Stardocksucks!?!

bump.

You think a software company actually gives a rats ass what you think? They are concerned with the bottom line pal. Wiseup! It's about sales, nothing more than sales. Companies don't go into business to please the masses, they do it to make money. You actually think Stardock makes a good product? Can you not read these forums? Are you that naive or ignorant to blissfully wish away the latent defects of this game so often posted? How many Sierra games have this much problem? How many EA games? How about Firaxis? Nothing? That's what I thought. Get a clue kid, while your enthusiastic loyalty is inspiring, it means little to the owner's of this company when it comes to cashing their paycheck. lol. Again I am simply amazed... I will give a little props to them though for their last patch which has cured my text issue somewhat. Now instead of constant scrolling through all the text of my game, the scrolling is faster so it's kind of a refresh fast which makes the text a little more legible. Woohoo, thanks for the partial fix to my month old problem.

George

How many EA games?

You're a f***ing moron if you think stardock is worse than EA. Did you look at the polls? A huge amount of people would recommend it. EA games are more buggy, and not as fun to begin with. You think they care about the bottom line so much? The last 3 games galciv games they got little or no money from, because they kept getting ripped off. They make this series because it's a good game.

You think EA games are better? go play one.

How many EA games?

I lost faith in EA when they sold the Medal of Honor expansion pack. $40 for about three to four hours of gameplay, which then will not uninstall from your computer.

Name one EA/Sierra/Firaxis game where they offered AI upgrades for free. Name one where they offered a bonus content download on the day of the launch. actually like Sierra and FIraxis, but the service Stardock provides is far superior.

I realize Stardock is out to make money. I'm fine with that, if they don't eat and enjoy life, then the games won't get made. Haivng done construction work for many years, I know what it's like to be involved with a project, and yes, money is the driving factor.

But, when a custumer is happy, and when you know you've done a good job, it does matter. Loyalty is the best way to do buisness, since it gurentees a future custumer. Advertisment fades away, catch phrases get old, but a good experiance will keep people coming back. In the end, money isn't worth it. You have to find some satisfaction with your work, otherwise you'll lose it. That satisfaction doesn't come by not caring.

I can't speak for the devs, but I suspect they feel the same way. The great experiance I"ve had (this was the first game I've purchased from them) will keep me a custumer and fan for years.

from Psio:

You think a software company actually gives a rats ass what you think? They are concerned with the bottom line pal. Wiseup! It's about sales, nothing more than sales. Companies don't go into business to please the masses, they do it to make money.

As a matter of fact, yes, I do think they give a "rat's ass" about their customers. I've known Brad ever since the old days when he was developing stuff on OS/2 (jeez, it's been over ten years!), and for the entire time I've known him, he has always paid intense attention to his customers. Someone would talk about a bug they had, and *bang!* the next day it would be fixed. Maybe someone had a suggestion that everyone agreed would make the game more fun and it was implemented in the next patch. In fact, such was his involvment with the customers that he actually named one of GalCiv's first "minor" civs (in its embryonic form) after one customer's nickname. (Anyone remember the "Ominorians?")

That is totally ridiculous because all these patches and stuff aren't contributing to the bottom line; they are actually expenses. Any time you try to fix something, it costs money. A patch costs many man-hours to produce, yet doesn't make them any money. (Gee, maybe that's why most companies don't put out patches unless the game is proven to be almost unplayable, and maybe that also explains why they'd rather put out a version 2 that is essentially a glorified patch that you have to pay for.)

from Feud:

But, when a custumer is happy, and when you know you've done a good job, it does matter. Loyalty is the best way to do buisness, since it gurentees a future custumer. Advertisment fades away, catch phrases get old, but a good experiance will keep people coming back. In the end, money isn't worth it. You have to find some satisfaction with your work, otherwise you'll lose it. That satisfaction doesn't come by not caring.

Yes, loyalty is the best way to do business. Actually, EA Sports has a good example of how loyalty affects sales in their "NHL" series. For years, they'd beem neglecting their customers and just doing what their marketing reps said the customers wanted, but not what the customers were saying. The result: NHL 2006 cost $20 when it first came out, and hardly anyone bought it. An old business saying is, treat a customer right, and they will tell another person about. Treat them wrong and they will tell ten.

