Why do you object to Stardock Central?

I use SDC, so I'm not one of the objectors. I can understand that some feel it is an unneeded program that is just an extra step for patching their game though. Also a couple years back or more SDC did have some issues that turned some off to it. I have had no trouble with it, but I'm sure you've seen where there are still people that do and that can leave a bad taste for a long time to come even after those problems have been resolved.

Can anyone help me? i cant play other versions then 1.0 then my cdkey dosent work... or is it my email i installed the game i dont know a year ago after some months i had to reinstall (WINDOWS) i forgot what email i used to register the account and key with.. so now i can only play 1.0 this game is SO STUPIDLY BUILD UP SECURITY it really frustrating to only be able ot play the bug crap version 1.0!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

You should try emailing Stardock at this address and they might be able to help you,

[email protected]

They are very quick in their reply's.

I'm sorry, but you're posting in the wrong thread!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

i cant Make my own THREADS!

I don't particularly like the process needed to install and update the game. It is a little confusing and there are far to many steps in my opinion. If you could choose to update with a stand alone patch OR through stardock, I would choose the stand alone.
My main problem with it, is that I only used the program to update GAL CIV II and it seems a waste of time and disk space to have to install and update another program just to be able to patch the game.
That said, Stardock support was both helpful and prompt in their reply when I ran into problems.

I beg to differ Neilo, I'm still waiting on my copy of DA and confirmation for pre-order TA, sent an email a couple of hours ago! It is something like 6am in the states though.. that probably doesn't help my noble quest to destroy/enslave/conquer the galaxy as the Dregin in DA campaign though... Cant wait for TA!

I'm one of those who like SD Central. It's convenient, intuitive and I've never had a problem with it.

That's basically the reason in my case. It's really a personal choice and not out of necessity. I'm perfectly fine playing DL v1.4x. I don't think any of the later DL revs have been substanstially different. I would like to try DA but I'd rather just stick with DL and not have to bother with SDC.

However, the point of some peoples complaint is not that they have any intrinsic problem with SDC it's just they have no internet access at home (or only dialup which is unsuitable for downloading Gigabytes of data) and they're prohibited from installing the game and SDC at work so as to get updates. These folks are few but that doesn't mean that I think their needs should be ignored.

From a business point of view having a mechanism that allows 99.9% of your customers to easily get updates is perfectly fine. Most companies would say just screw the remaining 0.1%. However, I've come to expect a bit better out of Stardock and would expect that there would be some effort to satisfy this admittedly very small segment of their customer base.

As I mentioned in another thread, Stardock used to supply a standalone installer that would satisfy the need of pretty much everyone. I can understand how they may not want to provide one for every intermediate rev but I feel that they still should provide one for all major and final revs of any particular version of the game; DL, DA, TA and whatever comes after.

Also, providing a CD of the game when it initially comes out like I eventually received for my pre-order of DA is pretty much useless. At that point in time the lifetime of v1.5 was measured in days. It would be far better to provide CD's once the version is finalized as opposed to introduced. At the least when a new version is introduced and a CD is purchased it would be a good idea to allow the customer to purchase a CD of the old version which would presumably be in it's final state.

Is it reasonable to cater to those people, though? I mean, I'm certainly sympathetic; I don't think I could live without the internet (it's more important than food and sleep! ), but in this day and age, having a connection when you want to play games is a given, multiplayer or not. Much like one cannot expect to play new games without a good video card or a decent processor, one cannot expect to play without internet access.

I agree that some allowance should be made for those savages who live on the outskirts of civilization and are forced to resort to dialup, but what can be done, reasonably? Games today require gigabytes of data. Perhaps creating more but smaller packets might be a reasonable alternative, or sending a CD to a person if they are willing to pay shipping and printing costs?

At the end of the day, while I am sympathetic to their plight, I think it's unreasonable for such people to expect much. If you want to hear the tune, you have to pay the piper.

If they paid for the game, then they have a right to the updates, the same as anyone else.

I am on dialup because it is the only connection type available in my area (satellite is a non-starter due to latency issues).

That said, a decent flash-drive and a friend with high speed internet (or a work connection with permission to use it) is really all that is needed. Yes the procedure is lengthy, but it is possible.

Actually, that probably depends on what the EULA says. You may be right, though -- I'm not sure. drrider, in a different thread, has implied that the EULA says otherwise, but I can't recall.

They do have the right to the update, and they can anytime they choose to, but thats not the issue. The issue is HOW you get the update. And simply buying the game does not neccesarily mean you can choose HOW to get the update.

A similar example, with only a small amount of stretching, would be to say I was born in America, I pay my taxes, so I have the right to vote. But if I live or move out to the middle of nowhere, I need to expect a certain amount of inconvenience to get TO the voters booth...or I could sit in my house and yell at the government to set up a voters booth just for me and probably get about the same response you get here.

