Did Firaxis act dishonestly regardeing MP?

[TCO]

1. Firaxis promised MP in Civ3. Then they stopped talking about it. Than people got suspicious. Than Firaxis REFUSED to answer questions about MP. Than it leaked out that MP wasn't going to be in the game. (But the Amazon.com ads still showed MP as a promised feuture for people pre-ordering the game.) Than they launched the game and MP wasn't in it. They never even addressed what had occurred. And it appears that they knew for a long time that MP wasn;t going to make it...and refused to admit it.

Now they are launching XP with MP in it. (Charging for MP.)

BTW: they have a history of dubious actions with MP (Civnet fiasco...)

2. Was this dishonest?

p.s. I think this thread is perfectly reasonable. Mark/Ming, we should be able to discuss this just as much as discussing anticipation of XP. This IS NOT a pro-Firaxis only site. We aren't getting enough of a subsidy for that... Besides, negative threads are well-known to be popular for the community of BBS's.

[Dr. Nick]

Yes. Down with them, burn them all.

[TCO]

Like when Peter O'toole yells "no prisoners"!!!

[Grrr]

Firaxis is one of those companies that promises everything, yet delivers nothing.

[Alexander's Horse]

I wouldn't say they acted dishonestly - I would say they acted cynically - trying to screw as much money out of the consumer as possible.

But since the game blows generally anyway it doesn't really matter. The Civ2 MP community has revived and I'm happy to stick with that.

Chances are they'll balls up MP just the same way they ruined SP. So who cares? They aren't getting any more money out of me unless the MP version is really hot - and I can't see that happening while culture causes cities to change civ. That's an MP game killer.

[TCO]

I think it was dishonest for the following reasoning.

Imagine you promise to do something (advertisiments and articles). then you discover you can't make it. Fine. As long as you tell people. But if you don't tell people (and even refuse to answer questions), that is a lie by ommission. You are allowing your earlier statements to stand when you known better.

[korn469]

ok i have a couple of questions before we blame firaxis

1) who was in charge of the marketing of civ3?

2) who sent the press packets to retailers?

3) was firaxis bound by a NDA to only release information approved by infogrames?

4) when was it certain that multiplayer would not make it into the final game?

5) at that point was there any talk of a retraction or an updated press packet being sent to retailers?

6) when the fans began to suspect multiplayer wasn't going to make the final cut, was there a decision made to withhold that information (if a NDA did not exist)?

7) with a full team working to implement multiplayer how much would that have delayed the game?

[asleepathewheel]

Originally posted by GP
I think it was dishonest for the following reasoning.

Imagine you promise to do something (advertisiments and articles). then you discover you can't make it. Fine. As long as you tell people. But if you don't tell people (and even refuse to answer questions), that is a lie by ommission. You are allowing your earlier statements to stand when you known better.

FWIW, I'm not sure how easy it is to change the adds on all of the websites selling the game. I may be foolish, but I would say, like everything else, that Infogrames screwed this up as well. Since they are the publishers, they would take care of all the selling details, and I could see how something like this woudl get caught up in the bureacracy and not get changed as quickly as we would have liked. Like the memo saying no MP ended up on some cubicle jockey's desk, who didn't pay attention to it for weeks.
this theory is only with regards to the online advertisements. As to the other stuff, I don't have any ideas.

you can slap me for being a fanboy.

[notyoueither]

I think your full of it on this one GP. The major users of MP are on these boards. Just about anybody who cared knew MP wasn't in it.

I really doubt that the casual gamer that picks up Civ3 on an impulse in BestBuy gives a damn about MP. He will probably be very happy to go to Civ3.com and find patches that make SP much better.

[asleepathewheel]

I don't understand this problem at all.

When I bought the game, I looked at the box. Didn't say anything about MP, I didn't care, I purchased it. If the only thing i wanted was MP, I wouldn't have purchased it.

I think some people are taking this was too personally. Don't take this as a flame, but I think some people are jealous that others are happy with just the SP game. They feel like the SP players got the game they wanted, but the Mp's didn't get what they wanted. Firaxis ripped them off.

What I think: If you require MP in a game-then don't buy civ3 when it comes out, knowing that you will be pissed off. It is clear from the box, that it is SP, so I don't understand the gripe. Wait the 9 months till the XP with MP comes out (which will probably be bundled for around the original sales price!) If you feel ripped off because others are enjoying the game, well, that's your prerogative.

Oh, one other thing. I've seen a lot of posts saying that they wished that firaxis had delayed release for 9 months or a year to get the kinks out, MP and editor in. Well, the XP will come out around that time, so treat that as the true release date if you want.

[Alexander's Horse]

We're not taking it personally - the game sucks - I couldn't give a flying f*ck what Firaxis does from here on in.

[asleepathewheel]

Originally posted by Alexander's Horse
We're not taking it personally - the game sucks - I couldn't give a flying f*ck what Firaxis does from here on in.

Ouch. Sounds like a jilted lover. And, perhaps you aren't taking it personally, but it appears that some are. Why else would someone post ad nauseum attacks on a game they didn't like. I have better things with my life than hang around and spam a board of a game I don't even like.

[TCO]

notyou,

They knew MP was gone well beofre telling us. And they refused to discuss it.

[notyoueither]

They, Firaxians, are not at liberty to freely discuss this product. That much is fairly obvious by this point.

You can blame that on Sid, or you can blame it on the people who own the name and who paid Firaxis to develop the game. It's your choice I guess.

[Alexander's Horse]

Originally posted by asleepathewheel


Ouch. Sounds like a jilted lover. And, perhaps you aren't taking it personally, but it appears that some are. Why else would someone post ad nauseum attacks on a game they didn't like. I have better things with my life than hang around and spam a board of a game I don't even like.

Troll the troll? LOL.

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