So, how many patches will Civ 3 NEED?

[SITS]

How many patches do we expect Civ 3 to need before the majority of people will be happy with it? I.E. How patches will it take to have all the major bugs killed and all game issues addressed...

[Zanzin]

You know.....I don't work at Firaxis, and I've got no idea what the bug situation in the game is like....so I really can't tell you how many patches the games will need.

[Pembleton]

The number of patches a game receives does not correlate with how many flaws/bugs the game has.

CTP2 only got 1 patch and that game is seriously screwed. Blizzard games are constantly being patched, but they are mostly for game balance, and they are almost bug-free upon release.

Didn't Civ2 have a bunch of patches? It went up to 2.42 I believe.

[Akron]

As I said in your other thread, the number of patches doesn't tell how flawed a game is.

For example, AoK had a huge flaw in the superiority of the Town Center, but only received one patch after a year. SMAC received several patches within a very short time, but I didn't see any glaring gameplay problems or bugs (I know lots of people thought it was buggy, but I had no problems).

Also, SMAC fixed the few problems it had quicker while adding other things. AoK took until the X-pack to fix its problems. I would much prefer an approach similar to SMAC's.

Number of patches means very little.

[SITS]

I placed the emphasis on NEED meaning how many patches will it need to be a decent game that isn't spoiled by bugs.

[Pembleton]

Originally posted by SITS
I placed the emphasis on NEED meaning how many patches will it need to be a decent game that isn't spoiled by bugs.

I don't see how this is possible to answer until the release.

There is the possibility that although they decided to concentrate on SP at the expense of MP, Infogrames might have pressured them to release the game too early.

I don't think looking back at SMAC would be a foretelling precedent, as that game was led by a departed Brian Reynolds, and was published by EA.

So I'm hoping that bugs are kept to a minimum, but one thing I see as being likely is the game will be imbalanced because the testing was all in-house. As long as they support balance in upcoming patches I won't complain.

[ancient]

we cant tell and neither can they. dont you think if they saw a major glitch they would have fixed it?

any ways i doubt well get all of the patches well need..

[Akron]

Originally posted by SITS
I placed the emphasis on NEED meaning how many patches will it need to be a decent game that isn't spoiled by bugs.

I still don't understand the point of your question.

One big patch could do the same thing as 10 little patches. And the bugginess of the game is subjective, as it is based on past experiences with other games. And on top of that, we haven't even played the game yet.

[yin26]

If SMAC is an indication: 3-4

[joseph1944]

None

[SITS]

Originally posted by Akron


I still don't understand the point of your question.

One big patch could do the same thing as 10 little patches. And the bugginess of the game is subjective, as it is based on past experiences with other games. And on top of that, we haven't even played the game yet.

The number of patches can show how flawed a game is - although like you said one patch could fix 1000 bugs or a 1000 patches could fix one at a time. In general it shows how flawed a game is.

If you consider that they have left out MP, there has been no public-beta, no demo and they seemed to have been a deadline for the christmas market how many patch cycles do you expect there to be to leave the game in a good state?

With SMAX, it could do with another patch but it is playable if you know the work arounds and like Yin said there were 3-4 patches to get it that far.

[Akron]

But I never had any problems with SMAC. Maybe it was just the multiplayer component, but I picked up maybe one or two bugs and I played that game quite a lot.

On the other hand, AoK had a glaring flaw in the TC imbalance that to a large extent ruined gameplay.

AoK only needed one patch to fix while SMAC used a bunch. But SMAC was less flawed than AoK IMO.

[Tolkien]

well, just to answer your question and not get all started into this argument, I think the game will probably have 1 - 4 in the next year.

and also, you mentioned in your poll that 5+ would make the game seriously screwed. you need to be carefull here cause when you do this, you are representing all games. diablo II and LoD are my favorite games (with civ series close behind), and they now have 10 patches, yet the games are awesome. it doesnt matter how many patches a game has to make it good or bad. patches simply fix bugs that are recognized by players and others that play the game upon its release...so in other words it is too early to start guessing how many patches it will need/have.

[Sarxis]

The most I can say is- my intuition tells me that CivIII is going to run very smooth at release. Some game balancing MIGHT need to be done afterwards, but maybe not.

I voted NONE, but only because I am in a good mood.

[Chuckles]

I say 2. That should be enough to fix anything in a game with NO MULTIPLAYER!