That would be one reasonable solution that I would certainly be happy to pay for.


This is of course the attitude that I would expect from the average PC game company. However, as I mentioned, folks tend to hold Stardock to a somewhat higher standard because in most things they live up to such expectations.


Yet again, not everyone has either of these criteria.


What I object to is that there are folks that are expressing their legitimate issue with the current update ability and it's the people that have no such issue that consistantly in effect say screw them. It's fine you have no issue with SDC. I'm happy for you. However you have no right to belittle someone else's issue.

I certainly don't mean to. In fact, I think that is a legitimate concern, and unrelated to my original question, or, at least, unrelated to the reason I asked it. Lots of people have expressed a dislike to SDC before this issue, so I was just curious why.

Although I long ago gave up and got on the SDC bandwagon, that's largely because I have (foolishly or not) developed a fairly high degree of trust in Stardock and the little app is, well, little when you look at a world where 500 gig drives are getting common. Standalone patch files are traditional for good reasons, and I hope Stardock will resume making them available at reasonable intervals in their dev cycles.

I passionately object to the assumption that nearly anything you do on a computer requires an Internet connection. What is the freakin' point of all this blazing bandwidth and mountains of CPU power and hard disk space if not to make *my* machine able to do a lot on its own?

IMO, this broadband-as-given attitude is part of a larger industry objective aimed at ensuring that end users are essentially subscribers and not owners (OK for a trusted game developer, BS for an OS or core productivity apps). It is also tied to Wall Street-driven upgrade cycles that are more about quarterly profits than they are about what end users are really doing (or not being able to do) with their computers.

So to try to wrap with some attention to the OP, I submit to SDC but I'm not proud of it b/c I believe in the tradition of stand-alone patches and I once kept a very tidy computer with no extraneous software. Admittedly, that was probably Win 3.1 or so, maybe Win95.

Very good point, if they were the ones having difficulty, I am quite sure they would be just as upset as the people experiencing problems now.
I would also be in favor of the CD updating and paying for shipping, this would allow someone with NO access to the internet the ability to get an updated version.

I didn't mean to single you out although it was your comment to which I responded. This discussion is effectively being carried out over at least a couple of threads and so comments made in one thread may be carried over to responses in another.

My personal objection is of the philosophical nature. I'm pretty much fighting the battle that GW mentioned but has since given up on. I'm also expressing the perhaps more legitimate concerns that some folks have that would be happy to use SDC if only they could, but for one reason or other can't. For most folks the complaint is not that they *have* to use SDC to update it's that they *can't*.

I ran SDC for a couple of years and then last year after one particular update it seemed to always take a good chunk of CPU and rarely let it go. After trying to troubleshoot for a while, I just took it out of my Startup config and would only start it once in a while to check for updates.

However today is a good example of why I am reluctant to let it run: I wanted to check for updates, renewals due, etc. and started up SDC. It immediately updated to the latest SDC version and then asked if I wanted to update some of my OD programs that were available. I clicked on "No, update them later" and SDC seemed to freeze up. Windows Task Manager didn't indicate that it was not responding, but it was definitely not responding! The dialog asking me to update some of the OD applications did not disappear and I had a lot of trouble minimizing SDC, and then I found I could not maximize anything else on my taskbar. I checked running processes and found a brand new entry - never saw it before, though it is a valid MS file: msdtc.exe, or Distributed Transaction Coordinator. I have seen posts complaining about it but never saw it running on my PC before. It is often associated with trying to run a server with a lot of separate transactions trying to run. I do not have an SQL Server running on my PC. After reading what I could about it I ended the process and suddenly SDC and its update dialog closed also. Then my PC seemed to be back to normal.

That's a first for me, but I have little doubt it was caused by SDC attempting to notify Stardock's servers that I chose update OD later, since it started immediately after I selected the "Later" button and all was OK upon ending the process - and SDC shut down at that same moment.

So while it CAN be convenient as a kind of "Version Tracker" for Stardock applications, it seems to have gotten a little too difficult to keep under control, at least to my liking.

Jim

I'm not a big fan of SDC because of it taking up precious hard drive space, and some of us on a tight budget just can't spend the money for a bigger drive right now. Also, AND MOST IMPORTANT---The idea of having a game company shove its data management program down our throats just so we can download a patch is HEAVY HANDED and the kind of thing that got Microsoft a class action lawsuit to "unbundle" some of its programs. While I don't mind the ocasional email from a game company informing me of their latest products to hit the market,having to install SDC just feels like that "pushy salesman" you want swat with a rolled newspaper.

