NO!! Why do this to me!!

Stop whining. Some of us (like me) don't even have a product key...just this stupid "yeah we noticed you pre-ordered somethin" email. I'd be happy if my Impulse would tell me "yay! look there's that game yer waitin for! Ye can't play it since yer key's not active but it's there". However MY Impulse isn't tellin me anythin at all

Please, relax. Altough I'm quite sure that people at Stardock are very happy about the drooling and anticipation feelings around the board, there is no real need to stress yourselves about it. Right now Stardock is working to be able to get an early realease for preorders/beta testers plus all the extra stuff associated with game releasing.

Come on! It's less than a week away!

Same here... pre-ordered quite awhile ago and I've got no sort of button or confirmation email. *sad panda*

I was about to call in sick to work since the Update is ready... I just can't register.

What a cruel joke!

Bastards!

J/K

Actually, it is about setting proper customer expectations. I am not all up-in-arms crazy like some are about this but:

A: Should have been announced before it was done so that people understood as it is causing confusion and let down. Both lead to customer disatisfaction.

B: Should have told people it would wipe thier beta "before" it actually wiped the beta. This was my case but I had an archive backup so was able to restore but it was extra work.

C: Should put up some sort of official response about the process so so the confusion and threads about locked keys will stop. There are still some new threads popping up about this. If there is something official then I must have missed it.

Very much looking forward to the release of the game and hope that we get a small reward as a pre-order and beta player such as the early release that was stated as a possibility. Stardock is great and normally pretty responsive to the players but in this case it was a bit botched. Certainly not evil or intentional but something they can learn from.

I think the first post was made in fun anyway...won't be much longer now!

It was. https://forums.elementalgame.com/390894

Given that A. was done specifically telling not to try to update because it would break the beta, this doesn't apply.

Again, see A.

Annatar, 

you are of very bad faith on this one, the thread you link was edited last night when the sh£t hit the fan with some big red annoucement, in some damage control scheme.

First of all many people are now without beta but more importantly some other have slipped through the cracks and are playing the game already. AND all  the thread mentionning this have been nuked or locked, which was very childish.

Anyway, I am still happily waiting for the game but very bad move on stardock side...

Yeah, and? He was complaining that nobody said what was happening. Which is obviously not true, since there's a post that describes what's happening. Doesn't matter when it was made or edited - something unexpected happens, they post about it pretty quickly. That's how it works. I shouldn't even have to remind people that it happened pretty late at night on the east coast, and they were still around to let people know.

Who "slipped through the cracks"? Where'd you hear that? As far as I know, they just globally disabled all the registrations..

Agreed, but even though I understand such thing may happen, the damage control on the situation was terrible in that the dude called Kryo just lost it and just did nothing to appease the people who had a problem (I did not have one, working at the time, I did not push the doom button).

Hereunder I copy paste the message I wanted to post along with the link you require to double check that people are already playing (this means this thread is probably going to get nuked quickly). Many points have been cleared since then, so you are welcome to skip:

"

Last thursday night for most of you westerners, mid day today for some of us eastern forumites, something bad happened. Impulse started offering updates for elemental without warning that it would just remove the beta software then forbid the users to install/launch the new app.
I am definitely not saying this was intentional or evil, definitely not, but feels that something was botched and worst, not recognised as a bad mistake. And in all honesty, Kryo has been quiet childish and patehtic on this one.

Proof is; every posts about this bad move and the fact that some people are already playing the game ([removed]) have been nuked or locked....

I lead a business too and when me or somebody from my team makes a mistake or anything that makes loyal customers cringe, we try to apologise AND compensate said customers, we do not erase e-mails and proclaim all is normal... that is the true shame in here. We are beta testers, we helped you succeed in this project, we helped fund it and then worked for free, remember?

