lol im playin moo till my local eb games store gets it hahahahah

I am pretty angry at the retailers as well.

No matter how Stardock or 2k are going to be nice toward them and try to defend them, they, as retailers, lack a long time.

I want the box however (purchasing online means I have the duty to keep a number in some sort of safe keeping, I don't want that duty), I dunno what to do exactly, but I am sure going to check Zellers before I ever trust those lousy folks for ANY future purchase (and Zellers happen to have about 50% of the titles I buy, so a 50% decrease in sells for them might matter...and who know, Zellers might react nicely to a sells increase, remaining lousy but offering everything eventually), I expect Zellers to be backward about video games...but folks who have a business resolving around GAMES should be faster.

I was pretty sure he had the copy of the game in his boxes in the back, he pretty much betray himself, he look soooo sure they would have the game in store tomorrow. That piss me.

I also went to EB and they said they just didnt get their shipment. So i went to best buy and they had 3 or 4 in stock so here I am with a boxed copy installing it right now! cant wait!

This is an ironic thing.  *I* don't have a boxed copy. I've seen mockup boxes but I've not seen it.  Because of the unexpected last minute demand spike, all copies were sent to customers first.  So I hope the manual and other goodies in there are cool.

I want the box however (purchasing online means I have the duty to keep a number in some sort of safe keeping, I don't want that duty), I dunno what to do exactly, but I am sure going to check Zellers before I ever trust those lousy folks for ANY future purchase (and Zellers happen to have about 50% of the titles I buy, so a 50% decrease in sells for them might matter...and who know, Zellers might react nicely to a sells increase, remaining lousy but offering everything eventually), I expect Zellers to be backward about video games...but folks who have a business resolving around GAMES should be faster. I was pretty sure he had the copy of the game in his boxes in the back, he pretty much betray himself, he look soooo sure they would have the game in store tomorrow. That piss me.

Personally, I blame Stardock and I'm the President of the company.

Here's why I blame Stardock:

1) Stardock knew full well that the demand for the game had skyrocketed unexpectedly in the past 3 weeks. It should have contacted Take 2 to see how this might affect things.

2) Stardock would then have found out that widespread distribution would now take an extra couple of days -- especially because of President's Day being on Monday and could have pushed the digital release back a couple of days.

It's definitely not the retailers fault.  It's Stardock's fault really.  We've never published a game that has anywhere this kind of demand. 

You want to know the really scary part? We almost didn't have enough manufactured for this. 

The original Galactic Civilizations I manufacturing run was 10,000 units which was expected to last the first month easy.  But Strategy First then found itself without enough inventory to satisfy demand. 

So for GalCiv II, we decided to "over compensate" and have the initial manufacturing run be 50,000 copies (or something like that) and it may turn out that that was barely enough.

There's a bunch of other things too, the forum system here designed to handle a load of approximately 2.5X the traffic that GalCiv I peeked.  But according logs and Alexa, we're getting an incredibly amount of traffic, closer to 20X the traffic.  Luckily, the forums seem to be functioning okay (though we've had to hide any sort of search features for now). 

But holy cow.  It's been crazy.  I can't wait for it to be at stores (or to get the game myself).

Well, still waiting for my online order from EB, it'll be worth the wait, been waiting for this one since it was announced.

Like the rest of you, I've called twice and been told twice it didn't come in the EB Games shipment. There's no relief in sight, either. I can't believe the preorder people are getting screwed like this. Usually a company bends over backwards to REWARD the preorder people. (DDO is offering a four day headstart on their game for preorders. City of Villians did the same thing. Most company give you a little perk.)

I can't believe I'm still waiting for this thing. Extra content for the annoyance is nice, but not being annoyed in the first place, and playing the game now instead of whining about the fact that I don't have it yet, would be better.

You have Gabe and Tycho at Penny Arcade to thank for my interest in GalCiv. I had heard a little about it, but when Tycho said "GalCiv II is out now, almost dangerously accessible via online delivery." i knew i had to be a part of it.

Indie games have saved me from grinding my gaming life away in an MMO. Thank you!

Got mine today at Best Buy. Had to ask them to get it out of the stock room, but it was there....

BTW, thank you Sprint, wherever you are. You are a saint.

LOL you spoke to soon, the forum his crashed on me. Its been very choppy the last few weeks but I'll cope.

I want to take the opportunity to congratulate you all at Stardock for doing 3 things;

1) Restoring my faith in developer interaction with its customer and fan base.
2) Producing an incredible game which is vast improvement upon the original and which includes a huge amount of unique never seen before featurettes. Lets hope other game developers look to Stardock as a benchmark on how to develop a GOOD game and think outside the box.
3) Handling the demand for your game extremely well and helping to support and reassure your fans.

