OMG!!! Computer Gaming World review

[Tiberius]

I don't know whether Brian Reynolds had or not the rights for the SMAC code, but the departure of so many valuable programmers/designers from Firaxis (Brian Reynolds, Jason Coleman, Doug Kaufman, Dave Inscore) certainly influenced in a negative way the development of Civ3.

[WarpStorm]

Actually, I've had few problems with PTW MP, when I play with other players who have few problems.

Having said that, I really want Firaxis to implement a 'true' turn-based mode of play for PTW. This would eliminate nearly all lag issues and make it a moot point. The best way to do this would be essentially like PBEM without the EM part. The only net traffic going on when it's not your turn should be diplomacy and chat. Yes, there would be longer downtimes when you can't do anything, but when it is your turn it would be smooth (as you only send out messages at the end of your turn). The big change that would be needed is an event log (or similar mechanism) so that you know what happened between last turn and this (this would be useful for PBEM and HotSeat also).

Truce, Dimension.

[Huzurdaddi]

Unprovoked ad hominems usually weaken ones arguement....

Does it really weaken his arguments when that is all that his arguments are composed of? LOL.

They used a client-server configuration rather than the peer to peer that PTW uses.

I hope someone, someday, does a teardown on the protocol used in Civ3. It would make a great post mortem.

you would have picked up that the crashes in the game I described were due to the hosts problems with his ISP

Uhm, you do understand that an ISP is incapable of causing a crash, right? It's up to the application to correctly handle mal-formed packets. No matter what crap gets sent to your socket as a developer it is your responsibility to not crash.

[vondrack]

Originally posted by Huzurdaddi
Uhm, you do understand that an ISP is incapable of causing a crash, right? It's up to the application to correctly handle mal-formed packets. No matter what crap gets sent to your socket as a developer it is your responsibility to not crash.

Uhm, do you understand that if the problem is that the ISP changes the IP address of the hosting machine on the fly (which was the problem nye mentioned earlier in this thread), packets sent to the outdated IP address - whatever "crap" they contain - will never arrive at the target machine, effectively locking the application... Malformed, shmalformed - there is nothing your correctly developed application can actually handle, right?

Happy New Year!

[Nubclear]

Originally posted by Huzurdaddi


Does it really weaken his arguments when that is all that his arguments are composed of? LOL.

Two ad hominems don't make a right. I suggest you refrain from using them as well.

[RomanGod]

Originally posted by vondrack

Uhm, do you understand that if the problem is that the ISP changes the IP address of the hosting machine on the fly (which was the problem nye mentioned earlier in this thread), packets sent to the outdated IP address - whatever "crap" they contain - will never arrive at the target machine, effectively locking the application... Malformed, shmalformed - there is nothing your correctly developed application can actually handle, right?

ummm.... no. The, or any, ISP does not change the computer's IP address 'on the fly'. With broadband connections, IP addresses do not change, period. Unless you purchase one. With analog connections (14.4k, 33.6k, 56k) the IP address changes every time you disconnect from the current session.

[Dis]

actually I have a cable modem. My IP changes all the time. well not that often, but it does change.

[Alexander's Horse]

I'm amazed at the ability of some here to defend the indefensible. Those of us who still play civ 2 get a reliable multiplayer experience and the MP version of that game was developed six years ago.

[Cesa]

Originally posted by Tiberius
What bothers me with these PtW reviews is that most of them give a 1 for the gameplay. For the gameplay, which is the same as in Civ3 vanilla! No, I'm wrong, it is not the same, it is better: the AI is better, the new city improvements are good; good additions are the radar towers, the new civs, and so on. You could argue that these should have been in the original civ3, but they were not. Period. If one gave 5 stars for the civ3 gameplay, he must be an idiot to give 1 star for a better civ3.

If they wanted to punish Firaxis for a crappy MP, then they should have given a 1 for the MP implementation (prior the patches) not for the gameplay. I wouldn't be very surprised if they changed the grades for the graphics, too

Saying that "There isn't a single, solitary element of this package worth $3, much less $30" is an idiocy, I agree. I would have paid 30 bucks for PBEM and hotseat alone, so spare me with this “doesn’t worth 3$” crap. It worths as much as people are paying for it.

A reviewer is supposed to review the expansion pack itself, i.e. (in this case) the difference between vanilla Civ3 and Civ3+PTW. So what he's saying with the 1 star gameplay is that the difference is small and that the PTW additions isn't worth the money. If reviewer was to review the total experience a game with an expansion pack would always get a higher grade than without the XP, which doesn't make much sense.

[vondrack]

Originally posted by RomanGod
ummm.... no. The, or any, ISP does not change the computer's IP address 'on the fly'. With broadband connections, IP addresses do not change, period. Unless you purchase one. With analog connections (14.4k, 33.6k, 56k) the IP address changes every time you disconnect from the current session.

Would you care to read nye's post?

You might have expressed it differently, but the thing is the problem nye mentioned was that the hosting machine had its IP changed every couple of hours. If you wish to nit-pick on me using "being changed on the fly" instead of "being reassigned" to describe that, feel free to do so.

[Tiberius]

Originally posted by Cesa
A reviewer is supposed to review the expansion pack itself, i.e. (in this case) the difference between vanilla Civ3 and Civ3+PTW. So what he's saying with the 1 star gameplay is that the difference is small and that the PTW additions isn't worth the money. If reviewer was to review the total experience a game with an expansion pack would always get a higher grade than without the XP, which doesn't make much sense.

Give me a break. If the MP had worked perfectly, the reviewer would have given PtW 5 stars for the gameplay, I bet. The gameplay did change to the better, so giving 1 star for the gameplay, not for the MP implementation or overall is stupid.
He should have said:
gameplay: 5 stars (because of the better AI, new city improvements, new civs, etc)
MP: one star
overall value: 2 stars
This would have been logical (an example I don't agree with, but I wouldn't protest against it).

[Tiberius]

Originally posted by Alexander's Horse
Those of us who still play civ 2 get a reliable multiplayer experience and the MP version of that game was developed six years ago.

Good for you. What are you doing in the civ3 forums then? (other than trolling, of course)

[woody]

Originally posted by Dimension
Civ3 fans are still going to pay for PTW, but many of them are doing so while feeling that they shouldn't have to.

Well, I'm a Civ3 fan, and I certainly don't plan to ever buy PtW. While Civ3 eventually was patched to be a great game, I don't have the same hope for PtW. I've bought every Civ game since the original Civ1, but I had enough after the way Civ3 was handled.

Never again will I buy a Firaxis product, without reading many reviews and waiting at least 6 months for patches.

[Alexander's Horse]

Originally posted by Tiberius

Good for you. What are you doing in the civ3 forums then? (other than trolling, of course)

Some of us would like this game to work.

[Tiberius]

Some of us are playing with this game and are enjoying it.