Anyway, what happened is that the implementation of the distribution system was ill conceived, allowing a pre release date access for some while preventing others to benefit from the beta software any longer (the pseudo updates first forced he user to uninstall the now inaccessible beta) .The fact that the beta testing is over, does not mean in any case, that the software can be removed from my harddrive without my express conscent.
Now, what to do about that?
1.) allowing release of 1.0 for the beta testers, everybody is happy and the positive posts about the game will skyrocket over the week end over all gaming sites.
2.) do nothing and act as you never make mistakes, and have a few loud personalities flame the game and the company over the same pre release week end. This is obviously the clever option...
3.) keep the release date coherent (and thus satisfy the dead-alive brick and mortar distributors) BUT apologise for trying to implement a distribution process that was clearly not informative enough. Just spamming: "As posted in the sticky  two days ago in the main Elemental forum, the Beta is over and can no longer be installed. Keys will be reactivated when we make the final game available." is not an excuse and does not explain why some people could already play it. IMHO it is closer to spamming GFY...
It seems a simple choice to me or even to a marketing zombie (number 3), I hope Brad will think about it all. In the end, what I am afraid of, is for the incident to be buried just because some techy wants to keep face and his job, which, I do not know and I do not care. I, as a fellow executive, can not just stand there and tolerate actions that damage a company's image, I think a certain Mr.Wardell understands the concept very well.
Best regards;

PS: to fellow forumites, you are welcome to vote for your preferred solution here or by dialing 734-927-0677 and asking for "the frog". You might also want to offer new options.

"

Sorry to interrupt but really guys?  People are arguing over the fact the beta can't be played 4 days before release?  Is it really that big of a deal?  Anyway, I am sure much of it is because you look forward to a great game so peace, love, joy and all that stuff!

They should just release it today, at least the single player portion. I mean, Gamestop is just going to break street date again and F everything up anyway. SD might as well get the jump on them this time All things aside, I'm actually pretty excited for this release (which doesnt happen often.. usually I wait until I can get used copies of games for less than half their retail or wait until Christmas deals on Impulse & Steam). Not really sure what I'm gonna do all weekend. I dont want to get into another game right now just for the weekend. Guess I should do some winter yardwork prep. Dang you Stardock! Making me think of RL work!

I can't agree with you on this. People don't need appeasing. And I agree with Kryo's actions. From what I can see, the threads were locked because the same guy kept screaming bloody murder in every single one of them and flaming people who tried to give him explanations as to what happened.

Your "letter"/post I feel is completely irrational. Nothing happened worthy of "compensation" to anyone. The beta was over, the beta testers were thanked, and most importantly the beta testers were informed that they would likely get a slightly early release of the game on Sunday night or Monday morning.

There will be no compensation - even suggesting that is silly.  We're getting ready for the release next week of the final version, that's all.

Nope, you are incorrect. Let me help you.

1) I was not complaining I was commenting on the importance of setting proper expectations with customers to maintain a high level of customer satisfaction. Something game companies often miss.

2) The post you reference was well AFTER the fact. Lots of people were already commenting prior and like me, lost the install from trying to update before that edit. STILL there is no post with a header "Keys disabled until release, please don't update" or even "Update not live until XXX".  Adding a red colored statement to an exisiting post is not the same thing.

The action of disabling the keys was NOT a mistake and was not announced. it may be that they did not expect the disabled keys to wipe the beta version but they have not said that so that is purely assumption. Would also not hurt to give a brief instruction on how to possibly restore it.

3)  a couple of people did slip through the cracks and were playing the 1.0 version. That part was definately an oops. Look through the posts and you will find it.

Again- Stardock has done a good job overall but I think they should not only have some take aways from this but also consider the process for rolling out an anticipated game under impulse this way. The average person is not savy enough to know that "update" does not actually mean "update". 

I am not one of the disatisfied and eagerly await the release but the event did cause some disatisfaction and could have been handled a little better....Lesson learned.

Edit- in regards to the appeasement statment.

People = PAYING CUSTOMERS

Paying customers DO NEED to be appeased when something goes wrong.

Appeasing customers does not mean compensating them with product or other services. It simply means properly addressing the customers concern.

People do not need appeasing, Kryo is not a babysitter, true enough; BUT it would have been more clever to be apologetic since again, the execution of this "update" was indeed botched, period. I think we will just not agree on that point, but who cares. 

