14-12-2001 13:12									#31
	Enter the AD-FREE zone

Lib and Yin and other guys who get pissed off at Firaxis: My suggestion is to not take it personally. It may be frustrating to not get replies to all your questions, but Dan and others don't intend to offend you. It may be a mistake to purposely not reply to questions, but you shouldn't take it so personally or get so angry. It isn't that big of a deal, in the end.

	14-12-2001 13:15									#32
	Browse Apolyton AD-FREE

Take it personally? That's not it at all. It's a comedy of errors, actually. Tragically funny that one company with so much potential can so willingly shoot itself in the face.

	14-12-2001 13:23									#33
	Increase the size of your Attachments

Seems to me the private e-mail business leads to troubles of its own. After getting my answer, would I not then come back here and share it with other gamers? Why then the weird cabalistic method of answering? Why must someone go like Moses to the mountain top to get answers and then bring them here on tablets of clay?

Firaxis has settled on a rather Neanderthal method of dealing with fan's questions, a method that turns them into detractors. It's all just so... bizarre.

	14-12-2001 13:24									#34
	Got spare money?

Yin: but why are you so impatient? I doubt that anyone on the Civ 3 forums does not know where you stand on Firaxis and Civ 3. You have made your points clear, now you're just saying the same thing again and again. Can't you just take a rest and wait to see what Firaxis ends up doing? It won't do a lick of good to keep complaining.

	14-12-2001 13:27									#35
	Tired of ads?

Well, you would be on your honor not to broadcast it either. The point would be to give a particular gamer some satisfaction while allowing Firaxis to not have stones thrown at it for speculating.

	14-12-2001 13:28									#36
	Tired of ads?

Do I make new threads? That should answer your question. If somebody wants to bring up (again) the issue of Firaxis PR and other people are discussing it, why should I stay out of the coversation? Makes no sense.

And, no, it seems a good number of the newbies here do NOT understand my arguments, so I find myself having to make things clear to them when they jump to conclusions, etc.

As for being patient: Hey, I returned the game and am waiting to see where we'll be come Gold Edition time. In my book, that makes me one of the most patient people here.

	14-12-2001 13:31									#37
	Support Apolyton

It may save you time and energy to not post at all if it is going to be misunderstood. I make this suggestion for your own good. If you find that each time you post something, someone ends up misunderstanding and you have to then try several times to explain yourself, maybe it wasn't worth it to post in the first place.

	14-12-2001 13:36									#38
	Got spare money?

As for Firaxis: When they actually show some consistent and intelligent concern for the public, I'll cut them slack. Trust me. But all I have seen is incompetence bordering on disdain for the very fans that pay their bills.

And if it is their official policy to simply remain quiet when even basic courtesy would do, then it is my official policy to voice just how disgusting I find that decision. No, I am not asking them to monitor these boards 24/7. I'm asking for official comments on Civ3.com on issues we ALL know are of a concern.

Even if that message is simply: "When know this issue is of great concern to you guys. We are listening and working on it. Please bear with us." This statement should be on the official site, I stress. Not buried in some odd-ball thread after a spur of the moment post.

Finally, if Firaxis it so terribly hurt by public criticism, I invite them not to come here. I invite them to make the final decision along the road they are actively pusuing and cut any and all contact with the fans.

Let's see if they fare better that way. Honestly, I think they'd actually be doing better in COMPLETE silence. At least then we could give them the benefit of what doubt remains.

	14-12-2001 13:37									#39
	Support Apolyton, buy Civilization 2

As for 'saving me time,' thanks for the suggestion. But I will not use other people's basic inability to understand common English sentences as a mandate to quit posting.

You, however, seem to be wasting your time this round, don't you think? Care to stop posting now?

	14-12-2001 14:49									#40
	Support Apolyton, pre-order Civilization IV

"Dan and Lib: what do you think of this idea-use email or private messages for speculative issues.."

