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Divine Divinity for free and even more reasons to pre-order the upcoming innovative fantasy RTS!

[url=http://www.gog.com/gamecard/divinity_dragon_commander]Divinity: Dragon Commander is an upcoming multi-layered real-time strategy game with a fantastic setting, epic scale, and many original ideas making it a breath of fresh air in the genre, and it's currently available for pre-orders on GOG.com, for $39.99. The game's release is currently planned for August 6, and if you pre-ordered it, plan to pre-order it, or are generally interested in great RTS games, we've got some important news for you!

Larian Studios, the game's creators, announced there will be two editions of the game available at the release. The version you'll be getting if you pre-order on GOG.com before August 6 now becomes the extended Imperial Edition, which contains the game's additional launch content: a development documentary video, an extra campaign map, an additional golden skin for your Dragon Emperor, and the game's soundtrack. The pre-order period is your chance to grab the game and all of the additional content for just $39.99.

If you decide not to take the pre-order route and get the game after the release for $39.99, you'll still be able to upgrade your version with the aforementioned development documentary video, extra map, golden dragon skin, and game soundtrack via the additional $9.99 "Imperial Edition Upgrade". Yes, this basically means that early adopters receive $9.99 worth of content with their pre-ordered copy, free of charge, thus becoming the owners of the most robust version of the game available on launch day.

Video: Divinity Dragon Commander: Imperial Edition Call to Arms!

The other thing Larian Studios is offering to GOG.com pre-ordering customers is a complimentary free copy of their classic Divine Divinity action-RPG. This will be a GOG.com copy, mind you, so the free game itself also comes with tons of valueble bonus content (and don't forget about the first free game you got out of this deal: Master of Magic!). This gift from Larian is meant to make up for the fact, that due to technical reasons the developer can't offer early beta access to GOG.com buyers.

Bottom line: Pre-order Divinity: Dragon Commander on GOG.com for $39.99 before August 6, to get the exclusive Imperial Edition of the game + free Divine Divinity & Master of Magic!

Now, just to keep things transparent, a post-bottom line. This announcement might made some of our veteran users raise their eyebrows once or twice, and we feel it is important to address the fact that we're taking a new route with this release. First of all, this is the first time on GOG.com that a single game will be simultanously available in two different versions, one of them standard and the other one with addtional content. We believe this gives more freedom of choice to our users, and increasingly, this is where a lot of newer titles are going: selling additional content like soundtracks and so on at a premium. It's important to note that GOG won't be doing this with our classic releases, as the GOG.com policy for those always has been and will be to make every release as complete, comprehensive, and filled with free bonus content as possible. For new titles we would like to offer both the gamers and the developer more flexibility to make their mutual deals the way they want to. Furthermore, as time progresses and new releases become a de facto part of our back-catalog, we'll be trying to re-negotiate our deals to include soundtracks and more bonus content with those as well.

We hope this answers most of your questions regarding the new solutions we're testing here. Our recent user survey allows us to remain optimistic about your feedback. If you have any questions regarding these new steps we're taking or the (highly recommended!) Divinity: Dragon Commander pre-order offer, we encourage you to ask them in the forums.
Post edited June 28, 2013 by Chamb
I'm not happy about this either, but I can't really blame GOG.com for this.
We saw what the other option would be with Night of the Rabbit: GOG.com only gets the cheaper version of the game, which in this instant meant no German language version. How do we - the consumers - benefit from having less options?

So, while I understand people not being pleased, I'd recommend directing your anger at Larian. Because if GOG.com didn't agree to this, it wouldn't mean that we would get the Imperial edition for free, but that we wouldn't get it at all.

