ANYONE out there? Support email not responded to

There is an auto-responder, so it sounds like your email may not have gone through. Did you order directly from us, as I don't see an order record under your email address.

Also, be sure to upgrade your card to the newest drivers. It's just a matter of supporting DirectX9.0c, which most modern cards do now with the most up-to-date drivers.

Also, keep in mind that most of the staff is out over the weekend. We'll never ignore customers intentionally

I wonder . . .
If I were a company that had a product that had some bugs . . . .
Would I respond first to the supportive users who needed patches . . . or the guy who wants a refund right away?

A patch MIGHT fix the quiter's problem and he night not quit. A patch would keep other people from quitting.

I think I'd do some triage and the refund would migrate to the bottom of the pile. What's that person going to do? Quit again?

As the game is unfixably "broken" for me due to the designers' use of true type fonts & the brand of graphics card I have, I need to obtain a refund.

I'm curious as to what exactly your video card is--pretty much any card will support TTF if you update teh drivers, the only exceptions being the most very ancient ones and some onboard Intel video. FYI, The 32mb GeForce2 in my server runs it just fine (slow as hell, but without problems).

Keep in mind that the deluge of support emails in the immediate aftermath of a major release is likely going to overwhelm the support staff of a smallish company like Stardock. Generally their staffing level is based on what they expect to need for long-term volume and short-term spikes like what I'm sure they're experiencing now are going to really put them in a tough position.

Right; I did not want to go into lots of detail on public forum (which is kind of why I wanted to communicate with support via email in the first place), but this seems to be the way to get a response, so here goes:

1. My boyfriend purchased TWO copies of GalCiv II as download versions yesterday.
2. We live together, so we downloaded both copies (one per PC; we have our own) at the same time
3. His works fine straight off the bat
4. Mine does not. Mine has a bug/issue/something wonky going on = all the labels in the game screens and buttons are in gobbeldigook (i.e. not in any language, but in various symbols).
5. We couldn't figure out whether this was due to Stardock software not "liking" the fact that I logged in under my own account to my Stardock interface, even though the purchase is under my boyfriend's name (timolong AT hotmail.com).
6. I came onto the forums to look for known issues and found at No #8, an issue that seemed to match: "Some graphics cards older than 2003 do not support True Type Fonts in games. There is nothing we can do."
7. At this point I emailed tech support from my (very reliable) gmail account. I ccd in myself, so I know the email got sent!
8. No auto-responder and no response, which got me concerned. I came back to the forum and posted this message.
9. I sent out a second email, to which I got an auto-responder message (hooray!)
10. I got a new graphics card today. It has just been installed & drivers have been updated. It's a Geforce 5500. It is a modern enough card and should not have any problems...
11. However... the game is still presenting the same problem!
12. I am now even more dissapointed, £60 poorer and without a playable GalCiv.

Any help & suggestions would be much appreciated. I am runnning out of ideas. I'd much rather NOT have a refund because I really want to play this game, but I would appreciate if I could get info on how to obtain one, if there is nothing that can solve this issue.

My system specs are:
Windows XP professional
Dell Dimension 4600 desktop
Intel Pentium4 2.8 GHz
1GB RAM

I have the latest version of DirectX too.

