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Post by Elledge on Apr 27, 2006 20:11:28 GMT -5
I would post more cheerful posts about great games if I had played a single game that worked all the way through in the past month.
And it seems completely insane to give people like tommynt nuts about tearing down the community.
"All they do is bitch and moan and complain about everything. No matter what's done, or what's said, they find the most negative way to talk about it. Who wants to post on a board like that?"
Is there anyone here who is even interested in discussing anything with a person who makes posts like that? "You're so negative!" is so vacuous a thing to say that it's not even worth saying. Who cares whether something is negative or positive? Save that for preschool and argue on the facts.
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Post by Canucksoldier on Apr 27, 2006 20:36:31 GMT -5
I didn't see Fried mention any names at all perhaps you guys are a little too sensitive? These forums are overly negative compared to what the C3P forums were like, I haven't even figured out why only 10% of the ladder posts here, but the negatively certainly doesn't help. Yes the game has problems, but PTW/C3C was and is worse and we still managed a thriving community there. As to what we do as Admins, you can rest assured that we represent the MP community to the best of our ability, to Firaxis and any other organization, just because we don't post about every minor detail doesn't mean that the dev's do not know what is going on, I appreciate what Loki and MMV are trying to do, but they are hardly the only people working to change MP for the better. It's unlikely that the basic peer to peer mechanics of Civ4 are going to chance and we have to assume that there will always be problems with the game. We will have to learn to deal with and over come them. It's either that or you can decide to dump MP until Civ5 comes out For me I'd rather try and build a MP community despite the difficulties just like we did for C3C. My 2 cents. CS
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Post by whiplash on Apr 27, 2006 21:46:43 GMT -5
I didn't see Fried mention any names at all perhaps you guys are a little too sensitive? These forums are overly negative compared to what the C3P forums were like, I haven't even figured out why only 10% of the ladder posts here, but the negatively certainly doesn't help. Yes the game has problems, but PTW/C3C was and is worse and we still managed a thriving community there. As to what we do as Admins, you can rest assured that we represent the MP community to the best of our ability, to Firaxis and any other organization, just because we don't post about every minor detail doesn't mean that the dev's do not know what is going on, I appreciate what Loki and MMV are trying to do, but they are hardly the only people working to change MP for the better. It's unlikely that the basic peer to peer mechanics of Civ4 are going to chance and we have to assume that there will always be problems with the game. We will have to learn to deal with and over come them. It's either that or you can decide to dump MP until Civ5 comes out For me I'd rather try and build a MP community despite the difficulties just like we did for C3C. My 2 cents. CS Well, I was around at the time and I totally disagree that C3C was "worse". PTW was buggy from the point of view of game mechanics; but not connectivity. C3C has some connectivity issues but nothing like what I'm reading about here. But, like others have said; "this is 2006" this should not be happening. This is the 4th generation of the game; things should be getting better, not worse. Patches should not be taking us backwards. I think to say that the ladder community should "suck it up" and make the best of it is really too much to ask. I respect the admin's and beta testers who invested much to try to make this work; but we are now seeing paying customers being asked to be beta testers after the fact. Sure, the "negativity doesn't help"; but we didn't get what we paid for; and there is a limit to how much frustration people can endure.
