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Well, CIV3 has been announced and Firaxis told us they'd be listening and interested.
Great.
And now you come up with billions of ideas, more ideas, and even more... to send them about 150 MByte of ideas amonth.
Great.
You really think this will work? He, let's face it: Even only some days after the first announcement, it's pretty hard to have an overview of what's getting posted here - what's more, the ideas contradict each other, aren't feasable with today's technology or are rightout NUTS
DAMN.
So you really think they'd take a dozen people at Firaxis, read through all that (even if all they'd get were filtered and compile lists) and then say "Yes, we will integrate THIS and THIS and..."?
NO WAY.
Remember, doing computer games is about MONEY. Firaxis wouldn't be a successful game company if this were their approach - they want to do exactly ONE thing: Sell large amounts (and add-ons later) of an incredibly successful game. But for this, it's utterly unimportant for them to integrate fascinating quirks and so on someone might come up with; at least unless it's something you can print in big, flaming letters onto the game box and you know that the average "I want a nice computer game for my son"-buyer will be impressed by.
What counts for them, is the question "What will the majority of potential buyers like to see?". "Majority" is the key word here - a simple list of ideas is pretty useless for them as long as they have no clue whether an idea is some smartass' great singular invention or the dream of all people playing computer games.
What they need are polls.
Unfortunately, though, do not look at these forums as a valuable source of information in this respect - people reading and writing here are CIVERS, addicts, freaks, maniacs - and they are NOT the 95% of the people out there who actually pay the money.
I do not want to say this "making a list for Firaxis" is a bad thing - actually, it's fantastic. But do not expect that much from it. For every opinion on any aspect of CIV3, there's another one's opinion stating the exact opposite. For every new feature wished for there are financial reasons NOT to do it.
It all ends up (for Firaxis) in the formula:
"Let's make a game with a GREAT name, having the LEAST costs, played by the MOST people and thus getting the MAXIMUM sales."
And, one last thing: Many peple here seem to have the inclination of stuffing all of the universe into CIV3 - even IF this was possible (i.e. a more or less decent simulation of history), it wouldn't be playable. Just imagine only every 10th idea posted here would be implemented... no way that game still would be playable. Remember that CIV1 was such a breakthrough because of it's degree of abstraction, effectively making it POSSIBLE to manage a (seemingly) very complex world quite simply. Many ideas I read here go exactly the opposite way, adding bells and whistles which in the end would create an unplayable monstrum...
------------------
If somebody asks you "Art thou a god?", you tell him "YES!"
Great.
And now you come up with billions of ideas, more ideas, and even more... to send them about 150 MByte of ideas amonth.
Great.
You really think this will work? He, let's face it: Even only some days after the first announcement, it's pretty hard to have an overview of what's getting posted here - what's more, the ideas contradict each other, aren't feasable with today's technology or are rightout NUTS
DAMN.
So you really think they'd take a dozen people at Firaxis, read through all that (even if all they'd get were filtered and compile lists) and then say "Yes, we will integrate THIS and THIS and..."?
NO WAY.
Remember, doing computer games is about MONEY. Firaxis wouldn't be a successful game company if this were their approach - they want to do exactly ONE thing: Sell large amounts (and add-ons later) of an incredibly successful game. But for this, it's utterly unimportant for them to integrate fascinating quirks and so on someone might come up with; at least unless it's something you can print in big, flaming letters onto the game box and you know that the average "I want a nice computer game for my son"-buyer will be impressed by.
What counts for them, is the question "What will the majority of potential buyers like to see?". "Majority" is the key word here - a simple list of ideas is pretty useless for them as long as they have no clue whether an idea is some smartass' great singular invention or the dream of all people playing computer games.
What they need are polls.
Unfortunately, though, do not look at these forums as a valuable source of information in this respect - people reading and writing here are CIVERS, addicts, freaks, maniacs - and they are NOT the 95% of the people out there who actually pay the money.
I do not want to say this "making a list for Firaxis" is a bad thing - actually, it's fantastic. But do not expect that much from it. For every opinion on any aspect of CIV3, there's another one's opinion stating the exact opposite. For every new feature wished for there are financial reasons NOT to do it.
It all ends up (for Firaxis) in the formula:
"Let's make a game with a GREAT name, having the LEAST costs, played by the MOST people and thus getting the MAXIMUM sales."
And, one last thing: Many peple here seem to have the inclination of stuffing all of the universe into CIV3 - even IF this was possible (i.e. a more or less decent simulation of history), it wouldn't be playable. Just imagine only every 10th idea posted here would be implemented... no way that game still would be playable. Remember that CIV1 was such a breakthrough because of it's degree of abstraction, effectively making it POSSIBLE to manage a (seemingly) very complex world quite simply. Many ideas I read here go exactly the opposite way, adding bells and whistles which in the end would create an unplayable monstrum...
------------------
If somebody asks you "Art thou a god?", you tell him "YES!"
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