Dan Magaha explains Firaxis position on late-game tedium

[hexagonian]

Re: Re: Re: Firaxis' Apathy

Originally posted by John-SJ
Yes, it is best that they support this one. I speak only for myself here, but up until now when Firaxis released a game I bought it the first day it was available, no questions asked. That's clearly what Firaxis was counting on for a lot of sales with Civ3, but I think Civ3 will be the LAST game where people will automatically assume (as I did) that the Sid Meier name means anything. From now on I will wait, and not just for the online reviews, obviously those can't be relied on any more either, I'll wait for the opinions of the suck... I mean players who buy the game first before making my decision.
John-SJ

Hear, hear, and I am so glad for the so-called 'whiners' and their view on this game, because they offer a perspective that will never come from the developers.

Does anyone really think that Firaxis would say anything to drive sales down...would they say anything about the late-game tedium or the lack of a grouping command as a positive feature?

If all we heard were the positives, then the pictuce is not a true one. There are features in civ3 which are positive, but...

...most of the issues do boil down to preferences.

This is not to criticize anyone who may enjoy the game - if you like managing 200 workers...great! if you like to move each unit one unit at a time...so be it! If you like revolts that occur without warning...more power to you! Lack of ease to get in-game info...wonderful!!!

Thanks to the 'whiners' for bringing those features out in the open for all us fence-sitters. Keep up the good work, and let's hope there is a miracle patch in the future!!!

Maybe it will happen. I'll wait.

Back to lurking...

[Kolyana]

What confuses me are the reviews circulating out there - online and in magazines. It's almost as if *everyone* played the game for a couple of hours, never got into the middle to late ages, and whipped out a review just before they made a mad dash to the coffee shop.

Based on reviews, I would have bought the game. Based on theis forum, I would've given it a wide berth. How can the gaming community and the reviewers be so diametrically opposed?

[Ming]

Originally posted by Kolyana
What confuses me are the reviews circulating out there - online and in magazines. It's almost as if *everyone* played the game for a couple of hours, never got into the middle to late ages, and whipped out a review just before they made a mad dash to the coffee shop.

You don't seem confused to me... That's exactly what happened.
Publishers needed quick reviews so that they could be first, and that's just what they all are... quick reviews. You really need to play the game for a long time to write a good review. I would have loved to have a read a review by Libertarian after he had played the game...

Plus, the online and magazines concerns are in bed with the publishers of games. That is where the bulk of their advertising revenues come from a bad system to say the least, but that's reality. Even when they are critical, they never go far enough. Add that to the poor quality of game testing, and it's no surprise why anybody with a half a brain won't buy a game based on those types of reviews

[Kolyana]

Originally posted by Ming


You don't seem confused to me... That's exactly what happened.
Publishers needed quick reviews so that they could be first, and that's just what they all are... quick reviews. You really need to play the game for a long time to write a good review. I would have loved to have a read a review by Libertarian after he had played the game...

Plus, the online and magazines concerns are in bed with the publishers of games. That is where the bulk of their advertising revenues come from a bad system to say the least, but that's reality. Even when they are critical, they never go far enough. Add that to the poor quality of game testing, and it's no surprise why anybody with a half a brain won't buy a game based on those types of reviews

I surprise myself by agreeing with everything you just said. It's a sad state indeed. Perhaps I seem to remember a few years ago when magazines were more critical and honest, perhaps there were just one or two in my native country of England, but I used to read reviews to give me a general sense of the game.

Regarding Civ3, they ave just been so far off the mark, it has left me with the feeling that I should never bother applyign any weight to them ever again. And that's a real shame.

Do you are Mark ever review games? I mean Apolyton gets a lot of hits from a lot of individuals, so it certainly has the platform for having meaningful reviews posted.

Are there any independant reviewers with weight?

[nato]

I also find the universal high praise reviews ridiculous. Even if you like the game, I don't think anyone can argue it is near as perfect as all the reviews say.

