Apolyton's Influence on Civ 3

raingoon · May 18, 2001, 16:28

Someone -- technophile? -- posted a question re how others who worked on The List (and The List 2, and the Essential Civ 3 list) feel about the results of their efforts. It seems evident that the designers read and understood both what was being wished for, and how best to address those wishes. As one who contributed, I'm gratified.

Consider:

Religion

Anyone who worked on the religion thread remembers the big focus was on 1)modeling human belief in the game, and how those beliefs affect the growth of civilizations over time, and 2) being able to brand identify your own population (Turrywenzo, Muslim, etc.).

Now, the designers could have created a more streamlined wargame/trade-game that skirted the issue of religion altogether, but instead they focused that direction, ingeniously folded what we were saying into the much more Civ-like and inclusive concept of 1) "CULTURE" that demonstrably and strategically changes the very power of your nation and 2) added brands vis a vis "NATIONALITIES" to the game model.

Listen, I worked on that religion thread for months. I did the final summary. I voted for it in the EC3. And what Firaxis has come up with not only delivers in spirit what I was hoping for, it does it in a way that shows those of us who worked on Religion that we were genuinely on to something.

The Energy Model

This was also something I worked on, and felt was essential to the full iteration of Civ into a 3 (as opposed to 2.5). Here we asked that the game model actual energy resources that were necessary to build the units, thereby taking trade/warfare/diplomacy to a whole new level. We posted about it, we summarized it in the lists, included it in the EC3 as one of the Ten most essential new ideas, and later debated it (Cyclotron 7 will vouch here) ad nauseum.

I ask you, how could I possibly be disappointed with what Briggs, et al are delivering in Civ 3 as a resource model?

Doubtless they were way out ahead of us on many of these ideas. Sure, some will feel the game is closer to Civ 2.5, although I can't imagine how they would. Let's wait til it comes out, but I suspect already that would be an unfair judgement. We have to step up and acknowledge that some of our ideas were Civ 4.5 ideas, just plain not workable in the context of the whole.

In closing, we who contributed singular and inspired ideas to the design team would do well to remember the story about Rodin's hands. Rodin was of course the great 19th century sculpture, and he was laboring one night to complete the hands on one of his masterworks. At last he had them just right; he felt the statue was finally complete and in a fever of creative celebration he went and woke up all his students. They went and saw what he had done and the first student exclaimed, "Master, it's beautiful but those hands are pure genius!" One by one, each student echoed the first, those hands!, until finally Rodin in a rage went and grabbed an axe and to everyone's horror chopped both the hands off and threw them away, declaring the statue saved. He said, "Never forget that no one part is more important than the whole."

EDIT: thanks for the spell correct -- Rodin

[This message has been edited by raingoon (edited May 19, 2001).]

ajbera · May 18, 2001, 21:11

Not to seem pedantic, but it's spelled "Rodin." Rodan was the giant pterodactyloid monster that stomped Tokyo, and he was very poor at sculpting.

The Rusty Gamer · May 18, 2001, 22:03

There's been too much negative rubbish said from some such as "Firaxis never listen to us blah blah blah". It's quite obvious that they do listen to our ideas. They may not have implemented them in the way that some of us might conceive but some things that look good on paper don't necessarily translate into enjoyable gameplay. Firaxis want to make the game fun and I believe we can trust them that they know how to do it.

"If you post something often enough, people will start to read it"
[This message has been edited by Russell (edited May 18, 2001).]

May 18, 2001, 23:31

<>
[This message has been edited by Mister Pleasant (edited May 19, 2001).]

Maxxes · May 19, 2001, 01:16

I'm afraid you didn't read Raingoons post Mr.

raingoon · May 19, 2001, 01:48

[This message has been edited by raingoon (edited May 20, 2001).]

Urban Ranger · May 19, 2001, 01:52

Some of us are happy because their stuff is included one way or another, some of us are unhappy because we aren't heard.

What else is new?

Theben · May 19, 2001, 03:08

This thread is one giant ego stroke.