Yikes..how many civ owners are there?
how many have the same question?
How many would feel shunned if they were not answered but someone else was?
What would stop someone from getting their question privately answered and then posting all over the place?

How many personal emails would they have to answer?

Even the questions they have answered...get asked again and again because one or more people may not feel it was answered as they had wanted.

Firaxis are working on their next patch..so let them concentrate on it already

EDIT: oops i missed the whole second page of this thread 4 some reason.

	14-12-2001 15:20									#41
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But what, exactly, are they working on? What have they even considered? Have they heard our requests? Are they bogged down thoroughly in their OS problems to the exclusion of all else? Will the next patch be simply a fix for the few with this problem?

Do they have any understanding at all how tedious the late game is? Do they acknowledge that this problem exists? Has not anyone at Firaxis ever played into the modern age and thought to himself, 'Damnation! This is tedious!'?

Keeping silent is a bad strategy, in my opinion. But what they are doing is worse than that. They are leaving hit-and-run posts like those in this thread that address nothing other than defense of their own myopic policy. They are leaving hit-and-run threads like the one that says that it is the place to post issues and bugs. In other words, they are being silent about things that matter to us, but are quite vocal about irrelevancies.

Their staff is limited. Their time is limited. But they have to make those same sort of "interesting decisions" that we make when we play Sid's games. They need to strike a balance. By spending nearly all their time working on God only knows what and ignoring us like we are unworthy of the most common decencies, they might well find that, down the road, when they finally put out a perfect game and seek to gloat in our admiration, we all shrug our shoulders in unison, and go 'Who cares? We've found something else.'.

Lib

	14-12-2001 16:32									#42
	Tired of ads?

Well I wouldn't excuse them in any way for their approach to their PR but I think I can understand it. We are in the big push period for the title and the publisher (yes them again) want to ship as many boxes as possible and rake in the cash.

Its become clear from these forums that whilst some posters love the game (and all power to them for that) there's a lot of us that feel it's not quite (use your own definition of quite here) what it should have been, and indeed can be frustrating and a fun killer. You can bet that if Civ community vets are feeling that then there's a lot of Joe public out there who are not going to like this game once they have bought it?

You can bet therefore that neither the developer or publisher wants veterans running around out there saying "don't buy Civ 3". What then is the Devlopers best approach? Too much information communicated might reveal that the game can never be made what some of us desire and off we go, too little information or response and frustration may well produce the same result - but a trickle of information, a small presence on the forums and it keeps the doubters wavering whilst the all important sales rack up?

So what do others think about that? Am I just a cynic at heart?

	14-12-2001 16:59									#43
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Well, they're too late for that. I've already started talking.

	14-12-2001 17:17									#44
	Put an end to popups!

Do you mean outside of community forums? I'm very much of the opinion any amount of forum activity here and elsewhere won't hit the sales significantly. Its if we all start talking to friends, family, colleagues etc about the game that Joe 'High Street Punter' gets to hear and overall sales could be affected.

I should point out I haven't done this proactively. If a friend asks me for my opinion of the game then I will tell them that I'm still pluggin at it but have yet to "find the fun".

Now where have I heard that before?

	14-12-2001 18:32									#45
	*Attention* Support Apolyton

yin26 is absolutely accurate, I completely agree with him.

Libertarian was also making a valid point, first of all the Civ3 website is useless. because the information is outdated, and the requests and emails go un-answered. So if we can't tell Firaxis what we think, due to lack of response. Do we get our $50 back, or take the loss? I think the only thing we can do is to vent our anger, and hope that Firaxis will eventually acknowledge it! And upon acknowledging it, respond to it! Hoek, obviously people are going to wait to see what Firaxis' comes up with. We wouldn't be "fans" if we didn't have some degree of support and respect. But you can't honestly believe its going to be a patient wait. You have to understand, Firaxis has had plenty of time, Civilization II came out in '96. And Civilization III began design in '99. So they had 3 years to "think it up" and they had 2 years to "design it". Even if the design didn't begin until '99 ... they still had 2 full years with a great design team to make it happen. Whats up with that? Personally, I would've settled for a later release date rather than a sh_tty version of Civ3. And to exhaust anymore time is financially risky.

