Don't set Impulse to display betas if you don't want them. They don't install automatically - you do have to tell it to install. The default installation of Impulse does not display betas, so you had to have changed that all on your own. Change it back and uninstall.

Personally, I never purchase anything, pre or otherwise unless I have the money right then and there AND when the release date is stated. Most companies tell you as you're checking out when your card will be charged during the review of the order, in fact, they do so because it's required by law.

Guys calm... I know the Devs dont have the full Expansion for us, but again the beta is pretty good alone. Think of it as appetizer for the bigger treat. And as for me, I personally recal it was "beta release" when i paid for it... Sadly I dont play the game much as my pc keeps dying on me. But I have high hopes for the future of SOTSE.. Maybe a sim city like planet surface??? Better yet outpost1!!  (hint-hint) hehe But before I make my post to be moved to sudjestions Ill shut it... Anyways, just wait up guys, i have not been disapointed yet. If you have, what are you doing playing this in the first place?? Go play HALO or something.. humpf lol

Well it's kinda like waiting for a new gameconsole, lets say the playstation4 (in the future). One of the big stores starts advertising that a week before the official launch you can pre-order it there during a night sale. So you stay up all night in the line in front of the store and as soon as the store opens, you run up to the big pile of playstation4 boxes and you pay your pre-ordered playstation4. Unfortunately when they found out you where european, they ripped you off at the cash register, but oww well you've got the new playstation4 a little while before the release date,

Then you come home, open the box, just to find out that there's a half assembled playstation4 in there, with a little note saying well this is not the final version of the new playsation, it's only a beta....ohhh and when you notice something is wrong, come report it back to us. So you think, ohh well that's fubar, first I got ripped off at the cash register and then it's only a beta altough they where telling me I was pre-ordering it, but hey I still get to play it a little earlier. So you plug it in. In some mysterious way it makes sure you cant play your playstation3 anymore. The first 5 days the dawm thing wont start at all and when you finally did manage to get it to start and finally was playing for a bit, the dawm thing crashed mid-game.

You email the manufacturer, to ask for a solution for the rippoff at the cash register, the non starting product, the crashing product, or even to just be able to play your old product again: What do they cvome up with? Nothing more then evasive answers, enormously difficult workarounds wich don't work, or just plain silence.

Wow I sure am lucky to have paid for that beta.

Exactly... if your playing the expansion now; it cant be all that bad, right? Would you rather they set a release date six months from now so had no game to play at all. I think releasing a new complete beta to pre-orderees (while they wait for the finished) is a marvelous idea... One of the most promising things about digital distribution imho.

If your really that angry about pating for a beta ask for a refund and don't play it anymore.

Maybe I am missing the point, but I understood exactly what I was getting.  A beta to play now while I was waiting for the release version.  I for one have been pretty cheesed at Stardock for a number of things but can't see where they did wrong in this instance...

Exskwid

Look i payed for a pre order.  Fine i can accept that.   Perhaps i don't have an expectation to get my money back if a product never ships, or if it ships in some chitty state but looking past that to the beta.

As a reward for my pre-order you allowed me access to a beta.  Great Normally the way these things go is by downloading the beta you accept the fact that it is beta software, and there is some expectation of helping the dev's fix any problems you come across. 

THis is THE FIRST beta software i know of, of ANY kind, that has overwrote the original program.  Even when beta testing windows 7. there is an expectation that you DONT overwrite your existing VIST/XP system with it.  Its beta software, you install it on a second drive, dual boot, separate machine.   You arnt surprised when it crashes, or your program fails to function under it.  which is why you took the time to keep it separate from your stable released software, so that you can fall back to it and continue to get stuff down.  Or in this case play the ORGINAL game i payed for.  In addition they usually include additional de-buging tools for the players to easily report problems.  I have yet to hear any word that reporting a min-dump was helpful in tracking down WHY it dumped.  If i had to guess? we (the players of the beta) lack the proper reporting tools to report crashes/dumps back to the devs.  So again it begs to be asked, why push the beta out to so many players, not give them the proper tools to help you de-beta it, and why F up the original stable program in the process?

Its nothing less than a major fundamental mistake by the devs.  The true reason of which we will likely never know.  I would LIKE to think the devs understood what a colossal F-up it would be to do exactly what they did, but were ordered to so by management. (so then I could blame management and not the hard working devs)  Sure ive heard some reasons for overwriting the original game for the expansion, but I dont believe we are getting the true reasons for doing it.  IN addition i think it should have been made EXCEPTIONALLY CLEAR that when you accepted the DL of the beta it will overwrite your existing game and you MAY not be able to go back to playing the original game without jumping through a bunch of hoops which would include the following steps....

Had that last part been clear,  i doubt most of the people that did DL the beta would have.

What have we as players gained other than a bunch of frustration. We dont have a good way to report bugs/crash/dumps back to the devs. We dont have an original stable version to fall back to without jumping through a bunch of hoops. We cant play complete full games of the beta with out it crashing/dumping. (what happens after 1-2 hrs of play?) And on top of all that the beta MAY not include all parts or aspects of the finished expansion.

So for all of you who seem to think its a great privilege for me to play with beta software before its released and therefore thats some how worth putting up with all the frustration and headache its caused.

From were I sit thats simply just grasping at straws in order to justify such a botched beta testing cycle.