Civilization (the games)

Oh-so-many years ago, a little game called Civilization came out, and I was hooked. It offered the perfect blend of "one-more-turn"-itis, coupled with a sincere attempt to let you "build your own empire" in a quasi-historical way. It was, and remains, a standout in Computer games.

And then, Civ2 was brought out, and all things Civ got better. Civ2 remains on my hard drive even today. By that standard, few games pass "the test of time": Civ2, Civ3 (heavily modded, though), XCOM (the original), System Shock (the original).

Civ 3 was an improvement and a disaster. Corruption was set so outrageously high as to be ridiculous. Rules were broken, and the game crashed way too often. But over time, and definitely by the time of its last expansion, Civ3 became a great game. And when Rhye's mod came out, that was It: Civ3 became what it should have been out of the box.

Civ4 was a curious dilemma. A lot was improved: Religion was at least conceptually a good addition; civics using the Alpha-Centauri design was excellent. But a LOT was broken, or poorly implemented. Civ3 gave us a great standalone world and rules editor which put the power in the hands of everyone. Civ4 broke that rule by putting the mods only in the hands of the self-identified elite, those who would learn or already knew Python and so forth. The included world builder was a waste, in that it wasn't standalone; it required you to launch a game beforehand and be in it to access the builder; and it offered ZERO rules modification in a simple way, as was the Civ3 way.

Civ4 was off my hard drive quickly. It came back with its Beyond the Sword expansion... and was gone in a few months. Meanwhile, civ2 and civ3 (modified) remained.

And that brings us to today and the release of Civ5. Gone are religion, Alpha-Centauri-inspired Civics (the best ideas from Civ4, just removed). Gone is a breakdown of research, wealth, and happiness, whittled down into a single "happiness" metric. Gone are the myriad simple ways to see what was going on -- you can't see whether the other country leader talking to stands on things, you just have to choose from whatever offer popped up (do I want a pact with this guy, or will that cause lots of side-affects? Oops, can't see that). For example.
Gone are the squares, replaced with hexes, and that's a good thing. Hexes are better. Any old-time wargamer will attest to that.
Gone is the ability to stack units -- not a bad thing, but very poorly implemented. They just set a 1-unit-per-hex rule. I would have set a 1-per-hex rule, but offered military philosophy (command and control) options in the Research tree that changed that. In other words, you research "combined arms" or some such and it lets you build an Army (a la civ3) that contains more than 1 unit, but the units cannot be of the same type. Great Generals are able to better manage their troops, so if you add a Great General to an Army, he lets you put in more than 1 of the same type of unit as well. And the stack fights together, not as individual units -- the most appropriate offensive unit in the stacks moves forward, with bonuses based on the types of units also in the army. So if you move forward with a Swordsman, but your army has an archer in it, he gets a ranged bonus from that -- and the animation shows a swordsman physically attacking with an archer raining arrows at the target.

it's not complicated. It would have been historically accurate, it would have eliminated the so-called 'stack o' doom' of prior Civs, and it would have more realistically, in a strategic as opposed to tactical sense, mirrored actual battle strategies (combined arms, etc).

Everything in Civ5 is built for short games and around their wargame -- the world-builder stuff seems tacked on and shallow. For the first time, I haven't bought a Civ game on day one. I played several games on a friend's laptop. And what I saw did not impress at all. It reminded me of the third XCOM game -- a travesty that tried to fuse a realtime game onto the turn-based glory that was XCOM.

