Did Civ2 have this kind of criticism when it came out?

[Mister Hand]

A couple notes:

When Civ2 was released, the Internet wasn't nearly as popular and patches were a lot harder to get out to everybody who had bought the game. As such, more work was put in on the front end to get rid of as many bugs as possible. Nowadays, fans flood the forums with "we want the game NOW...release it as is and patch it later!!!" As such, games are released when they are mostly finished, with the knowledge that the bugs can be patched away easily thanks to the internet. This is true of all games, not just Civ3.

All games receive this criticism when they come out. Go to the appropriate forum for ANY game that has just been released, and you'll find no end to posts saying "this game sucks," not to mention the "hilarious" quip "Why did I pay to be a beta-tester?" Yeah, never heard that one before. Let's face it, people are more vocal when they're upset, so the complainers will always out-shout those who are happy with any given game.

Believe me, in five years (or whenever the next game comes out), everybody will be in here griping about how great Civ3 was and how Firaxis blew it with Civ4 blah blah blah. Time heals all wounds.

[oedo]

Heh, sounds to me like you are CIV-ed out. Do you still play Civ2 or SMAC? I remember when SMAC came out, I was still playing Civ2 so much that it was getting played out. Then I buy SMAC and I found it really boring... could that be why you are bored with civ3 already?

hmm no, I don´t think so. I´ve been playing civ for more than ten years now. when civ1 was released it initially became my favorite game. there were periods when I paused playing civ. but I never really quit playing civ.
when civ2 was released my enthusiasm was unbroken. what an awesome game! I spent even more time with civ2 than I ever did with civ1. I realized that civ is way more than just a computer-game for me. on my hd I have a folder called games and I have a folder called civilization which is not a sub-folder of games.
I don´t see any reason why now, of all times, at the point civ3(beta) is released, I should be cived out. two weeks ago I played my most recent mp-game and I didn´t feel like never ever playing civ2 anymore again. it will just be a matter of time (I´m too busy at the moment to play civ2 each time I like to play).
civ3, however, is different. I played it twice now and I seriously consider wiping it away from my hd. at best i will put it into the folder called games where I have games I usually played once to the end and never touched again. I´m about as disappointed about civ3 as I were about ctp. my first impression was a good one, but then I found out it was just plain boring.
I don´t think that now, after ten years, I´m cived out. it´s more that I´m now, after only two games, I´m civ3ed out. I expected an improvement of best and most succesful game of the last century and I got, measured with what I expected, a whole lot of rubbish. that´s it.

[Velociryx]

Mr. Hand....you Blasphemer! LOL....you're no fun!

-=Vel=-

[Comrade Tribune]

Originally posted by oedo
plus, civ3 is extremely boring. I wonder how they will fix this.

Nah, it´s absolutely not boring.

There was one big problem with CivII: It was too easy. Launching a spaceship before 0AD is ridiculous. I believe they did succeed in making the game much harder to beat => less boring. There are still some issues, though: AI is OK when attacking, but not that good at defense, imo. It also seems to focus on building lots of useless cities rather than improving good ones; some more testing would have been in order. Still, overall, CivIII is a better game than CivII.

[Strollen]

Originally posted by oedo


it doesn´t really matter if civ2 was buggy or not. the bugs that were fixed by the patches were minor bugs. there´s always been a concrete solution for this.

civ3, however, is not only buggy. the whole concept is broken. it´s not only because it doesn´t include MP yet. this is sad enough.
it´s because civ3 will never be a MP-game. not only for the reasons eyes mentioned. the game engine is so slow it will most probably take several days to finish one turn in the late game.

plus, civ3 is extremely boring. I wonder how they will fix this.

All of Civ2 bugs were not minor. Version 1.03 completed broke the AI, luckily Brian was very responsive and the patch was available in a couple of weeks. The Goto command still doesn't work properly today. There is a work around but it involved sending a unit to a series of intermediate locations, very time consuming, and not a 100% reliable.

Civ3 has one big bug air superiority, other than that, it is pretty much crash free, a rarity this days. What other serious bugs does it have?

Why is the game concept broken? I find having to fight or trade for resources makes the game very interesting. I find the AI a lot more competitive in the end game at Monarch than Civ2 at the Diety level.

I agree that Civ3 will probably suck for MP. Starting positions matter a lot in Civ3, and you won't even know you have a bad starting position until late into the game. In a single player game I find overcoming a bad position challenging. In a MP game, I would be very frustrated.

The simple fact is that Civ series is not an MP friendly, even those of us who like MP games, and love long turn-based strategy games are daunted by the prospect of waiting for long stretches why your opponent finished his turn. Sid has nothing against MP games, his first game at Firaxis was Gettysburg a very good MP game. However, he has said repeatedly that CIV was designed as single player game.

I understand the Civ2 MP crowd is a dedicated group. That is terrific but from Firaxis point of view you still only buy one copy of the game (and judging from the thread traffic some of you are too cheap to even do that). Personally, I hope that instead of spending a lot of effort trying to bolt MP on to CIV3, Firaxis spends its resource improving Civ3, and than goes on to make a really great new MP game.

[Freeze]

If you want to have rational discussions you need to stop making so many wrong assumptions.

[DarkCloud]

ah- anohter note, as far as I can remember Alpha Centauri got bashed even worse than Civ III is on these boards- thanks to yin (according to rumor) actually the AC bashing continues today- so I think it is more than Civ III; and a few dedicated people travel to the CTP sections nowadays to tell the CTPers how much 'losers' they are

[DarkCloud]

and of course- criticism is good- it helps iron out flaws and create workarounds.

[DrFell]

Originally posted by Ray K


Why should the most vocal 1% dictate the direction of the game design for the other 99%, especially if they are too cheap to buy Civ4 in 3-4 years?

The fact is the game design as it is is very poor for multiplay. The game could have been designed in a more multiplayer-friendly way without harming single play. I just hope in the extra time firaxis are taking for multiplay, they get it right.

Also, you completely got the wrong end of the stick on the 'playing for the next 6 yrs' comment. I meant that even if the civ series died out, the mp players will stick to the game for a long time to come. It has nothing to do with them being cheap, idiot, they are the ones who wait for the release, not casual single play newbies. I also highly doubt there will be a civ 4 in 3 years time. More like a load of expansion packs containing scenarios but not really modifying the basic game, as civ2. After all firaxis want to milk the cow for all it's got to give.

[DrFell]

Originally posted by Comrade Tribune
There was one big problem with CivII: It was too easy. Launching a spaceship before 0AD is ridiculous.

You can't launch a spaceship before 0AD so obviously you never did it before; the game won't let you build the spaceship parts. And the reason why so many are bothered about the lack of multiplayer in civ3? Because they got used to kicking the AIs arse in SP, moved on to multiplay, and enjoyed it. You see, unlike an AI that has to cheat to even equal a human, playing with other people is always challenging as there is always someone close enough to your level of skill. It's a much better feeling knowing that you're playing with another person on a roughly equal playing field with no cheating on either side, than against an AI with huge production bonuses.