Civ3 isn't the 1st game to listen to its customer base. HOMM3 came about because of fan contributions (the results are best left to each person to decide), FE. I will say that Apolyton is very convenient for Firaxis because of its Civ focus, and large # of members.

raingoon · May 19, 2001, 14:37

Theben, this thread is a giant ego stroke? I think that's a lame judgement and you probably didn't read my post. I'm becoming fascinated by the effect of this threads title on some people, it's very revealing.

The thread's called "Apolyton's Influence," is this overstating it? That wasn't my intention; you seem to agree that a dialogue between fans and the the makers of the things they are fans of exists in many, many cases. So what are you saying?

I had simply seen a comment elsewhere that suggested we had wasted our time with The List, and I wanted to say why I felt we had not. That's all.

But I've seen posts now that either wildly assume my original post is a complaint that NOTHING is in the game that I wanted, or else assumes that I'm saying what IS in the game is somehow a specific credit to us at Apolyton, and we should not deign to indulge in such narcissism.

Pshaw. Apolyton remains arguably the leading Civilization fansite, and as such has had a singular dialogue with Firaxis. Period. "Influence" is exactly the right word. I'm proud of my small contribution to that dialogue; my contribution to the game is unknowable, or quantified only in the adoring ether that all civ fans seem to breathe.

A good many people, having spent a good many hours discussing and debating suggestions for Civ, might find it helpful to have a place to openly discuss the nature of said dialogue between them and Firaxis, and if that's you, I would encourage you not to feel ashamed in doing it.

Theben · May 19, 2001, 15:30

quote:

Originally posted by raingoon on 05-19-2001 02:37 PM
Theben, this thread is a giant ego stroke? I think that's a lame judgement and you probably didn't read my post. I'm becoming fascinated by the effect of this threads title on some people, it's very revealing.

I read your post. And I noted it said such things as "I worked on Religion", "I worked on Energy", "What's being used is very close to what I asked for". How should I interpret this?

You should also keep in mind your predecessor threads. How many threads have you seen stating "Apolyton's the greatest", "Firaxis owes Apolytoners X", or "Screw civ3, let's make our own game!" because of the sheer number of suggestions? Tack those onto your thread title (yes, titles DO influence people's 1st impressions!) and you had 1 strike against you before I even started to read.

quote:

The thread's called "Apolyton's Influence," is this overstating it? That wasn't my intention; you seem to agree that a dialogue between fans and the the makers of the things they are fans of exists in many, many cases. So what are you saying?

It's probably not overstating it, but as I said, when I see something about "apolyton" and "civ3" in the same title my opinion of the thread is partially formed already.
And yes that's EXACTLY what I'm saying. It's just by now I feel it is so obvious that it doesn't bear repeating anymore; that to do so is mere chest-thumping.

[quoteI had simply seen a comment elsewhere that suggested we had wasted our time with The List, and I wanted to say why I felt we had not. That's all.[/quote]

And did you happen to note that the author was Technophile? The SAME guy who asked for aliens, wizards, plasma rifles, and civ3 from a 1st-person shooter perspective?

quote:

But I've seen posts now that either wildly assume my original post is a complaint that NOTHING is in the game that I wanted,

In those cases I would concur they did not read your post.

quote:

or else assumes that I'm saying what IS in the game is somehow a specific credit to us at Apolyton, and we should not deign to indulge in such narcissism.
[sic]
I'm proud of my small contribution to that dialogue...[a] good many people, having spent a good many hours discussing and debating suggestions for Civ, might find it helpful to have a place to openly discuss the nature of said dialogue between them and Firaxis, and if that's you, I would encourage you not to feel ashamed in doing it.

I am proud of my contribution to the game, but for the most part I don't talk about it, because I feel that if I did so I might come across as arrogant. Occasionally I do say things that usually boil down to, "We talked about that in the List also", pointing out to newcomers that they might wish to read what's come before, prior to stating they have the greatest singular contribution to civ3 since Populous-style 3-D maps.

