what no thread about...

[MarkG]

yesterday's news item????

[skorpion59]

For me, it is two sided. If they actually release a patch that fixes some of the problems IN THE NEAR FUTURE, I will be thrilled. But, at the same time, I have to sit here and wonder how many hours (days & weeks) I have wasted over the last month working on items they said they would not fix. (Looks like you were right Wes.)

As is, it is a catch-22. If I stop working, they won't fix what I'm working on BUT if I keep on working, they will fix what I am working on. The bright side is, we will find out faster here than anywhere else. Good going, Markos.

Don

[This message has been edited by skorpion59 (edited February 09, 2000).]

[MarkG]

I'm not sure how you'll take it, but....
who talked about a patch

[Daniel Frappier]

Yes, looks like you are dying to tell us something you promissed not to tell...

Here is a copy of an e-mail exchange I had with a CTP team member, mid november. I did not print it before but I guess it's not that secret. In any case, I didn't promissed I would not do it.

----------------------------------------
Is the development of CTP dead ?

I realize that you probably can't speak one way or the other. If I receive no response I will asume you can't give me an answer.
---------------------------------------

The answer:

Heh heh, no, in fact quite the opposite. We're very busy working on the
sequel, CTP2. But since we're in a looking forward mode now, its hard to
get time allocated for CTP1 tasks. .........
------------------------------------------

The last sentence as something to do with something I asked.

[JimMac]

Just read yesterdays news item, and must admit to being quite surprised.

There are still things which I would like to see improved with CTP, but since I use the Apolyton pack and Wes’s AI (and like many people I suppose, a few of my own minor alterations), I am pretty happy with CTP, especially on multiplay on a LAN where it is more enjoyable than Civ2 or SMAC.

I really had thought that Activision had dropped support for the CTP line on the PC. I remember around the time of Apolytons birthday celebrations, several members of the CTP team were posting on the CTP Creation forum, with 1 or 2 even offering to work with Apolyton members to develop better editing tools etc. Then all of a sudden -
NOTHING.
Not even the then ever helpful Mr Ogre responding to requests for help with SLIC problems. So I figured that’s it then,- whatever progress is to be made with CTP will be down to the enthusiasm of fans on this site. (I recently wondered if the team who did the MAC conversion might add some features to CTP, which might then make it to the PC, but didn’t really expect anything)

Now the strange thing is that even though I am very disappointed by Activisions poor PR and apparent lack of support for this title, if they released an enhancement pack, I would buy it! What a sucker I am.

JimMac

P.S Markos do you know how well/badly CTP sold? In the U.K. I have the impression that SMAC was considered a commercial success while CTP was a failure, yet I read on Games Domain in an article covering their awards, that CTP outsold SMAC. Is this true?


[This message has been edited by JimMac (edited February 09, 2000).]

[MarkG]

the only sales numbers I have is the top 10 listings for the US from PC Data. they dont contain actual number though, jsut how was first, second, etc
if you do a search in the civ-comparison forum, you'll find a thread of mine comparing how each game went in that chart...

[MarkG]

sales numbers directly from Lt John: over 500,000 copies(225,000 in the US, more than 275,000 in Europe)
if we find the numbers of smac we'll post them....

[skorpion59]

CTP2, that is even better. (I hope.)

But it still doesn't solve my dilema. Apparently my lack of correct wording to Activision, as I did here, caused me to get some incorrect information. It is the same whether it is CTP1 patch or CTP2.

Either way, you can be sure I will be the first in line when it comes out. Anybody know if we are talking about a month or 6 months?

At least this brought a little life back to the CTP forums which have otherwise been drying up lately.

Don

[Morgoth]

If its not a patch but some scenario's with their own sprites at least it will save me some work. I only hope they finally reissue the destroyer sprite (and I think some others) so they don't crash the game when zoomed out!

If SMAC outsold CTP in the UK I helped - unfortunately I bought 2 copies of SMAC to play LAN based games - but really hated the graphics and gave up instantly..but that's another story.

[MarkG]

about smac, John says that SMAC sold 5,000 copies more in the US, but doesnt have intenational numbers

[JimMac]

Thanks for the information Markos, that was quick service.

I am glad to read that it sold much better than I thought. It could indeed make sound business sense to develop further product in the CTP line.

Morgoth, I also tried SMAC on LAN but my other 2 opponents couldn’t get into the unfamiliar technological concepts and the graphics didn’t hold them until they got to grips with it. Have you tried CTP on your LAN set-up? As I mentioned above, I think that it works quite well.

Don- I know that this is not what you meant but lets not put any pressure on them, (even if we could), to release anything before it is ready. We know what happened before...

JimMac

[WesW]

Yeah, Don, it was Daniel's letter I was referring to.
I sent a letter to Activision asking if the game had hard array limits, like PChang asked, and got a reply of "we don't offer any support to people making modifications of the game files." Thanks for nothing.

I'm going to be mad if this sequel just puts in all the code that they left unimplemented in the current game. I mean, most of that stuff is already in SMAC, so I don't see how they can charge us another 35 to 50 dollars just to get the things that should have been in the first game almost a year ago.

Btw, if they have sold half a million copies of this game, you would think that there would be 10 to 50 times as many people downloading the mods here as what there is.
From what I have seen here, most people gave up on the game after a few tries.
[This message has been edited by WesW (edited February 09, 2000).]

[pchang65]

So if you know something, spill the beans.

[MarkG]

quote: "we don't offer any support to people making modifications of the game files."

you dont really expect a tech support guy to have all the knowledge(or to have a really big faq) to answer modification questions, do you? of course the few very ordinary questions(how do I enable 32 civs, etc) could be answered, but "if the game has hard array limits"??

quote: I'm going to be mad if this sequel just puts in all the code that they left unimplemented in the current game.

I dont think any features(like exchanging cities or land mines, that's what you're talking about, right?) were left unimplemented because they were bored
obviously, something else was braking the whole game or unbalancing it....

quote: Btw, if they have sold half a million copies of this game, you would think that there would be 10 to 50 times as many people downloading the mods here as what there is.

the ctp db has almost 140K downloads with 102 files. the smac one has 45K with 124 files and the civ2 has 94K downloads with 370 files. make your own conclusions.
[This message has been edited by MarkG (edited February 10, 2000).]

[Atahualpa]

140,000 DOWNLOADS???????
In words: ONE_HUNDRED_FORTY_THOUSAND?
and CivII which exists years longer than ctp and with triple the amount of files has "only" 94,000?

*impressed*

Ata