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The chronicle of the Third Era is about to be revealed!

Age of Wonders 3, the long-anticipated continuation to the fan-favorite, award-winning strategy series, set in a robust and beautiful world that becomes the scene for diverse, complex, and engaging gameplay, is available for pre-orders on GOG.com. Depending on your location you'll be charged $39.99 or the USD equivalent of £29.99, or €39.99. An extended Age of Wonders 3 - Deluxe Edition, featuring a full soundtrack and the Dragon's Throne standalone scenario, is available for $44.99, £34.99, or €44.99. As a special pre-order bonus, both versions include the Elven Resurgence, a standalone scenario DLC.

Imagine! Empires rising and falling before your very eyes, led to victory or defeat by heroes of legend so powerful that they appear to be titans in the eyes of mortals. Sorcerers harness the arcane powers to bend the rules of the world around them. Theocrats twist the wills of their followers with the holy aura bestowed upon them by their deities for their zealous service. Rogues rule the shadows, taking any chance to strike and win before their foes even realize there is a war to fight. Warlords earn the loyalty of their legions by the glory gained in the many battles they emerged from, victorious. Archdruids become one with nature, and the land itself rushes to their aid. Dreadnoughts rely on the art of engineering to construct their unstoppable artificial armies. All those powers, all of their miraculous exploits, all of their desires, all thrown into one realm of war. This shall truly be an age of wonders!

With Age of Wonders 3, Triumph Studios aims to set new standards not only for the acclaimed Age of Wonders series, but also for the turn-based strategy genre itself. Taking advantage of all the modern gaming bells and whistles, the title will deliver an impressive level of complexity in gameplay and an immersive, lush, and diverse gameworld that can become your own for hundreds of hours. With the ability to choose one of the six leader classes, you'll be able to custom-tailor your empire--and by extension your experience with the game--to your personal gameplay style, so you can enjoy the extensive campaign the game offers in any way you like. You'll be leading into battle armies recruited from within six humanoid races as well as some fantastic creatures and mythical monsters. The turn-based tactical combat itself will prove to be a challenge for the most seasoned of strategy gamers but also scalable enough for beginners to enjoy. With over 50 location types to explore and exploit, hundreds of abilities to master for tactical and strategic advantage over your foes, visually stunning presentation, and a smart random scenario generator providing virtually limitless replayability, this upcoming title may prove the only turn-based strategy game you'll need for many years to come!

Pre-order Age of Wonders 3, for only $39.99 or the USD equivalent of £29.99, or €39.99 on GOG.com (or opt in for the splendid Age of Wonders 3 - Deluxe Edition), and secure your entry to the fantastic realm of power and dominion, which opens to all the brave souls approximately on March 31. Note that Age of Wonders 3 is the first title with regional pricing on GOG.com in quite some time and this means that we are charging the USD equivalents of the official regional price.

Note, that just as we have done before in such occasions, we'll be throwing in a little something extra to the deal, to accommodate those of you, who end up paying more than the others due to the currency conversion rates applied. We've picked some games that fit well with the genre represented by Age of Wonders III, and if you're one of those people, you'll get to pick one of them. You'll be sent a gift-code allowing you to redeem one of the following excellent titles: Master of Magic, Lords of Magic: Special Edition, Eador: Genesis, King’s Bounty: The Legend, Disciples II: Gold, and Etherlords II.
* laughs *
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adamhm: If there's no publisher involved/no physical release then it would appear they're just trying to price gouge... I can't think of any other reason for their decision to use this pricing scheme besides greed :/
Price gouge? I bet that will return great results from Africa and South America :-P

Their regional pricing is, as IAmSinistar said, all over the place. The grouping of countries makes absolutely no bloody sense.

Every detail coming to light makes this game a terrible choice of GOG for heir case studies, no?
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jamsatle:
Wow what the hell happened to them. I was thinking about preordering this towards the right before it comes out time (did the same for Shadow Warrior when the previews were coming back as really good), but this... what the hell?
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neotask: ...And games that come here as DRM-free usually (if not allways) are DRM-free on Steam too (meaning you do not have to have Steam client running to launch the game) so all the fuss goes down to that Steam client is a must for installation and updates ...
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Trilarion: Having to use a client for installation and update of course is DRM.

What I would like to say is that GamersGate and GOG and DotEmu are almost identical in the number of important features they represent: They all sell DRM free software. All of them have regional pricing. The only question is now who has the lowest price for the DRM free game and who offers most games.

Also in the comparison Steam to GOG it all comes down to a showdown of DRM free vs price. That is, how much does a game cost (in a sale) and how important is DRM and is the difference worth it or not? That will be the million dollar question.
How come you consider games on Steam that require client to install but not to launch as having DRM but giving GamersGate as an example of DRM-free games vendor? That. Is. Just. Plainly. Absurd. I won't even go into this...
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Trilarion: Having to use a client for installation and update of course is DRM.