So, in the order of greatness:

Civ2
Civ3 modified
Civ
Civ4
Civ5

At least, until Civ5, I always thought that they were at least trying to improve each game and that they suceeded at least in ideas if not implementation. But with Civ5, the moronic ability of archers to shoot multiple hexes, literally showing you an archer who can shoot an arrow across a city and hit a target on the other side of the city -- immersion-breaking stupidity, not to mention utterly and glaringly dumb. It's the real root of my dislike of Civ5: Civ is a strategy game, with a worldwide perspective. They built civ5 around a TACTICAL combat idea, but fused that onto the worldwide Civ perspective -- and that is tragic. Worse still is the fact that far too many people can't seem to grasp the difference between STRATEGIC and TACTICAL. And, of course, Civ5 continues the recent trend of trying to get rid of anything that might break the short-attention-span of modern gamers -- hence, ever-smaller-maps and tactical wargame.

I find it utterly unsatisfying and sad. It gives me no hope for Civ6. Like the glory that was the XCOM series, until the third game, and which is now a dead series, so too goes Civ, sacrificed on the altar of short-attention-spans, ahistorical feel, and dumbing-down of anything that might remotely "look" complicated.

I shall wear black for a few days, I think, as mourning seems appropriate.

State of Play

Well, it's been a while, my apologies for that.

I've discovered something depressing: the cycle of "play, rediscover the familiarity of an MMORPG, become bored very quickly with the repetitiveness of it all, quit". This is made worse when a game sets out with one approach to their gameplay and then abruptly changes it mid-stream to something else (SWG, pre- and post- NGE, for instance; LOTRO, which started "casual" and is becoming RAID-centric; etc.).

I loved LOTRO. I hated Moria. I hate the upcoming expansion. And I've finally done the one thing that offers true finality: I deleted the program from my hard drive. There will be no further re-visits. The same thing happened with WoW -- one game up to the max level, a whole different game thereafter, and I'm one who plays "for the journey", not to endlessly RAID over and over and over again ad infinitum. Also deleted.

So what am I playing? At the moment, nothing. Runes of Magic was tried and while it has some interesting bits, it quickly becomes boring. Sampled Vanguard's trial, thought there was a lot to speak for it -- but everything i read says it's a raid-centric/group-centric game after the Trial, so... nope.

So absent playing, what remains on the hard drive and therefore open to a return in the future? EQ2. Despite its failings, EQ2 still remains the pinnacle of offering players what matters to me: enormously deep lore; tons of different systems to flesh out the world and the characters in it, like their very creative housing and crafting (to name but two); a colorful range of starting cities with enough variety that I can start new characters without being lost in the perpetual "sameness" of something like LOTRO (which appears to be condemned to it's at-launch 4 starter areas for the rest of eternity; I thought that they'd do Mirkwood and, since it's the home of Legolas' folk, make that a starter area, but nope, it's a high-level area only). EQ2 literally has only one problem that keeps me from staying subscribed: the ridiculous limit on # of characters. For a game that has dozens of classes and races, the potential combinations number in the thousands -- but you only get a few slots, mercifully expanded since launch but still limited to something like 8 slots. So you literally have to delete long-built now-high-level characters with all their housings and money and involvement in the world, if you want to try something else. This is called a DISINCENTIVE -- instead of encouraging me to try their world from different perspectives, their hard-limit encourages me to get angry and unsubscribe. Which is what happened. I have, in the past five years, built a full array of max-level characters that fully fill my slots -- which means, if i return, I will have to delete some of them -- and that's flatly unacceptable. So, thank you, Sony, for creating a system that actually encourages people to get angry and leave rather than encouraging them to stay and play. Even the game i praise the most does things, like this, that are catastrophically STUPID.

It's been a long haul with MMOs: UO, AC, (that which came after AC and shall not be named, because naming it would actually give it too much praise, when it deserves NONE), EQ1, DAOC, EQ2, WoW, LOTRO, Horizons, Shadowbane, Runes of Magic, Vanguard's trial, DDO's trial, and on and on. At this point, a decade-plus later, I can say this: I would STILL be playing AC if it had an actual banking system; if it had a broker/auction system; if it had a quest-log; and while graphics are NOT the first thing I pay attention to, AC is VERY long in the tooth. If they remade it by updating the graphics, but left the gameplay akin to it's heyday, while fixing the three things I've listed here -- I'd be back in a heartbeat. I don't even need any different quests -- it could be a literal remake with new technology and I'd be thrilled.

