I'm really beginning to regret choosing the download option...

It took me 4 hours loading Multi on a 1mb Cable line.

Only 4 hours? You're lucky... on a very high speed line here that can get over 700k/sec from Symantec's web site and the Multi pack has been going for about 4+ hours and is just over half way finished... looks like tonight I'll be playing the game without the Multi pack installed since I leave work in a little over an hour.

~SDC~

The total install took me about 3 hours last night on my DSL connection, but I'm just incredibly happy that Stardock has offered download as a purchase option. For those of us who didn't have the game available right away at our local software stores, we can still play right away. We also get to put a little more money directly in the pockets of the guys who actually developed the game.

I have been incredibly impressed with the service & support that has been shown, especially by Frogboy, he was still answering questions at 2am last night, definitely above and beyond the call of duty. I had never heard of Galactic Civilizations (or Stardock for that matter) until I saw a posting on Slashdot a month or so ago, but I can honestly say I've never been more impressed by the product and support evidenced by Stardock.

I'll definitely be a future customer. Thanks Frogboy & Stardock!

I'm getting slow download speeds and this is now the fourth time I'm trying. Keep getting an error about one file being the wrong length, or something. I'll ask the Stardock guys about it if it doesn't work this time. In the meantime, I'm putting the low speeds down to people hammering the server. I don't mind too much if that's the problem.

~SDC~

I know how you feel. We're trying to put a new file up there and it's taking a long time.

When we reserved 30 megabits for the download, we were thinking "massive over kill".

Let me put it statistically: Right now GalCiv.com is ranked in the top 8000 sites in the world in popluarity. Normally we'd be in the top 60,000.

We're in the process of increasing the bandwidth to 50 megabits.

What I don't understand exactly is how did this game get so popular all of the sudden? It's not even been announced yet as being released.

The download speed will be taken care of though, just a matter of getting ahold of the right people to crank it up.

Took me nearly 8 hours. Worth it though

~SDC~

Shame: Which file is it saying is the wrong size btw?

"What I don't understand exactly is how did this game get so popular all of the sudden? It's not even been announced yet as being released."

Perhaps the flyer in the MOO3 box?

I think it is using all the publicity over Moo3 and the following disappointment.
Anyway I am happy to have purchasing this game through download. I don't know when this game will be available for me.
Keep up the good work guys ....

~SDC~

Expected some traffic jam, so I packed my order and launched the D/L at 8 AM CET (2 AM EST), just before going to work !
But when I asked first to D/L the media it "offered" me to D/L the game first, but didn't queue ... And instead of my usual 60KB/sec bandwidth I got a paltry 10 KB/s ! Now the game installed during the day, no crash, everything Ok LOL, but media is still going to take 8 hours !!!

It really looks like Stardock heavily underestimated their success and the demand : in fact 30 MBits is just enough for 100 people sucking >256 kbps, with 1000+ customers the servers should blow soon !

Thanks anyway for this GREAT option of immediate D/L
Back to my game now ! LOL

hey frogboy, where did you get that stat? the 8000th in the world one?

Brad: It's okay now, thanks. Worked after an uninstall and reinstall. (I was trying to update beta, which may not have helped.)

~SDC~

Here' s a great site for website popularity:

http://www.alexa.com

Just put in the site you want to know about and then click on "See traffic details". It will create a graph over the past year along with a daily traffic stat.

Very useful.

But yea, in terms of sales/traffic, in the year that The Corporate Machine was available, and it was at stores, and available for download, we sold maybe 2000 copies direct in a year. The other 38,000 or so were sold at the store.

I am not at liberty to devulge numbers but GalCiv will likely beat that number relatively soon.

~SDC~

Yep, definitely underestimated the demand, Brad.

I think there's been a HUGE word of mouth spread over the past month. I'm sure many people who bought MOO3 saw the little flyer and were intrigued...then there was an ad in the latest PC Gamer.

But really, I think a huge amount of notice has come from disgruntled MOO3 people who saw various people talking about GalCiv on their forums. I know that's how I found out about it and I've seen numerous people saying the same thing on the forums here. For my part, I was just looking for a good new 4X space strategy game. I had thought for certain it would be MOO3. When MOO3 turned out to not be something I had fun playing, I looked for alternatives and found GalCiv.

