Wow, that didn't take long. Wasn't all of this stuff supposed to be fixed with the release of the expansion? I'm really starting to get annoyed at these updates, at least as far as their frequency is concerned. Don't get me wrong, any improvements are always welcomed by me but another patch? Like I said, I know nothing about this patch and was led to believe the expansion would take care of all of this. Is this so or are there going to be infinite patches/updates/and bug fixes? Am I really the only one in here that is getting sick of this?

And now that I re-read this original reply to the post, what the hell is in here that invokes so much sarcastic idiocy from some of you? I asked two general questions which were met with more hostility than the allies on D-Day. Nuff said...

Yay. Staying out of topic.

Hi,

I think it's great that we're getting a 1.4. I also like the way calling a patch a "bonus pack" seems to be going out of style.

The one feature that I'd second-most want to see--the first always being a more vicious AI--is on the trading/diplomacy screen. I'd like a button that says something like Balance Trade. Hitting the button will add money to one side or the other, to balance trade optimally. I hate having to twiddle and twiddle in order to figure out the maximum I can get from an AI or the minimum I have to give.

Something like--

Button action if neither side offers an item for trade:

1) No action.

Button action if neither side offers an item other than cash:

1) No action.

Button action if either or both sides offer an item other than cash:

1) Remove any cash being offered for trade.

2) Determine the AI's valuation of each side of the trade.

3a) If the AI is not willing to accept the trade as is, calculate the minimum amount of cash the human must pay to make the trade acceptable to the AI; if the human can pay it, add that amount to the human's offer.

3b) If the AI is willing to accept the trade as is, calculate the maximum amount of cash it can pay and still accept the trade; if the AI can pay it, add that amount to the AI's offer.

Something more complex can be done to include IP, but I suspect that gives less relief for the effort.


Anyway,

Ken

*resisting the urge to post something different, sticking to the essential things*

YAY!

Residual effects of drug "experimentation": 5%

Whoa! That's the missing 5% I can never account for! Now I get it.

What, everytime they fix one thing it causes problems with something else?

Brings back memories of Star Wars Galaxies. No game could have been patched as frequently as that one was.

I think that the patches here cater to us, the online community, anyway. The people who buy the game in a store, don't get the patches online, probably don't even know about them. I think they still get a great game without any patches. And ignorance is bliss.

Yay!

whew... Long read...
Anway- Just want to thank stardock for the next update! Keep'm coming! (Also if its not to late, could you install a program on there, that well play my games and post them to the Metaverse? Becuase that would really help on my score)

I dunno what's wrong with some people, ES. It's like the 2-year-old who just figured out how to swing his arm, and then walks around smacking people because he thinks it's funny and makes him feel powerful. Ignore 'em. They'll quickly outgrow it after they do it one too many times, to the wrong person.

Interesting thread. Bugs should be fixed as often and as fast as possilbe. For some reason I run into most of them and everything I do I quit playing for a while hoping that a fix will come out soon. My last bug was the Treasury Bug where all of a sudden you end up 2B+ in debt that takes 60,000 turns to work through or a 1000 play years. I wonder what the score would be like after a 1000 years, assuming that you did not get wiped out by the AI whild you had no money to do anything with.

Cari, please send out bug fixes as often as you can get Brad to let you. Your hard work is what makes the game playable.

You know, gloating when you win makes you look worse than the people you're attacking. Don't do it.

Maturity looks good on you Marcathonas.

The point that really stuck out for me was this by E.S...

"But I have never seen a game that needed so many updates and patches, ever."

Heh.

I can't tell you how buggy some software is, because it's just too painful to discuss. Most of the time, an astonishing amount of software goes straight from buggy to unsupported.

It does seem like we are in a different kind of game world now though.

A few years ago you could reliably say that if you bought a console game you'd have lots of bug free games. PC games had more problems, and it seemed that there was such a rush to 'ship it out the door, fix it later!' that the designers had started to not even TRY to make a bug free product.

Now, of course, the Xbox people are seeing the bug-and-patch cycle, and it's a bit of culture shock... They aren't happy about it, but the PC gamers are just taking it in stride. We're used to the abuse of cruddy, minimally functioning software that we pay full price for and then have to patch, and repatch several times to get a scrap of fun out of the game. Xbox (and soon the other game systems) are just at the beginning of this journey.