If I had two bad comments it would be that;

1) You have seriously underestimated the power of the Fan side LOL and the games demand, I suspect that what you are seeing at the moment is the tip of a VERY big iceberg, I think you should have manufactured 100,000 copies at least and made sure they were ready in all the stores for the 21st.

2) The european release is somewhat lacking, obviously that is not Stardocks fault directly since you have let Paradox deal with the release here. I suggest next time you make sure for a 21th release date here too.

Anyhow I want to wish you all at Stardock and you in particular Frogboy (for being a true sport) lol, the best of luck and hoping you have a excellent roll out. After I get my copy of GC2 and complete it, I'll be pushing for GC3 LOL! Lets see how does a Winter 2006 release date sound?

J - Stardock fan!

I know you guys posted that retailers plan to have it on their shelves by Friday, but I pre-ordered the game from Gamestop (including overnight shipping) and there's still no indication that they even have Galactic Civilizations II in stock, let alone plan to ship it soon.

Since you guys and your distributor are in touch with them, could you possibly confirm whether they have the game and when they plan to ship? I've resisted the temptation to cancel and download the game, but it would help make the time pass easier if we had a better sense of what the delay looks like for on-line retailers.

Thanks.

I totally agree with Darth Yoder above. Star Dock, can you please check with your distributor to know how soon they are planning to release the game to the retailers? I would really like to know. Thanks!

23rd still no word from eb gameson my preorDer.Alright! way to go guys

narf called ebgames again today. guy said that there is NO indication that they have any copies both in shipment or in the warehouse ready to be shipped. *sigh* waiting patiently *sigh*

on a side note, MOO2 is still a fun game for freakin an ancient one, i think GC2 will be the same way 10-15 years from now when i look back on it.

*twiddles thumbs*

As I am sitting here hoping that I will see that my order has shipped within the hour I wanted to focus on whether or not Take 2 screwed up!

From what I have heard people who pre-ordered the game before Feb still have not rec'd their game yet. (I didn't pre-order until Feb 9th so I can understand why I am sitting here with no game) I was under the impression that the entire reason to Pre-order a game was so you wouldn't have to wait for the game after it was released. Also I thought that a distributor could look at the pre-orders and say "Hey it looks like 500 people have pre-ordered the game, I better make sure we have 500 copies" I don't see how it is possible for Retail Stores to have copies just sitting on the shelves while people who pre-ordered the game are sitting and waiting for an already released game to arrive on their doorstep.

I have to give props to StarDock for being so (outwardly) understanding. This is a game that has a very high demand and because of the lack of preparation by their distributor they are losing out on a lot of sales, not only that but it potentially makes them look bad. It is not fair that they have spent so much time making a great game only to have a giant blemish on their opening week because Take 2 couldn't even plan far enough ahead to make sure pre-orders were filled.

With that rant out of the way I wanted to thank Stardock. I was very upset Tuesday night when I found out my pre-order had not even been sent yet, and the only saving grace was that they keep all of us posted on what was going on. Also the friday update helped to calm my nerves. Stardock has shown that it not only knows how to make great games, but it also knows how to treat its customers with respect. Stardock, this buds for you!

Bestbuy = 10 copies (all regular edition)
All EBGames And Gamestops=0 (where I prepaid)

I'm waiting on the collector's ed from EB, but EB and Gamestop should be rather po'ed on the loss of sales to Best Buy.

Hope it hits tomorrow.

GOOD NEWS AND BAD NEWS

GOOD NEWS
I just called EBGames to check and see what the "Open" status meant, and they said it meant that they had recieved the game from the distributor! So all they had left to do was process the order and ship it out. So if you pre-ordered the game before Feb 9th (When I pre-ordered) they have your copy.

BAD NEWS
They said the order would be shipped by at least tomorrow but that they did not have weekend shipping. So even if you have one night shipping unless it gets to you by friday you have to wait until MONDAY to get the game!!!! Our only hope is that they send the game out sometime tonight and give it enough time to reach us before Saturday. *Fingers back to crossed*

UPDATE!! I pre-ordered my game from EBGames.com. Recently they put the game on backorder and when I called they said it was because they still had not recieved the game yet. Today it was changed to 2/24.

