I gave it to 'em by deciding to pre-order as soon as I heard they were making the game (the fact that my pre-order game a month later had more to do with finances than anything else).

The only other company I'd behave in that manner for is blizzard... and them only barely (I didn't care much for war 3).

omg delete this already, Yarlen might see this and thinks he can relax...

Haha, naa they are the best id say the way both companys are working with its userbase is evolutionary (if thats the right word).
I think more companys should do this kind of stuff, where the users has some saying into how a game should be.
They would have alot more happy customers.


THANKS IC & SD

Yes, yes, yes, this is a good topic

THANKS IRONCLAD & STARDOCK

You guys have worked very very very hard to give us this great already-release-quality game

Now get back to work!!!! Praise doesn't come without its consequences

Thanks ironclad

love your work

THANKS IC & SD

My thanks was NOT directed to you....... YARLEN

if you hug me kosc... if you even touch me...

i call that sexual harrasment. ban him plz

I'll take a hug...

Thank you!   

  Thanks guys! Much appreciated as we head into tackling all the Sins upgrades!

I've been a customer of Stardock since the beginning of the GalCiv 1 beta, and I cannot conceive of one single negative comment to express concerning Stardock. Also, its business model of deeply involving the customers in a long, beta development-and-testing process is "eventual" (in Stephen King parlance*).

In what concerns Ironclad, I only know about it since I downloaded its beta 2, on 21 June. I was then extremely impressed that the state of the beta, about 7 months before the final gold-master version, was already very beautiful and playable. Some games are now prematurely sold in a state that does not match the quality of Ironclad's mid-July, beta-2 condition. I can only wonder what this game will be like on next 21 January!

Involving the pre-order customers for so many months is an "eventual" move.

But most game developers & producers don't do that : they build a game in secret, they test it with a limited number of people who won't rock the boat, and they prematurely release buggy games with unsatisfactory features. My hypothetical explanation is that most developers & producers want to dominate & control their biased model of how a game should look & play : input from dozens (if not hundreds) of gamers, during a long-drawn beta-process, would make them lose that total control.

I think of Nival Interactive (Russian) when I say that, for example : in the development of "Heroes of Might & Magic 5", Nival imposed its model of a HM&M game, without caring to listen to the fans who had been HM&M experts since 1995 (Not that HM&M 5 is a bad game : it took about a year after the initial release to fix it to an "eventual" level of quality. But Nival is developing & testing the 2nd expansion in secret, as usual.)

It is refreshing to see that Ironclad & Stardock are not caught in the steel grips of cryptocratic, totalitarian control-freaks.

Oh, yes, before I forget : merci beaucoup .

* In the short story "Everything's eventual", the word is used by the main character as a synonym of "awesome".