They're next move better be good, or it could be their last.

Charles.

	14-12-2001 19:03									#46
	Support Apolyton, buy GURPS/ Alpha Centauri

Havak, sales will climb when they please their fans. And right now the negative word is spreading, and eventually it *will* affect sales. Heck, we've been telling them how to improve the game for the last 5 years, and they obviously haven't listened to us... because Civ3 is nowhere near what the fans have asked for. Seems to me that Civ3 had only one perpose, $$$. But they have to be outta their minds if they think they'll profit without fans.

Charles.

	14-12-2001 19:26									#47
	Suffering from ads?

quote: Originally posted by Hoek Dan and Lib: what do you think of this idea-use email or private messages for speculative issues. This seems reasonable to me since it wouldn't broadcast tentative plans that could backfire on Firaxis since it would only be an answer to one person. If someone asks "Could you tell me such and such about multiplayer," Dan could ask "could you send me an email or pm" and then answer the question that way. That seems like a good way to smooth things over while respecting Firaxis's need for a bit of secrecy.

Hoek:

The problem with this is that there are a lot of folks who see no problem with quoting and posting verbatim your private message to them, even if you've explicitly asked them not to.

Unfortunately I've had this happen several times as well, so in general, it's not a much more useful tool.

Dan

	14-12-2001 19:39									#48
	Get a bigger avatar today!

Hey Dan, must be rough being one of you guys. I see the same thing in the Battletech community where if one of the devs posts it tends to get overblown or misinterpreted. And over at DropShipCommand.com we're much nicer to the likes of Ratboy or Mitch Gitelman than folks 'round here seem to be to you.

Sympathy.


Hey Yin, don't sweat the details of how folks view you. (I know you don't, just offering moral support here.) People have been ragging on you since the days we first met on Firaxis's SMAC boards, pre-Apolyton days. I know I appreciated your work in compiling the bug-list, and I think the dev-team also did. Without that list, and folks like you, the SMAC patches would have much weaker.

I admit I'm more fond of the games than you. But I've never thought your analyses of SMAC and now Civ III were anything other than objective, I just disagreed with them. It's all cool.

	14-12-2001 19:47									#49
	Enter the AD-FREE zone

CharlesUFarley:

My thanks to you, sir. I don't pretend for a moment that good PR is easy. In fact, it might well be as hard as making the game itself. But it's certainly just as important to consider good PR as more than an afterthought or something heaped on a Webmaster who has already proven himself incapable. Sorry, but when you post things like: 'Get over it,' you disqualify yourself as the appropriate PR person.

absimiliard:

Thanks, man. I understand that a number of people are willing to look PAST the problems and despise somebody who keeps the problems in the forefront. It's great to hear from somebody who appreciates this dirty work.

	14-12-2001 19:52									#50
	Support Apolyton buy from Amazon

Then where does that leave you, Dan?

When you're silent, people become paranoid and anxious. When you communicate privately, people break your trust. When you say maybe, people take it as yes. When you're evasive (as you are now), people become confrontational.

What's left?

I'll tell you what's left: up-front honesty and concern about the feelings of your fans. You see, it doesn't matter whether you're comfortable; what matters is whether we're comfortable. It doesn't matter whether you're satisfied; what matters is whether we're satisfied. And it doesn't matter what you do about us; it matters what we do about you.

You won't convince me that you have any better course of action than to listen to our concerns, acknowledge our feedback, and keep us in the know. Whatever you do has disadvantages. The policy I'm advising has the least.

