a STATEMENT OF ACTIVISION TO THE CIV COMMUNITY

[Baloo]

Funny, I have this little inkling to smack the punks who touted this game as "great", "hella better than Sid's Civ" and even comments like "SMAC? What's that c%#?" which made me waste 40 bucks and to regret later.

Ahh, you guys aren't really the ones to blame. You thought that CTP2 had that potential, and I felt that too when I played it for the first time. Then one by one the walls crumbled -- Poor man's AI, idiotic bugs, not-so-spectacular diplomacy, and dumb game design. I think we Civ-game lovers are all in this boat together. No need to despair b'cause the light is slowly but surely peering at the end of tunnel -- Civ 3 is getting more exposure as Dino is laid to rest.

Good riddance CTP2 and Activision. And the Firaxis employee (Jeffery Morris) who sneered at CTP2 in one of those "How would you rate CTP2" polls, you're a sorcerer arent you?
[This message has been edited by Baloo (edited January 25, 2001).]

[Baloo]

Multiposts
[This message has been edited by Baloo (edited January 25, 2001).]

[Baloo]

Another Multipost. Sorry

[This message has been edited by Baloo (edited January 25, 2001).]

[Mike the Nuke]

quote: Originally posted by WesW on 01-22-2001 08:53 PM I share everyone's displeasure and anger over Activision's decision to abandon support for the game, especially when many people are having problems with saved games and such. I am afraid that the Ctp games never really had the support of the Activision higher-ups, and I suspect that the decision to pull the plug on support was made weeks ago. I have talked to people who have visited Mr. Ogre's website, and he has already taken a position at Blizzard on an un-named project. Make of that what you will. However, please don't give up on the game. If you visit the creation forums, you will see some amazing things that have already been done with the game by the people here, and we are just scratching the surface of what can be done. For those of you who don't have the game, wait until you can get a good deal on it if you can, but I would strongly recommend getting this game. Regardless of what you think of it out of the box, I believe that it has awesome potential, and that we will be unlocking that potential in the months to come.

1. Where is your site. I know it's been posted before, somewhere. I believe I've visited it once but can't remember the link (forgot to save it in my favorites). When I visited it, I was on the site for quite awhile. I think I was looking into Civ 2 stuff. I remember reading a 'diary' of a game you were playing under one of your latest mods (Civ2, I think). I was very interested and almost downloaded it to try it myself until you described a game freeze\crashes\glitch that you couldn't quite resolve without doing a whole bunch file changes and renaming (etc) while you played under the mod.

2. Make a Hot Seat Option for the game and then (if) when the price comes down to the current cost of CTP-1 (about $20), I might buy it. If Hot Seat and PBEM are coded similar, create a PBEM mode for those folks too. These opitions MUST work properly, not be 'fly by night" deals.But then, these, of course are not mods. They are actually game play mode changes, patches or additions. You would probably require the original source code to add these items.

3. What guarentees are there that you will continue to support or patch your fixes/mods/patches. Not to be disrespectful of your abilities or intentions, but how long could you continue on a project or projects like this while receiving (basically) nothing (except pride and possibly some pleasure you get in creating these mod/fixes) in return for all the time you would have to spend. I believe you also do mods for several Civ type games, already.

4. I feel the game should be a 'good' game with few disasterous bugs in it (if any). Most major bugs should have been fixed by the manufacture (not the done in CTP2, as per forum messages). It appears (from the messages on this site) that CTP2 in basically one BIG BUG. I believe that all the other Civ type games you develop improvements/mods for, are still supported by their manufacturers (correct?). This one, apparrently, is NOT.

