05-05-2002 13:16									#211
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quote: Originally posted by Ethelred Its even more likely that you are speculating far beyond the amount to information available.

I'll retract my statements if proven wrong. I'd be willing to bet you straight up even odds that I won't be.

	05-05-2002 13:18									#212
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quote: Originally posted by asleepathewheel I find this pretty humorous-here you claim that it is a worse selling game, then on the general forum, you are asking for sales numbers. Haha. Isn't that the reverse of how it should be? Get the facts and then analyze?

Whatever, Einstein. Civ2 is one of the best selling games in history. It created a HUGE genre of web sites around it. Civ3 doesn't seem to have had the same effect.

Are you seriously claiming that Civ3 has had the kinda sales that Civ3 did?

	05-05-2002 13:18									#213
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$100 GP.

	05-05-2002 13:21									#214
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quote: Originally posted by GP Whatever, Einstein. Civ2 is one of the best selling games in history. It created a HUGE genre of web sites around it. Civ3 doesn't seem to have had the same effect. Are you seriously claiming that Civ3 has had the kinda sales that Civ3 did?

ROFLMAO-I point out a flaw in your reasoning, and you resort to ad hominems!

How long has Civ2 been out?
How long has Civ3 been out?

How can you compare 6 years of sales with 6 months?

	05-05-2002 13:23									#215
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asleep, do you think that Civ3 will sell equivalently to civ2? Do you think that it has for comparable time frames?

	05-05-2002 13:24									#216
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It's been top 10 for longer than it's predecessors.

	05-05-2002 13:27									#217
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Notyou, $100 is cool with me.

Let's each send $100 to Ming. (So there is no danger of welshing.) Let's also define the bet exactly:

I bet that Firaxis knew of the MP exclusion well before revealing it to us. (Define "well before" as a month.) And you bet the opposite. If we can't find the answer, than its a wash. Otherwise, whoever wins gets the money.

Is that cool? Otherwise, let me know what you want.

	05-05-2002 13:29									#218
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quote: Originally posted by notyoueither It's been top 10 for longer than it's predecessors.

Hey if I'm wrong, I'll admit it. My impression is that it's not doing as well as Civ2.

I've seen it in the Strategy top 10 for a while...but it seemed to drop out of the overall top 10 pretty quickly. Before Xmas.

	05-05-2002 13:35									#219
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Sh*t. Now I may be hooped. I was thinking of sales figures when I answered the challenge. Oh well.

Can you think of a way to decide the bet on the misleading aspects? If so, I'll send Ming the $100us.

The problem with that is, how do you find a relatively unbiased measure of it?

	05-05-2002 13:36									#220
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quote: Originally posted by GP asleep, do you think that Civ3 will sell equivalently to civ2? Do you think that it has for comparable time frames?

For comparable time frames, I would bet that it has sold better than Civ2. Whether it has legs for the long haul, neither you nor I could say at this point. Perhaps that answer will lie with the results of the XP.

Why do I think it has sold better?
Like NYE said, stayed in top ten longer.
Contextually, this means that it sold even more copies than a comparable game 6 years ago. The game industry is booming-more people have computers, top ten games sell more than they ever have before.

	05-05-2002 14:16									#221
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quote: Originally posted by GP I'll retract my statements if proven wrong. I'd be willing to bet you straight up even odds that I won't be.

So am I for the same reason you are willing to make the bet. You know the contract is secret and clearly subject to a NDA. I think its highly unlikely that MP was part of the contract. Civ II sold quite well long before MP was added.

	05-05-2002 14:24									#222
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The reason I think MP was part of the contract is that MP was discussed as a fundamental part of the game in lots of press releases. I doubt that they would do so ion contravention to the contract. And I doubt the contract would leave this kind of stuff out. It's a pretty big feature.

Of courser there is the possibility that IG and Firaxis lied (not by omission but by comission). I.e, they never intented to have MP in the original release even when they said they would. Are you proposing that?

	05-05-2002 14:26									#223
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How many press releases GP?

Do they exist on the web? Can you point me to them?

I'm honestly curious.

	05-05-2002 14:40									#224
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Let me dig back in the archives...

(edit) I can't figure out how to go back in the archives. Seombody showed me this once, but I can't remember how to get there. Not obvious from the front page. I would ask Markos, but he is mad at me...gotta lay low for a while...