At this point I am thinking reviews are simply paid advertisements and nothing more. The paid part might not be explicit, but now I think reviews are just part of the hype machine.

[Ming]

Originally posted by Kolyana
Do you are Mark ever review games? I mean Apolyton gets a lot of hits from a lot of individuals, so it certainly has the platform for having meaningful reviews posted.

Are there any independant reviewers with weight?

I have reviewed games in the past... but only after a MINIMUM of a FULL week of play, or to a point where I feel that I truely understand a game. I had planned to do this for Civ III, but I never got the chance to play enough fast enough due to health and time constraints... But it wasn't needed...

If you want to get a truer feel for a game, just go to the fan sites.
Anybody that read what was posted here woiuld have had a pretty clear picture of the game... who needs paid hack reviews

And as far as '"independent reviews" go... again, you can only find that type of information in forums where nobody has ANYTHING to gain by what they say. I usually only trust friends I know...

[Libertarian]

Well, Ming.

I'm not sure what to make of your perfunctory interpretation of what I said. Somehow, you take a keen and effortless inference from the muddiest of statements made by Firaxis, and are able to translate them into a meaningful syntax for the rest of us. But you have twisted my statement into something fubar.

I don't think that Firaxis intended to design a boring game. That is, I don't believe that they gathered together and specified boredom as a preferred attribute and then designed accordingly. But design a boring game they did.

BUT...

It is beyond credulity that anyone could have interpreted their initial deaf ear (when I was their champion defender) and eventual surgically tempered nonstatement (when I spoke as an abandoned fan) as any sort of admission that anything at all was wrong. They said they were aware of the ISSUE. Not the problem. The ISSUE. The issue? And that they would make a statement on it when they had something concrete to say.

Now, that's BS. And a ton of it. There was something quite concrete to be said, in fact a couple of things: (1) unit movement and activation are serious problems; (2) moving units is boring and trying to maintain a continuity in unit activation is hopeless; (3) we who raise this "issue" have identified a valid obstacle to game fun; (4) whether they are at least examining the problem and trying to determine whether they can correct it; and (5) a genuine and sincere thanks for doing their play testing.

It wasn't until the chat that a clear and unequivocal admission was offered that a problem (not an issue) exists. It wasn't until then that they said they don't know whether they can fix it.

And they still haven't said "thank you".

And there is no information, lest we gleen a translation of what they have said from you, that indicates at all whether they intend to do anything about it. Nothing at all is known of their intentions unless you have inside information. All that is known is that they know it's a problem and that they don't know whether it can be fixed.

[techumseh]

Originally posted by Ming


What BS... ... more BS.


I'm the first to admit there are serious problems with the game.
And I really hope that many of them can be fixed.
But so many of your posts make claims like they don't give a crap, or intented to make the game boring, or don't give a hoot about their customers is crap and just ignorant on your part.

If they really didn't give a damn... it would have gone the route of CTP II, where a company just turned their back on the game really quickly. That is not the case here. Yeah, they should have play tested the game more... yeah... the game was released too early... That is the nature of the software business. I don't like it, and I think it's a crappy way to do business, but it seems like most software companies do the same thing.

So I have no problem with your posts that point out the many errors of the game... keep up the good work. I will also do the same... I"m just not going to make bad assumptions that they don't give a damn, and that they are insulting to the community.

A few points, Ming. First, while Libertarian is a bit over the top in his rhetoric suggesting that Firaxis intended to make a boring game, he's basically correct on the other points. Obviously Firaxis got caught between its' publisher and its' customers and was forced to release Civ3 prematurely and without even finishing the playtesting. Were they up front about it? Of course not. This admission, like a number of others, had to be dragged out of them by well informed, articulate fans who were prepared to confront staff members on these forums.

