c165# CIV3: WORST FEARS COME TRUE!

[Fiera]

quote: Originally posted by Father Beast on 05-07-2001 09:21 PM I was also amused by your off the wall suggestion that we just call it "age Of Civilizations", since the developers of that game were largely civ worshippers that played some Warcraft on the side. they come from us, not us from them.

So what? Just because Age of Empires developers based upon Civilization, now it's OK if the Civ series take ideas from them? Especially some of the ideas that made AoE a different game from Civilization?

And I was also amused on your optimistic view on the implementation of the List by Firaxis. You even put religion on the same level as Civ3 Culture, when you'll find that, according to the previews, the Culture concept has nothing to do with Religion as proposed on the List.

[Fiera]

Oh, I've just read this post:

quote: Originally posted by tniem on 05-07-2001 04:54 PM But then says that the best way to make the game is to fix what is wrong in the previous games. I am sorry but that isn't what I want. That is how Microprose made Civ II, a few changes from the original and I quickly became bored.

Look, tniem, I'm sorry but my column wasn't intended for people like you. No offense intended, but if you got quickly bored with Civ2, then you hardly qualify as a Civ2 fan.

[yin26]

quote: The official website is the place where Firaxis introduces Civ3 to the world. They show what they want the people to see, and if the first thing they decide to show it's nothing but eye-candy, then you know at which target they're aiming to.

Fiera,

I understand your point, but let me just add in something here: I have watched Firaxis closely since Alpha Centauri. Over that time, I've had moments varying from vague friendship to not-so-vauge antagonism with more than one of their staff. I've overseen successful "bus lists / feature requests" and now the (successful?) List. Through all of that, I've learned one very important about Firaxis as a company:

THEY ARE HORRIBLE WITH PUBLIC RELATIONS!

Underline that, print it and keep it by your computer. I'm not saying that to belittle you, but keeping those few words of wisdom in my mind has been all that kept me from going ballistic on more than one occasion.

What you are seeing on the website is essentially some casual decisions to generate SOME interest and SOME material for public consumption. Now, if they really thought about it carefully, they'd realize what possible negative perceptions that particular and narrow view could create. So why don't they do something about it? Please see above.

What about the full-time webmaster and PR person? Well, they can only post what they are given, and I doubt it would help their own jobs much to push their bosses for information. So what we have is a very "typical" Firaxis ... yes, SID ... way of dealing with game development:

Lock yourself away from the world so as to avoid distractions, release little tidbits here and there of information, emerge with a game, play up the fans for a while to increase sales and nail down any major flaws for the upcoming round of patches, and go away again. The sooner you realize that's how this is going to happen, the sooner you can relax.

The good side to all of this?

Believe it or not, Firaxis DOES listen to us. I speak from experience. For SMAC, of the top 10 "bugs" we wanted fixed, I think 7 were fixed and the other 3 were determined to be feature requests. THINK ABOUT THAT! As for the List, I promise you now that you will simply be astounded at how much the listened and read and toiled over what we had to say...even though we presented 500 pages of often crazy and vague stuff.

Firaxis WILL give us good patch support as long as we stay organized and clear about what we want.

So I've come to look at it this way: A company that delivers a great game AND great PR is certainly the best. But if I had to drop one of those, certainly the PR is no big deal. Firaxis will still make a great game and respond to us where it really counts: The coding.

Could it and SHOULD it be a whole lot more apparent to the public that Firaxis is that kind of company? Yes, but I guess they don't like to reap their own harvest. Fine by me, since I know there's really nothing to worry about despite outward appearances.

[Father Beast]

quote: Originally posted by Fiera on 05-09-2001 08:19 PM Just because they aren't really aiming at pleasing the bulk of Civ fans, but to a new crowd of, very probably, RTS players. Hence the focus on combat system and eye-candy.

perhaps thats not too surprising when I think about it. a lot of people are thinking that turn based strategy is dead, and even a number of people on this site were clamoring for civ3 to be an RTS.

I do find it a shame, because those trigger happy RTS and FPSers will actually try civ3, then spread the word that it sucks, since its not an RTS. the RTS like CTP interface wasn't a big hit with either crowd, I understand.

