Fair enough, I can understand that sentiment. 
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SotS 2 Info
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So, this also suddenly became a steamworks title. Much fun, shame about lack of warning anywhere visible. Even though it looks interesting I'll pass this time. I do not want to use Steam, and I'm quite pissed off at introducing it by stealth some 10 days before launch date. This is the second title that does it ( after FM2012 ) and I really, really dislike this trend.
Nothing, this is apparently "for greater good"/"doing us all a favor" if one is to judge by dev posts at Kerberos forums
 I canceled my preorder at GamersGate and expect to get the money back with no questions asked. Still, personal preference regarding Steam aside, this is not a way to treat customers - if you expect to use steamworks, or any other DRM system on the market it would be good to state so before opening preorders. You don't change product description a month after you provisionally agreed a sale 
Two important points you may have overlooked:
1) It's not a Steamworks game. You only need steam to install and update it, you do not need Steam to run it. You can have steam turned off and uninstalled entirely and still play the game. 2) It was not originally intended to require Steam to update, and the devs were trying to negotiate to get some agreement from different service providers about how upgrading was going to work. Unfortunately they couldn't reach an agreement, so going with Steam was the fallback plan. They only found out it was going to have to be this way recently. The requirement for a common update path was introduced because there were a lot of problems with different services updating the game at different times in SotS1, which caused a lot of grief when some players had a new update and others didn't, and thus folks couldn't play together or otherwise got angry. However, Kerberos was very keen on avoiding the DRM inherent in a full Steamworks title so they specifically did not go that route.
State of the Union on release day:
http://www.kerberos-productions.com/foru...37&t=21829 Will try to copy the text over here as the Kerb forums are being slammed right now. The upshot is not everything is in quite the shape Kerb would have liked at release due to some personal hardships some of the team have had to undergo during development. Kerb is trading on their deserved reputation for commitment to game patches and updates and so far the community is appreciative of the candor and willing to cut them some slack.
Hey folks,
As I write this is just before 2 AM and technically its release day! For those of you awaiting patiently (others crazily impatiently ) it will probably be another few hours before you get the stream of electrons that will arrange itself into your copy of SotS2, a game that has taken the better part of 2 years to make. And as I have mentioned elsewhere, these have not been the easiest 2 years for this team on a number of levels not related to the project. A sign, I suspect, that many of us are getting older despite our youthful art. Now releases are always glorious, terrible, exhilerating and stressful things. And this one is destined to be much the same. I was planning to just head home and face plant for a few hours but then I heard that some people around the boards were shocked that I was honest in another topic about a feature that didn't workout and another that I was not comfortable with leaving in the game given its instability at this point. Many of you were very supportive of this while a couple people here and there have questioned "what no feature lockdown?". To be honest folks I will tell you something you can apply to any Kerberos project...there is NO feature SO locked down that it gets to bring down the rest of the game. It can be in there from day 2 and if something is making it a clear detriment I have no problem yanking it. My apologies if that makes some folks nervous or others feel like "beta testers" but to be honest, the urge comes from trying NOT to make you paying beta testers. To me, including something I KNOW will break your game experience so we can track down whats wrong with it easier IS using you. Taking something out till its ready for you to play may not be the perfect answer for everyone but at least its an honest one I can live with. The SotS2 you are about to get is a HUGE, fun game with a ton of new features. Do I consider it perfect? Gods knows I wish but we all know that the reality of big games is that there is always something. (And for the record, by my own slightly manic personal standards, I only felt that sots prime was "done" about a year ago and I am still going to go back and tinker at least one more time ) The bottom line here is that we are planning to take full advantage of the Steam systems we have integrated to update the crap out of this baby till every feature you have heard us talking about over the past year is the way we want it. So be prepared for new updates and goodies all the way through November. While I am sorry if this frankness upsets any of you fans who pre-ordered but I would rather be up front than just put on my "Garsh!" face and act incredulous when you post that you can't find an indy planet or call up every summary screen. Hopefully any of you that have spent time on these boards know that is not our style. And certainly if any of you reading this who haven't pre-ordered and are thinking "Hmmm I don't know how I feel about this, maybe I should wait" despite everything thing I have said, then please do feel free to wait. Again, while this may sound like a daring thing to say, really its one of the safest bets I have every made So all in all, I would like to thank everyone for their support and enthusiasm and I hope that continues with a dollop of patience. Over the past few months especially I have watched this team work harder with more inspiration despite the long hours than ANY other team I have seen in the industry over the past 15 years and its been my honor to work with them. I would also like to thank the relatively small core of beta testers who have spent the last 2 weeks doing the incredibly unfun work of tracking down every possible crash bug so we could stamp them out. If any make it through to you then it is not through lack of dedication from the testers. They have been amazing and NIghthaunt gets a lot of special credit for stepping forward to organize things and keeping testing on track. So thats the state of things as we head toward launch everyone. I wish my message was all glam and no perspective but c'est la vie, I try and treat you folks the way I like to be treated myself. Thanks again for all your support and belief over the years and always remember...it just keeps getting cooler! ---Martin E. Cirulis CEO/Creative Director Kerberos Productions
So is it playable ? I am asking because during the last days I followed the debate about the release of "Stronghold 3", (which turned out to be a desaster since the game is literally unplayable for most people or has several game breaking bugs).
It seems nowadays it's a no go to buy games close to release date...
Still a few hours to go until release so I don't think we can say yet... doesn't sound like Mec would release if it were unplayable though. Rather he's taking steps to exclude content that is not yet ready and would make the game unplayable if included, so he's doing what needs to be done to make sure the game is playable first and fully feature-rich second... potentially including AI-related features.
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