How do we punish Firaxis?

[JerryK72]

Originally posted by bahoo

I wouldn't have bought it, had there been a DISCLAIMER on the box that said the following:

Warning, this is the beta version, do not buy if you want a fully functional game.

Warning, in spite of this being the beta version, and you paying good money, we won't even give you the satisfaction of giving you a date when we will Patch it so you can actually play the game the way it's supposed to.

Warning, in later phases of the game, regardless of how powerful your computer is, expect to spend 2+ minutes per computer turn.

Warning, this is repackaged Civ2 except we took out the cool wonder movies (because "no on watches them anyway", translatated as "they're too expensive and time consuming to make"), fundamentalism and added a few features, like airplane stuff, that doesn't work.

Warning, you won't be allowed to make simple decisions for your civilization because wise city governors will be making them, example; build swordsmen during the modern age.

Warning, you're cities may up and overthrow you because your neighbors have a church, and there is nothing the mass of gun-toting soldiers in the city can do about it.



Put those on the package when you ship it, and maybe we wouldn't be here complaining after having already bought the game.

Hey Bahoo, or should I say Boo-Hoo, I don't think anyone would have bought a game with this many warnings! However, a majority of your warnings are simply untrue. Except the one about the Tin Box, I'll give you that one.

Lets start with the Beta Version argument. I'm sorry to say its not a Beta version, because the game is fully functional. It may not do everything YOU want it to do, but you can't blame that on functionality..

About the patch thing, why should they tell us EXACTLY when the patch is supposed to be out. Wouldn't that cause the same problem as a rushed game, because they committed to a date. I can see it now, 100+ threads whining how the patch is a beta patch. Give me a break..

2+ minutes per turn? Sure it does. When is the last time you played a turn based BOARD GAME with 8-16 people. I'm sure it took a half hour before you got your next turn. So a computer takes 2 minutes, I say thats pretty darn fast. For what its worth, I played a game with 16 civs and it took only a minute between turns in the latter stages, and my laptop is about average.. The point is, there are probably over 100,000 different PC configurations at players homes, so the game is bound to go slower on some machines.

Civ II repackaging? You must me nuts. I've played CIV II, and CIV III is much much different, CIV 3 reminds me more of SMAC than it does CIV II

Governor problems? No one ever said you must use a governor. Cities only build older models when they don't have access to the newer resources. If my city trys to build a swordsman in the modern times, I simply switch it..

Culture.. You can have plenty of gun toting soldiers but if a city is near civil disorder, it can overthrow the government and defect. Thats a new part of the game that you'll have to deal with...

So you see, all your little warnings really make no sense, once you really think about them...

[kmj]

To start with: I agree that there are some issues with Civ3, most are either opinions about gameplay and balance vs. realism and minor bugs. ...oh, and lets not forget multiplayer and scenario creation issues.

That said, I think many (not all) of the people who are complaining go way overboard in few ways:

1) They ignore all good aspects of the game in their efforts to improve that the game is "Broken".

2) They accuse everyone who disagrees with them of being spineless imbeciles, "fundies", "anklebiters", etc. They feel that everyone should agree with them that the game can't be fun to play. This is just silly. I think these people have trouble looking at issues from more than one perspective and understanding that things aren't just black and white. I won't say any more about that, because I don't want to be insulting to anyone. Suffice it so say that anyone who thinks that everyone who enjoys the game is somekind of spineless ass-kisser is just plain wrong.

3) They either exaggerate issues with the game, or project problems they're having, assuming that everyone else is having the same problem.

a)I've never had conquered cities revert due to culture; 'course I haven't entered into any "Vietnam" type situations. As a side note, has anyone tried new tactics to deal with this? (Just a thought here) If you can militarily overpower them, you can easily get into their cities, sell off some improvements, let it revert back while your army moves on to take out their next strong point; turn 'em into a skeleton of a country all around, then start to actually take their cities. Again, just a thought.

b)I've never had the enemy go straight for my weak cities. Just hasn't happened.

c) Hardware issues: Some people seem to have to wait a while, while others don't, and this has nothing to do with cpu or ram. Perhaps they're playing with 16 civs? or maybe it's the video card?

d) I've thrown hordes of jaguar warriors at spearmen without success. Likewise, I've had cavalry conquer spearman after spearman without significant casualties... It seems that these claims are vastly exaggerated, that someone sees it once or twice in a game, and they get mad about it. Maybe I've just been lucky that the system works as Fireaxis planned for me. I don't know.

Bahoo:


Warning, in spite of this being the beta version, and you paying good money, we won't even give you the satisfaction of giving you a date when we will Patch it so you can actually play the game the way it's supposed to.


