If you have show prerelease versions enabled in the prefs, turn it off.

Still no support for EU.  Any news on when us EU purchasers will be able to lay our sweaty palms on the shiny new update?

Hello

Kryo, How did you get the custom race medal?

I just like to know because I have been playing a custom race, too. I don't think I have one yet?

I had no problems with up dating.

The ship designer lacks a miniature slider ( 0% to 100% or more ) so that means you can only build ship templates or Level 0. I must say that I do like looking at all the compents to build with in the game like sizes and effects.

My Empire is on the rise. I have play three games and I'm rank 73 as of today and in two weeks I should be in the top 50.

mmm Play we must mmm

I would certainly hope that the Upgrade 2.0 will be available for normal (NON Impulse) download

 also.

I live in a rural area...there's NO DSL or Cable, my only broadband option is satellite provided by

Hughes Network. They happen to have a very restrictive Fair Access Policy where I can not

download more than 210MB in any 24 hour period without getting my speed cut down to 52K

(old modem speed) for 24 hours. They suspend this policy from 0300 to 0600 each day and if I

can access larger downloads with IE7, then I'll be able to get most of them, although it looks

like I'll have to go to WAL-Mart or GameStop to get the boxed versions of your games.

(HUGE Sigh!!)

There are a LOT of gamers who are in the same situation and I would think you'd consider

them and the possible lost sales when forming a policy like Impulse Only. It's a great idea

if only we ALL had DSL or Cable.

Bill

Not speaking for SD obviously, but rural areas are... rural. As in not heavily populated. As in, not a lot of lost sales if those people aren't properly supported.

Wow, this was a bad move by Stardock. Releasing such a promising update to only those who go through Impulse, it's a slap in the face to fans/customers. Although some may argue "but hey, it's free!" it really isn't when it's being used as a tool to lure you into signing up for yet-another-online service you don't even need to play the game. Try CALLING IT LIKE IT IS for once in awhile, you'll feel better. This update is only being provided to people with conditions attached. So it's improper to tell me who do not accept this deal to "be grateful that it's free!" - this makes no sense, and you don't know if people would in fact rather pay $$$ than to sign up for a useless Impulse (just more clutter).

Stardock has had such a wonderful ear listening to fans and what they would like to see in the game. They've provided plenty of updates in the past but for this one, resort to this tactic. It's disappointing. Is this going to be a common practice going forward concerning patches and updates?

The whole point of patches/updates is done for customer service reasons, for repeat business in the future.

Although subscribers to Impulse may rise, temporarily, but Stardock should have considered it's reputation. I will not buy anything else from Stardock only because I'm afraid for any other game I get from them, they will tack conditions, like this Impulse crap, on anytime I need a patch for a buggy game or any fixes/updates. I don't have time to deal with this clownish BS. If they can't figure out how to tend to their fanbase...wow I'm concerned at how hard this seems. Please put the 2.0 update/patch up so it is not held hostage on Impulse. Once they put the patch up normally, they will have my loyalty again. If a = 1 and b= 2, then a+b = 3. Not until then. Thanks!

*facepalms*

For everyone who's throwing a tantrum about Impulse...think of Impulse as SDC 2.0.

For everyone who actually has a problem installing or otherwise getting it to work (read: Linux, Mac, win2k) give support an email and, y'know, let them help you.

Well, Alphonse, you're entitled to your opinion, but to arbitrarily write off the people who live in rural America as not worthy of support is a mistake. There may not be as many of us as live in cities, but there is a significant number of gamers who live in the boondocks....what else do we have to do for entertainment when not working???

In Western Europe, it's a social policy to make sure everyone is hooked up to fast broadband. Barring that though, just how hard would it be to put the various updates on a server where you could log in with your Stardock/Impulse name and password and just FTP or browser download what you need? I can download, but I have to be able to schedule it to automatically start at 3:01AM and stop at 6:00AM when that Fair Access Policy is suspended. I've had to spend days in the past downloading large files, especially when I was a tester for Ubisoft. I can't do that with Impulse.

Seems like Impulse is just another way for the company to avoid the expense of boxed copies in their on-line store while still charging the same amout of $$ and then trying to tell us we're getting a really good deal. I'm of the same opinion as WhatTheHeck in that I will no longer buy any of these games as long as Impulse is the only way of getting updates. And I buy a lot of games each year. Plus I do computer support and have a large client base, most of whom are gamers and I'll make sure they know about this problem.

Hi,

I'm trying to pick up the 2.0 update through Impulse but it's not detecting the patch.

