With talk of the beta all around, I imagine the Elite Founders Program will be ending fairly soon, i guess in 6ish weeks orso. After the beta starts we will no doubt get a pretty large flood of new people who will ask many a question, so i figured this would be a good time talk a bit about the program. Maybe still a bit early.
Most of all i would love to hear something from Stardock about how they have experienced the program, what their expectations were going into it and how they have turned out. I believe i once read somewhere that less then 1000 Elite Founders were expected, yet there are around 3000 star names so far. Dev streams on youtube seem to get 1500-2500 views on average so it seems a fair amount of people is actively following development too. I wonder if stardock has any data too about how much the average founder has played the game, how much the 1% plays and how many people haven't at all or just a hour orso, maybe how many games have been played, if they are willing to share.
As for myself, even tho i primarily got the founders pack for the good price on future content, I very much enjoyed the Brad Feedback pdfs posted to the founders vault, but sadly there has been a gap in them for a few months. Love the streams too, wish you guys could pull out a whole hour for them. Even tho the streams in the beginning were a lot of the same stuff, lately there has been new stuff almost every week. And Paul even plays races other then Terrans now! All in all i am very pleased with the amount of developer interaction and the kind of things they are willing to talk about. My biggest complaint is that i wish there were more regular updates to the Founders Vault and the site in general (Stories and Technology Databanks have been coming soon for a while), but i suppose wanting more lore and info is a good problem to have.
How has everybody elses experience with the Elite Founders Program been?
All in all I have been satisfied with the founders elite program here are a few positive points...
1. Love the communication between Stardock and the consumer. (This hasn't ever been an issue in my opinion)
2. Love the video's (however, I wish we had the working version a lot of times but, it's understandable why we don't)
3. Love that we get all future items planned for the game.
4. Like the way that Stardock handles this versus other larger companies (EA/Maxis)
5. Like that they listen to player feedback and don't blow them off saying it's impossible (EA/Maxis) [see any hard feelings here.... Simcity :@]
Disappointments with the founders elite program.
1. Launched on Steam for people who don't understand what an ALPHA version is, and having to see that crap in the forums (This has died down some.)
2. Slow progress of the game and still missing many features that were in GalCiv 2 (moral, economy, research, military, influence starbases) haven't seen really anything on these are they still in? (This can be understood, as I'm just impatient)
3. Content in founders vault all but extinct, please provide additional information weekly? (maybe a first look at other race discriptions, missing race images, non-released game images) Items like this...
4. Still too many issues w/ game crashing after x turns (per most people seem to be anywhere from 150-400 turns depending on game type) Feel this should be ironed out by now as we're approaching Beta release.
5. Even though Brad is behind the scenes busy with other projects it would be nice to see him in a video maybe??? Just once. (maybe a more frequent post or two)
My experience is going great apart from you Eleventhstar! Lol
I agree with Seilore, weekly vault updates.
I am an elite founder and very, very long time user of Stardock games and PC apps. With that said, there are a few things I've noticed that are going to be game killers if not improved/corrected/added.
1. The game crashes continue to be a significant issue with game play, especially with large fleets. Constant saves required to ensure progress is not lost.
2. I would like to see some programmable options for ships ("Stay here and if enemy comes by kill it then return to sentry." would be awesome!)
3. The AI is stupid. Massive buildup of useless ships all stacked together and doing nothing. Killing the enemy star ports over and over and over without any of these enemy ships attacking back seems to be a real enthusiasm killer.
4. As a test, I surrounded/blockaded an enemy planet about 6 hexes outward from the planet with ships to prevent the enemy from building another star port. Just a test. Oddly, it destroyed my ships on one hex and built the dang star port anyway. Wonder which technology advance gave them the ability to do that
5. I want to tell my fleet to attack an enemy fleet and don't stop until its dead or I am dead (or I disengage). Helps a lot when facing the AI's ship stacking issue (40-60+ useless enemy ships against my highly advanced (3-4) Paladin fleet takes for eeeevvvvvaaaarrrrr to resolve combat. Tedious and boring.)
6. Planet management option to "Upgrade All" structures to highest available would be a welcome relief. With 10+ lvl 16 or higher worlds it can take a looonnnggg time to manually upgrade stuff.
7. How about being able to pick an advanced tech target like planet invasion and have the game queue up the required research and not stop until its reached? Set and forget unless stopped/changed.
8. The blockade problem, along with the AI ship stacking issue, makes for a very, very tedious game guys. I know its an Alpha. I am doing what I can to break things. Seems to be working. Until the all powerful God of Crash appears. Hope I saved recently...
Side note: I should ask for a tour of the Stardock HQ. I live about two miles away off N. Territorial.
Noted above myself please fix asap...
Awesome idea, I second it.
AI will be improved, this is a dumby AI for the Alpha, no worries here, has been stated by Stardock on several posts/videos.
Quoting Shadeflayer, reply 3 4. As a test, I surrounded/blockaded an enemy planet about 6 hexes outward from the planet with ships to prevent the enemy from building another star port. Just a test. Oddly, it destroyed my ships on one hex and built the dang star port anyway. Wonder which technology advance gave them the ability to do that
Interesting, the starport destroyed your ships? or an enemy ship came and destroyed it, then built it?
Great suggestion, I second this one too...
This is already being addressed as stated in multiple video streams.
I've mentioned this before, but again I second the posted suggestion
Repeated issue no comment...
I live a state away, I'm up for a road trip to MI though
I still want to be able to right click on a fleet stack and have the command menu pop-up.
just bought it tonight, I was wondering how I can make a suggestion for a star name...
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