Yeh so atm there is that other thread, which lets be honest isn't the most welcoming thread for Jon to be reading in his first week here. I would like to think we as a community are at the very least a balanced sort so I figure why not have a place for positive opinions of Mr Shafer. So yeh, heres your place for Jon Shafer love, Oh and don't get bogged down in petty things like the "Truth" or "Facts" I am looking for the more positive side of our little elemental community to shine through.
Right I will start us off.
Welcome to Elemental Jon!! I admire alot of aspects of your previous work and based on what Brad and others say about you I feel you are a great fit for the job role they have given you here. You seem to have a good sense of humor and I hope over time these forums come to feel like a second home to you (that is unless you already have more than one home, in which case more like a 3rd or 4th home).
Ps: Is it true that you once saved a whole group of kittens from almost certain death with just great game design alone? If it is that's pretty awesome man.
With this Kegputer setup you don't need a glass. Just a length of surgical tubing securely connected to the nozzle & your in busisness. One quick draw on the tap & you got yourself an instant thirst quencher. Leaves your hands free for killing things while playing vids.. or whatever it is you like to do... build huts, planting trees... whatever... LOL
back on topic. Sort of... i think... actually i dont think so well sober.. sigh.
I have a question for Mr. Shafer if he's willing to take any^^, actually 2.
Brad still says it was a finished game at release, even though features on the box were not available on release day or even a few weeks later. I don't think that's exactly admitting it. Like you, I do think it's highly unlikely that Civ V will ever be changed in any significant way, and it's likely Elemenetal will be... for the better. Only time will tell for sure. I am certainly not all gloom and doom about Mr. Shafer coming aboard either. I am hoping Elemental might become a product worth buying at some point since it's in one of my favorite genre, and I passed early on.
It seems to me that Shafer really had his hands tied and that the direction of Civ V had already been laid out by the Big Suits who paid him to not disobey. That's what I got out of his Gamasutra interview anyway.
I am certain he was wary of the outcome long before Civ V got released.
I am certain he would have lost his job if he DID "signal out" a bad 'Big Suit' decision...that decision being "Make Civ V a Civ I".
So the agenda was adhered to as everyone did as they were told.
I am sure Shafer is excited to have left Firaxis but we'll never really know why since he could end up paying a huge fine if he did speaketh openly about it.
-.-
After this weekend, I am of the opinion that Shafer is in the right place.
The reason why I say is, I just got done playing Civ IV three times, with all of the expansions/patches. This is after I played Civ IV once a few years ago, shortly after release. It's a much better game now. Lots of cool new civilizatons, natural disasters finally got added in and they're not unbalancing, lots of little bells and whistles. I understand that Shafer was there through all that.
Enter Elemental. Elemental is in pretty much the same position that Civ IV was then: much-touted, but the release did not go so well. And then Brad committed to improving it. Regardless of Jon's role or his success with it, he has experience with precisely this situation. I expect Elemental to go pretty much the same path as Civ IV: a good game, but a little late to the game. Where things start to get really interesting is what happens after that.
My impression of Civ V is that it was a natural follow-on based on the feedback Civ IV was getting. Civ IV was a good game, but it simply takes way too long to play. Too much micro, and too often you have to choose between doing the micro or simply not playing as well (Galciv2 was worse in that area, BTW). The worst part is there are no good stop-off points. When do you hit "Save Game" and go to bed? In Starcraft 2, that's easy: when the mission is over. But in Civ, "End Turn" is actually one of the worst moments to call it a day. So when do you??
Civ V took this sort of feedback and made a sequel attempting to digest all this input. It may not have done very well with it, but I probably would have made all the very same mistakes they did. It's okay to fail sometimes. The real question is, are you still in the game? Jon is, and he's at Stardock now. Good luck, and I'm pulling for you. Not saying I'll buy your game, but I'm pulling for you.
According to Chick and my personal experience with the demo, the AI is not capable of playing strategically on this new one unit per space battle system they have going on. There is nothing about fan feedback that can be used to excuse that. The AI sucks. In IV there was a lot of talk about stacks of doom, and maybe some complaints, but you know what, those stacks of doom were awfully efficient. The AI also got to go first every freaking turn which pretty much garaunteed them some victories. There was enough backing the AI that it could do pretty well depending on the difficulty you set. I am just sick and tired of hearing these camps, devs, pubs, you name it, trying to blame their screw ups on fans. I mean you are pretty much saying something similar... it's really not their fault because they took fan input. I don't believe that. What fans exactly. The men and women at Civ fantatics told them to create a new battle system their AI couldn't handle... think not.