Bill

You think a software company actually gives a rats ass what you think? They are concerned with the bottom line pal. Wiseup! It's about sales, nothing more than sales. Companies don't go into business to please the masses, they do it to make money. You actually think Stardock makes a good product? Can you not read these forums? Are you that naive or ignorant to blissfully wish away the latent defects of this game so often posted? How many Sierra games have this much problem? How many EA games? How about Firaxis? Nothing? That's what I thought. Get a clue kid, while your enthusiastic loyalty is inspiring, it means little to the owner's of this company when it comes to cashing their paycheck. lol. Again I am simply amazed... I will give a little props to them though for their last patch which has cured my text issue somewhat. Now instead of constant scrolling through all the text of my game, the scrolling is faster so it's kind of a refresh fast which makes the text a little more legible. Woohoo, thanks for the partial fix to my month old problem.

EA and Sierra have produced so many turds it's a wonder their headquarters isn't located in the sewers. In fact the best games are always made by those companies who take on board customer feedback.

EA has already been beaten up, while I don't relish the next prospect BUT Firaxis doesn't have a spotless record either.
Multiplayer in Civ 3 Play the World. Hello. Remeber that fiasco ? Took several patch to get it decent. Civ 4 while its a good game had some serious issues on launch. For some people, it took 3 patches (many months later) to finally get it to work like its supposed to. So lets not even go there, even with Firaxis. Sierra games are notoriously bug infested also.

Was you (Psio) trying to make a sarcasm post or trying to entertain us ?

I haven't known Brad as long as Bill here, but I will agree with what he said. It is very evident that Stardock listens to their customers, are committed to supporting them. One sec, I just want to take this minute and again express how much I love Stardock's Customer Service. Anytime I needed help, they were there for me. Ok, the one slight problem is that many people don't know what a beta is or how to update their video drivers. However, they sure as hell know how to post on the forums and bitch about it. If your video drivers are 2004 old, don't be surprised to see your desktop again. The non-beta or official released versions are damn near perfect. These 'updates' are giving us customers more content/stuff or making the game better, as the real bugs have already been squished. Name me another game company that does this ? That's right after they take your money, its see ya later sucker! In Bethesda's case they'll release new stuff if you give them $2-5 each time.

And lastly I'd like to go back to the spirit of the original post...

I noticed that some people{little girls really}have made posts like Stardock Sucks.Stardock is the best game company i've everseen.They worked and still are working on this game.They are putting lots of effort into this and other games! How can some people not apprecate their hard work! Thankyou Stardock for sticking with it even though people say this game sucks. It does not suck this is the best game ever! {besides Galciv1} So thankyou. Pat yourselves on the back

Stardock POWNS CASE CLOSSED

90% of EA games have no/late patchs, which are 6-12months after the release . ANd mostly its compatibitly/balancing issues that takes no real effort to fix. Until i got gal civ2 and seen what these guy do (ie stardock) and how they care about how thier customers feel and actually import the customers ideas into the game.. holy shit if only other gaming companies did that the world would be a better place....

Agree with the OP.

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.

For the record, we do really care about our customers and I think the above posts prove that quite well. I have only worked for Stardock for just over one year, but one of the biggest reasons why I chose to is because Stardock treats their customers with respect.

You may disagree and want to point out 37 pages on the forums, but realize that most of those pages are posts about issues that were already fixed before they were made, or weren't bugs at all, just things they thought were bugs. Additionally, the vast majority of the problems were solved by people actually following our advice and updating their video drivers.

In closing, I'm not saying the game was perfect out the door, perfection is something only the Gods can hope to achieve.  However, we felt it was as solid as it could be and our beta testers (and there were hundreds of them) were telling us to release it 2 weeks sooner than we did.

Or, to put it another way:

Please don't feed the trolls.

