Why do you spit in our faces, Firaxis?

[Thresh1642]

Software houses and publishers have been far more forthcoming with patch information and general feedback, and have produced superb games. The mushroom treatment is not necessary in order to get a patch out.

And other companies have released bad games with no patches at all. We seem to be in a middle gound at the moment. At least there are people from Fireaxis responding to our enquiries

A little recognition of problems would be a good thing, but not so little that it leaves most people frustrated. Perhaps a long, comprehensive list of people's problems, the relative difficulty, a very tentative schedule would alleviate the axieties of many players.

Problem with this is, people will see a tentative schedule, and assume its the real schedule, and when it's not adhered to, they'll pitch a fit. Say something at 10AM, people will start wondering at Noon what's going on, and getting mad a 2PM the problems not solved. And worse, lets say the people at Firaxis are considering 100 things to add with the editor. If they print that list, people will look at it and critique, which is not a problem. But, if the editor is released, and only 75-85 of those ites are included, the howls will be heard across the land like you wouldn't believe.

Firaxis are not miracle workers! They have only a limited amount of resources, and have to work with Infogrames (I'm presuming - if the patch release quality control is anything like what I remember of the SMAC patches - that some kind of authorisation is required) and these things take time.

True. Very True

Yin is right - PR is not an afterthought. Whether you're a furniture maker, a software house, or a supermarket, customer service is EVERYTHING to the company that wants to make money. Hype will only go so far. Quality of product and aftersales service count for a LOT.

Also true, but then Dan and Jeffs participation in these threads and Firaxis efforts to pathc the game shouldn't be considered bad PR.

Isn' there some kind of quote that says for every disgruntled customer, you lose ten sales? Word of mouth is POWERFUL.

Thats true, but it also depends on what the mouth in question is saying.

[QOUTE] Alienating your customer base is Not A Good Thing. Look what happened with SMAC and ACOL. Many of the ACOLytes were Civ fans when they bought SMAC, but because of certain PR blunders by Firaxis (some of which they appear to be repeating) they created a community of people who will NEVER buy another Firaxis game, no matter how good.

One patch is better than no patches. Be thankful.

A mostly fixed game is better than a hastily patched game. Be vigilant. [/QUOTE]

All true. we had to go through what, six or seven patches for Civ2. I never played CTP or CTP2, so I am not sure how many patches there are for those games.

I do think that for the majority of Civ3 gamers (those of us who are not big fans of MP) are that upset over the product that was sold. It wasn't as buggy as it could have been, and the majority of the bugs affecting gameplay have been resolved with this first patch.

Besides, I like to try and beat the game first before modding it, so waiting for an editor is not driving me up the proverbial wall.

[MarkG]

Thresh1642, ACOL now has an active civ3 forum and it's owner is making her own civ3 mod...

[crewealex]

"Homage"

A thoughtful and intelligent choice of vocabulary. Some other people would call it blind stupidity!

[Yoleus]

Originally posted by Dan Magaha FIRAXIS
I didn't say patch, and I didn't say an expansion, either. This is exactly the kind of "conclusion-jumping" that I was referring to in my original post.

Simply put, for those who may have missed it earlier, we aren't saying *anything* until we know whether it's going to happen or not.

Dan

Thanks for the reply!
You are right, that was just my PERSONAL and UNSUPPORTED opinion.
I am sorry if I sounded conclusion-jumping, I will try to stress it more in the future (more IMHOs).
The thing is that I miss any external info. I just do not know anything of what Firaxis is planning to do for CivIII. Not the minimal bit of info, exactly as you posted. I just know that there is out a fair game (CivIII) but with no MP, no editor, no scenarios. I spent some time in the forum to collect some reasonable opinions (quite difficult, even cutting apart Yin and Libertarian who, by the way, are talking to each other in a nice 2 posters thread ) and to get some info on the version to buy: the standard is pretty uncomplete (IMHO), the LE is a joke (IMHO), the eventual others I do not know nothing of, and you say Firaxis does not know for sure either, even if it has been working on the game for a while and relies on its sells. So THE ONLY THING I CAN DO IS SPECULATE.
If it bothers you, I am sorry. I am just quite disappointed.