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Post by MMV on Apr 27, 2006 22:08:59 GMT -5
It's unlikely that the basic peer to peer mechanics of Civ4 are going to chance and we have to assume that there will always be problems with the game. We will have to learn to deal with and over come them. It's either that or you can decide to dump MP until Civ5 comes out For me I'd rather try and build a MP community despite the difficulties just like we did for C3C. My 2 cents. CS As I posted in another thread earlier today - the Civ customer/consumer and ladder community SHOULDN'T be related. As you have previously stated, C3 in it's hay-day had about as many members as C4 does. Personally, I don't think it's going to increase; it is what it is, past (PTW thru C3), present (C4), or future (WarLords, et.al). The ladder community will remain the same because it's the same core structure with the same core personalities (members. admins, etc) - good or bad, it is what it is. Personally, I don't care - it's a place to play a game, it's not a lifestyle. I'll continue to buy the product (no matter who the current "franchisee" is) and continue to play it as long as it holds my interest, either SP or MP - no matter. It was you who told us that " Take2 isn't going to spend alot of money on MP unless it sees a big return, MP isn't going to become a big community unless alot of money is put into revamping the MP mechanics[/i]" it's me who's telling you that THIS is a wrong perspective. The C4 producers (Take2 and Firaxis) ARE the new kids on the "Civilization game series block" (based on a 15 year history) and they are doing things their way and success speaks in numbers (over 1,000,000 copies sold). The game as far as the profit/loss sheets demonstrate, is a success and THAT is business. Based on that, they are WAY into the development of a new product for us to buy. If C4 wasn't financially successful, they wouldn't be doing WarLords - they AREN'T a "community service group" who's doing US a favor. It's business and we're the customers. The SAME people will bring us ANOTHER product, put together the SAME way, using the SAME system and get the SAME results (good, bad, indifferent) - but it will make money. As someone else posted, it's OUR community - I'm just a little tired of devs (game developers), beta-testers, testers, compensated Firaxis/Take2 contractors, employees, etc coming into OUR community and giving US crap everytime THEY read something negative about the game, Firaxis/Take2, etc - whether they are ladder members or not. $49.95 (plus shipping and handling) gives each customer an equal voice on product quality. I'm more tired of that than any other "whine" on the forum - But I'm just "one in a million"
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Post by Canucksoldier on Apr 27, 2006 23:08:16 GMT -5
I agree with your points MMV, but what I stated is my opinion of what I have observed about Firaxis/Take2, you can say it's incorect or not, it's what I see. I can't speak for anyone but myself, but I am not a pawn of Take2 or Firaxis, I paid for my game and have got nothing from Firaxis or Take2 for my efforts in developing the game you play, I put that effort into the development for the sole reason of making the game better for MP than PTW/C3C was and nothing more. So I resent your implication that I am somehow not representing the MP community or that my opinions are biased, they are the result of my experience and nothing more. And believe me the MP community would have a game alot worse of for MP if not for the involvement of members of your community. You yourself are a member of the C4SPG, perhaps you should continue to leverage that oppurtunity to solve the games current issues, I'd be glad to help you with that. To Whip, you were either not playing PTW or have forgotten what it was like to play PTW 1.04, it was barely playable. We may have many problems but things like imposters is not among them. I'm not going to make excuses for the state of MP right now as I agree that it is pathetic. However, I'm not a programmer any more than most are here, so I can only work to convince Firaxis to solve the problems and in the mean time work to keep the MP community working. We must perservere, despite the problems, or we won't be here later on even if they do get fixed. Everyone here is a customer and deserves a quality product, but this is not the Take2 support hotline, this is not the place to take out your frustration at the Developers or Publishers, and doing so only creates a atmosphere of negativity in our forums, and then people don't want to hang out here We should be discusing the problems and how to document them, to take a logical and detailed case to the devs. I've always said that if you come with problems you should come with your solutions as well, and that is the problem I see here, we are willing to yell alot but not willing to help improve the game. My 2 cents CS
