We've gotten word from Take 2 (our distributor) today that they are putting Galactic Civilizations II into the channel as fast as possible.

Simply put, indie games don't tend to have this kind of demand so they're struggling to meet the demand.  It should be pretty thoroughly stocked by Friday (2 days from now) though some places sporadically do have it in stock.

If there was a graph of "interest level" in the game, it spiked massively as February rolled around from being a smaller title to being a very high demand title.  So everyone's playing catch-up.

If you've pre-ordered it from retail or are planning to get it at retail, please don't cancel your order.  We'll make it worth your while.  We will try to release an update this Friday afternoon to coincide with the wider availability so that you have something to look forward to when you bring the game home beyond what's already available.

We'll put together a Journal entry on what will be in that update, we're still deciding. Probably some additional maps, scenarios, and some bug fixes, tweaks, etc. 

So if it's not at your local store yet, it should be by Friday.  Purchasing at retail helps ensure that the game stays on store shelves longer.

In an effort to ensure that nobody is sympathetic to it, the RIAA's filing to the US copyright office indicates that it does not support people beig able to take their legally purchased CDs and copy that music onto their legally purchased iPod even if they are the only one using it.

Ripping music from CDs and transferring it to an iPod does not constitute fair use, according to a document filed by the major record companies.

In a filing to the US Copyright Office, the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) attempts to undo a statement it made in court during the recent successful prosecution of the Grokster p2p company.

In court RIAA lawyer Don Verrilli said: 'The record companies have said, for some time now, and it's been on their website for some time now, that it's perfectly lawful to take a CD that you've purchased, upload it onto your computer, put it onto your iPod.'

However in the Copyright Office filing the RIAA takes a contrary view.

'Nor does the fact that permission to make a copy in particular circumstances is often or even routinely granted, necessarily establish that the copying is a fair use when the copyright owner withholds that authorization,' it argues. 'In this regard, the statement attributed to counsel for copyright owners in the MGM v. Grokster case is simply a statement about authorisation, not about fair use.'

In other words, explained Fred von Lohmann, senior staff attorney for the EFF, a leading digital rights campaign organisation, if you want to copy a CD to your iPod, get permission first.

As one of the people who actually does not pirate music but buys it legally, this really gets on my nerves.  At some point, EVERYONE becomes a criminal in the RIAA's book.  The idea that I can't take my legally purchased Star Wars CDs and put them onto my computer to listen to in iTunes is absurd.

February 21, 2006 -- Software developer Stardock Entertainment released the sequel to its award-winning PC strategy game, Galactic Civilizations today.  Galactic Civilizations is a space-based strategy game set in the 23rd century in which players take on the role of leader of a space-faring civilization.  Through military might, diplomatic skill, technological superiority, or cultural supremacy players attempt to dominate the galaxy against up to 10 opponents.

The sequel, Galactic Civilizations II: Dread Lords, is a complete overhaul of the game that includes possibly the most sophisticated visual ship design feature seen yet in a PC game. It also includes fleet battles, sophisticated planetary management, the civilization manager, advanced diplomacy, and much more all encapsulated in a state of the art 3D engine.

The game should be available at most retail outlets in North America this week and across Europe and Australia over the next couple of weeks. It is also available for immediate purchase and download at www.galciv2.com. 

It will run on Windows 98, ME, 2000, XP, and Windows Vista.  The game engine is resolution independent and is scaleable to ensure that it has very high end graphics on the latest hardware but will still run well on low end desktops and older laptops.

Stardock has also released the Bonus Pack for the game today which added several new custom maps, scenarios, starship components, full-screen video tutorial support, AI tweaks, and much more.

Galactic Civilizations II: Dread Lords lists for $39.95 at retail.  Stardock's home page is https://www.stardock.com.  More information at the game's home page https://www.galciv2.com.

Other Resources:

• Game play Example: https://forums.galciv2.com/?ForumID=164&AID=101434
• Video of gameplay: https://forums.galciv2.com/?ForumID=161&AID=101018

Screenshots:

Good, bad, ugly? Let us know what you think of the game.

If you were a reviewer for Magazine X, what sort of rating would it be on a 1 to 5 star scale?

What did you like? What surprised you? What would you like to see improved?

At around 4:30pm EST one of our ISPs (Cogent) had a hic-up. Naturally it was the default one (anyone who switched to a different server would have been fine incidentally).  But Cogent has restored things.