I personally would have waited for the reviews, and then maybe would have even picked it up at full price, but now I'm just gonna wait till there's a sale and I can pick up the entire game for 20$ or less. DRM and DLC tactics made me a very patient man, I've outgrown the "must have nao!" age.
(Although to be entirely honest, 50$ is still in the normal range for an AAA title, so it's definitely not overpriced.)
To those complaining about bonus material not being free: remember, it is a privilege, not a right, to get stuff for free. You cannot expect to get the same deal for brand new material as you do for old material. If you choose to wait for the reviews to come in, and not pre-order the game, what have you lost? 2 games that you either A: have anyway, B: not interested in anyway, or C: would be able to purchase at a still reasonable price anyway. That, and the 5 dollar discount. The $9.99 bonus material is purely cosmetic. Still want the soundtrack? You'll probably find it on You Tube anyway. That being said: this is an awesome deal if you love the Divinity collection already, and are willing to take a chance on a new Divinity game. Even if everyone says the game is shit, there is a chance that you, personally, might like it. Take a look at Ultima 9, one of the most maligned games every released on GoG. There are still a few people who have absolutely no problem with it, despite its legion of faults. I personally am very intrigued with this release, and would pre-order myself immediately if I could afford it. But if I can't, and have to wait, then I haven't lost a whole lot. I already own the Divinity collection, and I can buy Master of Magic anytime I wish at a very reasonable price. Total Biscuit makes very legitimate points on whether or not to pre-order, but he admits it is up to you whether or not you want to take a chance. All he says is, don't get lured in by shiny material stuff that you can do without. If you absolutely love it, go for it. If you are unsure, just wait.
Reading part of this sad conversation thread, I am left to wonder if I am the only who thinks there is not enough boobage in games anymore. "Shrug"
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DyNaer: in my gog's games i have only one game soundtrack in FLAC....
Dragon Commander's soundtrack will be in flac and ogg formats.

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Adzeth: The woman seems to have a leather armor that exposes the heart and the underbelly, and she has no sleeves for some reason. The guys' armor isn't like that.
Well, a young, brash female general who started on the streets and quickly rose up the ranks of the army isn't necessary going to wear the same outfit as an old battle scared man with a prosthetic arm and eye that are more of a reminder of failure and past glory than a fashion accessory to be highlighted with short sleeve shirts.
They are also both also in a bar, in a secure location, and are not about to go into battle.

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Adzeth: Your reply really doesn't alleviate any of my concerns.
Sorry, it was late and I only reacted to part of what you said, and not the why. Though, if you had said that was said that was a sample of a bunch of screenshots (and, as you found, there are certainly other examples like that, particularly in some of the concept art), it would have been less of a stretch to be concerned about the company itself.

In Larian's previous games there have been strong female characters, with women in (and leading) armies, etc, and a complete lack of damsels in distress. There are more male characters in the games than females (Divinity 2 having a higher percentage of female characters than Divine Divinity), but I can not think of any gender stereotypes. You can choose your character's gender in each of the previous Divinity games (and change gender/appearance in Divinity 2), and there is no difference in stats, NPC reactions, etc (there is a quest in Divinity 2 that you need to be a female for, to take over a short part in a play). Even the (PG-13 rated) house of ill repute in Divine Divinity had male and female employees (the place itself was hidden out of the way, and not promoted in the game, requiring several steps to find).

The armour for the main characters in the previous Divinity games is pretty similar in design between genders. In Divine Divinity the female warrior starts off with kind of bikini armour, while the male warrior starts with a kilt and mostly bare chest, for a gladiator style look), but none of the actual equipment in the game is designed like that (for either gender; that is just what the characters look like with no equipment). In Divinity 2 I played a female character because I didn't care for any of the male character voices, and thought one of the female ones was good. I showed my brother the game, and some time later, after a change of equipment, he saw me playing again and thought I had started over with a male character. If he saw the character from the front he probably wouldn't have made that mistake, but there isn't a lot of feminization of the armour. Realistically there wouldn't much difference between male and female armour, but female armour is certainly not designed to be provocative or revealing.

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PaterAlf: Compare it to other medias. Was you ever extra-charged for a making-of-video or an audio commentary when you buy a DVD?
Yes, there are lots of special editions that include commentaries or behind the scenes type videos that cost more that the standard version. And there could be anniversary editions after that with extra videos and maybe something remastered.

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Adzeth: I actually want to like their games. I want to know why people think they're cool.
Would you like a copy of Divine Divinity to check it out?
Being a 2D game (even though the graphics still hold up quite well) there isn't as much of an option to show a visual gender bias as 3D titles (even if Larian had wanted to), but you can get a feel for the game design, dialog, etc.
Post edited June 29, 2013 by Raze_Larian
Okay, I just busted my budget and preordered.

However, Divine Divinity doesn't seem to have been added to my account - is that only to happen when the release occurs?

