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[LoSboccacc]

galciv (but I had to look it up  )

[forsaken1111]

galciv (but I had to look it up  )

I said a good one. 

[Aklyon]

Sins of a Solar Empire: Rebellion.

[Sergius]

To me, Stardock was always "that company that made that thing where you skin Windows, WindowBlinds." Then I found they made a bland space strategy game with LOTS of fans.

Then they become a sort of internet sensation with their Manifesto Gamers' Bill Of Rights, which basically was them saying a lot of cool stuff about how game developers should be cool and not lame and stuff. And statements about how piracy wasn't something to fight but to just work with.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

2) Gamers shall have the right to demand that games be released in a finished state.

"On the console, you don't release as many buggy games, because of the pain of patching on consoles, but on the PC, we've gotten to the point where we just say, 'Eh, we'll just patch it.' That's bull. It's wrecking our industry.   We're going to release things that are done, even if we have to delay it."

Then they shat all over their manifesto Bill Of Rights doing a lot of lame stuff, like selling their online shop thingy and releasing Elemental and in general being jerkasses about the whole fiasco.

(not that I really care about their products, it's just fan outrage and stuff that I read about them)

Right now they don't rate very high in my list of trusted companies.

[forsaken1111]

Sins of a Solar Empire: Rebellion.

Hm, I did enjoy some SoaSE. Okay so there is one game I can think of that they released which I enjoyed.

[Aklyon]

To me, Stardock was always "that company that made that thing where you skin Windows, WindowBlinds." Then I found they made a bland space strategy game with LOTS of fans..

Never heard of WindowBlinds. I know about Fences though, and it is a pretty niftycool thing.

[Leyic]

SoaSE was only published by Stardock. If you just look at the games they've developed in house, they're all off in some respect (bad UI, out of place jokes, etc.). Lightweight Ninja was okay, but that was put out before the internet was flooded with a bajillion platformers.

As far as the company's profitability and (possibly) bad decision making goes, consider that they're putting resources towards Political Machine 2012 instead of just focusing on FE. Yes, it's an election year in the US, but most small game companies that have been through the trouble Stardock has wouldn't split their development resources between two titles, especially when one has built in obsolescence.

[Fikes]

Stardock was part of two big failures in a row. They published Demigod, which was a mess, and then developed Elemental. I bought both games on release day.

But the big reason I think Stardock is doomed was the CEO's reaction to the Elemental's release. It was funny but gave me serious doubts about the company as a whole.

I'd be interested to hear about FE, but they should have just taken the money they spent on developing it, divided it by the number of people who bought E:WoM, given partial refunds, and moved on to a new IP. E:WoM is going to be remembered as a terrible game and a CEO break down. Best to just let it die.

[Levi]

I hope they are doomed.  I'm still mad they never gave me a full refund on elemental and gave up on their "Gamers Bill of Rights" the moment it applied to them.

[nenjin]

There always has been something off about all the Stardock games I've played. Even when they do stuff right, there's this aura of generality that clings to everything they do: from the graphics, to the mechanics to the humor. Gal Civ 2 to me is a good example of where the game was mostly solid but everything surrounded it was not great. Elemental is an example of where pretty much everything fell apart: performance, mechanics and atmosphere. Which is really sad, because if you consider some parts of Elemental in isolation, there were good systems that were interesting and had room to grow. But the instant you apply the mechanical balance of the game to these things....whatever interest factor they had is subsumed in being too easy or just just plain not working right at all.

Like monsters. One of the coolest ideas from Elemental was pushing back the wilderness, having your realm surrounded by ever increasingly difficult monsters. In practice, the game puked out far too many of these things, in too large of numbers, the level scaling went to complete shit and then the AI decided to prey on the player in ways that violated the supposed rules of engagement. (Having monsters enter your realm to any large extent was never supposed to happen. But it did, constantly.)

[tootboot]

Then they shat all over their manifesto Bill Of Rights doing a lot of lame stuff, like selling their online shop thingy and releasing Elemental and in general being jerkasses about the whole fiasco.

Also, not providing patch support for used copies of their games. 

[namad]

Then they shat all over their manifesto Bill Of Rights doing a lot of lame stuff, like selling their online shop thingy and releasing Elemental and in general being jerkasses about the whole fiasco.

Also, not providing patch support for used copies of their games.

there is no such thing as a used computer game.... used copies of computer games have already been copied onto harddrives, they're just illegal, so... this... isn't... a valid complaint

[namad]

There always has been something off about all the Stardock games I've played. Even when they do stuff right, there's this aura of generality that clings to everything they do: from the graphics, to the mechanics to the humor. Gal Civ 2 to me is a good example of where the game was mostly solid but everything surrounded it was not great. Elemental is an example of where pretty much everything fell apart: performance, mechanics and atmosphere. Which is really sad, because if you consider some parts of Elemental in isolation, there were good systems that were interesting and had room to grow. But the instant you apply the mechanical balance of the game to these things....whatever interest factor they had is subsumed in being too easy or just just plain not working right at all.

Like monsters. One of the coolest ideas from Elemental was pushing back the wilderness, having your realm surrounded by ever increasingly difficult monsters. In practice, the game puked out far too many of these things, in too large of numbers, the level scaling went to complete shit and then the AI decided to prey on the player in ways that violated the supposed rules of engagement. (Having monsters enter your realm to any large extent was never supposed to happen. But it did, constantly.)

are you bad at video games? cause the problem was the monsters were too bland and weak, and the ai was AWFUL, the ai often killed itself, or did nothing useful all game... which made the game EVEN EASIER than the original MoM (which had almost no proper AI either)


the complaint of it being too... hard? is totally incorrect

[nenjin]

Are you bad at reading? Where did I say it was too hard?

It just simply didn't work right. You'd end up with high level monsters a year or two in and/or huge packs of shit on year one chasing your sovereign and they would constantly funnel towards your kingdom, usually ignoring the other AI. Then you'd push them back into a corner and find crap loads hanging out as well, stacked 3 deep.

It wasn't hard. It was a grind and it was a interesting system imperfectly implemented. It was annoying as fuck to have to move squads of guys around with caravans because monsters would enter your realm to gank them, when they weren't supposed to go that far beyond your borders. It was random in a bad way, like it had never been tweaked, instead of random in a good way.

[tootboot]

there is no such thing as a used computer game.... used copies of computer games have already been copied onto harddrives, they're just illegal, so... this... isn't... a valid complaint

Depends on where you're from but selling used software is perfectly legal in the US.  Gamestop used to carry used PC games before they decimated their PC section.