I have plenty of hard-drive space. And I don't like SDC. I don't see what its purpose is, I found it very confusing and non-intuitive to use and the only thing I have used it for was updating this one game once. What else does it even do, aside from complicate what should be a simple process?

AND why is it not just part of the game itself? I click the "update" button and then the program I bought has to access another program and then I still have to do some more stuff. Why does anything need my attention after I hit the "update" button?

I liken SDC to the "salad shooter". Pardon the analogy but I happen to own two of the things (long story don't ask) that are purported to do everything from slice cheese to cutting tomatoes. In reality the only useful function this complicated piece of equipment can do is to grate carrots. It does a nice job grating carrots but that's all it can do and after all, how often do you really want to put this machine together (and remember how to do it) just to grate a couple of carrots and then have to wash it and put it away when it would have taken you two minutes to chop the carrot with the knife that you already have in your hand.

It's basically a senseless useless appendage from my point of view. From Stardocks point of view it provides access to a number of their product offerings. However, I couldn't care less about windowblinds or object desktop, I just want my carrot grated. Now you tell me that next year a new improved user friendly SDC will be coming my way. So basically you're telling me I'll need to update the program that I use to update the program that I actually care about. Next you'll tell me that I need some other program to update the program required to update the program that I care about.

I used to work for a minicomuputer company in the early 70's that went the way of the dinosaur once Sun workstations running Unix became avaliable. That really isn't germane to this connversation, however what is germane is a saying that my old boss there had. As a way to compensate for overblown prices on our products we would often add some gee whiz type features that cost little to implement. The problem was that most customers really didn't want these "bells and whistles". The saying that my old boss had was that our product should only include things our customer needs to do his business and not be burdened with things that we need to do our business. This 40 year old advice is advice that would be well heeded even today.

I prefer SD to the alternatives, which in my view are:

1) CD copy protection. It's nice not to have to worry about swapping out discs to play the game, and it's nice not to have to find the discs to install.

2) A more draconian online registration system, like Steam. I appreciate that SD doesn't have to run every time I want to run the game.

3)No cd protection AND no registration system, which means no incentive for anyone to legitimately purchase the game. Since I like SD games and would like to see them continue to make them, this notion is clearly a non-starter.

It's a lightweight app, takes up very little space, and is ultimately less problematic than most any alternative I can think of. If one has to have some means of incentivizing legitimate sales (and I think it's fair to say that one does), this is the least offensive way I can imagine.

I have no problems using SDC - in a lot of ways it's better than many built-in patchers because it provides more info on what's available, better download management, clear history, it's easy to use, it's not annoying (like Steam), it only runs when you want it to, and it's harmless.

Some things to consider (or remember):

For one, Stardock doesn't put copy protection on their CDs (or built-in to the game code) and you don't have to have a CD in the drive to play it legally. I despise having to put CDs in my drive to play a game I've bought, and I despise all the CD/DVD security crap almost all games have on them these days. I much prefer updating via SDC to any and all of the usual "copy protection" BS most companies inflict on their paying customers.

Stardock in an "indie developer" - not a corporate monstrosity. They *could* have a special patcher just for GalCiv, or a built-in patcher, but they happen to produce several types of software, not just games, and they release quite a bit of software. Having one patcher to serve them all is way more efficient and cost effective for them. As a programmer I appreciate logic. Having one patcher that can handle lots of different software is beautiful compared to having seperate patchers for everything.

Stardock updates the heck out of GalCiv for us. It isn't just bug fixes and the minimal stuff most companies do just to avoid having their inevitably buggy software slammed into the ground. We get lots of new content, new game features, user-requested additions, and practically small expansion packs worth of added value. If using SDC is the "cost" of all of that, how can you complain?

Lastly, I feel sorry for anyone who doesn't have access to broadband. I could live without TV, would actually enjoy living without cellphones around, and could do without a lot of other things, but once you have broadband, it's hard to imagine anything less. Actually, broadband is such a normal part of life these days, it's hard to imagine it not being available.

This is nonsense. With the standalone installer the license validation via a sig.bin file is identical to that currently in play with updates via SDC.

SDC is not the license validation mechanism it's merely an over burdened installation program. I have no objection to the licensing and in fact applaude Stardock's approach but it's being required to have an otherwise useless program simply to update the game that I object to, so much so that I am still playing v1.4x even though I purchased DA during the start of the Beta period last year.

I'm also not really complaining about the situation, I'm happy to play DL v1.4x. I think it would be nice if I could play the DA that I paid for almost a year ago but installing SDC on my computer is simply too high a price to pay. If not for the outcropping of these threads I wouldn't have even mentioned it as I haven't really mentioned or complained about it for the past year.


I'm sure that all the people in this situation appreciate your patronization.