Well now, this is unfortunate. Mere days after leaving the launch pad, spacefaring strategy game Sword of the Stars II is adrift and burning in space. Players have cited numerous crippling issues - from missing tutorials to entire features gone absent to general instability. To their credit, at least developer Kerberos and publisher Paradox aren't denying it.
"Thanks to various factors we are now sitting on top of a pile of blown apart code and unstable features. The first thing you can expect though is stability. There will be an update tomorrow which will set right much of the chaos created friday in terms of crashing and keeping you from playing that game. What it WON'T do is magically add back in every piece of functionality. Gods know I wish that I had that magic wand but the reality is that path leads to more chaos and more broken gameplay sessions," wrote Kerberos CEO Martin Cirulis on the official SoTS2 forums .
He also pledged Kerberos' trademark continued support - a claim which is quite handily backed up by the treatment of the original Sword of the Stars. As such, Cirulis says to expect "two or three updates a week over the next month" to bring things up to speed. There will also be "additional content" as a reward for everyone who had to put up with the whole fiasco. But, if that's still not enough for you, Kerberos isn't forcing you to wait while it duct-tapes the shattered fragments of its game back together.
"If you demand a refund then I completely understand and you can be assured, the cost of that will make it directly to us," Circulis promised. "We will feel your 'voting with your dollars,' you can be sure about that, and we accept that as fair play."
"On the other hand, if a free copy of the original SotS will help tide you over while we get this game shined from turnip to jewel, then please write to contact@kerberos-productions.com and we will set you up. If nothing else, if you are not familiar with how we support our products, you can play it and then ask the old-timers how much it changed over the years and that may reassure you."
Quite nice, as gestures go. Still though, I never thought I'd say this, but I really miss the days when developers delayed games. Sure, modern tech grants devs the power of rapid-fire updates, but with great power comes great responsibility. So, the take away point of all this: More game developers should read Spider-Man.
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