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Hi,
sunrise089 Wrote:Sorry if this is cynical, but why not just download and run the betterAI mod in 1.61? Because I don't play any private games anymore, only RB games, and I'd like to have one common version that all participants play with. The current version splits (vanilla/warlords, normal/better AI etc.) hurt the community.
-Kylearan
There are two kinds of fools. One says, "This is old, and therefore good." And one says, "This is new, and therefore better." - John Brunner, The Shockwave Rider
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I really don't know what to think of another expansion.
I was slow to even get going in Civ4 due to extreme burnout from Civ3. I only got Warlord for around Christmas. I haven't even played all the new civs.
It looks like I am the odd one out the when it comes to the versions. I like Warlord's interface improvements such as multiple rows to show all your troops, better tips around all the resources, etc.
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sunrise089 Wrote:@Sulla - I do wish you would have kept up involvement, even if Soren's absence makes things less enjoyable. It's very nice from our perspective to have an insider to expain things after the game launches, and frankly Blake and anyone else who may be involved doesn't tend to be nearly as open as you were with early converage of vanilla. That sounds noble and all, but frankly it would have been a waste of time for both me and the developers. Things did not go well behind the scenes with Warlords; I can't really get into anything that took place, but my relationship was very different with Alex and Jon than it had been with Soren. It got to the point where I was screaming at Alex in the private admin-only forums, and he was sending nasty threats back at me. That's just not a productive environment for anyone. Clearly they did not want to listen to my advice, so what was the point in sticking around? For BTS, the feature list was already set in stone, and the only thing I would have had the opportunity to work on was "balancing", a fancy term for "bug hunting". Sorry, but I'm not willing to provide free labor for that kind of thing. Either give me some actual say in development (as Soren gave us for Civ4), or hire me as a beta tester. That probably sounds cynical, but I've spent too many years working on this to do glorified bug hunting for no pay. 
Imhotep Wrote:But just look around here and over at CFC - and tell me what you see. Thriving communities have another look. The CivFanatics masses simply associate: more = better. If there's more activity at CFC, it's due to the fact that they have about 1000 times the membership that we do, not because they've embraced Warlords and we haven't. This place was dead SOLELY because there were no GAMES being offered - I thought it was amazing that we had people sticking around for months and months with NO activity taking place. Posts and activity are both up dramatically since sooooo opened his game and we started sponsoring events again. I've seen a bunch of new faces appear too for the Gentle Adventure, so the notion that this is not a "thriving" community doesn't hold weight with me.
And just to set the record straight, we aren't anti-Warlords here. Anyone is free to suggest game scenarios that use the expansion, and one community member has already done so. There just seems to be more overall interest in Civ4 1.61 at the moment. I'm doing the best I can to tailor games to what the community wants, so if you guys want more Warlords activity, you just have to let me know. 
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Expansion looks OK. I'll probably buy it. If I'm in a shop that's selling it. If I have more money in my wallet than the price tag. If it's good I'll play it. If it's bad I'll keep playing vanilla.
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Sullla Wrote:The CivFanatics masses simply associate: more = better. If there's more activity at CFC, it's due to the fact that they have about 1000 times the membership that we do, not because they've embraced Warlords and we haven't. This place was dead SOLELY because there were no GAMES being offered - I thought it was amazing that we had people sticking around for months and months with NO activity taking place. Posts and activity are both up dramatically since sooooo opened his game and we started sponsoring events again. I've seen a bunch of new faces appear too for the Gentle Adventure, so the notion that this is not a "thriving" community doesn't hold weight with me.
And just to set the record straight, we aren't anti-Warlords here. Anyone is free to suggest game scenarios that use the expansion, and one community member has already done so. There just seems to be more overall interest in Civ4 1.61 at the moment. I'm doing the best I can to tailor games to what the community wants, so if you guys want more Warlords activity, you just have to let me know.
You misunderstood me. I was intending to say neither CFC nor RBCiv are now platforms where real interest is shown (just compare to the times after vanilla was released - let's say from December 2007 on). Just compare the amount of games. Maybe 15 SGs are played currently, including RB29 a to d. For a board with so many users that isn't really much, is it ? Same here, apart from all the problems that the absence of Sirian brought with it, the interest in the game has dropped significantly. You're absolutely right - this has nothing to do with Warlords, but with the core game, as I said in my post above too. It's simple to blame the expansions, but it misses the point wholly I think.
Imhotep
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Sullla Wrote:(although I'm pretty sure there are a couple of RB people who have been). Yep, but more RBers would have been nice.
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Not to start a whole new thread, but is there a chance that both Vanilla and Warlords will have additional patches at some point to bring them up to "speed" with, for example, the "Better AI" progress (assuming 1.61 actually needs one) or any other innovations within the game?
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Sarek Wrote:Not to start a whole new thread, but is there a chance that both Vanilla and Warlords will have additional patches at some point to bring them up to "speed" with, for example, the "Better AI" progress (assuming 1.61 actually needs one) or any other innovations within the game?
Don't hold your breath. Did we see a patch to bring Vanilla to Warlords' level of interface tweeks?
@Kylearan - Point made about it benefiting us to have a common format, but with promanant members seemingly refusing to purchase the expansions (I'm not saying they don't have a good reason) we may still find it difficult to find a version to suit everyone.
@Sulla - I take your point as well. I know it's selfish, but I did like the inside peak you gave us into the design process of the game, and your ability to tell us what the developers were intending with certain features. Where I suppose I assumed wrong was when I coorelated your participation in a project with willingness to talk about it. Since you were involved in Warlords but didn't have a good experience the information has been less forthcoming, and I suppose BTS wouldn't be any different. Additionally, I don't know what type of NDA Firaxis requires, but it's annoying. Noone is asking for trade secrets about features in the game to be announced to the community, but the total absense of Blake and Sirian recently makes it seem like Firaxis has required some sort of total information embargo that prevents employees from even playing older versions of the game. Talk about overkill.
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I agree that Civ4 SGs aren't that active at CFC. The bottom of page 1 has entries from February. There was a point that 24 hours on inactivity with Civ3 SGs already had you on page 2!
Despite having a rep as some of the better run SGs, the games still fill much slower then they did with Civ3.
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sunrise089 Wrote:Additionally, I don't know what type of NDA Firaxis requires, but it's annoying. Noone is asking for trade secrets about features in the game to be announced to the community, but the total absence of Blake and Sirian recently makes it seem like Firaxis has required some sort of total information embargo I don't think people want to risk violating a contractual agreement. You are not allowed to release ANY information that is not already public knowledge- so once the game is released people can talk, before that, not at all.
Sarek Wrote:is there a chance that both Vanilla and Warlords will have additional patches at some point to bring them up to "speed" with, for example, the "Better AI" progress (assuming 1.61 actually needs one) or any other innovations within the game? I would not count on these kinds of additions in a patch. "Better AI" and Interface tweaks are Content, patches (for any game) will generally not provide new content, but instead fix things that don't work well.
On League of Legends I am "BertrandDeHorn"
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