I don't see why criticizing certain elements of the game is mutually exclusive with being a fan of the game and its developer. In fact, I'd say that the more you like a company or its product, the more constructive criticism you should be willing to give in order to help make a product better. Back when i was paying my bills playing the bar scene in a band, the absolute worst thing i could think of at the end of the night was blind(or deaf) fanboy/girls. I knew it wasn't perfect, having people blow smoke up my ass didn't help. But if we had someone show up who knew what they were talking about and came to me with a list of ways we could improve? that made my night every time.

of course, constructive criticism and bitching are two different things, the former being good and the latter being a waste of a post.

All New Releases today have minor flaws and bugs. It happens. Anyone...I Repeat ANYONE...who buys PC games in this day and age should know what to expect. They expected to have a few more days to squash some of the minor crap people are complaining about. Hell there are still a few people out there who can't even get the game to Run at all. Those few people, as long as they meet the minimum system specs, are the only ones who should be bitching even in the slightest.

Stardock ALWAYS supports their games. None of us have ANYTHING to worry about in the long run. Bottom line is, in a couple of weeks, Elemental will be patched up and running smooth as glass for 99.9% of us, and that's a fact. Even I'm having a text issue in game I'm trying to resolve. I keep getting a lot of "String Not Found" text in the game. When I saw the pics Frogboy posted earlier today they weren't in his version, so, I know it's something on my end and I'm trying to fix it.

Play, Enjoy, HAVE FUN...and Have Faith in Stardock, because they don't let paying customers down...Period.

Eh, I was talking about the DATE being 23rd, when the release is on 24th.

When i first wrote that there wasnt more information except the top three posts in that thread.

With further information it seems it is a feature left out that some people want to remain in the game.

My point is unaffected though, people are being rude. A guy just now started saying Stardock was being money grabbing and dishonest. Hardly a fair statement just because they left a feature out of day -1 release is it?

Seems that same person has now asked for their money back and decided to tell all about it on the forums (though the post has been changed now)

Well, it's a known phenomenon. Guys go from fanboys to a rabid pack of trolls on release date. I think it has something to do with the mentality that in a Beta, you feel more of a fellowship with the developers - you are working together to make a better game, which should give a fairly high tolerance to small problems - but on release, you switch toles to being paying customers that feel things should no longer be unstable or buggy at all; your role becomes more in opposition to the developers.

I'm not sure if that analysis is correct, or even close to how it is, but it is easily observable that the level of complaints rise by many orders of magnitude on release. It is probably related to a lot of new faces as well, whose excpectations may or may not have been met.

Give it about a week and the true trolls will leave, and the ones who care will still be here.

I guess there are people complaining because there was so much excitement about the apparition of this game.

In my opinion, as I've understood there is a patch coming in about a month from now, the best positive reaction of the community would be to point out the bugs and things who need to be addressed (including the problem with the maps not being randomized).

While that flies for people like you and me, most of the mass gaming population gets scared by even looking at something that resembles "Code", even something as simple as XML. Granted there are more and more "older gamers" these days, there's still a LARGE chunk of the gaming population that are kids who are easily deterred when looking at modding. Some people even think that you need to be a rocket scientist to be able to handle XML. They just don't know how truly easy some of it is. Time and desperation will gradually push them into the file structure.....I hope.

I have to agree with the original poster. I just came from work and am downloading the game right now. Can't understand all this nonsense!

Of course, the more bug reports and the more comments the better, But what does not help are just plain destructive complains.

So the maps are not random? Well, they should be random. It is something to be reported. But an excuse for destructive blaming!

Expectations were badly managed. People expected random maps and faction customization. People didn't get those things. Even if you leave out how much stuff was completely ripped out of multiplayer to make the release date, the game needs a fair bit of polish to get into the state most other games are at by release.

Given that, a certain amount of negative reaction is expected.

Everybody remember:

(Just thought I'd add something constructive... )

Uh, i think you have misunderstood everything being said. I have repeatedly said that its not the problems or concerns being raised by people. Its the attitude in which those things are being raised.

Saying Stardock has sold out, is lazy, money grabbing etc is NOT constructive. Pointing out bugs, raising concerns about the games features is absolutely fine.

i would read peoples posts before commenting on them were i you.