I agree.  The game is not inexpensive and should be more "polished" than it is.  I get the distinct feeling that the last few days have been "oh S***" days for the devs trying to patch etc.  I like Stardock, although less than in past years, and will continue to support them and hope the game turns into what it was billed to be but for now...it's not worth the purchase price.   Apologies aside...this poor release and comments made by Brad  could very well turn out to be a HUGE PR problem for Stardock.

It seems to me that if they are going to release a game at AAA price, they should release at AAA polish.

They are competing with the big studios on big studio terms; if so, they should offer products worthy of that league.

At the same time, I also totally understand the philosophy of fans here that say it's worth investing in what is essentially a beta product because they agree with the vision, support the company, and are confident it will reach the necessary standard in the long term.

The problem is, that's not how the game is presented, and a review has a duty to call out a buggy product. This is what that review did - in a very fair way. It bent over backwards to express confidence the game would be fixed.

The problem with complaining you were quoted out of context, is that its a comment you have made numerous times on these forums to people with valid criticism of the game (who have already bought the game anyway). Perhaps if you listened to criticism instead of shouting people down, then Elemental might be the better for it.

To be fair, I seem to recall Blizzard releasing a couple of other games between Starcraft 1 and 2.  I think one was some sort of monthly pay multiplayer fantasy thing. 

It's a little like asking...did Stardock really need 16 years to make a sequel to MoM?  

Well maybe if Stardock had actually made MoM, you might have actually had a relevant point.

I guess a better criticism is - after 12 years of new RTSs coming out, and all the accompanying innovation and advancement of the genre (and gaming in general), do they really think Starcraft with a facelift still measures up?

I'm not saying that SC2 is merely SC with a facelift (enigma's words, not mine). Just saying that after 12 years of change and innovation have passed, fans have a right to expect a lot more from a new game regardless of how much of those 12 years were actively spent developing it. So, "Did you really need 12 years to make that game?" could be interpreted to indicate: "In the past 12 years we've come to expect more from games like that."

It doesn't have anything to do with reasoning. What I said is a fact. They very well could've said just that and they would've been 100% correct.

Hay!  I love Sacred 2    but I will admit... it crashed my PC HARD sometimes.

I didn't read through all 200+ replies to this thread, so forgive me if this has already been said:  The following quote from PC Gamer is hard to dispute:  "But putting junk like this in a box and charging money for it is not okay, however rapidly you try and patch it afterwards. It punishes you for being a fan, it punishes you for buying on day one, it punishes you for pre-ordering, and it punishes you for having faith that a great company like Stardock wouldn’t ask you to pay for a game until it’s fit to be played." (Except for the "junk" adjective.  "Junk" has no potential, IMO, but Elemental obviously does.)

Valid comment.  However, I still really like the game, and was pretty dissatisfied with the initial launch - I'm sticking with it, as are most of us. 

I read the article and it comes across to me like the writer is someone who really wanted the game to be as great as it should have been but was let down, like a lot of us. Valid points are made including the recommendation to stay away for right now. I think pulling in the quotes from the forum posts detracted from the quality of the article...However, to dismiss it outright would be un-wise.

I support Stardock 200% and my support for PCGamer just went to 0%. The CEO of Stardock is why I pre-ordered. I own a decent amount of Stardock programs and have never been disappointed, they will get the problems fixed and I know they stand behind their products. More than I can say for PCGamers AD riddled magazines.

WOW's only problem was the servers got overloaded. I was there at release, but chose a low pop "roleplaying" server, as well as playing at offpeak times, due to my time zone, so I personally had ZERO problems.

bah defend your publisher all you want, but pc gamer uk is known to be the "worst" review/preview etc etc in all publications. Maybe the people in the U.K, are actually blind to this fact, but not many others outside it. Funny thing is, the Pc Gamer US version is always pretty much right on with their stuff. They should just close the UK branch down or here is a thought , actually hire some compitant gamers who have actual schooling. Not just joe-shmo looking only for a paycheck and believing only negative comments on about every game that doesn't advertise with them sucks. Big suprise there. I am sorry to blow a whistle foul here, but when you bash a game like this and don't for others even worse (again refer to total war series) you definitly show a one sided review and again, big suprise (pun) this goes the same for anyone who doesn't advertise or give you incentive.

Sorry gents, but your mag sucks in the gaming world. Maybe in your world it's fine, but for many as myself, PC gamer US does the gaming world justice as much as game informer, two that easily top any infomation pc gamer uk will ever offer.