Last edited by TCO on 06-05-2002 at 01:20

	06-05-2002 01:18									#225
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Markos said (in another thread tha was closed) that Firaxis posted a note a month before the game release the MP would not be in it. (He also accused me of lying or being inaccurate..which was not true...but oh well...and yes I did joke about Poly tiliting to the company line and I will lay off that, Mark).

I'm willing to take Mark's word that they did post this a month before the game...I don't remember but seems reasonable. But think for a second, how long was MP OUT OF THE DESIGN? Do you seriously think that they pulled a major feature like that a month before game release. It seems much more likely that it was pulled considerable before that...so that beta testing, game balancing etc, could be done with the beta design.

	06-05-2002 02:01									#226
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My guess is that 2 months before release Firaxis was still hoping to get an extension out of Infogrames.

At some point it became October 31 or never. At another point it became clear that MP wouldn't make October 31. When those two points became reality they should have put the notice on their web site. It is possible that that was 4 to 6 weeks before release.

	06-05-2002 02:07									#227
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quote: Originally posted by GP I'm willing to take Mark's word that they did post this a month before the game...I don't remember but seems reasonable. But think for a second, how long was MP OUT OF THE DESIGN? Do you seriously think that they pulled a major feature like that a month before game release. It seems much more likely that it was pulled considerable before that...so that beta testing, game balancing etc, could be done with the beta design.

I agree. Think about how long it takes to create, print, package and distribute a million manuals. To change the scope of the game in a major way and redesign and repackage within 30 days of the scheduled release date would be pretty hard to imagine.

However, I think they were very kind to give us the prelim info on the game and I always took their words to be more of what they intended than what they promised. Some of the best companies (Blizzard?) can miss a release date by more than a year. At least we got it about when they said we would.

I'll bet the follow on XP was already on the schedule when the original release was made. Maybe the patches used up so much of their time that the "predestined" XP is behind schedule and therefore the most natural place to put and test the MP. Might really complicate things to release a MP patch just before an XP. Think of all the redundency.

	06-05-2002 04:42									#228
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Well. I did some digging myself.

http://apolyton.net/forums/showthre...&threadid=26042
'Holy S***! NO Multiplayer Until Spring!' was posted September 7. Whoever Mister Pleasant is, he released the information over 8 weeks before release of the game. My money would be on him being a Firaxian.

http://apolyton.net/forums/showthre...&threadid=28736
'Gone Gold' indicates that the game went to the publishers for final production on about October 8.

It would appear that Firaxis did let people know that there would be no MP well in advance of the code being finalized and the game being 'finished'.

	06-05-2002 04:51									#229
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You are a bit confused. Mr. Pleasant found out about the no MP BEFORE they told us. They were not circulating that info at the time. And in fact, they refused to confrim or deny Pleasant's info (which tunrned out to be accurate).

Pleasant was NOT a Firaxian.

	06-05-2002 06:49									#230
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Why would MrP show up as a guest? Strange. Anyway...

I reviewed most of the MP thread. It occurs to me that MP for the initial release never was planned. I would appreciate it if someone could show me where Firaxis or Infogrames ever said it was.

In fact, from the MP thread there were a couple of useful snippets.


http://www.civfanatics.com/civ3inte...orris_913.shtml
'Civilization III: Jeff Morris Interview'
- CivFanatics: What is the current status of multiplayer?
- Jeff Morris: We're still working out all of the details around multiplayer and will give you more information later.

September 13. A statement from a Firaxian that contains no promise of anything. In fact it was received as quite discouraging.


http://apolyton.net/forums/showthre...30&pagenumber=5
lockstep
I posted this already in another thread, it´s a quote from civfanatics.com (September 8):
'According to Jeff Vitous of WarGamer.com, an Infogrames representive told him that Firaxis didn't start working on multiplayer until early August.'


I seems to me that the members of the Civ community on line read massive amounts into the statement made by Sid about interesting concepts with MP. In the absence of valid information about what that meant, members of the community worked themselves up into a lather of hope, hype and misinformation founded on false expectations.

As for the lack of chatter from Firaxis... yes, I've noticed that many people are varying shades of enraged by the hit and run nature of Firaxis' communications. Firaxians themselves have held up the MOO3 debacle as support for their closed policy. I would say that the development of Civ3 could be given as an extreme counter example of how to mismanage public expectations through neglect.

Firaxis probably lacks the resources for the full time management of communications on forums such as these. The publisher could probably do it, but they don't seem to care at all.