What I would like to say is that GamersGate and GOG and DotEmu are almost identical in the number of important features they represent: They all sell DRM free software. All of them have regional pricing. The only question is now who has the lowest price for the DRM free game and who offers most games.

Also in the comparison Steam to GOG it all comes down to a showdown of DRM free vs price. That is, how much does a game cost (in a sale) and how important is DRM and is the difference worth it or not? That will be the million dollar question.
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neotask: How come you consider games on Steam that require client to install but not to launch as having DRM but giving GamersGate as an example of DRM-free games vendor? That. Is. Just. Plainly. Absurd. I won't even go into this...
Let me clarify a bit. Those games on GamersGate labelled DRM free do not require an authentification for installation. You download the game, archive the installer, cancel the installtion and everything is fine. It's like with GOG. After all for downloading you must authentificate always, so that doesn't count. If GOG or GamersGate (in case of the DRM free labelled games on GamersGate) go down anytime in the future, it doesn't matter the archived installer (everyone should do it like this) is still available.

For Steam and as far as I know you need to authentificate each time you install or update. If Steam goes down anytime in the future, so do your games (except those that you can copy after installation and that run without installation fine). This is the difference. Do you see it?

So. Is. It. Still. Absurd?

Of course you're right. Effectively Steam also has some DRM free games. I think there is even a thread somewhere here. I was thinking about the DRMed games on Steam when I was writing the original post. Thanks for pointing out.
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jamsatle: "Hi we will have an overview tomorrow. special editions vary per territory and are made by our co publishing partners.
Some editions might be region locked "

Ah, region-locking as well. Triumph are really going all out on this. :p
Wow. So I guess I won't even bother waiting for this one to go on sale, if that's their attitude.

They clearly think their game is a bigger deal than it is.
Hm, it shows $39.99 and $44.99 prices for me. Yet I am reading that they already implemented regional pricing?
Well, it's good to know that GOG recognizes that Serbia isn't part of EU and doesn't rip us of with high prices. I have to give them props for that. :)
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nele: Hm, it shows $39.99 and $44.99 prices for me. Yet I am reading that they already implemented regional pricing?
Well, it's good to know that GOG recognizes that Serbia isn't part of EU and doesn't rip us of with high prices. I have to give them props for that. :)
You still pay more than twice as much as Russia, enjoy.
As others have said, i am concerned about patching. Every new game i've bought has been buggy and required patches. i assume that new games will be horrifically bugged. Some studios have bad patch histories. So i am of the attitude to wait and see.

But for this game i am compelled to pre-order, partly to support GOG in getting this game, partly to support continued development of this type of game. Yet there is an added concern of how patching will work. So i wait for GOG to tell us how GOG versions will be patched. So,,

@ GOG: How will GOG users receive updates to AOW3?
I think I don't need this. And whomever told you that €39.99 was the equivalent of $39.99, he lied. 8-)
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WhiteElk: As others have said, i am concerned about patching. Every new game i've bought has been buggy and required patches. i assume that new games will be horrifically bugged. Some studios have bad patch histories. So i am of the attitude to wait and see.
Welcome to the online-only distribution software world. It's never been so easy to make your customers paying betatesters. (That's why steam has that auto-update "feature" I guess. As a software developer (and publisher) you need not to sell finished products any more).
Post edited February 27, 2014 by schmoemi
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schmoemi: make your customers paying betatesters.
i first experienced this in 2001 with a pre-order of Civilization III. My final experience was in 2012 with Fallen Enchantress by stardock. Stardork never fixed that game nor its predecessor. That was the final straw for me. Until now... (but i won't pre-order until i know how patches will be delivered because i can assume any game will be buggy - despite Triumph Studios delaying release of this game from late 2013).
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WhiteElk: As others have said, i am concerned about patching. Every new game i've bought has been buggy and required patches. i assume that new games will be horrifically bugged. Some studios have bad patch histories. So i am of the attitude to wait and see.

But for this game i am compelled to pre-order, partly to support GOG in getting this game, partly to support continued development of this type of game. Yet there is an added concern of how patching will work. So i wait for GOG to tell us how GOG versions will be patched. So,,

@ GOG: How will GOG users receive updates to AOW3?
separate patch for each update and or it being incorporated into an updated installer. that's normally how it works
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Niggles: separate patch for each update and or it being incorporated into an updated installer. that's normally how it works
Yes but will GOG host the updates or will Triumph Studios commit to providing them? Or, will they only release patches on steam? i wonder because hosting patches costs money and man hours. It is possible that since steam provides a free patch service, that Triumph might only release via steam - which would then make it so that i have no access to the patches.
Anyone willing to ask Triumph on their forums what their reasoning for all of this is?
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WhiteElk: Yes but will GOG host the updates or will Triumph Studios commit to providing them?
You never noticed any of your games patched on gog ? The gog installers are updated and universal patches are released when the need arise.


Edit : for instance I received today the notification for the latest Shadowrun patch
Post edited February 27, 2014 by Potzato