Because their customers were complaining. Much like a lot of Elemental's crash issues are actually confirmed ATI driver problems, but Stardock has to deal with them anyway (and half my job these days is working around odd Microsoft or Oracle bugs).

By definition using hardware at it's full capacity is not a bug. It's faulty hardware design if doing so causes it to fail. But people would rather Blizzard do something about it then go chase down a hardware manufacturer to fix their crap, since it's a lot easier for Blizzard to fix it.

i cant fathom how anyone can take up for stardok here.  i paid $50 for a finished product not a glorified beta test, the game flat out doesnt work it needed a massive patch before you could even play the copy of the game as it was shipped, how pathetic is that?  and after the patch it still crashes constantly.  i see some people say other games are buggier, ok....they suck too.  i didnt like the latest starcraft that much but i can appreciate the fact that blizzard would never ever ship a game like this to customers, so its nice that the ceo and everyone else posts on the boards and are "real gamers" but if they really cared about the game and not just making a quick buck they would have pushed the release date back and finished the game, instead of selling customers defective merchandise.  big ups to pc gamer for having the stones to tell it like it is.

Here's an idea...

Post this meaningless drivel on the PCG UK site.

Hay lets leave your anti british attitude out of this ok,this isnt about anything other than this game and atm alot of what the pc gamer guy said is just true period.I dont care if your a freakin martian if your telling the truth its the truth, and sometimes telling it how it is without sugar coated topping is tuff for some to take.

Waiting until Feb to release would have been too late.  Releasing in August was too early.  Unfortunately SD boxed themselves into a situation where they had no 'Goldilocks just right' option (I think the game will be 'release-ready' in Nov-Dec).

Releasing in August has cost SD their reputation as a 'we won't release until it's ready because that's our philosophy and because we don't need the money that badly' company as has been claimed.  Elemental's release has earned SD a 'we'll release sooner when it's not ready instead of later when it is if retail timing gives us only those 2 choices' reputation.  This can be undone, if Demainsky's advice is taken.

The PCG article is a good barometer -- those who think it's too easy just might be 'haters'.  Those who think it's too harsh just might be fanbois.  Both haters and fanbois are equally unhelpful to a business that wants to succeed with the general public.

PC Gamer is "my publisher"? Man, I need to track down those royalty checks.

Awesome response dude. Totally dissected my complaints in a clear and logical manner. Couldn't have been better. Your case is solid!

Hmm...

One thing I don't understand... What the hell are you doing with your PC's to get all the CTDs and other technical problems?

I have 4 PCs/Laptops and no matter how much I try I am not possible to have the same buggy game you seem to have?!?

All PC's are custom builds...

PC1: Core2Duo 7300 OC 3,2GHz / 4GB RAM / 260GTX / Win Vista 32Bit

PC2: Phenom X6 1055 / 4GB RAM / 2x 460GTX / Win 7 64Bit

PC3: Core2Duo 8200 / 4GB RAM / 8800GT/ Win Vista 64Bit

Laptop LG P310 Tarsia: Core2Duo 9500 / 4GB Ram / 9600GT / Win 7 64Bit

So far I don't have any of the crashes I have seen in the beta. None of these PC's suffer from massive slowdowns or something.

Maybe only Intel i5/i7 users or ATI users suffer from the problems only...

Ok got it, every thread I read that has some vomit that you posted makes me want to throw up. 

Yes, I agree to the overconfidence bit, I shared it.  The close-to-release versions were just not what I was expecting.  I think what Stardock needs to do now is to have a much more complete beta for the expansions - ie. seriously testing the close-to-release version until it is completely working as intended, is fun, professional and polished.  I believe if they do a "kick-ass" expansion that improves the game in tons of ways in all sorts of areas, and is as polished as a diamond, they will regain a lot of trust.  But if they don't - I think they won't get nearly as much pre-order interest and faith in the game at release.  Basically, they have a lot of work to do, but if they do it right, they will have learned a huge and very important lesson - it is better to have the game be completely polished on release (ie. released when ready, or after extra time) then try to be over-optimistic with close races and get it wrong, compromising *all* your goodwill for all your games in future.  When you think about it that way, an early, buggy release is just not worth the cost.

I agree with Demiansky and Nick-Danger.  What do you think, Brad?

Best regards,
Steven.

I am sick and tired of spending my hard earned money on UNFINSHED games. I will NOT buy this game. We keep accepting unfinshed product as "ok"  - because they all do it. Well it stops now for me. Good Luck fools

There was internal beta testing (according to posts here), but not public.

Thanks for sharing now get lost...if you don't have the game, don't plan on buying the game, you got nothing.