OTOH I could say that I single-handedly saved the List v.2 from never reaching Firaxis' notice, having composed 4 or 5 List sections at the last minute after every else burned out (technophile picked up 2 sections, and Harel did Diplomacy of course, and you finished Religion). I also put together the original civ3 "List of Ideas" thread, and others have made similar "list threads" on other forums. And I have seen Firaxis implement suggestions that are very similar to what I asked for regarding villages, resources, and possibly a "martial law" button. But doesn't this come across as arrogant?

May 19, 2001, 16:05

I must have been stoned when I wrote that. Disregard and apologies.

Father Beast · May 19, 2001, 18:27

I'm with Raingoon on this one.

A lot (and I mean A LOT) of suggestions on THE LIST were way out of line, and either ridiculous to consider for our favorite game (make it an RTS), or probably too ambitious to implement at this time (probably raingoons energy barrels)
The firaxis team has come up with a lot of improvements that may actually work, and has shown by the nature of them that they listened to us.
We could complain about how they didn't use EXACTLY the ideas presented ("civ3 worst fears realized"), or we could see how the gameplay that evolves implements aspects of the ideas we gave them.
Raingoon pointed out this aspect on the subject of religion. I want to do so about ICS

the subject of ICS has been debated ad nauseum on this forum, with suggestions ranging from artificial constraints like not allowing a city to build settlers until they are size 5 to uprooting the entire citizen based pop model and making it a different game.
Firaxis has announced that a settler will now cost 2 pop points, and introduced the worker as well. there's been a lot of talk here, but I don't recall that specific suggestion being made ( I could be wrong, I haven't read everything on this forum for 2 years).
And yet it could well fix the problem.
We could moan and complain that they didn't pick one of our suggestion and use it, or we could hurrah that the problem has been fixed (I think).
I'm with the latter crowd.

I think our role in this isn't so much to program the game, but to show up the problems so they can fix them.
And I think it's been happening.

(grumble: now I hope that improved road and rail rules of some sort will make it)

raingoon · May 19, 2001, 19:11

Theben, I read a tendency on your part to correct me where it's not needed -- look up the spelling of narcissism in the dictionary, I'll see your [sic] and raise you one bracketed around it.

And seriously, your reluctance to "chest thump" is admirable, if it doth protest a little much. You brought your own predispositions to this thread, and you overstated yourself when you judged this thread as being a big "ego stroke." I'm not subscribing to any accusations of chest thumping; mine was clearly a measured and hardly self-infatuated post. Your experiences on other threads have nothing to do with what I said.

Oh, and I don't care if technophile wanted Firaxis to put Lara Croft skinny dipping in the throne room with Mr. Mustard and a candlestick, I was inspired to comment on what he said. You're application for "Keep it Real" thread policeman is rejected. No offense, of course.

yin26 · May 19, 2001, 19:32

I also typically never say what **I** did but what **we** did to organize our thoughts and give them a fighting chance to be considered by Firaxis. Having said that, **we** DID have an importance influence on the game, one that will be more apparent when we have it in our hands.

What does that say? That we are brilliant? No. But it does say that we did something VERY hard to do over the Internet: Keep a sustained and productive dialogue that finally led to a highly-organized (if simply HUGE) list of suggestions. To me, the fact the we even completed the thing was amazing. Yes, a few individuals stepped up at vital moments.

Anyway, I don't talk about this much because Firaxis (as is typical) doesn't exactly scream "Thanks, Apolyton, for all the ideas!" and neither do many of the people posting these days even know what took place here months and months ago.

But I know. And some others know. And when we see a Civ3 that was made even a bit better because of our efforts, EVERYBODY will enjoy the result...even if they know nothing of the process that helped make it possible.

raingoon · May 19, 2001, 23:24

Yin, yeah, I really don't get the whole deal with not saying *I* did this or that, with re to working on the List. I think worrying about that might be taking ourselves a little too seriously. I guess I just hasten to point out again that my intention was to speak to the perception of how the game was turning out.