Second, as far as I'm concerned, Firaxis HAS insulted the community. I prepared an open letter on behalf of the scenario community which was signed by over 40 people, expressing concern about the total lack of scenario capability of Civ3. Even though it was topped for a couple of weeks and got over 8000 views, Firaxis REFUSED to respond to it. I consider that very insulting. And that attitude has been reflected in many other responses and non-responses. The "When we have decided something we'll tell you." line fails to instill confidence that fan questions and comments are being listened to.

Finally, the idea that we must put up with half baked games because "that is the nature of the software business" causes me some real problems. What we're seeing here is game consumers pushing back against that idea. Forums like these give us, for the first time, a chance for a (semi) organized reponse by consumers to corporate market power. So I say carry on, Libertarian! Ignore the fools who say Firaxis doesn't owe us anything. Perhaps the next game will be a finished product.

[Ming]

Originally posted by Libertarian
Well, Ming.

I'm not sure what to make of your perfunctory interpretation of what I said. Somehow, you take a keen and effortless inference from the muddiest of statements made by Firaxis, and are able to translate them into a meaningful syntax for the rest of us. But you have twisted my statement into something fubar.

HA HA HA HA HA... maybe now you understand the point I'm trying to make. YOU WERE DOING THE SAME DAMN THING WITH WHAT FIRAXIS was saying.

Almost everybody agrees the game needs work... I will continue to do what is needed to get those fixes made. However, I will not personally attack the people or make assumptions what they were thinking... Heck, If I could do that, I would start up a pay for call Mind Readers 800 number... credit cards excepted

[Ming]

Originally posted by techumseh


A few points, Ming. First, while Libertarian is a bit over the top in his rhetoric suggesting that Firaxis intended to make a boring game, he's basically correct on the other points.

Second, as far as I'm concerned, Firaxis HAS insulted the community. I prepared an open letter on behalf of the scenario community which was signed by over 40 people, expressing concern about the total lack of scenario capability of Civ3. Even though it was topped for a couple of weeks and got over 8000 views, Firaxis REFUSED to respond to it. I consider that very insulting. And that attitude has been reflected in many other responses and non-responses. The "When we have decided something we'll tell you." line fails to instill confidence that fan questions and comments are being listened to.

First... I have never disagreed with the points Libertarian has been maken... IF ANYTHING, I have agreed with almost every one of them. I just had a problem with "interpretations, and assumptions... I would rather deal with facts.

And that is my same answer to your second point. You are the one "seeing the insult"... you seem to be able to find it in many things... Granted, that maybe the way you feel, but do you KNOW AS A FACT THAT THEY ARE TRYING TO INSULT you... I don't thinks so. I truely think they are as totally lost now as when they released the game before proper testing and delivered an unfished product. They really don't know what they can or can not fix. I have read the same responses you have, and that's how I interpret them. But again... only my opinion.

[Desert Dog]

Late Tedium? huh?

I have no clue what late game-Tedium is but it is clear Firaxis is trying to wiggle out of fixing this game. Yet it is getting rave reviews yadda yadda. I have not been able to finish one game on hugh map with 8 civs. Crashes at industrial or modern age right after picking tech. Fatal error I might add requiring a reboot. I paid $70.00 for the LE edition. I am in ill health playing games is how I relax. Turn based are the easiest for me to play, and civ 2, SMAC were my favorites. I am mentioning all of that to express how much it means to mean to have a game that plays without locking up or crashing. SMAC still has some serious bugs that pop up that will never be fixed, I sure hope this is not the case with civ 3. Sorry for my own constant *****ing but I am really pissed! It is the program too not my system or anything else as others have tried to imply. Firaxis knows they messed up but the GREAT reviews are carrying them by making them not pay much attention to the peanut gallery here, VERY FEW comments are made by them. I like the one "We will not comment on customers expectations not being met!" (Something like that) huh? The game clearly needed about 2-4 months of testing yet!

Desert Dog

[Libertarian]

So I say carry on, Libertarian!

Semper Fi!

They really don't know what they can or can not fix.

I can buy that. Honestly, I can. As a libertarian, I understand the business side of things and the fact that they have some tough decisions to make.

