Patch Update

[adaMada]

Re: Re: Re: Things I would love to see in a patch

Originally posted by sophist
I think it would be great if Firaxis opened the scenario/map file format and possibly supplied a C API for it. Then people could write custom map generators to address many of these problems. I don't see a down side to them doing this the way there would be with opening other things.

Would a C-API for any part of the game be awsome? Of course -- I know basic C, but don't actually get to use it -- that could change if Faraxis did this. But I don't think it's ultra-likely, and also I don't put it high on my list of priorities compared to being able to make scenerios point blank...

-- adaMada

[sophist]

Re: Re: Re: Re: Things I would love to see in a patch

Yeah, I guess I'm just pampered by the tremendous support that id has given the q1/q2/q3a mod community.

Originally posted by adaMada


Would a C-API for any part of the game be awsome? Of course -- I know basic C, but don't actually get to use it -- that could change if Faraxis did this. But I don't think it's ultra-likely, and also I don't put it high on my list of priorities compared to being able to make scenerios point blank...

-- adaMada

[Rasputin]

perhpas if firaxis had released a beta version of the original game no patch would have been necessary... oh yeah the civ 3 game is jsut a beta version till Civ 3 MP arrives...

I did notice Dan once again ignores all questions he isnt allowed to answer.!!!!

[Pythagoras]

Originally posted by Rasputin
perhpas if firaxis had released a beta version of the original game no patch would have been necessary... oh yeah the civ 3 game is jsut a beta version till Civ 3 MP arrives...

I did notice Dan once again ignores all questions he isnt allowed to answer.!!!!

I have seen games in much worse shape than Civ3 is at release. EU is a good example. Also, Firaxis rarely extended the release date. So to have a game this polished with little extension of the initial release date is a suprise for me.

[ElitePersian]

Originally posted by Pythagoras


I have seen games in much worse shape than Civ3 is at release. EU is a good example. Also, Firaxis rarely extended the release date. So to have a game this polished with little extension of the initial release date is a suprise for me.

yes, a lot more games have been released which were in worse condition than civ3. Im actually glad they released it early. I couldnt have imagined waiting another 3 weeks or whatever. At least we can play the game, and the minor bugs will be solved.

[Cozy_22303]

...I just hope we won't have to pay for the patch

[korn469]

Pythagoras and ElitePersian

civ3 was originally scheduled to come out for christmas of 2000 but that all fell apart when the guys from big huge games left firaxis (reynolds, trains, coleman, inscore, etc.) so civ3 is about a year late...i think someone from firaxis (Soren perhaps) said that they lost about 7 months because of it, so it's not like civ3 came out early from its original time frame or anything

but besides lacking mp and a true scenario editor (which is a big deal) civ3 doesn't have any showstoppers, just a bunch of little bugs that hopefully the patch will fix

[Adm.Naismith]

"Enthusiasm" seems the hottest word around here.

I can't understand why people fall in love with a developer because he announce a coming of a patch

Thank him for the news, then wait to see if it fix the broken part of a game you payed.

All this fuss about the wonderful support you got, way before having tested the patch at work...

I don't want to insult Firaxis, so I'll wait to judge their work until I see it.
It seems to me more fair and more pratical, considered how many things went on bad path recently with the rushed release, the missing of some key features, the legal approach of Infogrames against the game community... I prefer and recommend the "Wait & See" approach

[MarkG]

Originally posted by korn469
civ3 was originally scheduled to come out for christmas of 2000

huh? with development starting in spring 1999 how could it be scheduled for christmas 2000?!?

[Grumbold]

18 month development schedules are not unknown, but for a complete redevelopment it would have been very ambitious. Back then they were talking of rolling terrain so perhaps they anticipated reusing more of the SMAC code than they eventually did.

[MattHiggs]

Okay, it's probably been asked a thousand times, but, has anyone got any idea when the patch will be released. I am dying to get some of these bugs of the game ironed out!

[Robert]

uuuuuh, Matt......
that's what the thread posted tried to make clear (Jeffrey from FIRAXIS)

somewhere next week !

[MattHiggs]

Sorry, I should know better.

[Saint Marcus]

I really hope this patch is any good, cause the way Civ3 is now is pissing me off. It's extremely unstable, it crashes frequently and reloading doesn't do anything either cause it will just crash at the exact same point in the game. Others have found this out as well. The game crashes when making contact with a certain civ, while in other games it's when you build a city in a certain spot, or sometimes it's something the AI does, and since you can't do anything about it the game is ruined. You can't play anymore cause it will crash at the exact same spot every single time.

[Jeannette]

Although I feel that some people in this thread are arrogant and unnecessarily rude, some of their concerns - about Air Superiority, Espionage, Corruption, etc. - are almost universally shared. I'm fairly confident that Firaxis will address these, but there are a number of things that I feel betray how rushed the game was - evidently to meet the publisher's Xmas deadline - that are UNLIKELY to get fixed.

For a start, everyone's noticed what a strain it is to even see the resources on the map, which is why so many mod-makers like Sn00py are working overtime to improve the picture. (They're not being arrogant; they're just making the game more playable.) Shouldn't this have been finessed in-house by Firaxis?

Have you noticed how redundant and un-intuitive some of the on-screen buttons are? The D(iplomacy), P(alace) and S(paceship) tabs at the bottom-right are all echoed as F-keys, when they could be devoted to useful extras like, say, find-city, find-resource, or single-clicking a list of deals-about-to-expire.

Moreover, the Diplomacy function is available a third time (if I'm not mistaken) at top-left: the button with the speech balloon. Why, when there's so much other info we require at our fingertips?

In any case, shouldn't P(alace), which is purely decorative, not strategic at all, logically be placed top-right, next to the City View eye? The control panel is all over the map!

I especially dislike the way alert messages for famine and city-unrest flash past so fast (and in a flimsy-looking font that's inconsistent with the general game font) that I barely have time to read them, requiring me to laboriously scroll around the map each turn to see if I missed anything. There should be a tab or button for THAT!

I also find the artwork for the various support screens inconsistent, unlike that of CivII, which had some elegance and cohesiveness. Look at the City View, Palace, New Era and Historograph screens: all different styles. What game am I playing here, and on what planet?

And don't get me started on that stupid, animated warrior who gongs the fairground game at the end. And the victory/defeat splash pages? Ugly art, childish jokes with no replay value. (As opposed to the fairly witty and informative civilization descriptions in the civilopaedia.) I just quit right out of this part, I can tell you.

I know that some of my complaints are petty, but for me it really does suggest what a rush-build CivIII has been; I love much of it, but there are aspects of its design that bode ill for Hall-of-Fame status... in my humble opinion.