As exciting as the news of an October release of Civ IV was, the recent Gamespot preview has thrown a kink into my enthusiasm. Jason Ocampo reports that the Pit Boss persistent server will not be up until December and the mod kit unavailable until January.

So, already, two of the much hyped reasons to anticipate this iteration of Civ are already weakened. Whatever multiplayer does come out of Firaxis at the end of October, it will not be fully in place for another six to eight weeks – this after assurances that multiplayer variations would be integral to the design of the game. Most of the previews have mentioned how open Civ IV will be to the mod community, but that too will have to wait.

Based on my limited time with single play Civ, I still think the game will excite the mind and delight the senses. And some multiplayer functionality will be available by the release date. But this news raises fears of another Play the World debacle where features, introduced at later dates, don’t work as advertised.