Whether they want to fix this or that is still a mystery.

I found it a bit daunting that they gloated about the ignore setting. Head-in-the-sand is never the best way to go.

[techumseh]

Originally posted by Ming

And that is my same answer to your second point. You are the one "seeing the insult"... you seem to be able to find it in many things... Granted, that maybe the way you feel, but do you KNOW AS A FACT THAT THEY ARE TRYING TO INSULT you... I don't thinks so.

I never said they were "TRYING TO INSULT" me. I said they insulted the scenario community, including me, by pointedly ignoring our letter. Insults are not always planned out in advance and may not even be deliberate. However, they always show disrespect for the insulted party. And yes, they are subjective. But I hardly think that in this case I'm being too sensitive. Repeated requests were made for an answer, including some private diplomacy by Markos, with no result. I don't think publicly ignoring a significant section of the Civ community should be taken as a sign of respect, do you?

Anyway, this is not about Libertarians' or my (or anyones') hurt feelings. It's about a disappointing game release and HOW THE COMPANY IS DEALING WITH ITS' UNHAPPY CUSTOMERS! Any customer service consultant will tell you that how a company deals with complaints is far more decisive to customer satisfaction than the original product or service which gave rise to the complaint. In my case, I wasn't anti-Firaxis before Civ3, or even after I played it and didn't like it it. But given their reponse to legitimate concerns by many Civ fans, it will be a hot January day in Edmonton before I buy another Firaxis or Infogrames product.

[notyoueither]

Re: Late Tedium? huh?

Originally posted by Desert Dog
I have no clue what late game-Tedium is but it is clear Firaxis is trying to wiggle out of fixing this game. Yet it is getting rave reviews yadda yadda. I have not been able to finish one game on hugh map with 8 civs. Crashes at industrial or modern age right after picking tech. Fatal error I might add requiring a reboot. I paid $70.00 for the LE edition. I am in ill health playing games is how I relax. Turn based are the easiest for me to play, and civ 2, SMAC were my favorites. I am mentioning all of that to express how much it means to mean to have a game that plays without locking up or crashing. SMAC still has some serious bugs that pop up that will never be fixed, I sure hope this is not the case with civ 3. Sorry for my own constant *****ing but I am really pissed! It is the program too not my system or anything else as others have tried to imply. Firaxis knows they messed up but the GREAT reviews are carrying them by making them not pay much attention to the peanut gallery here, VERY FEW comments are made by them. I like the one "We will not comment on customers expectations not being met!" (Something like that) huh? The game clearly needed about 2-4 months of testing yet!

Desert Dog

I build computers for a living. I wish everyone blamed the software when the computer crashed.

Many times there is a problem with the specific programme that crashes (ie a bug) but not always.

Other common causes of unusual behaviour are:

The specific combination of all the programmes and drivers on your computer, right down to the specific version numbers. One driver version can make all the difference. All of the software and drivers interact with each other and with Windows. This can lead to combinations that result in programmes crashing (maybe 1 or 2 or many).

Corrupt Windows. It happens. The Windows becomes damaged due to errors when installing or deleting software, or due to flakey hardware, power interuptions, etc.

etc, etc,

Yours sounds more like a driver issue to be honest.

I can tell you this as a fact. None of the 6 or 7 computers I know of that are running Civ3 have the problem you describe. So it is unlikely to be a probelm with the game.

Good luck

[CapTVK]

Originally posted by Kolyana


I surprise myself by agreeing with everything you just said. It's a sad state indeed. Perhaps I seem to remember a few years ago when magazines were more critical and honest, perhaps there were just one or two in my native country of England, but I used to read reviews to give me a general sense of the game.

