Drakensang: The River of Time - Limited, Individualised Personal Edition

[Gorath]

dtp entertainment and Radon Labs let us know they've made an exclusive deal with Amazon.de. Drakensang: The River of Time will get a limited, individualised Personal Edition. According to dtp this is a world premiere, it has never before been done for a computer or videogame.
The Drakensang: The River of Time Personal Edition is a Collector's Edition with the customer's name printed on three items and one in-game item. The full content (pics here and there):

• Premium book case, individualised
• Drakensang: The River of Time game
• individualised in-game item
• "Inrah" card game. 122 cards, premium quality, individualised box
• Big cloth map, size: DIN A2 (!)
• Sound track
• Double sided poster, size: DIN A3
• Individualised certificate of authencity
• Exclusive item for the upcoming Drakensang: The River of Time browser game

The individualised items will carry the name entered into the first address line in Amazon's order form. The Personal Edition is only available for a limited pre-order phase ending on December 6th 2009 for 89.99 EUR.
According to Amazon release is on Feb 12th 2010.

Back in 2008 the Drakensang CE was sold out quickly. It's more than likely DACH will get both a standard version and a CE in addition to this Personal Edition.
More information.

 

[Gorath]

Great! Especially the map is huge. Almost 4 times as big as the one in the DA:O CE, which is slightly bigger than DIN A4.

 

[Moriendor]

Not sure about really needing my name on the box or in the game but there's definitely some great stuff in the box once again. This should look very neat right next to my original Drakensang CE. This game is going to r0XX0r in every regard. Can't wait .

What? Me, fanboi much? Naaahhhh.... not at all

 

[ToddMcF2002]

I'm getting tired of these CE's. They are amusing for about 15 seconds but really they are such a waste. I bought the Dragon Age CE I purchased because I liked the metal case but was a waste of money.

How about a CE land mass to explore? With CE items to discover??? Now that might be worth something.

Cloth maps

 

[zakhal]

Card game and cloth map sound interesting. Countless times I read a exciting topic like this only to get disappointed when I realize its not available to english-speaking people.

 

[Ergonpandilus]

Back in 2008 the Drakensang CE was sold out quickly.

I wonder why they keep releasing only very small quantities of CE versions if they are usually sold out very quickly. And yet they complain about piracy?! Same applies all CE, they are sold out very fast. Even game like Ultima IX, which was very buggy and got bad reviews and didn't sell that well, got CE (Dragon Edition) sold out. And now if you want to buy that from a auction hall, the price is very high. Why?

Obviously lot of people want to buy something that cannot be downloaded, like a beautiful cloth map to decorate a wall.

PS. Are they going to release this Personal Edition and CE in Germany only, EU or worldwide?

 

[Gorath]

Probably DACH only. With certain chances for Poland and Russia because Drakensang was very successful there. Publishers in other parts of the world aren't willing to commit to such a niche game. They use it only to fill their distribution network.

When Drakensang came out both dtp and Radon Labs were unsure about the demand for such an old fashioned game. This lead them to an overcareful allocation of resources on the CE. It turned out they totally underestimated the demand.
According to a Spiegel Online article a few days ago DraSa sold 150k for full price in DACH and another 300k in foreign countries. Word by Radon Labs (without numbers) is that their game was very successfull in Eastern Europe and especially in Poland (because they had a publisher who cared).

Something else they underestimated was the level of tolerance of the hardcore DSA fans. Most fans actually encourage Radon Labs to adapt the DSA system for the other medium. They are fine with small changes as long as the whole thing is consistent and integrates itself into the DSA universe. So the next game will show a bit more self-confidence.

 

[Avantenor]

I wonder why they keep releasing only very small quantities of CE versions if they are usually sold out very quickly.

Drakensang 1 had a Limited Edition. Unlike Collector's Editions those are limited in charge. Why they didn't release a Collector's Edition as well... who knows? Maybe they were not sure about the resonance and the Limited was a safe deal for them.

 

[Gorath]

I think for most publishers and most customers it's CE = LE.

By far not all of these special editions sell out quickly. If the game flops the SE flops too.

 

[Avantenor]

The Drakensang one's had a certificate and was nummerated. E.g. I have no. 704 of 10.000.

All I wanted to say, It's in the nature of things that Limited Editions are limited in charge. And it was a decision made by the devs / publisher.