Here is the debug info:
Debug Message: *********END dxdiag info.*********
Debug Message: Entering WinMain
Debug Message: ******* Starting Game Shell *******
Debug Message: Going Fullscreen
Debug Message: Preparing to change display settings.
Debug Message: Using multilsample setting: D3DMULTISAMPLE_4_SAMPLES
Debug Message: Game Resolution: 1024 x 768
Debug Message: Running fullscreen.
Debug Message: HAL (sw vp): NVIDIA GeForce FX 5500
Debug Message: D3DPRESENT_INTERVAL_DEFAULT
Debug Message: Refresh rate: 75
Debug Message: Bit Depth: 32 bit.
Debug Message: *********Checking D3DDevice Caps***********************
Debug Message: A full-color cursor is supported in hardware at high resolution modes.
Debug Message: RGB in format 6:6:6, Masks reported as ff0000:ff00:ff
Debug Message: Now Fullscreen
Debug Message: Shell initialization complete
Debug Message: ***** Initializing Game *****
Debug Message: Timer Frequency is 0 a67a1a60
Debug Message: Initializing sound card.
Debug Message: initailizing bink
Debug Message: Create setup screens.
Debug Message: Clear galaxy settings.
Debug Message: Clear influence.
Debug Message: Clear up laws.
Debug Message: Clear first time events.
Debug Message: Clear wonders and trade goods.
Debug Message: Clear sector mapper.
Debug Message: Set mouse.
Debug Message: Set update timer.
Debug Message: Clear data definitions.
Debug Message: No files found matching mask C:\Documents and Settings\pia\My Documents\My Games\GalCiv2\*.StarSystems
*DEBUG ERROR: ***Unable to find required tech ImpossibleTech for PirateShip. ***
*DEBUG ERROR: ***Unable to find required tech ImpossibleTech for Starbase. ***
Debug Message: No files found matching mask C:\Documents and Settings\pia\My Documents\My Games\GalCiv2\ships\*.shipclass
Debug Message: No files found matching mask C:\Documents and Settings\pia\My Documents\My Games\GalCiv2\ships\*.shipcfg
Debug Message: Reading Star Names
Debug Message: Reading Star Names... Done
Debug Message: TitleWnd: Quit Button.
Debug Message: Posting WM_CLOSE message.
Debug Message: WM_CLOSE message received.
Debug Message: GameUninitialize start
Debug Message: Killing Galaxy
Debug Message: Killing threads.
Debug Message: Kiling civs.
Debug Message: Killing ships.
Debug Message: Killing rallypoints.
Debug Message: Killing misc objects.
Debug Message: Killing stars.
Debug Message: Killing anomalies.
Debug Message: Killing space resources.
Debug Message: Killing colonies and planets.
Debug Message: killing scenario.
Debug Message: Clear galaxy settings.
Debug Message: Clear influence.
Debug Message: Clear up laws.
Debug Message: Clear first time events.
Debug Message: Clear wonders and trade goods.
Debug Message: Clear sector mapper.
Debug Message: Clear data definitions.
Debug Message: Killing Galaxy: Completed
Debug Message: GameUninitialize end
Debug Message: Device not cleared. 1 counts left.
Debug Message: D3D not cleared. 1 counts left.
Debug Message: Destroying Window.
Debug Message: Main Shell terminating normally

Also, keep in mind that most of the staff is out over the weekend. We'll never ignore customers intentionally

Weekend? Err.. okay. My weekends happen on Saturday & Sunday. I guess you guys are in a different universe allright

Keep in mind that the deluge of support emails in the immediate aftermath of a major release is likely going to overwhelm the support staff of a smallish company like Stardock. Generally their staffing level is based on what they expect to need for long-term volume and short-term spikes like what I'm sure they're experiencing now are going to really put them in a tough position.

I appreciate that. I was just looking for acknowledgement that the email even GOT there. I was beginning to lose trust in the whole outfit.

That's definitely a fair request and it sounds like you at least got the autoresponse so you know they got it this time. Have you uninstalled the game completely at any point and started over?

Doing that now... Eep.

The new card is installed, but I figured uninstalling the game, re-downloading it, re-registering it might be a last resort sort of thing to do. *hopes against all hope*

I appreciate that. I was just looking for acknowledgement that the email even GOT there. I was beginning to lose trust in the whole outfit.

If you didn't get the auto response the no, we didn't get your email.

Are you saying tha tyou got a new card? I'm a little confused.

 

Hi, just to repeat from before: I bought a new card today, in my frustration to try & make it work (please have a look at the detailed chronological sequence of events I posted earlier).

I put in the new card today, downloaded latest drivers, made sure everything is okay...I've just finished re-installing the game too.

No joy. Still the same problem.

Now I'm totally stumped.