In commercial magazines? Don't think so you would have to go way back into the past, the 8-bit era (C64, Spectrum, MSX) to find anything that could be called a 'fair review'. Do you remember Crash or Zzap64! by any chance Kolyana? The computer magazines of their time and fun to read too. Maybe they could be a bit more critical in the 80's because the software houses were quite small and the magazines were cheap to produce. The cool thing was major games were rated by several reviewers (sometimes even 3) who would also give their own opinion. Many games (mostly movie tie-ins, coin-op conversions, or plain junk) that didn't deliver would get slammed on a regular basis. When Zzap64! trashed the C64 version of the Indiana Jones game (arcade version) the publisher, US GOLD, pulled back their promise of supplying goodies for an indiana jones competition in the next issue. In that issue the editor and the reviewers simply stated: "This issue we WOULD have included a special competion but USGOLD didn't like our review so that got canned. Well B*****S to them!"

(- or words to that effect, it was a bit more formal- I'm typing this from memory here )



For a better description of that era here's a large quote by one of the former Zzap64! reviewers :

source: The Burrow

http://www.the-burrow.freeserve.co.uk/zzap/towers/towers3.html

Mention to anyone that you worked on a computer mag and they'll likely screech, incredulous, "You got paid to play games all day?! Jammy bastard!" Well... no. If that were the case games mags would be a very swift read - just "lives", "score", "health" and other abstract stuff from screenshots and that'd be it! As me old nan never used to say, reviews don't write themselves, so at least half of each working day was spent frowning at the screen of a word processor - dodgy Amstrad things with pirated software in the early days, mini Apple Macs near the end.

Didn't even have one of those Amstrad "Joyces" (as they were nicknamed, for some unfathomable reason) on my first day at Zzap!, but luckily Paul Glancey had made me one out of a cardboard box with a felt-tip facsimile of screen and keyboard drawn on the front! So I did play games all my first day, but on the second my Joyce arrived - and so did Maff "****e" Evans! We got on well 'cos we both liked the band Clan of Xymox (nice DIY extended remix of "Back Door", Maff!), comics and stuff - and naturally, he introduced me to Front 242! With Maff, '242 music was obligatory!

Despite the streams of reviews that had to be written (games logged on a clipboard, and review and comment boxes initialled so everyone knew the state of play), we both loved it. Writing reviews for Zzap! was a dream come true and didn't seem like work at all - being paid was just a bonus - so Gordo often had to tell us to go home when we indulged in unpaid and unnecessary overtime. We even enjoyed painstakingly drawing Bionic Commando maps (the top music helped).

We weren't keen on our "digs", though: a grimly decorated B&B (circa 1950) run by an odd old landlady and her odder, older husband who would've seemed more at home under newspapers on a park bench, muttering incoherently and belching meths fumes. Sadly, the love of our jobs and dodgy B&B clashed one night. After working late, we found the landlady had locked us out - it was only around 9! So we went back to Zzap! Towers and wallowed in C64 history by nosing through the old disk boxes, eventually getting some sleep on the office floor.

You might be thinking I'm hallucinating, reminiscing over the Gordon/Paul/Maff/Kati era when I only appeared in a few issues many months on, after Paul Rand left. I was Gordo's rejected reviewer - I started with Maff but wasn't introduced to the readers. My reviews and comments were mostly attributed to Paul Sumner (PG's and Gordon's bonces were used for some) and I was listed as a contributor rather than a staff writer, which didn't seem fair.

After a couple of months I was moved onto The Games Machine magazine. Heartbreaking for a sensitive lad like me. I would've soon settled into the burgeoning wacky Zzap! style, but instead was forced to stay formal on The Games Machine till it eventually loosened up and I was allowed to use my "frivolous but informative" reviewing style.

Still, plenty of fun from those few issues of Zzap! I contributed to. Reviewer heads were never drawn from them, but the photos were taken - unique in Zzap! history because props were used. For my "great" face I held a joystick in my thumbs-up hand, and for me "bad" reviewer head an upturned bucket half covered my face, a shot that moody staff photographer Cameron Pound took with much glee.