You can play it the way it's supposed to be played; there are just a few bugs. The patch is not going to change any major design aspects of the game.


Warning, in later phases of the game, regardless of how powerful your computer is, expect to spend 2+ minutes per computer turn.


I don't spend 2+ minutes waiting, and I have 300MHz w/ 128MB RAM.


Warning, this is repackaged Civ2 except we took out the cool wonder movies (because "no on watches them anyway", translatated as "they're too expensive and time consuming to make"), fundamentalism and added a few features, like airplane stuff, that doesn't work.


The game is sooo not repackaged Civ2. A brighter AI, much improved diplomacy, culture, strategic resouces and luxuries, remodeled (and improved, IMO) espionage...


Warning, you won't be allowed to make simple decisions for your civilization because wise city governors will be making them, example; build swordsmen during the modern age.


Uh, you can make whateved decisions you want to make. The game stops and tells you when you've built an improvement, just like it did in Civ2; and just like in Civ2, it doesn't stop the game when units are built. The only difference is now, instead of building the same unit the governer picks what it thinks it should build. Just as good as, if not better than, Civ2. Sure occasionally my governer decides I need a galleon in 1996 when I'm building SS Thrusters, but chances are I'd be changing the production in that city anyway.


Warning, you're cities may up and overthrow you because your neighbors have a church, and there is nothing the mass of gun-toting soldiers in the city can do about it.


You can build your own church.



Warning, if you buy this LE edition all you get extra is a cheap paper tree and a cool cookie tin.


LOL! What did you think you were getting for the LE? The only real reason to buy the LE was to have bought the LE, if you really thought you were going to get something special, I'm sorry. Next time, don't buy the LE of a game, because chances are you won't get anything tremendous.


Put those on the package when you ship it, and maybe we wouldn't be here complaining after having already bought the game.


Trust me. People would complain just as much. People love to complain; we've all spent alot of time practicing and we're very good at it. People really don't seem to understand how good they've got it when their biggest problem is that a game didn't come out the way they had hoped it would.

[Trifna]

Personally, I didn't bought Civ III, partly because of university (time).

I'll see later...

[TheDarkside]

Originally posted by Trifna
Personally, I didn't bought Civ III, partly because of university (time).

I'll see later...

Wow, gotta respect that much will power! You have my respects.

[MarkG]

Re: Re: Re: He has a point.....

Originally posted by Cavalier_13
"Rewrite History with the Greatest Game of All Time
Witness an epic adventure unfold before you as you wield the ultimate power and reinvent the history of Civilization. "

Now, after a claim like that, am I not allowed to expect more from the game? If the quote stated "Rewrite History with the Greatest Game of All Time once we patch it a few times", then I my expectations would be different.

do you take all advertisements as an actual promise from the company about it's product?

[Deathray]

[Sarcastic whining mode]
Waaah! Firaxis said it would be the greatest game of all time and it was only the second greatest because Deus Ex is the greatest! Die Firaxis Die! I'm going to sue you for everything I've got!
[/Sarcastic whining mode]

Ok, seriously, if you don't like it then fine, but loads of people do actually really like the game. The fact is that its a damn good one. It has a couple of minor problems, but nothing really serious. The things that annoy me so far are:

Coastal fortresses don't appear to work.

One game I played the Theory of Evolution wonder didn't do anything when I built it.

Once, after 6 hours of non-stop play, I had delays of almost 10 seconds between closing the city screen and some other windows as well. It also took a lot longer to generate the turn. I thought this was just as a result of having 16 civs on a huge map in the late stages of the game with hundreds of units each. However, just to be sure, I checked my system status. All of my memory was used up. Considering I have 256mb of PC2100 DDR Ram, I was pretty surprised. I restarted the computer, reloaded and it was back to about 40% memory used. I think that this slowdown is probably due to the Windows 95/98 memory leakage bug. Bloody useless inefficient operating system. As a result I have finally decided to take the plunge and get myself a copy of Linux.

[Kaak]

How to punish them:

Go to walmart and buy 200 blank cds - $100
spend a few days burning copies of civ3
Get some friends together and hand them out in front of Game retailers.

If you see a cop, run like hell tho

cost to you: 100$ and a little time
cost to firaxis and infograms: near $10,000 =) punishment enough, eh?

[Dis]

I feel a apolyton civil war coming on

just call someone a whiner and look at the response

test:

everyone who posts in this thread is a whiner. get a life and either play this game, or play another game.

end test.

[Spartan_RawB]

Why do I get the feeling that one or two of these posters are really Firaxian/Infograme spokespersons in disguise?

[MarkG]

congrats kaak, you just killed this thread