The only reason we're harping on this problem here is because this thread is specifically about the habitable planet problem. As a beta tester, I'm well aware of how good this version is compared to the previous production version. My only problem is that this "tweak" didn't go through the beta test. So, this is the time and place we have available to give you feedback. And, once again, these changes to habitable planet numbers are not just a "tweak" from a playability point of view. Maybe it is from a programming point of view (I don't know). But, for us, it's a big-time, highly visible change to game play.

Anyway, I apologize for editorializing in some of my previous posts. From now on, I'll try to be a bit more diligent in just reporting facts.

There is no doubt you guys have went the extra mile so please don't get discouraged. (Alexman at CFC also took a lot of heat after kindly posting the details of the latest 3.13 BTS patch when it was delayed longer than he expected.)
I agree, even though I haven't post it, that 1.8 patch is a big step forward even if there are less planets. (no big deal to me)
Can I ask if you got any idea how you are going to deal with the 2gb limit with the new expansion with it's huge 22X22 map grid. Will the stars/planet going to be spread out more or are there going to be even more stars/planets in TofA?

The new expansion pack doesn't have the 2 gigabyte limit nearly as much because we've re-done the textures in a way that makes them use a fraction as much in memory even though they are much higher in quality.

Hey, Frogboy, you guys have set the standard for being responsibe to the
users.

It is because you have set the standard so high that we get on your case so
quick if something goes wrong.

Again your response assures us that your company is going to get things right.
We are like the fans who boos the .350 hitter when he gets into a slump. But despite temporary problems, he is still the MVP.

We whine so much so that we are sure that we have your attention. Now we have done enough, maybe too much, and so we anxiously wait for your next version both of DA and the new expansion (which I have already bought!).

You make great products!

"And in the blue corner for Stardock Systems we give you FROGBOY!"

And the crowd go wild! "GO FROGGY! GO FROGGY!"

Brad please remember most of us are still appreciative of what you guys are giving us FREE and continue to be amazed at the speed of fixes.

To those moaning about 1.8a i would just like to say that as soon as a major CTD issue was reported (Upgrade ship crash) we saw a new update the following day! Not many companies would do this. So we get a few less habitable planets after an oopsie tweak.. Big deal! I am sure we can cope for the time being

Constructive criticism is fine but lets not go out on a witch hunt here. Maybe we could nicely report an issue we have seen vie the email address and then sit back and watch the updates roll in as the Stardock team respond to our issues as they always have.

Just a thought eh?

Mob mentality seems to explain this well; I second the e-mail notion, because then we won't wind up with people responding to other people which results in a general inflaming of the issue.

This is really simple. Why not make a checkbox for "max habitable planets cap"/"max ram useage at 2GB" in the game options... People with older weaker computers could use that. People with top of the line machines will turn it off...

There is absolutely no reason to artificially reduce the max settings for everyone because some people's machines can't handle it.

There is also no reason to get so hostile against SD for making those changes... those features do benefit most users...

I started another 1.8a game and ended up blowing the averages the other way. This time, when I started it up, I got 118 systems under a Large/Abundant map (yeah!). From my explorations around me, it looks like I've got a decent number of Habitable planets (I'm not going to do a CTRL-U on this one since I want to play it). It might have absolutely nothing to do with it, but this time I cycled all the sliders back through to Abundant just in case something wasn't registering. I'll keep an eye on things for a while and see how things go. Also, after I finish the game, I'll do the CTRL-U on my initial saved game and count up the planets.

That's quite a loaded statement. As far as updates, in the least, they're necessary to resolve playability issues. If Stardock were to develop the game to a point where there were very few issues before releasing, I probably wouldn't have a problem with "no free updates". But, that just doesn't happen in the real world. As an example, 1.6 had some serious playability issues for me. If 1.8a had not been released to resolve them, I would have been quite dismayed with Stardock. As it was, I was surprised DA had been out so long with these problems. You have a responsibilty to resolve quality issues when someone pays for your products. Whether you want to add new features or not, is up to you. That's really nice of Stardock to add content/features for free and I appreciate it, but charging for bug fixes would be an insult to me as a customer.

