Wait, ther ISN'T a pirate copy out already?

Of course there is. There was a pirated copy before they even started the project. That is how good the pirates are.

But it's not GOLD pirate, you know?

Congratulations Stardock!

Congrats to Frogboy and the Team!!!

Huh? What do you mean? I've got the Pirated Gold Version right now, had it since last year. Where you guys been?

P.S. I got it from Boogiebac....ssshhh don't tell anyone.

Thanks for the insight on the process! Very interesting!

Good luck with gold, I got a Collectors edition and a digital edition so I can't wait!

LoL yeah man. We were just messing around. I think we all remember the brain damage that was caused by the build from 6 months ago. Just look at what it did to poor Wintersong, he hasn't been the same since Beta 2. He just sits there staring at his monitor with drool dribbling down his chin saying "me likey da fun...me likey da fun..."..LoL.

In all seriousness though with all the hard work and long hours you guys put in the last few months you and the rest of the Team deserve a steak dinner and a trophy that says "Hardest Working Dev Team on Earth". Either that or ones that say "Our Boss is a Slave Driver" hehe

Rock on brother!!! Rock on!!

Heck, we'll be saying that about the real gold version eventually.

The original GalCiv II still gives me the creeps. 

GalCiv II shipped with a problem that caused high end video cards to overheat (nearly all our testing had been done on low end machines because we were paranoid about working on low end machines).  Plus GalCiv II crashed a ton, had memory leaks, and on and on.

Comparatively, Elemental is a lot better in its golden state but still, the day 0 version will be significantly better. Though, in 2010, it's all academic since most users will never play any of the various RTMs but rather whatever the latest version is.

It's always a painfully fun experience to fire up really old versions of software and wince at one's ineptitude. Best done with beer.

Premature release I imagine. Nevertheless I do recognize you work hard so congratulations on your beta going gold.

Frogboy any chance you can roughly tell us how big the Digital Download will be?

This might not have been noticed much, but the Elemental catalogue page in the Impulse Store is using some really old screen shots.  You might want to update the eye-candy for those just hearing about the game.

Sadly I haven't had the time to beta test much at all, but really looking forwards to the 'finished' game in a couple of weeks.  Unfortunately I'm not as single or unemployed as I was when GalCiv2 was in beta.  I miss having that much expendable time for games.

Awesome insight. Best wishes for the newly born!

Summer sure went fast. GOLD..

Great news & team! Take a vacation.. was it enjoyable? Great, now back to work!

REALLY looking forward to this game - looks excellent !!!

Does anyone know if they are sticking to the 10,000 limit of Limited Editions, as it seems that they are available at a few online retailers, as well as the impulse web site.

It's going to be a long week waiting...lol

Congratulations, Stardock people!

This entire pre-release testing and feedback process, including the development updates, the community interaction and requests for opinions and ideas, has been interesting and fun.  I hope this type of process continues with your future projects, and I hope you got positive results from your experiment.  I bet you got at least some insights that weren't previously expected or predicted when you decided to go the route of increased transparency in during development.

Congrats, Frogboy! I've been definitely looking forward to it.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gSq8ZBdSxNU

One question: Will my LE box be cunningly sent early so it arrives on the release date?  My internet connection would not be amused if it was told to download the full game.