You all (I hope) know my opinion, that TBS allows for deep thinking and strategy that isn't possible in an RTS (unless you're Kimball Kinnison). I don't think you would find the sort of intense strategy we have in the civ2 strat forum in, say, a Warcraft Forum.

But a lot of hardcore Gamers are Duke Nukem Wannabes, all attitude and minimal actual thought. I LOVE facing a perplexing situatin in my civ and staying awake to think about how to deal with it. to a lot of gamers, that's BOOORING. and that is the great appeal of civ, to me.

I find it outrageously unbelievable that Sid & Co. would actually make an RTS or similar direction with this great game. I find it much more likely that they would release stuff intended to entice the RTS player. Silly, but I can live with it.

I still have great hopes for this game, although they will be dashed some if they haven't fixed road and rail rules. all the "new ideas" in the EC3 list would be just frosting if they do the EC3 fixes.


Oh, and if my score on the EC3 list seems optimistic, it's probably because I am optimistic. I hope culture will have many of the effects of religion, but in the final score, I HAD counted it as "out".

[Matthew]

Fix trade? Would someone please define fix trade? Please, somebody tell me that this doesn't mean fixing the camels so they can't have any little camels, which would mean that the only use for boats once all the land is settled would be carrying your military units around to go get other people's cities?

Does fixing trade mean SMAC trade, which means that the only trade decisions you get to make are whether or not to be at peace or to ally, determining what trade you get from other civs?

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The camel is not a part of civ.

THE CAMEL IS CIV !!!!

SAVE THE CAMEL !!!!!!

[Roman]

quote: Originally posted by Imran Siddiqui on 05-06-2001 08:08 PM Chicken Little, 'The Sky is Falling, The Sky is Falling'. Jeez, I agree with Ata... I don't normally roll my eyes in real life, but I found myself doing it over and over again. A waste of a column, I think. This is like those Y2K people who said that the world was going to end. Hell, I might just write an column critizing all these 'The World is Ending' wackos.

ROFLMAO, Imran, you are troubled by that, heh? I wonder what you would have done if you were here when people were screaming that the concept art of the musketeer has a pointed hat. The number of posts on that were hilarious - what is happening now is much more "Ok".

[Russian King]

I forgot to mention another thing!

Did anyone notice how Sid hasnt said ONE THING about ctp???
Yes its not his game, but hey, its still a CIV! Sid, instead of looking at what went wrong in the civ2 improvement, completely IGNORES the game!

THIS IS NOT THE WAY TO GO SID!



I am angry at activision too. They made too many imbalances, but AT LEAST they are all fixable. I personally fixed them and now play ctp1 and 2 Happily.

I think sid shuld REALLY take notice of CTP. Whether he likes it or not: it IS better than old-as-hills civ2!!!!!

[Imran Siddiqui]

quote: ROFLMAO, Imran, you are troubled by that, heh? I wonder what you would have done if you were here when people were screaming that the concept art of the musketeer has a pointed hat. The number of posts on that were hilarious - what is happening now is much more "Ok".

I thought they were all silly. Retarded discussion.

And CtP better than Civ2? LMAO! CtP was a 'pretty' regression of the genre... that's it.

[James of Beregost]

Fiera is rather unhappy with recent civ3 news:

"Perhaps I'm going too far, but I don't even think Civ3 will be an appropriate sequel for a legendary saga like Sid Meier's Civilization."
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I agree with you, but I am not very surprised - first of all because I think Alpha Centauri was a disappointment too. It had nothing of the exiting or heroic touch as the grand civilizations of the Civ I & II had. Secondly because all of the civ games and their cousins have had limitations to the number of players/civs (which isn't to say that it's right thing).

My opinion is that if you play a game about civilizations you want it grand and epic so you could feel as if you actually made history, especially if you already hav enjoyed the earlier (grand) civs - and here is my point: How to make a new game as grand as the old Civ? I guess it would be hard work for Firaxis to satisfy our expectations, perhaps more work than it's worth to them, so they just don't try. This means that I don't think Firaxis cares about the devoted fans as they hope that we will pay up for the new game anyway out of sheer loyalty or idealism. But here I say NO! I've played them all: Civ, CTP, SMAC & Civ-ToT - but no more. I decided this when the Test of Time proved to be almost identical with CivII, but your article made me certain. If we only get half measures then we will have to "vote with our wallets".