It's a pretty sad state of affairs though.

So it's kind of shocking to hear E.S. rail against Stardock, when the rest of the PC game industry has SO MANY more worse examples of this trend toward 'never get it right the first time, just patch it later.' In fact, Stardock is one of the few (very, very, very few) companies that released a nearly bug free product, and actually had a stated GOAL of releasing a bug free product. Most game companies set their goals much lower.

As for E.S.'s point about not everyone has easy internet access...

Well, it won't be long.

In gaming circles, there just isn't going to be any other trend... if you want to game you ARE going to get reliable fast internet. It's the wave of the future, and it's crashing over us now. Life without fast internet is just about inconceivable to me now. They say that an entire generation of people has grown up without ever NOT having access to an ATM machine to get cash 24hrs a day. The internet is becoming like that.

So yeah, E.S... I know what it's like to not have fast internet. I felt like I wasn't one of the 'cool kids'. Like I was being left behind because my family didn't afford the service, and I couldn't afford it... and you know what? I WAS being left behind.

You've probably got a few years before you're out on your own, but for your sanity (and your ability to mesh with people of your age group), one of your requirements for living will probably be fast internet. Living without it is like not having indoor plumbing. Just too painful. Just too primitive. Just leaving you too far behind.

I have be a PC gamer for 15+ years now and I must say that Stardock is doing an incredible job supporting this game. I usually do not post in these forums, hell I usually don't even read these forums (infact I think this my first post and I have had the game since it came out ) but this thread caught my eye.

In response to ES's complaint to all the patches I have to say 3 things

1. Know where you come from: In the days before the internet if a game had a glitch or for some reason did not work on your computer you were absolutly screwed though glitched/buggy games were MUCH less common then.

2. Take a look around you dude: Now judging from your posts you are not that big of a pc gamer but let me tell you from personal experience that MANY games today are released in far worse condition than GalCiv 2 and LEFT that way pissing off the community and ruining the the game.

3. Optional Content: As previously stated Stardock got most of the bugs out with the first patch if you don't want to download another patch then....don't, if you still want the content then go to a library or a cyber cafe with a flash drive and get it that way, unless you have some solution for distributing software patches in an economically viable way to non-internet users

I hope you can see why some people were so pissed off, besides this is the internet the place where everyone is a ranting moron

But I have never seen a game that needed so many updates and patches, ever

I sure have.
I started playing EQ about 16 months after it first came out -- 4 months after its first expansion pack.
I can remember them doing several updates ( bug fix patches ) -- that would generate problems of their own and cause them to have to take the servers down for patches quite a bit. Sometimes 2 or 3 times a day for 2 to 8 hours at a time. It would go on like this for 2 or 3 weeks till they finally got it stable.
Us players were paying $12 a month or so to play. Lots of players just waited out the downtimes and jumped back on as soon as they could.
EQ was the most successful MMORPG till WoW cam out.

I really miss those days and wish I had started EQ when it first came out and was even worse than what I experienced.

Cherish these days, you'll eventually miss em.

The expansion should be close to bug free, and well balanced. That is what we should expect. Version 1.0 was neither. Only the fact that the game was amazing anyway carried it.

I don't think that's asking for too much. I'm personally worried that they'll try to cram too much in without properly balancing and testing all of it. I'd much rather have a smaller set of features that the AI used effectively.

Hell the AI still doesn't build fast ships, is that asking for too much ? I personally don't think anyone at stardock tried to balance gigantic maps, is that asking for too much ?

A console game has one set of hardware to deal with across the board. With a PC you have such a wide variety of OS's, video cards, drivers etc etc that the game has to run on.

StarCraft has been patched 20 times.

There are many games that have been patched more than GC2, and many, many more that needed to be but never were.

I'm not exactly sure what ES is asking for, and I suspect he doesn't either. At first blush it seems he wants a sort of communism where everyone is brought down to the lowest common denominator to make everything "fair". Back in the old days before the internet I remember some game companies would mail out floppy disks with patches on them. But you had to write in to ask for them, and it aften took weeks.