EQ1 holds far too many fond memories -- and curiously, the grind never bothered me, because the lore made each zone feel unique and alive. If asked to picture a memorable scene or area from all the MMORPGs I've played, odds are that all of the top five will be from EQ1 and AC.

EQ2 is too brilliant to suffer the stupidity of its character-slot limitations -- yet it does, which keeps the game from taking top honors with me. LOTRO was brilliant, but the utter failure of the hobbies system and the change in focus of what they want the game to be has made it "just another MMORPG" instead of the brilliant, quasi-unique thing it was. DAOC's realm-vs-realm is fantastic -- as long the population stays high enough to fill it out, and then the game falls flat if the pop drops too low (as it is now). WoW -- well, the upcoming Cataclysm, assuming they actually redo ALL of the old world, including starter areas, might actually be worth a revisit, but it continues to rankle that they have not added Housing (even a barely-acceptable version, like LOTRO's, is better) and that the game is entirely of the "it plays one way 1-80, and then becomes endless RAIDing". Horizons had the most brilliant crafting I've ever seen -- and the worst of everything else. UO is brilliant... but, like AC, it shows its antiquity. Like AC, it needs a true sequel (not a "the world was destroyed, so we can change everything" POS, that idea only worked decently in EQ2, and then only after several expansions).

DDO is the biggest disappointment. Not sure who thought that D&D was just "dungeon-running" and decided to not build a fully-realised world, focusing instead on one city and its belows, but that person needs to be shot. That's not the D&D I've been playing since 1978. Our D&D games are gigantic, fleshed-out worlds -- not just "dungeon runs". Great interactive combat system lashed to a truly pathetic game. Sad.

What am I looking forward to? Not much. A bunch of sequels I'd love to see, but those are hypotheticals. Of those coming, I guess Guild Wars 2 is the most interesting... but we'll just have to see. Right now, I'm playing CIV4 with all of its expansions and using custom-mods "Rise of Mankind" and "Legends of Revolution" (can't play the base game, just too much left out of it). I miss online RPGs... but there's nothing out there worthwhile to play. Stupid EQ2, I'd be back in a heartbeat if they doubled the # of slots (or made it -x- slots per server). Oh well. Guess they don't want my money. Strange business model, that.

Changing the Rules

The First thing that needs be achieved in the MMORPG industry is the total disposal of the current paradigm: grind levels to the max, then raid. That literally defines all of the big-names in the MMORPG world: World of Warcraft, Everquest 1 and 2, etc. They create quests and populate worlds -- but both the quests and the worlds are not dynamic. You grind both -- for the quests, most people don't even read the text, just glimpsing at the "what do I have to do" part; and for the worlds, the creatures typically stand around doing nothing except reacting to a player's action (and then return to their standing-spot or their "patrol area").
We can add some sub-points to those two: that grouping is automatically preferable over so-called soloing; and that rewards (items like weapons and so forth) must automatically scale, so that rewards from RAIDs are always better than non-RAID and so forth. Crafting? Can't allow a craftable item to be better than one obtained as a reward from a RAID, and in some games not even better than some questlines. There's a huge gimping of the entire game because of the grind levels then RAID mentality, because everything is geared around providing rewards to specific (and limited) types of behavior.
If you don't RAID, you won't see the best of anything - because these games define RAIDs and only RAIDs as the "best" of the endgame. WoW, for instance, even places its top-level crafting trainers deep inside RAID instances -- so if you want only to craft, you literally CAN'T, because you have to have a RAID group put together to reach the trainer.

How about this? We actually work on a different dynamic. We throw out the RAID-as-only-viable-endgame idea, and all that devolve from it (itemisation limitations, reward limitations, ideas of 'best' playstyles, etc.).