Name one Firaxis game where they offered AI upgrades for free

Civ4 in its patches. In addition, they even gave out a lot of the source code (including all of the AI code) to modders.

Yarlen,
Thank you for sounding off as the voice of Stardock, hopefully you will watch this thread and read this post.

Here is my question to you. How would you resolve this matter.

I buy your game at Best Buy. I load it, I update it. It does not work. I submit my problem. You submit I upgrade all drivers. I update all drivers as told. I wait, I wait some more. You provide other alternatives. I do as I am told. Game is still not functioning to capacity. I wait. More ideas. I do as i'm told. Nothing works. I wait for three weeks now and the game still does not work. I reload windows to correct a minor env. variable error. I reload game. Game doesn't work. I try every imagineable setting to try and get the game to work. it doesn't. I read multiple posts about my exact error. The masses say reboot. Three weeks and still nothing.
Now what would you do as Stardock to "care" about me as a customer?

Name one Firaxis game where they offered AI upgrades for free Civ4 in its patches. In addition, they even gave out a lot of the source code (including all of the AI code) to modders.

I stand corrected, thank you for pointing that out.

Now what would you do as Stardock to "care" about me as a customer?

What do you want them to do?

The point of the question is to see what they think, not me.

Psio:

I see a slight inconsistency in your statement that Stardock doesn't care (whatever "care" is officially defined as - I'm still not clear on that one), and the fac tthat you have received multiple responses to help you with your problem.

I understand you aren't the only person that has problems loading games on your PC, and this certainly isn't the only PC game out there that has had issues when people tried to install it. However, there are two pieces to the equation - their game, and your computer.

Now, I'm relatively old (old enough to have started on an Apple IIc, and also old enough to be way out of my leagues with the way computer tech has gone in the past decade or so), plus, I have a 2001 computer with drivers that haven't been updated since sometime in 2002. (The devs are probably cringing mightily right now.) Yet, I've had barely any problems - particularly since the first patch.

Now, maybe their are some operating problems with GCII - I don't know, I'm just not that tech savvy to know all of the fine points anymore. But, there are also way too many people like me who have effectively no problems on a beat up system, and others who have had problems that have since been resolved - either with Stardock's assistance or through their own research.

Therefor, I conclude that GCII - while it may have some issues remaining - is not inherently unstable or uncooperative with the average PC in consumer's hands. Which leads me to wonder how you can slam a company that has responded to you multiple times in an attempt to help and has put out - either through initiial release or via subsequent patches - a game that appears to be stable on the vast majority of systems? Especially when it appears, based on the apparent fact that most people seem to be able to run GCII just fine, that the issue may just well be that it is your system that may be the problem.

I just don't get it. I mean, I'm sorry the program doesn't seem to work on your computer - I really am. But how does that become Stardock's problem when it seems that they have put out a reasonably stable program, and have attempted to help you through your issues multiple times?

Oh well. The simple fact is that you probably just aren't going to be happy and there's not much I or anyone else is going to be able to do about it. Which, again, I am actually sorry about - I think GCII is a really good game, and getting better as more updates and patches come out.

Best of luck resolving your issues, but until you can prove that Stardock was grossly negligent in releasing a program that didn't work (for a significant % of customers) AND was unresponsive in dealing with those issues (How many patches and updates have we had since release?), you don't have much of a case for "Stardock doesn't care."

The only problem is an internal employee in a call advised me that the problem lies in the program, not in my system. No I will not release the date of the call or their name. I have had multiple contacts within Stardock on the phone at different times.

Psio says:

The standard replys. Thanks boys, it's only proving my point.

Mine wasn't the standard reply. I explained to you about patches and why there aren't many of them. The short answer is that if you make patches, you take away from your bottom line. it doesn't contribute to sales, so it's an expense.

Now I will tell you another truth:
As a programmer, I would love to release something that was absoultely bug-free and had every option that I imagined on it. However, the reality is that if I were to wait until that moment, the software would never be released. There's always someting you wish you could fix, or something you just didn't have time to include. Bugs are a fact of life. Look at Windows XP itself. There are a zillion bugs and stuff that are *still* unresolved. Microsoft Office, too. For example, why is it that if I hide the stupid paper clip while he is saying something, he will disappear but his word balloon doesn't? In the real world, there are deadlines to meet. You do the best you can, and then you send it out the door.

