Now, I'm relatively old (old enough to have started on an Apple IIc

I guess I got you beat Mooncusser since my first computer was a Franklin Ace 100 (a clone of the Apple II+ but added lowercase characters) which I bought in 1981. I recently turned 40 and I have been playing video games for 25 years.

Psio I think GalCiv II is a great game. It is not perfect, no complex piece of software is (not even the ones I write myself ).

The only problem is an internal employee in a call advised me that the problem lies in the program, not in my system.

What exactly is the problem you are seeing with the game that the rest of us are not experiencing?!

PSIO

The standard replys. Thanks boys, it's only proving my point. Truth be told... I have been gaming since MUDs first hit the scene. Many of you are too young to even know what a MUD is which is kind of scary. I estimate over the past 15 years I have literally played thousands of games in every format and style imaginable. I have alpha'd beta'd dozens, I consider myself an addict when it comes to gaming. In my first two years of FFXI, I spent a total of 352 days online while also playing EVE, SWG and Evercrack. (Oh and my all time favorite game Earth and Beyond)(Sold my account a month before they announced cancellation) Thankfully my job is a dream job and it allows me ample time to play (I work about 4 hours a day). I am currently finished beta'ing Red Bedlams Roma Victa, I'm still undecided about it's future but they are amazing programmers. The first streaming virtual world with no zone or map changes. It's really quite amazing. My point with RV is that they absolutely refuse to put the game out until it's perfect, I mean almost obsessively prefect. So to put it into perspective.... I have never played a game with this many bugs in my life. I'm just saying that 396 days of bug posts and 37 pages speaks volumes about a company's ability to produce a good product before it hits the shelves. I admire all of your loyalty, but geez, step back a minute and ask yourself if they really care. Would they invite you to their house for cocktails? I doubt it, of course they will be pleasant to you on the phone or at a convention, but are they your buddy when they leave? Of course not. Have I established a cordial relationship with one of Stardock's employees trying to fix my game? He is very knowledgeable and polite. Is he my buddy? No. He is getting paid wether my game works correctly or not.

I have one suggestion for you... if you care so much about this.. join the company and right all the wrongs that have been commited against you.


let me tell you my story.

I use a PC that never has/will be connected to the net. I loaded the game, got the patches/updates and then my PC all of a suden wanted some serial #'s and stopped working, completely. After several back and forth e-mails (some frustrated on my part), my problem was solved. Sure, I am not experiencing your problem, but direct intervention from the tech support/programming staff fixed my issues, and I have been gaming happily.

So, if you are such a veteran of the gaming world (I too have played MUD's as an undergrad ... and my first gaming experience began in 1982 on my neighbors VIC 20.. a Commodore 64 prequel).. you have seen plenty of buggy games. The buginess of this game stems from Stardocks ambition, and not from their inability to stay focused....

So pleae, before you go on a rant of this magnitude... step back, shut off your computer and go for a walk outside...


I love this game, I truely do, but it doesn't dominate my life, and it doesn't occupy every waking moment.


Thanks for reading.

-N

I am frankly amazed someone would post here saying stardock DO NOT CARE-I haven't been this impressed by a company's customer response since Microsoft-
yes I did just say Microsoft!-at least regeards their Xbox-mine went screwy and upon my informing them thus they immediately picked it up repaired it and sent it back for free-quick and painless, plus they send me new safety cables in the post now an then-which is sweet.
But this is very rare for a big corporation-normally yeah they don't particualry care too much.
Anyway I digress, Stardock appear to show a very very high level of consumer interest and support-hell just see this topic!^^^
Their constant updates are great and really improve the gameplay experience-and whislt of course no game is free of hitches glitches and bugs they at least try and give quick responses and help.

Of course at the end of the day they are trying to make money-but well I guess they are a bunch of selfish capitalist pig-dogs for wanting food healthcare and shelter
As has been said-good businesses rely on loyalty-stardock have that-just look at their sales and compare them with previous titles
-they have built a loyal fanbase with previous products and are now reaping the rewards-word of this has spread far beyond the effects of reviews and adverts!

Yarlen, you have mail. I will forward you the result of our attempt most likely tomorrow sometime.

