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!

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

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

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...

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.

"

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!

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.

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!

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.

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.

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.

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!!!