As it been said so many times here it's has nothing to do with max ram usage or a older weaker PC but the limits of 32bit system in which all PC games are running. There are no PC games today running on 64bit. In fact, As noted before even the majority of people with Vista has the 32bit version and not 64bit.
so if you happen to play a game with tons of planets, thousands of ships, and other stuff there is a chance you will hit this 2gb virtual memory limit (not the number shown in Windows Task Manger) and CTD.

The irony is those with older PC probably avoid playing such huge maps with tons of ships because of their hardware limits. It's those who pushes the games to the max with powerful PC will more likely to hit this 2gb limit. This is the same thing with civ4; it was those of us who had a PC to run the game with superhuge map (as well as huge map with large mods) that had run into the problem with MAF.

Yeah, there were some loaded statements in there, but let's all go ahead and give him a pass on pointing them out. They've been killing themselves trying to get 1.7 out the door, working simultaneously on TotA, and fantasy 4x, and the launch didn't go as swimmingly as they had hoped. We gamer's do get a bit myopic at times, and they were probably hoping for more of a "champaign" period after getting it out the door.

I will forgive the defensiveness out of pity for people who have to try and balance individual tech trees for each race starting next week. I'll get my payback on the beta boards there

I hit the limit on occasion. The only thing that ever really bothered me about it is the way the game would blow away the old save before failing to write the new one. But, that's been fixed. So bascially, it doesn't really bother me. I just restart the game from my last save.

I don't know if this is something easy to do or not, but a warning would be sufficient. A popup that says you're about to run out of memory might be easy to program and would pretty much address the issue. Just save and restart the game, problem solved.


Yea, I can imagine producing game software is a tough business. I bet they go through a lot of hell. OTOH, I'm just a customer who is paying for a product and expecting a certain level of quality. There are some amazing game products to mearsure up to. Should I lower my standards for what they *try* to do for me and what they go through. I don't know. Maybe I should, maybe I shouldn't.

The next best thing is you could just run Process Explorer WWW Link and keep an eye on the numbers under "Virtual size" while running the game. As the game continues you will see this number get larger.

To frogboy



First of all I say thank you for your quick response and I appologize if any of my comments were taken in a bad way. Other than that I think I speak for most of the people out here are just giving constructive critisizm and really didn't mean that you were killing the game just as brycei said



I really appreciate all the hard work you guys have done on the game and even though we complain about different aspects of the game that we might not fully understand as a programing point of view we will always respect all the hard work you all do to help keep this game growing and maintaining a better preformance. Thank you.

Well, I am going to respectfully disagree and take the other side of this argument. I typically play with all random settings. I have barely noticed a planet decline (I've only played two games, so small sample size) - and I never quite know what setting the random generator gave me.

However, planets were already increased from DL to DA. One of the keys to an evolving game like this is learning to adapt. How many threads over the last year have complained that range is too easy to come by and nothing feels far enough apart? You can't get as high a score with less planets... that's not the end of the world.

If it solves a memory problem, thats a good thing. They shouldn't optimize this game for top end computers and "screw everyone else"... that is a bad marketing and business decision, no matter how much the elite few with top machines might prefer that they are constantly catered to. The game is still playable. The improvements are still fun (although you fixed my treasury reset Xeno Ethics bug... that was a nasty surprise for me the first time I hit it!), and overall I like the changes.

I won't deny I'm biased. Probably a good 10% of the games I've played most races were limited to their home system and perhaps 1 more planet. I'm used to scratching it out in the rough. More planets has always made the game much easier for me - the less planets the more of a challenge. The more of a challenge, the more fun I have.

This change cuts deep against score grinding, but solves a memory problem, and results in a slight game rebalance. Its not the end of the world, and might not even be a bad evolution of the game overall. As long as planet numbers don't drop below DL levels you haven't really lost anything anyway.

If you are going to stop playing over a free update you have your own issues to work out. I, for one, don't really see this as a big deal.

Good luck out there,
- Wyndstar

Dear Frogboy - Telling the people who are the most passionate about your game to "get a grip" doesn't exactly strike me as a smart marketing move. We know how hard it is just to make a good game, heck we've all bought tons of flawed ones, and this is a GREAT game! These forums and your responsiveness to issues brought up in them, frequent & free updates, is just one of the things that we love about Stardock.
I don't usually get involved in forums, but this issue was really important to me.
I look forward to relaxing each night with a game that had everything I love, and then it was gone. I truly hope that you can give me that back. I have already given you a vote of confidence by preordering TotA.