I have some screen shots sent to Mike Haber so you can obtain them from him or I can forward it to you as well.

I'll take Stardock ANYDAY over EA.

Psio...

I almost wrote a rant like you due to some inaccuraces in your posts...but I'll just make it simple.
If you dont like it fine, we are all entitled to opinions.
Dont flame others because they do and if you flame, at least put down valid reasons...
Comparing MMOs to this game where as some mentioned all support after the fact is cost doesnt work.
Also, SWG supporting its players... I laughed at that.
I guess your not one of the people who's posts were being deleted because they were critical of the company.

I've been in the computer business for a long time and this is some of the best support I've seen.
Way to go Stardock.
I bought the TGN due to your commitment to quality and customer support.
Waited a year for GC2 and even forgot about it, but playing it now, I'm glad I did.

So to put it into perspective.... I have never played a game with this many bugs in my life. I'm just saying that 396 days of bug posts and 37 pages speaks volumes about a company's ability to produce a good product before it hits the shelves.

Yes you have. In the paragraph before you mentioned Everquest.
You know, the game that put out an update that made it so the game could never work on certain computers.

The game that has bugs that have turned into "Features" of the system.

Heck you've played Muds. No such things as a bug free mud. And they are orders of complexity lower then Galciv. (Oddly enough).

And on Pool of Radiance, the largest issue with the install was if it failed (many reasons for it or just at random), if you tried to uninstall or reinstall, there went windows. There are still crash bugs in the game.

Heck WoW has more bugs then Galciv2.

Given patch 1.1 now stops people from _saving_ games AND that includes autosave after 12 turns, you tell me how much fun that is, and how that makes stardock "the best" "non-buggy" company around?

Given patch 1.1 now stops people from _saving_ games AND that includes autosave after 12 turns, you tell me how much fun that is, and how that makes stardock "the best" "non-buggy" company around?

Really? I can save games and the autosave works just fine...

Yep, game saves fine for me, too. Stardock isn't responsible for the condition of your PC. There will always be PCs that have problems doing things that they should be able to do just fine.

I work on enough PCs to know, even if you do everything right on the software side of things, you're going to run into hardware and O/S issues on some configurations. It's one of the few downsides of an open platform. As self-proclaimed, experienced PC gamers you don't seem to be very understanding about that.

As can be seen in this thread, Stardock cares about every customer, even the ones with shitty attitudes.

I for one had a blast playing this game the very hour it was released, and you can bet your ass, that i will (and have) recommend it to people. I'll admit tho, i was more than confused when i started to see all these "problematic" posts regarding this game...i had ZERO trouble downloading it, ZERO trouble installing it, ZERO trouble playing it. Oddly enough, i can't say that about a lot MUDs i've played and they're just text.

And lets not forget here, Psio's favorite game was E&B, that speaks LOADS about him, imho. i mean, EVE was WAY better (and lasted longer too, yay for a year worth of E&B suckege)

Woot for Stardock, and Woot for GalCiv2.

Stardock does care!!! I made this post to honour their hard work. But once again some people{little girls} don't apprecate how much they work and listen to the forums.I bet those people work for EB games or somebodyelse. Who are conducting sabotoge!

EVERY GAME HAS AT LEAST SOME BUGS OR PROBLEMS YOU HERE ME PISO! EVERY GAME! AND BUGS PROBLEMS CAN BE FIXED AN THATS WHAT STARDOCK IS WORKING THE HARDEST ON!!!!!!!!!! YOU READ ME. BECAUSE YOU CAN'T HERE ME!

Sorry if i'm a very moody today.I'm just a little angry at someone!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Yep, game saves fine for me, too. Stardock isn't responsible for the condition of your PC. There will always be PCs that have problems doing things that they should be able to do just fine.

I think some people are being entirely too flippant with the "It's not happening to me, so it must be your machine" attitude.

If the machine can save data just fine, but one program on the machine crashes when saving data, the program is having problems. Why it's having problems may be due to something on that machine, but you can't simply absolve StarDock of all responsibility just because it isn't happenning to you.

The funny thing is that it's not StarDock personnel who have that attitude. They, rightly so, want to investigate and correct the issue. It's the rabid StarDock fans who hold closely to this attitude. Maybe the fans should learn a lesson from the company that they are fans of.