[tanalias]

I knew it! When CTP came out I returned the game after about 20 days. I loved the way it was structured but not the bugs. When it was official that no more new patches would be made, I got a bit angry but not too upset since I did not own the game. When the sequel was announced I said to myself, "do not buy this game unless all the bugs (I was sure that there would be) are fixed." Well, unfortunately they weren't, and fortunately I did not buy the game. I still am angry at Activision, its not their first time and it wont be the last. I am not going to buy another game with bugs. And this is something that I am sticking with since 1999. F U Actibision. ;p

BTW, what is wrong with BOTF and some people keep complaining about it? The patch fixed the problems that I have noticed and I still play the game.
Perhaps I can help? email me.

quote: Originally posted by Mike the Nuke on 01-25-2001 09:09 PM 1. Where is your site.

you can find a link at
a) his homepage icon and his special title on all of his posts/9including the one you replied to)
b) the bottom of all forum pages
c) the front page of the site

quote: 2. Make a Hot Seat Option for the game and then (if) when the price comes down to the current cost of CTP-1 (about $20), I might buy it.

boy, you do ask very little form someone with no access to the source code....

quote: 3. What guarentees are there that you will continue to support or patch your fixes/mods/patches. Not to be disrespectful of your abilities or intentions, but how long could you..

you ARE being direspectfull actually

quote: I believe that all the other Civ type games you develop improvements/mods for, are still supported by their manufacturers (correct?). This one, apparrently, is NOT.

depends on what you mean. activision support will still answer questions about ctp2

as for patches, microprose made a lot of money by selling patches packed with a few scenarios
smacers are still waiting for that last patch that was promised but never happened
i'm not supporting activision, i'm just pointing out that noone is free of guilt in this business

[jkadabomb]

Hey look at Valve, they are still filling store shelves with HalfLife, a 2 year old game. And I think another patch is coming out. HalfLife is dated but Valve has pushed it tons, almost way to much, I think they should focus more on Team Fortress 2 and HalfLife 2 now. Maybe if Activision pushed CTP2 this much it would be successful. As I recalled when HL came out it got good reviews but nothing to spectacular, but Valve pushed it and it became a phenomenon. Valve pushed the customibility, fixed multiplayer, and supported the game through everything, and they are still selling tons of HalfLife copies, In fact HalfLife has never been removed from store shelves. It would have been nice if Activision created the equivilant of Team Fortress Classic for CTP2 (and it should be free also).

[The Viceroy]

What really gets me is, in a previous thread which I started, we discussed design methodology .. asking if the way Activision had approched CTP2 was the best way ... the end conclusion was that it seemed to make commercial sense, to fire out a quick & dirty (get the revenue going) and then patch the thing later .. This is widely used in the software industry.

If I recall, Pyaray even joined in this thread, stating the same feelings ..

So, to abandon CTP2 at this stage to me is horrific .. If you admit that you used DSDM (RAD) to develope this product, ... where are the patches ?? as patch 1, quickly followed by 1.11 ha .. don't address the problems both myself and other CTP2 player have faced.

As a software Engineer myself, I have to tell Activision that this is hopelessly amature of you .. and I will no longer be being buying any more of your software... becuase it won't work, and you won't fix it.

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"Wherever wood floats, you will find the British" . Napoleon

[Gwap]

tut2_main.slc indeed makes excellent reading. And it appears from the way the language is used, that tight deadlines had more to do with the problems than bad programmers.

I think I will change my signature to include this line from tut2_main.slc: //note to self: bad design always finds a way of biting you right on the butt

[Grumbold]

Straight from the Brian Reynolds interview, and a lesson Activision badly needs to learn:

quote: Where does one draw the line between delaying the release or sending the game to the market as it is? What is unchangeable: the features you set out to have in the game or the deadline you set to do it? If you delay a product in order to make it great, you're simply delaying your success. But if you ship a product before it is ready the results can be disastrous. A great game shipped late will still be great whereas a mediocre game shipped on time will probably fail. There are eventually some practical limits as to how long you can work on a game before technology leaves it behind or before your company is bankrupt, but within any reasonable timeframe the emphasis should clearly be on making the game great.

Activision have fallen into the trap of shipping a mediocre game. Acceptable but less than stellar reviews have caused sales to be uninspiring so the potential benefits of a proper patch are outweighed by the cost and the whole project has failed.