In the next few posts, having defined the problem (quickly), we'll begin exploring some other ideas that might build a world that is more dynamic in many ways (creature behavior, itemisation, NPC behavior, etc) but one that is also more involving for the players -- where player behavior actually creates quests, because the mechanisms are in place to generate quests based on player behavior (not just, complete this quest and get the next one; but a mechanism that looks at who you've been killing, for instance, and generates wanted posters if you've been killing NPCs or other players substantially below your level... for instance).

The idea is to create a world where NPCs are more vibrant; where player behavior actually creates content and hopefully, in turn, that content helps create a self-policing playerbase; where the mechanisms support player choices, instead of manhandling players into narrowly-tailored choices.

Next time: self-policing and player-behavior generating quests.

the state of MMORPGs

The Gamer returns from a long absence -- with apologies to all who read the blog.

The current state of MMORPGs is simultaneously healthy (if measured in terms of people playing, aka the "subscriber base" of all the games out there) and dull. By dull, I mean utterly lacking in innovation, creativity, actual roleplaying, and anything that gives the players the tools to roleplay (which is more than just "talking in character" and only peripherally involves killing lots of things and manipulating stats).

Roleplaying in an MMORPG (or elsewhere) is the involvement of a player, through their character, in a setting and storyline. That's very, very basic, but it's a decent starting-point. I would measure involvement along a few lines:

1) are the stories and quests set up to allow the player to feel a sense of accomplishment, and more importantly to feel a sense of immersion? All things the players do, from the paltry to the significant, should contribute to that sense of "wonder", that feeling that they are actually there, doing the things their characters are doing. The more dynamic a quest or activity, the better. Static quests, like the infamous and far-too-overused "kill" quests ("bring me ten rabbits", followed a few levels later by the obviously-harder "bring me ten ANGRY rabbits"), do NOT create that sense of wonder or involvement. They have their place, which is to flesh out the world AROUND the core stories/quests, but they should NEVER be the mainstay.
2) is the world vast and open to exploration? This is a significant area of contention, since most games nowadays are responding to the morons of the world when they complain that they actually have to explore or walk between places -- they want their action now, dammit, and whine when they can't just go from fight to fight. This is most definitely CONTRARY to roleplaying, and contrary to the creation of a realistic, involving world. Characters should WANT to explore, to set out across the wastelands, knowing that there are things to see out there, places to visit, and possibly (and hopefully) special little places and people that aren't on "the map". Finding new places, finding new things, meeting that lone traveller on the road and exchanging stories to learn about some monument that points to a cave no one's visited -- these should DRIVE the world, create it, flesh it out... and these are things that the whiners and the FPSers (as I call them) ignore when they whine about how long it takes to get anywhere or about having to explore a world. Exploration is perhaps the most fundamental thing in roleplaying -- and it is under assault in the MMORPG world, because it takes EFFORT and TIME to explore, and far too many crybabies are out there wanting it all handed to them on a platter.
3) Do the character professions/classes provide any real chance to distinguish oneself from one's peers? Look at something like EQ2. Wanna be a wizard? Enjoy. The spells for you and the other sixty thousand wizards are all the same -- oh, we added "master fireball" instead of "baby-level fireball". Whoopdie-doo. I'd rather be able to CHOOSE to make my wizard specialize in cold-based spells and never touch fire-based; or lightning; or wind; or fire. CHOOSING for oneself is the key to differentiation. In EQ1, AC1, UO -- you, the player, chose what spells you bought and trained, because nothing was HANDED to you. You had to earn it, work for it, buy it. You molded what you became -- instead of just passing up the tree that everyone else passes up, with the only differentiation being an adjective that expresses superiority being in front of the spell's name. DULL. Try to specialize a wizard in EQ2 or WoW, and you wind up just having to ignore other spells and buy the one or two that would apply -- it's not a fleshed-out world, where the choice is up to you, and the game-designers put enough spells and variety out there to make whatever you chose viable. Sure, you can take a summoning class -- but again, you're forced onto the treadmill, where the only variation between you and the others of your class are adjectives deriving from the same base spell (baby cold snap vs master cold snap). It's called "lack of creativity" on the part of the designers -- and worse, it's also a factor of the masses who don't want differentiation, they just want to be able to get in and bash things and get lots of goodies... a group that, when catered to, dumbs down whatever game they're part of.