There were a few software scrapes: I reviewed US Gold's two versions of Street Fighter (the original, where the coin-op had pads to punch), slated both... We later found out the UK and USA-programmed games would be on the same tape! Still would've been a crap package, and we returned fire over US Gold's sexist "I know which I'd rather play with" ad for Psycho Pigs UXB that appeared in the same issue.


This sounds very familiar...
We had to give Hawkeye at least 90% for Sizzler status, because it was released by Thalamus, Newsfield's software house. It was a fairly solid title, nice graphical touches and stuff; me and Maff reckoned about 80%. Then Gordon gave us the news and the reaction was "It's gotta be a Sizzler?! No way!" Screwing the kids with fiddled ratings - great. US Gold's Katakis was a deserved Sizzler... but bore an uncanny resemblance to R-Type, which Activision had the licence for! A Katakis demo was supposed to appear on issue 42's cover but was withdrawn over the copyright wrangles; I felt guilty 'cos I wrote the prime quote from the Zzap! review (attributed to Gordon): "the closest you can get to R-Type on a humble 8-bit"! Oops.

Then of course there was the "tacky" Zzap! Challenge! It was Gordon's turn and either his challenger didn't turn up or a challenger was never found - can't remember which. So I was decked out in a ludicrous disguise: baseball cap (can't stand the things), fake Ray-Ban shades and a big plastic nose with plastic lips attached to the bottom. To complete the effect, a tongue was made out of loo roll and stuck out of the lips. My, I did feel cool... It was as bad that the challenge was on Chuckie Egg, a game I'd never played but Gordo knew intimately (though not in the Biblical sense), so naturally I was thrashed. Bah!

Was a shame to leave the Zzap! weirdoes for the straight-laced Games Machine crowd - which included Robin Hogg and Stuart Wynne - but soon there was an office shuffle and TGM ended up opposite Zzap! in a kind of open-plan room. The centre section of a dividing wall had been knocked through at some point but desks were set across the gap, so we had a large window on each other's world. Zzap!'s little sphere included liberal use of inflatables, strange shouts in stranger accents, assorted objects cast in all directions, unpleasant smells (from various foodstuffs, I think), surreal japes... and Maff's ghettoblaster playing Front 242 tapes!

Like most people, the "Night of the Long Knives" (which took place during the day - hmm) is a bit of a blur. I think the art department was hit in the morning: "Yvonne's been sacked!" "What?!" rapidly followed by "Mel's been sacked!!" "WHAT?!!" But was mini taters compared to the triple-whammy of Gordon, Kati and Maff being sacked (it was called "redundancy" but clearly wasn't as the positions they'd held still existed). Those who were left behind couldn't believe it - it was the dumbest thing the management could have done...

Closely followed by putting Stuart, Robin and Phil King on the mag, at the mercy of Paul Rand, the living ego. Lord knows how it happened, but the mag became an ad for Randy; can't imagine the readers were interested in seeing him (and his family!) everywhere. We tried to liven the rest up with 'laccy-band ambushes and friendly mickey-taking, honest.

Things settled into some kind of rhythm after Randy left and we moved to the Case Mills building, and I did return! As a part-time staff writer (my other "part" was writer on Fear magazine), finally getting my reviewer head in Zzap!. Was fun while it lasted - which wasn't long, 'cos I was promoted to sub-editor of GamesMaster International (RPG mag), then took on the same role at Crash. I paid (too) regular visits to the Zzap! office (well, part of a corridor-like room, to be precise) 'cos I got on well with the lads and still held Zzap! in great affection.

Then we were all made redundant by George Lucas (as I observed - Phil ripped me off in his piece!). Zzap! came back under a different publisher but it was duff, and the less said about the risible Commodore Force the better. Once we was kings!

Alas, those days of independence are long gone....

Are there any independant reviewers with weight?

The fact is that most reviewers played it for only a few days (hours?) to get a quick impression plus the "sid halo"-effect are probably the main cause for these over the top marks. Civ3 is a good game, but not a perfect one.

In fact, does the perfect game even exist?