Released premature

Let me guess, you're running on the latest version 1.1?



The game is very stable at launched.

The Second patch corrected the only issue that make the PC overheat

The third patch made it rock rolid.


Even without the patch this game already won't the whole list of Editor choice you see on the left side of the forum, so no, it's not "full" of bugs.


In case you don't know, after the second patch most of the bugs are already out, the reason you see the game still has patch right now because these patchs are not here to fix bug, but to polish and improve the feature gameplay wise. And the reason why you see people are reporting across the forums right now is because we are BETA TESTING the new patch.


If you're the one who can not put up with bugs, do yourself a favor and go back to the 1.0X which is the official second patch, if you have a problem with that patch, it's 99% safe to say the problem is at your end. The 1.1 patch that is out right now is a public beta patch, Stardock released it so we can test it faster. And by we I mean people who actually what is the word BETA stands for.

Are you using the experimental beta patch, that says don't download if you don't understand what a beta is?

There first two problems you mentioned sounds like a computer problem not a program problem.

You made sure to update your video cards right? Or that your videocard supports direct X 9? I suspect you haven't because an awful lot of these posts end up being solved by that.

Lots of people had some really frustrating problems with Civ4 when it came out as v1. Their patches did solve a lot of the problems, though.

This game should not have been released, it is full of bugs! I have had problem after problem running the game; corrupted saved game files, the game starting automatically on windows startup, the repeating sound effect glitch, the numerous ship designer glitches, and too many others to list. Come on guys, in your rush to meet your release deadline you sold us all a beta for 40 bucks!

This sounds like the problems people were having before the first patch, which came out like three days after the release. That isn't bad and all these feigns would have your head for suggesting they tease us longer then they already had. I liked brads stories and stuff but dammit I wanted to play the game. It didn't matter that it was buggy as heck as long as I got to play (and they fixed it fast, which they did).

sounds like a buggy machine to me. I would bet that you have serious worm and spyware problems. At least that's how it sounds by the way you present your case.

If it is so flawed how do you explain the hundreds of users that don't have the problems you mention.

This "we'll fix it later" mentality has got to stop! Take a page out of Civ4s development and release games that are free of frustrating bugs when they hit the shelves. In the end, it only hurts Stardocks reputation. Updating game content and fixing minor bugs with patches is great, that's the way it should be done. However, you released a game that was barely beta quality and crashes almost once per every game hour (or more often). That is ridiculous. Whatever happened to the 'good ol days' when a game ran nearly perfectly upon release and the developer released one or two patches?

CIv4? Are you serious! I have read all about the chronic bugs that game was plagued with on release. You must have drivers or something that needs updating.

There was no release deadline.

Civ4, free of frustrating bugs? ahahahahahahahahhahahhahhahahahhahahahhahahahhaha
I'm guessing you didn't get it for awhile after release. I forget how many MONTHS it was before some of the more critical problems were fixed, but I know there was a user-made patch to unfubar the RAM usage quite awhile before firaxis released anything.
I have a lot of problems believing that Civ4 worked so wonderfully for you, but GalCiv2 won't.

And finally........ the good ol days of manually configuring IRQ ports and such? Hell, you can't even get people to click an "update driver" button these days.
Or the days before The Masses discovered Teh Intarweb and started blaming software companies for problems caused by the fact that their computers are ill-maintained virus/malware menageries? Yeah, I kinda miss those days too.

If you want a response other than "Holy shit you're an idiot," you may want to try making an "I'm having problems, can anyone help?" post instead.

**EDIT** Deleted original tetx.

Sorry. Hit the back button and it accidently submitted again.

Id agree that is was released a bit premature but i dont care.
Some of the bugs have been a bit annoying but ive generally found work-arounds.
What i love is the developers are activally still working on it.

Ok, lets say they had waited 6 more months before release. That would have been 6 months without a pretty good game right now. With so many people playing it they are finding bugs alot quicker, and as a community of players were are influencing them somewhat on what things they fix and change. It would have been far worse if they waited 6 more months and all went on holiday never to release any updates afterwards.

