@Yarlen

When will beta start (very roughly)

PS.: PreOrdered as well, 5 sec after it was available

OK, on impulse, I have diplomacy registerd with the same account that I am logged into right now, but the upgrade page shows me diplomacy and rebellion for 40 as well. It is the same account, is there a specific support page for this or what?

use the re-activate option in impulse, and delete the bin file it tells you to delete. if you reregister with the same email as your impulse account, i dont know.... but if you used a different email address, you need to do what I did... see reply number 29

Now, if someone who's never owned a Sins game before buys Rebellion, will they be able to load up Vanilla, Entrenchment, and Diplomacy, or will they only be able to load Rebellion?  (It sounds crazy, but some Rebellion purchasers might want to work their way up from Vanilla through Entrenchment and Diplomacy to Rebellion in order to reduce the complexity as they learn the game.)

Just wondering because my general advice to newbies is to first learn Vanilla, and to then incrementally move up to Entrenchment and then Diplomacy.

I don't see why Wal*Mart, Target, and Best Buy wouldn't carry it next to the other games.  They carried Sins games in the past.

KA-CHING! Pre-ordered and looking forward to the beta, glad to see more Sins content coming out!

well even though I am logged in it does not discount. I own all expansions and base game.

Lovely

Because it'll be christmas time for a game that came out four years ago?That they carried Sins in 2008 and Trinity last year (in the winter) doesn't mean they'll carry something this year at christmas time. As I mentioned for a more recent example, distribution for Elemental was really bad outside the US, and somewhat less then perfect there... and that was given a very specific time frame to avoid losing the shelf space.

And that's assuming they make that guesstimated date, which they might not. The other advantage of having no boxes is no fixed date, they can do a "when it's ready" approach. Shelf space around christmas time is highly valuable and you can't simply tell Walmart to leave it empty while you finish the game past the date you gave them. With digital only, they can turnaround a release very quickly once the game is ready.

On top of that, digital copies also generate a lot more revenue for SD/IC then retail copies do. There's no store taking a cut and no manufacturing & shipping costs. Anybody who buys a retail copy who would have bought a digital one if the retail one didn't exist is a revenue boost that can make up for someone else not buying at all.

Digital has passed retail in sales now, and retail is shrinking. At this point for a smaller publisher it seems clear that it's not worth doing anymore.

To get the discount I had to order from the link in the original post.

  https://www.sinsofasolarempire.com/store.aspx

I had to log in at sinsofasolarempire.com

It won't discount if buying using Impulse.

I know that might not be everyones problem but maybe it will help a few.

Preordered! Wheeeeeee!!! >does happy fanboi dance<

Trinity is $40 right now. So new customers are getting Trinity (which is part of Rebellion, it's standalone, right?) plus the new Rebellion features for $40, so the new rebellion features are essentially costing them NOTHING.

Current users have already paid at least $40 for trinity, but likely have paid $40 for the original game, and $10 for each expansion, so $60. Now they get to pay $30 for Rebellion.

$90 spent by existing customers for the same features that new customers get for $40. I think the OP has a valid point. That 25% "discount" does not seem all the great when you really look at the numbers.

It's true, Stardock/Ironclad is a business, they can't just give things away. Maybe this is the only cost model that makes sense for them to make some money, therefore it's the only way for us to get the expansion. But I ain't buyin' that theory yet, and I am a customer free to go buy something else until I am sure I am getting my money's worth.

I've preorderd.  I decided I'll support anything Ironclad does until they let me down.  Their first game was outstanding, they could be the next Bungie/Blizzard

While Rebellion may be using the Diplomacy game engine and reusing/extending the existing assets, I don't think it's fair to say it will just be Trinity plus Rebellion features yet... I'm hoping this game will diverge from the original in strategies and potentially some areas of gameplay.

Here are my reasons why this may warrant the 30 dollar price tag for existing users.

First, I don't think they realized what they had with Entrenchment. It could have easily sold for $20 dollars. The fact that it was a $10 dollar expansion was amazing. Diplomacy on the other hand fit a $10 dollar micro expansion IMO. Even with the combined $20 dollars for the expansions you are only spending $10 more for this expansion which if I'm right will add more content and strategies than the previous two combined.

Here are my reasons why this expansion "will" be worth the cost.

To me this means this is not simply Rebellion built on Trinity. New factions, unique new tech tree, new techs and ships is quite a change from what the original expansions offered.

To me this could have the same impact Entrenchment had. I'm not sure if Titans will be just beefed up capital ships or capital/starbase hybrids (i.e. level up and able to purchase specific upgrades). Either way I'm excited about this change both for the game and modding.

I'm excited to see what this will be.

Might be the answer to LRF in online play. Not sure how this impacts the game yet, but it's the first combat frigate added to the game. (Entrenchment added starbase constructors and anti-module, and Diplomacy added Envoy's).

To me this is cool... It means sub-factions have traits. I asked something similar when the ideas for new expansions thread were going. This is way more than just bringing over the existing Trinity races imo.

New eye candy is good. This will probably be even better for modders.

The current victory coditions are meh. Depending on how they do this it might be possible to create map scenarios that take advantage of the new Victory conditions.

Ok, this is really significant. Currently all level 10 capital ships of the same type look exactly the same. I like choices and just like starbases the choice has a signficant opportunity cost associated with it. Say for the Kol, if I want to build a cap killer maybe I give up on some of the anti-strikecraft abilities. This one is gold for modders too.

ICO needs retired. Nothing personal here, but Sins needs a better online mechanism including stat tracking, etc.

By all means don't buy if your not comfortable. I got in on the Elemental pre-order and wish I had waited. Now that said, I'm still looking forward to E:FE to see if that ship corrects itself. However, in this case we are working from a proven product to a new full expansion where they aren't restricted to the original game which is why we never saw significant changes to the races, research, ships etc with the previous micro-expansions.

People who bought Trinity have also been playing for a year. People (like me) who bought Sins + Entrenchment + Diplomacy have been playing since 2008.

It's a fact of life that games get cheaper and new things get added. They want it to be approachable for new people. Strictly speaking a lot of companies wouldn't do a discount for existing users either. Hell, I can buy a copy of Dragon Age 1 right now that comes with the expansion and all DLC for *LESS* then I paid back at release for a version with no expansion or DLC. They don't even give me a discount on those things to catch up, the best way to get them is to go rebuy the game itself.

This is a much better way of doing things.