Firaxis BUMMER!

[Ralf]

Originally posted by CapTVK
Games can be released bug free (99,9% level) plus all included features! [...]

The irony is that it's predecessor, the arcade videogame industry did manage to release games on time and bug free.

Well, I certainly believe that bug-related quality-standards of PC-games could rise a couple of notches - but...

I also believe its much easier to develop relatively bugfree against an 100% known hardware-setup (like playstation), within an 100% known game-machine software-environment, then it is against endless combinations of PC hardware & software environments.

Why isnt this elementary?

[Col Bigspear]

I'm pleased that MP got the chop. When I play MP I play Half-Life: Day of defeat mod (WW2) or counter strike mod and I spend far too much money doing it. Now take a TBS game and if direct internet play is going to be this "Something special" that firaxis said is going to be in MP then I don't see how that can work with a game that models 4000 years. As for PBEM, I don't like it one bit. I tried PBEM with West Front once and I hate it. take a turn Zip, post, recieve mail, unzip, move into game folder, load play zip post etc.......
I want to play SP and leave MP to games like Half-life, action, not YES my turn awww SH*T it took 5 mins now i'll have to wait about a day to get a reply.

[Col Bigspear]

After looking at the thread What Civ multiplayer should be like, I think that it would be good if implemented like that.

[Lung]

Originally posted by Col Bigspear
As for PBEM, I don't like it one bit. I tried PBEM with West Front once and I hate it. take a turn Zip, post, recieve mail, unzip, move into game folder, load play zip post etc.......

At least that was one thing that CtP got right. When you played pbem, you just opened the turn. When you finished the turn, you simply sent the automatically saved file. No zipping, no unzipping! This is at the very least the way they should created PBEM for CivIII. If they can just avoid part of the next player's turn appearing at the end of yours, they will be on a winner

[korn469]

Ralf

where did you get your figures at?

Civilization: Call to power" sold well over half a million copies - maybe even 600.000 - 700.000

i read earlier on apolyton that both SMAC and CtP sold less than 300k units, i have checked and can't find any figures for either product so if your info is more up to date than mine i'd be thankful if you gave me a link

[star mouse]

Originally posted by Ralf
I also believe its much easier to develop relatively bugfree against an 100% known hardware-setup (like playstation), within an 100% known game-machine software-environment, then it is against endless combinations of PC hardware & software environments.

That's essentially correct. A lot of patches that are released fix compatibility problems with hardware combinations that were not in the beta testing pool. It is much easier to develop software for a single hardware configuration, which is why game consoles and arcade games have relatively few bugs.

When the game has a multiplayer component, a lot of the game patches address multiplayer issues, such as fixing loopholes that allow people to cheat.

[Urban Ranger]

So what if Firaxis didn't start MP until August? If they want they can just pull in the existing code from SMAC and just adapt that for Civ 3. There's really not much to MP unless they want to try something new.

Which is silly IMO, as nobody wants that.


Ralf,

Ideally, the OS should isolate any program running under it from hardware considerations, so no matter how you tinker with the hardware such programs will still be looking at the same virtual machine.

Clearly, Windoze fails quite badly in this respect.

[MarkG]

Originally posted by korn469
i read earlier on apolyton that both SMAC and CtP sold less than 300k units, i have checked and can't find any figures for either product so if your info is more up to date than mine i'd be thankful if you gave me a link

actually, both smac and ctp1 sold 500,000

[korn469]

thanks for the info mark

btw where do you get upto date info on games sells? i scoured the net and all i could find was a company that n something or other, that had custom made market research for like 2,500-3,500 dollars a report

how many copies did civ, civ2, and civ: tot sell?

[MarkG]

actually, the info on the ctp1 and smac sales came from activision. so far no firaxian ever told me that the smac number is wrong, so....