Inforgrames Petition

Azail · March 1, 2003, 06:13

"After buying a $40 piece of worthless software called Civilization 3, and waiting endless months for it to be patched and become "playable", at best, then spending another $30 on another piece of worthless software called Civilization: Play the World, which was buggy and at best half as reliable as the latest patch of the original Civilization 3, I have decided to start this petition. I am utterly fed up by the quality, or lack thereof, to be precise, with the work done by Firaxis Games. This is not to say that Firaxis has not attempted to correct their mistakes with countless patches, which they have, but said patches usually ended up making the game worse than it was before, which is disheartening to say the least.

As a programmer, I know that anytime you develop software it will have bugs, that's inescapable, however, as a programmer, I also realize shoddy work when I see it, and the titles referred to earlier are the most shining examples of that I have ever seen.

I hereby boycott all Firaxis products & all Infrogrames products (and will advise all my computer game playing friends and relatives to do the same) until I see a Civilization 4 produced by a reputable game development company, with a decent track record of producing quality games, or in other words, not Firaxis Games."

What do you guys think? Does this sound about right, or is there anything more you want to add?

Tiberius · March 1, 2003, 06:20

No, it does not sound right.

And it's Infogrames.

Azail · March 1, 2003, 06:23

And what exactly is not right about it?

March 1, 2003, 06:28

I give no credence to your post Azail.

Civ 3 is not "worthless"; it has had it's share of problems, but NOT any that would make it "worthless". In fact is was a pretty fair game out of the box, I had fun with it, sorry you didn't. Since you're a programmer don't spned anymore money on other peoples' game's; write your own!

Azail · March 1, 2003, 06:33

Ok, bigfree1, you got me on that one. It was not worthless, the artwork was great... now if only the programmers knew what they were doing...

zulu9812 · March 1, 2003, 07:51

The biggest mistake Firaxis made was hard-coding just about everything early on. It's caused them, and us, no end of problems...

Maquiladora · March 1, 2003, 07:57

Its an average game thats all, its just we think it couldve been much better, whereas other less discerning players love it

Id disagree and say Firaxis does have a good track record though, until now that is. Now lets never speak of this again.

WarpStorm · March 1, 2003, 08:49

Sorry, no.

wilbill · March 1, 2003, 11:53

Guess I'm just lucky. My copies of Civ 3, PTW, and all patches have been stable and enjoyable. I'm too busy playing to sign a petition that doesn't even correctly spell the name of the party it's addressed to.

Wittlich · March 1, 2003, 12:21

Nope. I'm happy with PTW and the support of Firaxis in releasing the patches for it.

Alfonso · March 1, 2003, 12:32

Infogrames NO more!!!

Spiffor · March 1, 2003, 12:42

The game is enjoyable, and one of the longest lasting game investments I've ever made. Civ3 encourages me to buy future Firaxis products, and not the other way around.
I acknowledge there were bugs and the games were rushed, but they have been enjoying from day one

asleepathewheel · March 1, 2003, 13:54

A little late to the party, eh Azail?

SkiFletch · March 1, 2003, 14:01

I have to agree with everybody. maybe you just got completely unlucky and are experiencing every bug known to man, but my experience both with Civ3 and PTW has been wonderful. no problems whatsoever... my only issue with the game is latency problems with multiplayer combat, thats it.

Nubclear · March 1, 2003, 15:44

Quote:

no problems whatsoever..

Anyway, I hated the game. I've given it too many chances, its failed each one of them. Oh well.

Azeem · March 1, 2003, 16:30

I don't have any ill-feelings toward Firaxis. I've had Civ3 crash all the time before I got PTW, so I'm quite thankful for PTW.

But Infogrames... Don't know whether I should dislike them or despise them.

ChaotikVisions · March 1, 2003, 17:13

Sure, erase that first stuff, and just say "Buld more Tank!", and then ask them if its them whos going to do a new MoM or if its QS getting it. Seriously, its kind of hard to boycott Firaxis after buying(and enjoying) their games. My latest purchase also makes boycotting Infogrames kind of worthlesss, though i'd be willing to do it until the next game i'm looking forward to comes out.

asleepathewheel · March 1, 2003, 17:15

Quote:

Originally posted by ChaotikVisions
Sure, erase that first stuff, and just say "Buld more Tank!", and then ask them when if them whos going to do a new MoM or if its QS getting it. Seriously, its kind of hard to boycott Firaxis after buying(and enjoying) their games. My latest purchase also makes boycotting Infogrames kind of worthlesss, though i'd be willing to do it until the next game i'm looking forward to comes out.

Yes, I would be more than happy to boycott, say for about 3 weeks until GalCiv comes out. Moo3 is more than enough game to keep me busy until then.

Ivellios · March 1, 2003, 17:30

Firaxis doesn't have a decent track record?! Last time I checked GameRanking's top 20 PC games, Alpha Centauri was a good 11th.

Though they could've done better with Civ III, it's still far from crap.

Aramis · March 2, 2003, 01:03

Tried different games, but was easily bored. Wanted one GOOD game, and found CIV III, then PtW. Suits my interest.

I've not experienced most of the problems I read about here. Maybe I got a good copy.

Try a different mind set when playing the game: ignore the fact that you're a progammer, and look for what casual players see in it.