The game library doesn't specifically label Dragon Commander as the imperial edition either - again, something that will only happen on release?

Likewise, I did already own Master of Magic but I don't have a code for the extra copy I should be getting out of the preorder, and I was under the impression that you'd get that right away.

I'm mainly posting to ask about this out of an abundance of paranoia - I don't want to lose out on all the extras if there's a glitch happening somewhere. ;)
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Garran: The game library doesn't specifically label Dragon Commander as the imperial edition either - again, something that will only happen on release?
The The Imperial Edition news on the Dragon Commander site says "The Imperial Edition will be made available on the day of release as downloadable content, and people who preorder will receive a download key."
I don't know if GOG ever said how they would handle listing DLC, but if they are going to have a separate game page for the full imperial edition, it might not go up until the release.

However, you should get the two bonus games soon. When Master of Magic was first added a couple people posted to ask how long it took to get the key, and then edited to say that they got it, one specifying that they got the email about an hour later.
Post edited June 30, 2013 by Raze_Larian
Okay, so it's probably just an expected delay re the bonus items. No need for panic mode!
Thanks Larian,
you guys are still my favorite Belgians.
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Raze_Larian: *snip*
Thanks for the reply. I actually downloaded and installed Divine Divinity earlier today and started playing it. Seems like a really good game. A what was supposed to be a quick session turned into hours of running away from everything. :)
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zlep: I agree with the entire middle of your argument. To my eyes nothing in the "premium" pack is required for fully and completely playing the game, and based on previous Divinity soundtracks, this one will be worth the cost alone. Plus, anyone who's bought one of their games here knows how generous Larian is with added extras, and they really do support DRM free. Whether or not this is a good move, I believe 100% that it's intended without malice.

But then there's the comments you chose as bookends...

The word "entitled" has been used so often to tell people that paid products are allowed to be bug-ridden, incomplete or gutted that its only conversational use is as a red flag.

The reason people are "whining" is because they've been on the thin edge of the wedge before, and they know how steeply it ramps up. eg. online activation --> limited activations --> always on. DLC and free-to-play similarly morphed into ugly things. Gamers have been bludgeoned into learning to scream early and often (and as with the recent Xbone debacle, sometimes that even works). Admittedly, it would be nice if anything new were greeted with a little less hysteria - surely GOG deserves more trust - but people would be ostriches if they didn't express their concerns.
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Bloodygoodgames: Couldn't have said it better myself.

It's the start of a very slippery slope and, from my experience, it gets 'black ice' slippy very quickly.

When we were asked to vote on this a couple of months ago, I voted no as I expected, if it was allowed, changes to the site and to what was 'acceptable' would just keep getting worse.

Game prices too are now increasing rapidly for new games added to GOG - $20, $30, $40 etc -- far more expensive than GOG's normal prices Before long, we'll be getting AAA games as well with "just one online activation" required..

And as for pre-ordering, sorry, but unless you are absolutely 100 percent going to buy a game even if it's a piece of shit, if you pre-order any game you're an idiot.

The way a game looks in a video trailer can be markedly different than what is actually sold when it's released, and tens of thousands of idiot gamers can tell you that after they've pre-ordered games and realized they're stuck with a piece of junk they would never have bought it they had waited until reviews were out. On top of that, why should any developer have YOUR money in their bank accounts, often for several months, making interest on it when they haven't even given you a game for it yet?

TotalBiscuit has an excellent video out about why pre-ordering games makes you a fool, and although I don't agree with everything he says, in this case I do. He's dead against pre-ordering and he's absolutely spot on as to why.

You can read Total Biscuit's rant here --http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jnJvuE3Ht-U&feature=plcp# (Question 2 - in the video - you can get to it by clicking the link at the bottom of the video)
I don't understand as to why you think there will be one time activation in gog. Making assumption likes that is wrong. Gog policy states that ALL games are drm free and everyone pays the same price. If big publishers want to release games drm free they will go to gog if they dont they will go to steam. i dont see why gog would start introducing drm into big games just because they want that game in their catalogue. They are doing just fine by releasing indie games and old classics. As for the pricing goes if a game has good enough content then a high price for it is fine cause your paying for what you get for. Increase in game price for certain games is fine. Its when the old classics start rising in price is when we get worried. I don't understand why an increase in price is such a bad thing. When the new witcher is released are they going to release it for $20? no the game will have a high price

also totally agree with pre-orders, i've watched the video before and its one of my motivations to stop pre-ordering games. I will however pre-order witcher 3 because cd-projekt is the only company that i trust 100%
CHANGED MY MIND :)

Well, I will admit when I'm wrong and, in this case, I'd say ignore my previous posts as, yes, I think I was wrong.

