Having just encountered my umpteenth previously-discovered, still-unresolved glitch in this game, I find myself again reconsidering my commitment Gal Civ 3. It seems everywhere I go in the game I find bugs, 'unintended features,' or lackluster performance. In nearly every case, these problems are known, and have been for some time. I am not a pro gamer, I don't know how much polish is expected of a released game, but I never had this many problems with GC2, or Civ5, or Shogun, certainly not over a year after release.
I love this game, I have a huge investment of time and energy in this game, and given the dependence on crowd-sourcing for additional content, I'd like others to remain invested as well. Gamer support is unquestionably vital to the success of a game and a game company. However, I imagine support drops off rapidly when things don't work the way they are supposed to.
I therefore ask my fellow players for opinions on this question: does it seem to you that Stardock is serving your interests by working on a major expansion for a game that has been accused of working more like a beta than a finished product? Should Stardock concentrate limited resources developing new parts of the game when the old parts still have glaring, fun-killing problems? Or should they hold off and use that time and effort to allow the present game to live up to its full potential?
I am a wary of buying a new car from someone who already sold me one that doesn't work right. Do you consider the game complete enough to warrant another major expansion? I understand that a second expansion is part of the de rigour game company business model now. I am as excited as the next person to find out what is in it, but isn't there a point at which you as a gamer should withdraw your support for a game rather than encourage business practices with which you disagree?
If you feel strongly about this, I would suggest lettering the developers know in a constructive, positive manner. I've seen a lot of disparaging remarks here and on Steam, and I don't think they help anyone. Suggesting a solution and offering support is a lot more helpful than yelling. However, if people are as frustrated as I am, we need to at least try to engage the devs on this.
Is there a point at which you as a gamer will withdraw your support for a game and move on?
Hey there General!
I would say no.
I am not sure what bugs you are having that is preventing you from enjoying the game. I have about 1330 hours now with Gal Civ III. I love it. However I do know others have a different view. I have found that Gal Civ III is a good game to stress test a computer. It is one of the only 4x games on the market that actually uses all the available threads on a multi core system. If you have a mid range rig you will get long turn times late game.
Keep in mind that Crusade will 'fundamentally' change the entire game of Gal Civ III from how it plays now. We will have new bugs, new exploits and of course new fun! Things like local control of planetary research/production will likely go away as stated by Frogboy a year ago (due to the wheel change fiasco). We have also been told that we will get a working invasion system with Crusade. For that reason alone I am unwilling to wait for any fixes that you feel the game needs.
Anyway, I am currently engrossed in Civ VI but will actually re install Horemvores ai improvements again as its updated for 1.83 and fire up a new game!
Not much of a post reinforcing your position on waiting, sorry.
Cheers!
While we are working on the expansion, we are still supporting the base game. The plan is that there will be fixes/improvements that would appear in both the base game and the expansion.
I would love to hear folk's opinions on what they'like addressed, even if it's been mentioned elsewhere.
First off I can only guess at which issue you are referring to. I do feel there are many things that need to be fixed or worked on in the game, however, most are little and can be overlooked. The only main issues that still plague my games are crashes, which eventually can corrupt a whole game and make it unplayable and you have to start over. That is why most of my games prior to 1.83 went un-completed. I can't speak for this bug in the current version as I haven't gotten that into a single player game since 1.83 was released for an opt-in, however, I do know that MP is still crash happy although my current game is fine to this point.
Stardock has always been very transparent with their fans in the past. It seems that since the backlash of several things over the last year they have gotten very tight lipped and have locked down a lot of the communication. In fact just trying to get basic information such as are they planning on anymore DLC's prior to the Expansion they won't speak on. With this it's hard to know what they are doing internally other than what has been released. They have to first look out for themselves so that they can exist as a company and second us, so that they can survive as a company. Right now I feel they are focused on Stardock, which is okay at the moment assuming they are protecting us.
I would hope that most of these issues you are referring to, (can't be sure don't know which ones you are seeing), are being worked out in conjunction with the expansion. Hopefully we will learn more soon.
I'm personally always for progressing forward. So with that being said I hope they are doing what I stated above, working out the bugs in conjunction with the expansion.
Wait a moment, they want to remove planetary managment with an expansion ?
