I think this article at PCGamer is a little slanderous and overtly malicious. Gratefully the problems he complains about I don't even experience myself. And I have usually been a skeptic here. Articles like this one are only designed to hurt and not help. The article is disguised to help buyers by steering people away through blown out of proportion accusations and statements. I believe the game needs work but not on par with the writers complaints. I don't believe its a disastrous launch. That statement is overblown and an outright a lie in my opinion. I am not a fanboy but I know a good game with potential when I play it. It just saddens me that there are players out there with chips on their shoulders or vendettas.
http://www.pcgamer.com/2010/08/25/elementals-disastrous-launch-stay-well-away/
My biggest problem with the article is the quote he took out of context.
Qt3 isn't just some random site. It's my home away from home. And Ben Sones isn't some random forum poster, he's a friend of mine (FB friend and all) and when he called v1.0 an "early beta" I admit, it ticked me off and I snapped back. I shouldn't have said it and I regret saying it, but for PC Gamer to take that comment without any context and put it out there is completely wrong imo.
Think how many posts I write in this forum - just THIS forum. Now, imagine if someone decided to data mine every comment I have made. I am sure you could find something terrible in there.
I thought the aggressive quoting-out-of-context was reserved for politicians, not game developers. Someone wishes he could be a relevant journalist.
Eh, tough day.
I have to vehemently disagree on that. I have played ETW, CIV series and a LOT of other AAA games from those studios. There have been stinkers (like Civ4 colonization), but they were far more bug free, better documented and polished than EWOM has been. I personally dont think teh PCG review was that bad; the game has a lot of obvious (if minor) flaws that PCG would be crazy to ignore. Every title will have soem bugs (major and minor) but the quantity and polish of those other games was of a far higher standard. I have every reason to believe that Civ 5 wil have problems but they wont be as glaringly obvious as EWOM.
EWOM is not a bad product and playable, it ust has such a slopply presentation, with piss-poor documentation and questionable in-house QA. A vast majority of these bugs would have been found even with a small team inside of a month.
RAT
Chill out there hop along...
Anyways, I've played games in both series and never had so many issues as I did with Elemental. Been quite a long time that I played a game I simply could not progress. In the other games I would have a random CTD or something, but nothing like this.
Now maybe you did in those games and not in Elemental...that's fine. But obviously PC Gamer is having the same experience as me (and others) and they a reporting that fact. Given the severity of the issues, what they wrote isn't unreasonable.
Don't let it get you down Brad, these things happen.
You know Brad that everyone who is great has many enemies. Always someone trying to bring you down. You have an army of fans who will still stand behind you through thick and thin. But, you'll have to wade through a lot of schitt because you are famous and great and loyal to your fans and community. Just smile and keep on trudging for what goes around comes back around I always say. )
I think that is primary issue with PC gaming. Too many pieces/parts and different drivers. You can't account for all of the problems that can occur. Some people have no problems with the game and some people have tons of issues. Alas, PC gaming.
Edit: I meant can't, not can...
That explains why reviews are often better than they should be, but it doesn't mean that a trash review is wrong. Most of us beta testers knew it was too early, but there are other forces at work here that have yet to be revealed. The release schedule does not make sense with the information that is publicly available.
Well I didn't play Total War, but I certainly never felt Civilization was unfinished on release. Are you really claiming that the quality and polish of elemental (including things like AI and gameplay balance) are exactly the same as Civilization?
Brad, you don't need to have any regrets. God forbid someone show an ounce of pride for the work they have done. And deservedly so. You guys busted your tails and provided a damn fine game to us. Is it perfect? Nope. But you already knew that. And you have been up front with the community on the holes that needed patching.
It does not mean it's not unfinished. Elemental may never truly be finished just because of the nature of a game such as this. You are always finding new and interesting ways to improve it. The community will as well. Hold your head high, you've earned it. Things are only going to move forward, and there will always be antogonistic asshats out there.
I understand it is probably just luck on my part, but I have yet to experience a single ctd or any errors at all really. On 2 different systems. So I can't agree with this article. That said, if I was having the issues I would agree with the writer. Game seems fine to me.
I really don't care what you VEHEMENTLY disagree with I KNOW what was with those games. They should not have gotten 90% to 95% scores with those flaws they were RELEASED with. I played every Total War game and after MTW they were horrible out of the box. Generals that rushed to their deaths in every single one of them like they used the SAME AI template in every release and then patched them like they did something great. lmfao. The Total War series is a sham and a scam to the customer base. Stupidiest AI I ever played against and stomped every single one of them on vh/vh the very first games I played of each after MTW. So, don't give me your fanboi crap about how great they were and not as bad as Elemental.
Also shall I go into the save and reload the ai forgets everything it was doing in the Rome Total War game? Shall I list the hundreds of CTD's posts when it was released? Shall I get you to turn FOW off and watcht he ai play in RTW if you want to call it playing!!! The support forums are huge for the Total War series after MTW and the Civilization games after CIV II.