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Post by Ellestar on Apr 28, 2006 1:45:28 GMT -5
It's unlikely that the basic peer to peer mechanics of Civ4 are going to chance and we have to assume that there will always be problems with the game. We will have to learn to deal with and over come them. It's either that or you can decide to dump MP until Civ5 comes out For me I'd rather try and build a MP community despite the difficulties just like we did for C3C. WOW! Betatesters finally admitted the truth. I hope i'll not read any more lies on this forum about how a new patch that is being tested by betatesters will fix a connection issues. But you forgot one thing here. In EXACTLY the same situation Hamachi works and Civ 4 doesn't. That obviously proves that even with p2p mechanics Civ 4 may be fixed. Besides, now we suffer from random bugs when a known good peers can't connect to each other at random moments (even if it's a reload, i had only one successful reload after a patch and i do play 45+ hours per week on average). Well, "random" isn't a right word in this case. "Persistent bugs" fits it much better. They're so blatant that i don't know how it was possible to miss them in beta. It's not a problem with p2p or something like that. It's a software bugs, pure and simple. We should be discusing the problems and how to document them, to take a logical and detailed case to the devs. I've always said that if you come with problems you should come with your solutions as well, and that is the problem I see here, we are willing to yell alot but not willing to help improve the game. How exactly we can help to improve it? They didn't release a network code in their SDK. Besides, THEY're not willing to improve the game. Unfortunately, we can't force them to do it. You know, all that crap about that they'll not get any immediate profit by fixing their game. After all, they already sold it so why bother fixing it? It's much better to sell an expansion. But i agree that Firaxis need help. Any company that doesn't know how their own game works so their engine creates 100 copies of exactly the same object in a graphical memory if there are 100 objects in the game really needs some help. And they got that help from a customer who also was a programmer who reverse-engineered their libraries and made a fix for their graphical engine (that they released later as a patch). I guess they do need another non-Firaxis programmer who will fix their network code the same way their graphical engine was fixed. And finally, we do warn others who hoped that that game will be fixed with patches. We say that this game still sucks, quite unlike betatesters who told others fairy tales about how it rocks starting from pre-release stage. I believe that truth is always better than lies, even if it's unpleasant to read it.
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Post by MMV on Apr 28, 2006 9:24:35 GMT -5
i had only one successful reload after a patch and i do play 45+ hours per week on average. Well, "random" isn't a right word in this case. "Persistent bugs" fits it much better. They're so blatant that i don't know how it was possible to miss them in beta. It's not a problem with p2p or something like that. It's a software bugs, pure and simple. Holy Cow! +45 hours per week of an unplayable game!!!! 528 games/match reports since the end of january. I post this to let you know that the game developers at firaxis use numbers like that to support HOW SUCCESSFUL the game is. specifically, about a month ago, before the latest patch had come out, one of the game developers actually used tommynt's game history as "proof there is nothing wrong with the game" - tommynt 1204-391 = 1595 We told them then, that this was a false number as it- 1 - didn't represent "total games played" but only matches reported (they didn't fully grasp that), and - 2 - this was a unique situation as that specific player played the game 6-8 hours per day. (we also queried them on how many games COULD have been played, lol). and you also said - [/i][/quote] List all of those "blatant" persistant bugs here somewhere in a forum and let's show them how smart we are!
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Post by tommynt on Apr 28, 2006 11:48:14 GMT -5
did I?
I think a lot of win reports are from easy wins either in teamer at a time where I just was kinda superiour and from lot fast 1-1 games
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Post by loki1023 on Apr 28, 2006 12:50:33 GMT -5