I dont buy alot of games these days. The last game i brought was civ4 and that was/is in a comparable state, perhaps slightly more polished, but they are far less interested in interacting with the playing community regarding fixes/suggestions. Before that i brought Star wars knights of the old republic 2 and that was an aweful buggy mess that was rushed out with no decent fixes and really left me annoyed.

Right now im waiting for the offical 1.1 release, i dont have the time for playing around with a beta and have continued playing the 1.0.x or what ever the last offical update was.

That's pretty funny. Most of the bugs he describes I've *never* experienced. All I've ever had is the retail crash-after-several-hours bug.

Frankly, at least Stardock is fixing it. Anyone played Oblivion? Anyone think Beth will ever fix it?

EDIT ZOMG I just noticed he used CIV4 as an example of a good launch. You know, Civ4 with the game breaking bugs, instability, inefficient xml and late-game slowdown? Stardock, I demand you implement these features in GC2 *IMMEDIATELY* or I'll start a 'lolz gc2 suxx0rs' thread.

This game should not have been released, it is full of bugs! I have had problem after problem running the game; corrupted saved game files, the game starting automatically on windows startup, the repeating sound effect glitch, the numerous ship designer glitches, and too many others to list. Come on guys, in your rush to meet your release deadline you sold us all a beta for 40 bucks!

Well, if only this post was made on April's fools day .....
I find really hard to believe that someone who is complaining like that and experienced so many bugs didn't post first bug reports with his debug.err file.

the game starting automatically on windows startup

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Unless you have add into your launch menu, I don't see how it is possible. And you are the first to report it

Obviously he doesn't need a troubleshooter, he needs a priest.

Or a virus scanner.

Notice how the OP posted once and never responded again? He obviously made this post to annoy us, or he found out the problem was his own and has kept quiet.

Or his computer blew up

Actually, I am hoping for the third option.

It's faintly amusing how many one-shot 'lolz teh suck' threads get started here. When I'm playing GC2 and frickin 'Mount and Blade' instead of Civ4 and Oblivion, it's something of a triumph for indie games.

Civ IV wasn't really stable until version 1.52, which I think came out a few months after the game. And early one, there was a major problem affecting ATI users which wouldn't let them even run the game.

I agree the 1.0 of GC2 was a bit dodgy, but the 1.00x whatever version is pretty stable.

Personally, I haven't had any major problems in Oblivion, considering it is such a performance hog. 2 crashes in something like 50 hours of playing.

Oh Oblivion isn't bugged that I've noticed. It's just net-zero with the NPC levelling, poor mission design, dumbing down for 360, crap UI, etc. Much of this is fixable with mods, but vanilla Oblivion is a 'get to level 20 in three hours, bandits have Daedric everything' sort of thing. It's a great engine, but Beths design decisions are dubious. So I end up playing Mount and Blade instead, where I can at least fight from horseback and go from 'rubbish' to 'good' without the whole world changing with me.

Hoss420...

GC2 is fine, not perfect but it is stable. Most stable I've seen a new release.

You are incorrect. Your pc is the problem.

The gaming industry is lazyy and does have a habit of releasing buggy software...but lemme tell you what also has to stop: people with faulty pcs blaming the software.

Go pay somone to set up your computer correctly. It's not the games fault. Its rock solid on my setup, although I work on computers for a living.


Cliff notes: Fix your computer. Don't blaim the devs, its annoying to us and especially them.

Ahhh the usual roving bands of brown-nosers. A few comments for you die hard (unpaid) Stardock employees / beta testers.

1. No where on my retail box does it say I am buying a beta.

2. Yes, there is always a deadline for release. Don't be ignorant, these people have to answer to someone. You don't just come up with a game and then don't have an action plan with deadlines. You obviously know nothing about business 101.

3. No where in my install instructions does it say go to stardock and dl a beta patch, it simply says update the latest patch.

4. The poster is making more of a generalized opinion about the release than any particular bug, so back off of him. I highly doubt that any more than maybe one or two of you that flamed him have any kind of programming skills whatsoever, so don't always fall back on the "where is your err log" crap. That seems to be your only defense to the shoddy workmanship that went into this game.