It's like saying you're pissed off they made a new Battlestar Galactica on SciFi because you only get 3 TV channels with your rabbit ears. The world moves forward and if you can't you get left behind in some ways. Maybe that's not fair but it's reality.

I just got back on DSL 3 months ago when I moved. I had to d/l the 85MB Rollercoaster Tycoon 3 patch on dial up, so I know the pain.   I used to just leave my PC downloading overnight and just let my D/l manager handle it.  

And now that I re-read this original reply to the post, what the hell is in here that invokes so much sarcastic idiocy from some of you? I asked two general questions which were met with more hostility than the allies on D-Day. Nuff said...

I have to agree... He had an opinion, which could have been examined without attacking him. I don't think that this community needs to ever use personal attacks or calling someone's opinion stupid.

Let's keep a civil discourse and take pride that we have a mature community where people feel welcomed and can ask questions and get answers... how much of this could have been avoided if things were just explained without the personal attacks?

And just to add to the original thoughts of this thread, I would like to say that this game is "average" as far as needing bug fixes and whatnot.. but "above average" at actually getting those bug fixes. It is a treat when developers continue to care about their game beyond the receiving of our money, and a business model that I try to support with future patronage.

Hey all, again, my busting in here yesterday was wrong in my eyes. I get pissed and just start ranting. Not fair of me to take it out on Stardock. Brad, Cari, Kryo, and all of the rest of you are the greatest. Please don't ever think that my rants are personal attacks against you or your work. It may sound as such, but it isn't. Sometimes being articulate out of the gate isn't my strong point. I am not a computer wiz and never claimed to be so. And being at work having a bad day (not that that is any excuse, ever)didn't help my attitude any. It was nice to see that the final few replies on here actually were more civil, which was also refreshing since I usually find myself to be the "odd man out". And now to quote...

You've probably got a few years before you're out on your own,

Uhhhh, that was rich. I am 36 (even if I do sometimes act like a six year old)and have been on my own since I was 19. As far as being a heavy PC gamer, I like to think that I am but I know there are probably quite a few of you who would put me to shame. I got my first computer in 2001, so I haven't had many years of experience. I am/was a console gamer (shout out PS2 and Intellivision)but the PC is where all of the "cool" games reside. So I broke down, spent the 1000.00 and bought my first PC, just for the games. Everything I've learned, which apparently isn't much, was on my own through trial and error. I never experienced a game that required me to modify settings on my comp (other than graphics of course)so this all took me off guard.
I just thought that I would reply to this thread once more to clarify. I know I can come off as being an enormous ass, but I can admit it. Thankfully, my doctor said that with a few more years of rehabilitation and some heavy medication I should be up and running in no time, without a case of "ass head syndrome".  

I know I have mentioned this in its own thread, but I thought here would also be appropriate for me to lobby for a future patch that includes an option whereby which ship designs from old games you play don't reappear in new games for the same race.

Is that possible? I don't actually know but it would be good for people who don't like old designs reappearing in games where they are effectively useless.

do NOT believe that a game is provided bug free. Do I think they should be, well, yes if it was a perfect world but it isn't and I know this. I said I think they SHOULD,

Changing the costs and benefits of buildings is a game balance issue, not a bug issue. The only way to learn what could/should be changed in the game is to get feedback from the players, which is exactly what Stardock is doing. I have played MANY games over the years which shipped in what the developers thought was the final version, only to discover the flaws as I went. Look at al the mods for various games - those are all user efforts to change game balance. That's different from a bug fix.

I disagree strongly with Evil Stormbringer and grieve with him for his lack of connectivity. But I find his rants to be most entertaining...

For people with no internet access, my recommendation would be to get rid of your desktop system and buy a laptop computer. When you need access, head downtown and use the wireless hotspot at your local coffee shop. When I'm on the road, I'm amazed at the internet's accessibility. Internet hotspots are a a dime a dozen now. And, they're usually high speed.

I think Stardock should NOT have to consider cases where people have no internet access at all. Nowadays, you might as well not even have a PC if you can't connect it at least some of the time. And, so few people are not connected, it's just not worthy of consideration.

I'm totally in agreement with the previous statement about the way the industy would have you in upgrade hell your whole life. They assume it's a trivial thing to require a new operating system or hardware platform so often. Even if you buy a preloaded system, you still have the headache of loading all your old software (if it even works on the new platform) and tranferring your old data. However, when it comes to something as trivial as a GC2 update, I have no problem with that. It's all of 3 minutes hassle. They could update once a month and I wouldn't complain.

