Hello,
This is the fourth edition of Faces of Apolyton interview series. This time our victim is Yin 26, a poster contributing a lot to Civilization III section, who is well known for his work on the suggestions lists, and lately for his pessimism regarding civ3..
If you have suggestions on whom to interview next, or want to contribute questions yourself, feel free to email me at solver@apolyton.net.
Enjoy,
ACS Interview Chief - Solver.

(Webmaster's note: Yin asked for the following to be added in his interview)
"Yin wrote this before the official site and other information about Civ 3 was made public. While he was rather 'hopeful' several weeks ago when writing up this interview, he has since gone into a semi self-imposed exile and has now entered a state of 'resignation.' During the SMAC years, he called this process 'SMACceptance.' We doubt he'll be able to come up with something so clever for Civ3, but no doubt he'll try..."
(Webmaster's comment: it's just a phase, noone can escape from Apolyton! :))

Yin 26: I'd like to first thank Markos, Dan and Solver in particular for running this great feature. It's been interesting for me to read the 3 previous ones, and I hope I have something remotely interesting here to offer in return. At the very least, I'll finally answer the question: Is Yin actually Sid?

Solver: Standard question - how did you find Apolyton?
Yin 26: Wow. It's all a bit blurry now. But as I recall, I was off somewhere causing a stir about SMAC. Perhaps it was on the old OWO boards or perhaps even ACOL. I had had some dealings with Markos even back then, if I recall, and I got the sense he was a bit worried I'd come over and trash the site or something, since we all know he likes to run a tight ship.

At any rate, I checked it out for a while before deciding to register. I think my first post (or first major post) was an "anti-CtP post," which I just found was posted on April 06, 1999. It was titled: "CONSUMER ACTION: A Declaration of Disapproval, Intend to Return or Refusal to Buy" (the full thing is in the archives at http://apolyton.net/forums/Archives/Archive-000001/HTML/20000112-7-000810.html if you want a laugh). It started like this:

"Fellow Gamers:

I am not an enemy of Activision. I'm an enemy of the current trend in the gaming industry to treat the first release of a game as a "work on progress," subject to patches as the company then sees fit. I'm an enemy of ignoring beta-testers, rushing to market, and leaving the paying customer to sit patiently for the fixes that might never come."

You see, the funny thing was I refused to play the game and yet I led part of the public outcry effort at Apolyton, which quite confused and annoyed Markos, I think. Anyway, sorry to bore you with the long answer. But that was how and why I started posting at Apolyton.

Solver: What, besides the graphics of Civ 3, makes you so pessimistic about the game?
Yin 26: Actually, this is a really good chance for me to clear the air on this whole 'pessimism' thing. Markos is the one who labeled me a pessimist and then, for a time, made me the president of The Official Apolyton Pessimistic Civers Club (OfAPeCiClu). He also gave me my avatar, the dog picture I found. You know what? It's a perfect avatar. Thanks, Markos! LOL!

In a sense, of course, he is right. I do tend to look for the worst in a situation, but that is only to try to take early action about things that might be a concern. I am a big believer in working early on something if you want good results. That's why we got the List done so soon in the game's development. And in case people haven't heard this before, our 500 page List was printed, tabbed and passed around the Firaxis office. Don't be surprised if we see some definite influence on the game as a result of that outstanding work from the Civ community.

That's also why the Apolyton Bug Hunters will get the game ASAP and begin the first bug list before most people have even bought or played the game thoroughly. We realize that there is such limited time to do the patch work before the company moves on, so we will take the first possible opportunity to help Firaxis patch Civ 3 as effectively as possible. So in the sense that I believe (and have seen) that the fans can and do influence Firaxis' decisions, I am the classic optimist.

As for the graphics, Dan from Firaxis has recently posted that the screenshots we have been seeing are "months" old. Now, I was the first person on Apolyton to say of those screenshots: "Those look like alpha graphics placeholders." So I never believed for a second that the screenshots we saw were what would ship with the game. The question, though, was how much they would change? The first thing that surprised me was the number of people who could actually looked at those alpha graphics and celebrated.

Where I became more vocal on this issue was when other Civ 3 news began to show up with virtually the same alpha shots and yet the Firaxis PR department began to rev up the hype about "Best Graphics In the Genre." Don't get me wrong: They NEED to hype the game. But it has been Firaxis' awkward silences and oddly-timed hype that made me somewhat pessimistic, not necessarily the graphics themselves.

My final word on graphics: 1) Gameplay is more important, of course. 2) But if you do indeed have better graphics to show the world, please don't continue to let "months" old graphics do the talking for you. I understand that gaming magazines and whatnot have a mind of their own and might just be posting old stuff they got from months ago. At the very least, Firaxis should make it a practice to put a time stamp on any screenshots they release from now on so we can all say: "Hey, guys. That's from 8 months ago." They should also try really hard to keep all the gaming sites updated with the latest screenshots and information. Otherwise, it's like trying to sell a Ferrari but putting a picture of just the tires and frame in the Auto Trader and saying: "Hottest thing out there!" Well, that might be true once it's actually all assembled.

I think you can see I'm not nearly as pessimistic about the game as you might think. I am constantly amazed, though, that Firaxis doesn't do more to keep us informed when clearly they've got something good coming at us. They DESERVE good press on many fronts. I know various issues that aren't set in stone should be discussed later, and certainly the company will want to hold back some things for a surprise. Also, we all hope that the opening of the official site will put an end to all the guessing.

But in the end, I stand firm to my motto for the List, which was "If Only One Idea..." The fact is, it looks like Firaxis has taken a number of our ideas from the List and the forum and substantially changed some potentially groundbreaking elements of the game.

For that, I am thankful to Firaxis... even hopeful.

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