Firaxis, you're definately no Blizzard...

Inverse Icarus · October 31, 2002, 15:36

... so why did you make this ghetto battle.net rip off?

here come the rants.

I've had the game for 2 and a half hours. i spent all of it trying to get INTO a multiplayer game. I had 7 crashes (fatal exceptions) and a bunch of games where people didnt "show up" for some reason.

i finally got into a game, that lagged like all hell, and when someone quit, another fatal exception.

Then theres the little things.

The lobby has no list of people, we have no idea whos in there at any given time.

The in game messaging system is complete and utter crap. i am honestly disgusted. I loved Civ2's "Chat with Kings" Option, and even something as simple as WC3 or SC's chat menu would be great.

but no, i have to have a bulbus box take up 1/4 of my screen and lag the whole game (i will type a message and have to wait for it to show up).

I'm going to play later tonight, with friends i know IRL, so theres going to be no pirates to crash the game (some people suspect the warez version is crashing games), nothing like that.

there should also be no lag, as 2 of us are in the same college, and the other two are on college t3's.

right now i am completely disgraced for you people, i have no idea how you could put this out with your name on it.

TCP/IP was too f*cking simple wasn't it. Couldn't leave us with that, could you. You FORCE us to use YOUR service that DOESNT WORK. good plan firaxis. good f*cking plan.

Inverse Icarus · October 31, 2002, 15:41

and there fatal exception #9, and i'm done until 9 PM EST.

throw some more patches out by then.

Randolph · October 31, 2002, 15:52

I think we need to start a PTW anger management support group

kittenOFchaos · October 31, 2002, 15:53

So SAD to see you are having problems

isak · October 31, 2002, 16:16

Quote:

Originally posted by UberKruX
(some people suspect the warez version is crashing games)

It is!

Nikolai · October 31, 2002, 16:16

Yeah, finally a good reason to be happy for not being the first to get the game...

Nikolai · October 31, 2002, 16:18

Isak, how do you know that?

Is it something you have proves of, or do you just guess?

Inverse Icarus · October 31, 2002, 16:19

Quote:

Originally posted by Nikolai
Isak, how do you know that?

Is it something you have proves of, or do you just guess?

there are two "locked" games called:

"GET THE 1.04f PATCH"
and
"WAREZ DOESNT WORK"

we can only assume thats firaxis.

Randolph · October 31, 2002, 16:22

Just because it's true that "Warez doesn't work", doesn't mean that it's true that "the legal version does work"...

isak · October 31, 2002, 16:31

Quote:

Originally posted by UberKruX

there are two "locked" games called:

"GET THE 1.04f PATCH"
and
"WAREZ DOESNT WORK"

we can only assume thats firaxis.

That's sort of what tipped me off too

It's true it doesn't necessarily mean that the legal version does work, but figuring out which bugs stem from the fact that you're "playing a pirate", surely isn't an easy task.

Nikolai · October 31, 2002, 16:44

I understand. Sounds reasonable for me.

Inverse Icarus · October 31, 2002, 16:48

oh shizzle, did this rants thread get me emperor?

Nikolai · October 31, 2002, 16:49

Heey! Congrats!

Dominae · October 31, 2002, 17:02

UberKrux, it's quite fitting that a rant thread should get you to Emperor, don't you think!

On a more serious note, I've posted my "observations" on MP in the 'Bugs and Crashes' thread; they're basically identical to yours.

Dominae

SlightlyMadman · October 31, 2002, 17:02

It doesn't seem like the game was really designed to have the same purpose as battle.net. You really shouldn't just sign up for random games with strangers, for a number of reasons. Not only do you run the risk of playing against somebody with an incorect/pirated version, but the structure of the game itself lends well to cheating.

Hopefully, given a bit of time, people will find friends whom they trust, and enjoy playing with. Direct TCP/IP connections to games would make this a lot easier, and really make much more sense, but Firaxis didn't have the resources to design their own network protocol, so they had to use something off the shelf. IMHO, the time and aggrivation this decision has caused probably wasn't worth the time saved, but I'll respect any decisions their team made, since it's still among the best games I've ever played, even without MP.

Personally, I'm sticking to PBEM for now, since that's about as stable as it gets, and you don't have to immerse yourself in a game for hours at a time (I have a busy schedule, but I can always find 5 minutes to play a turn of PBEM).

