Ihave pre-ordered but I personally can't see why you would not want the boxed set on the shelves for the Holidays.

That said, I would hope that we could get a fairly reliable schedule of release dates for each new beta release and would have a mostly complete game in our hands for those that have time off from school/work over the holidays.

If all the functionality is there that's intented to and all major bugs have been slain I'd like to have it by christmas. I can "beta test" it alone too. All assuming TA is actually ready to be released and not pushed out in a hurry.

Like almost everybody else I'd go for January.

January, negative press for unfinished features would be just annoying when it's such a fine product, and from one of the finest software companies on this planet.

I say that if you are on track to release it in December, release it in December. Stardock's track record for updating this game has surpassed any other game company in living memory, so if a December release leads to one extra patch coming out, who cares?

Of course most people are voting for later release because they feel an earlier release will have less features and/or be more buggy, or think it's fun to be able to play around with a Beta prior to the proper release. But I don't think that Joe Sixpack has an understanding of the implications of missing the Christmas release date, something as a game company you would have much better knowledge. I'd say on this occasion Stardock you should go with whatever is the best business decison, of which you guys would know the best. If the game genuinely needs more development time, then fair enough, but at the end of the day your original intentions were to not have a public beta at all, so why now look at extending it and thereby delay the release of the game?

I'd vote for January if the poll wasn't broken. Every time I click 'vote' it returns some massive code errors to me.

release it when it is ready to be called a game and not one minute before that.

January is the better release date - for all the reasons stated! Since I've already pre-ordered the game, the enhancements that are going to be added add value to my purchase. Do it!

Take your time, get it all right. Rushing games is always a bad idea. We'll all wait.

Since you have stated before it is your work on business systems that provides the money for your company, and the work on the games is icing on the cake I will assume that the impact on your bottom line in dealying a release until 2008 is not a significant concern (or at least one that as a CEO you are willing to account for).

I will also take the fact that you asked the question of us at face value and assume that our answers actually do mean something to you. (That it is easy to believe based on the concern you have shown in the past for your customers, makes that an easy one.)

Waiting will give you and us:

1) Solid individual AI's
2) More time for feature requests
3) Less opportunity for major bugs to impact consumers not familiar with Stardock's customer support.
4) More opportunity for good press. An important point as this is what will bring added name recognition to the public unfamiliar with your work, this will increase long term sales more than a Christmas release of a less superior game.
5) More time for the members of the modding community to have major mods ready to go on release.

Not waiting will allow you:

1) To have additional sales in a holiday shopping period already expected to be sluggish.
2) To Compete with all the other new games for copy space in magazines/web sites, retail shelf space, and for the attention of the general game buying public.
3) To appease the part of your fan base that does not want to preorder and take part in the beta.
4) To give you that sense of peace and satisfaction Christmas morning (or Kwanza morning of Chanukah evenings or even boxing day morning if you prefer ) that you are "finished" and that you released two expansion packs in 2007. even if it means having cheated your fans out of the AI they could have had... that they deserve...   
5) To Know that you didn't let the terrorists win. (or some other vague post 9/11 reference)

Oh and almost forgot to mention that waiting will allow Carielf more time to read all the flirtatious emails she undoubtably gets... now wether that is a good or bad thing is up to you to decide.

Personally I am in complete shock! How dare a company actually care what their user base thinks? Normally we are told.. "Yeah.. its out but there are some bugs we might get to sometime after the holidays... Deal..."

Instead we get (from stardock).. "Ok, were on time and could release it but we want your permission to put some extra work into it to make it even better. If not, then thats cool too."

When was the last time, if ever, did a software maker check with the fans to see if its ok to delay a game for good reasons? And when was the last time a fan base said, yep "Take all the time you guys need!!!!"

Waiting will give you and us:

1.) More time to spend with our family during the holiday season.
2.) More time to see what ideas everyone has to how to make this great game even better.
3.) More time to critisize your work and time delay.
4.) More time to sleep and dream of this great game .
5.) Potentially more time to add an extra beta release on more extra's you introduce to the game.
6.) Something to look forward to in that harsh cold January/February.


Not waiting will give you and us.

1.) Angry wifes / girlfriends / husbands / boyfriends that this game takes from them during this holiday season.
2.) Angry bosses that hate when we call in a week straight after the game release during this holiday season.
3.) Hear complaints for those who wanted you to wait to make the game better.
4.) Less sleep, but who really needs sleep
5.) A final quick shell of what could have been but, also could be updated.
6.) You will still hear from those who think they have better ideas of how to make this game better.

