Really? I've heard different. Never tried myself, so it just goes to show you can't trust hearsay even on the internet :p

If you're attempting to troll: fuck off.

If not:  This was a reinvisioning of the original game, and an expansion at the same time.  You saw the ads of what they were offering (and none were misleading).  Here's the important part: this isn't Mass Effect 3, we've seen what's in the game for the last several months through the beta (especially the last month).  You had plenty of time to cancel your pre-order.  It's your own damn fault if you're let down over it.  Bitching over it now just makes you look petty.

 

Quoted for truth.

 

It is true, that on the first view, Rebellion seems not to offer much of content for the money. However, there are many general improvement to the game that you stumble upon after playing for a while. They alone would justify a price tag of 20 € imho.

 

Then the new content... it might not be much in quantity but is is in quality. Imho the hit the a good balance between faction diversity and faction similarity. Yesw a few more techs would be nice, but even yet Rebels and Loyalist require different strategies at different stages of the game.

 

I do prefer quality over quantity anytime. the new content is certainly worth additional 10 €, so we are at 30 €, the price that Stardocks asks for Trinity owners. 

For a new player, 40 € for Sins of a Solar Empire is cheap for such an rich and awesome game that after all, has all the features of Trinity with it. I know games that cost more, are perhaps late alpha stage when released, receive 1 or 2 patches and thats it. You just paid 60 € for it? Your own fault, so dont bother us anymore.

 

Compared to that Stardock/Ironclad is very well invested money.

 

So, let assume there was more content... 3 new capital ships for each faction? Thats a nice idea, but what should be the roletype of those ships?

 

Consider, all of the three ships have to be useful in the average game, that means they all need to have useful abilities.

3 new captital ships multiplied with 6 factions... that makes 18 new ships in total... multiplied with 4 abilties that makes a total of 72 new and usefull abilities to be designed, coded and balanced...

 

I demand a list from you with 72 new abilities that are usefull and dont break balancing. Since according to you, this is so simple, I demand that you create the full list within 48 hours.

You cant do that? Neither could I. But if you just add ships that are not useful they are not going to be used within a few weeks. You still would have 8 capital ships in your build list, but nobody would ever bother to build more than 5 of them. What gains does that bring to you, the player?

 

QFT

It is worth noting that releasing it as another expansion would be bad; it would split the community even further between various expansions. At 29€, I'm not complaining at all, the game is great.

(I'm just here to find out what that patch just now did, and why I get insane amounts of credits during combat, and then I'll dive back in.). 

You said so yourself, it's truth.

Im just using it as an example. Diplomacy offered a very good range of upgrades that changed the game. Id say Rebellion is about on par, give or take. Like i said- for the price that was expecting something a bit more. Like more differences between the factions.

Im not however:

saying its a bad game, its a bad expansion or that i want a refund.

 

I am saying that it is more fitting for the title of 'micro-expansion' and the associated price. Stardock set the bar pretty damn high with their two micro expansions- i was expecting about double that, since it was double the price.

Having played SoaSE since 2008 and purchased over 3 copies of the game, plus expansion packs over those years, I was under the impression from early previews I had seen that 'Rebellion' was to be a fresh new game experience, with some previews/interviews quoting it as SoaSE 2.

At the time that was good enough for me to add it to my 'must get games list' and I didn't feel the need to watch any more trailers/previews etc for fear of spoilers.

Having purchased 'Rebellion' and to be confronted with the same old, tiresome single player scenarios, was a bit of a shock, having to work your way through the old tech trees to get to the juicy bits was also a bit of a shock.

I was expecting a fresh new game TBH, this its old school now and 'Rebellion' comes across as just an expensive DLC.

Also.... Not once during the purchase process did I get offered any discount for having the original SoaSE upto Trinity on my Stardock account?

My original copy of SoaSE, followed by 'Entrenchment' was purchased before the game was on Steam.
I purchased my 3rd copy 'Trinity Edition' also before the game was available on Steam.
There has never been any option to add these games to my Steam list, and many emails to technical support have stated that the only way to activate the games on Steam, is to buy the Steam versions.

So now I've payed full price for what? 75% of the original game, give or take a few tweaks?
Had this release been advertised as a 4th expansion at a more reasonable DLC price, I wouldn't be here complaining.

Ironclad are one of my favourite developers, but I feel somewhat mislead and cheated for this release.

 

 

 

so are you saying that its perfectly ok for a company to charge a price of allmost a full new game for a expansion that other companies sell with 10-20 dollars.

and allso are you really saying that in top of this scam its perfectly ok to just make a smallest dlc ever and call it expansion and then you defend it with the sentence  "With modding, the possibilities are endless" are we paying the modders? or are we paying to ironclad?

its ironclads duty to make content and with this price make lots of it.

this is 100% scam.

 

You need to order through the sins website while logged in with an account that has the earlier releases registered to it to get the discount. Steam and GameStop are not offering any discount, if you ordered from them rather than from us.

