Activision response on UK CTP2

red_jon · November 24, 2000, 16:59

Activision have recently given us this response-

"CTP2 will be released in the UK on Dec 8th, 2002. The reason is we have to do all that difficult translating (changing 'harbor to harbour' took us 10 weeks) and the incredibly hard keyboard alterations, 2 WHOLE KEYS to change!

Plus our employees are too busy rolling around in money to do any kind of programming at the moment.

We realise how dissapointed you Brits must be, but we don't care, we have enough money already."

OK, I may have made it up a little....

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...And if the British Commonwealth and its people live for a thousand years, man will still say "this was their finest hour"- Winston Churchill.

MSB · November 24, 2000, 17:39

LOL!!!

Tops!

You've hit the nail on the head there, mate!

Activision: Kindly give us at least some token feedback - why 8th Dec?

Is it true? Do you not care about potential British and Continental customers? It seems that way to us.

Make an effort and answer us! We know you monitor the Apolyton forums. What sort of message does it give to the Brits and Continentals if you don't even answer simple queries from us?

All we ask is a post from someone at Activision redarding UK/Europe release dates, and the reason for the delays. You stand to make God knows how many £s liras, escudos, euros, from us all, SO TALK TO US, there's no excuse!

Get on with it - the U.S.A. isn't the entire world - we exist too.

red_jon · November 24, 2000, 17:50

At this very moment in time hundreds of Activision employees are laughing at us.

Don't worry, I don't think they'll find the numerous car/ nail bombs I've planted so funny....

(By the way, I was kidding, no government agents after me please).

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...And if the British Commonwealth and its people live for a thousand years, man will still say "this was their finest hour"- Winston Churchill.

MSB · November 24, 2000, 18:06

I hope Activision isn't laughing at us.

Although perhaps a small chuckle wouldn't be out of order!

All we want is some bugger to explain the delay.

Activision: Why have you not been able to release CTP2 in the United Kingdom?

If releasing it now means we Brits have to live with you spelling 'Harbour' wrongly or whatever, I'm sure we could cope.

Just get back to us A.S.A.P., please.

marcuspeddle · November 24, 2000, 21:04

If you guys in the UK have to wait a few weeks for CTP2 to get to you, how long will it take for it to get here in Korea? Actually, for many games they just import the American version and translate the manual. After a year or so you sometimes get a fully Korean version of the game. Hey, maybe I should start a non-credit class at my university for learning computer game English!
I beat the 'wait for my country's release' blues by ordering straight from Activision. Fed-Ex tracking service says it's arrived in Seoul and is now coming down the highway to Andong!!!
By the way, I have the same gripes about harbor/harbour as you Brits (I'm from Newfoundland, Canada). When I write things like Language Centre on the board some student will always pipe up and say, "Umm, Marcus, you spelt 'center' incorrectly." I tell them only Americans and culturally modified Canadians spell like that.

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A civilisation is great when old men plant trees they will not live to sit under.

MSB · November 25, 2000, 02:12

"Culturally modified Canadians" - I love it!

I hope you get the game soon, mate.

When you do, perhaps you can post some of your views on it for us poor Europeans that still don't have the game, and who are waiting the Activision to stop faffing around.

red_jon · November 25, 2000, 05:06

This is stupid.

Games companies rarely translate from US English (aka Pigeon English) to UK English, so they shouldn't have any reason to be so late, without giving us any news.

Is the game out in Australia yet?

I don't see why we should be treated like second-class citizens in the eyes of Activision.

Even the title 'Civilization' is spelt differently in the UK (Civilisation) but they don't translate that dp they?

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...And if the British Commonwealth and its people live for a thousand years, man will still say "this was their finest hour"- Winston Churchill.

marcuspeddle · November 25, 2000, 23:35

The Eurogamer review (which gave CTP2 a 9/10) says the game is now available in the U.K. Maybe sent to the distributors but not yet distributed?

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A civilisation is great when old men plant trees they will not live to sit under.

MSB · November 26, 2000, 03:39

You may be right, Anatolia.

I'm going to check the stores on a daily basis, just in case you are.

Chris Horscroft · November 26, 2000, 18:53

So far as I know, CTP2 has not yet arrived in Australia. (I may be wrong on this, the national capital is something of a backwater). We too have to put up with American spelling. But at least UK English is a term that actually means something. Where on earth did Microsoft manage to invent "Australian English"? (I know, off topic. I'll stop there).

Yatermie · November 27, 2000, 01:49

Another offtopic bit, but...
"Canadian English"

As far as I know, we use standard English, with a lot of added "eh"'s(spoken only of course) and a more American accent. Standard English is, of course, what they speak in the UK, not this american stuff.

"It is pronounced "zed", not "zee", "zed"
-Joe Canadian

MidKnight Lament · November 27, 2000, 05:57

Unless people go to a special effort of getting it shipped or perhaps going through EB, I don't believe anybody will have it in Australia until Monday.

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- MKL
"And a sun that doesn't set but settles" - Augie March
Shameless Plug: http://www.poetic-license.org ............. All welcome.

November 27, 2000, 09:09

Unfortunate news for all Brits/Continentals.

I asked again in EB Bracknell, Berkshire today and...

The release date is 8th of December.

This is the most likeley reason why Activision won't reply on this topic. I guess that they don't have a valid excuse for such a long delay ( almost a month!!!)

