Open letter to Firaxis from the scenario community

[wotan321]

Mark G sez:

naah....

Well, I was just confused....you said

here are some news: there will be a reply. but i dont know anything on how soon it will be or how good news it will bring, except that there will be an update on the editor(something that has been said several times of course)

I just figured it was going to happen before the patch that's supposed to arrive before the end of the month...which is a week away...

Any news from Firaxis would be a good thing.

[Akka]

Originally posted by Roman


Well and these things it cannot do are exactly crucial for making scenarios. Heck, without the placement of civ specific starting locations, cities, units, etc. it is NOT EVEN POSSIBLE TO MAKE SCENARIOS.

If you have read my post to its end, you should remember that I said :

"I mean, this game is full of flaws and has a lot of places where it's a step back from Civ2 and AC, so why bash it where it's better ???
No scenario sucks, but rules are customisable to the bones."

See ? I was talking about the RULES, not the SCENARIOS. I stated that I talked about the RULES editor in the very first few sentences of my post. I was NOT talking about SCENARIOS.

[Roman]

Originally posted by Akka le Vil
See ? I was talking about the RULES, not the SCENARIOS. I stated that I talked about the RULES editor in the very first few sentences of my post. I was NOT talking about SCENARIOS.

Fair enough.

However it is the lack of scenario making capabilities that angers me, not the lack of rule editing and I think most of the posters in this thread feel the same.

[Roman]

*bump* #X and still no reply!

[korn469]

Akka le Vil

while you are correct that civ3 does allow the player many oppertunities to change rules, still many rules are hardcoded and can't be changed and firaxis should address this also in addition to the ability to actually make scenarios which is as disappointing as not including multiplayer

[Blaupanzer]

Contradictions

Saying that you want scenario developer feed back and then not responding when you get some is very contradictory. Since scenarios cannot be created currently, the initial response would seem predictable, "Hey, WTF!" Therefore, plenty of time was available to craft a reply. That the fanatics ultimately come second to a developer with a best-selling game is not at all surprising. However, ignoring them seems particularly infuriating. Why not say when (or if) units and cities will be able to be placed, accessed, etc.? Why say you want feedback from this community unless you intend to enable them to do their thing? I'm a little disappointed in Firaxis (and in Sid) that a month has passed since release without a word on this.

[Dienstag]

I'm disappointed too, and trying to be patient. I suppose there isn't a whole lot Firaxis could say right now (other than: "here's your editor on a silver platter") that wouldn't just cause more controversy. And while I think we deserve some communication from them, we really don't want to give them the impression of a torch-wielding mob like from one of those old horror movies.

Any chance that electing a special-representative to Firaxis would help? That's what they do in touchy international crisis negatiations, so it might be appropriate here.

[TCO]

Who should be our representative? Yin? Venger?

[Dienstag]

Who should be our representative?

I was just throwing out an idea.... hopefully Firaxis would be more comfortable (if that's what it takes) dealing with the one guy representing the Apolyton group. Who that representative would be or how selected, I don't know. I would hesitate to mention any names until at least a bunch of people agree with the representative idea. One thing at a time, and judging from our present situation there's no hurry.

[techumseh]

Excuse me, but this is an open letter from the scenario community. We've chosen an approach and agreed on the message. MarkG has agreed to convey our message and will let us know when (and if) there's a reply. Apparently, there's some indication that a reply may be forthcoming. Thanks for your support, but let's be patient a while longer.

[Dienstag]

Sorry. I'm well aware of your open letter to Firaxis and MarkG's conveyance thereof, and I really hope something comes of it. I really didn't mean to suggest circumventing your approach or message on this... I basically broke the "think before posting" commandment, there.
My apologies, and best wishes to the scenario community.

-Dienstag

[techumseh]

Thanks. No harm done.

[TCO]

Well...I found another reason for why we need the editor fixed. The game lacks a cheat menu. So for people who want to do investigational testing, we need editor ability.

[wotan321]

bump

[wotan321]

hold the presses!

Hey, has anyone mentioned that to create scenarios we need to be able to have text boxes pop up on the screen? I have seen nothing in the editor to do this! When an event happens... we need to be told what is happening to progress the scenario and add "realism". So Firaxis... we need an "Events" tab in the scenario editor, please.

If you ask me, (and face it, you were going to...) this is as important as flat maps and unit placement.


...oh, and I'd like to be able to place landmarks on the map, too.

Any comments?