It occurs to me, that buggy demos and retail releases are fast becoming the norm, rather than the exception. That said, I wouldn't be too quick to write the game off as a 'flop'.

The Space Empires series does have a very strong fan base, and the 1.07 patch notes do infer that most of the game's ills will be cured!

On a personal note, I rather like the demo.

IMO the new game has a much less abstract feel to it than it's predecessor, which always struck me as being very good, but at the same time rather dry, and uninspiring. And certainly nowhere near as much fun to play as GCII.

Memo to Stardock: Please feel free to email me, re: details of where to send the cheque.

GC2 had its share of bugs at release, but I do have to agree with Grimes. It is getting downright disrespectful, annoying and plain stupid how unfinished some games are at release.

I disagree - people here are into the same kind of games that I'm into. Therefore I'd very much like to hear what people think of the new Space Empries game - good or bad - it will help me decide whether or not to buy it (demo takes way too long to download).

I would be happy if SE fan boys would quit confusing unrestrained feature creep with "depth".

'Look at all the features that the computer players can't use and make the game seem very very complicated? it must have a lot of depth!!!'

se is a very complicated board game that targets the hardest of the hard core who ever wanted to play an obscenely complex board game against each other. if you got 100 random strategy gamers together to play seV single player i would challenge anyone who could honestly say that more than 10 of them would really enjoy it. but those 10 who do enjoy it would enjoy it very much.

SEv gets too many breaks because it was done by just couple people. But so what? They're charging the same amount as galciv and other games. The deplorable graphics, the terrible horrible interface, the almost unplayable release. Go onto the forums and find people who have managed to play a game all the way through. Someone said galciv 2 'had its share of bugs' but nothing on the order of what I've seen in seV.

Since i got my copy from steam, I can't get the update yet.

I'm downloading the SE:V patch right now. As compensation for being one day late, the patch is at v1.08, with even more bugfixes.

Nice one bighouse!

I'm sure that many of us would like to share your thoughts on the game.

Please keep us posted.

@Sgt. Grimes

I'm sure that many of us would like to share your thoughts on the game.

If you're serious about that, you can read my post in this thread. Cauldyth also makes excellent points in the post just below yours that I agree with completely.

@Xan

I would be happy if SE fan boys would quit confusing urestrained feature creep with "depth".

Some of the features in Dark Avatar duplicate features already found in SE:V, like asteroid mining, and different world types and customizable AIs. Does that mean that Galactic Civilizations will someday also suffer from "unrestrained feature creep"?

SE:V has features like carriers (OOPS! I shouldn't have said that. That's a dirty word around here, isn't it?), mines, starbases that can build ships, and cloaking devices. I recommend that you read through past forum posts on this site. I think you'll find that those features have already been requested by players of Galactic Civilizations...

Look at all the features that the computer players can't use and make the game seem very very complicated?

In opposition to all of the GC2 features that have been nerfed because "the AI can't handle them". Of course, in SE:V, all of the features the AI can't use are fully usable in multiplayer mode, which GalCiv doesn't have...

I recommend that you take a look though the forums at http://www.spaceempires5.com. You'll find that SE:V players laugh at GalCiv because it lacks the features that the Space Empires series has.

---

That, finally, brings me to my point. SE:V and GC2 are VERY different games. If you want to conquer the universe in an afternoon, you want GalCiv. If you want a game that offers dozens upon dozens of features AND all of the complexity that goes with them AND the length of time you need to use them, you want SE:V.

I'm revealing my age here for the few old fogeys who will understand this next part, but comparing SE:V and GC2 is like comparing Axis & Allies and Squad Leader. For you kiddies out there, those are both WWII wargames of the tabletop variety. In other words, you had to sit in the same room with your HUMAN opponent(s) and play the game with dice, board, pens, paper, etc. Axis & Allies was a "beer & pretzels" game: easy to learn, easy to play, but lacking everything but the most superficial detail. Squad Leader, on the other hand, was nothing BUT details, with all the flexibility and complexity and time requirements that those details allowed.

I played both, just like I play both GC2 and SE:V. They are DIFFERENT games. Neither is better than the other, it is simply a question of preference. For me, that preference can vary based on the amount of time that I have, my mood, and whether I feel like dealing with other human beings at the moment. I'm just glad that both games exist.

EDIT: Corrected some typos & spelling mistakes.

According to spaceempires5.com forums stores are giving refunds for SEV. Of course the poor people who bought the game from eb or gamestop are not going to be given refunds.

I hate Steam too, so I just bought a boxed retail copy.

Well, I amend that, I just received a reply telling me that the game will soon be available in UK.

IMHO, it's time the anti-Steam rebellion ended - Valve has spent a lot of time and energy improving it and making it more stable.

Well, I think that some people will ask you : Are you allowed to launch a game downloaded with Steam if you are offline as you can do with SDC ?

I will confirm as of 10/26/06, the are still show stopping issues reported, as well as general frustration in their community. As soon as I found out there was a MP type of galciv game, I checked it out. Their demo which is a pre 1.0 ver release I guess is crap, well at least for me, since I had two rain-out-the-show issues one which I fixed only to encounter another "access violation" that prevents me from even making it to the splash screen. This is the demo. How do they expect anybody to know about their product if the demo doesn't work? Absolute BS!

Posting on their forum Demanding they fix their demo, as they are up to patch 1.08 for the retail, only yields "hey wait man they are fixing stuff" lol. They released a program that was a bad beta as a retail product and deserve this "flop" description.

I'm beyond exhausted and apathetic at companies, because there are so many doing this, that release crap that doesn't work or if it does work, with major flaws, and yet expect that people are going to buy it. And they do unfortunately! It's just sad. I know a lot of software is developed overseas, and some in the US, I'm only 25, but there used to be something called "Quality" in this country. It's a characteristic that means, durability, superiority, excellence, and functionality. I know the competitive nature of the global marketplace means that corners have to be cut, money needs to be made with less capital investment, but I dearly wish that we would recycle that "Professional Grade" (BS)and renew "Quality is job #1" in our culture, and even export "Quality" overseas, rather then the hyprocracy and shallow crap that we apparently are best known for.

It's coming back to bite us in the ass.

I think people, that is players of the game more specifically, are under the impression that the retail release is just a late beta, and that improvements are constantly underway and that they will be supported until the program lives up to the hype/personal expectations of the people playing it right now. But you are correct, as of right now there is no justification for reviewers giving this program a pass in it's current form.

I'd love to get ahold of a cracked copy of the game just to see if I encounter the same issues as I have with the demo but I'll be damned if I'm going through the effort of looking for one or buying a copy of the program.