	14-12-2001 19:52									#51
	Increase Your PM Length

No prob yin, I'm just as pissed off as you are. And anyone who argue's your views obviously is full of sh_t. And they certainly dont know what they're talking about.

I've got yer back.

Charles.

	14-12-2001 19:55									#52
	Support Apolyton, buy Civilization: The Boardgame

Everything you've posted so far is nothing short of facts!

Charles.

Last edited by CharlesUFarley on 14-12-2001 at 20:06

	14-12-2001 19:56									#53
	Avatar Enlargement: We've got the solution

Sorry about the double post... I got lagged....

	14-12-2001 19:56									#54
	Inflate your Upload Space

I wasn't able to delete it, so I changed it...

Last edited by CharlesUFarley on 14-12-2001 at 20:05

	14-12-2001 19:58									#55
	Avatar Enlargement: We've got the solution

Dan: yeah, I can see the problem with that. I'm curious about what your opinions are regarding what Yin said earlier. It seems that you guys have a difficult situation here by setting a precedent of being on these forums. By answering ANY questions, you have a situation where people get upset when their particular questions go unanswered. It seems perhaps you guys would have been better off not posting and just viewing.

I would like to apologize, by the way, about that thread I started a few weeks ago in case you didn't catch my apology then. I have changed my position and am no longer one of those disgruntled Apolytoners.

Out of curiosity, where exactly is Hunt Valley, Maryland? I'm in DC and I think it would be a neat day trip if I was able to visit the offices for a day (I could do a mini report for Apolyton ). Is it Metro-accessable by any chance?

	14-12-2001 20:01									#56
	Got spare money?

Charles: you realize that you can delete double-posts, correct?

Lib: Well, he could also just not post anymore. That would be unfortunate, but it would save him the headache of trying to reply to hundreds of posts a day from disgruntled or impatient gamers.

	14-12-2001 20:05									#57
	Support Apolyton

Hoek:

I think I understand you a bit more now.

This is why there is an official site. An official site should contain ALL the officially careful answers to the questions we rightfully have. Even though I've been on Poly for 2.5 years, I don't think Poly is the entire Civ3 universe. Thus, anything posted here 30 posts deep might as well never have been posted.

I have been arguing for professionianlism from Firaxis for 4 years.

	14-12-2001 20:11									#58
	Support Apolyton buy from Amazon

Hoek:

yeah I figure out the delete thing, but it gave me a error message when I tried to delete, edit worked fine though.

Thanks.

	14-12-2001 20:25									#59
	Remove this text

quote: Lib: Well, he could also just not post anymore. That would be unfortunate, but it would save him the headache of trying to reply to hundreds of posts a day from disgruntled or impatient gamers.

As far as I'm concerned, posts that evade the questions don't count anyway. The only response so far to group movement was a resounding "it's not my job". That's no response at all.

Again, the disgruntlement and impatience would wane with courteous treatment and a simple expression of genuine interest. If nothing else, they would at least gain allies from people like me; as it stands, they're losing us.

Is that a good corporate strategy?

	14-12-2001 20:29									#60
	Inflate your Upload Space

Yin: there is a tradeoff, the way I see it. Either you can have a relatively small company produce pretty good games for a fan base that doesn't have the resources to adress all the concerns of fans, or you have a huge software company that produces mediocre games but can better adress specific concerns of the community. I personally prefer small-company games, however flawed they may be. I think my favorite example of a fantastic small-company game is Earthworm Jim. That game was Shiny's first game, and it was small then. As the company grew, the quality of the games decreased. It's an issue of too many cooks making a broth. Firaxis is currently a very small company, and I think you and I can agree that they have had impressive results so far (despite some disappointment over features in Civ 3).

Dan: the truth is that none of the fans like Yin or Lib or anyone else who posts here would abandon Firaxis as long as you guys don't lose your focus: on making great games. Many of us were expecting alot more from Civ 3 than ended up being there, but I think most of us will stick with you guys if you do good work.