[Atahualpa]

quote: //general warnings n' info about **** that happens in the game //there's a lot of them; I don't ****ing care enough to comment each one

This could get into my sig

Or maybe this:

quote: //oh, baby, show me your workaround face

This is just to funny

quote: // file info goes here // // This file is for Winnie testing purposes only. // // No lemurs were harmed in the opening of this file. //

LOL

quote: //dumbass workaround for dumbass design flaw

LOL explains a lot bout intern relations to the game. I guess people at Activision know much better than we, that they produced a lot of crap

quote: int_t RETARD; //probably won't ship with this

Only probably I guess

ata

[Bluevoss]

BlueO,

I know you've done a lot of great work on the game. Now, I saw your list of what you think was wrong with CTP2. One thing you left off was the flaw in negative aspects of growing populations. To me, this was a critical ommission in the game - otherwise, all it means is that your cities exist to built troops, troops, and more troops. Without these negatives, there is no point to building happy structures.

Play a few rounds of Civ2 and you will remember how cities work. You need to walk that fine line, watching your people, guaging just how far you can push them. Nothing like being in the middle of a war and suddenly finding your cities in open rebellion. Do I build another inf unit, or that theater? Can I afford to change a bunch of people into entertainers. Really, that was a major part of the game that was just left off. For me, its critical enought that even if the AI was significantly improved, I still wouldn't bother.

What really sucks is that you can see values for supporting unhappyness & population in dbdiffs, but it dosn't have any effect. That sucks, since unhappyness and population could really make you work to keep that empire running.

Frankly, I'll not play CTP2 now. Without city management, what the hells the point?



------------------
Bluevoss-

[Alpha Wolf]

Seems like everytime we turn around, another of the programmers that visited us has left activision. hmmmm, maybe they all didnt move on to different projects, but moved onto different companies. I wonder if they have enough programmers left to fix it even if they wanted to.

------------------
History is written by the victor.

[Solver]

I'm upset. I love CtP I, and CtP II also seems nice, but this means there will never be PBEM in CtP II. For me, as PBEM Ladder Administraotr, this is especially painful.

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Solver - http://www.aok.20m.com

[BlueO]

quote: Originally posted by Bluevoss on 01-26-2001 11:01 AM Play a few rounds of Civ2 and you will remember how cities work. You need to walk that fine line, watching your people, guaging just how far you can push them. Nothing like being in the middle of a war and suddenly finding your cities in open rebellion. Do I build another inf unit, or that theater? Can I afford to change a bunch of people into entertainers. Really, that was a major part of the game that was just left off. For me, its critical enought that even if the AI was significantly improved, I still wouldn't bother.

You know, ever since I started playing ctp2, it dawned on me that, the game has lots great features, but horribly unbalanced. It was kinda sick that each tile has so much resources, I was beginning to feel it doesn't matter where you build your city, it'll grow up to be a productive city, wherever you put it...(mostly true). And the unit stats also seems horribly unbalaced. When I was playing the game, I find my tanks again and again, defeated by catapults and hoplites fortified in cities!!! What's up with that? And why do artilleries able to shoot down my planes so easily? And the tech tree is also a bit unbalanced, since some of the units go obselete really fast. Like, the Ship of Line, I rarely build those because Ironclads are always around the corner...and I only build a couple Ironclads because Destroyers is just right behind... And then there's the happiness thing Bluevoss mentioned. I was kinda disappointed that city growth is unrelated to happiness...though I guess the designers felt that pollution being related to growth, and happiness being related to pollution, is enough. I agree with that I suppose, but it seems that once pollution is eliminated during late game, it also eliminated the need for 'happiness' in cities. So in the end, they really should have tied happiness directly to city growth.

And lastly, the AI. With the default shipped AI, the AI is totally incapable of taking over each other's cities. I saw the AI conduct war against each other, it was patheic! Like many of you, when I got globalsat, i thought I would be treated to a big chaotic war between the AI. Guess what? The most action I saw was the AI move a stack of 3 back and forth between two squares, and it eventually ended up fortifying itself in one of its own cities! Yet, a couple hours tweaking the strategy.txt and goals.txt, was enough to get the AI to conduct a real war against itself! Cities taken and retaken, major stacks fighting each other. It was a real treat to watch an AI conquer its neighbor and take over half of the world.