[AntiQaj]

MarkG, sure, there are a few of us at PlanetACOL who bought the game and like it. But we were severely disappointed with the sheer number of bugs in SMAC/SMAX, even after all the patches. Those of us that did buy the game were willing to give Firaxis the benefit of the doubt and see if they could get a handle on quality control this time around, not to mention the exceptionall poor way they handled some PR issues like the forum and email feedback. The really did give the impression they were only interested in our money and not much else (note: this may not have been the case, but it was the impression most of us had).

This time, I'd like to think they've changed, but if they have, the change is very slight. I don't think I'll be buying another Firaxis game, no matter how fun-looking or hyped it is, if this one ends up like SMAC/SMAX did (ie. still full of bugs, with many of the ones identified in v1.0 still manifest!)

But don't get me wrong. Civ3 is a good game, not a GREAT game, though with some knuckling down on the part of the programmers it could be.

[Kolyana]

Alienating your customer base is Not A Good Thing. Look what happened with SMAC and ACOL. Many of the ACOLytes were Civ fans when they bought SMAC, but because of certain PR blunders by Firaxis (some of which they appear to be repeating) they created a community of people who will NEVER buy another Firaxis game, no matter how good.

Ooh, me smells Gossip.

Do tell, what happened with SMAC? I bought the game, played it to hell, then stopped and went onto other things when they started releasing all sorts of addons and stuff.

Go on ... add some detail to this ...

[yin26]

LOL! Well, you can pretty much imagine the kinds of things you see here with Civ3 -- bad PR, sloppy release and patching, etc. -- but it got a bit more personal with Dan and Jeff from Firaxis. This caused them to actually close down their forums because Dan felt it was better to delete or lock any kind of criticism about the game. And Jeff was busy writing articles about how fans get more enjoyment on-line when there are bugs to talk about. In fact, he still claims, on-line communities simply die when a game lacks bugs to talk about.

Combine all that and you had some really pissed off people. They still haunt the halls, actually ...

[H Tower]

the ambiguity of there posts doesn't make me like them anymore, in fact, i despise them all the more for it.

yin, is it time for the pesimist club to claim victory over all the other clubs and say "civ3 sucks, we were right, you were wrong!" ?

[yin26]

I would never claim victory. It's too solemn an occasion. Too important a topic. Yeah, right!!! LOL!

[DaShi]

Let me get this right. A lot of people bought CivIII because they believed that it had scenerio creating capabilities. Then they add editing features that don't allow you create scenerios. Now Firaxis is saying that they don't know if there will EVER be scenerio creating abilities. Was this promised or not?

[N. Machiavelli]

Originally posted by DaShi
Let me get this right. A lot of people bought CivIII because they believed that it had scenerio creating capabilities. Then they add editing features that don't allow you create scenerios. Now Firaxis is saying that they don't know if there will EVER be scenerio creating abilities. Was this promised or not?

It's not so much that they lied to us, more like most were dissappointed when the promised us that:

"Civ III will ship with an editor that will allow you to greatly customize your Civ experience. This editor not only allows you to alter game elements such as advances, civilizations, units and wonders (to name a few), but also includes a robust map editor."

And

"More powerful and intuitive customization tools."

(Both from the Civ3 FAQ at the official site .

I dunno. What we recieved was indeed 'new', but in order to be 'more powerful', shouldn't we be able to do more than before?

[Provost Harrison]

Blame Infogrames, it's all their fault

[Grim Legacy]

Originally posted by Provost Harrison
Blame Infogrames, it's all their fault

Hmyeah when *are* we going to get avatars back? I can't wait to bother everybody with the power of 500 posts custom avatar-ery.

[Kolyana]

And Jeff was busy writing articles about how fans get more enjoyment on-line when there are bugs to talk about. In fact, he still claims, on-line communities simply die when a game lacks bugs to talk about.

?

:: Blank Stare ::

HAHAHAHHHAHAHHAHAHAHHAHAHHAHAHAHAHHAHA.

:: sniff ::

:: Wipes tear ::

I'd put that up with "I invented the Internet".

[Comrade Tribune]

Originally posted by Provost Harrison
Blame Infogrames, it's all their fault

Dunno.