Is there hope? Sure. Games like Horizons, which is a terrible game otherwise, make some efforts in the right direction. Horizons has the best crafting of any game I've ever played. The players have a vast array of choices to make when crafting -- so that no two swords will be the same (from something as simple as dying the metal a different color, to adding small enchantments, to choosing to use mahogany for the wood instead of oak and having that "look" actually be different on the item), etc. THAT'S how it should be. And they have serve up this complexity in a very easy-to-use interface -- the perfect combination. The game lacks substantially in every other aspect of an MMORPG -- but must be acknowledged for getting one thing, Crafting, right. Or AC1, which eschewed the "hit buttons in a sequence to fight" theory that dominates most of the games out there. In AC1, you select at what height to swing your weapon (thereby choosing whether to go for the head shot or sweep them at their knees); you choose how fast/what force to put in the blow; and YOU have to maneuver yourself in combat, otherwise something like a shield won't count (if your shield is facing east and the attacker is to your west, the shield doesn't help you -- unlike in virtually every other game, where the shield's value is simply added to an abstraction that is Armor Class and therefore counts even in absurb situations like stated above). Dark Ages of Camelot brought us involving realm-versus-realm combat, complete with destructible environments; and it also brought us a differentiation between quests and what they call "tasks" -- which is to say, the "kill quests" are all "Tasks" in DAOC, and you know that ahead of time, so you can choose to do tasks or not... but when you choose to start quests, you know you're starting something more involving and less throw-away. AC1 has captured the spirit and design of believable gameworlds from the single-player RPGs --not simply "the floorplan is believable", but something in the design simply sparks. I believe I'm delving into a strange stronghold, and within the "instance", if you will, are not only other players (not just the ones you came with, the way any instance should be), but a design that incorporates traps, locks, creatures, etc laid out in a challenging way. Something like WoW doesn't understand that basic fact: it's not about having thirty enemies in an inn, just randomly put in; it's about putting a few by the fire, another few in the various hotel-rooms, and a boss with a few guys he's talking to downstairs.

What every single MMORPG should is to capture the single-player RPG worlds, with their involvement, scripting, dynamism, their vastness and playability, and "write it large" onto a stage where the "massively multiplayer" part comes in.

More in the next issue...