Firaxis has done an amazing job, considering their limited resources. A lot of the problems people are having seem to be the result of outside circumstances, beyond their control.

isak · October 31, 2002, 17:07

UberKruX: You should spam a chat just to celebrate

SlightlyMadman: PBEM will certainly be my main dish too - so when are we going to play

Inverse Icarus · October 31, 2002, 17:08

Quote:

[SIZE=1] Hopefully, given a bit of time, people will find friends whom they trust, and enjoy playing with. Direct TCP/IP connections to games would make this a lot easier, and really make much more sense, but Firaxis didn't have the resources to design their own network protocol, so they had to use something off the shelf. IMHO, the time and aggrivation this decision has caused probably wasn't worth the time saved, but I'll respect any decisions their team made, since it's still among the best games I've ever played, even without MP.

uhm, they used something off the shelf? i've never seen such a [ghetto] system in any of their games before. did SMAC have something like this (i remember playing TCP/IP in SMAC).

TCP/IP is the SMART way to do multiplayer. it's easily editable to make TCP/IP code work for lans.

whatever. tonight i'll see how well it works with my buddies.

Sheik · October 31, 2002, 17:31

SMAC had a good system.

UberKrux I haven't gotten the game yet and have some questions:

Was it easy getting into the MP game with your friends?
Did it run more smoothly with friends?
Do you have the latest patch?
Does the new patch fix some of these problems?

And two questions for Firaxis:
Are you reading this thread?
If so what do you have to say?

NeOmega · October 31, 2002, 17:36

Quote:

Originally posted by UberKruX

there are two "locked" games called:

"GET THE 1.04f PATCH"
and
"WAREZ DOESNT WORK"

we can only assume thats firaxis.

Get the 1.04 patch was me. I was tired of idiots whining before they even checked to see if there was a patch.

Unspeakable Horror · October 31, 2002, 17:37

Uber won´t be answering your questions for a while it seems.
http://apolyton.net/forums/showthrea...threadid=66124

FrostyBoy · October 31, 2002, 17:37

Well, I won't buy the game then, not until I hear no more complaints. I'm not going through the same CTP scenario I had years ago. I still have a grudge on that.

SlightlyMadman · October 31, 2002, 18:16

Quote:

Originally posted by UberKruX

uhm, they used something off the shelf? i've never seen such a [ghetto] system in any of their games before. did SMAC have something like this (i remember playing TCP/IP in SMAC).

TCP/IP is the SMART way to do multiplayer. it's easily editable to make TCP/IP code work for lans.

whatever. tonight i'll see how well it works with my buddies.

Well, they're using gamespy, for sure. Other than that, I thought I heard somewhere (maybe a post in this forum) that they were using Microsoft DirectPlay. It would make sense, since they're definitely using DirectX and DirectVoice.

I've written a couple of custom TCP/IP communication libraries in my time, and it's never been fun. Java makes it pretty easy for simple stuff, but it's really a chore in C++, and I've really only done fairly simple transactions.

When you think about the complexity and quantity of data that Civ has to transmit, though, you can understand why they made that decision, especially with their limited development staff. Civ3 has a surprisingly small staff, compared to other major releases these days. I really respect that Firaxis is carrying over a bit of the old garage development mentality into today's industry.

As far as it being a ghetto system, that certainly true. Anything by Microsoft is a ghetto solution. People choose them because they either don't know any better or (more often) have no choice (especially in game development).

alva · October 31, 2002, 18:21

Quote:

Originally posted by isak
UberKruX: You should spam a chat just to celebrate

The emperor thing could well be only temperary though

sorry Uber, couldn't resist

SlightlyMadman · October 31, 2002, 18:31

Quote:

Originally posted by isak SlightlyMadman: PBEM will certainly be my main dish too - so when are we going to play

Well, the big game in my PBEM Manager only needs one more player to sign up, before I kick it off. For that matter PBEM Express 1 only needs one more player, too, and you're not in it. Go ahead and sign up for it, and I'll start it up.

If anyone else wants to PBEM, check out My PBEM Manager and create a game, or sign up for one.

SpencerH · October 31, 2002, 18:31

Quote:

Originally posted by NeOmega

Get the 1.04 patch was me. I was tired of idiots whining before they even checked to see if there was a patch.

I would think that it was pretty unexpected to have a patch released virtually simultaneously with the game.

Craig P. · October 31, 2002, 18:33

DirectPlay is nice to program against. I have no idea how it performs, though.

(I never got to testing the multiplayer game that I wrote.)

notyoueither · October 31, 2002, 18:41

Quote:

Originally posted by SpencerH

I would think that it was pretty unexpected to have a patch released virtually simultaneously with the game.

Unexpected? Yes. Unusual? No, not if the publisher decided to send the 1st or 2nd release candidate to press over the objections of the developer...

Strakorfsky · October 31, 2002, 19:03

Where is the new patch?

And if so, is it only usuable for PTW, because Iam getting it on saturday, please respond fast.

SpencerH · October 31, 2002, 19:51

There must be a link somewhere around here at poly. Its only for PtW.

Sheik · October 31, 2002, 21:48

If Uber cant answer my questions then could someone else?