WELL I just checked my order status (Which had been saying "Waiting For Product", since tuesday and it has been changed to "Open". This may not seem like much to someone who has the game, but I have overnight shipping so if they send it out in the next couple of hours I will be playing it tomorrow!! So hopefully they have finally recieved the game and are getting ready to start sending it off. *fingers crossed*

Hm...does anyone know anything about the status of Gamestop? I preordered from them but have heard nothing from them.

Hm. GameSpot.com has updated the Coming Soon on its main page, showing GC2's release as 2/24. The rest of the pages display 2/22, for some reason...well, it's something. I hope it comes tomorrow...

I don't mean to be a jerk, exactly, but I don't see why everyone is so happy with Stardock. They didn't really cause this problem, but I don't see them doing much to help, either.

Seems to me, if they were really being a great customer service company, they would be trying to get a real story from Take 2 and EB and other companies.

I mean, first we were told that if we pre-ordered, we would get the collector's edition with some extra stuff.

Ooops, no, that turns out to be not true, only some places are shipping collector's edition to people who pre-ordered. Others are just out of luck.

But wait, even better, most of those places shipping the collector's edition actually aren't shipping anything, because for whatever reason, almost none of those places have gotten copies yet.

Meanwhile, Best Buy has gotten copies in. Of the regular version. So while people who didn't pre-order might not get the tech tree and such, at least they are getting to actually play the game.

Stardock went out of its way trying to get people to pre-order the game, not just from them, but from various merchants. Those dumb enough to actually have done so are getting penalized for it, and I don't see Stardock doing anything but spitting out useless platitudes about how Take 2 is putting out as fast as it can and that pre-orderes were so much (Neither of which explains why best buy got it first, or why EB Games doesn't seem to have gotten any)

Hm...does anyone know anything about the status of Gamestop? I preordered from them but have heard nothing from them.

There's still nothing on Gamestop's website to indicate whether they've received GC2 or not. Stardock hopes the game will be on retail shelves by Friday, but so far I've seen nothing to suggest this will be true of on-line retailers. And even so, it probably means waiting until next week to see something in the mail.

I'm frankly nonplussed as to how I could pre-order something in December and still be waiting for it three days after release.

If there's no clarifying information by tomorrow morning, I imagine i will not be alone in cancelling my pre-order and simply download GC2 or grab a copy off the shelf. Sorry, but I don't see why I should wait since I pre-ordered it several months ago and now people casually browsing Best Buy are getting copies well before I do.

I checked the EB site again and it says GCII will be shipped on 2/24; since EB also does not handle weekend shipping, I can only imagine that I'll get my copy some time next Monday or Tuesday

This is unbelievable. Stardock shouldn't even mention Take 2. When it comes down to it, it's Stardock's game, they are responsable. I can't believe I'm being punished for preordering the game.

When I found out the release date was Feb 21, I set aside tonight in my schedule to spend all night playing this game. Instead, I'm reading a message board about how Take 2 didn't think the preorder numbers would be that high, and didn't print enough copies. Not for nothing, my preorder was made in DECEMBER.

I will NEVER buy another Stardock game. I don't want to hear from anyone how Stardock is responding to it's costumers, because if they were, I'd have their game in my hands already.

I hope everyone is writing to all the gaming magazines to let them know what's going on with this.

It's natural to be pissed about the situation because I know I am, but being pissed at Stardock is not only pointless, its stupid!
Stardock's job = Make computer software/game Take 2 Job = figure out the demand of the game and make sure there are enough copies. Lets take a step back and look at the big picture. From everything I have heard on the boards people are playing the game and they like the game, so Stardock seems to have accomplished their job. Our problem is that we haven't rec'd the game despite the fact that many of us pre-ordered the game months ago, so how exactly is that Stardocks fault?
I have been in situations where I pre-ordered a game and didn't recieve it because the release date was pushed back. In that situation it would be Stardock's fault because they didn't finish the game BUT THEY DID FINISH THE GAME! The reason people are praising them is because they are not only addressing the issue (most places would deny it's a problem and delete any posts that indicate otherwise) they are also going out of their way to make up for the problem (Which is a problem they didn't even cause).

I will NEVER buy another Stardock game. I don't want to hear from anyone how Stardock is responding to it's costumers, because if they were, I'd have their game in my hands already

Sounds like a solid plan and good luck with it. You refuse to buy another Stardock game because you are upset that you didn't recieve it when you should have. Why would you say something like that? Because you were so excited to play the game that you didn't want to have to wait a couple more days, AND how do you solve that problem? By saying you will never buy another game from them. I don't mean to be a smarta** but if you want to point fingers at least point them in the right direction.