What concerns me is 0 Karma? Hell I even have a 1 and he runs the joint!

I tried to give one and got an error.  (

Sorry, was I complaining? Hey, thanks for the free stuff.

yes there are a lot of whiners. who complain and trash a lot of stuff. boo hoo its the wrong color, or i don't like the start button. don't like it don't download it, or make your own. and of course don't buy it. i owe a lot of thanks to all of you creaters out there. THANKYOU!

That's a nice looking building...where are the offices...like where is Karma's office? Can you see it from this side?

My office is the top corner there. The corner facing the pic.

You know I wish my basement looked that good!

I've got to say that the programs I've paid for here at Stardock are the best there is anywhere. Plus they are just plain good people that work there too. If I got a problem it gets fixed. If I want something good for my desktop I always buy it. I'd rather pay for it to keep people like this going. For one good reason "It always does exactly what they say it does and it is the best !"

SGT

Good people tend to produce good product. Something that screams common sense to me.

Honestly, I'd love to work for a place like Stardock, but I don't have a skillset that they would pay me enough to do work for them. I don't think Stardock needs a weatherman or economist, programmers and web designers maybe, but that's not me...

Wow ya Americans want everything for free. somehow we owe it to the people of the USA to value out rime at nothing. I did see a funny comment tho ..."when will people grow up" that is TOO funny I'm 40 (kids now don't do anything but cry and whine) and all i have seen is that people have no backbone, everything offends them... lol and those that can not create things with their minds that don't work (because they have never used them but to listen)think that people with "SKILLS" are not trying to make something more other than a failed mark in life-business-skills. I say close the ears to the whiners. when the can talk with some logic then ill listen. And PLEASE SMILE it is good for you and free for now I LOVE the programs and thank everyone for all your time and effort that is why i BUY things and i don't live at home i have a disabled wife and mother-in-law and i take care of them and i pay so why cant they?      

As a follow-up to Brad's original post, I actually installed My Colors + Sins of a Solar Empire Theme last night. Wow, I am impressed. It looks great. It's unfortunate that I really don't see the desktop of my gaming machine very often, and the other four machines I use on a regular basis are Linux, or I'd buy the full version in a heartbeat.

The hate for such "for pay stuff" originated from games where you had to buy additional features to enjoy the original game in the first place. Mainly online games where you needed to buy something to be able to compete with other players.



This might be an example dependig how balanced the new character would be. If it was so overpowered that you had to play the new character yourself to not being bashed all over the place by other players, it would be almost like forcing everyone to pay $10 to continue playing. Now would you want that?

Now alot of people hate such for pay content and wont make a differnce between "good" and "bad" ones.

Actually, the TF2 example is an example of the wrong kind of paying structure. It's a perfect example of how games are not Legos where you can freely remove one piece and the rest stay put.

Every piece in Chess, even the Pawns, are vital. Chess as a game doesn't work if you have no Queen from the start. And Chess is fundamentally unbalanced if one side starts with a Queen and the other doesn't. TF2 is very much like this.

Every class in TF2 exists for a purpose. They are imperatived. The Pryo's primary designed purpose is to kill clusters and kill Spies. If there was no Pyro, the game would be unbalanced in favor of Spies. If the Pyro were a class you had to pay for, then the success or failure of your team is based on how much they're willing to pay for the complete game.

Or, if there was no Pyro, Spies would be significantly nerfed from what they are now so that they would be properly balanced. So, if you add Pyros, then it now utterly owns Spies. Unless they improve Spies to their current levels, thus forcing you to by Pyros.

TF2 is not something you can just take bits away from or put more bits in. It is a balanced, competitive multiplayer game. The casual player may feel that you can just slap some extra stuff on, but anyone who is even remotely serious about the game knows that everything exists for a purpose.

Adding a new TF2 class is like having the deleted scenes added to the DVD release of a movie. More often than not, the movie is worse off for having the extraneous material added. Even the Lord of the Rings extended editions suffered from this for a couple of the added and extended scenes.

Plus, there's the fact that this is a multiplayer game. If you add a new TF2 class, it must also exist for a purpose. That is, like all other TF2 classes, it cannot be superfluous. That is, there must be some tactic that this class is designed to stop which cannot be stopped by normal means, or this class must enable some tactic that would otherwise be impossible. Which means that multiplayer balance is destroyed; you're stratifying the playerbase. There are people who have the new class and people who don't. And the ones with the new class are going to be fundamentally better off in multiplayer than those who don't. It's this fundamental fact that killed off EA's ridiculous "Purchase Guns" nonsense.