As if UK English is so complicated.

Dissapointed, not to say the least.

Who can wait for two more weeks???

Some say that patience is a virtue... that we unfortunatley have to exercise

Dauphin · November 27, 2000, 11:51

The only "valid" reason I can think of is that they want to patch it for us before release. That's so considerate of them.....

Personally I'd rather have it now and download a patch later, but thats me.

BTW, Z is pronounced "Zee" so that it rhymes when you recite it.

abcdefg.
hijklmnop.
qrstuv.
wxy and z.

Only in America....

red_jon · November 27, 2000, 14:09

I doubt the European/Australian version of CTP2 will have any improvement over the US version- Patching it up just for us is unlikely, they think we're second class citzens.

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...And if the British Commonwealth and its people live for a thousand years, man will still say "this was their finest hour"- Winston Churchill.

doctormm · November 27, 2000, 14:57

It probably has something to do with all the EU red tape they have to fill out. What with certifying that no sheeps' brains were used, and no US Stealth technology will be shared with members on the Continent, etc...

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Character is what you do in the dark.

Dr. Emilio Lizardo

Darkknight · November 27, 2000, 20:21

You think you're bad i live in the very west of ireland with 1 computer shop 15 miles away in galway.we wont be getting it for atleast another month!

i'll have to order it online.
me verey angry.

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" mind over body "

Darkknight · November 27, 2000, 20:24

that was meant to be a

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" mind over body "

Darkknight · November 27, 2000, 20:44

I just went into ebworld to see how much it would be to order it and it came up with 85$! but only a 3 day wait I think i'll wait...

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" mind over body "

Wangshibo · November 29, 2000, 18:20

Open letter to Activision

Congratulations on the release of CTP 2. All throughout America crowds of fans are rejoicing at the thought of even more nights spent playing king when they really should be doing something else. Never mind the naysayers, here in the UK we fully support your decision not to release until the 8th of december - after all, it is only economic common sense not to sell the game to the world that exists outside US borders (we only make up a tiny 40% of your sales). As to the Koreans, Chinese, Japanese....well, never mind them - everyone knows that the Japanese never play computer games anyway. It is of course common knowledge that no other parts of the world exist, and mistaken references suggesting that there might be potential customers in mythical islands such as 'Australia' and 'New Zealand' are, of course, rumours, and so no attempt need be made to sell them anything, no matter how hard they insist that they exist.

Yours aye

Henry Root

Grand Master Fe Long · November 29, 2000, 18:26

so when the uk version dose come out (if it ever dose) will i be able to use patchs, mods etc that the usa version can use! ps i see activision can't be arse to give us an answer! year thanx guys guess us lot in the uk arn't very important then.

Dauphin · November 29, 2000, 19:51

MarkG - Do you know anything? Or are you out of the loop on this one as well?

I guess you're not that bothered as you have your copy anway

MidKnight Lament · November 29, 2000, 20:31

I'm not really sure what I'm going to do with myself today.... now that I don't exist.

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- MKL Shameless Plug: http://www.poetic-license.org ............. All welcome.
"And a sun that doesn't set but settles" - Augie March

Darkknight · November 30, 2000, 01:19

On the 17th ogre stated that there was only one small change to make for all english versions what thje F**ks
taking all the time

Mr Ogre
Activision
Venice, CA, USA
b.02-15-99

posted November 17, 2000 19:32

There aren't any "code" changes for any of the international versions. The installer is slightly different (no online
registration) and one tiny bug in the tutorial script got fixed for everything but the US (It was only causing a minor
display problem in the German version, I don't think it made a difference otherwise.) For the English language
versions, those are the only differences. Other language versions obviously have a lot more data changed, but it's
still just data, not code.

I guess to a PR/CS person, anything on the CD counts as "code" though So in some sense I guess that's a fair
statement. Just sounds wrong to my programmer ears.

MSB · November 30, 2000, 18:41

I wish they'd just get on with releasing it.

People who have the game are now starting to make their own, improved maps.

This is where it starts to get interesting.

Mind you, it's only a week off in the U.K. now.

red_jon · December 1, 2000, 16:36

I'm going to Belgium tommorow, so when I get back (late on the 7th) I'll buy CTP2.

I really hate the fact that I'm giving Activision my money though

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I got bored with my Churchill quote (and was tired of people telling me I misquoted him).

"Gotta love me"- Baby, Dinosaurs

Grumbold · December 1, 2000, 22:38

Personally, I am delighted that the shipping delays that sometimes affect multinational software releases have caused CTP2 to be delayed in the UK.

Why? Because it has enabled me to have a good long read of the bug list compiled by our US cousins, sleep on it to make sure I was not overreacting, then decide that I wasn't. This POS is definitely not getting my £35 until there is a solid patch available that fixes many of these points. Automoving units starting wars!?! Allies getting hostile if you move units to protect their country? The AI unable to react to city loss?!? Gimme a break. If these remain broken then CTP2 will be mine for under £10 within 6 months as it sinks rapidly into the bargain bin.

It looks like once again the Activision beancounters have pushed for a bugridden early release to meet some artificial deadline. When are they going to realise that it just loses them respect, customers and cash in the long term? Harlan's post on his Alexander scenario sums up the problem with having this dollar centric mindset. Ah well, I guess I'll have to wait until some hard working and public spirited players release their own mod packs to correct all these idiocies.