Come on frogboy. This game was no where near done when it came out. It's been in constant beta. Don't get me wrong it's a great game.

It's got soo much promise. To me you've had to do the updates because the game was coming so short of it's amazing potential. What bugs me is that rather than dealing with the problems and refining the game, you keep adding more features, and then doing a sloppy job of developing, integrating and testing them.

Here you are coming out with another expansion. Meanwhile loads of stupid bugs still plague the game, and I'm sure you're on your way to creating a load more. Why do you refuse to have a real testing department? Why do you have open alpha testing? (you call it beta, but come on) Why did you not go with one more beta? I happilly tested the last 3 betas. Why would throw in a bunch of changes and call it 1.8? If this happened in a beta you wouldn't have this back lash.

Calling us whiners is just childish. The reality is most of us were annoyed enough at your "tweaks" we stopped playing. You should be happy we care enough to say hey, that was a stupid tweak.

"You do understand that Vista comes with a 64 bit version, don't you?"

Yeah, I was so excited about it - I was finally going to get to use all the bits available to me on my AMD 64.

But - I got the "wrong" version and now I'm stuck with 32 bits. I didn't realize Microsoft was only going to make it available if I got the "right" version, and that if I wanted 64 bits, I had to pay an arm, leg, and my first born.

I feel like I've put a 4 cylinder engine into a Mustang. Nearly all Vista capable computers - and all new computers sold with Vista - are capable of 64 bits. I think Microsoft really missed the opportunity to make 64 bits the norm.

So, yeah, I think Microsoft made a big mistake by not pushing harder to make 64 bits available to the general public.

BTW, great game Stardock . I love the improvements, and I love the way Stardock does things. I've never seen a company so open to its customers .

"Frogboy aka Brad Wardell (stardock ceo)"

Whoah - he's the CEO?!

I don't think I've ever seen a company where the CEO makes regular visits to the forums .

I've really gotta buy Object Desktop when I get the money and keep supporting this company. This company really is the greatest, and it's full of good surprises .

I'm also planning on upgrading my current computer to a quad core (alonge with a new motherboard and memory). Maybe I'll dedicate a core to Stardock stuff .

I disagree it's always been a great game just as you said and keeps getting better for the most part with some setbacks that I'm sure like always will be fixed especially this one with as much backlash as they're getting.



I agree one of the smart things you said.



I neither agree or disagree. I think its great they are developing another expansion keeping in mind to work out the major bugs in beta before release even if it means pushing out the release date a while to do it. As for adding on another beta to what is now refered to as v1.8 &v1.8a(which by the way thank you again for responding so fast to somewhat address the problem) I think there probrably should have been a 1.7beta5 even though this would have pushed the final release out into the first planned portion of the TAbeta.



This response I think was understandable we all get frustrated especially over something that we did. I know if I was proud of an acomplishment that has been so successfull like this game and I was having people basically tearing me a new one I'd probrably respond very simular to the way frogboy did after all we're all human and we all could use some constuctive critism which is what this post was all about.

Sorry I didn't quote your whole reply gallager118, here is some constructive critism for you and I respect your opinions. Thank you.

Who is "most of us" and "we" you are referring to?
(I can easily turn your statement around to say "you should be happy we care enough to say 'hey, that was a stupid complaint.")

gallagher118, chill. Stardock's bug list is significantly less serious than most games I've played. The worst issues I have dealt with are inconsistencies in text ("+2% speed", for instance) and the occasional CTD (annoying as hell for sure, but autosave deals with it nicely, and it's pretty rare for me - maybe once every 20 hours of game play). Anything that's truly serious (and I'm not talking about the 5% of users afflicted by intermittent bugs, as every game on the market has this issue, usually with a rate of double Stardock's), like the broken AI or accidental drop in habitable planets, gets fixed.

Galactic Civilizations 2 is quirky for sure. There are a lot of things I personally would love to see happen to it, but most of them are just quirks or my personal preferences - weird text, not being able to easily see where research points are coming from, etc - and not bugs.