I'm now understanding more why Larian is doing this pre-order on GOG with all the bonuses etc. I'm guessing it's because, if you pre-order the game on Steam you get immediate access to the beta which GOG, for obvious reasons, can't offer. So, to get people to buy the game on GOG DRM-free, they had to offer more incentives for the pre-order. I now have no problem with that, as anything that dissuades people from buying games on Steam the better :)

I also have to go back on my statement that I would likely never buy anything from Larian again as I just watched Quill 18 playing a single-player campaign from Dragon Commander and the game looks AWESOME. Will be buying it when it comes out (I still won't pre-order as I just don't do that, no matter what the incentives are).

So sorry Larian - I WAS WRONG :)

btw -- watch Quill18 playing Dragon Commander -- it looks like an absolutely gorgeous game.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pALxKh9rUnQ

Oh and for the record -- I'm a girl, but I have absolutely NO problem with 'boob armour'.

If guys want to get off on cartoon characters running around with their boobs out, who am I to stop them. I think it's funny but, nope, no problem with it :)
Post edited July 01, 2013 by Bloodygoodgames
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Bloodygoodgames: I also have to go back on my statement that I would likely never buy anything from Larian again as I just watched Quill 18 playing a single-player campaign from Dragon Commander and the game looks AWESOME. Will be buying it when it comes out (I still won't pre-order as I just don't do that, no matter what the incentives are).
Glad to hear that.

There are not a lot of games I would pre-order without trying a demo first, but I'm not philosophically opposed to them.
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DyNaer: Soundtrack , let's see, i consider a soundtrack worth to be paided when it comes as equal quality as a physical good. -> I speak of losseless format.

in my gog's games i have only one game soundtrack in FLAC..... :( , but well i don't blame GOG for others soundtrack, because they came as free bonus content .

So i'm sorry paying for lossy soundtrack --> no way. It's applying to the Larian Vault aswell , you should really offering losseless format at your digital shop.
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tarasis: This i understand, particularly in 2013 where there are services like Bandcamp that let us choose the format we want our music in, Larian should off the music in lossless format particularly if they are selling it. I certainly feel if I am buying digital music I want it in lossless not lossy, ESP if the price is virtually the same as the CD.

It's the one thing I really like about Humble Bundles, they generally include both the MP3 and FLAC versions of soundtracks.
I'm torn. I'd like to show my support for a DRM first release, but $45.20 is a lot of money to gamble on a pre-release and I have the two free bonus games already.

Maybe if a GOG staffer could come out and advise the soundtrack will be available in FLAC (they did it with one game once) I might give it some more thought. I too get music from bandcamp for the lossless FLAC files.

On a side note does anyone using firefox have it crash heaps. I run about 130 tabs on winXP and often have a slower connection due to download apps and it is dying once a day (just crashed while I was typing this). I never used to have these sort of crashes with a heap of tabs open and slow bandwidth. I even disabled plug-ins and extensions to no avail.
Post edited July 01, 2013 by deonast
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deonast: On a side note does anyone using firefox have it crash heaps. I run about 130 tabs
Found your problem.

Sorry, but having that many tabs open probably isn't expected behavior. It's great if it works, but I don't think FF 'only' mostly supporting using 130 tabs is an issue.
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deonast: On a side note does anyone using firefox have it crash heaps. I run about 130 tabs on winXP and often have a slower connection due to download apps and it is dying once a day (just crashed while I was typing this). I never used to have these sort of crashes with a heap of tabs open and slow bandwidth. I even disabled plug-ins and extensions to no avail.
The newer releases of Firefox will do that to you. I have to restart by browser once a day because Firefox will eat all my memory and then lag and freeze.


Shakespearean names of all the characters makes me want to be willing to pay $40... I'm so torn! =/