5. Finally just because a game runs on your system doesn't mean it's a flawless game. The idea is compatability with the masses. Yes they did rush release, and it shows. No one walks into a store and buys a beta game, we download betas, knowing full well its beta. I don't disagree that the software business is rough and tough, heck I know it is. I deal with OCR programmers every week and have to listen to their yaps all the time. I deal with multi million dollar contracts based upon software that needs to do a particular job.

If I sold a program to a County that had a bug, or missed some important information it was supposed to recognize, my head would be on a platter. I sell redaction programs to Counties all across the United States. (Redaction is the removal of private information from public records) If one of the programs I sell is screwed up, I answer to County Commissioners and Political types and my contracts are not cheap. The poster is merely trying to put forth the opinion that such a flawed product should have never been touted in the stores as a finished game, when in fact it knowingly wasn't.

Psio

Generally speaking, if you wish what you have to say to be taken seriously you probably shouldn't start a post by insulting everyone that disagrees with you. Just as a general rule if you go in with an attitude that everyone else is a moron and you are more than happy to tell them that, you won't get listened to regardless of the actual content of you message.

Anyhoo, I think part of the problem here is that the OP didn't give a good accounting of the actual issues he/she is having. Mind you it may be a more general post about how they feel about the game but it would still be useful to know exactly what issues are being experienced and when, so maybe some help can be given.

Finally just because a game runs on your system doesn't mean it's a flawless game

That works also the other way: just because a game doesn't run on your system doesn't mean it is buggy as hell

The poster is merely trying to put forth the opinion that such a flawed product should have never been touted in the stores as a finished game, when in fact it knowingly wasn't.

Do you know the funniest thing?: gamma testers were thinking that the game was solid enough and didn't understand while Stardock waited one or 2 more weeks before making it Gold.

so don't always fall back on the "where is your err log" crap

Well, the debug.err has some nice informations about the computer configuration, allowing to spot easy problem. And it is an easy check to do.

BTW, if you don't give to the dev precise indications about how locate and reproduce the bugs, they can't fix it. I suppose that you are aware of that : How could you fix something if you are unable to spot it?

Now browsing back your point:
1/ True. But you can't test all possible configurations.
2/ True. But in this case Stardock was the publisher.
3/ True. If you donwload from the website, you are warned if it is a beta or not. If you use the lastets version of Stardock Central, it is no longer configured by default to show you betas, which was a problem with SDC itself

Hmm, so the problem is a worm, an outdated driver, or just my crappy system huh? Wrong on all 3 counts. I have an internet security program running, I do regular updates to it, I do regular virus and anti-spyware scans, and I have all the latest drivers for my system. And I've been having some of these problems since first release through EVERY patch and both beta releases. Oh yeah, and how come GC2 is the only game I own that consistently crashes on my system? All other games from Civ4 to Battlefields II run PERFECT.
Yes, I was just stating my general opinion that the game was released prematurely, not to make a bug post of anykind. I have posted some of these bugs before,properly with debug.err info even (GASP!). I stand by my original OPINION that the game should have been more stable when released. Heck, I was going to try to reinstall it today and I can't even uninstall it (must be that crappy Windows XP operating system or my crappy computer again).
I do give Stardock props for trying to improve the game after release, however. I also realize they are a relatively small company. However, as much as all of you like the game it's hard to deny that the game was rushed to shelves before maturity. Thanks for all the posts, even from the "stand by your man" ones.

Hoss

Notice how the OP posted once and never responded again? He obviously made this post to annoy us, or he found out the problem was his own and has kept quiet

LOL! I created that post last night before I went to bed. I actually have better things to do than sit on my ass all day watching forums for posts that annoy me. I also assume that "OP" must be short for Original Pimp, thank you very much!

Hoss

Heck, I was going to try to reinstall it today and I can't even uninstall it

Well, try Stardock Central to unistall it. you may also create a backup of your whole game

I have posted some of these bugs before, properly with debug.err info even (GASP!).

Noted. It would be good if this forum allowed to see posts made by any account. Have you also used Smart Exception to send report of your CTD to gc2bugs@stardock.com ? The debug.err allows to see if something obvious linked with the configuration can be spotted. Smart Exception give more precise information on the location where the CTD did appear.

BTW, I still don't understand how the following was possible:

the game starting automatically on windows startup