Honestly, what concerns me the most is that the lead game designer for a major PC game release is promoting a concept that is clearly antithetical to good game design. Maybe it's his CEO nature overriding his Game Design sense.

Yes, the truth is that everyone wants everything for free - and so, what nonsense! It's a shame people think like that! Maybe they want the internet to be called the "Freenet"... But it's true, life just doesn't work that way - ya know what I mean. Years ago, I used to be "engaged" in this inexhaustive whiner's club and saw everything the way they do - a very narrow-minded point of view. The truth is, you get so caught up with this ill trend till you just don't realize it... and so, it used to influence me so bad. But TODAY, I've moved away from that kind of thinking and to such a point that I firmly took a stand against whiners and pathetic complainers who have got nothing better to do. On the net, it's gotten so out-of-hand till it's become a plague in a sort. People whine and complain to MANIPULATE circumstances. If the company is too soft, they will give in. Ranting is not OK for good mental health - believe me, it's just a negative atmosphere that causes more harm than good (especially to the one who rants inexhaustibly). To my understanding, there is absolutely NOTHING wrong with the freeware bait luring you in for the shareware experience. That's perfectly normal business endeavors. The only reason why people rant, criticize, complain, and whine, is that they think they will succeed in changing the situation. They consider it as a form of "pressure" applied towards companies. Is it sensible to expect people to work for free? - hardly so! Do these pathetic whiners get a paycheck for all the hours they put in and expect others to do the same BUT for free... - what pure nonsense...!! Personally, I'm very ashamed of the attitude that prevails today on the net. It's just downright disgusting. They should start to create new and severe laws for the net that would protect companies from this relentless harassment. Yes, this situation has got to change... As for Stardock products... their setup is just fine. Keep up the good work Stardock - it's much loved and appreciated...

It's a false hope.  However, when they grudgingly come to this realization they storm off with the opinion [they always had, really] that they are right, and everyone else is wrong.

Gump got it wrong.  Life ISN'T a 'box of chocolates'....it's more a box of chocolates from which several are missing....and as luck/life has it, the ones you'd REALLY prefer just aren't there.

You learn to 'take it on the chin', and deal with it....

Actually Shareware, before the term was utterly bastardised, was software that was free to copy for other friends. Usually the program was feature complete, but the programmer asked for donations, but wanted it copied and spread. Hence the name "SHAREware". The term began being butchered in the mid 90's and lost all meaning. What is known as shareware these days is more accurately nagware or crippleware. I get tired of the misrepresentation of the term shareware, since when it first started being used it meant NOTHING like what it has become.

Your comment about the "parasite class" is a little far fetched and overblown. Far to much crap is pulled by the software industry these days ripping off the public (poor quality, bugs etc...), it's understandable people get pissed off when they feel they've been led on and only given three quarters of a product. Particularly when they can wait a while and get the expansion and game bundled for free. Well look at Gal Civ II. You can get the whole bundle for only $20 more than the original game cost. Not saying Stardock are doing anything wrong, but perhaps if companies like Microsoft weren't abusing this paid content model (by massively charging Canadians for example), it wouldn't be looked upon so poorly.

I'd be pissed off if Valve chucked out another character for $10. A full expansion, fair enough. But $10 for ONE CHARACTER... That's taking the piss.

This bitching is as bad as Crytek saying they're not being PC exclusive anymore due to "rampant piracy". Yeah, I'm sure it has nothing to do with the absurd system requirements of "Crysis". I know I didn't even bother trying the demo because I knew it was going to run like crap. But instead of admitting their hugely overpriced tech demo can't be run by 90% of PC's out there, they blame piracy. I went and checked a torrent to see how busy it was. Almost nobody on it.

I'm a writer. I get paid to write. I can't charge the people I write for extra if I add a few paragraphs after they've paid for the initial article. And yet here you are, bitching about people being upset having to do that with computer software.

It's a double standard, and your attitude is extremely whiny and unprofessional. You've invoked every cliche (living in their moms basement), every insult (calling them parasites). It's pathetic really. I expected better from you.

What's ironic is the fact that in todays world, more likely the people complaining are doing so because because between rising gas prices, food prices, interest rates, housing costs, kids etc... There is less money to go around. But no, far better to just wheel out the same old tired cliches instead of analyzing. It's a lot easier to just go "Goddamn freeloaders" than put any real thought into it beyond simple "Software costs, ergo we charge". It's overly simplistic, on BOTH sides of the argument. From the folk bitching on message boards I expect it, but to see such whining from someone in the industry who I HAD respected... Asinine ranting like this is enough for me to reconsider evangelizing Stardock as a company who "gets it", as clearly your attitude is just as pathetic as the rest of them out there.