1601

Not much different from any other Day 1 Patch.

1602

Even for those that don’t have internet access at home, Impulse Anywhere is available to download the information from another location.

1603

I don’t think you can say RTM is “pre-Beta 4”. It’s going to be a build based on a code branch made before Beta 4. I’m not sure what the standard procedure is for game studios, but my software company branches for a Release while work is still progressing on the main trunk as well.

1604

I’ve been one of the games most eager supporters since I first heard of it way back in Galciv 1 beta…

But right now, I’m very concerned about the game, and its lack of soul. Its a nice piece of software that works, but…there’s not really any magic in it right now as I see it. I really hope there’s either something we havent been privy to yet, or that the last few weeks will suddenly add a lot to the game.

1605

I don’t now if Stardock changed their preorder policy or it just changed because the game is somewhat close to release, but I was finally able to buy it with Paypal.

So far I’m not very impressed (too many things I find annoying in most 4X games seem to be implemented unchanged) but actually more interested (there certainly is some promise and still many mechanics to discover for me).

For a beta I find it difficult to actually get an overview of the issues/bugs/content. I had some graphical issue, but I could not find an easy way to see if it is a common issue, if/how often it has been reported, if it is addressed or solved already.
I only found some list with dates and very generic descriptions and links to the reporting threads, which is not helpful at all. Am I supposed to read every thread under graphical issues until I find one matching my problem?

I’m most disappointed in research. It’s better than Galciv’s +2% techs, but still very micro and tech tree optimizing -intensive.

Also: tool tips and ingame feedback. The game hasn’t enough of those.

1606

That is not what I said.

I said that the code branches will split at beta 4 where one will go on to the RTM version and one will be the day 0 version.

1607

Impulse Anywhere doesn’t sadly work very well. You will often(currently running at 100% for me on 3 attempts) get a corrupt download after trying to ‘decompress’ the download. Until this is ‘fixed’ i’ll have to hold off buying elemental until a ‘Gold/Complete’ edition comes out. Which is a shame.

1608

As a test, I just downloaded and installed Galciv2 from Impulse Anywhere. It worked just fine. There were no errors of any kind.

It is possible that whatever you were trying to download from there is corrupted on their server. Since I don’t know what it is you tried to download three times, I can’t verify that. But if that is the case, that hardly means that any elemental download would be corrupted too.
Another possibility is that your computer you use to download it has reliability issues, such as memory errors. If that is the case, all large downloads that do not use error checking should suffer corruption, regardless of source.

1609

A bit better Stardock ;)

1610

Pointing out the obvious that needs to be fixed:

  • text overlapping the images (circles) on the left page
  • “Requirements” text at bottom right overlapping the background line
  • the description mentions the max damage possible, is there a min?

Otherwise, nice progress :)

1611

It was Galciv 2 also. I bought the retail ‘Ultimate’ pack and wanted the latest patch(v2.02 iirc). My gaming rig is internet isolated(as it is also my dev rig) so i did all the correct hoop jumping to use an internet connected PC to verify the activation codes etc and long story short out of three complete downloads of Galciv 2 i always got an unspecified ‘decompression error - corrupt download/lack of hard drive space(it wasn’t that)’ error.

I asked around their forums etc, PM’d Brad here(yeah a longshot as he is a busy guy, especially now!), and as far as i can tell there is no checksum error checking on their Impulse Anywhere downloads(this was info from another user of Impulse Anywhere that was also having ‘corrupt download’ errors). So it appears hit and miss if you get a good download or not from that particular service? Which means i’ll probably have to wait for a fully patched up ‘Gold’ version of most of their games.

I ran memtest a while back, and have no other noticeable problems on that PC, but i’ll run it again as you never know - it could be that?(even though the source file is downloaded on an internet connected PC(memory ok on that one also) and transferred to the off line PC)

1612

But there is error checking during transmission. It is a fundamental part of the TCP protocol: a 16 bit checksum. The thing is, a checksum in the tcp protocol doesn’t protect against errors that happen after the transmission. Which is why I mentioned memory errors. They are a common cause for such corruption because of that. It could also be the processor, network card, network card drivers, network cable, router, modem, or even a problem somewhere in between the server and your computer.
Finding the problem can be tricky, especially if you have only one pc attached to the internet in your house.
Either way, if you are unable to solve the fundamental problem of the download arriving corrupted, you can always try asking Stardock or someone else that is able to download the files without corruption to supply you with par2 files.
See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parchive

PS: You mentioned Galciv2 ultimate. The installer I downloaded from Impulse anywhere as a test was Galactic Civilizations II v1.53.136, without expansions. If the ultimate edition supplies you with a download link to a special ultimate version, it is still possible the files are corrupted on their end.

1613

cheers for the advice and suggestions Netriak, you have actually been more helpful than Stardock/Impulse over this - seriously. I’ll go check a few avenues you mentioned(like i have 2 other net connected PC’s to download over etc). Thanks.

1614

Once I built a PC for my cousin, and after completing the build EVERY compressed (.rar, .zip, etc.) file I pulled down was corrupt.

After doing a little testing the culprit ended up being some sort of software firewall that came bundled as optional software with the network adapter drivers.

1615

That reminds me on how I acquired Elemental. It was just after the release of Dragon age Origins, which I bought from Impulse. It was immediately apparent to me that there were significant issues with the Impulse release: the dlc screen didn’t work. I figured out the cause of that, it had to do with the fact that Dragon age used an actual windows service to handle DLC:

You see, they wanted the game to be able to do things that required admin access for DLC installing purposes on a limited account. So Bioware had the brilliant plan of installing a windows service when the game installed that itself would have administrative rights, but could be started by any normal user. So if you’d run the game, the game would run the service, and then the service could do the things that required admin rights.

But as you know, Impulse doesn’t use the publisher’s installer. It installs all files on its own. So the service was never registered. And when I told Stardock support about that, they fixed that but neglected to set the permissions so that the service could be started without administrative rights. So for users that ran limited accounts, or used User Account Control, it still didn’t work. Well, it sort of did, Stardock did configure the service to start with windows, but the service would still quit along with the game. So you had people having to reboot windows to have Dragon Age work properly.

Therefore I posted on their forums that they really should fix the service permissions. Then I got a private message from one ‘Zoomba’ at stardock support, asking on information on how to change said permissions, claiming lack of sleep and asking for assistance. So I helped him with the information he needed. The service had the proper permissions set one update later (although it still was set to start when windows started…) and I received another private message, thanking me and asking whether there were any Stardock products or games I would like to have added to my Impulse account. I mentioned being interested in Elemental, and half an hour later I had access to the latest Beta build of Elemental, even though the beta was technically closed at the time, and preordering wouldn’t give you beta access.

1616

Well it looks like Stardock isn’t too worried about how things are shaping up for release. This from the Beta 4 Preview

As of today, the game is now sufficiently ahead of schedule that the Stardock team is no longer in “crunch mode”.

1617

Still won’t be good enough for the hand wringers. ;)

I completely understand the fact that it seems a bit dry/bland/whatever. Giving 'em the benefit of the doubt on that.

1618

THIS

#6 The game will occasionally design units for you (for players who don’t like designing their own units).

As I suck at figuring out what I can make. :)

1619

Yeah, this is the case for me as with Galciv and similar games. I just do not care enough to spend the time creating units. Cool that it is in there, but not my thing.

1620

I don’t know if this is news here, I haven’t been following this megathread, but I am interested in the game.

On another forum, someone working for Stardock confirmed there will be a demo released after launch.

Like I said, this may only be news to me, but I thought I’d share just in case.