An improvement editor eh? That will go good with custom techtrees/races.

Yeah stardock is hott stuff. They dont bite the hands that feed.

Get it right, in January if necessary. But what I am desperately waiting for in the betas is the option to custom-make your own civs and maps. Couldnt that be done following the original December schedule (even if in a limited version maybe lacking the last tech trees)?

An important note here - a few people are saying that a December release will ultimately be the same as a January release after they release a few patches. This might be true, but has a few drawbacks that some people may not be aware of:

* Stardock wants to get started on GC2 v2.0. There was a plan at one point that it would be out in January or February I believe. The option of releasing in December sounds like it would mean cutting out new features for good, probably in favor of getting their other projects going.

* Supporting the above theory, Brad has already stated that a new game is almost always more profitable than an expansion. They won't want to do much support past GC2 v2.0.

* Gaming publications (physical and web-based) like to rip games apart that "need" patches, so even if the release did get the same level of support after the fact, the original release is what the magazines/websites are evaluating. Obviously this would be bad for SD. Granted, an early TA release is bound to be pretty sweet, but the best reviews and coverage will happen if the game is AMAZING, not simply "pretty sweet".

Anyway, I still hope a delay doesn't hurt SD's bottom line, but I think it's way cool that this company actually asked our permission. Go Stardock!

But PLEASE give us an updated beta schedule! The poll results are obvious. It would take a hell of a lot of voting to change the overwhelming preference of delaying until January, so please, let's get an idea what we can expect and when we can expect it!

Release it late? Deny us our crack? (starting to have fits and go insane). To me, its a non-issue. If you relase it sooner and there is a few bugs, etc. big deal. We all know Stardock will come out with a billzillion updates, and that the game will have some bugs / imperfections if it is released in January ANYWAY. So why wait?

The way I see it, if new players are like "this game sucks ass and they should have waited a month, then great... they can go back to playing Halo 3, the most hyped game of all time, that to me looks like every other shooting game out there. We don't want them as customers.

I imagine the economy is going to stay the same anyway right? Right now, I feel stupid balancing out planets with half production and half research, when what you get is QUARTERED. It just feels like the smart way to play is all labs or all factories with focus on the opposite so you don't lose production.

Take out the percentage sliders. Let us get all production and all research. We effectively choose with how to use our precious tiles, so why divide twice and QUARTER production?

Really good metaverse players, do you guys go all lab, all factory to avoid the infamous production and research quartering phenomenon?

Is the poll closed? I am not able to vote so I assume that it is. Not that it would make a difference anyway since I was going to vote with the 90% that said wait.

Who cares what they think. I guess money is the only thing that matters. Like I care what these guys say. World in Conflict got a 95% from Gamespot, the highest rated game of the year, and it stinks!! I played it once, and then went back to World of Warcrack and the occasional look at galciv2 and Civ4 for more of my needed daily injection of crack. Maybe I am missing something but World in Conflict just wasn't fun. For me, resource gathering in RTSs is fun for some reason even though in can be tedious. Kind of like how killing endless mobs in WOW is fun and never gets too old even though you would think it would.

Oh well, even though I am for a December release, its good to see how Stardock treats its fan base with respect and as a Democracy.

I could'nt care less how long they take. OK by christmas we have more then what we got atm in the beta but the longer they take the better. It gives them time to add plenty of new features and also bug fixes.

I like what I seen so far considering its an early beta. I could'nt care how long they take for all I care the final could be released next june. But by christmas we would have alot more content to play with then we currently got.

So my vote goes to January.

Also I like the fact stardock ask there customers and listen to them. That is what I like in a company and they have good level of support and keep patching the games as well as adding new content. Not many game publishers/developers do that these days.

As a beta owner, I vote later .... still a lot to do

Take your time. I can wait. Make it the best expansion thank you can make it. I am in the beta and enjoying it. January for me please. Thanks Stardock your the best!!!

Jan please

I vote for December. The expansion will get even better if we wait for February, March, April and so on..
I think releasing the game on 12 December instead November adds extra waiting time and January even more..
I pre-ordered and playing beta. I would like to have the final version on holidays and play a lot. Additionaly Stardock will lose the Christmas opportunity.

I suggest 2 options
A. Release a finished expansion on December and update it later on update 2.0 with all extra and better AI.
B. Release a final beta on December for those who pre-ordered it so everybody is happy. Additionaly in January you can release the final expansion and update 2.0.

January for sure. If someone really wants to play it sooner, just pre-order it and play the beta. More polish is always a good thing, I think