There's more to it then simple little upgrades.  Granted we know next to nothing about what has been planned for it, but then again, I've paid a grand total of $60 to date and pre ordered rebellion and am still happy considering other games that I'm a much bigger fan of, for example Command and Conquer, Supreme Commander, and Starcraft, their most recent releases cost that much, and their expansions do pretty much only the same thing that entrenchment and diplomacy did, add more units and whatnot, and would cost me another $20 to $60 on top of the original.  So the way I'm looking at it, I'm already ahead of the game having already seen two expansions for the same cost of their original titles only.

At least I'm not being promised the ultimate gaming experience and then being let down.  As my opinion and input matters to the fine folks at Ironclad and Stardock and I have many opportunities to influence the future of the franchise, I will be taking it's success or failure a bit more personally then I would with any other game I've ever owned.  Now really...  What's the price for that kind of an experience with a game?  I don't hear EA making that kind of a promise.

I just wish the beta would roll around so I can close my old bank account that the pre-order was made with.  They're gonna start charging people to have checking accounts and charge to use debit cards starting in November lol 

I can't speak for C&C or Supreme commander, because I haven't played them... But SC1's Brood War expansion, while it did add just a handful of new units, it also provided a lengthy single player campaign. SC2's Heart of the Swarm will do the same thing, and I suspect it'll be set for a $20-$30 pricepoint.

It's true: Ironclad isn't promising the "ultimate gaming experience." With Diplomacy, quite literally, what they said was what we got. There was no false advertising. Not worth the money IMO, but it was honest. I don't expect Rebellion to be any different.

I thought the $10 off the price was for being a registered owner of Trinity... interesting. When did this switcheroo take place?

Diplomacy and Trinity are the same thing.

^This to the greatest extreme. Stardock has been VERY responsive over the years to the community at large. Compared to many other games, the feedback and implementation alone makes this the holy grail of developers listening to their consumer base.

Think about it. If you want your voice to be heard as far as game changes / implementation of fixes, patches, and improvements of features you have to have a legal copy of the game to download the fruits of your voice through IC and SD's labor? Priceless.

I remember when the community begged for pirates to be turned off. Look what happened there! How about for multiple star maps where everything looked like a white cluster of doom? Hey, it was fixed! The list of 'listened too and fixed' far outweighs the lists of everything else if you look at the long life Sins has so far run and likely will continue to run.

*steps off soap box* [e digicons]:')[/e]

Its stardock, they aren't the bastards that other companies are!

case and point, those who bought elemental before a certain date will get to have the remade game for free.

When I heard that I figured there were some smart companies other then blizzard out there after all.

It would be nice to at least see some gameplay before committing.  Hell, we haven't even seen a single in-game screenshot.  Not a one...

And Blizzard isn't necessarily smart, since they're alienating about 30% of the adult, non-senior, US population with their 'online only' approach to Diablo 3.  I.e. 30% of folks don't have stable high speed Internet, with higher percentages in the South.

Back to the point though, taking away the discount before a single asset is shown makes it seem like it was more like investing in a start-up with an unimplemented idea. 

I really haven't seen anything that would warrant Rebellion being a $40 purchase. There's some new big ship, some new presumably little ship, and some "rebel" mechanic. There's also the artist's rendition of the big ship. Annnnd that's it.

$40 is a full game purchase cost. Based on what little we know, I have no reason to believe that there is an entire game's worth of new content for existing Trinity owners. I got Dawn of War II: Retribution for $30 on release day and as near as I can it came with more new content for existing customers than this will. Perhaps if Stardock or Ironclad were willing to actually discuss the product they're expecting customers to plunk down cash for sight-unseen, I might have enough faith that my purchase would be worth it, but as it stands I'm only seeing as much new content as Entrenchment + Diplomacy, and that's only $20.

This price just smacks of Stardock leaning on SoaSE loyalists to make up funds for the disastrous release of Elemental. I'm not sure ANY Stardock game will be worth the cost for a couple years as they bilk their loyal customers to make up for that.

I agree that Rebellion seems to be about Entrenchment+Diplomacy in terms of amount of content. Admittedly, they were low-priced at $10 each, but at best, Rebellion is looking to be $30 worth.

Not pre-ordered and no plans to do so.

Im likely to pre-order in a couple of months i.e. when im more financially stable i.e. recently married lol

But probably after I have seen some more than what I have so far. If that means I have to spend and extra $10 then so be it. Its actually better value to wait and see from my perspective, than to pre-order with little info.

I am however very happy from what I have seen from Stardock *ahem* never tried elemental or indeed know anything more about it other than its name and so haven't placed that black mark against them. But I have been very happy with their continued support of Sins, and I am extremely likely to buy Rebellion.

But not now. 

Keep in mind that there is heavy overhaul of game-play mechanics, coding, etc, plus a whole more that hasn't been announced. Based on what is likely to be announced in the future prior to it's release, I believe it WILL be a good bargain for $40. Just keep all of that in perspective. I will buy the game.

I'll probably end up buying Rebellion, but I'm not pre-ordering now when very few hard facts are known about it.

lol Already pre-ordered. I pre-ordered the other 2 expansions before they came out so I'm sticking to my trend and also my gut instinct about this.