Will need to show a lot more before I preorder

FE you mean War of Magic captain? 

Uh ok. Thanks for sharing.

Fallen Enchantress and Legendary Heroes are great games btw. 

Also there is no Impulse to suck up all SDs money this time. 

I'm surprised that Stardock still gets guff about Elemental. People who pre-ordered Elemental end up getting an insanely good deal at the end. I was disappointed with the original game but FE and especially LH are excellent.

Excellent point Jaker. I got all that free stuff and I feel like a jerk. And remember in this day and age. If you wait you save a crap ton of money. But are you patient enough?

I do have to admit that Elemental basically killed the company for me for quite some time. I've only started to feel tentative optimism about their products again fairly recently. A completely botched release like that can destroy any kind of faith in a dev team, and that'll ruin smaller outfits without the reserves to take the hit in a real hurry. Stardock turned out to have these reserves, and it looks like it's worked out alright, but it was a close thing, and I can understand the people who are still wary because of it. Especially in the wake of things like Legends of Pegasus and the recent mess with StarDrive.

I want to keep my language civil so please don't mention star drive. 

Eh I liked StarDrive. It was rough but I think I think as a proof of concept it worked. I think it only had 1 programmer though. Last I checked he is still releasing updates for it. I played the hell out of it when it came out. Not because it had the deepest mechanics. I thought it was fun. Just had WAY too much hype and expectations. Generally if I see a game is going to be earth shattering, some sites said this game would change 4x forever, then I lower my expectations to be safe. 

The thing is that he stopped updating it, basically told everybody that features he promised weren't coming after all and that he'd start working on StarDrive II now...which would have all those features but would also be another full-price game.

And he was, well...a complete and utter asshole about it.

It turns out people can be a little touchy when that happens.

hehe isn't he an x-lawyer. Isn't "being an asshole" required? I donno I prob won't buy SD2 but I still don't feel I wasted money buying it. Pricing isnt black and white. Just because it is a sequel does not mean it's a $60 game. An expac is also not required to be 39.99. It's just pricing models that have worked in the past. If it doesnt sell at whatever price they will decide he wont make money. I'm pretty sure he knows that. 

I don't think it's fair to compare Stardock's handling of Elemental to StarDrive or SOTS2 or Legends of Pegasus.  

Elemental was a disappointment. I flamed it the week it was released more than anyone. But they made good on it and people seem to ignore that. They made the original War of Magic into a decent game. If you bought it, load it up and play it. It's pretty fun. Not a classic but a lot better than SOTS2 or LoP or those others games.

Then then they gave everyone who pre ordered or bought it the year it was released a free copy of Fallen Enchantress. That was fucking generous and without precedent in the game industry.  Paradox has done jack shit for me when they've released buggy games.  

THEN they gave everyone who pre ordered or bought it shortly after release a free copy of Fallen Enchantress - Legendary Heroes which is the gold standard for 4X fantasy right now. 

And yet some people are holding off on GalCiv III because of Elemental? Seriously? Elemental buyers got the best game deal in video game history.

To be fair, the Demigod fiasco was largely caused by piracy and GameStop's early release before Stardock had their servers up.  It became easy to get online before long, but the reviews were already out.  I enjoyed the game for a while and didn't have many issues finding a game the few times I wanted to.

I have no exposure to or interest in Fallen Enchantress, so you might have that one pegged ok.  I assume Fallen Enchantress is part of the Elemental thing.

The GalCiv series is a core product of Stardock.  They have much more control over the launch than they did with Demigod and Stardock is a very competent team.  I think we have reason to be optimistic about the launch.

Actually, the Demigod fiasco was caused as much as anything else by faulty networking code.  The underlying issue was that the network code included some code that ran in O(N^2) time -- which is to say, the time it took that code to run increased with the square of the number of users.  The beta had blazing fast networking, then suddenly on release the speed just crashed.  

A better point would be that Stardock was the producer for that game, not the developer.

As pointed out, DG was not a SD produced product, i have no qualms whatsoever about laying down my hard earned and getting a playable game on release.
OP, you could always get in early and help craft the game by alpha/beta testing and help ensure the game is released bug free.

Neilo, SD did in fact act as producer for Demigod.

Developer -- people who actually code and make the game.

Producer -- the company that pays for the game, distributes it, and usually keeps most of the profits.

The problem with testing a game like GalCiv though is that some bugs are not obvious.  I mean, we can look for things that can cause trouble for the AI in the tech tree, but it can take hours and hours of testing to see if they react properly, and even then there isn't always a clear-cut case where one tech was researched when another one should have been done first.