Great Games for Roleplayers, part 2

-- World of Warcraft. This is an excellent introduction to MMORPGs, and RPGs in general, but it shouldn't be taken to be, in its current form, anything more than that. The game does nothing exceptionally, nor does it introduce anything new (or even a new take on an old idea) or bring any new ideas to the MMORPG table, but it does take the already-existing concepts (crafting, questing, killing creatures, etc.) and polish them and simplify them to make them immensely accessible. For someone unused to the MMORPG genre, WoW is an excellent and mostly uncomplicated way to "get into" the genre without feeling overwhelmed. Rephrased: if you're overwhelmed by anything in WoW, you're not really going to find fun in the MMORPG genre. Where WoW fails is exactly the same thing that makes it such a great intro-RPG: it's oversimplified everything, which ruins the "world" for most players with a long history of offline RPGs and other MMORPGs. Crafting in WoW, for example, allows zero customization, which means that each and every item you build will be exactly the same as the equal item being built by the other three million people building one. That isn't a good system -- but it is a good system to introduce the idea of crafting to someone who isn't familiar with it. This is also where Blizzard could focus a bit of work: improve crafting, introduce customization to the crafting process, let people tinker and twist their creations to produce things that are truly "made by X", and you'll greatly improve the game (for those who've played other MMORPGs). Fleshing out the NPCs in the world, so that they have more to say than just the required dialogue of "I'm a seller" or "here's your quest", would go far to creating a deep, believable gameworld. There is one area that WoW is utterly schizophrenic: the game level 1-59 is very casual friendly. It's endgame, which is a term that basically encompasses "what one can do at the max level", is exactly the opposite: a RAID-specific (getting very large numbers of players together to attack something together) focus is most of the endgame, coupled with running only a few instances together (again, requiring large groups of players). It would go far for Blizzard to stop relying on instances and RAIDs and start developing an endgame philosophy that is something new -- something more roleplaying, something deeper and more involving than repetitive killing.
-- Guild Wars. There's little positive to say for Guild Wars, from the perspective of roleplaying. The game is almost entirely instanced, meaning that, once you leave the cities where all players exist together, you're by yourself or with only those who are "grouped" with you. So, in the whole wilderness, there is no "massively multiplayer" -- you're it, roaming an empty world devoid of other players and therefore the interaction of the MM part of MMORPG. Basically, the game really is built for those who don't want to have to think much or do much, who want to just dive into the Arena and fight other players (PvP). It's so far in that direction that you even get to "auto-level" to the max level while fighting in the Arena -- thereby eliminating the value of the RPG in MMORPG, since you don't have to develop anything or put any effort into building a character. It's auto-levelled, go kill -- that's the philosophy. If you enjoyed Diablo2, for instance, you'll probably enjoy GuildWars. If you enjoyed Morrowind or real RPGs, you'll hate GuildWars. If you're looking to play a role, build a character, interact with thousands of other players during your travels -- look elsewhere.

More later.

State of the MMORPG

Somewhere, out there, someone will create an MMORPG that is actually immersive and uses its game mechanics to facilitate and emphasize that immersion instead of violating it. I've gone on in different posts about how World of Warcraft's "simplifications" to things like the huge yellow ? intrude into the persistent game world, or how the mob-structure in Everquest 2 also works against it.

What I want is something of the following mix:

1) One part Horizons crafting -- in Horizons, there are a wide array of materials to customize your creations with, as well as specials and dyes that take customization even further. Games like WoW offer crafting that is so simplified as to be sterile -- the "big copper sword" you make will look and have stats exactly like every other "big copper sword" made. Horizons, which has little else to offer, took customizable crafting to a nearly-perfect state, offering the customizability within an easy-to-use interface. Brilliant.

2) One part Dark Ages of Camelot -- the Realm-Versus-Realm PvP is brilliant. Having territory that's "contested" and actually looks like it is contested (and not just a portal into an instance) was a great way to go (and they did it years ago to boot). Ideally, we'd have the contested territories change -- so that at some point territories actually are "acquired" and become "stable zones" for normal exploration, etc; while the "battle" moves into other geographies (believably).
3) Another part Dark Ages of Camelot -- the idea of tasks (kill missions) and quests (which tend to be more detailed, "plot"-worthy, and often dynamic missions) being two separate things is a good one. Junking the repetitive "kill this" as the MAIN type of quest is always a good thing -- though there should be plenty of "kill X" tasks in the world too. Hence the value of separating the two different "tiers" of missions.

