Tweet
I'm not going to hurl epithets, but it's pretty clear that Firaxis has decided to maximize their profits by following the (unfortunately) successful Civ2 version release path. For the longest time the October release date made no sense to me - since it's really too early for the Christmas buying frenzy - but then it hit me:
1) There's a large latent market of individuals who will buy Civ3 no matter when it comes out, so the first release in October will sweep in a nice wad of cash.
2) As the "Conflicts in Civ" and "Fantastic Worlds" versions proved, there's also a good sized crowd who will spend cash for the tools necessary to make good scenarios - specifically a macro language. By building in backward incompatibility, you also ensure that owners of "vanilla Civ3" will have to upgrade in order to play all the scenarios created (at no expense to Firaxis) by the horde of modders.
I suspect that a macro language DOES exist, but it's being held back for a later, pre-Christmas release.
3) At some point - and the timing is likely to be based more on cash flow concerns as opposed to development issues - Firaxis will release a 2nd upgrade, this one containing the Multiplayer capability.
I'm guessing that Firaxis won't slavishly follow the Civ2 model (which would require the release of TWO macro language upgrade versions before the first multiplayer edition), but in general this is what we can expect.
One thing that's worth looking into is that Firaxis has probably designed the base game to handle both multiplayer and a macro language (if only because it's cheaper to add code than to completely redesign). So for those so inclined, it may be possible to discover these inactive "hooks" and come up with some workarounds of our own.
1) There's a large latent market of individuals who will buy Civ3 no matter when it comes out, so the first release in October will sweep in a nice wad of cash.
2) As the "Conflicts in Civ" and "Fantastic Worlds" versions proved, there's also a good sized crowd who will spend cash for the tools necessary to make good scenarios - specifically a macro language. By building in backward incompatibility, you also ensure that owners of "vanilla Civ3" will have to upgrade in order to play all the scenarios created (at no expense to Firaxis) by the horde of modders.
I suspect that a macro language DOES exist, but it's being held back for a later, pre-Christmas release.
3) At some point - and the timing is likely to be based more on cash flow concerns as opposed to development issues - Firaxis will release a 2nd upgrade, this one containing the Multiplayer capability.
I'm guessing that Firaxis won't slavishly follow the Civ2 model (which would require the release of TWO macro language upgrade versions before the first multiplayer edition), but in general this is what we can expect.
One thing that's worth looking into is that Firaxis has probably designed the base game to handle both multiplayer and a macro language (if only because it's cheaper to add code than to completely redesign). So for those so inclined, it may be possible to discover these inactive "hooks" and come up with some workarounds of our own.
) post. nice.
i like reading better than writing
Comment