Before I sound like I'm trolling or hating, let me state that I am a big fan of Stardock. I buy from Impulse, and would much prefer to give Stardock my business than any other distributor, publisher, or developer. I'm a big fan. Almost a fanboy.

One of the main reasons I am such a fan is the way Stardock carries itself. The No-DRM policy is a very big deal for me. As an ex-developer, I have no desire to steal a game. As a human, I have great respect for the fact that Stardock actually assumes I'm not a thief. The Gamer's Bill of Rights is an exceptional commitment in this industry of trashware. Coupled with GalCiv II, Wardell's forthcoming nature, & Stardock's history of long and quality support, it just seems like a cool community of which to be a part.

Elemental the game has a ton of promise. So much so that I bought a new video card to meet specs. This is the first PC game I've paid premium for since the first few months of WoW (and that was a Christmas gift). I bought it first day and have played through the various patches, logging around 20 hours or so.

All that being said, I decided - based on Stardock's own principles - to request a refund. That was on Tuesday. I have not touched the game since Monday. I have not heard back from Stardock other than that a support incident has been opened.

I certainly understand that Best Buy et al would not give me a refund for a game I have opened (and "played"). However, I have never bought and would never buy a $50 PC game from Best Buy. The single reason I felt safe buying this from Stardock was because of the Gamer's Bill of Rights. The original version:

"1. Gamers shall have the right to return games that don't work with their computers for a full refund.
2 Gamers shall have the right to demand that games be released in a finished state."

It is beyond question that this game is far from finished. One need look no further than the lack of multiplayer to prove this. However, I am not interested in multiplayer. Here are the things I mentioned in my (again unanswered) refund request:

• Numerous crashes. The majority of my play sessions have been terminated with crashes. On three occasions, the crash has tried to bring up the VC++ debugger, which has just deadlocked my machine.
• On that note, the tactical battlefield issues are numerous. I have the ubiquitous sound-cutting-out error odf course, but I also experience numerous lock-ups, where no unit will respond to anything I do. The only way out of this issue is to auto-resolve.
• As discussed and understood by all, auto-resolve AI sucks to the point of despair. I have a spell that will wipe out the opposing army, for example, but auto-resolve won't use it.
• I have had at least 2 patches with save game incompatibilities. [edit - I think perhaps 1.05 didn't get correctly applied the first time?]
• Numerous elements show up on the game map and say I meet the reqs to visit, but won't actually let me visit when I go there (for example, quest level needed: 4, your quest level: 4 - but nothing happens when I get there) [edit - I know that some of these are serialized, but some just aren't]
• Ubiquitious churn of death in late game phases
• This is the most frustrating - when I take over a town, I can't control what happens,. Often, I am not allowed to build things even though I have the reqs. Numerous occasions, however, I have not been able to tear down a structure (because I am tile-limited) without the game saying that would make the town discontiguous. I understand this is not a crash-level bug, but it renders the game unplayable when I'm having to support Sion temples as a Tarthian. The fact that I am not allowed to leave an empty plot of land in the city is obviously stupid - what's clearly going on is that the town perimeter logic is dumb to the point of disabling demolition - but the demo buttons are still enabled.
• I am unable to build ships in harbors. Perhaps there is a way to do this I have not found, but I just cannot figure out how to get these built. When I can scour the manual and check every tooltip and the in-game help and can't find something as basic as ship construction, it's a bug. This is not advanced strategy.

The product was released in a state where Alt-Tab crashed to desktop, for crying out loud. These are not gameplay balance issues (of which there are many), but technical issues.

I stuck with it, but I found myself not in the role of a fantasy sovereign, but in that of a beta (or even alpha) tester. I did not enjoy the game, not because of game issues, but because of technical issues. That's exactly the dilemma the GBofR purports to clarify as the fault of the developer.

I am convinced (obviously, just an opinion) that we are looking at no less than 4 months before this approaches a finished game. The fact that I was unable to send a debug report (even after trying both pastebin & filebin after looking in the forums) tells me that Stardock has very little idea of the actual failure rate. So this is a long-haul issue, and I feel misled in having to pay for its development.

Again, I would not make this request of EA Games. But I wouldn't buy a new product from EA Games, either. The reason I bought this was because of what I understood to be the philosophy behind the sale, if not the actual conditions. Stardock prides itself on honoring the spirit of gaming. I am coming to the forums with my refund request because I see a significant departure from their stated commitments in the way my request has been ignored through official channels. I would also have no problem with a 75% refund if I could apply that 25% to a future full-price repurchase of Elemental (if the price goes down, I lose the 25%). That seems very fair to me, especially since I plan to buy it again when it actually works. But I do not have enough time to play a game that isn't any fun because of technical shortcomings. The Gamer's Bill of Rights backs me up on this one. So, the question is whether Stardock actually believes in this or not.

I have heard people on these board say "business is business" while also defending Stardock as a champion of gamer's rights. Stardock has presented itself as a company that understands that taking care of gamers IS good business (I believe they are right). So, one can't have it both ways. Either take care of gamers, putting long-term ahead of short-term, or just stop pretending that there's a difference.But don't defend choices that completely disregard the GBofR and then hold the GBofR up as a reason why Stardock is different. It's either real or it isn't.

I still believe there is a difference with Stardock, which is why this entire experience has been so disappointing. I've bought a lot of just plain-bad games before, and I've never asked for refunds on those. This is different because of the nature of the issues as well as the nature of the company and my trust of that company. So far, I have not seen said difference in their response to my concerns.

P.S. I still think this will be a kick-ass game at some point.