4) Dynamic Roleplaying -- for instance, in a fantasy game, there should be an ability for players to become a dynamic part of the world they're in. so, for instance, if there's a monarchy, perhaps the players can compete initially for titles of squire (with squire-specific questing available, and squire-level Arena PvP with rewards for winning and "honor" distinctions for winning) and upward. Eventually, players can become members of the nobility. Perhaps as a new Lord, they are tasked with quests from the Monarch -- which could include putting together a force to enter a "contested territory" and win it back. In that situation, all the players the Player-Lord gets together get the experience and benefits of the fighting -- but the noble gets the status award for completing the Monarch's quest (which could be access to special merchants, heavy discounts from regular merchants, additional roleplaying rewards like a family-name for the player which might be able to be used by the player's other characters on the same server). Structures like that are dynamic, they go far in building the world's lore and involving the player's in that lore, and they offer endgame possibilities that are more than simply endless Instance-runs or RAIDs.
5) Dynamic items/terrain -- the ability to scale mountains and look out at the land is a key component to the exploration-factor of an MMORPG (or any RPG). Being able, for instance, to chop down trees and then harvest the wood would be excellent. Having the items in the game all physically realised in the gameworld, a la AC1 or DAOC (where each and every item can be dropped and will be physically there in the world where they lay) or EQ1 (where items are dropped and remain for one day and are represented by little "inventory bags"). Even EQ1's way would be better than the EQ2/WoW standard, where items just get "destroyed". Further, items sold to merchants should be able to be bought from those merchants by other people (and yourself) -- again, like DAOC, EQ1, AC1, with a timer that empties the merchant's inventory every eight hours or once/day. A believable weather system -- which AC1 proved was possible in 1999, six years ago! -- would also go far to creating a believable environment.

6) Skill-based combat, not button-mashing combat. In AC1, a player had to move himself during combat to keep his shield between his body and the enemy, or the shield wouldn't count -- that's interactive. Just learning what buttons to mash in what order isn't. I'm not sure what sort of combination of the two would result in the "best" system, but there needs to be some of the AC1 "movement" during combat, that level of involvement, with the button-mashing of WoW and EQ1. Again using AC1, the ability to target different "heights" on the targets (head, waist, ankle-sweep) and have different creatures stronger and weaker in those areas is innovative -- as opposed to the "you stand there, I stand here, we bash each other".

More later.

Civ4 interruption -- a "modder's dream" or needless complication?

Well, I've got Civ4. I have to say, I've been with the Civ series since day one (and Sid Meier games before that). Love the series. Along comes #4. Two things:
1) I'm impressed by the gameplay;
2) I'm utterly underwhelmed by the "editor", which in fact isn't an (as in, one) editor, but multiple pieces that have to all be used to create anything worthwhile.

Civ3 had an editor "in one place" -- aka, one interface to randomly generate maps, tweak the maps, tweak game rules, etc. One can argue about how "powerful" Civ3's editor was, but it did provide an easy-to-use tool with a large range of "power" to the majority of players.

Civ4 has... well, there is no easy place to go to just randomly generate a map and tweak it. You have to go through the process of starting a new game, then go into the World Builder, make changes there, and then save it there. Want to randomly generate a different terrain map? Exit out to the main menu, go through the "start new game" process again, and re-enter the world builder. That is to say, many extra steps to accomplish something that was simple in the prior game's editor.