So far I'm having a great time with the game, especially now that CariElf helped me figure out how to get the MP3 player working. I have to say, though, that I'm glad stores ended up getting the game in on Tuesday. Since that happened, I just went ahead out to EB and picked up a copy (and got my nice little book and quickstart guide and all). But before that discovery, when I thought the game wouldn't be in stores until Wednesday (today), I was planning on downloading the game at midnight the night before just so I could start playing it early and wouldn't have to deal with the hassle of driving out to the mall. I'll bet a LOT of people tried that, not because they couldn't find the game locally, ever, but because they wanted to have it and start playing it as soon as humanly possible. When game anticipation is high, even getting a game 12-24 hours sooner can be a "necessity" for the salivating gamer.

So, you undoubtedly got inundated by people who didn't want to wait for local availability and just jumped at the download option.

Hope that makes sense and maybe explains some of it for you.

~SDC~

neat. i see my extra page views since the end of february seemed to have pushed it up a few tens of percentage point...

I have to agree with the original poster.

I bought the beta when it came out last year, and I am a big supporter of the game, but the download process is not the best. I'm only on a 56k in the UK (waiting for my DSL to be installed at a new address - it will take a few weeks for a variety of reasons), and I thought I'd just have to update from the previous beta downloads. But, based on Brad's advice, after a failed install for some reason I don't remember, I unistalled and started from scratch. First attempt fails due to "file length" error. Install new version of SDC and have to start again. Start again, not being able to pick up from what was already done, and get another file lenght error while set to download over night. I've uninstalled everything and installed the recent version of SDC again I'm on my fourth or fifth attempt now. I know this is the price of beta testing, but this is a struggle. But massive sympathy to the guys that had their root directory scrubbed, as you got it a whole lot worse.

Sorry for the b*tch.

Still looking forward to the game.

~SDC~

hehe. under the graph there is a "versus" text field. naturally i put in moo3.quicksilver.com. the comparison graph was...interesting...

I think that for every poster to a message board, there are 10 people who just lurk. Brad, I think you deserve at least some of the credit for the game's "instant" popularity - your posts here and on usenet (.strategic) must have reached a greater audience than you realized.

I take back some of the rotten things I said about SDCentral. I still don't like it, but it seems to be getting its job done. Main game loaded and installed, multimedia 40% and running. I'm keeping my fingers crossed...

Oh, you poor babies, taking a couple of hours to download!
It has taken me *literally* days just to get the base game!

Now I'm going to stop complaining and go play it!

~SDC~

An endorsement from Penny-Arcade can't possibly hurt one's popularity, either.

~SDC~

I started the multimedia pack last night before I went to bed, got up this morning to a complete game. Less frustrating that way

Myros

Well, uh... I guess you've guys have had some fun...

Me, uh, silly little dialup and download and archive option that I can't figure out how to work...

And now the multimedia pack... ARGH!!!! 366 megs!!! WTH?!?!?!?! LOL

Poor little voice modem... don't worry I'm retiring you next month

I think there are still some bugs with Stardock that need ironing out, like the queuing is a bit fuxed up sometimes and if you make a mistake (when you do at 2am in the morning) well it doesn't handle the outputs well...

But I "did" get a chance to play it... the game rocks! esp. when the Drengin say "I hope you bought chocolates..."

~SDC~

> I take back some of the rotten things
> I said about SDCentral. I still don't
> like it, but it seems to be getting its
> job done. Main game loaded and installed,
> multimedia 40% and running. I'm keeping my
> fingers crossed...

I spoke too soon Multimedia download crashed. Retrying....

hi Brad
re popularity: I was a beta tester for the original GC and kept OS/2 as a second OS on a couple of generations of PCs at home so I could play it. I play various strategy games and discuss them with colleagues and bore them rigid by saying "Of course it's *pretty* but the gameplay isn't a patch on galciv, which is being ported to windows.". I'd be surpised if I was the only one.
Download speeds last night varied from 36KB/s to 19bytes per second! 10% down, 90% to go. Any chance you could add a "disconnect connection when completed" option to stardock central?
cheers Rob Morton

Traffic Rank for galciv.com: 31,497