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Post by friedrichpsitalon on Jun 1, 2006 15:46:40 GMT -5
Well, since we got your attention FP....anyway you can use your pull to get them to create a Civ 4 forum on the official website? This is the only game that I've bought in the past 2 years that does not currently run its own forums. Or at least not in the official game webpage. You know, that is a good question. I'll look into it and get back to you if I can. Though the post immediately below yours may be part of the reason...
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Post by deyreepher on Jun 1, 2006 16:38:27 GMT -5
Are you talking about Mr.Gametheory's post?
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Post by Avogadro on Jun 1, 2006 17:44:27 GMT -5
Yes and what people fail to notice is Civ is 2 companies not one.
Firaxis programs Take2 market/financial backing/distribution
Without too many details I can say Firaxis is not the issue here...You wanna get someone's attention email take2
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Post by Canucksoldier on Jun 2, 2006 1:40:23 GMT -5
Yes post release support is generally the publishers responsibility, I'm not sure why Take2 doesn't have forums for Civ4. Has anyone researched if Take2 has forums for any of it's games? Perhaps this is just some odd Take2 policy, not that it couldn't be changed, but perhaps Take2 prefers web/email support instead of forums.
CS
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Post by lporiginalg on Jun 2, 2006 2:03:09 GMT -5
Where exactly does Gamespy fit in with all this? Are they a part of Take2? It might be a myth but the general concensus in the staging room is that they're to blame for the majority of connection problems.
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Post by Canucksoldier on Jun 2, 2006 8:23:04 GMT -5
Gamespy is a sub-contractor for Take2, that provides the match-making service for Civ4. So Firaxis has programmed Civ4 to use tge GS NAT system. Is GS part of the problem? IMHO, the impierical evidence says yes, connection problems get worse when the lobby is busy. But it could be a systemic issue with the scaling of the MP code as well, and ofcourse GS says there system is working fine. Unfortunately there's no way for us to tell if it's GS or game code.
CS
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Post by makdadi on Jun 2, 2006 9:10:54 GMT -5
Gamespy is a sub-contractor for Take2, that provides the match-making service for Civ4. So Firaxis has programmed Civ4 to use tge GS NAT system. Is GS part of the problem? IMHO, the impierical evidence says yes, connection problems get worse when the lobby is busy. But it could be a systemic issue with the scaling of the MP code as well, and ofcourse GS says there system is working fine. Unfortunately there's no way for us to tell if it's GS or game code. CS I beg to differ. There is a way, but there is probably not enough interest, money, or resources from the Firaxis/Take2 side. Have you ever heard of load testing? You artificially load the server with traffic that reflects real life situations as much as possible and debug the issues. We used a Poisson distribution one time at work to successfully load test an online application. We identified a bottleneck, fixed it, and then identified the new bottleneck and fixed that. We kept doing that until performance was adequate. The question would be whether GS provided a production environment and a testing environment for their server. Do you care to reveal what kind of load testing was done on the Civ4 network code and the GS server?
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Post by Canucksoldier on Jun 2, 2006 10:02:31 GMT -5
Yes I know that GS/Take2/Firaxis could if they put enough resources..and actually cooperated, figure out were the weak link is. The "us" I was refering to was the MP community. Unforunately issues like this with multiple companies tend to turn into a "he said she said" situation. Unless Firaxis can prove that GS is the problem, GS will maintain that there servers are working fine and that there statement that the GS NAT system will work for 90% of firewall/router/NAT situations is true.
And no I can't talk about any specifics of the testing methods or lack there off, as I am still under a NDA.
CS
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Post by makdadi on Jun 2, 2006 10:12:10 GMT -5
Ok, ok, sorry. I did misunderstand who 'us' was referring to. I apologize.
Also, in my opinion, in some areas this NDA thing is counter-productive. I can understand wanting to keep some stuff secret for competitive and marketing and proprietary reasons. However, I don't think discussing testing methodology when there is an avid community eager to help and make suggestions needs to be prohibited.
Best of luck.
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Post by Avogadro on Jun 2, 2006 10:52:03 GMT -5
Putting pressure on Take2 to have further games in the series have a dedicated server may help. Then again the MP faction of Civ is so small it may not make a difference. One thing I noticed is the games that connect and run the smoothest have their own game servers.
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