Want to edit rules? Civ3, one editor, go in and check it off. Civ4? Well, that depends. Some are in XML files, so you'd best learn how to be careful in editting XML (not difficult, but a few second's thought realises that not all, and certainly not most, people are familiar with it). Some are in Python files, now requiring you to go find a Python editor and learn how to edit those files. So now we're at three different programs and places to achieve something basic, like altering a few basic rules and making a new map. Civ3? One editor, one place, simple. Civ4? Multiple programs required, specialised skill required (the bulk of the masses are not familiar with XML or Python editing). And that isn't it for Civ4, since neither the Python script, XML, or World Builder still does everything -- for the last bits, you'll need the FOURTH part of the CIv4 modding capacities, which is to be released sometime in 2006 as an SDK (Software Development Kit). So now, to do something simple and quick, like toss off a random map, tweak it, customize a couple of rules, alter the color of your country's borders and such, you have to: go into the game, randomly create a map through the new game process, go into the world builder from there, decide if the random world is something you want to work with... (deep breath), if it isn't, you have to go back out to the main menu and repeat again until you get a basic map that's a good "starting point" for your customizing of it. Okay. Now that we've gone in and out of the new game process several dozen times, just to get a basic map that we'd like to tweak, we can place things in the World Builder and alter the terrain. Fine. Now I'd like to tweak the color -- oops, can't do that from the World Builder or any program provided with the game. So, open Textpad, a basic way to edit XML (though not everyone knows that), and then go on a hunting expedition to figure out for yourself which of the very many XML files in the various game directories are actually the ones you need (good luck, there's nothing included with the game to help you at all with this). Find it, edit the XML specific to country coloring, resave. (deep breath). Now I'd like to tweak a few rules about gameplay -- hm. Do I look in the XML files, or the Python files? Oops. Gotta get a Python editor first. Go find that. Download it. (deep breath). Well, there's no help in the game to say "these rules are in these files", so it's time to start rooting around through literally dozens and dozens and dozens of files to find the right parts of the singular file(s) I need to open to alter. (deep breath) Okay. So several hours later of random searching and going through the process above, and now I've located what I need to change. Now, I'm familiar with XML, but have no experience with Python, so... how do I alter something if it's in the Python scripts? Hm. Now I need to go self-teach myself how to read and edit Python. Fast-forward to ... oh, forget it. This is beyond ridiculous.
Do I want a lot of power to edit/mod the game? Sure. But the labor required just to learn how to START -- learn XML; learn Python; learn whatever is going to be required for the SDK; go through the four different stages of creating ONE mod or a few minor changes -- is assinine. Civ3 wasn't the best editor in the world, but it put a lot of power in a simple-to-use place and let the neophyte (read: most people don't have a reason to know XML and Python and the SDK languages) create maps and tweak rules easily. It followed the oldest rule of software development: create something that combines depth and capacity and filters it through an easy-to-use interface. The Civ4 rule is exactly the opposite.

I've loved this series and its easy-access to the masses, both in the game and the modding. The "holier than thou" attitude on most of the Civ boards (quote: "if you can't be bothered to learn all this, you don't deserve the game"; "go find a baby's game"; and other enlightened pieces of self-absorbed arrogance) is so disgusting and counter-productive that it's brought the worst of the online MMORPG communities into the Civ communities, and that's a terrific shame. Here's a clue: not everyone has the hours required to learn new skills and programming languages/skills just for a game, because they want to do something so overwhelming as generate random maps and make a few quick tweaks. Nothing is quick about the modding in Civ4, nor is it simple, nor is it geared for "the most access for the most people". Modding in Civ4 is the exclusive domain of those who already have all those skills or have an abundance of time (and desire) to learn all of it. And that's a shame. I'd rather a game that offered 75% of the power and capacity for the editor that in doing so opened up editing to more people, than have the arrogant elitists the only ones who will be doing so. It's a shame, and it runs contrary to the philosophy of the prior Civ games, which was to bring the ultimate game (in all respects) to the most people.

Civ 2 and Civ 3 still sit on my hard drive, and they're still played. That's a testament to the strength of those games. I never considered returning the games, nor haunting forums to complain about things. Civ3 made mistakes, but they were rapidly fixed and they weren't fundamental to the overall philosophy -- the games were still time-sucking turn-based masterpieces, with editors that the masses could easily get into and crank out maps and tweak rules for fun.

Civ4 is the first Civ game I have ever considered returning. The abandoning of the philosophy of giving the most power to the most people, including and especially the ability to mod/tweak the game's map and rules, is a complete stab-in-the-back for a lot of us who have been here since the beginning. And it's a profound shame.

I've interrupted my commentary on MMORPGs, but Civ is the one line of games that has never failed in any aspect, even across multiple generations of the game and literally more than a decade of time. This is the first time that they've specifically released "editing capacities" that are contrary to the philosophy of opening the game up to the most players. And it's a shame.