According to posts from Frogboy, yes. Now, I have no idea what is going to be done. NONE AT ALL. However you can search threads like 'the wheel' and production wheel and in those Frogboy, states that it was his intention (at that time) to do away with the wheel and replace it with another system. I think the idea was we were never ment as player to get 200 or 300 or 400 percent production focuses on single planets in economy or research. This did and still does effectively break the game. Also it has been mentioned that we will get a new invasion process. The one that initial came was not finished and they pulled it out after a few updates. I look forward to seeing what they will implement.
https://forums.galciv3.com/472815/page/6/#3630568 <<< See this thread from the man.
things i would like addressed personally is
to go into some detail
1) united planets in large games
the U.P. only meets when the player has met XX % of races. On maps with a large quantity of races this can be well into the hundreds of turns at which point you're already in steamroller cleanup mode and nothing the U.P. can do will effect the game
2) map editor
the map editor doesn't even deserve the name editor i would instead call it a map creator. calling it a map editor is akin to calling a disposable camera, Photoshop.
https://forums.galciv3.com/470192/page/1/#3646067 here's my original post from when the map editor came out
3) poor ai in combat
while i do not want tactical combat i would like to see the ai take advantage of ship range and speed and not simply have the ships all rushing in to get blown up
a fleet of ships attacking a starbase should have the fastest ships wait outside the starbases range until the slowest ships reach that range and then all rush in at the same time rather then the fastest approach first and get blown up then the avg speed ships approach and get blown up then the slowest ships approach and get blown up.
4) game speed is poorly implemented
when setting up a game there are 2 settings you can change manufacturing speed and research speed. these settings give a malice or bonus to their stat of 50% +/- (i believe)
the problem is this bonus is applied per planet in the same way that improvement bonus's are. within the first 10-20 turns this may seem noticeable, however as soon as the player has a few improvements or techs under their belt the effect is laughable insignificant. increasing this value would have a major impact at the beginning of the game making it either supremely easy or nearly impossible to do anything but again becomes useless once the game gets rolling.
these bonus's should either effect a planet as a whole after all the planetary improvements are calculated or should effect the base cost of research or manufacturing.
I feel that this is good to be at 50% of the factions but, it could always be added as an option, on right away, 25%, 50%, 75%, 100% would be a nice game option to add?
I agree it would be nice to have a copy/paste functionality in any part of the game. Not only would this be nice for the map editor but, would be also great in the faction editor screen where we are typing out our faction history.
The ability to choose starting location for faction would be nice too, however, there may be issues here as not every game would you be starting with the same faction/factions.
Only issue I have here is the battle here or there that isn't the same outcome in viewer as on the map. It would be nice to know why your ship that has vastly more fire power and matching defenses, looses against another fleet with limited defenses in okay fire power. Such as you lost because your targeting sucks plus they have great ability to avoid you.
I agree 100%. Fast seems fast, Very slow seems well normal or a little fast on the largest maps, especially once you get research and manufacturing going. I would like to see something reworked based on number of planets in game.
With the "steam model" developers (not just Stardock) really don't put the time and effort into games that they used to.
Anyone remember game manuals? Or even the tech tree maps? No?, I didn't think so....
Heck, I even remember a thread posted by Brad where he was contemplating whether or not to follow the DLC model.
It's a different time and a different market, and the focus is to crank out as much salable content as possible (DLC's, expansions, expandalones, etc)
The solution is to sit on your hands and wait for the product to go gold, or at least wait for a Halloween/Thanksgiving/Christmas Steam sale where the base game is substantially discounted, and then pick and choose the DLC's that appeal to you.
Patiently waits for the fanboi pile-on...
I disagree with the op.
I expect that the base game will have significant improvements in concert with the release of Crusades that will not require it's purchase to access.
I expect that there will be 1, or even 2 updates before then that effect gameplay apart from stability/ interface improvements.
I am looking forward to Crusades, 1.85, and, especially, 2.0 (whenever that may be).
I would like a shipyard that works as well as, or preferably better than, that in GalCiv2.