I have been reading through these posts with a lot of interest as I can see both sides of the issue. On the Stardock side, I will agree that I have rarely seen access to the extent that they have given. I have sent and received a reply to an email directly to Brad which I can say somewhat surprised me. They are certainly working to improve and stablize the game from everything I am seeing and do not just hide and rake in the money from the original release as they could if they wanted.

On the other hand, Psio and others do have a point. There are issues with the game and you are blind if you don't see them. Too many people here are posting them for it not to be true. I had pretty good luck with the retail version and then loaded V 1.1 and now when I get to the first time auto saving it completely locks up. I can only get out by rebooting the PC. While my PC is not cutting edge, it is only 2 years old with the recommended system config items yet I always have a low virtual memory message from Windows when ending a game. That typically means a memory leak. I have never seen a game with a load time as long as GalCiv2 from a saved game. Invariably the music stops and starts all the time while playing. The list continues to go on but I digress.

The simple fact is that there are issues with the game that need to be fixed. When you spend money on a product, you should be able to expect it to reasonably live up to expectations. I know there will be arguments about what is reasonable to one is not to another but thats life in retail. Everyone wants to keep comparing to all of the others bad games out there but that should not be the point. Think of the current price of gas. At one time fairly recently I thought that $2 was way too expensive for gas and I was going to get a more fuel efficient vehicle. Now I would be very happy for it to drop below that. The same goes for these games. If you come to expect them to be buggy and accept it when one is just less buggy then you will always have buggy games just as we will probably always have gas above $2 now yet I still drive an SUV because I have accepted it. Also think about the comparison to Windows. While I agree it has issues, if I had as many issues with Windows as I do with GalCiv2, I would never get anything done. I know I will be flamed with the comment that Windows sucks, just look at all the patches. Just keep in mind that a large number of them are to prevent people from maliciously doing things to a PC.

In any case, I do like GalCiv2 and really wish I could play it right now. Unfortunately V1.1 won't get past the first autosave, darn I hate those bugs.

Always keep in mind that loyalty is good and I believe in it. Just don't let it blind you to the reality. The reality here is that we have a great game that I hope to play for years but the stability and bugs have to be fixed.

Go to any forum for any game and you will have a population of people screaming that the game in question is buggy or crappy or whatever.

The difference is that Stardock's developers activley interact with us and try to quickly address what people are saying. Some people will never be satisfied.

The facts are pretty simple. This is a game whose 1.0 version has won more editor's choice awards than nearly any turn based strategy game in history. Despite that, they went out and made a 1.1 that would be been an expansion pack if it was from other companies.

Go to any forum for any game and you will have a population of people screaming that the game in question is buggy or crappy or whatever. The difference is that Stardock's developers activley interact with us and try to quickly address what people are saying. Some people will never be satisfied. The facts are pretty simple. This is a game whose 1.0 version has won more editor's choice awards than nearly any turn based strategy game in history. Despite that, they went out and made a 1.1 that would be been an expansion pack if it was from other companies.

The problem is that there are quite a lot of people here that are saying thats OK. They accept that games will be that way and are happy that Stardock has not charged them for an expansion pack. They post here about how wonderful the service at Stardock is. I am saying that they shouldn't charge for it and that I am not getting something special because it is supposed to be that way. If everyone thinks the response you are raving about is abnormally good then it will not the be the norm and you will almost always be charged for the expansion pack. I like the game and want to play it more but cannot right now due to V 1.1 causing a save lock up that never happened in the retail version. My money deserves a working product and I do not apologize for expecting it. As to the number of awards, thats great but has nothing to do with the issue at hand. In fact, read most of the awards and you will see discussion on the issue of bugs and other fixes that need to be done.

I know how this reads. Most will think he just doesn't get it. Stardock is working their butt off to fix things. You need to read my post more closely cause it is not about them. It is about us and how we accept something and actually jump on our emotional soapbox. A couple of people brought up complaints at the beginning of this thread and have been flamed for it just like anyone else that has said anything similar in other threads. While I think the Stardock Sucks title is unfair it is aguable that they have the right to complain.

