thank god

[yin26]

so the problem is in the IMPRESSIONS that people get from how things are made public....

I think that is indeed a huge part of the problem here, Markos. The announcements should be prompt, easily found on the main site, and offer a good explanation. Look at each item:

** No support for low resolution? Public Announcement: "We know that this decision will leave a few of our fans needing to upgrade or to get used to a new resolution, but otherwise we are faced with designing two totally different interfaces because of size limitations in 800X600, and we feel that our artists' time should be spent these last few weeks polishing the overall look of the game."

** No demo? Public Announcement: "We know our fans must be quite confused by this decision, especially since we did so well with our pre-release SMAC demo. While we know some people will watch and wait to buy Civ3 (and being cautious in the PC game market makes sense), we made the decision that a demo for Civ3 simply cannot capture the overall feel of the larger game. Rather than leave people with an impression that Civ3 is something it isn't, we hope that our core fan base and everybody who makes the decision to buy the full game will be more than satisfied and spread the good word."

** No public beta? Public Announcement: "We understand the public's interest in a public beta and had come awfully close to doing one. However, since this is our 4th game on the JACKAL engine, we are confident that the code we are using is very stable. What is left to do is game balance, and we are confident that our in-house team will be able to efficiently and effectively help us with that. Also keep in mind that the Firaxis staff has been playing the game since its proto-type. Jeff Briggs plays 6 hours / day and has been for the past year. While we can't hope to replicate the 'real-world' of Civ 3 experience and styles, we feel the in-house beta will allow us to do more testing faster."

** No MP? Public Announcement: "We have been saying for weeks now that we wanted to do something truly unique for MP. We are still committed to that goal. However, this has meant that we will need to spend far more time on MPs development than would normally have been required. Truthfully, the task has involved far more coding than we initially planned for. So rather than delay SP or release a buggy MP, we will release for free a few months from now what we hope will be the best MP experience the TBS genre has ever had. Our apologies to the MP fans out there. Believe it or not, we'll make it worth your wait."

Now, had each of those messages been made loud and clear on the official site instead of our hearing only parts of things through e-mails to a single fan, I guarantee you very few people would have much room to complain.

Oh, they WOULD complain, but they'd have not much to work with.

[korn469]

hold on, if they come out and say "here's SP in october, you can download MP for free in March cause it's not ready now" you'll have a problem with that?

yes i would have a problem with that

*first, i have a sucky internet connection and i would rather not download a 30mb patch (that would be like a 7 hour download for me...and get crashes my computer, so i would have to hope against hope that my internet wouldn't disconnect)

*second, there is no excuse for MP coming out late if everything went as planned, so this indicates to me that the game was rushed to make a christmas deadline

*adding MP later on will probably mean that there are several areas of the game that are not properly balanced and open to exploitation

*finally, this will hurt sales and scare people away, and tarnish Civ's repuation

[Urban Ranger]

Originally posted by korn469
*adding MP later on will probably mean that there are several areas of the game that are not properly balanced and open to exploitation

Com'on, korn, you can't do that. That's slippery slope.

[korn469]

Urban Ranger

i think it is a perfectly legitimate argument, however i didn't phrase it like exactly how i intended to

*adding MP later on will probably mean that there are several areas of the game that are not properly balanced for MPand open to exploitation in MP games

[MarkG]

Originally posted by korn469

yes i would have a problem with that

*first, i have a sucky internet connection and i would rather not download a 30mb patch (that would be like a 7 hour download for me...and get crashes my computer, so i would have to hope against hope that my internet wouldn't disconnect)

i can accept that, but there also download managers

*second, there is no excuse for MP coming out late if everything went as planned, so this indicates to me that the game was rushed to make a christmas deadline

yes, things didnt get as planned, the whole project needed more time, but they could have the SP part ready on time and they release that part. it would be rushed if they released on time with half baked sp and mp

*adding MP later on will probably mean that there are several areas of the game that are not properly balanced and open to exploitation

i dont see where you base that. adding mp later means they will work more on it, how would it not properly balanaced?

*finally, this will hurt sales and scare people away, and tarnish Civ's repuation

not if both sp and mp come out great

it will be like civ2 and it's patches. does anyone remember or care about how many patches there were until 2.42?

[korn469]

i dont see where you base that. adding mp later means they will work more on it, how would it not properly balanaced?

Markos, so you are telling me that they are going to employ the whole team from october to may just to work on a free download? i don't see that happening...infogrames will cut off the money once the game is out, and firaxis will have to pay for that expense right out of it's pocket, and as for the not properly balanced thing...didn't some guy named Ming write down a cheat or two at some point?

it would be rushed if they released on time with half baked sp and mp

if the entire team is going to spend at least five entire months working on MP then your argument isn't valid...there would be no way to implement MP in the time frame we have, there couldn't be buggy MP, there just isn't enough time

the game hit beta on August 23 and if the rumors are correct it will hit retail October 30...that is 68 day to conduct the entire beta test and manufacture and distribute it...so to hit retail on october 30 it will need to hit gold on about october 15, and that is 53 days counting weekends...so if it is going to take five months working full time to implement MP, that means basically they have just started on it, hence this goes back to my MP balance argument...SP had better be fairly solid right now because they only have at most two months for civ3 hitting beta to get it as polished as possible

not if both sp and mp come out great

yes if they do both come out great...but if they don't then that could be the last commercial civ game ever made

Plus Markos i'll ask you the same question

Does anyone remember or care about when they released civ2?

i'm sure people care even less about that than they do the patches...i bet more people remember the patches than what remembers the release date

[MarkG]

Originally posted by korn469
Markos, so you are telling me that they are going to employ the whole team from october to may just to work on a free download?

first of all, it's not just a "free download". it's part of the promised game!

second, after october, almost all of the people working on simgolf will have nothing to do...

i don't see that happening...infogrames will cut off the money once the game is out, and firaxis will have to pay for that expense right out of it's pocket

are you saying that developers stop earning moeny when the game is released?

i thought it was the other way

and as for the not properly balanced thing...didn't some guy named Ming write down a cheat or two at some point?

what does this have to do with the mp part being given more time?

if the entire team is going to spend at least five entire months working on MP then your argument isn't valid...there would be no way to implement MP in the time frame we have, there couldn't be buggy MP, there just isn't enough time

exactly. that's why i'm saying that you could say that civ3 was rushed out, IF it had both sp and mp in a bad form.

Does anyone remember or care about when they released civ2?

april 1996 i think

[korn469]

april 1996 i think

that proves my entire point, the quality of the game and not the time of year it came out determines how good it will be

second, after october, almost all of the people working on simgolf will have nothing to do

firaxis is a two team outfit, they will find something for them to do, and it won't be civ3 it will be another game

first of all, it's not just a "free download". it's part of the promised game!

if it was part of the promised game it would be in the box when i first open it (2 business days after amazon.com gets it)

besides that though, where is the economic incentive to add in MP free of charge? it's not like you can return a game you've played for months...i believe MP will be part of the civ3 expansion, just like being able to play with more civs

are you saying that developers stop earning moeny when the game is released?
i thought it was the other way

firaxis starts to recoup their costs when the game gets released, and the more support they give civ3 the less money they make especially if it isn't selling well

exactly. that's why i'm saying that you could say that civ3 was rushed out, IF it had both sp and mp in a bad form

maybe by cutting the demo, the open beta, and MP (if that proves to be true) then they will have just enough time to release a perfectly polished civ3, but we won't be able to know that till we play it