I want offsets and angles that don't magically change to different values after you input them. I want angles measured relative to the hardpoint, rather than relative to the ship's orientation, so you can duplicate the arrangement in other parts of the model without a sliderule. I want better organized components, and more basic shapes with fewer lighted windows that commit your ship to be a certain size, and more variety of basic components like we used to have like different size and colored lights that aren't all the designated race light color. It would also be nice if the lights represent windows were all the same color so I wasn't making ships where the crew in front lives in white light, and the crew in back lives in blue.
I want custom parts that work and work every time and don't require a PhD from Gauntlet to make work. I want parts that don't magically re-sizeother parts of the ship, and custom parts that scale smoothly (rather than having one part not scale at all).
I want persistent settings, so that I don't have to re-set all the settings every time I 'pick up' a new piece. I only put functional components INSIDE the model, and having to set each type of component to 10% size and -0.5 y every time is excessive.
I know it is too late, but I really would like it if you could go back, take out about half of the hardpoints on the models (which I assume were added before the 'offset function was imagined), and change the rest so that their orientation makes sense relative to the part (i.e., not sticking out at a 35 degree angle). It is really hard to stick a part on the same place on a model twice when it has 3000 hardpoints.
[EDIT: A number of components need to be re-oriented, as their orientation makes using them, much less altering them, very difficult. I'm calling out all those Yor pieces with the confusing thumbnails that all look symmetrical but aren't...]
And, finally, I'd like to be able to access the ship designer without starting a game.
I am pretty sure that most of these have been brought up before. Some were features of GC2 that are just not here in GC3. But, like the trade-goods glitch, each new update of the game somehow fails to make any headway. Having some of these things worked out would make me much more enthusiastic about Crusade.
[Edit: no, the shipyard isn't my only problem, it is the straw that broke the camel's back; not surprising since I spent 10-20% of my game time there]
Well, I found a different solution, but whatever works for you. I have certainly had that approach to other games. Multiple times. For this one, I am still happy with the Founder's option. Can't say I've seen another game I was tempted enough to do that for.
As for the OP, I refuse to look at it as an either/or issue. I want both improvements and new stuff, and lots of both. Yes, I am more patient than many of the people on this thread, but I am no less greedy than anybody else here. I have quietly high expectations of Frogboy and team. I expect they know that and are doing their best to live up to those expectations. It is about the time in the long term schedule for things to be coming together in recognizably high quality interactions. AI should be coming along, battles should be improving in quality and appearance, UI streamlining for starbases and planets is coming along, and a lot of other gears are spinning along nicely. We will see how well it comes together. It is my hope and expectation that we will see some very good stuff. I would cross my fingers, but it screws up my typing.
Also, I want more eye candy of all sorts at all levels. Can't get enough of that stuff, and it always get under-rated by snobby experienced players that post on the forum all the time like I do. Maybe I should rethink that last sentence just a little...
But it IS a trade-off. Person-hours spent developing a new expansion are person-hours that could be spent making the original game function as advertised. I was simply suggesting that time should be spent first on making the old work, then on making the new. It is clear Stardock isn't going to abandon regular GalCiv, so it is just a question of relative commitment.
Regardless, it sounds like not many people agree with my original argument, so I guess there isn't going to be any real rush to ask the devs to take a step back. But the thread seems to now be about fixing things, and that is good!
But it IS a trade-off. Person-hours spent developing a new expansion are person-hours that could be spent making the original game function as advertised.
It is not a finite resource that has to be traded off if you hire a few folk or transfer assets within Stardock. Thus my insistence it is not an either/or issue. Both are still attainable. We had recent word of a person returned to the team for additional work. It seems a trend worth appreciating and encouraging. I am not saying every problem just needs people thrown at it, but additional assets can be a big help.
"Please, Sir, can I have some more?" -Oliver Twist
"Please, Sir, can I have a whole lot more?" -me
This is my wish. (Christmas is around the corner, the time for wishes to come true!)
I feel the rest is mostly progessing nicely
The original Galactic Civilizations for OS/2 was sold at retail for $59.99 in 1994. That's $102 in today's dollars. Games were released as-is with maybe a patch or two and it was over.
Today, people expect games to cost vastly less and receive frequent, meaningful updates -- which I like. But those updates have to be paid for by someone and that comes from DLC.
So, Stardock has not enough budget to polish GC3? It was raw at realize, one and half year are passed and what we have:
If there are so many problems on big maps – lets eliminate them, say ok – huge size is maximum that can you use.
