Are we ever going to start playing?

[Nikolai]

As soon as the patch is out, "somethings" will be confirmed.

[Paddy]

Originally posted by Nikolai
As soon as the patch is out, "somethings" will be confirmed.

thank you for this Nordic wisdom

[Nikolai]

No problem mate.

[snoopy369]

Originally posted by Sir Ralph
Not being backward compatible means, that you can't play a savegame made with the new patch on an old, unpatched system. It does not mean, that you can't play a savegame of an older version with a patched system (this means it's forward compatible).

Which would be fine with me. Who does not apply the latest patch, can't be the turnplayer, big deal. Everybody should patch his game anyway.

What else are we waiting for?

I'm 99.99% sure that "patch 1" saves were not playable in "patch 2", and 90% sure that "vanilla" civ4 were not playable in "patch 1". The game actually rejected them as from a different version, as well has had difficulties with them.

My belief is that it largely has to do with incompatibilities in the XML - they have made changes in each patch with some of the XML, such that the XML didn't actually quite match up. But I'm not entirely sure.

[snoopy369]

Originally posted by Sir Ralph
No, but to my knowledge every patch since PtW has been forward compatible. IIRC there was only one patch in plain Civ3, which was not. Or at least it was announced not to be, but on a test it worked anyway. Perhaps there were circumstances where it would not.

You didn't play Conquests (much), though ... many, many PBEMs were screwed up by the fact that like 60-70% of them "broke" between two of the major patches - I don't recall which versions, 1.15 and 1.22 or something maybe? I just remember having not only PTW but two or three versions of Conquests to play certain games.

Anyway, like I stated above, i don't think the civ4 patches in the past have been forward compatible, but someone could certainly tell me i'm wrong ...

[Harovan]

Originally posted by snoopy369
I'm 99.99% sure that "patch 1" saves were not playable in "patch 2", and 90% sure that "vanilla" civ4 were not playable in "patch 1". The game actually rejected them as from a different version, as well has had difficulties with them.

My belief is that it largely has to do with incompatibilities in the XML - they have made changes in each patch with some of the XML, such that the XML didn't actually quite match up. But I'm not entirely sure.

Shrug, I wouldn't have thought that Civ4 is subpar software in terms of commonly accepted standards, but if you say so...

I'm a developer myself, I write soft- and firmware for communication devices, and I would be sacked in one minute, if I wouldn't be able to read data from older versions, to convert them in the new formats and to substitute possibly added new content with defaults.

[James]

Game developers and game software writers seem to live in a fantasyland of uncompleted work.

[Guardian]

Well, I'm a senior systems consultant / database admin myself. I work with big, fat database systems that gobble up hundreds of gigabytes, if not terabytes of data. In this business, it should be needless to say, if you release a new version or a system patch that won't let your customers keep their old data... never mind - too late, you're dead!

What actually happens on a database server is that every time you boot it up, it runs a recovery operation to bring all databases online. If, during this operation, the server detects that a database has a lower version than the server itself, it will automatically run an upgrade pass on that database, meaning it will inspect the entire database and upgrade it as necessary to make it fully compatible with the current version. This has been standard on all major database platforms for years. Anything else would be suicidal in this business. Some newer systems will even let you keep a database from an older version without upgrading it if you so wish. For instance, Microsoft SQL Server 2005 will let you keep a database in SQL Server 2000 mode or even in SQL Server 7.0 mode. But of course, by doing this you'll deny yourself access to much of the added functionality and improved performance of the newer version. (Yes, it is popular to bash Microsoft and I do so myself quite frequently and eagerly at times, but their SQL server products are actually becoming pretty darn cool these days! )

Anyway, my basic point is: If it's possible for big, fat complex database systems to upgrade to newer versions while retaining all of the old data, it should be possible for a relatively simple system like Civ to do the same.

Oh, and by the way, I never had any problems patching up my games in Conquest.

[Master Zen]

Civ4 still sucks though.

[James]

Good points Guardian.

[Harovan]

Originally posted by Guardian
Well, I'm a senior systems consultant / database admin myself. I work with big, fat database systems that gobble up hundreds of gigabytes, if not terabytes of data. In this business, it should be needless to say, if you release a new version or a system patch that won't let your customers keep their old data... never mind - too late, you're dead!

What actually happens on a database server is that every time you boot it up, it runs a recovery operation to bring all databases online. If, during this operation, the server detects that a database has a lower version than the server itself, it will automatically run an upgrade pass on that database, meaning it will inspect the entire database and upgrade it as necessary to make it fully compatible with the current version. This has been standard on all major database platforms for years. Anything else would be suicidal in this business. Some newer systems will even let you keep a database from an older version without upgrading it if you so wish. For instance, Microsoft SQL Server 2005 will let you keep a database in SQL Server 2000 mode or even in SQL Server 7.0 mode. But of course, by doing this you'll deny yourself access to much of the added functionality and improved performance of the newer version. (Yes, it is popular to bash Microsoft and I do so myself quite frequently and eagerly at times, but their SQL server products are actually becoming pretty darn cool these days! )

Anyway, my basic point is: If it's possible for big, fat complex database systems to upgrade to newer versions while retaining all of the old data, it should be possible for a relatively simple system like Civ to do the same.

True in theory, of course. The reality looks a bit differently, though.

If you lose a customer, you lose money and probably won't see him again to buy your services, ever. And neither will you see anyone, who asks him about his opinion. But the community here is filled with gullible sheep, who rather wait half a year for a patch than to get into some action, and 99% of which WILL buy the next expansion regardless of what's been delivered so far, because of course, it will fix every problem on earth, won't it?

[notyoueither]

That's a bit harsh, SR. We could start our own action...

[Harovan]

Originally posted by notyoueither
That's a bit harsh, SR.

Not if you take in account that little guy with shades in the top left.

We could start our own action...

Yep.

[notyoueither]

Oh. He's cool.

[Paddy]

Originally posted by Sir Ralph


True in theory, of course. The reality looks a bit differently, though.

If you lose a customer, you lose money and probably won't see him again to buy your services, ever. And neither will you see anyone, who asks him about his opinion. But the community here is filled with gullible sheep, who rather wait half a year for a patch than to get into some action, and 99% of which WILL buy the next expansion regardless of what's been delivered so far, because of course, it will fix every problem on earth, won't it?

yet the civ franchise blossoms...