It's perfectly fine to say the blame rests on a group effort, not one person, but someone made the call, and it was not the fans.
The AI behavior was completely irrational and provided no feedback. I'd argue with you about this but they have tried several times now to patch diplomacy and the economy, unsuccessfully. I think that in itself is an acknowledgment of the fact. In the pictures I had posted you comment that it only shows combat AI. I had a crossbow, a sword, and a rifle. Then over a period of 200 years Napoleon allows me a time victory. I'm not his buddy. He controls more of the map. Even worse I didn't have an income for hundreds of years. I was not stuck in the bug that kept you locked into an alliance either. Although that is what happened 99% of the time. Income stayed in the negative but it really didn't effect me. Not enough to lose or anything. Hey watch out we got a negative red on the screen. The first shot was taken at the point if you were playing BTS that you would say OMFG I screwed up. It's time to throw in the towel. Instead of quitting I kept hitting next and never built another unit. I had just spotted Napoleon he should have steam rolled me. The only plus I gave this was that he kept the big breasted girl with him. He didn't have an alliance or anything with her. Conquered all but her last city.
It's amazing how people can get around justifying their negative responses in a topic dedicated to positively welcoming Jon.
It is the very apex of anti social behavior and lack of maturity to post spoiling replies in a topic dedicated to welcoming someone in a warm manner. How much worse must you be as a person, a rightfull idiot, to post such things in this thread that you cannot even respect the topic at hand. Instead: accusations of incompetent and malign behavior get flung around by the very people who themselves are incapable of respecting (social) boundaries and polite convention.
The irony is so completely ludicrously comic that I sat here for a moment weeping from laughter and amazement that these responses were made by actual people.
(To translate: I read that people were accusing Jon in a topic dedicated to his warm welcome, not realizing the fact that by extension they themselves are by doing so completely socially incompetent in comparison to the accused who'm is merely suspected by them of incompetence. - Hence the irony flowing from the fact that the Incompetent are accusing another person of suspected Incompetence! -- If anything these people should have a sense of comraderie in being jointly arguably-Incompentl!)
Note: Sure you're allowed to an opinion, even if that opinion is poop. Just do it at the proper time and place instead of throwing it around at everyone. Imagine if we all did that instead of visting the toilets? It would get messy very quickly! Not to mention the stench! -- also this post is not intended as a Rant merely a comical observation.
A warm welcome to you Jon! I hope you will do great things here for Elemental!
Have fun on the Job! (I also suspect you will quickly grow a thick skin on these forums, like the other developers)
@Good Luck!
WELCOME!!! Im very excited you are here!!
Pretty much like anyone in any business... developers aren't special in needing to deal with angry customers after all.
Jon is welcome here; he knows that without your overgeneralized rant. The thread welcoming him is actually another thread though that Frog started, not this one, this one was just trying to counter another thread which only really serves as an attempt to shout over the "other guys".
I am afraid you misunderstood, the reply is directed at this very topic, not another. Hence the quote. I've updated it to avoid further confusion.
I wonder what Jon will be designing after Elemental! Exciting announcements to come. He must have some idea already. Or perhaps it was an optional part in his contract?
It amazes me that someone could praise the way combat worked in Civ4 or that they would think the stack of doom was a good thing. There were a lot of reasons I didn't care for Civ4 and the way they dumbed down the combat was probably the 2nd most important factor. The first was that the AI was the same as it had always been. Which is why they dumbed down combat. It was cheaper than redoing the AI. I have not played Civ5, but from all the complaints I've read about dumb AI in that game, it is obvious they kept the same old obsolete, early 1990's core AI program.
That would be a management decision, not a designer decision. As long as a designer was chained to that old AI core, there is really nothing they could do. That old AI is too simple to handle a modern game, it was designed for Civ1. In my opinion, refusal to fund development of a new core program is the root of Civ5's problems, and Civ4, 3 & 2.
You completely misunderstood what I was saying. The AI can handle combat in CIV IV, not CIV V. By completely taking the AI out of the equation, you are taking what I am saying out of context. My point is about the AI's ability to do combat, not combat in itself.