It's unlikely that the basic peer to peer mechanics of Civ4 are going to chance and we have to assume that there will always be problems with the game. We will have to learn to deal with and over come them. It's either that or you can decide to dump MP until Civ5 comes out For me I'd rather try and build a MP community despite the difficulties just like we did for C3C. WOW! Betatesters finally admitted the truth. I hope i'll not read any more lies on this forum about how a new patch that is being tested by betatesters will fix a connection issues. But you forgot one thing here. In EXACTLY the same situation Hamachi works and Civ 4 doesn't. That obviously proves that even with p2p mechanics Civ 4 may be fixed. Besides, now we suffer from random bugs when a known good peers can't connect to each other at random moments (even if it's a reload, i had only one successful reload after a patch and i do play 45+ hours per week on average). Well, "random" isn't a right word in this case. "Persistent bugs" fits it much better. They're so blatant that i don't know how it was possible to miss them in beta. It's not a problem with p2p or something like that. It's a software bugs, pure and simple. We should be discusing the problems and how to document them, to take a logical and detailed case to the devs. I've always said that if you come with problems you should come with your solutions as well, and that is the problem I see here, we are willing to yell alot but not willing to help improve the game. How exactly we can help to improve it? They didn't release a network code in their SDK. Besides, THEY're not willing to improve the game. Unfortunately, we can't force them to do it. You know, all that crap about that they'll not get any immediate profit by fixing their game. After all, they already sold it so why bother fixing it? It's much better to sell an expansion. But i agree that Firaxis need help. Any company that doesn't know how their own game works so their engine creates 100 copies of exactly the same object in a graphical memory if there are 100 objects in the game really needs some help. And they got that help from a customer who also was a programmer who reverse-engineered their libraries and made a fix for their graphical engine (that they released later as a patch). I guess they do need another non-Firaxis programmer who will fix their network code the same way their graphical engine was fixed. And finally, we do warn others who hoped that that game will be fixed with patches. We say that this game still sucks, quite unlike betatesters who told others fairy tales about how it rocks starting from pre-release stage. I believe that truth is always better than lies, even if it's unpleasant to read it. Hamachi maybe p2p ,but it is a bit diffrent it uses a mediation server to bootstrap the connection between all the p2p clients once a sucessfull conection is made the mediation server is out of the picture civ lacks such a server and leaves it all up to the host. Also hamachi uses vpn tech something civ also does not use so only one port is needed to create a stable vpn tunnel within this tunnel all the vpn ports are open for use making a more stable enviroment for civ ie a virtual lan a place free of firewall and router issues. ( no reason to be paranoid about the ports within the vpn tunnel being open as the Hamachi beta has a setting to block others from accessing vunerable windows services and file and print sharing)
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Post by MMV on Apr 28, 2006 16:40:56 GMT -5
Holy Cow! +45 hours per week of an unplayable game!!!! 528 games/match reports since the end of january. I post this to let you know that the game developers at firaxis use numbers like that to support HOW SUCCESSFUL the game is. specifically, about a month ago, before the latest patch had come out, one of the game developers actually used tommynt's game history as "proof there is nothing wrong with the game" - tommynt 1204-391 = 1595 We told them then, that this was a false number as it- 1 - didn't represent "total games played" but only matches reported (they didn't fully grasp that), and - 2 - this was a unique situation as that specific player played the game 6-8 hours per day. (we also queried them on how many games COULD have been played, lol). and you also said - List all of those "blatant" persistant bugs here somewhere in a forum and let's show them how smart we are! Hamachi maybe p2p ,but it is a bit diffrent it uses a mediation server to bootstrap the connection between all the p2p clients once a sucessfull conection is made the mediation server is out of the picture civ lacks such a server and leaves it all up to the host. Also hamachi uses vpn tech something civ also does not use so only one port is needed to create a stable vpn tunnel within this tunnel all the vpn ports are open for use making a more stable enviroment for civ ie a virtual lan a place free of firewall and router issues. ( no reason to be paranoid about the ports within the vpn tunnel being open as the Hamachi beta has a setting to block others from accessing vunerable windows services and file and print sharing) I'm sorry, I didn't mention hamachi at all - wrong thread possibly?
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Post by Tony on Apr 28, 2006 17:21:47 GMT -5
LOL
Lokis wifes gonna ask him what he wants to eat, and he gonna tell her how hamachi works.
