DOWNLOAD IDEAS FROM BRAD.

from Stardock Forums
Okay, overall things are going pretty well. But I would like to propose an secondary path for people who have purchased the game directly but want to hear your views on:

Right now, you purchase the game, you get a serial number and a link to Stardock Central. You install SDCEntral, create an account and then enter in your serial number and then donwload the game.

It works pretty ewll overall but, between the occasionall technical glitch and users, in their excitement, bypassing a step it's creating a bit of a support hassle.

So here's an alternative path:

You order the game, it creates a link to download the retail level of the game. It would be one big old EXE though, few hundred megs. But this way, once you had the thing downlodaed to your drive, you'd have it.

Then at that point you could download SDCEntral and get the bonuspak at your leisure. But this way the download having to go through SDCEntral is much smaller and you have at least the 1.0 game and no matter what hapens, you wuldn't have to go through redownloading the entire thing through SDCentral, you could always just reinstall from that big file.

Let me know what you think. We can implement this quickly.
2,794 views 66 replies
Reply #1 from Stardock Forums Top
You could also seperate the media file from the main program, like in stardock, that way the game itself is only 80 megs or so. btw Brad , hope you had a nice few hours of sleep! ;)
Reply #2 from Stardock Forums Top
Yes!

As someone with more than one machine I like it a lot. It would also make downloading at work much easier as SDCentral is having a diagreement with our proxy every so often.

Paul

~SDC~
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Reply #4 from Stardock Forums Top
Now, second question, as Term mentioned, we could break it into two files. The only thing I worry there is that that would significantly complicate things. It doesn't take very many steps before you're back at SDCentral level of "complexity" for users.

I personally am more of the view of just give me a big file, let me donwload it and I'll go sleep. In fact, right now, most of my ideas involved doing X and then sleeping. ;)
Reply #5 from Stardock Forums Top
This is what I've been requesting from the start. One big .exe HTTP or FTP download, WITH d/l resume option. GetRight comes in very handy in situations like this.

SDCentral can then be used for BonusPak, patches, add-ons, and all other neat things AFTER you're got the game.
Reply #6 from Stardock Forums Top
I'd vote for the two files. I'd even suggest putting the link on the site but requirying a registration code to download.

Paul.

~SDC~
Reply #7 from Stardock Forums Top
Well I would agree that one big file would be easier, but I was thinking for people that are bandwidth limited it might make sense. Remember without stardock people will have to have their own download manager, or some people's download might get cut off, causing them to have to download the whole thing again. (:(
Reply #8 from Stardock Forums Top
I think the link should be sent in an email with the registration, that way you limit who can download it a little more :)
Reply #9 from Stardock Forums Top
that would be great. if only i didnt get errors registering gal civ.

i hope i get this sorted soon.

~SDC~
Reply #10 from Stardock Forums Top
That sounds like a great idea.

The one (or two) piece download would include the install routine?

This would bypass the need to use SD Central to restore and install the backup copies of the downloaded components?

~SDC~
Reply #11 from Stardock Forums Top
Yes, this is a great idea. Please make it one file.

I am on the Fourth time downloading all the files because SDC keeps messing up the multimedia install. :notsure: And this is with starting over from scratch with RC1 of SDC. :(

I purchased Drengin.net strictly so I could get this game immediately and with all these problems , I could have waited for the separate game and saved over $20.

I have spent over 20 hours trying to get this installed with the multimedia files( most of it spent downloading 4 times). Which I really have to say I am disappointed about considering I'm on a business T1 that get's 150k a sec from almost everywhere else.

On a side note, the 4th download just failed to install saying something about a file wasn't there. >:(

I was happy with OD, but this is starting to really upset me.

I want the full game including the multimedia in one installable file PLEASE :sniff!: (desperate now) I don't care how big the download is as I have already downloaded almost the equivilent of 2 Gigs and download files of that size on a regular basis. I just want it to work.