TheEmerged · March 3, 2003, 22:15

Quote:

Originally posted by Azail
"As a programmer, I know that anytime you develop software it will have bugs, that's inescapable, however, as a programmer, I also realize shoddy work when I see it, and the titles referred to earlier are the most shining examples of that I have ever seen.

Don't take the negative voices here too seriously, Azail. You have to remember that most of the people that have stuck around are the ones that like the product, and/or have too strong of an emotional investment therein to be objective.

WarpStorm · March 3, 2003, 22:26

Quote:

Originally posted by Azail
"This is not to say that Firaxis has not attempted to correct their mistakes with countless patches, which they have, but said patches usually ended up making the game worse than it was before."

I can't honestly think of any patch to Civ3 or PTW that was worse than the previous release (and I dare say I've tried about 10 patches for every one that has been released to the public). This kind of statement really lowers your argument.

I am biased, I like Civ3 and haven't run into many game ruining errors. I could even play MP from day one.

Civ3 had a troubled history. The lead programmer, designer, and producer left to form a new company midway through the project. That Firaxis was still able to meet their original schedule says a lot about their capabilities.

In addition, I've seen what happened when other franchises tried to do Civ and their near total lack of support is even worse.

The final point I will make is basic marketing, Infogrames can't sell Sid Meier's Civilization IV without Firaxis.

MrWhereItsAt · March 3, 2003, 22:29

--sigh-- Aren't we all a bit past this now? Civ 3 and PtW have been out long enough that we KNOW what we like and dislike about them, and we have already acted accordingly. Some have written to Firaxis/Infogrames, most have learned to get the most of the games and have done just that.

You don't like these games? That's cool. You want to start this petition? You have every right to. Just don't be too disappointed if you fail to get much support in a forum dedicated to LIKING Civ3. That's why we're here. The civ-haters are mostly gone.

Please, take my advice and do what worked for me when I found myself disliking Civ3 - learn as much as you can about the various strategies, find out what you haven't tried that others have, try that, try something else.... a different civ... don't use your UU... There is a lot of scope in this game, and if you try for a while, I think you'll find at least SOMEthing enjoyable about it. If not, then you will hopefully have learned that the game is rather incredible, if not to your liking.

Elden · March 4, 2003, 04:48

The game is great - the delays for PTW in Australia were ridiculous though.

Franses · March 4, 2003, 05:11

I used to run to the store the first day a promising game came out. I did this even after my experience with CTP2 (made by craptivision) and bought CIVIII as soon as it hit the shelves. Fortunately Firaxis patched the game thoroughly and IMO it is worth the money now as a single player game. However, I bought it for multiplayer and had to wait for that option for more than a year and again bought a game that was ridiculously bad out of the box (for multiplayer that is). It still is not patched sufficiently (I am living in Europe so the 1.21 patch is not available for me yet). From this experience I promised myself not to buy a game from Infogrames anymore until forums like these assured me it was a good game.

From what I read in the MOO3 forum I think I did the right thing. Ii seems Infogrames again delivered a game that was not yet ready for the market at all. I suggest that we all stop buying these games without checking its quality first. That will force them to deliver a game that works from the start. If we keep buying every sequel they deliver without checking its quality first, companies like Infogrames will continue to accept our money..... that is not a good thing but hey..., some people just do not care how you feel about them as long as they get your money.

statusperfect · March 4, 2003, 05:31

Azail = Coracle

Boracks · March 4, 2003, 13:41

The only thing that really bugs me about CIV3 is the diplomacy. It's still not up to the level set by SMAC. Other than that, I still play the game. It may not be up to the level of SMAC and CIV2Gold but its still a decent game.

Unfortunately, MOO3 suffers even worse in the diplomacy department. It's not even as good as CIV3 in that regard. And the AI doesn't appear to be as good, either.

So don't knock CIV3 that much. It appears that we may have an example showing that it could be worse.

(And I really wish I wasn't able to say that about MOO3.)

Switch · March 4, 2003, 19:14

We all know that the real culprit is Infogrames, not Firaxis. Firaxis made a beautiful product, but was ruinned by InfoG forcing the game out early. Who knows how wonderful a product it would've been had Firaxis had no schedule, and just released after escaping the beta stage?

The same goes with the pitifullness of the LE. InfoG decided what goes in the box....although I must say that they made a good choice on the box itself.

All I'm saying, is pretty much I'm a well-informed, biased, worshipper of all things CIv/Firaxis, and that they really did a good job.

BTW, if you ever actually do send anyone a petition like that, they would dispose of it immediately.

MarkG · March 4, 2003, 19:36

Quote:

"After buying a $40 piece of worthless software called Civilization 3, and waiting endless months for it to be patched and become "playable", at best, then spending another $30 on another piece of worthless software called Civilization: Play the World, which was buggy and at best half as reliable as the latest patch of the original Civilization 3, I have decided to start this petition.

it's your fault. if you payed 40$ for something that was not "playable", waited "endless months" and then jumped to to buy ptw without a second thought, it's YOUR fault.

fool me once, etc etc

btw, this horse is dead... lets leave it to the people who like it as it is(civ3, not the horse

)

Mad Bomber · March 4, 2003, 20:30

Quote:

Originally posted by statusperfect
Azail = Coracle

Oh NO! is Zouave using ANOTHER avatar??