All this led to me to realize that, even though the CTP2 team made a pretty good game, they aren't fans of their own game, or civ type games. It seems that none of them played through a complete game, otherwise, they would have realized all the faults that the Aployten fans have found and tweaked them, like we have. This led to the other conclusion, even if Activision had continued to support ctp2, it would still be the lame game it was when it was shipped. Sure a few bugs would be fixed, but the game would still be lame. The only real people who can made this into a great game, would be the fans themselves, and it seems that WesW and a lot of others have already made great progress. That's why, it didn't bother me one bit, when Activision announced that it has decided to drop support for Ctp2. I guess, people who really want pbems would be left out...but oh well, can't have everything.

In conclusion, patch or no patch, its all the same. The game would still be bad as ever. And for the few who experienced crashed, its unlikely a patch would fix it, since the majority of us aren't experiencing major crashes.

[Cesare Augusto]

The game is great and it is POTENTIALLY better than the great CIVII.

However the game version I paid $50 (about) was buggy (I was able to complete 1 games over 3).

I never bought a more buggy game. It's not acceptable that a game crashes everytime I try to restart the saved game after 10 days of play.

I've installed the patch but I continued to have problems with my saved games (no more crashes but simple SLIC errors). So I started new games and for now It is ok ( I hope ).

The (40+) Beta Testers have never played the game ? Or ACTIVISION has released a beta game ?

Activision has fixed major bugs not the AI. Everyone knows that the AI is inexistent!!!
I dont want to program the AI by myself because it should be an ACTIVISION job.

I dont know if a simple mod will be sufficient to resolve the situation but Blue_orange has made a nice one ( although there are too much stacks in the world ). The possibility of changing AI, coefficients, strategies, etc... is really great but for now CTPII remains an 'empty game'.

Personally if I will not see more support from ACTIVI$ION I will be more careful in the future ( and so other people I think ).

Noted.

Twice.

Hey, no fair, somebody edited the thread after I posted...

[Mike the Nuke]

quote: Originally posted by MarkG on 01-25-2001 09:37 PM Originally posted by Mike the Nuke on 01-25-2001 09:09 PM 1. Where is your site. you can find a link at a) his homepage icon and his special title on all of his posts/9including the one you replied to) b) the bottom of all forum pages c) the front page of the site Thanks. you are right. That's how I got to his sight the first time. Like I said, I must have been missing something...Yup, sure was/did quote: 2. Make a Hot Seat Option for the game and then (if) when the price comes down to the current cost of CTP-1 (about $20), I might buy it. boy, you do ask very little form someone with no access to the source code.... Just a statement. As stated in the original message in another location, I reference the fact that he does not have the source code. Personally, I could care less what he develops for the game. I DO NOT own and will never own it as long as the options I desired from the first version (CTP-1) are not included. Playing solely against Artificial Indiots (I mean intelligence) does little for me. I already have plenty of game program Racing, Shoot-em ups, Trains, Planes, other Civ games (CTP-1 and Civ2 Tot do allow human vs human vs AI on the same machine...Hot Seat) And NO... It isn't his fault that he does not have the source code. I'm sure if he could get it, he would do one hell of a job with it making the game better and giving many of us the options we would like to see or he would give it one heck of a job trying. quote: 3. What guarentees are there that you will continue to support or patch your fixes/mods/patches. Not to be disrespectful of your abilities or intentions, but how long could you.. you ARE being direspectfull actually It wasn't intended to be. Read the entire statement. I'm asking a question and crediting the fact that he invests a lot of time in a lot of games. Most of those other games have many less problems than this one and seem to have better support from both the manufacture(s) and customers. I haven't seen a statement from too many other manufacturers like the one you posted from Activison, which 'politely' tells it's customers that they are through with their own product... take it or leaveit. The are only so many hours in a day, and only 7-days per week and only (depending on the year) 365 days per year. With all the effort that he must put in to perform quality work on the other games, how long could he support a game in which he has so little to work with from the manufacture and that seems to have so many problems. I reviewed a lot of mesages on his site (the first and only time I went there, I go back now that you reminded me of where the site address was that I used (thanks). I could see that he spent many hours developing his mods and testing. Not an easy task and very time consuming. quote: I believe that all the other Civ type games you develop improvements/mods for, are still supported by their manufacturers (correct?). This one, apparrently, is NOT. depends on what you mean. activision support will still answer questions about ctp2 as for patches, microprose made a lot of money by selling patches packed with a few scenarios smacers are still waiting for that last patch that was promised but never happened i'm not supporting activision, i'm just pointing out that noone is free of guilt in this business