In the meantime, we spread the bandwidth across more servers in that outtage so people should be getting pretty good download rates now.

Please let us know your experiences.

Hopefully things will go smoothly for you to get the game.  But if not, here's a guide to help you..

First Steps..
When you purchase the game you will receive a link to Stardock Central. Download that.

Make sure you are running 2.29 or later (if you've been running Stardock Central for awhile, double check in the about box that you're not using an old version like 2.24).

Downloading
If you're downloading the game and it's slow, you can try a different server.  From Stardock Central go to tools->Settings and the server is in the "Internet" area.  We have several different servers.

Account Problems
If you used a different email address to purchase the game direct than what you used to create an account here, Stardock Central may get confused. If that happens, email [email protected] with the subject "GalCiv Account Issue" and they'll take care of you.  If you receive no response within 1 hour, post here and someone from Stardock will likely see it and take care of you here.

Download Speeds
The core game download speed will be slower than the multimedia/movies/tutorials because those are mirrored.  The core game is regularly updated so we aren't able to mirror it as much.  You should still get pretty decent speeds (and a reminder: try a different server if you find downloading too slow or if you get a time out -- bear in mind, there's a LOT of people downloading the game).

If you have problems related to actually obtaining/installing the game, post them HERE in this thread.

NOTE: Some anti-virus software will cause the installer not to work (i.e. it'll block Stardock Central from extracting/installing the game). If you run into an installation problem, try disabling some of your anti-virus setup temporarily to see if that resolves it.

The next beta build of Windows Vista will include the Sidebar.  That's good.

The build will only include 5 gadgets.  That's bad.

You will be able to get more gadgets from MicrosoftGadgets.com (and DesktopGadgets.com eventually).  That's good.

Most of the third party gadgets are awful. That's bad.

There's a guide to make your own Microsoft gadgets. That's good.

The Microsoft gadgets are made using DHTML. That's bad.

Stardock plans to find a way so that gadgets can be made in a non-crappy manner such as XAML/WPF.

But in the meantime, check this how-to guide.

Step #1: Boost your street credibility by calling Windows Presentation Foundation "WPF".  Say it. SAY IT! WPF WPF.

Okay. Phew. Breath.

Windows Presentation Foundation is the new API to handle drawing in Windows Vista.  It replaces GDI, GDI+ and a bunch of other "stuff" from previous versions of Windows.

Anyone seriously interested in a career in software development in the Windows market will need to know tis stuff.  So here's a page with a lot of helpful stuff.

Microsoft plans to have 6 different versions of Windows according to Mary Jo Foley of Microsoft-Watch.

According to a posting on its Web site, Microsoft is readying six core Vista packages, or SKUs, plus two additional releases customized for the European Union that won't bundle in Windows Media Player, as ordered by European antitrust regulators.

On the line up are Windows Starter 2007; Windows Vista Enterprise; Windows Vista Home Basic, Windows Vista Home Premium, Windows Vista ultimate, Windows Vista Business, Windows Vista Home Basic N and Windows Vista Business N. The "N" releases are those which do not include Media Player.

Microsoft officials said on February 20 that the posted list was incomplete and posted inadvertently.

It's not clear whether the Starter release mentioned on Microsoft's site is the same as the current Windows XP Starter Edition product, which is a cut-rate, less fully featured version of Windows tailored for developing countries.

The new SKU list contains relatively few surprises, as Microsoft had been widely expected to fold features from its current Windows XP Media Center Edition and Windows XP Tablet PC Edition into other SKUs, rather than continue to sell them as distinct editions. Company officials also previously discussed plans to offer a Windows Vista Enterprise Edition – a variant of Vista that Microsoft is using as an incentive to attract more users to sign up for its Software Assurance licensing plan by making it available to Software Assurance customers only.

Oye. 6 versions?

In a related story, Microsoft is looking at acquiring a number of asprin companies.

In an e-mail sent to journalists, the company merely said the invited scribes should come to Apple's Cupertino, Calif., headquarters next Tuesday to learn more.

"Come see some fun, new products from Apple," the company said in its invitation.

Unlike past invitations, which hinted at which product Apple was targeting, the current invitation includes just a picture of a calendar with only the date Feb. 28 on it.

Stay tuned!