It seems like the main problem of product is that the people who are developing/managing/producing it are not playing It or playing on tiny maps. Put you developers to finish biggest map and collect they feedback - you will quickly figure out what is wrong with the game.
In any way I am apologize for all my words to team, they done huge amount of work, invest the best they can to this product. But let look on GC3 honestly - it is bad product.
I agree it still crashes too much, with little progress on stability over last year and a half...
This sounds like a hardware issue with your computer. Does your computer meet and exceed the recommended system specs? Personally I've only noticed this behavior a few times and below is why and possible work around. (All work around's mean playing the game differently and have been reported in the past as an issue, which Stardock has changed the game to offset some of these issues.)
Explain, use examples of what you would like to see, preferably with screenshots and why you think it would be better. Stardock can't fix something here if they don't understand what is wrong with the current system and how it can be improved. Personally I have no problems with the UI.
I would like to see a tiered system where at the beginning of the game the bonus's are minimized and they gradually get more and more bonus's as the game goes on. (I would base the rate of the increase based on the speed of the game selected.) This way at the end of the game the AI may be getting several times more bonus's than they currently do to help continue the challenge to late game. Either that or figure out how to make the AI act more like a human player but, I don't have an answer for how that can be applied to the game. Right now it's okay but, as you said, once you get past the initial AI strength it's clean up mode no more challenge. Most of the time the player knows by turn 100 if they are going to win or if they are going to loose, even on the slowest games, on the largest maps. Then the rest of the next 500 turns, plus is just cleaning up the map.
I like to see constructive communication here, the only thing I would add to your reply is suggestions on how you think they can improve with examples and explanations on to why that way is better. It's very easy to provide criticism but, it's not always the easiest to provide possible solutions and explanations.
Additionally what I would like to see is, in conjunction with Stardock's beta program, to get additional customer feed back, instead of negative feedback is... Provide a closed beta to several trusted founders (when I say trusted, ones that you know play the game and can provide honest feedback and not trash the game). Give the player and example form on how they are looking the feedback to look, that way it's neat and organized. Ask them to test specific features that have changed or just the game/games as a whole. Provide them a timeframe such as "Over the next week by Month - Day would you be willing to test game and provide feedback in this form" After all founders have invested in the game as well, if the game flops or fails then we don't get back as much on our investment either so we want it to succeed and see more and more DLC's expansions as well...
Not looking for free hand outs to do this, obviously no one is going to complain about free handouts if given but, sometimes I feel there is a disconnect with what the player is seeing and experiencing and what the internal testers are seeing and experiencing not because of poor quality testing, just you don't always see things as the average player would.
The original Galactic Civilizations for OS/2 was sold at retail for $59.99 in 1994. That's $102 in today's dollars. Games were released as-is with maybe a patch or two and it was over.Today, people expect games to cost vastly less and receive frequent, meaningful updates -- which I like. But those updates have to be paid for by someone and that comes from DLC.
As someone who ponied up the full $100 for my shiny Founders badge, I am not sure how much I buy into this philosophy. There are several items that are not as expected on release and are not something I expect to be made up for in DLC costs. These include the Invasion Viewer and Steam Workshop support. Those, and the continuing attention and balancing and UI polishing are to be done out of pride of product and love of gaming, because that is who Frogboy and Stardock are. That is what convinced me to become a Founder. Espionage and additional Diplomacy features and who knows what else are all fodder for whatever economic drivers you need to continue to pay people. It is a subtle difference, but one I hope makes sense and resonates.
Another thing I paid my Founders fee for was the forum presence of a friendly but gloating CEO discussing his vaunted AI and its continuing multi-year mission to dominate GalCiv players everywhere. And how he is making that happen. Of all the things I felt I was promised, that is the one I miss most of all. I remember a live stream session of this mad coder swearing at a Drengin attack ship that wasn't attacking when it should have, changing parameters, compiling, watching, then grumbling again. That was both boring and thrilling and I loved it. More AI talk, please.
This was promised pre-release in alpha... But, then didn't make the release because the battle viewer took 6 months to get it from where it was to where it is, which is by nature a viewer so I didn't understand why it needed this long of time to be worked on?