But I have longed for a Civ III for so long you may say!
Yes but there are alternatives as for example "Europa Universalis" that has (almost) anything that civ-fans hoped for in Civ III. An almost infinite number of nations, a complex economy, strong religion component and an excellent diplomacy system. I could really recommend it - I only see one drawback - that it consumes a lot of PC-power, but i gues that should be expected when you simulate the entire world and (potentially) every little province (like Sardinia) is a nation and has an army.






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James of Beregost

[Cyclotron]

Russian King,

As far as I am concerned, CTP was the worst branch of the Civ Series. Give me a solid reason why CTP was better and I will bow to your feet. There were some good concepts, but none were implemented correctly. I think you are definitly in the minority on this one!

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- Cyclotron7, "that supplementary resource fanatic"

[monolith94]

"As for "eye candy," I'm sick of people who say graphics aren't important in Civ. THEY ARE IMPORTANT! You zero-sum people should go play ANSI games again."

There was also some quote about whether we would be upset if Civ 3 had graphics similar to, or worse then Civ 2.

I happen to think that the Graphics in Civ 2 were better then SMAC; I view graphics not as technicalities, but I look for the heart and soul that goes into the creation of them. For me, SMAC had no soul, or if it did, I didn't get a very good feeling of it. It was like a bunch of white guys trying to do gospel for the first time. . .

There were even some graphics in Civ 1 that were better then Civ 2 in that regard! Who could forget those dirty scummy rebels marching from the side into your city? And then 2000 year later, the same scummy guys, in hippy clothing, doing the exact same thing??? And come ON, you gotta give props to Stalin's facial expressions, and the royal palace??? COME ON!!!

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"Poets and Pigs are not appreciated until they are dead"
Italian Proverb.
"My children will just inherit my spam"
Alexander's Horse
While ignorance may be bliss, intelligence is orgasmic!
Free Stewart Spink and YYYHey!
We shall never forget!

[monolith94]

Lol Call to power being better then Civ 2? Age does not equal prowess, sonny boy. . .

In some ways, Civ 1 is better then all. . . It's still installed on my comp!!!

[Matthew]

Problem with the graphics in SMAC is that the units move too slow. It's not a computer speed thing. It's the way that efery movement from one square to the next is a major event. I think the idea is to try to show off the spectacular graphics. I've pplayed with all the game options to improve things, but it's still way too slow. Sure, it only takes about a second and a half to move something from one square to the next, but that can really add up over the coarse of a game. And it seems to make multiplayer unplayable. At least that's my guess as to why MP seems to be limited to pbem.

In a sense, I actually hope that Firaxis doesn't listen to every suggestion. In particular, I hope they turn a deaf ear to all those Camelicidal maniacs out there who have no problem moving vast armies around the board, but consider trade, one of the most fundamental aspects of history and civilization, an annoying detail unworthy of it's own unit; an annoying detail that should be handled automatically.

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The camel is not a part of civ.

THE CAMEL IS CIV !!!!

SAVE THE CAMEL !!!!!!

[Chronus]

"I wonder what you would have done if you were here when people were screaming that the concept art of the musketeer has a pointed hat. "

LOL!

That thread still strikes me funny to this day.

[The Rusty Gamer]

My thought on why they are limiting the game to 7 civs is simply perhaps Firaxis's tendency to write games for as low a spec machine as possible so as to extend the circle of potential buyers to as wide as possible. In other words, maybe the game will only require 32MB or even 16MB of RAM. I'm just guessing here, but in that case, couldn't the game be written to allow for more civs if you've got higher specs. This could not only apply to the number of civs, but other things like maximum map size etc. That kind of thing has been done with other games like, for example, Championship Manager where the number of leagues you're allowed to play is dependent on the amount of RAM in your machine.