I found out from the Starforce story and vowed I would buy the game just to support a game company that "gets it". I'd tried GalCiv 1 and while I thought it was pretty good, it seemed a little simplisitic for my liking. However, based on the reviews of GalCiv 2 I figured it would be well worth it. I've been a big fan of 4x since long before that name had been invented and I'm looking forward to many hours of productivity being wasted playing GalCiv 2.
Anyhow, thanks for treating your customers like customers and not criminals. Copy protection only affects legitimate users (and maybe stupid pirates), and it does almost nothing to prevent piracy. We went through this whole copy protection nonsense back in the 80's and the consensus among customers was that it was a huge mistake. The companies stopped doing it, but I guess memories are short, and most companies aren't that smart when it comes to treating their customers anyway. I understand the desire to curb illegal copying, but spiting your paying customers is not the way to do it.
Keep up the good work, Stardock.
