Open letter to Firaxis from the scenario community

[ravagon]

Re: Re: Thats great but...

Originally posted by Case

I went to buy Civ 3 today only to find that it costs A$100! I'm saving my money untill Firaxis confirm that scenario editing tools will be made advailable.

Yeah, me too (LE is about $110 ?). The hundred I'd set aside for civ3 is now going to EU2 (12th Dec and counting ).
Civ2 was the first game I bought that really let me edit/mod/scenarioify pretty much to my hearts content. Basically my major criterion for almost all games since has been the ability to edit/modify the various aspects. Civ3 without this just is not Civ3. Maybe at some point in the future this will change but until then ...
Shame really as it sounds pretty good (bugs excepted - but these can/will be fixed anyway) but that's the way it goes.

Enough waffling.

[Harlan]

Now I finally have the game, and am enjoying playing it a lot. I think its much more fun out of the box than the CTP games. But I'm also completely staggered by the sheer uneditability of the whole thing. I never imagined that Civ3 would actually be a step backwards in editability compared to Civ2. A huge step backwards from SMAC too, from what I hear about that game.

What really blows my mind is how the game appears to be hardcoded so as to make deeper editing completely impossible. Take a look at the thread "Civilization III BIC file format" in the creation forum. For instance, wonder, small wonder and improvement effects, and the strength of those effects all appear to be completely hardcoded, so you can't ever change a wonder to a small wonder for example, or change the power of most effects.

The Firaxis team could go back and redo some of these things, but its clear that no attempt whatsoever was made to open things up for editing as the code was originally written. Activision took the completely opposite approach. Virtually everything was editable from the conception, so you could practically make a completely different game using that editor.

This really disturbs me. It would indicate that we're probably not going to get many of the features we seek cos the game just wasn't designed with editing in mind.

I'm also miffed at Firaxis's silence on these issues. They did mention at some point they'd be asking for feedback on what scenario makers wanted, once their direction was more focused. Still nothing. That says to me there are things like scripting solutions that haven't even begun to cross their radar screens.

Why do Firaxis let people twist in the wind on some issues, and respond quickly to other very trivial issues? Sometimes in the same thread. As an example, the response to the whole multiplayer issue was so wierd. At the very least they could say "I'm listening, but the legal dept. wouldn't like me to answer at this time".

I'm really frustrated. On one hand I love Civ3 for its playability, but have major issues with its editability. On the other I love CTP2 for its editability but have major issues with its playability. Not sure what to do.

[Yoleus]

Undead and kicking!

"Hi, I am the undead thread and I am back!"
(bump)

[Roman]

Harlan, you raise some serious issues about the game for me (I don't have it yet). All the hardcoding you point out suggests that this game will never be very customizable.

[klesh]

I'm no 'puter guru...

but in looking at our ability to edit things, I had the same vibrations that Harlan has had. I wasn't positive, so I have waited for 'the pros' to come out and verify my thoughts. Unfortunately I cannot compare CivIII to SMAC or CtP because I dont own the latter two. But man, this is supposed to be progress you know? My hope for CivIII was that it would be totally and completely editable... I'm talking wonders effects, city improvement effects, all kinds of things. To see confirmation from 'the greats' like Harlan et al. that much of the meat of CivIII is hardcoded is highly dissapointing. Perhaps some of the proposed changes can make CivIII better than it is now for scen making, but it is becomming apparent that we may have to stick to the old standbys for the foreseeable future.


-FMK.

[Marko]

I am also worried about "culture expansion" issues. How to make war scenarios if your conquested cities simply "switch back" to enemy side with all your army inside them?
Razing of captured cities is suggested as solution but it is not an option in scenarios.

We must be able to turn off this feature in scenarios.

[klesh]

Originally posted by Marko
I am also worried about "culture expansion" issues. How to make war scenarios if your conquested cities simply "switch back" to enemy side with all your army inside them?
Razing of captured cities is suggested as solution but it is not an option in scenarios.

[sarcasm]
What?!? You mean you don't want me to raze Paris on the first turn of my Blitzkrieg, Marko!? 'Cause if I don't, the French Underground will be able to defeat my scores of Panzertruppen, you know, the same ones that the entire French Army couldn't stop just 'days' before!

Vive la France!

[/sarcasm]

-FMK.

[Case]

Here's a question for programmers: Is it easier to hard code a game or 'soft code'(?) it so that it's open to editing?

[MarkG]

Originally posted by Case
Here's a question for programmers: Is it easier to hard code a game or 'soft code'(?) it so that it's open to editing?

partial answer: it has been said that there is a binary file format with the rules(the .bic files) instead of text files in order to have low loading/saving times

[Hans2]

Personally, I'm going to wait for the first patch before I blast the programers. In reality there is only a few more things needed to make the editor excellent. Ability to add cities and units, ability to turn off razing, and scripting language. Once this stuff is added the editor will be pretty good.

[ravagon]

Originally posted by Hans2
Once this stuff is added the editor will be pretty good.

Sounds good to me but at this point I think the more accurate phraseology may be IF ALL this stuff is added the editor could be pretty good.
Without it the scenario community is pretty much up the creek without a paddle-shaped object, especially if the in-game coding is not easily accessible to whatever custom-made editors people can come up with.
Henceforth this thread...

[Yoleus]

To pay, or not to pay

"with just these two features more, the game will be fine"
Yes, but would you merrily pay for an expansion, or do you expect a patch? I fear an eventual patch will just solve basic
gameplay issues, or worse just some "game variables" (like the corruption level) arbitrarily set before release waiting for the buyers' playtest... "they like to have less corruption! Ok, let's make (fake?) a patch to tune the game". Kind of paying beta testers.
But the scenario fixing can come up LATER in the scenario edition: "new extended scenario making capabilities! Even more than in the basic game!"
How much do you think will be patch and how much expansion pack?

[Roman]

Originally posted by Hans2
Personally, I'm going to wait for the first patch before I blast the programers. In reality there is only a few more things needed to make the editor excellent. Ability to add cities and units, ability to turn off razing, and scripting language. Once this stuff is added the editor will be pretty good.

Sure, once all of this is added the editing tools will be good. This, however, is no small task. I doubt a scripting language is even possible with so many things hardcoded in the game.

[Roman]

Actually, I am pondering whether to get the game at all. Where I live, it has been out for a while now, but I was not in the least bit tempted to get it after hearing about the impossibility of making scenarios and the lack of multiplayer. The fact is that I only ever play scenarios or multiplayer (ok, maybe 1 or 2 games of SP to learn the concepts), so there is little point in buying a game that does not have either.

[techumseh]

Any news, Markos?