Frogboy, you kick ass, and I hope you keep your attitude intact. Too many companies get too corporate for their own good and won't speak their mind to defend their product. Some may think that's a good thing (I for one prefer honest, if emotional, responses to politically correct BS), but along with being more "professional" (i.e., anal) tends to be the megacorp money drive. "If we releasing fixes but also add a feature, we can call this an expansion instead of a free update!" Just look at what happened to Arcanum (amazing potential, but they weren't allowed to do more than one or two post-game patches per the corporate powers) or Heroes IV (good potential as well, but 3D0's idiocy led to purposefully releasing it unfinished to squeeze a few dollars out before the bankruptcy). Do we really want a company that shuts their employees up when they have opinions? Or a company that has opinions, passion, and drive right at the top?

I'll vote for Stardock every damn time. I'd rather see opinions I disagree with (I still think capping stars / planets should be an option) than no passion for the product they make.

not as much as whining in the first place.



"most of us"? what makes you believe that?

All games will have "serious playability issues" for someone.

I think the case would be made that GalCiv: Dark Avatar required no free updates at all. 

It had no significant bugs in it and as you may recall, it was the highest rated PC game of 2007 until Bioshock arrived (now it's merely #2). 

Let's make sure we understand each other: We choose to do updates to the game because we want to.  If you fel our games are buggy or problematic then please, do not purchase another Stardock game ever.  Go away now.  In fact, feel free to email me your contact info and I"ll put you into a "cannot buy" database in case you forget in the future that you shouldn't buy our software.

If the quality of GalCiv II v1.6 was insufficient for you, then I don't want you as a customer or a player of our games.  

Let us be clear: If you felt 1.6 was buggy and that we owed you an additional update then I don't want you to be our customer. Ever.

You and others have made the case that we shouldn't do any more free updates for Dark Avatar until after Twilight of the Arnor comes out.  1.8A is it.

And if you think it's buggy do not buy Twilight of the Arnor or any other Stardock product.  Because we considered the quality of 1.5 (the original Dark Avatar release) to be very good.  That's our standard of quality. If it doesn't meet your needs then we are both better off parting ways now.

Nothing aggravates me more than when people with no leverage speak as if they have leverage.  Let me be clear: If nobody had bought Dark Avatar or buys Twilight of the Arnor it would make no noticeable difference to Stardock's bottom line. 

Game sales are what allow us to make more games and allow us to make games in the way that we think people like them being made - open, transparent, with lots of user feedback with no on disk copy protection. But the existence of these sales don't determine the overall company's future. 

If someone doesn't like the way we make games or thinks our games are buggy then the best thing they can do is not buy them.  If the RELEASED version of our games are considered unacceptable to a user, then people shouldn't buy future products.  They should not instead sit around treating our free updates as some sort of entitlement. When people treat our updates as entitlements, they destroy the incentive to do them and diminish the sense of specialness in their existence.

We make games because we enjoy them. They are certainly a good business venture as well but the underlying motivation to do them - particularly the expansion packs - is to keep making the game better because it's fun and we believe in the community.  We honestly think that most of the community appreciates and enjoys the work we do.

So the minute that the most vocal elements of the community begin to treat our updates as entitlements and try to use the "you owe it to us as customers" then I'm going to bring the hammer down and make sure we are crystal clear as to why we do these updates.

And to be clear: The original post here is fine. I think it's fine to have constructive criticism of the game.  What went over the line were the people who argued we had "destroyed the game" or talk that 1.8 is somehow ruined or that we are "regressing the game back to GalCiv I".

I can assure you very very few people even noticed a difference in habitable planets. And those that did we had already begun to find ways to satisfy them within 24 hours of release.  Not having as many habitable planets as someone would like is not a bug.

And with some reasonable discussion we could have been talked into continuing to put up updates this week to make sure that the habitable planets at the highest setting were satisfactory for long time players while still having the memory savings we had achieved with the modified algorithm -- even though doing this would have meant working 16 hour days this week instead of 14 hour days since Twilight of the Arnor beta 1 is due out this week. 

But getting flamed and insulted has successfully taken away the desire to work longer hours to do that. It'll have to wait until we have more time (after Twilight of the Arnor).

Fine. I wasn't going to buy the expansion until I saw that it was stable. Now I just won't buy it. (because of what you just said, and DA still isn't stable, and from your attitude it never will be)