Civilization 5 Announced

[Sullla]

The thing is, they could have gotten those images for essentially nothing. A lot of the creators probably would have given them away for free if they had been credited in return (major exposure for their work), and someone posted that a bunch of them were from an image collection that costs all of $30 to rent for commerical use. So we're not exactly talking about breaking the bank here.

It's the principle of the thing... they took other people's work, did not ask their permission, did not give them credit or compensation, made minimal alterations and then passed it off as their own work in a commercial product. I don't care how tight your deadlines are, that's plagiarism, and as someone who makes a living off of intellectual property, I'm very much offended. That is *NOT* standard practice in the gaming industry either. They were just lazy.

Anyway, I was more curious about people's thoughts on a possible expansion before the topic got off track. Given that Firaxis is touting the return of endgame bar graphs in the next patch (a feature present in every previous game, including the 1991 original) I'm not exactly holding my breath.

[Kuro]

Making those new graphs was hard because they had to deal with their new "One Line Per Graph" system.

[Ellimist]

This is a little off topic, but Sullla, I've been meaning to thank you for some time. Your review of Civ 5 saved me some money and introduced me to this forum, which has renewed my interest in Civ IV.
I nearly bought Civ 5 awhile back, but was wary of 1upt as it was explained on the box. I went looking for player feedback, and was directed to your excellent Civ 5 summary.

[Lord Parkin]

Anyway, I was more curious about people's thoughts on a possible expansion before the topic got off track.

I'm starting to think it's unlikely now that they seem to have acquired a "thing" for slow trickling DLC releases. Guess we'll see though.

Given that Firaxis is touting the return of endgame bar graphs in the next patch...

Wow, it's only taken them most of a year since release to implement a feature that was completely standard in every previous iteration of the game right from release? Impressive!

[haphazard1]

I'm starting to think it's unlikely now that they seem to have acquired a "thing" for slow trickling DLC releases. Guess we'll see though.

I agree. The DLC business model of nickel-and-diming customers for tiny changes or new civs appears to be winning over the expansion pack model. With the relative ease and low cost (no physical packaging, discs, physical manuals, bargaining for shelf space at stores, etc.) of DLC through Steam or similar delivery services, this trend seems unlikely to reverse.

Wow, it's only taken them most of a year since release to implement a feature that was completely standard in every previous iteration of the game right from release? Impressive!

Completely agree. Firaxis seems to expect praise, or at least positive responses, for these features that should have been present at release.

Civ V might have been a cool, cutting-edge game 6 or 8 years ago. But the bar for quality has been raised since then, largely by Firaxis itself with Civ IV but also by others.

Am I the only one who sometimes gets the feeling Civ V was more of a successor to Civ III, with Shafer and his team ignoring most of the features and design lessons of Civ IV? It's like there was some bizarre time slip at Firaxis and they put out a game for 2005.

[joncnunn]

Well, Civ III itself was more a successor to Civ I than Civ II especially before Conquests added a bunch of the units and buildings back.

Civ IV is more a successor to Civ II than Civ III.

So, yes Firaxis, does seem to look at two versions back than the old version when designing sequels.

One thing though I have my doubts that DirectX version 9 can run on what state of the art was for graphics cards back in 2005.

Civ V might have been a cool, cutting-edge game 6 or 8 years ago. But the bar for quality has been raised since then, largely by Firaxis itself with Civ IV but also by others.

Am I the only one who sometimes gets the feeling Civ V was more of a successor to Civ III, with Shafer and his team ignoring most of the features and design lessons of Civ IV? It's like there was some bizarre time slip at Firaxis and they put out a game for 2005.

[NobleHelium]

Dx9.0c is from 2004.

[scooter]

Am I the only one who sometimes gets the feeling Civ V was more of a successor to Civ III, with Shafer and his team ignoring most of the features and design lessons of Civ IV? It's like there was some bizarre time slip at Firaxis and they put out a game for 2005.

I've been saying this yeah... A friend of mine who is mildly into Civ asked me about Civ5, and I said that Civ5 feels like it was made by people who either 1) never played Civ4 or 2) they sucked at it. Civ4 was wonderful in that it fixed so many Civ3 issues that have always plagued the Civ series, and then Civ5 remarkably introduced many of those horrible things while adding more bad ideas. Just a laughably bad game all around.

[sunrise089]

I've been saying this yeah... A friend of mine who is mildly into Civ asked me about Civ5, and I said that Civ5 feels like it was made by people who either 1) never played Civ4 or 2) they sucked at it. Civ4 was wonderful in that it fixed so many Civ3 issues that have always plagued the Civ series, and then Civ5 remarkably introduced many of those horrible things while adding more bad ideas. Just a laughably bad game all around.

Actually, it's sad that this is NOT true (in the SP scene). I quoted a Siran post a few months back where he said Civ5 avoided ICS among other exploits. WEEKS later ICS became the dominant strategy on high levels. Sirian may not have been a bleeding-edge top SP player, but he's certainly better than say me. Lack of skill wasn't the problem. Some terrible combination of unrealistic expectations and unwillingness to consider problems due to groupthink, IMHO, was.

EDIT: That may have sounded confrontational, and I don't intend it that way. I completely get what you're saying and I think it captures a core truth about the design team and the "MP testing team." My remark is intended to suggest that that problem was not automatically sufficient to create a bad game, as testers could have provided some great guidance had they had more access, more trust, or more integrity.

[haphazard1]

Civ4 was wonderful in that it fixed so many Civ3 issues that have always plagued the Civ series, and then Civ5 remarkably introduced many of those horrible things while adding more bad ideas. Just a laughably bad game all around.

Some terrible combination of unrealistic expectations and unwillingness to consider problems due to groupthink, IMHO, was.

It certainly seems like something happened to the process at Firaxis, something that contributed significantly to the outcome of Civ V being what it is (and isn't). I understand that due to non-disclosure agreements and the like, we are highly unlikely to ever know what really happened. But can anyone speak in general terms about Firaxis' process? Was the Civ V team mostly the same people who worked on Civ IV? (With different leadership, of course, and that can change things a lot.) Or would the Civ V team have mostly been people new to working on the Civ franchise?

I am curious because development processes are a professional concern of mine. When a company has well established process, people and projects may come and go but the process endures -- it is a form of institutional memory and a stabilizing force.

If the Civ V team was mostly different from the team which developed Civ IV, it would explain a lot. Probably this is too simple an explanation, and we will just never know. But I am curious.