You are 100% correct. Unfortunately Activision is not the only company that creates games/programs with bugs and fails to 'timely' fix all of them. Windows is a program that comes to mind. NHRA 1 and NHRA 2 are two games that I have that also fall in this category, to an extent. The list could go on, but this forum section was about Activision and CTP2.

As far as creating patches to fix their game and selling those patches, I would see no problem with that as long as the patches included new options or mods. This would be totally unexceptable for customers to have to pay for patches just to fix game play bugs (like the save game items, etc). The Sims was replaced by the Sims 'Livin' Large. The latter made improvements to the game and added some new items and options (ie more than one neighborhood, etc) and modified/corrected a couple game play issues. The Sims site is loaded with free downloads and improvements, as well as free patches to fix 'flaws' as they are identified. Where is Activision's? Yes they have a patch section for both CTP-1 and CTP2. But they DO NOT intend to further support either of those games with any future patches (as per their posted statement). I have emailed their site and they did reply that they would refer my message to the programmer/developers (you know, the same guys that 'quit' on the game to move on to some new projects). The email was sent last week and I've heard nothing since. I'm still hoping, but don't hold out much hope.

I do appreciate your answers/reponses and your site.
The reponses of all those who post (both positives and negatives) are greatly appreciated by myself (and, I'nm sure many others). Those folks and this site saved me (and many others, I'm sure) $50+ and what appears to be great potential disappointment and frustration.


thanks
[This message has been edited by Mike the Nuke (edited January 26, 2001).]

[Darkknight]

I know they're not right to dump us put still your being a wee bit biest, Every game has it's faults or if they don't CTP2 makes up for them but would you rather there'd never been any CTP2? You'd be £30 up but how would you have managed a wait from civ2 to civ3 (not including SMAC some like it Most dont) with CTP eh?
Why i am defending them i dont know but still you're picking up on every little fault in the game and why are you making such a big deal with some programmer having a bit of fun?

------------------
" mind over body "

quote: I'm asking a question and crediting the fact that he invests a lot of time in a lot of games

actually, he is only working on ctp2 right now. when ctp1 was around he was only working on ctp1....

quote: I haven't seen a statement from too many other manufacturers like the one you posted from Activison

yes, other manufacturers(and i'm talking about this genre) just dont say anything about it

quote: I could see that he spent many hours developing his mods and testing. Not an easy task and very time consuming.

and he and many other have been here since before the release of ctp1, and i dont see them go anywhere

quote: The Sims site is loaded with free downloads and improvements, as well as free patches to fix 'flaws' as they are identified. Where is Activision's?

The Sims sold like crazy and is only logical to see such things. Did you see CTP2 at anytime in the top 10 sales charts we are posting?

quote: the same guys that 'quit' on the game to move on to some new projects

nobody said that anyone from the team quit. there was higher-level decision to end any work on ctp2(probably after the release of the ww2 scenarios) and that was it.

Well it seems that we all have kind of bad luck with being fans of this game .