;D ;D ;D
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Post by Canucksoldier on Apr 28, 2006 17:45:35 GMT -5
It's unlikely that the basic peer to peer mechanics of Civ4 are going to chance and we have to assume that there will always be problems with the game. We will have to learn to deal with and over come them. It's either that or you can decide to dump MP until Civ5 comes out For me I'd rather try and build a MP community despite the difficulties just like we did for C3C. WOW! Betatesters finally admitted the truth. I hope i'll not read any more lies on this forum about how a new patch that is being tested by betatesters will fix a connection issues. But you forgot one thing here. In EXACTLY the same situation Hamachi works and Civ 4 doesn't. That obviously proves that even with p2p mechanics Civ 4 may be fixed. Besides, now we suffer from random bugs when a known good peers can't connect to each other at random moments (even if it's a reload, i had only one successful reload after a patch and i do play 45+ hours per week on average). Well, "random" isn't a right word in this case. "Persistent bugs" fits it much better. They're so blatant that i don't know how it was possible to miss them in beta. It's not a problem with p2p or something like that. It's a software bugs, pure and simple. We should be discusing the problems and how to document them, to take a logical and detailed case to the devs. I've always said that if you come with problems you should come with your solutions as well, and that is the problem I see here, we are willing to yell alot but not willing to help improve the game. How exactly we can help to improve it? They didn't release a network code in their SDK. Besides, THEY're not willing to improve the game. Unfortunately, we can't force them to do it. You know, all that crap about that they'll not get any immediate profit by fixing their game. After all, they already sold it so why bother fixing it? It's much better to sell an expansion. But i agree that Firaxis need help. Any company that doesn't know how their own game works so their engine creates 100 copies of exactly the same object in a graphical memory if there are 100 objects in the game really needs some help. And they got that help from a customer who also was a programmer who reverse-engineered their libraries and made a fix for their graphical engine (that they released later as a patch). I guess they do need another non-Firaxis programmer who will fix their network code the same way their graphical engine was fixed. And finally, we do warn others who hoped that that game will be fixed with patches. We say that this game still sucks, quite unlike betatesters who told others fairy tales about how it rocks starting from pre-release stage. I believe that truth is always better than lies, even if it's unpleasant to read it. Please refrain from calling me a liar, I nor any other tester have ever lied to the MP community. We simply don't have 400 MP beta testers to stress test the code for each change. I tested the last release before the game hit the shelfs and we had no problems with the lobby or MP connections. Firaxis did fix the connectivity issues of 1.52, but someone created different bugs that effect in game drops and reconnecting. They did fix the retire bug by removing the ability to retire once dead, but some how a different bug is still presence, this is a fact of life in programming, it tends to act like a game of dominos. Now you can claim that us testers obviously didn`t test the patch good enough. Well the problem we face is that there is only 10-15 of us, and we all have good computers and good internet coonections, we just don`t produce some of the conditions that the vast amount of MP players can produce in random lobby games. It`s not because we don`t try. The only mistake that I see that happened is Firaxis failled to get a large beta test off the ground before release. But we in the MP community are partially to blame as well, we had lots of ladderites invited to test and many would rather play ladder games than test patches, testing is just not the adrenaline filled experience that competition is, unfortunately. And many good MP players make poor testers. Such is lfe. I respect your opinion, but opinions are best backed up by true facts and experience, not incorrect perceptions. CS
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Post by Canucksoldier on Apr 28, 2006 17:54:18 GMT -5
And as far as helping, no we are not programmers generally but you can see my post on logs if you want to help.
As to non-firaxis programmers helping, yes that programmer was somewhat clever, but firaxis was already well on the way to optimizing the graphics far better that he could do before that unoffical patch was released. So lets stop the rhetoric a bit here. Firaxis programmers are not idiots, they do have to work on what they are told.
And loki is right Hamachi and Civ4 are too different systems, perhaps if Firaxis had contracted the Hamachi system instead of using the GS NAT system we would be in a better situation now, but hindsight is 20-20 isn`t it.
CS
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Post by loki1023 on Apr 28, 2006 19:03:02 GMT -5
Hamachi maybe p2p ,but it is a bit diffrent it uses a mediation server to bootstrap the connection between all the p2p clients once a sucessfull conection is made the mediation server is out of the picture civ lacks such a server and leaves it all up to the host. Also hamachi uses vpn tech something civ also does not use so only one port is needed to create a stable vpn tunnel within this tunnel all the vpn ports are open for use making a more stable enviroment for civ ie a virtual lan a place free of firewall and router issues. ( no reason to be paranoid about the ports within the vpn tunnel being open as the Hamachi beta has a setting to block others from accessing vunerable windows services and file and print sharing) I'm sorry, I didn't mention hamachi at all - wrong thread possibly? Meh my bad I modified it I qouted you instead of Ellestar. LOL Lokis wifes gonna ask him what he wants to eat, and he gonna tell her how hamachi works. ;D ;D ;D Luckily I am still a free man atm pizza and beer sounds good.
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