Commend Stardock for their work so far. Thank them by buying their product and not copying it illegally. But don't tell me or others with problems that the game was fine out of the box, is not in need of fixes now or its better than other games out there. You are not seeing the forest for the trees.

last year i bought a new house. it was just built. this spring with the heavy rains there were some leaks in the roof.

at first i was outraged until i talked to some friends of mine who told me that sort of thing is common and to just talk to the builder. and i did and eventually they patched it free of charge. some things are impossible to notice until after the house is built.

i don't think people are giving stardock a free pass. they just happen to live on earth and not magic perfect land. you want to see rabid fanboys? go hang out on any of the oblivion forums. there's a game with some serious basic flaws that ruin it for a lot of people. civilization 4 is the same way.

what turns people here into advocates of stardock is that the shipping game is so good and the petty little issues that some people are throwing a spasm over don't anywhere come close to affecting the overall quality of the game.

hell, i've seen people bitch about which way the moon rotates around the earth. there's a big grammar thread floating around here too. some people will bitch no matter what.

and yes, the game worked perfectly for me out of the box. a tiny number of people throwing tantrums does not mean they were common.

if you want people to respect your opinions you should start respecting the opinions of others. in my opinion, stardock didn't need to do anything beyond 1.0x. 1.1 is a gift. if you take it for granted or take the attitude that you were entitled to it, i suspect you'll find that free updates will become fewer and fewer. the stardock crew are clearly doing this stuff because they want to support their game and love doing it. but if people act like spoiled children, you are just going to sour them on doing these kinds of free massive updates.

Boy I just see a different world then. Look at the number of posts with different names. Unless there are a tiny number of people that create a lot of names, you are simply missing the issue. In any case, its funny you mention repecting others opinions as my point is exactly that. All I see is someone complaining (his opinion) and people flaming them because of it. My whole complaint is that there are issues and these people deserve to be heard not jumped on because they say they are having problems. As to the issue of spoiled children, people have the right to expect quality and should be allowed to say when they don't get it. Is it always fair to someone like Stardock? Not always, but thats life in the retail sector. You mention about being entitled and I ask you to read my posts carefully as what I have stated is valid. You should get what you pay for and are entitled to get a good product for a fair price. At this point, there are enough issues to outstanding with GalCiv2 to justify my expectation of free updates for now. A good example is with V 1.1 on my system. I simply cannot play at all because I cannot save at all. Not with AutoSave or manually. This issue did not occur with 1.0.X.2. I guess I just have high expectations that you and others here do not share. I hope the products I purchase in the future live up to my expectations and not down to yours.

Hi Alfb - It may just be that it's taking a very long time to save on your system initially, as someone else has mentioned a similar issue. Give the game 5-10 minutes to save your game (it can take this long the first time if you're playing on a Huge/Gigantic galaxy, as it's writing a 20+MB file); Windows may report that the app is Not Responding, but it is still working. The dev team is investigating this and other memory optimizations for the v1.2 update.

is it me or does five-ten minutes sound like a really, really, really long time in this day and age???

I'm having a similar problem in that autosave seemed to be kaput, so i stopped it, quicksave works and loads aswell, so i suppose i can last until v1.2, but it is a little annoying. its a good thing the games good though, init.

oh yeah all my old games wouldn't load either.

Lifes hard...

I left it for at least 10 minutes but I will attempt again on both a smaller galaxy as well as leaving for a lot longer to see if it makes a difference.

By the way, here is the last line in the debug.err file. I noticed in another thread that someone else with the same problem had the same last line. I can post the whole file if needed.

Debug Message: Waiting for hidden surface creation to complete before saving planets.

Ok, it looks like even a gigantic universe will eventually save. It took 13 min 22 secs after only 2 turns. I know you are looking at this but it sure would be nice to have it fixed as I now have to disable autosave and a crash will effectively end most games (bummer). Also, a small universe saves much faster as you would expect but it still takes over a minute.

Alfb- this is the strangest thing but i've started a large galaxy and everything has gone back to normal on the saves. they are as fast as they used to be, but load times have definitely increased in length.

I'm putting this all down to my computer being very old, with min spec, so thats probably why it happens. its time to upgrade!!!