Civilization 5 Announced

[Rowain]

While I agree with a lot of your analyses Sullla I wonder what else they could have done.

They needed to release a new Game and they needed it to have significant differences to Civ4 so imo no matter what they might have done it would have disappointed the die-hard fans.

[sunrise089]

Two big picture things they could have done:

1) Not implemented 1UPT. Civ is not a tactical wargame, and unlike hexes (which I still dislike) I've not seen a great case for why 1UPT makes sense in a strategy game.

2) Listened to testers, or gotten skilled testers.

Yes, that doesn't fix structural issues with the budget, but it at least mitigates the damage somewhat.

I don't get "no matter what they might have done it would have disappointed the die-hard fans." This was said on launch day when the claim by the insiders was that the game was actually amazing. Then it was said a month later when the claim was that patches could fix things. Now six months on we're told the developers had a "lost cause" on their hands but still get the "Civ 4 diehards are impossible to please" line???

Sullla was a pretty diehard Civ3 player and Civ4 pleased him. I was a pretty diehard Civ4 player and was quite pleased by FFH which changes the game a LOT. Sirian, whereever he is, was a diehard Civ4 player who was apparently happy with Civ 5. Surpassing Civ 4 may have been hard, but the fans aren't that difficult to please.

[Sullla]

How about create gameplay systems that aren't blatantly broken and abusable? How about coming up with a workable design plan that could actually be implemented with the amount of time and resources they had?

I agree with sunrise: they had a tough challenge but it was far from impossible. I thought every single past Civ game improved on its predecessor: Civ4 > Civ3 > Civ2 > Civ1. Despite what many have claimed I am not resistant to change. If they had actually done a good job, I would have given them plenty of praise. Heck, if Civ5 was even "close to as good" as Civ4, I'd be reasonably satisfied.

But they didn't, and I see no reason why we have to make excuses for their failures.

[Zed-F]

How about create gameplay systems that aren't blatantly broken and abusable? How about coming up with a workable design plan that could actually be implemented with the amount of time and resources they had?

I have to agree here. Taking Civ5 in a new direction wasn't the problem. Adding 1UPT and hexes wasn't the problem in and of itself. Doing those things without doing a good job of designing and implementing and testing the changes was the problem. If they didn't have the budget to do a proper job of Civ5... maybe doing something else would have been a better idea.

[antisocialmunky]

Thanks for posting that information, antisocialmurky. I don't suppose there's a direct link anywhere to the article (?)

You have to pay $3? You can get the electronic issue on their website. If you belong to a game design studio or have sort of game development thing going on, then you can get a copy free:

http://www.gdmag.com/homepage.htm

Pretty much exactly what I thought. They went with "change for the sake of change", rather than because it was actually needed or wanted. They didn't even attempt to improve upon Civ4. They went in a different direction entirely. I guess you could call it bold, but I'm so very, very disappointed. I fell like they just gave up on making a better game without even trying.

Yeah, one wonders why this logic works. You don't radically change your cookie recipe if everyone really likes the cookies. You tweak it so its better. Its was also a huge risky especially for a brand that basically released a very average Civ.Rev. and a lackluster Colonization...

The other points would be comical if they weren't so tragic. They picked the wrong community testing team to begin with, and then didn't even get them the right builds. I don't know the whole story there, it sure looked like Civ5 hadn't been properly tested though when it came out. They didn't even start work on MP until the game was halfway done, and then tried to graft in the MP code halfway. Ye gods, no wonder MP is such a disaster in Civ5...

This seems to be the rule rather than the exception. Testing is usually the written off a bit especially if the team lead is inexperienced. Not sure who to blame really though - FA or 2K? 2K set the scheduling but FA was overambitious in the given timeframe.

[luddite]

Personally, I would have really liked it if civ 5 had been nothing more than a more polished version of civ 4, with no new features at all. Civ 4 is great, but it does have a lot of little tiny flaws that bug me. I think the RBmod has potential to be something really good, if it ever gets finished.

Starcraft 2 was basically the exact same game as the original, just with better graphics and UI. That ended up being Game of the Year.

[TheArchduke]

They needed to release a new Game and they needed it to have significant differences to Civ4

Says who? I doubt that severly. Expand on existing features and gameplay, make better graphics and all is well.

Starcraft 2 strikes me as an excellent example.

But it is good to see what went wrong in some detail. It still amazes me how amateurish some companies still work and still get money.

[Zed-F]

I don't agree with that philosophy. A new game that is not significantly different from the previous game is not a new game. It's a patch for the old game, or at most an expansion if it includes a lot of art upgrades and other relatively expensive changes.

Now if you want to argue that they should have made a patch or expansion for Civ 4 instead of making Civ5, I won't disagree. Firaxis should not have tried to top Civ4 if they didn't have a clear idea and a solid design for doing so, and enough time and money to get it right. But they were right not to simply remake Civ 4, add a few bells and whistles, and slap a new version number on it. I am not interested in strategy games that follow the revenue model that sports games do.

[T-hawk]

I think the RBmod has potential to be something really good, if it ever gets finished.

Topic drift, but that is indeed a problem with the RB balance mod and just about every other mod. When do you call it finished? We can keep tweaking things until eternity. There's no ship date or holiday season that we have to meet. If anything, the only way to call it finished is to start up a game using it.

[antisocialmunky]

Why doesn't RB just make a brand new game ?