Question about cannons...

Civrules · Cutthroat Posts: 377 **4032 Gold** -

I doubt they dismiss all feedback. There was a beta with the PC version, and now with Civ IV there are a few hundred people giving feedback and reporting. For some reason it was not done with the Xbox version of Pirates!

Although I agree this is a bad choice, it won't kill the game.

rupertlittlebear · Helmsman Posts: 4545 **10381 Gold** -

Hope you are wrong. After decisions this bad, they Deserve to take a bath.

Civrules · Cutthroat Posts: 377 **4032 Gold** -

But remember, some companies do not even communicate with their customers AT ALL. The thing I love is that each time a game is released there are always Firaxians around here (like dshirk Smile

). Why would they be here if they didn't care what we thought?

rupertlittlebear · Helmsman Posts: 4545 **10381 Gold** -

Civrules · Cutthroat Posts: 377 **4032 Gold** -

Support is on the shoulders of 2K, not Firaxis (although you can certainly call up Firaxis). The 2K site is also a little limited on support. But I really hope that improves with them. It's about time. Very Happy

rupertlittlebear · Helmsman Posts: 4545 **10381 Gold** -

Civrules · Cutthroat Posts: 377 **4032 Gold** -

Here's the link to 2K support:

http://www.2kgames.com/index.php?p=support

It is still WAY underdeveloped (with only one game listed). This really leads me to believe that they will be expanding that section...

SlipperyJim · Cutthroat Posts: 427 **2045 Gold** -

rupertlittlebear · Helmsman Posts: 4545 **10381 Gold** -

Wolfwood · Boatswain Posts: 2527 **33917 Gold** -

Falconer · Captain Posts: 1902 **2865 Gold** -

I actually have a feeling we'll be getting more than just a patch. We'll have to see what happens, but there's more to this patch than just patching stuff. I can't imagine Firaxis having sat still for all these months, even if their publishing deal was in limbo. If it was just a patch, it would already be among us....

K-Bob · Swabbie Posts: 84 **3314 Gold** -

Certainly Falconer has more contacts at Firaxis than me (# contacts == 0), so my comment below is just idle speculation.

However, I suspect that much of the delay and non-support from Firaxis has to do with Civ 4. That's the real meat of the Sid Meier / Firaxis franchise. I think Firaxis is putting all their energy into getting Civ 4 out this fall, safely before Christmas.

They realize that's where the big $$ are, not in putting out a patch for SMP. They've gotten all the $$ out us they're going to get, until they put out an expansion pack. And they'll make orders of magnitude less on that than they will on Civ 4.

The only business reason for putting out a patch at all is to keep us SMP gamers happy so some of us will buy the expansion pack in 2006 or so. If they don't patch SMP, the Civ fanatics will still buy Civ 4. They probably realize that they can always patch SMP when they do an expansion pack, if they make the expansion cool enough that we'll overcome our frustration with the original release.

I don't like it, but I suspect that's the situation.

<rant>
That being said, I don't think there's much excuse for the lame interaction between Firaxis and the fansites. If I was the Product Mgr/Producer for SMP, you bet I'd spend one hour cruising HoP, ATP, etc every morning, answering questions, taking suggestions, cheerleading, etc. I've been in software and product mgmgt for 18 years, and one thing you've always got to do is build and interact with the community, even and especially when they're upset at you.

Maybe that person has been reassigned to some other game... I hope Firaxis at least wakes up and makes someone in charge of community relations for SMP; it's really not that hard. You can bet they're doing it for Civ4! No offense to dshirk, who at least is helping us, but how lame is it that we're getting info out of their webmaster? Shouldn't someone associated with the damn product be doing that? Are they running a business there?
</rant>
OK, I feel (slightly) better now.

rupertlittlebear · Helmsman Posts: 4545 **10381 Gold** -

Wolfwood · Boatswain Posts: 2527 **33917 Gold** -

Let's not get carried away here, guys.

One thing that needs to be understood is that _Atari_ (not Firaxis) was responsible for customer support and relations until very recently. Firaxis is a small game producing company who _do not_ do their own distribution or, traditionally, customer support either. They simply do not have the manpower to do that stuff - that's the very reason why we have separate distributors and game developers in the first place.

We all know how _badly_ Atari handled, and still handles, all things having to do with customer support. We also know that when the negotiations with T2K started, Atari pulled all support from Pirates! - why waste time on something that was not going to bring them more money anyway?

T2G bought the rights for both the X-Box, and _even more importantly_, for the PC version of Sid's Pirates! from Atari. This clearly tells us that Take2 and Firaxis has something in the works also for the PC community - be it a patch or an add-on pack or whatever, it will still be something.

Until very recently, the deal between T2K and Firaxis was still in transition - Firaxis' dshirk implied that Atari had been very slow in some areas that had to be done in order to get the new arrangement on its way.

With the release of the X-Box version of Pirates!, I believe that we will be looking forward to more news also about the PC version. dshirk already gave us an _advance notice_ that a patch would be on its way soon. The official announcement has not been made yet, but I believe that to be a matter of time only.

Patience is all that is asked from us (and it is also a virtue, so why not practice it? Wink

).
_________________
It is much better to be armed with a sword that has two edges than with an estoc [...], which is nothing more than a stick with a point. (Rapier Master G. Morsicato Pallavicini, La Scherma Illustrata, p. 14.)