Nesrie,
I'm going to agree with you on all counts. I was never intending to blame the fans. For that matter, let's just leave the word "fan" out of it altogether: let's just call Civ5 the sequel to Civ4, Civilization has always been an absolute micro nightmare going all the way back to Civ1, and so naturally they made some design decisions to try & address that. They didn't pan out. Sometimes things don't--it's no one's "fault", per se.
What you're describing with the AI is a different story: that's in the implementation. Panzer General and Fantasy General had a good 1UPT AI clear back in the 90's--there's no excuse for that. One could easily blame the developers and QA for that, but then...who would get all the glory if they had executed well? Certainly not the developers. They'd all be praising Sid. Blaming the developers whenever it goes bad and giving the designers all the praise when it goes well is an excellent way to guarantee that it will never be implemented well.
I did understand what you meant and I did not take your comment out of context. I made the point that the combat in Civ4 was garbage and that it was garbage because they dumbed it down to work with an obsolete AI program. Yes, the AI was able to work the combat in Civ4 better, but combat was dumbed down garbage. So what's the difference, an AI unable to handle the combat, or one able to, but with combat reduced to uninteresting garbage. The AI in Pacman is able to handle the mechanics of the game, but that doesn't make me want to play that game any more than if the AI couldn't work all the stuff well. That's the point. What good is a slightly better AI if in order to get it, they cheese the game.
No they didn't. It more a simple series of cheat codes. Fantasy General was so bad, we used to joke about it.
So should the title be renamed to Sid Meier's Elemental: War on Magic now?
What?
Sid is owned by Firaxis,.... and Civ V should be renamed "Steam's Sid V".
Elemental is a gold mine and Sid belongs no where near it. Besides, he is too busy promoting the Facebook civ app in hopes of recruiting new blood.
Poor guy. Really. I do feel bad for him.
If Sid (or 2K) got hold of Elemental, it would probably end up as the basic Fantasy General program married to 3D graphics, priced at $80, and with half the game splintered off into DLC.
^^ Agreed with both of the above posts 100%. We wouldn't even have evil factions in 2K's Elemental without paying $20 for each one first.
The biggest problem with gaming in general these days is it's ALL about publisher's playing 'evil dictator' over your potentially innovative, quality work. I hear it from friends working in the industry constantly. Working developing games these days can truly be hell on earth. Elemental doesn't have this problem. Civ V is the poster child for this problem. As much as it saddens me because I once loved that series, Civ (as we once knew it anyway) is dead.
Fortunately, it's partly because of all this mess that I ended up here.
In the end the product must sell. Case in point, Jar Jar Binks. Hate that character personally, but I'm sure he appealed to a different audience thereby helping revenue. What do the bean counters care if I get pissed off and lose my revenue if 10 kids love him and earn their parent's revenue? Another example is the Metallica Black album and whether Metallica "sold out" their core fans to appeal to a wider audience. Politics and the associated propaganda is the same thing. Civ may be dead to you, but there could be a horde of casual gamers replacing not only your revenue but vastly increasing it.
At any rate I'm overjoyed Brad and crew is committed to making this game a classic regardless of revenues.
[quote who="scratchthepitch" reply="139" id="2864033"] What good is a slightly better AI if in order to get it, they cheese the game.[/quote]
All right then what good is better combat if the AI can't do it? A game like Civ has to have an AI that can competently handle all the mechanics, battle being a pretty big one.
So in Civ V I assume being the first to research Bomber and then pounding the tar out of those stacks of doom is out?
No good at all. Neither inadequate AI or cheesey dumbed down game mechanics are any good. And neither is better as far as I am concerned. The Problem with Civ is it's always had crap AI, Civ5 isn't the first to have it. It was crap in Civ4, and also wasn't able to handle combat very well, even though there was a whole lot less for the AI to do, it just did a little better. But as tetleytea just posted, the AI was no real threat to a competent player.
Civ IV was a lot of fun for a lot of people. People play at different levels, and it has nothing to do with competence. The mods were nice too though.
I didn't say the game wasn't fun for those who like it. Nor did I claim it wasn't popular. One could say that about most games that develop a following. Even MOO3 had a loyal following, albeit a rather small following. What I did say was I didn't care for it. And what I'm really tired of seeing is that very mediocre game being put on some sort of sacred pedestal and people claiming it was God's gift to computer gaming.
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