OH FFS get a life.

If you've got lunar problems I feel bad for you son,

I've got 99 problems but a moon ain't one.

My nitpicking was to point out that of all the great planet mods and types of systems they could make..they went with the golfball.

people weren't complaining about them being moons, they were complaining that the moons were boring additions to the game. The added nothing that an asteroid couldn't provide.

Changing just the name and the amount of planetary upgrades is a half assed approach to fixing the problem, something that causes me to wonder how valuable the brand name of the two companies is.  My thread on improving moons was a half assed, half baked idea that I cooked up in 10 minutes.  The developers half assed my half assed idea, so in reality they quarter assed it.  Everyone, they are in the business to make money on rebellion and reinvest that money into their other IP's!  We are their profit farming base, and as such they will only choose minimal ways to appease us so long as the money keeps flowing.

Dwarf planets are also boring as they currently are.  Changing the name and adding another population/HP upgrade doesn't make them interesting or exciting, the developers are being very minimalist in their game because Rebellion is all about the amount of money they can make, not about the amount of quality product they can give their fans.  They make minimal changes(mostly economic) and aren't adding any content (only the illusion of content by adding in the different races in stages).  All in all this is just a straight up money grab, for whatever purpose.  They are trying to open another IP after all, so that they can divide their focus yet again.

Small group with divided focus = crappy production. In the same bit, large group with divided focus = mediocre production (blizzard).

I fear stardock and Ironclad are trying to build rome in a few years instead of the hundreds it required.

They know a lot of people are just going to buy rebellion because of the brand value alone.  That is what I did.  Now after this failure of a beta and the impending release, the "get it done when its done" lie is starting to show.  After all, the races only just finished development, and the balance phase is going to be glossed over while the multiplayer community will be marginalized for the convenience of profit.  If I get marginalized in this fashion i'll just quit the game, no matter how much I enjoy it(well the new minidumps and desyncs ensure that the game isn't playable online anyways).  I despise game companies for choosing these profit priority decisions and stardock and Ironclad are going to lose the moral high ground they they had and in doing so will have lost the value of the trust that the players invested into the company. 

Long term, they are like the risk player who over expands to capture north America and whines because they aren't going to be able to defend it.  They haven't started whining yet.  Thats going to happen in a year or so when their second IP fails.  I've seen Ironclads new game, the design, even in alpha, seems to be quite simple and irrelevant in todays market.  I've been in enough beta's to know what i'm talking about.

  +1 Karma!

agreed 

I wish it was possible to remove karma for pointless threads that distract from the important aspects of the beta. Or at the very least vote to remove karma for dev review.

It's like Pluto all over again, man.  

Where's my PM?

Ok...so...

1)  Where do you people even FIND finished mods of ANY game?  I've never seen one, not for any game ever, not once, anywhere.  Or is it we have different definitions of "finished"?

2)  It would be nice if there were a little more uniqueness and variety among planet types, but it's strictly a minor issue.  As long as the game functions correctly, plays well, and is generally pleasing to view and enjoyable to use...then all's well.

3)  Um, of course they're doing it purely for profit.  You can't make games for fun anymore.  You can START making them for fun, but very quickly you have to start making concessions and dumbing things down because you can't finish it unless you can pay for it.  And you can't pay for it if it costs too much and doesn't earn enough back.  I think that sucks, but that's the world you've all made, so if I have to put up with it, so do you.  Eventually it'll change, with any luck...some apocalyptic event will occur and I can rebuild a better world along with the survivors (note: it will be none of the Doomsday Preppers or "survivalists").

4)  I really hope no one's trying to build Rome at all in any amount of time.  It's a bad example.  It's a gilded cesspool of rot and deception, and always has been.  I'd say that their architectural style was exquisite, except that they stole the lot of it from the Greeks.  The early Romans just got lucky, and managed to capitalize on that initial good fortune until no one else could overcome the advantage of it.  It would be like respecting someone for winning the lottery and then taking other people's stuff just because they can.

5)  I sympathize to some extent with those who deride the demotion of Pluto.  But really...if Pluto stayed a planet, then Ceres and perhaps a dozen or more other bodies (most still undiscovered but almost certainly present) would suddenly have to be planets too, and they're obviously not up to snuff for that.  As well as the fact that 8 is enough anyway.