Lord KiRon

Don't worry, betas are always buggy (show me one that isn't and you get a cookie), and remember the sources of crashes has decreased dramatically with each version. This being said, the introduction of both the full game engine and subsequently tactical battles has introduced new bugs and such that the team has dealt with. The big culprit has been the memory leak, and if reports are correct (which I'm sure they are) this has been dealt with.

Have faith, and remember that betas are NOT demos, as much as we all wish they were. We're not here to sample a product, rather to refine a product's construction process. 

Stardock knows what they're doing, 

Paradoxical.

I am just a bit surprised of the "release cycle".

Why not to give us to test RC "with all the bugs fixed" before making it "gold"?

On the other hand I guess it's all depends on beta's "target". If beta was to test ideas, not the code, then I guess it's OK.

I suspect the game will be stable but I'm generally more concerned about the complete lack of any non internal balance, AI or general gameplay testing before release. If it were a first person shooter that would be one thing, but in a turn based 4x game, that's a pretty essential process. But I guess they can always fix things after release if necessary, and we could always choose to wait to buy the game until later if we don't think it's finished yet. Time will tell.

Well I hope they pre-release the stable version before the retail version for us to check out... or are they saving that version as a surprise...

Look guys, the game compiled. If there are bugs, we assume the compiler should have caught them. That's what the compiler is for.

Now, none of us have had time to load the game or try it out but I'm sure it's fine.

lol. I'm pretty sure that's what they did with this title: http://www.gamespot.com/pc/driving/bigrigsotrr/review.html

Hmm a couple comments here. I just found out about this game today...thanks to the email I recieved from stardock. I am greatly interested in it as it seems to be an updated version of masters of magic and several other games combined that I can think of. I have not played the game or been involved in the beta as I found out about it too late.

@paradoxical on beta stability: It is true that all betas have bugs etc....it has also been my experience that there is no great change between the end of a beta(last stage) and the first release version of a game. Therefore if a beta is really buggy and unstable I expect the first release version to also be very buggy and unstable. For this reason I never ever buy the argument relax its just the beta unless its early beta with plenty of time to fix the bugs. In the end I would rather have half of a really good game that is nearly bug free than all of a good game that is so riddled with bugs it never becomes playable. Where this game falls I have no idea as I have not played it and do not have access to the beta.

@frogboy : That is about the funniest statement I have read yet and I about died laughing.

they still haven't fixed that FOW bug in galciv2...

game is going to seriously own. end of story.  i will never believe otherwise.

Consider that each subsequent beta has been an order of magnitude better than the previous.  Consider the excellent products that Stardock has delivered time again.

Believe in the Frog.  He even runs a game company and everything!

Depends on whether it's an actual beta test or a marketing exercise. Most public beta's are little more than marketing exercises designed to build up a core fanbase prior to actual release; kinda like what the demo was for in the days company's used to release them before the actual game. As a result you tend to be getting code which is pretty much the release candidate and only requires minor tweaking.

Actual beta's are rarely open to the public for the precise reason you describe; most devs don't want to risk sinking their game before it hits the shelves due to negative perception of the beta code, so it's far more common you select a small number of testers and slap a non-disclosure agreement on them to prevent any negative word of mouth leaking out prior to release.

Eh just for the new guys that came after seeing the mailer that went out. You have no worries, I am not saying the game will be perfect (as all launches always  find something) but the issues we had in beta where the same issues we had with previous titles by these guys like Sins game. it as many should know comes with in beta a tracer , basicly a built in system that monitors the game constantly and records all issues. This sort of monitoration in a game will kill it's performance and cause allot of issues. Now don't let me lead you to think I am attempting to defend these guys as some blind fanboy. But (I know you have probably heard this a ton on the internet) I really am a developer , not here but elswhere and I can assure you that indeed these things are indeed true for companies like stardock.

I read above about some that feel.."well final beta is a good representation of the final game" and you would be correct, but by no means should you ever think it's how the performance will be at launch. Star Trek Online had horrible in game performance till launch day and even then it was touchy, it took them a month basicly to clear it all up. That is of course just an excample, but to the point. Stardock has made and does make awsome games for those that love the strategy genre, in the end thou and I bow to the comment that frog made awhile back...

"This is the game the way we want to make it, some will not like it and thats fine, they don't have to buy it. But as gamers we love it and know others will as well" and playing their beta even with all the memory issues etc, I know once the game is launched it will be exactly what I was expecting. The nice thing is , as with all their titles, they never stop working on them, we still get stuff for sins all the time and I look forward to elemental as well.

Time to fire compiler?