That probably wasn't such a smart thing to say



That's well known, reported, and fixed internally.

also i was thinking, maybe its to late in the production proces to put in but its just an idea so ill share it anyway.

i was thinking it would be cool if it were possible to blow up the planets (except the gass gaints) and astroids.
u could make it a system like when u blow up a planet it becomes an astroid and if u blow up an astroid it becomes a nebula.
then all stars could start with only planets and get shaped by playing.

to bad, so how do i fix the icons thing?

thnx for the info though

ah ok, thnx

yeah, sure...






does it even matter now?

i mean i payd allready

honestly.......... ur right i had a hack of the second and third beta, if it wasn't for the hacked beta's i probably wouldn't have preordered the game and probably never bought it at all.

But since i allready played and and knew what it was, i just HAD to play with the second race and didn't want to w8 for the game's release so i thought it over and decided to preorder wich i actually never, ever do.

I actually rarely buy games and the ones i do buy i allready tried with a hacked version so i know i dont waste 60 euro's.
This game was just worth it.

Seriously, these hacked beta's are great advertisement, just make sure the 4th beta doesn't leak(wich hasn't happened sofar) so people preorder for the Vasari like i did.

I do not like Pirates 44rs... you are a thief.

That said, if I ever find the person who leaked the other betas.... grrr....

THNX:)

Oh, I am fully aware of how the game industry created its own problem Spartan (Starforce, SecuRom, others) -- but when I encounter a pirate I'm still upset (Especially when said pirate targets a quality company like Stardock or... or... hrm, no one else out there matches SD / IC's quality!)

i back that...

60euro's for a game is not a cheap investment and the gaming companies are also beginning to see this.

Wich is why u see more and more games where u pay during play in small ammounts like war rock for example wich is free to play but is more like a demo until u start paying.

This way u know what u put ur money into and the people who want to play it in its full and form clans and stuff will pay monthly and eventualy pay a lot more than the single 60euro's, the fact that u can earn the money ingame aswell only adds to the "wanting" for the credits.

And if u dont like the game u dont pay anything at all!

offcourse i understands this only adds into the wolf/sheep mentality.
But looking around te world now there aint much we can do to stop them feedin from us "sheep" anyway but at least we'll have more of a choice wich wolf we feed.


so...

I am one of many people who just prefer to test a game before i buy it, so i almost always play a hack of a game before buying it, u can rarely ever play em online anyway so in my opinion u still only get half a game.
and if i like it i buy it.
seeing how many games i've played that were really disappointing and never played again, i simply wont risk wasting 60 euro's like that if i can help it.

otherwise i might just aswell go to a cassino and waste it there, at least ill get more rounds from it there!

OK I guess the real question is which companies would you purchase products from sight unseen? I spent a lot of time thinking about this and as much as I wanted to I could not come up with at least 10 developers. So what follows is my top seven (7) developers in order of preference. Oddly enough I just realized none of them are from the UK and it has a very large developer community.

1. StarDock
2. IronClad *
3. Petroglyph
4. Paradox
5. Relic *
6. Kerberos
7. BioWare*

On a side note would anyone here besides me be willing to flat out pay $100 USD for a title upfront (like we did for this beta) if it was a package deal including one or two X-packs and or collectors components or special in game things?

I ask because I fully expect the average title price to hit $100 by 2010, you know the year we make contact.

My thinking is that small highly reputable companies like SD & IG should offer such programs so they can get chunks of working capital to spring board new franchise development, general operations and staffing as well as provide enhancement options for existing products.

My personal favorite option is to just charge me a monthly fee paid annually or semiannually and give me full access to any products in the companies catalog. This final business model is where I see industry going in the long run anyway. So first one there gets the gold methinks. After all given the patent system we have in the US my idea seems like a winner. I'm just to lazy to do the paperwork for it. Hell money is not that important to me anyway.

* Canadian

Read it again. Maybe I was not clear enough. That is what I get for trying to post between phone calls.

In short, the first point was about having a willingness to pay $100 up front for a title unseen based solely developer credibility as part of a package deal. The second point was that we paid in advance for Sins during its development based on credibility only or in other words unseen. I was simply showing the commonality of the situation nothing more. I was not referencing cost for Sins at all. I did not intend to imply that we paid $100 for Sins merely that we paid in advance for it based entirely on developer reputation.

@Ron - you again fail to see the words willing to pay. They are not in the past tense as in paid up front. Moreover I did intend for the reader to understand or come away with the idea of "would you pay $100 up front?". I don't follow your thinking today brother.