Tweet
My Letter To Activision (Being Nice...)
<center><table width=80%><tr><td><font color=000080 face="Verdana" size=2><font size="1">quote:
<img src="/images/blue1.gif" width=100% height=1>
</font>
Dear Sir or Madam,
The online Civ community received with disappointment the news that Activision planned to release no further patches for CTP2, as the general feeling was that the game had the potential to become the best TBS game ever. Three months later, and the CTP2 community has dwindled to just a few hundred people who are still playing or modding.
I will not comment on how *good* or not the game is, suffice to say I am still here, but it has been shown that CTP2 does not have the long-term playability of Civ2 (for example). Largely this is due to the lack of Play-By-EMail, hotseat, and a stable Multiplayer system, but the reason the Civ2 comunity is so large, is because of the huge range of mods and scenarios.
I am convinced that CTP2 is as, and indeed more moddable than Civ2, and many people, especially at the Apolyton Civilization Site have worked extremely hard to get the best out of CTP2.
I am sure you are aware that many people still feel extremely angry about the bugs in CTP2, but I'm not writing to remind you of this. I am writing because I think that the Activision CTP2 team can at least give the CTP2 community the tools to make CTP2 the best it can be. The spritetool was gratefully received, and I think I have nearly 100 fan-created units on my computer, for use in various CTP1 and 2 scenarios. Now that Activision has stopped work on the CTP series, the community would be incredibly grateful if you could allow us to use the program which was used to edit and/or compress the *.til files for terrain and tile improvements.
This one program, emailed to me, or to Markos Giannopoulos at markg@apolyton.net would open up many more opportunities to add to the game, and adapt the game engine to unlimited numbers of scenarios.
On behalf of the entire CTP2 community at Apolyton Civilization Site (http://apolyton.net),
Yours faithfully,
Ben Weaver.
email:<mailto:"weaver1@tinyworld.co.uk">weaver1@ti nyworld.co.uk
<img src="/images/blue1.gif" width=100% height=1></font></td></tr></table></center>
This is a letter that I will send to Activision, and I would like it to make an impresion. I am posting it here so that everyone can add their opinions and comments to it.
I would really like to have the *.til editor, and so I do not think that insulting, flaming or hurling abuse at Activision will help this in any way. There are other threads for more angry comments, please keep this thread restricted to:
And also: should I post, or email this, and if by post, typed or handwritten?
I shall send this when everyone who wants to has offered an opinion and the thread has effectivly died.
Should we attatch a petition, and if so, how? Has everyone got access to a scanner, where they can scan in their name, in their own handwriting?
Anyway, let me know what letter I should send, and I'll update this post with valid suggestions.
Ben
<font size=1 face=Arial color=444444>[This message has been edited by Immortal Wombat (edited May 21, 2001).]</font>
<font size=1 face=Arial color=444444>[This message has been edited by Immortal Wombat (edited May 21, 2001).]</font>
<font size=1 face=Arial color=444444>[This message has been edited by Immortal Wombat (edited May 21, 2001).]</font>
<img src="/images/blue1.gif" width=100% height=1>
</font>
Dear Sir or Madam,
The online Civ community received with disappointment the news that Activision planned to release no further patches for CTP2, as the general feeling was that the game had the potential to become the best TBS game ever. Three months later, and the CTP2 community has dwindled to just a few hundred people who are still playing or modding.
I will not comment on how *good* or not the game is, suffice to say I am still here, but it has been shown that CTP2 does not have the long-term playability of Civ2 (for example). Largely this is due to the lack of Play-By-EMail, hotseat, and a stable Multiplayer system, but the reason the Civ2 comunity is so large, is because of the huge range of mods and scenarios.
I am convinced that CTP2 is as, and indeed more moddable than Civ2, and many people, especially at the Apolyton Civilization Site have worked extremely hard to get the best out of CTP2.
I am sure you are aware that many people still feel extremely angry about the bugs in CTP2, but I'm not writing to remind you of this. I am writing because I think that the Activision CTP2 team can at least give the CTP2 community the tools to make CTP2 the best it can be. The spritetool was gratefully received, and I think I have nearly 100 fan-created units on my computer, for use in various CTP1 and 2 scenarios. Now that Activision has stopped work on the CTP series, the community would be incredibly grateful if you could allow us to use the program which was used to edit and/or compress the *.til files for terrain and tile improvements.
This one program, emailed to me, or to Markos Giannopoulos at markg@apolyton.net would open up many more opportunities to add to the game, and adapt the game engine to unlimited numbers of scenarios.
On behalf of the entire CTP2 community at Apolyton Civilization Site (http://apolyton.net),
Yours faithfully,
Ben Weaver.
email:<mailto:"weaver1@tinyworld.co.uk">weaver1@ti nyworld.co.uk
<img src="/images/blue1.gif" width=100% height=1></font></td></tr></table></center>
This is a letter that I will send to Activision, and I would like it to make an impresion. I am posting it here so that everyone can add their opinions and comments to it.
I would really like to have the *.til editor, and so I do not think that insulting, flaming or hurling abuse at Activision will help this in any way. There are other threads for more angry comments, please keep this thread restricted to:
- additions to the letter
- ommissions from the letter
- other changes to the letter
- comments on changes to the letter
And also: should I post, or email this, and if by post, typed or handwritten?
I shall send this when everyone who wants to has offered an opinion and the thread has effectivly died.
Should we attatch a petition, and if so, how? Has everyone got access to a scanner, where they can scan in their name, in their own handwriting?
Anyway, let me know what letter I should send, and I'll update this post with valid suggestions.
Ben
<font size=1 face=Arial color=444444>[This message has been edited by Immortal Wombat (edited May 21, 2001).]</font>
<font size=1 face=Arial color=444444>[This message has been edited by Immortal Wombat (edited May 21, 2001).]</font>
<font size=1 face=Arial color=444444>[This message has been edited by Immortal Wombat (edited May 21, 2001).]</font>
It's a group of Apolytoners (I don't think the debate on whether the A stood for Apolyton or Alpha was ever settled) that was invited by Activision's programmers to help out to prevent that CtP2 would be the disaster CtP1 was and so we could start working on mods even before the game was released. As I said, an idea of the programmers: management didn't really like it so things didn't exactly work out as planned, but we still gave them some useful tips, Harlan got to make the Alexander scenario and we could all start working on mods very early.
That one worked then...
But if you look past the AI and multiplayer disasters it's not even all that bad a game... (but let's not go off topic here)
Anyone who recognized Mark Cummings is a real vet, he's dutcheese.
Comment