The fact that I am happy with it does not imply that I feel responsible for it. I was very clear in stating that we were "in line" with their thinking over at Firaxis (EDIT: Actually, my conclusion was that THEY were "way ahead of us," but that we were clearly "on to something." This is in fact the OPPOSITE of saying we were ahead of them, or implying that they somehow caught on to us...)

So Theben, sorry to pick on you my friend, but I guess I didn't answer you directly. You wanted me to tell you how you should interpret my use of the pronoun "I" as in, "I worked on...,etc." Well, I also went back and re-read my first post and I am baffled what in there smacks of blowing my own horn. For Godssake. In direct answer to your question: I simply was producing my credentials as a laborer on the List so that I could make the point that I felt my time had been well-spent. You're a monkey if you can't see that.

Look, I don't want to bicker. If you think this thread is a big ego stroke, well, who am I to call you a liar? But the fact of the matter is the question of ego stroking is one that YOU conceived in order to say it should be aborted -- and your parsing of my words in quotes has so far done little to back that up. What you did, in fact, was used the "straw man" tactic popularized by geeky debaters. You put up a false assumption, attributed it to me, and then tried to score by knocking it down yourself. That was why I used the word lame in there somewhere.

OTH, if you have good evidence that I created this thread for anyone to stroke their ego, I'd welcome that.

raingoon -- (with obviously way too much time on his hands)

[This message has been edited by raingoon (edited May 19, 2001).]

ancient · May 19, 2001, 23:30

why does every one think its bad to aplause firaxis now and then?

Theben · May 20, 2001, 04:14

Temper, temper! What's with all the name-calling? Hit a little too close to home did we?

And just to clarify, I wasn't accusing you of self-aggrandizing, but of creating a thread designed for Apolyton's collective "pat-on-the-back". Which you yourself imply, if not admit, this thread is for. I for one certainly don't feel the need for this again, and if you felt obliged to respond to Technophile why not just reply in his thread instead of making one called "Apolyton's Influence".

ancient · May 20, 2001, 08:09

o so now you can make entire posts about how firaxis is bad but not how its good? lets just say this is for civ3 worst fears come true..

Theben · May 20, 2001, 13:01

ancient, WHO are you talking to and WHAT are you talking about?

Quartz Dragon · May 20, 2001, 15:20

quote:

Originally posted by raingoon on 05-18-2001 04:28 PM
The Energy Model

This was also something I worked on, and felt was essential to the full iteration of Civ into a 3 (as opposed to 2.5)

[This message has been edited by raingoon (edited May 19, 2001).]

You mean a 1.8 don't you

[This message has been edited by Quartz Dragon (edited May 20, 2001).]

Father Beast · May 21, 2001, 01:21

quote:

Originally posted by Theben on 05-20-2001 04:14 AM

And just to clarify, I wasn't accusing you of self-aggrandizing, but of creating a thread designed for Apolyton's collective "pat-on-the-back". Which you yourself imply, if not admit, this thread is for. I for one certainly don't feel the need for this again,

Fascinating. with all the interesting threads on this forum, a collective pat ourselves on the back (warranted or not, intended or not) gets a "we don't need this".
I, personally, enjoy it. call that whatever kind of selfish tendency you will, or not. I like it.
aside from my enjoyment, I think that the effect of our contribution will be examined on this forum from time to time even after the game is out, and that is entirely welcome. To Me.

let me repeat what ancient said:

quote:

Originally posted by ancient
o so now you can make entire posts about how firaxis is bad but not how its good? lets
just say this is for civ3 worst fears come true..

a reply thread to a hot topic has always been welcome on this forum, afaik.
(again, intended or not)

raingoon · May 21, 2001, 02:54

Yeah, Father Beast that's pretty much it. A healthy pat on the back, I think, somewhere got a bad rep.

Theben, you know what? You're right. I guess in the end I did start this thread to congratulate ourselves. Including from me to you.