It's like I said ALL newly released games have their issues and flaws. Don't make out like Elemental is the major culprit of this. Every single one of those others falls right inline as the same.
Oh it would be SO easy to take what you say out of context. I think the PC Gamer warning is completely unprofessional. And if you read the thing it points out that this was the "Pre-Patch" version.
Well he should patch it up and then comment. And if he's still having problems, he should post them in the proper forum.
I don't think you should stop chatting on the internet's. And people's concerns about a lot of issues are valid. But.. just keep plugging away and thing's'll get better.
I agree withe an article. 100% After version 1,05,16 I have still CTD and so other bugs. I do not want even to think how stupid AI is...
Stardock is making from us jerks...
Anyone who reads professional reviews and expects to get an accurate review is a retard. You read the actual game forums and you read what the players/gamers are saying on the official and non-official forums. Review companies like PC Gamer are paid to do the jobs they do. They purposely give good reviews to bad games, and bad reviews to good games to keep their advertisers happy. That said, plenty of unhappy people on these forums right now, so take that for what you will.
Can't you ban this guy please? )
I don't believe I ever commented directly on whether a particular review was right or wrong. I was talking about big picture trends and biases in the gaming press, which are by no means unique to the gaming press but affect all press media that rely on advertiser revenues.
As for the release schedule, I don't think speculating about mysterious hidden factors is very helpful. I think the information they've given makes it pretty clear that they had to make a decision in July to either launch in August or postpone to February. And they decided to go with August even though they knew it would be tight and they'd have to work like crazy to make it. They probably would have preferred to postpone by a month if they could, but that wasn't one of the choices available to them.
He missed one word....
Flagshipped
So the PCgamer guy has been playing on two PCs and had issues ever 10 minutes or so.
I played 1.01 on two different PCs for a couple hours on each and didn't have any issues (both OC'ed Core i7's, one with ATI card, one with Nvidia card).
Sounds like a personal problem to me.
Actually it's not really plenty when you consider they sold already 70,000 copies of the game. What makes it look like there are plenty is the same ones going into every thread saying the same damn things. I don't even think they've played the updates. Start writing down the names and then watch them appear in the other threads or pushing old thread back to the top. I've seen this happen a jillion times on other forums. They are like little worms moving from one hole to another. lol
I'm playing on pretty much the same with an ATI 5770 card so I should be having issues every 5 minutes but have only had 1 going on 3 days now. I think a lot of gamers blame the game for computer issues they have. Or they buy crappy DELL or HP machines and expect them to be as good as an Alien or Ibuypower one. )
This 'review' bought and paid for by the people who bring you "Civ5", launching soon.
True, it was my biggest problem too, but it's the way it is, and one needs to be extra-careful.
Alas, rumors feed upon themselves, and have a way of growing out of proportion.
Anyway, some mistakes have been made, evidently. Simply by following the forums (I have not been involved in the BETA) I did perceive some amount of overconfidence. I mean, BETA testers testing only parts of the game is fine, but at some point they should have tested the whole package TOO, precisely to avoid the kind of panic reactions we're witnessing right now. If the developers were the only one knowing the new UI, for instance, well, they couldn't foretell its impact on new users who had no part in the designing process and who, while trying to grasp it, have a way of making assumptions a developer can't probably even imagine. So, don't be quick to dismiss criticism.
Yet I'm convinced people at Stardock are honest and serious and have the heart in the right place. I'm happy I've done my part in supporting by preordering the game and I look forward to support more by preordering the expansions too
If reviews are not to be going well now, well, let them change their mind with a mind blowing expansion
yea, there really wasn't any need to quote frogboy out of context. Improper quoting and spin is probably my biggest gripe with media in general.
as for the rest of the review, it seemed fair enough (as I have stated before), but quoting like that is just a mite tad beyond irritating. I know if I was quoted like that ... well yea, I don't wish to be quoted out of context you see so I'll just leave it at that
Civ 4 was in pretty rough shape out of the box. I remember one bug in particular that would mute the sound whenever a movie played, and you had to restart the game to fix it. Also, a lot of city improvements didn't do what the tool-tip said they would and some were just plain ol' broken. Performance was also a major issue as were crashes and program freezes. There's an interesting postmortem in the back of the instruction manual where lead designer Soren Johnson said that the experience of getting the game out of the door was almost enough to compel him to swear off PC game development entirely.
All those issues were eventually fixed, and Civ 4 remains one of the finest turn-based strategy games ever produced, but don't fool yourself into thinking it had a flawless launch. At the time of release, the official Civ 4 forums looked pretty much like the Elemental forums do now, and hardcore Civ fans are still critical of Firaxis for their handling of the launch (and failure to address some outstanding problems that remain in the game to this day).
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