[TCO]

Why are you all whining about hot seat and PBEM not being in the game? That was a conscious decision by Activision on what features to support. If you don't like that, don't buy the game. FYI, Civ2 shipped without MP and didn't get MP until it was a 3rd expansion pack...and all this after the civnet fiasco.

Y'all are a bunch of whiney little computer-boy babies.

[WesW]

In response to Mike's questions, first, there is no way that I can add things like hotseat to the game which even the Activision people were not able to accomplish.

I did make a mod for Civ2 almost 3 years ago, and of course the Med mod I.

I have found over the course of the last year that I enjoy making mods for the Ctp games. They are a mod-maker's dream come true. I get a number of positive things out of doing this, which I have shared occasionally on the forums and to the people I work with.

With Ctp2, I have been able to work with some of the best, most talented and knowledgeable people on the forums. That alone has been a pleasure, and what we have done with the game, and are about to do with it, is something that I think any civer would be proud of.

The Med mod v1.0 beta is going to be released in the coming days. It will have up-to-date readmes and charts with it which list the major changes made to the game and necessary info so that players understand what is going on.
If you don't have the game yet, download the readmes, view the charts, and read what the beta-testers have to say about the mod, then decide if you want to get the game.
If you do already have the game, give the mod a try before giving up on it. I will test the mod for stability and bugs before uploading it, so now is the time to get in on the action.
As far as support, all I can say is that I will keep working with the game until I make it the best, most enjoyable game that I can. If others out there want to take the mod and make there own versions of it, I will be happy to post their versions at my webpage.

I believe the main gripe is as follows:

1. Naterally, the number one gripe is Activision stating that there will be no more patches to CTP2 - Do you feel betrayed? I know I do.

2. Since Activision's anouncement, I've gone back to playing CIV2 Gold...And there are MANY improvements that were in the CTP series that are missing in CIV2 (different manufactures - to be expected).

3. Even though CIV2 does not have the "bells and whistles" of the CTP series, at least the manufactures of CIV2 stayed behind their product and eventually worked out the bugs...Activison in CTP2 did not.

4. And lastly, yes, I too am guilty of pining for the advanced graphics and more robust user interface of CTP2 when compared to CIV2...but the botom line is this:

Activison (for the time being) has abandoned us to our own devices. Sure Activison states that there is still technical assistance for their product (CTP2), but any questions about the multitude of bugs or none playability are directed to this site...with no OFFICIAL responsibilitiy on their part.

I'm sorry, but I realy hate to be played the fool.

I have a gut feeling that Firaxis/Hasbro has taken notice of how bad Activision has stepped on it.

I really do believe we will recieve far better support from the eventual release of CIV3 (Rumor mill Aug 2001).

PS: I finished rampaging and realized how long my dissertation was...sorry, had to get it off my chest
[This message has been edited by wittlich (edited January 28, 2001).]

[Keygen]

quote: Originally posted by GP on 01-27-2001 08:59 PM Why are you all whining about hot seat and PBEM not being in the game? That was a conscious decision by Activision on what features to support. If you don't like that, don't buy the game. FYI, Civ2 shipped without MP and didn't get MP until it was a 3rd expansion pack...and all this after the civnet fiasco. Y'all are a bunch of whiney little computer-boy babies.

Who told you that we are talking only about hotseat or PBEM?

[TCO]

If the shoe doesn't fit, then ignore it!

[Imran Siddiqui]

Imran is SURE glad he didn't buy the piece of **** known as CtP2!

[TacticalGrace]

The first time I played CTP2 I was hooked. But I quickly saw through the thin AI and realised that it wasn't much of a game - I could win without trying.

so I tried WesW's MedMod.

But I warn you: if you want to get some sleep leave it alone. It has the most incredible "just-one-more-go" appeal. I don't try and kid myself anymore. Just 300 more goes...

city management? I'm just about keeping positive cash while trying to get some sort of research program without shutting down all production.
Challenging warefare? The AI has come at me with some awesome stacks, causing me to rush my armies back from their attack positions to defend my cities.


So Activision DID write a great bit of software, it just took an expert to make it into a game.