 

Rebellion contains what it is advertised to contain, and you're free to purchase or not based on that content. It's unfortunate if you feel it doesn't contain sufficient value for the price, but it is by definition not a scam.

https://www.sinsofasolarempire.com/store

 

think of it this way.

you buy a new wolkvagen from 2005. it costs 10 000 euros to you. and you drive around for a year and sell it.

now 4 years later you remember "damn that was a good ride. maybe il get that new 1"

and in the years cars lose value. alot of value. a new car cost 10 000e and you drive 200k km with it its only worth 5000 for its still pretty new.

now the car company decides. lets add 10hp more and new hood and roof panel to open.

can they charge 10 000 euros again from that car?

is that right in your mind?

 

 

 

Edit: this is a bad parable since the car indrusty is doing this all the time.

It was fine for the $30 preorder IMO.  It was better than the previous two expansion combined (people are forgetting little things like overhauling the pacts and envoy abilities to be useful to all races). The $40 price tag was meant for people who didn't own Sins before.  Standalone was required to 'relaunch' the game successfully, and I would have made the same call if I was in charge.  Sucks if you didn't know about the $10 discount though, $40 is pushing it a bit if you already own Diplomacy/Trinity.

There was also no incentive for Stardock to fund to project for another $10 mini-expansion.  They needed a better return.  I am happy the support one of the few modern companies who still allow a TCP/IP connection option in their games and do not use always online DRM (steam can go offline mode, while still having full access to Sins online).

 

Firstly, seems more than a few people here agree with me... enough to be statistically relevant. I'm glad you are happy with your purchase. I, on the other hand feel that I didn't get enough for my money. This isn't a Sword of the Stars 2 situation where the game is broken and the whole thing is a big joke... but it left me feeling disappointed that there wasn't more new content. If you are going to charge AAA prices for your expansions, I think you should deliver a bit more than a rehash of what we've seen before. This would be a great buy at $10-15. Unfortunately, it's priced at the same level as games like Skyrim or Diablo. Think about that...

I still haven't heard from steam, so I guess they are looking into peoples claims:

Rebellion is a 4 year old concept, wrapped around some shiny upgrades, not the new experience some of us we're expecting.... gravy train springs to mind!

Steam is the only digital distribution site I visit on a daily basis, I have over 140 games on steam.
Nowhere in the description on steam does it say that owners of 'Trinity' would get a discount?

If it did I would have looked into it in more depth.

Had I known this was basically an expansion, I would have purchased Max Payne 3 instead, and waited for 'Rebellion' to be available at a more reasonable price.

 

And now the true reviews are starting to show why a lot of us are disappointed.

Quote from 'Out of Eight' website. (http://www.outofeight.info/2012/06/sins-of-solar-empire-rebellion-review.html)
 

The Not So Good: Not worth it for previous owners, still no campaign
What say you? The fantastic real-time 4X series continues with a standalone expansion that doesn’t offer enough for veterans of the series:

 

Yes, I also want to say a big "Thank you" to the developers for still allowing LAN play. Please keep it that way for any future releases, too.  

 

Theres is no better multiplayer mode than LAN! Battlefailure 2.0 anyone? Not to mention it is very funny to hear the curses of your friends accross the room when you bomb their planets into oblivion!

With who?  The ignorant fuck claiming this to be a scam or the guy whose been on the board for 4 years and can't read the numerous banners, threads, and e-mails sent out concerning the pre-order benefit?

Everybody else wanted more, sure I'd like to see more, but most of the work of this title went into the engine troubles of it.  The fundamental problem of enjoying the game to 100% capacity.  They also added new fundamental functions of the game by adding in new role types (not including the new tech which can make or break the game).  They advanced the metastory to reflect this.


 Where in this does it say to expect something otherwise (the same key points pointed out for the last year):

Key features:

• New Factions: Decide whether to play as a Loyalist or Rebel – each unlocks new technologies, ships and play styles for each race.
• New Titan Class Warships: Mighty titans enter the fray of the war to tip the scales of power. Each faction may field their own unique titan, drawing upon unique strengths and abilities on the battlefield.
• New and Updated Capital Ships: A new capital ship joins the fleet for each race to offer even more tactical options. Additionally, all existing capital ships have been upgraded to four levels for their abilities, allowing players to focus their ships along specific strengths.
• New Corvette Class Ships: Small and maneuverable, each faction has developed a new light attack craft to harass enemy forces.
• Updated Visuals: Updated graphics, particle effects, lighting and shadows, race specific UI and other enhancements make the Sins’ universe look better than ever.
• New Victory Conditions: Take multiple paths to victory including – Military, Diplomatic, Research, Last Flagship Standing, Last Capital Standing and Occupation.
• New Audio: More than 60 minutes of original music, countless new sound effects and dozens of new voice overs help bring the drama of battle to new levels of immersion.
• Tutorials: New and updated tutorials make it easy for both experienced and new players to quickly start building their own solar empire.
• Plus, a number of optimizations that provide better performance than ever before!

Did they ever once say anymore than this or not follow up on ANY of these points?  If so, pray tell.

