Elemental & Impulse

1. Yes

2. No

You need Impulse to update, but you don't need it to play. If you want, you can update, then uninstall Impulse and never worry about it again until there is a new update.

Does anyone know if they are going to release independent patches that we can download and install without Impulse?

there was a statement by frogboy that they will be releasing dvd's with the current version when the update reate slows down, that you  will have to subscribe(i think) to get, but impulse IS the only updater for all of the current range for stardock supplied games/software.

harpo

What's wrong with impulse?

I don't think so seeing getting updates are one of the many benefits of having paid Stardock for their fine game, and since Impulse is the only way Stardock has of knowing if a copy is registered or not.... It's a fact of life that if you buy a Stardock game and want to stay current on updates Impulse is a neccesary but rather harmless evil.....

Download? No. It's Impulse or nothing.

one question:  does anyone who isn't a pirate ever ask the OP's two questions?

They never will.  Requiring you to verify before installing updates is their way of deterring piracy- and one I can tolerate/accept, as it only really hinders pirates while adding a couple seconds onto patching. 

It's a crap with slow download rate and every time I reinstall the game I need to wait at least 2-3 hours of download time instead of just installing it from .exe within 5 minutes. If I ever won't have an internet connection when reinstalling the game I'm screwed because I cannot update the game. 

And it's another useless program running in background which uses my computer's power.

So yeah, I wish EWoM was free of this shit, unfortunately I have no choice but to use it since I really like the game.

Slow? Thats strange, i get very high download rates with impulse. Much better then GG, or Steam.

You dont have to run Impulse while playing, so its just running when you want to update.

how do you see slow for downloading? I get the download speed AT the bandwidth limit of my connection PER computer, and I can have several downloading at the SAME time and ALL are reporting that they are downloading AT the maximum speed regarding my connection speed eg 153kb/s PER COMPUTER on a 1.5mbit connection, and as osirisdawn states impulse is ONLY needed to install/update and you can ARCHIVE an installation so you do not have to download it again on the computer if you need to re-install it for some reason like damaging/deleting game files.

harpo

It's not slow for me mate, in fact I'm always impressed by it's download speeds. I suspect your internet connections is slow in which case not using impulse won't help.

You can turn impulse of when you aren't using it, you can even take it out of the startup group and just run it when you want too, I do this often.

and finally yes your rudness and grumbling aside stardock are free to publish updates in anyway they please, personally I like impulse it make patch management and buying stardock games much easier. And I was quickly able to redownload and install all my impulse games when I got a new computer which saved me loads of time and looking for CDs.

You can play the game without installing Impulse but you will not get any patches/updates from the origional boxed version. So, basically if you want to play the most recent version of Elemental you'll HAVE to install Impulse and USE IT to get your patches/updates.

It's really a no brainer as it isn't intrusive like a Steam client. It's just a protection service from piracy nothing more really, but, you can use it as a storage device for all your games you buy from Stardock. Once you've gotten your update you can even DELETE it from your hard drive but you'll have to REINSTALL it if you want another patch/update for your game(s).

Also THIS ^ is WRONG/INCORRECT as you can go into your MSconfig and uncheck the box that allows Impulse to start on bootup (as well as many more things in that Msconfig window) and it will not startup until you USE it for a PATCH/UPDATE. Then all you need to do after the patch update is bring up your TASK MANAGER and click on IMPULSE.exe and END PROCESS....wow that's soooooooo frickin hard to stop a program from running and gain power/memory back.

I have Impulse, Steam, Gamersgate, GoG and Digital River and NONE of these startup when I boot my computer because it's so simple to shut them off. So just because you're an igmo and don't know how to use your precious computer features then having all that power is pretty useless to you anyway.

Probably, though it's hard to tell which is which sometimes.

Myself I let Impulse start up when I boot but normally shut it if I'm not going to use it or play a Stardock game. It's pretty light so I see no harm in leaving it running while playing those games.

On the other hand I do shut it down if I'm going to play a non-stardock game or do something else on the computer. I like it in the boot up group to remind me to check for updates regularly and you can just right click and then click exit to shut it down.

Really making a fuss about getting updates from impulse is silly.

If you archive a game once it's patched, then you can just reinstall the archive, instead of having to redownload all the patches.

Sometimes right when an update comes out, it will slow down, though never as bad as Steam does where it just refuses to function.

I think you have Impulse confused with Steam.  Impulse is fast, and it doesn't have to be running in the background to play...

It doesn't seem to cause me any problems.

Impulse is fast I was downloading 1.4 Megs per second it took just under an hour to download the game. The only thing that sucks is if Impulse is down you can't download your games or update them. I did read that they were talking about letting you buy a dvd of the game (with all the updates) when it doesn't need to be updated as much. That would great the game would install a lot faster however how much are they going to charge for the game on dvd since I bought it already?

Last time they've talked about it, it was like 5$ for a years of patch(the last years of course)

Archive the game then so that you will not need to redownload (and it will store with the current updates). And there is Impulse Anywhere that will allow you to download to be installed later on another machine (though for this you have to do a full download, and needs Impulse to do the install on the machine).

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PS:

I find browsing the web while downloading helps the speed, up to a point (if you visit small websites that load quickly). It seems to bump up your priority for connection speed (it only helps so much, and periodically going to a new page is needed to keep it from dropping).

you can uninstall impulse when you are done updating if impulse offends you so much. 

Just reinstall every major patch, update, and then uninstall.  Heck, I swear most update programs go through basically the same number movements to patch a game. 

Yes.  Normal non-pirating consumers are interested in how programs interact with their computers.

I'm sure it's a lovely program.  I just don't feel it's right that I should pay full price for a piece of software and then be forced to use another piece of software I don't want in order to use the one I paid full price for.  And with the original release version of the game (as I've read it because I have not played it) you must update it to solve all the problems, so you are being forced to use Impulse.

For those of you that replied with one, thanks for all the helpful comments.  From what you've said, I'm slightly less hostile towards Impulse, but still not enough to go and buy the game.  It does sound better than Steam since it doesn't need to be running in the background in order for a game to even work.  However, I assume like Steam you register the game to a specific account, tying it forever to that account?  Thereby preventing any resale if you dislike or get bored with the game.  Does that also mean that if I buy a used copy from amazon, I'm getting screwed cause I can't use it with Impulse to update it since that one will be registered to someone else's account?

Thanks,

Shaw

Nah, you can sell your copy or transfer it or give it. The only thing you can't do is playing in a multiplayer game with the same serial number. If you plan on playing only in single player, you wont have any problem.For impulse, it's really just a download manager, not a disguise DRM software. It help to manage the patch and the download of your game. Personnaly, I have steam and Impulse on my machine and I dont have any problem with both of them, but what I like is Impulse is not required to play your game once it's installed. So you dont like impulse, like other have said, you just delete it or turn it off. For more information about transfering your license, I think you should ask the sales departement at stardock.

EDIT: I reread your post and want to add something else for your "used" copy at amazon: if both of you try to be online at the same time for this game, you wont be able to but if only one of you is connected to the Elemental server, you wont have any problem.