I've finally played Civ3 to death

[georges bonbon]

Sadly but true about the bugs in CIVIII.

But what about the bugs with Microsoft (98/2000/Me)?

I have now installed XP for 2 months and it has only crashed once.

With all other OS it is was nearly daily.

Oh by the way with Microsoft products they do not talk about patches but about upgrades..........................

A fanboy

[Demerzel]

You're right about Microsoft games being great straight out of the box. For the Age of Empires/Age of Kings games they worked just fine in pretty much every aspect.

Very impressive work from Ensemble studios & Microsoft on how to develop, test, publish & release a game to both their own profit and our pleasure. Makes quite a change really from the normal cut-throat, profit obsessed and consumer hostile publishers out there. Maybe they should think about the fact that when you annoy your consumers they often don't buy from you again, which often screws up your profits.

As someone above said, who'd have thought we'd be saying nice things about Microsoft? Guess as long as they are kept away from the coding aspect all is fine, it's only when they are allowed near the keyboards we need to worry

[woody]

Re: Just a thought...

Originally posted by TheHobbit
But don't get all over the PC developers. A lot of it might be their fault, but you have to give them a break. Console developers have one thing to develop for, one specific console with specific hardware and setup. A PC has many many many configurations and tons of possible hardware. While console games only have to fix problems with one type the reliability of code with one PC to another varies greatly.

I can understand bugs with hardware incompatibility, but I just don't think that basic gameplay bugs are acceptable.

I already mentioned the example of fighters not working in the 1st release of Civ3. That's just sloppy testing. It took them several fixes and almost a year to release a decent working version of Civ3. Now, they've gone back to sloppy releases with PtW (from what I've read).

I think Firaxis's development process is flawed. I hear they don't even test in-house... it's shipped off to the publisher for testing. WTF???

But, as someone else already mentioned, PC game development can be done right. Microsoft seems to handle it fine.

Civ3 is worth the money. But, I've been put off from ever buying another Firaxis game when it's first released. I'll be sure to wait 6 months to a year, until the bugs are fixed. Is this really what Firaxis wants its customers to do? They're losing reputation, and will be out of business if they don't smarten up.

It seems that most PC game development companies don't "get the message" until it's too late. Since Firaxis spun off from Microprose, you'd think they would have learned! I guess not.

[Spiffor]

Firaxis has very little money, and is only a part in the making of the game. They're specialized in developing, and they don't have other services required in a game :
- If you knew Libertarian, you know they don't have a PR department .
- They have a QA department, but it's true they hired betatesters afterciv3 came out (they betatested PtW)
- They have to follow the orders of the publisher, which basically gives them the money. Unfortunately, Infogrames has big financial problems, and I assume it explains why they rushed twice this licence.

[Chemical Ollie]

Is there a modpack that adds new tribes similar to PtW? The expansion has not yet reached Sweden and I doubt that I will buy it when it does. Multiplayer CIV would not be accepted by my family, as I would not be able to leave the computer for hours. Thus, I'm only after the extra tribes.

I looked for a modpack at this site but only found single civs that were posted almost a year ago.

[aahz_capone]

I agree with hobbit that the time taken to develope for a PC (because of the many configurations) is a factor that makes console games relatively bugless. Also for consoles the only way to test IS in house testing. But as you say game features which have nothing to do with hardware, well thats a shame.

But for those being warry of buying another FIRAXIS game, just remember SMAC. I'm sure BR's leaving did have a big effect (I think mostly in little things like a civlopedia with no descriptions of sciences, sciences without anything useful, airbases and those things which come with experience), but I also heard that Sid didn't have as much to do with civ3 as he did with civ1,2.

Maybe in the distant future Big Huge Games and Firaxis will make a dual developement sponsored by Microsoft? That would be nice...

[woody]

Originally posted by Spiffor
Unfortunately, Infogrames has big financial problems, and I assume it explains why they rushed twice this licence.

I didn't realize that, but yes, it looks like they have serious problems:

http://finance.yahoo.com/q?s=IFGM&d=t

http://biz.yahoo.com/rc/021113/tech_infogrames_1.html

Has Firaxis always been teamed up with Infogrames? If so, that may explain some of their quality problems. Although, they seem to have carried over many bad habits from their former days at Microprose.

[Jon Shafer]

Infogrames essentially 'bought' the Civ license and the Firaxis dev team from Microprose, so yes, Firaxis has always been stuck with Infogrames since the days of Microprose.

[Falconius]

Re: I've finally played Civ3 to death

Originally posted by woody
I've finally played Civ3 to death

I figure I'm good at least through Civ VIII.