 

[Alrik Fassbauer]

The last time I saw a personalized version it was in that video about a press specimen of Dragon Age.

 

[Zloth]

Errr, for $10 I will sell you a magic marker which you can use to put your name on the box, too. And my version will let you use any font you want!

 

[Moorkh]

Neat. Admittedly, I tend to buy the CEs of CRPGs whenever I get the chance. Perhaps that is just the gatherer within, or it's because even if I don't finish the game, I'll always have the extra merchandise, I don't know...
What I've really come to hate about some CEs lately (as well as the current DLC fad), though, is that whole "extra in-game items" crap they've started pulling. Hell, in the age of p2p networks, such stuff has no value at all - it just feels like I get to cheat in my own game for extra money (I can do that free) or, worse, that everyone else is denied part of their game. I buy a game because I like the physical goods in the box and because I respect the work that has gone into that - and I'd bet I'm not the only customer that works like that.
If they fail on one count, it is going to hurt them, and if they do on both counts, I honestly have a backlog of good games to last me for quite a few years, and the means on my fingertips to get any new ones. Copy protection is not what makes us customers.

 

[Ergonpandilus]

I totally agree with Moorkh. And I'm an avid game collector and I just love to go through those old Ultima manuals and read the wonderfully written back stories.

I also hate those in game extras, they indeed deel like cheats. DLCs sucks also. But there is one more thing I hate even more and that's DRM. That's why ended up selling my legit copy Dawn of War 2 and downloading pirate version. And actually DoW2 required Steam to be installed, pirate version does NOT.

I think that publishers still hasn't understand the value of physical products and CE. Too bad... They are going to lose some money there.

One good progress though is copy protection issues. They have obviously finally understood that everything can be cracked and latest games hasn't had those horrible computer jamming copy protections. They really should go more with bonus than penalty basis to prevent pirating.

 

[RPG]

Cloth map in 2560px, might be a spoiler.

http://img39.imageshack.us/img39/2322/b002usw8eg01pt05scrmzzz.jpg

 

[zakhal]

dtp entertainment and Radon Labs let us know they've made an exclusive deal with Amazon.de. Drakensang: The River of Time will get a limited, individualised Personal Edition. According to dtp this is a world premiere, it has never before been done for a computer or videogame.

AD&D gold box games had atleast one limited individualised personalized edition for sale. I spotted it in ebay few years back. It was collection of three or so games and came with individual numbered certificate. Considering that it was a collection I doubt it was a press edition originally.

 

[Ergonpandilus]

Cloth map in 2560px, might be a spoiler.

http://img39.imageshack.us/img39/2322/b002usw8eg01pt05scrmzzz.jpg

Pretty damn nice.

But that's only a picture and not real cloth map. I hope the real cloth map is as accurate and high quality.

 

[Alrik Fassbauer]

In the upper left area around what you read as "Orkland" there, the "Realms Of Arcania Trilogy took place.

In the area of what you read there as "Golf von Prem" "The Blade Of Destiny" took place,

right to the "Orkland" area there's a mountain range calkled "Salamandersteine", left of it you can see a tiny spot called "Gashok", which is located close to 6 spots, and the area around Gashok is the scenery of "Startrail", but I must say that I'm *very* surprised not to see the *much* bigger town of Lowangen there ???

Edit: Lowangen is indeed there, to the lower left side of Gashok, close to a river. Difficult to see.

in the north of the "Salamandersteine" you can read "Golf von Riva", and beneath the word "Riva" a small spot called "Riva", hich is the scenery of the third game "Shadows Over Riva".

There you have it.

 

[Alrik Fassbauer]

The specimens appear already at Amazon Germany. Each one has an individual ordering number.

Some of them don't appear with a price, others do. And 89 Euros is a little bit much for my taste.

The pages also say that the game will appear on February, 12th, 2010.

Example : http://www.amazon.de/Drakensang-Lim...1?ie=UTF8&s=videogames&qid=1257868511&sr=8-31

I don't know how many of them are actually there.
If I counted right, then I found 21 specimens there.

Edit : Amazon Germany writes that those without a price are already sold.

 

[Alrik Fassbauer]

Update : Video of it : http://www.youtube.com/user/dtpentertainment#p/f/0/Q5axD5xaobk
(Taken from dtp's Newsletter.)