Psio continues:

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.

Actually, if I'm not mistaken, they DID have a party for one of the releases, and there were several people from the boards there. And when you talk to Brad, you're not talking to cutsomer support. He's not just an employee - he's the Man. You don't see the owner of EA chatitng in the forums.

Mooncusser says:

I understand you aren't the only person that has problems loading games on your PC, and this certainly isn't the only PC game out there that has had issues when people tried to install it. However, there are two pieces to the equation - their game, and your computer.

I cannot recall what game it was, but the install wiped your hard drive. That would be an issue to me.

Mooncusser continues:

Best of luck resolving your issues, but until you can prove that Stardock was grossly negligent in releasing a program that didn't work (for a significant % of customers) AND was unresponsive in dealing with those issues (How many patches and updates have we had since release?), you don't have much of a case for "Stardock doesn't care."

Agreed.

Bill

The only problem is an internal employee in a call advised me that the problem lies in the program, not in my system. No I will not release the date of the call or their name. I have had multiple contacts within Stardock on the phone at different times.

And I am Santa claus. Take my word for it.

The proof is in the pudding dude. Put up or shut up.

Stardock has - by releasing and supporting a great game. You simply sound like someone with an axe to grind.

Understood - but I still say that you can't separate the two issues of their program and your computer.

If the problem truly is in the program, then how does the program work on my computer? I'm not nearly savvy enough to fix anything much beyond a power problem. ("Is the machine plugged in? - D'oh....")

More likely it is something in the program that is reacting to something installed or some setting on your computer. How in the world is Stardock going to figure out your system and its interaction with their program unless they can have your computer in front of them? Even then, is it solely their responsibility to fix the issue if it appears to be a one-off or rare case?

I'm afraid that this is what product returns are designed for. If it simply is too much of a problem, then get your money back. I'm not saying this to be facetious, but just realistic. If it is going to cost all parties involved too much in time, energy and $ to fix whatever issue, then maybe this just has to be chalked up to one of those statistical outliers that just isn't worth pursueing for all parties.

That way, you do, oddly enough, get to hurt the devs in the pocketbook...

Still, coming back to the initial point of your original post - it's really hard to find for your case that Stardock doesn't care.

(That said - the OP to this thread was way to sickly sweet in his praise for my taste, although I do agree that I've probably seen more effort out of Stardock than I've ever seen out of a mass-market gaming company. Even if I do recognize that there were a few, shall I say, "unfinished" aspects about the game on launch, to their credit, Stardock has come back faster with more patches, upgrades and responses than I have ever seen out of a mass-market gaming company.)

Psio - I am not familar with whatever problems you may be having, but if you fill me in on the details, I'll get some answers for you (one way or another). Please email me directly ([email protected]) with exactly what's happening (please update to v1.1 and send me your debug.err), or if you have a support ticket number with details, please send me that so I can look things up.

Give it up Psio, you're beat. No - one agrees with you.

But i admit, you did get a response (undeserved for you, and not really necessary for the rest of us) from stardock ... So go play some turns or something

Right i'm off to check out 1.1

later init

Buggiest game you've ever played?

Those are the words of a man who never played the 2001 Pools of Radiance.

I tried to install it on my D: drive, and I guess that really pissed it off, cuz it formatted my C: drive.

Say what you will about GalCiv2, at least installing it doesn't destroy your computer.

I mean, seriously. Buggiest game you've ever played? Man, either you don't play a lot of games, or you're pretty lucky.

Anyone who claims this game is "the buggiest ever" or isn't properly supported either knows nothing about PC gaming or is trolling. I'm guessing it's the latter.

LoL @ Pools of Radiance. [Incredible Hulk Voice]Grrr...D: drive makes Pools of Radiance *ANGRY*...Pools of Radiance *SMASH*...[/Incredible Hulk Voice]