Ok, hopefully this won't be coming out wrong.
First, I consider myself a casual yet fan of stardocks games. I got my first glimpse through Galactic civilization 2 and love that game. I then purchased Sins of a Solar Empire and enjoyed that game as well (I do know stardock didn't develop that game).
I am also a big supporter of Brad. I admire in standing, regarding the gaming bill of rights, his stand on the DRM issues and how amazing it is for a CEO to be so available to his customer, the gamers. Brad is approachable and this is amazing coming from a CEO.
As for Elemental, I was, just like many others, waiting in the chat room late at night for the retail copy to be made available to us. Like a kid waiting for his candy, I was as eager as anyone else to play the final version of this game and get into this adventure. Then I notice that despite the game being in "retail" form, it was clearly lacking quality wise (stability, bug wise) than other retail products.
Today, when I notice this thread, I got filled with 2 very different thoughts. The first one was happiness. I was pleased to see that Stardock listen to player feedbacks and are hard at work working on the issues on the game. That's the part I like about Stardock. Their relationship with the customers (gamers) and how well they listen to feedback and add these into the game.
But then, my brain kicked in and I couldn't help but to feel disappointed. Disappointed in the fact that this game was clearly, clearly not ready for release. That this goes against what Brad has been vouching for in the past. What makes it even more disappointing is that Brad said the game was indeed ready and finished. How can a game be finished with so many show stopper bugs, multiplayer features not available 2 weeks after the game launched?
I know that on a business standpoint, releasing the game some time before the release of civilization V was needed. But this game needs a few more months of polish to be considered ready. I was only in the beta for a few weeks and I take the blame. I should have spent more time playing and reporting bugs. I will take my part of the blame, as a beta tester, I wasn't as dedicated to it as I should have. I failed stardock in that sense and I apologize for it. Maybe if I would have taken the game, my feedback would have translated into some of these bugs being fixed by release.