[Skybird]

The only doubt I have is the economic basis, Haplo. German magazines reported that the company (they are German) fell silent completely some months ago, and did not give any testing copies, instead the project manager visited them and showed prepared movies only, never any live ingame action. From a journalists' POV, they say, that always is a very suspicious signal that something is wrong and that a project is in trouble. Having investigated this a bit, I found that the German magazines really really tried to like the game, but nevertheless, with great regret, have shreddered it. And this from print magazines which usually are very friendly to the software sellers.

There must be a reason why Egosoft released it the way they did, and one must take it for certain that the developer knew perfectly well that his baby was ill. There are two reasons only that makes sense to explain why they released it the way they did.

First: they wanted to scramble early for the christmas season. Which was a bit too early, obviously.

The second possible reason: money - and that they are running low on it, desperately needing to make some cash now. And if the studio is economically ill, then you cannot rely on past experiences with their support anymore, for if they cannot live anymore, then they cannot live anymore, that simple.

This is the great unknown variable here. I hope it is just a ghost from the shadows of my mind.

For the time being I can report that continuing gameplay from an older savegame was successful. It was only the mentioned savegames being porked.

Difficult time this project currently has to live through.