Granted, we're all maybe a bit more vigilant for these things now, but I worry that too many people will say 'that's good enough' and move on without criticising the AI enough.

Wrong choice of word on my behalf. I meant that SD did not code the game. I should have said SD distributed DG. I was on the Demigod ride, as fantastic and short lived as it was.

I used to be a die hard fan of SD since the original GalCiv, but after Elemental/Fallen Enchantress which I really didn't enjoy (sue me), I think I have to agree with the OP and will need a bit more convincing.

I'll just wait for more hard data, especially on ship customization and battles, as this was a really low point of GC2, IMO, which mainly offered superficial visual customization.

Honestly, 5 years ago I would have plopped down $99 bucks first hour available but I can't do that anymore (for any game) even from Stardock.  I'm from back in the old Drengin.net days, got GalCiv 1 on PC first week of release after MOO3 crashed and burned.  Pretty much bought every Stardock game after that on pre-order and release.

But Elemental and some things lately with DLC have changed my mind.

Obviously nothing more needs to be said about Elemental.  Yes, I did get a free Fallen Enchantress and LH but I'll just say I can't get into it every time I try it and I'm a huge 4X gamer (right now playing the heck out of Endless Space).  I don't know exactly what it is but I just don't like FE/LH.  I think it's the whole RPG element that turns me off.  I mean, getting a cloak or weapon upgrade for an in game avatar?  Just don't make sense to me.  Anyway, that's obviously a personal preference.

Bigger to me is very disappointed with the direction of DLC coming out with FE.  $5 for a "loot pack"?  Really?

So basically it's come down to like what I do with the Paradox games (which I LOVE like EU series or CK2) where I'll only buy when on 75% off Steam sale and you can pick up a DLC for 50 cents or a buck.

All that to say I look forward to Galciv 3 a lot, the first two games probably sucked well over 1000 hours of my life playing in a good way.  But I just can't do a pre-order for that much money, even the $40 one, just don't think so.  I'll wait for the first 50% off summer/winter Steam sale to pick it up and get any DLC on the cheap.

Just my personal opinion, not meant to put anyone down or say that it's wrong to pre-order.

That's fair enough though.  Some people will have their reasons for not pre-ordering.  Mine happens to be a lack of money to spend on games.

I have been super burned on pre-orders over the last few years across the board (Not just Stardock) to the point where I said I wouldn't pre-order another game....except GalCiv III.  Now that it's happening, I grabbed the Elite package (despite the fact that there's no badge over there to the left yet...) and am excited.  Elemental still gives me a few fears - but Stardock did make good on that with all of the free DLC later for early adopters*

*that I really should play one of these days...

I feel the same as a lot of others here. Fan since GalCiv1, but unhappy how the Demigod thing went (and yes, I'm aware they weren't the developer). Sins of a Solar Empire went pretty well. Elemental didn't interest me (never liked the art style), so it was the first game with Stardock's name on the title I didn't buy, and I have to say, I'm happy I made that decision. Somewhere in there they also sold Impulse off, and embraced Steam, which was just peculiar, although I suspect the simple reason it was done was because Impulse just wasn't making them any money.

So a few years back I would've jumped on this preorder, but now I think I have to use all my might to not do it. The $100 deal is a no brainer...I can't spend that much up front without knowing more about what expansions they plan to release. The $40 one? Eh, for $10 savings I can afford to wait to hear what the buzz is based on alpha and beta feedback. With the sales places like Green Man Gaming offer on preorders these days, I'm likely to get close to at least $10 off right before release.

As for playing the alphas and betas...well, I always think I'm going to play the heck out of that stuff, but I usually don't. It's nice for those that do, but for the most part, I don't like working for free. Oh wait...in this case, PAYING to work.

Yes, it will be quite a while before I get to play GalCiv3, but there are so many games to choose from these days, so I can afford to be patient.

-HM

More like the opposite. Read here.

It sounds like Brad's problem is he didn't know how to handle the company once he decided to grow more and branch out into other areas. It's too bad of course...I liked how Impulse worked and that I didn't have to have it running once the game was installed. Steam needs competitors, and right now it has almost none.

Brad will have to do more than write an essay to convince me that this "new" Stardock is better than what I've seen over the last few years.

-HM

No competitors...Beamdog, GOG, Origin, Gamestop (Impulse), and UPlay. Unless you meant quality competitors then I see your point. (Ok I like GOG)