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I've had more than enough of this, I'm not putting up with this Firaxis/Infogrames crap any longer: "Oh yeah, we're gonna make the best game ever, it will by far outdo any other (civ-)game ever made and we'll do everything we can to support the fan-community in their customization efforts". Meanwhile, they didn't have a demo, no MP, no scenarios, disappointing LE, no public beta, very poor PR (as Yin put it), they're treating non-Americans like second-class citizens, the game itself is not only just a 'conservative sequel' but also - even for such a conservative product - of only mediocre quality AND, more importantly (to me), no scripting- or event-language and no scenario support of any kind. Now, I can (and did) accept all that, there are excuses for such things and they can (partially) be fixed afterwards but now they apparently expect us to ask for written permission before we make any modifications to the game. How many other games are there out there for which this is required? Such policy is absolutely rediculous, there is no excuse for it; supporting the fan-community my @ss! 
I can understand how they don't like it if people start translation projects on their own, but the way they're responding to Kai Fiebach's project is outrageous. They announced it will be about 4-6 months before a German translation becomes available and they're actually surprised fans start translating it themselves?
Either you release translations (almost) immediately after the original release (other companies can do it, why can't they?) or you accept the fact that fans will act themselves. To think fans will patiently wait six months is naive to say the least, and to start a campaign of lawsuits (yeah, yeah, I know it's technically not a lawsuit but it's not a friendly email/phone-call either) and slandering against your fans is extremely immature and inappropriate.
To me, mod- and scenario-making is by far the most important reason for playing Civ and Firaxis/Infogrames seem to be determined to restrict modmakers as much as they can (no scripting, no scenario support, no standard-format files for graphics and texts, requiring fans to ask permission for customization, generally taking advantage of our goodwill), even though their PR-campaign say differently (no doubt in the hope of selling more copies). For this reason and to sympathize with Kai Fiebach/ColdFever, who - regardless of his good intentions - is being royally f*cked for all of us to see (and I can't help but wonder who will be next), I'm bailing out of Civ3 altogether. I originally planned on buying the game when the price-quality ratio was acceptable (i.e. after a patch or two or after the price drops), but I'm not gonna do so anymore. I'll no longer visit Civ3.com (and thus give up my hard-fought #5 ranking on CivTrivia: good luck to Skanky Burns et al) or the Apolyton (and CivFanatics) Civ3 section & forums, I will no longer update the XPC poll (just posted a last big update but that's it) and I resign as the Apolyton ExtraCivs Pack project leader. Firaxis/Infogrames have lost me to the competition, probably for good. You can say what you want of Activision, but at least they were sincere in their attempts of helping the fans (unfortunately due to internal reorganizations and commercial failure their options were very limited)...
Yes, I realize that this is only a small thing, I'm only one individual and it won't hurt Firaxis or Infogrames one bit but it's a big thing for me. I won't start a campaign of flaming, trolling or trying to convince people to follow my lead (heck, I'd probably get sued if I did), but I wouldn't mind if other people would take a moment to contemplate on whether or not they think the way Firaxis/Infogrames have been acting lately (particularly in the last week or so but also over the last 6 months) requires some form of protest (edit: I just noticed Hoek's open letter: that's one option, my selfimposed 'cease and desist order' is another, more radical, one)...
If anyone needs me, I can be found in the CtP(2) forums (and possibly in the Clash and other Alt Civs projects as well) and I check my email and PM regularly (and I'll keep an eye on this thread in the next few days). Inspite of Firaxis/Infogrames' behaviour, the time I spent on these Civ3 forums in the last few months was fun, interesting and well spent, so I hope to see many of you guys (including the Firaxians, I don't have anything against them personally) elsewhere sometime. Until then, I salute you all: Goodbye, Auf Wiedersehen, Au revoir, Hasta la vista, G^is, Shalom, Do svidanja, Zai jian, Sayonara, Salaam, Ciao, Khairete, Xaire, Vale, Näkemiin, Adjö, Até logo, Czesc, Sawatdi, Hoscakal, Dehna hunu, Fo tuma du, De groete, Tjow...
(I apologize if I left out anyone's language but I only speak so many languages
)
edit: typo's 'n stuff...
I can understand how they don't like it if people start translation projects on their own, but the way they're responding to Kai Fiebach's project is outrageous. They announced it will be about 4-6 months before a German translation becomes available and they're actually surprised fans start translating it themselves?
Either you release translations (almost) immediately after the original release (other companies can do it, why can't they?) or you accept the fact that fans will act themselves. To think fans will patiently wait six months is naive to say the least, and to start a campaign of lawsuits (yeah, yeah, I know it's technically not a lawsuit but it's not a friendly email/phone-call either) and slandering against your fans is extremely immature and inappropriate.To me, mod- and scenario-making is by far the most important reason for playing Civ and Firaxis/Infogrames seem to be determined to restrict modmakers as much as they can (no scripting, no scenario support, no standard-format files for graphics and texts, requiring fans to ask permission for customization, generally taking advantage of our goodwill), even though their PR-campaign say differently (no doubt in the hope of selling more copies). For this reason and to sympathize with Kai Fiebach/ColdFever, who - regardless of his good intentions - is being royally f*cked for all of us to see (and I can't help but wonder who will be next), I'm bailing out of Civ3 altogether. I originally planned on buying the game when the price-quality ratio was acceptable (i.e. after a patch or two or after the price drops), but I'm not gonna do so anymore. I'll no longer visit Civ3.com (and thus give up my hard-fought #5 ranking on CivTrivia: good luck to Skanky Burns et al) or the Apolyton (and CivFanatics) Civ3 section & forums, I will no longer update the XPC poll (just posted a last big update but that's it) and I resign as the Apolyton ExtraCivs Pack project leader. Firaxis/Infogrames have lost me to the competition, probably for good. You can say what you want of Activision, but at least they were sincere in their attempts of helping the fans (unfortunately due to internal reorganizations and commercial failure their options were very limited)...
Yes, I realize that this is only a small thing, I'm only one individual and it won't hurt Firaxis or Infogrames one bit but it's a big thing for me. I won't start a campaign of flaming, trolling or trying to convince people to follow my lead (heck, I'd probably get sued if I did), but I wouldn't mind if other people would take a moment to contemplate on whether or not they think the way Firaxis/Infogrames have been acting lately (particularly in the last week or so but also over the last 6 months) requires some form of protest (edit: I just noticed Hoek's open letter: that's one option, my selfimposed 'cease and desist order' is another, more radical, one)...
If anyone needs me, I can be found in the CtP(2) forums (and possibly in the Clash and other Alt Civs projects as well) and I check my email and PM regularly (and I'll keep an eye on this thread in the next few days). Inspite of Firaxis/Infogrames' behaviour, the time I spent on these Civ3 forums in the last few months was fun, interesting and well spent, so I hope to see many of you guys (including the Firaxians, I don't have anything against them personally) elsewhere sometime. Until then, I salute you all: Goodbye, Auf Wiedersehen, Au revoir, Hasta la vista, G^is, Shalom, Do svidanja, Zai jian, Sayonara, Salaam, Ciao, Khairete, Xaire, Vale, Näkemiin, Adjö, Até logo, Czesc, Sawatdi, Hoscakal, Dehna hunu, Fo tuma du, De groete, Tjow...
(I apologize if I left out anyone's language but I only speak so many languages
)edit: typo's 'n stuff...
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