BTW, the people at Stardock seem like a pretty nice bunch, I'm sure if you really wanted it, you could phone them and they'd send you the update on CD.

If you go directly from Gal Civ 2 DL to Gal Civ 2 DA without adding any of the updates and patches, won't they be fixed with the DA update?

If you don't have Internet access, you won't be able to update the game, until DA arrives, but for those of us that does have access, we might want, if possible to get rid of some of the bugs and changes before that.

IMO, chaning the game to make it more balanced is not a patch or a bug-fix, but welcome nonetheless, especially the stronger morale, since I always seem to go downwards when I come close to winning...

TIP

I never experienced a game that required me to modify settings on my comp (other than graphics of course)so this all took me off guard.

I almost feel sorry for an entire generation of gamers who have never had to continously adjust the order they load drivers in the config.sys file, in order to maximize available base memory. Gamers who didn't have to know the difference between expanded memory or extended memory. Who among them has had to create different boot floppies for playing different games? I sometimes feel it's a lost art. Though if you use your mem command, DOS still resides in the HMA.

I'm not much of a console gamer. Now they have to deal with bugs and patches too? LOL is all I can say about that.

And balancing? Yeah, it happens. Diablo II cerrtainly went through a lot of that. Your character could be um...uber one day, and worthless the next. SWG went through that a lot as well. You constantly had to stay on top of the latest news to know which character build was the new powerhouse.

I think it is far less of an issue in GalCiv II. You may have to adjust your play style from one game to the next, but a lot of people do that anyway just to make it interesting. In an MMORPG, where your character is constant, "balance" sometimes becomes a four letter word.

As a side note into this conversation, when Evil Stormbringer stated:

I never experienced a game that required me to modify settings on my comp (other than graphics of course)so this all took me off guard.

  Computer gaming in the DOS and early Windows days had you modifying config.sys files and autoexec.bat files to make sure you had enough "startup" memory to play your game (messing around with extended and expanded memory).  Even IRQ conflicts are a thing of the past mostly. Configuring and updating games have become easier, especially with programs that check for updates for you.  I am another one of those 15+ year gamers who has played everything from text adventure games to the latest PC games like Prey.  Its become accepted that updates are needed, new features can yield new errors that can't always be caught in testing (or lack of). 

I also agree that the gaming industry should expect most people to have internet connections.  That time is already here where everyone should be connected in urban and rural areas (except maybe in areas far removed from electrical power plants, but that's what the U.N.'s proposed $100 hand-crank powered laptops are for..).  The only people who aren't connected are those that aren't willing or able to learn.

Here's a "yay!" from me, too. As a developper myself, I know a lot of effort goes into supporting a project and extending it with new features. And it will never, ever feel finished. Moreover, adding patches is like saying your only child has a bad personality. So I find it very mature and conscient of Stardock to update their software.

"But I have never seen a game that needed so many updates and patches, ever."

I'm a lot younger and I've seen stuff that would make you turn white. Yikes. I mean... yikes.

There are games out there that have had exactly as many patches (are currently at 1.3.1 just as well) and wouldn't pass beta. Heck, they wouldn't pass customs if it were up to me! They need updates and we're not getting them. Instead, we get shiny new titles based on the same technology. Eh... is that supposed to make me feel better? I've been practically living on their troubleshooting forums, and it's been keeping me very, very busy.

I've never found GalCiv II really needed updates. Admittedly, there were bugs and errors like there are in any software project; I'm patching/supporting software myself and I know it can be frustrating (strangle the debugger), tedious ("let's do that again, shall we?"), and like heck you're getting paid cash for it. So I fully appreciate Stardock releasing patches.

On the other hand, I know what it feels like to have an unsure connection to the Internet. It used to be that program updates were two MB at most. Nowadays, they can be up to 300 MB. There are workarounds, and you can eventually get that update, but I understand the sentiment that it may be tedious. I found it tedious back then.

But as I said, I've seen what's out there. And I came to the conclusion that software that is not updated gives me the creeps.

Two thumbs up, Stardock!