My biggest problem with the article is the quote he took out of context.

Qt3 isn't just some random site. It's my home away from home. And Ben Sones isn't some random forum poster, he's a friend of mine (FB friend and all) and when he called v1.0 an "early beta" I admit, it ticked me off and I snapped back. I shouldn't have said it and I regret saying it, but for PC Gamer to take that comment without any context and put it out there is completely wrong imo.

Think how many posts I write in this forum - just THIS forum. Now, imagine if someone decided to data mine every comment I have made. I am sure you could find something terrible in there.

I have to vehemently disagree on that. I have played ETW, CIV series and a LOT of other AAA games from those studios. There have been stinkers (like Civ4 colonization), but they were far more bug free, better documented and polished than EWOM has been. I personally dont think teh PCG review was that bad; the game has a lot of obvious (if minor) flaws that PCG would be crazy to ignore.  Every title will have soem bugs (major and minor) but the quantity and polish of those other games was of a far higher standard. I have every reason to believe that Civ 5 wil have problems but they wont be as glaringly obvious as EWOM.

EWOM is not a bad product and playable,  it ust has such a slopply presentation, with piss-poor documentation and questionable in-house QA. A vast majority of these bugs would have been found even with a small team inside of a month.

RAT

Don't let it get you down Brad, these things happen.

I think that is primary issue with PC gaming. Too many pieces/parts and different drivers. You can't account for all of the problems that can occur. Some people have no problems with the game and some people have tons of issues. Alas, PC gaming.

Edit: I meant can't, not can...

Well I didn't play Total War, but I certainly never felt Civilization was unfinished on release. Are you really claiming that the quality and polish of elemental (including things  like AI and gameplay balance) are exactly the same as Civilization?

I understand it is probably just luck on my part, but I have yet to experience a single ctd or any errors at all really.  On 2 different systems.  So I can't agree with this article.  That said, if I was having the issues I would agree with the writer.  Game seems fine to me.

Oh it would be SO easy to take what you say out of context. I think the PC Gamer warning is completely unprofessional. And if you read the thing it points out that this was the "Pre-Patch" version.

Well he should patch it up and then comment. And if he's still having problems, he should post them in the proper forum.

I don't think you should stop chatting on the internet's. And people's concerns about a lot of issues are valid. But.. just keep plugging away and thing's'll get better.

Anyone who reads professional reviews and expects to get an accurate review is a retard.  You read the actual game forums and you read what the players/gamers are saying on the official and non-official forums.  Review companies like PC Gamer are paid to do the jobs they do.  They purposely give good reviews to bad games, and bad reviews to good games to keep their advertisers happy.  That said, plenty of unhappy people on these forums right now, so take that for what you will.

I don't believe I ever commented directly on whether a particular review was right or wrong. I was talking about big picture trends and biases in the gaming press, which are by no means unique to the gaming press but affect all press media that rely on advertiser revenues.

As for the release schedule, I don't think speculating about mysterious hidden factors is very helpful. I think the information they've given makes it pretty clear that they had to make a decision in July to either launch in August or postpone to February. And they decided to go with August even though they knew it would be tight and they'd have to work like crazy to make it. They probably would have preferred to postpone by a month if they could, but that wasn't one of the choices available to them.

So the PCgamer guy has been playing on two PCs and had issues ever 10 minutes or so.

I played 1.01 on two different PCs for a couple hours on each and didn't have any issues (both OC'ed Core i7's, one with ATI card, one with Nvidia card).

Sounds like a personal problem to me.

I'm playing on pretty much the same with an ATI 5770 card so I should be having issues every 5 minutes but have only had 1 going on 3 days now. I think a lot of gamers blame the game for computer issues they have. Or they buy crappy DELL or HP machines and expect them to be as good as an Alien or Ibuypower one. )

True, it was my biggest problem too, but it's the way it is, and one needs to be extra-careful.

Alas, rumors feed upon themselves, and have a way of growing out of proportion.

Anyway, some mistakes have been made, evidently. Simply by following the forums (I have not been involved in the BETA) I did perceive some amount of overconfidence. I mean, BETA testers testing only parts of the game is fine, but at some point they should have tested the whole package TOO, precisely to avoid the kind of panic reactions we're witnessing right now. If the developers were the only one knowing the new UI, for instance, well, they couldn't foretell its impact on new users who had no part in the designing process and who, while trying to grasp it, have a way of making assumptions a developer can't probably even imagine. So, don't be quick to dismiss criticism.

Yet I'm convinced people at Stardock are honest and serious and have the heart in the right place. I'm happy I've done my part in supporting by preordering the game and I look forward to support more by preordering the expansions too  

If reviews are not to be going well now, well, let them change their mind with a mind blowing expansion

Civ 4 was in pretty rough shape out of the box.  I remember one bug in particular that would mute the sound whenever a movie played, and you had to restart the game to fix it.  Also, a lot of city improvements didn't do what the tool-tip said they would and some were just plain ol' broken.  Performance was also a major issue as were crashes and program freezes.  There's an interesting postmortem in the back of the instruction manual where lead designer Soren Johnson said that the experience of getting the game out of the door was almost enough to compel him to swear off PC game development entirely.

All those issues were eventually fixed, and Civ 4 remains one of the finest turn-based strategy games ever produced, but don't fool yourself into thinking it had a flawless launch.  At the time of release, the official Civ 4 forums looked pretty much like the Elemental forums do now, and hardcore Civ fans are still critical of Firaxis for their handling of the launch (and failure to address some outstanding problems that remain in the game to this day).