Any help would be appreciated.

Ignore my previous message. I had to restart Impulse and all was well.

1) I am in recovery for my Impulse "issues."

2) A line like this is not much help for folks who have been using software for a couple of decades. Just because something is 2.0 is no guarantee at all that it is improved, and often means there are changes that make no sense to users who just like a familiar experience and saw no functionality gaps in what they had been using.

I'm not trying to "defend" anyone, but I do think that both sides of this too-lengthy dustup are overreacting to the subjective side of things. Yes, it is absolutely Stardock's right to do as they have done. 2.0 is "free," so there's no strictly rational argument that it "must" be on SDC. But if you think someone is just "having a tantrum," telling them that directly is not too likely to help them calm down. I unfortunately helped stir this kettle of sour grapes a bit, but I think that, for the devs' sakes, the ranting should be left to die down quietly. Calling folks names, directly or by implication, is just going to keep the pointless posts coming.

p.s. To those still struggling: by "pointless" I do not mean to idly dismiss your concerns. I am still not exactly happy with how this transition has been working, but I would much rather have the devs working happily on Elemental and some can't-stop-coding spit and polish for GC2. We made Brad publicly regret having gone for 2.0 at all. That shamed me, even if it didn't entirely change my mind about a few of the word-wrasslin' points. More to the point, at a practical level, there ain't nothin' we can do about it; more complaining will just slow down the devs when they read around for customer input that can help their work.

• It's a central location for accessing, downloading, updating, and managing my games and software.
• It's a platform that allows developers to concentrate on their game rather than mundane things like managing installers, communities, e-commerce sites, etc.
• It's a great place to get games with little to no DRM.
• It allows me to play games instantly, without have to search for CDs.
• It allows me to buy games without having to drive to a store or wait for a CD to arrive in the mail.
• It allows me to re-download all of my software in case of data loss.

You're right, I do feel better .

Impulse is what, 20 MB on my disk? All of the games I own are larger than that. It's not cluttering my disk any more than my games.

I think there needs to be some complaints sent to the satellite providers - their policies are absolutely insane. If anything, usage should be in bytes/second, not bytes. If I download 1 GB in an hour, I'm hogging a lot more shared bandwidth diring that hour than if I were to take a day to download that GB.

In addition, those caps are simply too low. Sure, they're great for email and web browsing, but not much else. Multimedia, games, and other stuff is becoming more common, and even their "business internet" cap can easily be hit by somebody watching some YouTube.

Perhaps consider StarBand instead? They allow 4 GB/week, which might work better for something like Impulse. Looking at all of the satellite providers, HughesNet looks like the worst choice for anybody who wants to do some gaming.

Weeeell... allow me to throw in my voice as well.

I bought GalCiv, GalCiv II, and all expansions. I really, really approve of the free updates I could get, which improved the game even more (and I'm sure you'll agree with me on my high opinion of this game).

Now they've decided to switch to a new updating system. I don't know why, and - quite frankly - I don't care. It means I have to reinstall a fair amount, but since I do have a 16MB/s DSL (braaaag bragbragbrag), I don't mind much.

My thoughts are: compare this to other games. You buy them, maybe you can download a fix for some of the major bugs, finished. You paid a large sum of money, gort a (possibly DRM'ed) game, you play it, done.

Over here, the game keeps getting imroved for free after I've bought it. If I need to install some weirdo program which does not spy on me, I am willing to do this.

Anybody with update problems should call customer support, they're fast and friendly (first hand experience).

PS: Sheeeesh, am I looking forward to the new MoM-type game!

Well, for my part, TA and DA are both upgraded to v2.0 each. Didn't need to uninstall, or do anything wierd other than wait a good day to download the DA full update, only 250 Mb overall. Impulse, despite the annoying 2 hour wait to update that as well before I could DL anything, ended up being a good program utility to use, since the ability to remember a paused/cut off DL even after my comp was turned off for a night, is leagues better than how normal DLing goes.

As for the game itself, enjoying what I paid and waited for. Personally building up a star empire is sorta my life version of making oil paintings, an enjoyment to see all that hard work billow up into a nice and strong star realm. Personally, I thank Stardock and it's hard workers for the effort they put into this game, even if the wait and DLing stuff over a 56k connect is a tic annoying. Anticipation was a good equalizer anyway.

I await the next GalCiv2 expansion eagerly, while I make more ship classes than I need. =^^= Well done overall Stardock, well done.

GAH!  I installed the update for all three (DL, DA and TotA) and now my TotA saved game won't load!  Anyone else?