This was never promised to be in the game, so I'm with erischild if I wasn't a founder I would expect to see this in a DLC/Expansion in the future.
Always been a talk-a-tive CEO but, backlash and harsh comments over the last 18 months seem to have shut down communication. That and once Galactic Civilizations was no longer the new game on the block, with the release of Ashes, & Offworld Trading it seems that all the focus has shifted away from Galactic Civilizations III and is mostly on Ashes. With this there has been almost no communication on Galactic Civilizations III in the last several months, other than Crusade is coming several months ago first quarter of next year and anytime anyone has asked for a roadmap update or even what future plans are or an update on Crusade they have been very tight lipped to even say that yes this is coming still on target and we may or may not have DLC's prior to it ect...
The focus of my post wasn't about price, but about completeness. (In terms of bug fixes and other issues mentioned by the OP).
Typically by the time a product goes gold, most of the bugs have been ironed out. And if a person can't wait for gold, they should at least pick up an "unfinished" game for as little as possible.
I also take issue with the Civ V-itisation of games.
Long term immersion and engagement is what I personally value.
I recently picked up AOWIII which had it's last major update over a year ago, and then I looked at SC and Rivals.
IMO, from the perspective of long term immersion and engagement, AOWIII wins.
And to stay on topic - GC III is a good game, but IMO, GCII was more immersive and engaging.
My hardware is Asus N56vz:
Yes graphic card is old enough, but and GC 3 is not top graphic game, I am playing in map scale when everything displayed as icons. No 3 d model at all. But I have a lot starbases, trying to build up to 12 – 16 starbases around every planet to improve production. So I have 150 planets, 100 shipyards and 700 starbases. The biggest troubles with ships:
May be GC 3 is using graphic card for some sub computations, and for big maps it is necessary to have more up to date graphic card, but I see there are topics on this forum, and it seems like graphic card will not help me, may be only ‘Blue Gen mainframe’.
UI
For case then you rule 10 – 20 planets existing UI is OK. But for more than 100 there are many thing which are irritate (one you have recognized that all you are doing within step is switching between UI modal dialogs), Here a list of my thoughts:
The main goal is to remove or provide alternate possibility to rule all element of the game from the global window, except planet buildings (have not idea how this can be done). There are so many things which need to be polished in UI, that, that – may be GC IV?
And I like you thoughts about AI bonuses, I think it will increase challenge. Now there is point in which AI stops his evolution.
My understanding of how corporations work, and indeed life as a whole, is that all resources are finite. What resources you have must be doled out to projects according to the priorities set by management. Management can only hire on additional programmers if there is a monetary incentive to, i.e., if they will make substantially more money than the cost of the programmers.
I would be VERY surprised if Stardock hired new programmers (not merely replacements, new seats) to work on fixing GalCiv-vanilla. More likely, assets from the GalCiv team, and the general focus of the group, have been transferred to Crusade. They would have to, since it is the next big money-maker. Why would you hire new people for a product you've already sold?
Note: I am not being sarcastic or judgmental. Stardock is a business, they have to make money to survive. They seem to be a very responsible, reasonable business that cares about the gaming experience, but they can't do that without money coming in.
This is what I was afraid of. I don't know what Stardock's resources are like, or how much they can keep focused on GalCiv, but I imagine neither is boundless. That's why my original suggestion was to ask Stardock to please hold off on Crusade in order to use what resources they have to fix up the current game.
Stardock is obviously committed to both fixing the old and moving forward with the new. And I think that is what we all want. My sense of the room is that players would rather have the new stuff from Crusade, and not worry so much about details in the vanilla game. Certainly, getting Crusade out there more quickly should raise more revenue, and thus justify spending more programmer time on GalCiv in general, and that is a good thing!
My full time move to GalCiv III doesn't start until November 28.
And I won't be gloating. That's too easy. You have a misunderunderstanding of my expectations of good AI. It's not enough for it to win. It has to destroy you.
Once I enslave you all to the AI, there will be no more complaining. From anyone. Ever.
In preparation for the fact that I'm an old, cranky man now, we have hired two new engineers to work on GalCiv III.
I have a lot of complaints. A lot more than you guys do. I'm not a popular guy around here. Which reminds me, when this is over, I expect some of you to offer me a place to stay.
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