I am sorry for any ranting, I'm just very frustrated at this point.
Reply #12 from Stardock Forums Top
great idea as either 1 or 2 files.

i'd prefer d/ling 1 big file, though :)

Douglas
Reply #13 from Stardock Forums Top
Yes, I have been interacting with your tech support (Angie) all morning trying to get this through to them.
She kept telling me that the SDC is wonderful and never has any problems and that I was the only one.
I personally hate it as it was unable to log me in initially after purchasing the product for download from the website.
I had to go to galciv.com and create the account using the same email in order to get it to work.
One big file is definitely the way to go!
Let me know if you are able to get a link for it up and working soon as my dl of the product right now seems to be capped at 36KB.
:(

~SDC~
Reply #14 from Stardock Forums Top
I would also probably prefer downloading one big file to backup to CD, though you could have both available as options. I'm on a business line that usually gets anywhere from 100k/sec up to 700k/sec downloads so one big file is no problem.

The download through SDC has been pretty slow so far. Averaging less than 25k/sec most of the time. Your bandwidth must be really eat up right now or something is limiting the available bandwidth per user.

Having the one big file to download on as high speed a line as possible might help ease the burden on the SDC system since all the high bandwidth users would probably jump on the single file download.

~SDC~
Reply #15 from Stardock Forums Top
YES please make it one big download - include the bonus pack and the latest patches

Sith

~SDC~
Reply #16 from Stardock Forums Top
Or is there atleast a way to manually install the files without using SDC as I already have the files, I just can't get them to install properly.

I'm trying not to get bitter about this, but I'm getting to my wits end. :(
Reply #17 from Stardock Forums Top
I think the SDC sux and should be optional.
It would be ok if I were still on dialup, but im not!
The found the instructions not very clear and very convoluted.

For those of you who are having trouble getting it to work, try doing the following:

1: open SDC and login
2: click on tools>register products
3: click on the Drengin.net tab
4: select Galactic Civilizations in the Application tab
5: make sure your account info is correct
6: cut/paste your Serial number into the box and click Update

then when you are in software mode of SDC and you click on the Drengin.net tab you will see Galactic Civilizations.

Hope this helps.

ps - if you cannot get SDC (Stardock Central) to work, try logging into galciv.net and creating the account there, then logging in thru the SDC application.

~SDC~
Reply #18 from Stardock Forums Top
Regarding account problems -- the problem right now is that the thing doesn't check for duplicate "handles". It never came up before because, frankly, we just weren't popular enough for it to have come up so no one noticed that problem.

Okay, we're in the process of making ONE big file. Over time we may split it into two but for now, we want to side with simplicity.

Once you download that, you can use Stardock Central to deal with updates.

The reason we created Stardock Central was to make updating seamless, but it's apparently really beyond its scope to handle on a large scale downloading 600 meg files.

The download will be the retail version, i.e. same thing you'd get if you'd bought the game at the store.

Then you can install Stardock Central and get updates. I think this will make things much smoother.
Reply #20 from Stardock Forums Top
as a Drengin net user, what serial do I need to use for installing such a Galciv retail install? Or does it automatically detect my drengin.net serial?

~SDC~
Reply #21 from Stardock Forums Top
Let me add my thanks as well. :)

Hopefully this will make things go a lot more smoothly. Will you post the link to download this file on the message board, the main GalCiv downloads page or send it via e-mail to registered Drengin/GalCiv users?

~SDC~
Reply #22 from Stardock Forums Top
Biggy, your Drengin one should be enough to do it.

~SDC~
Reply #23 from Stardock Forums Top
Yes, thx for listening Frogboy.

ps - tell Angie I was just doing my job as an end user. :)

~SDC~
Reply #25 from Stardock Forums Top
Thanks Frogboy. I woul still like to be able to install this 500Mb I downloaded already, but if that's not going to happen, alas...

~SDC~