Amazon.com won't let me pre-order since I'm Canadian. Damn.
Anyway I'm going to go ahead and set this up. There will be a pickup game, on the 23 or 24th of September, for SE:V. We'll coordinate either through MSN or SDN chat, and play for about three to four hours. There will be a time limit of three to five minutes per turn, and we will book between four to five hours on the 23rd or 24th. We will go for maybe 100 turns, or however long people can stay after that.
Malfador released the
SE:V Empire Styles a few days ago so 3D modelers (I'm looking at you Covenant!) get busy making your ultimate shipset

.
I need answers to the following questions (assuming I coordinate the game--I'm more than happy for someone else to do it since it's extra work!)
- Your time zone
- A bracket of time either on the 23rd or 24th of September (preferably both) when you can be available for five hours, plus or minus a few hours.
- In case there are shipping issues, the game will be held the weekend after, on the 30th of September/1st of October. Therefore, I need a bracket of time on the 30th of September or 1st of October when you are available.
- The larger bracket of time you make available the easier you make it to coordinate the game, so no "exactly this time please" unless you really mean it!

If there are shipping issues, the game will be delayed until the following weekend on the 30th or 1st of October.
All game turn files will be saved, and the winner of the game will probably be the most score after 100 turns. I will host the turn files for the public to view along with game logins and passwords so everybody can see who did what, and the winner gets a fanfic written about his/her empire by me.
I am doing this early because it takes a damn long time to coordinate a game. If you aren't sure whether you'll be available on the 23/24/30/1, or if there are shipping issues like with me, we could probably resolve it in the next few weeks. I may have to get someone from the US to preorder it from Amazon for me, and ship it by courier. It'll be expensive but worth it.
Also I'm assuming they'll release a demo eventually, either before or on the release date. If it's possible to play multiplayer, they'll probably be a set number of turns, which is fine anyway for a pickup game. I'll be checking every day, and as soon as a demo's up we can get a game going right away so keep our fingers crossed

.
Brian