Are you daft?  Diablo and Skyrim are both $60 games.  Skyrim hasn't budged in price point since November and Diablo III is still new.  The majority of AAA titles are $50 to $60.  Very, very few ever come out on the $40 range.  Most new DS games are $35 to $40.  Regardless, I would bring up my beta point again, and the chance for people to have cancelled if they some how didn't know how to read or simply didn't like what they experienced.  Simply not buying or waiting for a Steam sale for the product is a very valid thing to do vs. buying it, and bitching about it, or even calling it a scam, after months of open beta test (and near full release content for the last month).

Even then, I've been a Stardock customer for over 10 years.  What they are doing here isn't anything new to them or the industry:

1.  The expansion for Supreme Commander, Forged Alliance.  You get another faction (which aren't even in the mockery of a sequel), a few new units in on other sides, a few new maps, and a continuation of the campaign (albeit short).  This was sold as a stand alone sequel for about $35 in '07/08.  Not really different in price point now.  Aside for the campaign, the content isn't that much different than what Sins did.  Most of the work of what Sins did, went into engine work.

2.  Stalker series.  The only difference in each Stalker series is story, some new items, and a few new areas of the Chernobyl locale to explore.  Most of the content is through updates on the X-Ray engine that GSC was able to pull off.  Guess how much they charged for each new title coming out a little over a year apart from each other?

3.  SF/GC I/GC II.  This is all based on the same IP.  The races, concepts, and story from Stellar Frontier (good times) were put into a strategy genre.  That's were Galactic Civilizations came from.  GC II isn't really all that different from GC I, just all round expanded gameplay.  Guess the pricing differences between 1 and 2 when it came out?

Bottomline, the points I bring up only show how retarded people look in this post-Mass Effect III controversy that makes people so god damn cynical over games now.  It is up to the consumer to make the purchase choice or not.  Nobody is forcing their hand in this (only fanboydom, pure and simple).  It is smarter to WAIT, and GAUGE the situation on an unknown title before blindly purchasing.  Even then, if you experience or receive feedback you don't like, do a return ASAP.  Don't fucking wait on it.  The longer you wait, the more of a fool you'll look.
 
The gaming industry hasn't miraculously changed because of that particular title (ME III).  It's still the same.  You'll always have shit games, and you'll always have gems.  It various across the board.  These trends won't change any time soon.

 Playing devil's advocate here...

I do think someone could contest these two statements...first, some have higher expectations for faction differentiation....second, some people were expecting a completely different entity type (which corvettes are not)...

I'm not calling out SD as "unethical" or "misleading"...I just think some people were expecting more than what they got...these things happen with games, and not every player who is disappointed or feels let down is being a complete ass about it...as a modder, I think it is a lot easier to see how much rebellion truly added....but most people aren't modders, maybe didn't play as every single faction and explore each new element, and just felt like it was more or less the same game...

Additionally, this is not just like everything else SD has done....this expansion is unique because it is targetted at new players more than it is targetted at existing players and is the first SD thing to only be done through Steam (which gives it a whole new level of advertisement and awareness)...pricing and advertisement meant to appeal to new players may not affect existing players in the most positive way...

 

 

 

Kryo already addressed this above.  The discount only applies if you purchase via Stardock as we have your account records - Steam does not.  You can't advertise a discount on Steam directing people to buy from another place.

 

 

 

Mick6662 your absolutely right. But they won't do that. Instead they will release another expansion a "micro+ expansion" I'll call it. In this micro + expansion they will give us all the things that should have been included in this game. The only difference is they will call it "lore Development" It will probably go like this: " after ten years of in fighting each faction realised that it just wasn't enough to have the same ships as their counterparts. No they had to be different in order to be bold. NOW these new (albeit late) weapons emerge on the battlefield. That's were they come in with the 10 dollar or euro price tag.

They have done it with entrenchment as well as with diplomacy. They made an incomplete game and then profited from the mistake they made when fixing it.

I though that Rebellion would be a break in that. I thought that "ok they learned about what was wrong and what works and should be there" But no they didn't push the boat out (which is amazing considering how original Sins was in the first place) instead they built it upwards one SMALL level.

I am a Loyal fan of Sins and I really like Iron clad. But what so many of the fans here won't accept is that layalty must be earned and once earned it must be kept. So remember, when someone sticks there head out like this to make a complaint, they most likely do it because they care. I know I do.

Rant Over

 

And how do you gauge the situation? Well you wait for reviews from early adapters... hey like me?

Would you pay $100 for this expansion? Probably not. Maybe you would. Clearly you put a higher value on it than me, but each person probably has a different opinion of what this expansion is "worth". It's natural that the developer's forums are going to have more than a few $100 people. The point is that when you price something, especially an expansion at a high price point, you have to anticipate that some may feel that the cost is too high.

I'm sure this will be available in three months on steam for $20. That's a reasonable price for this content. In my opinion, $40 was not. 

I think there's been enough pointless ranting in this thread now.  Again - if you're not happy, ask your place of purchase for a refund. The vast majority of users are very happy with Rebellion, as are we.