About compensation, if you did read the post I was speaking of common business practices and of my business; and never hinted at financial compensation (you yankee aren't you? , just kidding here), just a morale one, understood as excuses. Anyhow, again, I salute your support for the team that I also love, but not to that extent. I just can not stand people who stay mute or bury things when they are caught in the position the release team was.

FInally, you asked me for a link about people being able to play already but forget to comment on it; you just kept on pointing out what you did not agree with. And I have no times for puny political games.

All that being, good day to you sir, may you enjoy the release as much as  I will!

good night!

Odd that this happened, it that I actually tried to update last night when I saw that there was an update available and it wouldn't even start the process because my key was no longer valid. I actually started up Beta 4 right after trying, it didn't wipe my version before trying to install. Not saying that it didn't happen to people, I just don't know why it would behave differently. I'm looking forward to the release!

EDIT: I'm actually surprised it didn't uninstall my beta version after reading a couple other threads. I guess they are forcing an uninstall of the beta version to make sure the correct v1.0 files are installed.

I cannot believe some of you. You are complaining because you no longer have access to the beta?

THE.BETA.IS.OVER.

I honestly cannot believe that you think you were somehow wronged by having beta access disabled. I'm starting to think Stardock has this weird curse which attracts people who are about as sharp as a marble.

my i partially hijack this thread with a completely innocuous question? has there been any mention of timeframes for a demo after release?

my searches so far of the dev journals have yielded no results...

Well, wouldn't you feel a little bit duped if you saw the option to update to the final game and when trying to do so you suddenly realize that you basically destroyed your access to the Beta? It was mentioned before, if these guys hadn't tried to update the game they would still be able to play the Beta now until the release date, and the warning came too late after everything already happened. Of course the reactions are a bit extreme, we are only talking about the difference of a couple of days here, and I am sure it will be soon forgotten once the official release date has arrived, but what would you expect? People are on the edge and can't wait to play this promising game.

No, only that there will be a demo.

My personal guess would be about a month. That's roughly how long it took to put out the Sins demo, if I remember right. Granted Sins wasn't developed by SD, but I think they'll go for the same reasoning: if they have really high priority stuff planned for a few patches, and they want the demo to be representative of the game, they're likely to wait  for a little bit to patch up any of these issues before putting out a demo. Roughly a month gives enough time for that, so that'd be my semi-educated guess.

There is no need for a dozen threads with the same people complaining about the same subject when there's a sticky on the matter. That is why they were locked. Hordes of duplicate sky-is-falling threads on pretty much any subject (no less one discussed and warned about days ago) are going to be locked as a simple matter of policy. Insulting me for doing my job won't change that.

As beta testers you owe it to yourselves to keep abreast of the latest beta news and that means reading the forums and the stickies. Life gets rough if you try to beta test blind; we've said countless times that the beta would be painful and wasn't for people who just wanted to play the game early. We weren't kidding.

I think Frogboy and the Team has done a pretty good job of keeping us informed and clearing up the confusion. Kryo was "johnny on the spot" last night when I posted about not seeing my "purchases" through my automail with Impulse. I already knew the keys were disabled and was just wondering why I didn't see a purchase history and I got paranoid for a minute. Kryo fixed it by answering within minutes and waylaying my fears that my original purchase was somehow overlooked. My post wasn't locked. Why? Because it wasn't a whiny post asking questions that had already been answered.

I can definitely understand New People coming to the forums because they honestly don't know what's going on. Anyone who's been here a while though should be paying attention and reading the forums and as such should already be aware of what's going on. We're all excited and itching to play the Awesome game we've all been working on for such a long time now. Only a few more days to go and the forums will be overloaded with the "Holy Sh!t this Game is Awesome" posts and all the modding questions that are sure to come.

Everybody be Happy!!! In less than 72 hours us testers and pre-orders will be playing the game (as long they manage to push it out this weekend by Sunday night). It's time to PARTY!!!!

We should all be supporting the Team as they bust their asses to get this out the door. Let us not forget they're Working through the weekend after-all and a lot of companies wouldn't even do that much.

Go Team Go!!!

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